What passes rare these days?
Everything in life has a value and classic cars are no
exception. Mostly, it’s pretty easy to place a value on them
if the car in question was a volume production model; rarer
machinery demands more detailed research, but nevertheless presents
no long term problems as long as all the details are available.
The same is true of rare prestige machinery, except the values
are generally higher, that’s all. But there are exceptions;
the question is, what passes as rare these days? When most of us
try to answer this, we will generally choose something made in very
small numbers such as an Aston Martin DB4 Zagato - a car worth
several hundred thousand pounds due to the sheer unavailability in
the market and its intrinsic desirability.
So far, so good, but I’ve been discovering some other stuff
which is rare for different reasons altogether; such was the sheer
destructive ability of rust inherent in cars of the 50s and 60s,
many once-prolific volume models are now reduced to a mere handful
in roadworthy condition.
Take an early 60s Vauxhall Victor; this was good middle class
fare in 1962 and would usually be driven by your bank manager and
parked in the suburbs. Many thousands were produced for an
ever-appreciative public, but today rust has ravaged them to the
extent that only a handful remain in good, roadworthy condition.
Does this fact make them valuable? Sadly not, it seems, which is
why bread and butter models of the past are surely disappearing
from our roads; unless they’re in good nick, it just doesn’t make
economic sense to restore them. So nobody does.
The phenomenon is highlighted even more when a barn find turns
up. You know, the 23,000 miler bought new by a newly retired doctor
and used for shopping trips only up to the time they shuffle off to
meet their maker. Often a surviving spouse keeps the car out of
sentimentality until they, too pass on. Unencumbered with
sentiment for the thing, relatives then decide to sell it off,
hoping for a nice few quid.
The reality, however, is different; I’ve seen quite a few of
these coming in for valuation and the news isn’t good. I had
a lovely 1971 Morris Marina 1.3 DL two door with only 32,000 miles
genuinely covered by an old lady. It belonged to her husband
and although she didn’t drive, she couldn’t bear to part with her
dear late husband’s car. A few phone calls established the fact
that dealers would pay £1,000 for it - tops. The problem is
that a Marina just isn’t sexy and unless it evokes memories of a
carefree childhood trips to the coast with mum and dad, there
simply isn’t a general market for such cars.
The old lady was content with my explanation of market
forces - after all, I explained, you can’t insure
sentiment. However, there are some that refuse to accept
their Escort MK3 1.3 Popular with ‘just’ 80,000 miles from new is
not worth the £5,000 they are requesting - even if it has had just
the one owner.
The only low mileage bread and butter cars that are bucking this
trend are some of the sixties and seventies Fords. The 3 litre
Capris have for a while been snapped up by the nostalgic fast Ford
brigade, but now I’m seeing good low mileage 1.6s in all series
become sought-after too. The same is true of the Escorts; I saw a
16,000 mile Escort MK2 Ghia 1.6 selling for £4,750 recently -
and it didn’t hang around long, even with the period brown colour
scheme.
But the one most in demand - thanks to the BBC series Life
on Mars - is the MK3 Cortina. Prices of the top of the
range GXL and 2000E models have positively shot up in response to
the programme’s popularity. Find a nice, low mileage example
of these and you’ll pay dearly if the seller is clued-up.
Expect to pay £3,000 for a straight one, needing a little work and
up to £6,000 for one with low miles and low ownership history. As
Sam in Life on Mars would say: “Am I dreaming?”