When it comes to collecting cars, I really do try my best to not be judgmental; everyone has their own very idiosyncratic car interests and fetishes, and who am I to judge what gets one’s auto-pleasure-glands all excorpulated? And yet, somehow, despite all my efforts to be a better human, I still find myself being judgmental about the kinds of cars people collect: for example, I find collections that are exclusively pristine high-dollar supercars to be boring and predictable, even depressing. But I think I’m even worse about how I feel about collecting cars with incredibly low mileage on them. I can’t imagine a worse type of car to own.
I know they can be incredibly valuable and desirable; there was a 2016 LaFerrari with less than nine miles on the clock that sold for over $4 million dollars, for example, and even more pedestrian cars like a 1990 Fox-body Mustang can go for almost $100,000 because it only has gone 82 miles in its lifetime. There’s no doubt that almost any car with ridiculously low mileage is going to end up having lots of value to some collector, almost no matter what it is, but I have no idea why anyone would want to own one.
There definitely are people who want to own such cars, and they even have their own Facebook group, unsurprisingly, where they post for sale listings of cars with, usually, well under 10,000 miles. Low-mileage is, of course, a bit subjective and based on the age of a car, so while 20,000 miles may qualify as low mileage on something from the 1960s – and it definitely is low – that wouldn’t cut it on something newer.
Look, here’s a video about a guy flying all over the world just to get other low-mileage Ferraris, including a 99-mile 288 GTO, a cart that, when it is acquired, I can almost guarantee will never, ever be driven:
My problem with owning an extremely low-mileage car is that, fundamentally, it seems like an exercise in frustration. Look at this 1978 Beetle convertible from our pal Gary Duncan’s collection, for example; it has 84 miles on the clock. It’s essentially in like-new condition, and from that perspective, it’s incredible. Same goes for another Beetle Gary has, a 1977 standard Beetle with only 26 miles under its little air-cooled belt; it’s as close to a time capsule car as you could possibly imagine, as close as you’re likely to get to going back in time and sitting in a showroom-new Beetle at your local VW dealer.
And, in that context, these sorts of cars definitely do have value. If you were doing a restoration of an old Beetle and wanted to be absolutely certain you were getting everything right, this car is likely the best resource you could imagine. When I’m emperor, I may command the Smithsonian Institution to keep an automotive library of like-new cars just for restoration reference, now that I think about it. I better make a note of that.
But as far as owning one of these cars? It seems terrible! It’s not the cars themselves, of course – I would love to have a Beetle like either of those, in something even close to the condition those are in – but it’s the fact that so much of the value of the car is linked to the low mileage, it makes the entire thing a useless, immobile burden.
Not only can you not drive it, you can’t even really easily take it places to show it or let anyone else appreciate it, because it would need to be trailered everywhere, and even the small amount of distance getting it to and from and on and off the trailer would add up, over time, and for a car where the low odometer reading is the crucial element, you wouldn’t want to do that.
It just seems frustrating; a machine that is denied the ability to do the thing it was designed to do, because all of its value is that it has hardly ever done it. Every part on that car is wasted potential, and there’s little worse for a car than just sitting, so even if you start it and idle it religiously, rot and decay will still occur. Just because it’s not moving doesn’t mean it’s magically free from the ravages of time, after all.
Owning an absurdly low-mileage car just seems like a joyless burden. In a museum context, sure, I get it, the cars are meant to be stationary things you walk around and scrutinize and try to touch when the guard isn’t looking. But in a private collection? Why?
Is it some strange frustration fetish thing, like those people who like to wear chastity devices? Is that it? Is the tension of having something you’d love to just drive around, carefree, but are forbidden to because of some arbitrary and abstract concepts of “value?” Isn’t it incredibly maddening? You have an amazing thing, and you can never truly use it. It would drive me batshit. Especially because there’s a tension there, too. It would be so easy to make some mistake and it rolls off a trailer or gets stranded somewhere and you have to drive it a bit – I bet each of those miles that would get put on it, if you were still under the spell of low-mileage, would burn like fire. Every mile a wound you feel, a knife in your heart and wallet!
No thanks.
I bet there’s a sort of cathartic, unhinged release that must happen to people who have owned ultra-low-mileage cars and then have decided to actually drive them. I bet there’s a pit-of-the-stomach nervous feeling as you first start to drive your, say, Nissan Murano Cross Cab with 11 miles on the clock, as you can feel the value plummeting with every block you drive. But I also bet there’s a point of euphoric glee as you get to a stretch of open road and decide to really open it up, and just think fuck it and watch those long-hidden odometer digits start to roll into place.
I realize it’s sort of an absurd act of hubris for me to even say no thanks, keep your ultra-low-mileage cars, because I don’t have the money you need for something like that anyway, but at the same time there’s a pleasingly liberating feeling to have no desire for something widely considered valuable.
If you have a crazy low-mileage car, I’d both love to hear your reasoning for why you appreciate it and to also, like a devil of driving perched on your shoulder, encourage you to drive the damn thing, value be damned, and just enjoy the car. Sure, you’ll probably be losing thousands and thousands of dollars, but I bet you’ll thank me.
This Brand New 117-Mile Ford Focus Sat For 20 Years And Now You Can Buy It
What Used Cars Are Way Cheaper Than You’d Think? Autopian Asks
Why I’m Totally Comfortable Buying Modern Used Cars With Over 100,000 Miles
