Up or Down?

A year or so ago, I wrote here about the number of inquiries I was receiving on my view of the state of the collector car market. Needless to say, over the past few months, this seems to be a central part of nearly every conversation! “What are racecars doing?” “Have we seen the bottom yet?” “What’s my 1957 Fungari Molto-Dollare worth?”

With the global financial implosion and resulting company downsizings, etc., a common theme of discussion, when enthusiasts get together these days is, “What’s the collector car market doing?” For many of us, judgment was being deferred until after the big round of Scottsdale auctions in January. For better or worse, the de facto barometers of the global classic car market tend to be the Scottsdale sales in January and the Monterey sales in August. If for no other reason than in recent years, these 6–10 days of combined auctions have accounted for nearly a half a billion dollars of classic cars sales annually!