To say none of these cars is worth more than £10k can only be personal opinion but as registrar it's a negative one to take.
Well, I stand by it, or at least I stand by the whole comment, not just a clip taken out of context. Everyone's entitled to disagree, of course! [
]
I genuinely think that a 944 has to be VERY special to sell for more than £10K. Not saying that the ones that sell aren't worth it, they
are the very special cars. There are some lovely 944s that have struggled to sell for half what this turbo's advertised at, so it has to be truly exceptional to be worth the money IMO. What I've said is that, from the advert, you can't tell if it's that exceptional, and again I stand by that as it's valid to advise where adverts fall down. We don't actually know how good the bodywork is, we've all seen nicely polished red 944s. There's no detail of the recent history, so for all I know it could be due a clutch, caliper refurb, head gasket, fuel lines, belts, anything.
I also stand by the statement that 944s over that £10K psychological barrier appeal to a more limited market. It stands to reason that a small proportion of the potential buyers will want to spend the maximum, not the bulk of them. I also genuinely believe that (hyperbole aside, lol) most 944s at that price level are bought by people with larger budgets than average, as concourse-standard cars; as such, mileage is a big consideration, and originality is key. This isn't that car, is it? It's also not a dedicated track car project where someone's spent considerable time and money on it. I really do see a 944 turbo, with a six-figure mileage, albeit looking in very nice condition. I've seen cars that have appeared exactly the same, but with detailed history, advertised for half that price.
The "talking the prices down" argument is an interesting one. I'm not sure it's that simple, though. Perhaps there is also the consideration that talking prices UP can be damaging? No-one wants bad 944s to sell for higher prices, then the owners find out they have to put considerable money in to them. You could possibly suggest that talking prices DOWN is actually better, as it puts the worse cars either off the road, hence improving the rarity of the model and the parts supply, or in to the hands of enthusiastic DIYers who can restore them.
Whatever we say about values, I don't think it affects the best examples anyway. There's no drop in the number of cars achieving high valuations, in fact more are being valued at good levels now they're being forced by age to go through restorations. Mine is being re-valued, and why not, as it's been through so much work over the last couple of years. Good cars are increasingly worth proportionally more than the bad ones, that's a good thing I think.
I really can't see it being "negative" to challenge adverts, to be honest about the real-life running costs of the cars, or the weak areas they have. We would be doing potential owners a disservice if we were unreasonably positive about them. Honesty isn't always a negative thing, and I prefer to see the way the cars advertised at such high prices are commented on as realistic, even challenging, but not negative. We're not trying to say the car isn't worth the sticker price, we're asking why it justifies it. Very different things.
Let's talk the best cars up, but let's be brutally honest about the pitfalls of the less good cars. Let's challenge the high-priced cars where they aren't immediately obviously worth the price on the ad. I don't see any of that as negative, perhaps others do, but after the amount I've spent on mine, and the constant stories of cars needing more than their "value" spending on repairs, I certainly don't have rose-tinted specs on when talking about them! [8|]
