I am guessing that all car brands make a lot of money on their spares, a bit like printers where the initial machine is reasonably price but the ink costs a fortune. There are ways around this, but it must put up insurance premiums hugely, as if you are making a claim you will want OE parts, with no compromise, whereas if paying yourself you will make saving where possible.
An interesting discussion on values, reasons for Morgan ownership and owner demographics. There is obviously not just one easy to define reason, but a whole host, what the media likes to call, 'the perfect storm'.
Undoubtedly the current poor financial situation, helped by successive governments, has meant there are fewer people with money to spend on their toy cars, added to the fact that the market is shrinking because the customer base is getting older with fewer 'youngsters' coming in at the bottom end of the market and finally, Morgan have made such a huge leap forward with their newer cars, there is very little reason to buy a 'Trad' unless the price is right. This doesn't however, explain the poor residuals of CX cars.
It is interesting that the factory are taking the view they need to maximise profits, by to selling as many cars as possible, reducing the waiting time to practically nothing, especially if a customer is happy with the spec. chosen by a stocking dealer, but of course at the expense of the residual values of second hand cars. This is a very short term policy and will come back to bite them hard in years to come, as one of the main validation points to buying a Morgan was that they 'never lost money', so people, men mostly, could buy one and know they had a rock solid investment, aka 'Man Maths'.
I note there are some owners on here who have stated they would just buy the car they wanted and not worry about how much money they would lose - nice if you can do it, especially for a hobby, but I would suggest that many, many owners will look at low or zero residuals as being one of the main reasons for having a car they do not need.
BTW John, I would be interested to know which are the 'notable exceptions' that hold their value as well as Morgans used to, I may think about "investing" in one of them.
