dainon

I never expected my '99 to be a collector's item, but in the post-Covid era, it seems the value is slipping despite meticulous maintenance and improvements. I was browsing through several sites today, and it appears the F-body Trans Am is averaging $25K for a low mileage WS6. Are we in an age where the C5 is going to be less desirable? The '99 30th anniversary TA is pulling northward of $50K!

I've only owned my convertible for 5 years now, but I am wondering if putting more money into it at this point will never produce an ROI?

The C5 top sale in this site is obviously an outlier.
https://www.classic.com/m/chevrolet/corvette/c5/

But the TA is making considerable gains and looking to overtake the C5 here:
https://www.classic.com/m/pontiac/fi...-gen/trans-am/

What are your thoughts?

vette4fl

Hmmm. I never thought of the C5 as investment opportunity. Still, it seems to have maxed out depreciation and has recently grown in value.

I’ve owned several iterations of the Corvette, including a C1, but just thought of them as cool cars I could modify. Who knew?

corvettezman

Can't look up Vette prices now. They are skewed. This is what is called an off-season time for Corvettes. Values this time of year are not ideal if you're a seller.
I don't believe the C5 will ever reach a collector's status although Z06s are doing pretty well now. The WS6 would not have either if they kept making them.

Tusc

This is not a house, a rifle, or the S&P500.

Cars depreciate. Only exotics or rare cars command premiums after they have exited the social lexicon.

Corvettes are as common as buttholes and the C5 was the most produced Corvette perhaps ever.

Drive it. Enjoy the ease and affordability of maintenence. But please if you think of ROI at any time related to a car which is not an exotic or a truly desirable collector car then please sell it and go find one of those to place on a pretend pedestal.

Burnt C6

Oh the horror. I can't believe a 2000 10K vette isn't worth 50K. because there are people out there asking that for them. I picked up the 2001 Vert with 35K on it for 22K a few months back. I thought the price was right as she was a garage Queen. Not any more, drove it to work in the rain this morning.

4XLR8N

I watch the Corvette market pretty regularly. Prices have been trending down since early summer...that trend has accelerated this fall, probably due to seasonality on top of the overall market heading down for used cars.

We all love to see the cars we own appreciate in value, which they did for a couple of years. But that was an aberration in the market. That is over now. Prices will probably get a seasonality bump in the Spring. Otherwise, most C5's will continue to depreciate, albeit fairly slowly at this point in their lifecycle.

Just enjoy your car and don't worry about if you made a grand or lost a grand.

Just my two cents...

YMMV.

SwanSongZ

Best way to look up actual sold prices is on classic.com and also on ebay with the "sold listings" filter.

ThomasR

That's the reason to own these cars.

Three years ago I started shopping for an LS powered, 2 door, 6 speed manual, RWD car and I found that Camaro, Firebird, GTO and Corvette were all selling in the high teens to low 20s for nice cars. There were more Corvettes to choose from and I think it's the better car anyway so I bought one and here I am.

I recently bought an '88 C4 L98 automatic for $6,500 and if it was an IROC with an L98 it would sell for twice or 3x as much as the Vette. The car also has 4 new tires, battery and cat-back exhaust so I think I scored. Just those parts alone are about half the price of the car.

Enjoy your car.

dainon

These are great points.
I am getting an itch.. Do I add a couple hundred ponies to my tired LS1, or for the same price, do I upgrade to a C6? Or.. should I have been in the hunt for one of these WS6 converts? A mechanic once told me to sell my car and just go out and buy it the way I want it and let someone else eat the loss on the mods. I am just shocked that an F-body could pull C5 values.

dainon

Back in the day, I bought a '97 TA with T-Tops brand new. It cost me $26K. Two years later, with 18K miles on it, I sold it for $17K. The 98 with its aggressive styling and new LS1 really hurt my value. It's interesting to see a low mileage '98 or '99 able to sell today for pretty near original MSRP. I don't think that is going to happen with the C5. Are there too many? Or not enough interest?

ssmuff

The way I see the logic is because most corvettes are lower miles due to the "age" of owners and only driven Sundays. A lot of Camaro and Firebirds etc. were owned by maybe a younger person who could drive it daily or more often. So finding low mileage F-Body or Fox Body cars brings a premium now because there really isn't that many. Corvettes with extremely low miles do bring in premiums. Until the vast majority of them are driven or wrecked and you weed out a lot of potential low mileage cars you won't see a huge spike in pricing.

Gatorlaw

My theory is that a lot of the Trans Ams, Irocs, and the like were 1/2 the sticker price and tended to be purchased by much younger drivers. Unfortunately these drivers could not afford to have a second car for a daily so they got used and in many cases abused. Finding a 20-30-40 year old corvette with less than 50k miles is the norm, not the exception. Also since the majority of the corvette’s were second cars they did not have to endure the daily abuse and are survivors. If you find a TA, IROC or similar in garage queen status it will command a premium as it’s rare. It’s not because the vette is a worse car, it’s just far more common at this point.

vette4fl

RPGR90s

I own a pretty valuable vintage motorcycle but never thought of it as a Collector's Item. For forty + years I rode it all across the country and never worried what it might be worth. Still have it with over 145k on it. I plan on doing the same with my C5 convertible and just enjoying it. You got the wrong car if you bought it for an investment.

grinder11

My thoughts? My thoughts are I wouldnt trade a C5 Corvette for any Trans Am ever built. Period. Sure, if you factor money into the equation, I'm reasonably certain that some Trans Ams are indeed worth more $$ to a collector. But based on performance, stock for stock, there's never been a Trans Am that's been manufactured with more performance than a C5, straight line OR in the corners. There's only one area a C5 can't beat a Trans Am, and that's in available back seat legroom!!

Alley Oop

I enjoy my Vette. Just bought it last year, it's got less than 30,000 miles. I bought it to drive it and if it depreciates, that's life in the auto world.

ariZona06

Future value of any vehicle will always be a crap shoot. Plenty of other ways to get a more predictable return on investment. Enjoy that Vette no matter what its value may or may not be. A good therapeutic power ride at certain times can be priceless. And IMO the only T/As worth collectable price tags have Pontiac engines and ROUND headlights.

C5MSG2004Vert

Maybe. If you bought it as an investment then you picked the wrong car. If you don't maintain it the value will really fall. The one thing about the C5 is that if you have a well maintained and clean shiny one it will not fall in value as fast as a brand new car. I have had mine for 4 years and it's worth more than I paid for it, but it not an investment. Will it's always be worth more than I paid for it? No, It won't if I drive it for 200k miles.

Rumplemenzz

Such a good pt... for some reason I havent learned and accepted that until I got my hands on my c5. I dont think twice buying a new car and than 4 yrs later losing 30k after I sell it... but I would be all worried in making sure I dont lose too much money on a toy... go figure... I take care of my c5 but I drive it.. my toys before her I was like "oh no theres a 3% chance its going to rain theres no chance I can take her outta the garage"...now im like.. "ok theres a 20% chances its going to rain.. im taking the vette!!"... ok thats still a little ocd but its a massive improvement I paid a fair price for my c5... it does not concern me that I could lose $ on her.. if I do and continue to take care of her I wont lose much bc the c5's are close to hitting a plateau.. so Im good...if only i could have lived my life losing only 1k per year on my cars... !!

60 SHARK

💯% No truer statement in this post!!!

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