So you want to buy a racecar?

As you may have noticed, festivalofspeed.net is an organization devoted to all things motorsport – with special focus on “grassroots” and niche events, organizations and vehicles. In our opinion, perhaps the most “grassroots” motorsport activity an individual can pursue is the owning and operating of their own racecar.

While there are countless avenues to pursue with regard to getting involved in “spec” or “club” racing, we have noticed a great void of information related to purchasing and running vintage racing cars. With this in mind, we approached CarsInternational.com, one of the premier resellers of vintage and historically significant race cars in the world. Fortunately, Paul and Jonathan were very happy to speak with us and share a small portion of the wealth of knowledge they’ve accumulated from decades in the business.

Open Wheel Cars First, let’s define some of the terms you’ll be seeing throughout the piece. When referring to “modern” cars, we are referring to cars which raced from 1990 to the present day. In contrast, we use “vintage” to refer to those cars with histories in the 1970’s through 1980’s. The two terms have different connotations extending well beyond their definitions, as you will soon see.

Modern open wheel cars (read: Formula One, Cart, and IRL competitors) clearly reign supreme among potential buyers, and it’s easy to see why. The look and sound of these fabulous pieces of machinery are unsurpassed the world over, and are generally thought to represent the pinnacle of motorsport. As a result, cars from front-running teams are both costly to purchase, costly to run and costly to maintain. Furthermore, as a general rule, these types of race cars are well beyond the capabilities of all but the most seasoned racing drivers and thus are difficult to control on the track. Though surprisingly, none of these factors seem to deter the enthusiast with money to spend. As we will discuss later, there are somewhat less costly ways to get involved in open wheel racing at the recreational level – cars from the F3 or Formula 3000 series offer many of the same high-g cornering loads offered in the pinnacle classes for a much lower admission price.

Exceptions to the “price of admission” do exist for those buyers patient enough to seek them out and expend the necessary labor of love to bring the cars back up to grid specification. Consider, however, it’s only the “admission” price that changes – the cost of ownership remains the same and indeed, if the initial work isn’t carried out by a seasoned professional rather than an amateur, it may actually cost more than buying the fully restored, fully functional car described above.

Believe it or not, entry to the Formula One arena can vary in a wide price range - from £35,000 (about $55,000) for an Arrows “rolling chassis” (minus engine, drivetrain and electronics) in good shape to €1,650,000 (about $1,980,000) for Michael Schumacher’s 2002 Ferrari with fresh engine, electronics and drivetrain. Obviously, several factors determine initial acquisition cost in these cases – most of all the historical significance and collector desirability, though in this case, the level of the car’s completion also play a significant role. The buyer of the Arrows car will need to spend substantially more time, money and effort just to get his car onto the grid, while the Ferrari could roll out tomorrow. According to Cars International, while the availability of Formula One cars is not an issue, finding one of good quality and with a significant history is decidedly more difficult. Half built racecars begun by enthusiastic buyers who fail to grasp the depths (or dizzying heights, as the case may be) of their investments proliferate the marketplace.

If you buy the rolling chassis, however, you’ll have more engine options than the team who ran the car originally. Though again, these choices are separated by performance, price and reliability.  For instance, your new F1 car can have a Judd V10, an HB or a DFR engine, which can, in turn, be mated to a Hewland or ZF gearbox. These choices present fundamental differences – the Judd V10, for instance, is the most expensive, but also produces the most horsepower, while a DFR can run 30% the price of the Judd, but also provides the lowest power output.

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