Index of the Automotive A-List
Following a spurt of activity in the third quarter at the Monterey auctions, Hagerty’s Blue Chip Index settled back into a trend of little appreciable movement. As the year draws to a close, this remains the same. Despite an unpredictable stock market, the highest inflation in four decades and constant chatter of an impending recession, the top of the collector car market remains steady. In times like this, tangible assets such as cars, art, watches and other collectibles are often used to hedge against more traditional investments. That means that for at least the foreseeable future, the top of the market is expected to hold the course.
These factors, as well as the holiday season being a traditionally slow time in the market, contributed to nearly every component car retaining its value from the previous publication. While the 1965 Shelby GT350 and Lancia Aurelia B24 Spider America posted modest gains of 2 percent and 4 percent, respectively, these were cancelled out by losses of the same rate in the Aston Martin DB5 and BMW 507. That’s the story for now, but a better sense of the market direction may become clear following the January auction extravaganzas in Arizona and Florida.
-Greg Ingold, January 2023
The Hagerty "Blue Chip" Index of the Automotive A-List is a stock market style index that averages the values of 25 of the most sought-after collectible automobiles of the post-war era. The list below shows the cars that make up the index, while the graph to the left shows this index’s average value over the years. Values are for #2 condition, or “excellent” cars.
The term "Blue Chip" at one time referred to the highest value chip at a casino. Since the 1920s, "blue chip" has been a stock market term for the most stable and consistent stocks.