Revving Up the ‘60s Again : Cars: Some of those fantasy wheels of yesteryear now pull 10 times their original price. A cottage industry in restoration services and reproduction parts is flourishing.
For Joe Schuler, it was love at first sight.
The low-slung Corvette, with its swoopy fenders and race car-like side-mounted exhaust pipes, was exactly what the Fullerton trucking company owner had been looking for. Nestled under the silver roadster’s shark-like hood was a 427-cubic-inch V-8, packing 400 horsepower--or so the factory claimed.
Fifty thousand dollars later, the 1969 Corvette Stingray was his. That’s a fairly healthy chunk of change to plunk down for a 21-year-old used car that listed at about $6,624 new , but for Schuler it was a reasonable price for a high-school fantasy come true.
“This is the car I wanted then and this is the car I want now,” said Schuler, sniffing at suggestions that his automotive needs could have been just as well served by, say, the 1990 high-tech, high-performance, high-quality, highly praised Lexus LS400.
Schuler is not alone. Since the mid-1980s, thousands of people have been snapping up clean and not-so-clean examples of the rip-roaring, horsepower-packed GM, Ford and Chrysler cars of the 1960s and early ‘70s--icons of a period when cars like Chevy’s 409 and Plymouth’s Hemi ‘Cuda ruled America’s roads and drag strips, and Detroit was the Mecca of the automotive world.
But the trend--and the prices--have been accelerating. From Kevin’s 2, a burger stand in the San Fernando Valley where hot rodders hang out Friday nights, to swap meets at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds, where special-interest cars and parts are sold, muscle cars are hot. Or, as Steve Anderson, an editor at Hot Rod magazine, puts it: “It’s 1970 again.”
The muscle car craze has also spawned a nationwide cottage industry in car sales, restoration services and reproduction parts enabling the owner to recreate--or fabricate--the most popular muscle cars--literally down to the last nut and bolt.
“In the last year or so the market has absolutely gone crazy for performance cars of the ‘60s,” said Dave Buck of Motoring World in West Hills, a store specializing in auto books. “Anything muscle car right now is really taking off.” Even general newsstands feature magazines such as Guide to Muscle Cars , Chrysler Power and Musclecar Classics .
And enthusiasts have their own organization, the National Muscle Car Assn., based in Memphis, Tenn. Formed two years ago, the organization, which sponsors car shows, swap meets and drag races that it dubs “High Performance Showdowns,” has 1,371 members, 63 of them in California. “When I started doing this, everyone thought I was off my rocker. I’ve since proved everybody wrong,” said Chuck Green, director of the National Muscle Car Assn.
Why do people spend $25,000 and up for gas-guzzling cars when they could get, say, a new Ford Mustang that, properly equipped, can out-handle, out-accelerate and get better fuel mileage than many of the ‘60s cars--and pass EPA emission standards to boot?
“A car is an extension of one’s personality and if you see a muscle car being driven down the road, the driver’s trying to express something about himself,” said Green. “A muscle car is not a necessity of life. Ninety percent of the time, if a guy’s in a financial bind, the car’s the first thing he’ll liquidate.”
Anderson sums it up in a word: nostalgia. “One of the things that represents Americana are cars, and muscle cars in particular. These guys are trying to live the past.”
But more and more, the driving force of muscle-car mania is cash . Lots of it.
Take the Pontiac GTO, considered by most auto enthusiasts to be the original muscle car. In 1964, Pontiac product planners fired the first salvo in what would become Detroit’s muscle car war with a bold yet simple formula: dropping a big-car engine (in this case, 389 cubic inches) into a mid-size, lighter body (the Tempest/LeMans), gracing it with a couple of fake hood louvers, a racy name and a raucous exhaust system.
The GTO was an immediate hit on the boulevards, drag strips and showroom floor. Jan and Dean, a popular rock ‘n’ roll duo of the era, sang its praises in their hit, “Little GTO.”
But there’s nothing little about the prices of GTOs, which, like other muscle cars, have grown dear with time. In 1964, the sticker price of a GTO was about $3,000. Last January, a convertible sold at a Scottsdale, Ariz., auction for $23,000. Later this month another 1964 GTO convertible--this one said to be in showroom condition with only 18,000 miles on the odometer--will be on the block at the Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale, an event well-known among auto collectors. Officials expect the red ragtop to fetch $40,000 to $50,000. Green, of the National Muscle Car Assn., says the prices of the most desirable high-performance cars of the ‘60s are “increasing at the rate of 5% a month.”
Factor in rarity and top-of-the-line engine options, and the rules go out the window. For instance, if you can find a 1971 Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda convertible for sale, prepare to fork over in the neighborhood of $200,000, said Green, explaining that only seven ragtops were ordered with the 425-horsepower engine. The car, typically equipped, listed at $4,959 new.
Muscle cars have always been popular with a certain segment of the car-loving public but prices during the past three years shot through the roof--thanks to the strength of collector cars in general, said Craig Jackson, of Phoenix-based Barrett-Jackson Auction Co.
Collector-car values--most notably Ferraris--took off as a direct result of the October, 1987, stock market crash, note some observers. Jackson, however, looks for muscle cars this year “to level out and take their usual growth”--about 25%. “It’s better for the industry because it’s not so volatile. People were a little paranoid.”
That would be a welcome trend, agrees Mike Patlin, of Hill & Vaughn, an internationally known restoration company in Santa Monica.
“More and more we’re seeing people getting into it not as enthusiasts but for the investment,” said Patlin. “People buy these things and stick them in warehouses, and their only sense of enjoyment is to see them make money--not to get them outside and drive them.”
Perhaps the ultimate irony is that eventually the car may become so valuable that the owner cannot afford to drive it--or is afraid to. And no one is hurt more by muscle car inflation than those who grew up in the days of 29-cent-a-gallon gasoline and simply like the car for what it is, said Hot Rod ‘s Anderson.
For baby boomers who want to start a muscle car collection, used-car sticker shock awaits. “If you’re a first-time buyer and you want to get into this, you have to pay a lot more now,” said Merle DuPrey, a San Fernando Valley car enthusiast and collector whose stable of muscle cars includes Chevrolet Camaros, Corvettes, and a Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda coupe.
The rewards, however, can be substantial. Green, of the National Muscle Car Assn., said: “There are people buying and selling cars who are now close to six-figure incomes. And they’re doing it as a sideline.”
Muscle cars are more than a sideline to Jeff Leonard. He operates Classic Camaro, a Huntington Beach company that offers new and reproduction parts for Camaros and Firebirds. Classic Camaro opened shop in 1976 after Leonard and a friend decided that Camaros would soon join the 1964-1969 Mustangs as modern classic autos.
The hunch paid off. Last year Leonard’s company sold about $8 million in parts and accessories and is aiming for $10 million this year, he said. Classic Camaro has a 250,000-person mailing list of potential customers who range from 16 to 64 years old.
And the appreciation of muscle cars hasn’t been lost on car enthusiasts--or investors--overseas.
Companies such as Classic Camaro and Year One, a major supplier of muscle car parts based in Georgia, have shipped goods to Japan, Canada, Finland, South America and the Middle East.
So, who knows? Perhaps 1990’s world-class American-built car just might be your father’s Oldsmobile--if it’s a cherry 1970 4-4-2 that was raced only on Sundays.
