[Healeys] Healey Values

[Michael MacLean]

Tom,     I'm sorry if it sounded like I was coming down on you.  Back in January my Healey mentor Tom Rocke passed away.  He had sold numerous Healeys at auction, RM, Barret Jackson, ETC.  He told me last year before he got sick the market was getting soft.  He was dealing with the higher end of the game.  He restored four 100M cars as well as some just absolutely stunning BJ8 cars.  He was in the $100 to $250K range in sales.  He said he did his last Healey just before the end of last year.  He was selling classic Italian and Porsche cars just before his death.  It has not deterred me from completeing my BN2 LeMans car.  I am doing it because I simply love these cars.  In four months I will be retired and can devote much more time to the completion of the BN2 as finances permit.  My Bugeye is and has been a work in progress.  I have gone from concours level AN5 to a well massaged 1275 and Datsun transmission.  It is a lot more fun these days.  Now I need to convert to disk brakes in the front and if I was independently wealthy, disk in the rear.  A work in progress.  And oh, I have a 2002 Harley Davidson Heritage Springer that will never be finished, but that is another story.  Don't worry, prices will rise again, even Hagerty admits the market cycles.  
Mike MacLean
 

    On Sunday, July 31, 2016 5:13 PM, Tom Felts <tomfelts at windstream.net> wrote:
 
 

 OK---maybe I came down a bit hard on my response, but for goodness sake, all I was trying to do was point out the fact that Healey values (according to Hagerty) have decreased, and that is was a bit of bad news to me anyway.  I wasn't talking about how much we love them or work on them or their value to us.

tom
---- Michael MacLean <rrengineer.mike at att.net> wrote: 

=============
Righteous?  Really Tom?  This was not a personal attack.  It was a general statement.  Prices can not go up forever.  There are cycles to any commodity.  Eventually prices will rise again.  Of course taking a loss is not anyone's ideal situation.  Maybe you should have been into Porsches ten years ago or so.  Right now they are going for ridiculous sums almost no one can afford.  As far as I am concerned I am into Healey cars because I like them.  If money was a concern I would not have spent almost $25K restoring my Bugeye back in 1999 with no hope of ever recovering that amount when I sell it.  I just love Bugeyes.  Besides the auction prices are artificially inflated by people looking only for an investment.  Austin Healeys are going the way of the Model T anyway.  Model Ts are going for very low prices these days because there is no one left that originally drove them.  It won't be long before Healeys suffer the same fate.  Eventually the restoration scene will be mostly Japanese tuner cars for the next generation.  Even the Peterson museum recognizes this.  My son's 2002 Lexus lowered drifter car is on their brochure.  There will always be a market for Austin Healey cars, it just won't be as big as it is today.  Not being confrontational, I just see the writing on the wall.Mike MacLean
 


 


 


 
  
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