It’s obvious that the prices asked for classics are constantly rising. If you watch the market as closely as we do, you could ask the same question, “is it ever going to stop?”
But looking at the global whole it would seem that British pricing lags behind some of our European neighbours. The world the classic car inhabits, whether we like it or not, is, in its upper reaches, a world of wealth and prosperity, where cars can be owned not for their intrinsic value as transportation devices, but for their extrinsic high-value, style and design.
These collector cars also open-up a world inhabited by other people with the same tastes and appreciation of the finer things in life – hence their association with other high-end goods such as watches, wine, and good design.
That driving a classic can literally transport us to a better place is self-evident here. Yet as I getolder my mind is boggled by this seemingly inexorable rise in prices.
Nowhere is this more evident in Europe than in Germany. The strength of the German economy relative to the rest of its partners in the EU drives the prices asked, and paid, for classics.
In Bremen last weekend, I was astounded to see a 1974 MGB GT V8 in non-original dark metallic blue, wing piping partially hidden under a thick-ish coat of pudding and with a recent interior trim in (World of) leather. The V8 badge was in the wrong place on the grille, and the car was wearing – no surprise here – new 15” Minilites. So, all the details wrong but a pretty little car. But the price! How does €29,500 sound? And yes, it was a right-hooker! A quick check back in Blighty revealed a much nicer, more original GT V8 at half the money, and was only the 13th factory V8 built to boot.
Jaguar XJ-Ss are also a car where their value in Germany is far in excess of their worth in Britain. A tidy V12 HE here could make £15,000 now. I saw two in Bremen advertised at double that, with a 2-seater full convertible on offer for €75,000.
It would seem there are profits to be made from moving this metal across the channel. At the other end of the scale one enterprising Brit living in Germany is buying up semi-derelict Triumph Spitfires and GT6s. He’s transporting them whole into Germany, and breaking them there, where the purchase price of £200-600 is almost wholly offset by being able to sell an overdrive gearbox in Germany for €450. With the rest of the car he’s in profit, and that adheres to the old scrap-dealer way of trading where you give for the car what you know the engine’s worth.
We may be aghast at the quantity of cars heading abroad, but in reality it’s these sports cars that are most numerous in our market anyway.
For the bargain hunter and lover of the left-field, German fashion in classics has moved – and so their equivalent of our own 50s and 60s everyday cars – the Opel Rekord Olympias and Ford Taunus models – are still available at reasonable money. I’d have willingly driven home both a Taunus 17M estate with rust in the wings, and a colossal Rekord2-door ‘Caravan’ (estate), both available for under €2000.
What am I sure of? That UK classic pricing needs to head north if our indigenous classics are to remain in Britain. And that our audience in the UK should be aware that if they don’t buy now, they may miss out on current prices that will look unbelievably cheap in a scant few years time.
