Car and auto collectors have to endure a lot in a world where many collectors have become investors also looking to make a profit on their collection. There are warranties, annual inspections, there are maintenance packages, cleaning and detailing, storage, and the basic upkeep like energy costs. Notice that wasn’t just gasoline and oil… Electric vehicles are supposed to miss on many of these ongoing costs. The Ford F-150 has been one of the nation’s few gamechanger vehicles for truck enthusiasts and those who are in need of serious trucks.

Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) is in the process of electrifying its fleet of cars and trucks. It is going to take a long time to get there, perhaps longer than politicos and climate warriors would like it to take. So what about the EV F-150 Lightning as a future collectible?

Ford Motor has now halted reservations for the upcoming all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup. There are already about 200,000 reservations now in the queue. The F-150 has been the top-selling truck in America for decades. Most Ford owners like the brand new trucks and these older pickup trucks aren’t exactly the prime targets at Mecum, Barrett-Jackson, Gooding and so on.

Ford is in the business of selling hundreds of thousands of F-series trucks each and every year. It’s probably not all that worried about its trucks becoming collector cars years down the road. After all, if someone is buying a 25 or 30 year old car, that may just be one less new car that they will buy. Still, what does it tell you if Ford has already taken in somewhere around 200,000 orders for the EV F-150 Lightning pickup and it has had to already halt taking new orders? It can easily be argued as a demand imbalance, and that may create premiums and allow for flippers to make a buck. (Image via Ford press releases)

Ford is already out with its 2022 Mustang MACH-E with a base price of less than $45,000 (before rising rapidly to over $60,000 for its GT) that is more SUV crossover than a sports car, and its 2022 Ford Escape Hybrid starts under $30,000. For halting reservations for the EV F-150, Ford’s notice said:

As we prepare to make history together, we’ve closed reservations so we can start accepting orders. Sign up for updates and get exciting news on the electric revolution. We can’t wait to get you behind the wheel of an F-150 Lightning truck.

Those who have already made reservations now need to confirm that they will take delivery of the EV version of the best-selling truck. Those are slated to start being available for drivers in Spring 2022.

Another reason that this might be considered a collectible goes back to that demand imbalance. The reality is that F-150 truck capacity and expected supply is already short of what it could sell for years ahead. Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) changed the car industry model by avoiding a car dealer system and going direct to consumers. It is expected that Ford’s F-150 Lightning trucks will be sold on dealer floors — and any buyer who really wants to take delivery might want to get on the list of takers quite soon (just don’t expect to get any sort of discount).

It is not clear how many of the trucks will go to dealership floors without an order in, but it is quite clear that demand is exceeding supply. The gasoline-powered F-150 trucks ran into the same chip shortage issues that impacted so many other carmakers in 2021. That hasn’t helped matters even if the reports seem as though the chip shortage is not as bad now compared to when it first started. It is also not yet known what will happen when Tesla begins selling its own EV Cybertruck to the market. Elon Musk and his team at Tesla are reported to now have well over 1 million Cybertrucks under reservation.

The demand for trucks has been higher along with the construction boom but sales have been slower. Ford sold almost 900,000 F-series trucks in the U.S. in 2017 and sold more than 900,000 in 2018. It almost hit the 900,000 mark in 2019. The F-series unit sales were down to almost 800,000 in the pandemic year of 2020 and it’s going to be short of that again in 2021 due to the chip shortages and supply chain issues.

It remains unclear whether or not any of these electric vehicles will become “collector cars” down the road. They certainly won’t be that collectible if they have to maintain their original lithium-based battery systems. Then again, earlier in 2021 MotorTrend evaluated the Tesla Roadster’s “collectability status” and InsideEVs noted that early Tesla Roadster prices had been soaring from earlier times. And Hagerty’s 2022 Bull Market List included the Tesla Roadster Sport.

Collectors have different reasons for why they like to collect high-end and expensive items in all categories. Some collectors have become speculators and investors in the space — but none of them should ever expect that they are guaranteed any profits. Sometimes people just collect because they love an item and they don’t even care what the resale is down the road.

As for the collectability of the Ford EV F-150 Lightning’s role within collectibles, let’s revisit that in 2032 or so. As for those who try to make a quick buck flipping them, we may revisit that in April or May of 2022. Maybe buyers just want to own an EV truck, or maybe they want to hit 60 in 4-ish seconds in a truck, or maybe they want that 2,000-pound payload and 10,000-pound towing capacity. And maybe they just want to buy and sell for a quick profit.