Collectable cars can be a ticket to riches ? or not. In 1977 Pink Floyd drummer and incurable car collector Nick Mason bought a Ferrari 250 GTO for £37,000. It is now worth something approaching $65 million.
In retrospect, snapping up that rare red coupe looks like a brilliant piece of vision. But not every Mason purchase has turned to gold ? and making the wrong call in the collectable car market can mean a considerable yearly upkeep for something with a value that’s slipping away. The market is fickle, troughs and peaks can be severe, and things go in and out of fashion.
The only sensible rule for car collectors, then, is to buy something you will enjoy looking at, that you will enjoy driving, and that you’d like to pass down to your children. If it goes up in value, that’s a bonus, if it turns out to be worth 65 mill, then you can leave something else to the children. People wonder which car might be the Ferrari 250 GTO of the 21st century. If there was a clear answer, we’d have all bought that car by now. Conventional wisdom says go for an internationally recognised blue-chip brand and make sure the car is in authentic ex-factory condition. Rarity is prized ? but not only rarity, because some cars are rare for a reason. Nobody wanted them then or now.

1. Gullwing Benz

Correctly, it’s the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG. In popular parlance, it’s the “modern gullwing”. The SLS AMG coupe was inspired by the 1950s original and is ...