Hot Rods 1931 roadster-traditional build-(whats it worth)

well; i hate to break it to you but no matter how much money you put into parts and/or labor into a car....in this economy you'd be pretty hard stretched to gain much at all from an "investment" car. I still find it hard to understand how people make money off such a hobby in terms of buying a project vehicle and fixing it up and selling it to make a profit. while our first build wasn't everyone's cup of tea; we know we are very likely to never make the money back that we put into it; and the car didnt even need very much work.

On top of that we have over 700 hours into the car by ourselves. none of the work on our car was hired out to anyone and we're still unlikely to make any money on the car if we decided to sell (not like we care). Nowadays project cars to start with are going for big money and then if you decide to fix it up to re-sell youre just tacking on more and more money spent especially if you want to ensure that its done to spec and high quality. you could build the most badass hot rod roadster with all the right period parts, etc and you'd be hard pressed to actually make money once your done with purchasing a solid steel body and all the goodies to dress it up to high quality that people are willing to drop big bucks on.

Most of us here (im willing to bet) build our cars for ourselves. We dont care what we spend because we dont have a specific budget to stick to in order to still make money. In the end; if you do it the way you want and keep the quality of work high; you're likely to never make money off of it if you ever decided to sell in the future. we have over 700 hours into a car that had 21K original miles on it and 2 rust spots on the whole car that were about 5inches x 5inches and we'd say that car is pretty high quality and yet the interior is still original. we're never going to make the $$ back that we put in it for parts, paint, etc and on top of that we're never going to make that "labor rate" back either. This is a hobby and although its a business for some; it's not for the majority. The economy is in the shitter and your car's value is determined by what someone's willing to pay for it and its not worth a penny more than what someone is willing to pay despite what you may have dumped into it. put it on ebay and see what someone's willing to pay. its a beautiful roadster.

 

Just looked at the Ebay ad and it closed at over $ 41K. Just goes to show you never know what another person is willing to shell out for a car. I'm surprised, but happy for the seller, that the car brought that much. I would have thought mid 20's tops, even though it is a nice car and has a lot of good stuff on it. The market is soft right now, for everything, so it is cool that he got that much for it. Most us NEVER get out of a car all the money (and time) we put into it.

Don

 

I see you are from socal.... If I had to sell a car I'd sell your daily driver and set the roadster up to drive every day. The used car market is better then the hotrod market right now. I don't know what you have in the car, but I'm willing to bet it's over 25k. You might get that, but in this unstable economy it would be a stroke of luck.

My point? It's everything I would want in a roadster (and you too) and if I had it, it would be the last thing I'd sell!!! Unless I had a big familly, then I'd have to convert it to a rumble seat...... Or sell it