Chairman's Rant, July 2019

[renmure]

...... and breathe ....

Good rant.

Values are funny things and I agree that there's almost an air of apology when selling a kit car that it's actually... a kit car. In the past they were weird things built by weird people in a shabby shed and probably only of interest selling to an even bigger weirdo. You spent a fortune on it just because you could and knowing that you'd never get anything like it back again.... but so what. It's all change now. No more shabby sheds. All the weirdos have garages and some of them have carpets in them!

[Bernard]

Nice one Normy

Just to add to the value's theme.... I understand that Nigel Wilkinson's wife sold his car in the mid / upper £50's

Re the pricing... our cars are now approximately 10% the value of an original car...... but 100% just as much fun ! IMHO..... may not quite have the noise of that glorious Dino V6.... but still sounds great in it's own way.

Phi

[David J]

I am with you regarding all the electric gizmos that come with modern cars, manufacturers seem to be obsessed with them the more the merrier. Slowly but surely ones ability to drive your own car is bean taken away, heading ultimately to fully autonomous cars, that is if they can sort out who is responsible for driving the car when the inevitable collision occurs.

Regarding car values I am in progress of getting an agreed value for mine sorted out, I think £15,000 is a we bit on the light side. A figure of £35,000 would be more realistic for a twin cam Strat.

David

[ProtoTipo]

The rising values are a bad thing.
For the Stratos replica owners who are never going to sell, that is.

All it does is put insurance premiums up.

It also puts the cars out of reach of the original 'weirdos'.

[AndyGuyton]

I can definitely see why rising values can be a bad thing, but from someone who has an LB on order, the values lend a level of security to the purchase. The LB is a MAJOR purchase for me and seeing the prices that the built cars are going for lends a sense of 'safe money' to the order. In itself, I think this may cause me to spend a little more than I might have ordinarily, resulting in a higher spec car which can only be good for the LB brand and Stratos replicas in general.

[ProtoTipo]

I can definitely see why rising values can be a bad thing, but from someone who has an LB on order, the values lend a level of security to the purchase. The LB is a MAJOR purchase for me and seeing the prices that the built cars are going for lends a sense of 'safe money' to the order. In itself, I think this may cause me to spend a little more than I might have ordinarily, resulting in a higher spec car which can only be good for the LB brand and Stratos replicas in general.

Yes I agree Andy,

In the case of today's builder, you will see the money again, should you sell.
In the past, it was always a 'labour of love' thing.

[AndyGuyton]

From everyone I've spoken to, the 'labour of love' build is thankfully still alive and well. The value of the finished car can only help with the 'man maths'.

[john]

Excellent thread. Excellent viewpoints.

[ChrisCar6]

As one of the weird people in a shabby shed who just nailed any old pile of ex-scrapyard bits together, I think the current prices reflect the product of 'kits' of the 2010- era. What the value of older products are is of more interest, but so few of them sell that I don't know if we'll aver get a good agreement.

[renmure]

From everyone I've spoken to, the 'labour of love' build is thankfully still alive and well. The value of the finished car can only help with the 'man maths'.

Most of my petrolhead mates know I'm doing the Stratos thing. All are hugely interested and pestering for updates but apart from a couple of weirdo mates who have built their own Ultimas in their posh garages, none of them would ever consider building a kitcar. They are all perfectly sane, sensible and normal folk like myself who already have proper hobbies like watching footie on telly, growing turnips in the allotment and a bit of gardening in summer and while we/they want the car, they want it NOW or as close to now as possible. A bit like the chap who bought Nick's car on the spot and put it next to his Miura.

IMHO some companies have moved the game on so far that while the semantics between kit-car and component-car/recreation/whatever are fairly subtle the final product is almost aimed at a different audience and in time (perhaps even the near future) there will be a substantial shift from producing kits to producing turn-key cars. The latest fully speced Ultima RS is a £100/£110k pile of boxes or a £140/£150k turn-key car. I recon more folk will want the car than the kit. At £55k/£60k/£65k/£Head-in-the-sand£k I recon one of the Stratos companies must be about the same tipping point.

I'm not looking to lose money on mine. If I was I would have got a yellow one and put blue wheels on it (only kidding) but I'm sure if I ever sell it that it will sell to someone who had no interest in ever building one.

When you look at what LB sell turnkey cars for the price I got is comparable, argument being Lister Bell sell too cheap!

Yup. I guess so.