One of my regular duties at our sister weekly Classic Car Buyer is updating the price guide – and providing the ‘pick of the guide’ snippets at the bottom. As far as I know, it's the only guide that’s updated every week; we keep a very close eye on what’s happening through auction prices, ‘for sale’ advertisements (at least the asking prices) and gather information from talking to enthusiasts, dealers and clubs.
Specific prices, though, are only part of the story – it’s just as important to identify trends, and where appropriate to make judgements on the notional ‘value’ of cars which have sold in small numbers – if at all – on the strength of changes elsewhere in the market. For example this year we’ve seen a sufficient increase in sale prices of 1622cc Farina Austin Cambridges and Morris Oxfords to identify that Condition 1 prices have risen around 15 per cent overall. Although far fewer (if any) Riley 4/72s and MG Magnettes have sold, it’s reasonable to assume that values these have also increased by a similar percentage.
Often, increased values of the most desirable models in a range causes a slightly less sought-after model to go up as well. Prices for top-flight Dolomite Sprints are now close to £10k, and we’ve noticed more people looking at the outwardly-similar (and still sporting) 1850 version as a result.
This story is from the March 2018 edition of Classic Car Mart.
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This story is from the March 2018 edition of Classic Car Mart.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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