Investing in classics
How do you go about buying a nice, affordable classic Land Rover that may give you a lot of pleasure as well as a return on your investment? Gary Pusey shares his thoughts and experiences…
How to make money by buying Land Rovers. Sounds like a win-win situation!
WHAT is it they say at the end of every advertisement exhorting you to buy a financial services product? ‘‘The value of your investment can go down as well as up’’, or something like that. And then there’s the thing you always hear from specialist dealers and advisers about whatever it is you collect. Whether you’re a petrolhead or a pocillovist, they tell you to buy only because you like it and not because you think it’s an investment. And since you ask, a pocillovist is an egg cup collector. How do I know that? I live with one.
What always fascinates me is that all these advisers offer such sage and sensible words of caution to us, but completely ignore it themselves. I haven’t yet met a Land Rover dealer, or any kind of classic car dealer for that matter, who hasn’t got an eye on which way the market is going, and what vehicles make sense to tuck away for a few years. I presume that dealers in pocillovy are the same, although I have to confess I don’t know any.
The question for us as Land Rover enthusiasts is whether we can also make a bit of a profit by buying wisely, while at the same time owning a vehicle we can enjoy. I learned a long time ago that I derive a great deal of satisfaction from parting with a vehicle for more than I paid for it, and I have a visceral dislike of depreciation. I have never understood why so many people make a headlong dash to buy a new car that loses a third of its value the minute you put a shiny new tyre outside the polished showroom floor. The current obsession with Personal Contract Plans probably makes it worse, by hiding the depreciation behind convenient monthly payments that encourage people to take on a vehicle they might otherwise not be able to afford, but then I’m not an expert on PCPS. I prefer to buy and own my cars. You may see it differently, and that’s fine.
So what follows is very much my personal perspective on buying Land Rovers with a view to them delivering a profit when you come to sell them. I’ll share with you some of my own experiences and thoughts and explore some of the recent happenings in the marketplace. And now for the disclaimer: I am not offering you investment advice, and the value of the Land Rover you buy may go down as well as up. It may even stay the same!
I'll also give you my six rules for investing, learned from the painful experience of getting my own fingers singed, or seeing people I know get theirs burnt!