Quote:
Originally Posted by jeepmor
I'll 30% disagree that cars aren't a good investment for making money. The cars of big number gains are out of the range most regular folks can afford, I will agree there. But there is a huge ebb and flow in the car market and requires a lot of tea leaf reading for sure, but there is money to be made. I don't think it's selling high dollar restored or restomod gems. Those enthusiasts are owners going to high end shops to restore/mod the car.
If it's a passion of the process, that's a little different and where I see the profit being most attainable for the regular working stiffs most of us are. I have a barber and a mailman that flip cars for a hobby. They don't do it exclusively for the money because they love to work on them and bring them back. The barber built a nice ford truck, added a 4 link, shortened the bed. Tons of serious mods. He did it with his son for the grandson, then went too far and made it too peppy to give to a teen like originally intended.
But they do make money reviving a vehicle they found for bottom dollar and put back in a good sorted working order and back into the market. But these guys like the build, once done, they never fall in love with the rig. They simply drive their revival and start hunting for a new project. The challenge/process is what they're after. They enjoy the rigs for a while, usually a few months, then sell them for seed money for another neglected good find.
The part I like of how they do this, is they often find a basket case and save it from crusher route. And once they build up their capital to better and better cars, they'll buy some niche rig in perfect condition from some literal grandma, enjoy it for a year, then just part with it and start another project.
So if that's the way to invest in cars and trucks, I'm game. Otherwise, I have no intention of building time capsules to be opened later. Love the premise, but don't have the room or coin to make those investments.
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That's a bit of a different animal than what we're looking at with the 2nd gens - you're not getting it cheap and bringing it back.
Even then, those calculations never account for hours. Leisure time has a dollar value greater than zero. Now if someone enjoys the work and all they want is to not lose money on the deal then the hours they spend restoring a car/truck are pure recreation and a break-even or even small profit is plenty of compensation.
But from a true accounting perspective, those hours should be billed commensurate to the mechanic's skill and factored into the sunk cost of the vehicle. That adds up FAST. The person fixing/selling the car is willing to take a loss on their labor because they enjoy it, but it's still a loss.
The cars that are "investments" are as you say, generally way outside the price range of average people. You need the perfect trifecta of something rare, something valuable enough to be difficult to attain, and something with iconic or cultural significance. Rarity, priced (at least) just out of reach of the common man, and some extra quality that makes it coveted. Those are the cars that set a pricing record each time they change hands. The reason expense is important is that small percent change in buying/selling price has to be applied to a number large enough that the difference in price exceeds the cost of keeping the car in good working order. Which the necessary rarity works against.
I had a 1982 Honda Accord given to me by my grandparents in 2006 with about 76k miles on the odometer. Not once did I see another one on the road. (Saw an '83, a few 84's, etc.) It ran beautifully and my wife and I put about another 15k on it before we sold it.
Ultimately we sold it because it was incredibly difficult to keep it running. There wasn't anything wrong with it really, but simple tune-ups and maintenance required specialists (fellow grey-hairs) who still remembered the pre-ECU days. Some toddler working at Autozone acted like I'd asked him for a leprechaun when I said I wanted to buy some vacuum hose.
We got a good deal for it on the sale, but even though it was rare it wasn't expensive enough to appreciate faster than maintenance costs added up, and it lacked the "special something" needed to start adding zeroes to the price driven by demand.