For the ultra-wealthy, car collecting has long been an obsession going back to the Rolls-Royces and Pierce-Arrows of the Great Gatsby era. A century later, the fascination is as strong as ever — but with an increasing focus on performance cars that you actually drive, rather than just keep in a garage to show off to others.
And as younger generations mature and acquire wealth, they’re collecting the cars they coveted as teenagers in the 1990s and early 2000s.
At the end of August, Swiss car collector Fritz Burkard made waves when his Bugatti Type 59 — once owned by Belgium’s King Leopold — won the legendary Pebble Beach car show. Burkhard also raised eyebrows in his handling of the car.
“Whereas a lot of people were polishing their cars every day, he was driving around the Monterey Peninsula with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth,” said his good friend Ben Hedley, the CEO of London-based Hedley Studios, which creates junior reproductions of classic cars such as Bugatti, Ferrari, Aston Martin and Bentley.
Driven to drive ’em
Burkard’s approach reflects a growing trend among collectors who want to drive their cars and enjoy them, compared to the traditional collectors — dubbed “garage queens” by Chaz Lazarian, an Atlanta-based family office collector, because they keep them just for show in their garage.
Lazarian, who said he has “stopped counting” how many cars he has, likes to buy cars that he can flip — from Rolls-Royces and Bentleys to Aston Martins. “But while I have them, I like to use them, go out and drive them,” he said.
That trend aligns with the advent of wealthy millennial collectors, who are snapping up high-performance cars they coveted as teenagers.
“Instead of sitting around and admiring their cars, they’ll get their buddies and go on a 200-mile drive,” said Brian Rabold, vice president of automotive intelligence at Hagerty.
Hedley calls this the “bedroom wall scenario” for collectors “my age who grew up with pictures of a Lamborghini Countach on their walls, and now they have money to spend.” That explains why the peak in car prices tends to be about 30 years after they were released, he said.
Currently, cars from the 1970s and 1980s, which were snapped up by baby boomers and some Gen X collectors, are fading in value, reflecting that trend.
Quality over quantity
Younger collectors favor quality of quantity, said Rabold, noting that the average collection size for high-net-worth collectors ages 40 and younger is seven vehicles, compared with 15 for collectors ages 60-75, according to a survey conducted by Hagerty. Yet the average vehicle value for younger collectors is $327,000 versus $165,000 for older collectors.
In addition, the average model year owned is 1992 for younger collectors versus 1975 for older collectors.
Some of the standout cars that Rabold cites are a 1999 Lamborghini Diablo GT, which has almost tripled in price since 2014, and the 1990 BMW M3, which has skyrocketed from $29,900 in 2014 to $141,000 today.
Yet some of the recent hypercars that sell for more than $1 million have seen the reverse trend, dropping in value. That market is “swamped,” Hedley said.
“Everybody saw an opportunity, and they jumped at it. They all saw Ferrari selling these limited-edition cars for $1 million, $2 million, $5 million. But that was Ferrari. So a lot of other companies came in.”
Another emerging trend is “restomod” — older cars like a Porsche 911 restored with more powerful engines and bespoke interiors. Some collectors spend more than $1 million on services from companies like Los Angeles-based Singer Vehicle Design, which add features like carbon ceramic brakes and titanium sports exhaust.
Hedley said his firm adds a carbon-fiber tub to a classic Bentley, among other features. “What if that design had modern technology? What could they have done?” he said. “It’s fascinating, and we can do really interesting things to these classic cars.”
Talk before you sell
As with other wealthy collectors of art and jewelry, the next generation might not share the same passion as their elders. Rabold said Hagerty sees next-gen members of family offices who might inherit 30 collectible cars but only keep two or three.
“It can create problems because there’s a lot of knowledge tied up with the original collector, and it can make things more difficult for families to know where to start,” he said. Rabold’s advice is for collectors to “have those conversations upfront” with their heirs about how to handle their collection.
As for the future of the market, Hedley has hope, noting that a shipping container of original Tesla Roadsters ended up with the cars selling for a lot of money. Even several decades from now, when self-driving vehicles transport most of the population, “there are always plenty of people who love to drive.”