Are You Befuddled – I Am!

Okay, you car enthusiast types. What gives? Why is it some cars that in their day were absolutely nothing special, suddenly fall under the white-hot light of collector mania? Why is it cars so deserving of special consideration get virtually none at all?

I realize car collecting usually doesn’t make much sense, but I think some people suffer from serious delusions. Cars I thought in my youth were pieces of crap trade on the auctions at prices that astound me. I get the original Fiat 500, 124 Spyder and X1/9 were cute and fun and all, but the 500 wasn’t at all practical in the U.S., and the124 and X1/9 constantly suffered from overheating. I have a thing about cars that work. I guess most collectors don’t care about reliability or the quality of assembly. Seems they take it on as a personal challenge, yet I often hear complaints about how expensive these things are to keep running. Yeah, they were then, too. Why would you think this time would be any different?

Take Ferrari’s, for example. Now, I understand why some of them are expensive and high on most any collector’s list. But, come on, in the 50s through the 80s, for pretty much anything from Italy, fit and finish were afterthoughts. Gaps were uneven, panels didn’t properly fit, some things looked like they were scabbed on. Many Italian cars expressed a blatant love for pop rivets. These ‘prestige’ cars were nothing more than roughly assembled road cars out of a race car factory. That’s not a compliment.

I’m of the camp that wants a collector car to be exceedingly important from an innovation standpoint, or flat out beautiful to look at. It can be cute or funny, like a Fiat Jolly, or something unique. Maybe there’s a great story or history attached to a car. Okay. I’m on board with that stuff. But a Ferrari holding down a $5 million value because it has a prancing horse on the hood doesn’t qualify, or a 1990s JDM car going for several hundred thousand dollars even though they built 10,000 of them. Come on – yes, it’s fun to drive, but it’s neither rare nor pretty nor particularly special over 100 other cars of the period.

Circling back around to the gold standard of collector cars, the Ferrari. I remain puzzled why they garner so much praise, so much attention over other special cars. They are no longer totally scarce. They are a status symbol, a look at me toy, a sign of exclusive success. Why they hold their resale value, or quickly exceed their original sale price, over other luxury brands strains the bounds of common sense. But, I suppose that’s the point, is it not? There is no common sense attached to any of this. It’s a game of emotions, of pride, of ego.

Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s called branding and marketing and all that hooey. Amazing people fall for all that crap. But wait a second – how does the blue-collar blue oval fit in all this?

Why a 2006 550hp Ford GT is worth nearly as much as the gorgeous and groundbreaking work of art 2011 750hp Aston Martin One-77 completely eludes me. New, the Ford GT was $150,000 (sometimes up to $250k if a dealer could peddle it). Over 4,000 of them were built. Only 77 of the Astons were made to the tune of $1.15 million base price. They usually topped out about $1.8 million. Today, the Ford can top out at $1 million or more while the Aston only manages $1.6 million on average.

There’s no justice! The Aston has more cache, is faster, more beautiful, better equipped, more practical. The Aston tops out at a speed limited 220 mph; the Ford only gets to 205. My 2012 Aston Martin V12 Vantage with 566hp is significantly rarer (1,199 built), just as fast, more beautiful, more horsepower, more practical, better equipped. Yet the schizophrenic market only values an excellent V12 Vantage at $135,000. They were over $200,000 new. None of it makes any sense.

I get particularly annoyed when I see the residual values of excellent Aston Martin’s going for absolutely silly, insulting prices. I can only assume the English version of cache just doesn’t measure up to the Italian version, although with all other factors in mind, I am constantly mystified why. Astons are every bit as reliable as other luxury exotics yet, somehow, they continue to lag the market. And now, I’m whining. I don’t get it, and that’s about all I do get.