Austarion

This issue has bugged me for a while and thought I'd get people thinking and talking.

Starion PWR has is really nice VR4 Starion for sale and asking $10K. He asked if we thought it was fair. I reckon it is but knowing how these things are working lately I said I'd doubt he would get anyone to pay it.

I was looking seriously at a similiar VR4 staz in Adelaide very recently and to me it was a bargain and only space and current projects stopped me getting it.

Then there was Fuel's excellent example up for grabs with all the work done and he struggled to sell it at what I thought was a bargain price

Why is this? Guys are spending lots of time and money doing work themselves when already completed cars (done professionally) are coming on the market at good prices and no one is grabbing them.

When you cost out the work that is involved it just seems that it is unrecognised when it comes time to change over. As an example Marie and I have prob some $15-20K invested in her car yet would not get $5K for it we sold it (which we're not btw).

Dont want arguments, but interested to hear peoples views.

Cheers
Gerg

I think people are more prepared to outlay good sums of money on their own cars because then they know what the money is being spent on, who is doing the work, and whether the work is done well.

Whereas buying someone elses car is a bit of an unknown. Has the car been bent? Thrashed? Is the workmanship any good? Will the gearbox drop out before I get it in my driveway?

However I have known some Starions to fetch some good prices provided the buyer knows the seller and history of the car.

i think once someone has owned a starion who knows what kinda money and work needs to be done to get a good result would be prepared to pay, hoony would be a good example of this. Someone coming in from the outside might think vr4? pfft its the same engine what can be so hard, but once you get into it obviously its different.

its also another reason i dont ever wanna sell my car, i would be aware of how much money i would lose.

yeah, such is life... just look at all the modified imports making their way into the contry, there is no way that these japs made close to their money back. Cars in genreral should not be looked on as an investment, they are money pits and we do it for the love of it.
The payback comes within the intrinsic value of the simle on our faces when we leave others for dust, or cruise down a country road, whatever rocks your socks.
I will never sell my car, I simply won't get anywhere near the amount of money being spent on it, once it's complete I'll simply buy another one.

This post got me thinking. Just how many cars do you see in ZOOM magazine and the like that have a paragraph on how the owner wants to move on to something else and the car is up for sale. How much money would some of those guys be losing???

Cuss Cuss,

You are getting what I am saying. There are examples of well known cars here that come up for sale and yet they just dont get the price they deserve. For some the enjoyment of doing it yourself cant be replaced but a properly done, well engineering car already finished has got to be something that can drag more than a premium of say only $2K over a relative stocker, when you factor in the cost of the additional work. Hell a decent ECU is going to set you back that alone once installed and tuned.

I agree with Cookie's point that doing it yourself gives you a known product.

Its an old saying that you never make money on cars, unless you are a car yard. You mod them to make them do what you want and the cost is not an issue, but when selling it you got to think how much would someone be willing to pay eh.
My car owes me $19000ish. If i can recover half of that i guess i will be doing well.
I owe nothing on it so can afford to wait for the right buyer, but the price isnt set in stone.
It comes down to having someone who see's the car for what it is and whats been spent and what can be done with it i guess.
Like mine, a forged engine and a retune with more boost and you could make 500hp+ with it. Or a smaller turbo with retune for street use running more boost to make the same power would be good too.

Some of those guys that do the show cars must loose bucket loads of money. I know some buy thier nice chrome wheels on hp and sell them after the shows and buy a new set for the next show.

Also being an 80's car the Starion is badged with 'old' but not old enough to get badged with 'classic'. People expect high prices for new stylish cars and classic cars, but old cars are generally preceived as cheap fun, so spending more than $5,000 feels like you're getting ripped off even though logic and basic mathematics say that you are not.

If StarionPWR had advertised his car three months ago, I would have paid 10K for it, unfortunately I dont have the money now though, Im down to 4K and have two Starions, one which needs a paintjob in the next week or so. As an enthusiast I know that his car is worth every penny, but not so to the general consumer unfortunately :( Thats why I plan on basically just never selling, or just waiting for the right buyer no matter how long it takes.

I think a modified Starion like this, would really appeal to Mitsi enthusiasts who want to drift though. So fingers crossed you find a good buyer :D

If I was wanting to sell a Starion for markup, I'd say the key is making it look pretty more than anything else, because it seems appearances is how most people base their first impressions.

The worst thing is people hear their mate got a Starion for $500 or $2000 so when they see one for $10K they ignore the feature list and go 'omgwtfbbq!!'. Its a real pain in the ass to be honest. I ended up selling my 1990 Galant for $100 for example, just because it was broken, $500 in and resale value was $1500-$2000 but they all ignored the good parts and focused on the fact the engine didn't start. I got abused for not accepting $20 as well. The N/A inlet manifold alone had a resale value of $150. Drove me nuts at how people can be some times.

In my case, I would never spend money on my starion thinking I'm going to get it back when I sell, but honestly, not many people make money on cars, my neighbour's mate was selling a red SS commodore, sure it had the 5.7 lt chevy in it and it was supercharged, and intercooled, brembo brakes, LSD, black ENKEI 18" , 365kw atw... he wanted 40k ono after spending close to 80k.... my starion is my daily driver so it won't get modded much, but I'll keep it as original as which is bloody hard with parts becoming more and more rare.....

I guess we spend what we can and do what we do as part of this Starion enjoyment thing and dont get me wrong, they're great little cars with a great bang for your buck.

But yeah they're a niche market and part of their appeal is the relative cheapness of getting hold of a reasonable car for not a lot of money. Its just the danger will be that guys will be able to get more of their money back by parting the car out rather than selling it intact. A case of the sum of the parts being greater than the whole. Thats my point I guess - maintainig the breed.

as a footnote even a Mustang - a so called classic that you think would sell fairly easily - is proving difficult to shift.

should have bought a corvette :D

still.. one less makes the rest worth more right? rarity and all that.

SpidersWeb wrote:The N/A inlet manifold alone had a resale value of $150.

Wow that is impressive, I bought mine from pick-a-part in lower hutt for about $20-30! And then another one for $1 on dollar day. Not that I've ever used them for anything, they're still in the shed.

Anyway, when (if) I ever sell my Cordia I plan on giving the buyer the option of either paying the premium price with all the fun bits on it, or a lower price with the car back to stock. Even then I don't think it's going to be very easy to sell unless it's to someone I know.

AB wrote:Wow that is impressive, I bought mine from pick-a-part in lower hutt for about $20-30!

Depends on if you're selling to VR4 owners, or people with N/A Galants

I look at it this way - If I lost $20K when the time came to sell, I would probably still have lost less money than if I bought a brand new XR6t or SS & kept it for the same amount of years. ie Buy $50-60K sell after 5 years for $20-30K. For me it is about making a car that is fairly unique and a pleasure to drive.

That said - I wish a good starion (ala Fuel's JB or the blue widebody) had come up when I was looking for one. Unfortunately I had already overcapitalised when they came up for sale & more so now.

If you are worried about losing money on cars - don't look at starions or any other 'fun' cars. You will invariably lose.