Unlike regular cars which predictable depreciate in value, it seems like there are quite a few high end cars that end up selling for more over time than what you could have bought them for new. If I could have bought every single high end car on the market in 2007, how much would they be worth 10 years later, assuming I kept them in mint condition and never drove them?
No profit on the Rolls Royce’s. Thats probably because supply satisfied demand.
The trouble then is that the ones made in lesser volumes are not on the market to get a market value.
Many of these high end cars do increase in value while demand exceeds supply, so it is possible to make a quick profit. It’s a huge gamble though - You are depending on the whims of a relatively few high net worth individuals who might be prepared to pay over the odds to be the first in their neighbourhood to own the latest Ferrari/Lambo/Bugatti. As soon as a newer model is launched, the value will go down faster that a skier on the black slopes in St Moritz.
I remember that something similar happened with Iphones a few years back and people who pre-ordered were able to sell them on at a profit.
Cars are like comic books or baseball cards from times past. They generally depreciate fairly rapidly in the short-term but a few become highly collectible over time. It is almost impossible to tell what those will be.
Despite the nostalgia, the performance of most 1960’s - 1970’s “muscle cars” is terrible unless your primary measure is noise and tire spinning. Even a modern passenger sedan like a Honda Civic can beat most of them in a straight line race and destroy them on any type of real-world course. The same can be said for 1980’s era Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Delorians. People lusted after them when I was a kid but quality control and even performance were terrible by modern day standards. You can buy them all day long with low miles in the 20k range and sometimes much lower except for a few rare models.
The fastest and best cars ever made are being made today. A Corvette Z06 is relatively affordable and can beat $1,000,000+ supercars from not that long ago. The trick with all collectibles is that you can’t predict which ones will become trendy in advance and that applies to cars as well. Most of them will lose value but a few rare examples may (or may not) become trendy among the collector community and skyrocket in value.
I think if you had bought one of every McLaren model, then you’d show a decent profit, as their production runs are small enough to create demand even within that tiny group of people who can afford the things in the first place. There are certain ultra-exotic Ferraris, for example, that are the same, but Ferrari in general tends to make cars to satisfy demand and novelty both.
The straight answer to the OP’s question is that you would be seriously out of pocket. Even more so if you factor in the cost of storage to keep them in mint condition at around $500 a month each.
If you were smart / prescient enough and well connected enough to buy as many of the 4,000 Ford GT’s (successor to the famous GT40) manufactured in the 2004-2006 model runs, you’d have made quite a bit. Listing at ~$150k when released, even today in the face of new 2017 models, used models from these years sell for $300k-$400k.
So, doubling your money over 10 years, neglecting storage, maintenance, and operating expenses.