Wealthy people who “complain” that they are not taxed enough are just engaging in virtue signaling. If they really think they don’t pay enough in taxes then they can voluntarily give more money to government. They should keep their hands out of other people’s pockets because other people’s money doesn’t belong to them. “Fair” is subjective, but property rights are not supposed to be.
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This article from Hagerty is titled, “The 25 cars buyers are forgetting about.” Below is a picture of the car at the top of the article:
Here is a picture of the same make/model I took this past Sunday:
In case you don’t know, or even if you do, those are two pictures of the Buick Reatta. The Reatta was a failure; it cannot be described in any other way. Buick’s minimum yearly sales goal for the car was 10,000 units, but in four model years (1988-91) only about 22,000 were built in total. From Encyclopedia of American Cars by the Auto Editors of Consumer Guide®, “Reatta was a sad loss for those who appreciate interesting cars…”
It is not a performance car in any way, shape or form, but I think it is a stunning looking car. When I moved to California in the mid-1990s I needed to buy a car and went to a Buick/Pontiac/GMC dealer specifically to buy a Reatta. The salesman informed me the car was no longer in production (I wasn’t following cars much at that point having been turned off by the nadir of US autos in the late 70s) and he didn’t offer to find me a used one. Frankly, he wasn’t the friendliest salesman I ever met.
In the Hagerty article mentioned above the Reatta is shown as having the lowest Hagerty Vehicle Rating (HVR). I’ll let Hagerty explain the HVR:
“The Hagerty Vehicle Rating takes into consideration auction and private sales results, insurance quoting activity, and the number of new policies purchased to sort through hundreds of car models and compare them to the collector car market as a whole. Our valuation team then assigns each car a score from 1 to 100, with a score of 50 denoting a car that’s perfectly following the overall market trend. Popular cars that are gaining interest and value will score higher, while those with flagging interest or sale prices score lower. A vehicle’s position on the list isn’t a sign of future collectability—it’s more of a pulse marker on the current market.”
Some subjectivity seems to be a part of Hagerty’s rating, which is okay, but I always wonder about personal bias in such an endeavor. Anyway, here are the bottom 15 cars in the latest HVR (I know the article is about the bottom 25, but that seemed excessive to me):
| Vehicle | HVR |
| 1988-1991 Buick Reatta | 9 |
| 1967-1971 Mercedes-Benz 280SE | 10 |
| 1963-1971 Mercedes-Benz 230SL | 15 |
| 1968-1971 Lincoln Continental Mk III | 15 |
| 1975-1980 MG MGB | 15 |
| 1976-1989 Porsche 911 Carrera (Turbo 930) | 15 |
| 1958-1959 Ford Fairlane | 17 |
| 1968-1982 Chevrolet Corvette | 17 |
| 1997-2005 Acura NSX | 17 |
| 1965-1970 Cadillac DeVille | 18 |
| 1946-1948 Chevrolet Fleetmaster | 19 |
| 1946-1951 Mercury | 19 |
| 1958-1961 Austin-Healey Sprite | 19 |
| 1977-1988 Porsche 924 | 19 |
| 1987-1993 Cadillac Allante | 20 |
Remember Hagerty’s disclaimer that the HVR is not, necessarily, a sign of future collectability, but an indication of where a car currently stands in the market in terms of collector demand. Some of the cars on this list are a surprise to me, but I am not a devoted student of the overall collector car market. I am also quite sure that cars with very few transactions don’t appear in the Hagerty evaluation at all. Remember, too, that this is just Hagerty’s assessment. No one metric or system can fully describe this market.
Do any of you see cars on this list in which you have interest? I would very much like to read your thoughts.
#KeepYourHandsOutOfOtherPeoplesPockets
#BuickReatta
#HagertyVehicleRating
#somanycarsjustonelife
#disaffectedmusings
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Disaffected Musings 
Re: your comments about taxes: Fauxchahontas, call your office …
Walking, talking (shrilly) hypocrisy on the part of Fauxchahontas. Paid $400,000 a year to “teach” one class at Harvard. Don’t get me started …
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Those Hagerty values are interesting. I follow MBZ SL coupes regularly at Bring-a-Trailer. I have been surprised at how little money they bring compared to other cars that are offered there. It appears to me that there is a general softening of values for collector cars. I’m not sure what the cause is – it is counter to the overall economy. • It seems the owners of Reattas are quite loyal to them.
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“Ninety percent of politicians give the other ten percent a bad name.” – Henry Kissinger
As I have written before, I disagree with most tenets of both parties, but I believe the politics of envy has no place in the national discussion. Being resentful and envious of people who are wealthier than you is not a sound basis for public policy. Wealthy people who call for more taxes on themselves might simply be trying to keep the wolves at bay.
Remember that Economics is about human behavior, not the behavior of elements or chemical compounds. If people think an economic downturn is imminent, then many of them will act as if it is already here, which, in turn, can cause the downturn.
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Just a little surprised to see the ’76 to ’89 930 on this list… you know I have a ’78 Euro 930. I bought it in 1998 when I was 40 so I can blame mid-life crisis.. and, my wife actually encouraged me as well. I paid top dollar to an unscrupulous dealer for a car that had been poorly “restored” and painted leaving it with many hidden issues. I watched the value plummet, but, still enjoyed my car as it was a dream to have one from the time I was 20. My love of the 911 goes back to when they first came out, I was 6 or 8. Anyway, a few years back, these cars took off, following the vintage, long hood 911s.. I saw a ’79 930 sell for just over $300K… a low mileage, pristine original car which mine will never be. However, the market was such that I decided it would be worth it to have the car restored. It’s been in process a little over two years, full nut and bolt total restoration, back to the original color. Now in reassembly so, we’re getting close. I doubt I’d be able to sell it for what I’ve got in it, but, it will be mine to enjoy. I quote Jay Leno… “I didn’t pay too much. I bought it too soon”.
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Thanks, Carl. My opinion—-and it is just an opinion—-is that cars should be driven, even if it’s just 2,000-5,000 miles a year, and should not be purchased as investments. Buy what you like.
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