Category Archives: Muscle Cars

As we all know our government has a fair amount of regulatory control over the auto industry some of it good, some questionable.

One fact that I didn’t know was the in the early eighties the government thought that a good way to have the masses slow down on our nations freeways was to limit the numbers shown on the analog speedometers.  So the decision was made to show only 85 mph.  I’m not sure how many auto makers complied but I know in the Corvette GM did…sort of.

As many Corvette guys know, the 1984 Corvette, the first year of the C4 cars, the dash display was all digital with graphs displaying the RPM’s and the MPH’s.  And sure enough the analog portion of the speedometer topped off at 85 MPH.  The graph would run up to the top the display and stop.  But there was a additional functionality.  There was also a digital component to the RPM and MPH displays.  This functionality would show the actual speed.  That’s how GM got around the government control.   I’ve tested this, of course and I’ve had my 84 Vette up to 174 mph with the number showing up brightly on the dash.

Thanks for reading.

Drop me a comment.  If there is something you want to discuss…story to tell…post it up.

Tim

Ok… so this is not rocket science but I think this is a good way to approach determining the value of your car.

This might not be what the market will bare but it is the value.  There are some hard numbers and some not so hard numbers, we’ll call those variables.  (I’m computer programmer turned IT project manager, but still love the logic of math and coding.)

Always consider the original purchase of your car.  What did you pay for it?  That’s a hard number.  Lets set the variable to “P” for purchase price.   I’m an average guy with an average income, so you know I didn’t spend the gross national product of a small island country on my Mustang, plus it’s a coupe, so you get the picture.  “Tell them the price!!”…”No..No…I won’t”….”Come on!!!”…”Ok fine!!!”  So I paid $6,000 dollars for the Mustang with the straight 6 (250) engine and lots of girlie molding.  “There you happy?”….”Yea but could have left the girlie part out”….”Whatever.” So you can see that depending on which price guide you use I over paid for the car right there.

Next you are going to have add the really scary hard number, the cost of restoration/modification.  Yeah..I know..I don’t want to add them up either, but you have too.  So keep a stiff upper lip, grab the grease smeared, finger print stained receipt folder (I keep mine in this small plastic box in the garage..don’t want in falling into the wrong hands…not that  SWMBO [she who must be obeyed] wasn’t aware of the individual expenditures, it’s just the shock of see it all together, that can, I admit, stop the a heart beating for at least 30 seconds.)  fire up that solar-powered calculator and have at it.  We’ll label this variable “R”.  As if that number might not be big enough toss in the maintenance if you drive it a lot.

Now the next variable is a soft number.  It’s condition and determining it as subjective as picking  the prettiest girl in the bar.  You know which ones aren’t and then it becomes a matter of degrees for the others. (Any one offended?  Any one?..Ok good!) Hemmings often displays a description in the front of most of their auction pieces that explain a useful rating of numbers with pluses and minuses. Example: 1+ or 2- like that.  Once you can arrive at the condition we need to set that as a variable.  We’ll label that one ‘C’ and it can be a negative or positive, in our equations. As you read this, you are going, yeah..but how much the condition worth?  Here is my idea.  Use at least two pricing guides and take the differences in value between the various condition levels, average it out and you end up with the average increase in value. Start out by calling your car average and the value as zero add the amount as the condition betters or subtract for every position it lowers.

You can include sentimental value and we’ll call that variable ‘Z’ and I can’t even being to tell you how to determine that number.  Here is what I’d try. After adding up the hard numbers and  then take the price you would honestly live with and subtrack the hard numbers and add the difference back in to the final value.

So to recap:

P = the purchase price

R = the restoration and or modifications costs

C = Condition

Z = Sentimental value.

Formula looks like this:                      P + R + C + Z = value.

Remember – this is a value – not what the market will hold.  For insurance purposes you must drop the Z variable.

Ok…Tomorrow I’ll run the numbers for both of my cars and see how I fair.

Thanks for reading

Tim

Ok so we need to touch on sources for help us come to a decision on the value of our cars.

There are several areas.  NADA has an online collector cars section and Kelly’s Blue Book doesn’t cover cars as old as mine, at least their on-line services only goes to year 1990.

So for a “collector value” you need to turn to one of the other publications, there are many, the one I use most often is Old Cars Price Guide.  I have a copy sent to me but they have an on-line service as well.  www.oldcarspriceguide.net.

Most price guides require a selection of “condition”. errkkk……there we go again, subjective, subjective, subjective.  The Old Cars Price Guide gives you a 1 -6 rating with 1 being the top condition. In the front of the guide there is a listing of what the conditions mean and what’s required for meeting that goal.

Here is how my cars stack up.

The Mustang:

Old Cars Price guide –   1. $22,500   2. $15,750   3. $10,130  4.  $4,500  5.  $2,700   6. $900 (wow the at the drop of value)

NADA’s   Used price –  1. $17,440    2. $13,140   3. $8, 110

The Vette:

Old Cars Price guide –     1. $27,000   2. $18,900   3. $12,150  4.  $5,400  5.  $3,240   6. $1,080

NADA’s   Used price –  1. $17,350    2. $13,510   3. $8, 503

Over $20k drop in prices by condition with the Old Cars Price guide. and $5k there ’bouts with NADA’s Used price.

Couple of things are clear right up front.  There is no way my cars are going to bring Old Cars Pice Guide’s top money, either one of them,  and the Mustang is pretty close to a 2 condition and the Corvette is about the same.   I won’t say how much money I’ve spent on the cars but considering the Mustang has had a ton of “stuff'” done.  Lets just say that the 1 condition price is still under that.  (more on that later.)

The next areas are online car sales.  You can search Craig’s list and Cars.com and AutoTrader and one of my favorites Hemming’s Motor News. But the draw back of all those is that the prices are offered prices – they don’t often give you the “sold” price and the conditions are only as reliable as the sellers assessment.  Now, Hemmings Motor News does have auctions listed with in their pages and the do tell you what the selling price was and/or the top bid if they didn’t.

“Whoa..there” you say..”that’s a lot of work.”  And yup it is.  First you have to be lucky enough to see your car listed more then once…I hate to keep picking on Mr. Sears, but you just aren’t going to seem too many Mercury Cougar station wagons for sale….nor will you see too many ’70 Mustang Coupes…you just won’t.  Once you find some, and you’ll need a few so you can find the average price..errk…. but even then the actual conditions may vary.

One other way is to search on-line auctions, like Ebay. There are some companies out there that will mine the data for you and give you the sold prices.  But again you have the condition variable you have to account for.

Drop me note if you have some idea.

Next up is a “formula” for you to use for helping determine the value..oh… don’t worry it will be straight forward………..yeah..right.

Thanks for reading.

Tim

First let’s get a couple of …sayings out-of-the-way.

1.  It’s worth what someone will pay for it!!!!

2. It has sentimental value!!!!!!

These comments are so useless, but you hear them all the time.

Determining the value of your car isn’t easy.  Especially these days with  the roller coaster ride that is  collector car prices and the huge difference between a million plus ‘cuda and a run of the mill rare Charger.

What makes it tougher is the fact that you might not have a cuda or even a run of the mill Charger.  I have a 70 Mustang coupe…you aren’t going to find them on Barrett Jackson bringing hundreds of thousands of dollars.  One of our readers has a Mercury Cougar Station Wagon, come on..I love that car, but you won’t see it crossing an auction block.

So there are several ways to ‘try’ to obtain a reasonable value.  This is important for resale, estate planning, and insurance.  In the next few posts I’ll toss out a few options.  Here are the areas:

Blue Book

NADA

Bean Counter

Auctions

On line sales.

More tomorrow.

Thanks for reading

Tim