I also find this entire discussion interesting. It seems to me that
many marques have been undervalued for quite some time. 3 years ago
you could get a Lamborghini Miura for $30,000 or you could have bought
an Aston DB6 for $15,000. Clearly these prices were well below what
the cars are worth either as pieces of history or simply as machines
to receive driving pleasure from. As the country got wealthier in the
'80s (no recessions or inflation), it was natural that the market would
correct these prices. But somehow it all got out of hand, and everyone
was convinced that the cars would continue to appreciate at the same
rate that they had reached their "correct" prices. And, lo and behold,
it was a self fulfilling prophecy. Investors came in and brought the
price of a Ferrari Daytona convertible all the way up to $6 million dollars.
No one in their right mind would pay 6 million dollars for a car unless
they thought of it purely as an investment. And then all of the investors
started looking for the next marque to appreciate. And then people who
always wanted one of that marque started buying that marque "before the
price gets too high", and the investors see an appreciating marque, and
there is yet another marque that reaches the stratosphere.
The interesting thing is that the cars that aren't in the lime light have
actually come down quite a bit. Cars from the '30s and '40s are one example,
Rolls Royces are another. I've noticed that asking prices on Rolls have
come down significantly over the last few years. What does this mean? It
probably means that the investor types have moved from one car to another
as their hedge against inflation. My guess is that the cars we all love
so much will each shoot up in price, level off, and then go down again when
the investment community loses interest in our cars. The cars will never
be as cheap as they are now (the ones that haven't started appreciating yet,
I mean) but after they shoot up and back down they'll end up at a reasonable
place. Probably what is today a $1500 Spitfire will appreciate to $8000 or
$10,000 over the next few years, but then go down to $4000 or $5000 over the
next few years after that.
Any opinions on this? It would be interesting to see other view points
onto what will happen to the hobby.
Joe
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