Supercar Market Insights & Analysis – July 2022

Supercar Market Insights & Analysis – July 2022

I’ve refrained from doing a market update for the past couple of quarters as a lot of what was happening in the supercar market overall just didn’t make a lot of sense.  Back in September 2021, I summarized the situation in the market (Supercar Market Update Sept 2021) as follows:

 

In summary, right now we have a sport & supercar market that has been on the rise this year. The bills from Covid-19 have yet to come due and where there has been severe financial pain, it hasn’t affected the supercar market, yet.  While money remains plentiful and cheap, the day of reckoning will continue to get punted into the future.  Looking at both recent auctions and going back a couple of years now, the hypercar bubble is history despite recent gains for both the McLaren P1 and Porsche 918.  These rises in P1 & 918 values are only taking them back to where they were when new.  While new hypercars still hold value, huge immediate gains on flipping them are a thing of the past.  Younger sports and supercars from the 90s & 00’s are where the majority of the gains in the market have been made in 2021 with the older vintage cars either holding are slowly declining.  Demographic shifts will likely accelerate this trend over the coming years.

 

How things have changed.

The Macro Situation

Which brings us to today. We are still a long way from the old normal and I doubt we will be getting back there anytime soon.  Today’s reality feels like it’s the new normal whether we like it or not.  Covid is here to stay, and we are going to be living with waves of outbreaks for the foreseeable future.  With a large percentage of the population bad at math, the window for creating herd immunity via near universal vaccination closed as soon as the highly contagious Omnicrom variants emerged.  While the Covid vaccines still seem to provide substantial protection against severe illness, they are much less effective at providing protection against moderate infection.  Hence Covid is still circulating widely globally which is providing fertile ground for continued mutation into increasingly virulent forms. 

On the economic front, the decade of cheap money is over.  Joe Biden’s US economy looks a lot like Jimmy Carter’s circa 1979.  Inflation is at a 40 year high, the stock market has tanked, and the Fed has raised interest rates 3 times already this year with a fourth coming in a few weeks.  The US $ is parity to the € for the first time in 20 years and is near an all time high vs. the British £.  The Iranians are busy stirring the pot and the Russian’s have invaded a neighbor again.  Just like the last time, it’s likely not going to end well for them.  Turns out that Russian tanks are just as vulnerable to US made hand held missiles as they were 40 plus years ago. 

The final warning sign that markets were about to implode was seeing Michael Saylor back in the national news.  Saylor is the majority shareholder and CEO of MicroStrategy, a mid-size software company based in Virginia.  Back in March 2000, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) brought charges against Saylor for cooking MicroStrategy’s books for the preceding two years.  This event helped kick off the bursting of Dot Com bubble in 2000 and within a month, MicroStrategy’s share price had tanked by 90%.  Roll forward to 2021 and like a human Cicada, Saylor has reemerged in the national news as one of Bitcoins more vocal public cheerleaders.  MicroStrategy, with Saylor still at the helm, has bet heavily on Bitcoin.  As of June 2022, that bet is $1.1 bil. in the red and in a bit of deja vu MicroStrategy’s share price is down 75% from its 52 week high.  Call it the “Saylor Sign” and when it appears, bad things are about to happen in the markets.

Instead of going through a methodical analysis of different parts of the Supercar market, as there are plenty of better informed people who already do that, I thought it might be more interesting to layout a few things that have caught my attention.

Bring A Trailer (BAT) & the BMW Z8 Craze

BMW Z8s have been a very hot BAT car for a while now and it looks like just about every Z8 in the US has changed hands in the last 2 years. In the BAT driven frenzy, average values have steadily risen by $50k to peaking at over $200k for a well-maintained low mileage Z8. The rarer automatic Alpina V8 versions have been going for a 50% premium over the base manual Z8s with four Alpina’s toping $350k in April and May of this year.  As a benchmark from the same 1999-2004 time frame, a Ferrari 360 F1 Spider is a $70-90k car these days.  The 6 speed manual 360 Spiders do command a premium despite being the “base” model when new. (the “manual” premium on 360’s is just a bit insane, every mid engine Ferrari built before 1997 was a manual).  Net net, you pay a premium to not have to shift a Z8 and you do the same to have to shift a 360.  In total 2,543 Z8s were sold in North America which is roughly on par with the 2,389 360 Spiders Ferrari sold.  Prices ($128k) and performance stats on both the Z8 & 360 were nearly identical when new.  This begs the question on why a BMW Z8 is worth 3x what a Ferrari 360 F1 Spider is today.  I suspect the rapidly changing market we are now in will have an answer for us on that shortly.

The Ferrari F12 & 812

I have been following the Ferrari F12 and 812 market fairly closely for about a year now.  Adding a Prancing Horse badged V12 GT to the garage has been high on my list for quite some time but I am not in a rush and refuse to pay a premium for a car that has traditionally been the depreciation hog of the Ferrari line up. Just 6 months ago, if you did a search for F12s across Ferrari US dealerships, you would be lucky to find 6 cars for sale.  Autotrader normally had 15-20 F12s but that was it.  Today there are 16 F12s on the US Ferrari preowned website and 48 on Autotrader.  While prices on F12s haven’t moved south that much yet, a glut of cars on the market that aren’t moving is a pretty good indicator of where things are headed. 

In the 812 arena, it’s clearly about to become a buyer’s market.  Ferrari US has an impressive 49 listed today with 80 now showing up on Autotrader.  Six months ago, there might have been 10 on the Ferrari site.  Many of the 1-2 year old 812s are still listed at or above sticker price. This is something that I have never seen before on a V12 Ferrari in my more than 20 years of Ferrari buying experience and just reflects the market madness of the last several years. 

I would not be surprised to see an average of a $50k drop in F12 prices in the next 12 months with 812s taking an even bigger hit.

The Hypercar Trinity

Prices on the 2013/2014 Hypercar Trinity, which include the oddly named Ferrari LaFerrari, the McLaren P1, and the Porsche 918 have been fairly stable recently.  LaFerraris now sit squarely in the $2.5-$3 mil. range depending on spec and mileage. Both P1s and 918s are up from an early Covid lows of $900k to $1.5-1.7 mil. now.  Where prices go from here will be very interesting to watch.  I expect Ferrari, McLaren and Porsche will be announcing their next generation of Hypercars either late this year or in early 2023.  In both Ferrari and Porsche’s case, they are likely to be loosely based on their LeMans 2023 Hypercar entries.  What this does to values on the last generation will be interesting to see.  The other factor that is coming more into play is the ever rising maintenance costs on these technology showcases.  When I hear owners with net wealth well into the 9 figure range being shocked by the service bills, it’s definitely eye watering.

The Koenigsegg Command Economy

Koenigsegg has operated in a very different value universe for multiple years now.    Prices on their new cars have risen astronomically in the last decade.  During this period, Koenigesgg, in a very command economy type approach, went to considerable lengths to make sure it’s cars sold at or above estimates (Car Market Q3 2019) in the rare instance when one has shown up at auction.  That all changed in 2021 and for a brief 8 month period, Koenigseggs seem to have joined the free market.  A record 4 Koenigseggs sold at auction in 2021 (vs.6 in total from 2015-2020) and not a single one hit its low estimate.  Since then Koenigseggs have disappeared from the auction circuit and only a small handful are even listed for sale globally, most with “Price on Application”.  With Koenigseggs clearly now labeled as non-appreciating assets by the open market, in today’s new economic reality it will be interesting to see if a number of owners decide to get out soon.

Vintage Ferraris

If you look at the longer-term trends on a few other models, it is generally consistent with where we were trending pre pandemic.  Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona’s seem to have stabilized back in the $400-$500k range. The last Ferrari 275 GTB (Short Nose) sold went for $1.9 million with another 275 GTB (Long Nose) as a no sale at the same price.  275 GTB’s have been on a very gradual slide backwards for the last several years and those sold at auction have either sold just over the low estimate or come up a bit short.  The Ferrari 250 Lusso is on a similar path.  Back in 2015 they were $2 mil. cars and now $1.2-$1.4 mil. is where the market sits.  This is in line with demographic shifts as the older cars are less appealing to the younger generation of enthusiasts who did not grow up with them on their bedroom walls.  These are also all cars that take real skill to drive and punish mistakes with massive repair bills.  In addition, with each passing year, finding both parts and a skilled mechanic who can care for the car are becoming increasing difficult. 

70’s Ferrari Fiberglass

Ever since I owned one well over a decade and a half ago, I have always been intrigued by the Ferrari 308 GTB “Vetroresina”.  These are the 1st generation Ferrari 308 GTBs produced in 1975-77 with fiberglass bodies.  Just over 800 were produced, making them fairly rare.  For the better part of the last decade these “glass” 308s have commanded over a 100% premium vs. steel bodied 308s.  In the Covid era, they have traded hands remarkably consistently in the $150k range up until the last 3 months.  After sales at $155k in both Feb and March, the next sale was at $135k in May, and the last to appear in July was a no sale at a high bid of $115k against a low estimate of $125k.  Whether $115-125k is the new market price, or if the slide continues should be clear in a few more months.

Summary

Right now, we have a sport & supercar market that is beginning to deflate.  Inventories are way up, even if prices haven’t moved much, yet.  The bill from Covid-19 and many of the excess of the last decade has come due.  Money, while still fairly plentiful, is no longer cheap.  Those models that have exploded in value during the Covid era are the ones most likely at risk of a rapid decent.  The Hypercar bubble is history and values on the LaFerrari, P1 & 918 have been stable for quite a while now.  The older vintage cars are either holding or in gradual decline.  Demographic shifts, as the percentage of the population that knows how to drive a manual car continues to decline, will likely accelerate this trend over the coming years.  To end on a positive note though, if you have the cash, the next 6-18 months could be a great time to buy.

The next karenable.com article will be on Aston Martin’s latest Cash Raise & Trading Update.

“Let me be crystal-clear, black-and-white: we do not need money.” – Lawrence Stroll Feb 2022

 

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July 2022

 

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The SSO Awards: 2021

The SSO Awards: 2021

In this final article of 2021, what has been another unprecedented year, I’ve put together my annual SSO Awards list covering the automotive universe in general.  In putting this year’s awards list together, I would like to first acknowledge that I have no real basis to be doing this (that’s better left up to the professional journalists and those that actually work in the automotive sector) and therefore I’ve taken the liberty to take a different approach that probably only amuses me.  Please excuse some of the more esoteric references.

The Coal Under the Christmas Tree Award goes to Aston Martin which still hasn’t delivered a single Valkyrie despite different Aston Martin Executives making the following promises in the last 2 years: In May 2020: “deliveries will start in the 2nd half of 2020”, a year later in May 2021:  “deliveries are on schedule for 2nd half of 2021”, in July 2021:  “deliveries will start in Q4 2021”, in November 2021:  Moers announced Aston Martin had completed the first customer Valkyrie……….but as of Christmas Eve 2021, there is zero evidence of any actual customer deliveries.  For context, when Aston Martin originally announced the Valkyrie, Obama was President, Cameron was the Prime Minister, Corona was cheap watery Mexican beer, the last group to storm the US Capital were the British in 1812 and Meghan Markle was a little known US actress on a minor TV Show.

Julius Ceasar Veni Vidi Vici Award  (Latin for I came, I saw, I conquered) goes to Ferrari naturally.  With the coming Purosangue SUV and recently launched Roma, they have put a fork right into Aston Martin.  Then just to make sure McLaren didn’t feel left out, Ferrari introduced 296 GTB hybrid which is aimed squarely at the McLaren Artura.

Stephen Hawking Award in Quantum Mechanics goes to Max Verstappen who spend a season threading his car through gaps that may or may not have existed and in the end was rewarded with his first world championship.

The Best Money is Other People’s Money Award is a tie between Aston Martin Lagonda & Lawrence Stroll. Aston Martin has been on an absolute tear this year when it comes to collecting customer deposits by launching the limited edition Valkyrie AMR Pro, Valkyrie Spider, Valhalla, and just to make sure they finished the year with a bang, the Final Edition V12 Vantage.  Just in Q3 2021 Aston Martin pulled in £38 mil. of new customer deposits while reporting improved Free Cash Flow of only £5 mil.  This indicates Aston has likely burned through £33 mil. of what was brought in. 

Lawrence Stroll is honored for having the public company, Aston Martin Lagonda PLC, in which he is the Executive Chairman and largest but very much still a minority shareholder, pay a sponsorship fee of £24 million a year to his privately owned race team (formerly Racing Point, now rebranded as Aston Martin Racing).  Lawrence Stroll’s son Lance drives for what is now called the Aston Martin Formula 1 Team.

The Winston Churchill “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it” Plaque is our second tie between McLaren on the Artura and Gordon Murray Automotive (GMA) on the T.50.  McLaren proved they had finally learned from past foibles on rushing cars into production before they were quite ready for prime time with the Artura.  Its production has now been pushed back into 2022 to ensure  they get it completely right before customer deliveries start.

The GMA T.50’s debut at the Goodwood Members’ Meeting was a smashing success and came off flawlessly. They had clearly learned a bit from one of their competitors’ fiascos earlier in the year at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. While the T.50s fan still feels a bit gimmicky, the rest of the T.50 on paper is pure brilliance.  A high revving V12, manual gearbox, central driving position, and carbon fiber tub is as good as it gets.

The David vs. Goliath Award goes to Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus for not only entering two SCG 007s in the top LMP1/LMH category at Le Mans but finishing just off the podium in 4th and 5th on their first attempt.

The Gordon Gekko’s ‘Greed is Good’ Plaque goes to Russell Westbrook Chrysler Dodge Jeep RAM in Van Nuys for tacking on a $50,000 “Market Adjustment” fee plus a few others on a new 2022 RAM truck taking the sticker price from $94k to $148k.

The Dutch Tulipmania Balloon goes to Rivian.  It went public in Nov at $78 a share, soared up to $179 before crashing back down to $97 after Rivian’s first post IPO earnings announcement.  This still leaves Rivian with a market cap of $88 bil. which given Rivian has only delivered 386 vehicles to date is just a bit eye watering.  As a reference Ford’s current market cap is $82 bil.

The Pastor Maldonado Award goes to Nikta Mazepin.  Mazepin started his F1 career by crashing out on the first lap and the season didn’t get much better from there. He finished dead last in all but 2 races, was warned and penalized several times for ignoring blue flags (instructions to move out of the way to allow the race leaders through), but in a spectacular display of a lack of self-awareness rated himself 4 out of 5 on the season.

The Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder Scroll is given to BMW for the new M3 & M4.  The huge new front “kidney” grill gives it a smushed in nose look that is definitely going to take years to get used to……if it happens at all.

The Sir John Major Award for Elbowing Aside your Predecessor goes to George Russell who just to make sure everyone was aware he was ready to take the 2nd seat on the Mercedes F1 Team from Valtteri Bottas, took the former out while attempting an overly ambitious high-speed overtake on the Mercedes on a damp track. Immediately afterwards the crash, Russell went over to Bottas, who was still sitting in his wrecked car, and slapped his race helmet.

The Johannes Gutenberg Award goes to Czinger for the 21C Hybrid. Not sure yet if this is genius or madness but 3D printing a hypercar is definitely breaking new ground.  Czinger did claim to have set a new production car track record at the Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in October of this year by beating the previous record set by a McLaren P1 by more than 6 seconds.  It’s a cheeky claim as the 21C is still a prototype and years away from being a true production car with a license plate on the back.  However, hats off to Czinger for developing a prototype in a relatively short period of time that’s capable of running flat out in public.

The Coco Chanel “Imitation is the highest form of flattery” Pin goes to Ferrari for the Icona SP3.  Even though Ferrari is putting together modern “imitations” from its back catalog, the SP3 is still brilliant.  How can you not like a mid engine V12?  The only thing that would make it better is if it had the same 6 speed manual gearbox as the F50.

 

The Chris Harris Ferrari Treatment Plaque (see: Harris Banned by Ferrari) goes to the Ferrari SF90.  Harris called the SF90 both a toy and stupid while admitting “the thing is undeniably impressive”.  Given Harris current role at Top Gear, I doubt this will lead another “suspension”.  I do applaud Chris for not being afraid to speak his mind and voice opinions that might not be well received by certain car manufacturers.  Unlike his predecessors at Top Gear, Harris actually is an accomplished driver.

 

The US Marshalls Witness Protection Program Cloak goes to De Tomaso.  After making a huge splash at both Goodwood and Pebble Beach with the P72 in 2019, De Tomaso then announced in October that they were moving all of their operations to the US “to restore the romance, beauty, passion and elegance in the luxury American automotive industry”. Since then, other than issuing a press release that they had hired a test driver, De Tomaso has essentially disappeared. 

 

The Jamie Dimon Award for Getting Fired and Moving Up goes to Sergio Perez who after getting dumped by Racing Point in 2020, landed in a Red Bull seat for 2021 and finished 4th in the Championship. Perez has already been resigned by Red Bull for 2022.  The driver who Perez was fired to make way for finished 12th.  (Jamie Dimon, currently the Chairman & CEO of JPMorgan Chase, was fired by Citibank in 1998.  JPMorgan Chase is the largest of the US Big Four Banks and Citibank is the smallest)

 

I hope you found this amusing or at the very least put a smile on your face – tough to do this second unprecedented year.  And so, 2021 finally comes to a close.  It ends much as it began, with yet another Covid-19 spike, ICUs being overwhelmed, events being cancelled, and office openings being pushed back yet again.  The scary part is it all feels almost normal now.  All the best for a better, happier, healthier 2022.

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December 2021

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Supercar & Hypercar Market Update – January 2021

Supercar & Hypercar Market Update – January 2021

Back in October 2020, I summarized the situation among supercar manufacturers Supercar Market Update Q3 2020 as:

 

So, how does this square with record levels of unemployment and economies that are officially in recession?  When you stand back and look at both the actions governments have taken to date and the profile of the average supercar buyer, it actually makes some sense.  Governments have pumped an enormous amount of cheap money into their economies while providing free cash directly to their citizens.  All of this has served to postpone the pain of significant parts of economy shutting down for an extended period.  Property prices haven’t crashed, and in some areas have actually increased as many of those that can afford to flee from cities to the countryside have.  Global stock markets have recovered from an initial dramatic dip.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 12% from where it was at a year ago and the FTSE is down a similar level.  The FTSE performance is probably more driven by Brexit uncertainty than Covid-19.  All in, the net financial impact of all this on the average supercar buyer has been fairly neutral and many have not felt a significant decline in their overall net wealth.  With sports, entertainment, dining out & travel basically shut down or significantly reduced and expensive vacations off the agenda for the foreseeable future, supercars have been one of the few available outlets and its driven sales.  Most of these sales have happened in the $50k-$300k end of the supercar market, and it will be interesting to see how sustainable this is as the summer driving season turns towards winter in the northern hemisphere.  Where in most recessions, the pain is spread across society, the economic impact of Covid-19 has really started at the bottom of the economic ladder and is now working its way up.  With a second Covid-19 wave now hitting both Europe and the US, a quick recovery seems like wishful thinking. 

In summary, right now we have a supercar market that has enjoyed summer.  However, all bets are now off.  The Covid driven factory shutdowns greatly helped a number of manufacturers clear excess inventory, but it also inflected severe financial pain on almost all.  Not all manufacturers will survive, and those that have so far are already talking about much more modest ambitions.  The Covid-19 pandemic is far from over, many of the changes it has caused are now permanent and the new normal, whenever it finally emerges, will certainly be different from the way the world looked in 2019.

Which brings us too today. We are still a long way from normal but there is a general feeling that the new normal now lurks somewhere over the horizon.  There are three Covid-19 vaccines currently approved and being administered in multiple countries with the potential that a few more candidates will receive approval shortly.  Supermarket shelves are well stocked in general these days and toilet paper is no longer the world’s most valuable commodity.  That’s the good news and with it comes hope for a much brighter tomorrow.  Today’s reality is a completely different story though.  New daily cases of Covid-19 hit a new all-time high of over 800k worldwide in January now totaling over 100 million with over 2 million deaths.  In the US more people have died of Covid-19 in less than a year than died in all of World War II.  Multiple countries are in lockdowns and global travel bans are being reimposed where they had been lifted.  Governments in the EU and North America are borrowing heavily to fund both Relief & Stimulus Packages with public debt levels now reaching new all-time highs.  The early rollout of vaccinations has not gone smoothly in any country with the possible exception of Israel.  Most countries are well behind their initial targets and it is expected that supply problems with both the Pfizer and Astra Zeneca vaccines will take at least another month or two to sort out. When looking at the projected vaccine production forecasts over the next couple of quarters, if all goes well, most of the developed world has a chance of achieving herd immunity late this year but it will then take another 12-18 months for the developing world to reach the same point. 

In terms of the manufacturers, supply chains are still very much pressured and just because the production line is operating doesn’t mean all the parts to build a car are available.  Multiple car factories have recently had to idle or cut production back due to a shortage of micro processers.  I have also heard of multiple delays on supercar orders that extend for months.  This speaks directly to the supply chain challenges, and with COVID cases at all-time highs in many countries, its unlikely to get better soon.  On the bright side, with factories closed for several months last year, it did help both McLaren and Aston Martin work down their inventory gluts, with McLaren’s basically being depleted by the 2nd half of 2020. 

In talking to a few supercar dealers, brokers, and friends they all indicated that sales the last few months have been good.  Both new and used supercars have been moving well and inventory levels are on the low side.  Great cars and those that currently fall into the “must have new new thing” are moving briskly if priced properly.  Where I have gotten some interesting feedback is in the hypercar market where cars are continuing to change hands but the spread between the asking price and the selling price can be several hundred thousand dollars.  There are a few sports cars and supercars that seem to have appreciated a bit in the last six months. I would put the McLaren 675LT, Ferrari F355, and the Porsche 911 (993) all in that group.  I have also been following the Alfa Romeo 4C for a few months as its one I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for going back to when I first saw the original concept at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show.  I find it hard not to be intrigued by a carbon fiber tub sports car for $50k.  4Cs trade in a $45k-80k band depending on age and this band basically hasn’t moved in 3 years.

The challenge these days is that data is in very short supply.  Where there has been some data, it has been generated by the big auction houses.  However, the overall quality and number of lots and on offer at a few of the most recent auctions, has significantly declined.  As an example, it’s now been over a year since a McLaren P1, Porsche 918, or Ferrari LaFerrari has been sold at an auction.  In past years, you could expect at least one of these to find a new owner at any of the premier auctions.  Clearly owners of these cars don’t want to take the risk right now that the exposure to the public market will have on values. The one car that has continued to regularly cross the auction block is the latest edition of the Ford GT.  There have been nine that have gone under the hammer in the last 6 months.  Of these nine, five found new owners but only one of the five was bid up to its low estimate.  The other four that sold went for under the low estimate.  Ironically the one that reached the low estimate was a very high mileage car (1,665 miles) by Ford GT standards.  Most of the others had odometers that had yet to, or barely reached, triple digits including one GT that has traveled only 8.2 miles in its lifetime. The other supercar that has mostly disappeared from the public markets is the Porsche Carrera GT.  The last one to show up at auction was a no sale last March at $570k.  There is only one Carrera GT listed currently for sale on Autotrader in the US, 3 in the UK, and around a half dozen in the balance of Europe.  

The January Arizona auctions normally kick off the collector’s car season.   RM Sothebys, Bonhams, and Goodings all went ahead with rather thin catalogs while Barrett-Jackson delayed their sale until March.  While it’s hard to draw any real conclusions from the Arizona auctions, what was surprising was to see 2 Koenigsegg Regera’s going across the block.  Normally you might see 1 or 2 Koenigsegg’s in a full year and never more than one at any venue.  What will be very concerning for Koenigsegg thought is that neither reached the low estimate.  Both of the Regera’s have lived so far as garage art with 200 miles on one’s odometer and 369 on the others.  Since neither is clearly an appreciating asset, it will be interesting to see if they now get driven.  Koenigsegg’s have truly been the poster child for the low mileage crowd (The Tyranny of Low Mileage).  Two other sales that caught my eye were a 2020 McLaren Speedtail at $2,975k, $500k under the low estimate and a very rare 1993 Cizeta V16T at $600k.  While the Speedtail owner likely just got out whole after the auction house fees, the Cizeta went for $50k under its originally 1991 list price.  The Cizeta was originally purchased on behalf of Prince Jefri of Brunei and therefore can be counted as yet another one of Prince Jefri’s poor investments. 

If you look at the longer-term trends, it is generally consistent with where we were trending pre pandemic.  Ferrari F355’s sits in the $50k-80k range depending on spec and Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona’s seem to have stabilized in the $400k’s.  Ferrari 430 Scuderia and Scuderia Spider 16Ms values have dropped back to where they were in 2014 and although Scuderia’s seem to be finding buyers, Scuderia Spider 16Ms seem to hang around on the market for months on end.  The last Ferrari 275 GTB (Long Nose) sold went for $1.76 million, $240k under the low estimate.  275 GTB’s have been slowing sliding backwards for the last several years I would not be at all surprised to see a number of sales under $1.5 million in the near future.  This is in line with demographic shifts as the older cars are less appealing to the younger generation of enthusiasts who did not grow up with them on their bedroom walls.

In summary, right now we have a supercar market that is remarkably stable. The bills from Covid-19 have yet to come due and where there has been severe financial pain, it hasn’t affected the supercar market, yet.  Looking at both recent auctions and going back a couple of years now, the hypercar bubble is  history.  While new hypercars may still hold value, huge immediate gains on flipping them are a thing of the past.  Where the pandemic has had a major negative impact so far is on a number of manufacturers.  Aston Martin and McLaren both have raised enough funding to survive for the next year or two but not all of the others will make it. Those that do survive will all likely have much more modest ambitions going forward.

 

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January 2021

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The SSO Awards: 2020

The SSO Awards: 2020

As the final article of what has been an unprecedented year hopefully never to be repeated, at the goading of a good friend, I’ve put together a short 2020 awards list covering the automotive universe in general.  In putting the awards list together, I would like to first acknowledge that I have no real basis to be doing so (that’s better left up to the professional journalist who actually know what they are doing) and therefore I’ve taken a different approach that may just amuse only me.  Please excuse some of the more esoteric references.

Sean Spicer Inaugural Crowd Size Award goes to Lawrence Stroll, Executive Chairman of Aston Martin for his claim that “demand right now is phenomenal” while offering zero facts to back it up. (Spicer was Trump’s first Press Secretary)

Margaret Thatcher Unceremoniously Dumped Trophy goes to Sebastian Vettel at Ferrari.  Ferrari had decided to move on from the four-time world champion well before he was informed that they would not be offering him a new contract after this season.  Just to add insult to injury, Ferrari tried to spin it that the decision to part ways was mutual. (Thatcher was dumped as Prime Minister by the Conservative Party after a 10 year

The Marshal Blücher Battle of Waterloo Award goes to the Aston Martin DBX, unlike Marshal Blücher, who’s timely arrival on the field of battle turned the tide in favor of the Duke of Wellington and the Allied Armies, it’s still unclear if the DBX will save Aston Martin but at least its finally shown up…….….unlike the Valkyrie. 

The Coco Chanel “Imitation is the highest form of flattery” Pin goes to Ferrari for the Roma.  The Roma has to be the best looking “Aston Martin” launched in the past decade. 

The Dutch Tulipmania Balloon goes to Tesla.  Tesla’s market cap of $669 Billion is now more than GM, Ford, FCA, Toyoda, Nissan, BMW, and Daimler AG (Mercedes Benz) combined. Tesla has roughly a 0.45% share of the global new car market.

The David vs. Goliath Award (also known as the Eli Manning vs. Tom Brady Superbowl Trophy) goes to Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus for not only showing up at this year’s 24 Hours Nürburgring race with the SCG 004C which had just been built, but also announcing they would be racing at Le Mans in 2021 in the new top class LMH category with the SCG 007.

The Chris Harris Ferrari Treatment Plaque (see: Harris Banned by Ferrari) goes to the McLaren 765LT.  On a side note, it seems like Chris has been less complimentary of McLaren’s new cars since he moved at the beginning of 2019 from racing a McLaren 650 GT3 to an Aston Martin Vantage GT3.

 

 

The Chrysler Building Award goes to McLaren for putting the McLaren Technology Center up for sale.  (Chrysler sold the iconic Chrysler building the year after it was completed).

 

The Golden Turtle goes to GM for the new mid-engine Chevrolet Corvette.  It took GM only 47 years to make the same transition from front to mid-engine supercars that Ferrari undertook when the 365 GT4/BB replaced the 365 GTB/4 Daytona in 1973.  The runner up for the Golden Turtle is Aston Martin with the V12 Speedster. Making sure that it is not only coming “last” but also making sure its “least”, coming after both the Ferrari Monza SP1 & SP2 and the McLaren Elva.

 

The Golden Rabbit goes to McLaren which churned out an unprecedented number of new hyper and limited-edition cars in 2020 including the Elva, Speedtail, Sabre, and 765LT. 

 

The Jamie Dimon Award for Getting Fired and Moving Up goes to Sergio Perez who after getting dumped by Racing Point, now finds himself in a Red Bull seat for 2021. (Jamie Dimon, currently the Chairman & CEO of JPMorgan Chase, was fired by Citibank in 1998.  JPMorgan Chase is the largest of the US Big Four Banks and Citibank is the smallest)

 

The Dwayne Haskins Metal for Underwhelming Performance (formerly the Ryan Leaf & Johnny Manziel Award) goes to the BMW i8 and Alfa Romeo 4C. Like Haskins, both have been cut by their manufacturers in 2020 after not living up to their launch hype. (Haskins, Manziel, & Leaf are all American Football Quarterbacks)

On a slightly more serious note, there are a few supercars that have been launched this year that definitely caught my attention for better or worse:

 

  • Czinger 21C Hybrid: not sure yet if this is genius or madness but 3D printing a hypercar is definitely breaking new ground.

 

  • McLaren 765LT: A number of the press reports complained that the 765LT is edgy and will bite you at the limits. Personally, I like a bit of character in a car.  A friend test drove one recently in the wet on normal roads and was highly impressed.  The 765LT is one of the top 3 cars I am looking forward to driving as soon as I can in 2021.

 

  • Koenigsegg Gemera: Strikes me as the answer to a question no one ever asked. Is there really a need for a four seat Koenigsegg?  Is a Koenigsegg SUV next in the pipeline?

 

  • Ferrari SF90 Stradale: The SF90 on paper is a very impressive piece of technology and well ahead of its time. So was the Apple Newton. 

 

  • Ferrari Roma: Clearly Ferrari smells blood in the water when it comes to a key competitor. Despite a decade of playing catch up, the latest model Ferraris are still one step behind McLaren when it comes to performance.  Not the case with Aston Martin though and with the Roma, Ferrari has made case for buying any Aston Martin just that much harder.

 

  • GMA T.50: While the fan feels a bit gimmicky, the rest of the T.50 on paper is pure supercar heaven. A high revving V12, manual gearbox, central driving position, and carbon fiber tub as what petrolhead dreams are made of.

And so, 2020 finally comes to a close.  To use a past quote from Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, this has been a Annus horribilis.  We wish everyone a better, happier, and healthy 2021. 

 

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December 2020

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