Russian roulette with a semi-auto and a full clip.
I have to agree with this. In fact I read it in the “dead tree” version of SCM… AS I was watching the opening night of the Barrett-Jackson Arizona auctions last night. The muscle car market baffles me completely. I do not understand how two essentially identical cars, can be valued so differently. I can not fathom how one, optioned just a bit different from another can somehow raise its value from $12,000 to $250,000.
That. Is. Insane.
The temptation to create a fakey-do is so high, and the ability to pull it off is SO easy. Hell, most of the parts are available at your local NAPA! In fact people even SELL them AS fakey-dos… calling them “recreations”, “continuations”, or “tributes”. It makes no sense.
I can fully understand six or seven digit values of machines that were made in Maranello in numbers fewer than 100… but six figures for machines that were mamde in Detroit by the hundreds of thousands??? It does not compute.
I can understand six figure values for cars that have a rich history on the famous circuits of the world… but six figures for cars that were used as commuters??? I don’t get it.
I’ll tune into the Speed Channel again this week and see how far the insanity goes, but it would not surprise me in the least to see this market bubble pop on live TV either.
Let me *try* to explain, having a wee bit of experience with the yay-hoos that propel these idiotic markets: It has to do with the almost uniquely-American fascination with image, ya know? “Sell the sizzle and not the steak.” Why on earth would we continue to care one damn bit about Paris Hilton’s life???
I am NOT a fan of ANY pre-1990’s-era “Murrican cars, most especially the godawful beasts that are now such a draw to B-J. The difference in why a 1957 Chevy will sell for $100K and the VERY nearly identical 1957 Pontiac Super Chief (one of which I steward for a customer and who’s efforts to sell it have largely fallen flat) will barely muster $5 grand is…image and association. And marketing. It has NOT A DAMN thing to do with the relative capabilities of either car; Both were piles of shit. However, a Chevy has the aura, whereas the Indian don’t!
That’s a small insight into it, chuck. It is, as you might say, A. Totally. Stupid. Thing.