Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Trad prices ..versus owners dreams..

Toy or investment ?
A car is bought for varying reasons.
Investment? In my view there are very limited numbers of cars that would appreciate in value. It takes care and common sense to pick one. Rarity,provenance, condition are main factors, then add on a crysral ball type prediction. A finished car versus project car? It is a gamble. Buying art? Same thing there.
Toy ? How will you use it?
Garage queen with little use and the idea of it not depreciating much? That takes it towards an investment.
Daily driver? Why not? Is there a fear of higher mileage affecting value?
A Morgan in the garage is a big chunk of money with diminishing value. How many of the thousands built could you see a monetary return on that investment ? There will be some with high end provenance, some that depreciate slower due to limited numbers, provenance etc. most will depreciate with market trends.
Your return on the "investment" comes in other ways.
My big chunk of money is paying me back in enjoyment. Both from driving anywhere, trips, meeting people.
Weather? It has to be BAD to not use the Morgan, even the tintop in some cases.
Routes? I do change these if the roads are unsuitable, even for the tintop. Locally I avoid some roads due to speed bumps, 20 mph limits, congestion etc.

For some Morgan owners who bought their cars many years ago, they may still see an increase in the sales value over their initial purchase price . But then if you take the inflationary impact in the intervening years reduction in the purchasing power/value of their initial purchase price ie what it would buy today compared to what they could have bought when they made the purchase, they may not being doing that well. Although in real terms they got back more money, eg fifty years ago, I could buy a sliced loaf for 7.5 p, I certainly can't buy a loaf for that today.

That's also ignoring the forgone earnings/ interest that would have been earning on capital if put elsewhere.

When I bought my then mid 80`s +8, all be it restored at 8k miles to concours condition, it took me 5 years of savings to purchase it in 2002 for circa £20k.... At the time and for quite a few years on, It would have been thought of not only as my hobby car, but as the first thing to be sold IF for any reason we might have hit aa sticky patch... Thus it was also considered as an asset to be converted back to cash if need be, and at that time Morgans were holding or improving their value in varying degrees.. Fortunately the need to sell has not arisen to date and hopefully never will... fingers crossed.

What would £20k buy back in 2002... I suspect a nice air cooled 911, which would be in excess of whatever my Morgan might be today....As for my assessment of the returns both real and potential on my Morgan...Hmm..? Primarily It provided a degree of security in terms of the ability to convert it back to cash, other than that it provided returns by way of adventures driving through Southern Europe, and various days out over the years...as well as the great pride in owning such a special machine, what`s more to want...?

Not such a Luddite, then, calling a machine special!

My Mog also took 5 years, but I did it the other way round - stuck it all on credit cards and then paid it off.

Did the same with the MG, and with the Harley. My aim is to die with no savings and a large credit card debt......

I read recently the UK baby boomers who are gradually dying out are currently estimated to be worth about £14 Trillion, (7 times the UK annual GDP) which will be inherited by their children and grandchildren on a level never experienced before in history. So the really fortunate generation are not the baby boomers but their kith and kin through the unprecedented scale of inheritance falling into their laps in the coming years.

Hence why certain political parties are targeting increases in capital gains and transfers, inheritance taxes etc., to get their unfair share of that upcoming £14 Trillion bonaza about to inevitably arise.in the coming years.

TBM not a bad plan, I don't have any children so our money will go to good causes, although I do note an increased interest in our wellbeing from nieces and nephews, especially following my fractured arm and Sue's fractured ankle we are currently dealing with.

I have been trying to sell my 4/4 for over a year with no success. I have spent £7K with Tim Ayres on upgrading the car and am advertising it for pretty much what I paid, but the only interest is the usual timewasters who don't think before they email you. I suspect the classic car market has changed significantly and irreversibly - money is not as cheap, and you can get 5% in a bank, so why chance it on an old car? Those who do seem more interested in old Fords. My main interest is pre-war cars - the market for those is absolutely dead. I have attended several shows already this year and have been struck by the almost total absence of pre-war stuff - lots of 70s Fords, quite a lot of hotrod type stuff, but little else. The Double 12 at Brooklands, which used to be a highlight, was only saved by the appearance of the Lagonda Club who turned up with about 30 of the most beautiful pre-war cars I have ever seen. Apart from them it was very thin.

I know anything will sell if it is cheap enough, but I don't desperately need to sell, so I guess it will stay in the garage for a while longer. The irony is that I have used it more in the year I have owned it than pretty much any other of my cars in the past decade. Perhaps that's telling me something.

Although with the house prices now at 8.3 times salary (according to the ONS), I imagine most of that inheritance will go on trying to get on the property ladder.

Both the 'millenials' in my office relied on inheritances to get on the ladder, coupled with 35yr mortgages and a gov first time buyer scheme.

This is likely to be a small thread drift, but, I often have conversations with my wife about my spending on toys, (cars, boats, bikes etc) against her wish to have many nice and expensive holidays. My feeling are, that if I buy, say my little 23', 18 year old sail boat for £15,000, against her wishes for us both to have a nice holiday in the Antipodes for much the same price, on our return there are only fading memories of a lovely 4 weeks of our lives, whilst with the toys, we still have a lot of fun, different admittedly, and I will still get 50% - 80% of my original capital back, less of course running costs.

This of course makes it much easier to do the man maths, which is what we are talking about here, bringing it nicely back on topic. :-)

You know what they say, be nice to your children, they are going to be the ones choosing your care home :-)

There might not be much left to inherit if the savings get swallowed up in care home costs, especially if we stop cheap immigrant labour coming in and face the inevitable rise in wages for workers?

Many inheritance would quickly get swallowed up in paying for a nice care home, the posh one near us charges £75k a year. It is very nice mind you, but then again there must be loads of rich boomers who have alienated their kids and will end up being dumped in the cheapest places so the kids can pay off their mortgages.