Over the last few years’ values in the collector car market have gone up and down more times then Oprah’s scale. Cars that were once in the six-figures are now in the five-figures with more market flux to come. Buyers who are new to the market can easily become confused and it is very easy to get taken advantage of by sellers who are less than honest.

I get emails constantly inquiring as to what cars to pick up as future collectibles. I also get asked my opinion on what the best bang for the buck is amongst these automobiles. After doing a bit of research, I’ve put together a list of automobiles that I would classify as having “Future Collect-ability”. These are cars that can be purchased right now and are priced between: $8,000 – $20,000.

You know its bad when you have to start attacking other car companies to make your own car’s mor appealing. It appears GM got their bashing  campaign idea from a Honda dealer in Dallas, Texas who was trying to steal a few Toyota customers away by displaing a sign that read, “Our gas pedals don’t stick.” While it is quite funny, it seems like they are getting kind of desperate.  General Motors just announced that they will be using a new incentive structure to lure Toyota car drivers towards GM vehicles. This incentive program will be in effect until the end of February. All of this comes after news that Toyota had to recall more than two million cars due to sticking gas pedals. Not only did Toyota have to recall two million cars,but several car rental companies(Avis, Enterprise, National) are pulling a larger percentage of their rental fleet. Just some more bad press for Toyota. Any current Toyota customer who wants to switch to a Buick, Cadillac Chevrolet, or GMC will be offered these three following deals.

             Lease Customers: Waiver of three payments up to $1,000

             Financing Customers: 0% financing for 60 months

             Cash Buyers: $1,000 Bonus

It is going to be interesting to see if this will knock Toyota back a little bit or will they will be able to recover from a loss of their customer base.

In stark contrast to the European money pits traditionally featured, today’s FOTD is a 1991 GMC Syclone. Despite the fact that it’s probably older than your first born child and manufactured by a company not exactly renowned for its longevity (which I expect will be directly refuted by a barrage of GM forum trolls), both the Syclone and the Typhoon have left such an indelible legacy that they are granted a reprieve from my domestic scorn.

As a matter of fact, so enamored am I with arguably one of the best examples of superior engineering to ever leave Michigan, I’m even willing to overlook the ominously rebuilt title. According to the seller (and confirmed by Carfax), the truck was stolen in 2001 and recovered with damage severe enough to warrant a “salvage” branding, which still only resulted in a $2k price decrease. The slightly blurry photos paint a promising picture, though, and as long as you’re adept at maintaining a vehicle constructed almost entirely out of Bondo, this is definitely a piece worth investing in.

Thanks to our dutiful following of VolvoXC60 on Twitter, we learned today that Rolling Strength’s revolutionary new crossover has made the list of finalists for Motor Trend’s 2010 SUV of the Year award. Of course to be fair, the XC60 was neither engineered or marketed as an SUV, but the majority of Motor Trend’s other finalists weren’t either. Given the current market and auto maker’s eagerness to distance themselves from the often negative stigma attached to SUVs, however, MT would be hard pressed to assemble a similarly lengthy list if limiting the criteria to only those vehicles explicitly billed as SUVs. Thus, the one aspect all the candidates have in common is ride height, multi-function capability, and an all wheel drive train.

Anyone considering a potential downsizing, or “rightsizing” in industry terms, from an SUV into something smaller, is no doubt well aware that the marketplace is thick with crossover options right now. These vehicles are meant to ease the pain of moving out of a gas guzzler, but with few exceptions, the utility is no better than a typical wagon and styling ranges from feminine to simply ugly. But maybe there is hope in this segment afterall. The 2010 GMC Terrain for instance. A crossover that may finally win the hearts of self-respecting men forced out of their Tahoe.

Today, Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA) member and Tokyo Motor Show chairperson Toyokazu Ishida, confirmed that Hyundai has become the 23 and final major automaker to withdraw from the show. “Hyundai called last week and orally confirmed their intent to cancel,” said Ishida. “It’s unbelievable.” Decidedly more a sound business maneuver then a personal slight, Hyundai’s decision comes on the heels of a string of cancellations from literally every major foreign manufacturer, including Chrysler, GM (and all its subsidiaries), Ford, Volvo, Porsche, and Maserati, to name a few. Excluding native Japanese manufacturers, that leaves Germany’s Alpina Burkard Bovensiepen and Britain’s Lotus as the sole participants.

As part of a new marketing campaign led by chairman Ed “Guns-up” Whitacre, GM will be offering a 60-day money-back guarantee on all 2009 and 2010 Chevy, Buick, GMC and Cadillac models. The desired boost in consumer confidence couldn’t come at a better time with recent reports showing much of the auto bailout money is unlikely to be repaid. “We’re putting our money down that if people buy one of our vehicles and don’t absolutely love it, we’ll take it back,” said vice chairman of marketing Bob Lutz. The program runs from September 14 through November. Click through for the press release and stipulations.

New Acadia Increasingly Hard To Find

After months and years of struggling to move their inventory, dealerships are faced with an equally frustrating situation to squeeze new vehicles out of GM. You wouldn’t think that a shortage of vehicles on dealership lots or demand that exceeds production would be a serious issue for General Motors these days, but that is exactly the situation being reported by dealers.

A Follow Up to the 9 Detroit Auto Brands We’d Miss the Least

On December 3rd of 2008, we published an article entitled “9 Detroit Auto Brands We’d Miss the Least” encouraging the Detroit automakers to slim down and get rid of some of their brands. The argument was, that just like Aron Ralston cutting off his own arm to survive, the major US car manufacturers needed to take drastic action and cut off some major portions of their business in order to keep the business alive as a whole.

Almost 7 months later, we’re back with a follow-up to see which of our original 9 brands survived and which ones went the way of Oldsmobile and Geo. Check it:

Texas grown Edward E. Whitacre Jr. knows plenty about telephones. He spent 43 of his 67 years building AT&T into a multi-national telephone giant. That takes some quality wrangling, my friends. But what about cars?