Aero Car Values

Since we just got through the first round of the Collector Car Auction Season I thought it might be good to take a look at what one of the expert’s opinions are on Aero Cars. If you are not familiar with these, they are the 1969 and 1970 Detroit NASCAR Specials. The factory boys were just discovering the value of aerodynamics coupled with horsepower to race at the new superspeedways such as Daytona and Talladega.

Some pretty radical cars were being produced. The race engineers at Ford Motor Company and Chrysler were designing some very race specific bodies. As a result NASCAR mandated in 1969 that at least 500 of each example had to be built prior to being allowed to race. In 1970 this was increased to a certain number per dealership resulting in a number closer to 2,000 examples. For Ford/Mercury these cars include the 1969 Ford Talladega and 1969 Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II. For the Chrysler fans these include the 1969 Dodge Charger 500, Dodge Charger Daytona and 1970 Plymouth Superbird. If you would like to know more about these cars check out www.TalladegaSpoilerRegistry.com and www.wwnboa.org.

These cars obviously do not represent the entire market place but, in my opinion, they do represent an undervalued market. The values of these cars have been flat or even down considerably from previous years. Especially the Ford cars have been overlooked by many collectors. They have repeatedly been identified by many experts as the next hot collector car to take of for the stratosphere in values but have yet to do so. Since we like these cars and have examples of several in our collection I decided to look at the historical values of the Ford Talladega and the Dodge Daytona based on data collected by Hagerty Insurance.

The first chart shown below is for the 1969 Ford Talladega. Since it is an insurance company of collector cars, Hagerty does not include values for the very worst of the cars such as parts cars and project cars. Their definitions are listed below. (You can click on each image and in will increase in size for easier reading.

Now that we have an understanding of what the condition classification represents we can move on to the values. Listed below are Hagerty’s historical values as of specific dates. If you look back at anything before May 2011 you will see a VERY flat price range for number 1 cars; the Talladegas were hovering right in the $61,000 to $62,000 range. Some of the other condition numbers showed more variation with number 4 cars dropping significantly percentage wise. However, as we move into 2012 the Condition 1 cars began a slight increase. By 2013 this was becoming more pronounced and starting to drag the value of all conditions up slightly. By January 2015 a Condition 1 Talladega was up to $79,000 with the Condition 2 car at where the Condition 1 car was in 2011. That is close to a 30% increase.

1969 Ford Talladega Historical Values

The table below is for the 1969 Dodge Daytona 440 (excludes the Hemi cars) over the same approximate timeline. The Condition 1 value of these cars seems to be much more volatile. In May of 2011 the Daytona was actually down in value to $203,000 from a high of $225,000 in September 2008. Obviously this is much greater than a Talladega of the time. The Talladega was only 27% of the value of the Daytona.

The Daytona values remained relatively flat for a Condition 1 car until September 2013. It was not until January of 2015 that the Daytona was back to its 2008 value of $225,000.

In January of 2015 the Talladega represented 35% of the value of the Daytona. (It must be noted here that the Talladega is a no option car and its values therefore should be pretty easy to compare from one car to another. The Daytona on the other hand had a wide variety of options including 4- speed transmission and a wide variety of colors which can easily increase the price by 20% for each factor over a car in similar condition without these options.) That means that the Talladega is increasing in value faster than its more famous and visible rival. Will this continue? Will the Daytona continue to rise in value? Will the Talladega catch up? Lets hear what you have to say.

 1969 Dodge Daytona Historical Values

How did these cars do at the auctions this year? We will bring you that information in couple of days.