Thanks to those of you who offered good thoughts after reading yesterday’s post. They are much appreciated.
This Hagerty piece is titled, “Will these 6 used cars be bonafide collectibles?” Although I almost certainly will never have any interest in the Chevrolet Colorado Diesel or the Volvo Polestar, these cars are interesting to me.
In case you don’t know, or even if you do, from top to bottom: Nissan 370Z, Fiat 124 Spider Abarth, Alfa Romeo 4C. Here are excerpts from the piece about each of these three cars:
“Considering many 350Zs were hot-rodded and turned into drift toys when they became affordable, the last of the 370Zs may a savvy pick to snap up before they meet a similar fate. Because the car was so dated in its golden years, Nissan wasn’t moving a lot of 370Z metal in its last few years of production, but as the saying goes, many sports car buyers won’t know what they’ve got ‘til it’s gone.”
“Naturally, the very similar 124 Abarth, built alongside the Miata in the same factory but with Fiat’s turbocharged, 1.4-liter Multi-Air four-cylinder turbo engine, maintains much of that same wonderful character and sharp handling…the Abarth was still an engaging drop-top that had a relatively short production run prior to its discontinuation following the 2020 model year. Even if it didn’t have pure Miata DNA, a relatively low-volume driver’s car is a good recipe to make an excellent collectible. When the answer you’re looking for is Miata with a turbo twist, the Abarth will start to look real good.”
“Now that they’re out of production…and there are few heirs to the throne of affordable mid-engine performance aside from the C8 Corvette, the 4C may hit the bottom of its depreciation curve. After all, when was the last time you could purchase a modern, mid-engine Italian car for the price of a full-size pickup?”
Hagerty has much data and much experience in determining car value, but this piece is still speculative. To be fair, the article is not a dogmatic prediction of the future. No one can really predict which vehicles will become “collectible,” whatever that means. I happen to think the modern Fiat 124 Spider is a gorgeous car. My wonderful wife and I test drove one and it’s a lot of fun with the top down, even on a 60-degree day, but like the MX-5/Miata it needs at least 50 more HP and 50 more LB-FT of torque.
The Alfa Romeo 4C has been written about and shown more than once in this blog. While I acknowledge its look is idiosyncratic (and I’m not a fan of the wheels), that’s a big plus in my book. Think about this car: given it’s powered by a 1.7 liter/107 cubic-inch (turbocharged) 4-cylinder engine and weighs only 2,500 pounds, it is rated 34 MPG on the highway. It will accelerate from 0-60 MPH in 4.1 seconds; the engine is rated at 237 HP/258 LB-FT of torque. Because of its light weight and mid-engine profile, its handling can be amazing with the right driver. Its performance profile is what the MX-5/124 Spider should have been.
Maybe it’s because we never had any children or maybe it’s an homage to my first car–a 1967 Pontiac GTO–but I have never been interested in sedans or pickup trucks or SUVs. I have owned a few of the latter for practical reasons, at least what I thought was practical at the time. Cars like the three shown here are what I crave. Hey, so many cars just one life.
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