Winter '10

The Market as at 12/08/10

Well, here it is, what’s selling and what’s not selling as we come to the year 2 AM (After Meltdown!).

I don’t, as a rule, mention my political views in these occasional articles but quite why the Lords of Wall Street and the major banks have not been prosecuted for their gross greed, mismanagement and contempt for the average American citizen is quite beyond my comprehension....

But back to the exciting/dull stuff of old car sales. Solid Gold stuff like old Ferraris, Aston Martins, Ford GT40s, between the war Mercedes and Bugattis continue to climb in value, whilst anything else is suffering.

I can only talk about the racecars that I mainly deal in, so here goes. The good news is that, although entries have been down in the weekend to weekend, local vintage car races, the big stuff like Goodwood, Monterey Historics and Classic Le Mans continue to support full entries (indeed, if you don’t have the right car, you won’t even be accepted!) and so there are folks out there looking for the right car.

Classic Endurance Racing, a five-race series held in Europe for “proper” cars is now so popular (it’s the gateway to getting an entry at Classic Le Mans), that the organizers are having to run two separate races at each meeting to cater for all the entries. This has also split the classes, so that now Porsche RSRs can win their own class, instead of being lumped in with 935s, BMW M1s. RSRs had languished in value for a while but, now that they can win their class, they’re coming back strongly.

The same cannot be said for replica RSRs, a plethora of which exist over here. Ineligible to race in Europe in top-flight race meetings, they used to fetch $60-$80k in pre-AM days but their owner’s ranks have been decimated due to the downturn and so they’re about 30% off what they used to fetch.

Porsche 935s have also taken a hit but they’re so rare that each one is an individual case, the sale price depending very much on each car’s history and condition.

The same cannot be said for Can Am cars, which have rebounded with a bang. Expect to pay $450k plus for a Lola T70 Spyder and over $1m for a real Mk. IIIB Coupe. McLaren’s haven’t gone up quite as much but a real M8F will probably fetch $400k and an M1B is a steal at $250k. Remember, these are not only eligible at Road America’s July meeting for Can Am cars and at Monterey but there’s been a strong revival in Europe for the pre-1966 cars at places like Goodwood and in the very popular Master’s series.

Group C and IMSA GTP car prices are generally 10-20% down on pre-AM prices, as these are very expensive cars to run and only a few are coming out to play in the US, whilst the Group C races in Europe are still boasting respectable entries.

One bright glimmer on the horizon just could be “Legends of Motorsports”, headed up by Bobby Rahal in the USA. Featuring “proper” cars, they have struggled to attract sufficient entries in their first year of organizing races for the vintage community but it all came good at Sebring last week, where they attracted over a hundred and thirty entries and an excellent weekend’s racing.

The organizer’s have announced that they will accept perfect replicas, which I feel is a good idea as America is so vast, and the owners of “proper” cars so spread out, that it’s difficult to get a good entry any other way, no matter how hard they try. Time will tell.