What would YOU pay for this '50 Chevy Fastback?

Hey Gang,

I went and looked at this car tonight - this is the only picture I have as I forgot to bring my camera.

The car is really complete including the original hubcaps. It has not run in about 20 years but has been stored indoors all of that time. The front floorboards are gone, the rear fenders are rusted out in front of the wheels, and rust is present in the passenger side rocker and door jamb. The panel below the trunk has rust-through where it meets the bumper. Every panel other than the roof and trunk has at least one small dent and both doors look like they've been hyperextended in the past with dents where the door skins hit the trailing edge of the front fenders. The guy doesn't have the keys for it anymore, but from looking at it underneath, the trunk floor and spare tire well look pretty good. The frame and suspensions looked good as well.

The guy is asking $1000 for it but told me that he could move a little and that I should make an offer. What would you guys pay for something like this? Did I miss an area that is important to look at on these cars? Are there patch panels availalble for these cars?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

UPDATE!! I picked her up yesterday!

Talked to the owner late last week and got the car for $800. I feel pretty good about it and I think the ower was cool with it too. Both he and his wife were great to deal with, and they made the whole experience fun. My oldest son and I went and picked up the Fleetline yesterday. Getting her loaded took a while but it went okay. The trip home was uneventful - just the way I like it.

I'm really looking forward to working on it with my son. For now we're going to just try to get it running and get the brakes working and such. Longer term plans call for a V8 transplant, the 348 I lost out on (see my post about that) was going to go in this car. I'm back to the drawing board looking for one of these W motors - anybody have a good one for sale cheap? We're going to switch it over to an open drive with upgraded brakes. Bodywork will also be in order eventually. I know I won't be able to afford it but I would love to eventually drive it to Texas and turn Brian Bass loose on it for a couple of weeks. I love the chop he has done on the '49 Fleetline he is working on.

Anyway, I just thought I would share.

Thor

 

Cant go wrong for Chevnut's price.

 

I'd pay a grand for that.
If he is offering wiggle room, offer him $750 cash in hand. In case you pass let me know.

 

Make sure the title matches the car!

 

what kinda steering wheel is on it? some of those banjo ones are some bucks. my buddies dad has one they call a butterfly or something like that? worth some bucks. $750 sounds reasonable. offer less, you can always pay more..

 

lots of variables as to the value of that car. if it is complete $750.00 would be a good price for you.

good glass?? how's the trim? interior? what's the dash look like? grille?? if these parts are good even the $1000.00 price would be good.

there are patch panels for the front of the rear wheelwells. along with rockers and floor pans. 49 - 52's are ALL rusted under the trunk lid.

rust is expensive to fix, and for every 10 people who say they can fix it, there are 7 who will do it half assed and you'll have problems later on.

the doors have a "check link" that breaks. this causes the doors to do what you have mentioned. it is quite common on these cars. new check links are unavailable, though they do show up on ebay. expect a bidding war if you find some. I had a box of 10 NOS ones, and sold them for anywhere from 20 - 40 bucks each.

 

i would pay 2000 for one with out all that rust. consider if you have the time, money,and talent to make a nice car from this project.

 

crazed country rebel in south dakota has a better car for 200. you might check and see if its still avail.

 

you cant find those in "stock" condition; and they are extremely hard to get.

If you dont have it already at $1000, you will miss out.

Those would start at $2500 to $5000 here in Calif. Very popular w/ the low riders.

Offer cash...go from there.

 

sounds like a good deal. offer less see what he says. good luck.

 

I bet you can't go to South Dakota and back with a trailer for the $500 or so difference. If it has clean paperwork it's well worth $750. That guard on the back bumper is worth $75-$200 depending on how the chrome is. Some of the stock steering wheels are worth $300 if they're good.

Every panel you need is available and some of them are pretty cheap, rockers, lower quarters, the only expensive one is a tail pan (EMS) and if it's not rotted too bad you can make one yourself instead.

The only bad thing: It has the Huck brakes. You're going to want to rob a '54 for backing plates, drums, etc on the front and an entire rearend, if you don't go to open drive, to upgrade it. But you'd have to do that on any '49-'50.

But it will always be worth the $750 even if you just clean it up a little and not do anything else. I wouldn't sell mine for that and it's nowhere near as nice.

 

www.chevsoftheforties.com have patch panels

 

Thanks to everyone who has posted. I will try to answer some of the questions that have been asked.

With the exception of the passenger side wing window, the glass is perfect with no nazing or bubbling. The trim is all there but a few pieces are dinged and some will need to be replaced eg. the passenger side gravel guard and both door strips. The interior is there including the headliner but it is pretty ratty. However, a guy could run it for a while with Mexican blankets and a good vacuuming. The grille, bumpers, and bumper guards are all pretty good dentwise, but the chrome is only fair at best. The steering wheel appears to be the stock tri-spoke with a broken horn ring.

It sounds like there is no title. The owner has registration cards from 1968 to 1971 but I don't think these will be sufficient for registration. I need to check the DMV to see how difficult it will be to title a car from out of state.

If you guys come up with anything else I should ask about let me know. I'm going to try to decide this aftenoon and let him know one way or the other.

Later,

Thor

 

Thor,

Go for it , if you have the talent to repair everything it''ll make a good project. The price is very good, but like other hambers say offer a lower price first. If he has the title there will be no problem registering it in your state. No title ask your DMV what will be acceptable to them to register the car. Good luck......................

Cruiser

 

I'm not sure where New Richmond is, I'm about 25 miles south of Green Bay. But a friend of mine in town has about the nicest '50 2 door fastback project in Wisconsin. He's an older guy and the car has like 20K original miles on it, really straight and solid. It's complete too but most of the trim is off the car and stored. I think he'd take $2500 for it if you were interested, let me know. It'd be a ton less work than that green one there, if you can afford a bit more of a purchase price up front.

If you get the green one for $750, that's still cheap. Just letting you know of another option that's out there.

 

I sold one a couple years ago for $750. totally stripped of all parts. it was a rolling shell. no glass, bumpers, trim, interior, dash parts, motor or trans. a rolling shell with a grille... that's it.

 

Squablow,

I would definitely be interested in your friend's fastback. When you can, PM me with the contact info and I will try to get in touch with him. You wouldn't happen to have any pictures of the car you could send would you? By the way, New Richmond is pretty much straight across on the other side of the state from you.

Cruiser - thanks for the best wishes.

Tore - thanks for the link.

Thor

 

I paid $1k and got no title, so if its got papers, that's great!

 

I got check links for my sedan from The Filling Station. Be sure to check the bottoms of the doors... pull away what's left of the weatherstrip and see if there's any rust-through. Also check the lower 6" or so of the outer door skin.

Cars stored outside sometimes rust in the front splash pan (goes from the bumper, passes under the grille all the way yo the radiator). Check between the grille and radiator (especially on the far left- and right) for the typical rust on this.

I got my rear quarter patch from EMS. Haven't installed it yet, but the stamping looks like good quality. It was about $155 for one side.

You'll probably want to upgrade the brakes on that car. 51-54 Bendix-style brakes bolt on and they are much improved over the 49-50 Huck style. Of course there's loads of options on disc brake kits for these cars.

Speaking of, the aftermarket availability for stuff for these cars has been growing and continues to do so. Generally, parts -- both new and used -- are pretty easy to find.

 

Cruiser,

It just so happens that the DMV travelling office is in my town today. I took some time from work and went down and asked them about the car not having a title. They really didn't want to deal with me and told me that it HAD to have a title. I assume (yeah, I know...) that there is some sort of mechanism/procedure in place to get a title for a car like this but the DMV has not been willing to share that information with me.

I think I'm going to have to ask the owner to get a replacement title in order to get this deal done. Hopefully he'll be cool about it and work with me. If not, it looks like I'm back to the search.

Thor

 

shit. ain't gonna find that for a grand round these parts..get it

 

True. If it were in my neck of the woods for that price, I wouldn't talk about it until I had already paid for it.

 

rotted out?
no title?
figure out how much scrap is per ton and add 100 bucks.
id pay about 500 for it tops with questionable paperwork.

 

I looked for 6 months in my area and found a few before buying gertrude.I looked at a '49 that was disasembled and some work was started on it but had not ben touched in years.He wanted $2000 ,I offered what I thought was fair $1300 .I called him back a week later and he had already sold it.I paid $5500 for my car ( about $2000 too much)It needs alot of work but runs and drives.Bottom line ...How much work do you really want to do? These cars are out there and if you spend a little more you car save alot of time and resources.Life is short!!!! Just my 2 cents ............PAUL

 

It depends on where you want the car to be in the long run. If your looking to clean it up and run it as is then go for it, if you want something really nice Id pass and look for one in better shape.

Any glass shop should be able to cut and replace the window, all the windows are flat glass except windshield and rear window.

 

For the title, if you call the DMV and ask for the title research department (I think that's right - I'm out of town right now), they'll send you a packet of information to help get the thing titled. I ended up just buying some papers to avoid the hassle.

 

Some people can fix rust, and some can't.

Some people can replace paperwork, and some don't want to bother.


If I wanted one of those cars, I wouldn't hesitate on that one, but it takes about 10 minutes to replace the paperwork in this state.

You gotta look at it this way - if you don't know how to repair the problems, it's a good car to learn on, and if you already can manage bodywork, a little practice never hurts. If you mess it up, so what? It's not like it's a Duesenberg.

You can get those repair panels from other places for more like $40, so shop around. In the old days they'd find another car and cut the tops out of the fenders, turn them over and swap side for side, for repair panels.

 

In the old days they'd find another car and cut the tops out of the fenders, turn them over and swap side for side, for repair panels.

hey that's a good idea!! I got a rear door with no bottom I was going to throw out. now it is a patch panel.

 

Hey Gang,

I updated my original post - just thought I'd share with everybody.

Thor

 

Good score!