The Historic Automobile Group International have released their year end figures for 2015 and it makes for interesting reading.

As regular readers will know, we’re not keen on referring to classic cars as an asset class and try to avoid talk of classic car investment but there is no point in denying that many classic car purchases are made or at least sanctioned on the basis that there may be a profit it in it. The HAGI index has been one of the key tools in the classic car investors armoury over the last few years and it is a worthy reference point if you can read between the lines and interpret the data.

The classic car market overall

According to HAGI their TOP Index – which measures the performance of the rare collector car market as a whole – finished up 16.57% YTD with growth of 98.16% over the last three years. Growth in 2015 was seen mainly at the top end of the market.

Ferrari

HAGI’s F-Index closed in 2015 with growth of 10.95% YTD – significantly lower than 2013/2014 and the long term average. Three year growth stands at 111.423 and the F-Index was down 2.42% in the last quarter of 2015.

Porsche

The performance of the HAGI P-Index is possibly the most interesting of the lot. YTD it closed 19.81% up with three year growth at just under 97%. HAGI note that the P-Index ” continues to catch up with the market and other marques (e.g Ferrari) long term.” Take your own conclusion from this but the notion has certainly begun to influence the staff writers at organisations such as Bloomberg: Vintage Porsches are rising as the next blue chip classic cars.

We noted that the index performance was influenced by modern Porsche such as the Carrera GT and 959. The 2.7RS also influenced it significantly (a weighting of 25%).

Mercedes-Benz

The HAGI MBC-Index rose 7.57% YTD with three year growth at 56%. This years performance was 1% below the long term annual average

Collector cars excluding Porsche & Ferrari

The Top ex.P&F Index grew 20.85% in 2015. This was significantly higher than the 8% increase seen in 2014. The index excludes Porsche & Ferrari but includes Mercedes-Benz and other marques such as Aston Martin, BMW, Lamborghini and American classics.Are buyers looking to marques other than Ferrari which offer better value for money?

Summary

Consolidation would be an apt description. Despite what Bloomberg may think we don’t see Porsche values reaching the heady heights of collector Ferrari simply due to the sheer weight of numbers produced. HAGI does not observe the affordable classics market where we are seeing a lot of activity so this should be taken into account if you rely on classic car indexes to help with your buying decisions.

The HAGI indices are useful indicators of general past market trends but please remember that the information provided is  fors elected rare models only. The transaction data is provided from auction results and a panel of dealers and sellers.

If you would like more information on HAGI and their indices you can visit their website at www.historicautomobilegroup.com or find out what HAGI’s Dietrich Hatlapa’s classic car predictions are for 2016.