QOTD: Place Your Bets?
It’s the dream of us all, isn’t it? Knowing tomorrow’s lottery numbers. Correctly predicting the long-shot Super Bowl winner before putting down a big bet in Vegas. I don’t know about you, but as a gearhead I harbor similar fantasies about the Next Big Thing in collector cars.
The collector car market has waned somewhat from the breathless heights of 10 years ago. Sure, there are still pockets of crazy money — witness Hemi ‘Cudas that can still trade for outrageous sums, not to mention air-cooled Porsches and Pebble Beach with their Holy Grail Ferraris hammering away for many tens of millions of dollars.
The market is certainly seeing a massive rise in sales prices of Fox-body Mustangs. At Barrett-Jackson in Scottsdale this year, a relatively plain-jane 1989 Mustang LX Hatchback with 638 actual miles sold for a whopping $71,500. It’s original selling price 28 years ago was about $25,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars. A 1990 Mustang LX Convertible, originally created for an ill-fated 7-Up promotion, hammered away to its new owner for a jaw-dropping $82,500. While it’s true this particular example still had plastic on the seats and included rare promotional 7-Up material, a near six-figure price for a Fox-body Mustang is nothing short of flabbergasting.
Absent of specific examples, I also think the Integra Type-R and A80 Supra (twin-turbo, natch) will rise sharply in value over the next few years. Why? Well, some folks who lusted after these cars as teenagers are now of the age and financial position to spend some of their discretionary income. Let’s not discount the Playstation/Xbox phenomenon, which gave rise to a generation of gamers who longed achingly for a Nissan Skyline, despite only having seen one in pixelated form.
This gearhead heartily endorses the idea of sinking one’s retirement fund into a collector car. After all, if one buys the right vehicle, it’s entirely possible to sell it for a similar rate of return 10 years down the road. At that time, one will not only enjoy the extra money, but they’ll also have had a collector car in which to cruise for a decade. Plus, it’s awfully difficult to do a smoky burnout with a bank statement. Decisions such as these are why my accountant mercilessly yells at me on a regular basis, so I implore readers not to take any of the financial advice being dispensed here.
It’s tough to predict the future — ask any meteorologist — but we’re smarter than the average bear here at TTAC, right? What do you think will be the next car to skyrocket in value on the collector’s market?
[Image: © 2017 Matthew Guy]
Matthew buys, sells, fixes, & races cars. As a human index of auto & auction knowledge, he is fond of making money and offering loud opinions.
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H2 Hummers. Seeing fewer on the streets these days; I suspect they're going overseas. If the vehicle was a popular toy, somebody is going to want a full-size when they grow up.
We tend to overlook what is going to be valuable because we look at some cars and think, "Who wants that old crap?" The trick is to find stuff that's "old crap" now, but will be desirable in the future. 1st and 2nd gen RX-7s have been rock-bottom priced for a long time. I see them going up, but I've been imagining that for a long time. Anybody need to buy some 12A parts? Chrysler 300s/Dodge Magnums with V8 power. Right now they look outdated and they have a bad reputation for quality, but remember how we felt about Mopar muscle in the early '80s? Nobody wanted a Duster back then. Lotus Elise/Exige. They've never been what I consider cheap, but on track they hold their own against most anything being produced now, and a decent Elise can be had for under $25k. Parts-wise I think small-block Chevy motors are where flathead Ford motors were in the '60s. Everybody's throwing them away and in a decade or so the resto crowd will be paying decent money for them.