Just had a quick look at a couple commodores for sale and was astounded at the price some people are willing to ask!
VN's have skyrocketed and VP's VR's and VS's are following suit very quickly. A VS acclaim is for sale currently for $8,750 :o :o I mean 2 years ago they were not worth 500 bucks!
A mate has a VK Calais in which he paid around 4k for a few years back, and now has people practically throwing 15k his way.
I'm not even going to mention anything Australian from the 60's or 70's....
Surely the market has to crash sometime in the future? It seems as though anything that is eligible for club rego automatically goes up in value.
I clearly should have bought that VH I was looking at for around the same money when I bought my 164Q.... Would have been much better off me thinks!!!
Edit: Even the jap car market from the 80's and 90's has exploded in price! Not so much for our euro cars though...
Andrew.
Yeah I sold my VL off for a grand unregistered, good car and all but I wouldn't pay what they ask now. Same as the American stuff, I've no idea why people would part with 60k for something that drives like a bus and looks like a roller coaster cart but they do, and they can keep on buying them, I like my obscure Japanese and euro machines [emoji16]
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It's probably stretching things to call many of these cars, classics. It is good to see the quality and diversity of reproduction parts so greatly improved from 30 years ago.
My current favourite project is an early '60s SWB truck. It's got a long way to go in my scheme of a resto-rod, but I'm sure it will come out idiosyncratic enough to never be worth too much (in my mind) but many would see it as a "classic"...
I Bought my VR Commodore (Toyota Lexan) brand new, put 300,000km on it and sold it simply because it was getting so hard to get spares for it at reasonable prices.
A young guy down the road drove past me in a stock VH Commodore V8 the other day, and it really struck me that it had probably been years since I last saw one on the road. Real granddad trim too - steel wheels, beige interior, stock springs - which made me chuckle. I'd have thought every last surviving V8 would have been ruined by three decades of progressive boganising by now.
I was also happy to see a teenager who lives round the corner getting around in a mid 80s Corona - lowered of course, but still, just a Corona. Ugly as (remember those awful hot cross bun wheel trims?), but cool in its own counter culture kinda way.
Coincidence, today driving to Melb and back overtook a burgundy VN commodore on club plates. At first i thought, a VN on historic plates?, but when I got closer I saw it was really clean and original, obviously looked after and cared for; it even had a sunvisor at the top of the windscreen ... Youngish bloke driving, so I thought, fair enough!
Must have nearly been it's maiden run!
I can predict non future classics.
It's a rare and powerful skill I have.
Any car I buy will NOT be a future classic.
TBH though, if it's not a car you want to own and enjoy, you may as well play the stock market.
I have similar skills , Buy a old bomb , keep it a year or so ,then sell it , Whamo , next year that model is a classic , ie example's
GTV6 grand prix
105 giulia 1968 1750
166 with busso motor ,soon will be classic
33 ti 1985 , soon to be a classic
1974 spider , learnt my lesson , keeping this one... LOL
Quote from: ugame on September 28, 2018, 10:29:08 AM
Any car I buy will NOT be a future classic.
Hang on! Your recon the Alfa GTV WON'T ever be a classic? ???
Quote from: lombardi on September 28, 2018, 11:54:54 AM
I have similar skills , Buy a old bomb , keep it a year or so ,then sell it , Whamo , next year that model is a classic , ie example's
GTV6 grand prix
105 giulia 1968 1750
166 with busso motor ,soon will be classic
33 ti 1985 , soon to be a classic
1974 spider , learnt my lesson , keeping this one... LOL
I have 'one' of the above ...
Should I not sell it ?
Everyone always said the 33 will never be worth anything...and I've encouraged that because I can buy a whole spares car for three hundred bucks whereas that'll get me a GTV ashtray [emoji23] And in terms of street driving it does everything I want with so much heart I couldn't get rid of it.
The 916 GTV I think is probably the oddball of the collectables, the GTAs will always hold value better because they drive better but in terms of bang for buck they are well worth it.
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164 & 166 will never be (economically appreciating) classics. Fine cars I'm sure, but not nearly enough people enjoyed them let alone even noticed them when they were new to go looking for them to relive youthful memories when they've become cashed up bogan/yuppie/nimby retirees
Just my two cents
I expect we will see peak 105 madne$$ in then next few years also.
Corollas and early A4 Quattro Audi's will take over
Quote from: ugame on September 28, 2018, 10:29:08 AM
I can predict non future classics.
It's a rare and powerful skill I have.
Any car I buy will NOT be a future classic.
Seems like we have something in common then hahaha.
Agree 100% with the 166 and 164 never becoming worth much, however, speaking to my local Alfa wrecker he says there has been an increase in demand for older 4 door Alfa's. Same thing with 75's, you can still pick up twin sparks for a few thou but the Potenziata's are getting up there in value.
In saying that though, I paid peanuts for my Q and if you want a decent one now your looking at upwards of 5k.
I reckon the old 80's to 90's Merc's is next. Always wanted a 190E but never seen a good one for sale.
Andrew.
Man, there was a guy years back with a few 190s and he had an unregistered E he was putting back together, advertised it for about 4 almost ready to go and had no interest whatsoever - would have sold in an hour in Europe somewhere but the market for obscure euros just isn't here.
Still, I could've bought a series 1 delta integrale for like 30k years and years ago, now look at them.
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Quote from: bazzbazz on September 28, 2018, 03:50:07 PM
Quote from: ugame on September 28, 2018, 10:29:08 AM
Any car I buy will NOT be a future classic.
Hang on! Your recon the Alfa GTV WON'T ever be a classic? ???
Oh it will NOW Bazz
I sold it remember.
When the day my son offers it back to me, he'll be asking me $5k - $10k already lol.
The V6s are already climbing I believe.
In all seriousness, if it was about money, I should have purchased a good v6 GTV, enjoy it for 5 to 10 years, in which time I believe they'd have gained some traction, and THEN got a Porsche.
But tomorrow isn't a guarantee so I have zero real regrets jumping to the Porsche now.
I just hope I didn't jump in too early on the curve. I probably did. But again, tomorrow isn't a guarantee. Live for today. ;)
My 2c
The only way to "win" in the car investment game, and plenty of experts on the subject have said this.....
Buy the car YOU like. That way, win or loose, you win.
I have to wonder about the role of social media in this, but are we becoming more inclined to hindsight?
I think nostalgia has always been a strong selling point everywhere, perhaps in a rapidly changing world people extend more affection to the world they remember fondly. Social media has been a bit like the advent of cable news channels - it's just an overload of information. The same stuff still happens, just we see so much more of it that it seems amplified. IE, Ford cop a huge fine for a poor product and it's a huge deal and everyone oohs and ahhs, but it's nothing new really - I can just imagine a lancia owner coming to the future now "Oh your transmission failed? That's cute [emoji28]"
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Quote from: Pseudonym on September 30, 2018, 04:29:18 PM
I think nostalgia has always been a strong selling point everywhere
Hence my quest for an HK/HG/HT Holden Premier. How expensive could they be?? Well, they are VERY expensive for what was a fairly ubiquitous vehicle back in the day. As for a Torana GTR... Even an ex-PMG Kombi van is a pricey collectable these days; wish I'd picked up one of them.
When I sold my HJ Monaro GTS I knew it would gain collectability stature one day.
But a VR Commodore???
Nostalgia -
Was at a friends workshop/wreckers one day having a chat with the owner, when down the drive came a flatbed with a near fully restored Austin A50. It was brought in for some final work.
The flatbed driver had his son with him, and as we were ogling the pristine & flawless restoration the son quipped "why on earth would anyone go through all the trouble of restoring this thing?"
The workshop owner replied - "Well you have to understand, the owner of this car in getting on in years, and probably wants to re-live some of his youthful wonders, and this was the car that he lost his virginity in the back seat of. He probably wants to take it for a drive and just sit in it and re-live some of those marvelous moments.
I replied - "Makes you glad you didn't loose your virginity in the back of a Morris Marina don't it! ;)
I was once told by a workmate that the VN commodore is a great machine because there's enough room to do the deed in the boot. I've never felt the need to test the veracity of that claim but if anyone would know it'd be that guy [emoji23]
On a related note I'm sitting in the Mark 2 coupe at the shopping centre and a young guy from Saudi Arabia came over to have a look and ask how much I'd sell it for. He didn't know the Mark 2 but thought it looked like the 240K coupe, which I explained has skyrocketed in value of late, 20 grand will get a rusty original one. I always thought they had an affinity for the Datsuns due to them being one of the first performance cars imported there but apparently just all classic cars are big dollars there, any old cars and just the Datsuns were quite common when new.
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Nostalgia is a powerful drug come mid life.
Being a bit of a nerd, I am currently hankering to re-own crazy things like Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore Amiga 500, and an old Pentium 2 PC.
Hell, maybe even brake out my old Hornby trains.
And that is why I think perhaps some of these "classics" are short lived. Temporary classics.
The people buying them NOW, are the people who either lusted after them as a kid, or owned them in young adult hood.
When those people are gone, who will want them next?
That's my thoughts anyway.
But I do like to use the "poster car" theory to try and predict future classics.
Perhaps then, the shifting inclination is more towards physical possession of a nostalgic object? Where once we may have been content with tangential experience of an item or memory of past possession, we now want to "own" it in the present.
There are many historic - and even some contemporary- cars I admire, but I'm honestly happy to passenger in most of them whilst an enthusiastic and informed driver operates (and yes, I expect a running narrative :D).
Hornby trains for sure! I know people who either (a.) re-live having a 'train set' (model railway) as they did in their youth, or (b.) re-live former 1:1 scale travel/holiday experiences in HO or OO.
I suspect I will never get to re-live learning to drive in Mum's Honda N600.
Hornby trains and 80s PCs?
Two places you need to visit: for the former, Stanbridges Hobby Shop opposite the subway in Mt Lawley. Has been around since Moses was a boy...
For the latter, and if you are ever in Canberra, try the Green Shed Shop in City Walk. Was there a few weeks back and among the usual bric-a-brac, they had all kinds of old electronics, lab equipment, surveying instruments, dental gear etc. I believe they had an Atari PC/keyboard. Me, I was a Commodore-64 guy....
Some of it for me is easy to come by.
Trains in both N and 00 gauge I still have access to in my parents loft in the UK. I just need to bother to dig it out from all the other crap during a visit one day.
Old PC, again, my parents still have one that I left for them to use, when I moved out to Australia for 1 year......15 years ago.
Rather than trains though, I'm tempted to set up a massive slot car track in my mancave. but OMG that can add up $$$ when you start looking into it.
Going back to Nostalgia trips though......I must confess, when I do visit the UK, sometimes by my self, I stay in my old room, at my parents house, and catch up with my old mates at our old haunts.
It's almost a nostalgia overdose and can get quite overwhelming and emotional.
Great to be able to do it though.
I reckon a panhead HD is always a safe bet if bought at the right price.