£300 to £8 Drop in Value, Though Unused

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 13244, 21 January 1941, Page 7

£3OO to £8 Drop in Value, Though Unused

In Chicago recently a 1924 model that had stood unused in a garage for sixteen years and was in perfect condition was put up for sale. "When, owing to unusual circumstances, the car was run into the garage in 1924, it had been driven less than five miles, and none at all subsequently. The price when new was more than £ 300, but only approximately £S was obtained for it when it was sold this year.

In an analysis cf the principle involved in this exceptional case. “The merican Automobile’’ seeks to show that the heavy loss in value was not because the car had depreciated in the ordinary sense, but rather because the s'xteeu years of subsequent evolution have so greatly appreciated, cars, and in turn the buyers’ ideas of what a car ought to be. Thus, even at £8 a 1924 model seems a poor bargain. Three Times as Much It is suggested that the buyer of a car now obtains three times as much for his money as in 19 20. A comparison on the American market put forward is that in 19 20 an Oldsmobile four-door saloon of 9ft. 4in. wheelbase sold for 2,345 dollars (approximately £ 470), while in 193 9 a representative car of comparable size, having a similar wheelbase -—a Chevrolet Master touring, saloon —sold at 710 dollars (approximately £l4O, calculating on the same nominal rate of exchange basis). As to mechanical improvement within the same period, when General Motors established their proving ground in the early 19 20’s, a test hill was constructed with a uniform gradient of rather les sthau 1 in 10. The test then imposed for hill-climb-ing ability was to see how far up the hill a car would go on top gear from an -approach speed of 10 m.p.h. Long ago that test had to be discarded because all the cars tried would go clear over the hill on top, •the test having to be modified to the standard of what speed the car would go over the summit at from a 10 m.p.h. start. Present-day cars accelerate all the way up the hill and finish the climb at a high speed.