Haha. Now THAT'S funny.

 

Note on sale. The bidder/buyer got charged $2,000 by BAT for the "purchase". So, if it is a nefarious bid, he paid somewhat dearly for it.

 

If that is the case, ouch lol. Some say....

 

It's a good thing BAT doesn't take anonymous money orders

 

Lol. That one sure wasn't.








Any r2 with a real pedigree is going to make a run at $40k this summer, I think.

 

I think an R2 in the same condition would fetch over $45,000 this summer.

 

I always thought Jerry must have liked it.

 

On this one, we will know. The seller is a dealer. He isn't going to just hold on to it in his secret warehouse for another 2 years. He will claim the sale fell through and relist it. So if we don't see it for sale in the next 2-3 months, it was certainly a legit sale.

The real question in my mind, what was the reserve?!? $38k and it was already met? $40-$41k and BAT ate the difference?

Assuming this is a legit sale, is this one a new record? $42k after fees.

 

GSL-SE just sold on BAT for $21,250. People must be winning the lottery or investors are fighting over the cars they plan to flip in a few years for even bigger money.

 

As best I can remember, a guy bought a silver R2 for $45K (I think) from a seller on this forum. That was a few months ago. As far as I know, that's the record.

 

wasnt there an fd that sold for 60k... supposedly confirmed by grundy or something like that..

 

These cars are being bought by collectors. I don't think ordinary people (non car collectors) are seriously buying rotary cars in the hopes of making money.

In general I believe car collectors certainly can make money but overall after cost of storage etc... I'd say they rarely do, it's just a fun hobby.

As of today you can consider me a 3rd gen car collector. I only have 3 but I'm not selling any of them unless I find a really nice 996 GT3, or even better a really nice CW base FD, OR mint low mileage CYM etc....etc.... then one will go LOL

 

I don't know, Frtiz, that its all about collectors. It may be. But I keep looking at the prices on new cars and what you get for your money and think that is one reason people may be buying these and other 90's cars for pretty big dollars. A new BMW 340 base price is $45,000 and kitted out can reach $60,000+ and yet the driving experience sucks. Electronic steering has no feel. That sort of thing. Plus for your $55,000 or so you have a car just like the other 100,000 of them. Whoop-di-do. A low mile FD is like a newer car, costs the same, handles better, feels better, is far better looking, and offers far more grins per mile. Plus, you can tell yourself you bought a collectible car. So, I think there may be more than one category of buyer for these?

 

I'm with Fritz on this. Collectors (real collectors) are not dumb people. They see market trends and they go to the undervalued / room for growth.

Besides, these are COOL CARS. Before 1990, Japanese cars were generally unloved - the "Seven Samurai" (RX-7, Supra, 3000GT VR-4, 300ZX TT, NSX, MR2 & Skyline GT-R) changed all that... and now you're seeing the market react. Not to mention, the people that grew up with these on their walls and finally coming into money and what are they going to spend it on? An Austin Healy? Meh. A 1970s Trans Am? Meh. There's a reason we see E30s, 964s and now these all start to move around the same time. Lots of it is just generational.

I am part of a local car community with TONS of private garages/collections. I'm talking serious collections (multiple Ferraris, Lambos, 911s & Ford GTs under one roof). But every week I keep seeing Japanese cars show up and most guys stop by to show them off to me because they know me as a lover of JDM cars. Just in the past month there's been a 300ZX, SW20 MR2 (slicktop) and another RX-7 that just showed up, with an NSX-R and an R34 GT-R on the way (so I'm told).

The market on Japanese cars is popping and people with collections want to tick the box and get one or two JDM cars in the stable before it's too late.

 

Yep of course there are always exceptions but as a rule I'd venture to say the low mileage FDs currently selling for 35k and up are being bought by collectors.

No doubt there are a few people out there just like me (buy low mileage FDs to daily drive) but not many

 

Matt... I agree. Some of my friends have large collections and are adding Japanese cars from the period. I wish I had kept my 964, btw. I made a mistake by not building a bigger garage and now am not as interested in collecting as I was when I was younger. I really like the earliest Z cars and Mr2's. My sister had a 1st year Z and I remember my first drive in it. Was special.

 

Well I guess it's worth noting that the BaT buyer says he is going to drive the car "as much as possible". Doesn't sound like a collector.

OTOH with many drivers to choose from, why on earth would someone pay premium dollars for a low mileage collectible car, and drive it "as much as possible". Makes no sense.

 

im guessin the buyer believes that he has extended the duration of driving it from lets say one that has high miles thats on its way out....

 

Maybe he just wants to drive one and not deal with previous owner BS. Get a service done and drive. Even my clean '95 from BaT with 49k miles needed a lot of work (vac job, cooling system replaced, pillow *****, toe links, brakes, rusted stock catback replaced)

 

Yep

Even with 16k miles depending upon how it was stored and maintained it too could need a good going over before you'd consider taking any long trips etc....

I'm loving the prices we are currently seeing on these low mileage stock cars. That said there are many cars like this that are priced at future speculative values: https://www.ebay.com/itm/1994-Mazda-...wAAOSwdMRbKcNk

This is the best deal on the open market: https://www.ebay.com/itm/RX-7-Coupe/...IAAOSwSEZbACd2

I'd buy that auto base car above at 30 long before buying the manual touring at 42. Interesting market for sure.

 

how much does that auto hurt the price? I would think many thousands...

 

In my opinion all things equal it's a 5 to 7k hit for sure.

 

The same reason why you don't leave your girlfriend fresh for the next guy :p

Plenty of people out there with money who want to have the "new" car experience and don't care about resale value. The idea of losing 10-15-20k isn't really worth thinking about for a lot of people. Another way to look at it is the 340 example above, buy that and drive it for 3 years and you'll be lucky to get half of that $60k back.

 

Btw, there's a 95 VR R2 coming up next week I think on BAT with 9550 miles and it looks clean. We'll see how it does. I think we're seeing a fair number of cars now in the mid-to-high-30's?

 

I've had a similar experience. In hindsight, I don't think anyone should be comfortable "just driving" an original rx7 at this point. If it's not freshly recommissioned, pretty much every US-spec 3rd gen needs at least a thorough new owner maintenance. If you don't have the time, space, or inclination it can easily run a couple grand. And, that's without upgrading anything.

FD's are a poker game with a low buy in and a high limit.