Why the time to buy yourfavorite sports car is now! | Speed Academy

Page 2 I believe. Also that aircooled 911's, NSX, and supra, E30 M3 are increasing in value.
Thoughts?

 

The "opinion" of the article's author is out of touch regarding the FD. We know the values have gone up. The author needs to do better research.

 

Kinda. There's a hard line in the sand and MOST FDs are on the other side of it. Sure, there was a Silver FD with 6700 (?) miles that sold lately for $30K. There was also one with 55K and one owner (ok two, the second owner had it for less than a month) that fetched $12,500. The bulk of FDs fall in between $13K-$16K with outliers on both sides.

Sadly, there is just a glut of $5K-$10K, half dead, work in progress, "projects" which detracts from the platforms' overall value. Hard as it may be to admit, LS swaps are probably a saving grace to most FDs and their values.

NOW, compare that to the other cars that they listed as 'collector' cars. You can't TOUCH a 160K E30 M3 that needs a ton of work for less than $15K-$20K. You can touch an air cooled 993 for much less than $30-$40K, again, high mileage, needing work. NSX is the same story. Supras NEVER went down in value since the early 2000s.

The FD just remained a car loved by it's owners/enthusiasts - but ended as a pile of parts way too often.

 

I see what you are saying and agree somewhat so there is no need to comment. However I do not agree with:

The reason LSX swaps have historically fetched more money than the average twin turbo FD is not desirability (though it does play a role) or a saving grace. It is because the owners of the conversion have already spent a grip of money on them. Lets put this logically: Who in their right mind would buy at 8-10K car (not exactly a roller but a decent FD with a blown engine) spend an additional 10K and then turn around and sell it for 13-14K (decent running condition FD price)? No way.

 

I guess I mean LSx swaps just sap up many of the half dead projects and restore *some* value to them. The more FDs that are on the road and running - regardless of engine - means less available for sale... which means higher prices for all. I'd much rather see a running LSx FD fetch $30K then the same car sell three times for $10K as a project or poorly running car.

Rising tide sorta thing.

 

Don't lose sleep over this whole value thing, just enjoy your car... Who cares if they think the car only worth a penny, you'll still have people drooling all over it when you take it out.

 

The E30 M3 spike in value is so weird to me, as I literally remember college students driving them 10 years ago.

 

IMHO a car is not an investment. I usually think of my cars as worth exactly zero on the market as soon as I buy them. Wrong of course, but that's one reason I keep them a long time. Forgetting maintenance and repairs, the per-year amortized cost of the vehicle gets lower the longer I keep it. 21 years now for our FD, original price $29,300. ~ $1400/year, not too bad.

 

eh, stock, low mileage, well maintained, desired color/package FDs will continue to rise and crappy, modified, high mileage projects owned by kids will continue to fall.

 

Funny, I think a lot of the reasons in the article for it not going up in value as well as what people here say about most being half-finished projects and parts cars is precisely what will make the value increase. Obviously, we are at a point where truly well built/restored cars can't sell for their true value because some other guy will be selling a car claiming it is the same for a lot less, and people don't know or appreciate the differences yet. There are quite a few "nice" FD's that I look at and just see a lot of restoration/repair work that needs to be done, I can only think of a handful of truly perfect condition FD's out there.

 

I'm agreed with others in this thread. The high end of the market is moving up. People continue to ruin FDs in the middle and bottom end of the market, and they will soon be rising in value too.

 

Guys, if you honestly think your FD will be worth a ton one day you are dreaming. Sure prices have risen for truely nice cars recently, but wait until we cross the 25yr mark. The FD was sold in japan from 92-2002. It was literally a 10 year run. There are tons of these things worldwide, and once 25yrs hits we can begin importing them. Youre car will then begin competing in price against imported ones. Just drive your car and enjoy it. All cars, even the ones on the rising list, are terrible investments.

 

+1
Who cares? I didn't buy it with the intent to sell nor as an investment.

 

Show me this hoard of 25 year imports in the states. Go ahead, there are plenty of JDM classics that should be storming our streets any day now.

 

Actual market value seems to have gone up for lower mileage clean examples. But there are a lot of really banged up fds going for really cheap.

 

One should never use absolutes when it comes to future forecasting. Do I think the FD will one day be as coveted as a 1956 BMW 507 roadster? nope. However, I do think these cars will become collectibles and will ultimately fetch a decent penny.


Yes because the streets are flooded with a bunch of 1969 Nissan Skyline GTR's....


Edit-

+1

 

I also don't think the demand for RHD imports is all that high. It can be a big PITA to drive. So, I am not sure how those being imported will hurt our value.

Also, the late 80's skylines being imported now are not cheap. Getting cars over here cost a lot of money too. So, I don't think you are going to see any cheap imported FDs coming over either.

 

+2
Exactly.

Seems notable that the discussion got around the LSX swaps so quickly. I've felt for a long time that we rotary fans are like the slow child who keeps getting burned by touching the hot stove to see if it's hot. Universally the FD is considered beautiful and handling is 1st rate even after 20+ years. Maybe it's just the price of that stove that's gone flat.

 

but its the best BMW ever! Gods Chariot. last time i went to the historics the BMW tent had an E30 M3 front an center in their tent. very authentically done, it looked like the paint was still wet from the chop shop...

Nissan only made 1,900 GTR's between 69-72, not exactly flood material. i don't predict a huge flood of FD's either, but there seem to be a lot of cheap early ones in Japan, ???? ???? - ????!

the buy it now is 400,000y

 

You can pickup fd's in japan for 2k early years at the auctions. My friend was saying $800 but I think hes bsing

 

I dont need to "show you". There are TONS of JDM FD's at reasonably cheap prices. Look north to Canada, to Britain, or Australia for what happens when domestic versions of the cars are expensive and the imports become cheaper. People import the cars when value is high, then as more and more imports come in to meet demand the price of all the others will drop until imports become only slightly less than domestic models. Check out imported grey market supra turbos, they are much cheaper than domestic ones. If it werent for the 25yr rule we'd already have them. The FD doesnt have much room to go up because imports will put a ceiling on that potential.

 

Bro really? lol...

Come on now as if the 69 gtr is the 'only' car to import... So my still point stands.

 

The only problem is we're not in Australia, Britain, or Canada. Grey imports haven't ruined the domestic market for any other neo-classic JDM vehicles and they're not going to for FD's either.

People don't go through the trouble of buying a sketchy car with the steering wheel on the wrong side, shipping it to the US, and then filling out a bunch of paper work. It's still too big a pain in the butt in the US. I'm in California and the 25 year thing basically doesn't even matter here. You should see what people will pay for pristine, smog-able FDs here.

Check these guys out: Vintage Japanese Vehicles Sales and Restoration | JDM Legends
We pay people a premium to import non-sketchy JDM cars.

 

My observation living and owning an FD in Australia:

The Skylines here are plentiful. You can go out tomorrow morning and pick up an R31, R32, R33 or even an R34 Skyline for under 8 grand. They are not valued and kids drive them because

A. They are cheap and fast for what you pay.
B. They are relatively plentiful and seeing them in traffic, there are enough that people don't look twice at them.

Thus there are many many poorly maintained Skylines owned by kids, painted with rattle cans and with damage from curb hits and amateur drifting.

Aussie kids leave school, learn to drive, get a first job and then bam off to the bank for a 6 or 8 grand loan to get a Skyline because its cheap but its fast. An R32 was stolen in my neighborhood a few weeks ago, drifted around the streets and then found burnt out behind a cinema complex. The Police and the owner did not bat an eyelid. The Police had better things to do than chase down a 20+ year old rattle canned black Nissan car. Owner got his insurance payout, got another one. Big deal.

The FDs are nowhere near as common for one simple reason- the engine. People are afraid of it. Those mysterious triangles triangulate and do witchcraft and somehow it works but generally it scares and frightens people. The engines are seen as fragile and temperamental. Hard to understand and tune, and easy to blow up due to lack of skills. So people stay away and stick with the simple meat headed Skylines.
What this does for FD value is interesting. The good examples go up in price because people want the well maintained cars and dont want the headache of an engine thats ready to pop. And they will pay good money for that luxury.
Conversely the poorly maintained FDs with half baked engines go WAY down because who wants to inherit that?

You will see a split in FD ownership- the very well maintained, mint cars will go up as they get rarer and harder to find. The borderline blown engine, rattle canned kids project cars will be worth nothing, as nobody wants to realistically take those messes on.

 

Those beat up FD's parts cars for 8-10k will soon be a thing of the past. Eventually only leaving prime examples at least in the left hand drive world. There's a lot of RHD JDM RX7's and they're just worth about half a USDM car is worth. I believe these cars will be worth mid to high 20's in the near future. It's up to us enthusiasts to put value in these cars and keep them tasteful and desirable.

The thing is when you buy a 10-13k FD it needs about 7 grand of work and people end up spending 20k in total anyway and most of the times giving up during this process. Former FD owners looking to get back into an FD for the second and third time recognize this and buy examples in the 20's because they know what their investing in. I know I have.