The £2,000 car

[trabitom99]

I don't follow this view Tom (only this, not the "2k cashin is a bad idea") No one can guess what car will become a classic, those rusty Cinq's and Twingos may well get some love at some point

OK, swap that for "rusty 90s bread-and-butter cars" Isn't there an Abarth version of the Cinquecento too? That needs saving too!

You can have a pretty good idea of which kind of cars will be sought after in future, just by looking at current price lists. There's a company called "Classic Data" in Germany who publish detailed values of nearly all old cars from pre-war vintage stuff all the way up to 90s cars. Here you can see what the interest is like in a particular model, noteably the top-of-the-range cars are nearly always worth a lot more than the rest of the range. Examples: all the 80s "hot hatches", the V6 versions of the big saloons, RWD is a bonus too ...

For example:
a 405 Mi16 is worth much more than a 405 GL (top-of-the-range bonus)
an Alfa 75 is worth more than a 33 (last RWD Alfa)
a W123 is worth more than a W124 (last Merc laden with chrome)

Whether a Volvo 440 will be any more popular than say, a Rover 400 or a VW Golf III or a Renault Megane in 20 years' time - that's pretty hard to predict right now, I agree. Going back to your Mk1 Escort example, that appears to be a UK phenomenon, those cars aren't worth any more than a Kadett B or C, or a Mk1 Golf over here. But going back to the 300-series, I reckon a RWD 360 GLT isn't such a bad investment, particularly compared to a FWD bog-standard 440.

[workshopmanualman]

The scheme, on reflection, isn't so hot. The government are stumping up only £1k, with the car industry the other half. So effectively you could get £1k off without too much hassle - one assumes just by walking in the door and saying "hello." For a decent car that is reliable, this would not be that tempting for a normal bangernomics user who is driving a £400 or £500 car. Certainly I'm not about to trade up to a new £10k car to get what is effectively only a £500 discount.

Our scheme has enough for 300,000 cars to be sent to the crusher. We have 40,000 towns, so this is only about 8 cars per town that will go over the year. Apparently there are something like 15,000,000 cars over ten years old in the UK, so really on the streets we will probably hardly notice a difference at all.

And going back to my previous post, just look at the cars you can get for around £10,000. Hideous things with 0 to 60 times of 15 seconds or so. To get a decent new car you need to go to £15,000 or so. Even then things can be marginal - a 1.6 diesel Volvo that is a re-bodied Focus? No thanks.

A 300 is for life, not just Christmas!

[jtbo]

Turbo models are almost certain to gain value in future, imo. Also those are now quite low on price, so it would not be too bad idea to get Turbo Volvo of some sort and store it 10 years

[workshopmanualman]

The only certainty with cars rising in future values follows these simple rules:

1. Is it a Ferrari?
2. Any sporting history? Or association with?
3. Is it a Ferrari?
4. Does it have the most power of that production model?
5. Is it a Ferrari?
6. Is it red?

Of course the overriding factor here is: Is there a to**er with more money than sense interested in owning that particular car? Chris Evans comes to mind.

[workshopmanualman]

Last post here.... turns out the whole scheme is a big con designed to appeal to the relatively well off amongst us. Car manufacturers will give a big discount against a £20k rep mobile, but the minimum against a small, fuel efficient car. But the biggest con is this "must own the car for 12 months and have an MoT" rule - there is a clause that this does not apply if the car is SORN [statutory off road notice]. So if you want a nice new BMW, fancy £6k off, then buy a banger with no MoT, nod and a wink to the garage, £50 sub to the tester and away you go with a big fat discount. But Aunty Mabel with her 30,000 mint 340 wouldn't know this, or care. So her well maintained car, one that an enthusiast would like, gets the chop.

The world's gone mad.

[foggyjames]

Of course it's a con...and nothing to do with the environment. It's to do with situations like this...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west ... 026509.stm

cheers

James

[jtbo]

What if they would put that 2000 for existing car and to have it new engine and rest of stuff new like condition? Surely autoindustry would do a lot improvement if there would be movement to make parts that are no longer being made, they could change part of production lines to refurbishing lines, that I would see way of future where you could choose which kind of power package you need for your car and they would put it in with governments support.

Of course that would require some skill (or maybe just bit of thinking) unlike some of jobs there currently are in auto industry.

[workshopmanualman]

...and it would only involve cash and a one-off transaction. With the modern world the way it is, the government inject £2,000 cash via finance, the bankers can turn that into £40,000 worth of business. Your scheme would mean the money being spent on wages and consumables. Unfortunately capitalism today seems not to work like that. Look at the big motor manufacturers like Ford - Ford stopped being primarily a manufacturer years ago, and is instead regarded as a finance house that also makes cars.