Who's making the high price market on collector cars?

Scarcity enhances value but 911s and E-Types show that some cars can run counter to that.

 

The 246 is such a great example of the complexity that goes into what makes a car 'valuable'. A handful of years ago they shot way out of reach $$ wise even though they made a bunch of them (thousands), they have a fiat engine (there's more to that detail), it's slower than much or all of it's class and the car doesn't have the F word anywhere on it.

None of that matters though because this car appeals to way more than enough different demographic groups, some mentioned here. These groups pushed it into the investment grade category it found itself in way to quickly for folks who had this car on their short list...like ME! What is amazing is how quickly the switch was flipped when you look at all that was against the car

 

This made me laugh out loud.

 

I will add the question: Isn't the car culture dying anyway? At least it seems to be in America. I meet many young people that don't seem to have ANY interest in ANY car at all. So what happens when most of the car guys die and the cars left behind no longer have any "value" to the heirs?

 

+1

The same applies to antique furniture. While in the past decades many people would "invest" into antique furniture, todays furniture buyers could care less. Modern furniture is just more practical and/or less expensive. The same could indeed happen to the whole classic car sector.

So I agree: Just enjoy your cars for the moment or sell it now if you cannot cope with a future financial loss.

 

Markets come and go. Cars strike something deep in the male psyche. They're not going out of style for long.

 

Not too sure about this... reminds me of smoking, which used to be the ultimate expression of coolness (Steve Mc Queen !). Now smokers aren't exactly considered any cool any more.

Things can change dramatically.



Edited because of typo.

 

Smoking is taboo but widespread.

The comparison isn't apt. Cars aren't inherently hazardous to your health. They just aren't flavor of the month.
There's too much inherent visceral fun to be had with them, on so many levels, for cars to be abandoned.

 

Personally, I totally agree with you 100% (or why would I be here .

The problem is that environmentalists, politicians and the growing trend of leading a non-materialistic or hedonistic lifestyle clearly work against us.

Unfortunately, I doubt we can stop these trends but then again, it's our time and money. Just don't expect others to appreciate our cars like we do in the future. This will reflect in the prices for less than super exclusive or rare cars.

 

Politics wax and wane.
Visceral joys are universal and eternal.

We haven't replaced the horse and they're labor intensive, smelly, dangerous, expensive to buy and maintain and completely outmoded.
But they're a lot of fun.

 

How does that translate to 63 split window vette ?

They made over 10,000 of those, and somehow that makes it rare ?????? And fetching big dollars.....yet they made a fraction boxers, and they get the same money.

The market collector market makes no sense.

 

We all have our theories and we can discuss it till the horses come home. The bottom line and it is very simple: Supply and demand. They go hand in hand and it always boils down to this.

My 2 cents

 

I cant remember anybody that lusted after the Dino.
It was the Daytona and Boxer.
The Daytona has climbed while the Boxer is finally taking off as it should.
When deciding on my last Ferrari the choice came between a driver 246 and a sweet 512BB for essentially the same price.
Slam dunk no-brainer; Twice the car, a "real" Ferrari, hand formed aluminum body, beautiful clamshells, the supercar of its day.

Either car for the same price as a Mustang ( now this truly baffles me. )

I'm convinced the collector car market suffers from the Lemming effect; Its valuable because others say its collectable, and its collectable because others say its valuable.
A dog chasing its tail.

 

Ultra high end vintage car market is just a vehicle for money laundering. The same goes for the "contemporary" art market where people pay tens of millions for trinkets. Seriously anyone really believe these fairy tales? These markets are unregulated, shady and generally full of dubious characters behind the scenes. How do you think bribes, pay offs and off the books deals get passed around in 2013? The same cars and art works sell a dozen times over.

 

I completely agree. I've been working on generic imports for 40 years, have 2 adult children, and that generation and younger just doesn't care about cars with a few exceptions.
Most of this age that I see have cars their parents handed down.

Tom

 

Young people don't care about cars because they are too poor to be concerned over them. How many people are thinking about buying cars when they have mountains of student loans to pay while waiting tables? Baby boomers grew up during rising affluence, their children and grandchildren are growing up descending into poverty.

 

The concept that scarcity makes something valuable is being hammered into kids via all sorts of products these days. Kids are being trained into collectors whether they know it or not. The entire generation has it programmed into them.

The question is what will they lust to collect 30 years in the future? A lot of that has to do with nostalgia - what they thought was cool or what their parents thought was cool back in the day. I'm not sure if there will be a strong demand to collect what their dad thought was cool because these days there doesn't seem to be the same parent/child bond there used to be a few decades ago.

 

I am more optimistic than the previous few posters. My 456M goes to a lot of muscle car shows, because I love that culture, I love those cars, and I love the guys who build their own rides and take pride in their craftsmanship. Who know their shiznit, and can pick up some tools and prove it.

A lot of times, I'm the only exotic there. Let me tell you, a lot of little dudes between 8 and 14 freak out when they see the car. WOW! A FERRRAAARRRIII!!!! Cracks me up every time. One kid even put his mom up to asking me if he could sit in it. When I said yes, I was afraid the kid was going to faint.

The 20 and 30-somethings are too involved with school, career and family to even think about our cars, and some of them are clearly uncomfortable around them, from my admittedly anecdotal experience. But those who become successful will eventually get back in touch with that 8-14 year old kid, and they'll start giving that kid what he dreamed of.

That's what happened to me, and I bet I'm not alone here.

Cheers,

Geo

 

I tend to agree ... My 14 yr old is all about the Nissan GTR - all he has been talking about for few years. A few of his friends agree about Godzilla, and are all over the lambo aventator.
So much for having a few ferrari's he doesn't want by then.

I will agree with other posters though, many of his other friends couldn't care less of cars in general. They only see it as a mode of transportation. It is up to us car guys to pass this knownledge and passion to the future car kids.

 

I like to think that there have always been and always will be two types of men (note I don't include women here):
- The first is the car guy. He's the guy who was that kid staring and yelling at the exotics and "cool cars". He actually knows the difference between a Lambo and a Ferrari.
- The second is that guy with the resigned expression behind the wheel of a beaten POS Toyota Camry. He can barely keep the car between the two lines on the drive home. To him its just an appliance to get him where he needs to be.

These two guys have been here since time eternal. Ain't gonna change tomorrow.

This latest generation is just like any of the 100 before it. Same things were said in the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's about the "then" young generation. ONly difference is the World has changed and what were backwaters in Asia now have the same knowledge and infrastructure as we do. No intent to derail or send to Politics Section intended…

 

The first car gut was our ancestor who invented the wheel.

 

Exactly... It's human nature. People don't really change. The new generation is always looked down upon. It was always better in the past, blah, blah, blah. Well it wasn't better in the past and the new generation has more opportunity than any other in the history of mankind. With a a tablet anyone who makes the effort can learn a limitless amount of knowledge about any topic for virtually nothing. Proper use of a smartphone can vastly increase ones productivity. Of course for those that don't make the effort, the future sucks. I digress.

 

Except that all sounds good only in theory. Social media is actually anti-social in practice, smartphones are mostly used by dumb people etc. People have all this "limitless knowledge" at their disposal yet so what? NASA got to the moon with 1/10000th the CPU power that an average person has in their pocket today. Based on theory, we should be living in a technological utopia from all that innovation the limitless knowledge has unleashed. In practice smartphones, facebooks, twitters have decreased productivity as more people simply spend their day pretending to be celebrities, conversing about nothing and watching porn. Take this forum as case and point. Millions of threads, maybe 1% of them contain any useful information. Take the posters with tens of thousands of posts spreading all their infinite wisdom. Imagine if they did something useful with the time.

In terms of collector car values. There are 3 primary reasons why valuations are sky high.

1) Keeping money in an insolvent banking system is dangerous. So high net worth individuals would rather park wealth in something very limited. Notice how art markets, blue chip stocks, rare wrist watches are also inflated? Anything that has to do with ultra wealth.

2) Money laundering.

3) Cheap credit from central bankers transferring purchasing power from 99.99% to 0.01%

In terms of which cars will hold value and which won't. It boils down to a simple question. Is this a classic design or a throw away design. Most modern Ferrari's are throw away designs optimized on computers. Why would they hold value over time?

 

That's ridiculous. I'm speechless. "Smartphones are mostly used by dumb people". I can't even respond to this nonsense. You are a Luddite. There is no convincing you.

You have no concept of time. The power that has been unleashed is in its infancy. Progress has never occurred this quickly. You are too close. You cannot see the forest through the trees.

Because of progress, one has more leisure time. How one spends their leisure time is a luxury.

Everyone has the option to be more productive. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Who are you to judge?

I can assure you that if the "insolvent" banking system collapses, collectibles will crash. Therefore, if you are afraid of an immanent collapse in the banking system you would want precious metals, not collectibles. Collectibles are worth the most in countries whom economies are the strongest. If a country's banking system were to collapse so would its economy and it's collectibles.

I hope your kidding. Cars are registered. The funds are completely traceable. Dumb money... Sure.

Yes, you are onto something. Liquidity gooses all assets. But the money isn't going from the 99% to the 1%. Actually, socialism in Europe and the USA is doing a great job redistributing income from the productive to the unproductive.

No, it does not boil down to a simple question of design. It is multi faceted. But it's good that you came up with one of the components.

Progress does not lift all boats. You may be proving that point.

 

Here we are mostly enthusiasts, regardless of net worth.

A significant number of really wealthy people say 250 mill plus dont really care about cars as we do. They like to invest spread and play with their wealth usualy growing it.

Older ferraris have hit the rarity/value quotient that its interesting for people to play with. That the cars provide entre to certain social events(rallies vintage races clubs goodwood) is an added bonus. Just like peole know if you own a Monet.

So if you are used to paying 30 mil plus for a yacht, have a jet and some art, older ferraris and thier ilk round things out nicely, plus the ferrari will apprecaite and maintanace is relatively speaking chump change. If that older ferrari costs 1 mill or 10 mill its irrelevant, the only thing a really wealthy person will care about is whther they like it and if its good value, ie will it appreciate.

As a billionaire freind told me recently, he was sorry not to have gotten into older cars because they appreciated 400%. These people will appreciate design and beauty, but for them to buy something fun somethign that puts them on a list, something that will also appreciate, well to them the money is then no barrier.
And there are a lot more really wealthy people globaly than there were 20 years ago, and cars are now on theor radar.

Enthusiasts should fish elsewhere, other than those few who can really afford to play that game.

Muscle car auctions are a similar thing, just on a much lower level, and there its also fueled by TV ego and cheap finance.

If you think objectively a 308 is debatably every bit as desireable as a Dino, yet suddenly people learnt dino prices going sky high. Hey there are really great ferrraris to buy now, and the prices are not sky high.

Who is going to be crying that theye missed the boat.
Today you can buy any manner of 308, Boxer, Tr for relatively small change.Wind the clock forward 20 byears and these are the next Dinos 275's and daytonas.

People cry about prices, yet very few had the good tatse foresight and objective desire to buy a dino or daytona in the early 80's.
A dino is still a slow car that smells of gas.

Many seem to want certain cars now based on hype and market value. You have great other choices thta will ocupy that same space one day and oprovide the same or better entertainment today.

Let the billionaires and speculators play in their sandbox, as an enthusiast, if you are not a snob there are great great choices today.