Our friends over the Kicking Tires blog have come up with an interesting list.
>The sale led classic car businessman McKeel Hagerty to come up with his top 10 list of new cars that should be hot future collectibles.
There are two lists, and the MINI made them both!
[ Future Collector Cars ] Kicking Tires
Its no surprise. But whose going to be willing to shutter their R50/53 for 25 years? Come on – its a good excuse to get an R56 to drive…
I disagree with most choices on either list…
For one, the market today isn’t the same as it was 30+ years ago. Simply many more copies of a given model are produced.
Second, cars are built much better today than the “classics” were. Much more rust resistant and will last longer.
The GP has a slim chance as a collectible, but like any investment, but it would be a long term investment… and a very expensive one…
The problem is the cars are worth a lot if they are low mileage… which means you can’t drive it much… which turns the purchase into an investment… and a financially poor one at that. Very few of the muscle cars of the 60’s would return a greater investment than if the original purchaser had simply put that same money into stocks 30 years ago.
The GT500 is similar to the GP, but with a much greater buy-in cost. All of the other choices simply have far too many built to ever become serious investments. Even the low volume Elise, mainly because 99.9% of them are not primary drivers and will have a fairly high survival rate.
Keep in mind, many of the muscle cars are worth a lot simply because so many of them were wrapped around trees when they bought by teens as used cars.
Wow, not just because I am a fan of the MINI, but I disagree with almost all of those selections. Because of increased production and the fact that more and more of us are watching to see what the “collectors” of the future will be, I personally think classics of today’s era will probably be classics in 40-50 years, compared to the current classics from 30-40 years ago.
In that list, it seems the only really true low-volume cars, if I remember correctly were the GP and maybe the Elise and NSX. I don’t know the sales numbers of the Elise or the NSX, but still, I would imagine them to be at least several hundred over the GP in the US. If you have a GP and still have it in 30 years (hopefully with appreciable fun-filled miles on the odo) and can turn a profit on it, power to you, but I don’t think the Civic Si or Chrysler 300 is going to be the headliner in 30 years.
I agree with a couple of the choices on each list, but I don’t think many of them will bring in much money 30 years from now. Sure, a pristine GP or M6 or NSX may pull in a good chunk of money, but hopefully more of them will be driven and have some miles built up.
I do however see MINI’s and FJ’s and all BMW M cars being very popular at classic car shows in the future. Knowing how much people love their MINI’s now, I have a strong feeling that plenty of people will hang on to them, or purchase another one in the future when they want to bring back those fond memories of motoring in the early 2000’s. 🙂
Drew
The MINI on the same list as a Chrysler 300? What’s the world coming to.
Do any of you watch the Barrett Jackson auctions? I think this is a pretty spot-on list. It’s crazy what collectors will pay top dollar for.
the point of my list was that you needed some limited trim to be a collectible in the future and the special editions and trims of the Mini lend to that.
The Si was on there pretty much due to my 5 minute time frame for coming up with the list.
I also wanted to stick to current models, the recent GTO didn’t make it because its discontinued, but would otherwise because of the engine, limited numbers, historical factor.
Anyway…it was all in fun.
Wow, and I thought that the guys over here at MF were really uptight. But we’ve got nothing on the posters at Kicking Tires.