Investment potential
Discussion
I keep seeing the ads for the classic, modern classic petrol cars saying 'Investment potential' and wonder in this day and age where petrol will soon a thing of the past if they really can be such a statement as an investment, I've got some old Fords which really went up last year but i can see the prices from 1st advertised to later being reduced by some ££ before a sale is agreed.
Got a few low miles Fords in my collection Sierra, Escos, Focus Rs500, Focus Heritage. Those 4 worth a lot of money and wonder if one day the value will be peanuts and the salesman will be in their electric cars laughing at the buyers when telling them you told me it was an investment and I've lost majority of the value .
Got a few low miles Fords in my collection Sierra, Escos, Focus Rs500, Focus Heritage. Those 4 worth a lot of money and wonder if one day the value will be peanuts and the salesman will be in their electric cars laughing at the buyers when telling them you told me it was an investment and I've lost majority of the value .
It is an interesting one I ponder...
Either:
As EV's take over and there's still cash floating around, prices will rocket as enthusiastic squabble to buy fun toys.
Or:
Or we go into global recession, petrol stations become charge centres, fuel shortages become the norm due to volatile supply issues, ends up costing £4/ltr, town centres become EV only zones and the market is flooded with old ICE stuff at giveaway prices because not enough people can be arsed with the cost and lack of places to actually drive the thing.
I'm genuinely not sure!
Either:
As EV's take over and there's still cash floating around, prices will rocket as enthusiastic squabble to buy fun toys.
Or:
Or we go into global recession, petrol stations become charge centres, fuel shortages become the norm due to volatile supply issues, ends up costing £4/ltr, town centres become EV only zones and the market is flooded with old ICE stuff at giveaway prices because not enough people can be arsed with the cost and lack of places to actually drive the thing.
I'm genuinely not sure!
M.F.D said:
There will always be value in these things.
Your cars are a good example. Escort Cosworth, would get smashed by most modern cars but it's iconic and nostalgic. People will always want them and EV's won't change this.
That's not how the classic car world works.Your cars are a good example. Escort Cosworth, would get smashed by most modern cars but it's iconic and nostalgic. People will always want them and EV's won't change this.
More importantly, ignore the words 'investment potential'. A hundred years ago, they said that about thimbles.
I think medium to long-term values is a tricky one, not just for interesting stuff, but also run-of-the-mill cars too. In the future, if fuel is hard to come by and / or extremely expensive, it must have an impact on the desirability - and therefore value - of nice ICE cars. Ditto if they are blanket banned from certain built-up areas etc.
For the normal stuff, the ICE ones are already out of date and the current crop of EVs will be made to look fairly terrible by what will be available in 10 years or so. Can’t see either of today’s cars being a particularly appealing used purchase come 2030.
For the normal stuff, the ICE ones are already out of date and the current crop of EVs will be made to look fairly terrible by what will be available in 10 years or so. Can’t see either of today’s cars being a particularly appealing used purchase come 2030.
David87 said:
For the normal stuff, the ICE ones are already out of date and the current crop of EVs will be made to look fairly terrible by what will be available in 10 years or so. Can’t see either of today’s cars being a particularly appealing used purchase come 2030.
That is an interesting one. A current EV will be sodding hopeless compared to one from 10 years from now. Current hybrids will be the worst of both worlds. ICE will be on its way to heaven. Perhaps charging will become cleverer and can be applied to older models. Doubtful though.
Either way a current generation EV just don't work for my purposes and never will. I am looking forward to what the future holds for them.
As for future classics, those fast Fords will transition to pure objects of desire even if they're barely usable any more. I'm not so sure about a lot of other stuff.
The current values are awful bubbly though.
You have to consider the age of the car and the age of those that grew up drooling over them when new but couldn't afford them.
I imagine there is still some mileage in an Escort Cosworth for example, but buyers who drooled over E Type Jags will be generally getting long in the tooth now and approaching their later driving years (and the later 'Yaris years' for small shopping cars, GR excepted).
It seems to be middle agers (me included) who get to a point when they may have some spare cash floating around who can buy an example of what they couldn't afford when they were younger and are maybe willing to pay what was previously considered 'over the odds'.
Obviously special edition or very rare cars may be the exception, but I think with more widely available halo cars the older they are the more risky they get as their fans die off.
Personally I would never buy a car (or bike) as an investment. I only buy what I want to own, and use.
I imagine there is still some mileage in an Escort Cosworth for example, but buyers who drooled over E Type Jags will be generally getting long in the tooth now and approaching their later driving years (and the later 'Yaris years' for small shopping cars, GR excepted).
It seems to be middle agers (me included) who get to a point when they may have some spare cash floating around who can buy an example of what they couldn't afford when they were younger and are maybe willing to pay what was previously considered 'over the odds'.
Obviously special edition or very rare cars may be the exception, but I think with more widely available halo cars the older they are the more risky they get as their fans die off.
Personally I would never buy a car (or bike) as an investment. I only buy what I want to own, and use.
M.F.D said:
Doofus said:
That's not how the classic car world works.
More importantly, ignore the words 'investment potential'. A hundred years ago, they said that about thimbles.
How does it work then? Why are people paying hundreds of thousands of pounds for fast Fords/Impreza's etc?More importantly, ignore the words 'investment potential'. A hundred years ago, they said that about thimbles.
M.F.D said:
Doofus said:
That's not how the classic car world works.
More importantly, ignore the words 'investment potential'. A hundred years ago, they said that about thimbles.
How does it work then? Why are people paying hundreds of thousands of pounds for fast Fords/Impreza's etc?More importantly, ignore the words 'investment potential'. A hundred years ago, they said that about thimbles.
M.F.D said:
There will always be value in these things.
Your cars are a good example. Escort Cosworth, would get smashed by most modern cars but it's iconic and nostalgic. People will always want them and EV's won't change this.
That's an interesting point. People in their 40s and 50s think an Escort Cosworth is "iconic and nostalgic" as they were the desirable cars when we were growing up and now we're older we can actually afford to buy and maintain one.Your cars are a good example. Escort Cosworth, would get smashed by most modern cars but it's iconic and nostalgic. People will always want them and EV's won't change this.
I wonder what people in their 20s and 30s think of them though. Are they iconic and nostalgic or ugly and slow?
Curledge said:
Decent and rare ICE car prices will only go up as they become highly collectable with enthusiasts.
EVs are just a white good
The last ICE Supercar prices will go above list price
You are looking at it purely from your own point of view.EVs are just a white good
The last ICE Supercar prices will go above list price
There has been 100 years or more of car culture, I have lived through 51 of them and have an affinity for numerous makes and models, which have all be ICE.
People being born now wont have a 1969 Capri as their first car like I did, so probably wont find themselves checking eBay for them, they wont have spent hours sat in the back as a kid when their dad owned it, listening to the eight track playing Tubular Bells, it will be just another old car.
They will have some EV as their first car, and just as we get nostalgic about our first car, they will as well. Its not all about the way its powered and the noise it makes, its about what you did, where you went, and who with. I am not really that nostalgic about an 89 bhp 1.6 Kent OHV engine with piston slap and its tappety symphony.
Most cars are "White goods", that Capri was a slightly more stylish take on the Cortina, a three box saloon, and most of the "character" is them being a bit crap.
Enjoy the nostalgia but dont for one minute think your preferences and emotions have any bearing on the direction, keeping and ICE car will, in the next twenty years be conscientious objectors, hobbyists and that old bloke you see still driving an immaculate 1994 Primera 1.8 in a seaside town.
Most ICE stuff will get ditched like yesterdays newspaper once EV's get good enough and cheap enough, like you dont see CRT tellies any more since you could pick up a far superior LCD for £199 from Sainsburys.
Classics and Supercars will go up, but as those who have an affinity die off, supply will overtakes demand and it will get harder to own one, and nobody who learnt in a gearless EV is going to have the motivation to go and learn to drive an ICE, some may but not many.
There will be folk in the future running classic EV's, maybe with updated battery tech.
Its early days for EV's and the manufacturers are trying to service demand and profitability so we have a grey goo of SUV/crossover type stuff, as that gets saturated and more competitive, they will start going more into niches, maybe even introducing some character back, like when CD players came out and were said to be too "clinical" so more warmth and emotion was added back in.
Does anyone else think the prices can continue to rise at the rate they are doing, other than the true iconics which will always carry value?. I just think the way that nostalgia is being attached to everything from a most basic 1.1 Citroën AX and other for want of a better word tat can't carry on forever, and people will realise that nostalgia isn't as good as they thought it was. Then something of a price crash
‘Potential’ is the operative word.
There’s a lot of potential for your costs to far outweigh any appreciation in the value of the vehicle. So you just might be able to say ‘I sold it for a profit’ and then stay quiet about to several £k you spent keeping it up.
And then there’s the potential for tastes to change amongst the people with money to spend on old cars.
It’s very easy to assume that old Escorts (just as an example) will be seen as marvellous things forever.
Whereas future spenders may have a very different opinion.
The best way is to first buy what you really want to spend time in and money on. Not because it’s popular and currently appreciating or has appreciated.
Use it, enjoy it, keep it nice and you might, just might, break even when all things are considered.
There’s a lot of potential for your costs to far outweigh any appreciation in the value of the vehicle. So you just might be able to say ‘I sold it for a profit’ and then stay quiet about to several £k you spent keeping it up.
And then there’s the potential for tastes to change amongst the people with money to spend on old cars.
It’s very easy to assume that old Escorts (just as an example) will be seen as marvellous things forever.
Whereas future spenders may have a very different opinion.
The best way is to first buy what you really want to spend time in and money on. Not because it’s popular and currently appreciating or has appreciated.
Use it, enjoy it, keep it nice and you might, just might, break even when all things are considered.
Retro.74 said:
Does anyone else think the prices can continue to rise at the rate they are doing, other than the true iconics which will always carry value?. I just think the way that nostalgia is being attached to everything from a most basic 1.1 Citroën AX and other for want of a better word tat can't carry on forever, and people will realise that nostalgia isn't as good as they thought it was. Then something of a price crash
Its mainly opportunistic in a lot of cases, there was a lot of lockdown cash floating about but thats largely been spent.No holidays to go on, no eating out, no travel costs etc so people were paying 5 grand for a puppy, buying all manner of hobby stuff they could lay their hands on at inflated prices and cars come into that.
Of course dealers talk it up, 25 grand for an old BMW E34 that isnt an M car, 9 grand for a little pug 205. Either some mugs about who buy into it or stuff aint selling for that, not also rans like those two examples, which, nice as they are arent the halo models and if you put that much into either you will be lucky, when you advertise it to get between a third and a half of what you paid back for it.
Couple of months back we bought a very tidy 350Z convertible, 2006 with 79k up, for 5 grand, there were loads at 7/8/9 and 10k for the same thing, but they werent selling as they were too expensive, just looked now and some are still for sale and are now two months older and petrol prices have gone up massively.
Aside from Integrales, E30 M3, E Types and various old 911s etc that sell to folk who are perhaps less bothered about the price, a lot of the rest is just massively overpriced for what it is, dont let them press the nostalgia button, get nostalgic about that money and where you shove it as if you plonk it in an also ran like a 205 XS or some Alpina, you arent getting it back, put it in the real deal or something truly iconic then it may make money. Basically in a lot of cases like this you buy a car and pay the dealers mortgage for a few months. The AX was alright but only a GT/GTi is worth anything more than a grand or two, the rest are really, a few hundred quids worth, maybe a couple of grand if like new and low miles, and you really have to have one.
If you want an XS or similar, find one that isnt with a dealer of that kind of thing, put the legwork in like they do and pay pay 2/3 grand.
There are shortages of new stuff due to semiconductors, Russian knob heads, Covid etc but there is no shortage of old cars, there is always a churn as the owners get bored, can no longer drive, pop off or they turn up in a barn.
Certain cars will always increase in value. In 2012 I bought a 1994 Range Rover Classic Vogue SE soft dash for £3500. I used it a a daily driver for 4 years, it never gave me a moment's trouble and i sold it in 2016 for £3100.
Similar vintage Classics in worse condition than mine currently seem to be going for around £10-14000.
And then there's the Jensen Interceptor that was used in a Popular Classics magazine feature back in the early 2000s. They mentioned at the end of the article that it was on sale at a garage not far from me and I wish I'd bought it. Not concours but in good, usable condition; price - £6995!
Similar vintage Classics in worse condition than mine currently seem to be going for around £10-14000.
And then there's the Jensen Interceptor that was used in a Popular Classics magazine feature back in the early 2000s. They mentioned at the end of the article that it was on sale at a garage not far from me and I wish I'd bought it. Not concours but in good, usable condition; price - £6995!
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