HOW MUCH IS YOUR FAST FORD REALLY WORTH?
Newspaper headlines cry out to the public: a humble Ford Escort has sold for the price of a suburban semi-detached. Our nation has gone crazy for old boy-racer machines.
Auction records are continually smashed. Telephone-number prices make the man in the street believe his dad’s 1.1 Popular would be worth a million dollars. Armchair experts sit back and repeat their well-worn phrase: ‘the bubble will burst’, all the while regretting that £500 RS2000 they rejected in 1996.
And while it might sound like great news for Ford fans – especially those with a mint Blue Oval in the garage – there are equally many enthusiasts praying for prices to tumble in the hope of finally getting their hands on their dream motor.
Whatever your viewpoint, there’s no hiding the fact that fast Fords have seen dramatic price hikes in recent times, and tabloids delight in telling us all about it. But is everything quite the way it seems? Should Ford fans be worried or excited? And is the rapid rise set to run on?
Like any market, there’s fluctuation in car prices depending on innumerable factors – from interest rates to supply and demand. Yet the mid-2000s saw unprecedented hikes in the values of high-end machinery as a classic car boom drew speculators away from traditional investments like property and art. By 2014 it’s reckoned values had increased fourfold.
Since then, the market has certainly slowed and astronomical prices have plateaued, if not dropped. In turn that’s led to caution and concern among collectors who fear a repeat of the early 90s’ collapse.
In 2000 The Telegraph reported a 1966 Ferrari 275 GTB rose from £120,000 in 1987 to
