Driving all the way to bank

Is a surprise that bank that opened two years before the Bank of England has started a passion index.

1978 Ducati NCR

COUTTS is the Queen's own bank. Occasionally Betty Windsor pops by the branch on The Strand to check out if her passbook is up to date. Of course on those days all the staff have to dress up in old fashioned royal clobber and look respectable.

So it's surprising that a bank which started up two years before the Bank of England and at the same time as the Salem witch trials (being a friend of Satan then was about as popular as being a friend of Kevin Rudd today) has started a passion index.

The good news is, as we always tell you here in the motoring section, is that of all the passions Coutts measures (no, it doesn't measure the most important one because you can go to jail for trying to do that) classic cars have been the biggest winner. Since 2005 old metal has risen 257 per cent. Old watches have gone up a lousy 176 per cent. Fine wine, art, gold and shares are basically stuffed.

Bonhams' Mohammad Kamal Syed, who I don't think is from Dublin, says buying old cars is about more than just profit. "Owners can bond with like-minded people in an elite network, with assets offering escapism and a chance to re-enact history. Indeed, there is one thing that the Coutts Index can't measure - and that is happiness.

"The idea of someone paying $50 million for an uncomfortable old car, with windows that don't work and a noisy engine, seems illogical. In many ways it is. But the happiness such a car can bring is immeasurable."

Ah, Kamal, so you and the lads at Coutts know that money can buy happiness and torturous PR prose.

Let's say in the 60s, when all your mates were protesting, smoking, drinking and going out with persons of the opposite and same sex, you decided to splurge $16,000 on a new Ferrari 250 GT SWB California. Forty years later you could have got $1.2m for it. Today it's probably worth around $12m. You could buy a lot of hard drink, smokes and wild partners for that (if you still remember what to do with them).

My guess is Ferraris are going up at about 10 per cent compound a year, every year. Put $2 million with the Commonwealth Bank for the next five years and they will pay you 4.3 per cent or $86,000 every year.

Now I Iike the CBA, particularly their tin money boxes, but here's the thing. Would you seriously want to give your hard-earned $2m to the men in the grey cardigans or to Rob Myers at RM Auctions for a 1962 Ferrari 250 GT/L Lusso Competizione? Just imagine when you get out of bed in the morning. Are you going to be excited by the tin money box or the most beautiful thing you have ever seen in your life, that will actually beat the 250 GT SWB around the track so saving you over $10m? Don't tell me the motoring section isn't worth the whole cost of The Weekend Australian. Financial planning, passion and sex all on two pages.

But despite T-shirts commemorating Australia Day being banned you can invest in your passion and be a proud Aussie. They say the owner of the first Holden off the assembly line has knocked back $1m for it, we know you can't buy a 1971 Ford GT HO Phase III for under $750,000 and I have a BA Ute that you can have for under $6000.

Motorcycles are also on the way up. At Bonhams' Las Vegas Motorcycle Auction a week or so back an unmolested 1978 Ducati NCR, pictured, went for $190,500, a 1940 Harley-Davidson EL went for a world record price of $159,000, a 1973 Ducati 750 Super Sport "Green Frame" brought a record $137,000 while a rare and race-ready 1954 BMW Rennsport RS54 got an easy $126,000.

Look, some people will tell you we are going through a classic car price bubble. They are the same so-called experts who said don't buy a 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 when it was new (sold last year for $32m) or a 1936 Mercedes-Benz 540K (sold in 2012 for $12m) or a vintage BA Falcon Ute (soon to be sold).

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