Are prices way down on classic muscle right now?

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MRGTX

MRGTX

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It goes without saying that before the big market crash five years back, prices on the "special" cars were getting pretty absurd and the market likely regained some sanity with those vehicles as prices came back down from the ionosphere.

Not counting those outliers, it seems to be the case that the classics in general have fallen quite a bit in the past year or so.

Do you agree? If so, what is the cause? Do you think it's good or bad?

My only worry is that as these cars become less coveted, they may fall into hands that don't care for them or value them...and it could hasten their march to extinction.

Thoughts?
 
I think a lot of it has to do with location and demand. Here, classic mopars are hard to come by.
 
A lot of the classics that were sitting are finding there way to the local scrap yard. Due to the price being high and people needing money. Except for the Camaro's and Mustang's and Cuda's the obvious collectors. Luckily our local yard owner is not crushing them but putting them in a section reserved for classic's and selling parts.
 
The high dollar stuff is and will stay high. The less special cars have come down for the most part. Not late 70's dirt cheap prices but they have come down.

In my opinion they have come down because of the economy and the new muscle (mustang,camaro and challenger) that is available these days. It's cheaper to buy buy modern muscle in most cases then to fuly restore an old car and you get a better all around car with modern muscle.

Don't worry classic mopars will fall into those kids hands that will cut them up and modify the crap out of them. Just look at the rat rod crowd. It's coming. Not next year or snything but it wil come as the classic mopar guys of today die off.
 
I think it has to do with several things that vary from different areas of the country,supply,demand,economics and peoples priorities can change in a very short time frame due to family,health job changes,again economics plays a major role in decision making for toys and large purchases,for example I've talked with guys making 50k or more a yr which they consider low or average but where I am geographically it's enough to live quite well and have excess money to buy things you normally could'nt afford...and I've also seen people making 20k or less and have toys,sometimes they sit and do nothing with them due to the lack of funds or lose interest in them... some people are impulse buyers,some are hoarders,there are many things that drive the market for classics but I would be fairly safe in saying it's mainly economics that sets the pace and from my standpoint it aint looking very well ,if I didnt already have my car and many parts and stuff already I would in no way be able to replicate it again at this point in time due to my health and finances and age and my lack of desire to mix it up or drive to gotta have I once had..once not so long ago had 5-6 projects,now only one and I'm struggling to maintain that in terms of ambition/money to complete it,with all that stated,I am in the catagory of 5-6 yrs back of moving alot of parts and cars[10-15 cars a yr plus tons of parts and parts cars] to almost zero..supplies dried up ,cars dissapeared,scrappers took alot of good stuff away,money got tighter and values plumented,slowly they have made a rocky climb but no way as good as they were but they are going up over time but I doubt they will ever get back totally where they were then but I've been wrong before,these reality shows like 'flippin cars' '*** monkey garage' and such is all BS for the most part and 'regular' people dont play by those rules for the most part,unless you have tons of money you are pretty limited to what you can do especially if you got a family and obligations and just trying to survive on what you get to take home which in my case I usually dont make it home with anything left over....So,I feel that economics is the main reason and I have found that there is a real lack of demand for what I once did on a large scale as in there are far fewer peoples buying or are interested in it as a whole...
 
abodyjoe said:
The high dollar stuff is and will stay high. The less special cars have come down for the most part. Not late 70's dirt cheap prices but they have come down.

In my opinion they have come down because of the economy and the new muscle (mustang,camaro and challenger) that is available these days. It's cheaper to buy buy modern muscle in most cases then to fuly restore an old car and you get a better all around car with modern muscle.

Don't worry classic mopars will fall into those kids hands that will cut them up and modify the crap out of them. Just look at the rat rod crowd. It's coming. Not next year or snything but it wil come as the classic mopar guys of today die off.
Click to expand...
X2..Very true..remember the dinosuers died off too,just a few fossils left in remembrance of what once was.........
 
I fell in love with Mopars as a kid, they were cheap and nobody wanted them. Some models are a bit rare because they did not sell new. This is all compared to Ford and Chev. When the boom hit, chevy and ford guys were even buying mopars, (painting the firewall black) because they were going up so fast. Now parts are expensive, there are more clones than originals and if you look at the past years auction results they do not sell. Mopars are now expensive and nobody wants them. I love my mopar, love working on it, love driving it and if you want to buy it from me, no matter the price, you will have to wait until the estate sale. As far as investment, most cars may not be that good. Enjoy your car, enjoy this site, that is your best investment in time.
 
With the state of the economy, uncertainty of Obamacare, the prices of parts and paint I don't see where a lot of people will end up staying in the game. I have been seeing cars parted out that would have never been 5 years ago because people can't sell them whole.
 
You are always hearing"it's too expensive".I was here when you could buy one new for 1995.00. 600 extra for a hemi????Its all relative,you will always have the high dollar cars just because they are rare.Lots of cars and trucks have been scrapped mainly because it is easier to take them to the crusher than to deal with the cheap bastard crowd.the guys that really want to build and drive them are doing just that.The dreamers and the whiners are also doing what they will always do.
 
Good feedback, guys.

I recently thumbed through the current issue of Hemmings Muscle Car mag (may have that title slightly wrong...) and the section at the back of the book had some surpises including a very nice (but possibly not numbers matching) '67 GTX/440 (my all time favorite) in white that sold for $11,000. :eek:
 
I think a lot of guys are just getting priced out of the market. They hang onto cars with hopes of restoring it and slowly reality of the price of parts and paint dooms the project. How many times do you see a nice car all torn apart on Craigslist and then the guy wants what he paid for it? Good Luck! Lots of them hang on but they did not bag and tag and want to sell buckets of parts half of them lost or sold off all the good stuff. It is a shame what happens to nice cars sometimes.
 
I see prices going up,i love to get a street car but the prices are going up,as drag cars with no titles are stable,so im just sticking with drag cars
 
Have seen even some of the higher end cars suffer on prices, but not as bad as it was when everything peaked in prices and then dropped due to the economy. I know a guy who bought a '69-1/2 Super Bee. I didn't believe that it was a real six pack car when he told me what he bought it for. They were going for nearly twice what he paid just a couple years prior. Turned out to be a real deal 1 of 15 red Super Bees and one of the best restorations I've ever seen on a car. It is top notch. But he could still easily get his money back out of it or probably even a little more than what he paid. IMO, the prices have stayed fairly steady over the last few years with that caliber of cars.
 
It may have more to do with the price of everything else you buy now days is way up. Food, fuel, staple goods ,etc.... Less disposable income...
 
Just wait til January and the Barrett Jackson Auction hits again. Prices will go back up.

funny how people don't hear the announcers say that the people selling their cars are losing money. "Costs more to restore, then what they are getting for it." BJ takes the elite of the elite, I have not won the lotto yet, and probably won't, so the prestine car, I'd just tear up driving, I'll never own.
 
I worry more about the next decade or two, there does not seem to be any interest in the classics by the younger crowd anymore. I have three sons, and they would all rather mess around with late model stuff than my 65 Plymouth Signet, or 70 Dodge T/A. The biggest difference I see is the younger crowd is not intimidated by all the electronics and computers, like the majority of us in the older crowd. I think as those of us that grew up in the 60's, 70's, and even the 80's quit messing around with these cars, there isn't going to be anyone interested in them anymore.
 
Here it is in a nut shell: Those trying to sell say the interest isn't there. The buyers cant find anything in there area, and, if they do find something, its priced out of this world. So, sellers and buyers aren't getting together. In my area, you just never see a duster or satellite unless you go to a mopar show. I would love to have a 70-72 duster that's very solid. 318 or slant, just so it's a great driver and rock solid body. But, they don't exist. If I do find one, they usually are asking 6500+++. And then, its just a driver, could use paint or a little interior work. Lets face it, we call the market soft when cars that sold for 10,000 are now only bringing 7500, without considering it's a 68 318 satellite.....
 
In Detroit, the project cars are DIRT CHEAP right now, granted they need a bit of work, but I have never seen B bodys and A body projects being so affordable. The full restored cars are still on craigslist with asking prices of full blown retail, but I don't know how many are actually selling.
 
MRGTX said:
Good feedback, guys.

I recently thumbed through the current issue of Hemmings Muscle Car mag (may have that title slightly wrong...) and the section at the back of the book had some surpises including a very nice (but possibly not numbers matching) '67 GTX/440 (my all time favorite) in white that sold for $11,000. :eek:
Click to expand...


While that is your personal favorite, 67 GTX's sell for the least of the 67-72 GTX's. And they have a smaller more niche buying audience. Now if that car was column shift and A/C those would be other dings.

I'm guessing that was a recorded auction price. Many of those car look good in a picture, but are actualy massive turds up close and underneath.

Also there can be good deals at auctions if that particular day in the audience there wasn't enough interested buyers in 67 GTX's.
 
Kar said:
I worry more about the next decade or two, there does not seem to be any interest in the classics by the younger crowd anymore. I have three sons, and they would all rather mess around with late model stuff than my 65 Plymouth Signet, or 70 Dodge T/A. The biggest difference I see is the younger crowd is not intimidated by all the electronics and computers, like the majority of us in the older crowd. I think as those of us that grew up in the 60's, 70's, and even the 80's quit messing around with these cars, there isn't going to be anyone interested in them anymore.
Click to expand...

You have probably hit the nail on the head if you look back at history. I remember when a Model Ts that was nice would sell for $10K in this area and now I see the same caliber of car with a $5K asking price.
 
And.............classics got way way WAY artificially over-priced with the "Ebay fever" and "big bubble" before the big crash. I'd venture classic cars aren't the only thing in this category...........
 
The classic car market went crazy before the financial and real estate markets crashed. people were getting cheap 2nd and 3rd mortgages to buy investment cars and there was more demand than supply. Now the oppisite is playing out. My brother has been buying and selling mopars for 25 years and the market is way down on the "nice stuff". If your plan right now is to buy a project and do a full resto and flip the car for a profit, you better be skilled enough to do all the work yourself. Otherwise, forget it. The aftermarket resto suppliers have also ridden the wave fueled by "drunken rich guys" at the barret style auctions. You would think, with so many suppliers of the same things, that the repro parts would really have come down by now. I think in time they will have to bring the prices down to keep sales up.jmo
 
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