Nostalgia as a price driver
06/10/2021
The other day we watched an elderly man getting into an Opel Rekord Olympia and being as happy as a cockchafer. He knew this car from his childhood and could look back on many memories. As he drove off, it was immediately apparent that this ride brought back all those memories for him. Despite the low power and the generally simple technology, the time behind the wheel of the old Opel probably meant more to him than many an earlier drive in rare Ferrari sports cars, of which there were not too few in his life.
This made me realize once again how important "nostalgia" is when buying a classic car. And this also explains the very high prices for a VW Beetle from the 1960s or the valuations achieved by a BMW Isetta or a Citroën 2 CV. Tens of thousands of all these vehicles were built and relatively many of them have survived to this day. Nevertheless, today they change hands for more money than many a small series vehicle from the post-war period and many a pre-war car, of which there are only a handful left in this country. But when personal memories are involved, hard facts often become much less important ...
