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(Prices a in AUD, so will differ from NA prices)
Dross goes for about 5K
Average good cars about 10K
Then the really good stuff is bringing 20K +
Also the XJC is getting a bit of a following to.
not sure that they will be big dollar cars in the future, but the prices here and in the UK are definately firming up
I've always been kind of interested in these cars. I've fancied that they'd hold their value better than a Saleen Mustang, although why I'd think that I can't say.
If (ok, when) I start collecting cars from my generation (90s RX7, Supra Turbo, Integra Type-R), I wouldn't want to touch modified examples.
That is unless it's a car that was featured in many magazines or built by someone well known on the circuit.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
Only 2 come to mind for me:
The BMW 8 series (I call it the Elusive 8. I see maybe 2 of these in a year.) They're still pretty expensive & very rare IMO.
And the beautiful Convertible Mercedes. When I see this car I envision an older gentleman driving it with a pipe in his mouth, scarf blowing in the wind as he drives a twisty mountain road...lol
I've had people compliment me on my old Bimmer (1988 735i), but after reading this thread I'm sure it won't get there. Antique, yes. Classic, no!
But yes, they will become "antiques" some day and will be loved by their owners no doubt.
That describes "Nigel Shiftwright" to a tee. Sound familiar Shifty?
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
Most 20 year old cars destined for some collectible status would have started a price rise by now.
One might have thought that the earlier T-Birds would pull the value up of newer T-Birds but it doesn't work that way apparently. Spectacular later versions of a once-mediocre car can pull up the mediocre, but not vice-versa it seems. Who wants a 1981 Cadillac when they can have a '55?
A good example of how a future "classic" should behave would be say the 1978-1983 Porsche SC. They depreciated and depreciated just like used cars until they hit about 15 years old. Then they "bottomed out" and stabilized and then started to slowly creep UP in value around 1998 or so. Now, a 1983 Porsche is still a "bargain" but every year the price goes up a bit.
We aren't seeing this pattern with cars like the T-Bird supercoupe. I suspect at best it will keep up with inflation at least, which makes it more like 'special interest for the few' rather than anything resembling a classic.
/my two cents
1962-1967 9.3
1968-1972 11.0
1973-1979 12.0
1980-1984 11.5
1985-1989 8.8
1990s 7.8
2000s 6.3
'68-'72 is a little surprising, but for every Hemi Cuda it seemed like there were 2 or 3 sloooow cars (even the '70 914 had a 13.9 sec reported time).
So it's not just people's "interest" (heretofore called the "demand") for a certain old car, but the NATURE of the collector as well. The "demand" can drop off dramatically at a certain pricing point.
Lots of people *might* want a $1,200 old Gremlin just for goofs, but hardly anybody wants a $15,000 old Fremlin.
So I think these T-Bird coupes will fall into that kind of category....limited demand by a few tight-fisted curiosity seekers and still more than enough cars around to keep the price way down.
One could say "well, when the SUPPLY dries up, then the price will go up"!
Maybe, maybe not. What sometimes happens with old cars is that when the supply dries up, everyone forgets about the car!
You can see this for yourself. There's a LOT of ink being spread say on the Buick GNX and hardly a drop on the 80s T-Birds. That will affect future attitudes about these cars.
I see this all the time, which is why I never base my opinions on value on what people *say* they will do, but rather on actual points of sale.
Unless you (the owner I mean) puts the car on the open fair market, any talk of "I've been offered $50K for it" or "people are paying big bucks for these" is just blowing smoke.
The most common thing I hear is "There was one on eBay for $50,000!"
Yeah, with no bids.
Asking prices and bragging rights are nothing more than the exercise of First Amendment Rights... :P
I'm neither "negative" or "positive". I'm just looking at the sales figures for 80s T-Birds, and there's no suggestion of a collectibility trend at this time.
I guess if you got a V-8 model, it wouldn't be a bad car. I had a friend who had an '86 Elan with the 232 "Essex" V-6 though, and that thing was a dog. It was just about fully loaded, except for that engine. He thought it was fast, and compared to the beater 1980 Accord he'd had before it WAS fast. But then he got mad when my $1100 '69 Dart, which was older than we were, blew him away at a traffic light.
But, to be fair, I had an '82 Cutlass Supreme with a V-6, and its acceleration sucked too.
I think the '83-88 T-bird/Cougar is a body style that's aged very well. They're old enough now to qualify for historic plates in some areas (as of 1/1/08, the '83 models will qualify in Maryland) yet they actually look more modern than some brand-new cars!
You could get the Lincoln Mark VII that was the same basic car underneath with the 5.0 litre V-8.
Lots of noise about that T-Bird, but little love..
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But few really liked the engine. Same with the Merkur XR4Ti.
Ford probably would've been better off just putting a mildly hopped up V-8 in the T-bird, like they did with the 1985 LTD LX. It had 165 hp, which was a bit less than the 180 or so the Mark VII LSC put out at that time, but still a bit more than the 140 hp version of the 302 that went in Crown Vics and T-birds and pickup trucks.
I've seen old road tests of the LTD LX, and it would do 0-60 in about 9 seconds, with the 4-speed automatic. Not bad at all for the time.
It felt like it had a lot more power than that... Maybe the torque rating was a lot higher. But, terrible gas mileage... I think they were still working out the bugs with the computer controlled fuel injection.
Actually, a pretty nice car compared to the typical boats that Lincoln put out...Poor visibility, though..
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Andre, do you know whether the V8 in this sedan - kind if a sport sedan, I guess - was fuel injected?
While a V8 may have been more in keeping with the T-Bird's heritage, I don't think the problem with the Turbo 4 was so much the number of cylinders, but rather that it wasn't refined. To use a totally unrealistic example, just for the purpose of making a point, if the T-Bird Turbo 4 had had today's Acura RDX's turbo 4 engine, it would have gotten rave reviews and ecstatic accolades from owners. The problem was THAT 4.
Also, the later models ('87 and '88, I think) could be coupled to a four speed automatic.
Since they were starting to use the small LTD as a copcar, maybe Ford thought it could get more profit out of it by offering a civilian version, but then since the Taurus would soon be coming out, they decided to squash it before it got too popular?
Smaller sports coupes did get away with it, though.
Yeah, but at this time, under-sized engines just kind of went with the territory. The domestics were still trying to skirt the fine line between building large-ish cars that customers still demanded, while trying to find ways to make them more fuel efficient.
Ford actually did get away, to an extent, with putting 2.3 4-cylinder engines in Fairmonts, which the T-bird was based on. However, the Fairmont was a much lighter, and more downscale car. I guess it was no worse though, than when GM was putting those little 3.3 Chevy and 3.2 Buick V-6es in their downsized midsized cars, which started at around 3,000 pounds, or when Chrysler strangled their slant six off to 85-90 hp and was slipping it under the hood of 3200 pound Volares or worse, 3400 pound Cordobas and Miradas!
Still, these types of cars really needed, at the bare minimum, something of about 3.8 liters. Or in the case of those bulky Mopars, a 5.2.
Although I can't quote dimensions at this moment (help, Andre, you're good with dimensions and weights), I'm thinking that the '07 Accord coupe is similar in size, and perhaps weight, to the '83-'86 T-Bird Turbo Coupe. I mention the Accord coupe because the base engine is a 2.4L 4. Incidentally, those T-Birds were trimmer and lighter than their GM counterparts. Also, isn't the current BMW 3-series offered with a 4 cylinder in Europe?
Of course, if it's a super 4 cylinder in an AWD platform with a rally car chassis and suspension, like the EVO, then collectibility is possible. But the EVO was very well received from the get-go, and always talked about.
Fact is, nobody cares about 4 cylinder T-Birds or Accords, and I doubt they ever will.
This is off the top of my head, so don't place any wagers using this info! Anyway, I think the '83-86 T-bird was about 200" long, 104.4" wheelbase, and maybe 70-71" wide. As for weight, well I think the V-6 coupe was around 3,000 pounds, so I'd imagine a turbo coupe was about 2900?
A modern Accord coupe is actually LARGER inside than a T-bird. Although I sat in the back seat of one at the Philly auto show, and the Accord is still cramped in back. From what I remember of my buddy's '86 T-bird, I could fit okay up front, although shoulder room is tighter than a Monte Carlo (or modern Accord) and the driveshaft hump was HUGE! The back seat was tight, really more compact-sized than mid-sized. Trunk was about 14 cubic feet, which, IIRC, is about what the current Accord's is.
Interestingly, the 1989 T-bird, while a heavier, bulkier, wider car, was actually a bit shorter than the '83-88! It wasn't much shorter, maybe 2". And wheelbase was way up, to something like 113" IIRC.
Cars of that size today do just fine with 4-cyl engines, but in general, the 4-cyl just wasn't ready to move around 3,000 pound cars back in the 80's. I'd imagine that you had to rev the snot out of the 2.3 Turbo to get that 9.7 second 0-60 time out of it, whereas with the 302/automatic, just point and shoot and you could probably get around 10 seconds without really trying. Heck, my '86 Monte Carlo, which had the 150 hp 305-4bbl and 4-speed automatic, would do 0-60 in about 10 seconds, and it would've been heavier than a T-bird. Plus, GM tended to stick overly tall axle ratios in their cars back then, where Ford was a bit more aggressive.
I agree, but it's the truth. Ijust don't see any cars of the modern era that will be collector "classic" status.
You take a '67 Camaro. Sounds "collectible" right? but if it's a stripped down coupe, 6 cylinder automatic 1967 Camaro, you don't have anything of value, even 40 years later, even from the fabulous 60s and even with the magic Camaro name, and even WITH being 1st year production.
It's not only about the car, it's about the options, the production numbers, the initial public reception and the styling.
In a word, "collectablity" is a lot more complex than it first appears.
Just because horsepower is and has been the big positive differentiater doesn't mean that this will drive tomorrow's collectible prices. It may, but I wouldn't be surprised if horsepower will lose some relative status. Why? Well, in the '40s, '50s, and '60s there were a lot of slow, unexciting cars. That's less so today, when a '07 bottom feeder commuter car can equal the acceleration of yesteryear's hot cars, and outhandle it in the process. I'm not saying that a Kia Rio is almost as exciting to drive as, say, an Aston Martin, but I think that Chrysler 300s, XK Jags, and maybe even Buick Centurys turned more heads and generated more WOWS! in the '50s than the best of the nonexotics do today. Today, it takes an outlandishly priced exotic to generate the same level of excitement that cars that fairly ordinary folks could buy in the '50s and '60s generated. And, maybe it's styling or exclusivity, more than horsepower, which will make such a car a classic in 25 years.
HP may be only ONE factor, but it will ALWAYS be a factor IMO. Why? Because no toy is fun if you don't get to play with it in some fashion, either through scaring yourself (like in vintage racing), or in special events (like the Brighton run).
Styling could be a strong factor, as long as the car was not mass-produced or, if mass-produced, a total knock-out when brand new.
So if you're already yawning when you see a 2-3 year old car of a certain type, you can pretty much count on it being ignored in the future. The Mustangs, Hemis, '57 Chevys, etc, never went out of fashion. They were always "cool" to own, drive and look at. They weren't always worth a lot, but then collector cars wasn't a speculative market as it is now. Back then, people collected cars solely because they admired them for what they were.
But, fast forward to today, and we've now had 8 years of Impalas (or 9, if the 2008s are out by now), and there's only been one styling change during that time. Back in the day, if you looked at a 9 year history of any given model, chances are it would've gotten styling changes every year, and probably one or two total redesigns. Now I guess the 2006+ Impala SS, with its 5.3 V-8, might have some minor collector value, but the cars in general will never see the sort of status that a big-block Impala SS would have back in the day.
Another thing is that, by and large, the very styles that tend to be collectible, hardtop coupes, convertibles, and to a lesser degree, 2-door sedans, just aren't being made anymore. Nowadays, just about everything is a 4-door sedan
I think the Prius will attain some kind of "curiosity" status, yes, worshipped by a cult of aging small-spenders who will collect 15 or more of them in the backyard and advertise them in a future Craigslist as "project---all 15 for $X!!!" It will be the new iteration of the 4-door Studebaker Lark crowd or Church of the Volvo Station Wagon.
I think once we got past designs like the Audi 5000, first-gen Taurus, 1983 T-bird, etc, car style has pretty much stopped evolving, and began recycling and regurgitating. There's only so much you can do with an egg shape, and there's only so much you can do with a wedge shape, and only so much you can do with a box. And there's only so many combinations thereof to try.