The Geo Metro as an investment car?
 

Hold on to your old Geo Metro, guys! In an ABC News article on the impending death of the SUV (halleluya!)
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Econo...4991286&page=2
they say that a 1990 Metro, which used to go for $1175 a few months ago, is now fetching $3000 !

Just the other day, GM announced that it would be closing its plant in Janesville, WI - about a 45 minute drive from where I live.

That plant manufactures Tahoes, Yukons, and similar trucks.

Ironically, Janesville is also the location of the nearest ZENN DEALER

If only cars were built as well as farm tractors, I can't think of another common vehicle that actually gets more valuable as it ages. I don't have specific numbers but new tractors cost so much that many 30 year ones are being sold for more than they were bought for. Just like cars, the new ones have all sorts of electronic crap and plastic through out but basically the old ones function just fine, and you can probably understand how to fix it when necessary.
Ian

i REALLY hope that this shift leads to an increase in the market for aftermarket parts for our geos. right now it seems like we have to rely a lot on junkyards for parts. i remember back in my high school days when i had a bug... there were a TON of aftermarket resources for parts and i never had any trouble finding a part for my bug. it would be awesome if this became the case for our geos!!

I don't think buying a car could ever be an investment as they lose value no matter what the market is. The shift to more fuel efficient cars will help them keep their value and allow people to increase their price as demand rises. But it is definitely a good thing. Hopefully car manufacturers will realize people want fuel efficient cars and start to seriously develop new cars that get great mileage.

Yesterday GM announced they are closing the Truck plant in Oshawa Ontario, workers here are furious as they just negotiated a contract with many concessions 3 weeks ago...

I feel for the workers as the plant has won many quality awards, but GM management is hopeless. GM\Holden in australia sells 4wd 4cyl 4 door turbo diesel pickups, that get 8.1L/100km, why these aren't available here boggles my mind. I know the profit margins are bigger on big vehicles but selling something smaller beats selling nothing...
Ian

thats how i see it with honda's. the dealer profits barley $1200 on civics and fits, but $3500 on pilots. Salesmen only get like $100-250 per new car, the tech that "preps" it when we get them in gets an hour of flat rate pay, so 25-35 bucks, and the rest is considered profit

Every car I have owned has gone up in value while I owned it, if I subtract gas from the cost of owning my current civic but include all the parts I've put in it I could sell it and come out ahead, same with every motorcycle I've owned, my crx, my electric car, even the Tomos scooter that I bought brand new are currently selling for more then I paid (discontinued model), but part of that is that some of us looked ahead and felt that a car should get good gas mileage no matter the price of gas so we bought them when the price was low, now is NOT the time to "invest" in a car that gets good mileage, 2-5 years ago was the time, in the last 4-5 years the value of electric cars like mine have gone up but nearly ten times, value of a metro has doubled or tripled, value of my civic has more then doubled in the 3 years and 50,000 miles I've owned it.

That is impressive, I'll assume you don't count a big $/hour figure for all the work but coming out ahead in the rust belt is tough. I guess if you bought 5 crx's even 2 years ago and fixed them you could make a $1000 on each.
Here, anything with a honda or toyota badge is stupid expensive, uncertified 95 honda's needing brakes with rust holes in them are still $2000...
I don't really know what I'll replace my Neon with when the time comes, a diesel VW is tempting and with higher diesel prices they aren't too expensive yet. A 1998ish 5 speed SOHC Neon is tempting though too. Cheap car and parts and good mileage plus does OK at autocross.
Ian

I would say you are lucky and smart. Most people can only hope to come even when buying and selling cars. The market shift is a big help though for those wanting to sell fuel efficient cars, but the problem is people don't want to sell them. Which is another factor in the sky high prices.