Filed under: Classics, Auctions, Earnings/Financials

Anyone who follows the collector car market will tell you that prices are up, and demand is high. Indeed, Scottsdale's 2014 auction week, highlighted by the festivities at Barrett-Jackson, was a raging success, with numbers that were improved from the previous year in most significant categories. A look at the final tallies, though, shows that most of the big-dollar action happened in the foreign and exotic categories, with classic American iron from the 1950s falling behind.

In a recent column for Car and Driver, Rob Sass from Hagerty Insurance highlighted several examples of well-known American cars from the 1950s that have been showing an overall stagnant or even slightly downward trend in prices. Classics including the 1957 Chevy Bel Air, Ford Thunderbird and Chrysler 300C are called out, as are some lesser-known models like the 1958 Studebaker Golden Hawk and 1953 Hudson Hornet.

Of course, as pointed out in CNN Money, collectors are urged to invest in the cars they fall in love with and to be proud of their machinery. Still, major questions remain as to how the next generation of auto enthusiasts will respond to the collector car market when it's their own hard-earned money on the line.

American classic car values falling flat as foreign and exotic marques rise originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 19 Feb 2014 17:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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