Will Common Sedans of the ‘90s Become Collectible?

On the one hand, rarity does not equal value or collectability in the car world. Current owners of Renault Alliances will readily confirm this.

But given enough time, even the most basic cars may attract a niche enthusiast following especially when Nostalgia—a potent, mind-altering controlled substance—is involved along with some modest coinage.

The FDA reminds us that Nostalgia should not be taken in conjunction with eBay usage or while operating heavy machinery. But even though the FDA is probably right, who are they to boss us around?

This nostalgia is now beginning to alter the minds of those who, some 30 years ago, were driven in a plush but not flashy domestic sedan owned by their grandparents to a department store that no longer exists, in a mall that no longer exists. And those plush domestic sedans are now becoming more difficult to find in anything close to time-warp condition.

Thirty years will do that to an affordable, everyday car.

Are once-common sedans of the 1990s on this trajectory, as older millennials begin to look around for affordable yet tidy machines from their youth to collect or restore?

One such candidate we've recently spotted is the Chevrolet Caprice sedan—a vehicle that had been easily upstaged by its siblings including the Impala and the Buick Roadmaster wagon in the collector car world. And it's not a car that's particularly easy to find today in tidy condition, specifically because it was often bought by taxi and police fleets.

Despite the generous footprint and swoopy styling inspired by the 1988 Cadillac Voyage concept, relatively little was new underneath in the Caprice itself when it debuted.

The 1991 model year brought not just the Caprice but all of its GM siblings into the new decade, with offerings from Buick, Cadillac, and Oldsmobile filling out the extended full-size lineup that erred on the side of luxury, with the Cadillac Fleetwood and Buick Roadmaster sedans quickly heading for country club parking lots.

A 5.0-liter V8 was the base engine in the non-fleet sedan at launch, later dialed down to 4.3 liters, but a 5.7-liter V8 was also on the menu if you wanted a little more vroom or if you were The Law.

Paired with a four-speed automatic, the body-on-frame sedan served up plenty of rear wheelspin and a floaty ride. And odds were that's exactly what you wanted if you were looking at one of these to begin with.

Far rarer sights were the Caprice station wagon and the Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser, with the latter seeing just three model years and some 11,000 units. And that Olds wagon is certainly collectible in the commonly-accepted sense, just because so few were made, even though values aren't exactly outpacing some common muscle cars of the era.

The last model year for the Caprice and its siblings was 1996, as GM largely threw in the towel on non-luxury full-size offerings, turning its attention to SUVs.

By the end of the decade, the big Chevy sedan already seemed like an anachronism.

When it comes to the Chevy-badged version, we suspect it's the performance-flavored Impala that arrived toward the end of the product cycle that currently account for a substantial share of minty or simply roadworthy examples. And it was the one that tended to be babied from the dealership, at least by Bowtie enthusiasts.

Today the basic Caprice sedan is a relatively rare sight, at least outside the midwest, for a simple reason: A lot of these went into fleets, while the Buick models were the more natural choice for private owners. It's also one of those cars that was barely given a second look in the 1990s, but now stands out in traffic due to its relative rarity. Especially if it's in a tidy condition.

In 2024, the Caprice sedan already seems like something from another time, from that tranquil interlude before all the horrors of the modern world arrive in force at the turn of the century. And it's only going to get rarer, if not actually more valuable, as another decade passes.

Will some once-common but basic sedans of the 1990s see some interest from collectors as nostalgia for the 1990s gathers momentum, or will it mostly be the performance-flavored or otherwise rarer models that will attract attention in the future? Let us know what you think in the comments below.