A value comparison 1999 vs 2019, D2

[Regulus]

I came about a Swedish article on the A8/S8 written in 1999.
https://teknikensvarld.se/provkornin...uattro-122908/

It mentions that the S8 cost SEK 750.000 new in 1999.
Dividing that sum with 20 years, equal SEK 37.500 a year.
So far, the D2 S8s on the Swedish market span the range of 1 to 3 times the year value (37.500).

In other words, I could buy 7-20 cars today, for the money that the new car demanded 20 years ago (if I had that kind of money)

How does the British market compare?

[HPsauce]

Originally Posted by Regulus

How does the British market compare?

Probably fairly similar.
My first (1998) S8 with a lot of options, had a list price of approximately £72,500 which at todays exchange rate is over 900,000SEK.
I bought it for about £20,000 when it was just over 3 years old, so that's a pretty massive initial depreciation.

[MikkiJayne]

That's more depreciation in three years than my first A8 cost new!

In 1999 I was buying my first house for £42K. At the same time, someone was buying a silver 3.7 A8 quattro for £47K.

Two years later, I bought that A8 for £15K and another two years after that sold the house for 80

[Goran]

I would guess the UK market is much worse / better depending on your perspective.
Last year there were S8's on Autotrader for as little as £2k, whilst a very low mileage model on that modern classics website was around £8k.
But this is normal for the UK because it is a captive market / island market.
Practically no other country wants to buy rhd cars.
Where as Europe has a huge market with even some US buyers shipping cars over to the US.

Therefore D2 prices in the EU hold their value much better. Have a browse on mobile.de and Autoscout24.com
On there the best preserved D2 is listed for 20k euros, not sure if anyone actually pays that price but for the last few years there has always been one or two at that price.

[Regulus]

In my opinion, your market is better. As a buyer, it is nice to find a lovely luxury car for less money, right?. And yes, the EU cars are more expensive.
Besides, the depreciation must basically have levelled out by now. So we are not exposed to the depreciation of newer cars

I paid SEK 35000 for mine, two years ago. During this time I have spent SEK 63670 on parts and service. Some of the parts were upgrades, so basically optional.

As you said, it's a matter of perspective. I certainly will recommend anyone looking to get one of these cars to go ahead. And I can very well understand those who own more than one of these cars I am browsing the market regularly in the hopes of finding another one