Market for survivors...
 

Any opinions on the perceived positive trend in collecting survivor supercar/musclecars? I know corvette guys go crazy for survivors, I just wonder if that type of craze will spill into the non corvette market more than it has.

I would think with corvettes, the value of a survivor is you know its really real and not a fake. And those folks really pay up for that.

On musclecars, it is unclear to me if this is just a few mega collectors focused on survivors because of the rarity of it all, and do they just want to make sure they don't have a fake on their hands if they go into the mid 6 figure range.

I think there is a limited market for them, especially for the ones that are really rough around the edges. The uber-rare ones will always be highly desirable if well-documented, regardless of condition......not so much so for the more common variety muscle cars. Right now they seem to be the going thing, but some of the ones being touted and/or marketed as a "survivor" would be referred to in a far less positive context by many.

Ill take all the survivors you have and will trade all the black shiny clones you can take.!

I believe there are survivors and cars that just survived. True survivors will always be in demand because there are so few. In essence the supply will always be smaller than the demand, hence they will continue to bring a premium.

Cars that survived, well those are cars "the beauty is in the eyes of the beholder". They can be tough to sell....

I've posted a wanted ad for some time and have only gotten a few responses, but I'm always looking.

Cars that survived in their original "as delivered" condition are the once in a lifetime finds.

Kind of like the find of Otzi the Iceman in the Alps - a 5,400 year old man frozen in time. http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/sh...003749/3418243

Compare that to cars that "survived" 50 years and are still here on the planet and you get a whole different batch of contenders. These are the ones that show up every week on ebay and regaled as "Survivors" by the sellers. "A survivor with only one repaint, new interior, and a replacement engine"

Kind of like finding some dried up bones in the desert.

Unrestored cars which have not ever been restored or have not been used as parts cars and or destroyed are more and more difficult to locate and even harder to get long time owners to part with such cars.
More and more people enjoy never restored cars in all makes and vintages and more and more shows make room or have classes for unrestored cars.
The Historic Vehicle Association (HVA) along with the Smithsonian are documenting and digitally 3D scanning historically significant vehicles from the beginning ages of the automobile. Check them out...

There is a special uniqueness that goes along with an unrestored survivor. If you envy someone's unrestored survivor, in most cases you can search the world over and never find another like it.

On the other hand, if you like the restored triple black SS/RS Camaro that the guy down the street has, you can build one just like it as a clone... or some will go the extra mile to fake a real one. It's beginning to take a forensic expert to tell the real restored cars from the fakes at first glance.

That's why I think the survivors are getting more and more attention at car events. You know they're real, without looking at them with a critical eye, and you can actually learn something from looking at them.

Personally I love both correctly restored concours and unrestored, and both are rare and valuable. Just look at the market for a concours or true time capsule. There are so many segments to the hobby that no matter your taste it's there for you from Survivor, Concours restored, Protouring, Drivers, Rat Rods, Barn Finds etc. They are all good and appreciated by some segment of the hobby.

Right now I'm enjoying my drivers. Bruises and all I can take them to a cruise night not worry about someone touching or weather. In fact last week was caught in down pour with my orange RS/Z and waited it out and had a nice dinner. Like I said there's something for everyone in the hobby, and that's what makes it great.....:beers:

... What is the true definition of a "Survivor" car ?

... Is it ....

.... "a car that continues to function or prosper in spite of opposition,

.... hardship, or setbacks. "

... or

.... " a car that is found in a barn after 50 years that is all original "

.... that has had minimal amount of time being operated over the years

.... in the fashion that is was designed for ?

:confused2:

DISCLAIMER: This is my own personal opinion.


Here is my take on 3 levels of the term "Survivor Car".

Time Capsule - A vehicle that was been well preserved and still attains 95 - 100% of its original born with components.

Relic - A vehicle that has been discovered after a length of time that still has many of its original components but is in need of repair or refurbishing to make it safe and/or driveable.

Unrestored Original - A vehicle that has been maintained and enjoyed over the years and still has at least 80-95% of its original components.




One could break these down further but this is how I classify "survivor" cars.


EDIT:

I pulled this from Steve's Vintage Certification Form.

Vintage Certifications are divided into five award levels:
• Vintage Time Capsule -Vehicles that are 95+% unrestored in all areas
• Vintage Legend - Vehicles that are 85+% unrestored in all areas.
• Vintage Heritage - Vehicles that are 85+% unrestored in five areas
• Vintage Legacy - Vehicles that are 85+% unrestored in four areas.
• Vintage Reference - Vehicles that are 85+% unrestored in at least two Vintage Reference Area.

I have always said the only thing my car "survived" was a severe thrashing by young owners over its first 6 years. By 1975, looked like more of a beater.

As for the OP's original question, I believe the answer is that it already has spilled over into the muscle car market. As Bill so aptly pointed out, there is a limited market for the "survivor" that is rough around the edges. Cars like Roy Sinor's 68 Camaro SS, and Charley's 70 Z/28 are so well preserved, they did much more than just survive. Those cars and others like them, if ever sold, will bring more than a perfectly restored car, IMHO.

In the world of Corvettes, the market for real deal survivors is scalding hot, particularly cars with NCRS Bowtie Awards. It is the most stringent survivor award to achieve where the car is judged in 4 categories - interior, exterior, chassis and mechanical. The car must be 80% or better by what is considered untouched, unaltered, unmolested. These are are incredible machines that have had near no deviation from stock since new. Common changes include wear/tear items like hoses, battery, tires but that is really it. Taking the car apart to fix leaks, gaskets, broken parts, etc is not allowed and cars found to have significant alteration will not qualify. Additionally, cars with paint work, fluffing, or enhancing the originality is frowned upon. The cars can achieve 1, 2, 3, or 4 stars and if it meets the 4 star criteria the year team will meet to determine if the car can meet educational value standards - if so, the following year @ the NCRS National Event only, the car be awarded the coveted 5th star. Very few cars have achieved the 5th star mark. It is the hardest award mark in all levels of judging across all makes, models, etc.

Dan

Totally agreeing with Steve's take on the entire hobby and I can appreciate all segments. In regards to the OP, I would think the market for true "survivor" class muscle cars has been heavy for many years, but the term has become too broadly used. IMHO, a true survivor class car is one that can be measured and weighed as an NCRS judged car, an untouched low mile specimen that remains as was originally sold, an unmolested type of car that can be considered by many as a benchmark piece.

Many of the low mile examples that are discovered over the years are appreciated my many, but are priced and marketed towards the higher end collector who can often pay a staggering amount of money to gain that low mile untouched example for their own personal collection. When a survivor type car is then altered with paint work, engine detailing and other items that have been changed...or even partially restored, that so called survivor diminishes with it's core value to a high end collector and the detraction factors then make it more of a play for the normal hobbyist. Perhaps a guy who doesn't mind that it has blown in paint, a body repair, engine rebuilds or a maybe a simple sub frame restoration. There are many of us who seek original cars with only minor changes or clean up work, but with that being said there are many original cars that would not appeal to the purist when original patina is altered in some way. For some, the word survivor means that nothing can have changed. And opinions do vary of what can be coined as a survivor.

We all know what we are seeing when a survivor car is tabled for discussion or is up for sale, and as the old saying goes, the real cream always floats to the top. For that true benchmark type survivor car; be it super car or muscle car, the market will always being strong and there will always be buyers lined up. As time moves along I think that trend will continue, but I also think that the market will continue to be strong for correctly restored cars too.

I would prefer a car that's been lovingly drivin,maintained & preserved, Over a perfectly restored frame off car any day !!! while it may have some bumps & bruises & personality. With a survivor car you can tell a lot about its past owners & history just by its condition. Where a lot of these high Dollar restored cars have been used ,abused, neglegted & left for dead years ago. Only to resurface at big time auction's etc... as the most expensive, best of the best ??? I'm far from an expert on anything, but it a easy decision for me and my $$$

Hey Jeff...I have your car!

My '69 Z has been in the classifieds for a while and I've had a few offers, but when the conversation turns to ''the cost of restoring it" hits the table my ears kinda go numb. Yes, it needs an engine refresh and detail, but is easy to see that it was well cared for, driven like it was meant to be and is a really nice 47 year old 'unrestored original'...using Darrell's term

So, it'll probably sit until the right guy see's the car the way I see it...fluffed enough to drive & enjoy & not 'restored'.

I appreciate the responses. I myself have 3 survivor cars, and sometime think I am not the type of collector for these kind of cars. I feel maybe they belong with one level up type of collector that will preserve them better than I do, and have the funds to manage them in a more museum like environment. You got to be very very careful with a survivor, as if it gets hit at a local car show or on the way to an ice cream stop with the family, its a big hit to its value. Am I a guy that could sustain that downside if it happened? no. Could a bigger collector sustain it? yes.

So the above in a sense goes to who really is collecting the survivor super high end muscle cars. I think its folks that have really deep pockets and the ability to not drive these cars much any more. I do hope more folks do focus on collecting the survivors and protecting them/preserving them, as they are truely original once.

Take it from me, my 69 camaro, 70 challenger, and 61 vette, all have traits my restored cars do not have. The steering feels right, the smells are unique to how they when closer to new. The engines seem tighter and run better. The factory paint runs are on all of them. Its a feeling a restored car just can not nail all the time. It is cool to be in a car that was never taken apart and put back together.

Survivor...
 

Instead of classifying the cars as 'survivors' or 'restored' or...whatever??

We should come up with some good categories for 'classifying' the people in the hobby...now that would be fun :naughty:

-wilma

https://media.giphy.com/media/R2JueF2gu4Z9u/giphy.gif

Market for Survivors
 

The trademarked name "Survivor" (as far as a Corvette was concerned) was done by David Burroughs I believe in 1989 for the sole purpose to identify Corvettes that were "Worn In but Not Worn Out" . A lot of knowledge was lost from original cars back then that were being restored to better than originally built by a lot of people going after the Gold certification.

I owned a 1967 Lynndale Blue L-79 roadster that passed all 4 sections of paint, interior, chassis, and engine compartment in the first year of Bloomington Gold Survivor judging back it the first year 1990 and was one of 3 cars to form the Benchmark award in 1991. We were all given a glass circular trophy that stated Survivor on it . I just donated this trophy to the National Corvette Museum (according to them they have never seen one before) this past May (Survivor winners after 1990 received a certificate like Gold or Benchmark awarded cars got) along with Benchmark photos and other items. The term "Survivor" has been loosely used in all brands, years, makes, and models of cars in the past 15-20 years. It's all personal opinion, but my belief is "Survivor" was (in the beginning) for Corvette only, hence the trade mark of the word. I hope I have not offended anyone here, this was not reason for posting.

Bill

You now owe David Burroughs some royalties Bill. ;)

Trend(s)? Recall some pretty nice originals being restored when resto's were the thing. More recently, the dustier the better. And it doesn't even need to be Daytona or Le Mans dust, either!

Market for Survivors
 

We all do. When it came to Cars, David really brought Original, Un-restored, and the term Survivor to the level of respect that these cars deserved. Even in 1990, it was long over due. It's only original once.

Bill

A local collector I know purchased a survivor 67 L89 Corvette about 10/12 years back and that's the one car I refer to as a true survivor. It's a Bloomington Gold Benchmark car and I believe it is known as a 4000 mile untouched car. One that many have referred to as being the nicest survivor 67 Corvette on the planet, and the type of car I would refer to as a true untouched survivor. Out of my league but a really cool car to see up close.

There are a few cars owned by collectors here that I think are equally as nice and love to see them cared for as they are.

I agree - and even before that David was leading the way on "proper" Corvette restorations that involved research and duplication of factory blemishes/overspray/assembly procedures/etc. that eventually made it into the steel body car world. It also was the beginning of the differentiation between a blow it all apart/sandblast everything and paint type restoration vs. the more methodical approach the he used which has become more mainstream today for the higher end shops.

I worked at a Corvette restoration shop in the late 80's and early 90's when this was all starting to come out and David was a frequent guest teacher - it was an exciting time.

https://s26.postimg.org/wnp7lvl9l/image.jpg

1967 CHEVROLET CORVETTE COUPE 427/435 HP, Unrestored with 8,533 Miles

https://www.mecum.com/lots/SC0517-28...orvette-coupe/

Car sold for $675,000

That is impressive. I am sure there are some mopars and fords that went pretty dang high. 2 that come to mind is a 71 hemi challenger and a black boss 429 mustang. Both were original cars. Both sold at Mecum. Maybe Mecum is the place to sell an all original car.

Market for survivors
 

*May I ask what color this Benchmark Car is? Maybe Yellow or Silver? I kind of made it kind of my goal to keep track at the time.

The first 12 Corvettes to be Benchmark certified were displayed on the field in 1993 to take a picture of our car with us in it for an upcoming "Benchmark" calendar which never took place (I have since donated the framed 24" X 36" picture to the National Corvette Museum)

Patty in the Bloomington Gold office, was in charge of the license plate program (worked my way down to #21 plate being I was engaged to my Wife on the 21st., married on the 21st, first Child was born on the 21st, @ 2;10 in the afternoon AND it was -21 below 0 on the afternoon of the day he was born) always gave me an un-official count on how many Benchmark cars there had been Certified.

Brenda who distributed the Certificates, and the last time I talked to her was 2012 before Guy Larson bought the rights to Bloomington Gold, told me there was 141 total.

That is Not a lot of cars being at the time 1.8 million Corvettes had been assembled.

Bill

Car is Marina Blue. Just over 4000 original miles. Owner also had a Lyndale Blue car and owns a few other heavy weights.

I just wonder how long it will be until someone figures out how to fool the judges into thinking that a car is a super low miles (like double digit low) survivor when it is in fact a car that was restored to look like one. You know,like guys who would literally paint a car to have the correct MIL thickness of paint using original laquer,and would spray weak tea on the paper tags to make them look aged and salt brine onto restored bare metal parts to make them look like they have been exposed to the air for the last 50 years. Maybe melt down the grease pen sticks and mix in some brown with the color to make the color look aged. Real high level stuff. I once had a conversation with a collector of Hummel figurines and he said that the collector market is always capped at a certain point because the more something is worth,the more it is worth forging. When a collector item is cheap the knock offs are poorly made and easy to identify because to put the effort into an accurate reproduction would not yield enough profit. Once something becomes worth enough,it becomes worthwhile to create the entire process needed to properly reproduce something down to the microscopic details. If the survivor market goes too high there will come a point when someone will figure out how to fool the judges. Bribing previous owners to make false statements,staging fake pictures using outdated camera equipment and paper to create aged photos that tell a story that never happened. Hiring look a likes to pose as younger versions of the previous owners just to create the perfect back story etc. For a few million bucks it is worth someone doing it.

Survivor..
 

Well..let's hope it doesn't come to this :no:

-wilma

Unfortunately . . . it will. Just a question of time. It won't be that prevalent because the kinds of cars that would be worth the time, money and effort to fake are far and few between. Couple that with the risk of getting caught which can lead to serious jail time . . . someone will risk it if they already haven't.

Remember way back when it wasn't THAT important that a drive train was the original? Then as prices went up on those cars that had one what happened? DT components were restamped and presto . . . numbers matching DT! Now there is a distinction . . . numbers matching isn't enough anymore . . . now it has to be born with DT to get the big bucks.

I just have one question . . .

Who buys a brand new 1967 L71 Corvette Coupe and doesn't drive it?

I am not sure if it could be something that would lead to "doin time". I was talking about real legit numbers matching cars that needed a full restoration,but rather than being given what could be considered a traditional "back to new" restoration,they were restored in an exacting way as to make everything look as if it has been sealed in a climate controlled vault for the last 50 years and never driven. Certainly such a car would attract huge money. Maybe aside from odometer fraud it would be hard to define where any other wrong doing took place. Every used car on the lot today was "owned by a little old lady who only drove it on Sundays" even if it was driven by a chain smoker who dribbled big mac sauce all over the interior and never changed the oil. Is there any legal difference between that lie and a lie about how a 50 year old car was taken care of? That is where things get fuzzy.

It isn't what you do with the car . . . it's how you describe it in an effort to sell it. If you are committing fraud by misrepresenting the car - that's a felony. That's jail time.

The problem with most restorations is that everything is VERY deliberate and appears as such... the chalk marks the grease pencil marks the over spray etc. It takes a HELL of a lot of work to ACCURATELY replicate the marks created under the pressures of an assembly line environment...

Consider the amount of time that the person had to make the marks, they did not take 5 minutes or even 2 minutes to make them. They were scrawled across the firewall quickly, study the stroke marks and practice so that yours are quick and show the strokes, even if they are light or a little larger or a little smaller they are better than the choppy crusty DELIBERATE marks seen on most restorations.

How many people contemplate gun angle for over spray patterns?
or that the front ends at Norwood were sprayed set up on bucks whereas the bodies were sprayed with reciprocating guns and thus the over spray patterns will be different from the front end.
Because there was only an inch or two gap between the front end panels the over spray on the drops into the engine compartment are often light has primer showing through.

OR exactly how the engines were painted... The bar area which is not orange on the front of the engine was used to cover the stamp pad, bypass hose, and also so the painter could swivel the engine.

That is what I am talking about. If you go to a used car dealer and the dealer tells you that the car that you are looking at was owned by a little old lady who kept it in a garage and drove it across town and back only on sunny days and you buy the car and some young pun walks up to you and says that he used to own that car and can't believe what a great job the dealer did of getting the bodily fluid stains out of the interior,and fixing the knock in the engine that was caused by never changing the oil,do you have recourse for that? Or the dealer tells you that the car"has a clean car fax" but doesn't tell you that the car was wrapped around a pole but didn't get fixed by the insurance company etc.

BTW,what is with some of these "legal rebodies" these days?

I guess my point is that how long will it be until someone fools these top level judges and gets a top survivor score for what is really a pieced together restored car?

I was getting involved in Survivor judging in the mid 90's via NCRS and I couldn't believe the stories about the lengths that people went to in an effort to 'age' NOS parts to use on their 'survivor'/'Bow Tie' cars...

Steve described it perfectly, "there's something for everyone in the hobby and that's what makes it great". I have a time capsule that mainly just sit and looks good right down to a driver with original paint with chips and small dents that I drive (hard) and enjoy it every day.

Oh yeah - my biggest pet peeve is how people spend hours trying to duplicate (with shaky hands) the marks that an assembly line person took half a second to originally produce.

This was my solution. I hired my 9 and 4 year-olds to duplicate the marks on the suspension pieces on my '72 Trans Am restoration over a decade ago. I told them as soon as they were done we could go get ice cream. Took them all of 30 seconds! They did a magnificent job! Man how time flies. She just graduated college and he is a junior in high school now.

The best pictures I have seen on sYc.....Priceless :D

Dan