What really makes a classic car?

[Mr.DJ]

What really makes a classic car?

Parked outside the mansion block where I live in north London is a red Ferrari 355 F1. Before you get to the end of the street, and it's a short one, there's a grey Ferrari 550 Maranello and someone else (I hope) has a black Aston Martin DB9.

The presence of these cars, each of which costs more than most people earn in a year, perplexes me. I can almost get over the fact that they are parked outdoors rather than in a garage. I can even accept that if you were rich enough not to need a car, you might want a fancy one. But I cannot understand why, with that much money, you pick something so obvious and so likely to depreciate in value? Why not make your mark by driving a car not driven by many others that might also turn out to be a good investment?

London is full of 355s, Maranellos and DB9s. These vehicles are the Renault Clios of the jet set. Wouldn't it be more interesting to buy something that had already shown it was ageing well and would continue to do so - in short, a classic? A car you'd want around as much when you are 70 as you did when you were 35. Think Charlotte Rampling or Chateau d'Yquem. Something that ages well and could appreciate in value, monetary and otherwise.

Let's go like-for-like with the cars on my street. The 550 Maranello, a striking car from the late 1990s, is famous for its 12-cylinder engine but so is the 365 Daytona GTB/4, produced from 1968-1973, and it is likely to gain in value over the next few years.

Instead of the DB9, which also has a V12 engine, I'd go for an Aston Martin with a V8. While there is no denying that Ulrich Bez, chairman and chief executive of Aston Martin, has made the brand amazingly popular, I'd rather buy cars from before his time that are gaining in price because of his success, such as the V8 models produced from 1969 to 1989. I particularly like the late 1970s Vantage coupé and Volante convertible. Both have big boots and seat four.

Bob Houghton, who works on Ferraris in the Cotswolds, says the 355, in its convertible model, could be a classic someday but I'd rather have a 308 GTB (I guess I saw one-too-many Magnum PI episodes).

Here's the best part: I could spend £80,000 on the Daytona, £15,000 on the Aston Martin and the same on the 308 GTB. In total, that's just a bit more than the price of the DB9, at least before it drives off the lot.

Lamborghini's concept car for the Miura has turned heads but it will be hard to top the original. Dodge's new Challenger and Chevy's new Camaro will drive the muscle car revival further and will certainly be safer than their forebears but it's hard to imagine them gaining in price over time.

Of the three cars mentioned above, I would drive the 308 often and hard. It is a daily driver classic that probably won't grow too much in value. The Aston Martin might gain for the next few years, at which time I would upgrade. The Daytona I would keep for a while, driving only on very dry, warm days. It is likely to get ever more expensive.

Many cars are getting ever more expensive, for two reasons. One is that cars, like photographs, have been around long enough to gain acceptance by auction houses and other sellers eager for new markets. The more important reason is that older people with money grew up in a time when the car defined the culture.

Consider my father. He was born in 1946 in California. By the time he was old enough to drive, he was drag racing and by the time he was in his 20s, the muscle car boom had hit America. My father will be 60 in July. He is at the forefront of the baby boom generation and, like many of his peers, has been prudent financially and has money to spend, if he so chose, on collectables.

In fact, the spending power of my father's generation is so great that it is making many of the cars I already deem classic too expensive for much of my generation. The early muscle cars of the 1970s are enjoying much attention today, with some of the more desirable models reaching six figures and the extremely rare ones reaching seven. One reason for this is that baby boomers are nostalgic. Three decades ago they might not have been able to afford the Plymouth Barracuda, with the Hemi engine, but they can now.

One of the leading car auctioneers, Barrett-Jackson, held a sale in January in Arizona where six vehicles reached or exceeded the million-dollar mark, including bidder's fees. They included a pristine 1970 Hemi 'Cuda convertible, selling for $2.16m, the oldest existing Corvette at $1.08m and a 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS LS6 convertible at $1.24m.

It is hard to imagine that cars from the 1980s, 1990s and this decade will become classics that sell for such lofty prices. Take the Audi A6. Audi has done a great job of reviving its brand during this decade. It builds a wonderful car for what used to be called "yuppies", were later called "bourgeois bohemians" but will always be called "middle class", whether the garden variety or upper.

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Source: FT.com (Financial Times)
by David Wells
Published: May 27 2006 03:00
Last updated: May 27 2006 03:00