Filipino-American Classic Car Junkie: Cheap Thrills!...Cars Out There That An Average Person Could Still Buy

They call it the Barrett-Jackson Phenomenon. With old cars being auctioned on TV, where 6 figure-sales is almost the norm, classic car enthusiasts planning to buy their first old car get too discouraged, as prices of these “once at the brink of abandonment” old cars just sky rocketed and can only be afforded by the super rich, who most of the time doesn’t even care about cars, just its investment potentials. As a result many owners of classics think that the value of their car is now worth the retirement pay of an average American, just because the same make sold in TV for a gazillion dollar.

In as much as we see these crazy expensive cars get sold across the block, we need to remember that what they show on TV are the high end desirable cars. For instance, a factory authentic (1 of 11) numbers matching (not cloned) 1971 Hemi Cuda 4speed Convertible was sold a few years back at RM auction for $4.1 million dollars. Not a bad equity for a car worth less than $4,000 in 1971… And not only that, it has been rumored that a 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO, the most desirable Ferrari among collectors, recently changed hands at an insanely price of $52 million dollars….O by the way, those are the extremes....the real world deals, traded pinks on the first day of Barrett-Jackson for a very cheap price....but didn’t quite make it on TV

Sorry to burst the bubble among average collector car owners …but not every classic out there is as

desirable and valuable as an old Ferrari or a factory Hemi Mopar…but hey!.... good news to the potential classic car enthusiast trying to buy his first old car…There are bunch of affordable equally fun cars out there. And guess what, as odd as it looks, people gravitate toward cars they don’t normally see at car shows.. And by the way, no pun intended, it can potentially frustrate the other guy who just spent a couple of hundred grand on his mainstream classic car, but people flock at the car parked next to him cheap yet cool and odd enough that even gearheads sometimes scratch their head and ask the owner what kind of car is it.

In as much as I enjoy working on my old cars, I equally enjoy surfing the net to look for affordable classics. No, I’m not buying another one as I have other priorities, and it’s quite hard to convince the home owners association who are suppose to be normal non-car people that the car I’m bringing home is not an eye sore. I search for one just for the fun of it, and maybe recommend it to a friend who wants one.

Here are some cars that are still very much affordable…fun, easy to maintain and guaranteed to make you feel so good when it attracts a crowd and you hear “WOW! You restored a…what it that?” or maybe a “Gosh! Look at that I have not a seen one since I was 10”

While there are so many affordable classics out there, here are just a few of my suggestions: