18 months after passing the 10k cars milestone we are pleased to announce that the 8Coupe team has managed to again add more than one thousand new 8ers to the archive which on this 11-11 coincidentally holds data for 11.111 8-series cars.
The overall per annum distribution did not change significantly and we now see more than 50% archived for the production years from 1995 onwards with the maximum at near two thirds for the last production year 1999.
Percentage of archived cars by production year
Comparison between 07/2011 (7.000 cars in archive), 05/2013 (9.000), 4/2014 (10.000) and 11/2015 (11.111)
As expected the frequency of new additions has dropped down significantly and more and more time is required to add data to cars that have been archived earlier. As a consequence the annual increase has seen a drop from averaging in excess of 1.000 cars up until 2013 to ca. 850 new additions in 2014 and an estimated 600 cars during 2015.
The strongest increase on a percentage basis can be seen for those type codes where the largest numbers are still missing. Overall percentages for early build years remain low due to the comparatively large numbers of cars produced between 1990-1992.
Increase rates by type codes compared with percentage of cars archived in 4/2014 (10.000 cars archived) and 11/2015 (11.111 cars)
Low percentages coupled with high production numbers still result in high absolute figures. The early M70 (EG21, ECE, Auto, LHD) is now at 23.4%, more than 10% below the average but with 2.809 cars archived by far the highest count. Second in line is the NA spec M70 Auto (EG23) with 1543 cars archived which correspond to 46.1% - 10% above the average of 36.2%
Absolute numbers of cars in archive by type codes / delivery regions
The 8Coupe outlook and a new milestone:
We are now "only" 1.100 cars short of the next significant milestone. It seems realistic that the 8Coupe team can reach the 40% archived milestone (12.249 cars) before the 8-series turns 30 in 2019. We will hence drop the long active "one-third" milestone and continue to strive towards that new goal.
Where is the 8er going next?
The past year seems to indicate that the time of appreciation is coming - finally. This may be attributable to a general trend towards vintage cars where (in Europe) Porsche and Mercedes-Benz are leaders of the pack by a wide margin with other marques following suit. Judging from favorable reviews of the past years and the 8-series climbing up in the ranks of desirability some of the specimens of the E31 range are already reaching for the stars. Especially the top-end CSi and even more so its close relative, the much rarer Alpina B12 have seen significant price hikes and average asking prices are at times multiples of what was seen in the years past. ECE M73 and M62, especially when outfitted by BMW Individual are also very much on the rise and start to find appreciation in a similar fashion.
8Coupe.com Registry Team
November, 11th 2015