I checked out B.A.T.sales history and the Vintage speedsters are selling for more than Beck or Intermeccanica!
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Keep in mind you're comparing mostly brand new Vintages with 10 year old Becks... To date, not one single new spec chassis Beck Speedster (2019+) has been sold used...
But, yes, they are bringing crazy money.
@chines1 posted:Keep in mind you're comparing mostly brand new Vintages with 10 year old Becks... To date, not one single new spec chassis Beck Speedster (2019+) has been sold used...
But, yes, they are bringing crazy money.
With the number of 356's being re-sold right away with few miles on them (buyers bought the look/fantasy, not the reality) that's saying something right there.
Carey is so right. There are also 30+ year old Intermeccanicas going for the same price as low mileage VS.
-=theron
Given current circumstances with Vintage Speedsters I think it is important that knowledgeable people like most folks on these forums be sure to reference Vintage Speedsters and not just use the word Vintage or Vintages.
As most of you know, Vintage Motorcars of CA is a completely different company ( with no previous or current relationship to VS) but some people are not aware and when they hear the name Vintage or Vintages confusion occurs.
For clarity, when looking at the TOP 10 356 Replica sales on BAT here is the current breakdown
7 were built by Vintage Motorcars of CA
1 was a Beck Build
1 was a JPS build
1 was a Vintage Speedsters build ( older/original VS company)
Top sale is $81,000 ( happens to be a car I sold on BAT built by Vintage Motorcars of CA)
Carey is correct that there have not been any of Beck's newer builds listed and we all know Carey and his crew is building a top notch car as well.
Older Beck (2009) just sold for under $40K seems reasonable these days
The wait time to get a newly built Speedster is so long it is driving the used market up. If the market remains strong through the winter I would expect it to jump agin next Spring. Also watch for cars that can be exported to Canada to take off depending on how the election results turn out.
@majorkahuna you are so correct on the export cars. 15-30 year old cars are bringing even more money (if in the right condition and spec) and are heading to Canada, NZ, France, etc since they can be grandfathered as a classic.
@WNGD agreed, the market is coming back towards reality on the "normal" cars. I am a member of several private wholesale groups and while the Porsche GT cars and other very special cars are still bringing well over MSRP, the days of $100K over G wagons and C8 is over and these cars can be bought at MSRP again.
This particular Beck (13 years old?) still sold for over what it cost new, which we're used to seeing, but 3+ months ago I'd bet it would have brought $10k more.
@chines1 posted:This particular Beck (13 years old?) still sold for over what it cost new, which we're used to seeing, but 3+ months ago I'd bet it would have brought $10k more.
Where prices head is speculation - but when a pan-based car goes for $81K (no matter how nice it is), we're probably headed for a correction.
@Stan Galat The sale of the $81k Speedster was over 3 years ago and was an example of a car with all the bells and whistles including a Type IV motor built by Fat Performance . It also came at a time when there were not multiple Speedster replicas listed every week on BAT. Most importantly it found 2-3 people who all thought it was awesome and just wanted it regardless of price.....the magic formula for any car at auction. The next 3 years did not really see any correction but I agree that we might be about to see one. for a brief period.
Not sure why you specifically say "pan based" since originals were also pan based and sell for $250k plus. I think it is more about quality of build than the platform.
Absolutely no insult intended, Roy. A thing is worth exactly what the buyer and seller agree it's worth. It seems unsustainable, but what do I know?
I said "pan-based" only because for the entirety of the 22 years I've been in this hobby, cars built on a pan were not valued as highly in the marketplace as those on purpose-built frames. That's changed with the rise of BaT, which I believe was the point of the thread. It's curious to longtime observers, or at least to this one.
The cars Greg is building are of exceptionally high quality, but the cabins and footwells remain narrower than original (and much narrower than Becks in particular). This may be a problem to a buyer, or it may not. The cars are typically titled as VWs - which again, is a benefit to some buyers and a problem for others.
As to the construction of the originals, we'll have to agree to disagree. Originals were definitely not tube-framed, but neither were they pan-based - they were unibody cars.
The last thing I wanted to do was to divide people in any way. I wish you well in your business.
Pan based vs tube chassis, the difference escapes a lot of folks who just want the aesthetics, the implied performance and the mystique. The uninformed , or those who just don't care, aren't buying the "nuances" no matter how important they might be.
@Panhandle Bob posted:Pan based vs tube chassis, the difference escapes a lot of folks who just want the aesthetics, the implied performance and the mystique. The uninformed , or those who just don't care, aren't buying the "nuances" no matter how important they might be.
Agree completely.
@Stan Galat Absolutely no insult taken. I was just giving a different perspective. Most folks who seem to be buying these cars are not coming close to pushing them to their limits. You are correct regarding the originals being unibody versus what I called pan based. I have owned and driven builds from all the key builders and while there are certainly differences I do not think most 356 Replica buyers would ever notice a substantial difference in ride quality. True regarding the footwell configuration as well as you point out but I have also experienced some frame based cars that have the seat pans sitting up higher causing 6ft + drivers to eat more bugs than desired.
I Enjoy the informative discussion. Thanks
Your post prompted me to recall a couple of conversations I had at the SOC West Coast event a couple of years ago. One of owners who is quite tall noted that I ride much lower in my car than he did. That lead to a discussion in general about ride height. No conclusion was reached but it seemed as you mentioned different builder have different ride height. In this case the gentleman is 6'3" and his head was clearly above the windshield. Has anyone every researched this to determine which builders have a higher ride height. This particular car was a JPS build. I know some tall folks install the paint roller in the pan as a solution.
The "Thread Drifter" has struck again! 
How a car "sits" is a huge deal for a lot of people.
I'm 6 ft tall, but long in the toro and neck and I can't really sit in an older tube-frame Beck. I sit "on" it, not "in" it. Carey's newer cars sit a LOT lower, but I'm 99% sure a tube-framed IM sits lower than anything but a pan-car with the "paint-roller pan" floor. They (a tube-frame IM) had the "paint-roller pan" as standard.
Raising a seat is easy. Dropping a seat is an order of magnitude more difficult.
@Napa Paul posted:The "Thread Drifter" has struck again!
Not so much.
The topic was "Vintage Speedsters are selling for more than Beck or IM". Talking about the differences between cars actually seems "on point", at least to me.
Aside from the shape and some (but certainly not all) of the running gear, they're very different under the skin. Comparing them is completely in keeping with the topic.
Now, if you want to talk about computer programming in the punch-card era...