MARKET MUSINGS
The latest market thoughts from the investment team at Contemporary Classics.
There is only ever a single one of these for sale in the UK at one point in time and given their “uniqueness”, typically for a period greater than 6 months but less than a year. For the avoidance of doubt, my automotive fetish has nothing to do with race car engined road cars. That is both too obvious and overdone.
Read MoreIn fact, the 456M GT is probably the pick of the bunch. The later Modificata cars came with improved aero and a more contemporary interior. While power output was unchanged from the glorious 5.5 litre F116 V12, the firing order of the cylinders was adjusted to reportedly improve smoothness. Pay £50-60k for a really good one with usable miles and enjoy it.
Read MoreIronically, the 330LM/250 GTO result that kick started the week in New York acted as a perfect synopsis for the events that played out. A record auction result, just below expectations.
Read MoreI cannot help but feel melancholy when you think about the blood, sweat and tears that went into building the LFA. It was a huge gamble for Toyoda to actually bring the car to market and while brilliant in so many ways, I think it was a decade too early and its sonorous abilities sadly fell on deaf ears.
Read MoreIn the last 2 months we have seen a small decline of around 1.4% in the valuations of European Modern Classics (source: Contemporary Classics CC30 Index). In the main, this has come from declines in the values of certain benchmark Ferrari and Porsche models.
Read MoreI heard the STO long before putting eyes on it. The early dawn and monsoon rains hiding all but the vague silhouette of its GTE-esque aero. Amusingly, it has an even angrier cold start than the other V12 Bull we would be convoying down in…. a real f**k you to any neighbour within a half mile vicinity.
Read MoreRaising rates is great for addressing demand pull inflation but terrible for fixing supply push inflation as it doesn’t fundamentally address the core issue. In fact, it actually exacerbates it in the long term. This is especially true for an economy which is over levered due to a decade of exceptionally low borrowing costs.
Read MoreFor some reason the M4 GTS never really worked. When it arrived in 2016 there was much hype from its creators about the clever water injection system it housed in its boot to help with intercooler efficiency and the performance of its twin turbo straight six engine. It was lighter, more powerful and could go around the Nurburgring as quickly as a Porsche Carrera GT. BUT……it wasn’t really very good compared to its contemporary peers.
Read MoreNow the SL65 AMG was a car created for bragging rights rather than necessity. It was a car that if you had to ask for the price tag or the fuel consumption achieved from its twin turbo 6 litre V12, it probably wasn’t the car for you. In fact the mere thought that someone high up in Merc gave the green light to produce this behemoth for the European market (let alone UK) was in itself a rather mind blowing revelation. I guess oil tycoons, drug dealers and dictators all need a sports car for their summer vacations.
Read MoreThe hole in our social media feeds once filled with Donald Trump have been plugged by Elon Musk preaching why Dogecoin and Tesla are going to the moon. Meanwhile global rates remain ludicrously low fostering rampant overleveraging as FOMO sets in and people feel the need to be buying even if valuations look like turd………smells a lot like 2007 all over again.
Read MoreNow Andy, (or Mr GT3 as he is affectionately known) is the Mr Miyagi of sports cars. Under his watchful eye as high performance car manager, Porsche have managed to build a product offering tailored to the enthusiast like nothing available on the market today. His CV includes everything from gen2 996 GT3s all the way through to the recently released 992 GT3 and everything in-between.
Read MoreThe Renaultsport Clio V6 has probably seen values run up too fast and too quickly in recent times. In this case it is more a function of a couple of toppy auction sales results which have irrationally caused a belief that all the cars, regardless of provenance or condition are worth silly money.
Read MoreLot 333 for me is almost worth framing and sticking in the toilet for posterity. Do you remember back in 2004 when you could still have snapped up a Porsche 911 2.7 RS for comfortably less than someone just paid for the aforementioned Japanese blue Tardis above and still have change for a nice dinner……well the same can be said right now of the Jaguar XJ220.
Read MoreHowever, just because people are not buying new cars, it doesn’t mean they are not buying cars full stop. In June, Auto Trader reported an 88% YoY increase in used car enquiries as dealerships reopened. Here at CC, I can confirm that June was our busiest sales month since we opened and it seems like every other dealer I speak to is experiencing a similar level of activity.
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Like any tradeable asset class, the efficient functioning of its market is fully dependent on the ability to match buyers with sellers. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a Gallardo or a Gilt…..bid/offer needs to cross in order to transact.
Now the indisputable outcome of the current COVID-19 situation is increased market volatility globally and when you increase volatility, a number of things happen
Read MoreAllow us to geek out for a moment……Hydrogen atoms are innately volatile because they have a single proton at their core and a single electron at their lowest energy level. This means that unlike inert gases which are stable because they have either lots of electrons or no electrons in their lowest energy level, as atom’s go, hydrogen is extremely unstable. So one of the biggest headaches to overcome when commoditizing hydrogen into an everyday usable fuel source is stabilizing it.
Read MoreThe real concern this time round comes from the ballooning $19 trillion of risky corporate debt that has been compiled by global companies making the most of low rates, cheap borrowing costs and an insatiable appetite from investors in a never ending hunt for yield. We face a wall of corporate defaults predominately induced by zombie corporations who have stayed afloat by bolstering their balance sheet liabilities while top line revenue and cash flows remain anaemic.
Read MoreCars are getting bigger and faster, the roads we are driving on are staying the same size and becoming increasingly overcrowded and the man in the Volvo XC90 doesn’t need to look over his shoulder anymore to check his blind spot because a silly little orange pimple on his wing mirror will tell him it’s safe to change lane…….I’m sorry but its utter BS.
Read MoreThe Ferrari F430 seems to get more beautiful by the day as does the Lamborghini Gallardo but both of these are too obvious and already have a dedicated cult following. The same is true of the Ferrari 599 GTB and the Lamborghini Murciélago/LP640 as the last bastions of naturally aspirated V12 analogue supercars. No if Stallone was a car he would be a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti.
Read MoreThe new Vantage model, although a vast modernisation over the previous generation car, has disappointed with underwhelming sales figures in a horrendously competitive market, the DBX is a decade too late and the company is sitting on a pile of debt that in my opinion, is unserviceable and too highly geared to the success of an SUV which as I mentioned earlier, is akin to coming to market with their first smart phone and trying to take on Apple.
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