People hate this but it is true. You make money when you purchase a car not when you sell. Get the purchase part right and the selling part is easy.
People hate this but it is true. You make money when you purchase a car not when you sell. Get the purchase part right and the selling part is easy.
z31maniac said:Appleseed said:Solution: never sell it.
Life is too short to own the same car for too long.
Then you've never known love. Or obsession. 
I've lots huge amounts of money on my modded cars. Mostly because they were extremely modded, like engine swapped, fully built cars. The only one I didn't lose money on, ironically, was because it got totalled by my insurance company.
Between what they paid me and the amount I made parting it out (after I bought it back) I actually did quite well.
Key is to not go over board modding the car and then keeping all the stock parts so you can revert it back to stock.
I usually price my modded cars with the mods priced at what they'd sell for on the used market, minus a bit for the PITA of having to pull them off the car. I then add that to the blue book price of the car and list it for that. If I can get that, great! If not, I pull the mods and sell the car stock.
Although, I've learned my lesson and don't go crazy modding cars anymore, or I buy them already built...
I broke even on the cost of my CSPish Miata (not counting my labor) so that means I got to drive it for 4 years for free.
I paid $2000 for the MonsterMiata, spent the winter fixing it and traded it for the ecotec 99 Miata plus $2000, so I have a free car now. (Again discounting my labor but it’s a hobby)
I don't much care about my labor, and I sorta understand selling a modded car that I mod the way I like that nobody else will necessarily find value in. Specifically, though, there was that thread recently where someone detailed how much they spent on track ready miata, and IIRC it was somewhere between 10 and 15k. That's where I'm at with mine, and there are tons of similarly prepped Miatas that I see at track days with 10-15k as they sit. Since it's such a common build, I figure there's got to be someone out there willing to pay to buy one already done up. Obviously I could get lucky and find the right buyer, but I don't know if this is a thing. I asked my friends and they seemed to think I could sell it for about what I paid for it stock.
I treat the car hobby as if it were golf. I don't expect anyone to pay good money for the scorecard when I am done.
As far as expectations when people sell cars that are loaded with aftermarket parts, the reality is that you buy retail and sell wholesale in a market where the markups are over 100%, AND what you are selling is assumed to have been abused...so what would you expect?
Pete
Appleseed said:z31maniac said:Appleseed said:Solution: never sell it.
Life is too short to own the same car for too long.
Then you've never known love. Or obsession.
If the BRZ/FR-S does it for you, good for you. I'd say it's a spectacularly low bar. (And I owned one for 3+ years and almost 40k miles that wasn't stock.)
NOHOME said:I treat the car hobby as if it were golf. I don't expect anyone to pay good money for the scorecard when I am done.
As far as expectations when people sell cars that are loaded with aftermarket parts, the reality is that you buy retail and sell wholesale in a market where the markups are over 100%, AND what you are selling is assumed to have been abused...so what would you expect?
Pete
Yep, the more mods, the greater the chance is was abused. the ratio of power mods to appearance mods to handling mods to safety mods is also important. As a buyer, your mods are worth pennys on the dollar and can even affect the price negatively. But you have to be smart when removing them, you cant butcher the car removing them. there was a Elise on BAT that just ended where the seller tried to sell a perviously turbo car without the turbo. But he built a low compression motor to handle the boost and even left the boost gauge in the dash. He did not get top dollar for the car.
I’ve made money a number of projects cars, the ones where I took a loss had compromises that made them less user friendly on the road or I wanted them sold quickly.
From a financial standpoint I’ve always done best buying unfinished projects and or buying up someone’s entire stash. I use what I need and sell the rest on.
Normally I take a bath. The one real exception that comes to mind is vintage fj40s converted to sbc. A lot of people prefer the sbc, myself included, over the original I6, so it doesn’t make a difference in value unless you’re talking about concours restorations.
I've never made a profit on any car, modified or not.. Some guy named Singer seems to have a knack for it though.
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