Ah, the age-old question for car collectors. "Which car can I buy now that will be worth more in the future?" While a challenging question, the main factors for potential collectibility are limited production and engine power. Combine these attributes, and you've created a recipe for future appreciation.
Sometimes it takes a while. For example, the GM G-body cars like the Buick Grand National were always pretty expensive, and everybody knew they were going to be collectible someday. The Oldsmobile 442 variant of the same car took a good long time before anyone really considered it collectible. The Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS Aerocoupes are still waiting for their day in the sun, though there's no guarantee.
In our list of 10 future collectible cars, we’re going to stay away from the usual suspects: Corvette, Dodge Viper, and Bugatti Veyron. Yes, those are all exotic models, supercars that will be collectible long into the future. Rather, we’re interested in the performance cars that are obtainable for the rest of us, that have some potential upside in the future.
The Best Future Classic Cars to Buy in 2024
- Cadillac CTS-V Wagon
- Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat/Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk
- Ferrari 360 Spider
- Ford Bronco
- Ford F-150 SVT Raptor
- Hyundai Veloster N
- Jeep Gladiator
- Pontiac Solstice Coupe
- Porsche Cayman S
- Subaru WRX Hatchback
Cadillac CTS-V Wagon
Priced from: $53,000
When the CTS-V wagon was new, pretty much everybody in the world of automotive journalism heralded it as the dawn of a new sports car era, when an American luxury manufacturer could build a sport wagon capable of wiping the floor with its German counterparts. The trouble was, the only people who wanted one were automotive journalists. Every other American ignored it with extreme prejudice.
Actually, let’s add to our “limited production” and “engine power” criteria to include “auto journalists love it,” because there have been dozens of auto journo favorites that about nine people have ever purchased. (See: First-generation Nissan Sentra SE-R.)
All that aside, the CTS-V wagon is an absolutely hair-raising automobile. It’s hilarious to pull up to a stoplight in a grocery getter like this, and leave stunned faces of Subaru WRX owners in your wake. The value on these cars has already seen the bottom and prices are just now starting to tick up.
Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat/Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk
Priced from: $81,000 to $94,000
You get two for the price of one in this entry. The Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat and the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk are both essentially the same vehicle: a muscle car for the family. They ride on the same platform. They have the same 707-horsepower, supercharged Hellcat V8 engine. They both have a titanic ZF 8HP eight-speed transmission that’s rated for well over 1,000 horsepower.
The major difference between the two is seating capacity. With the Jeep Trackhawk, only four other passengers are going to suffer PTSD, while you can scare the life out of up to seven people—including yourself—in the Durango SRT Hellcat.
This selection sort of breaks our limited-production rule a bit, because while Hellcats and Trackhawks aren’t exactly plentiful, Chrysler/Jeep/Dodge/RAM went on a “Hellcat all the things” bender at one point, putting the powerful Hemi powerplant into just about everything it builds short of a Jeep Renegade. That will definitely have an impact on how valuable these vehicles will be in the future, but you can rest assured that for a long, long time, any number of people are going to be willing to part with cash for something with that supercharged mill under the hood.
Ferrari 360 Spider
Priced from: $108,000
Yes, we said we’d stay away from the cars that are generally lumped into collectible lists, but this Italian sports car is too good to ignore. It's about half the cost of the 360 Modena (which, frankly, is a much better-looking car when presented as a coupe), and it's about as close as any of us are ever going to come to owning a Ferrari.
For as long as we can remember, we’ve gone through the following mental exercise: “For the price of a new [insert normal car name here], you could own this Ferrari.” For a while, for the price of a new Camry, you could own a 308GTI. Those days are over. Now, for the price of a pretty well loaded F-150, you could own a Ferrari 360 Spider.
As with a lot of these cars, you’re not going to make a ton of money in the future: The original investment is too high. But these cars hold their value pretty much forever, and as the years tick by, that value accumulates like your 401(k).
Ford Bronco
Priced from: $39,000
The present-generation Bronco is still brand new, but it’s almost guaranteed to be collectible in the future. And there are a whole lot of reasons you should be thinking about buying one.
The most intriguing part of Ford's whole marketing strategy is that even if you buy the base Bronco and stay away from the Wildtrak or Badlands trim levels, you can still order it with the Sasquatch package, which gets you all kinds of equipment that will rival that of a Wrangler Rubicon, without having to spend $52,000 to get it.
And if we can learn anything with the experience of the Toyota FJ Cruiser, it’s that whether these things sell or not, they’re going to retain their value for years to come.
Ford F-150 SVT Raptor
Priced from: $28,000
We’re mostly discussing the first-generation SVT Raptor, built between 2010 and 2014. Again, figuring out future collectability is an inexact science. Using our “limited production” and “engine power” indicators of future classic status, one would think that the second-generation SVT Raptor would be the one to watch, since it offers 450 horsepower to the first-gen truck’s 411, and there have typically been fewer of the second-generation trucks built every year than the first-generation pickups.
Ah, but we’re talking about trucks here, and the last thing most truck people are going to want to brag about is their turbocharged V6, when they could be crowing about a 6.2-liter Boss V8. Regardless, the SVT Raptor is going to have an audience no matter what engine it has—turbo or otherwise. The Raptor is a cool truck, and it makes a statement wherever it goes, whether you chose the six, the eight, the Supercab, or the Super Crew. As with all of these vehicles, mileage and condition are going to have a dramatic impact on the bottom line.
Hyundai Veloster N
Priced from: $23,000
This is the second time we’ll mention the first-gen Nissan Sentra SE-R: It was a fabulous little car that was way, way more fun than the sum of its parts would suggest. The Veloster N is exactly the same story.
“Hold on a second,” you’re thinking. “Are these idiot telling me a Korean car is going to be collectible?” Yes, we are. Approximately zero people have paid any attention at all to the Veloster N, mostly because on paper, it doesn’t perform as well as some of the cars in its class (like the Volkswagen GTI, for example.) Regardless, this car has more in common with the original GTI than the current GTI does. It will hold its own at a track day, but in the right hands, this car can be flat-out unbeatable at an autocross. Light weight, exceptional balance, and a limited-slip differential made it the most fun car we drove the year it was introduced.
You’re never going to get rich collecting the front-wheel-drive Veloster N, but among a small group of fans, you’ll always find a buyer willing to pay for quality.
Jeep Gladiator
Priced from: $38,000
We’re going to put this one out there because the Gladiator has the earmarks of something that may actually have some value in the future. Long in the future... If you’re hoping to beat the S&P 500 on your investment in a Gladiator, you have to play the long odds. They’re not going to be valuable this year, or next year, or even in 10 years, but variants of the Gladiator are going to be attention-getting at some point or another.
You only need to look at the Jeep CJ-8 Scrambler to see where we’re headed, because the story is playing out nearly identically with the Gladiator. When Jeep introduced the Scrambler in 1981, there was one decent year of sales before those trucks were absolutely nailed to the showroom floor. That’s kind of the way it’s been with the Gladiator. A busy first year, followed by model years where Jeep has really had to work to find a home for these trucks.
This is a wild statement here, but we’d guess that the Gladiator probably has one generation in it before it shuffles off into the sunset. One-generation vehicles with half of a following are pretty guaranteed as future classic fodder. Just don’t expect the Sport trim to be worth a whole lot. You’ll have to opt for the more capable off-road Rubicon, and you're probably best to think about a six-speed manual transmission.
Pontiac Solstice Coupe
Priced from: $19,000
On the one hand, you can probably count the number of cars that are more collectible as coupes than they are as roadsters. The BMW Z3 is a good example. Similarly, you can buy a Pontiac Solstice roadster for about what you can shake out of your couch cushions, but a Pontiac Solstice Coupe is going to cost you.
First of all, the Coupe was only available between the 2009 and 2010 model years, as opposed to the roadster, which was available from 2006 to 2010. Second, in those two model years, only 1,266 Coupes were built, as opposed to the 64,000-some-odd roadsters. That’s the “limited production” part of the equation that generally trumps how fast a car may or may not be.
These are special little two-seater, rear-wheel-drive cars with a manual gearbox that were built for absolutely no good reason, just the way the BMW M Coupe and Z3 Coupe were, and that is going to make them desirable from now until the end of time. They are a true driver's car and capture the very essence of sporty driving.
Porsche Cayman S
Priced from: $35,000
There was an article from some British collector-car magazine around 2005, when early Porsche 911s were finally starting to take off, that said something like, “You can still buy an affordable early 911. Oh, it will be a Sportomatic. And it will be brown.”
The Cayman/Boxster twins have been the black sheep of the Porsche family for long enough. These are finely built, amazingly fun sports cars that look as good as they go. In a lot of ways, they hew more closely to the original 911 design brief than the current 911 does. And mark our words, as soon as a handful of people catch on, they will be worth money.
At the moment, they’re essentially like buying a three-fourths-scale 911 for half the price. A CarGurus nationwide search reveals 143 Cayman S for sale, with the lowest priced example being a 2006 with 71,107 miles in the entire country, for $27,928. Oh, it’s a Tiptronic. At least it’s black.
Subaru WRX Hatchback
Priced from: $13,000
You can find a WRX anywhere, right now, for short money. What you’ll find more challenging to locate is a WRX hatchback, either in the base WRX or the faster STI. Obviously, you’ll pay more for the STI, but the WRX is no less appealing to the collectors who love them as they are both hot hatches, indeed.
Like the Solstice Coupe, there aren’t very many hatchbacks built that anyone would consider “collectible,” but this is absolutely one. Compared with the price of a competitive WRX Sedan, you'll likely pay a significant premium for the hatch.
These are explosively fun little cars that will convince your family you’re on your way to becoming an actual adult, since they’re exactly as useful and convenient as a regular Impreza hatch.
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