Handmade classics beat gold as the value of collectable cars takes off

By Jeff Plungis Stephen Serio, a classic car dealer in Massachusetts, expects the 1966 Ferrari 275GTB on his lot to sell for about $810 000 (R6 million). Five years ago the same car sold for $500 000.

"When you have something they're not making any more, the value goes up," said comedian Jay Leno, the host of The Jay Leno Show, who has a collection of 105 cars, including eight Duesenbergs and 90 motorcycles. "If you're knowledgeable, you'll probably end up making money."

Prices on collectable cars have gained about 60 percent since September 2006, according to an index created by David Kinney, the publisher of Hagerty's Cars That Matter, a pricing guide and website.

His Blue Chip index of 25 vehicles tracks actual sales and includes cars, such as the 1960 to 1963 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder, which has gained 112 percent since September 2006, and has a current book value of $4.2m.

Collectable cars have beaten art, wine, stocks and gold - up 30 percent since September 2006.

The Art Market Confidence index at Artprice.com has fallen 37 percent from a year ago and is down 69 percent since September 2006.

The WinePrices Fine Wine 100 index dropped 38 percent between April last year and January, and the Standard & Poor's 500 index has declined 24 percent over the past three years.

"It's an addiction, a passion," said Guy Anderson, a collector based in Georgia. "We all make sacrifices to have these cars. You can't have just one. Each car does something different." He rents buildings to house his 15-car collection.

A 1953 Aston Martin DB 2/4 Coupe sold at the Gooding & Company auction in California last month for $1.65m, more than triple some pre-auction appraisals of about $500 000, said Serio, the Massachusetts dealer. The last time the one-of-a-kind vehicle was available, in 2007, it sold for $887 000.

"That car just blew the roof off the market," said Serio.

"Everybody in the car world was looking at each other and saying, 'Are you kidding me?'"

Television helped fuel today's market boom, said Ford Heacock III, the president of Heacock Classic, a collector-car insurance company. The Speed Channel, a unit of News Corporation, has been expanding coverage of car auctions since 2002.

Bidding under cameras and lights got people excited, Heacock said.

Transactions among private parties were generally priced well below auctions, he said, a flaw most pricing guides did not account for. "There's a lot of glitz and glitter. It's hard not to get mesmerised. The whole industry is driven by passion," said Heacock.

Some collectable cars, such as the '57 Chevy, had declined, said Richard Lentinello, the editor-in-chief of Hemmings Motor News, a collector-car publisher in Vermont.

The most desired cars, such as Italian-made Ferraris and Bugattis, had held up very well, Lentinello said. A 1938 Bugatti Type 57C sold at Gooding & Company's August auction for $1.38m. Collectors were attracted to features such as hand-made bodies, small production runs, certain types of engines and a racing pedigree.

"If you're reasonably know-ledgeable and you know what you like, there's a good chance other people will like it too," Leno said. - Bloomberg

The best cars featured recently in Exec Digital

We revisit three of the best vehicles in the past few issues By Ben Lobel

July: 2009 Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet

This one has been worth waiting for. Described as the most refined and technically advanced convertible Porsche has ever built, the 2009 Turbo Cabriolet is the last word in speed, precision and exhilaration. It combines the performance of the Turbo S Coupe with the versatility of an electric folding roof. The electro-hydraulic operation of the roof means the driver can open or close the top automatically in just 20 seconds. “But that could be 20 seconds of relentless storm!” I hear you scream. Well, you may get a little moisture on your summer power suit, but any adverse weather conditions won’t affect the handling of this ride. It boasts exceptional anti-lock brakes, and even if you did go spinning off into the tempest, the Turbo’s crumple-zone body structure will probably ensure that the injuries you pick up won’t be severe enough not to allow you to jump back behind the wheel to repeat the frivolous experience. The point is, it’s a sports car. Observe: 3.6 litre DOHC 24-valve turbocharged 6-cylinder engine capable of producing 415 bhp. 0-60 in approximately four seconds. As the website gushes, it’s power, it’s torque, it’s acceleration. Aesthetically, aerodynamically, resistance is futile.

Ferrari 599XX

Ferrari revealed something rather special at this year's Geneva motor show - the 599XX. The car is aimed at speed-addicts and uses the latest F1 technology to make this an extreme track car. Modifications to the standard 599, which is the prettiest Ferrari I think I’ve ever had the pleasure driving in, include a boost to maximum revs of 9,000 rpms, which will squeeze all the power possible from the vast V12 700-bhp engine. Due to go on sale at the end of this year, Ferrari will give each lucky buyer the opportunity of participating in a series of dedicated track days around the world. No price as yet, but expect something in excess of £250,000.

Aston Martin Rapide

For the CEO with an Aston back at home that only sees daylight at the weekend, here’s something that will make family life far more exciting. The Aston Martin Rapide was an ambitious project indeed. Aston have looked drop dead gorgeous with two doors for as long as I can remember. But four doors? Can it really work? Well, yes, it’s worked a treat. Described by some as ‘James Bond’s family car’, it looks like a Vantage with two extra ways in. But if your children don’t wipe their feet, you’ll have some serious prioritising to do.

Based on the DB9 and DBS chassis, the newcomer promises a unique blend of performance, space and style. Due to arrive on the roads in 2010, the first versions will be powered by a 6.0-litre V12, developing around 450bhp. However, further down the line, Aston is also hinting at a new hybrid models that will keep the green celebs and their very particular wives and offspring in California happy.

Not so reassuring for true Aston fans is that the Rapide is expected to be the first Aston Martin built outside the UK. The car is set to be assembled at Magna Steyr, in Austria.

Rio Ferdinand on his gangland film and his cars

“I would say, ‘However much money I make or if I make it in football, I am always going to live here.’ But you do evolve and move away.”

Back in those days, Ferdinand remembers being driven around in his dad’s bright yellow VW Beetle, before he was scouted and signed by West Ham, aged 17. That’s when he bought his first car. “It was a [Ford] Fiesta 1.3 Freestyle,” he says. “It was like the beast of all cars. I loved it. I had just received a £4,000 signing-on fee from West Ham United, so I went into the showroom and said, ‘I have this amount of money to spend, what can I get?’ The dealer pointed out the car, which was not brand new, and I said, ‘I will have that’.”

The problem was, Ferdinand says he had never even heard about insurance. The dealer suggested he call his mum. “The insurance was two grand. As a young footballer, I was loaded with extra premiums. Fortunately, my mum was able to help me out and I was able to pay it back, monthly. But I had the car.”

Ferdinand wasn’t left impecunious for too long. After five years with West Ham, he was signed by Leeds United for the then record-breaking fee of £18m in 2000. The following year he became club captain before being sold to Manchester United for £30m in 2002.

With the moves came the cars. He has driven the full gamut of footballers’ bling-mobiles: from a Bentley Continental GT to a Cadillac Escalade via a souped-up Overfinch Range Rover. “I also went through the phase of having American jeeps and the Ferrari 360 Spider,” he recalls. “You just had to go fast in that Spider. It was like a go-kart.”

It also attracted the attention of the police. He has been banned four times from driving, on one occasion averaging a speed of 105mph and being fined £1,500. His off-the-pitch antics almost signalled the end of his career before it had really begun, and he admits the money and fame went to his head: “From 17 to 20, I was out all the time,” he says. “I wanted to enjoy the opportunities. When someone would say, ‘Come along to the opening of this or that club for a free night’, I would go. It would be irresistible.

“Fortunately, I had a man, called Dave Goodwin, who was my old district manager when I was 12, who said, ‘What are you doing?’ My mum and dad also said, ‘Stop going out or you’ll be on the scrapheap’.”

He says his choice of car reflects a new-found maturity. “I like comfort driving and something to look nice. The Aston Martin allows you to cruise. You are sitting in comfort and I like the process of driving a good car.”

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BMW 135i M Sport convertible

Here’s what he says: “We realised a long time ago that what you make people feel is just as important as what you make”.

Bang on. You can buy a cheap car that takes you to work economically and you may be pleased with the savings you’ve made. But saving money is never joyful. It is mean-spirited and demonstrates that you have a heart of coal. If you wish to lead a joyous life, you should always spend 10% more than you earn.

Joy in a car can come from many quarters. It can come from the “feel” of a button on the dashboard. It can come, such as it does in a Porsche Boxster, from that spine-tingling noise the exhaust makes at precisely 5200rpm. It can come from the way a car turns into a corner or, as you will find in a Nissan 370Z, from the way the engine blips on down changes. Joy can come from a nicely flared wheelarch, from good graphics on a sat nav screen, from the surge you feel when you accelerate. Sometimes, as is the case with the Aston Martin DBS, it can come from so many places, all at once, you are left feeling a little bit light-headed. Even the stitching on the seats made my heart feel all gooey and warm.

I’ve never been able to put my finger on quite why I don’t like cars made by Proton and so on. But now I do. They are not joyous. They are built purely to shore up an emerging nation’s balance of trade, and you will never find any joy in anything where every single part has come from the lowest bidder.

Joy, contrary to what BMW would have us believe, does not make us smile. Even in the aforementioned DBS, I do not gurn like a mad person as I drive along. But joy does make us happy and content and satisfied. In a car, joy is more important than an airbag.

Strangely, however, the one car company that rarely gives me any joy is BMW. It’s why I would never buy one of its cars.

That’s not to say its cars are no good. The new Z4 is marvellous and the M3 is one of the most perfectly balanced machines ever created by man. It makes an F-16 fighter jet look ungainly and lumpen.

However, you always get the sense with a BMW that science has ruled the roost throughout the entire design process; that anything with a bit of flair or panache has been ditched to make way for another equation. And as for the line, “We realised a long time ago that what you make people feel is just as important as what you make”?

Vintage cars roar back up Risborough's Kop Hill

HUNDREDS of petrolheads gathered at the base of Princes Risborough's Kop Hill to welcome the return of one of the country's oldest motoring events.

A student lost control of his Bugatti and ploughed into the crowds at the 15th Kop Hill Climb in 1925, injuring spectators and leading to the closing of the event and a nation-wide ban on street racing.

But the Kop Hill Climb roared back up the hill today with 350 drivers jumping behind the wheels of vintage cars and motorcycles dating back to 1900.

Former racing driver and patron of motor charity Skidz, Paddy Hopkirk, opened the commemorative run at 10am as he raced up the hill in a Mini.

He said: “It was terrific, really good fun and fortunately there weren't too many corners to take on, especially at my age.

“I've done loads of hill climbs during my career, especially in Ireland, but I was never fortunate enough to take on the Kop Hill and it's wonderful it has been resurrected.

“You can see by the sheer amount of people here today and I'm sure hundreds will come again tomorrow, there is a massive interest in motoring and in support of the local area.”

Among the famous vehicles taking part in the climb was the original 1921 Aston Martin, which was driven by Aston Martin's founder, Lionel Martin at the 1922 climb.

Racing teams Beachdean and Team Modena were also present at the event.

Organiser Tony Davies called the re-birth of one of country's most famous hill climbs “a dream come true” and announced the event would be back next year for the 100th anniversary of the first Kop Hill Climb.

He said: “To see all these cars and people here is amazing because this is a segment of this area's history.

“In the 1920s all the top racing drivers came here and it was a great shame that no-one realised how important and brilliant this event was for Princes Risborough and the Chilterns.

“This was the most famous race but the Chilterns had five of the country's top hill climb races and I'm delighted that we have been given the go ahead to do it again next year.”

Princes Risborough resident Ken Carlisle said: “This is fantastic for the area.

“I love cars and motorbikes but you can tell by all the people here and the great weather that it is also about supporting the town. It's a traditional, great day out.”

The Kop Hill Climb continues tomorrow from 10am at the Kop Hill, Princes Risborough. Entry is £5 at the gates.

Review: Need for Speed Shift

"Rebooting" franchises seems to be all the rage right now. First it was Batman Begins, then J. J. Abrams did it with Star Trek - and now EA has done it with Need for Speed.

The series has something of a checkered past, with successive releases erratically bouncing up to soaring highs (like the original The Need For Speed, Hot Pursuit and Porsche Unleashed) then swooping down to sputtering lows (like Need for Speed II, Hot Pursuit 2, Carbon, ProStreet and Undercover).

Back in the late 1980's there was a very popular racing game by the name of Test Drive, developed by a Canadian studio called Distinctive Software Inc (DSI). DSI was acquired by EA and became EA Canada in 1991.

A few years later they released The Need For Speed, which was really an evolution of Test Drive, putting you behind the wheel of an expensive performance car and letting you loose on a scenic open road for a point-to-point race while avoiding being stopped by police. It attempted to realistically simulate the look, feel, sound and handling of the nine vehicles on offer, right down to each car's dashboard and even the sound of its gear shifter.

Subsequent games in the Need for Speed series drifted significantly from this premise however, with the emphasis moving away from realism and more toward arcade action racing - to varying degrees of critical and popular success. Lately that success seems to have been lacking, with the last few games all receiving relatively poor reviews.

With Need for Speed SHIFT, EA is putting that checkered past behind it and waving the chequered flag to signal a fresh start.
 
It has the same name, but this NFS bears only passing resemblance to its forebears. SHIFT was developed by the lads at UK-based independent Slightly Mad Studios, who have some serious racing sim credentials - under their former guise of Blimey!

Games they developed (in collaboration with SimBin Studios) GTR2 and GT Legends, two respected racing simulators. So in SHIFT we are finally seeing the series move away from arcade racing and back towards the realism it originally strived for.

But while realism may be back in, this is not a "returning to the roots" story at all; NFS is headed in an entirely new - and promising - direction with SHIFT. What you get here is a curious hybrid between a straight-up motorsport racing game bred together with some strands of NFS's arcade racing DNA, the two combining in a delicate balancing act.

The first time you start up SHIFT, you are asked to drive a test lap so the game can assess your driving ability. Based on how you do, it then picks a "handling model", AI difficulty level, ABS, Traction Control and Stability Control settings to suit you (you can adjust them if you want to).

The handling model is either Casual, Normal, Experienced or Professional; this directly determines how realistically the cars behave when you're driving. At lower levels the controls are more forgiving and you get steering and braking assistance - at Casual level you barely need to brake at all - while at Pro level it's set up for realism (a wheel is recommended for Pro level).
 
How realistic? Well, it's no GTR2. This is not a pure simulator. For the most part the driving model compares favourably with Forza or Gran Turismo, but SHIFT is let down somewhat by a tendency toward oversteer.

At times the cars seem to have only a tenuous grip on the tarmac, and it requires a light touch on the controls to avoid power sliding around every corner (at least when playing with a PS3 controller - it might be a different story using a wheel, but we didn't have one available to test). Overall though, the driving model is good and it's a huge step forward from previous NFS games.

In keeping with SHIFT's motorsport slant, the tracks you'll be racing on are mostly real-world motor racing circuits, including Silverstone, Nordschleife (Nürburgring), Brands Hatch, Spa Francorchamps, Laguna Seca, Road America, and quite a few others - most with one or several variations. Many of these tracks will be familiar to players from other racing games, and they are faithfully rendered here.

Also faithfully rendered in SHIFT are each of the 72 fully licensed cars. These are organised into four tiers and you start the game by purchasing a Tier 1 car from a selection of potentially affordable models including a BMW 135i, Ford Escort RS Cosworth, Honda S2000, Mazda MX-5, Nissan Skyline 2000GT-R (C10), Toyota AE86 or VW Golf GTi.

As you play the game you unlock further tiers, moving on to higher performance vehicles in Tier 2 like an Audi RS4, BMW M3, Chevrolet Camaro SS, Mazda RX-7, Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX (or X), Nissan Silvia Spec-R (S15), Nissan Skyline GT-R (R34), Porsche 911 GT3 RS and Subaru Impreza WRX STi.

In Tier 3 you get supercars including an Aston Martin DB9, Chevrolet Corvette Z06, Dodge Viper SRT10, Ford GT and Nissan GT-R Spec-V (R35), then Tier 4 takes you into hypercar dreamland territory with the Aston Martin DB9R, Bugatti Veyron 16.4, Koenigsegnigggseginiggggsegg CCX, Lamborghini Reventon, Maserati MC12 GT1, McLaren F1, Pagani Zonda R and Porsche Carrera GT.
 
Although SHIFT's car selection may seem small compared to, say, Gran Turismo's Sultan-sized garage, there is plenty of variety here (Ferrari's marque being the most glaring omission). And it's probably more vehicles than you'll ever bother to drive, because this is most certainly not a Gran Turismo-type car porn game; SHIFT does little to encourage any fascination with the cars it has on offer or make you want to build a car collection.

You'll be much better off buying the best car in each tier and spending any spare cash on upgrades than chucking it away on extra cars. Just pick your weapon and get out on the track.

Nevertheless the cars in SHIFT are modelled in gorgeous detail, with particular emphasis on each car's cockpit - which is the default view when racing. You'll really be missing out if you switch to another camera view (of which there are the usual options), because the accurately modeled interiors add tremendously to the experience of driving each car.

The cockpits have fully functional speedo, tacho and boost gauge (where applicable) - and having driven a couple of the game's cars in the real world, I can assure you they look just like the real thing. You also see your driver's hands turning the wheel and reaching for the gear stick when you shift.
 
SHIFT does some unique things to further add to the driving experience, helping to make you feel like you're actually in the car.

To simulate the movement of your head, the camera and the HUD get jounced around when you go over a bump, or take a corner - or even just rev the car from idle, rocking it from side to side. Reach 150km/h and the game simulates "concentration" by blurring out the cockpit, focusing all your attention on the road.

If you crash, you see your driver's helmeted head fly forwards toward the windscreen, then get arrested back by his seatbelt, while your entire vision blurs and becomes black and white. In particularly brutal accidents you'll even hear your driver cry out in pain. (Sorry mate - where did that tyre wall come from?)

Although SHIFT has a comprehensive visual damage model, deforming your car into all kinds of shapes - even smashing the windscreen - when you crash, this doesn't seem to have much effect on your car's performance. The damage model can be selected between "visual only" and "full", but with it set to "full", smashing into a wall at 200km/h just seemed to put the wheel alignment out, making my car list to the left slightly.

The performance upgrades available for each car are relatively basic, with less options and none of the tuner brand sponsorships seen in past games. Instead, you simply have a more sober choice of generic upgrades in three stages, e.g. Stage 1 Brakes Upgrade, Stage 1 Tyre Package, Stage 2 Engine Upgrade, and so forth.

The later stages only become available as you progress through the career mode. Once you have installed all the upgrades available, some vehicles can for an additional cost be "Works Converted" which gives them full race preparation and squeezes out every ounce of performance.

Some basic visual upgrades are also available, allowing you to customise your car's paint job, install different alloy rims (from a range of real wheel brands like BBS and Work) and apply vinyl decals. Pimp My Ride and ricer-style rubbish like neons, ridiculous body kits and carbon fibre body panels are all thankfully missing.

SHIFT's Career mode is also relatively basic. You start in Tier 1 with access to a limited selection of events. With each race you have a chance to earn stars; in order to unlock more events and move on to the next tier, you need to earn a specified number of stars.

Most races have six stars on offer, three for placings on the podium, two for achieving particular numbers of Driver Profile points (we'll come to that in a moment) and one for a race-specific special objective (such as performing a clean lap, owning 75 percent of the racing line or holding a drift for 4 seconds). What this means is you can potentially earn stars from a race (and thereby advance your career) even though you finished in last place. Curious.
 
Even curiouser is the Driver Profile system, a gimmick upon which the game places far too much emphasis. This is where NFS SHIFT's delicate combination of serious racing pretensions and arcade accessibility ambition starts to smell a bit off.

While you're racing around the track you pick up Driver Profile points in one of two categories: Precision and Aggression.

Precision points are earned for things like sticking to the racing line, making a clean overtake, mastering a corner, doing a perfect launch or achieving a best lap or sector time. Aggression points are earned for things like sliding around corners, doing a dirty overtaking maneuvre, drafting, blocking an opponent or "trading paint".

Fill up the points meter at the top of the screen and you start earning double points for a short time. Your points are added up at the end of each race and your totals determine whether you are a "Precise" or "Aggressive" driver on your Driver Profile.

The trouble is, Aggression points reward drivers for doing things they shouldn't really be rewarded for. It's incongruous and detracts from the game's otherwise straight-faced approach to motor racing.

And it doesn't stop there either. As you gain more and more Driver Profile points, you level up and gain Driver Levels which reward you with bonus cash and access to Invitational events. These events usually give you a chance to race in a car beyond your current career level.
 
But that's not all. You also earn "Badges" for things like trading paint (crashing) with a particular number of opponents, or loyalty to Japan, Europe or USA by driving a particular distance in cars from that region, or doing a particular number of perfect launches.

Once you've earned all the minor badges of a type, you gain the major badge. These are further split into silver, gold and epic badges. If that all seems a bit pointless, well, it is.

It's an orgy of rewards for rewards sake, desperately trying to create extra motivation for you to keep coming back to the game. If you are the sort who obsessively collects all the trophies or achievements in each game you play, you might like it though.

Fortunately, the whole Driver Profile and reward system can be safely ignored if you choose. Putting that aside, the career mode is well paced, and with cash and stars to be earned there's still plenty of motivation to win. With so many tracks on offer, the range of events feels quite varied.

As well as straightforward races (either on one track or as a series across multiple tracks, with endurance, manufacturer and driver duel variations), there are also hot lap and time attack events (where you compete to set a best lap time), car battles (where two iconic cars are pitted against each other - such as a Mitsubishi Evo vs. Subaru WRX), eliminator races (where after each lap the last place driver drops out) and drifting events.
 
I found the drift events initially frustrating, as the objective is the opposite of circuit racing, and the car handling is set up differently. Presumably it's meant to simulate an oiled road surface, but the cars slide so easily it's actually difficult to hold a straight line - simply apply too much throttle and you'll lose the back end.

You win by scoring more style points than the AI opponents, and style points are earned by drifting around a corner at the sharpest angle, as close to the clipping point marker and at the highest speed possible.

Once I figured out that chucking it up to fourth gear and feathering the throttle enabled me to maintain some control over my Nissan S15, I started winning the events and warmed to them a little, but I still feel they add little to the game and would have been happier not having to slog through them.

The AI opponents in SHIFT are competent drivers who will react to you - not just parade around the track like the zombies in Gran Turismo. Sometimes they make mistakes, braking too late and running off on corners, but mostly they provide a good challenge.
The AI difficulty level can be switched between low, medium or high if you find them too hard or too easy.

Once you outgrow the AI opponents you can go online and match wits with fleshy ones. Unfortunately we were not able to test SHIFT's multiplayer functions for this review, but several modes are available: ranked and unranked "Versus" races with up to eight players and a head-to-head Driver Duel ladder mode.

EA has succeeded in jumpstarting Need for Speed back to life with SHIFT. Despite numerous flaws, underneath the confused body work of a game that can't decide if it wants to be a simulation or an arcade racer, there is a solid engine and, most importantly, a fun racing game.