GO AND DRIVE
Something I have been thinking a lot about lately is this: are some of the JDM cars we’ve been thrashing, tuning, and modifying for the past 25 years here in New Zealand actually worth the huge price we’re currently paying? Are the ‘glory days’ holding us back from trying newer, more affordable, and, in some cases, better performance cars? The ’80s and ’90s were epic for performance cars. Those years shaped us all as enthusiasts, this magazine, and our New Zealand car culture.
However, I recently paid too much for a Japanese car from the ’90s. That particular Japanese car is now for sale again — for even more than I sold it for. Fair enough, too, as that is where the market is. Even at the price I paid for it — which was a third of what it’s now worth — I thought it was overpriced at the time. When I say overpriced, I mean, it looked better in photos, had rust starting, drove like an old Camry, had a mysterious background, and I ended up selling it to buy something nicer to drive.
I then tried to think outside the box — something more modern, more refined, more power, less maintenance, and less insurance. What do you know, it was a third of the cost of that older performance car — supply and demand, I guess. There’s something to be said about the fear of missing out — if I don’t buy one now, I never will.
That’s something I hear most days — or, “I shouldn’t have sold it”. But you probably sold it because it wasn’t that great, and you wanted an upgrade! So what makes it desirable now?
When did we stop being car enthusiasts and begin to be classic car investors? Bring back the days of driving fun, affordable performance cars.
In the early 2000s, Japanese were popular because, for the money, there was no European performance car that could compete with them — nowhere close. If you spent what a European car would cost on a Japanese car, you’d have an absolute monster on your hands.
Have you noticed how the tides have changed? If you want to enter the performance scene now, the affordable performance cars are VW Golf GTIs, BMW 335s, etc. — all going for a third of anything Japanese — and they’ve got massive aftermarket support, too.
I’m all for keeping something collectible in the shed, for nostalgic reasons, but give something new a nudge. Try a cheap and cheerful performance car; throw some good tyres on it, some cheap mods like the good ol’ days, beat the living crap out of it, and enjoy the fact that in the end you had a blast and it cost you next to nothing to do so. Stop investing so hard, and start having fun behind the wheel again.