Has anyone else perused the cl***ified papers lately, project cars of every shape, size, and era are for sale, and many are reasonable price, IF the descriptions are accurate... It seems a shame, as many of these projects won't be seen in a wide enough market to get them sold, I fear some will get parted out and s****ped...I wish I had a bigger garage, and a bit more budget, it would be a good time to expand the herd...
Been going on around here for years. Lots of good stuff I've seen s****ped because they didn't advertise out of hillbilly range. 40's coupes, early 60's caddy 2dr hartops, ss impalas, 55-57 chevys, etc. its sad. To most in-breeders they are all just "OL JUNKERS". To the rest of the world they are cl***ics worth saving.
I see it all the time but here around DFW its getting harder to find cheap projects unless you want to drive 6 hours which i dont mind if its a good deal. I would go to google and search for s****yards in a certain area if im going on a roadtrip and find the place where they are few and far in between because those remote areas people can't just call the local s**** guy to come pick them up for a little extra cash. Its amazing what cruising the backroads will lead you onto...
It's the folks who thought a hot rod could be built in 6 weeks like on TV. Damn them! Damn them all to hell!
It's as old as the hobby. I've been buying unfinished projects all my life everyone has great intentions, including me, but most don't have the stamina to see it through to completion. It's easy to tear one apart...not as easy to put them back together again.
bingo tommy! so true.hell ive been almost finished with my wifes ot 67 impala for a yr.just runnin out of steam.
A lesson I learned a long time ago: you can't save 'em all no matter how rare or desirable. Buying the car is cheap - the build is the expensive/time consuming part. Get in for a couple of $$k, get out for many $$$$k. To paraphrasee Tex Smith, 'If you have talent use that, if you have time use that, if you have money use that and if you have all three you are blessed'....
most "projects" I see for sale are attemped ch***is swaps-"1940 Henway on S-10 ch***is,almost done,ran out of time"[and talent]
I think a lot of people make the big mistake of tearing a car all apart as soon as they get it. They soon find out that they are overwhelmed and just give up. Unless you are really talented with money, it's better to get it driveable and fix it up as you go along. I agree with the comment about the t.v shows. Of course they set a deadline for dramatic purposes. I don't agree with setting a deadline for yourself. Why take the fun out of it? Tom
Ha I am still driving my Willys without tail lights. I think today would be a good day to build mounts and then something else comes along. I think that the hardest thing for me is to blow one apart for the finish work. If I get it running and driving it may go along like that until I am tired of it and it goes to its next owner. Tommy is absolitey correct. They used to say that obnly one in ten projects that get started get finished. Finished being a realitive term here. I'll bet that only one in 20 of the cars that I have screwed together have been cars that I started from scratch, the overwhelming majority of them are stalled projects that I got from someone else. There is a down side to taking on someone else's project, sometimes it costs you a ton to get rid of what they thought would be the ***s and replace it or redo it correctly. Correctly being a realitive term here.
Holly ****p!! If what Porkn****** says is true that means I will only get 2 of my projects done. And, if I sell off 10 of them I may only get 1 of them finished. Dang!! Oddly enough at my Age I can almost agree with those numbers. Realiaty ****s, I should be working instead of sitting here. The Wizzard
Wizzard I think the deal is that 1 in 10 people have more to them than just good intentions. I see lots of projects started here that I know will never be finished. Someone found the site and thought man that looks like fun I'm gonna do that. Maybe it was to impress someone else or maybe it was just because whomever wanted to fit in. Then instead of dividing the project into attainable goals they tackle the whole damne thing. reality sets in and shizaaam, not enough cash talent or moxy to finish the job. The cash part is probably the hardest to overcome. I know I have been hit by the prospect of peddling one or more of my projects several times in the last year myself. I am looking at that prospect right now. It is totally unbelievable how much the last semester of high school costs these days.
I've got several projects right now. I travel some with my job and when I see an abandoned project I think it's better off at my house than their's. So I drag it home. If I do get one finished it doesn't hang around long before I sell it. I've decided to clean house and get my vehicle count down to three, my '65 Vette roadster, my'31 Model 5 wdo and 'my 39 Olds coupe g***er. When those are done I might look at a shop truck. Until that time the blinders are on as I drive around.
I just finished a Chevelle for a guy that needed "special" rear window trim. The rear window opening is now larger than stock, I had to make a pair of stainless steel window moulding "stretchers" for him. This was a project car he bought with the floors and rear quarters already installed. Never again.
With me the joy is in the doing...I want to do the teardown, the cleaning, the design, the fabrication, the body and paint, the re***embly, etc. I have a hard time farming out any of the work with the exception of the interior and plating. One person can only do so much, even a retired person with lots of time on his hands. Given my own mortality, I have identified the projects that I WILL complete and the rest will have to go. I am in no hurry to sell any of them but they have been removed from my "bucket list". Old habits do die hard though...the adrenaline still surges when I come across a cool old barn car or see a good deal advertised for an abandoned project but reality soon pulls me back. I like the old saying, "Life is what happens while we are making plans"...kinda fits here.
Plenty of projects for sale around here, sadly though I think the sellers have been watching too many of those high end auto auctions on cable because the asking prices are usually about triple of what they should be.
I picked up a nice kit car that was unfinished. Smokin deal and its actually a cool little car. Looks like a 27 Bugatti. Sounds like a 69 VW. Price was $900 with new Pirilleis. I'll most likely sell it when its done to fund the Galaxie and the Country sedan. Its tight and I'm kinda not.
I you were to save all the 75+ year old cars all we would have is RAT RODS driving around because their wouldn't be enough parts to make decent rides, do ya really want that!
That's what I most often see also. Inevitably, the ad will lead into... "subbed", "tubbed", "bagged", "sittin' on a...", or something that has pretty much hacked it beyond reasonable repair.
I'm sometimes wondering if some guys don't just put "project cars" together to the point where they figure that they can get good bucks out of them but not have a lot in them. Such as 53 Chevy pickup on S-10 frame with early 90's Vortec & od trans, starts, runs and can be driven on a trailer, Great patina on the paint 13K. I've seen several similar to that for sale lately that were fairly obviously put together to hook someone into paying a premium for them. From my own experience, money is tight and I need to sell off some stuff to be able to get the "real" projects going in the right direction if I ever plan on driving them.
wellllll.... and some of us had been saving up the projects we wanted for retirement fun, only to be now getting close, but health and income has gone down, property taxes and insurance UP, and the plan to work on a car each year just doesn't look so good any more. Me, I probably will be lucky to have one more "build" left in me and I keep wishing I had that '33 5-window body back instead of most everything else I have. Time's running out. Reflections on life. Heavy sigh... HRT - Iowa
I met a guy that bought 28 project cars in the past few years. He put them all in storage and will sell them when the economy gets better.
I absolutely agree. Some people watching those tv shows that show outrageous money for some of the cars that are done think they can get that for their project car! And usually "project" means that everything already on the car needs to be replaced anyway so you really don't have much left of the "project" you bought to begin with. All in all the guy that said "buy a running car and fix it the way you want" is good advice.
Was at lunch yesterday and saw some guys hauling two trailer loads of parts to the s**** yard down the street. One trailer had a cherry looking early 50's chevy pickup that would have made a nice project.
I've got a '66 Impy that only needs a solid week to go to paint, I haven't touched the car in years. It just takes up space in my shop. I don't even want the car, its a shame because I've probably dumped more money into the car than I can get back out of it. I've actually had the opposite problem happen to me. I found an old '60s hotrod in a guys barn, that was taken apart, and left that way for YEARS. The guy won't part with it, says he is leaving it to his son, who is in to muscle cars...
I don't know about the rest of the country, but around here the guys in the know are building like mad men and a bunch of other guys are selling off because of rumors that you won't be able to ***le anymore or your going to have to buy a 10K drivetrain to meet emissions etc. A lot of this has been fueled by recent articles in Street Rodder and the like. I havn't seen anything to validate the rumors, but hell, I'll take their parts!
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