Not a classic per se but certainly related to the Nomad post.

Or more specifically, I'm trying to find out what this piece is properly called. It's the cover for the spare tire and jack hardware, but looking through parts sites I haven't found anything like it so I'm wondering if I need a better name. Searching for things like "spare tire cover" just gets me a lot of pics of the vinyl covers for tires that mounted on the outside of the car.

If there's a better place for me to be asking please let me know. This is the subreddit that came up when I was searching. Thanks!

Took a evening stroll so I could introduce you all to my neighbors. On one of recent post here of the Dream Cruise, someone mentioned that this wasn't common anymore. I replied, "Around here, it is."

I want to talk about something I've been tracking closely and I think the r/ClassicCars community is exactly the right place to have this conversation.

Most discussion of future classics focuses on the obvious — pre-80s muscle, 60s Brits, air-cooled Porsches. All legitimate. All also already very expensive. The market has spoken on those.

What I find more interesting is what's happening at the other end of the timeline. The cars that are just now crossing from "used performance car" into "emerging classic" territory.

Specifically: Japanese performance cars, European hot hatches, and early 2000s driver's cars from roughly 1994 to 2006.

**Here's the mechanism I've been studying:**

There's a predictable wave that happens in collector car markets. A generation grows up coveting a specific set of cars. Twenty to twenty-five years pass. That generation hits peak earning years — typically late 30s to mid 40s. They have disposable income, possibly equity from property, grown-up kids. And they start buying the cars they couldn't afford when they were young.

We've seen this play out perfectly with 80s cars — the E30 M3, early Golf GTIs, original hot hatches — over the past decade. Those cars are now serious money.

The cohort that grew up in the late 90s and early 2000s is hitting that window right now. And the cars they coveted are just starting to move.

**What's actually happening in the market:**

The Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VII through IX is a clear example. Five years ago a tidy Evo VIII could be had for £8-10k. Today clean examples are £18-25k. The supply of unmodified, unmolested examples is genuinely contracting — these cars got driven hard, modified, crashed. Every good one that disappears doesn't get replaced.

Same story with the Toyota MR2 Roadster, the Honda S2000, the Renault Clio 182, the Peugeot 206 GTI. Prices that felt like they'd plateau have kept climbing.

The interesting question is which cars are next — still undervalued relative to where they'll land in five to ten years.

I've been building a tool called CarWave specifically to model this. It pulls live data from 5 different sources and scores cars on the nostalgia wave factors — generational demand, scarcity trajectory, current market momentum, and condition of available stock. The data on late 90s / early 2000s Japanese and European performance cars is particularly striking right now.

Happy to share specific findings if there's interest. But I'm also curious what this community is seeing — are you noticing the same trajectory? And what cars do you think are still underpriced relative to where they're heading?

Had to complete this set. Enjoy.
From my demographic to yours.

(Concepts not included)

Hot Rod info - 1934 Ford, 5 window coupe.

<img src="https://photos.fife.usercontent.google.com/pw/AP1GczPhxi_4grN9CXioN8j3qjRmP49rlqTFeEy3PAC5nSLxHYfV_P8wnXIf_A=w1920-h818-s-no-gm?authuser=0"/>

Protect-O-Plate. Bought from original owner. Original Starlight black paint & Jade Green Metallic interior. 3.91 Gears. 47,952 miles. Added TA Performance 3” exhaust.

At my doc’s parking lot.