This classic car sold for a whopping $143 million — and now investors are looking to cash in. Here are 3 simple ways to access revved up returns

Not only are investors enticed by the allure of vintage wheels, they’re also drawn by the prospect of high returns. Classic car assets have improved by 185% in the past 10 years, according to the KFLII, and they offer diversification from mainstream portfolio assets like stocks and bonds.

But investors interested in buying their own vintage vehicles or joining investment funds that manage classic car portfolios should know that they come with some financial risks — especially when you add up car running costs, repairs, storage and insurance fees.

If classic cars don’t quite shift your gears, here are three more high-performance assets to pump your passion into.

Fine wine

People have been consuming wine for thousands of years. While most collect wine for enjoyment rather than investment, bottles of fine wine become rarer and potentially more valuable as time goes by.

In the past 10 years, wine assets saw a performance improvement of 162%, according to the KFLII — beaten only by classic cars at 185% and rare whisky bottles at 373%.

In 2022, Knight Frank’s wine index recorded growth of 10%, a slight drop from the 16% rise in 2021. Regardless, consistent double-digit growth sees wine assets comfortably beating inflation and outperforming many mainstream investment classes.

Nick Martin, CEO and co-founder of data provider Wine Owners, says some top performers may have hit a peak in the past year.

“Burgundy has risen by more than 80% during the past five years, but at some point the market had to pause for breath,” he told Knight Frank.

You can invest in wine by purchasing individual bottles — but you’ll need a place to store them properly. Residential wine cellars often cost tens of thousands of dollars. If not stored at the right temperature or humidity, the bottle could be compromised.

For those who lack the time and space to curate and store their ideal wine portfolio, you can use a wine investing platform that does the legwork for you — including choosing, storing and insuring your bottles — and they’ll even let you know when’s the best time to sell.

Art

Art was the top performer in the KFLII in 2022, rising by 29% in 2022. In the past 10 years, the asset has seen a performance improvement of 91%.

Sebastian Duthy of Art Market Research, which provides the data for a number of KFLII’s asset classes, says much of that performance was driven by the huge prices paid for museum-quality works of art by ultra-wealthy collectors.

“Several single owner collections, including works owned by Microsoft founder Paul Allen and American investor Anne Bass produced totals in excess of US$2.5 billion, more than doubling collection sales in 2021,” he told Knight Frank.

The biggest sale last year was through auction house Christie’s, where Andy Warhol’s 1964 painting Shot Sage Blue Marilyn — the iconic portrait of Hollywood star Marilyn Monroe — sold for $195 million.

You might think that investing in fine art by the likes of Andy Warhol, Banksy or Pablo Picasso is only an option for the ultra-rich. Until recently, there was no way to invest in fine art unless you had millions to buy an entire painting — not even the best adviser could get you in on the action without dropping a fortune on one piece.

But there is another way to get involved. You can use an online art investment platform to get yourself a piece of the multi-billion dollar industry.

Using an investment platform lets you bypass a lot of the drawbacks of physical art investing. For instance, you won’t need to scour galleries for your art or worry about logistics like shipping, handling and securing a temperature-controlled storage space.