The Collector Car Market Is Seeing an Influx of Younger Cars
Modern cars—those made from the 1980s to today—are on an accelerated path toward collector status. That’s what our analysts observed when crunching the data on vehicles featured at auction over the last decade. Collector cars are getting newer, faster.
Eventually, certain used cars gain collector status as enthusiasts decide to start preserving and restoring them. That’s just the natural order of things. Just look at the rise of Fox-Body Mustangs, first-gen Miatas, and almost anything in a Radwood show. Trends in more recent years, however, show more than just simple passage of time when it comes to collectability. Across the thousands of public auctions (live and online) for the six years prior to 2020, the average model year of vehicles listed got one year newer every 12 months. But from 2020-24, that pace has more than doubled: the rate is now 2.3 model years per year.
A few factors contribute to this quickened pace. These younger cars enjoyed a burst in popularity during COVID. From 2020-21 alone, the average model year of cars listed at public sale got 4.7 years newer. While it’s calmed down since then, the rate is still significantly above where it was (note in the chart above, there was even a period between 2018-19 where the average model year got older). We’ve written before about online offerings being significantly younger than their in-person counterparts, and the hastened adoption of online platforms as places to buy and sell collector vehicles has naturally supported younger cars—not to mention the younger consumers who more readily embraced the concept of buying a car online, sometimes sight-unseen.
Those consumers are another element—the generally agreed-upon start of Gen X (1965) and end of millennial (1996) generations puts these buyers at about 30-60 years old, a sweet spot for collector car purchases. It’s only natural that their preferences become a focal point of the market as their earning power is in its peak years.
Finally, by virtue of age, attrition and sometimes production numbers, there are simply fewer older collector cars than there are newer ones that have recently transitioned or are about to transition from used car to collector car. Add in the extra reliability and usability of 1980-and-up vehicles, and their increased popularity among old car fans makes even more sense. The rise of these cars doesn’t take away from existing classics, it just makes the enthusiast tent that much bigger.
Here is the trouble. In the 80’s everything was cheap. Want a Tri power GTO to drive to school $3k. Want to build a coupe buy a cheap body and chassis.
Today the older cars are grossly over priced like $40k non SS Novas.
On the other hand we do have F Bodies and Fox bodies today but many body and trim parts are hard to find.
My Fiero is a cheap collector car but body and trim parts are expensive or hard to find.
Asian imports are used up and hard to find parts or good cars with low miles and no rust.
Many young buyers are into the used Dodges as they become cheaper. Some are honest collectors some are of a street take over crowd.
No one really believes there is no interest. It is lower interest so increases are easy. They will have to find their own way in a difficult market and they may have to pay more to play. By the time I was 20 I had up to three clean cars. They may need to daily drive their collector cars till they can afford a beater.
There still is a solid group of Jeep and truck youth. This has remained strong and Jeeps attract women. Now the Jeeps have gone up in price the used ones will too. This will make it more difficult.
The youth really like life style vehicles. I think this is what has driven old Bronco and Blazer prices.
I have seen people younger than me with C4 Corvette’s. Plenty of them and very affordable. The picture is quite accurate.