It's a funny thing, putting a price on an item like this. Buying such a car is a decision you make with your heart, not your head. It's not practical, everyday transport and it's not going to be competitive on the track alongside a Seven at a third of the price of what I asked for mine.
Someone simply has to fall in love with the car and desire the whole experience of owning and using such a machine for the price to become fairly irrelevant so long as it's within their budget for such an item. It's exactly the same as the decision taken when buying art* - even if it's meant to be an investment, you should always buy pieces that you love.
To me, there do seem to be too many people who dump their Sammios on ebay for no money apparently just hoping to get the price of the parts back. Again making the comparison with art, don't forget that nobody looks at a Picasso original and says 'well, it's about fifty quid's worth of canvas, twenty quid for the paint, I reckon it took the artist about half an hour to whack the paint on, so that's another twenty and I'll throw in a tenner for the frame, so we'll call it a hundred quid for cash then?'
*see below on pricing art.
So, as with desirable pieces of art, a decent Spyder deserves to sell to someone who simply must have it because they'll lay awake at night thinking about it until it's theirs, not some chancer looking to pick up a bargain that they couldn't build themselves for what they offer.
As for setting the price, bear in mind that these are rare cars. Gary sold about 120 bodies of which probably half have actually been finished, and perhaps half of those were built to a good standard, meaning that there are probably less than 30 decent cars available worldwide, so it's rarer than a Ferrari 250GT SWB (176 built).
My reasoning for pitching my car at the price I did was based on a couple of things:
I was aware that at least three cars had sold in Europe for twenty five to thirty thousand Euros while two more were being advertised at a similar price, and I felt my car was at least as desirable as any of those.
About three years ago I found a rather unconvincing D24 Spyder replica for sale on a French classic car sales site, for 125,000 Euros. And it sold.
Years ago I completed a short University course in management accounting and the subject of how to price items in a small retail business came up.
The lecturer (a very senior accountant) gave us the following example from his own experience - A recent graduate from art school approached him when he was offering free business advice as part of his employer's scheme to encourage young entrepreneurs. The young artist explained that he had the opportunity to rent a retail premises and wanted to open a gallery to sell his own work.
The accountant looked at his business plan and told him that it was viable, but only if he displayed and sold work by other young artists on a commission basis so that customers had a wider choice of styles than just his own daubs.
The artist asked how he should price the pieces for sale and was told not to base pricing upon the cost of the materials and the time spent plus a mark-up as you would if you were making widgets, but to go with an emotional response and ask what you feel a piece to be worth.
Some months later, the young entrepreneur returned for an update meeting. He explained that things were going well and the business was beginning to make a profit. Then he asked what he should do when a piece of art didn't sell, should he drop the price?
The answer was no. The accountant told him that if something didn't sell he should remove it from the gallery display for a couple of weeks, then put it back on sale at double the previous price. The young artist was sceptical but agreed to give it a go.
At their next meeting the accountant asked the artist how his pricing strategy was working out? The reply was that it was going well, but that sometimes he had to double the price of a piece of work three or four times before someone would buy it...
I guess the moral of that (true) tale is that if you ask six or seven thousand pounds for a car as desirable as this, potential buyers with five times that budget for a weekend toy won't even notice it, and it'll end up being sold to some dreamer who won't appreciate what they've got.
Price it at a level that reflects the way the car makes you feel, then hold fast until the right buyer comes along and you will achieve a far more realistic price for what is, if built and finished right, a beautiful and desirable car.
|