Are muscle car prices really going up?

Just for fun a 1970 Hemi Cuda clone in 2009 sold for $75,000. Looks like a great investment but when adjusted for inflation the owner would need to sell it for $106,052 just to break even. Lol

But I'm sure the tax man would still call it a $31K capitol gain.

Mike

Seems fitting.

mr tax man "reminded" me the other day when i FINALLY received my refund from 2021, the interest paid was to be reported on this years tax forms as "other income".
this was printed on the check !

The IRS apparently turns a blind eye toward inflation - they only count the numbers.
Going through that now with listing my property - might be some capital gains taxes...

Wall Street Journal Wed has feature story on
“El Hemi”
built Dec 12, 1969
Original owner got to see it built on assembly line

Many aspects of IRS Tax rules now do get adjusted for inflation each year,
with the huge exception of what is falsely termed “Long Term Capital Gains”

Of course when Income Tax was brought back ( Civil War had first USA income tax)
only people earning over $1,000,000 per year
“were ever going to be subject to Income Tax”
so that “Millionaires” would pay off World War I debts.
Price of Gold then $20.67 per troy ounce.

Price of One Troy oz of Gold in 1970 was $36, when Nixon “temporarily suspended” the Foreign Exchange Gold Window.
12 fluid oz Coca-Cola was ten cents.

I remember the days when these old cars were fun toys that took us back to the days we all enjoyed.We restored them,put them back together,drove the crap out of them, nobody cared about their value, we just loved the cars........ now they are just "investments".....stuck away in someone's temp controlled warehouse..............what a shame.

It's just a "leap frog" kinda occurrence.
Sure there weren't any "Everyday" Model-T's cruising the streets in the 40's.
Nor 30's cars in the 70's.
Now in the 2020's, it's the 60's 70's cars.
Few more years it'll be the 80's 90's ones.
Natural Progression I guess.

My son and I have had that discussion more than a few times. He has no interest in my Cuda and Mopar stuff. He grew up with the Neons. Particularly the SRTs. I tell him to come back in a few decades and tell me how they have appreciated in value. NOT!

He still cringes when I tell him he is half the man I hoped he would be by being into 4 bangers rather than V8s.

Sorry Dave, thought this was in the other section.

Well, people are ASKING a lot more than just a few years ago, but are they selling? Asking prices are stupidly inflated for the economic condition the country & world is in now. My opinion......

Yes, but is anyone buying?

And yes there are some wit more money than brains. They won't even realize it when the prices start dropping and they will. Some "Special' cars will likely hold their value but most will eventually drop. I've watched it time and time again in the last 50 years.

I'm waiting for the bottom to fall out so I can buy a few more But I just keep waiting.

I'd say it's a buyers market right now.

i'm starting to stack my x-tra "stuff" under my "free tree" next to the street, just to get rid of it........

Not if you're buying a 68-70 b-body or 70-74 e-body.

I disagree on that. The mopar cars are selling at pretty much the same price range at the last 8 years. When unique and hyped up cars are selling for top dollar, everyone assumes ALL the mopars are going up in price. No, not happening. Look over Meacum/Barrett auction results for the last few years and you can see that Mopar cars that are Muscle based with noting special don't make it into the big dollar sales. This is just hype in the market and nothing more.

Well if you watch mecum prices are outta control high Wright now higher then in the past.

I disagree
Look what a nice 340 4 speed Dart (69 or 70) cost 8 years ago. High 20's
Look what they are selling for now high 30's low 40's.
I know the ask is even in the 50's, but these cars easily sell around 40K,

Since the other body styles have peaked and worth more than most people want to pay the A-body's have gained value. Then people realize that there are way cool A-Body's like M-Codes and 340 cars that were always big block killers, and they will continue to be desirable but still entry level...

I can say the price of the A bodies is up. My buddy did the metal work on my car and afterwards I asked him to finish the car if something happened to me. He honestly looked at me and said, "I couldn't afford to buy this car". Certainly when done it will be far better than new, but I then went and looked and heck, I've seen others that claim to be what I'm doing going for mid-50 to mid-60s. And my plan is to drive it. As others have said, 10 years ago this car was selling for low 20's at best.

My question is, are they going to stay up or is the Viagra going to wear off ?? 🤣

Inflation, look at the cost of parts.

I agree.

Inflation is taking money out of everyone’s pockets and likely to do so at least a couple more years.

Just for the fun of it I looked at what the $75K would be worth if instead of buying the Cuda you instead just put it in the SP 500 index in January 1, July 1 or December of 2009.

Results would have been Jan. 1 $348,750 July 1 $342,750 and Dec. 1 $202,500

Any of which would make this a very expensive clone. Lol

Mike

I do too. Those were the good old days and back then parts weren't that hard to find but on the other hand if the values of these cars had not gone up then would have all the companies making reproduction parts made the financial investment for the tooling to make those parts?