Hype is a large part of the current pricing trends, no doubt. The performance of the gear is static at best, and in reality is declining with the passage of time, save for proper restoration work being done. Hype has become its own market distortion, creatng a bubble. Concurrently with that there has been an increase in collecting of certain highly sought after models, and there has been a large enough pool of buyers - thus far - with the money to burn, to sustain the trend for a while. But it is a trend, and trends are notoriously fickle.
Already touched on upthread here are the demographic angles and what that shift in the market may - or may not - portend for future popularity of this gear with regard to pricing going up, or collapsing, as the case may eventually be. I can postulate on that too, and have in other threads, so will not rehash it here yet again.
Having said all that, let us watch and see how hot the market stays with gas (and diesel) at $5-7/gal and rising in the US, substantially higher than that in Canada and Europe after converting for currency and units of measurement, energy prices (home gas and electric) followng suit and food costs/shrinkflation taking an ever bigger bite out of everyone's @$$. There are the independently wealthy who can spend with wreckless abandon, and then there is everyone else who has to operate within the constraints of some sort of budget.
Way more spent on necessities will mean further sacrificing of the luxuries. By my perception, we are just now at the threshold of obvious pain for many people who have long thought of themselves as doing well financially, and the underlying reasons for food and energy cost increases, and inflation which is its own issue apart from supply and demand, aren't going away anytime soon. I distinctly remenber financial big shots throwing around the word "transitory" in the first quarter of this year; a whopping three months ago. They aren't so cocky and dismissive with that sort of talk now, are they? Uh huh. That turned on a dime, which incidentally is now worth about...2 cents.
In the US, with home mortgage rates having crossed 6% - which is not outrageous by any historical standard - home sales have fallen off a cliff. People are either spooked, or tapped out, and either way they aren't buying. The worse other expenses beat them down, the more they will dispense with buying non-essentials. This is partly a psychological reaction to the sudden shock of changing circumstances, but mostly it is a matter of economic reality.
Most people have only so much in expendable funds, and are already being forced to adjust how they are allocating that pool of money. No one is going to starve themselves, or forego fueling their vehicle, or heating their home in the dead of winter to pay $3000-4000 for a 9090DB. Thus the pool of buyers will shrink and thereby the market will be forced to adjust downward. Naturally there will be some resistance to this (abandoning one's expectations is difficult) so the trend change may take some time to manifest. To put it another way, the forced abandonment of decadence will come hard to many who may have lived their entire lives so far in that frame of reference. But it will come.
When that happens, and finally breaks the momentum in the collectibility (and upward pricing) of vintage gear, there is no assurance the previous apex of the market will ever return, as the circumstances we now find ourselves in easily qualify as a paradigm shift. This is the sort of period in human endeavor where seemingly unending trends and assumptions on "how things are" get consigned to the ash heap of history. There are big problems with unpleasant outcomes in play. Which is to say: prepare to have your normalcy bias pulled out from under you.
