Hagerty Vehicle Ratings: Sports cars race to the Bottom 25 for April
Our valuation team has updated the Hagerty Vehicle Ratings (HVR) for Q2, and the bottom 25 are dominated by European sports cars. Not all that long ago, many of these machines captured headlines for their big prices. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
The HVR tracks a car’s performance relative to the entire collector car market. Based on a 0–100 scale, a car rated at 50 is keeping pace with the overall market. A car scoring higher than 50 is appreciating more quickly, while a score below 50 indicates the car is lagging.
Chief among the losers are mid-engine malaise-era Ferraris, namely the 1975–85 Ferrari 308 and 1985–89 328 GTB and GTS. For a long time, these stylish, overlooked fellows represented affordable entry into Ferrari ownership. Then Boomers and Gen X collectors with some bucks caught on, and the Ferraris started appreciating. Now it seems that everybody who wanted one has gotten it, so activity has stalled, and these cool cars have cooled. They rate at 16 and 20, respectively.
We’ve documented the settling of Porsche 911 prices in the last 18 months as well. Joining their newer cousins in the updated ratings is the Porsche 356, built from 1948 to 1965. With the rising tide of the 911, the little 356 boat had enjoyed appreciation by association. Now that interest in 911s has waned, so too has the frenzy for the 356. As a result, it now carries a 17 rating. But it’s not all doom and gloom. Overall values climbed by 58% over the last five years, and they’ve remained at that level. Quite simply, demand for these handsome little cars has dropped.
As for Americans in the bottom 25, the 2005–06 Ford GT has long occupied the very last slot, something we’ve touched on in previous updates. There’s no new news to report there. But another notable American car making its debut in the bottom 25 is the 1971–74 Plymouth Road Runner. This is due to a dip in both quote activity—which measures how many Road Runners have been quoted for an insurance policy with Hagerty—as well as insured activity—a metric that measures how many Road Runners have been added to a policy. “In short,” says Hagerty data analyst Jesse Pilarski, “we’ve seen a drop in demand and interest in these cars. However, we’ve yet to see this affect their values.”
The Hagerty Vehicle Ratings are a fluid system, so it’s entirely possible that the next time we report the bottom 25, we might see big changes. You’ll know when we do.
The Hagerty Vehicle Rating is derived through the use of the following data:
- Hagerty Price Guide — Measures the change in value of #3-condition (good) cars.
- Insured Activity — Measures how many cars have been added to Hagerty’s insured book and their average value at the time they’re added.
- Quote Activity — Measures how many cars have been quoted.
- Auction Activity — Measures the number of cars, their average sale price and the sell-through rate for those cars.
- Private Sales Activity — Measures number of cars sold, average sale price and what percentage of them sell above their insured value.
Here’s a complete look at the cars bringing up the bottom of the Hagerty Vehicle Rating:
