Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

Think I must have damaged the belt fucking around with alternator a few weeks ago. At least it didn't fail completely...

Edd China got buff:

https://youtu.be/PBgaMrXg0zE

Respect to Edd for calling it a day if Velocity wanted to sideline his technical part #teamchina

Idle speculation here, leading to a question:

Looking at Classic & Sports Finance they have an option to finance a purchase from a dealer from 12-60 months with a final balloon payment.

Am I way off base here, or would the idea here be to enjoy a relatively low monthly repayment, then sell the car just ahead of the end of the agreement to pay the balloon, plus (if the car hasn't depreciated) get a chunk of cash back for the deposit on your next vehicle?

I guess you couldn't sellthe car whilst it was encumbered by the outstanding finance, so you would need to have the cash on hand to pay off the outstanding balloon payment before you sold the car.

That's only if the loan is secured on the car though, surely?

What else are they going to secure it on?

But yes, that's a sound move. Rich people regularly tell me that because interest rates are so low that's the best way to buy even if you have the cash.

The whole concept is part of the ticking car finance time bomb, just make sure you bail at the right time.

The house I guess, which would enable selling of the theoretical car to pay the balloon.

It's a very good question as to what is actually going to happen though, I wonder if buying LHD would be a better decision than RHD?

I doubt it. Best time to buy LHD is when LHD currencies are low, which they ain't.

And won't be for the foreseeable it appears.

I suppose the question is would a 996.1 GT3 lose a great deal of money over three years, given both the nature of the car, the market, and also Brexit.

Also, these are very nice for car parts - the difference between them an the Koni's on the Volvo is ridiculous:

they are really very, very nice.

Got me sprung!*

*although when I used to play at track more folk said ohlins stuff was a bit like rapha, very nice, but a little needless in places too, not that over built is bad, but for some of the vehicles they get bolted to!

So I test drove a Megane and Clio RS hoping for cheap thrills. Both were meh.

Turns out good things are always expensive. Or rather expensive things tend to be better. Or cheap cars are cheap for a reason. Or something.

But we do need another car for bombing about town, so I bought a used Zoe so I can play at being future boy.

If you do the sums of remortgaging to buy the car outright, overpaying the mortgage to the tune of what you would have paid monthly on car finance, and assuming a sale price at the end of the period (which would be the same in either scenario) wouldn't that end up more efficient? And if you decide you like the car you can keep it.

Zoe

With a lease battery?

^ would love to know if it makes financial sense when you have to lease the battery

@Dramatic_Hammer

Yeah, with a £50 or £60 a month battery lease.

By the time I weigh up fuel, insurance, likely depreciation, installing a charge point and all that I'd say it's going to cost me £50-75 a month more to run a 3 year old Zoe than to lease and run a brand new VW Up!!!!!!!!, which is our other little car, and the Zoe will only do about 80 miles in one go.

You still have to want to run an electric car to run an electric car, it's not a sensible financial or practical choice.

But when I drive it I'm going to feel like Futureboy.

I suppose the question is would a 996.1 GT3 lose a great deal of money over three years, given both the nature of the car, the market, and also Brexit.

From what I understand investment cars have increased in value because of low rates and because they are non-correlated investments. Therefore, you'd only be looking at #1 of your 3.

If you're comfortable enough to start leveraging your house, personally I'd be tempted to look at how to generate passive income to the level that would cover the expected car payments. That way it would in effect be free.

I'd rather leave the house out of things tbh.

Non-correlated with what though? I rather fancy you could draw a fairly positive correlation between low rates, high equity and high classic car prices.

So, Jaguar E-TYPE Zero... Very much want.

Seriously, start collecting classic bodyshells to fit with e-drive. Wouldn't be the worst business idea.

Amazing.

I genuinely think that classics converted to electric drive are the future, just a shame that the chap currently in the vanguard of that is a bit challenged on the customer service side or he'd be making a much larger fortune than he is currently trousering.