£40k For a Mid 90's Escort - The World Has Gone Mad!

[s m]

Legacywr said:

Rubystone?

Don't get him started on the price of old RS Porsches and old Ferraris! You could buy the TVR range for the price of one of those!

[brett84]

Yeah…. but Chims look better than Griffs

[TEKNOPUG]

Sardonicus said:

ho would want a Cobra with a bloody 3.5 Rover and a 4BBL bucket Holley throwing poorly metered fuel down its restricted neck ? SB or BB Ford/Chevy preferably you know it makes sense seeing as the whole car revolves around that cast iron lump of iron anyways, probably the worse use of a RV8 ever

The point of the RV8 has always been the noise. It has a great V8 soundrack. The fact that it doesn't produce a lot of power is largely irrelevant in a fibreglass kit-car. 200bhp is plenty to hurl you down the road and give you the wind-in-your hair, open-top V8 motoring experience. Plus they are very cheap and plentiful. There are no other mass-produced V8's that can be easily picked up for pennies in this country. A lot of people are using Audi and Lexus motor's to good effect now that they are being scrapped. It's much harder and expensive to find a second-hand US V8

However, spending money on tuning RV8s seems utterly pointless, when you consider the price of crate motor's from the US.

And yes, a TVR is a better engineered product than 90% of Cobra replicas. Someone needs to build a Cobra body that drops onto a TVR chassis......they'd clean up. (some cutting and welding maybe required ).

[Marc p]

brett84 said:

Yeah…. but Chims look better than Griffs

Agreed, I never undertood why the Chimera was so much cheaper than the Griffith and the Cerbera, is it the engine/drivetrain that makes up the price difference?

Although when it comes to TVR's, this is where it's at for me:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TVR-Cerbera-Speed-6-Stun...

[900T-R]

Marc p said:

I'm not quite sure why you keep bringing the Chimera to the arguement, I do like them, but they are seen as the runt of the litter car when it comes to that age of TVR and you are comparing it to a serious halo car, surely a better car to compare it to would be the Griffith 500, which still isn't as well known or fabled as the Escort Cosworth, but with prices ranging from £20k-£30k, it's much closer price wise.

The relative adulation for the Griff however seems to be a UK-only thing, among others due to the time lag in getting them across the Channel (the LHD Griffith 4.X models were built concurrently with the first RHD Chimaeras in 1993).

When the Griff reached Europe it was quickly relegated to being 'old news' by the Chimaera which kept occupying all the TVR column inches in the magazines well into the new millennium. The overall notion of the road testers was of the Chimaera being the marginally better developed car of the two and the 4 and 4.5 litre variants being sweeter and more tractable than the 5-litre only Griff.


Media appearances in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany must have been about 10:1 Chim:Griff.

In 2001 TVR briefly disappeared from the market here due to the RV8 with CUX14 management not being Euro 3 compatible (LR did have no problems as they had converted to their own GEMS management in the mid-1990s which TVR never got save for two guinea pig Chims that subsequenly ended up in Switzerland), then returned in 2003 with the first LHD Tuscans, which model became the poster child for TVR on the Continent until the Sagaris came along.

Prices for Chimaeras and Griffiths are pretty much identical here, with about an 80% surcharge for original LHD cars.

[TEKNOPUG]

I think that the Griffith is the better looking car – more muscular and purposeful. The Chim is a pretty car nonetheless. I can understand why the Chim would get better reviews – being newer with further development.

Being as they are essentially kit-cars though, surely the whole point is that you can build/modify/develop the exact car that you want? If you want a Griff that drives like a Chim, it shouldn’t be that hard?

With regards to old Ford’s – no idea. Once a car is out of production, it’s worth whatever someone will pay for it. “Scene” tax was mentioned earlier….

[northwest monkey]

To me, the Escort Cosworth is an iconic car whereas the TVR is just an old car. It's not a rational thing, it's just the way it is.

Difficult to say whether it's "worth" it or not but you could argue that about anything really. There was a chap on Antiques Roadshow the other night who had sold a plantpot for £500k. Bloody mad if you ask me, but then again I don't collect plantpots.

[TroubledSoul]

slimtater said:

Most cars at that dealer look nice in photos....

Yep. Let's just say I wouldn't buy from them again after my experience.

[james28]

The second car has been for sale for a while and started at 29k.What ever the price hike in old fords I won't be parting with my hard earned cash for one.

[neil1jnr]

Supply and Demand

[ManFromDelmonte]

It's because the ratio between supply and demand of Escort Cosworths is lower than the Chimp.

HTH

ETA, too late again.

[s m]

brett84 said:

I love old fords, my last project was a MK1 Escort.
I agree with the silly prices though, in about 3 years mine doubled in value, I'll have another one someday though.
Have you seen RS200 prices - wow

I enjoyed my old Fords - some of them are too expensive for my pockets now - if they were cheaper I'd buy some of them.
Same applies to other cars as well - I went in a 964RS and enjoyed it - for 10k I'd definitely buy one but can't afford current prices - obviously some people can and fair play to them
Cars find their own price level - if people wanted TVR Chimearas/Griffiths badly enough they'd push the prices up.
The inference is that this is not the case at present.......hold on for the future and your Chimeara may shoot up in value.

Edited by s m on Tuesday 28th October 11:26

[Baryonyx]

ChimpOnGas said:

Have you seen the price of 80's & 90's Fords lately?

The mid 1990's Escort Cosworth has been a particularly big climber in the last few years.

This car was built in the same period as our TVRs & in much greater numbers, it is not a hand made open sports car with a V8 and a race car derived chassis, its a flippin Ford hatchback!!!! (all be a moderately quick one)

http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/f...

And that's not one off...

http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/f...

I think the whole old Ford value thing has gone mad, it seems to be driven more by the brand than the machine's engineering excellence. The thing that confuses me is in my day Ford wasn't a massively respected brand???

The phrase "Dagengham Dustbin" comes to mind

How is it a TVR Chimaera which is a 1060kg 300hp hand made traditional British V8 sports car built on a proper tubular space frame chassis with race car derived coil over unequal wishbone suspension be worth £10-£13k when an Escort Cosworth from the same period is worth £40k???

Honestly it's all gone nuts and has nothing to do with engineering excellence, the ignorance of the classic car buying public to what really makes a classic..... is baffling to me!!!

The world has gone mad!!!

The Escort Cosworth is far cooler than the TVR Chimaera. The Chim is a nice sports car, but it's hardly destined for glory, being bookended by the Griffith and the Cerbera, which are the real gems. Whereas the EsCos was the ultimate iteration of the Ford Cosworth project and was developed for Motorsport use. It'll be worth even more, one day.

[k-ink]

Perhaps most old Fords rusted away so there is a supply and demand issue? Utter madness of course. Much like anything vaguely classic. A great time to sell and a stupid time to buy, IMHO. I don't suppose this situation will continue for much longer.

[BRMMA]

neil1jnr said:

Supply and Demand

It really is as simple as that, it will be interesting to see if the current trend for high demand pushing up prices will continue, it probably will in longer term, i'm sure there were people 20 years ago talking about cars that were 20 years old being deemed classics and they couldn't understand why they were worth so much

the Cosworth still draws massive attention, i was a track day at Curborough a few weeks ago which had a selection of Ferrari's, Aston's, Porsches etc there and an Escort Cosworth that drew a bigger crowd than all the other cars combined

[CO2000]

Talking about rusty fords I'd go this route

http://www.pistonheads.com/GASSING/topic.asp?h=0&a...

[TIGA84]

ChimpOnGas said:

This...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AC-Cobra-3-5-V8-DAX-Repl...

Or this for £10k less....

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1993-TVR-CHIMAERA-430-RA...

Even if you reversed the prices there's still no contest!

Its all wrong

I've had a rough look and TVR made around 5000 Chimaeras. Dax alone have made over 4000 Cobras.

I don't think the argument holds as much weight as you think.

A Cobra, in whatever guise, is always going to be a more desirable car, even if only in looks - than a Chim.

[SILICONEKID345HP]

Anyone fancy a Golf /TVR

http://www.corsa-c.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?1463...

[900T-R]

TIGA84 said:

A Cobra, in whatever guise, is always going to be a more desirable car, even if only in looks - than a Chim.

Even if it really isn't a Cobra?

[SpeckledJim]

900T-R said:

TIGA84 said:

A Cobra, in whatever guise, is always going to be a more desirable car, even if only in looks - than a Chim.

Even if it really isn't a Cobra?

Plastic over a steel frame. Just like a TVR...

They're both exercises in styling and 'experience' rather than engineering quality.