Early 1990s crash of collector Porsche and Ferrari values...how did it happen?

They are only worth what somebody is willing to pay.

 

that's exactly right - and it doesn't matter if the buyer is a father, son, friend, robot, speculator, investor, flipper, collector etc.

and your statement is also exactly right wrt to art, stocks, bonds, stamps, real estate in bear and bull markets respectively

 

I see lots of asking prices, and inventories at all time highs, not sure anyone knows current sales volume, and therfore whether current asks are sustainable..

 

inventories at all time highs? Where? it's nothing compared to 09 and 2010

 

More of a finger in the air measurement than anything else but there are thirty '85-91 Testarossas on Cars.com for sale all at dealers. Of those, five are in the Chicago area. I would venture to guess the last time there were five TRs for sale in Chicago it was pre-2000.

Scarcity is not a factor. 100% true their value is what someone is willing to pay. For those that are, it would appear they have plenty of opportunity to negotiate those for sale against each other...

 

Then if inventories are high at dealers, either the margins are such that dealers can afford to hold or there is lots of turnover, alternatively at some point dealer cash flow will detirimine that prices will correct.

From what i can see, besides a few headline auction results, prices have been flat on many cars for a while. Its funny to see asks for 308 qvs in the 80-100k range when we also see real transactiuons for 30-40% less.

We are imo at the point in the market where many owners(308s Boxers and Trs) are saying if I can get that crazy price I will sell and get somethign else, or sell and wait to buy again after the correction. Hence there is an abundance of cars being offered, but probably not too many selling.

 

Condition, condition, condition. Many 308 QVs sell in the 80-100K range, and often higher. I can personally attest to that.

 

+1.

I have personally seen several sell above $80k. Lots of Doubting Thomas' as usual making judgements from afar but I know what I've seen with my own eyes. Remember, there is no substitute for condition. What one train wreck sells for is no comparison to what a perfectly restored or preserved car trades hands for.

Again, it's a marketplace; it will sort itself out. It always does. If there is too much inventory, it will correct. If there is too little inventory, it will correct. That's the beauty of a free market.

All of these people crying into their skirts that prices are too high and speculators have run amok only have to wait. If they're correct, prices will come down and they can buy all they want (if they have the money and the courage, as it's much easier to complain from afar than act). If they're not correct, I assume we will have to listen to their whining for even longer. God help us.

 

Yes but suddenly everyone thinks their Qv is worth that, we also saw a 500 mile Tr sell for ridiculous money but then there is only one like it, there are very few QVs with less than 8K miles one owner pristine and y euro spec.

As to the criers, they wont buy when prices go down, because if they really wanted a ferrari there are plenty of reasonably priced 360's and mondial 3.2-T cabrios to buy right now.
I can also add that a stick aston v12 vantage seems a screaming buy now, to future classic.

Many people want to buy what others covet, 308s were regarded by many as old and slow, now they are something else. Its always funny to me when people are afraid to drive their boxers, its the same car that used to be 80K. If you have good taste there are still lots of great and future great cars that are affordable.

None of which takes away from the arguement that certain cars being driven up in price by clueless and tasteless wealth, which has no real appreciation for the thing..
Fact is some cars have been bid up by those with little knowledge buying off a checklist, its the same bad taste too much money that causes people to buy land in fl and pull down all the vegitation so they can build a wall to wall concrete single famiuly condo complex, missing the whole beauty of a subtropical climate and the type of beauty you can have.

True boomers are retiring and true cars are now an alternative aset, but we have all also seen markets get too hot, and know that they are cyclical.

We can also say that when prices correct at some point, some cars that were formerly not considered "collectable" will have moved by then firmly to the collectable class, so they are never commign down to the criers imagined price level.. We saw this with Dinos in the 80s, and are seeing this with boxers Trs and some 308s now.

The market is also not logical or educated, leading to distortions. For many years 288s didnt rate because apparently they looked like 308s and so were worth 1/3 of an F40. 550 barachettas have never really hit their stride, yet a 599 stick went for ridiculous money. In time this will all sort out, and some cars therefore have a ways to rise regardless, and others are maybe already overblown and will fall quite hard with any reasonable correction.

Imo a euro 308QV is the one to get. You have the classic needle nose styling, great power and the car is reasonably resolved and developed. Nowadays people pay ridiculous money for glass 308s 150-200K, they are on a scale not really that much lighter, have no styling benefits and are less develpoed chassis wise or motor wise compared to a eurto QV. But today glass cars are thing, and people have not figured the qv angle yet. So yes a truly great ero qv is worth 100k, even if the market corrects and its 75 k, it will also become a 150k car next cycle. More importantly if you like 308s its the one to get and drive. But a 45K mile US 308, asking 80+ thats fantasy and a sign the market is overblown.

 

Sherpa nails it here

 

Things are different nowadays. Not long ago, people seemed to respect financial success. In more recent times (the last 5+ years), there now seems to be a vitriolic response to it. Politicians are harping against the 1% (and wealth in general) and portraying them as being responsible for some of society's shortcomings. After all, someone needs to be blamed.

For those who worked hard or took the risk to earn financial success, I applaud you, literally. You deserve the fruits of your efforts.

 

That's for sure


The haters are empowered by the internet and have a louder voice than ever.


I'll still be the bad guy with my cars, houses, and other spoils of success. Sadly still no jet

 

The reasons are it was a political ploy, much like germany in the 30's, identify a minority of people who are percieved to be doing ok, and blame them for the problems while handing unlimited power to gov to deal with it.

However I would speculate that most people who own some type of f-car are not part of the blamers.

However there is now a group of people in the USa usualy from the financial sector who believe and act as though the heavens have somehow anointed them with superior intelligence to be exceptionaly wealthy and by extension exceptional in every way, instead of reckognizing that they are in a particularily good gig, and yes also driven where otehrs are not.

The populace at large does blame these people for ills, because these people made fortunes, and along with the gov were the proximal cause of the recession, they were also comprehensively bailed out, and made rich by QE while others were left to suffer, this makes this group no so exceptional as exceptionaly fortunate.

Therefore those of us who do well, should try to not be so smug about our sucess.

The ones who paid the price fir the recssion and the 1% blame game were not he investor class who pay 24% tax but the buisness owners in at 39%, professionals and upper middle class.

Tying this into cars, when we see people who have no clue about what they are buying, and paying any price because they just dont care, whats a few more or less 100Ks it shocks the concience of anybody who works for a living, no matter how sucessful they may be.

Same as when I see someone tearing down a nearly new 13k sq ft house because their wife now wants something different, and I can do the math to see that however they do it, however much land has gone up they are blowing 5-10 million and just dont care, it tells me soemthign is awry.

In bygone eras, people who had buisnesses that made money, people who made products and employed people, they usualy respected money enough not to behave this way, lets say there was a degree of discretion. Nowadays its like a showoff place.

Since some of us do well enough not to want to be target, it would be good if others didnt behave like drunken oil sheiks circa 1980, because if we get Hillary it will be even more ugly and the targets easy to find..

 

I said it in 92-93, if Hilary is in, I'm out! On my moms grave mark my words.

Europe was my plan however I don't want any exposure there now with the "invasion" , if that is under control that's my play.

Asia is still viable.

I refuse to be in America with that b*tch at the helm. Since I have no family leaving and fully divesting my self ain't to complicated.

I hope she loses, as I will keep my word, pain in the arse

 

Singapore.

 

I don't know about this whole post I have been to long island and the hamptons looks like a lot of 1920 and 30s opulence there with all the old mansions not much discretion back then and i am sure in many other places in the us. but offer this location only because you show to be from ct..
I feel anyone can handle their money however they want to and i do not judge others by how they spend their money. who are we to judge just because someone pays a 100k more for a car then you or i may think it is worth maybe it is what they want.. I say great for their success and more power to them....

 

exactly roaring 20s, the 90s, this behavior is nothing new...castles have been built all over the word for 2000 yrs....were the pyramids necessary? im not even sure what we are debating....there are people who have made ridiculous amounts of money - god bless them. who is anyone to call them stupid because they want to pay 2M for something you deem silly....thank god for the guy who rips down the 13k sq ft house - that creates jobs for people who might not otherwise work...that same guy is likely to be donating money to many charities etc....

there is an alternative - go live in a place where doctors, mail men, athletes, and lawyers all make the same wage

 

^^^^^ common sense will get you banned AGAIN. danger will robinson.

 

Or the fact that the thread is pure P&R at this point.

 

On the short list, thank you for the suggestion

 

if 100% of the buyers agreed on a price... would it be so ?

 

The collapse of the 20's begat FDR and the nanny state.

 

It also destroys a 100 year old banyan tree which really is irreplaceable and pays no heed to the neighbours who are now living next to a lotline condo.. The point is one of being able to appreciate something for what it is, not always seeking what it represents. Kinda like not restorign that well kept old car, having it be mechanicaly sound and its patina telling a story of its life, or stripping it of its history and overestoring it into a shiney chromed red with tan leather.

The last big castle was called Versailles and you know what happened to the ocupants.

In any event I was refering to the destruction of florida, or the few good parts left. Kinda like how cars were a cool hobby appreciated by those who really appreciated the machines, before the disinterested investors moved in, and not all"investors" are uber-wealthy, its an attitudonal thing.

So whn some decry what has happened to cars, its not just whiners who cant afford to"be in the game" its also those who love cars, not the game.

Just a perspective.

Santa Barbara saved by zoning, as has ironicaly Palm Beach which is the wealthiest, whereas other towns have been decimeated by wealth coupled with no taste or appreciation, once ruined you cant put it back.

I just find the smugness and assumptions of some here as to who buys what based on wealth to be very wrong, its sometimes about what one is able to value.

 

maybe im missing the point - its very hard to follow your thought process. if ur arguing purity and originality that's a different subject.

why not just buy an awesome e36 m3 and be happy? or a 996tt? you can get a 355 for 80k...if u love the game buy one of those and let the guy spending 3M on an enzo be happy. people shld be buying and enjoying what you can afford no? unless ur telling me all the naysayers of today wld have been buyers of 512trs when they were 80k? but I know there were very few people willing to take that risk on 08 and 09....there were only a handful of us seriously buying cars then. the smugness I see is people calling other people dumb because they are buyers who are less sensitive to price. maybe its me

 

It is funny to read where someone calls a person who has made so much money that he or she can spend $2m on Janis Joplin's car, a "fool." Clearly if you're that insensitive to price, I suspect it's because you're anything but a fool.