Other Collectibles

Podcast Episode: 0219
the cars you never thought would be collection worty

    Ever wondered what cars could make a great addition to your collection for turning heads.  Maybe some cars not worth their weight in gold, but they will make a statement.  Follow AutoLooks as we take a look at what makes an oddity collection worthy for those who want to make a statement, not a fortune.

​    This past weekend I was at Canada's premier Concours d'Elégance, Cobble Beach. And no, this really isn't an episode about Cobble Beach. In all reality, it may have been around for 10 years, but this episode is about something that's going to appear at Cobble Beach and actually some of it was actually there. When you think about it, everybody looks at these classic cars, these million-dollar cars that I saw sitting in front of me a Marmon 16, so rare. But what does the future have in store for us? Are there future collectibles or are there cars that we can consider the other collectibles? These are vehicles that you really don't think will become collectible, but in much a way they will be to a specific group in the future. Today, AutoLooks is going to take a look at the other collectibles.
 
     Welcome back to the Autolux Podcast. I am your host, as always, the doctor to the automotive industry, Mr. Everett Jay, coming to you from our host website at AutoLooks.net. If you haven't been there, stop by check it out, read some of the reviews, check out some of the ratings and go to the Corporate Links website page. Big or small, we have them all on the AutoLooks.net Corporate Links website tab right at the top of the banner as you click our home website at AutoLooks.net, the AutoLooks Podcast is brought to you by Ecomm Entertainment Group and distributed by Podbean.com. If you'd like to get in touch with us, send us an email to our executive producer, owner and the host of the AutoLooks Podcast, Mr. Everett Jay, himself over at email at AutoLooks.net. 

​     So, like I said in the beginning, other collectibles. Throughout time there's been all kinds of vehicles that people have never really deemed as a collectible piece of automotive machinery that people have never really deemed as a collectible piece of automotive machinery. And as the automotive market is becoming more and more saturated, with people just out there trying to collect anything to make a profit off of, the future is actually starting to look a little bit brighter to some of the ill-fated classics of our past. We're not talking about specific special edition Mustangs that you may have never heard of. No, we're talking about those loser cars that you never really thought would be even considered a classic. I don't know about you, but if you live in Canada, you've probably seen the show Corner Gas. It was a Brent Butt's creation.
 
     Brent Butt was a Canadian comedian and decided to create his own television show. He eventually created a cartoon years later after he pulled the plug on his actual show, which he did, by the way, pull the plug on before it lost touch with itself, unlike my old favorite cartoon, the Simpsons, that has completely lost itself in the past few decades. Brent Butt, his father figure in the show, drove a Chevrolet Citation. Okay, now, this is something that you would never think is a collectible. But that little, that weird hatchback which a dealership in my town one of the sales reps there that was his first vehicle, which I always say what the fuck goes wrong with you? A citation is not something that is cool by any means, so why would we put it on a list of other collectible vehicles? Huh, if you didn't know this, the Citation had a turbocharged aftermarket variation called the Citation X-11.
 
     Yes, and with the increase in the aftermarket industry, early pocket rockets similar to that of the Omni Shelby are now becoming hits. There are too many of those GTI Volkswagen Golfs out there that people have gone away from them. They're looking at them going, I've seen it. I want something different, and this is something that I pride myself on. When I made the choice of my first vehicle, I was actually running a little bit short on time and my current car at the time, a 1994 Chrysler Concord with a 3.5-liter V6. I literally beat the living shit out of this car and it lasted me to 309 000 kilometers. And like, literally, I beat the living crap out of it. Being a cab forward design, that concord is going to become a collectible in the future.

​     Maybe not now, but as people start to realize that Chrysler is disappearing into the background, some of the past favorites that made it into the great product that it once was might seem more appealing, similar to that of the Shelby Omni. The Omni was a literal piece of shit. It was built off the K-Car platform used to save Chrysler Corporation, okay, and this vehicle was literally a throwaway car. But Carroll Shelby, being part of the Chrysler Corporation at that point in time, decided to add his nameplate to it and make it a turbocharged thing to go up against Remember the Shelby Omni G-L-H-S To go up against the Volkswagen Golf GTI. He wanted to take on the pocket rocket industry. Well, everybody's heard about the Volkswagens, Hell, everybody's heard about Quattro’s. You've all heard of the S4s. You know Z28, Camaros, Firebirds. These are all amazing great vehicles.
 
     But other collectibles, like I said, are for people like myself who see the odd and unusual. My Concorde was on its last legs and, after doing a horrible job trying to clean its transmission myself to save a bit of money since I, you know, I was just getting out of college and, because of where I live, even though I graduated top of my class, finding a job in my home city was like literally harder than trying to get out of a silk sheet blanket while you're waxed up. Literally it was a pain in the ass. Why? Because I only spoke English and my hometown is predominantly a bilingual city. So, I graduated with a 4.0 grade average and I couldn't get a job. My Concorde was on its last legs and I needed it to survive.
 
    After getting a decent part-time job, I saved up enough money to finally get a replacement vehicle. My first vehicle I was going to purchase on my own, with my own money. For the longest time, all I ever wanted was a Dodge Stealth, an Audi S4, or a Nissan 240SX Collectible, desirable vehicles. When it all came down to the weekend that I literally had to pull the pin and buy something, it was between a Cavalier Z24 or a Kia Rio RX-V. I made the odd choice of going with the cheap, throwaway economy car. They were both the same price and both had less than 100,000 kilometers on them. Why did I choose the Kia? Because I wanted something different and I was buying my first vehicle to customize it, turn around and make it into what I love. And I chose that tiny little entry vehicle that helped Kia get its start in North America, the Rio, a vehicle that, by today's standards, is starting to have some nostalgia to it and is becoming a collectible vehicle. 

      Not for the masses. Everybody's still after the Corvettes, Camaros, Challengers. They're not after the Rios, but like its brother I would say its bigger brother, the Kia Borrego that I also own, one of less than 1,500 ever sold in Canada and less than 15,000 ever sold in North America. Its rarity makes it even better, and that's where other collectibles come into play is their rarity. These are the vehicles that nobody ever thinks about. Everybody thinks of a Chevy Monza, but nobody ever thinks of the Buick Skyhawk. My uncle had one of them and he loved it and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. And you don't see a lot of Skyhawks. Everybody always sees them and goes, oh, it's a Monza. He's like no, it's a Buick Skyhawk, Kind of like everybody sees the little red Express from Dodge. They don't realize that it has a pure black sibling, the Dodge Warlock. Difference it's black and it doesn't have transport exhausts on it. But the Warlock doesn't get as much credit. It's a collectible in its own right and its rarity makes it more of a collectible than its counterpart Kind of like my Rio as being a throwaway vehicle.
 
     At some point in time people are going to look at it and say there's not that many of those around. I remember those cars. How many people today look at a K car and think that's a part of history? Wow, I remember the K cars. They were everywhere. They were garbage, they were junk. They all got thrown away. Hell, the Red Green Show cut up and tore apart so many of them in that show just to create so many great inventions that finding one today seems like a rarity. It's odd and it's intriguing. And if the classic car show is out in the weekend as you start to realize some of these rarities doesn't matter how good they were for their time. Their net worth and their desirability make’s them even greater. Seeing a Marmon 16, one of 14 created was amazing, and finding out that those things go for 1.2 million dollars makes it even crazier Considering the fact that there was a Jaguar XK120 at that show and those don't even go for the same amount. But why there are more of them.
 
     The Marmon wasn't something that you would think to ever keep, similar to that of the original Toyota MR2, or even the old Supra Celica’s. A lot of people, when they were done with them, just got rid of them, as most people do with their vehicles. That also comes with a lot of sedans. To this day, I am still literally dumbfounded when I think about how I just gave up on my concord instead of rebuilding the transmission and keeping that car around. It was literally built to be a rear-wheel-drive sedan and I had grand ambitions of turning that car into one. Dropping a Dodge Charger platform underneath a Chrysler Concord, make it rear-wheel drive, dropping it down to the ground and putting an Eagle Vision taillight on it, just because they're a little bit better and they make it easier to put a low-slung wing off the back. I was going to turn it into the ultimate drift car. I thought about that with my old Plymouth Acclaim as well Making a Targa top out of a Plymouth Acclaim Another one of those rarities when you see them, even on movies.

    I was watching Kindergarten Cop with my son the other day and they have that in there. It's an old Plymouth Acclaim and I told him. I said wow, I had one of those at one point he's like really Pretty neat looking thing. I'm like, well, they were pieces of crap, of butt. Ugly for what I found back in the day.
 
     Hell, my dad owned a Dynasty in a 1990 Chrysler New Yorker Fifth Avenue. Okay, that was the first car I ever learned to drive in, Not the first car I actually drove. First car I actually got behind the wheel and slightly moved was the Dynasty. But the New Yorker is what I drove. I always wanted to turn that into a lowrider but today, when you think about it, a car like that is a collectible.
 
    It may not sit in the same context of a Ferrari but by today's standards being 2024, vehicles from 1999 are considered classics because they're 25 years old. My 90 New Yorker fits that classification. It is a classic by today's standards. It had A quartz pentagon coming out of the hood. It wasn't like the Dynasty where it was actually on the grill, it came out of the hood. It had hideaway headlights. The back seats were big enough for my best friend who was 6'4" to sit in. They were plush, they were cushy, it had a tree so you could fit six people in it easily. It was a classic.
 
     It's a vehicle that you really don't think is a collectible by today's standards. But in all context, it was considering the fact that it essentially out luxuries even the 300s we had, because the 300s of previous didn't have a hood ornament similar to the Mercedes logo on the hood. That Chrysler had a quartz pentagon sitting on the hood. It was cool and it just screamed luxury. Having that car today, people will be in awe to see it. But when I drove it to high school of course you know this is back in the year 1999, 2000 period it wasn't really cool because you know it was about a decade old. So, no, it's not cool, it's not a classic but by today's standards it is. And you may not think it's a collectible but it is. ​

     The other collectibles are those vehicles that we all forgot about, Products like the 1978 AMC Concorde AMX, the last AMX, the AMC, Alliance, piece of junk vehicle built by Renault like literal piece of junk. But seeing one of these today you may not think it's cool if you grew up with them, but kids today see them as something cool. You have to remember when I was in high school, getting like a 1970s charger even those big boats near the end of it was a cool vehicle, but to my dad it was just a big bulky boat, kind of like. My grandparents owned a ford maverick and my dad learned to drive in a Chrysler Newport. Those are big boat vehicles. When you grew up with those things around you didn't think they are collectible vehicles.
 
    Nobody today who lived through the early days of Hyundai thinks a Hyundai Excel, a Chevy Citation, a Chevrolet Beretta, an Eagle Premier, a Ford LTD, Country Squire Wagon or even the original Saturn S-Series are collectible vehicles. But in their own rights they are. The Country Squire had wood paneling one of the last vehicles with wood paneling, similar to that of the Buick Roadmaster. A big, burly NorthStar V8 underneath this big monstrous station wagon. It's amazing. These were all great products in their own light, but we never saw them for the amazing products they were.
 
     How many of you if I told you that a product like the original Hyundai S-Coupe, the Saturn SC1, a Toyota Paseo or an Eagle Summit are collectible vehicles of today? Hell, they all share one thing in common they all had two doors. Hell, the Eagle Summit, was essentially just a rebadged Mitsubishi Colt, which also had a Dodge Colt variation of it. But since Eagle is a brand that no longer exists today, products like its Premier, the Summit or even, as I talked earlier, the Eagle Vision built up the same platform as my Concorde in the first Intrepid are collectible vehicles by today's standards. Eagle no longer exists, kind of like Saturn Hell, a weird one that actually include in this would be Scion. Scion was here not too long ago, like it literally didn't kick the bucket that long ago, but it's considered a collectible vehicle by today's standards because Scion no longer exists.

     And as I tell everybody about my big Borrego, when the Telluride came out, my Borrego wasn't seen as a collectible vehicle for Kia enthusiasts at all, even though it was the very first vehicle ever released by Kia to have both a V8 engine and body-on-frame construction in North America. Since then, Kia has not released anything by those standards either. My Borrego had a V8. It's fully body-on-frame, which means it is built to be beat and trust me, it knows a good beating because I put it through its paces. That big burly beast of a toaster planned boring style. It's not a collectible yet, but with a brand-new Kia pickup truck, the Tasman on its way and the possibility of it coming with an SUV sibling my Borrego and the Mojave, as it's called, elsewhere in the world, will become more of a collectible in its own right in North America.
 
     Once a full body-on-frame SUV from Kia hits the market in North America, people will ask the question Well, not really ask the question. They'll be like, oh, this is great, this is the first body-on-frame SUV from Kia. And people like me will say in the background no, it's not, it's not the first one, there was another and I have one. And when people find that out, they start looking into it. That's where other collectibles really get their nostalgia from and really have their net worth increased is when people find out about them due to new products. ​

​    The original Subaru XT and SVX were sports cars by Subaru. They completely disappeared and even for their existence from the 1980s all the way up until the mid-90s, lasting well over a decade, Subaru was never thought to have a sports car. An entire generation grew up without a Subaru sports car, so when the BRZ came out, people thought it was amazing. This is Subaru's first sports cars. And then there's people like myself that are like no, no, no, no, it is not. Subaru has had two before. It's kind of like Subaru releasing a pickup truck and we're like no, no, no, no, no. They had the Baja and the Brat before that. The Subaru Brat didn't increase in collectability until the Baja came out and brought awareness to its past products.
 
      Kind of like people searching to buy a Challenger now find it odd to find out that there was a Challenger built off a Mitsubishi Sapporo platform. There's a Mitsubishi Challenger out there. Hell, there's an omni-variation of a Dodge Charger name out there. And when people find this out, they go nuts. They're like whoa, whoa, whoa. This is like mind-blowing here. There are vehicles like that. I got to find one. And due to the fact that these were literal pieces of garbage that people threw away, finding one is even harder Because now there are people looking for these other collectibles. Their costs get driven up.
 
      One of them I came close to owning at one point in my life A 1993 Isuzu Impulse. Now people may not know this, but Isuzu actually built cars at one point in time. Now you just see, especially in North American climate, only the Isuzu transports cab over trucks. Elsewhere in the world you find their pickup trucks and SUVs, but Isuzu built cars. At one point, Hell, the Isuzu Impulse even had a Canadian collaboration where the Americans had Gio as their entry-level Isuzu and Suzuki products, dedicated for their home market. Canada had one called Asuna and Asuna had the Sunfire, which was essentially just the Isuzu Impulse branded for our marketplace. 

​     But long before this, Isuzu had an impulse in the 1980s. Finding these cars at a car show is a rarity and I said that while I was walking through Cobble Beach looking at all these amazing cars, I quickly walked past any of the Mustangs, Camaros, hell, they even had a dedicated section for Corvettes. I walked past it. I didn't give two shits about it because you could find any of these out in the public. I get it. Finding a split screen Corvette Stingray is hard to come by, but its body profile is still easier to find than something like an Isuzu Impulse from 1983. Why? Because they were a desired car, and a desired car in its moment would create longevity of that product. You could find tons of 50s and even 60s Thunderbirds, but when you get into the 70s, 80s and even the 90s, those Thunderbirds are hard to come by. Hell, finding the last variation of the Thunderbird that came out in 2001 is easier than finding a 95. Hell. Finding an 87 Thunderbird Turbo is like finding a needle in a haystack.
 
     These were products that people only bought because they were available. There was a market out there that really wanted a fun-looking car and all of these products were available. We had products like the Buick Retta, the Buick Somerset, the Cavalier 2-door, the Sunfire 2-door, the Sunbird 2-door, the Ford Thunderbird, the Hyundai S-Coupe, the Chrysler Conquest, Mazda RX3, the Isuzu Impulse, that Eagle Summit I was talking about Hell even the 2-door Hyundai Accent and Nissan NX. They were all available for people, but the people that were buying these products were only buying them because they looked cool, but they were still available on a budget. These are the people who didn't buy them to keep them forever. Like my Kia Rio, it was a cheap, throwaway economy car built in the same context of the original K car. It was built to literally just be thrown out with the garbage when it was done, but in all reality, by throwing them all out and getting rid of all of them at the end of their time, makes them worth even more in the future. Like I said, those Marmon 16s you don't find a lot of them around, and Marmon may have competed with the likes of Packard, Duesenberg or even Delage. They may have been what you would call a premium, luxury or even premier branded vehicle, but they didn't build enough vehicles and people didn't see them in their right context, Similar to that of the Scion. You'll find Scion TC's and Scion FRS's out there, but finding a Scion XA is hard. You're more likely to find the original cube of the XB than an XA. So, in all rights, the XA becomes the other collectible. 

     The other collectible is a title given to vehicles that we're literally just given up on. They're the vehicles we buy because they're cheap, they get us into the market, they look good, they handle good, they do what we need to do and at the end of their life we literally get rid of them. We don't ever think we're going to keep them and we don't ever think they're going to become a collectible vehicle. But as more and more of us have this pure mentality about them and get rid of them, the people that decide to keep them are literally sitting on the needle in the haystack. How many people out there are literally sitting on an original Hyundai Accent, Hell, even a Toyota Paseo? 

     Or how about this one? A Camry Solara, a Geo Metro, a Nissan 200SX, a Honda CRZ? How about the weirdest one of all? We all remember the Solstice, we all remember the Sky, we all remember the Opel Speedster, but how many of you know that Daewoo had their own variation of the Saturn Sky called the GX Hell? Even the Sky and Solstice, in their own rights, is considered one of those other collectibles by today's market. But they're more desirable because one Saturn is no longer around and neither is Pontiac, and Pontiac was a big enough name to hold its own rights with all of its sports cars. Even the Fiero, by today's standards, is a highly sought after collectible vehicle. But a Daewoo GX it's literally a Saturn sky with a Daewoo front end. It's something we would never think about and that's what makes it a rarity in the collectible world. It's a vehicle that was literally bought, used and thrown away. 

​     The other collectibles, all on this list, are the vehicles that literally paved the way for something amazing, but were only here for a short time and never for a long time. Products on the other collectible standpoint are the ill-fated, forgotten variations of other vehicles, or just the vehicles that helped build a marketplace. The Rio helped build Kia into what it is today in the North American marketplace. The Plymouth Trail Duster was just a sibling to the Ram Charger, which held a bigger title. The Buick Roadmaster was a big, burly wagon, but more people remember the Impala SS off that platform and the Toyota Paseo. It came in both coupe and convertible variations. Unlike the Nissan NX and 200SX, Toyota actually did have a cheap convertible. Hell, you can even find an old Suzuki Swift convertible. Two-door hatchback turned into a convertible they existed. Or how about one of my most favorite oddities of the past, the Chevrolet Tracker? This was an oddity in its own right because the Tracker, much like its Suzuki counterpart, was big for its time. It literally screams 1990s. And yet by today's standards, we've all forgotten them because they were an entry level product. They were made to just get us from point A to point B for the short time we had them and look good while we did it, but at the end of their life most of us just got rid of them.
 
     I love when I talk to my family. You know, my family, my wife's family. We all talk about our first vehicles. I like to hear about everybody's first vehicle and they talk about you know this thing I bought it for so cheap. It was a piece of junk. And you hear about what car it is and it's like oh my god, do you know? You never find those anywhere. I've gone to many different cars shows and I've never seen them. How many people out there see Chevy Vegas, a small car pioneered by none other than John Z DeLorean before he left General Motors? This is the last car he made before he created the DeLorean. And yet everybody I talked to is all like oh yeah, it was just a piece of crap car that got me around. 

​     I was watching a music video the other day, an old past song from the 1990s. You know, I wish I was a little bit taller; I wish it was a baller. And he talks about his car in it and in the music video he's got an old Pinto hatchback. Well, the Pinto was a horrible, horrible vehicle in every context, but today it could be seen as a collectible, because even lemons are collectibles by today's standards. When you watch the movie Cars 2 and you see all those lemon vehicles, you think to yourself they were crappy and nobody wanted them.
 
     The Hyundai Accel and Hyundai pony helped build Hyundai to what it is today in north America. And yet they were junk, like literal pieces of junk. The second you were done with them and their warranty was over, you had to get rid of them because it would cost you a fortune more than what they were worth to keep on the road. But by today's standards we think it's cool. It's a piece of history, it's nostalgia. Hell. The Ioniq 5 is essentially just the rebirth of the original Hyundai Pony. That's what it is. And get your notice, the Ioniq 5 has lots of issues with it. But in the future the Ioniq 5 paved the way for electric vehicles from Hyundai.
 
     You may not think it's a collectible vehicle and it won't be a collectible vehicle by collection standards. It'll fall into the other collectible standards, Fall by the wayside, similar to that of a 79 Dodge Challenger. Nobody likes to remember the Mitsubishi Sapporo ones. Hell, even I forgot about them. But they were there. And every car company has one of these mischievous collectibles, one of these cars that everybody wants and everybody's heard of. And when we see it today it brings back a piece of nostalgia Seeing a 1984 Toyota Corolla sedan. We're not talking about the AE86 hatchback, you know initial D style. We're talking about the sedan variation of it. It's the car that helped build the Corolla into what it is today. It's the car that was built alongside the Chevy Nova at the Fremont California production facility, the first collaboration between General Motors and Toyota, Future ones being the Vibe and the Matrix.
 
     You may not think it's a collectible, but in all reality it is. There are many of these other collectibles out there, these rarities, these little gems that just bring back a piece of your past. I've held on to mine, but will you do the same? Will you see an interesting classic car or what it can be in the future? Ioniq 5 may not seem like a classic car you'd want to keep, but in the future it will be. It won't be as high up as an original Tesla Roadster, but it'll still be in the collection standards of the EV collectibles of the future. So, in all reality of the EV collectibles of the future. 

     So, in all reality, the other collectibles are essentially just the made-up variations of the alternative products that got us around. These are the vehicles we all forgot about but still love to this day. They built what we love about these car companies. Even though we didn't love them when we had them, we love to see them now and even though some people may make fun of us for owning these oddities, we'll hang on to them, just so that we have something different going to the car show, Because I know, when my Borrego hits the 25-year mark, going to something like the Concours d'Elegance. I may never win with my Borrego, but it'll surely turn heads as it's sitting there being turn heads as it's sitting there being a rarity in its own context of less than a thousand in existence in Canada right now these odd other collectibles. Maybe it's just a market waiting to be untapped. 

     So, if you like this podcast, please like, share or comment about it on any of the major social feeds, streaming sites or radio stations that you've heard us on. Like us, comment about us, share us and send this out to everyone in the world. Ask them about all the oddities that they've owned in their lifetime. The other collectibles Say, hey, you own something that actually started something cool. It may seem like a piece of crap, but it's going to be a collectible-worthy vehicle in the future. It may not run millions, but you know what, 60 years from now, it could be more than that mustang that you love so much. Trust me, these oddities may just be that rarity that we all want. 

     And after you've done that, stop by the website, read some of the reviews, check out some of the ratings and go to the corporate links website page. Big or small, we have them all. On the AutoLooks.net website. You can find car companies from around the globe all existing on one main website on the internet at AutoLooks.net website. You can find car companies from around the globe all existing on one main website on the internet at AutoLooks.net.  The AutoLooks Podcast is brought to you by Ecomm Entertainment Group and distributed by Podbean.com. If you'd like to get in touch with us, send us an email over at email at AutoLooks.net. So, for myself, I'm Richard, the AutoLooks.net website and the Ecomm Entertainment Group, Strap yourself in for this one fun wild ride. The Oddity Collectibles of the future will take us on. Bye. 
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Everett J.
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