Offensive to sellers but have people gone over the cliff on Car values
Actually it started to happen in 1987 when the bottom fell out of the stock market that October.All these idiotic greedy investors who knew nothing about cars started looking for quick and easy returns on their money and started buying up cars.They began the upward price spiral and it just kept going as greedy car owners took advantage and greedy investors kept buying into it. Us working stiffs got pushed aside like yesterdays garbage. Back in those days was the time to get A bodies which is what I did because the big money was only interested in the big cars with the big motors that they could get big returns on in a 6 month to a years time. Now that's not the case , they have sucked up all the A bodies now as well.
Very good point, when cars became "investments" instead of a means of transportation, that's when the **** really began to hit the fan. People buying up cars because they
expected to make a profit on them. Those were the ones who would never drive the car, just in case something happened to their investment. So someone saw a 70 HemiCuda convertible sell for 1 million dollars, found out that there were only a handful of them built by Chrysler, and realized they could make a ton of cash. I have nothing against someone making some $, but the end result is what we have today. One the one hand it's great to have all of the companies like AMD producing new panels for these old rustbuckets, but the fact is Chrysler was typically the #3 automaker, and their production totals were lower than Ford and GM, then factor in that there were far more /6 and 318 cars than there were 440+6 or Hemi cars. That scarcity makes the market go crazy, which then causes all of the clones or tribute cars because of course when you're putting 50 or 60k or more into a resto, you want to get some return on your $.
Case in point, there's been a gorgeous 1970 V code 4 speed Road Runner for sale locally here for a couple of months. Car is plum crazy with a white gut, super track pack car, restored to original, has a documented history, seller claims to have over 200k invested, is asking 112k. I only wish I had the money, that would be one I would love to own.
On the flip side I saw an ad today for an original 8 3/4 A body diff, claimed to be freshly rebuilt with 3.55s and an asking price of $2500.00