England: Buying classic cars as an investment

The Telegraph: Buying classic cars as an investment

Mike Rutherford
In a corner of Sussex yesterday afternoon, Bonhams' Goodwood Festival of Speed 2011 auction of Collectors' Motor Cars, Watches and Automobilia presented a golden opportunity to secure a motoring bargain.

At Goodwood, lovely old stopwatches carrying estimates as low as £33 apiece have been spotted sitting alongside items such as a Tag Heuer chronograph wristwatch that's closer to £5,000 territory.

For collectable cars on sale at the breathtakingly beautiful Sussex estate, think as low as £6k-£8k (for a 1998 Rover Mini Cooper 'Sports Pack' edition) or as high as £300k-£400k (1967 Aston Martin DB6 Volante Convertible).

But Festival of Speed-goers are also expected to be leaving Goodwood later this weekend with more accessible and affordable automotive memorabilia and ephemera such as genuine, decades-old motorsport posters (from £40), limited edition motorsport books or magazine collections (£100), an extremely rare and signed Ayrton Senna Christmas card (£300-£400) and what has to be the giveaway of the summer – a Williams F1 OZ rear wheel and tyre, complete with authenticity certification, for just £80-£120. Imagine both – wheel and framed certificate – on the wall of your garage, your downstairs loo, even your lounge.

The all-important classic cars selling at Goodwood are too numerous to list in full, but worth a mention are a 1984 Aston Martin Lagonda at £20k-£25k, 1971 Jenson Interceptor MkII (£18-£22k), '58 Facel Vega HK500 Coupé (£20-£30k), '67 Jaguar Mk2 3.8 (£20k-£25k) and white Jaguar E-type Series 1 3.8 Competition Coupé for £50-£70k.

Related Articles
RAC: action on fuel prices
24 Jun 2011
Mr Money: new cars reduced by 20 per cent
17 Jun 2011
MINI cheaper than a Micra
10 Jun 2011
Labour's pothole debacle
03 Jun 2011
Free fuel, top warranties
27 May 2011
Kia is Keeping It Affordable
20 May 2011

As Goodwood unapologetically admits, "the annual Bonhams' sale attracts the high rollers, and the dreamers, to its auction of the rarest and most valuable classic cars". The phrase "money no object" isn't quite mentioned by Lord March and his team, but he and they come close to using it. And that's fair enough because, unlike this column, the current Goodwood Festival of Speed and Car Buying is not about penny-pinching.

Later this summer, however, I'll be doing precisely that as I'll be concentrating, among other things, on the most affordable end of the collectors' car market where as little as £200 is enough to buy you a vehicle – albeit a modest one crying out for repairs and more than a little TLC – that just about qualifies as a modern classic. Fiat 124 that's almost half a century old, or late '80s Rover 800 Vitesse anyone?

Also, I'll be naming some of the old cars that are wise investments which will be comparatively kind to your finances. And at the same time I'll be shaming the classics that will inevitably burn a hole in your pocket.

There can be worthwhile tax and insurance advantages when owning and running a car of a certain age, too. And again, over the summer I'll be touching on these and related points, along with spelling out how a classic can be part of a pension portfolio. Or can it?

Meanwhile, I have to tell you that's it regrettable – but not surprising when you think about it – that the overwhelming majority of car owners (regardless of whether their vehicles fall into new, less than a decade old, or classic categories) are sitting on automotive assets that depreciate rather than appreciate in value.

True, there can be the odd exception to the rule. For example, I've recently been reliably informed by somebody in the know that about seven years ago the Porsche 964 RS could be snapped up for about £15k-20k, yet the same model is pushing £100k today.

And of course, it goes without saying that the above-mentioned Aston DB6 bought in '67 for only a few thousand pounds didn't turn out to be a bad buy in view of its value today of up to £400k.

If the auction at Goodwod is anything to go by, ageing Porsches with heavyweight supercar looks but featherweight price tags of only a grand or two are now a thing of the past.

For example, the 928 S4 should be able to be picked up for as little as £2,000 or just over £7,000 tops, according to up-to-the-minute estimates from respected price guide experts. Yet this weekend's Bonhams catalogue has a 1990 version selling for a hefty £8k-£12k.

Another possible future classic is the sublime, hugely underrated Citroën C6. It was a circa £30k car when new about five years ago, but can be had for nearer £5k today – in theory at least – thereby making it an obvious and ideal potential classic. So far, so good.

But these elegant saloons were sold in such tiny numbers that they're available in even smaller volumes used. So, in theory a C6 is a hell of a used buy but in reality you'll struggle – and then some – to find a used example for sale.

If I were putting up to £10,000 into a modern or potential classic I'd go for something built and sold in larger, but not enormous, quantities. For example, an early 2000s Audi TT Coupé or Roadster at £6k. Or better still, and for only a grand or two more, a Porsche Boxster from the same era.

These pocket supercars both hail from the two finest manufacturers in Germany, and the fact that such seriously good hardware can be picked up for this sort of modest money or even less in mid-2011 is astonishingly good news for the consumer who's thinking of dipping a toe into the potentially wallet-busting classic car waters.


* Car and motorsport nuts missing out on Goodwood and the Bonhams sale this weekend should worry not.

That's because plenty of classics of similar price, quality and stature – and perhaps even those that failed to sell at Goodwood – will be going under the Silverstone Auctions hammer on July 23.

The fact that this sale coincides with the Silverstone Classic race weekend at the Northamptonshire circuit is the icing on the cake.

A week from now I'll have more details on the event, plus the cars and bikes being sold at it by Great Brits such as Eric Clapton and Sir Stirling Moss.

These days, just as a car's value is deflated heavily by occupants who make the costly mistake of smoking inside it, it's value can be greatly inflated by the people who have sat in or, better still, driven it.

That's why I loaned my Golf GTI to Stirling Moss for a weekend a couple of decades ago (when I was his ghost writer), in return for a pic of him sitting behind the wheel.

And I used that as a selling point when I sold the car – it certainly added a few hundred to its value.