Have prices just gone a little bit nuts?

[stu g]

I've seen a couple of Beats recently up for silly money. Are these things going up in value or are people just trying to fly a kite?

There is a yellow beat on ebay now with steel wheels and aftermarket stereo and steering wheel (so not exactly desirable) for £6,495, and a silver one with aftermarket wheels, stereo and steering wheel for £5,500.

I thought the going rate was about £2-2500 for a decent one with original parts, a bit more for the z-series, going down to about £1000 for anything with aftermarket parts?

Stu

[Beatproducts]

I've seen a couple of Beats recently up for silly money. Are these things going up in value or are people just trying to fly a kite?

There is a yellow beat on ebay now with steel wheels and aftermarket stereo and steering wheel (so not exactly desirable) for £6,495, and a silver one with aftermarket wheels, stereo and steering wheel for £5,500.

I thought the going rate was about £2-2500 for a decent one with original parts, a bit more for the z-series, going down to about £1000 for anything with aftermarket parts?

Stu

I think your right nuts, but it is based on what people want to pay. All I would say if you are looking into importing one you could get a good one over and on the road for around £3500 so finding a nice model in the UK is now a better bet than importing from Japan. I sold one requiring body work last year on eBay for £660.00 spend a grand on that and you have a nice beat for less than £2k.

[Gavin]

Prices are always up and down with beats never any middle ground.

Plenty that go up for sale for 3k+ but realistically how long is that person going to be sitting on it for before it actually sells? I think going rate of 2k-2.5k for a nice one is fair, anything below that will need some sort of work but then again it depends what kind of base you want to start from?

Exchange rate at the moment is pretty dire so unless you see one in Japan you really want then it's expensive anything up to 200,000 yen you are looking at around 3.5k-4k landed with taxes paid at port then you have transportation and all the other costs on to have it on the road. From what I've seen for sale over the last 18months anything below 2.5k usually sells pretty fast within a few weeks, anything over 3k has always been for sale for months I think 2 of the ones on gumtree recently where up for sale last year to.

[stu g]

I suppose when you look at the exchange rate, actually it would be very difficult to import and be profitable at the moment. Beat values in Japan have started to go up in Japan (when I was living there over 15 years ago you could get one for between 30-50 man), Yahoo Auctions have them between £2k to £10k!

[4Aaron GE]

The pricing is going to only get worse now that they're becoming 25 years old. The American market will now open to them, and drive demand up even more. Not as much as something like the FD or the R33, but still going to be upwards.

[gymm]

Autotrader had 2 recently for silly money. I recommend owners obtaining insurance with an agreed value which is usually a few pounds more or even free. Photos can be submitted and it always amuses me when they ask for a picture of the engine! With values being subjective by some, it prevents an insurance assessor opening his guide book seeing the car is as old as it is and offering very little when we know you probably couldn't even buy mats for what they'd give!