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I believe this made it's way over to Perth and is now about to make it's way over to America...

This made my day also. This is quite an interesting discussion. Pricing is driven by supply and demand as with all things. As a friend of mine regularly says........ "just because something is rare does not make it desirable"...... and that could not be more true when discussing J-Tin. My Stout is super rare for example, but what's it worth.... Nothing. As mentioned above, J-Tin lovers and collectors are genuine car enthusiasts, not investors. The thing that has ruined the classic car market as far as pricing is investors. There are a lot of people buying up old Fords, Holdens and more recently Valiants as an investment. You have the rich people that accumulate a warehouse full of assorted classics from different manufacturers, but there are also a heap of people that buy one because they like the "idea" of having it and going along to the odd event where they can have a coffee and talk about world events with other people that are also not enthusiasts and don't know a lot about their cars. They know it's a safe investment because they will at least get their money back or possibly more if they need to free up some cash. As also mentioned above, most people are sheep. They like Mustangs because everyone else likes Mustangs, they drive Commodores or Falcons because everyone else drives Commodores or Falcons and they aspire to own a '69 Camaro or a '57 Chev because guess what.... that's what everyone else wants. In Australia Japanese cars were hated. They were considered cheap and nasty and let's not forget... the Japanese bombed Darwin. To my grandfather's era, that was enough to black ban all Japanese cars from the family. In 1965 for example, my parents went to my grandfather and told him they were going to buy an Isuzu Bellett. My grandfather stopped them and instead made them buy a Mk1 Cortina. People that did buy J-tin in the 60's couldn't sell them for much secondhand because no-one wanted them and most of them ended up in the crusher or in paddocks on large country properties to be picked over by future generations hoping to find that rare part they are missing for their restoration. Anyway, in more recent years J-Tin pricing has started to increase for certain makes and models. Datsuns generally seem to have trended upward with the hero models fetching stupid money. Early Corollas have jumped up on the back of what I like to call "the drift phenomenon" where AE86's became ridiculously popular and unaffordable and people were forced into more affordable E'sevs and then became interested in the history of the Corolla. I would love another KE10 but I can no longer justify the price they are fetching. Anyway..... I don't know what my point was and I've gone on a bit of a brain dump for which I apologise....... but I agree with what others have said. Owning a rare Japanese car is itself the reward. You have it because you're an enthusiast, but in the current climate it's not going to make you money unless it's one of the hero Datsuns or an original rotor Mazda. I admire you sweave65 for restoring cars even knowing you will not make money out of them. It keeps more of them circulating which is good for everyone. It's not easy these days to find people that take pride in their work. I wish you were local to me. I'd probably get you to work on my cars and do my re-tiling for me.

After all these years, it really is the gift that keeps on giving. And to catch out a senior member, what a time to be alive.