If you live anywhere near central Europe or indeed visited this part of the world during the first three weeks of May, you will have experienced what turned out to be the rainiest May in many years in most places. Villages in northern Italy were flooded but also in other parts, it seemed there was no end to the water falling from the sky. And then as always when despair is near, it all turned at the end of the month, and from North to South, Europe has been sunny ever since. Fingers crossed that it remains so!

Had you been in the market for an enthusiast car in early May, odds are therefore that you would have selected something with a roof. Then again, as soon as the sun comes out, all is forgotten and it becomes obvious that a convertible is the right way to travel through summer. In both cases, if you read this blog regularly, you will have seen my posts on various enthusiast cars, with or without roof, modern or old, and quite often with some kind of idea or prediction as to the direction their price may move going forward.

I would claim never to have given any kind of guarantee that this or that car is a safe store of value, or the investment of a lifetime. A professional career in finance and more disclaimers than I care to remember have taught me to be very careful with such statements, but even so, it’s of course a valid question to ask whether my more general statements have been correct? Let’s therefore look back at three enthusiast cars I’ve written about in the last years and where I’ve thought they would move up in value, to see if they’ve done so?

For this exercise to be relevant for as many as possible, we’ll do this looking at three different price segments – the perfect convertible summer car for a small budget, the last naturally aspirated Ferrari, and then also the last non-hybrid Ferrari that I called a supercar bargain back in January 2022 in one of the most read posts on this blog.

It was back in August 2020, almost three years ago, that I wrote about the Alfa Romeo Spider, one of Alfa’s longest-running cars given it was built for almost 30 years, and also the last car to have been designed by the grand old man Battista Pininfarina himself. Nothing has changed in three years as to the Spider’s suitability as a perfect summer roadster for two; it’s a pretty car with plenty of room for your better half and you, and your luggage. At only 1100 kg it’s sufficiently motorized by the 1.7 litre or 2 litre engines, and it’s also more reliable than a comparable English roadster, Oh yeah, it’s cheap as well.

At the time, I wrote that the first, “boat-tail” series had started to get expensive but the later series hadn’t, and that “My guess is that especially the later series that today can still be had for EUR 20.000 or even less for nice examples, still have further to go.”. Well, I guess they still may, but they certainly haven’t gone anywhere yet. There seem to be enough Spiders out there still for prices to remain low for now, which is good news if you’re in the market. But in terms of my predictive power, this isn’t one I was right on.

Let’s next have a look at the Ferrari F430, also known as the Baby-Enzo because of its backlights, that I wrote about a year ago almost to the day. As said at the time, it’s one of my all-time Maranello favourites and of course, the last naturally aspirated eight-cylinder from Ferrari. It wasn’t just the engine though that was a step forward vs its predecessor, the F360. The driving experience, interior and basically the whole car was so as well.

At the time I wrote that the large price premium on the 10% of cars with a manual box (i.e. around 1500 cars all in all) wasn’t motivated, and that “For a “regular” F430, meaning a coupé with the F1 semi-automatic gearbox, prices start around EUR 80-90.000”. Had I written the piece today, I would rather have said that they start at around EUR 100.000, meaning an increase of about 10% over the last 12 months. Not dramatic, but still not bad in such a short time. I would therefore claim that my statement that it had upwards potential given that it was barely more expensive than the F360 at the time, was correct.

Looking through the stats of the most popular posts on this blog, the one where I called the Ferrari F8 a supercar “bargain” from only six months ago consistently comes out on top. Just like the F430 was the last naturally aspirated V8 from Ferrari, the F8 was the last non-hybrid one. It’s the successor of the 458 and the 488 (a face-lift on a face-lift if you want to be mean) and the model that was the bridge between combustion-engined Ferraris and the new hybrid generation.

At the time of writing, when comparing it especially to its predecessor, the 488 Pista which is a much more hardcore car, the F8 looked very much like a bargain at the EUR 250-260.000 cars then started. That was reinforced by the McLaren 720s that I still think about as the closest competitor, being slightly more expensive. Today, I can only say that I should have acted according to my beliefs, since EUR 290-300.000 is where prices start today, only six months later. And earlier this year production of the F8 ended, so my guess would be that the F8 continues on that trajectory.

To come back to those disclaimers we like to use in finance, this is of course only what the market looks now, and given this blog has a global audience, it’s important to say that this is written from a European perspective and there may certainly be price differences between this and other regions. Let me also remind you of my post from two weeks ago where I mentioned not only the importance of buying at the right price, but also not to forget associated costs for maintenance storing, etc.

Then again,disclaimers have never been any fun, so that would be a boring way to end the story. A slightly bolder statement is therefore that Ferraris which are something special, such as both the F430 and the F8, will most probably at least hold their value very well. And at EUR 20-25.000, an Alfa Spider remains very much a bargain that will also not break the bank if something goes wrong. Therefore, whichever segment you’re in, congratulations if you’re in the market, choose wisely, and enjoy the summer!