What's going on here?
A '70 LS6 Chevelle with a documented 26 miles on the odometer sells for $354,200 on eBay Motors.
Detroit musclecar collector Al Maynard is offered $1,050,000 for a one-of-a-kind '68 Z/28 Camaro convertible built for Chevy Division president Pete Estes in 1968. Maynard turned the offer down!
Craig Jackson, owner of the prestigious Barrett-Jackson auction, claims he knows of an offer of $2 million for a '70 Hemi 'Cuda convertible. The E-Body Hemi convertibles were the first musclecars to sell for more than $1 million.
What's really going on here? These are not fictitious examples intended to throw blood in the water to create a musclecar feeding frenzy-the truth is sufficiently chilling. A musclecar price surge has been building for the last two years, but recently it seems to have exploded with stories of outrageous prices paid for both modified and restored '60s and '70s musclecars.
There are literally hundreds of examples of musclecars selling for what would have been ridiculous prices a few years ago, and speculators would have you believe is that there is no end in sight. So why are prices escalating and why now?
The Power Of Perception
It's important to emphasize here that the price for a machine like a fully restored '69 Z/28 or a '69 Ram Air IV GTO Judge is based on something called perceived value. The market, which includes musclecar enthusiasts as well as the general public, has identified an increasing variety of these older cars as having a greater intrinsic value. This is purely a subjective evaluation. Therefore, someone who is not an enthusiast may not see the value as being nearly as great as a die-hard fan who thinks the sun rises and sets around 428 Super Cobra Jet Torinos.
It's essential to understand this phenomenon because these perceived values have a way of changing very quickly. This is also the basis around which the stock market operates. Investors all over America thought Martha Stewart as some sort of deity until she was convicted of insider trading. Then in literally a few weeks' time, her company's stock values plummeted. The business didn't change, but everyone's perception of her business practices changed and the value dropped. Closer to home, this same sudden shift in the musclecar market game occurred in the mid-'80s when values soared and then just as quickly dropped.
Older But Not Wiser
We must also look at the age of the people who are driving the value of these machines. The age factor is also critical from the aspect of the people funding this value spike. The people raising the stakes in this automotive poker game are between their late 40s and early 60s who now have a significant amount of disposable income and who may be escaping the decline in the stock market. This is evident in prices paid for both restored musclecars as well as the serious cash people are dropping for modified cars. Basically, this phenomenon is being fuelled by men (and some women) who desire the kinds of cars they either owned or wished they could have owned when they were younger.
This leads us to two major influences in the musclecar value game. The more established of the two are the many prestigious auction houses that cater to the expanding collector car market. The newcomer is eBay Motors. We've devoted an entire separate story to how eBay has influenced the market. The other big influence is the major car auctions.