Quote:
Originally Posted by FRSupra
Even if I was wealthy, I'm not sure I'd be able to keep a car as a "collectible". Cars are meant to be driven, that's what they're built for. If I was gifted with lets say, an early mint condition NSX from it's original owner and I put it in a garage to sit with other cars, it would weigh so hard on mind ever second of every day that I was not driving it. Why do we especially love performance cars? I might as well have the same NSX with nothing in its engine bay.
With that being said, I'm also fanatical about original OEM condition. Seeing a car you loved as a child in such a condition that it seemed to roll off the assembly line yesterday is incredibly captivating. For example, cars of the 90's have their own "aura" if you will. The way the plastics feel, the smell of the cars, things like this capture the decade. Every time I'm at a car show and I happen upon a car like this, you could swear my expression was of a 5 year old.
Value of cars is a blurry subject. A few posts above someone mentioned the definition of a collector car is one that gets "collected" to be stored. In more cases than none, this will be a better way to find these "time capsules", because our cars are meant to be driven, and I completely agree with it. Enter someone like myself who desires this car because it is so close to having one of these 90's type cars, brand new, never owned. I realize I love this car because of what it was designed to do, so I'm going to drive it, but I also try to take extremely good care of it. If done right, you can drive and enjoy a car while still having it look like new, even years down the road regardless of mileage. The wonderful thing about cars today, (and another reason why I'm such a Toyota fan) is that they are reliable and can hold up to time better than cars have before.
15 years from now, I would have no problem shelling out decent cash for an FR-S that was well maintained from it's original owner even if the odometer was well into 100k. From a mass market perspective, at this point no it's not looking well for value overall, but for someone like myself it can make a difference for sellers. For example lets says I had 10k in the bank and was in the market for an MR2. Relatively good cars go for 5k, but I would have no problem paying 7k because it's worth more than that to me.
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Great write up!
It can sometimes be difficult to distinguish the difference between a driving enthusiast and a car enthusiast because we here generally seem to be a bit of both. I am with FR in the fact I would suck as a true collector because I would want to drive the cars I had not just let them sit there. Jay Leno is famous for his collection and although he does have his driver cars I recall an interview where he said that many (most?) of them have under 100 miles on the clock. He was very clear that he does not drive them but considers them more as pieces of art to be admired but not used.
The other thing that FR brings forward is the whole concept of what car is worthy of being considered a collector car in the first place. This is so incredibly complex and dependent upon generation, personal nostalgia, pop culture, availability, automotive mythos, etc, etc that I doubt we could get more than 10% of the people here to agree on the top 20 list of what is collectable. Although I understand at an intellectual level that cars from the 90s could be collectable I totally miss the boat on and emotional level. To me they are all just "new" cars and no matter how great they may be I can not connect with a single one of them at a level where I would want to own it just to look at. The same applies to cars prior to the late 50s except in their case they are just "old" cars. My background, nostalgia, car history, etc really only leaves me room to emotionally recognize cars from the late 50s to mid 70s as potential collector vehicles. Do I love my FRS? Yes for sure. Can I be emotionally attached to it enough to picture it as a collector car in 30 years? Not a hope, since to me (and probably to others in my demographic) it is just a new car. The people that will want one of these in 30 years are the guys that had to give it up due to growing families or such other influences or the guys that wanted one now and just could not do it.
A lot has been said about how the old 'Vettes, Camaros and other rarer Pony cars are so valuable now but their example really does not carry over to today. Back from the late 50s to mid 70s we had all the Baby Boomers that wanted these cars and just could not have them since they were rare even when new and there was just so many people in that group there were not enough to go around so we had to wait for 30+ years to be able to pick one up. This no longer applies in this age. The Twins are made in numbers that more than meet the current demand and the main target demographic is much, much smaller so there should be an ample supply of reasonably priced, good condition ones around in the future.