The Value of Old Cars

[johnnymk]

A friend of mine who is one of the first baby boomers and is a car nut ( owns 4 early Corvettes and an early Camaro ) told me something recently. I have been thinking about his prediction and I think he is on to something.

We go to a lot of car shows where there are customs and stock vehicles ranging from the thirties to the early seventies. Eighty to ninety percent of the guys who own these cars and probably 60-70 precent of the attendees are in their late forties to mid sixties.

Many of the owners have done most of the work on their cars except for the paint job and upholstery. But even some are skilled enough to do those tasks.

Anyway, my friend believes as the early boomers die off that there will be few younger people who will desire to buy these vehicles. Or will have the money, time or skill to restore and/or modify the ones which were never touched previously.

I think he's right. I have noticed even very few Fox body Mustangs from 1979 to 1993 are on the road lately. It seems that younger drivers desire foreign cars.

That was proven when a friend of mine and I attended the local drag race in the summer where the majority of the cars there were rice rockets. Most of the racers and attendees were in their late teens to early thirties.

But who knows, foreigners could always snap up these vehicles to add to their collections which could maintain their value.

[Merlin]

When people get older they will collect the cars that were cool when they were young. For people in their 50's that's muscle cars. For the older ones it is hot rods. In the future people will have fun with the cars that they drag today.

But in the future it won't matter too much as we will be out of gasoline by then anyway.

[mechmike0034]

My almost 16 YO son could care less about cars, and isn't real excited about learning to drive. I have owned a motorcycle for four years, and have ridden him around a bunch - he has not once asked about learning to ride or getting a bike for himself. None of his friends/contemporaries have much interest in cars or motorcycles.

[Jeffbx]

What's up with that? Several kids I know who are just reaching (or just past) driving age have no interest in getting behind the wheel. When I was younger I couldn't get my license fast enough, but today there seems to be a generation of kids who have no interest in getting around.

[DarkFury]

My almost 16 YO son could care less about cars, and isn't real excited about learning to drive. I have owned a motorcycle for four years, and have ridden him around a bunch - he has not once asked about learning to ride or getting a bike for himself. None of his friends/contemporaries have much interest in cars or motorcycles.
Hmmm... did he play with "Hotwheels" as a kid?

or is he a "couch potato" that lives for video games? Just wondering?

[johnnymk]

Man, if this is a trend, who's going to design the cars of the future? And even worse, where will the mechanics come from?

[mechmike0034]

Hmmm... did he play with "Hotwheels" as a kid?

or is he a "couch potato" that lives for video games? Just wondering?

Some Hot Wheels, some action figures when he was younger. He's somewhat of a potato, but not always. He games, hangs with his buddies, does the teenager-at-the-mall thing, goes to HS sports events (for the social thing - he isn't and never was into sports, save for one season of soccer as a young child and a couple years of weekly fencing lessons in his earlier teens). He goes to the movies a lot, and rents a fair number of films. He's real into '60s and '70s music.

Motive power and mechanical things just don't interest him like they did/do me.

Jeff's right, though - it seems that there are few true "gearheads" in today's youth.

[Nija]

I've only recently gotten into having an appreciation for older cars, and it was mostly from watching Monster Garage. That show is the main reason I took a welding class last semester at the local CC. One day I hope to have the ability (and finances) to be able to restore some cars.

/Drives a honda

[PrObLy]

Interesting. I'm pretty into cars; I just turned 21. When I was in highschool there were A LOT of guys really interested in cars.

My dad is one of those guys you speak of ,johnnymk. His '67 Nantucket Blue Camaro is his baby. He's spent the better part of 15 years working on it, including doing the paint job and reupholstering it.

We also have a 1927 Chevy that runs and has all of the wood replaced, but isn't in such great shape. He wants to put it up on ebay because it's become a burden having around in the garage all of the time.

I'd be interested to see what happens when the baby boomer era start to pass away. My guess is that if their children are remotely interested in cars then they would keep them in the family, but if not, there may be some nice deals to be had.