I think it's fair. I was comparing it to GTHO Phase 3 prices too.

I bought the last issue of Unique cars, purely out of boredom. It was OK but I noticed anythig badged Holden or Ford from the 70s with a V8 comes with a silly price tag for what it is.

So a genuine (I assume they are) race history Mini with notable success is definitely something of value.

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1964 Morris 850, 1330 Supercharged - 81.8hp atws.
1975 Leyland Mini S 1100S powered - Nice and reliable.
1977 Leyland Mini LS - Project LS-T

Since these cars are pretty much one of a kind, undoubtly someone will pay silly money for these cars... esp CRX90B

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Lillee - 1969 Morris Mini K

The thing with collector cars is that sometimes the market goes silly and the it will crash back to reality. I think the crash may happen again within 5 years.

The blokes that are buying the $650,000 Phase 3s are doing it with personal super funds. If you have a spare $650,000 doing nothing (apart from earning interest) you can invest that money in super. But you can't touch your super till you retire so you get your own personal super company to invest in a classic car.

One other thing about classic cars is that they tend to be big boys toys. The collector car of today is the cars that were being used when these blokes were kids. So there is a small window of car age in the collector market. Some cars will always be collectors but some will only be collectors when they are between 30 to 40 years old and then they will lose value. I have noticed that cars of the 40s and 50s are going downhill while the cars of the 60s and 70s are going up.
In ten years the cars of the 60s will be going down while the cars of the 80s are going up.
Maybe my Austin Montego is a future collectible?

"Collectability" definitely runs in cycles. The guys spending big on the GTHOs will be the ones who can remember them from when they were a kid or first got their license and couldn't afford one. I'm a bit that way with the Torana hatchbacks and HQ etc panel vans, but don't really care for the GTHOs which were before my time.

The market is already moving on to the Brock cars and an autoelec I know has been spending a heap of time on a VC Brock Commodore that has been painted three times just to get the same paint effect as the early eighties (the first two paint jobs were too good!).

Once the babyboomers get too old for their toys you can bet that the value of a GTHO will start to drop significantly. This has already happened once (Late 80's or maybe early 90's) when E-Types and Dinos went through the roof and later plummeted back to earth.

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66 Deluxe, 07 Cooper

The big difference to the 80's boom (and subsequent crash) is that these days the buyers are mostly enthusiasts who drive their cars (if only occasionaly) so these are emotional purchases, where baby boomers knowingly spoil themselves using some of the money they made on the booming stock exchange or housing market. Back in the 80's the market was dominated by Tom Cruse type characters speculating in classics to make a killing and generating all the hype. When the economy went bust their cost of financing went up and they had to repay the loans - so all the cars were offloaded at bargain prices. The enthusiasts don't have to do that as they weren't buying to make a dollar in the first place.

Oh and its not only that the prices are rising, but the cars on offer are much better - everything is either an exceptional unit or a perfect resto - the home restoration market is dying - noone has the time to restore as a project anymore - people wanna buy the best proffesionaly restored, and drive it - not tinker - so they;re prepared to pay a premium.

The GTHOs and the US muscle cars are a fad for sure - coz these are just very ordinary bread and butter family saloons with a big engine, better brakes and fancy bumpers - unless you grew up watching Moffat drive them - why would you care....but a genuine works vehicle driven by Hopkirk in the Monte - it is rare, its got world stage comp history and it looks the part so will always be in demand.