I don't normally bother with the coops for sale section or autotrader but for obvious reasons I've been poking around tonight

I had some advice to find examples of coops that were going for a good price to combat the glass' guide price that the insurance would offer me. Sounds like good advice ............but i got a shock!

From our own 'coops' for sale section:

W reg 20VT 6 speed £1500.00

1997 P Reg 20VT starts off in December at at £2000.00. Goes to £1250.00 in early Jan and ends up going on ebay.

A great looking R Reg 20VT with loads of history. £1500.00 ends up going on ebay. Doesn't sell so is now on offer at £1300.00.

S Reg 20VT goes up for £3000.00 in July last year. Gets reduced to £2700.00 then to £2400.00 and is still for sale now 6 months on

and as for auto trader Well!!!!

My advice if you have a nice coop is to look after it and keep the bloody thing

I've also been trawling through auto-trader and all I can say is There are some very boring cars out there

Along with the odd gem

One of the reasons why I'd never part with mine! Til death do us part and all that

Mine has it's faults, but it's never getting sold and I can't see any other car less than £97,000 that I want

I agree with you T

It is not just the Coupe values that are suffering though. Anything with a bigger engine and high insurance group has had its value plummet. Most people want a cheap to run town car. I have never paid more than £420 for insurance. How many people would love to get a quote this low for even a boring car? Fuel? Ouch if you do high miles. To me though it is worth having a Coupe with the smile on my face when I put my foot on the accelerator

In Sickness and in Health....

For richer, for poorer

Does anyone know any reason why we should not join together as.....hold on.....has anyone got enough time on their hands to give all the reasons why we should not be joined together in a loving relationship

Interestingly the guide price in Practical Classics for an A1 Coupe is £4,000. There are a few nice Coupe's around advertised at around the £3.5k mark.

I guess the problem is that 'us in the know' would be happy to spend this and end up with a well maintained Coupe with full history and without any major issues. But to the 'average Joe' why spend £3.5k when you could get a Coupe for £1k - £1.5k?

Yes we all know that in many cases there will be a multitude issues with these cheaper cars, and with most you will have to spend at least the same again to get them up to scratch. But I guess some people can't look past the screen price?

It's not just the value of Coupe's that's dropped mind. For £2k you could go out and buy this . . . . . and it's 5 years newer than the average Coupe.

Bit of a Bargain

The heirarchy of 'types of cars.'



Supercars

Coops

Everything else

I see this all the time where customers spend the money to get the car right and then sell them circa £800.

To me it doesnt make sense as you cant buy a car like it for £800.

That said,i also see cars that are on an 06/07 plate that customers have paid £1500-£2000 for.
So with that in mind maybe the coupe isnt low in value.

What a brilliant illustration of fear driving people away.

A few years ago I was set on getting a TVR. I found their forum trying to get an idea of what to look for when looking at one and it scared me off.

I personally think the presence of a large number of enthiusiasts sharing their issues drives the values down, where other marques don't really have the same thing, because they just aren't that interested, and why should they be?

On the continent, where there isn't a forum like this values are a lot higher.

I don't personally care if mine's worth peanuts - if it was valuable I'd be under more pressure to sell it.

ha ha so it's that pesky forums fault!

I shudda known

Correct a lot of the time, but not always. I did a lot of reading up when I got my present one. It seemed as though the newest Coupe's suffered most through rust, a lot of it hidden away from the eye. For this I ended up looking at older ones. I was after either Broom or Porto. I looked at what there was at the time. The more I looked the more I saw that owners were having problems with well looked after Coupes as well as sheds. So I decided to get one with good bodywork and replace everything needed. If I do the work I know it has been done, and has been done properly. Mine would be called a shed by some, but she is solid. I am going to spend more on her than I could have bought a good example for, but all the work will be done in a short period of time, not over a few years.

Not sure I am doing it the best way, but at least she will be just the way I want her, not how the previous owners wanted her.

I don't think high prices for things are a good thing. I'd personally prefer being able to get cheap spares, and access to the support of the forum. It makes the car an option for ordinary people who have families to support etc.

Alan c IMO you done it the right way . Good solid body work on a old car is better then mech issues.

It seems people are hung up on things like cambelt etc ,all of which are cheaper to sort then replaceing panels and cutting out rust or repainting .

So what if the cambelt is due soon aslong as not over due .
When i got my new coupe. First thing i did was book in for full cambelt turns out i had low compression to so needed head done too. Still got sort the paint though.

Ive looked at lots of coupes over the years for sale all at different prices and have found half of them full of pudding(filler) or rust.

IMO coupes will never go for big money and even if you throw lots of money at it , it still wont.

Edited in!!

The problem lies in the age of cars I think and the subsequent cost to repair them.

Clutch, Cambelt, suspension, bushes, tyres, rust issues. Add this basic little lot up and you are verging on close to £2K!!! No wonder the selling costs are so low! You can't escape the cost - either the seller does it and bumps the price or the buyer does it and spends a lot!

It's a no win situation!

They are now old enough to be at a mileage that means most people sell before they spend on the above - someone has to do it and it'll be the buyer! Even the lower milage jobbies will still need the cam belt looked at. In some cases, people buy cars on servicing costs and the costs add up. Why would they command lots of money? It's only when you get to marques like Ferrari / Aston / Porsche that people seem to accept that high prices are charged for major services - in these cases, people don't mind for some reason - probably because they have the cash to spend I would imagine. Coop drivers tend not to have as high a level of disposable income as the Ferrari boys!

I think the point is that the cars are now over ten years old and don't have a huge fan base. There's a few of us coupé nuts, but not nearly so many as other marques (look at how much Ford Cosworths are still worth because they're sought after and people will pay crazy money for them). Next time you drive home, look at the age of the car from the reg plates. I'm betting you won't see so many R, S and T plates compared to hundreds of 05 - and later. Everyone wants a new car.
My Missus wants a new car because her clio is coming up to 100K mileage, and hence it could start to break down any minute. That's her view, and her dads. It's something that's drummed into people. It was probably true in the 70's, 80's maybe, but modern (post 90's) cars will do massive mileage provided they're looked after.
I've just paid thousands for a Coupé, I could have bought three for the money I paid, but I wanted the car, there's not many left in this condition, and to me it's worth three times that, so for me it's a bargain. So there are people like me who will pay good money!

Or alternatively the buyer pays £1k for a cheap Coupe, drives it at silly speeds, spends absolutely nothing and then when it eventually goes pop, or needs major work for the MOT, the buyer has four options.

1. Pay a garage lots of money to fix the faults but still have a Coupe that's tatty round the edges and without a full history.

2. Scraps it for £200 quid and then adds a further £800 to fund another cheap Coupe.

3. Lists it on Ebay as 'Sold as Seen'.

4. Keep it as a rusting driveway ornament to annoy the neighbours.

pinin

like you say youve got what seems a nice plus and paid good money for it. And its us guys who will pay the money for them .

And coupe is a marmite car , Friends have often looked at them due to low prices . But all have seemed to come up with same reason not to buy and thats it FWD.

The trouble with Cossies and Lanica Deltas pricing seems to be race history of marque . Although the ones you buy when they where new where road cars. Alot of friends have cossies ECOS/RS/RS500 they have spent crazy money buying, manitain and tuning.

A Auto Union race car 1930s(one of the companys that formed Audi) was auctioned in USA with expected price of 5mil+ . They then found out the car ID was wrong and it sold for alot less due to less race wins.

Last year i had a porsche 996 carrera 4s and on the forum (which i didnt like) i was advised to budget 3-4k a year for general maintainance, servicing,tyres,paint correction etc and the 996 was considered the first porsche that was economical enough to be a daily driver!!! my current coupe is my 4th and its one of those cars that you love and hate but when you dont have one and you see one it makes you want another, not many cars do that for me, my escort cossy and the coupe im passionate about, the porka was nice but i dont miss it at all, so when the coupe goes bang or the rear arches fall off i will just get it sorted without moaning as the are in general a lot of car for the pennies!! nuff said.

For me the most interesting thing at the moment is the amount (or lack of) that are actually for sale. 20 on Autotrader, 15 on Pistonheads, few more on here.

In the long term this will have an effect on prices, as only a year ago you would have had at least a hundred to choose from via all the for sale sites, which mean't you could have a choice, ergo there was competition, which drives prices down in general.

If I was in the position where I needed to replace mine, then none of the ones out there this week fit the bill. Therefore I would be revising my price upwards and be ready to pounce when something I liked the look of did come up, so I could make sure of getting it.
Conversely, if I was selling a nice clean example, with good history, I would be thinking of asking a bit more, as there aren't many out there any more.

That's very true, 6 months ago (and prior) on PH there was a regular number of around 45 and easily in the 50's on eBay. Over the past few months this number has dropped significantly - Spring will be a good time to work out just how much numbers for sale have fluctuated over the year.

With regard to my own coupe, I have recently spent over £2500.00 on underbody changes/brake lines/sub-frame refresh/undersealing, nothing to the engine (apart from a good service)....

I am well chuffed, I now know nothing under there will surprise me in the long term and I know exactly what I need to do to bring her up to a near mint condition on top. It actually gives me pleasure to drive the car knowing that she's sorted and ready for the future years and when I spend on the engine bay/bodywork I know that I'll have a real mint car, and at the end of the day, a car that I enjoy owning.

I think as with the cosworths when the value drops below a certain level it becomes more viable to break them which then in turn gets rid of the poor ones and slowly drives prices back up

Opinions:

UK:
- many many sold originally
- many many available secondhand
- export is not an option so buyers limited to UK
- almost all for sale need serious work or maintenance (reason for selling)
- buyer doesn't actually know what to look for and history is often dubious
- low prices in the past, so boyracer attraction, then selling on the wrecks
- climate and salt/gritting is causing rust problems (on any car this age)
- lots of cars parked outside, causing issues with UV / weather influence

mainland:
- rare cars and not many daily drivers due to cost of using them (insurance, road tax,... different system than UK)
- you are obliged to quote work that needs doing. extreme buyer protection, so prices will actually reflect condition
- FEW for sale. Belgium: 5-7 at any time, of which 1 or 2 Turbo's. Plus? Le? If you're lucky 2 or 3 a year. Holland: 10 at any time, 1 or 3 Turbo's. Plus and LE maybe 4 a year.
- big sellers market, as interest comes from all over Europe with easy import and export cheap and quite easy
- parts availability slightly better (but more expensive), eg. parts that are 'handed' are still being produced in LHD, and even then most order from the UK for the rock bottom prices (parts prices low due to car prices low + many cars are broken).
- most cars are kept in a warmed garage

All in all the 'respect' for these cars is much higher in Europe.

Average prices for standard, 'ok' condition, I'd say:

UK 16v: £600
Europe 16v: £1700

UK 16vt: £1000
Europe 16vt: £2700

Europe 1.8: £3200

UK 20v/vis: £1300
Europe 20v/vis: £3700

UK 20vt: £1700
Europe 20vt: £5200

UK LE/Plus: £3000
Europe LE/Plus: £7000

It's not something I want to do... but if I wanted to sell and decided to advertised in Belgium. How much would it cost to convert to LHD? And would there be any additional taxes?

Also, would there be any market for a RHD car on the continent?

Serg1:
I've actually looked into a conversion - although superficially. But it's impossible to do within the budget of the price difference. Your best bet would be to find a rear-ended Coupe of the same model and build year on the mainland to take donor parts off, but you'd still be left with massive amounts of work, and to be honest it would be quite difficult to sell if people know what has actually happened to it. I'd reckon if during the process of registration they would find out, you have a very big change of them refusing it.

Andy2:
I guess there would be a market for one, but people would pay of course less, probably 30-40%, for a RHD one. I personally wouldn't mind a RHD that much, for a daily driver (car parks / toll booths would be annoying though) or a track day car. In the first cases I would want the actualy seller to sort out the European certificate of confirmity as it's up to a six month waiting time from Fiat. In the second case I wouldn't care a slightly battered one as long as the mechanicals are okay. However, you will still have the problems of how can buyers view the car, how much will transport cost,... In addition to that, I know Belgium doesn't have an insurance problem but other countries might.

So as said, the UK is quite a market on its own being RHD. Which is one of the biggest problems.

Oh - did you know that at the time, a brand new Turbo Plus in Belgium (2000) was 29.747 euro while in the UK it was around 23.000£? If you did the conversion, it was cheaper to buy one in Belgium. However, the Belgian price list had 'rhd model' as a € 1.500 option. Which in addition to shipping costs would actually made it slightly more expensive. Clever...

Just got to play the waiting game guys.
Coupe numbers are dropping DAILY! Eventually there will only be minters left and they will start to command better money.

But when that does happen they will still only be worth what some is willing to pay for one.

price to high and it will only be us guys who maybe willing.
And you will still have people trying to knock down the price , saying this needs doing that needs doing.

For me MINT means factory fresh , so the money poured in to most coupes out there would be very high. Soild body, outstanding paint , unblemshed interior , every last mech item fully working and looking like new.

Alot depends on how you define mint , and if the word mint was tagged to a coupe i would be very fussy. Or any 10 year + car infact.

Yes but if the good ones are only fetching high prices then its not what your willing to pay is it? You will have no choice... if you want a Coupe... Then thats the price.

I fully understand what your saying. But if they arent willing to pay they will move on to different car on choice list maybe. There lots of cars i would pick over coupe but im not willing to spend 20k plus on an even old car .

For sure when more have been scrapped and only well looked after good conditions ones left, the prices will go up but not lots. Compared to what a VGC one goes for at moment

The money involed in getting a lot to that status you will never get back either.

this is all my opinion of course.

But embrace the shed of week status , and enjoy them for what they are.