The classic-car baby boomer dilemma: Why a Nissan Skyline is likely to outpace a Rolls-Royce

Since then there have been endless car rallies, weekends away – that invariably involve a fancy-dress event – and extremely long lunch runs with various clubs in cars ranging from vintage through to classics from the 90s. (Once a car is 30 years old it can generally be acknowledged as a “classic”).

Ten years ago, at the Goodwood Revival, a United Kingdom racing event featuring cars between the mid–1940s to mid–1960s, we had a close encounter with “Mr Bean”, actor and comedian Rowan Atkinson, as he strode past to climb into his powder blue Austin A35.

He careered round the circuit with the other A35s and A30s, sliding through the circuit’s Woodcote Corner – near where Kiwi racing driver Bruce McLaren crashed and died in 1970, aged 32, while testing his McLaren M8D Can-Am – in the rain, tiny windscreen wipers going flat out. Madness.

On display at Goodwood were millions of dollars worth of valuable classic cars and motorbikes, most of them English. Back then, their owners would have been smugly confident of their value, used to years of soaring prices.

But much has changed in the past decade, a shift that has taken many classic-car owners, particularly the ageing Boomer generation, by surprise.

In short, millennials and Gen Z aren’t much interested in vintage or pre-war cars, or going on “Old Crocks” runs.

Their emotional nostalgia is locked into wheels they lusted after as teenagers in the 1980s, 90s and early 2000s.

Rowan, from London-based YouTube channel RC Classic Garage, says that shift in nostalgia and buying power has accelerated more quickly than many predicted.

Nostalgia, he says, is a powerful thing “but nostalgia moves forward”.

And as the nostalgic eras change, so do the prices of classic cars – pushing some into freefall and others soaring.

To multimillion-dollar collectors like Atkinson, whether the values appreciate or slump probably doesn’t matter too much.

But for the everyday classic-car owner or collector who has money tied up in auto investments, it does matter.

The pride-and-joy classic that’s been under cover in the garage for years might suddenly not be the retirement nest egg owners were hoping for.

The vintage car market was the first to be affected.

Millennials and Gen Z are not interested in owning an old car with heavy steering, no radio or aircon, and clunky gears.

Many are not easy or comfortable to drive.

In February we chugged from Auckland to Napier to attend Art Deco in a 1933 vintage car with a baffling design; the long handbrake handle and gear lever blocked the right-hand door, which meant the driver had to crawl across from the passenger side to reach his seat.

Art Deco is a marvellous event where the city centre comes alive with immaculately restored vintage cars, the “awooga” trumpeting of klaxon horns, and passengers, drivers and onlookers dressed in fashion from the era.

But it doesn’t take a highly trained observer to notice that some of the drivers look nearly as old as their cars, which begs the question: who will buy and drive these gorgeous old jalopies in the future?

Will they, in decades to come, be found mouldering away in a garage because Gen Z would rather own a Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 which earned cult fame in the Fast & Furious movies?

Ryan Barnett, 32, who has been in the classic car insurance business for 10 years, has seen the value of many pre-war cars steadily drop as Baby Boomer owners and collectors age out.

Younger generations are more likely to buy a JDM (Japanese domestic market) or a muscle car like a Mustang or a Camaro. They are less likely to yearn for a Ford Model A or a vintage tractor.

Barnett, the manager of Classic Cover Insurance, says for the first time in his experience, clients have been dropping the amount their cars are insured for, rather than the other way around. The economy is partly to blame but also the generational shift in buying power.

Millennial Barnett and his father, a boomer, are classic examples of how aspirations change between generations.

His father grew up wanting a 1940 Ford Deluxe which turned him into a hot rodder for life. Barnett remembers lusting after a Nissan Skyline GT-R as a 16-year-old, and admiring Mercedes-Benzes from the 1980s and 1990s.

A dozen years ago, a JDM enthusiast could have bought a 1990s Nissan Skyline R32 GT-R for between $33,000 and $50,000.

A decade later good examples were selling between $100,000 and $150,000.

In 2023 one sold for $636,000. A Nissan Skyline R33 GT-R Nismo 400R sold for $1.4m that same year. An Auckland car dealer recently bought a rare 2002 Nissan R34 Skyline GT-R M-Spec Nür, which has a price tag of $1m.

Owners of pre-war and vintage cars can only look on and weep.

North Canterbury classic car enthusiast Jesmond Micallef says the reality is New Zealand’s older classic car stock will increasingly disappear overseas, snapped up by offshore buyers taking advantage of the lack of local buyers and our weak dollar.

“The market [classic cars] won’t disappear, but its centre of gravity will move.”

He has collected and sold classic cars for more than 20 years through his business, Waimak Classic Cars.

He runs it like a museum with nearly 70 vehicles on display at any one time. Some are for sale on behalf of clients, others are cars he owns and wants to keep for their heritage value.

And therein lies Micallef’s dilemma. On the one hand, he knows vintage and pre-war classic cars are part of New Zealand’s heritage and wants them to remain in the country.

On the other hand, the number of Kiwis prepared to pay what the older cars are worth is shrinking.

That leaves a hungry and accelerating offshore market and Micallef has a business to run. If an offer comes in from an Australian collector, he’ll take it, he says. Lack of regulation means it’s easy to pack a classic car into a container and send it overseas.

Mustang and classic-car fan Garry Jackson, 76, agrees that New Zealand is at risk of losing its vintage heritage. He’s currently the president of the NZ Federation of Motoring Clubs, an organisation that represents 150 car clubs with more than 150,000 members.

The federation commissioned major research from Glasshouse Consulting to assess the worth of the classic-car sector, including ownership (individuals, major collectors and museums), maintenance, insurance, restoration and running costs.

The results were startling: a $16.5 billion economic footprint with more than 200,000 Kiwis owning 369,000 historic and classic vehicles.

Between them, owners spend more than $1b a year on running costs, maintenance and restoration. Jackson thinks that could be a conservative figure as so many private collectors have extensive collections hidden away and rarely seen.

Micallef, in his mid 50s, experienced a reality check about the changing market a few years back when his then-teenage son JJ asked if he could bring some mates to look at a high-spec Nissan in the Waimak museum.

The black Nissan was sitting near two other black cars - a valuable 1968 American Shelby GT500KR and a 1980s Ferrari 328.

The boys barely glanced at the Shelby or the Ferrari, or any of the other cars on display. Instead, they spent the afternoon “drooling over” the Nissan.

“That tells you something, doesn’t it? When they’re 40 years old and they’ve got the money, they’ll be paying $150,000 or $200,000 for that car (the Nissan) because it’s like an E-type for them. Those are the cars that will boom in value.“

American automotive enthusiast and YouTuber Tony DeFeo, of Uncle Tony’s Garage, predicts that the back-to-analogue generation, frustrated by “over-complicated” newer cars, will be more likely to want the bread-and-butter cars from 30 years ago, a Honda Civic or Accord, or a Nissan Sentra.

That type of car was reliable, easy to service and didn’t need to be returned to the dealer for reprogramming when the electronics failed. By comparison, older classic cars not built for modern motoring will become increasingly unpopular and drop in value, DeFeo says.

“The pecking order of desirability is going to change.”

In the UK, the value of blue-chip classics like the E-type and the Aston Martin DB series 2 to 6, previously thought to be untouchable, are sliding in value unless the car is in concourse condition, or a model like the DB5 which featured in eight James Bond movies from Goldfinger in 1965 through to No Time to Die in 2001.

Some other older classics will hold their value, or even rise, experts predict. Top quality “museum grade” examples of vintage or older cars like Rolls-Royce, Bentley and Packard, particularly rare examples and those with provenance, are what collectors look for.

Limited-production vehicles, first or last off the line, the first or last manual production, the last V8 of a model, and those with the wow factor – think the Ferrari Testarossas of the 1980s – will also be a good bet.

Barnett rates top “modern classics” like Porsche, Ferrari and the Mercedes-Benz SL and S-Class. They probably won’t be as valuable as the iconic Mercedes 300 SL Gullwing of the 1950s, now worth between $2.5m and more than $5m, but he thinks they’ll at least hold their value.

But even those lusted-after brands have suffered intergenerational price shifts. Those watching classic-car prices say values for Ferraris from the 1970s and 1980s have slumped in recent years, with buyers preferring models from the 1990s and early 2000s.

RC Classic Garage’s Rowan says air-cooled Porsches are no longer considered bulletproof investments apart from special models. (In New Zealand the 993 and 964 Porsche, the last of the hand-assembled and air-cooled 911s, are still collectible.)

Rowan, who prefers not to use his surname, thinks falling prices are a good thing because enthusiasts might now be able to afford to drive their dream car, rather than have them stored in climate-controlled garages by investors.

George Kear, chief executive of Auto Restorations in Christchurch, has witnessed a change in the era of classic cars coming into the workshop from both New Zealand and overseas clients. The pre-war business is still there.

Three Bugattis from overseas are currently in the workshop and staff are handmaking crankshafts, conrods and bearings for the engines of six 1927 GP Delages being restored overseas.

However, these days Auto Restorations does more restoration work on more modern cars like Holden Commodores and Toranas than pre-war models.

Increasingly popular are “restomod” projects for owners who want their restored classic cars fitted with power steering, air con, better brakes and a modern gearbox to make them more drivable.

And others want their modern car to look like an old classic. One European client wants his 2013 130i BMW made to look like a 1960s Aston Martin with a new retro-fitted body.

“The customer wants it to look old and classical but drive like a modern car,” Kear says.

Apart from the nostalgia-driven change in buyers, the industry also faces a shortage of skills because those with specialist expertise are retiring.

Aware of the issue, Kear offers apprenticeships in mechanics, engineering and panel beating.

Earlier this year Rolls-Royce and Bentley specialist Bruce McIlroy retired after 31 years spent working on vintage and classic models at his Ashburton business. Auto Restorations bought McIlroy’s business and offered his staff jobs.

Kear is also president of the Vintage Car Club of New Zealand which has more than 8000 members in 36 branches throughout New Zealand, so he’s well aware of the issues facing that sector.

Auto Restorations sells classic cars as part of the business and Kear says models from the 1930s and 1940s are getting harder to sell, a worldwide issue.

“People who have got that sort of money to spend now aren’t interested in something that was produced before they were born.”

Younger tech millionaires of today are more likely to want a classic supercar, a Lamborghini from the 70s, 80s or 90s.

“But we’re struggling to sell early 60s and 70s Bentleys. No-one wants them.”

Chris Wiseman has witnessed “a pretty major upheaval” in the classic car sector in the three years he’s worked at Webb’s auction house.

The market for pre-war cars isn’t disappearing but it’s narrowing, he says. Buyers are becoming more selective, and the gap between the very best classic cars and everything else is noticeably widening.

Wiseman, 26, says buyers in their 30s, 40s and 50s, who might once have admired English cars, are favouring European classics from the 1990s like certain models of Porsche, Mercedes-Benz and BMW.

Aware that young people are a key to continuity in the classic-car sector, organisers of Auckland’s annual Ellerslie Car Show and Concours d’Elegance have introduced kid-friendly exhibits, a “Little Legends” pedal and miniature car competition, and entry classes that will appeal to younger generations.

One of those is the 30-40-50 “starter” concourse competition. The car must be more than 30 years old, the owner must be under 40 years, and the total cost of the car, including the purchase price, must be under $50,000.

This year, Aucklander Monique Warrington won with her 1970 Holden HT Kingswood.

Jackson says New Zealand has a treasure trove of classic cars but some are now worth more offshore than they are in New Zealand. Many owners are facing some “hard calls”.

“Whether it’s a Mk1 Zephyr that was the fashion car of the early 1950s or a Model T truck that was important in terms of the development of New Zealand, we’ve somehow got to get those stories out there so there is a wider audience.”

Jane Phare is a senior journalist based in Auckland.

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