I haven't been paying much attention lately... has the current economy been affecting values of classic cars?

 

negatory. the value of classics has been in a general downward slope for the past three years.

classic collector valu guide said last month that the average price for a 1967 shelby gt 500 KR was 160, 000 the lowest in three years.

but take everything i saw with a grain of salt. the prices have gone down 3% market wide since 2005-2006. not a whole lot of difference.

but what i think this symbolizes is a point where the market is begining to become saturated in musclecar fever. the people who wanted these cars are getting them. think about how many mustangs were restored in the past five years do to this muscle car craze.

supply has gone up, and the artificial demand has increased to the point of market saturation.

i personally think that prices will stablize over the next couple of years. increasing only as much as inflation will allow.

 

Back in 85 I bought a V8 Ford becasue I figured they were dinosaurs and wanted to
have owned one before they were totally extinct. Around that time fuel got expensive
and valuescopped a bitof a hit. But if I still had that car today it is now worth about 10 times
what I paid for it then. The long and the short of it is, IMHO, that they may drop a bit
in value from time to time but that in the long run they will always increase in value.
There is limited supply and even with wrecks being brought back from the dead, the
restoration costs are high and there is limited supply.

Jav

 

The KR's are all 68's. I have not been paying too much attention to prices lately (except oil). For me, I haven't sold a car andmess with the cars as a hobby. Thinking about it from amonetary standpoint, it could go either way, double or triple,or fall off to nothing. The norm is when interest rates are low, thecollector car prices areup. That was before the recessive days we are seeing now. I know that I have slowed down onwhat I can spend on the restoration of a car, and am trying to bank away a little more.Course if the dollar keeps falling, it would payto convert to Euros. Its past time we gave Washington an enema, and add some congrossional sluge to the already polluted Potomic. I just wonder if these turds would float? If liars sink, they are all in trouble.

 

I dont plan on selling any time soon, so prices dont bother me too much. I think even if the value dips right now, it will continue to go up. Think, in another 20 years, how many more of these cars will be totalled on the road, or forgotten about and returning to the earth in a field somewhere..

 

If the values haven't declined significantly recently, don't bet that the bottom might drop out of the classic car market. Why? The massive housing bust is affecting the wealth of Americans. Lots and lots of people used or were counting on their inflated housing values or equity to finance the spending binge that we've recently seen across the economy.

Trillions of dollars have vanished overnight and that has to have an affect on the car market.

The credit problem is only going to get worse and this is only the tip of the iceberg. Add to this the fact that gasoline is going to stay at record high prices for the forseeable future and I have a feeling that this will have a significant negative affect on the classic car market.

The boating market is already suffering. Old cars are toys and not essential and the wild prices seen on Barrett-Jackson have more in common with bubble real estate prices than fundamental values.

 

There's a difference between classic cars and muscle cars. Not all classics are muscle cars. The market for restomods is probably different from the market for originals. Still, it comes down to the fact that it only matters if you are going to buy or sell...just like the value of your house. Around here, we don't really have a credit crunch. Housing prices and saleshave remainedsteady to up. Employers have "now hiring" signs out in front. The price of gas and food certainly does affect us but it can be coped with. The credit/housing problems have probably hit their peak in the country. The rest of 2008 is probably already written and won't get any better. Look for improvement in 2009 and 2010. Oil will come down and along with it, a lot of other prices. Lower housing prices mean more qualified buyers can now afford homes in previously unaffordable areas and we are starting to see some buying in those markets. The housing bubble broke, the oil bubble will break. Us old farts have seen it before. Looks like it will never get better, but it always does.

 

I don't know about alot of you, but mine is priceless to me.Even if it may not be worth anything to somebody else! Building it is cheaper than prozac & therepy!

 

I too am seeing this. In fact, I am thinking about buying a boat from one of the poor suckers who is facing foreclosure because they didn't have the foresight to see the flaws of borrowing beyond their means.

Really though, now is a good time for buying any "luxury" items, including fine art and of course... real estate. But real estate is going to continue to slide around here for a bit longer so I wont be shopping that market for another 6 months or so.

I have noticed a few more classic autos on the market around here lately but I have not seen prices falling much. I am sure there are more deals to be had now than there was two years ago when every home owner here in California felt like a millionaire. But the guys who own classics for the most part love their cars. They dont sell em unless they have to.
Isn't that right?

The real steals out there right now are the luxury gas guzzlers... high end benzes and caddys. In fact, I am considering buying my wife an '03 S55 AMG with 38k for less than $30k... Not bad for a car that cost over $110k four years ago!

 

What you say here is why I was wondering. Much of the "extra" money that so many people have been using for non-essential items has dried up, and even people that still have "extra" money I would imagine are likely to be more cautious aboutspending it on just anything.