AutoTrader - May 2007

Dbn540i

Active member
I still have a very healthy collection of Auto Traders dating back from 1998 and also FHM Magazines from the time it was launched. :cool:

I bought one every Thursday and it was also a bribe my dad. He used this tactic in order to get me to accompany him on a morning's fishing trip on his boat, during the weekend. I didn't have the patience for fishing but always looked forward to the boat ride and of course, browsing the Auto Traders discussing the cars with him to which those memories are now priceless! 😇
 

modocrat

Well-known member
I still have a very healthy collection of Auto Traders dating back from 1998 and also FHM Magazines from the time it was launched. :cool:

I bought one every Thursday and it was also a bribe my dad. He used this tactic in order to get me to accompany him on a morning's fishing trip on his boat, during the weekend. I didn't have the patience for fishing but always looked forward to the boat ride and of course, browsing the Auto Traders discussing the cars with him to which those memories are now priceless! 😇
For a moment I thought your Dad bought you the FHM magazines to go fishing with him 😄
 

TBP88

Well-known member
Blast from the past!

Inflation adjusted:

E36 M3: R250400
333i: R201850
325iS 2.9: R242731
325iS: R281057
325iS Turbo: R332158
98 3.2 M3 4 Door: R370500
Fixer Upper M3: R191629
Add running and insurance and storage costs for ~17yrs and I'm pretty sure you're breaking even at best!
 

TurboLlew

Honorary ///Member
Add running and insurance and storage costs for ~17yrs and I'm pretty sure you're breaking even at best!

I meant to actually come back to this and add that only the 333i is probably in an 'investor grade' category. The others will have needed a lot of maintenance/running costs and would also have depreciated further through use.

The iS might seem like one given the asking prices, but when I see guys spending 300-500K (over and above what they are spending on the base car) for 325iS restorations that actually aren't all that great then I also would question whether the iS is investment grade as well. I think if you managed to own it from late 90s til now and kept it mint then you're smilling, but not sure how many of those guys there really are since most seem in dire need of restoration or have received the equivalent of Simon Cowell's plastic surgery. The genuine minters that come up get snapped up at whatever the asking price is (driving this belief that you can take a 250K car, put 200K into it and ask R750K+... doesn't work that way).

It has never been a cheap car to buy or to own and neither is it a cheap car to restore. There was a Carte Blanche episode about these and 200K doesn't buy you much of anything - especially when the starting point is a shitbox like some of the cars in that segment. Used parts and best-effort service. I understand good restoration work is expensive, but then the point is at those asking prices (even if they are ever reached) there isn't exactly 'profit' in there.

The E36 is really nowhere and I don't think that it will get very far because you have the E46 and E92 on the other end that are probably better for both nostalgia-buyers and these elusive collectors we hear about that are just dying to pick up cars decades later at the peak of their asking prices and with huge mileages/lots of hidden issues.
 

TBP88

Well-known member
I meant to actually come back to this and add that only the 333i is probably in an 'investor grade' category. The others will have needed a lot of maintenance/running costs and would also have depreciated further through use.

The iS might seem like one given the asking prices, but when I see guys spending 300-500K (over and above what they are spending on the base car) for 325iS restorations that actually aren't all that great then I also would question whether the iS is investment grade as well. I think if you managed to own it from late 90s til now and kept it mint then you're smilling, but not sure how many of those guys there really are since most seem in dire need of restoration or have received the equivalent of Simon Cowell's plastic surgery. The genuine minters that come up get snapped up at whatever the asking price is (driving this belief that you can take a 250K car, put 200K into it and ask R750K+... doesn't work that way).

It has never been a cheap car to buy or to own and neither is it a cheap car to restore. There was a Carte Blanche episode about these and 200K doesn't buy you much of anything - especially when the starting point is a shitbox like some of the cars in that segment. Used parts and best-effort service. I understand good restoration work is expensive, but then the point is at those asking prices (even if they are ever reached) there isn't exactly 'profit' in there.

The E36 is really nowhere and I don't think that it will get very far because you have the E46 and E92 on the other end that are probably better for both nostalgia-buyers and these elusive collectors we hear about that are just dying to pick up cars decades later at the peak of their asking prices and with huge mileages/lots of hidden issues.

S&P did around 250% in the same period as the above ads, (that's a dollarized investment as well, USDZAR is around 150% on top of that for you!) So nothing here performed even remotely close to just tracking the index (not even considering the fact that you'd need to store, maintain and insure the car over the whole period whereas your index tracker could just sit in an account!). The real value here is probably the 333i, and it likely still has some legs given legitimate rarity and racing heritage (also as a unique SA only car, might eventually make it's way into broader collections). But even then, as I always tell anyone who'll listen, cars as investments pretty much always suck donkey balls over any meaningful time period, unless you can ride the market up on something from under to over valued (and generally this only is doable at the very, very sharp end of the market, 80s and 90s lambos for instance have exploded in the last 10yrs or so) you'll almost always lose.
 
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