[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Spektyr

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.

Until about 2010 I was one of those guys that would haul an old hulk out of a barn or field, fix it up to roadworthy again, drive it a while and then sell it. Most of my cars were between 25 and 40 years old. These were DDs not show pieces. I never made a penny on any of them.