You hit the nail on the head. Supply is small and the demand is small as
well.
Three reasons I own a Tiger:
1) Owned an Alpine as a teenager but really wanted a Tiger.
2) Tigers are far more affordable that any other British convertible
with more than 4-banger power.
3) You can actually drive a Tiger every day and get parts if it breaks.
-----Original Message-----
From: MWood24020@aol.com [mailto:MWood24020@aol.com]
Sent: Saturday, May 31, 2003 8:10 PM
To: larry.p@erols.com; geowiz@cox-internet.com
Cc: GSFuqua1@aol.com; rande@thecia.net; tigers@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: 40K Tigers
In a message dated 5/31/2003 3:45:33 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
larry.p@erols.com writes:
Tom Patton, and others have show,
is very fast on the track.
How does a 37 year old car beat a new factory team, and yes Tom's car is
a race car, but so are those factory team cars. Embarrassing to the
factory teams, so they change the rules, but what would the interest be
in the Tiger if all the restrictors were removed?
Yes, Tom's car is a race car. Literally, the only truly Tiger-specific
items on the car are the tail lights and the gas pedal (if anyone's
interested, an article I wrote for Tiger Tracks regarding Tom's car is, I
think, somewhere on TU website). I'm still extremely happy to see him
succeed and have nothing but respect for the amount of development an effort
involved! I also agree that there is no doubt the SCCA listens to the
"lobbying" of the manufacturers for more restrictions on Tom's car...
(The following is just my own, incredibly biased (and insightful!)
opinion)
The main item holding Tiger prices back (heck, a good Alfa Giulia is worth
more and don't even get me started on Healeys) is that the car never
developed much of a true following when new. It was poorly positioned by
Rootes, perhaps due to financial difficulties, and then was fairly well
ignored after the ChryCo acquisition. Compounding matters (or perhaps the
"roote" of the matter) is a less than stellar competition record, outside of
Doane's B production car and the rally cars. Tigers became kind of an oddity
in the late '60s: not quite sports cars (in the eyes of the string back
glove guys and road racers) and not quite muscle cars, they were appreciated
by only those who "knew".
There are many examples of "following", "pedigree" and competition record
influencing pricing that I can think of, e.g. is a Lotus Elan really "worth"
20-25k more than an Elva Courier? Is a TVR Vixen worth half of what you can
get for a 356 Porsche, even though there were far less TVR's made? Is a 1965
Shelby GT350 worth at least twice as much as a K-code Mustang Fastback, just
because there were a fraction as many Shelby's produced?
The Tiger never caught on when new, in a truly meaningful way, which is
why we are so lucky to be able to play with them on the relative cheap. It
is too late to create a legend. We will, however, continue to see relatively
small numbers of truly enlightened, pragmatic and intelligent enthusiasts
gravitate towards the Tiger :-)
My two cents...
Mike
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