GregBBRD

You guys need to remember that any of these cars can either be well maintained or suck up 10-15K (or more) of deferred maintenance. Even a well maintained one will probably need a timing belt, water pump, and cam gears (at 80,000 miles.) That job will rip up 4K faster than a speeding bullet, with the price of water pumps and gears, these days.

The super low mileage (hanger queen) vehicles invariably never had the coolant changed....and the head gaskets are completely dissolved (with huge pits in the heads and sometimes damaged cylinder liners.) These cars scare me, because of this problem, alone! Even the ones with 80,000 miles could have this problem.....as years and years could have passed without the coolant being changed. Open up a 928 5.4 engine with acid eaten cylinder liners/heads and your entire view of what is a bargain and what isn't a bargain can quickly change!

It won't be too many more years until "head gasket" replacement becomes as common as timing belt maintenance. I just took apart a 250,000 mile GT [which means it got driven....with more belt and water pump services (which means the coolant was changed, every few years)]. While the heads and the cylinders look amazing (not acid eaten), the head gaskets had the fire rings completely separated from the outer head gasket material....the "paper" was virtually gone. That's not going to work, for very long!

I think my point is obvious.

Forget what people are paying to buy one...find out what they spent to get it back into usable/reliable condition.

That's the "real" cost.

MGW-Fla

Well said Greg, and words of advice we all should heed.

kevinr

I can only speak for myself, but I see catching up on that deferred maintenance as a fun way to spend some free time -- up to a point, of course. A perfect car is not that interesting to me personally -- though I love that they exist. I have a perfect car already (just not a 928).

As to Roger's point, I don't want the value to go down -- just not to rise too fast to price me out of the market. Unlike most of you guys, I'm still on the outside looking in.

And I *completely* agree that they are currently undervalued for what they are. That's why I want in -- not to make a profit, but to take advantage of a closing opportunity to have something that I've always loved and never thought I would have.

And my original comment was just an opinion on the current market -- which I hope was not taken as pessimism on the potential.

MFranke

I agree that catching up on the deferred maintenance is a big part of the fun.

Range Rover

Well, I wasn't saying that it wouldn't be fun to catch up on deferred maintenance, but not having any does make the car worth more.

I was referring more to cosmetic condition. There are just certain things about an extensively maintained example that you just can't replicate with one that has been relatively neglected. That gray '91 that was posted appeared to me to have some pretty significant fading in the leather and such. I didn't notice this with the white one. The bidding closed at $26,100 I believe, so someone apparently did think that this white car was worth exactly twice what the gray one was worth.

Also, we've already seen that PERFECT garage queens do fetch a pretty penny on the rare occasion that they come up for sale. There just aren't many to go around. The huge bargain in my opinion is cars like this white one, assuming that it is fully documented and well maintained with little deferred maintenance. Compare it with a 930 in comparable condition... It's a steal!