The Mk1 undervalued?

[Mr Funk]

Roccos always have been and always will be the odd ginger kid at a wedding. They'll never be as "cool" as the golf and will always aspire to be the Rado, the car the Rocco should have been.
They'll always be niche and the prices will reflect that.
I'm sorry but you can bang on about rising prices all you want but it won't make a jot of difference. You can ask for £100,000 for a car if you want but unless its made from gold or comes with a free heather graham it'll sit languishing until it rots away.
All that'll happen as the cars gradually fade away is that prices of parts might rise and more people will quote them as the cars they wish they'd owned.

[Nate]

It is baffling why there are now more mk2's around

you can explain that with 1 word - RUST!

[Winston]

Im just going to throw this out there.... Do you not think the Scirocco Regester helps keep the prices low? you guys can kind of dictate the pricing? saying that the buying guides ive read give them even poorer values. . The regester has the power to make the pricing reflect the rareness!?

Why is it so bad for them to be worth more & go up in price? The price it costs to restore a Mk1 is a hell of alot more than it will be worth when its finished. Yes owners are doing it for the love of the car but I also feel like im throwing money down a drain at times. (Im keeping mine long term with no plans to sell it!)

I think Mk1's are coming into there own now and are starting to get the respect they deserve. The responce I had to mine last show season was a massive shock to me!

Anyway onwards and upwards

[the edmundator]

People other than Register members buy and sell Sciroccos. They pay what they want to for them. eBay is the great market value normalising tool, because cars will sell for whatever the public is willing to pay. I don't think the Register has any notable effect on prices.

[jimmy h]

[quote="Winston"] The price it costs to restore a Mk1 is a hell of alot more than it will be worth when its finished. Yes owners are doing it for the love of the car but I also feel like im throwing money down a drain at times. (Im keeping mine long term with no plans to sell it!)

WHAT? do you mean to tell me all this cash I'm throwing at mine - I'll never see a return on - Jesus

Seriously....

I got the bill from the Bodyshop a couple of weeks ago and it was, and still is, eye watering - don't even ask as I will not be sharing it.

I think if a MK1 gets a hold of you, it is a mighty hard thing to get out of the blood stream, I quit a 40 a day cigarette habit 6 years ago on my third attempt which I never thought I was going to achieve - yet I can't remove my addiction to my Storm.

I think there are only 3 other cars I would truly like to own: A Lancia Delta S4,sadly I don't have half a million quid lying around (well not now after starting this current project) A series 1 Lotus Esprit, I've ruled this out as a really stupid thing to do after doing lots of reasearch, and a Ferrari 355 - yeah getting sort of affordable now but going to be very costly to keep maintained/insured/ and not have people spit at you long term.

I think the Mk1 is a superb drivers car, especially in 1.6 injected format. Two occasions I will never forget (1) driving mine after a long lay off whilst I'd been running my Corrado (The Rado felt like a Tank afterwards)! and (2) driving 81GTI's car to Donnington in 2006 - again after a long time of not driving one.

So, as for short and long term value I'm not that arsed that they are not, or ever will be that valuble - it's the owning tinkering and driving where the receptors in the brain get the reward.

[giblets]

I would agree ebay may give an idea of value of a car, but as ebay is getting less reliable so less people are bidding and buying cars on ebay especially cars that must be inspected before bidding. the last couple of cars on ebay, one had had no mot in at least four years and still made nearly £2000 which still did not reach the reserve. . the second sold for over £2200 with very short mot. both gls models. so going by this values are definately on the up and as more light is shone on the mk1 i would say values would escalate much further.
In my opinion forums do have an impact on values , you just dont see that many mk1 sciroccos for sale so a lot of people turn to the forum for valuations when one does turn up.
I have my mk1 scirocco up for sale but after reading this thread and giving it some thought im keeping it, im not going to be able to replace it for what im selling it for in a couple of years time when my circumstances have changed, and i know for sure im going to want to get another..

[mark83]

I think Mk1's are coming into there own now and are starting to get the respect they deserve. The responce I had to mine last show season was a massive shock to me!

Anyway onwards and upwards

I agree with you Winston ,early watercooled have got very popular over the last 5 years and I think demand for mk1 rocco's will go up .Especially as more cars appear on the show fields of edition etc .

I have been looking for a chrome bumper mk1 for the last 5 years and I can say from what I have seen that prices are on the rise . Most complete cars that require restoration have made around the 2k mark on ebay. The last one I saw on ebay was a ts which required full resto was up for £2400 iirc and sold with in the week .

If scirocco's go the same way as the mk1 golf then the early model's will become more valuable .... time will tell.

[GTXTRA]

Great debate.

As much as Ant and I have aspired to increase the profile of both the Mk1 and the Mk2 over the last few years (I think that's happening) not totally sure it's down to the SR to ensure values increase, although we have had some success when dealing with insurance companies who were on the verge of writing cars off in the past.

Preserving as many cars as possible is more important to us than increasing the asking prices on individual cars - the old forum was populated by more than one serial car breaker and cars are now more likely to be brought back to life/use than was the case during 2005/6.

Whilst cars such as Doug Shepley's silver Mk1 TS went for a lot of cash a couple of years ago - talk of a Porsche collector acquiring it - and with other cars, the ex Barry Cornish car I alluded too earlier, having attracted very healthy sums, the majority of Mk1's cars out there, as has been pointed out a few times here, are going to need a thorough going over bodywork wise and even the 'ok' looking ones will be concealing horrors in the inner wing/rear chassis rails/door frames/everywhere bloody else. That can all cost big money so I fail to see how a car with clear signs of corrosion is priced at over £2500 when MINT/rebuilt cars have only sold for £3 - 3,500 this year when personally, I think they were worth over £4k.

The recently re-printed (third time) Mk1 buyers guide in Golf + probably hasn't helped clarify current £'s (nor what the dashboard looks like............) so we'll have another chat at Inters when we're all together re setting more accurate price ideas.

Just some opinion - not Gospel.

[mr.brown]

when MINT/rebuilt/magazine feature cars have only sold for £3 - 3,500 this year

[tobyio]

Great debate.

As much as Ant and I have aspired to increase the profile of both the Mk1 and the Mk2 over the last few years (I think that's happening) not totally sure it's down to the SR to ensure values increase, although we have had some success when dealing with insurance companies who were on the verge of writing cars off in the past.

Preserving as many cars as possible is more important to us than increasing the asking prices on individual cars - the old forum was populated by more than one serial car breaker and cars are now more likely to be brought back to life/use than was the case during 2005/6.

Whilst cars such as Doug Shepley's silver Mk1 TS went for a lot of cash a couple of years ago - talk of a Porsche collector acquiring it - and with other cars, the ex Barry Cornish car I alluded too earlier, having attracted very healthy sums, the majority of Mk1's cars out there, as has been pointed out a few times here, are going to need a thorough going over bodywork wise and even the 'ok' looking ones will be concealing horrors in the inner wing/rear chassis rails/door frames/everywhere bloody else. That can all cost big money so I fail to see how a car with clear signs of corrosion is priced at over £2500 when MINT/rebuilt cars have only sold for £3 - 3,500 this year when personally, I think they were worth over £4k.

The recently re-printed (third time) Mk1 buyers guide in Golf + probably hasn't helped clarify current £'s (nor what the dashboard looks like............) so we'll have another chat at Inters when we're all together re setting more accurate price ideas.

Just some opinion - not Gospel.

How many mk1's are out there without any signs of corrosion? Not many at all and they are rarely on the market, maybe 2 or 3 a year come for sale that have had full restoration if that, the rest all need work - some more than others, I think thats why values can be so off because really good ones dont come up for sale. If a mk1 has had a full strip down rebuild, full paint job in and out not just flashed over within the last 2 years and its still A1 then it is worth 5k all day, I would pay 5k for that and im sure others would to.

I would also say 90% of Mot'd mk1s on the road have the odd bubble of rust somewhere, The mk1 is a rust bucket but that does not mean its not a great car its just not suited to the british climate. I would pay 2.5k/3k for a mk1 that was solid in all the vital places and presentable but that could be amazing if it had paint. A full on paint job with a bit of bodywork is going to be 2-2.5k so if you can get a great base, in terms of mechanics, history, interior, MOT and decent body then spending 2.5k to 3k with a view to spending another 2-2.5k to have it perfect is not unreasonable. the end product is a 5k to me

Look at the 78 gls that has come up on the classifieds for £1600, with history and low mileage and the bodywork being presentable but not perfect, for me if it had mot would easily be worth 2.5 to 3k as it is, then spend another 2-2.5k on bodywork and you will have the most perfect MK1 which would be worth 5k easily

[Bonusrocco]

The recently re-printed (third time) Mk1 buyers guide in Golf + probably hasn't helped clarify current £'s (nor what the dashboard looks like............)

I laughed a lot when I saw that. Just sums up the whole thing for me!

[the edmundator]

I would pay 5k for that and im sure others would to.

It's all very well saying that but you, and others, aren't paying that much money when these cars do become available. Very special cars have occasionally made more (I remember a lovely looking GLS auto with about 16k on the clock going for about £4.5k a year or two back - before the recession started to bite).

then spend another 2-2.5k on bodywork and you will have the most perfect MK1 which would be worth 5k easily

£2-2.5k (or more) on a decent full respray, plus whatever it costs to put the rust right - if you're paying a professional to do this properly you could easily be looking at another £2.5-£10k depending on the state of the car once the rust is all exposed. I don't think anyone should ever hope to break even on a mk1 (or mk2) requiring restoration.

I think it's fair to say that all cars, once they no longer have a place in the normal second hand car trade, become very difficult to value - which is why good classic cars end up at auctions.

You might be right that we can tell people how much to pay for them, but a lot of the ones that come up for sale aren't within the Register. Matching the market value of equivalent engine/year Golf would seem reasonable to me, although I'd still expect mk1 Golf GTIs to be worth more than any Scirocco because of their cultural and historical significance, as mentioned earlier.

[G60MAT]

A great deal of sense has already been said, as a show and "scene" participant for over 10 years its clear that rarity does not equal value, however some cars do indeed change tastes and are "worth" more than the sum their parts.

As example I also own a nicely sorted Corrado - which is currently worth approx half the value of the funds spent on it in the last 12months! In comparison a friend of mine has 3 Porsche 964's and will likely get back (and then some) every penny he spends!

As for the Scirocco - none of us have one to make money, but none of us want to over spend knowing we will never get most of it back, especially tricky with Mk1's as most are full restoration projects. Tastes and budgets vary greatly we all build our cars differently - Some full on show cars, some concours originality and some scrappy racers etc,

In time these cars will become more popular, especially as some of the current builds complete but I doubt they will every reach the height in value we would all love or owners of more exotic classics currently enjoy.

[tobyio]

I was looking through the amazing pics on here of bromley pageant(The biggest one day classic car show in the world) ( over 3000 exhibitors!) and thinking to myself there must be one of everything here no matter how rare.... then i noticed no pic of a mk1, so i asked the question to the mk2 guys on the register stand if anyone saw a mk1 there today, the answer was no........

Road going mk1's are unbelievably sparse.

[Mr Funk]

No ones arguing that fact. I bet you could look through the pics and come up with another dozen cars that are in the same situation. And I'll bet that on a hundred different forums the same conversation is going on.

But at the end of the day, and no matter how you try and argue the point the truth of the matter is that the scirocco is an extremely niche car. Undoubtedly rarer than they were but at over thirty years old you'd expect that.

But all this talk of prices rising dramatically and them being worth the money that's being asked in some places is frankly hilarious.
I'd love a mk1 over the mk2 any day of the week, as would most of the people on here but the scarcity of parts twinned with the frightening reality of rust issues would put all but the most dedicated of restorers off.