Opel’s Kadett-based GT has defied the trends for most other sub-£20k classics in recent times, with a 6.3% drop in prices. That brings rough project cars down to £2.4k, usable cars that would benefit from work £5k, faultless examples £10.75k and perfect ones £15k.
It’s second only to the MG ZT in this issue’s ranking of the biggest Price Guide Movers On The Slide, just over half of which are in the sub-£20k category for examples in mint condition. We’ve become used to this table being dominated by higher value collectable classics, but that trend appears to be rebalancing, with selected models of those returning to growth.
The GT’s appeal in the UK, apart from its pretty, scaled-down Corvette C3 looks, is its scarcity here, but that’s been compromised by a 74% increase in numbers over the past 10 years. However, it appears that the tide that’s bringing them into the country is waning, perhaps because of the add-ed cost and complexity of importing them in our covid-compromised times, so we’ll have to wait and see whether the downward value trend continues. The wider cooling of affordable classic price increases start to exert more downward pressure.
The force that’s been driving prices of affordable classics, in spite of the hardships of the past cou-ple of years, has been personal nostalgia for cars of our own past, multiplied by scarcity of good survivors, particularly when it comes to family saloons. That’s unlikely to support prices of the GT though, because few Britons will have had their lives touched by one of these lefthand drive rari-ties during the production run from 1968 to 1973.
Price Guide Movers On The Up is part of our regular 16 pages of market and buying coverage in Classic Cars, which also includes smart buying guru Quentin Willson’s Hot Tips, market-watcher Russ Smith’s Chasing Cars, a detailed four-page buying guide and Ads on Test evaluations of four classics for sale. This issue also incudes our latest Price Guide Quarterly update to more than 1400 models, compiled in association with classic vehicle insurer Hagerty.