Hagerty Vehicle Rating: The top 25 get shuffled
It took a Bronco to kick the 1976-86 Jeep CJ-7 from atop the Hagerty Vehicle Rating. After holding the No. 1 spot for three consecutive months, the CJ-7 fell to second behind the 1966-77 Ford Bronco in the latest Hagerty Vehicle Rating (HVR). The Bronco’s adjusted 99-point rating represented a four-point increase, while the Jeep was down three at 96.
The HVR tracks a car’s performance relative to the entire classic car market. Based on a scale of 0-100, a car with a 50-point rating is appreciating at the same rate as the overall market. Those above 50 are appreciating more quickly, while those below 50 are lagging.
Hagerty Information Analyst Mike Guilfoyle said the Bronco’s rise to the top “has everything to do” with the updated values in the newest edition of the Hagerty Price Guide, published May 1.
“First-generation Broncos leaped up around 9.5 percent on average; the CJ-7s’ increase was only a quarter of that,” Guilfoyle said, pointing mainly to the Bronco’s recent success at auction. “The results at Scottsdale, in particular, were out of this world. The four Broncos that sold there went some 40 percent higher than what we had in the then-current guide, given their condition. But sales have been very strong for a while, and Price Guide values have been shooting up to match.”
SUVs and trucks occupied the top five spots, with the 1973-87 Chevrolet C/K Series Pickup and 1945-68 Dodge Power wagon tying for third at 95 and the 1969-72 Chevrolet C/K Blazer tying the 1949-67 Volkswagen Beetle for fifth at 94. Fifteen of the top 25 vehicles are SUVs or trucks.
Affordability is common among the top-ranked vehicles, as well. Only two of the top 25 carry a median No. 3 (or “good”) value above $25,000, and eight are valued at $9,000 or less. The No. 1 Bronco carries a median value of $19,400, while the CJ-7 is at $8,400 and the C/K Series Pickup is at $7,700.
The 1973-91 Chevrolet Suburban had the most impressive rise in the top 25, improving from 57 points to 91 and vaulting from 318th to eighth (a spot it shares with the 1953-54 Chevrolet 210 and 1994-98 Porsche 911). Guilfoyle said Hagerty’s insurance data was the driving force behind the Suburban’s spike.
“The number of Suburbans getting quoted has been increasing, the number of Suburbans added to policies has been increasing, and the Guaranteed Value of insured Suburbans has been increasing,” he said. “In all three metrics, 1973-91 Suburbans have been near the top.”
Guilfoyle warned that the jump was also “inflated” because a minimum number of quotes and insured vehicles is required for a generation to be ranked in those metrics. “Suburbans crossed both thresholds for this HVR. The 91 is legitimate, but the 57 was deflated because Suburbans hadn’t yet reached a critical mass in quotes or insured vehicles to get many points from their growth in those areas.”
Other notable jumps: the 1966-73 Triumph GT6 gained 22 points and rose from 177th into a tie for 11th; the 1961-63 Ford Thunderbird gained 22 points and moved from 104th into a tie for 11th; the 1968-70 Plymouth GTX gained 21 points and rose from 177th into a tie for 16th; and the 1990-93 Chevrolet 454 SS Pickup gained 22 points and jumped from 228th into a tie for 22nd.
Also of note, the 1967-1972 Ford F-Series is unique among the top 25 in that its median No. 3 value actually decreased compared to the previous HVR—but only slightly, from $10,250 to $10,200.
Here’s a full rundown of this month’s top 25:
