Collector Car Market – The Beginning of The End?

[jonno1]

Well I am off to buy as many Lincoln Continental Convertibles as I can cos Quentin Wilson says I should. This time next year I'll be a millionaire.

[964RS]

Well I am off to buy as many Lincoln Continental Convertibles as I can cos Quentin Wilson says I should. This time next year I'll own a lot of shite.

[sanjay]

Market, Sharmarket whatever JR can you twist arms and heads if necessary so I can get this, it was a perfect fit! and I wouldn't have to share it with Andsum and his shiny suit!!

[kitesurfer2]

Lovely looking car, perfect for the occasional track-day to experience what you have collected.

[left4dead]

Now that is nice.
Whose sig on the noseband?

[john ruston]

It's the winning car from Monaco so it's the drivers signature.

[roger_hudson]

I've seen markets of all sorts inflate and crash many times , the 'great classic car crash' of the '90s had a car bubbling up to 100k, crashing to 30k and now if you look it was back to 100k a year ago and now people want $150k, the peaks and troughs are superimposed on a general trend of inflation( devaluation of money), the ultimate forces at work are supply and demand. The supply of classic Porsches is finite (dwindling slightly more due to crashes than rust) but demand remains, will always remain strong.
The biggest problem seems to be the cost of new replacement parts, for example the fuel pump for MFI engines (not the MFI plunger itself) which are going to cost about £700 . This, fairly fixed, cost has to be weighed against the fluctuating value of the whole car. The actual MFI pumps are in rocking-horse-poo territory. The trick in a fluctuating market is to live a long time.
Roger

[Sam]

Ah. It's different this time. I fell for that one with house prices.

I was 10 for the 1989 crash so it passed me by. When people started talking about house prices crashing in 2004 I initially listened with interest and bought with caution, but it didn't happen that year or the next or the next so I convinced myself it was different this time: low interest rates, not enough supply, basically the same arguments here.

When it crashed in 2007/8 it cost me nearly everything I had at the time.

It crashed purely because people lost onfidence. Nothing else mattered, not supply and demand, not affordability, not other investments yielding less, just confidence.

Those who could afford to stay put stayed put, but those who panicked or had big finance they couldn't afford (me) had no way out. Then the financers saw what was happening and pulled the money so there was no one to buy anything.

It'll happen with cars. The only question is when.

Of course, if you love your car and can afford it then it doesn't matter - just keep it - but finance backed investors and their lenders don't do that; they panic and sell.

Confidence can't be reasoned out with arguments of supply and demand and so I think the article is right: if the next RS makes £750k at auction it will fuel confidence, it's when it makes the same £600k as the last, or worse it makes less, that things crumble.

Fortunately following my silliness last decade I no longer have any money nor any appetite for risk, so my 914 is unlikely to bankrupt me.

TLDR: It's not different this time.

[Bruce M]

It is different every time. At least the exact trigger or collimation of events. The result is always the same.

With house prices, a national obsession, politicians & central bankers care because it can rip the heart out of the economy. So they yank the levers and introduce new policies to try to smooth the dip. At the moment it looks like they need to ease back a tiny bit... But it is a difficult trick.

Luxury asset prices tho, will not have any policy intervention.

I'm waiting for the daily mail stories about middle class icons buying a classic porsche with retirement funds to "see them right" then realising it needs £50k of bodywork, engine rebuild & refit (cue a few sobs about rip off "specialist") followed by the <gasp> horror that the value has stagnated and not increased by 15+% per annum.

[one-two]

I think the last couple of posters are getting close to the mark. This is an under-regulated and under-taxed activity. It didn't matter when it was about pocket money, but that's no longer the case.

[inaglasshouse]

This is an ... under-taxed activity.

Shush!
Surely we're allowed one?

[john ruston]

The Monterey Auctions saw a two level price structure.

The Standing Donkeys,Porsches and odd Aston cars are still very strong and all other stuff holding without any significant increases.

It's 356 stuff next to zoom up to catch those 1.1 million average RST's.

[oldtimer]

The Monterey Auctions saw a two level price structure.

It's 356 stuff next to zoom up to catch those 1.1 million average RST's.

What makes you say that John ? ( apart from having some to sell )

After a gap of 46 years I have bought my second 356 , one that works and is not obviously rusty.....yet.

[Midlifecrisis]

OK slightly different take on the Pebble Beach Auctions someone who bought a classic at auction and then donated it back to the charity. Worth a read if you can park the politics (and potential cynicism).

Well done that guy, and Jay Leno for restoring it free of charge in the first place.

http://www.roadandtrack.com/go/car-cult ... bble-beach

[john ruston]

Whilst the 911's are doubling and trebling in value in the last three years the 356 are virtually static apart from Speedsters.

Can't totally park the cynicism but it's a good deed and a tax write off at same time.