Look I don't want to alarm you, but the backside appears to be falling out of the collector car market. In the latest Sports Car Market magazine, Chad Tyson asks: "Have we hit peak car market saturation in 2019?"
Chad says not only is every auction he's covered this year down 4-44 per cent, but new car sales in the US are in the toilet, too. Tony Weber from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries reports that local new vehicles sales were down for the 19th consecutive month in October last year.
Now where do you invest if cars, bikes and petrol pumps are going nowhere fast. Friends and readers: number plates. I know they are like paintings. You can't drive them. If you put them on the front and back of your car someone will knick them. And they're in black and white.
But at Shannons' Sydney auction a couple of weeks ago number plates outperformed everything. Number 22 went for $905k ($5k above top estimate) and number 48 went for $755k, $25k above estimate. Of course, NSW heritage plates outperform those from the lesser states. Record price is the vibrating $2.45m sex toy magnate Peter Tseng paid for number 4 at a Shannons Sydney Auction in 2017.
According to the Australian Automobile Association you and the gang at home are now spending between $735 and $750 a year more on transport than you were in 2017. In fact, you now spend $360 every week on getting around.