The old car hobby has two very different philosophies when it comes to vintage rides.
On one side of the coin is the owner who builds or purchases the ride of their dreams and on the other side of the coin is the owner who buys and sells vintage iron.
The first owner has more appeal to us in terms of a good story line because our entire raison d’etre is the story that links the owner to the vehicle.
We want the Nat King Cole “I love you for sentimental reasons” angle to make the story behind the vehicle come alive for us.
A car or truck with a long history in one family is pure gold to us and will always be the Holy Grail stories for us at MSCC. We also like stories where the owner tells us his or her dad had one and he or she rode in a similar car when he or she was a kid.
A story about an owner who loved their vintage vehicles when they were too young to own one and finally reached a point in their lives where they could afford one is also a good story.
The stories behind the vehicles are often punctuated with moments where the restoration process went completely sideways and the owners started to have serious doubts about the perilous path they had chosen for their project.
That’s why we lean into the pitch when it comes to an owner who plans to keep their vehicle, but we do not condemn car guys who dabble in the hobby and are only temporary caretakers of vintage rides.
Many car guys have a Donald Trump side to them, so they attempt to buy low and sell high when it comes to vintage vehicles.
They are more like vintage vehicle renters because they are not committed to a long term relationship with their four-wheeled possessions. Instead they will enjoy the old rides for awhile and then they will sell them to the next car guy.
The upside for these kinds of owners is diversity, plain and simple. They get to play the field and enjoy the hard work somebody else put into the vehicle without the pain in most cases.
Their reasons to own vintage rides may seem a little cold, but they are also invested in the emotional side of the hobby in most cases.
They love to drive their investments and, when the thrill is gone, the old car will not be far behind for these guys. They will attempt to recoup their investment with a profit margin thrown into the equation for their trouble and they may be smarter than the rest of us.
They did not get their hands dirty, their knuckles are still intact and somebody else paid the depreciation on the car, so they were actually paid to rent the car if they sold it for a profit-maybe the smartest guys in the room in the grand scheme of things.
However, most of us are just unrepentant sentimental fools when it comes to old school iron and, even if we are not the smartest guys in the room, we don’t really care about the IQ test when it comes to our favorites from the past.
Jim Sutherland
