Reading back through the thread, reminds me of a similar discussion on the BMW forums I used to follow when I was working on my 2002, with plenty of the same sentiments... All of that is probably true of any marque or niche of the hobby. Muscle cars, vintage 4x4s, you name it. As far as the classic car market is concerned, one's guess is as good as another, but as an investment I personally consider it a happy if unlikely outcome if you get your money back. I only wish I had more space to buy up more of the good ones as prices drop!
At least in my own case, working on this old stuff is therapy, a complete departure from my desk job, and a way to introduce my kids to working with their hands and making a machine run and work. This has a long history in my family, primarily making things out of wood and building houses, furniture, etc.
There are plenty of days when I'm under the rig wrenching and my son is on the workbench goofing off with his model steam engine or RC car. It's pretty cool to see him getting into robotics and mechanical engineering, marrying up the maker legacy with math, physics and computer science. That's a decent ROI, I think.
Plus, for many of the reasons articulated previously, I think this inoculates the kids a bit from the vagaries of the economy - you can offshore or AI a lot things, but not the guy who goes around to fix the robot, or designs an improvement on the fly, etc.
EDIT - I'm not as active with the BMW community as I was before, but Rob Siegel (known as The Hack Mechanic on Hagerty) is one of the best. I played a bit part in a mitzvah restoration / sale that he was handling on behalf of a widow who was selling her late husband's car, trading an original patina floor mat from my '02 for three of his books, signed and delivered.
From one of his articles, though he's repeated this story in multiple places, I find it convenient justification for this sickness:
Although my wife and I lived in my mother’s house from 1984 to ’92, it was my family’s house for 40 years. Those memories will ring in my mind forever. The automotive aspect was narrow by comparison (it wasn’t as if I went back there and wrenched in the garage). But there’s no question that my life would’ve been very different had Maire Anne and I done what most folks would’ve had to do when we moved back from Texas—find a regular apartment with no garage.
I said above that it’s a mystery to me why I had free run of my mother’s garage, but that’s not true. I know why. My mother, who I routinely describe as the wisest person I’ve ever met, used to offer this parenting advice: “If your child shows interest in something, treat that like a flower. Because if you don’t, you’ll kill it with neglect, or worse.” It took me years to understand, but letting me monopolize the garage with a pampered classic and a series of highly questionable project cars while she and my sister parked on the street in the winter was one of a long list of times she “enabled the flower.”
At least in my own case, working on this old stuff is therapy, a complete departure from my desk job, and a way to introduce my kids to working with their hands and making a machine run and work. This has a long history in my family, primarily making things out of wood and building houses, furniture, etc.
There are plenty of days when I'm under the rig wrenching and my son is on the workbench goofing off with his model steam engine or RC car. It's pretty cool to see him getting into robotics and mechanical engineering, marrying up the maker legacy with math, physics and computer science. That's a decent ROI, I think.
Plus, for many of the reasons articulated previously, I think this inoculates the kids a bit from the vagaries of the economy - you can offshore or AI a lot things, but not the guy who goes around to fix the robot, or designs an improvement on the fly, etc.EDIT - I'm not as active with the BMW community as I was before, but Rob Siegel (known as The Hack Mechanic on Hagerty) is one of the best. I played a bit part in a mitzvah restoration / sale that he was handling on behalf of a widow who was selling her late husband's car, trading an original patina floor mat from my '02 for three of his books, signed and delivered.
From one of his articles, though he's repeated this story in multiple places, I find it convenient justification for this sickness:
Although my wife and I lived in my mother’s house from 1984 to ’92, it was my family’s house for 40 years. Those memories will ring in my mind forever. The automotive aspect was narrow by comparison (it wasn’t as if I went back there and wrenched in the garage). But there’s no question that my life would’ve been very different had Maire Anne and I done what most folks would’ve had to do when we moved back from Texas—find a regular apartment with no garage.
I said above that it’s a mystery to me why I had free run of my mother’s garage, but that’s not true. I know why. My mother, who I routinely describe as the wisest person I’ve ever met, used to offer this parenting advice: “If your child shows interest in something, treat that like a flower. Because if you don’t, you’ll kill it with neglect, or worse.” It took me years to understand, but letting me monopolize the garage with a pampered classic and a series of highly questionable project cars while she and my sister parked on the street in the winter was one of a long list of times she “enabled the flower.”
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