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[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.