April 2016
To order the latest issue online now, click here!
If you’d like to save money and subscribe, click here!
Right at the end of February, I went along to the Race Retro event at Stoneleigh. It’s a good little event for fans of classic and historic racing – you can read about it on page 49 – but there are a few things I noticed about the crowd. Overall, they had two things that I didn’t. First was a penchant for red or purple corduroy trousers. Second was money. A lot of money. Just standing in the car park I could have thrown a stone in any direction and hit a car whose private registration plate cost more than I’ve ever spent on cars. Ever. I could have done that, but I expect I’d have been asked to leave. The Silverstone Auctions sale at the event brought in £4.7 million.
American classics are fetching the numbers, which is great as it means they’re finally being taken seriously among the traditional classic fraternity, but I can’t help thinking that auctions can over-inflate the values of the top-flight cars, and it doesn’t take long for that to trickle down to the rest of the market. On page 42, Big Chris tells his tale of his trip to Scottsdale for their auction week, and he watched cars going across the block for six and seven figures. The latest hot ticket appears to be early second-gen Pontiac Trans Ams, with some big bucks being brought in by top examples. I’ve already noticed that the price of Firebirds and Trans Ams over here has increased in the couple of weeks since the event.
How many times have you seen an ad online that says, “Have you seen how much these cars are fetching at auction in the States?” Yes, and that doesn’t excuse you adding an extra zero to the Bond-o sculpture that you’re trying to punt out, hoping to find some poor fool who’s seen the Barrett-Jackson auctions on the telly and thinks he’ll have himself a piece of that action. Auctions in the States are not a good price guide – we’re several thousand miles away, the marketplace is vastly smaller, and there are far fewer ‘collectors’ over here. You want to speculate in the UK classic market? Buy a TR6, and leave the American cars to the enthusiasts.
You may get the feeling of ‘Deja Poo’ (the subconscious sense that you’ve heard this shit before) but I’ll say it again: The price of admission to American car ownership is going up, and if we’re not careful we’ll be pricing the beginners out of the market. Without new blood coming in, the whole scene stagnates. If that happens, prices begin to slide the other way and suddenly your investment classic is worth more if you ship it home.
That’s why we like to feature street-legal cars in this magazine; cars that get used, cars that see some miles. This issue is slightly unusual in that the two leading features are on the verge of being stock restorations. The cover car was bought at auction in the States but, in a strange turn of fate, it was an absolute bargain… less than I’d have expected it to sell for in the UK, in fact. This is an exception from the norm, of course.
I think what I’m blundering about saying here is that we can’t get too greedy. Just because a Boss 302 Mustang sells for six figures in Scottsdale doesn’t mean that your 1994 Mustang V6 is suddenly a £10,000 car. And having a barbecue outside your lock-up doesn’t make you Gas Monkey Garage. Whilst austerity clearly hasn’t reached as far as the Race Retro crowd (it seems we’re not all in this together) the number of buyers out there with stars in their eyes and cash spilling from their pockets is relatively low, so keep it real. Even if it’s only for the benefit of poor, impoverished magazine editors…