Ferrari opportunities aplenty

Don’t let the downward correction of prices put you off, when a good deal pops up...

Ferrari prices may have tumbled from the heady highs of 2015 but that’s all the more reason to keep a watchful eye on the direction of prices. There’s an uncertainty in values across all models – both classic and modern – as the market gradually performs an act of slow self-correction. At Silverstone’s March Race Retro sale a sharp-eyed buyer took advantage of the adjusting market and bagged a 22,000 mile ’76 308GT4 for £37,125.

There was a time when ordinary GT4S with too many stories, scant histories and left-hand steering would make £45k and the very best right-hand-drive examples were homing in on £100k. This Rosso Corsa example with Nero hide was a spanker with a warranted mileage, supplied new in the UK by Maranello and one of only 547 in right-hand-drive. Typing the registration number into Google showed that this GT4 had spent much of its life in dry storage and was sold by Historics at Brooklands back in 2014 for £19,040.

But in that 2014 catalogue entry was key information, such as evidence of a £40,000 body restoration by Mototechnique in Surrey, a rebuilt engine and gearbox plus a retrim. And back in 2014 forty grand was worth a lot more than it is now so our enlightened buyer bought themselves a future-proofed, exceptionally wellmaintained, low-mileage GT4 for less than the cost of the invoices in the history file. The car was essentially free.

And as a rare and desirable entry-level prancing horse, a well-kept, warrantedmileage GT4 with history is always going to have an intrinsic value and sell easily in the future. This was a deal that carried no risk. The moral here is if you can find a perfect original or expensively restored Ferrari being advertised at anything close to the money that’s been lavished on it over the last few years you will be buying at a market low-point where there’s serious value. And yes, the Ferrari market will settle to a natural level eventually, but in the meantime take advantage of a wobbling pricing structure and seek out quality, provenance and rarity. This might sound counter-intuitive when market sentiment is negative but now feels like an excellent time to buy a classic Ferrari. Remember the golden rule – buy when the market is low, sell when it’s high. Simple.

‘A well-kept 308GT4 is always going to have an intrinsic value’