Are shop-built, modified cars the financial sweet spot?

Let's say you have a hankering to experience a V8 Miata. Not for very long, but long enough that you would need to own said Miata.

Let's also say that you currently lack the time, space, and energy to wrench on a modified car for weekends at a time.

Let's finally say that you've saved enough cash to spend anywhere between "$10k and good luck, taillight warranty" and "$50k Flyin Miata package, drop off, write check, pick up."

How about somewhere in the middle?

I assume having a shop build your car is always going to be a money-losing proposition. Fair enough. What about a used example, built by a reputable shop, like the one on FM's website right now?

https://www.flyinmiata.com/V8/for_sale.html

In theory, knowing nothing about the used Flyin Miata-built V8 market (yet), that car should hold most of that value, or at least enough that you wouldn't lose more money than you would either building your own, or fixing someone else's project. Which is true of any build-vs-buy scenario, except in this one, the "buy" doesn't involve a hacked up wiring harness and stripped out oil pan (hopefully).

There are outliers in every hypothetical. Can you find a privately built Miata to rival Flyin' Miata quality? Sure. Will it carry the same rapport when it comes to sell? Almost certainly not. "Built By Flyin Miata" sounds a lot better than "The Guy I Bought It From Seemed To Know What He's Doing."

Am I on the right track here? This is disregarding the opportunity cost for the cash, let's say it's negligible due to the short timeframe (1-2 years). It's also disregarding any personal enjoyment from building your own, sense of ownership, etc.

I bet the Flyin' Miata  or similar cars will hold a premium but it will be a pretty small market for resale. Be prepared to wait for someone to recognize the added value.

Financially, it seems like its the least painful way to go. Just bear in mind that the market is still miniscule when it comes time to part with it. 

I think the problem with these, if you can call it a problem, it that the audience of people that want to buy it from you is very small and getting it in front of them to get a sale done is hard. Is it work $30k? I don't doubt that. Can you find the next guy to buy it? Might take a while. 

I'd bet in 20 years Flyin' Miata MX-5's will be the '69 Yenko Camaro's of today.

As far as fiscal responsibility goes, I second what's been said here. It's not something you'll be able to sell to Joe Blow for a premium but it would likely be worth the extra money to the right person.

I wish I was in the market for a LS swapped ND right now.

Buy it and spend some money to have it refurbished.  You will still come out ahead.  Why is this not in your garage already?

The issue you’ll fight, is that the people who want a V8 Miata and can afford one is smaller than the one where they want one and can (or think they can) build one themselves.

The ones that can afford a built one will cross shop used Corvettes, Porsche and Vipers, but only those that know why a V8 swapped can be better than those options are the ones you’d want to find.

Needless to say, FM finds them as they do turn out more than a few of them and if the owners decide to move them on, they’ll list them on their site to help put it in front of those that are actively looking at them.  They don’t last long, so while the market is small, it works just fine.

Hypothetical dollars are really easy to hypothesize about....

If you have the cash and don't mind it being tied up for awhile, I'd definitely go the "Built by Flyin' Miata" route over one built by myself. 

Well, I can think of ONE person that I would trust to build me something like that. But I don't have the cash to commission him, so I don't worry about it. 

I dunno, unless it is done by yourself or to your specs, modded cars will always end up as a disappointment.  FM is making them at a price point, and they got bills to pay, so it can definitely be done cheaper to DIY.    A local shop would do the same but wouldn't have the knowledge or cachet to command the bucks and do a decent job, or they could blow FM out of the water.

A used modded car that was done to someone else's taste is always a tough sell.   The rig FM is looking to sell would need $10k just to make it back into something tasteful (remove the body kit, redo the interior, new paint again, less dated wheels, plus whatever from sitting)  For $40k, you can get one built to your liking already without having to deal with a different swaps headaches.

Where I am going is commission it yourself, do it yourself, but do it the way you want to do it.  Buying a used modified car, regardless of who put it together, is 99% of a the time a letdown because you would have done it better, different, etc.  

I see this as the same logic as buying a classic,

Don’t expect to make money, but if you buy a good example, then you should be able to get your money back after 5 years of use.  This assumes you took care of it and did not beat it to death.  So the big question is....How comfortable are you in declaring the car a good example.

I would advise buying the best home build you can find in your budget and pretty much have it for sale from day 1.

Pete

Dave said:

I bet the Flyin' Miata  or similar cars will hold a premium but it will be a pretty small market for resale. Be prepared to wait for someone to recognize the added value.

I don't know about the "Be prepared to wait" part of this. FM V8s don't stay on the market very long.

So this theoretical situation hinges on the idea that you can make a copy of the Flyin Miata V8 for less money but at the same high quality of work.

Forgive me, but I'm betting that nobody at FM is making massive money.  Which implies that they are not overcharging for the effort that it takes to make the car.

So to make the car exactly the same, it wil take exactly same effort.  And to cost less to the consumer means that whoever making it will not be paying themselves the same as FM is paying themselves.  

Think about that for a while before jumping in.

Didn’t we just see this with Bmwrider and Atomic Betty?  I feel like there is first hand knowledge available.

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/cars-sale/fs-2009-miata-prht-with-a-fm-swapped-ls3-aka-atomi/145966/page1/

Yup.  Like a rusty steel trap.   Now i’ll go forget one of my kids’ names.

alfadriver said:

So this theoretical situation hinges on the idea that you can make a copy of the Flyin Miata V8 for less money but at the same high quality of work.

Forgive me, but I'm betting that nobody at FM is making massive money.  Which implies that they are not overcharging for the effort that it takes to make the car.

So to make the car exactly the same, it wil take exactly same effort.  And to cost less to the consumer means that whoever making it will not be paying themselves the same as FM is paying themselves.  

Think about that for a while before jumping in.

Think of all the engineering, trial-and-error, learning from their mistakes, prototyping, special tools and jigs, and experience Flyin' Miata has.  Flyin' Miata has already invested huge effort into solving all the problems that pop up.  I'm sure Flyin' Miata expends WAAAY less effort to build a V8 Miata than anyone else could do.  Yes, you are paying them for their previously expended efforts, but you are paying for a lot less construction time than you could do it for yourself.

Said another way, the prototype always requires much more effort than the production run.

My answer is: buy a used Flyin' Miata car.  Then enlist their aid when you go to sell.  Their cars seem to sell fast.

you rang :) In all reality, The good thing with the FM cars is it's a known quantity and you get life time tech support from a great organization. So when you sell it, It does make it easier to sell. Can a private person make one better? Sure if they wanted to. But, It is also can be harder to sell especially to a person not local. 

I haven't been marketing Betty hard just because I've been traveling a lot. I'm sure with a little marketing she would be an easy sale and now that I added a second miata to the stable. 

If you are looking at these types of cars as an investment, your doing it wrong.  Lets take a round number of $20K because it falls somewhere in the middle of your hypothetical world.  Add another $5K to get this car to you, title it, register it, and fix anything that you were not aware of, or wasn't disclosed at purchase.  What can $25K get you?  Lots, and some of those cars will appreciate whether you try to break them or not.  I'd be looking at either a well built swap car done by a real enthusiast of that brand.  Maybe an E36BMW, or a late RX7 with an LS.  The advantage to that over a shop, is you get all the parts, the attention to detail, and don't have to pay any labor.  Shop swaps cost a lot and in the end, there are still always things that were not done because you didn't pay to have that done.  Another option would be something like a locost or similar kit cars.  Then there is always the option of modified street cars.  Lots of fast tuner cars, and pony cars out there that fall into this price range.  You could go find a restomod classic like a TR8, a MGB with a V8, any turbo JDM, etc.  Those prices will continue to go up.  I stashed away a flared race prepped BMW 2002 a few years ago.  Nobody wanted it for what I had into it, so it went into storage.  Now I got people fighting over it for more than twice what I have into it.  

The FM built cars definitely command a premium in the used market. It's fairly substantial, actually. The cars sell very quickly (we'll get to the one outlier in a bit) and often never actually get listed. Their prices are pretty solid. The pre-ND cars aren't holding 100% of their value, but they're still holding a very high percentage. Not many cars are worth 80% of their price after a decade. This is because the FM cars are a known quantity, they're well-built and finished and they're supported by an established company. We're higher profile than anyone else which helps. We do our best to help resale by helping with the listing of these cars - it's in our best interest to keep the values high.

Are there less expensive ways to get one built? Yes. There are other shops that build these cars, and they may charge less to do it. The most common place to save cash is used parts - buying new engines, transmissions, etc gets expensive but it's the only way we'll build a car because it's the only way we can guarantee our customer's experience. But if you're willing to take a junkyard engine or trans, you can save some cash on the initial investment. There are usually detail differences as well. But at the end of the day, those swaps are usually worth considerably less. And no, nobody at FM is making a big pile of cash from these swaps, they're a lot more expensive to build than you might think.

The outlier is that one listed for sale right now. Our cars usually sell in a couple of days or even hours after being listed. This one is an early build done a decade ago. It's been sitting for a while and is being sold by someone who doesn't know anything about it and can't do any extra legwork. It's got a factory body kit that is not to the current fashion, but is easy to remove. It's got the potential to be a killer deal for someone, because it will always have the extra value of the FM support and reputation. That's why it's for sale for close to $10k under market value - and while you might not believe that statement, it's based on watching these cars sell for the last 10 years. If you're looking at having a non-FM car built and resale, the poor orphaned Habu would be a better investment.

The NDs are different. Nobody else can build the NDs. Nobody else has even tried. They're definitely a more valuable car right now but since none have changed hands we don't have a price point.

In reply to bmw88rider :

Well, not quite yet!  I'll see ya tomorrow morning...

Keith Tanner said:

The FM built cars definitely command a premium in the used market. It's fairly substantial, actually. The cars sell very quickly (we'll get to the one outlier in a bit) and often never actually get listed. Their prices are pretty solid. The pre-ND cars aren't holding 100% of their value, but they're still holding a very high percentage. Not many cars are worth 80% of their price after a decade. This is because the FM cars are a known quantity, they're well-built and finished and they're supported by an established company. We're higher profile than anyone else which helps. We do our best to help resale by helping with the listing of these cars - it's in our best interest to keep the values high.

Are there less expensive ways to get one built? Yes. There are other shops that build these cars, and they may charge less to do it. The most common place to save cash is used parts - buying new engines, transmissions, etc gets expensive but it's the only way we'll build a car because it's the only way we can guarantee our customer's experience. But if you're willing to take a junkyard engine or trans, you can save some cash on the initial investment. There are usually detail differences as well. But at the end of the day, those swaps are usually worth considerably less. And no, nobody at FM is making a big pile of cash from these swaps, they're a lot more expensive to build than you might think.

The outlier is that one listed for sale right now. Our cars usually sell in a couple of days or even hours after being listed. This one is an early build done a decade ago. It's been sitting for a while and is being sold by someone who doesn't know anything about it and can't do any extra legwork. It's got a factory body kit that is not to the current fashion, but is easy to remove. It's got the potential to be a killer deal for someone, because it will always have the extra value of the FM support and reputation. That's why it's for sale for close to $10k under market value - and while you might not believe that statement, it's based on watching these cars sell for the last 10 years. If you're looking at having a non-FM car built and resale, the poor orphaned Habu would be a better investment.

The NDs are different. Nobody else can build the NDs. Nobody else has even tried. They're definitely a more valuable car right now but since none have changed hands we don't have a price point.

/thread

I like to give Keith a hard time on some subjects, but there is no doubt, FM builds the best Miata's that you can drive 1000 miles to a track, enjoying the stereo and AC, have a good time at the track, and drive home 1000 miles in the opposite direction.

And if you can wheel, you likely hurt a lot of guys feelings with 6 figure cars. 

From an owner's POV, What Keith said is 100% the reason I didn't even think twice when I bought Betty. It just made sense. I know I'll get the $$$ back when I sell her or close to it. I wouldn't have gotten the same level of value in a used corvette. 

For my toy cars, I always look at at cars I can buy and hold and sell for minimal depreciation. Betty was one, The MR2 Turbo was another, and the Miata I'm buying from Doc is a third. It keeps me in the hobby for minimum long term costs.