Sotheby's magazine

Full disclosure: As a Sotheby's client and partner, I get the magazine and I read the article.

When I read it initially, I liked the article (because you're preaching to the choir and I've been buying all of those cars since 2005) but I found a couple of things a little off-putting:

1) The insistence on buying cars with "very low mileage" but the ongoing emphasis that these cars are meant to be used and driven. I found the irony of that a little perplexing, not to mention the indirect suggestion that that is the path to appreciation; if you spend the extra money on a car with "very low mileage" and you use it regularly, somehow you won't erode that added premium for the ultra low miles and you'll make money when you sell.

2) Nothing against you, Darius, but that article doesn't do you any favors. The article gushes over your experience but sort of quietly adds that all of your cars were purchased in the last two years. So anyone reading that rolls their eyes and they think, "I'm supposed to take collecting advice from some Johnny-Come-Lately who probably can't identify a dry sump 308 GTB from a wet sump version and only got into cars when the values were increasing." Most collectors reading that know that there so many people with great collections of these "modern classics" that have been buying them for ten or fifteen years not just during these last couple of years that have seen a very pointed run up in both values and attention. The really smart guys are the ones who have been doing it when no one cared what they were worth. They only cared about getting the best cars to enjoy properly.

To be clear, I can't be overly critical of you in any of that because this is exactly why I don't let people quote me for car articles any more. They end up painting me as more of an expert that I am and it would be embarrassing for me to have the people who actually are experts read that later. The only thing that I'm an expert in is my work and no one like writing about that. Plus I inevitably get misquoted in places. Anyway, it's just how articles are written.

3) I don't know why more articles aren't written that go more like this:

Don't buy an ultra low mile car. Buy a car with moderate miles that's in impeccable condition, one that's been lavished with love, care, and attention, and has never wanted for anything. When you get the keys, continue that trend and enjoy it to the maximum. If you ever decide to sell, maybe you will make a little money. However, if you don't, you will have many priceless memories and moments that you will never regret for one moment.

Oh, I do know why. Because articles like that don't sell magazines.

Just my $0.02.

And FWIW, I told that most of this to Sotheby's after I read the article.

 

Well, it depends on the individual motivation.

In one corner the spectulators, who jumped onto the train, the clever ones rather early. And have now sold the cars again, before the market began to stall.

In the other corner enthusiasts, who do not want to spend crazy money. They purchase cars, which no one wants, in a phase of economical depression. And thereby choose cars, which are great driving machines and the design of which for some reason is "unfashionable" in that moment. E.g. beginning of the 90s nobody wanted a Jarama, even not for little money and in good condition. This group indeed is happy, if in the long term (speaking of ten years and more) they make a little bit of profit (or just minor losses, taking into regard all costs) upon selling.

Of course, there are characters inbetween these extremes, tending to one or the other corner, this even maybe depending on a momentary mood or needs.

And any auction house naturally lives from cars being sold repeatedly with highest possible frequency .... . They have absolutely no interest in the guys, who turn up once in two years and bid high once in ten years ....