The car market is crazy right now, whether we’re talking about new vehicles (12.5% more expensive than last year) or used machines (an unbelievable 35% boost vs 2021). But those are the average numbers for the U.S. and we’re here to see what it all means for a YouTuber who buys, fixes/modifies and, after taking them on adventures, sometimes sells cars for a living. Enter the financial side of vlogger Freddy Hernandez’s (aka Tavarish) cars, with the bulk of his collection having recently been valued by the VINwiki YouTube channel.
As part of a series that puts a price on famous YouTubers’ cars, VINwiki founder Ed Bolian, who works closely with Tavarish, has asked fellow “used car” connoisseurs John Ficarra (the car historian behind Ficarra Classic) and John Temerian (founder of Curated) to help him with the pricing gun operation. And, for this video, they’ve looked at no less than 27 vehicles currently owned by Tavarish.
Those of you who are new to the automotive side of social media, should know that Hernandez entered the YT business back in 2006. At the time when this story was published his channel had around 2.1 million subscribers after the 511 clips posted so far have racked up 332,618,160 views.
But those are just numbers and if you’re not familiar to how Tavarish treats his cars, we’ll mention he’s one of the vloggers who put the most effort into building stuff and/or restoring machines to their former glory.
However, while many of his recent builds include American heroes like the Hellcat Charger he created from a rental V6 or the Hellcat Pacifica he’s currently working on, most of the machines in his garage come from the Euro side of the sportscar/supercar/luxury market.
We’ll list the vehicles in the order mentioned in the video. However, we’ve made an average between the values estimated by the three appraisers to simplify things, but you can obviously check out each car guy’s numbers and reasons in the clip.
The list is impressive and not just because the total value sits at an average of $1,671,600
The 2008 Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder, which is now a turbo beast with a non-functional top, sits at $115,000. Upping the ante on the Raging Bull front is a 2003 Murcielago manual, a Fast 8 hero car currently displayed in the Petersen Automotive Museum, valued at $433,000. As for its stunt car movie set “colleague”, this only got $133,000 due to the extreme hacking treatment such machines are usually subjected to.
A McLaren 675LT “crashed on all four corners”, but rebuilt (salvage title) with an OEM scoop from McLaren Special Operations and bigger turbos (think: 750 hp) could grab $197,000.
Yes, that’s a Supra, namely a 1995 example with mods that gets up to $76,000, but it is accompanied by a right-hand drive example. Still in the JDM zone, an FD-gen Mazda RX-7 that aims to thread the fine line between an anime theme and downright kitsch pays the price for this, being appraised at just $12,300 despite its good driving dynamics.
Mitsubishi? Tavarish has heard of it, as proven by his $33,000 modded 1999 3000GT VR4.
Multiple Ferraris are found in the YouTuber’s garage. There’s a $140,000 rebuilt 430 Scuderia (hey, it’s an N/A V8 and they don’t make ’em like that anymore), but the fire-ruined 1995 F355 Spider gets valued at just $2,600.
Using the same modern classic principle, the 2003 Aston Martin Vanquish sits at $60,600, while a 2009 DBS flaunting a manual climbs much higher ($146,000).
Returning to the wacky project arena, a 1997 Lexus SC300 with an ongoing IS F V8 swap is evaluated at $15,800, while the 1M-mile 1997 LS400 Tavarish brought from car journo/YouTuber Matt Farah gets an estimation of $5,800.
Mercs are also one of Hernandez’s things, which is why he owns a 2003 SL55 AMG, a supercharged beauty sitting at $19,800. In addition, his V12-animated 2015 S65 AMG, which he audaciously gave a 2020 facelift, should gran $68,000.
Hellcats builds? Not that hot according to these guys
The Hellcat projects mentioned above? These are great for the online audience, but the Franke-build status means the Charger sits at a somewhat moderate $55,000, while the Pacifica gets a tentative value of just $30,000, albeit with one of the judges giving it a big 0 for appearing to be an overly complex project.
However, that’s nothing compared to Tavarish’s burned-to-a-crisp 2004 Noble M12 GTO, which is not salvageable and sits at $2,500 (maybe it will be turned into art or be used for its VIN).
The enthusiasts couldn’t gloss over the BMW brand, with his 2005 M3 E46 (NFS Most Wanted, anybody?), which has been converted from an SMG automated manual to a proper stick shift, gets valued at $7,000.
Plunging straight into the vanilla part of the Tavarish collection, we find his wife’s 2012 Hyundai Elantra, a 250k-mile soldier sitting at $5,500, while his 199 Ford F350 work truck gets appraised at $12,300.
If obscure cars are what you’re looking for, Tavaish has you covered, with the man’s 1975 Bricklin SV-1 sitting at $4,300. Then there’s his $5,500 1986 Honda CRX and his 1990 Lotus Esprit Turbo, which has yet to be restored, so it gets a pretty low $10,800. In addition, his Honda Beat represents Japan’s kei car segment for $4,600.
Tavarish’s latest purchase, a 1992 Civic pimped-out to the point where it makes for meme material (Lambo doors and all) ends up at $1,100, with the hopes for somebody turning this into yard art being high.
The many factors that influence a used car’s price
What sends a car’s price towards the sky—is it its story, the hype built around it in general (#savethemanuals), or the hopes delivered by resurging automakers like Lotus?
And we’ll follow up on that question with another one, this time regarding the bits that bring the price down. Is the main culprit the poor reliability or would questionable aftermarket choices take that role?
There are so many things to take into account when appraising a car that some might see as more of an occult science than anything else, but one can always stick closer to a more grounded approach by comparing the price against current and past values, with the present bubble having arguably started around the beginning of last year.
