Part of the appeal of cheap(ish) cars to me is that when they get older they’re so infrequently seen. It’s not that exotics are daily drivers around me, but once a generation of car’s usefulness has been eclipsed they all but disappear from the roadways, replaced by the newest model. Do you really want a clean Audi 5000CS quattro Avant, for example, or an impeccable BMW 630CS? They can be found, but few and far between best describes the frequency with which they come to market. But as the price goes up, so rises the number of examples that are available at any given time. They may still be classified as “rare”, but they’re rare not because they’re hard to find – just hard to afford. There is nothing particularly rare, for example, about most of the Porsche 911 model range from any generation – they were all effectively mass produced sports cars. But because they were highly priced and treasured, the number of good examples that are on the market today exceeds the actually rare 924 Turbo and late 944 Turbo, for example. Looking in another direction, I marveled that on eBay this week there was not one, not two, not even three – but no less than six Z8s tuned by Alpina. That represents just over one out of every 100 that was produced, all for sale at the same time, all in perfect shape, all with low miles and high prices. In fact, this pool gives us a chance to check out exactly how much mileage changes perceived value – or at least, asking price:
