One of those things — hindsight is great.
I’m quite lucky in that my pin-up cars were always the Z4M or a 911. I bought my first Z4M Coupe at 23, just after getting a job out of uni. I was still living with my parents, and because it was 2011 and we were coming out of the financial crash, cars like these were relatively cheap.
There is a downside to getting into something like a Z4M that early, though: there isn’t much to “upgrade” to without spending double or triple the money.
At the same time I was buying my Z4M, the dealer had an M3 CSL with 30k miles for £35k. I just couldn’t afford it. £35k felt like an enormous amount of money back then, whereas now even ropey CSLs are £80k+.
I ended up keeping the Coupe for three years, sold it to go travelling, then came back and had a 987 3.2 Boxster, followed by a C4S 911, before eventually ending up back in a Z4MR.
My view is that you enjoy what you can, when you can. The right car always seems to come along, and I’d rather enjoy something and lose a bit of money than spend years worrying about values and never actually own it.
In my experience, you never really “make money” on a car anyway. People talk endlessly about appreciation and depreciation, but rarely mention tax, insurance, fuel and maintenance. Once you include the actual cost of keeping a car on the road, the whole depreciation argument becomes pretty moot.
For example, I generally spend around £1,000–£1,500 every two years maintaining the Z4M. Tax is £795 a year, insurance is cheap at around £400, and I’ve done roughly 18,000 miles in it.
Over seven years, the rough costs work out at:
- Maintenance: £5,250
- Tax: £5,565
- Insurance: £2,800
- Fuel: £5,193
- Total running costs: £18,808
I paid £14,500 for the car, so in very simple terms I’ve had around
£33k tied up in buying and running it over those seven years.
If im being really depressing the car has 81k on it and in this market although really rare being 1-4 in its combo is probably in perfect condition worth 10-12k.
That’s why, to me, depreciation is almost beside the point. Most comparable performance cars are going to cost a significant amount to own regardless.
And in reality, ignoring the expensive fringe examples, you can still get a Z4MC for roughly £16.5k–£25k and a Z4MR for around £8k–£18k.
I also don’t think sensible modifications make much difference to value. If they’re tasteful OE+ changes rather than drastic boy-racer mods, I doubt they do much harm. If the car can easily be returned to standard, even better.
At the end of the day, Z4M values already seem to be near the bottom of the curve and they haven’t exactly changed in the 15 years ive had them.
Compare them with something like an E46 M3 and you can easily pay twice, or even two-and-a-half times, as much for a car with similar mileage.
And as good as an E46 M3 is, it isn’t twice as good.
Derby
Scottish Borders
similar to mine then!
At the summit of the picturesque fens
