There are car auctions you can go to where you will find cars in various stages of repair. They are usually finished but a lot of times are not. You can buy them incomplete and finish off the restoration. But pretty much you have to just be a bit of a detective in that respect.
It's every car guy's dream to find that coveted car that's been in a barn for 50 years. That does happen, but very infrequently. People refer to them as barnyard cars. A car that's owner has died and it's been sitting in the barn ever since. Sometimes they are perfectly preserved and sometimes they are rusted out almost beyond recognition. Someone buys the property and decides to restore this old car back to its original glory.
There are also people track collections. Immediately when a widow loses her husband or mate, they will get calls from all over asking about those cars.
How is the value of a collectible car determined?
There is not really a pricing guide per se, but there are experts that can do an appraisal. However, there's really no way to know what the car will bring until you put it up for sale. One of the things that brings value to a car is the person who is buying that car, their personal love for that car for a specific reason. Maybe its exactly like the car they had when they were a teenager or maybe the previous owner is someone who is special to the buyer.
There are all kinds of reasons and there are always surprises when it comes to the price of cars. So, you can make an educated guess about what the car's worth by looking at what similar cars are selling for at auctions, etc., but that is not the final answer; it's just a guide.
What type of insurance is needed for a classic car?
There are insurers of classic cars that understand classic cars and their values and also their limited use. If you were to insure these cars for their face value the same way you would insure a new car, the premium would be so far out of reach that you wouldn't be able to afford the insurance. There are car guys, McKeel Hagerty of Hagerty Insurance, being one, who knows how car guys baby their cars. He knows how few miles are actually driven each year and so he along with a lot of other classic car insurance companies provides relatively inexpensive insurance for these rather expensive automobiles.
