Classic cars, wine, watches and coins top luxury index
The Knight Frank Luxury index, ranking a basket of collectable assets and tracking their investment performance, has shown that classic cars performed best with an increase of 17% in 2015. Rare coins also did well, registering a 13% rise in value. Watches and wine were another asset class to do well with 5% increases, closely followed by art and jewellery at 4%. The recovery in Bordeaux wine prices shows the market stabilising slightly after a drop in demand from China in recent years. The overall gain on this 'luxury index' was 7% which compares to drop of 5% on the FTSE 100 equity index and growth of just 1% at the higher end of the London property market.



Classic cars and rare coins maintained their status as the world's best-performing luxury assets in 2015 thanks to stellar auction results, according to a new report.



The Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index (KFLII), which tracks the performance of a theoretical basket of selected collectable asset classes using existing third-party indexes, said the value of the world's most collectible vehicles increased 17 percent on-year.

"Eight of the 25 cars ever to have sold for over $10 million at auction all went under the hammer in 2015. These included all-time high results for Porsche ($10.1 million) and McLaren ($13.75 million)," Knight Frank said. Jaguar's C-Type Works Lightweight, sold in August, commanded a cool $13.2 million.

But investors need to keep an eye out for potholes ahead. Growth in 2015 was lower than the previous year's 25 percent expansion, the report noted.

"The collector market is reacting to a downturn in global liquidity and potential interest rate rises," the report stated, citing research firm Historic Automobile Group International (HAGI). HAGI publishes an index on rare collector's automobiles that Knight Frank used for its KFLII.