Featured Hot Rods Rod & Custom Firesale

that my ftiend is the truth!! I've seen running driving 32 roadsters for $25,000 try building one for that!

 

I came back from the monthly car club meeting the other day and I it looks like I am the only one there with an old hot rod. The others say they are there because they like old cars. They haven't a clue as to what goes into building one.

 

Call me Crazy but didn't know Hotrods is all about money. I know building hotrds,racing boats and cars don't make you money but gives you joy and happiness. Unless you're in the business of making money and NOT a hobby and never was.
Just like most trends things sports cars,muscle cars ,antique automobiles or real estate its Cyclical. So it's opportunity to buy low or sell when she's high .

 

I'll say it again, I think the cycle may be coming to an end.
My 25 year old nephew says half of his friends don't have cars, don't drive or even have a driver's license. They don't care enough about cars to even own one...because an Uber/RideShare ride is just a text away.

 

I completely agree with @continentaljohn , our p***ion, at least as builders or owners of our personal hobby vehicles serves only us. Did anyone here get involved in hot rodding strictly to make money? If that was the case then they were barking up the wrong tree. You should purchase art, antiques, collectibles, and really anything that brings you satisfaction because you like it but never to make money. Obviously any business has, and should have a different outlook, a profit ensures staying relevant and more importantly provides needed goods and services.

 

I remember reading about a famous drag Chevelle that was sold to an investor who paid 1.2 million dollars for the Truppi Kling Ray Allen car. A lot of dough back in 2006.

"The eyebrows of the Chevrolet faithful rose in unison when this car sold for an unheard-of $1.2 million at Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale in 2006. Then, just over three years later, you could almost hear a collective “I told you so,” as the car changed hands at RM’s Icons of Speed and Style auction in Los Angeles, for $264,000."

I see that it was a no sale at Barrett Jackson last year with max bid of $546,000.

What lessons are to be learned from this?

 

I'm sorry but most of you don't get what I'm saying. I'm am commenting on a diminishing return situation. Dam right I hate to lose money on a sale but it has become a way of life in the Hot Rod world. I'd like to get one response from an interested buyer for a part or a car I have for sale saying looks like a good deal, instead the first question is almost always what would you take? Just yesterday I had a customer contact me about a part I've made and sold on my website for the same price for over 20 years. My retail price has remained the same but the manufacturing cost's have risen. I p***ed on his offer to pay less and of course the standard question does that include shipping? It's not a sin to break even or even make a little money for your time. It's become the accepted policy to beat someone down on price. Go ahead and chastise me for wanting to profit or at the least break even from what I've done as a hobby first and then as a business for 40+ years. I doubt there's many of us that can do it all without the support of various parts vendors and different types of fab shops. Buy high Sell low seems to becoming a way of life maybe a little more lately?

 

went to a "pre 1955" show today at a venue that has had many different kinds of car shows and other events
this show used to be pre-war only with many cars in the teens and even earlier. the venue was always full. all sorts of crazy early cars we never see.
well... all those guys are ****ing dead now and there is nobody willing to drag these cars out and show them. at age 66 I was a young buck at this show. old farts everywhere. still a good show with lots of cool restored American cars but nothing like is used to be.
same thing happening with Hot Rods. the enthusiast are dying out and no one is replacing them.
youth only want cars that will spin donuts and toss thier buddies out the window while showing off.

the times they are a changing, and not for the better unless you would like to get a Hot Rod for cheap. 60's and 70's Datsuns are going up in price while vintage American cars drop.
this is a great time to be old. I would not want to be twenty in today's world.

 

ZZZZ snore ZZZZ

 

Thanks for this. You just confirmed what I have suspected for some time now. I go to the Me*** auction in Orlando pretty much every year. After seeing the same early rare option Corvettes change hands repeatedly over the years, I began to joke they must be some kind of alternate currency for rich guys. I figured there had to be some kind of angle to it, but your post shows it all makes sense now.

 

Everything changes with time, the 32 market, Krylon32's livelihood for many years is correct, 32 prices are very reasonable today, if you want one, now is the time to step up, buy one, IMO. The buyers market has changed, always has and will, IMO the car hobby is stronger than ever. I will comment that I never lost much money on my 3 Hamb cars, 29 Highboy Roadster, 32 3 window full fender and a 51 Merc. never made any money. When I sold my mild Kustom 51 Merc, that market flipped in the 10 years I owned it. When I purchased, it was hard to find one anywhere near reasonable and not that many available, market flooded, selling took 2 1/2 years, a Hamb member bought it, took to the James Dean show, won an award and made his day, he was an old timer, a great deal for him, for me not so much, but not that bad as my p***ion, car hobby has never been about making money. I'm a tradesman and I owned my business for 36 years, that's where my money was made, Life was about family and what I/we wanted, enjoyed, had fun and the enjoyment far surp***ed any cash loss. Note, I was involved in open wheel racing 21 years, THAT is the definition of p***ion, fun and how to spend/ lose some money, Memories Priceless, No regrets. Lifetime Car Hobby, worth every penny spent. When it's all said and done, we all get 1 trip ( lifetime ) Make the most of it and remember, your wife will spend it on her next love, the kids spend it on what they want and that's OK, life goes on without any of us, Tomorrow, the Sun will come up, the world still spins, and the car hobby will always survive. It's a Great day to be alive !

 

Yep. I sold a merc builder for half what I paid for it 20 years earlier.
I’ll probably lose or barely break even on the current one.
It cost money to go to dinner and a movie. To enjoy a concert………


i see nothing wrong with someone haggling. Its just natural. Expected in some cultures.

I guess it was time for another doom and gloom post.

But all the shops I visit have waiting lists. Shops full of projects.
They’re just building rides you can’t post here.
and I kinda dig that

building what was popular years ago was a good business model. Might be time to build what’s popular now if it’s a business.

 

Bunkie Knudsen, the man in charge of Pontiac in the mid-‘50s said; "you can sell a young mans car to an old man, but you can't sell a old mans car to a young man".

Spending the same amount of money which would buy a pretty nice modern car is probably not justified for an occasional use hot rod for most people, let alone younger ones. Sure, the seller can provide a stack of receipts and if the car was “professionally built”, bills for shop time, but the reality of $40-50,000 and up is not an easy sale. It seems a lot of high dollar cars are hard to market.

Not everything collectible gains or keeps value. Watching a recent Antique Roadshow they compared the evaluations between 2001 and 2016. About 75% of the items had lost significant value. That’s a reality check.

Many collector cars continue to have high value and seem to sell. Building a pre-‘55s for profit may be a gamble. I have always tried to not get upside down on cars money-wise and realize a big part of the “profit” I get is in the building satisfaction and the miles I get to enjoy it.

 

https://www.facebook.com/share/1GZLSq9yAa/?mibextid=wwXIfr
been for sale for over a month

frame, hood, deck lid and new UP roof

would have probably sold the first day 10-20 years ago. Around here anyway

listed 7 months ago

 

I've got a very nice Dearborn Deuce highboy.
Any interest?
Send me a conversation.

 

Did br*** era cars take a hit in the 70s-80s?

I know t-birds did in the 90s.
And Ford horse cars with trunks.

 

As scary as it is, you are completely correct.

I have small hope because my son (23) and daughter (26) are into the same 50's junk I'm into. That being said, almost all of my sons friends are into (thankfully at least) musclecars from the 60's and 70's, and pre-85 pickups.

That being said, you hit the nail on the head. And it keeps me up at night honestly...

 

We have one 56 Ford that's a mild custom, another 56 is a bit of a hotrod. I've never been in it for money, so set that aside. Young generations I find are more interested in modified cars as opposed to originals.

That being said, I have a good friend who is creeping toward 85. He has an amazing collection of beautifully restored 50's Fords and Meteors and Mercury's. They are perfect resto's, but 100 percent stock. I find that those cars are going to be floating in limbo moreso than the modified cars like mine. I asked him about his collection now that he's thinning the herd. His sons are somewhat interested, but in their late 50's themselves.

A chopped 50 merc will survive better than a concourse restored 56 Ford Crown Victoria. Buyers will gravitate towards the cooler of the two.

I'm making myself depressed, time to get off here

 

I’m ok with the market crashing. Makes cars that were unobtainable within reach now. I’m not in this deal for the money though and don’t need to sell anything. However, I would likely have a different story if I had a lot in a car I needed to sell. All my stuff is just cheap junk.

 

On a more optimistic note, today I drove my Brookville bodied Deuce roadster to the grocery store and the high school age checker was all excited. Asked me to wait a few minutes until his shift was over so he could come out and look it over. This kid was all about old hot rods and asked lots of questions which indicated that he had done his homework. He was really into it. If I were independently wealthy I’d put him in my will. That’s obviously not going to happen, but man he sure was into the car. So, they are still out there. We old guys need to encourage them whenever we have a chance!

 

Uh, Don't get drunk and bid on cars at the Barrett-Jackson auction?

 

My son is 15 and a sophomore in high school. He had caught the bug, watching and helping me put my cars together. Most of his friends don't have a clue.
We go to a lot of national car shows and local cruises - most of the people there embrace the idea that we need to make young feel welcome in our hobby. We make a lot of friends because people are so eager to p*** this on.

 

Mine ****s. I get 1/2 the mileage in the Roadster with the T5 than I do in the Coupe with a Antique Engine Rebuilding touring engine, 39 trans and Mitchell overdrive........

 

When finished running driving painted deuces hit 10k, THAT will be the fire sale. And I cant freakin' wait.

 

X2.

 

Being honest here, I got into the old car hobby with the idea of making money.
Starting out as a broke kid, I knew that buying and selling cars was not how I was ever going to make money in this hobby that I turned into business.
Where the money was made was by providing a way for people that had money get what they wanted. I soon figured out, that it was not necessary to find people that already had money find what they wanted, it was only necessary to find people that was willing to spend the money to get what they wanted, that had the means of funding those desires.
It became a matter of finding things some one with a means of funding their desires wanted, buying it myself, then reselling it to them at a small markup. That limited me to buying things I could afford, and knowing those things would sell. A guy learns pretty quickly what the local market wants, and what they are willing to pay for those items. I became locally known, and product line specific. If you were looking for a specific line of things, I was the local guy that could find it, and sold it reasonably priced. With that reputation, things in my product line often found me, buying and selling had a specific price range, I pay "X" amount for a specific item that often had a resale value, and sell the same item for "Y" amount. It didn't take long to learn how to track the current market and keep in line with it.

When the parts sales end started to slow down, the next step was to provide the service most people couldn't do themself. Repairing the car or truck's body structure so it could remain safely on the road. I did the structural repairs, body and paint was done elsewhere. It was not very long after I started doing that, the the hot rod part of my business started changing into covering a need for the general public. I was still keeping up with a changing market place.

Through all that 25 year process, I built my own hot rods. I also learned early that my personal stuff belonged to our family, not the public. I built the stuff the way I liked it, any retail value was never part of that thought process. The hard fact was that I figured that whatever I built for myself probably was not going to last long enough to have any resale value, so I might as well build it to make me happy (and meet my family's needs) at the time.

I found that I had a 3-5 year window of enjoying a current build (either personally, or because of changing family needs, or both). Somewhere around year 2, I started looking for the next project, and by year 3 the new build was starting. When the new build became road worthy, the old toy was put up for sale. The idea was not to make money, it was to off set the cost of the new build. I still have some of my old connections, I can still find parts (or a donor ride with most of the parts I want), I still build my own stuff (nearly all of it), so often the cost of the new build is not very high. I figure that if the sale price covered 1/2 of the cost of the new build (being road worthy, not painted), I made money from the old ride.
I don't really care what the current market is doing (never did), it doesn't have anything to do with me. I expect my current two old vehicles will last as long as I need them to. If they make it far enough, my son will do what ever he chooses with those free vehicles (he has his own collection, and its different then mine). If they don't make it far enough, I'll see what is important then.

Cars have always been a hobby to me. I've made a lot of money because of that hobby over the years. That money funded most of my family's car hobby. I really don't care what the market will do, and I suspect my family feels the same way. My family has really enjoyed the car hobby for years, and still does.

You car may be worthless in a few years, you might as well just drive it and enjoy it now.

 

I have bought a few that were twice what they were worth.
Back across the scales around 0.20 per pound