Blue Collar Cars — Wall Street Prices
By Eric Peters, Automotive Columnist
Anyone who follows the old car hobby knows how expensive classic-er muscle cars have become. It’s routine to see six-figure asking prices for prominent/popular models such as Hemi-equipped (and even 440 powered) Mopars – ‘Cudas, Challengers, Chargers, Super Bees and GTXs. Even 383 versions of these cars now command primo prices. Big block Chevelles, GTOs, Boss Mustangs, first generation SS Camaros and Z28s are also big bucks rides now — $40k and up
Even the less desirable (for now) models built in the mid-late ’70s are bringing as much as $30,000 (and more) vs. $10,000 or less as recently as ten or so years ago.
The irony — blue collar cars that have become rich men’s toys — is both remarkable and sad. As recently as the ’80s, something like a ’69 SS 396 Chevelle was a Hillbilly Special — the kind of car you saw loutish-looking younger guys with mullets and flannel shirts cruising McDonalds on Friday nights in. Primered quarters; Gabriel Hi-Jacker shocks — wrong-size Cragar or Keystone Classic mags — with peeling chrome. No respectable citizen with a college education wanted any part.
But they were a way for average guys with not much money to have a go at the Yuppies in their BMWs — screechy burnouts to impress the girls (or annoy the high school principal). They were all over the place — and they were dirt cheap.
I remember the summer of 1983 when I was 16 and the local consignment lot had a bumblebee yellow Super Bee with a 383 and a 4-speed. It was a little run down — but it was all there — and it was all of $2,300. A buddy of mine wheedled his parents into a loan that let him get his hands on a ’71 440 GTX — again, for under three grand. Then there was the guy who had the 455 HO Formula Firebird. None of us were yet 18 years old.
Can you imagine?
This kind of experience is inconceivable today. Such cars are not only out of reach of feckless youth — they’re getting out of range for middle-aged middle class working stiffs, too. Who has $40k in disposable income to plunk down on an old muscle car?
I’m not poor — but I would have trouble swinging the purchase of my ’76 Trans-Am if I had to buy the thing today. Back in 1990, I picked her up for $5,100. A stretch — but doable. Today — 18 years down the road — the same car in similar condition would probably run me around $25k. In another five years, it’ll probably be $30k.
I’m glad I got in when I did. But I feel sorry for those too young to have had a shot — and I don’t like the way the hobby’s headed, either.
Part of the reason for escalating prices, of course, is simply the passage of time and the fact that they’re not building these cars anymore. Attrition has done its work — and the relative handful of ’60s and even ’70s-era muscle cars that are left intact are usually either complete basketcases in need of major work or extremely nice restos (or well-preserved originals). Few “drivers” are left.
You don’t find cars like my ’76 Trans-Am sitting in the back row of a second-rate used car lot anymore.
But scarcity — and the passage of time — doesn’t account for the tsunami-surge of average values in recent years. Credit for that belongs to the phenom of glitzy auctioneering and the transformation of hobby cars into quick buck investments. This has helped create a speculative bubble in the value of old iron very similar to the recently burst real estate bubble that saw the selling price of suburban McMansions in many areas of the country grow 20 percent or more in the space of a single year.
The problem I have with this is not the rise in value per se. What gets my back up is the way the hobby’s being turned into a rich man’s Ponzi scheme — buy it to flip it, not to keep it. Ride the wave — and enjoy the easy money
Many of the people acquiring vintage muscle cars have no real interest in the cars themselves. They’re not gearheads, they don’t wrench — and they often don’t even drive the damn things. They just sit on them for awhile — to let them appreciate some more. Then they have the car trucked to Barrett-Jackson and milk it for all it’s worth.
That’s capitalism, of course — but that doesn’t make it right.
Not everything is (or should be) a commodity — viewed primarily as an “asset” or some way to wheedle a profit merely by getting the next guy in line to pay more for it than you did. The muscle cars of the ’60s and ’70s, in particular, were conceived for the everyman — not orthodontists and real estate moguls with money to burn. It’s sad that cars that were once accessible to just about anyone are fast becoming — indeed, already have become — remote, untouchable totems of the elite that most average Joes have no prayer of ever owning.
I’m grateful I’m old enough to have arrived before things went downhill. And I feel bad for those too young to have had their shot. It’s too bad there’s nothing much that can be done about it. Values are going to keep climbing to ever more ridiculous heights; it won’t be long before even the dregs of the late ’70s and early ’80s (think 301 Trans-Ams and 305 Camaros) also become all but unobtainable.
I’m glad I got mine before the curtain came down.
Comments?
www.ericpetersautos.com
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Ya gotta know what you doing to run one of these cars. I’ve been twistin’ wrenches on muscle cars since about ’66-’67…still got one…todays pump gas is crap for them…the Reid Vapor Pressure is too high and the octane is too low…just ask anyone who has experienced manifold flash in the winter months during cold starts up to operating temp. These cars are not toys. The stupid high prices people pay for them are paid by the same stupid people who don’t deserve to own them….anyway, 2 or 3 G’s of cash will go alot farther than you think…I see it all the time !! hg
I totally agree with Mr. Peters. I’ve had some interesting cars in the past but will only share my experience with one. Bought a 1970 Shelby GT-500 new for less than $5,000. Drove it until 1976. Sold it for $600 less than I paid for it because of 46,000 miles and rust under the door and laughed all the way to the bank. Dumb me! Only 270 of these made that year. I deserve a well placed kick, you know where.
I’d still have my first car, a ’65 Impala SS if it hadn’t gotten stolen about 10 years ago. Time was when it wasn’t hardly worth stealing but as several of you have stated, with time it’s value became worth the theft. This fact crept up on me or I would have been more protective of it.
I can certainly relate to;
{Antique cars let your mind wander back into the days of your youth, when life was a lot simpler, when a man’s word was his bond, and everything was generally in black or white. There was no political correctness, the was honor in business and government, and dear God the cars we could buy were awesome.}
Hold that thought for it relates to traffic control issues as well. Here’s a snippet of what I posted on a sister blog.
{James and I are old enough to remember when a lot of these laws and regulations would have been laughable …..well not anymore. Problem is the younger generations have never experienced the freedoms that James and I have, so the younger generations believe this is the way it’s always been thereby becoming becoming part of the pacification process of the populace.
It may help to explain why many of us who are becoming part of the older generation are more outspoken about traffic control issues then the younger crowd. I know a 80 year old that lives near Stringtown OK that is one of the strongest advocates against speed traps, that I know. Why? We remember the times when cops were not revenuers. Cops were respected because they earned that respect. But that’s a subject for another blogg. }
The man hit the nail on the head. When I started in this hobby forty years ago, I built a car out of scrap yard parts and new parts when I could afford them because I didn’t have cash or credit cards. With lots of help we stuffed a 392 hemi into an old 55 Dodge and went out and scared the behoosis out of ourselves because the brakes didn’t stop the original motor let along a Hemi that well.
As I grew older and my income increased, I would by a brand spanking new Road Runner each year they were built, and it was around 500 bucks difference car for car. I would keep making my payments and saved a few bucks of my lunch money every week, so I could waltz into the dealer and order the next one in August to have it for new car introduction.
Those new Road Runners squeaked and leaked and I would have them back to the dealer a dozen times to get all the pieces put on properly, but when you hit the loud pedal whooooooooeeeeee!!!!!!
Today I have four ancient Mopars in my collection, all purchased or built for far more dollars than they cost new. Some are original and some are radical customs, but each and every one gives me a different driving experience and feel. Yes as I am now getting older there will come a time when my treasurer will have to go, and yes I will most likely make some profit on them at that point, but that is not the reason I bought them and worked on them.
Antique cars let your mind wander back into the days of your youth, when life was a lot simpler, when a man’s word was his bond, and everything was generally in black or white. There was no political correctness, the was honour in business and government, and dear God the cars we could buy were awesome.
Today’s kids have no idea what it was like to be able to go into a dealership and make a down payment on a 426 Hemi or a 429 Cobra Jet or a Chevelle SS454. And then as long as your could make your payment, pay for your insurance and filler her up with 41 cent per gallon premium gas you were on top of the world.
I own and built a 1966 Mustang and a 1971 Corvette and I drive them. I just bought a 1958 Chevy PU out of a field and will build it back bolt by bolt for the love of it, not the money.
Well, Eric makes some valid points, but overlooks some things as well. It’s the same evolution with most nostalgia/collectibles, whether it be baseball cards or fishing lures. You have to remember that when Eric was 16, those cars he was looking at were how old, 13-15 years? Based on that, today’s teenager would be looking at a car made in what, 1993? Technically, that experience Eric talks about as being out of reach maybe isn’t. Are some of the future classics now sitting, collecting dust and rust, unappreciated by all, just like the muscle cars of our youth? What cars will remind them of their youth? They are probably some steals out there if history holds true.
Anyway, as a new boomer buyer of a muscle car I just found a ’72 Cutlass Supreme (coupe) for under $10,000. I’m not a gearhead, but appreciate the glory days of the American car maker, and just want to take a weekend drive with the wife to reminisce.
As for the greed factor, it’s there and will always be a negative in some ways. But there is always a silver lining. Also, if you are patient and look long enough you can still find a deal (even if its only a “driver”).
There will be a museum. There probably already is. I will go see them, and remember the wind in my hair, and the hot guy driving the ‘rod…..
I don’t know who the author is, but he sounds like a crybaby socialist.