I'm thinking of possibly selling my 1999 Medium Blue hardtop M6 Z28 in the spring to make room in the garage for other projects. The car is mostly stock with exception of a short throw shifter and slp flo pac. It just turned 80,000 and is in really nice shape, interior is a 10 out of 10 and is flawless. Everything works as it's supposed too. The exterior has a tiny bit of peeling clear coat on the upper edge of the bumper cover, otherwise the paint and body are really nice. I know that this color/option combo was somewhat hard to come by. What's a good starting point for a asking price for the car? Not sure if the color/options make it worth more than the average f-body?
Thanks for any insight or replies fella's.

 

here's a couple of crappy pics.

 

That's a popular color for sure, especially with an M6. The 80K miles sort of takes it out of "collector" car status. I'd probably give it a 10-20% premium over a standard color Z28. That might get you an extra $500-$1,500 from a buyer who is specifically looking for this color. It's a thin market but all it takes is one person who has to have it. That blue is one of my favorite colors of all time. It's very similar to the B5 blue metallics of the '69-'71 Mopars.

My own '99 SS has 17K miles. But, in no way shape or form could I call the interior 10/10. I could easily list a dozen or more "flaws" in the carpeting, sill plates, seats, seat belts, console, glove box, dash, shifter boot, head liner, etc. After 80K miles nothing is perfect. You have to have obvious driver's seat wear unless every owner was slid into place with a fork lift and sat on a cushion. 8/10 would be about the best you could expect. Condition will determine what those 80K miles are worth. Many or most will say that color is worth no premium. All I can say is that if I had to choose between an identical red or black car vs. this blue one, I'd pay an extra $500 in a heartbeat. And I know I'm not the highest buyer for one of these. You can't get an SS or WS6 in this color. They supposedly made a single Firehawk vert. A Z28 with 1LE or B4C package is the top of the line. In any case, this color in an M6 will make it an easy sell if the price is reasonable. People are looking for these imo.

 

That's a very nice color, I like it as well and find it personally desirable. Much better than the super common black, IMO. I wouldn't pay a premium for it, but I certainly wouldn't offer less due to the color (unlike pewter or gold or purple - all of which would have to be a killer deal to even get me interested.)

I agree 100% with Firebrian on this. I too have 17k miles on my '98, I used to enter this car competitively in shows and am quite familiar with proper care for a show vehicle. Even exercising said care, there are some minor interior flaws that would disqualify the car for a true "flawless" in this aspect - such would be the case for any car that has been driven for thousands of miles. For example, I can see in one of your attached pictures that the passenger seat has the usual minor wear right where the seat belt runs along the upper side edge of the seat near the head rest. All of them have this wear when optioned with the cloth seats, if the seat belts have been used consistently. I'm sure there are other imperfections as well. Not trying to pick your car apart, but I don't believe that "10 of 10/flawless" is possible for anything with 80k miles that hasn't been rotisserie restored.

Overall, there is definitely a market for the hardtop M6 cars. Not sure on a price point for your region and without better pictures for a true condition assessment.

 

Thanks for the replies, I guess what I meant by a "10/10 flawless" interior, was that it doesn't exhibit any of the usual flaws associated with these cars, like a cracked dash or door panels, aswell as no tears, burns, holes etc. even the power windows go up and down like they should. I bought the car from the 2nd owner who really took good care of the car. It definitely appears to have been garaged or well cared for from the previous owners. It's kinda funny, my girl actually pushed me to buy the car based off the color, she loved it, it's grown on me since then, the condition and the fact that it was mostly stock was what was really attractive to me about the car, I was the hunt for a SS, but anything I found private sale or dealer was a overpriced pile.

 

I was told around 10 years ago that the Boston area has a strong demand for Camaro's. I don't know if that's true. If you're specifically looking for a clean M6, the New England region might be tough to find them. If you're ok with an A4, they pop up all the time. I'm only 2 hours from Boston and I found my car only 50 miles away, via Ebay (12K miles, 1 owner, SS, M6, $11,950). If you're specifically looking to buy something "clean" in the $5K-$10K range the job gets a lot harder.

Your car in that one year only blue is a lot harder to find than an SS. And there's really little to no performance difference between the 2 cars. If it runs well, continue to enjoy it. Fwiw, I sold my '98 Z28 A4 hardtop w/115K miles in 2009 for $3K. I was very particular to keep that interior nice. It had no tears, rips, stains, dash cracks, window issues, etc. It was really no different inside than a well kept one with half the mileage. I'd have called that 7/10 or even 8/10. No issues with the paint. It must have been an early '98 build as it was out in the sun a lot (with interior shades up) yet no clear coat peeling/bubbles. But, all that really didn't matter a ton since it needed AC work, the suspension clunked a bit, and there was a minor dent in the driver's lower rocker (an $800 dent to be precise). One of the reasons I like the simplicity of my Camaro is that the door panels don't crack, there are no power head lamp doors or rear antenna....less things to break. I'd have actually preferred manual windows/manual door locks on my SS.

 

Interesting how different areas of the country have such different availability. I constantly seem to find nice low or mid-mile M6 examples in my area (~100 miles of Chicago) but have a really hard time finding comparable A4s. The auto cars seem to have been used up at a much faster rate - and/or maybe we just never had as many A4s around here to start with. Even 12 years ago when I bought my current '98, I used to find two or three super low mile M6 cars for every one A4 example of comparably low mileage. This is bad for me as I have no interest in the M6s and would love to pick up another mid-mile A4 example for daily spring/summer/fall driving. On the up side, the A4s have less demand so when I DO find the right one, I'll have the luxury of paying less to get what I actually prefer.

I agree here too, except that there is much greater demand for an SS car than for the BBM color. It's not like SOM in this way, there is no comparable cult following for BBM so I don't personally think it adds much to the value in the general market (though maybe it would for that one right buyer.)

SS offers zero performance enhancement other than handling (due to a 2mm larger front sway bar and 17x9 wheels/275mm tires), unless it was an SS optioned with dual/dual or Blackwing lid [2002 only] + dual/dual - even then you can add any air lid and catback to a Z28 and get the same performance. The only reason to buy an SS is if you're in love with the hood and spoiler. It would cost about the same to add these OE panels (especially if they need paint) to a Z28, not to mention the hassle of locating them, so at that point the SS is worth the premium....plus the SS will retain that extra premium (though it will also cost more to buy, so if you don't care a great deal about the hood/spoiler then it really doesn't make sense to buy one.) I'm indifferent on the hood/spoiler myself, which is why I've had so many Z28s but no SSs, however at this point it's much easier to find a nice SS than a nice Z28 so I might be willing to pay the additional SS premium just to get the better condition that's usually easier to find with this trim level.

Only the very late '98s had issues with the roof (05/98 or later), so the majority of that model year is fine. Unfortunately, most of the SSs were built in the last few months of production so the majority of '98 SSs will have the same roof issues as all the '99+ examples.

I agree about preferring Camaro simplicity, and also would prefer a stripper model if able to locate the right one.