Chris Harris's Column -- Burst Bubble;Massive Dump;Bargains

[lambo666]

Just for some real world info....I have just collected my aventador s .... in the last 3 days the same dealer has sold the following
the blue aventador sv, 458 spyder, merc gtr and a huracan ... seems I am not the only one waiting any longer ....

[Raygun]

cgt2 said:

I've seen this cycle three times over the past 25 years, was chatting to a very well known South East supercar dealer established since the 80s about this thread (not Talacrest but one of John's contemporaries). He shocked me a bit when he said he absolutely would not put any substantial money into stock at the moment with the present market. He's sitting on a couple of cars but by his standards nothing too lumpy and he is expecting to lose money on those.

Shock because I've known him in the past to buy things like F40's and 959's on a whim and happily take his chances on quite expensive machinery.

Boom and bust has happened before and will happen again (anyone remember the Ferrari market in 1989?).

No doubt the market is not as buoyant as it was 3 or 4 years ago but my memories of 1989 was the market went pop overnight and we entered a recession. Until we enter a recession again I can't see rich car enthusiasts totally abandoning buying luxury cars.
I think we'd have to drop a long way to get to prices where they were 10 years ago for a lot of the classic cars right across the spectrum.

[430SD_LP640]

lambo666 said:

Just for some real world info....I have just collected my aventador s .... in the last 3 days the same dealer has sold the following
the blue aventador sv, 458 spyder, merc gtr and a huracan ... seems I am not the only one waiting any longer ....

interesting you say this. I wanted to p/x my performante coupe for a performante spyder - I thought I could have had a better price buying in winter! 2 weeks ago, I contacted a franchise dealer asking for a P/X quote (the car was brilliant with almost every option ticked, 3-digit milage, more importantly comfort seat!) and then went abroad for work. the dealer did not even follow up with me in the past 2 weeks. I called them this morning and was told the car was sold "at slightly higher than the advertised price as there were multiple buyers". I was very surprised to hear this. Then I saw your post...

[smartypants]

There will be no crash. The cars that are still buoyant are 80/90s which the people who want them are still yet to really hit wealthy status... Currently 40 year olds. I think that market won't die for a while. Historic racing keeps the likes of the 60s stuff up in value.

Anything after 2000 though.... I think that's going to take a haircut.

[BoxerF50]

Drl22 said:

BoxerF50 said:

I do and 1989 was ugly. I just finished up an article on exactly this. Things are about to get really interesting in the next couple of years.

An interesting article and it would be very interesting to hear your views on how us mere mortals in the super car market might be effected rather than the rarified world of Hypercars. I suspect the impact won’t be as great.

On a percentage basis, I think the impact will be fairly consistent across the board for the established brands and really ugly for a number of the upstarts/reincarnations. Where I think there could be some interesting buys will be in the used market on some of the smaller brands 2-3 years from now.

[Ferruccio]

I bought a Lamborghini Jalpa in 1987 for £20k, Tom Hartley offered me £60k for in 1989.
From early 90s to after 2010 it was worth £20k again.

[smartypants]

Clarkson to blame for that

[thecook101]

I suspect people are getting a little carried away here. Yes, Harris feels speculators who financed cars over list are in trouble, yes McLaren seem to have overestimated demand and are suffering a saturated used market. Nothing unusual for any luxury goods market. What else is suddenly about to crash and why? Just looked at F430 and 612 advertised price trends and hardly indicative of imminent abnormal moves. I suspect it's the same for most established brands. Methinks people hoping for a general crash in prices will be disappointed, and those hoping to pick up a bargain will still need deep pockets. It's the vultures at the top of the tree that get sight of the carcasses first - always been that way.





EDIT: Data from https://themarket.co.uk/market-trends

Edited by thecook101 on Sunday 3rd November 11:07

[fridaypassion]

Sierra cossie went for 80k at BCA today. The last auction Bonhams had want a bad outing either just greedy reserves on a few lots.

The other thing I've noticed is there are fewer 570s on the market than for a while. A 991.2 gt3 also sold for just 100k at auction recently. I'm finding in my businesd footfall is still down but remain totally confident that there will be a mini recovery post Brexit but the heyday of the appreciating supercar is firmly over. I might be biased but I think there's more legs in bagging a nice limited run Lotus or an old s2000 if you want genuine appreciation. I don't think there's much around that you'll appreciate ahead of running costs. Old porkers are still doing well too.

[Lambo FirstBlood]

fridaypassion said:

Sierra cossie went for 80k at BCA today.

RS500 presumably? The standard cars are around half that.

I’m actually thinking about getting in to a Cosworth soon.

[fridaypassion]

No it wasn't!

[aaron_2000]

Lambo FirstBlood said:

fridaypassion said:

Sierra cossie went for 80k at BCA today.

RS500 presumably? The standard cars are around half that.

I’m actually thinking about getting in to a Cosworth soon.

I'm gonna set aside around £15k to get a Saph next year. I wanted to this year but saved for the US instead.

[Cheib]

Raygun said:

cgt2 said:

I've seen this cycle three times over the past 25 years, was chatting to a very well known South East supercar dealer established since the 80s about this thread (not Talacrest but one of John's contemporaries). He shocked me a bit when he said he absolutely would not put any substantial money into stock at the moment with the present market. He's sitting on a couple of cars but by his standards nothing too lumpy and he is expecting to lose money on those.

Shock because I've known him in the past to buy things like F40's and 959's on a whim and happily take his chances on quite expensive machinery.

Boom and bust has happened before and will happen again (anyone remember the Ferrari market in 1989?).

No doubt the market is not as buoyant as it was 3 or 4 years ago but my memories of 1989 was the market went pop overnight and we entered a recession. Until we enter a recession again I can't see rich car enthusiasts totally abandoning buying luxury cars.
I think we'd have to drop a long way to get to prices where they were 10 years ago for a lot of the classic cars right across the spectrum.

I think the difference is now compared to even five years ago and certainly 10 years ago if the amount of cars that manufacturers are producing and that isn’t going to stop....cars will be subsidised or discounted to keep volumes up rather than production volumes reduced. Across all the major brands whether that’s Ferrari, Aston, McLaren, Porsche, Lamborghini etc they are all producing a lot more cars and those cars have to find a home. Then when you look at the slated Hypercar arrivals over the next three years there are an awful lot of cars £1mil plus cars looking for a home.

The question is how much of the demand for cars these manufacturers made over the last five years has been genuine from people that want to buy and drive these cars against people who want to collect them or own them purely as a way of making money. The enthusiast are the people that will still buy cars....the people who want to make money will disappear and some collectors will hold back in hope of buying cheaper cars.

The market really started turning in the winter of 2017....I know one of the main Porsche specialist dealers didn’t buy a car for six months from September 2017 and their sales were 20% of what they would normally have been. Market has been coming off since but right now I think there is very, very little appetite from the trade to buy anything....question is how desperate sellers become. If we start to see people getting desperate to get out the market can re-price lower very quickly.

People keep talking about Brexit...whilst that is contributing the market is slowing globally. Just look at some of the recent auctions in the US, there have been mixed results. I don’t think a Brexit deal getting voted through means the car market recovers.

[Raygun]

Cheib said:

Raygun said:

cgt2 said:

I've seen this cycle three times over the past 25 years, was chatting to a very well known South East supercar dealer established since the 80s about this thread (not Talacrest but one of John's contemporaries). He shocked me a bit when he said he absolutely would not put any substantial money into stock at the moment with the present market. He's sitting on a couple of cars but by his standards nothing too lumpy and he is expecting to lose money on those.

Shock because I've known him in the past to buy things like F40's and 959's on a whim and happily take his chances on quite expensive machinery.

Boom and bust has happened before and will happen again (anyone remember the Ferrari market in 1989?).

No doubt the market is not as buoyant as it was 3 or 4 years ago but my memories of 1989 was the market went pop overnight and we entered a recession. Until we enter a recession again I can't see rich car enthusiasts totally abandoning buying luxury cars.
I think we'd have to drop a long way to get to prices where they were 10 years ago for a lot of the classic cars right across the spectrum.

I think the difference is now compared to even five years ago and certainly 10 years ago if the amount of cars that manufacturers are producing and that isn’t going to stop....cars will be subsidised or discounted to keep volumes up rather than production volumes reduced. Across all the major brands whether that’s Ferrari, Aston, McLaren, Porsche, Lamborghini etc they are all producing a lot more cars and those cars have to find a home. Then when you look at the slated Hypercar arrivals over the next three years there are an awful lot of cars £1mil plus cars looking for a home.

The question is how much of the demand for cars these manufacturers made over the last five years has been genuine from people that want to buy and drive these cars against people who want to collect them or own them purely as a way of making money. The enthusiast are the people that will still buy cars....the people who want to make money will disappear and some collectors will hold back in hope of buying cheaper cars.

The market really started turning in the winter of 2017....I know one of the main Porsche specialist dealers didn’t buy a car for six months from September 2017 and their sales were 20% of what they would normally have been. Market has been coming off since but right now I think there is very, very little appetite from the trade to buy anything....question is how desperate sellers become. If we start to see people getting desperate to get out the market can re-price lower very quickly.

People keep talking about Brexit...whilst that is contributing the market is slowing globally. Just look at some of the recent auctions in the US, there have been mixed results. I don’t think a Brexit deal getting voted through means the car market recovers.

I'm not saying we are at 2016 levels anymore but it's hardly dropped through the floor, only Saturday at Anglia Car Auctions a Sierra Cosworth made £80k(with 83K miles on the clock,that should be worthless in this sub-forum lol). Imho I think the market has held up well if you consider how out of control it got. I don't think there will be bargains in the foreseeable future but the days of dealers taking the wee might be over.

[bbob]

The £80k Cosworth at Anglia Car Auctions was a 3 door, 7,300 miles and one registered owner from new so was pretty unique.

[Raygun]

bbob said:

The £80k Cosworth at Anglia Car Auctions was a 3 door, 7,300 miles .

You're right, my mistake.

[cgt2]

Did not hit reserve but I'm sure I've seen this car advertised for something like £200k...

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2...

[Ferruccio]

Some people don’t half put some utter tosh in car ads.

[MDL111]

cgt2 said:

Did not hit reserve but I'm sure I've seen this car advertised for something like £200k...

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2...

That’ll never sell for decent money in the UK - the cognoscenti will be up in arms about the hole in the history. Will have much better luck in Germany imo.

Having said that CS (asking) prices seem to have dropped a lot over the last year - so much so that I have started research into a manual conversion again. Just waiting for a cheap car now

[cgt2]

MDL111 said:

That’ll never sell for decent money in the UK - the cognoscenti will be up in arms about the hole in the history. Will have much better luck in Germany imo.

Having said that CS (asking) prices seem to have dropped a lot over the last year - so much so that I have started research into a manual conversion again. Just waiting for a cheap car now

There were plenty of 430 Scuds around in Germany for £90-£100k in 2015. I saw a lovely one at Garage Francorchamps that one of my friends bought for well under £100k converted to GBP.

I love the CS but for me the Scud is a better car and I wouldn't pay more for a CS just based on rarity alone.