Buying wisely and cars as investments

[msdes123]

Slarti650 said:

I'm 42. that's only around 20 proper adult years. I probably have less than 20 more years where i can continue enjoying cars in my current good state of health. Time is against me. I wish I could buy more but I can't. I worry a little about depreciation but I'm focused more on enjoying (literally) while i can. We're all gonna go tits up and it's nearer than you think. Morbid but true.

Couldn't agree more, I'm a 43 yr old consultant cardiologist, I treat guys younger than me every week with life changing heart disease, often coming out of the blue. I've been fortunate enough to have had a couple of ferraris now, buying them has made money tight, I'm exposed to the perils of depreciation if something suddenly happened and had to sell the car on quickly. Nevertheless if life's got something unpleasant for me health wise in the future nothing will be able to take away the fact that I had these cars, I drove them, I enjoyed them and I'll always have the memories and photos to show for it. I drove my 599 more miles in a year than the previous two owners had driven combined in the cars previous 4 years of life, I could never really understand that, why such a great car would be so underused.

For sure if you move in the circles of hypercars and closed orderbook limited editions no doubt there is money and investment to be made. If like me you're coming in at a price point of one of the standard production cars I don't think you should ever look at these cars as anything other than something to use and enjoy in the here and now and expect to take a depreciation hit, if you eventually get out cost neutral or in positive balance then that's a bonus. Just remember you could have bought an M6 or S class AMG, now that is serious depreciation.

[zedmtrappe]

^^ Two excellent posts there.

I've been a Lambo ( Diablo + Performante) owner for 10 years now and followed the market accordingly.

Up to about 4 years ago, prospective buyers were worried about maintenance costs, reliability and how far along the depreciation curve the car was.

Now it seems like the No1 concern is: how much money will I make in X years?

I'm glad I'm not in the market for my first exotic right now...