How to find a good, collectible used car

Plenty of motorists own and run cars well past their prime as daily drivers. The excuse is always the same: "I'll take it off the road one day and restore it..."

That presupposes that the car will be worth something when restored.

Finding the right sort of used car – one that will appreciate in years to come – is something of a black art, but guiding factors include whether the car was popular when new.

By popular, read 'chic'. The earliest Toyota Celicas fall into this category.

A car that was trendy way back will appeal for nostalgic reasons now – and in the future. The Holden Sandman, a vehicle associated with concupiscent teens in the late 1970s, is worth decent coin now.

Ford's Escort, thanks to its rally-winning heritage, is worth far more now than in its 1300cc heyday.

Aussie-built Ford and Holden passenger cars of the traditional type – once they're 30 years old or more – will appreciate almost without exception. Possibly not the Starfire (four-cylinder) Commodores though...

But a high-kilometre VC Commodore will set you back at least $10,000. For a V8 you can basically double that price.

If it's a car that was popular with the young people 30 years ago, and was commonly written off by the P-platers of the time, it will be correspondingly rare now and will be worth more as a consequence. Now might be the time to buy an 'unmolested', low-kilometre WRX from 1995... if you can find one.

Anything that presents as powerful and sporty, or promotes the brand in motorsport competition context is a strong prospect to gain value in future.

You may strike gold with a locally-manufactured muscle car such as an HSV GTS, or something similar but a little more exotic from a prestige Euro brand. That might include a Mercedes-Benz C 36 AMG for instance. The Z32 series of Nissan 300ZX could be a bit of fun too (without breaking the bank).

Handy tip: Avoid grey imports and 'orphans'. Watch out for someone asking a lot for a car that was not locally-delivered or was a sales disaster when new.

Not all private imports from the USA are blue-chip investments. The Americans have a phrase for cars sold between the years of 1972 and 1983: 'Malaise era' vehicles.