Hot Rods Cool cars built for under $10 grand? Let's see them!

hope to add funds soon

 

Not quite Hamb friendly, but I built this one back in about 1990. Bought the truck for 400, a trashed 75 Trans Am for 150(front sub frame motor ,trans rearend) 150 for swap meet wheels and a couple of hundred for tires. I really need to freshen up drive train and put it back on the road. I reied everything I could think of and could not get it to upload full sized picture.

 

im sitting at about 5k on this one

 

Here's my '27 with a 283. Around 1987 I saw a roadster at a Harvey's Broiler cruise and told my buddy, "I bet you I could build a little roadster like that for $3500" He said, "B.S." So we made a gentleman's bet and shook hands. At the time I had just gotten wiped out financially by a divorce so I really didn't have any money. I started calling everyone I had done free work for over the years.
My Dad found me two Model A frames and miscellaneous parts in Searchlight, Nevada for free. I sold all the fenders and stuff and the good frame, the bent one I used for the roadster since I was going to cut off the front and rear anyway. A 283 and a 350 trans from a friend, a $40 Maverick 8" rear end from Pick-a-Part on 1/2 off weekend (swapped good brakes and drums onto it from a different car). A non-dropped axle, spindles and several stock front springs were donated - I cut them and made quarter elliptics for all 4 corners. The body came from fly by night knock off artist in Orange County for $250 (it was nasty). Made my own Volvo disc brake kit from junk yard parts. Lots of little stuff from the Long Beach Swap Meet. The big ticket was the windshield frame at around $400.
It was all built in my 1 car garage, notes kept and the tally came to $2850 and some change running, registered and insured. As seen in the photos there was probably an additional $2500 in it for a better grill/shell, paint, upholstery, and Coker tires. Still way under 10K. Won "Best Hot Rod" at the Blessing of the Cars" 1999 or 2000. I drove the wheels off it and sold it for $18500. Come to think of it, I could probably do it again today with all the junk I have lying around. Hmmm......

 

65 Buick wildcat. Was given to me by my neighbor. Air ride wheels minor engine tweaks. Been a great car over 20,000 miles since I’ve had it.


1937 ford just getting finished up. Probably just under the 10k mark. T-5 trans and frame work was biggest expense. Neighbor started the project so most of the parts were already there when I got the truck. Hot rod jen did the lettering. Going to be a great shop truck.

 

Daily summer driver for 15 years. Built for less thank 5.

 

Bought both of these 48's for $1500
One on tow truck had a good running mid 1950's 223 OHV Ford 6




Ended up like this, cost was $682






INITIAL INVESTMENT
1500 both trucks
25 beer for tow truck driver friend
30 tow truck gas
---------
1555 total


PURCHASED PARTS

NEW
57 license & registration (lifetime)
26 water pump
80 gaskets, freeze plugs, timing chain
140 clutch kit
69 paint & sandpaper
60 wheel cylinders & master cyl kit
50 nuts, bolts, oil, anti-freeze
10 shrink tubing & solder

USED AND SWAP MEET
45 hubcaps(3 sets), mirrors, tail lights,
50 thermostat housing
20 steering wheel
100 2 sets junkyard tires
100 2 sets of steel wheels
30 Ranger seat, brackets & sunvisors
40 bumpers
40 wiring harness & alternator
-----------
907 total


SOLD PARTS
(some extra parts were included with the trucks)
60 gauge panel
50 throttle linkage
80 two heaters
100 radio
100 steering wheel
50 hubcaps
80 bumpers
10 rear fender brackets
100 set of wheels
50 extra fender
20 original dash switches w/wiring
50 gas tank
25 window regulator
100 seat
900 parts truck
----------
1775 total


FROM PARTS STASH OR TRADES
dash switches
tool box
stereo & speaker grill
headliner & door panels
fog lights, headlights, bumper guards
2 cans of engine paint for Xmas
some shop supplies
radiator - traded a $5 Superior steering wheel
grill - traded a pair of free rusty Model A rear fenders


+1550 INITAL INVESTMENT
+ 907 PURCHASED PARTS
-1775 parts sales

TOTAL COST $682 and 300 hours of labor.

 

^^^ I followed that build. Really enjoyed it. What ever happened to the truck?

 

Can you share some details? Looks like a fun ride.

Phil

 

My Pick up owes me about 9 grand & the roadster about 8 grand. But we must remember I had a lot of the parts from years ago when you could get this stuff very cheap or free.

 

Sold it to a guy about 60 miles from me that made it his daily driver.

 

Take any '58-'80 Austin Healey Sprite or '62-'80 MG Midget and add a fiberglass Arkley SS kit. Kit consists of a one piece flip front end and a one piece rear. By removing the steel front fenders, hood, rear fenders, and trunk area the cars is lightened by several hundred pounds. The new fenders allow the 4" wide wheels to be replaced by 7" units. My 1275cc engine had a 160 thousandths overbore. With a 4.56 rear gear it was rater quick. It was the 1976 Milwaukee area overall autocross champion. Rarely ever put the top up. Summer daily driver. Sort of an alternative 2 seat motorcycle with a radio and heater, which in the '70 was rare.

 

19 years of ownership helps, the buy in of $2000 for a fairly solid Virginia car was lower then. A pair of better fenders was $350. Got a rebuilt 216 off ebay $330, t-5 was $800 from a rebuilder, $2000 to Chassis Engineering was well spent as all these make it a great and reliable driver. Of course there were nickles and dimes spent so I'll add in a grand on that. Well under 10K

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipOhavU2DtV3au-40pGVF4E4F3f_7XLgfZl3tDON

 

1963 riviera 2200. For the car 400.00 motor and trans. Traded for wheels. 100.00 for super charger . 800.00 for factory 2x4 setup.400.00 various extra parts. Wood wheel,factory tach. Not $5000.00 in the whole car

 

I think your old car was on the "barn finds" site a couple years back
http://barnfinds.com/baby-seven-1968-arkley-ss/

 

Amazingly similar but not mine.

 

Have had the '57 for 34 years and have not broken the $10K mark yet.
Never had the engine out, low mileage to begin with.
Help from many friends and creative ways to save on chrome plating etc.
KK

 

This car cost me about $4400. But you have to remember that in 1965 when I bought the body and frame I paid $75 for it. Might not be able to duplicate that price now.

 

Forgot my brother's T'bird. After the roadster and the 49 coupe he built this one for his wife. Once again he did all of the work himself in his home garage--paint, upholstery and the air ride install as nobody makes a kit. He shaved the nameplates and door handles, made the grille for the tail lights and made the hood scoop functional. As it turned out his wife found it a little large (she had never owned a car bigger than a Mustang) so it went down the road and he is close to having a 57 Thunderbird finished for her (although that one will miss the $10K mark by a large factor).

 

Let's shake the bushes again.

 

One club I'm proud to be in... the under $10K club! When you start out with a body for $125 and do all the work yourself including paint and interior, you can get away with such a thing... plus, I got lucky on the Flatty that's in my car, so the most expensive parts were the chrome inner fenders, tires, nerf bar, and upholstery material.

 

I was right at $4500 all in with this in 2009. Not a Hot Rod by any stretch-but a real nice driving , simple,reliable inexpensive fun older car. It taught me a valuable lesson-
'You don't have to spend a lot of cash to have fun with an old car'

 

$850 in 1980-something dollars, plus free Lark engine from a rusted car being disposed of. Still in use.
A hundred$ here or there for things like Maverick rear axle, Dodge dual master cyl, Saginaw ps steer box, Caddy rotors....
Dono if I've reached anywhere near 10k yet, but doubtful

I think the biggest expense was designing the adapter and putting in the 700R4 behind the Stude engine in the early 90s after running a th350 for a few years in the 80s- after I crunched the Stude 3sp O.D. trans on a trip to Florida. Made it back from the 2,000 mile trip by adapting a choke cable to manually operate the o.d. solenoid plunger so we didnt have to crawl back at 40 mph
$75 for junkyard core-trade-in trans from the core-trade-in-pile + $200-300 for seals clutches vette servo...

WHY BE ORDINARY ?

 

$100 in 1977 for a no-engine rust bucket getting thrown away.
Trailered it cross country behind my Jeep.
Started out with a free Lark engine headed for the scrap yard. $100 Chev T-10 4 speed adapted. Later changed to a better Javelin Super T-10 for $100. WEBER aluminum flywheel $45, Zoom Chevy clutch (just under $100 I think), Oldsmobile Lakewood scattershield ($100- 150??) ,
68 Torino 9 inch rear $50, lots of fiberglass to build a strong floor it didn't have (either that or crush the car), STILL STRONG TODAY 40 yrs later (the original floor lasted less than 15)(critics used to scream at me and predict doom for using a fiberglass floor), late model almost new 1974 Plymouth Duster seats $50, to prevent sitting on floor, Chrysler junkyard disc brakes + wheels, .........

I am sure I spent only a couple grand.
OK IT WAS 1970s money.
I wish I could do that again






WHY BE ORDINARY ?



MY KIDS GREW UP WITH THE COOLEST DRIVEWAY FOR MANY MILES AROUND.

 

Cool thread, I love seeing all these, it's very inspiring.

Technically I'm in way under $10k on my A pickup. But that's not really fair, cause I traded a 68 Chevelle SS 396, which I bought for like $225 >3 decades ago. I did rebuild the engine at one time, and I did spend about a grand on paint many, many years ago. But the car mostly just sat for the past 15 years or more, just lost interest in it. Traded it for this A and I've never enjoyed a car more that this. I've put a few bucks into this one, so I've got probably right around $2.5k in it, but those are mostly 1980's dollars.

 

My wifes 40 Pontiac was at about $7500.00 when I first got it running and together. It has had many updates since, but we drove it for 4 years before the updates. I built it in 8 months.

 

WOW ! Nice !

 

I am thinking 10,000 +or- including the price of the car. But adding nothing for my labor. And there was a bunch. Gene.

 

...built for under half $10G's...

 

Yowza...