Duffy's Collectible Cars Blog - Your Trusted Collector Car Store For Over 25 Years.

By Jon Bratton

I recently uncovered an old August 1989 Old Cars Price Guide and thought it would be fun to see how times and prices have changed. In looking though the pages, one thing that jumped out was how many collector car dealers have come and gone over the past 10 years and how proud we are at Duffy’s to still be going strong over 25 years. It was great to see the old Duffy’s ad right on the inside cover of the Price Guide.

 In our ad we have many of the same classic cars that we have now. A 1965 Ford Mustang convertible was only $15,950 in 1989 and today we’re selling them for $28,950. I kept going and found a few more; a 67 GTO for $14,950 then, is $34,950 now, a 1956 Cadillac convertible was only $33,500 in 1989 we just sold one last week for $85,950 and a 1963 Falcon was $2,950 then and now sells for $13,950. I chose these particular vehicles because they’re all examples of cars we currently have in our inventory. WOW how I wish I could have bought those cars then and kept them. But then again, given how the classic car market has grown, it’s never too late. In fact, the average increase in collector car values, from February 2004 to February 2008 was 36%, more than twice the S & P Index during the same period. And with the precarious performance of the stock market today, why not invest in something with a better return AND offers more fun - like a collector car!

In doing some more research, I decided to compare one more popular car we have in stock, a 1967 Shelby Mustang GT500 vs.10 years ago. I found an August 2000 Price Guide and the latest, February 2009 Old Car Price Guides and compared them to my 1989 price guide. In these guides they rate a car from 1 to 5, number 1 being a show car to a number 5 which is a complete parts car. Below are the results:

1967 Shelby GT500

Rating           1                      2                      3                      4                      5

1989    $27,000           $18,900           $13,500           $8,100             $4,050

2000    $47,000           $32,900           $18,800           $9,400             $5,650

2009    $241,500         $169,050         $108,680         $48,300           $28,980

WOW! The Shelby has obviously done very well with a #2 rated car going from $18,900 to $169,050 in 20 years and more remarkably from $32,900 to $169,050 in just 10 years. We’re proud to be offering a numbers matching GT500 today for only $105,950 - give Dave or Jon a call to get more information on this excellent investment collector car.

This data proves what I always have thought. That this is a good way to have lots of fun and make money at the same time. Twenty years from now are you going to wonder why you didn’t buy a classic car?

P.S. I still have my 1968 Olds 442 convertible (coincidentally that I purchased in 1979 ) and I’m sure glad I do - it’s appreciated much better and is much more fun than my 401k.