Want To Make A Serious Classic Car Investment? Find A Rare Color

This March 22 in the Year of our Lord 2023 is proving to be what we in the business call a “Slow News Day.” Of course, now that I’ve articulated this, within an hour Elon Musk will probably have disappeared inside a time machine of his own creation only to find himself jumping from person to person in the 20th century, righting wrongs and helping people, and also completely tanking Tesla’s stock price. Here’s hoping that isn’t the case; I could use a quiet day for a change.

But that doesn’t mean there is no news, and so today we’re talking classic car values, Italy’s fight for biofuels, women buying EVs and why Genesis needed to up Hyundai’s dealer game. Let’s do this.

Color Matters If You Want To See Green

I’ve never been huge on the idea of cars as an “investment.” Ninety-nine percent of the time, that simply won’t be the case, and I think cars are ultimately tools that are meant to be driven. (It shouldn’t surprise you that the team that salutes this sort of behavior would think so.) But many cars are worth what people are willing to pay for them.

Collector car values have skyrocketed in recent years as more and more people treat them as investment pieces, the same as fine art or exotic wine. Every year, I feel like some new 1960s Ferrari sells at auction for a record-breaking amount of money. But at this year’s Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, the 1962 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spider that sold for a record $18 million at a Gooding & Co. auction actually had something rather interesting going on with it: it’s blue. And the only example of that car ever sold new in that shade.

Scoff at classic car values all you want, but you sort of get why this one was a big deal. Here’s Bloomberg about what this sale says about classic car colors:

But it was a further element that made the Ferrari most alluring: its color. Gooding’s headlining car was the world’s only example delivered new in Azzurro Metallizzato, or metallic blue.

“Unique and rare colors most certainly can contribute to higher values at auction and in the general marketplace,” says David Gooding, the founder and president of Gooding & Co. “‘Traditional’ car colors may be more ‘safe’ when it comes to buying and selling, but we see more opportunity for drastic upticks in value when an already great collector car is available in its factory-delivered, rare and visually appealing color scheme.”

‘Safe’ means a sure bet, something with a relatively steady track record when it comes to value and mass appeal. You know you’ll find a buyer for a car in a standard color. But along with rarity, pedigree and condition, certain eccentric or specially requested colors on a collectible car can deliver a pleasant bump in value.

“Color completely matters,” says Bryon Madsen, the chief strategy officer of auction house RM Sotheby’s. “You don’t know how much, but you know that [a unique color] will command a premium.”

The old adage is that non-red Ferraris command less resale value than the red ones, because people want what they want. Apparently, that hasn’t been true since the ’80s, however. And as that story points out, our normal-car choices are supremely boring these days; we Americans love various shades of white, gray and black. Bleh.

But if you want to make some money on your vintage classic, get a real color:

And yet, when it comes to the blue chip classics, discerning collectors favor something far more interesting.

“Color is usually the primary [search criteria] for our clients,” says Eli Kogan, the owner of Otto Car Club in Scottsdale, Arizona, who often sources high-value collectible vehicles for club members.

Forget red Ferrari Testarossas and silver Porsche 911s—so expected, they’ve become clichés. If you want to own something that commands a higher value than comparable models from its era, you need something from the outer ends of the color spectrum, something no one else is likely to have: a blue Ferrari, for instance. At RM Sotheby’s, a 1976 Ferrari 308 GTB “Vetroresina” painted in a striking, dark azzurro metallizzato sold for $313,000, against a pre-auction high estimate of $275,000.

Porsche has even had to re-issue its Rubystone shade for customized new models, apparently. Maybe this newfound love of colors will trickle down to more normal cars. One can hope, anyway. We could all use a little more color in our lives.

Italy Demands Biofuels As Well As E-Fuels In European ICE Ban Fight

Speaking of Italian cars, that country is hitting back even harder at the European Union’s proposed de-facto 2035 ban on internal combustion. As we’ve reported, the Germans wanted a carve-out for e-fuels—the allegedly “carbon neutral” synthetic fuels that are really only such if they’re produced using expensive and experimental carbon capture technology.

Now, the Italians want an exemption for biofuels as well. Those are also synthetic fuels, but created from biomass, like algae, animal waste, plant waste, industrial byproducts and so-on. Ethanol is a biofuel, for example. They’re lower in carbon emissions than gasoline, but still produce them, and the EU wants to go carbon-zero with its cars in about a decade.

Here’s Reuters on Italy’s holdup:

“Italy would not accept an unduly restricted interpretation by the Commission of ‘CO2 neutral fuels’, that includes only e-fuels and not biofuels,” three Italian ministers, of transport, environment and enterprises, said in the letter dated March 21 and seen by Reuters.

Brussels is in talks with Germany to attempt to resolve the row, with some officials hoping to reach a deal before a summit of EU leaders on Thursday. Countries including Poland and the Czech Republic have also raised issues with the law.

In an attempt to resolve it, the Commission has drafted a proposal to allow carmakers to register new cars that run exclusively on carbon neutral fuels. The draft, seen by Reuters on Tuesday, did not include biofuels in the definition of “carbon neutral fuels”.

The takeaway here is that lots of NGOs and governments (and even some automakers) say they want to phase out powertrains that create carbon emissions, but the political reality of making this happen is a lot more complicated. For Germany and Italy, both countries want to protect their automotive industries and the jobs therein, and the newest Italian government is proving highly resistant to environmental regulations.

I tend to think e-fuels, specifically, have some value in helping the transition to a majority zero-emissions car industry and eventually keeping some classic cars on the road. (Let’s face it: this is the problem, not so much you taking your Miata out for the occasional jaunt on weekends when the weather’s nice.) I don’t see it as a magic-bullet solution that can keep internal combustion alive. But the global political fights to solve this question are just getting started.

Charging Location Safety Concerns May Deter Women EV Buyers

It’s no great secret that a lot of EV charging locations are in afterthought spots, often shoved into the back of some random parking lot. There are a few near me in New York that always seem to be next to, or under, the combined winter snow-garbage pile from a neighboring business. Gas stations aren’t great, but at least they’re supposed to be well-lit and generally plentiful enough that you can go to a nearby one if you don’t like the vibes. Charging an EV in some random lot in the dead of the night isn’t great for anyone.

That’s especially true for women EV buyers, who told the nonprofit news site The 19th that charging location safety concerns may be turning them back to gas cars:

Women were twice as likely to say they were concerned about their safety at public charging stations. Unlike gas stations, charging stations do not have employees on site and tend to be more out of the way — often they are situated in the back of parking lots. And in comparison to the five minutes it takes to fill up a car with gas, electric cars require at least 30 minutes to recharge.

Russak, who has two adult daughters, 18 and 22, said she wouldn’t feel comfortable if either of them had to charge the car at night or in an isolated place.

“It would be creepy,” she said. “In Canada there are these [charging] stations off the mountain roads at utility stations or rest stops, but they are off the beaten path. I wouldn’t stop at one of those at night.”

The story brings up some very valid points as it seeks to address why EV buyers have lately been men so far—a reversal from a century ago, when their cleanliness and ease of operation led them to largely be marketed to women. Also, I don’t want to stereotype, but I do think it’s true that women tend to be more practical car buyers than men do, leading them to have more concerns over charging times, reliability and availability. (Look, let’s face it, when somebody tries to use a Boxster as a moving van, that’s usually dude behavior.) The story’s worth a read in full, as it has some interesting lessons for the auto industry if it seeks to appeal to everyone with this pivot to EVs.

Time For Genesis To Stand Alone, Stop Selling ‘Out The Side Door of a Hyundai Dealership’

It’s no secret that Hyundai and Kia really got their shit together over the last decade, and in my estimation are making a ton of world-beater cars these days. But one big deterrent to their wider success in America has been their dealer network—an operation that’s often stuck in the 1990s when both brands appealed to, well, less affluent buyers, to put it kindly. Dealers often have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the decade they’re supposed to be in. And I’ve heard many a Hyundai and Kia exec in America roll their eyes at how their dealers act even today.

Genesis, the group’s Lexus- and Mercedes-fighting luxury division, simply cannot have any of that nonsense. It’s got big plans, and that means standalone dealerships that are not attached to a Hyundai store because it’s not the vibe they want to give off. Here’s Automotive News on the big upcoming Genesis dealer rollout:

“It’s not fair to put Genesis up against a BMW, Mercedes or even a Lexus store when it has an amazing product, yet you’re selling it out the side door of a Hyundai dealership,” Bergstrom said.

“That’s not luxury,” he said. “The dealers know it, and the manufacturers know it; it’s just how do we get from where we are today?”

Things have been changing for Genesis since 2020, and that could make the investment proposition look much sweeter for hesitant dealers.

What once was a three-sedan portfolio offered by a Hyundai spinoff has grown into a lineup of high-design, tech-forward vehicles that includes two top-selling luxury crossovers and three electric vehicles. The brand is now regarded as a bonafide luxury player by U.S. consumers. Genesis sales hit 56,410 vehicles last year, a 14 percent year-over-year increase in a market that declined by 7.9 percent.

But progress is slow. Genesis has 270 dealerships now, but only four are standalone stores. Expect a lot of pressure from up top for that to change.

Your Turn

Let’s talk car colors! What have you had? What do you like best? And who’s doing colors best right now?