Are Collector Cars a Stable Investment?

Collector Car Market vs. Dow-Jones and Home Owning

Hagerty Insurance published their Price Guide Popular Index recently, which tracked the values of 30 of Hagerty Insurance’s most commonly insured cars of the post war era. They released these numbers on a graph that also showed the performance of the Dow-Jones Industrial Average and the median home value in the United States from October 2006 to April 2014. (Click the image for a larger view, as well as a list of the cars included in the analysis.) The graph shows a slow but generally upward trend in the collector car market and a Dow-Jones that can boast the same returns, but only after taking participants for a ride full of wildly fluctuating ups and downs. The housing market remains 5-percent down from 2006 making it a poor place to “park” your money.

Reasons for buying a collector car can vary from buyer to buyer, but investment and fun are usually the top two. Sure, you can put a couple thousand dollars into stocks and watch a ticker track your gains, but wouldn’t it be more fun to go out on a fair weather day and drive your investment around? Hagerty’s data indicates that well-documented collector cars are almost as lucrative as playing the stocks, but not nearly as volatile, maintaining a steady growth despite economic downturns.

You’ll find this story and many more in the latest edition of the Cars On Line Newsletter!