Prices of old/interesting cars - what should we pay?

[mika]

its a funny thing ..price on old/interesting cars

a car is worth what someone will pay for it- a well used phrase
many people would like to sell an interesting car for a high price - good for the wallet and perhaps a sense of satisfaction associated with the enjoyment of a positive conclusion to a motoring hobby/journey
many people are also reluctant to pay over the odds for an interesting car - no one wants to be seen as a mug on the contrary ones expertise comes into question

its possibly in most peoples interest for the market price on these particular models to be as high as possible, within reason
but there is a natural tendency for people to drag it down



if you pay decent money for a car you get yourself to the front of the queue and you give yourself a chance of a gem
if you wish to pay next to nothing then i think you are more likely to get a "project" with questionable history

just a few thoughts, what do you think ?

 

[stevieb15]

I think you're spot on.
Paid reasonable money for the SE which was in first class condition, as a result I've had the cheapest 36k miles imaginable and always arrive in style.
The SL was a snip, again the first 30 odd thousand miles were peanuts but the engine and gearbox failure was costly but in the context of overall maintenance cost less than I'd budgeted for annually.
The CE was available for less tan I thought it was worth...but after 6 months of ownership it's proved itself worth just about what I paid for it.

 

[Palfrem]

I probably paid top money for my E36 because I bought it from a good garage who don't sell junk as I wanted a "proper" car. But I now have a car that really needs nothing doing to it other then servicing and consumables. It will need new discs and pads very soon for example.

I have just had it serviced and have bought 2 new tyres.

I've done 9000 trouble free miles and enjoyed every one of them.

If I sold it for 2/3 of what I paid it's cheap motoring. Leasing a decent E class will cost £400 a month maybe? So 8 months of that is £3200 down the pan. I'm quids in!

 

[grober]

Still think the adage there's no such thing as a cheap classic is the correct one as its based on sound thermodynamic principles. viz Second law of thermodynamics: The entropy of any isolated system not in thermal equilibrium almost always increases. Isolated systems spontaneously evolve towards thermal equilibrium—the state of maximum entropy of the system—in a process known as "thermalization". or to put it another way CORROSION and DEPOLYMERISATION

 

[Scott_F]

Still think the adage there's no such thing as a cheap classic is the correct one as its based on sound thermodynamic principles. viz Second law of thermodynamics: The entropy of any isolated system not in thermal equilibrium almost always increases. Isolated systems spontaneously evolve towards thermal equilibrium—the state of maximum entropy of the system—in a process known as "thermalization". or to put it another way CORROSION and DEPOLYMERISATION

There is no such thing as a cheap car. I've been given old cars for nothing and even ignoring some basic repairs all of them required tax, a yearly MOT, insurance and servicing.

 

[Palfrem]

"Cheap" can be a very subjective term.

Value for money, worth the price that was paid and cost effective maybe a better choice

 

[jam38]

I bought my W124 convertible cheap but it needed a lot of money spent on it to bring it up to my high standards. In the end I did sell her at a loss, but that was never the point. If I did not need the money at the time then I would have kept her and I know it would have been a worthwhile exercise. I would rather pay less for a car and spend the money doing her up purely because I will know the work has been done. It would really upset me, if I bought a car in excellent conditon and needing no money to be spent on any maintenance for the engine to fall out after a few months.

 

[mika]

its an interesting discussion
i dont think there is a right or wrong answer
i think it also depends where you are on the following scale (and i accept i may have missed some positions and that these nominal positions are debatable)

serious collector....enthusiast on a budget...casual buyer... occasional /part time trader... professional trader

 

[wemorgan]

I'm too price conscious to ever own a very interesting car, but I do look at those type of cars quite often and ask myself, what similar car can I buy for a lot less money. A Lotus Elan = Mk1 MX5 for example. For me when I make these kind of judgements against expensive interesting cars I realise how much of their value is in the history behind them rather than in the structure themselves. If I had the money of course, I'd buy cars with history, in the mean time I'll have to make do with look-a-likes.

 

[stephen coy]

its a funny thing ..price on old/interesting cars

a car is worth what someone will pay for it- a well used phrase
many people would like to sell an interesting car for a high price - good for the wallet and perhaps a sense of satisfaction associated with the enjoyment of a positive conclusion to a motoring hobby/journey
many people are also reluctant to pay over the odds for an interesting car - no one wants to be seen as a mug on the contrary ones expertise comes into question

its possibly in most peoples interest for the market price on these particular models to be as high as possible, within reason
but there is a natural tendency for people to drag it down



if you pay decent money for a car you get yourself to the front of the queue and you give yourself a chance of a gem
if you wish to pay next to nothing then i think you are more likely to get a "project" with questionable history

just a few thoughts, what do you think ?

I've bought both a 'gem' and a 'project'

The gem was a w123 ce which was part of the estate of a desceased friend of a work colleague. The car (IMO) was superb, and had been pampered by the owner during the 10 years or so ownership. There were still jobs wanting doing, i.e. replacing passenger door lock, re-paint one wing due to a blemish, replace tyres, replace scratched driver's window.

The project was a GT6 which had sat in the owner's garage for 10 years or more after it failed an mot, and the start of a family had taken precedent. After I'd finished working on the car (thousand's spent plus man hours) the car was exellent. Parts of the car such as seats, doors, windscreen surround, dash etc. were all exellent, so I saw the potential (for me) in that car.