Which Falcons are Best Buying?

[Crazy Dazz]

Sunday Arvo Dazz Thread:

Cars generally depreciate, although rarer models perhaps not as fast.
Then they hit a point where they're not getting any cheaper, that's normally the sweet-spot.
Then they just get older & more worn-out without getting cheaper
Then they start creeping up again.
Then they start to become actually desirable and harder to find.

Granted its a bit different because there are nolonger new cars to drive the price down.

What Falcons do you think are in the sweet-spot now, or soon to be, and of those which would you buy as a keeper?

[CATXR8]

T series and P250

[Sprintey]

You've hit that sweet spot description well Dazz, for me I cast my eyes at

XR8 or 8cyl: AU, last of the windsors. Supercharged Miamis not yet anywhere near there.

XR6: still languish, so from EB to BF, find a good one if you can.

Also: XR6 turbo, BA-BF & I reckon they will become cult classics with a far more broad group of fans than strictly the Ford guys.

Wildcard: SY and SYII Turbo/Turbo Ghia


Edit: 'best buying' could also be an EL GLi you get for $900 that then gets you to work for 3 years with hardly any maintenance

[GO FURTHER]

FG or FGII G6E Turbo...

Luxury interior, generally unmolested, unmodified and usually owned by older owners.

Great Sleeper and some prestige.

[guzzis3]

20 years as a rule of thumb.

Not everything climbs again and with the changing of the generations fewer and fewer people are willing to restore. I've had a lot of classic bikes and cars over the years, it's always fascinated me how the market falls and rises. You can get a 986 boxster for $12-15 atm. I reckon they are at the bottom. Once I wanted a 912. They used to be cheap, now they are as dear or more than 911's.

The last few years it's been the late E series getting dearer and harder to get parts for. Parts are an early indicator. Try buying zero offset factory alloys compared to AU-on, much much dearer.

I think the AU will be next. But look at 80's falcons. Does anyone want them ? will they ever ? Mind I am still shocked people started paying actual money for mid 60's falcons and 70's valiants so what would I know...

[asagaai]

Originally Posted by guzzis3

20 years as a rule of thumb.

Not everything climbs again and with the changing of the generations fewer and fewer people are willing to restore. I've had a lot of classic bikes and cars over the years, it's always fascinated me how the market falls and rises. You can get a 986 boxster for $12-15 atm. I reckon they are at the bottom. Once I wanted a 912. They used to be cheap, now they are as dear or more than 911's.

.

A colleague in Newie had a 986 boxster- engine blew and had it sent back to Germany and the price for a motor re-build he moaned was about the price of the boxster itself. I keep seeing him and asking when it is going to be back on the road...

That is what concerns me with a second hand Porsche- at least with a Falcon with Miami v8 if it blows you can just put in an aluminator for reasonable coin?

[PooDog]

Originally Posted by asagaai

A colleague in Newie had a 986 boxster- engine blew and had it sent back to Germany and the price for a motor re-build he moaned was about the price of the boxster itself. I keep seeing him and asking when it is going to be back on the road...

That is what concerns me with a second hand Porsche- at least with a Falcon with Miami v8 if it blows you can just put in an aluminator for reasonable coin?

Agree unless you poke a rod out the side there's gonna be plenty of aftermarket bits around for the coyote which has been around for a while

[guzzis3]

Originally Posted by asagaai

A colleague in Newie had a 986 boxster- engine blew and had it sent back to Germany and the price for a motor re-build he moaned was about the price of the boxster itself. I keep seeing him and asking when it is going to be back on the road...

That is what concerns me with a second hand Porsche- at least with a Falcon with Miami v8 if it blows you can just put in an aluminator for reasonable coin?

Funny you should mention that, I've been having a hard look at 986's recently. They are worth nothing atm but I reckon will start appreciating soon, probably after the recession. Porsches are funny. Genuine parts for boxsters are about 4x what you can buy quality aftermarket bits for, but perception gets people paying through the nose. There is no reason to fret over a separate contained assembly like the clutch/flywheel when aftermarket is about a grand and genuine is about 3 1/2. They are fiddly to work on but if you are patient it's all doable.

When you say "blew" was it the ims bearing ?

Elizabeth is always stirring me cos every time I get interested in buying a car or bike the prices start rocketing. I had Indian motorcycles when I was young, about half the price of a harley then, next thing I knew people were paying $30k for the rough old things. So I moved on to ducatis, then they went trendy...

[jpd80]

Anyone considering a 6-speed auto Falcon or Territory with a lot of kms
should really research how much a ZF costs to rebuild and reprogram,
it can run to serious money, sometimes more than the vehicle is worth.

a reason why I think that a lot of B and F series will disappear a lot quicker
than some expect, a lot of people will scrap a car rather than pay $4k-$5k
for a new gearbox in what's supposed to be a cheap runner...

[au2000]

imo - the best thing is just to get what u enjoy irrelevant of if it will be worth $$$ or not down the track, I just passed on my HX Kingswood for a VS executive Ute 5 speed 5 litre, much more fun to drive.

for all that knock the AU's I still enjoy driving my son's 5 speed XR6 .. love the power & the rawness of it .. just handles so well and always makes me smile, just makes me certain that the AU Ghia will be kept too.

if I was looking again I'd be def looking for a BA BF or FG XR6 Turbo manual, as others have said, a def future halo car I reckon, but a Miami in future will be hard to ignore..

[DJR-351]

I've never bought a car for potential investment or because others find a certain model desirable at the time, the cars that do it for me have been in the "sweet-spot" (for me) for quite a while now and will be for the foreseeable future, basically <1980, and in the Ford/Holden range nothing after XC/HZ motivates or interests me at all……

As au2000 alludes to, buy what you want and what makes you feel good driving, not potential worth or what others profess to be the ‘in’ thing……

[GT0132]

In my view B series GT's , the AU T series and any XR model pre B series.

The XR's were a special car in the E series and AU . In the B series onward they were just another taxi.

I can't see the turbo models being sought after unless you can find an unmolested F6/Typhoon that's been cared for.


V8 Ghias and base models with the V8 option may be worth something

[roKWiz]

Agree with DJR 351,
never bought a vehicle based on what it might be worth but was always a Holden guy, in fact I only bought this Ford panel van based on carrying capacity, long NSW rego and price.
Personally I thought Holden lost the plot at WB and Ford at the boxy X series. To me XD's on looked odd at some angles.

[GT0132]

Originally Posted by roKWiz

Agree with DJR 351,
never bought a vehicle based on what it might be worth but was always a Holden guy, in fact I only bought this Ford panel van based on carrying capacity, long NSW rego and price.
Personally I thought Holden lost the plot at WB and Ford at the boxy X series. To me XD's on looked odd at some angles.

Yeah the 80'as Falcons were boxy and I don't think have aged well at all. To think I traded my XC GXL 351 in on a XD 6cyl Fairmont. Seemed like a good idea at the time

[ebv8]

best buying for me is my $1500 AU1 futura, it has just over 100,000km and with very little maintenance i'll get another 200,000km out of it and probably still sell it for $1500 if i look after it
however if it was best buying performance car i'd go a BA/BF XR6t, XR8, GT or F6
the BA/BF are as cheap as they are ever going to get and you can still find an unabused car, but not for long
E series are all a bit long in the tooth and the hope of getting a mint XR is almost gone
AU XR6 are cheap but don't really get your heart pumping and an XR8 is too expensive for what you get (i think)

[roKWiz]

Maybe different in the cities these days but I was just in town (Wangaratta) and spotted at least 6 really nice AU's and 4 or 5 XF/G/H commercials (besides mine). So owners are hanging onto them here.

[Electrolyte Burns]

I usually find that when I buy a car it has just stopped depreciating and just started decomposing.

[CyberWasp]

Any of them.
They are not producing any more, and every day there are fewer left, than the day before.

[bathurst77]

last of the BF LTD or fairlaine ghias

[wodahs]

im hoping the NC V8 Fairlane will enter the list as i have one here i got for parts but wasnt worth parting out
got it cheap cost F/A to fix and is just sitting here till i do some thing with it

[Junkyard-Dog]

BA XR6T - From a stylistic perspective alone they have aged very well and in general the BA was the car that really outshone it's counterparts from Holden.

I wouldn't be surprised if Fairmont Ghias become sought after too. The BA Fairmont was always a car that captured my attention - long before I got mine.

The G6ET that came along with the FG will be a collector car for sure, they're already hard enough to find simply due to their relative scarcity. I will probably get one before they become extinct.

Just my 2c.

[Sar4890]

US model Falcons are still good buying and a fraction of the price you pay for domestic models and you can have a coupe. Win win

[fordomatic]

I think the S3 AU XR8 ship has sailed, as the T series. I can't see the S3 AUXR8 selling for T series prices and a good low km example is fetching 15k now. They might stretch to 20-25 but will take a while as T series would then need to go up which they aren't.

I'm not bothered either way as I have one of both, but i bought them to enjoy not to think about resale. Unless someone offered me 40k for my T3

[Crazy Dazz]

Do you think the pricing of Falcon and Commode V8s will re-align?

I don't know whether its because there were just so many SS and Calais sold with the 6.0, or
because Falcon production was curtailed in its final years, or
that Aussie Commode production lasted another year,
or that you can still buy something with the Commode badge.

But for cars upto 20 years old the V8 Commodes are on average much cheaper for the same age and condition.
(Which is of academic interest only. Would rather sell my organs than buy a Commode.)

[Franco Cozzo]

FG MKII XR6 Turbos are still going for the same prices now then when they were 2-3 years old with a heap more kilometers on them - they were low twenties back then and they're still in that $20K-$30K mark for a good one.

With how popular the Barra Turbo is now for engine conversions because of how tough it is, the cars themselves have held values already, particularly anything FG onwards.

If you had a stocker that was garaged it'd be worth a bit.

Interestingly the Barra cars seem to hold value better than FPV GS.

[XP6]

The Falcons at the turning point right now are the mid 80's to early 90's and a few collectable limited run cars like the ELGT and pursuit models.


we can disagree as much as we want because of our taste/opinion but.. XF's are increasing in value just like the XD/E has been doing for the last 5yrs