‘The old balance has been redressed’

With a certain amount of predictability, the hottest summer since records last caught fire and had to be beaten out with a shoe has added fuel to the British appetite for soft-tops. The longer the drought wore on, the more prices rose along with the Mercury. We’re optimists like that. Almost anything with a lowerable roof has done well in the market over the last few months – though I’m sure things will have returned to their soggy normal by the time you read this. But the surprise winner in the guide-changing stakes has been that classic scene stalwart: the good old MGB Roadster.

The large supply of these cars has historically kept their prices pretty stable. In fact, most of their rivals that have survived in much smaller numbers have actually overtaken them in value in recent years. And something I’ve reported on in the past is that those now-rarer MGB GTS had been closing the gap on their open-air brethren. The old balance has been redressed for now and you once again have to pay 30-40 per cent more for a roadster and the best pre-‘71 cars are now in the teens.

Do I think it will last? Well yes and no. I don’t for a minute believe all the talk about this being the new norm for summers. I still remember ’76, and no-one ever talks of the summers of ’77 and ’78, so that won’t change anything. But the MGB Roadster was long overdue some kind of meaningful uplift and I believe these new prices will stick. But I also believe GTS will start to close that gap again – maybe as soon as the large and exhausting round of auctions that September has now become.

‘The Roadster was overdue a meaningful uplift in value’

Russ Smith has been following the classic car market for more than two decades and contributes to Practical Classics, Classic Car Weekly and Classic Cars.