Daytona Prices Standing Still?

The cars that are stalled at $225K probably have issues. Several cars sold in past couple of months in the $250K - $280K range. One, local to me, supposedly sold for $330K! Which, if true, was a bit above market. This was not some recent nut & bolt restoration car. I guess someone just had to have that car. As you might expect, a lot of the good ones never come to the "public" market. These sales don't get figured into the real prices being paid.

Daytonas, like all vintage Ferraris, can swallow money in big chunks. So, it pays to pay up for a good one. Conversely, owners don't want to spend big chunks of money before they sell one because you can't get it back. So, these end up price accordingly, usually by dealers. Just look at 4cam sales. You can pay almost a million for a nice one, and people are happy to do so. Yet others languish in the $750K to $850K range. It's all about condition of the car.

Steve

 

There is a recent restoration car (RHD), heading to the UK from Australia, It's about to be released onto the market at £175k GBP ($340k USD).

Will be interesting to see the UK market reaction.

Argento

 

Seems to me that prices are declining. Where "drivers" were $225K they now seem overpriced at $215K and a number of what appear to be decent cars in the $195K range.

AS to really great cars getting somehow sold privately and never coming to market, I just dont really see it. I have a very nice Daytona.... nobody is knocking on my door inquiring about buying it. Not that I want to sell it or anything but if I did its not like there is some underground movement or group contacting owners seeking to buy.



Terry

 

I agree completely with Terry.

Also, it seems like most people don't want their $200k used car to actually look like a used car (after all, $200k is a lot of money to spend on a car with some rock chips and door dings!), and so there is a premium for the "perfect" cars.

 

Terry, I can't speak to people not knocking down your door, but I can speak to cars being sold that never get advertised from personal experience. I've owned, and own, a fair number of Ferraris. Of those, nine were/are Daytonas. Of all the Ferraris I've ever purchased, only one, a 1985 308QV purchased somewhere in the late eighties from Mike Sheehan, was ever advertised. I must get offered one to two cars a week. Usually the same darn car a dozen or so times. But, none were advertised for sale. Heck, I was offered a car yesterday that I currently own, along with a 4 cylinder race car, by a broker!

On Daytonas specifically. I know of five Daytona Spyders that are currently for sale that are not advertised anywhere. The Daytona Spyders I purchased over past two years were never advertised. The Daytona Coupes I've purchased were never advertised. Two Daytona Spyders that recently sold were not advertised. The $330K or so local Euro Coupe that sold was not advertised. And that doesn't include all the cars I've tried to purchase the past two or three years that other people either got their quicker, or flat outbid me, on. A lot of Ferraris change hands that never get advertised. This may sound strange to people that only see $225K Daytonas sitting in the FML for months on end, but good cars really do sell quickly. There was a car that quietly went up for sale recently. I was called around noon time on the car. The car was approximately $2M. By the time I got the message later that day, inquired about the car and discussed putting an offer on it the next morning, it was gone. That's a $2M car gone in less than 24 hours. It was a very, very nice car and worth every penny and then some.

Again, using personal experience, what happens is the owner of the car specfically doesn't want their car to be advertised. They want a private sale. Now, you can use your imagination why the owners don't want the sale to be public. Their reasons are not my concern.

The brokers are very efficient in this business. If you're a check writer, for better or worse, your number is on speed dial.

Steve

 

Steve is spot on. I think those comments are very insightful. With such an illiquid and inefficient market, it is hard to guage what the true value is at any given time. I think the range of quality also is such a difficult thing to determine when trying to make an "apples to apples" comparison of price vs. value of a particular Daytona vs. another. FML does an adequate job b/c all ads in their magazine must have S/N and asking price. They don't factor quality into the index. But the index does guage correctly the rising or falling values of many Fcars very well, including Daytonas. Hats off to Gerald.

Are Daytona's rising, stalled, falling? Who knows for sure. I do know that the market for the best cars is tight and competitive, for all classic Fcars right now. Most well financed, well educated collectors trade there. Its the newer buyer or less experienced that have to look for deals where they may find them in the publicly advertised arena. So, the average price right now is probably 20 to 30% (or more) higher than something like the FML index captures, as I think Steve is pointing out.

Take a "cut" spyder vs. an original. Should there be roughly $400k-$500k difference between the two? What is a cut spyder worth in 1+ condition vs. a comparable "un-cut" car?

One of the best things about this board is that you get to hear from people like Steve and others who are on the inside of many trades no one hears about.
Cheers!
Tony

 

ok. interesting points. so how do i access a driver quality daytona in switzerland for something like $200k +/- ? i have looked at my usual haunts like classic driver etc....but if there is a sub-radar market out there for the good ones, who do i call?

 

I want to clarify one point I made. While the cars I've ultimately purchased were not advertised anywhere, other than the 308QV I mentioned Mike Sheehan sold me when I was a newbie to this legalized form of Heroin, brokers/dealers/etc. do call trying to sell cars that may be advertised somewhere. It happened to me twice this week. On the same car no less.

Just because a car comes through this under the radar screen market doesn't mean it's any good. I get a call on lots of cars that can't be sold on the showroom. They call because they know I'm willing to do the heavy lifting requied to fix a car. 4cams with broken gearboxes, Daytonas that have sat for over twenty years, an alloy 4cam that looks like someone ran it straight into a wall (I got beat to this car by a well known Ferari collector, well bought as they say), cars that haven't been titled/registered for years, missing titles, etc.

But, a lot of the really good ones come this way as well. Owners, and buyers, have their reasons for wanting to keep a transaction quiet.

As an example, I went through a list of the 250GT LWB Spyder Californias I have been offered in the past year. It was nine (Terry, I missed one in our PM). Most of those have changed hands, some are still for sale. And, I'm pretty sure one I was offered is only for sale if you pay way over market for it, so it really isn't for sale in my way of reasoning. None of these nine ever were advertised. At least, not to my knowledge.

As always do your homework. And, even then, you'll still get screwed once in a while. My $25K bill for a Daytona Transaxle Rebuild, parts & labor, is a cruel reminder. (FYI, this particular box had a limited slip that slipped on its bearings, had a crack inside the case and the last mechanic in tried to hide the mess instead of fixing it which compounded the problem.) It passed the PPI and drive test (I didn't do it) in very cold weather. I get the car off the trunk in sunny, warm California, and noticed immediately the limited slip isn't functioning quite right. We pull the box to check this out and, holy $#@% , the box was a grenade with the pin pulled.

Steve

 

Oh, and I should have pointed out that good ones can be found on the showroom from time to time.

Steve