“I know lots of 75-year-olds who have cars. But I don’t know any others that have seven cars.”
Those were SCM Editor-in-Chief Jeff Sabatini’s words to me as we wrapped up another discussion about “how many cars is enough” and “what should those cars be?”
Our collections are limited by a variety of factors. The first and largest is usually space.
At my condo, I have space for three cars. Those are the 1991 Alfa S4 Spider, the 2005 Porsche 911 C4S and the grocery-getter 2021 Hyundai Elantra Limited. All of these cars see limited use. The Elantra has just 12,000 miles, the Alfa 29,133 and the 911 70,894.
Keeping the batteries up to snuff in a garage where trickle-chargers aren’t allowed is a challenge.
In the past two months, we have sold two cars that had “constantly on” analog clocks, the 1975 Porsche 911S and the 1971 Jaguar E-type.
Of course, the battery-draining clocks weren’t the only reasons we sold them. While the Jag was perhaps the most satisfying sports car I have ever owned, a near-perfect touring car, in the end after 10,000 miles behind the wheel I was ready for something else. Matt Crandall (911r on BaT) represented it for us, and it hammered sold for a very respectable $50,250. When all the dust settled, we got about as much as we had paid for the car originally, which seems like a win to me.
Matt also presented our 911S Sportomatic which brought an astounding $85,500. The combination of a fresh 2.7-liter flat-six, unusual fabric interior and an original 50,000-mile car kept the bids coming. As we were in the car $90,000, we got closer than usual to filling our coffers back up.
We keep our 1965 Alfa Giulia Spider Veloce and 2006 Lotus Elise at Pro-Tek, the first-rate car storage and event facility owned by Mike Christopherson. He starts the cars on a regular basis, and always has them ready to go when we need them.
So now I’m a “mature” collector with five cars instead of seven.
As I have mentioned, I’ve got a hankering to get a Big Healey to drive to the 75th convention in 2027. I drove a BJ7 to the 25th. My son Bradley has said he would like to drive with me, and that’s a powerful incentive. I don’t want a show car, but it needs to be reliable and regularly driven. I’m not picky about model, but I do love vinyl dashes and side curtains. In today’s market, these seem to be $30k–$40k.
But that means more cars than spaces. What would you do? If you had to sell one car, which one would it be and why?
I look forward to your comments below.
Read my previous blog posts here.
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