Cheapest Car purchased?? $50 Deuce body

I've heard some awesome stories from old guys talking about buying deuce bodies for $50 and so on... My pop told me he could remember buying model a's running for $50. I could slap him for not scarfin' up all the A parts he could find, but what's done is done.

The latest Rodder's Journal had a small index card selling... "32 Ford Roadster, Cherry Full Fendered Body, dropped axle, new Black lacquer, stock rebuild 40 ford mill. Needs upholstery... $400 (dated June 13, 1959)."

Wow!!!

Now you guys can tell your stories, I want to read em! throw some pics up if you got em??

 

My buddie bought a 32 tudor sedan body (in pieces) a couple of years ago for 50 bucks @ a garage sale..
I just shook my head and laughed.
You should see it now...Nailhead, mohair... nice...

Spoons

 

Through some pics up as well!!!

 

I have some old car mags from the 50's and 60's. You outta check out the "for sale" sections in the back of the old mags.... it'll make ya wanna barf.

 

Cars were expensive back then.....especially when making a dollar an hour at the local gas station.

 

I'll post some as soon as I get home from work....

Spoons

 

I still have a 50 Merc 2d I bought with a bad Clutch for $35.oo. Another $5.oo for a used clutch and an afternoon's work and I was on the road. Pretty KooL!!! Of course that was 1962. Definatly getting my Moneys worth out of that one.
The Wizzard

 

No deuces but I did buy a 66 Chevelle 2 door hardtop shell and a 70 Chevelle 2 door hardtop shell each priced at $10.00 from a junkyard. Both easily restored and back on the road in no time. Wish I still had them! Got a 70 LeMans running for a guy and payment was a complete non running 69 GTO. 68 Camaro RS convertible...$75.00 running! Gone are the days....

 

Back in the early sixtys here in Tulsa you could buy all the 32,33 and 34's bodies you could for 25 or 30 bucks. We turned them into stock cars they lasted about 2 weeks before they were destroyed.

Kinda makes me sick to my stomach.

 

Don't you just kick you own can all around the yard thinking about that!!!

If you can't I can... give me your address, be there in about an hour!! haha

 

Back around 1985 I bought a '70 AMC Rebel that was in our shop for $50. He owed us $35 for diag, which I wrote off, so $15 later, it was mine. Clutch was rusted up. Soaked overnight in WD-40, ran and drove great!

 

Pop paid $50 for his 47 chevy in 1980, right before the ol' Fat Fendered Craze started. 26 years later and still unfinished, but it's been driving to indiana, and lincoln nebraska!!!

 

Best one I heard yet is from an old guy I know that in 1949 he traded a bag of beans for a 32 3 window (he called a Seemore coupe) and then buried it and made a septic tank! Ain't that the shits.

 

i bought this 32 5w for $18 in 1953 ,complete engine would not run.channeled it drag raced it ,first with flatty
39 trans with zypher gears ,then with nailhead.cadlasalle.
bruce slicks on lincoln rims.still have eng and tranny.just realized i may be getting old!!

 

How Cool.... Pop also told me that my grandpa traded a radio for a mid 30's buick, running and driving car!!

 

I was just a kid, when i bought my first early Ford, a 1937 ford sedan from some Hippi who got busted for smoking dope in the car. It was 1971, and i payed 75.00 for this car, with a 39 merc engine. After getting this running, it was sold to a V8 club member in Santa Rosa.

My second car was a 36 two door sedan, that was an old Hot Rod, with a 57 chevy rearend, and no engine or trans. I bought this car from Vern Tardel in 1971 for 80.00, delivered to my parents house. Shortly after buying this sedan, I guy in Sonoma Calif, gave me a 36 5-window coupe for nothing, just get it out of here. This 36 coupe still had the trans adapter, and Hurst front mount on it for a small block chevy.

In 1972 i bought a 34 fivewindow coupe that i found in an old ladies garage for 350.00, and almost didn't buy it. Back then that was alot of money for a car with no engine. This car was parked there in 1953, by her son, and he started to put juice brakes on it, but that is as far as he got. I still own this car today.

In 1993 I bought a 35 ford pickup that was parked in 1957 for 500.00, that I originally bought for parts, for a truck that I was building. After seeing that the 21 stud engine, wasn't stuck, i got running, and drove this truck to work for three years.

Ed

 

Yep! Thats a damn good story.

 

My first car was a running 62 Impala 2 dr ht with 6 cyl 3 on tree for $75 in 1974, sold it to buy a nice 1969 Super Bee for $500! Later in 2001 got a 1930 Model A pickup basket case for $700.

 

I bought my first car in 1967, $15.00 for a 4dr 1955 Plymouth Savoy flthd 6 std shift.
I drove it for a year and sold it for $15.00 and bought a nice tutone 1958 Chrysler Saratoga 2dr hardtop for a $150.00.

 

My Grandfather won my first car at a chicken fight in south Alabama on a 50 cent raffle ticket. I will not disclose the make nor model of that ole' filter chunker.
Thanks
J

 

do free count? I've probably had close to 40 cars that were $50.00 or less. thinking back, I kick my self the most over a 49 Merc coupe. running a 322 buick, hooked to the Merc 3 speed overdrive. Black, black and white tuck n roll and working power windows and solinoids on the doors! Fifty bucks!! had it less than a month and doubled my money. for those bad at math. I sold it for One Hundred Bucks! I'm starting to cry again..............Jim

 

It's OK Jim just don't let it happen again, or the closest person standing next to you will give you something to cry about!!! Seriously!!!!

 

Purchased a '74 Buick LeSabre 4D for $137.50 in 1984. Not very cool, but at least it was a hard top. Even that car has probably gone up in value since then!

 

1963- running, driveable 31 A coupe- $75
1966- 55 chevy 2-dht -$ 200
1970 -59 vette- $50 To name a few.

In the 60s, Mdl A coupe bodies and the like could be had for $ 20 bucks or so, some times free for hauling away. We cut them up for race cars.
In 1968 my buddies and I bought a pretty decent 62 Lincoln for around $200 to compete in a demo derby.

 

Make that $500

 

Look in the back of 60's Hot Rod. The classified's are one of my favorite things about that era Hot Rod. The prices will spin you out. There's also Hot Rod Parts(?) i think that i collect also. Half magazine, half stuff for sale. Turn-key Gasser Willys for $1250, just for an example

 

I'm currently working on a 37 Chevy pickup that I got from a friend of a friend of a friend that just wanted it out of his field. ZERO $. It did take me and a friend 4 hours to get it on the trailer as there was no rear end under it and it had been in the same spot since 1968. I picked it up last July.

 

About 1962 my grandfather sold my dad's running 29 roadster ( title was in his name) to some guy for $50 Guy used it to change the sprinkler pipes in his pasture. My dad about shot him when he found out.

 

I thought you all would get a kick out of this, I was in a conversation with a old Friend of mine Frankie about 4 years ago ( he has passed away now ) I was telling him about a really rough 32 3/W body I was trying to get, at that time the money was stupid,.....
Frank looks at me and says, "Did I ever tell you about my $15.00 Deuce ?" ( He went on ) I was in a junk yard looking for a 34 pontiac steering box for my roadster project in 47 or 48. up near the gate was this 32 Ford 3 Window a guy just drove up in,... I see the guy go to the office and come out and get into another car and take off. as I go to leave I ask the guy that owns the yard about it. He says I just got it in, I want 20 bucks for it, Frank tells him the right front fender was knocked in and it needed a bumper " I'll give ya' $10.00. The yard owner walks into the back of the shop, brings out a new bumper in brown ford wraping paper and says $15.00 and I through in this new bumper,.......... Frank said O.K.
Frank was a expert body man,.. He drove the car as it was for a couple months. He took it to Traverse City, on the way back he could feel it was going to need King Pins, so he says when I get's back I knocked out the fender and sprayed it with paint left in the gun then put on the bumper and sold it for $35.00,... ( He looks me square in the eyes with his one good eye and says) "now your telling me you are gonn'a buy a roach body for $3,500.?
Well, Looks like I really cut a fat hog on my deal huh ?" He told me he had pictures of that car somewhere. when we were cleaning out his house on Randall & 8 Mi. he found these and gave them to me,... he said " the Dame covered up the bad fender with her wide butt, The other Dame was too skinny" then he laughed,.....

I just didn't want to see this old story fade away so I thought I would share it with all of you. hope you enjoyed.

 

In the early '50s Briggs Cunningham got not one, but two Bugatti Royales (they only made 6!) from Ettore's daughter. The price, a big new American refrigerator!

I was offered two Austin-Healey 100s, one of them with a factory LeMans kit for $600. I passed.