MGB & GT Forum

Given the choice of maximizing future value or maximizing present enjoyment ------- no contest.

You don't have to thank me, I'm glad I was able to contribute to your future wealth. It's a win-win for both of us.

I did a quick search on some of the usual websites and turned up these (see links below). They're all largely original, unmodified driver-quality cars - no "projects" or Shelby clones. There are lots of cheaper project cars, if that's what you want.

Keep in mind that these are "asking" prices, too - -many of them will actually sell for less.

Pretty similar "ask" prices to a good driver-level '60's MGB, no??

Mustangs are still plentiful and pretty reasonably priced. 6 cylinder automatic daily driver '65 Mustangs (which most of those 680,000 sold in '64 - '65 were) will never be worth the big bucks.


Not everyone loved '65 Mustangs and their ilk. Many baby boomers preferred the charms of the small lightweight British sports cars and dreamed of owning one. I don't think you give the MGB enough credit.

http://www.autotraderclassics.com/classic-car/1965-Ford-Mustang-2149387.xhtml?conversationId=2561241

http://www.autotraderclassics.com/classic-car/1965-Ford-Mustang-2190273.xhtml?conversationId=2561241

http://www.autotraderclassics.com/classic-car/1966-Ford-Mustang-1370922.xhtml?conversationId=2561241

http://www.cargurus.com/Cars/l-Used-1965-Ford-Mustang-c4#listing=120069380

http://www.cargurus.com/Cars/l-Used-1965-Ford-Mustang-c4#listing=120765032

http://www.autotraderclassics.com/classic-car/1966-Ford-Mustang-2191624.xhtml?conversationId=2561241

One of the earliest, and most significant MGBs in the world just sold at a major auction for $88k. In the Porsche world, that same money would only buy you a clean '68 911T these days .....we are Probably on the tail-end of a gravity-defying classic car bubble, and most MGs have been left in the sidelines.

My dad's friend restored an MG TD to concourse level in the early 80's, and had numerous standing offers for $25k. 35 years later, that car would probably sell for about $30k on a good day.

I have a R&T Magazine from 1989 that predicted typical chrome bumper MGBs would be $30k cars by the year 2000....oops!

Whenever I hear people say "these cars are going to be worth big bucks someday", I ask what they are waiting for, and where are these buyers going to come from? I'm 36, and I can tell you it's not my generation, or even the guys a little older than me who are going to drive the prices up.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-08-11 11:29 PM by Benny.

I own a TD and a 67 B GT. The TD is becoming somewhat of a novelty car, similar to a model A. Fun to take out and drive around, but it is limited in a lot of ways that would make it tough to drive every day. Now I know there are folks that do drive their TD every day, but that takes a certain type of person.

WIth my B GT, I can drive it every day, and keep up with everything on the road. Yes. It does not have all the comforts of a new car, but nothing I can't live without.

Issue as I see it is that the current generation will not feel that way. They want power and all the comfort. I hate to say it, but I don't see our cars being that desirable in 10 or so years.

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Bruce E. Cunha

I had the Mustangs, an AMX, an SS Camaro, etc. They were nice, but I dreamed of the MGB. Always wanted one, took me until my 50's to finally get one! Some people dream of and yearn to acquire muscle cars, some antique furniture, some bed pans. All depends on what floats your boat. For me, the muscle cars were fun, but I enjoy my LBCs even more.

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Doug

http://www.mgexp.com/journal/OldBlue

Member - NAMGBR, ENMGR

I mostly agree with this, the MGB is missing some very important things to make it a high value collectors car.
1- the MGB is just not rare enough, BMC and BL made too dam many of them with very little changes throughout the production.

2- the MGB is not sporty enough, sure it looks good and it is a good driver but let's face the fact that without lots of work the car is average at best when it comes to performance. Only if BMC had worked out the issues on the twin cam MGA engine the B might have had a better engine.

Oh and who ever really makes a dime off an old car? I view cars as the worst envestment that one can make, but I sure love throwing money at them because they are fun.
I feel the B will continue to increase in value, but let's face the facts that it will never come close to what an MGA twin Cam or AH 100m go for.

Lastly....I saw one of those stupid reality car restoration shows restore a TR6, at the end the owner wrote a $70k check, WTF was he thinking?!?! Not for a TR6, not in a million years will a TR6 or MGB ever be worth that kind of scratch, well....perhaps in a million years.

What was he thinking? He was probably thinking something along these lines:


That's pretty much what I was thinking when I put stupid money into mine. It is indeed fun, worth every penny to me.

The cynic in me wonders if just about every program on Velocity (except the Mike Brewer and Edd China show) is a desperate attempt at propping an already burst market in most "classic" cars long enough for the toffs to get out. Sure, some icons still command stupid money for being icons but 90% of what crosses under Barrett Jackson's hammer strikes me as contrived price-point fixing. Just because its old doesn't make it a classic, let alone iconic, and even then won't make them immune to the inevitable post-nostalgia collapse.

I hope Wayne C. never falls in love with RB MGs; I couldn't handle the pressure!

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With great power comes great responsibility. Therefore, with only a little power comes only a little responsibility.

God help us all if he does. Ever since American Pickers aired everyone thinks that their old trash is worth a million, still can't believe that someone payed $70k to "fix up" their TR6, absolutely insane or it was just a huge lie for ratings.

Looking at the big picture, the classic British car market is strong.

I wrote this for my British Car Club newsletter a couple of weeks ago:

Classic British Car Market is strong. According to Hagerty’s British Index, the classic British Car market followed 2015 last period’s 9% change with a strong 6% climb. The Hagerty Price Guide Index of British Cars is a stock market style index that averages the values of 10 of the most iconic British sports cars from the 1950s-70s. Values are for #2 condition, or “excellent” cars.

Interest in Sunbeam Tigers continued to increase through the first period of 2015, with near-record sales at the Arizona auctions garnering wide attention. A few other component cars made moves too, although increases in the 100M, MGB, and XK120 were partly offset by the MGA’s 5% slip.

The good news to Club members is that growth appears to be more widespread among lower-valued cars in the first half of 2015. Hagerty notes that during the past 12 months, half of the British index’s component cars have increased in value by 5% or more, while 7 cars have moved 14% or more since 2012. I hope it continues.

Nothing not to like here if you own a classic British car.

I look at the Hagerty index and it looks all fine on the surface, although perhaps the MGA's are aging out as we mentioned here about the "nostalgia threshold".

What is interesting is the choice of examples that make up the index (Shall we dig a little here?). E-Types and Healeys and Tigers Oh my! Early B ('63) is the only choice from our little world along with the most desirable of the TR6. Salt with TR3a, TF, XK120, and what we have are the cream of the iconics. Hardly typical of the Midget, Spitty, MGB, BGT world most of us live in let alone the '80 B that the original poster was on about.

So, lets look at some more-typical examples in more typical Condition 3 and make our own index. My 80 B is flat for the period, as is my 79 Midget. A '70 BGT is flat. A '68 Spit from $6800 to $6900, while a '75 1500 is flat. A 72 TR6 arbitrarily picked as mid-life is flat. A '77 TR7 coupe and an '80 convertible are also, wait for it, flat. Let's throw in a GT6; a '71 up from $6000 to $6200 while a '66 MkIII Sprite is (yep, you guessed it) flat.

Now, this isn't a very scientific choice or one carefully researched to prove my point or not, just an off-the-top-of-the-head arbitrary collection of what I most commonly see coming the other way on a summer's eve or up at the local Brit car garage. No icons but plenty of classics (and some old crocks like mine). My take would be the market is solid but flat. I can't say it's strong with a 6% increase in the typical Brit driver car world. Tigers aren't typical and I'd argue that "Arizona Auction" if uncooked still isn't anything more than concours level examples of the most atypical of the breed, hence flyers in the data rather than indicative.

So, I wouldn't have come to the same conclusion you did in your newsletter, not in the world I move in. I'd say it's solid, a couple modest gains here and there, no real losers, and life on the B-roads in our common-as-dirt Condition 3 LBC's is just fine. I don't see me shopping for a trailer tonight and we don't have to be afraid to drive them anytime soon.

Cheers to all,
Brian

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With great power comes great responsibility. Therefore, with only a little power comes only a little responsibility.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-08-12 02:39 PM by Sarge101st.

Amen.

Brian, Hagerty is widely quoted because their research and database is very impressive.

Seems you're basically agreeing with Hagerty, no? And, if you don't like Hagertys indices, what would you recommend in order to assess the overall marketplace? And especially, the lower end where our MGBs reside.

Other indices like the HAGI address only pricey cars, however, it does indicate market trends that inevitably affect our cars.

Hard to nail down the lower end of the market. In any case, it's healthy, for now. Predictions are an exercise in mysticism, basically.

And m just glad values are rising.






Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-08-12 04:18 PM by vagt6.

Although I am glad the value is holding, I don't buy "rising" myself, but I agree with the mysticism.

I've done the classics game long enough to also be very suspicious of pricing data and over-simplified conclusions based on very broad-ranged data. I've also seen far too many cars sold under the hammer than quietly bought back or adjusted in the carpark (to bolster the pricing data) to take the "Arizona Auction Culture" at face value. I've become perhaps too cynical to be objective in or enjoy that game anymore, so I've bailed that world and now play in this one, and the operative word is play. I don't want anything to do with speculating cars as a hobby anymore, but that's me. I tell this for "full disclosure" so anyone reading this can take it all for what they think it's worth (probably not much- Grin!)

That said, here is the answer to your question. I went into Hagerty's car valuation rather than their index and in 10 minutes time cavalierly chose an array of lower end cars to make my own "index". After snap-shooting a dozen or so, the pattern that emerged was one of health but not the growth Hagerty's precanned index points to, skewed by the inclusion of Big Healeys, XKs, and Tigers, the higher end stuff that does have the attention of the "Arizona Auction" crowd. That 10-minute dozen down in the common driver end paints a picture of maintaining, not growth, in the common driver world.

Yes, that assumes that Hagerty's data is valid. I just question the sampling array as valid for our purpose.

Use the valuation data rather than the indexes, then you can build your own array of what you are truly interested in and perhaps get a better picture. You might have fun as an op/ed writer by getting a roster of your club members actual cars, run each one, and build an index that actual reflects the club. That would get your reader's attention.

Cheers,
Brian

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With great power comes great responsibility. Therefore, with only a little power comes only a little responsibility.

My mg purchase was not as an investment, but for the joy of owning and driving the beast. That said, I agree you should try to keep it as original as possible. I do plan on returning my car ti its original color, but also plan on upgrading the transmission to a Rivergate 5 speed. This should make highway driving more pleasant (I do plan some long trips) and I don't think it will hurt the value, in fact I this this will increase it's value. Don't matter though, I have no plans on selling it.