Nick Mason (Pink Floyd drummer) is fronting a fund for people not interested in Classic Cars. All you need is $500,000... projected returns 15%.

World's gone madder... mutter, mumble etc.

To see the original article click here.

And people complain it is outrageous a 2CV fetches more than a few hundred quid.....

They did the same thing in the mid to late 1980's. Classic cars, by which I mean established classics of pedigree such as Ferrari's and the like shot up to over a hundred grand each due to speculation. The knock on effect set in, with cars lower down the scale like Mk2 jags eventually increasing exponentially.

In the late 70's a Mk 2 jag could be had, in decent nick, for around eighty quid. By the late 80's those same cars were commanding six grand. Sound familiar?

The problem with spending a lot of money on cars (any cars) is that you completely lose the element of pleasant surprise. So ... you've spent £200 on a 2CV. You get it home and have a look round it and think "hmmm, some rust there.But it's not that bad, and look! there's a full set of brand new exhaust clamps! Cool. Heater tubes aren't too bad either, and at least the driver's seat is in good nick. And someone's spent a bit on the engine recently", and so on. Now, imagine the same scenario with a £10 000 2CV. You go to pick it up and have a look round it, any surprises you get are going to be unpleasant ones, simply because you'd expect new exhaust clamps, heater tubes and so on. I'd hate that. And surely they'll never appreciate in value from that sort of price ... will they?

I wouldn't think so, but then again five years ago I couldn't envisage a six grand 2cv. I remember seeing a completely rebuilt bamboo at the international once, maybe around 2002.
I looked at it, under it, around it, and there wasn't a thing to suggest it wasn't brand new.

Asking price £1500.

And, by the mid '90s, good ones were asking fifty grand.

I go past these guys most days :- http://www.dkeng.co.uk - you can _imagine_ how much money's worth of kit I've seen in their yard...

One evening In 1977 I visited my cousin who was, at 18 a year older than me. As I arrived he was sitting in the passenger seat of a dark blue S-type jag - it was beautiful. The interior was all sumptuous leather and walnut, the paintwork and exterior chrome gleamed in the twilight.

He stepped out and the car pulled away with a sort of quiet whoosh, I can still see those red tail lights disappearing down the road. He told me that he had been negotiating to buy it, and had the price down to forty quid. That was around a weeks wage back then, but what a lot of car for the money. In the end he didn't buy it due to the insurance cost.

In the 1970's Jags were so cheap that there was one trashed in virtually every episode of 'The Sweeney' then suddenly they were all worth big bucks.

My brother had his eye on an E type Jaguar at a car auction in the early 70's. It was a soft top. It went for £150 which he couldn't quite muster. He had to settle for a Morris Minor at £125. How times have changed. I'm sounding old aren't I?

I've lost count of the number of good minis I've scrapped, and when I was racing, almost everything was a mini, an rwd escort or a starlet. These were available for virtually nothing, and almost all were scrapped at the end of the season. It's now impossible to buy an escort for less than £2500 and minis are at least a grand for anything close to being mot'd.

It's mental. Especially when there are cars out there every bit as good as them for nothing. This is where I don't understand it. What's the point in buying old ferraris? Or even E types? A late 80s supra is faster more comfortable and more reliable, and available for a few hundred quid.

If I had now all the cars I owned or trashed in the 70's I'd be a millionaire. Of course at the time they were just cheap cars but are all today's classics.

Don't see many of today's cars standing the test of time though.