When it comes to collecting cars, I really do try my best to not be judgmental; everyone has their own very idiosyncratic car interests and fetishes, and who am I to judge what gets one’s auto-pleasure-glands all excorpulated? And yet, somehow, despite all my efforts to be a better human, I still find myself being judgmental about the kinds of cars people collect: for example, I find collections that are exclusively pristine high-dollar supercars to be boring and predictable, even depressing. But I think I’m even worse about how I feel about collecting cars with incredibly low mileage on them. I can’t imagine a worse type of car to own.
I know they can be incredibly valuable and desirable; there was a 2016 LaFerrari with less than nine miles on the clock that sold for over $4 million dollars, for example, and even more pedestrian cars like a 1990 Fox-body Mustang can go for almost $100,000 because it only has gone 82 miles in its lifetime. There’s no doubt that almost any car with ridiculously low mileage is going to end up having lots of value to some collector, almost no matter what it is, but I have no idea why anyone would want to own one.
There definitely are people who want to own such cars, and they even have their own Facebook group, unsurprisingly, where they post for sale listings of cars with, usually, well under 10,000 miles. Low-mileage is, of course, a bit subjective and based on the age of a car, so while 20,000 miles may qualify as low mileage on something from the 1960s – and it definitely is low – that wouldn’t cut it on something newer.
Look, here’s a video about a guy flying all over the world just to get other low-mileage Ferraris, including a 99-mile 288 GTO, a cart that, when it is acquired, I can almost guarantee will never, ever be driven:
My problem with owning an extremely low-mileage car is that, fundamentally, it seems like an exercise in frustration. Look at this 1978 Beetle convertible from our pal Gary Duncan’s collection, for example; it has 84 miles on the clock. It’s essentially in like-new condition, and from that perspective, it’s incredible. Same goes for another Beetle Gary has, a 1977 standard Beetle with only 26 miles under its little air-cooled belt; it’s as close to a time capsule car as you could possibly imagine, as close as you’re likely to get to going back in time and sitting in a showroom-new Beetle at your local VW dealer.
And, in that context, these sorts of cars definitely do have value. If you were doing a restoration of an old Beetle and wanted to be absolutely certain you were getting everything right, this car is likely the best resource you could imagine. When I’m emperor, I may command the Smithsonian Institution to keep an automotive library of like-new cars just for restoration reference, now that I think about it. I better make a note of that.
But as far as owning one of these cars? It seems terrible! It’s not the cars themselves, of course – I would love to have a Beetle like either of those, in something even close to the condition those are in – but it’s the fact that so much of the value of the car is linked to the low mileage, it makes the entire thing a useless, immobile burden.
Not only can you not drive it, you can’t even really easily take it places to show it or let anyone else appreciate it, because it would need to be trailered everywhere, and even the small amount of distance getting it to and from and on and off the trailer would add up, over time, and for a car where the low odometer reading is the crucial element, you wouldn’t want to do that.
It just seems frustrating; a machine that is denied the ability to do the thing it was designed to do, because all of its value is that it has hardly ever done it. Every part on that car is wasted potential, and there’s little worse for a car than just sitting, so even if you start it and idle it religiously, rot and decay will still occur. Just because it’s not moving doesn’t mean it’s magically free from the ravages of time, after all.
Owning an absurdly low-mileage car just seems like a joyless burden. In a museum context, sure, I get it, the cars are meant to be stationary things you walk around and scrutinize and try to touch when the guard isn’t looking. But in a private collection? Why?
Is it some strange frustration fetish thing, like those people who like to wear chastity devices? Is that it? Is the tension of having something you’d love to just drive around, carefree, but are forbidden to because of some arbitrary and abstract concepts of “value?” Isn’t it incredibly maddening? You have an amazing thing, and you can never truly use it. It would drive me batshit. Especially because there’s a tension there, too. It would be so easy to make some mistake and it rolls off a trailer or gets stranded somewhere and you have to drive it a bit – I bet each of those miles that would get put on it, if you were still under the spell of low-mileage, would burn like fire. Every mile a wound you feel, a knife in your heart and wallet!
No thanks.
I bet there’s a sort of cathartic, unhinged release that must happen to people who have owned ultra-low-mileage cars and then have decided to actually drive them. I bet there’s a pit-of-the-stomach nervous feeling as you first start to drive your, say, Nissan Murano Cross Cab with 11 miles on the clock, as you can feel the value plummeting with every block you drive. But I also bet there’s a point of euphoric glee as you get to a stretch of open road and decide to really open it up, and just think fuck it and watch those long-hidden odometer digits start to roll into place.
I realize it’s sort of an absurd act of hubris for me to even say no thanks, keep your ultra-low-mileage cars, because I don’t have the money you need for something like that anyway, but at the same time there’s a pleasingly liberating feeling to have no desire for something widely considered valuable.
If you have a crazy low-mileage car, I’d both love to hear your reasoning for why you appreciate it and to also, like a devil of driving perched on your shoulder, encourage you to drive the damn thing, value be damned, and just enjoy the car. Sure, you’ll probably be losing thousands and thousands of dollars, but I bet you’ll thank me.
Valuable for the same reason why a 30 year-old toy in its original packaging is far more valuable than one that’s been removed from it even if that toy is also pristine and well cared-for, let alone one that’s been played with and enjoyed and shows its age.
It’s the allure of wanting to own a brand new example of something you just can’t get brand new anymore. Of wanting to be practically the first owner of something that’s never been messed with, even if it’s actually passed through multiple hands that never messed with it. For some this is about recapturing youthful dreams, of wandering into a store/dealership and seeing the thing all shiny and new, fresh from the factory.
I see this a lot in the LEGO community, with sealed copies of sets from the 80s commanding astronomical prices nowadays because for some people it’s just not the same to buy a decent used copy – generally laden with the scratches and discoloration of age – rather than see it first in its original box, unopened, never played with or even assembled and thus flawless. And people do in fact open and assemble those to this day, knowing full well that it ruins the value, because they want to relive/experience the joy of another era through this diminishing resource no matter the cost or the fact that sealed copies only get rarer.
But most always stop themselves from opening the box. Their joy simply comes from owning a rare thing, like a museum piece, or “investing” in something rare at least. And there it sits, forever taunting them, forever crying out to be assembled and enjoyed as it was created to be, and never being given that chance.
But yeah, cars are kind of a stupid thing to do this with, given that they do deteriorate whether you drive them or not, regardless of the conditions they’re stored in. Better to drive them regularly and keep all the seals from drying out and cracking, even if it’s only for short trips around the block, or for a spin on your private race track since these low-mileage cars tend to be bought by the uber-wealthy. It’s the maintenance, not the mileage, that counts. A meticulously maintained, mint-condition, 200,000 mile all-original car is much more impressive than one that’s only ever sat, and can even be just as accurate and factory-original.
I myself drive a car that’s becoming collectible at over 30 years old, but with over 200,000 miles on it, and I’m not worried at all. It’s been well-maintained and still runs like new. If I keep up with regular maintenance, it’ll run for another 200,000 miles easily. We need to get over this idea that lower mileage = better, when all it really means is the car has been neglected. Normalize taking care of our crap and we’ll be shocked how long it lasts. I hope this little thing reaches a million miles someday, there’s no reason it can’t do so and still look pretty when it gets there!
Yep. In 1976 I attended the Buick Club of America national meet in Flint. There I met a guy who had a 1951 (IIRC) Buick that had like 54 miles on it. Usual story – guy drove it home from the dealer and died.
I was enthralled. How cool it must be to have that. Nope he told me. “It’s a millstone” I can’t drive it..have to trailer it everywhere. Every mile diminishes the value.
I can appreciate the ultra low mileage cars, but doesn’t mean I would do that. If anything, I like the other end of the spectrum where there are higher miles. Means the car is getting driven and enjoyed like it should have been. I get more enjoyment reading about some car hitting a million miles versus examples like these that have 26 miles
And usually the million-mile cars look just as pristine as the 26-mile cars. That kind of mileage only happens when the owner is committed to making it happen, and they only commit when they just like the vehicle enough to take care of it for a long, long time.
One of my favorite cars I ever saw at a car show was a 1969 Shelby GT500 with over 100,000 miles on it, still driven by the original owner, who bought it before being shipped off to Vietnam and made sure to drive it regularly once he got back, taking good care of it but enjoying it as a car nonetheless. It was still all-original, never restored, and showing some dents and scratches, but full of stories from being used and enjoyed. That guy was fun to talk to.
“Rare” is another collector one that goes too far sometimes, where the interest seems to come just from being able to drill down to some ridiculously low number, rather than any particular merit of that specific combination of options.
I’m happy some cars are preserved by the likes of Jay Leno and museums. Even Jay takes his cars for a spin once in a while, too. Sort of having his cake and eating it too.
I do not have Jay Leno-level wealth, and that’s fine.
Ever since the muscle car boom, everyone and their cousin has jumped on the ‘next big thing’ bandwagon. Which mostly served to defeat the purpose – there will be ‘preserved’ Hellcats for decades. The rare 1971 Hemi ‘Cuda convertible that went for huge bucks was the aberration from a previous era.
Even most muscle cars of that era aren’t worth that much today. There’s a reason why Roadkill could still get cheap-ish ones to fool around with.
If there’s immaculate cars I kind of am interested in, it’s the very well-maintained ordinary ones that got lightly used. The vehicles that got used up as we lived out our lives, but thanks to a diligent owner we can briefly step back in time, if just for a moment.
Mostly, I lump the kind of people who are obsessed with the value of their car in the same category as those who obsess about their home’s value. So focused on preserving something immaculately that they forget that these things are meant for living.
Want an investment? Go buy an S&P 500 index fund. Want to enjoy owning a special car? Enjoy it for the drive. The blabbermouth that can’t shut up about what their house/car is worth is a tedious bore. The guy who tells me about the road trip/project he’s doing/awesome event he did is way more interesting.
The sales manager at the BMW dealer we bought our car from was telling me a customer bought two new M2s one manual one Auto. He has apparently drained all the fluids from the manual one, sealed it in one of those car bags and put it in storage. Because, yes the manual one will be a collectors item, it will be a rare right hand drive manual M2, but it won’t be that rare. He is driving the auto one. What kind of rich psycho does this?! Drive your friggin cars! Also buying a low mileage car to collect means you’ll be scared to drive it, because literally all its value is held up in the fact that it is low mileage, not because its desirable, and the really desirable ones are works of engineering genius not works of art to collect.
“…Ultra-Low Mileage Cars Are The Worst Cars To Collect And I Never Want One…”
Yeah, right. And we should all be Michael Fröhlich. I call bullshit on that one.
I bought a 96 ImpalaSS, late production, last of the line. I drove it sparingly, but it mostly sat in the garage. It bugged me to put miles on it, “was never going to sell it”. In 2019, I finally decided it had to go, it took up too much space in the garage and I didn’t enjoy it. It was old, I’d lost touch with the local club and so I sold it, with 66K on the clock. I got back about 2/3rds of the price I paid for it new.
The car that replaced it is my 2012 BMW that I bought 3rd hand. It had an age appropriate 25K on it in 2015 and now has 105K. I enjoy driving it and have spent a few sheckles on maintenance, but not like some folks who drive theirs less than 1000 mi/yr. Cars are made to drive, not sit. The seals on parked cars dry out and leak, hoses rot and tires still need replacing every 7-10 years. Drive it & enjoy it.
I obtained a 20-year old motorcycle this year with 2,000km on it. The shop that did the inspection for me debated whether the odo had been replaced. I immediately put another 2,000 on it! Still like new!