Robert Burton's classic car collection began with a simple case of male distraction.
"I went to Toowoomba to buy a red tractor and I came home with a red car," he said.
The former mechanic points to the culprit — a bright red Mustang parked beneath an American flag in his garage.
In 1998, it became the foundation for a car collection that now draws visitors from around Australia and — before COVID — around the world.
That one Ford Mustang blossomed into an enviable – and very expensive — collection of muscle cars.
Today, visitors are often taken aback to find Texas Long Horn cows grazing among the Holdens, Fords and American classic cars.
The cattle are part of Mr Burton's drive to have the Up the Creek Garage attract a broader range of tourists than just the rev-heads.
"They all thought I was going nutty building cattle yards in a residential area close to the CBD of town," he said.
"But he had the last laugh."
While not on the scale of Disneyland, Mr Burton and his wife Edith have no doubt they've built up a lucrative investment.
"I bought that Holden ute about three months ago and it's probably worth $10,000 more now than it was then," Mr Burton said.
No plans to cash in on vintage wheels
"Nothing's for sale," Mr Burton said.
It's not an attitude shared by classic car investor Mark Haybittle.
He and his team are combing car collections around the world, ready to buy as many as they can of 68 specific models.
Mr Haybittle is co-owner of Supercar Secrets, a business that finds cars on behalf of investors.
He knows that every car he gets now will triple in value by Christmas.
Motoring investors are surfing a wave of cash, which has seen the value of classic cars grow by an eye-popping 467 per cent in the past decade.
But Mr Haybittle warns that big money comes with big risk for those who haven't done their homework.
Of the 68 cars on his wish-list, 30 have dropped off in the past 12 weeks and replaced by a new 30.
"Those 30 dropped off because we know they're not going any higher," he said.
Many would assume the list would contain one or two classic Aussie cars like the 1967 Ford Falcon, GT-HO Phase III which recently sold for more than $1 million, or the A9X Torana which regularly sold for as much as $500,000.
But Mr Haybittle said serious investors steered clear of the local market for good reason.
"They only really appeal to a percentage of 25 million people," he said.
The real value was in European and Japanese classic cars which consistently offered canny investors meteoric returns.
Cars like the Nissan Skyline R32 GTR, nicknamed Godzilla.
"Two years ago, you could pick one up for under $20,000," he said.
"Now there's one on CarSales for $270,000.
"I mean, you can't do that with property."
