I was just watching a rerun of the Indy Mecum auction. There was a really nice original 1965 Z-16 Chevelle sold for $225,000. Made me do a little research and a little calculating. A 1965 Z-16 Chevelle, my research says, would have cost about $4300, depending. Let's just say you could secure financing for 10 Z-16's. $43,000. $412,000 today. Today sell 10 Z-16 Chevelles for $225,000 each at Mecum. $2,250,000 That's $1,838,000 gross profit. Now you had to keep them for 58 years. But even accounting for the cost of keeping them for 58 years in your own building, it is still going to leave a profit of maybe around $1.5 million. I know that is pretty rough and quick cypherin', but I'd say that's a pretty nice profit. A guy could retire a little earlier with that. Hell, if you just bought one in 1965 and put it away, you'd have ended up with a right tidy sum. I consider the Z-16 Chevelle to be kind of the everyday guy's hot rod. And you could have done right well with that. There are a lot of models that would have done fantastically better than the Chevelle, too. The hot Corvettes and the later Hemi Cudas and such. My problem would probably have been leaving them alone that long! The real problem will be in picking the model that is going to be popular in 50-60 years. Good luck with that. Some of the stuff that is popular now, I never would have guessed when I was a kid. The other thing now is I can imagine only a few of the more exotic cars will be desirable. If you can buy gas for them in 50-60 years. I bought farmland. Did well with that, too. Didn't have to keep it under roof.
To me if you see one sell for that money you have to figure that if it is all untouched original someone bought it new and tucked it away soon after and it hasn't seen the light of day since then. Or it was a stock class drag car back in the day that was bought to race in a class and raced for a season or two and stuck back in the corner of the garage where it sat ever since as the owner moved on to other things but always had that "someday" in the back of their mind. That might be anything Yenko as a number of them were bought to run at the drags in the class they were set up for and never saw street duty. Then you have the rotisserie rebulds that have been stripped to bare metal, everything repaired correctly or with new panels, every piece on the car documented and all main mechanical pieces being original to the car that have been restored to far nicer than what we got off the car lots in the late 60's or early 70's. Total documention from the original window sticker and build sheet with every serial number on the drive train documented. Hours spent on the whole thing and a 15K plus paint job.
It would have been hard for the regular cat to score a Z-16 new but you’re right, a lot of stuff was collectible and obtainable. In about 1978 my brother in law and I looked around and said we should buy every 435 horse Corvette for sale regardless of condition that we saw. You could have one for $1800 to $2000, look what those bastards are going for today. Even in the day, we new a lot of those cars would always be in demand, they’re just that cool. Or follow my investing strategy and buy high and sell low, lol.
After the first one goes for $225,000 the next one goes for less. If the person that bid $225,000 knows there are 10 to cross the block he likely doesn't bid the first one up to $225,000. Just saying. Still a fun thing to have done.
When I turned 59 1/2 I cashed in an IRA and purchased a 57 Tbird I ran the idea past my accountant and he agreed it would be a good investment based on condition and purchase price. I get to work on it, increase it’s value and drive for pleasure and Of coarse I have it properly insured I personally believe the value is much more stable than the stock market
I think your math is shaky. If you had 10 Z16's, there's no guarantee you could find 10 eager buyers at $225,000 each. Maybe, maybe not. Nobody had a crystal ball, few could have anticipated some fairly regular cars hopped up to sell to teenagers would ever be worth anything. There's other things that would've been better investments in the past 58 years... As far as a crystal ball for today's gems, good luck on that too, these kids today don't even like cars! I have to admit, seeing a room with 10 Z16's in it would be impressive!
I have personally made a small fortune investing in old cars, unfortunately I started with a large fortune.lol
Called hindsight......... If you could talk(able) to talk to your POP's, Then you'de get a feel......The stories I was told, and the prices........Today is a different day, and things change/people/kids/ etc........ Investment? hmmmm..... How many youngin's are going to spring for a 60+ year old car these days........? Especially for those numbers? Just a question for the masses........
I find satisfaction in knowing what it feels like to pull a sixties muscle car to a light, run the R's up and up, side step the clutch grab - gear, gear, gear. Check mirror for anybody. Drive back to the shop and hang the keys on the work board. The guy that win's the auction can't really enjoy that
Go back a little farther in time. Buy a 1933 Duesenberg Twenty Grand-- for 20 grand-- worth 40 million today. THAT would be a tidy profit!!!
It was just for fun. But the bottom line in my hypothetical Z-16 deal was about 400% profit. The profit on my time-honored investment in farmland shows an inflation adjusted profit of only about 250% based on current comparable land value and original cost adjusted for inflation. Maybe a little safer, but it shows in the lesser profit margin.
Pretty much . if I had I Time Machine I’d buy every hemi , big block. Yadda yadda and cash in . No you wouldn’t . You know why ? Cause the market would be flooded with these mint condition cars 30-40-50 years later and worth about as much as a chevette . Ok maybe an 84 vette You know what’s worth money and always in demand ? the Cocaine and the prostitution . not cars . Or if your the boring type , a good education and sound investments pay dividends over time
Exactly. Been sayin' that for years. The process of making a lot of loud noise. I've been in racing for over 50 years now. And I can't hear now! Somebody at the sprint cars races the other day asked me if I would do it all again. I told him, hell yes, only I'd race a little harder cause I still got a little money left.
If a person buried $50 of gold & $50 paper currency in 1950. Dug it up today, The paper would be worth $50 & the gold would be at current market rate. A lot more. If you bought a 1957 Chebby then squirreled it away ..... It would need constant maintenance to keep it a viable car, even though you do not drive it .... My neighbor bought two classic cars for a investment. 1954 shoe box with a ot motor, 1964 chebby truck. There is a car show coming up this weekend, he mentioned it would be fun to go ..... since his vehicles have not been run in two years ..... will take many hours on each one to get them ready. Without regular maintenance, they are worth less $$ today then they were 2 years ago.
A couple of problems here. First, how would you come up with the initial $43,000? Second $43,000 compounded at 7% for 58 years gives $2,176,344.09. Factor in the cost of storing and maintaining those cars for 58 Years which would be very expensive. Also, I found this : For every $10,000 invested in Berkshire-Hathaway in 1965, investors would have $378.76 million by the end of 2022. Lemme see 4.3 times 378 million is 1.6 billion. Pipe dreams are fun though.
Tubman makes all the points I wanted to make above. Also, for every Z-11 Chevelle that got stashed away, there's probably 50 super low mileage silver anniversary Corvettes that have a hard time selling for the dealer marked-up price they brought when they were new. Old cars are a fun hobby, but we need more people building cars and then using them as cars, and less people trying to turn them into securities.
For many years I bought cheap performance cars off the streets and parted them out, sold them for profit, or tore them up myself then sold what ever was still useful from them. I made enough money back then to support my dirt track cars for years, and all of my street cars. It was a spend as I went deal, and I spent plenty. Our family had a great time. I learned a lot, and I had a ball of fun. The money my wife and I made from the real jobs supported our family and our meager investments got us to the point in life where we are in life these days. That would be, fairly comfortable in our humble existence. I have no need for those billions of dollars in some account somewhere, and wouldn't want the stress involved with having it. I know a lot of very unhappy wealthy people. Many have told me if they could go back in time, they would have traded their fortune for the life I have lived. I don't have billions in some account someplace, but I sure didn't pass up the chance to have a lot of fun with cars either. Parking any performance era car and letting it set unused is not something I would have done back then, nor is it something I would, or could do these days. I wouldn't trade all those joy filled wasteful experiences for a pile of money in some account ever. Life is not about how much money you can accumulate.
Look at it this way. Let's say you bought those Z-16s and put them into storage. Eight years later, after being whipsawed by inflation and the gas crunch, you would have realized you'd made a huge mistake, and there was absolutely no future in these old gas hogs. So like any smart investor you would have cut your losses, sold out and stopped bleeding storage money. And today you'd be kicking yourself for that decision every goddamn day. So you dodged that bullet.
I would go back and buy one upside down airplane stamp. Very little needed to store it. I did get offered bout twice what I had in my bus.
Investment "vehicles" do not include automobiles...however, I did buy a bunch of Tesla shares at $100 earlier this year and it is now $249 and change today. That is a good investment, BUT I WOULDN'T OWN ONE! The rest of you, keep buying them! Gasoline cars are dinosaurs! Oh, don't ask me about all the Rivian shares I own.
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