Classic cars as an investment: real hammer prices

Classic cars as an investment: real hammer prices per generation, returns and a comparison against the S&P 500, MSCI World, Bitcoin and gold.

Why cars are measured through hammer prices

With classic cars, asking prices and final prices are especially far apart. Listings run for months, price ideas get negotiated down, and what was actually paid rarely becomes public. Auctions are the exception: the hammer price is public, dated and documented.

These pages cover the generations of the Porsche 911 Turbo, each one separately. That split is the key point. A median across all “911 Turbo” cars would be a number without an object, because the generations are worlds apart. Within one generation the cars are technically comparable, so the series really measures the same thing over time.

What the comparison does

The series run through the same math as an index and can be placed next to the S&P 500 , MSCI World , Bitcoin and gold . That turns a common claim into something checkable: whether one generation kept up with the capital markets over a given period, or did not. The answer differs by generation and by period, which is why it appears as a chart and not as a sentence.

What the numbers do not say

No two cars are the same. Mileage, original paint, matching numbers, history, accident record and years spent standing still can move the price far beyond what a median can show. Two hammer prices for the same generation in the same month can be far apart without either of them being wrong.

A car also costs money every year: storage, insurance, maintenance, damage from standing, taxes and, once it is driven, wear. None of this appears in a price series, and over the years it changes the result considerably. Selling takes weeks or months, and a car pays no income while it is owned.

The series show prices paid in the past. They are not a valuation of a specific car and say nothing about future prices.

Porsche 911 Turbo vs. the markets

Real hammer prices per generation against the S&P 500, MSCI World, Bitcoin and gold. All lines indexed to 100 as of 2024-07-11, logarithmic scale.

Period 2024-07-11 to 2026-08-11. Positions are picked by the number of recorded sales, not by return. Prices are hammer prices including the buyer's premium; seller's commission, taxes and holding costs are not deducted. All generations in detail

Data note 1

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