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Cars as investment potential

I think the clue is in knowing what cars younger people who couldn't afford at the time always aspired to own. There are also the playstation generation and the cars they liked...

Cars like the R32 Gt-R are about to skyrocket in price, so getting one of those before they all get rusted and beaten to death is a winner. Just look at what KPGC10 Skylines in Japan are worth ($100,000 - $150,000) and they don't have anywhere near the racing pedigree of the 32 Gt-R Skyline.

If you want to look at something closer to the motherland's heart consider a good rust free late model W124 500E, or an E34 M5. Those are sure winners and they're still at low prices. E30 M3 prices are already high for the long term. Also very hard to find a good one.

In Japan there are absolutely rust free german cars with low mileage & I mean completely including undersides with original rust free exhausts, etc.
The Germans are buying them as much as they can, even with a weak Euro.
 
colin.dillon said:
So we borrowed & bought a little 2 up 2 down terrace in a student area just outside the city centre at auction for 22k,
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That's an incredibly low amount, which is why the rental model works so well, but what if you had to add another £100k to the buying price?
 
I have a Clio V6 Mk1 - fairly reliable and around 8k GBP. They are usually well cared for and are a future classic. I've had mine 5 years and lost nothing money wise vs the price I paid. Only a few thousand of them made, many written off so less on the road these days, bags of fun to drive as well

Remember Renault Turbo II's are now selling for 50k though would take a while for Clio V6's to reach that price

Also just bought a E55 W210 AMG 1998 with 40k miles on the clock as my "sensible 5 seater runaround" for 3k so fingers crossed wont lose money on that either

Just dont ask me about which does the most MPG!
 
WONGJPW said:
I have a Clio V6 Mk1 - fairly reliable and around 8k GBP. They are usually well cared for and are a future classic. I've had mine 5 years and lost nothing money wise vs the price I paid. Only a few thousand of them made, many written off so less on the road these days, bags of fun to drive as well

Remember Renault Turbo II's are now selling for 50k though would take a while for Clio V6's to reach that price

Also just bought a E55 W210 AMG 1998 with 40k miles on the clock as my "sensible 5 seater runaround" for 3k so fingers crossed wont lose money on that either

Just dont ask me about which does the most MPG!
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You've done well with both cars but owning something that doesn't increase in value whilst incurring considerable running costs year on year doesn't really equate to an investment.
 
When I bought my Porsche 944 S2 Cabriolet three years ago for £7k, I told SWMBO that it was an investment and wouldn't lose any money. Apart from spending nearly £400 on new brake discs and pads, over £100 on MoTs, nearly £475 on insurance, £433.50 on road tax, over £200 on service and cosmetic items, and around £500 on petrol it hasn't cost me a thing! I've just taken a deposit on it for an agreed sale price of £6,500, but will first have to buy and fit a new wishbone at around £200 to get it through the MoT. I'm now recovering in hospital from SWMBO's beating. The 22 year old Porsche was great fun to drive on both the sunny days we had in the last 3 years, but an investment it wasn't!! :doh:
 
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The_Bhoy said:
I wouldn't recommend gold or silver as an investment - the price had been bid up in the last few years because it's viewed as a hedge to market uncertainty, but the long term equilibrium price should be some way below current levels.


The white line in the graph is the gold price & the yellow line is silver (covering the last 25 years).


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Nothing to do with it being a hedge I'm afraid.

It's because the market has been flooded with money since the banking crash ie QE1, QE2 etc. So it isn't that gold and silver have went up in value, it's that money has went down in value.

The only way to correct this is remove all the 'debt' money from the system, this won't happen.
 
davethemus said:
Nothing to do with it being a hedge I'm afraid.
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I think you'll find that buying an asset that you think will increase in value as other assets you own decrease fits the definition of a hedge. Additionally, if you re-read my post you'll also find that I said it was "viewed" as a hedge, not that I thought it was one myself (otherwise I would be suggesting buying it since things are just as uncertain as they have been for the last couple of years).

davethemus said:
It's because the market has been flooded with money since the banking crash ie QE1, QE2 etc. So it isn't that gold and silver have went up in value, it's that money has went down in value.
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I partially agree with your first statement (competitive devaluation has led to investors looking for alternate stores of value), however your second statement is clearly ludicrous unless you actually believe that money is now only worth 25% of what it was in 2004.

The price of gold/silver doubled even before QE started, so there are clearly other factors at work. There has been a lot of speculative investment in both metals, with the 40% collapse in the silver price since its peak last year (despite the fact that it actually has more industrial uses than gold) being farily indicative of the lack of underlying demand.

You can also see from the chart that gold & silver prices have historically performed fairly similiarly, yet there is now a significant divergence between the two, suggesting that one or the other is mispriced. The fact that the price of gold miners has lagged the increases in gold itself suggests to me that it is more likely that gold will come down rather than silver moving back up.

Anyway, this is completely off-topic - I just didn't want there to be no counter-arguement to the goldbugs.
 
The_Bhoy said:
The price of gold/silver doubled even before QE started, so there are clearly other factors at work. There has been a lot of speculative investment in both metals, with the 40% collapse in the silver price since its peak last year (despite the fact that it actually has more industrial uses than gold) being farily indicative of the lack of underlying demand,
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It was because the reserves that companies had, by law, to hold in order to trade there paper silver where reduced further and further, thus enabling them to make money from 'metal' that didn't actually exist. I suspect you already knew that though, it just doesn't support the view you have.
 
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Back to the OP...

I would (and will, given the chance) buy a manual 190e 2.5 16V, the prices of the 'good' examples are starting to strengthen.

I've been threatening to buy one as a runabout for about a year now and I think their is scope for a tidy profit in the long term.

If I had the budget, it'd have to be a Pagoda; the car in the photos that I posted cost fifty large. There's only one way that they're going in value and that's up...
 
IMHO the key message is that you must understand the market you want to invest in. I view all my investments as "risk" money i.e. if things go wrong then i might get nothing back or far far less than i have put in. Of course if this happened with a significant investment e.g. pension i would not be a happy bunny but would live with it.
Cars, you can have to spend more money on repairs than the car is worth, e.g. air-con on a W124 needs lots of hours to take out dash. If you don't value your time or you do it for fun then OK else ££££.
Property, you can get tenants from hell and the law is biased towards the tenant, e.g. if they don't pay their rent then you have to carefully follow a procedure & go to court to get back possession so can easily have no rent for months with a damaged property requiring fixing. Student lets have recently been good but the country might not need so many in the future?? Different parts of the country will have different return on investment, e.g. in London a two bed flat for £300k will return about 5-6% gross but of course you have costs decorating, plumbing, heating, washing machine...
Precious metals, some say the price is manipulated, if you take possession you might be burgled, tungsten?? ... In the states they confiscated gold many years ago.
Collectibles (aka junk:-) today's fashionable might go out of fashion tomorrow.

There's only two certainties death and taxes. Maybe a third, our money system now is geared towards constant inflation, over a lifetime what is a reasonable amount of money now will be very little in 60 years time.
 
A TVR Sagaris is a very good option if you want an appreciating car.
 
TVRs appreciate in value ??
 
Not the rest of them just the Sagaris, only about 200 ever made, best sorted, best performing one and the last car the company made.
Values do seem to have gone up and they will no doubt be collectable.
I still would personally not have another TVR though.
 
Firthy said:
I have made some great investments in Australian muscle cars (ie. 70's factory built homologation race cars) before we migrated to Scotland. You need to really learn the market and understand what the fundamentals are so you chose the right cars. Once you have narrowed the car choice down you then need to learn everything about your chosen car so you can buy the very best example you can afford. Originality is critical and colour very important too.

Having said all that l have watched the values and interest in the B7 RS4 and think that could be a future classic, a very good low mileage example is close to your budget

Cheers
firthy
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www.gtho4.com - Ford Falcon GT-HO Phase 3
 
Stratman said:
Buy2letcars.com

How long would the bargepole need to be?
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OMG.

Brought to you no doubt by the same people behind land and wine investment companies.
 
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