A LONG TIME AGO, I had a chance to buy a 1967 Ferrari 330 GTC at auction. I was standing on the block next to the auctioneer as the bids trickled in, all of them well below the perceived value of the car. I was mulling whether to throw in a bid when the auctioneer—from the stage, over the loudspeaker, to my amazement—said, “Hey, McKeel, you gotta buy this car! You’d look great driving it around Traverse City!”
He was right, I would have. And I should have bid. It’s a gorgeous car and I was sorely tempted, but I just couldn’t pull the trigger. Someone else bought it for a song, roughly $72,000, as I recall. Out of morbid curiosity, I followed the car over the years as it changed hands. The last time I checked, it sold for somewhere between $600,000 and $700,000.
Regrets? I’ve had a few.
In a sense, that’s what Hagerty’s annual Bull Market report (which just came out for 2024) is all about – helping car buyers avoid regrets by giving you a heads up about cars we think are poised to rise in value. Meaning “get them now.” Turning a future profit isn’t usually the main point for most of us when we buy a collector car, but it also doesn’t hurt. At heart, I think we’re all looking for that unicorn that fills us with joy and becomes more valuable over time.
I, for one, loved the choices on this year’s list. From the 1947 Town & Country to the ultra-cool 1997 Plymouth Prowler hot rod, which was the creation of longtime Hagerty member Tom Gale’s design team, the list shows the true breadth of the hobby. You have older cars that have been loved by their owners for decades. The Town & Country, for instance, is owned by 75-year-old Hagerty member David Kraus from New Jersey. He bought it in 1965 from its original owner for $200 because he wanted a sportier car than what he was driving. (I’m dying to know what car he was replacing.) Likewise, Hal Oaks, the owner of that gorgeous 1969 Impala SS 427 you saw in our piece, bought it in 1969. Two people, two cars, more than 110 years of ownership. That’s pretty amazing.
You have newer cars like the 2013 -Ferrari FF, the third Ferrari to ever grace our list. As owner Daniel Giannone explained at our Lime Rock Park photo shoot in Lakeville, Connecticut, he bought the ahead-of-its-time FF in part because it has four seats, which he needs for his kids. Sure enough, we spotted a couple of car seats in the back. Now that’s driving the kids in style!
And smack-dab in the middle you have the 1983 Jeep CJ-8 Scrambler. It’s not a rare or extra-special vehicle by any means, but that’s beside the point. Our team picked it because older SUVs and pickups have been in high demand. Why? Because Gen Xers and millennials, like every generation before them, want the vehicles of their youth. Prices have increased as a result. That churn is what keeps the hobby fresh. Speaking of churn, arguably one of the most intriguing cars on the list is the 1997 Mitsubishi -Pajero Evo, a Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) vehicle that only recently became legal to be imported to the U.S. There is a huge subculture here around cars that, when new, were only sold in Japan, so it will be interesting to watch how nuts people go over these.
Before I close, thank you to the Hagerty members who donated their cars for this year’s photo shoot. We couldn’t do it without you. I would also like to thank Chris Little, the proprietor of Northwest Corner Classic Cars near Lime Rock Park, who kept many of the cars safe and dry in his wonderful facility when they weren’t needed on the track.
I would love to hear what you think about this year’s list, good, bad, or indifferent. You can write to me at mhagerty@hagerty.com.
Until next time, onward and upward.
