BURSTING THE BUBBLE
Future car-value speculation is one of those great crystal-ball pastimes; you can spout as much perceived knowledge and foresight as you want, but it all boils down to a guessing game. No one really knows what is suddenly going to spike in demand and therefore value; otherwise we would all have had huge garages lined with the likes of Nissan R32s and Mazda RX-2/3s waiting for the big cash payouts we’d receive for them today.
It seems that almost every second day there are record-breaking sales figures blowing up my social channels. Cars that we were selling for a couple of grand not that long ago are now demanding five and six figures!
Albeit most of these are those garage-preserved examples from new that have next-to-no kilometres on the clock and are in showroom condition, they still have a huge effect on the price of lesser condition examples. In some cases, the brackets between base model and to-spec units are tightening in price and skyrocketing together.
The best example of this effect locally has been the Nissan Skyline. Take the iconic R32, an absolute Kiwi classic that could be found throughout the country in four-door and coupe spec, blowing tyres to bits and slammed to hell with cut or non-existent springs. They were rough, ready, and well loved. You could pick up turbo manual (GTS-T) cars for a couple of bucks, while non-turbo or auto versions were basically given away for boxes of piss. The pinnacle of the model range, the GT-R, could be had for a price that barely made it into five figures. Then, almost overnight, prices began to surge as the pipeline of cheap imports from Japan was being diverted to countries such as the US that had 25-year import rules and never got said model in period.
Today, you’re lucky to get change from $50K for a R32 GT-R in decent condition and those cheap GTS-Ts will run you anywhere up to $30K! The R34 GT-R is even worse, with prices soaring towards and even into the six-figure bracket. It’s not an exclusive phenomenon, either; this has been happening in the rotary world for a while longer. Cars such as RX-2s, RX-3s, and RX-7s that could barely be given away in the ’90s and early ’00s are now sold for a hefty house deposit — so much so that owners of modified examples are scrambling to revert them back to factory specifications for maximum value.
And don’t you dare get me started on Honda Integras and Civic Type Rs selling for absolutely insane prices. Recently a Civic Type RX (EK9) with just 2500 clicks sold for the equivalent of over $100K in Japan, not including additional costs. That’s on top of a plethora of US-based cars selling for the equivalent of upwards of $50K.
The market is on fire for iconic Japanese chassis and prices are soaring, but could it all burn to the ground? We need to remember that we’re riding a wave, and if we aren’t careful it could come crashing down and take us all with it. There’s only so much demand to power these things; once that dries up, who’s left to buy your super-inflated-priced example?
All I hope is that things don’t get too crazy too fast and price the next generation out of cars that really do need to be owned at least once. Perhaps we’ll even see a snubbing of the high-priced examples in favour of wildly modified examples at a quarter or less of the price? I’m definitely all for it.
Who knows; it’s all just crystal-ball guesswork.