Are ICE Cars the Next Housing Market? A Deep Dive into Value, Scarcity, and Speculation
Let’s start with something important. This is not financial advice. It’s a discussion piece.
Now, let’s talk about something most of us are quietly thinking.
The internal combustion engine — that noisy, emotional, slightly irresponsible piece of engineering — might just be becoming the next great investment asset. While property markets wobble, crypto stumbles, and tech stocks burn through cash, collector car values are quietly accelerating.
We might be watching a strange new financial phenomenon unfold: ICE cars becoming the new houses.
A Market Fueled by Emotion and Scarcity
Between 2020 and 2024, classic and modern performance car values have risen sharply. Data from the UK’s Hagerty Price Guide shows that collectible car values climbed by an average of 18 percent year on year, outpacing traditional inflation hedges like gold and fine art.
Cars such as the Porsche 911 (997 GT3), BMW E46 M3 CSL, and Honda NSX have doubled in value within a decade. Limited-run models like the Ferrari 458 Speciale and Aston Martin V12 Vantage S are being traded like blue-chip shares.
And it’s not just nostalgia or badge prestige. It’s scarcity.
Governments are legislating ICE engines into extinction. The UK ban on new petrol and diesel cars may have been pushed to 2035, but the message is clear. Every new EV on the road makes an old V8 or straight-six rarer — and therefore more desirable.
We are witnessing a supply collapse in slow motion.
When an Asset Stops Being Depreciating
For most of automotive history, cars were terrible investments. You drove them out of the dealership and instantly lost money. That equation is flipping.
Modern limited cars are being built in smaller numbers than ever, often with waiting lists that stretch for years. Manufacturers like Porsche, Lamborghini, and BMW’s M division are producing what could be their last generation of full ICE performance cars — and buyers know it.
That is why lightly used 911 GT3s, M2 CSs, and even manual GR Supras are trading above their original retail prices. In some circles, these cars are being bought, stored, and treated like real estate: tangible, finite, emotionally valuable.
They tick the same psychological boxes as property: scarcity, physicality, identity, and prestige.
The EV Effect
Electric vehicles have improved dramatically, but they have also created unintended consequences. EVs depreciate faster than almost any other vehicle type. According to Auto Trader UK’s 2024 Market Report, the average used EV lost 47 percent of its value after three years, compared with 26 percent for ICE equivalents.
Why? Battery tech evolves faster than consumers can buy it. Last year’s model feels obsolete as soon as the next one gets 40 more miles of range or faster charging. The result is a buyer confidence gap.
Meanwhile, ICE cars have something EVs cannot replicate: sound, emotion, and nostalgia. In an age of silence and screens, mechanical noise is becoming a form of luxury.
Just like vinyl records or mechanical watches, combustion engines are shifting from necessity to experience.
Cultural Economics: Why Cars Now Carry Meaning Again
Cars once defined status. Then they became appliances. Now they are symbols again.
TikTok and Instagram are full of young creators showing E92 M3s, Mazda RX7s, and R34 Skylines with cinematic reverence. What used to be called depreciation is now being rebranded as curation.
Add in global connectivity — from sim racing to collector forums to car culture YouTube — and you get a generation that doesn’t just consume car culture, it builds it.
This emotional connection is now driving real market activity. A 2024 Knight Frank Wealth Report found that collectible cars were the top performing luxury investment class globally, rising up to 185 percent over the past decade. Art, watches, and property lagged behind.
What Investors Are Doing
The big money is already in.
Private funds are buying up rare Porsches, Ferraris, and homologation specials. High-net-worth individuals are diversifying into tangible automotive assets. Some insurers are even creating bespoke “heritage portfolios” for cars as financial instruments.
In the UK alone, collectible cars are now a £18 billion asset class, according to HMRC estimates. Global auction platforms such as Bring a Trailer and Collecting Cars have normalised trading collector vehicles across borders — a 997 GT3 RS can sell from Leeds to Los Angeles overnight.
Cars have become liquidity with torque.
The Risk Factor
Of course, there are caveats. Cars require storage, maintenance, insurance, and space. Unlike property, you cannot rent them out (legally) without risk. And if you treat them purely as investment pieces, you lose the very essence that made them valuable in the first place.
ICE values could also plateau once EVs become dominant and generational tastes fully shift. The next generation might not care about V12s or manual gearboxes in the same way. Or they might value them even more as extinct relics.
The truth is, nobody knows.
The Auto Culture Society View
At Auto Culture Society, we see this less as a financial story and more as a cultural one. What is happening to ICE cars mirrors what happened to vinyl, mechanical watches, and film cameras. Once outdated, now elevated.
The combustion engine is no longer just a machine. It is becoming a medium — a way to express identity, craftsmanship, and resistance to digital homogeny.
The people buying these cars are not just speculators. They are archivists.
Takeaway
Internal combustion cars are entering a new phase. They are becoming heritage assets, cultural statements, and sometimes, yes, investments.
Whether they end up being the next housing market or simply the most passionate hedge in history, one thing is certain: The future might be electric, but value still smells faintly of petrol.
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