When it comes to collecting cars, I really do try my best to not be judgmental; everyone has their own very idiosyncratic car interests and fetishes, and who am I to judge what gets one’s auto-pleasure-glands all excorpulated? And yet, somehow, despite all my efforts to be a better human, I still find myself being judgmental about the kinds of cars people collect: for example, I find collections that are exclusively pristine high-dollar supercars to be boring and predictable, even depressing. But I think I’m even worse about how I feel about collecting cars with incredibly low mileage on them. I can’t imagine a worse type of car to own.
I know they can be incredibly valuable and desirable; there was a 2016 LaFerrari with less than nine miles on the clock that sold for over $4 million dollars, for example, and even more pedestrian cars like a 1990 Fox-body Mustang can go for almost $100,000 because it only has gone 82 miles in its lifetime. There’s no doubt that almost any car with ridiculously low mileage is going to end up having lots of value to some collector, almost no matter what it is, but I have no idea why anyone would want to own one.
There definitely are people who want to own such cars, and they even have their own Facebook group, unsurprisingly, where they post for sale listings of cars with, usually, well under 10,000 miles. Low-mileage is, of course, a bit subjective and based on the age of a car, so while 20,000 miles may qualify as low mileage on something from the 1960s – and it definitely is low – that wouldn’t cut it on something newer.
Look, here’s a video about a guy flying all over the world just to get other low-mileage Ferraris, including a 99-mile 288 GTO, a cart that, when it is acquired, I can almost guarantee will never, ever be driven:
My problem with owning an extremely low-mileage car is that, fundamentally, it seems like an exercise in frustration. Look at this 1978 Beetle convertible from our pal Gary Duncan’s collection, for example; it has 84 miles on the clock. It’s essentially in like-new condition, and from that perspective, it’s incredible. Same goes for another Beetle Gary has, a 1977 standard Beetle with only 26 miles under its little air-cooled belt; it’s as close to a time capsule car as you could possibly imagine, as close as you’re likely to get to going back in time and sitting in a showroom-new Beetle at your local VW dealer.
And, in that context, these sorts of cars definitely do have value. If you were doing a restoration of an old Beetle and wanted to be absolutely certain you were getting everything right, this car is likely the best resource you could imagine. When I’m emperor, I may command the Smithsonian Institution to keep an automotive library of like-new cars just for restoration reference, now that I think about it. I better make a note of that.
But as far as owning one of these cars? It seems terrible! It’s not the cars themselves, of course – I would love to have a Beetle like either of those, in something even close to the condition those are in – but it’s the fact that so much of the value of the car is linked to the low mileage, it makes the entire thing a useless, immobile burden.
Not only can you not drive it, you can’t even really easily take it places to show it or let anyone else appreciate it, because it would need to be trailered everywhere, and even the small amount of distance getting it to and from and on and off the trailer would add up, over time, and for a car where the low odometer reading is the crucial element, you wouldn’t want to do that.
It just seems frustrating; a machine that is denied the ability to do the thing it was designed to do, because all of its value is that it has hardly ever done it. Every part on that car is wasted potential, and there’s little worse for a car than just sitting, so even if you start it and idle it religiously, rot and decay will still occur. Just because it’s not moving doesn’t mean it’s magically free from the ravages of time, after all.
Owning an absurdly low-mileage car just seems like a joyless burden. In a museum context, sure, I get it, the cars are meant to be stationary things you walk around and scrutinize and try to touch when the guard isn’t looking. But in a private collection? Why?
Is it some strange frustration fetish thing, like those people who like to wear chastity devices? Is that it? Is the tension of having something you’d love to just drive around, carefree, but are forbidden to because of some arbitrary and abstract concepts of “value?” Isn’t it incredibly maddening? You have an amazing thing, and you can never truly use it. It would drive me batshit. Especially because there’s a tension there, too. It would be so easy to make some mistake and it rolls off a trailer or gets stranded somewhere and you have to drive it a bit – I bet each of those miles that would get put on it, if you were still under the spell of low-mileage, would burn like fire. Every mile a wound you feel, a knife in your heart and wallet!
No thanks.
I bet there’s a sort of cathartic, unhinged release that must happen to people who have owned ultra-low-mileage cars and then have decided to actually drive them. I bet there’s a pit-of-the-stomach nervous feeling as you first start to drive your, say, Nissan Murano Cross Cab with 11 miles on the clock, as you can feel the value plummeting with every block you drive. But I also bet there’s a point of euphoric glee as you get to a stretch of open road and decide to really open it up, and just think fuck it and watch those long-hidden odometer digits start to roll into place.
I realize it’s sort of an absurd act of hubris for me to even say no thanks, keep your ultra-low-mileage cars, because I don’t have the money you need for something like that anyway, but at the same time there’s a pleasingly liberating feeling to have no desire for something widely considered valuable.
If you have a crazy low-mileage car, I’d both love to hear your reasoning for why you appreciate it and to also, like a devil of driving perched on your shoulder, encourage you to drive the damn thing, value be damned, and just enjoy the car. Sure, you’ll probably be losing thousands and thousands of dollars, but I bet you’ll thank me.
All my vehicles are there to be driven. I take damn good care of them, and don’t worry about the miles on the clock: that way lies madness.
Was that intentional with the lead image, overlapping the speedometer needle over the Beetle so it looks like a pin in a bug in an entomology display? If so, kudos for the cleverness; if not, still kudos for the inadvertent cleverness.
They dicuss this on Mecum quite often, especially about a Ford GT on the block. Those with some miles on them can be worth more than those with almost zero, IF the right bidders are in the room. Bidders that want to drive it, but sparingly so that the value isn’t dinged.
I totally agree with you. Well, except for wanting a Beetle.
Enthusiast: collects their hero cars, drives the piss out of them.
Rich: has few late-model luxury SUVs and a couple of sports cars.
Very rich: has a collection of supercars, some rare and customized
No-fucks-given rich: collects low-mileage hero cars, drives the piss out of them.
Okay but riddle me this: why is EGR called out in so prominent a position as the speedometer? Were the first catalytic converters likewise denoted?
Oxygen sensors have always had an annunciator on the dash, though it goes by different names: CEL, SES, “Maint Req’d”, etc.
In years gone by, I did a fair amount of shopping for used cars and motorcycles. I noticed that very low mileage vehicles often had problems that even a mechanical ignoramus like me could see, such as hoses, tires, etc. I developed a rule that served me well. If the vehicle has not averaged, at least, 2,000 miles per year, I won’t even make a call or send an email to try to get to see it in person.This is a simple, and crude, filter, but it is easily applied.
Another thing I noticed is that I saw, over the years, dozens of vehicles that were advertised as having been “stored” when they appeared to have been parked and forgotten.
Personally I wouldn’t collect them, I’d just buy them and drive them.
Machines are built to be used, the greatest purpose you can give a machine is a well used life.
That’s why you have to buy two cars: one to use, and one to admire as a collectible item.
Yep. I’ve considered finding a mint version of my other heavily modified version of a fairly rare car for that reason.
Low mileage is indeed a double edged sword. I “had” a ’94 F250 XLT acquired with only 73k miles. Yeah, it is not under the 20k mark, but a $5500 purchase turned into a replacement of all the front end linkeage bushings, brake lines suspension, tires, and transmission…not even getting into the maintenance overdue items from the previous owner. And because it is the typical old days Ford, I also had to replace the radiator support. I was happy to sell it last week a long with a parts box of other replacement parts…at 86k.
It just goes to show, you need to pay to play. The cost of ownership was much higher than my N54 powered vert.
How was the parts availability? 1990s and even 2000s to early 2010s Fords seem to be getting shockingly bad for that
Really easy to get parts for 1980-1997 Fords. I own one and work on my buddy’s a lot. Really nice interior parts can be hard to come by, but that’s the only thing that’s remotely difficult. We have actually parted out two different Aeronose pickups, I have parts for sale right now.
In fact, parts are not hard to come by for bumps and dents either. LMC sells everything, albeit for a price. But neither of those are rare vehicles either.
Damn, took me months to track down a brake proportioning valve for an ’84 Town Car. Also, for some reason, rocker panels are still readily available for ’92-’97 Crown Vics, but NLA for 1998-2012.
My sentiments exactly. I’ve been baffled by this whole “low mileage” thing for quite some time. Sure, if you’re buying it for a museum, that’s fine, but otherwise I just don’t get it.
My two daily drivers (BMW E46 and Toyota 4Runner N180) have 179,000 and 164,000 miles, respectively. I have no plans to get rid of either of them nor stop driving them.
Three years ago (October, 2021) I bought a 1975 Dino 308 GT4 with only 27,022 actual miles. It sat in a shop getting repainted for ten months, so I drove it for about 18 months before it suffered an engine failure. However, during those 18 months I put a grand total of 8,661 miles on it. To put that in perspective, that’s 4.5x the amount of miles the two previous owners put on it in a combined 32 years of ownership! And when I get it fixed, I’ll continue to add the miles.
If money was no object, I’d buy all the ultra low-mileage cars I could find and drive them. No car should suffer the fate of never being driven, and low mileage cars have no stories to tell.
If you need to change tires due to dry rot, rather than wear, why have it?
My uncle has a 2016 Corvette. Under 1k miles. Hasn’t taken the T tops off one time. Had to replace the tires due to age. He drives it out of the garage to have it washed.
What’s his reasoning?
I’m sure he’s waiting for it to go up in value.
Some of us just don’t drive that much, it’s actually pretty easy to age out tires before you wear out tires. Most second cars, weekend cars, anything that’s not a daily will run into dry rot at some point. Even if you put a full 3000mi/yr on your second car, you will have only put 30k on it at the end of ten years and they’ll probably be rotted worse than they are worn.
Meanwhile, my MG has 19,820 miles on the odometer, original as far as anyone can tell, and I’m looking forward to it rolling 20,000. More than that, I’m looking forward to 37,441 miles – at which point the majority of the miles on it will be mine. Not many people can say that about a car older than them.
I have personally put more miles on my ’85 Vespa than were on it when I bought it. I’m tremendously pleased by this.
I bought a 1990 RX7 convertible this spring. Single owner out of California. That guy took care of the car. It’s in very good shape especially considering he put 212,000 miles on it.
I put another 4,000 on it this summer and fall and loved every minute of it. I can’t imagine buying it and just looking at it.
I’d buy a low mileage 1995 or 1996 Subaru Legacy wagon with the 2.2 and manual in green or red and L trim, but it would be to get a nicer, no rust version of my same car. Resale has zero consideration because I’d absolutely daily drive it forever. I bid on one with under 40K miles this past summer to $7K. A 6K-mile one went for $18K a couple years back but was in white (which looks wrong on the car to me) and stripper trim (which my 96 is, but I’d not want another of), so not what I would have bid on.
You can drive low mileage cars for as long as you want – just make sure to stick it in reverse and put a brick on the gas pedal.
Easier to just disconnect the ole speedo
Just don’t lean on it.
If almost every existing example were airgapped and locked away then that would be one thing. Because locking a car away for nobody to ever touch or see, treating it like certificate of deposit in a vault, is terrible. You’re not enjoying them in an active or a passive way. But having an example to match to the ideal is nice… If there aren’t too many of them.
For instance I have some small diecast cars. If all the examples of those models were being treated as mine were, hanging on the wall in their packaging, that would be terrible. But I know for a fact there are grungy twenty four year old examples that have been passed from brother to brother, from parent to child, from yard seller to thrifter, rolling around on school desks, nosing through dirt, and being launched into bathtubs. Just as those kids are enjoying theirs in an active tactile way, I’m enjoying mine as passive art pieces.
Point being, don’t treat everything like a museum piece because at that point you aren’t enjoying whatever it is, you’re enjoying the speculation others have on it’s value. Y’know, like Corvette Guys do.
That’s a lot of words for an “It belongs in a museum” meme.
Fine in a museum where hundreds of people get to enjoy it. Stupid in a rich man’s collection where one person gets to enjoy it. Cars are meant to be driven.
on a smaller scale, same with collecting baseball/sports cards. god forbid you open the box or rip the cellophane seal to actually see the cards inside. Much better to muse at the brown box you just bought and what might be inside.
A Library of Congress, but for cars! As a professional librarian, I hope Emperor Torch will deign to consider appointing me to labor in (or — dare I hope? — oversee) this most important imperial endeavor.
The things I would do to that 288 GTO
Anyone who buys an ultra-low mileage car (unless they think of it as an investment), buys the car as art, not as something to drive. I appreciate anyone who buys or preserves something historic. If somebody chooses to restore a 1977 Chrysler Cordoba and source out NOS fine Corinthian leather, more power to them. That’s their passion. Not my thing, but still a passion for something automotive, but with a different flavor than I enjoy
I think museum-piece old cars with 80 miles on the odometer are cool in private collection and there is a place for them. And let’s be honest; most really old cars are not that much fun to drive.
The “really old” cars we are talking about that collectors buy with crazy low miles are often only like 80s or 90s. Have you seen the S2000s and Preludes and Supras going for stupid money because they only have 11 miles?
We’re not talking about a 1949 Studebaker sedan. We’re talking about Corvettes and Chargers and Supras and whatever, that are most certainly fun to drive.
I’m right there with you. I can appreciate a low-mileage whatever, most especially as a reference item, but would not want to own one.
There are two clichés that go along with this: “They are only original once” and “They aren’t making any more of them”.
Would I like to have a mint, all-original ’71 Challenger? Sure, but I wouldn’t drive it.
Would I love to have a patina-ed ’71 Challenger with a rebuilt, non-matching-numbers engine? Heck yes, and I would have a fantastic time planting my right foot as often as possible.
On a shelf in my office is a[n] NOS fuel tank for an old Kawasaki. It’s a rare tank, used for one model year, and it looks amazing. It will live out its life (or my life, I guess) as an art object. Part of me feels a little guilty about this, and part of me refuses to install a set of NOS emblems because that could conceivably interfere with the NOS-ness of the tank. It’s complicated.
Edit: I do have an example of the bike for which that tank was intended, so the NOS item is a reference to the antique down in the workshop.
And anyway, if your low-mileage classic isn’t stored in a hermetically sealed argon atmosphere, what are you even doing?