bob - define what you mean by "investment" or outpace "normal" investments
(rhetorical). investments can range from yielding 1% per year in a money
market fund vs 35% per year in a hedge fund or private equity fund. i am
guessing you mean normal stocks and bonds, so say 5-10% per year(1). assume
an average, say 7.5% pre-tax return. that would mean a tiger bought for
$25,000 today would be worth $51,500 in 10 years. perhaps possible, doesnt
seem unreasonable. but if it only kept up with inflation, it would be worth
$33,600 in 10 years, and that is assuming inflation of 3%, its been lower
than that lately. but keeping with the 7.5% return scenario...assuming
$500/year maintenance/upgrades, your net return would be 6.1%. not bad, if
that was risk free, but it is not risk free...
all that said, i think your question really is do we think prices on tigers
will "pop" like all things shelby... perhaps when carol passes away, similar
to how ferrari prices popped when enzo ferrari passed away in 1988 ... of
course who knows, but it is fun to speculate ... my speculation, tigers will
continue to appreciate just as all cars of that era have, MGAs, Triumphs,
Austin Healey, etc, but I personally do not think tigers will increase in
value at a more dramatic rate than they have crept up in the past. there is
no surge of baby boomers who now have money that are saying, "man i want
that [tiger] i lusted after when i was a kid...", but they are saying that
about hemis, road runners, gt500's, etc. i feel that this is driving the
current muscle car craze. but tigers are more of an niche in-the-know icon
for a small group of enthusiasts...
bottom line though is, i would NEVER buy a car thinking of it as an
"investment". i just bought 2 tigers the end of last year, and to me as
long as they dont LOSE value, and i can recoup some of the costs i sink into
mildly restoring them, and i can enjoy them for years, to me that is a huge
"investment". most of us would never sell our tigers, so knowing they are
going up in value only gives us the benefit of justifying our obsessions to
our wives/girlfriends/whatevers as we are not pissing money away, but is
largely irrelevant to us...
_______________
(1) in the postwar period annual stock returns have averaged about 12
percent. Short-term government bonds have an annual return of 4.9 percent.
I have heard highly regarded finance academics predict that long term stock
market returns will never be that high again over an extended period of
time.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Dixon" <bobdixon@frii.com>
To: <tigers@autox.team.net>
Sent: Monday, April 03, 2006 11:56 AM
Subject: Tiger as an investment?
> Hello all,
>
> Do think a stock Tiger would make a good investment? Kind of an emotional
> topic for sure, but I'm really curious if you think the market for our
> little beasts is going to outpace normal investments.
>
> Looks like anything Shelby is going up pretty well, but the Tiger still
> seems like a red-headed stepchild.
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