It’s Sunday which is a day for me to sit and reflect on what went right this week, what went wrong, and how to keep bringing all our faithful readers. What a week this was in the car world. We saw the debut of the C7 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, some new goodies from Mercedes, and lots of new family cars at the North American International Auto show. Not to mention we covered Dakar hard this week, and we have some cool behind the scenes things going on I want to tell you a bit about.
So hit the jump for news on what’s coming up on IG, the Batmobile, and my thoughts on the collector car market.
BARRETT JACKSON
One of the things I enjoy is watching Barrett Jackson. This year I felt it jumped the shark a bit. We saw an awful lot of fluff pieces like the battles between the commentators, and many other non car related content. That bugs me a bit. Barrett Jackson used to be several days of wall to wall cars rolling across the block with great incites from the announcers. The great announcing team was still there but there was just too much other things going on that wasn’t about the cars.
THE BATMOBILE
So the batmobile sold for 4.2 million dollars. That’s pretty spectacular and I’m very happy for George Barris who seemed thrilled. I even spotted his son crying as it sold. It had to be a very emotional moment to see a true icon like that leave your family. It was great TV and made some of the fluff of the telecast worth it.
The Collector Car Market
With Barrett Jackson wrapping up I think it’s a good time to take a look at the collector car market. I’d be a car collector if my bank account were bigger. I envy those who can. I particularly like those who share their collections via a museum or by taken them out to events. I feel like when you own a great car you are a steward of it. Meaning it is your job to take care of it and share it with others. I have been a little shocked when people are surprised that I would let them sit or even drive my cars. Now I certainly don’t own anything special but I enjoy sharing what I have. So I always hate to see things get locked away.
So just what is the state of the collector car market in this supposed down economy? Well it’s strong. We know the wealthy in this country are doing just fine and clearly they aren’t slowing down on their spending as the numbers in Scottsdale this week were HUGE. I saw relatively average muscle cars selling for six figures all week long. That tells me it probably isn’t a great time to buy for the rest of us.
That’s not to say deals aren’t out there. If you are interested in a vintage muscle car or other classic just stay away from the big blocks and special designation cars. For example 318 Cuda’s can still be had at decent prices. Sometimes even under 10k. That’s not bad for a car you might want to swap the engine out of any way.
What I wonder is what happens when the baby boomers start to die off. No offense to any of them but it’s going to happen. Right now the boomers have the money and they want muscle cars because it is what they grew up with. Now of course a lot of younger IGers love muscle cars too, but are there enough of us to maintain astronomical collector car values? Will we have the money to do so? I have doubts about it. Now this may all sound a lot like doom and gloom but I don’t see it that way. I want these cars to be more attainable so that more people can afford them, so that they will live on forever. That may be wishful thinking on my part, but I can’t help but think we are sitting on a bit of a collector car bubble as I can’t see these six and seven figure price tags being sustainable.
Awesome Week
I do not like to toot our own horn much but we had an awesome week here at IG. We landed some access to some cool events and race series. I’ll tell you more when we finalize things but I’m pretty excited that we are going to be able to bring you more behind the scenes race coverage. Also we just passed 7000 Facebook likes this week. I am humbled and honored that you guys and gals come to read what we have to say. We invite you to join the discussion not only on our Facebook page but also here on the site. Sign up is simple and I promise we aren’t going to sell off your email address. From the bottom of my heart thank you.
Jan 20
Sunday Commentary: Collectors Market, Batmobiles, a great week for IG
Sunday Commentary week in review
by Jason
It’s Sunday which is a day for me to sit and reflect on what went right this week, what went wrong, and how to keep bringing all our faithful readers. What a week this was in the car world. We saw the debut of the C7 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, some new goodies from Mercedes, and lots of new family cars at the North American International Auto show. Not to mention we covered Dakar hard this week, and we have some cool behind the scenes things going on I want to tell you a bit about.
So hit the jump for news on what’s coming up on IG, the Batmobile, and my thoughts on the collector car market.
BARRETT JACKSON
One of the things I enjoy is watching Barrett Jackson. This year I felt it jumped the shark a bit. We saw an awful lot of fluff pieces like the battles between the commentators, and many other non car related content. That bugs me a bit. Barrett Jackson used to be several days of wall to wall cars rolling across the block with great incites from the announcers. The great announcing team was still there but there was just too much other things going on that wasn’t about the cars.
THE BATMOBILE
So the batmobile sold for 4.2 million dollars. That’s pretty spectacular and I’m very happy for George Barris who seemed thrilled. I even spotted his son crying as it sold. It had to be a very emotional moment to see a true icon like that leave your family. It was great TV and made some of the fluff of the telecast worth it.
The Collector Car Market
With Barrett Jackson wrapping up I think it’s a good time to take a look at the collector car market. I’d be a car collector if my bank account were bigger. I envy those who can. I particularly like those who share their collections via a museum or by taken them out to events. I feel like when you own a great car you are a steward of it. Meaning it is your job to take care of it and share it with others. I have been a little shocked when people are surprised that I would let them sit or even drive my cars. Now I certainly don’t own anything special but I enjoy sharing what I have. So I always hate to see things get locked away.
So just what is the state of the collector car market in this supposed down economy? Well it’s strong. We know the wealthy in this country are doing just fine and clearly they aren’t slowing down on their spending as the numbers in Scottsdale this week were HUGE. I saw relatively average muscle cars selling for six figures all week long. That tells me it probably isn’t a great time to buy for the rest of us.
That’s not to say deals aren’t out there. If you are interested in a vintage muscle car or other classic just stay away from the big blocks and special designation cars. For example 318 Cuda’s can still be had at decent prices. Sometimes even under 10k. That’s not bad for a car you might want to swap the engine out of any way.
What I wonder is what happens when the baby boomers start to die off. No offense to any of them but it’s going to happen. Right now the boomers have the money and they want muscle cars because it is what they grew up with. Now of course a lot of younger IGers love muscle cars too, but are there enough of us to maintain astronomical collector car values? Will we have the money to do so? I have doubts about it. Now this may all sound a lot like doom and gloom but I don’t see it that way. I want these cars to be more attainable so that more people can afford them, so that they will live on forever. That may be wishful thinking on my part, but I can’t help but think we are sitting on a bit of a collector car bubble as I can’t see these six and seven figure price tags being sustainable.
Awesome Week
I do not like to toot our own horn much but we had an awesome week here at IG. We landed some access to some cool events and race series. I’ll tell you more when we finalize things but I’m pretty excited that we are going to be able to bring you more behind the scenes race coverage. Also we just passed 7000 Facebook likes this week. I am humbled and honored that you guys and gals come to read what we have to say. We invite you to join the discussion not only on our Facebook page but also here on the site. Sign up is simple and I promise we aren’t going to sell off your email address. From the bottom of my heart thank you.
Tags: Barrett-Jackson, Challenger, collector car, Corvette, Cuda, Dakar, Racing News, Results, and Info, sunday, Superbird, week in review