Starting from a young age, cars have had a big influence in my life. I own 2000+ hotwheels, have my walls covered in car posters, and have numerous pictures of me growing up around cars. It came to a point in time where I now wanted to build my own street car. Influenced by my childhood dreams and aspirations, I spent my hard earned money on a “shitbox” Acura from the 90s, the prime era of JDM sports cars. I payed 6k for my “new” 1996 Acura Integra. Though this is pretty reasonable considering I know what I was buying, however, I was feeling swiddled after talking with my insurance. They asked me all the standard questions when registering a car, and then they followed up by asking “How much did you pay?” I responded with my amount, and to my suprise, a shocked insurance worker responded, “That much, I just valued your car at 1.2k.” I eventually stopped thinking about the conversation and was just stoked with my brand new ride. I got to thinking, I wanted to know why these cars cost so much to us enthusiasts but so little to the insurance. Where did this all this value come from, why is my car worth a thousand dollars when in the enthusiast world, it is worth 6-7k. SO many things go into this, so many factors. Although it all may seem stupid, two of the main reasons are the drift tax and nostalgia. 

Going around to car meets I have met a lot of people, made a ton of connections, and learnt an ample amount of things about the tuner car scene and JDM car culture. I am currently seated at the bottom of the food chain in the car community. There are people I know with Skylines and Supras. Those RWD cars with big engines and big turbos are the dream cars, something I want. I remember that night I came home wanting to get another car, I looked for a Nissan Skyline r34, to find myself with two issues, the first being that the car would cost me upwards of 80k and that they are illegal in Canada, well not forever. Ever since then I am trying to save up to get something cool like that somewhere down the line. The whole 25 year ban on RHD cars is, to me a big factor as too why prices are skyrocketing. By no means are they this high in japan, this whole phenomena only applies to those in the western side of the world. Mainly Canada and the U.S. suffer from this ban. The whole law was installed due to people illegally smuggling the cars into the countries.Why? This was at a time when these cars were peaking, it was 2001 and hollywood movie Fast and Furious just came out and everyone was playing Grand Turismo on their playstations. Why were these cars peaking? Well there is more than one answer for this. Firstly, the whole ideology of “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone”. Because the cars are band, they are more desirable. People want them more and more the less they can legally own them.This is related to the so called “drift tax.”  Secondly, let’s look at it from a design perspective. Cars from the late 80s, and the whole late 20th century have certain styling trends associated with them .They had this very aggressive semi-boxy/ semi-curved body language that everyone seemed to love. But more importantly, they weren’t designed around fuel economy, trunk space, or comfort, but designed to deliver the best racing like driving experience to the streets. The cars were raw, with forged blocks, electronic fuel injection, turbos, performance pistons, etc..  

They drove at the full command and control of the drives, unlike today with computer aided, “racing” and “track” electronic setups. Comparing then and now shows how time has changed cars. For the good? Or for the worse? To be honest, it is subjective but I believe it is for the worse. Seeing the options available to us today, it leaves a lot of people wanting to press “CTRL-Z”. To me this can be connected to the first point I brought up, but I also think this is connected to nostalgia. People grew up wanting these cars, and by the time they are legal, a lot of them have been scrapped, modded untasteful, or are simply, no longer in desirable shape. They are scarce. Due to the rarity, the older model cars are shooting up in value especially over here on the western side of the globe. The designs are missed and cannot compare to today’s day and age of Japanese sports cars. Design is not only drawing and building, but plays a role in how people become attached to what they own, and I believe this is another possibility s to why cars from the 90s are selling for a ridiculous price.