Let me be unambiguous before the hate mail starts: the best restomods are among the finest objects the car industry has ever produced. A Singer-reimagined 911 is not a modified Porsche, it is a piece of applied obsession that happens to have wheels. I have driven things in this category that recalibrated what I thought a road car could feel like.
Now let me be equally unambiguous about the money, because that's why you're here.
A restomod is, financially, a fundamentally different animal from a collectible original, and confusing the two is how people get hurt. An original car's value is anchored to something external and uncontrollable: how many were built, how many survive, provenance, originality. You cannot make more 1973 Carrera RSs. The supply is fixed by history.
A restomod's value is anchored to a *brand* and a *waiting list*. That is a much better business for the builder and a much more fragile asset for the owner. Brands can dilute. Waiting lists can evaporate. "The next one is two years away so this one is worth a premium" is a wonderful thing to hear as a seller and a terrifying thing to depend on as a holder.
The bull case (which is real)
The top builders have done something genuinely rare: they've created new blue-chip marques inside the collector world from a standing start. If you believe a handful of these names become permanent fixtures — automotive Pateks — then early, correct, documented examples from the defining era of those builders are land grabs.
The bear case (which is also real)
For every name that becomes Patek, several become "remember them?" The category is young, the prices assume continuity that hasn't been tested through a proper downturn, and a restomod in a soft market has the liquidity profile of a bespoke yacht. The exit is narrow and it is the first door to jam.
Our actual view
This is not an asset class. It is a stock-picking exercise wearing an asset class's clothes. The winners will be spectacular. The median will be disappointing. Treat any restomod as a conviction bet on a *specific builder's permanence*, price the illiquidity in honestly, and never, ever tell yourself it's "basically a 911 so it's safe." It is not basically a 911. That is the entire point of it, in both directions.