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It is a time capsule of how wrong people can be...….saying that GTR's would drop to $40K etc

I just did a quick car sales hit and they range from around $50K for an R32 to over $200K for an immaculate R34 complete with fruit.

Not saying they will get that, but then again nobody is talking $40K :)

GTR's did infact drop under 40k (for R34's) before the crazy price hike.

Anyone who has ever looked under one or in the engine bay of one or knows skylines in general, knows that when you mod one, for performance's sake, you're effectively paying $100k (lol) for a heavy AWD system.

  • Like 1

 

3 hours ago, Kinkstaah said:

GTR's did infact drop under 40k (for R34's) before the crazy price hike.

Yeah and then Paul Walker died, then the prices spiked for whatever reasons.

I was getting ready to buy my dream car at $40k ?

 

Americans started importing.

Fan base exploded.

The market now is huge, the numbers of cars is not.

American population = 330 mil  give or take

Australian population = 25 million

Price is dictated by demand.

Look how much clean GTT and GTST's are going for.

I was googling and found some joint in Japan sitting on alot of Skylines, it seemed they had hundreds of 34's just waiting.

Maybe like those guys 15 or 20 years ago who grabbed alot of Ford GT's when they were cheap, and done some shifty selling amongst themselves to pump up the prices, hence the million dollar XY XW GT's.

Maybe, who knows, I'm bored sitting in a waiting room to see a dentist....

It's definitely American fueled. I remember when Non-Vspec BNR34s were $30-$40k, BNR32s were $15ish - if you paid $20k you were either silly or got an absolute minter.

Americans are already hoarding 33s and 34s waiting for their 25-year acceptance, and there's Japanese firms allowing them to buy them now and charging them storage in Japan until they're legal to ship.

Was recently in Japan and was told that certain GT-R dealers are banding together and no longer allowing foreigners to buy them. They were cashing in initially (and i'm sure there will be some that continue to do so), but I think they're beginning to realise that if things go unchecked, there will be none left in the motherland - instead all in the hands of US youtube vloggers and instagram kids

EDIT:

22 minutes ago, mlr said:

Maybe like those guys 15 or 20 years ago who grabbed alot of Ford GT's when they were cheap, and done some shifty selling amongst themselves to pump up the prices, hence the million dollar XY XW GT's.

^This. GT Falcons were damn near impossible to sell in the 80s. L34 Toranas were $20k at one point. Skylines are only just now hitting the collector radar, and as much as it sucks to see the once close-knit GT-R scene descend into speculative flippers and trust fund kids; I'd say these big market movements we've seen in the past few years are here to stay for the forseeable future...

Edited by alex182
5 hours ago, alex182 said:

It's definitely American fueled. I remember when Non-Vspec BNR34s were $30-$40k, BNR32s were $15ish - if you paid $20k you were either silly or got an absolute minter.

Americans are already hoarding 33s and 34s waiting for their 25-year acceptance, and there's Japanese firms allowing them to buy them now and charging them storage in Japan until they're legal to ship.

Was recently in Japan and was told that certain GT-R dealers are banding together and no longer allowing foreigners to buy them. They were cashing in initially (and i'm sure there will be some that continue to do so), but I think they're beginning to realise that if things go unchecked, there will be none left in the motherland - instead all in the hands of US youtube vloggers and instagram kids

EDIT:

^This. GT Falcons were damn near impossible to sell in the 80s. L34 Toranas were $20k at one point. Skylines are only just now hitting the collector radar, and as much as it sucks to see the once close-knit GT-R scene descend into speculative flippers and trust fund kids; I'd say these big market movements we've seen in the past few years are here to stay for the forseeable future...

It is American fueled, there's zero doubt.

There are some good aspects. The heritage parts program and a massive revival of the RB26 GT-R aftermarket, a lot of "wobblers" that needed a lot of work to clean up again that would've normally been parted out are now getting restored. Nissan developed an entirely new technology to replicate body panels just for the heritage parts program. For people that got in before all of this happened it's been a great thing for the most part.

There are bad aspects though. Yes, there are instagram kiddies claiming their lemonade stand paid for their R32 GT-R but frankly those are surface issues. Those people will get bored and move on to the next fad. The bigger issue is the rise of theft for these cars in Japan. Clean GT-Rs are being stolen from owners in Japan and exported before they have a chance to figure out what has happened. The export-focused companies are also shady as all hell, companies like JDM Expo, Japan Partner, etc are basically buying up rust buckets with blown engines and doing the absolute minimum to get them presentable to sell off to some person at 2-3x mark-up. Even the "reputable" exporters still export cars with crash damage, etc every so often. Companies like Trust Kikaku are also playing games with the parts market, they've had people do videos about how they're trying to "preserve" these cars for normal people but if you go through their yahoo auctions you can easily find parts marked up double the list price in nissan epc data/amayama. There is also the problem of these cars being exported en masse from Japan but I think many of the best examples are kept in private hands in Japan, it is exceptionally rare to see a truly clean R32 or R33 make it stateside and they often command a premium well above what it would cost in Japan.

Just my thoughts though as a big dumb american.

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