What kind of money....

...should be offered for something like these. My buddy and I spotted these yesterday and even though Im sure the owner has been approached several hundred times, what kind of offer is fair?

 

Well heres my guess..... Auction price with good buyers..complete A $3000-$4000 Just the bodys.....$1500-$2000 each. I would not pay that much but have seen them sell for those dollars. If it were me I would offer $2000 for all three to start. Steve

 

Can you ck if the guy has any 34 Ford truck doors please

 

Folding money.

 

My guess is that they can't be bought, unless the owner just passed on or had some real money needs. What are they worth to you? Do you plan to build them or just turn a buck? I wouldn't want to have more than $2,500.00 tied up in them. It is nice to see this stuff stiil out there on the East Coast.

 

Just a thought . . . what are restored A's going for these days?

Sure makes for an easy hot rod build, build up a hot rod chassis, toss the restored body on, wire & plumb it and drive off.

Buying a resto A is considerably cheaper than building the whole thing yourself.

At least it was a couple years back.

Not to mention you can recover part of the cost of the hot rod build by peddling a - hopefully - good running A chassis and drive train....

 

(I feel like arguing , for a change...)

But sell the chassis to whom?
Someone else with a body just like the one you just took off it?
I don't think that hypothetical restorer/market exists any more, does it?

 

Yeah, it does.
My pal sold his 29 roadster A chassis with good running driveline etc. to a resto guy a couple years back.
He's helping a local put together a 29 A sedan that was an almost finished resto that runs pretty well and I believe he has a buyer for that.

The Model A resto guys are always looking for stuff, some of it gets hoarded, but a lot of it gets pieced out.
Check out the Model A boards.

 

Check out the photo of the fendered coupe, the wheels are half buried, the chassis must have the bottom sitting in dirt. There is no chassis to sell Three bodies that will look like crap after they are blasted, and you better let someone who knows how to blast do them. Two grand will turn out to be too much to spend on them.

 

Im sure that they've been sitting as long as they have because they can't be bought. I'm gonna call a few people that i do business with in the area to see if they know anything before I approach the owner. I would just like to have a 5w body to build from. There was a lot of cool stuff around there for sure-in pretty decent shape too for our part of the world.

 

500 . the worst they can say is no. if they dont wanna sell em then fuck them . theyre rust piles anyways

 

When i bought my 28 tudor about 4yrs ago. I paid $300.00 CDN. And that body had been chopped 4", roof filled and suicide doors with new floors, firewall and pro street tubs installed by a previous owner. I cut the gay tubs out and fabbed some normal lookin ones and I had a solid bitchi' lookin sedan body to go on my boxed rolling chassis that I picked up for $250.00 CDN. For under $700.00 CDN I had a pretty sweet pile of parts to start with. My rolling chassis came with a suicide front perch,dropped and drilled axle, F100 steering box, Chevy 10 bolt rear and front and rear leaf springs. Some more horse trading( a junk truck that was given to me was traded for a Malibu that I pulled the engine, trans, driveshaft, tilt column, front discs, rear end and steering box from) and I had almost all the major pieces needed to put together my Model A and I had stuff to sell like the discs, and steering box to cut my costs even further. And this is all in Canada where the weather hasn't been as kind to 75 yr. old sheetmetal. But it just shows that if you put the word out about what you need, there are still some killer deals to be had.Just keep your eyes open.

 

Shit, some of you guys get lucky. I paid $1000 for my coupe body and it needed patches all the way around the bottom, and new wheel wells....but I am the proud owner of an $800 '50 Merc 2 door, so my luck's not all bad...

 

One thing that I don't get is how the cars are hulks of rust, but, the fendered coupe has what looks like, either a pristine, or rechromed grille and headlights... I don't know... I just don't understand that???

 

The problem is even if they can be bought, he isn't trying to sell them. He most likely dopesn't need the money. You will most likely have to pay too much, if they are even for sale. It's tuf to see that stuff just sitting around.

I know of a guy around here who has a bunch pf trucks in good shape. I stop in once in a while to try and get him to let go of one, or seven. Not for sale every time.

Good luck

 

I may be wrong, but i think the reason the bright work on the model A dosen't rust,is that its stainless.

 

Around my neck of the woods the good deals are getting few and far between. Two years ago i was looking for an A sedan to build. I found this one for $650 but I had to drive 14 hours and about $150 in gas to get it.


I stipped it down and sold all the parts I didn't need including every nut and bolt (man the restorers go nuts for that original stuff) that was good and pretty much made my money back on my initial investment. Two years later and a few thousand dollars more I have this.


About a year ago I decided my next project was going to be a coupe and started shopping around. I wanted a car that was a little more complete than my sedan. I found that most of the good deals where too far away and the shipping would kill me or anything that was close just needed to much work for the money. So I looked and looked, posted ads on Fordbarn and on the hamb. Then one night a guy I've bought parts from in the past called me to ask if I knew anyone looking for a running barn fresh 30 coupe? A deal was struck and I picked it up. This time I paid $3000, mainly because I was sick of looking, it was in good shape, and it was only an hour away. All things to concider when buying. I plan on driving it this year like it is and work on a 32 chassis for it. then swap the body and part out the rest like I did the sedan and recoupe some of my money. Now I know some of you will say "I'd never pay $3000 for an A", and some would think it's about right. Like others have said pay/offer what you think it's worth.


Sorry this was long and I hope I stayed close to the topic

 

getting ready to do just this, guy just bought a restored 30 coupe, $7500 (cheap) have the chassis sold to model A guy for $1500, ordered new TCI will begin buildinmg it for him in Feburary. Easy build. Looks like $1500 is about the going price for a couple Model A chassis. Damn good "restored" A's around here $6500 up.

 

Timing is everything. I'd known about this '30 coupe in the woods for years. Owner had plans of building something out of it, but I found he was cleaning stuff out this past summer. All it took was a phone call and the deal was done. It self channeled itself on the way home, but has provided parts to others and funded my projects.

 

Thanks for the input folks-keep you posted. MP33 your stuff is great and thats kinda what I have in mind.

 

A guy near me wants $3,000 for this pile. It all depends what you want to pay.

 

Typically, it means more to these types of people to have something the others want then to actually have the cash they would bring. It strokes their egos to have others lusting after what they just let rot into the dirt.

Steve

 

I've owned Model A 30 and 31 coupes for over half of my life..my first one was bought when I was 19 in 1973..for $25...and then I bought another body for $35--it was channelled--to get replacement parts. A $20 Battery, a $450 stocker chassis and a lot of work and it was running. The only car I drove for over 2 years...1977 and 1978. Even drove 1000 one way to active duty in the Naval Reserves in it after College.

My next coupe was for free..a total truckized junker....1978...too rough for the restorers. Although the before mentioned cars were also too rough for the restorers.

I bought my most expensive Model A coupe at the NSRA Nats North for $850 in 1997. The guy who had it for sale, Steve DeMaagd, a local car guy had it for sale with a pile of parts. It was the parts that got me thinking. I could save the rest of my junk. I showed up a week later and he said he was waiting for me. We did a deal. I got the stuff, I paid him weekly through that winter.

I ended up taking all the junker parts and built a 2" chopped Model A coupe that my sons and I went to Louisville in. I didn't do any body work, just took the worst parts and assembled a hot rod. Now it sits, disassembled, ready to be rebuilt with patch panels, etc on a new chassis I built for it.
So now I have 4 complete 30/31 style Model A coupes. The future of my hobby. Now to put them back together in my lifetime.

They're obviously still out there. The patch panels available are the best ever made. MIG welders are very affordable these days. And there are forums such as this that will help you do good quality work.

I've chased down a lot of Model A's in my day. A lot are not for sale, and when they do come up for sale they're in pretty poor shape. One farmer told me that he made a mistake during the Big War and he sold his scrap too cheap.

Get them now, when you can. The Chinese are buying up the scrap. All they can get. I went to a sale recentlya nd that's what happened to those old cars and trucks. Sold for $150 each. They were rough, but something was usuable. I couldn;'t justify buying a Model A 4 door for $175. There wasn't that much in scrap value there anyways. But Kalamazoo Metal Recyclers bought up everything.

My 2 cents worth. Get these cars now, put them away until later if you have to.

Steel returns to the Earth it came from.

Mark aka Abonecoupe31

 

I agree. Over the next five years, i expect to see Model A, Model T, and any early car body for that matter, rise in price quite a bit. Scrap iron recycling is one problem, the growing demand for the non-repop bodies is also driving prices.

I also expect to see a lot more rods based on truck cabs, cut down four doors, and later 30's vintage bodies in radically modified forms. The more popular bodies will get bought up by those who can afford them, and the low budget guys will look elsewhere for tin to work with.

 

I think the bottom line is that with the way things are now, if you want a buildable 'A you have to pay. It would take a REALLY rotted car to be non-useable. I could make something just fine out of those 5-windows. Probably wont matter though, every time I ask someone about selling an old car they wont. I even had one guy tell me he would let it rot into the ground first!Keep the body, frame (if one of 'em is good) and some suspension parts and sell the rest to fund the project. Keep us posted either way.
-Dean