[Shotimes] High Mileage Vs. "Remanufactured" Car Values.....was: 94 Moonlight Blue MTX FS

[van Oss]

My 92 SHO has 68K, many mods, and has been stored winters.  There are two
ways to view its value:

-- What I could get if I were to sell it (ubiquitous Taurus, manual shift,
yet the repair issues of an exotic)

-- What it would cost me to replace its level of features (leather, ETAC,
etc.) and capability (catches Porsches at BIR)

Those numbers are far apart.

Bear this in mind:  George has known the Lowrider since it was a puppy.  In
cars as in life, "the devil you know is worth more than the devil you
don't."  Sure, George could walk out tomorrow and buy a lot of nice used
performance cars for what he will spend to fix the Lowrider.  But then he
would be driving a stranger, with many questions about what's been done,
what hasn't, and what will break.  Worse yet, George knows SHOs.  If he were
to acquire a Lowrider replacement other than a SHO, he'd be kissing away the
value of what's he's learned about SHOs, and that's a lot of tuition.  Same
for me.  With both my SHOs, I know what's secure and what needs attention.
I would gladly get in either SHO and take off on a long road trip.  That
kind of trust is worth something.  Many people would think they were able to
place such trust in a brand-new car.  Old guys like George and I know that a
new car is an unknown quantity to be approached warily.  We trust what we
know, and that's how we attach value to it.

Don't mean to put anybody off, just expressing how I see things.

Joseph van Oss


----- Original Message -----
Many early cars much past the age of 15 years that are constantly on the
road that
belong to anyone on this list will be in this category....rebuilt, or
remanufactured
(more or less from the ground up), depending on your definition of those
words.....well....any cars that are daily drivers, and have a budget for
them that
would allow such work.  Others that might not be daily drivers would be more
likely
to keep their lower mileage, and if and when these cars start to appreciate,
they
would be the first to benefit from that increase in value.

Any currently published generic value for rebuilt, or renewed, or whatever
you want
to call them will be useless, it seems to me.  I don't ever plan on selling
this
car, but the Lowrider's recent experience begs the answer to this question
for
insurance purposes.  USAA says that if I can produce evidence (receipts and
pictures) of the work done to the black car, they will insure it for what I
have
spent on it.....now we need to determine how long it will hold that value.
Will it
depreciate as I drive it.....I think not, at least not very much (until it
gets
another 100K, of course).  That's where the discussion will occur.

I'm still working on the agreed value/stated value type of insurance....I'll
have
more data on that later.

George
_______________________________________________
Shotimes mailing list
Shotimes@autox.team.net
http://www.team.net/mailman/listinfo/shotimes