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[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

A couple of days ago I stumbled upon an episode of Bangers and Cash. Undemanding viewing.

Anyway, under the hammer goes a 1979 Mini 1275 GT. It sells for £22000 plus auction fees.

For those who don't know, the 1275 GT Mini was the emasculated limp-dick successor to the 1275 Cooper S from the sixties. They detuned the Cooper S by some 15 BHP and then stuck a butt ugly 'Clubman front' on it.

How did this very ordinary little car suddenly become worth £22000?

Insane.

[Varche]

No , it wasn’t even the S engine .

It is “ our generation” with disposable income to buy the car of their youth. As you say madness.. Give it ten or o years years and ome Oofers will be paying similar money for an Omega…….

[Rangie]

Just crazy, I certainly wouldn't pay that kind of money for any type of mini , remember teaching my mate how to drive  in one in 1970 god awful thing. But I would be willing to pay up to £40, 000 for a nice AC Cobra replica just got to convince " er indoors " .. 😁

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

No , it wasn’t even the S engine .

It is “ our generation” with disposable income to buy the car of their youth. As you say madness.. Give it ten or o years years and ome Oofers will be paying similar money for an Omega…….

.

Most on here will be 6 feet under by then.

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

No , it wasn’t even the S engine .

It is “ our generation” with disposable income to buy the car of their youth. As you say madness.. Give it ten or o years years and ome Oofers will be paying similar money for an Omega…….

Surely it's the same 1275 cc A series lump. Just detuned in 1275GT form.

[Varche]

No, different internals. The 1275 gt has 9 stud head compared to the S ‘s 11 stud for example.

[Mr Skrunts]

A few years ago there was a Lotus Carlton for sale that had been in a garage show room from the day it was bought and up for sale for something like £20K with under 1000 miles on it.

These days LC's are being advertised for £100K regardless of mileage and number of owners (Not sure if the sellers ever get the asking price)

Nissan skylines are being advertised for stupid money.

Even the Chevette market.  My old stage 3 HS replica (1256) would be worth a fortune these days

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

No, different internals. The 1275 gt has 9 stud head compared to the S ‘s 11 stud for example.

If you are correct....then I stand corrected.

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

A few years ago there was a Lotus Carlton for sale that had been in a garage show room from the day it was bought and up for sale for something like £20K with under 1000 miles on it.

These days LC's are being advertised for £100K regardless of mileage and number of owners (Not sure if the sellers ever get the asking price)

Nissan skylines are being advertised for stupid money.

Even the Chevette market.  My old stage 3 HS replica (1256) would be worth a fortune these days

No chance of a genuine low mileage LC for £20,000 in 2023, Skruntie.

I need to invent a time machine.

[Sir Tigger KC]

The demand for classic cars will only increase as they are exempt from ULEZ.   

The Morris Marina will be a common sight on our streets once more!                                           

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

The demand for classic cars will only increase as they are exempt from ULEZ.   

The Morris Marina will be a common sight on our streets once more!                                           

And the world will be much enriched by it's presence.....

[YZ250]

No, different internals. The 1275 gt has 9 stud head compared to the S ‘s 11 stud for example.

Cooper S had double valve springs as well. I owned both a Cooper S and then later on a 1275GT. I wasn’t a fan of the clubman front on the GT either. You could piss balls about tuning any of these engines, change the twin SU’s for a torquemaster inlet manifold with webers, LCB exhaust manifold etc., but for the fastest mini, simply dumping an Austin 1100/1300 (preferably a 1300GT) in them made a considerable improvement. I believe the Austin is/was a slightly longer stroke engine.
Oselli mini tuning was based in Oxford so very handy for me to experiment with different tuning parts.
As a side note for useless information, my 1275GT was originally fitted with Dunlop Denovo run flat tyres. When I came to replace them the run flats were so expensive that I was able to purchase four brand new Wolfrace wheels, centre caps etc and four new tyres for less money than just the Denovo’s would have cost. It was a no brainer to stick the Wolfies on. 

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

No, different internals. The 1275 gt has 9 stud head compared to the S ‘s 11 stud for example.

Cooper S had double valve springs as well. I owned both a Cooper S and then later on a 1275GT. I wasn’t a fan of the clubman front on the GT either. You could piss balls about tuning any of these engines, change the twin SU’s for a torquemaster inlet manifold with webers, LCB exhaust manifold etc., but for the fastest mini, simply dumping an Austin 1100/1300 (preferably a 1300GT) in them made a considerable improvement. I believe the Austin is/was a slightly longer stroke engine.
Oselli mini tuning was based in Oxford so very handy for me to experiment with different tuning parts.
As a side note for useless information, my 1275GT was originally fitted with Dunlop Denovo run flat tyres. When I came to replace them the run flats were so expensive that I was able to purchase four brand new Wolfrace wheels, centre caps etc and four new tyres for less money than just the Denovo’s would have cost. It was a no brainer to stick the Wolfies on. 

That is a blast from the past.....bit like cosmic wheels on Imps and Mini.

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

No, different internals. The 1275 gt has 9 stud head compared to the S ‘s 11 stud for example.

Cooper S had double valve springs as well. I owned both a Cooper S and then later on a 1275GT. I wasn’t a fan of the clubman front on the GT either. You could piss balls about tuning any of these engines, change the twin SU’s for a torquemaster inlet manifold with webers, LCB exhaust manifold etc., but for the fastest mini, simply dumping an Austin 1100/1300 (preferably a 1300GT) in them made a considerable improvement. I believe the Austin is/was a slightly longer stroke engine.
Oselli mini tuning was based in Oxford so very handy for me to experiment with different tuning parts.
As a side note for useless information, my 1275GT was originally fitted with Dunlop Denovo run flat tyres. When I came to replace them the run flats were so expensive that I was able to purchase four brand new Wolfrace wheels, centre caps etc and four new tyres for less money than just the Denovo’s would have cost. It was a no brainer to stick the Wolfies on. 

Shows what little I know. 

[BazaJT]

If they'd stuck a Ford badge on it it'd have fetched at least twice as much! The prices of practically any Ford these days is frankly stupid.Most were rubbish when new and I can't see them having improved with age.

[Sir Tigger KC]

The demand for classic cars will only increase as they are exempt from ULEZ.   

The Morris Marina will be a common sight on our streets once more!                                           

And the world will be much enriched by it's presence.....

Absolutely! 

As no one will be able to afford old Fords, elderly BL's plying the streets of our towns and cities will become common again. 

Allegros, Maxi's, Marina's, Princess's, 1100/1300's etc! 

[Rangie]

I bought a new Ford Escort Mexico in August 1973 traded in my Vauxhall Velox PB against it + £1030 nice motor reasonably fast only did about 20-25 mpg ,sold it to my brother & bought a 3.0 Granada Ghia, both would fetch a few quid now.

[countrywoman]

And the mk1 3L GT Capri I had trouble selling in 1980, was fully rebuilt as well. Think I got £800, almost paid for the 340RT Dodge challenger I replaced it with. Both would fetch mega bucks now. 

[johnnydog]

No, different internals. The 1275 gt has 9 stud head compared to the S ‘s 11 stud for example.

Back in the day, many 'unscrupulous' sellers tried to pass off Mini's as an 'original' Cooper S, but the number of visible cylinder head studs was one of the clues (if you were in the know) that it probably wasn't all it seemed.....

[Lizzie Zoom]

No , it wasn’t even the S engine .

It is “ our generation” with disposable income to buy the car of their youth. As you say madness.. Give it ten or o years years and ome Oofers will be paying similar money for an Omega…….

Oh I hope so!

By then my "investment" in a late build Omega 3.2 Elite can be cashed in when I decide to drive no more.   Bangers & Cash certainly has proved how mad some enthusiasts are in getting hold of the classic of their dreams.  So there is hope for my increasing in value miggy!

[cam.in.head]

the sight and idea of seeing lots of marinas,allegros,cortinas,capris,vivas etc etc around ourstreets again would unboubtebly be a wonderfull thing. definately.
the cars that were around then (along with the people,music,tv shows and the general state of humanity) were way better than nowadays living in broken britain.
thats a shame cos we will never ever get to that again and things can only get worse.
BUT  this is about classic car prices and yes the prices are now getting stupid but its our fault for paying it. if no-one would ever pay over £10000 for an old escort then the price would be lower but people do !
for example there are 2 opel mantas on ebay now. one is all bent and crashed and they want around £3000 for it ,the other is very grotty and needs a full respray and who knows what else and they want £15000 for it. you then have members of the owners club saying its good value ! .the world has gone absolutely crazy.
and yes any future remaining omegas will unboubtebly go up drastically in value with public suprise just like any other common cars did like morris minors,minis etc

[Nick W]

Anyone who thinks that all Omegas are going to drastically increase in price(don't confuse price and value) is deluded. They simply aren't desirable enough for enough people to want one when the car is at least forty years old - how many people are searching for early Carltons waving a bunch of cash? Demand for Omegas is already lower than the supply, so the prices are still dropping. Nostalgia is what drives desirability for this sort of thing and we as a group are already too old to look back on these cars that way. How many of us are under fifty?

What happened with sporting Fords, Mini Coopers etc was that demand out-stripped the supply enough to raise the prices of lower spec(but basically the same) cars. The biggest effect was when mk1 Escorts became eligible for historic rallying, when restoring a crusty bodyshell suddenly became the cheap part of building a car . That then dragged up the undesirable stuff too, like Avengers, Vivas etc. Notice that none of this happened to more common fifties/sixties cars because the people they meant something to either already had them, or were moving onto mobility scooters or hearses.

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

Anyone who thinks that all Omegas are going to drastically increase in price(don't confuse price and value) is deluded. They simply aren't desirable enough for enough people to want one when the car is at least forty years old - how many people are searching for early Carltons waving a bunch of cash? Demand for Omegas is already lower than the supply, so the prices are still dropping. Nostalgia is what drives desirability for this sort of thing and we as a group are already too old to look back on these cars that way. How many of us are under fifty?

What happened with sporting Fords, Mini Coopers etc was that demand out-stripped the supply enough to raise the prices of lower spec(but basically the same) cars. The biggest effect was when mk1 Escorts became eligible for historic rallying, when restoring a crusty bodyshell suddenly became the cheap part of building a car . That then dragged up the undesirable stuff too, like Avengers, Vivas etc. Notice that none of this happened to more common fifties/sixties cars because the people they meant something to either already had them, or were moving onto mobility scooters or hearses.

Hmmm...you are sort of right.

But 'desirability' or the lack of it doesn't seem to be holding back the value of 'seventies dross' like the Morris 1100/1300...Marina and Austin. All-aggro.

I recently saw an Austin 1300 GT up for sale at £19000.

[cam.in.head]

time will tell.
a lot has to do with nostalgia yes ,a lot has yo do with prices of everything post covid.
10-15 year old clit's ,corsas and the like that had fallen to under £1000 are now selling for double that .a garage near me has a few 107's ,c1's circa 2007-2013 that are SELLING for £4000 £5000. this is just the current shortage vs supply of used cars a different story to classics but an examlple of the crazy world we are in now !

[Doctor Gollum]

For that sort of money you may as well be comfortable 

[Sir Tigger KC]

For that sort of money you may as well be comfortable 

Yes. I saw a 2007 L322 Range Rover with 89,000 miles and 12 month MOT for £2800 the other day! 

It looked OK in the photos and needed some new tyres. That's still super cheap luxury motoring! 

[johnnydog]

Anyone who thinks that all Omegas are going to drastically increase in price(don't confuse price and value) is deluded. They simply aren't desirable enough for enough people to want one when the car is at least forty years old - how many people are searching for early Carltons waving a bunch of cash? Demand for Omegas is already lower than the supply, so the prices are still dropping. Nostalgia is what drives desirability for this sort of thing and we as a group are already too old to look back on these cars that way. How many of us are under fifty?

What happened with sporting Fords, Mini Coopers etc was that demand out-stripped the supply enough to raise the prices of lower spec(but basically the same) cars. The biggest effect was when mk1 Escorts became eligible for historic rallying, when restoring a crusty bodyshell suddenly became the cheap part of building a car . That then dragged up the undesirable stuff too, like Avengers, Vivas etc. Notice that none of this happened to more common fifties/sixties cars because the people they meant something to either already had them, or were moving onto mobility scooters or hearses.

Mmmm - deluded? That's a bit strong..maybe your opinion, but not eveyones.
The Omega hasnt been produced now for 20 years. Go back in time to the late 90's when many 70's cars were then 20 years old, and many people would have said exactly the same about certain models of Rovers, Triumphs etc and other then more familiar cars seen on our roads. Back to the present day, and those exact same models are now getting noticeably higher values.
I speak mainly of the Triumph 2000, 2.5PI's etc that I own, with my personal 40 + years of ownership, I have seen the enormous fluctuations in their values. In the 80's and 90's, no one wanted the 2.5 PI for example, and they virtually couldn't be given away due to misconstrued issues with the fuel injection system - today they are one of the most sought after models in the range along with the Mk1 and the S. I am the Valuation Officer for our Nationwide club, and regularly am asked to value vehicles for agreed value purposes, and also in the event of an insurance claim where there is a conflict of value between the owner and insurance company relative to a vehicle insured only for market value. The prices that insurance companies are now accepting as market value are exceptionally high - way above expectations and the values put on them 20 years ago.
So to say that anyone who expects Omegas to drastically increase in value is deluded may be your opinion now, but not necessarily a correct one, but will you be able to say that in 20 years time? Who knows?
No one can say with any certainty, but what I would say is that top of the range spec'd models of any given make tend to increase in value more than their base spec siblings. Elites are highly likely to increase in value in time far greater than GLS and CD models for example.
Everyone can have their own opinion on the matter, but to totally dismiss the future value of the Omega with a stroke of a pen is rather blinkered.

[Doctor Gollum]

Ok, put another way, how much are MK1 Carltons/Senators worth now? Significantly less than the equivalent Granada would be my guess...

[Nick W]

Go back and look at the fifth word of my post. It's fundamental to the rest. Then look at how antiques often decrease in value as fashions change; the 160 year old mahogany table is now worth about a third of what it was twenty years ago because far fewer people want such things.


One thing I didn't mention, and this will affect every car from the last thirty years is that they're no longer simple mechanical devices that can be repaired repeatedly with common equipment used by relatively unskilled people. Instead we have electronic control of the engine, gearbox and other essential parts that are going to have to be considered as sealed systems, if they're not already.


And if you think that post was blinkered, you really don't want to know my opinion of club valuations.

[johnnydog]

It doesn't really matter what you think - valuations are put in place to protect the asset of the insured ie their classic car in the event of a insurance claim. Agreed values are just that - a value of the car agreed by the insurance company in the event of a total loss or requiring serious accident repairs to put the back to pre accident condition  - not improve it, but pre accident condition.
Market value is just that- the current value of the car at any particular time relative to the market.
If an insurance is happy to pay out the agreed sum, or the market value following a valuation by a club official, what is the problem you have with that? Without a valuation, the insured has an uphill battle to fight to get anything like the current worth of their car. So for the £20 fee charged, its really a no brainer...
And as for vehicles from the last 30 years or so being increasingly difficult to repair by 'relatively unskilled' owners, hasn't that been the case for longer than 30 years as cars have developed, and become more reliant on electronics controlling every aspect of their operation.
But going back to the 2.5PI, back in the 70's, not even Bristish Leyland / Triumph garages fully understood the mechanical fuel injection system, and how it operated, often being unable to correctly set them up, even with the proper equipment. But fast forward a few decades, there are plenty of specialists who have overcome the issues, and now there are plenty of smooth running examples (including TR6s), where the owners haven't been put off from ownership purely due to the more intense maintenance required. In fact they are more popular now than they ever have been.
I think your view is rather negative. If everyone who sought to run an older vehicle with 'so called' modern electronics controlling it, or an older classic with difficult or ridiculously expensive spares / parts (such as Fords), then no one would ever consider owning such a vehicle ever again.

[Doctor Gollum]

Holley have made an business out of developing bolt on and stand alone EFI systems for pretty much any application you can think of. Certainly has the potential to keep older carb fuelled cars less temperamental down the road.

But anyone who suggests that the Omega B is going to be a sought after classic any time soon will die disappointed. If you still own one, enjoy it for what it is right now, (a capable it dated executive cruiser), rather than what it might never become.

[Nick W]

I've done a number of EFI conversions into older cars, and actually spent this afternoon stripping and modifying an MGF loom for the TR7 upgrades. But these are discrete and simple systems because they're nearly thirty years old. More modern ones that are fully integrated with each other are far more complex to work with, and really don't like somebody with a loom spread over the garden chopping out things like the airbags, ABS and air conditioning with some sidecutters. I doubt I'd consider doing the same job with a Rover 75 . Then there's the parts availability - just how are you going to fix a 4l30E solenoid fault, worn gear selector switch, failed MAF or dead crank sensor when there are none available? Mechanical parts can still be cobbled together in a shed, I'd be amazed if anyone is going to bother doing that for those parts that are going to be one-offs unless they really want the car again.


Triumph's PI is a typical example of them half-arsing things, as it's barely any different from Bosch's contemporary systems. Except they provided a proper fuel pump which actually does the job. Plenty of people blame the bit they are afraid of for not being able to fix a problem. Before injection became common, carburettors got the blame for all sorts of problems that were nothing to do with them.


It seems that we are on the same page with valuations: they're for those who have managed to get an agreed value insurance policy. As a way of stitching up insurance companies whose SOP(the principle of car insurance is that you pay them a hefty chunk of cash, and they send you a piece of paper) is to do that to their customers, I'm for it. But clubs delight in telling their members how they 'got a bargain' and then offer howls of derision when the club's own valuation is suggested for a selling price.


Dramatically rising values can be detrimental for a lot of enthusiasts too. The result of a sudden large increase in value, often means would be owners can no longer afford what they were intending to buy. I see that with Capris; I'd love to replicate my 2.0Si as an everyday car, but it's probably a £10k build not the <£1000 the original one was. It simply isn't worth that to me now, even if I had the cash. That grand included buying the car, as well as all the modifications.