Is this a shadow of things to come for America?
There’s no getting around it, the Australian muscle car market is officially dead and it may be permanent. Finding a V8 performance vehicle in the Land Down Under is becoming increasingly difficult since no new ones are being made, something which seems to be inevitable here as well. Now a new report from the island nation demonstrates what this scarcity is doing for the value of V8-powered muscle cars from Holden and Ford.
What did the most expensive Holden sell for? See here.
Apparently, listing prices for V8 Holdens and Fords on one particular Australian car listing site increased over 40% in just one year. That’s a crazy surge in values, making it harder for enthusiasts who want to own a muscle car to afford realizing the dream.
At the same time, the number of listings for muscle cars, particularly Holdens, has dropped dramatically in the past year. It’s simple economics where supply is contracting while demand is at least holding steady if not increasing.
With Tim Kuniskis, CEO of Dodge, recently saying that electrification of modern muscle cars is inevitable, it seems like we could be facing a similar market situation, even if for slightly different reasons. This has upset enthusiasts who love the feel and sound of a V8, not to mention the convenience of gassing up in 5 minutes or less. Apparently, these enjoyments in life are deemed the cost of “progress.”
Not surprisingly, with the huge industry push toward automatic transmissions and all the fancy brand names and technologies which somewhat mask that a car has an automatic, enthusiasts feel especially nostalgic about muscle cars with a manual transmission. The same report details out how such cars net even more on the market versus one with an automatic, bucking the overall trend of regular people paying more for “convenience.”
Source: Motoring
