Investment Vettes

[Gersh]

The latest Corvette Quarterly had a article on Indy 500 pace cars, often considered collectibles. One they described in detail was the 1978 Corvette pace car, which was made available to the public as a replica, similar to the 2007 pace car, though in greater numbers. (The 2007 pace car is a pretty orange convertible with special wheels and nice graphics.)

They said that at that time people paid up to $50 or even 100K for a replica that had MSRP of $13 or 14K (the base Corvette that year had MSRP under $10K). Recently there have been a couple low mileage replica 1978 pace cars selling for more than $40K, but most high mileage cars are closer to $20K (all these factoids are from that same article).

Now considering inflation, those $14K cars should be worth $75K today, but they aren't. And people who paid $50K for them in 1978 would have to get something like $250K today just to break even!

First off, the "official pace cars" aren't--they are pace car replicas.
Second, they probably are not a great investment. The way to make money off them might be to buy at MSRP and turn around immediately and sell for a few thousand profit, during the initial frenzy, but not hold them long-term.

This same logic applies to most Corvettes, which some people seem to want to buy as long-term investments. It doesn't make good sense, because the expected profits will be eaten up by inflation. If you have to fib to your wife and convince her the car is an "investment", at least admit to yourself that it isn't really true. Buy the car for its own value, to drive and enjoy.

Obviously that is just my opinion.
Gersh

[6 Shooter]

I agree - Buy, Drive & Enjoy!

L8TR - D

[bossvette]

Originally Posted by 6 Shooter

I agree - Buy, Drive & Enjoy!

L8TR - D

Yup, I was never good with investments, but I enjoy driving at least one everyday. sometimes even more then one.

[yellow_2002_germany]

Possibly the only 2 that may become investment grade, in my opinion, are the 1995 and the 2007 since they were both produced in such low numbers. The 1995 had 527 examples and the 2007 has only 500.

By comparison, the 1978 had 6502 replicas, the 1986 was what ever the convertible production was that year since ALL convertibles were deemed Pace Car replicas though the track use cars were yellow.

The 1998 had 1200 or thereabouts built and the next to have a factory authorized replica was the 2007.

GM did make available a decal set to put on the 2002 Pace Car to make the 2003 anniversary model used in '02 a "Pace Car" however no replicas were built by the factory. As strange as it seems, the 2003 50th Anniversary car was used as the 2002 Pace Car.

I believe the 2007 Pace Cars will have a big markup over sticker to be able to buy one. Even the cars used as courtesy cars for the teams during May in Indy.

[ZRGator]

Anyone have some pics of the 07 Pace Car yet?

[6 Shooter]

Originally Posted by ZRGator

Anyone have some pics of the 07 Pace Car yet?

I've seen quite a few on ebay...

http://gm.wieck.com/forms/gm/previewpage?035515

http://gm.wieck.com/forms/gm/*query?...&Page=3&page=1

[Gersh]

Originally posted by yellow_2002_germany
"Possibly the only 2 that may become investment grade, in my opinion, are the 1995 and the 2007 since they were both produced in such low numbers. The 1995 had 527 examples and the 2007 has only 500."


I think you are still missing my point, which is that buying a new car for some future investment value has a low probablility of success. The very luckiest of Corvette appreciation, say a perfect C2 currently worth several hundred thousand dollars, isn't much better than inflation, and certainly not as much as average stock market increases over the same period. We don't know what people will think valuable in 30 years. Do you think you know what gasoline will cost in 30 years? My guess is that the next 10 years will shock most people with rising fuel cost, let alone 30 years.
Gersh

[Guy]

Originally Posted by ZRGator

Anyone have some pics of the 07 Pace Car yet?

This is from Kerbecks web site:

[B17Crew]

Originally Posted by Gersh

If you have to fib to your wife and convince her the car is an "investment" to drive and enjoy.

Gersh

I wonder how many Corvette owners are guilty of that...

B17Crew

[Patman]

I never understand anyone who buys a car solely as an investment. Except in extremely rare cases, you'll never make enough money on the deal to beat a proper investment such as if you put the money in a good mutual fund, or a well performing stock.

And why buy a car you can't drive? There is an ad in the Auto Trader here in Toronto for a 2003 anniversary edition Corvette (which is by no means a rare car, as 33% of all 2003 Corvettes were AEs!) where the owner said he bought it for $85,000 CDN, drove it straight into a heated garage and didn't drive it since. He's now trying to sell it for $65,000! HA! You could buy a brand new C6 for less than that here.

If this guy had invested his $85,000 into a decent mutual fund earning an average of 10% interest per year he would've made a profit of over $50,000 in the last 5 years. But instead, he's going to lose over $30,000 (there is no way he'll get $65k for that car, even $55k is wishful thinking) and he never got to enjoy the car at all during his ownership of it! Hopefully the new owner drives the wheels of it and enjoys it like a Corvette was meant to be enjoyed!

[kgelliott]

Originally Posted by ZRGator

Anyone have some pics of the 07 Pace Car yet?

The first pic is from Bloomington Gold last week where they had a display tent with about 10 of them sitting there! Pretty cool. The second picture shows one they brought into the main hall at NCM while I was there last Monday. Other pics show the display of all the old ones at the NCM while my favorite ('98) was at Bloomington.