I’ve been eyeballs-deep in collector car values, and I recently reviewed many trends on the podcast episodes (in blue). Just click the title to listen to the complete episode. For the Collector Car Fantasy Football Championship episode, I had industry experts track 44 cars to see how they performed over the last year. Like Fantasy Football, we each picked 11 cars (players) in 11 different categories (positions) and we had a $1M budget (salary cap). After one year, Car Specialist Ramsey Pott’s collection increased in value by 5.3%. Hagerty’s VP of Media, Julie Gu-Scallen’s collection increased 10.31% and SVP of Business Development for RM Sotheby’s, Brad Phillips’ collection grew by 16.41%. Julie won Round #1, Brad won Round #2 and I won “The Championship” with my collection growing 23.5%/$232,300 over 12 months. If only we were playing with real money. We are planning to launch it again soon and we would love for you to join us. Stay tuned for more information.
The biggest valuation surprises during the Fantasy Football rounds included a 1986 Mazda RX-7 Turbo (+45.7%), a 1992 Dodge Viper (+43.5%), a 1976 Datsun 280Z (+44.9%) and a 1977 Saab 99 Turbo (+22.9%). A 1958 Cadillac Biarritz had a nice showing of +19.3% but was down 10.0% latest four months so they looked to have plateaued.
For “Greg Stanley’s Bull Market List”, we had a few outstanding cars who’s values really jumped in the last four months. From a 1985 Mercedes 300TD Wagon (+14.9%) to a 1988 Fiero (+15.1%) to the 2006 Ford GT Heritage Edition (+23.8%) to the biggest surprise of them all with the 1966 Honda S600 Convertible at +35.0%! Big things are happening with the Heritage Edition Ford GT. Low mileage examples have recently sold in the $500k-$550k range but during Scottsdale Car Week that range jumped up to $750k-$850k. Will this trend continue? The “base” Ford GTs are bound to jump in value as well.
What cars have hit the brakes recently? The 1979 Ford Bronco went from increasing by 27.9% the last two years to just 1.0% the latest four months. I’ve seen the same trend with the Ferrari Dino (27.9% down to 3.6%). I believe both of these are momentary lags and they will continue to appreciate soon. Why? The Dino is one of the best and beautiful “Ferraris” every built and has a strong following. I use quotes because they are Dinos built by Ferrari. While they do not have any Ferrari badging on them anywhere, they are true Ferraris through and through. While the later Broncos will continue to increase as more aftermarket parts become available and the generational shift continues. This included the later models such as the 1989 Ford Bronco Eddie Bauer Edition which rocketed up 31.9% (4-mths) and 59.4% (2-years). If you run across a mint, low-mileage Bronco from the ‘70s, ‘80s or ‘90s…buy it!
Speaking of generational shifts, have you noticed a trend within these results? While there are cars increasing in value from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, the rapid growth is in cars from the 1980s and newer. Everyone who wanted a 1957 Chevy Bel Air or Ford Thunderbird is probably selling them right now.
The most challenging category we had to pick a car from for Collector Car Fantasy Football was the “Pre-1946” era. Since we had a $1M budget for all 11 cars, we could not pick a Duesenberg, V16 Cadillac or the like. I told everyone that if you picked a car that was flat in value over the next 12 months, you picked a winner. And boy was that an accurate statement. Three of the four cars picked were flat for that timeframe: 1942 Lincoln Zephyr Convertible, 1935 Auburn SC Phaeton and a 1934 Model A which was basically flat but down $400. Brad Phillips picked the only “winner” for this era which was a 1945 Willys-Jeep CJ-2A which was up 5.8%. More market updates will come soon…stay tuned! Greg