Seems like everyone wants to know “what is my car worth?” No one knows in advance because that value manifest itself only upon the presence of a willing seller and a willing buyer who together execute a transaction. Are you selling your car? If yes, you are about to find out. Otherwise it’s all speculation.
Many enthusiasts of collector cars typically believe they have a sense of what their car is worth based on observed data. It is also true that many enthusiasts do not have a keen appreciation for the desirability of their cars. Many of us tend to get stuck in a model of linear appreciation…meaning that we have in our heads the sense of upward momentum but in an orderly fashion. We tend to have difficulty accepting the idea of exponential or explosive appreciation (perhaps because it is unpredictable), frequently relegating such occurrences to “…fools with too much money outbidding each other at auction…”. I have seen such comments in many online chat rooms over the years.
Talk to almost any enthusiast and you will hear the familiar story of the one that got away, or cars that they sold that are now selling for much greater prices. Just yesterday I was talking to a fellow enthusiast who told me he sold a Ferrari 250PF Coupe for $40,000 some years ago because his wife didn’t think it was a good idea for them to have a Ferrari. Cars like that are now selling for around $800K. And he knew a lot about Ferrari. So it goes. The other common denominator is that sooner or later the car must be sold. If you need to sell and the price achieved provides the liquidity you were looking for, then the transaction was worthwhile and you move on.
Just remember that you can never know the motivations, resources, emotions and desires of all the potential collectors out there. It’s a big world. Whatever number of such individuals you are talking to is way smaller than the total marketplace.
Rather than attempting to predict values and prices, we are introducing our Sales Data report in which we have captured selected data from some of the auctions we have been attending along with observed data from recent dealer sales. You are able to easily search sales by make and model. We will continue to add sales data in the future and we hope you find it a useful tool and do tell a friend. We recommend using the data as a guide to how the market behaves. Don’t judge. If you see prices that seem extraordinarily high, accept them as occurring in an alternate universe that is just as real as the one you’re in at the moment.
Stay tuned. We will add tons more data after the Monterey auctions next week.
Happy motoring!
Terry Sullivan