# You need to store a car for 30 years. What is the best way to go about this for the best results **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 5, 2016, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-need-to-store-a-car-for-30-years-what-is-the-best-way-to-go-about-this-for-the-best-results/767719 "2016-10-05T18:24:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2016, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-need-to-store-a-car-for-30-years-what-is-the-best-way-to-go-about-this-for-the-best-results/767719/21 "2016-10-06T04:20:10Z")
Anyone else think of “1972 Cadillac Convertible”? AIUI: As part of its anti-safety regs BS, GM announced that, due to roll-over regs, the 1972 Caddy would be the last convertible they ever made (and broadly hinting that no other rag top would ever be sold in the US). A bunch of people bought 1972 Caddys, put them up on blocks and waited for offers of hundreds of thousands of dollars. The 1964 Fork Falcon, in its new sheet metal was snickered at. It was called the “Mustang”. The 1964 /12 Mustang even had the 4 lug wheels of the Falcon. Good luck guessing… ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2016, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-need-to-store-a-car-for-30-years-what-is-the-best-way-to-go-about-this-for-the-best-results/767719/22 "2016-10-06T05:06:03Z")
> [@urban1a](#): > > The OP stated that he wanted to do this on the cheap, but what if he added a few bucks and constructed an air tight storage facility, put the cars in, extracted the oxygen and flooded the area with an inert gas, such as argon (of course, he would have to take care that the facility remained sealed and new argon was added as required, so add a few more bucks). Would that improve the cars ability to remain newish for 30 years? > > Bob Plagiarism! ---
**Author:** ![Ignotus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecc23a/32.png) [@Ignotus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignotus)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2016, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-need-to-store-a-car-for-30-years-what-is-the-best-way-to-go-about-this-for-the-best-results/767719/23 "2016-10-06T11:15:48Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > Build a large airtight container, put the cars in it, drain the fluids, and replace the air with a noble gas before sealing it up. > > That will take care of most of the objections listed so far. No need for much construction. You could just buy a shipping container and weld it shut. ---
**Author:** ![davida03801](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5e925/32.png) [@davida03801](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davida03801)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2016, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-need-to-store-a-car-for-30-years-what-is-the-best-way-to-go-about-this-for-the-best-results/767719/24 "2016-10-06T11:21:28Z")
[Hire these folks to do the job for you.](http://www.collectorscargarage.com/) ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2016, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-need-to-store-a-car-for-30-years-what-is-the-best-way-to-go-about-this-for-the-best-results/767719/25 "2016-10-06T13:29:11Z")
This reminded me about one of my favourite car stories; Sally by Asimov. The story (published in 1953) takes place in 2057. Fifty-one old cars have been retired to a farm run by Jake, where they can be properly cared for. All have names, but only three are identified by Jake. Sally is a vain convertible, > [@](#): > > I heard Sally coming up behind me and I put out my hand. She slid right into it and the feel of the hard, glossy enamel of her fender was warm in my palm. > “A nice automatobile,” said Gellhorn. > That’s one way of putting it. Sally was a 2045 convertible with a Hennis-Carleton positronic motor and an Armat chassis. She had the cleanest, finest lines I’ve ever seen on any model, bar none. For five years, she’d been my favorite, and I’d put everything into her I could dream up. In all that time, there’d never been a human being behind her wheel. > Not once. > “Sally,” I said, patting her gently, “meet Mr. Gellhorn.” > Sally’s cylinder-purr keyed up a little. I listened carefully for any knocking. Lately, I’d been hearing motor-knock in almost all the cars and changing the gasoline hadn’t done a bit of good. Sally was as smooth as her paint job this time, however. > “Do you have names for all your cars?” asked Gellhorn. > He sounded amused, and Mrs. Hester doesn’t like people to sound as though they were making fun of the Farm. She said, sharply, “Certainly. The cars have real personalities, don’t they, Jake? The sedans are all males and the convertibles are females.” > Gellhorn was smiling again. “And do you keep them in separate garages, ma’am?” > Mrs. Hester glared at him. > [@](#): > > You surprise me, Mr. Gellhorn. I’ve got Sally and fifty others. Look at her." > I was grinning. I couldn’t help it. Sally was so clean, it almost hurt. Some insect must have died on her windshield or one speck of dust too many had landed, so she was going to work. A little tube protruded and spurted Tergosol over the glass. It spread quickly over the silicone surface film and squeejees snapped into place instantly, passing over the windshield and forcing the. water into the little channel that led it, dripping, down to the ground. Not a speck of water got onto her glistening apple-green hood. Squeegee and detergent tube snapped back into place and disappeared. > Gellhorn said, “I never saw an automatic do that.” > “I guess not,” I said. “I fixed that up specially on our cars. They’re clean. They’re always scrubbing their glass. They like it. I’ve even got Sally fixed up with wax jets. She polishes herself every night till you can see your face in any part of her and shave by it. If I can scrape up the money, I’d be putting it on the rest of the girls. Convertibles are very vain.” The whole story is [here.](http://www.e-reading.club/chapter.php/82060/20/Isaac_Asimovs_Worlds_of_Science_Fiction._Book_9__Robots.html) ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2016, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-need-to-store-a-car-for-30-years-what-is-the-best-way-to-go-about-this-for-the-best-results/767719/26 "2016-10-06T15:07:06Z")
Drain the fluids, put them in vacuum, and lower the temp to as close to absolute zero as you can afford to maintain them. Works for venison, at least. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ignotus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecc23a/32.png) [@Ignotus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignotus)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2016, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-need-to-store-a-car-for-30-years-what-is-the-best-way-to-go-about-this-for-the-best-results/767719/27 "2016-10-06T15:27:54Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Drain the fluids, put them in vacuum, and lower the temp to as close to absolute zero as you can afford to maintain them. > > Works for venison, at least. 🙂 Yeah, but it’s somewhat forgiving. I think plastic and painting might crack under circumstances… ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2016, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-need-to-store-a-car-for-30-years-what-is-the-best-way-to-go-about-this-for-the-best-results/767719/28 "2016-10-06T17:53:50Z")
I’m not sure that there’s a good answer to this question. This is very likely to be a money losing proposition in any event. Instead of a productive asset generating dividends, you have an asset with high carrying costs (storage, maintenance, and insurance) generating no income. Any gains have to come from uncertain appreciation. There isn’t great data on appreciation for collector cars. Hagerty, the classic car insurer, has put together indexes of classic car appreciation. [Classic Car, Truck and Motorcycle Values | Hagerty Valuation Tool®](https://www.hagerty.com/apps/valuationtools/market-trends/collector-indexes) Unfortunately, the data only goes back eleven years and it’s not a great cross section of collector cars. They likely picked cars that they thought would appreciate strongly over some period of time. It turns out, they generally picked pretty well. Since the indexes started, the average car on it has appreciated by about 10.6% per year. That’s pretty good. (Gains are also concentrated in a few winners. If you knock out Hagerty’s two best and the two worst performers of the over 100 they track, your rate of appreciation drops to 9.6%). Classic cars are surprisingly volatile. For example, the Ferrari 250 GTO is one of the most valuable cars in the world. One sold in 1990 for $13 million and the most recent sales were for $38 million. [Ferrari 250 GTO - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_250_GTO) But, those two points hide the massive plummet in value that took place between 1990 and 1993 when the price dropped from $13 million to about $3 million. Unfortunately, right now, prices of cars may be falling again. [Bloomberg - Are you a robot?](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-22/the-collectible-car-market-is-getting-the-air-kicked-out-of-its-tires) In the long run, I’d expect the value of the average collector car to increase a little faster than the rate of inflation. Once you factor in the carrying costs I would expect appreciation that doesn’t even match inflation. For instance, a collector car insurance policy might cost about 1% of the car’s value to insure each year, though you may be able to get a better deal if you never drive the cars. [Classic car insurance may be best policy](http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug/23/business/fi-perfin23) So, if I were trying to invest in cars, I’d want to minimize my carrying costs. I’d buy a cheap warehouse in the desert to stick the cars in. I’d drain the gas and put them up on blocks. Throw a cover on them to keep the dust off. A climate controlled storage facility would be nice but the costs of climate control probably exceed any benefit you are going to get from increasing the life of certain rubber or plastic parts. Even things like keeping them all hooked up to battery tenders is probably not worth the cost of the energy over decades especially because the batteries are still going to fail. The same likely goes for schemes to encapsulate the cars in noble gas or nitrogen. At least a nitrogen filled bag wouldn’t be too expensive but the cost to pay someone to keep checking the bags is expensive. Just leave them somewhere and check on them once a year or so. Then hope you’ve picked some winners. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-need-to-store-a-car-for-30-years-what-is-the-best-way-to-go-about-this-for-the-best-results/767719/29 "2016-10-07T00:50:54Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > Build a large airtight container, put the cars in it, drain the fluids, and replace the air with a noble gas before sealing it up. > > That will take care of most of the objections listed so far. Jack it up. And nitrogen would probably be adequate. Normally, you’d add a few tablespoons of oil to each cylinder, add temperature control, and ratsak, and keep it out of the sun, but with the controlled atmosphere I don’t know if the rest of it is very important. ---
**Author:** ![Kimballkid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5a626/32.png) [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-need-to-store-a-car-for-30-years-what-is-the-best-way-to-go-about-this-for-the-best-results/767719/30 "2016-10-07T18:52:04Z")
I know how not to do it. A couple years ago I bought a 1984 Buick Regal that had been stored for 20 years. Before the guy put it into storage he waxed it but did not wipe the wax off. The guy who bought it from him had to buff all that off so now the paint is really thin and even worn through in spots. I doubt there’s any clearcoat left on it. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-need-to-store-a-car-for-30-years-what-is-the-best-way-to-go-about-this-for-the-best-results/767719/31 "2016-10-07T19:26:54Z")
Completely disassemble, vacuum seal every part individually, and store in a windowless, humidity-controlled room. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-need-to-store-a-car-for-30-years-what-is-the-best-way-to-go-about-this-for-the-best-results/767719.md?page=1)