what's the biggest turnoff for you when looking at a car or project?

Most superficial things like tufted high-back seats, digital gauges, hideous graphics, cheesy accesories, tilt wheels, fadish gee-gaws, etc. can be pretty easily removed or replaced so they wouldn't necessarilly stop me. Things that would stop me include:
Poor engineering
Crappy welds
Shitty wiring
Bad rust
Wierd-ass proportions
Plastic body (no offense intended, just my personal preference)
A-hole seller

 

I just dont see the point in being an @ss about it...
Whats the point?

 

All of the turnoffs that have been posted may work in the seller's favor. If you look at a potential project with nothing that you dislike, you may get "buyer's lust" and wind up paying stupid money. Things that you don't like about the car may give you second thoughts and cause you negotiate harder or reconsider the whole idea.

 

a windshield leaned wayyy back on any 30s roadster. Just doesnt do it for me...

ppl that cry about sbc`s

and ppl that want yout work on their hot rod...then cry about the price

 

There isn't anything wrong with a small block chevy. I'm not a fan of the 350/350 combo though. thats just redundancy. 265, 283, 301, 327, 377 they are all way cool in my book.


I HATE PT CRUISERS WITH FLAMES!

 

Everybody has pretty much hit most of my turn offs, but still the biggest for me is bad tire and wheel combos and wrong stance. You see a car pull in at a cruise night and think "that could be interesting", and it pulls into the clear where you can see it. Then you see that rear is 4" too high for the front, the wheels are those weird assed twisted three spoke things that American racing made for fifteen minutes in 1993. WTF! Was K-Mart closing in fifteen minutes and you just had to have rolling stock this weekend?! A little more time spent and thought applied and the car would be great, but instead, no. Don't know any thing about wheel and tire sizes? Pick out a car whose combo you like and ask him! My last rant on this is two different sizes of wheels at either end i.e. !4" on the front and 15" on the rear. unlike allot of you guys, I don't mind larger wheels as much, ( even done right I loose interest after about 18" though) but who decided that 17" on the front and 20" on the back looks good? Just as wrong as salami ice cream in my book!!!

 

Mine is when I see a decent project car that has been dropped on an (insert mini-truck or car chassis here) and they cut the dash to either mount the gauges from the donor car, or actually try to use the whole modern interior in the car. No matter how nice it is done, I hate it. There's a great bathtub Nash that I liked, but was cut onto an S-10 with seats and gauges... I just couldn't bring myself to even go look at it.

 

electric fans, Edelbrock carbs, Bronco rearends...

oh wait that's my car..

when I go to a car show I usualy focus on what I do like

not what I don't like, what's the point?

 

skulls and iron crosses

 

not much bothers me when i'm looking to buy something if i want it and can afford it.
there are things that can be used as bargaining points on most cars but i figure if you are a real car guy, rodder or restorer, you should be wiling to change the things you need to in order to have what you want or to add yur own personal touch.

you guys are bitchin about stuff like your trying to buy a car at a dealer and dont like the options that are available.
learn to work on them and none of this is a problem if you want and can afford the car your looking at.

 

half the crap i see posted here i get pissed about.

1 piss poor chops that nothing lines up right or the floors and rockers rotted out.
2 frenched 59 caddy taillights
3 fresh crappy primer
4 guy that thinks his car is the best in the world

 

Transplanted interiors (usually out of a car that I nobody else wanted)
Cut radio and speaker holes- real cars don't need radios
Digital or classic gauges "Just Because"- the originals always look better. Swaps with other cars that have cooler gauges are ok as long as the dash isn't too butchered.
Missing lug nuts
Dirty brake fluid or antifreeze

For non-classic drivers: I look under the hood. Points deducted for each vacuum hose with a screw in it for a plug. I can't count how many times I've looked at an otherwise decent vehicle to have the owner proudly tell me "I disconnected all that emissions crap." The same vehicle always barely idles, blows black smoke, and has a stumble when you tap the gas. The owner always says "you can fix that with a tuneup". It ran fine until you disconnected the PCV and EGR and didn't recalibrate the carb, you moron.

I'll buy a non-running car if it has all the right parts under the hood before I'll buy somebody's hack job.

Wheels and tires and chrome geegaws I don't care about since I can chuck them or sell them. I'll bargain down though.

 

Usually the seller.

I have always believed I could fix all of the problems or bad mods on any car I bought. I have rarely been right.

 

Driving a long distance to see a car in "great" shape, only to find out that the owner purposely omitted to mention flaws in the car, thinking you don't know anything about cars, and be sucked in to a bad deal!

 

When the sheet describing the car has every other word spelled wrong.
"Edelblock Heds"
"Peet and Jakes Lader Bars"
The list goes on and on of stuff Ive seen spelled horribly wrong. That annoys me. If you cant spell it correct what makes me believe you REALLY used the parts youre trying to tell me you used.

 

Classic Car Dealers.

 

Rust around a windshield.

 

Turnoffs:

-RUST!

-Big-ass 20" - 28" "bling" wheels on anything - they are shit, and look like it!

-Shoddy workmanship

-Wiring that has been "fixed and/or improved" by some jackass that can't tell an 18-gauge wire from an anvil.

-A modern stereo, mounted in-sight, where a modern stereo has absolutely NO place being! Mount it under the seat, in the glovebox, somewhere other than the stock location!

-A vehicle that tries to be a part of five different decades! Pick a style and run with it!

-SBC in a non-GM car or truck

 

Mid '70's GM tilt columns with the stock wheel.....

 

it sucks when people think its cool to drive rusted piles of shit. what ever happened to quality work? when did rust become cool? you call it a rat rod, we call you a homo

 

hack job modifications , covered up hack work , a seller who cant make up their mind or changes price in mid deal

 

Sinister,,I have one of those,,but with a '63 Impala steering wheel,,is that OK?

 

Is a '63 Impala wheel "stock" to a mid '70's column????
I'd say yer OK....as long as ya repainted the column to get rid of the puke brown color....

 

A "traditional" ride with Moroso/Edelbrock/etc valve covers... tuner seats... late model steerin' wheel... big, stoopid looking billet wheels... velour interior... tweed interiors (who the fuck would buy a NEW car with itchy, burlap feeling tweed?)... anything with more than 20 iron crosses... or spider webs... welds that looked like Ray Charles did 'em... generally anything that strayed from the original idea for the build.

 

drip rail rust
cat smell
rat smell

 

Exactly.

 

I guess it is somewhat related, but it is always a let down when I see drag cars (particularly front engine dragsters) that claim to be restored and they get the general look of the car right, and then slap some modern racing wheels on the thing. It just baffles me, because they got all the hard stuff right, and then there's a set of Welds or other current zooty wheels on the thing.

 

I actually kinda like showing up to a potential project and seeing all kinds of bullshit dripping off of the car. When he tells me about all the money that late model interior, B&M Megashifter, dash mounted CD player, and custom wheels are worth I love to counter offer by offering to pull it all off and leave it for a reduced price and he can sell that shit on Craigslist. The way I rotate projects, I'm not so sure I don't love the thrill of the hunt more than building them.