Has the frolicksome MG TC reached a price floor?

VALUE 2014 £24k VALUE NOW £25k

I’ve been expecting MG TCS to slip below the £20k threshold but they haven’t yet. Forties and Fifties sports cars may be losing market allure but looking at transaction prices since 2015, the game little TC seems to have held its head up high, mainly, I’d venture because of its cuteness. At Bonhams in Bicester in July, two red TCS fetched broadly similar money and felt like bargains to me. The first, an early 1946, the 1357th built and the subject of four-year-restoration with huge history file looked smart, shiny and lovely and sold for £22,500, including premium. The second, a 1949, had recently emerged from a full restoration and looked it too. This one made £21,365 including premium. You don’t have to be much of an an authority to know that both these cars could never be bought and restored for their selling prices and that their owners very likely had to take quite a painful hit. But at £20k this is a classic with buckets of charisma, charm, low ownership costs and a modest dollop of performance. I think we’ve reached the price plateau under which nicely restored and historied TCS won’t go. It’s safe to lay out £20k for nice examples because, unless you’ve bought a wrong ‘un, you should always get your money back.

At one point it looked like all the TC enthusiasts were hanging up their driving gloves and retiring into care homes but buyers now seem to be second-gen enthusiasts – in their Forties and Fifties – who see these cute roadsters as buying opportunities. It might be time to reassess the MG TC before values start to tickle upwards again.