Buying Rally Cars…The P42 insight

When it comes to buying rally cars it’s all about the detail but what to buy with your hard earned cash is a good question. Paddock42 takes a look at the rally car market.

“Historic Rallying is on the Up”

The historic car market has held up in the face of a troubled world economy and it has proved to be extraordinarily resilient and this applies to both road and competition cars. Of course in the late 1980s, it was all about stashing away ‘investment’ cars in the pursuit of a fast buck, but unlike that period of time these historic/iconic car owners are a not investors, these cars are bought and owned for a better reason…passion.

As an owner of an historic rally car you have numerous events in the UK and Europe including the Monte Carlo where you can dust off your Mark 1 Escort or even your Lancia Stratos as seen again in the Roger Albert Clark Rally just gone. The UK historic rally scene is going from strength to strength and even the Road Rally organisers too have seen a large up take over the last few years from the Peking-Paris Marathon, the legendary Mille Miglia and the Tour Auto, as an owner-driver you have no shortage of places to compete.

“Modern Rally Cars; lower start up costs”

Rally cars for Sale Paddock42.1

Most of the leading motor manufacturers have ‘dabbled’ with rallying and the Japanese, French and the Germans have dominated, but for us regular folks we just want to buy something, prep it, get behind the wheel and line up on the start line. Overall its usually cheaper to buy something already built and fettle it from there, with the more modern cars, parts are easy to buy and usually reasonably priced. Ok so on a pure investment basis you are never going to get back what you spend but thats not why we do it, but pick a proven model of car and there will always be a market for it should you one day want to sell.

So how is the market? What do we need to know and spend? Well Paddock42 caught up with a few of our rally car dealers to see what the market has been up to.

Jason Lepley – Jason Lepley Motorsport:

“Finding stock is always a challenge, but we have been running this business a long time so we have many contacts in the paddock and in the rally world so we are always approached with cars or pointed in the direction of owners with cars to sell. Buyer wise there has been a definite shift to historic and as you would imagine values have now reflected that. Where as a few years ago £3000 would get you a mark 1/2 escort rally ready, today you will have to spend at least £10k and if they are special or depending on the rally group they are prepped for you can spend £25k and beyond. As a whole our historic buyers are aged 40 to 50 years and coming back to rallying but the youngsters are really making an impact too and going into historics as they find they can get better PR if they are trying to establish a career in the sport. We sell a lot of modern rally cars too and when it comes to values you have to remember that every car is different: obviously if you have one car built by Prodrive and another by Fred in his shed then the price and build standard will be different. To get started and buy a rally ready modern car expect to spend around £6k and of course you can go up from there”.

Jamie Martin – Targa Florio Classics:

“I focus on Italian historic rally cars and good cars are tough to source. Naturally I buy a lot in Italy but this is a global market and sales wise we have buyers from as far away as Mexico and of course all over Europe. Currently we have two types of buyers, those collecting and those competing, and for me the cars must have the right FIA/ HTP papers. Price wise we have seen some increases, with group 4 prepped cars always making the highest value”.

Kieron Graffin – KG Motorsport:

“Its always difficult to buy good rally cars and it is all about how they have been prepped, their specification and how they have been maintained. In the market currently, Group N cars values have gone up and the historic cars have all seen steady price rises. Car of the moment with the modern cars has to be the Mitsubishi Evo 9 but it always comes down to budget”.

“We all had posters of the Group B beasts on our bedroom walls as kids”

For interests sake what about the real top rung ex-works and Group B cars? Paddock42 wanted to find out what is happening at this exclusive end of the market. Here is a little snap shot about the cars we all had posters of on our bedroom walls in our youth.

Max Girardo – RM Auctions:

“The rally car market is an unusual one and we don’t see as many historic cars as we would like but when we do, buyers generally are from the EU. The ex-works cars have a real cult following, with 1970’s and Group B cars getting very popular but unfortunately the latter rarely come up for sale. Rally car buyers are very passionate about these cars and they are getting bought out of love rather than for investment”.

Ian Donaldson – Oakfields:

“At the top end of the market the original Group B works rally cars make anything from 450k Euro to 750k Euro. They say that 200 had to be built by each manufacturer for homologation but the fact is the manufacturers ie: Peugeot, MG, Lancia, Porsche, Audi, Ford, really only produced around 160 units so these cars are rare and command big values. On the odd occasion when these cars do come up there is always big interest from buyers from all over the world but especially Germany currently. If you want to buy a historic rally car with pedigree, be aware very few of the so called ex-works cars are real”.

So there we have it from the ‘horse’s mouth’ as such. The main thing is take a good look at the championships, and don’t rush in unless you know the car and always do your home work.

Many thanks to Richard Crawford for the images and to Jason Lepley, Jamie Martin, Kieron Graffin, Max Girardo & Ian Donaldson for taking the time to talk with us.
If you want to get into Rallying, why not check out the Rally Cars for sale in our classifieds

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