If anyone chooses an M3 CSL over a 991.1 GT3 they need to have their head checked. People need to understand that there are other brands out there even if they are 'married' to BMW.
Everyone wants to be seen as a collector or to position themselves as one at any rate. Ads pander to these guys and try to make out that shitty cars that will NEVER be desirable and NEVER make sense to restore will somehow appreciate in value (hence the glut of shitboxes and ever more agitated sellers that 'know what they have' with E39/46 and now E92). I feel like a lot of guys are being caught by this phenomenon.
There is also the "BMW is my culture" aspect to this which causes the tunnel vision/blinkered view on value of things like the 1M and CSL... if all you care about and will ever care about regardless of any logic/sense that is the only time these would make any sense. Every community has these guys as well as the "this is the last true" set of guys
Everyone wants to create the impression that their car is worth more than it really is or costs more than they have paid for it. There is immense peer pressure not to upset the market for everyone else when it comes to some of these vehicles. Ultimately the person sitting with it has to look at offers if they want to sell it because a theoretical value buoyed only by those generating hype (owners and those who want it, talk it up but don't have cash) means absolutely nothing if nobody is willing to pay that. There are more than a handful of fanatics that have bought or sold cars at much less than the perceived prices above for ALL of those cars (E60, E92, E46) and within the past year. Buyer and seller are under no obligation to disclose the terms and thus 'buyer x bought seller y's R600K car' to whoever looks from outside whether they paid R400K, R500K or R600K...
Having been that 'seller y' for numerous cars, I can assure you that it is worth keeping the 'real price' under wraps to avoid the absolute SHITSHOW of every degenerate shithead that feels like they have access to you tagging you in ads for cars priced at what you 'should have' sold for. There is nothing more irritating than random people constantly telling you that you made a shitty decision to sell a car for 'too little' or 'before it increased enough in value'. The other side is the hate for 'killing everyone's sales' with your 'sellout/selfish' behaviour... It's like crypto bubbles for cars...
There is a cycle that happens with EVERY M car (and the F80/82/10/12/13/06/87 generation is going through it right now) where there are some gems, TONS of crap and some that are diamonds in the rough. Plenty of lipstick being applied to pigs. In a few years, the cream will rise to the top as it has with every other prior gen. What we seem to hate in SA is representing anything as 'for parts' or to scrap anything. It is always 'some TLC required' or a 'great project car' LOL.
Youtubers and influencers have added to hyping things up... be it repairing shitboxes (I actually want to block any channel that says they have bought the cheapest/worst whatever at this point and then proceed to fix it with resources no normal person will ever have access to) or talking about their 'new finds' every year farming for content. There was one that recently sold his F10 because he couldn't generate much content from it since nothing dramatic was happening with it. There are MANY that have believed walking Copart adverts and ended up bankrupt/divorced/disillusioned. We don't hear about these often because forums are largely dead or with the cycles that social media operates on it is lost and buried extremely quickly. We are also at the point where hypercars are being rebuilt and so nothing else really gets much attention anymore. It is no longer about sharing knowledge but just flexing and feeding the content machine. That guy that built the Veyron has several OTHER BUGATTIS he is not short of cash, probably has plenty of special relationships in industry and DEFINITELY has a good direct relationship with Bugatti... but cos he is a youtuber with full staff and production crew to make him look 'just like you' everyone eats it up as though it could be them. You are closer to being Robert Downey Jr than you are to some of these guys. I don't even think it is fun for these content creators anymore.
Anyway stupidity of living in this version of 2024 aside:
IMHO all these M cars are desirable. Whether they are 'worth' the asking price is up for debate and up to the individual looking, especially when you overlay what else is out there. The same applies for new M cars that are now about to push into the R3M for 'normal' M5s and past R4M for the next M8... That is a whole lot of 'special' from Porsche/Lamborghini/Audi/Ferrari/McLaren etc.
There comes a point IMHO where everyone who was going to get one, already has one... and if you don't you either have to be willing to pay the asking price for a good one or give up. V10s for me are here.
E39 M5s are past the give-up point unless you want to buy a 'nice' one and still spend the R100K to get it 'right'
Nostalgia is a hell of a drug and there are also more than a handful of people who have met their hero and will furiously defend it while secretly being sick of it sooner than they thought. Rinse and repeat for bucket list cars.
The only 'good value' NA-era M cars left are (as we often hear
) the Z4 M Roadster, Z4 M Coupe and even then, not for long. There is no cheap E60 that isn't going to cost you double by the time you're done and even at 600K I wouldn't chance it based on how cars get misrepresented. There is no cheap E39 or E36 that isn't going to cost you triple by the time you're done either... Good luck even finding mechanical parts for older M cars than that because it is getting to the point where you will need to find and scavenge parts off other cars or fabricate yourself/find workarounds yourself. None of this adds positively to the experience.
