Cheapest Car purchased?? $50 Deuce body

In1968 I Paid 12.00 For A 55 Chevy No Eng No Trans No Rust Tim

 

A better question would be how many freebie cars have you been given. From the early '70s to the mid '80s, I scrapped cars on the side for race car money. I got so many $-0-$25 runnable cars, I couldn't begin to name them all. I remember a '54 Ford, a '55 Plymouth, a '59 Chevy Impale hardtop, a '56 Ford, '60 and '61 Ford Starliners. a '57 Chevy wagon, a BUNCH of '61-'64 Galaxies (demo derby material), a '65 GTO, and a '62 T-Bird ragtop just to name a very few. Some I drove for a couple of weeks, but all went to the crusher for $35 a ton or thereabouts.

The first absolutely free car I ever got was a '58 Poncho Tudor Post in '69. The neighbor had just gotten his '68 Bel Air 427 Tudor ex cop car out of the paint shop. I was checking it out and asked him what he was gonna do with his Pontiac. He said "It's yours if you want it" and tossed me the keys and title. I drove it like I stole it for a month or so, blew the motor and scrapped it. It was solid as heck and I kinda wish I had it back now. Same with the '55 Coupe DeVille I traded for two rims that cost me $7.00 for in '68.

I also had a side gig going with Mustangs in the mid '70s. I bought every '65-'68 'Stang I could find for under $100. Here in Ohio, those cars rusted pretty quick, and people with money just wanted rid of them. I'd watch the papers and averaged a couple of cars a month. I'd buy 'em, patch floorboards, get 'em running good or whatever minor repairs they needed. Then I'd park 'em in front of my dad's with $250-$400 on the windshield. The kids grabbed 'em right up. I thought I was getting rich, but look at early Mustang prices now.......

Oh yeah, I bought a rusty '68 Shelby minus motor and tranny for $75 in about '77. We cut the skin off of it for a stock car.

Jan...the junkyard broad..

 

In 1969 at 12 y.o.I bought my 1st car-a 59 Ford Galaxie 2dr hard top ,little rust,took my dad and brothers about 1/2 hour to get it running on my 13th birthday.I paid $1 for it.Nice field car!

 

When I was in HS a hundred yrs ago, me an another guy bought a 41 Willys coupe for 200. All set up for the drags with a chevy truck rear, buckets, moontank and pedal. and chevy mounts. We started to work on it then I moved away WAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!
I have been tryin to find him or the car since.
Last seen in a shed in Chesterland Ohio about 1963

 

Dad just grabbed him a '55 Stude last summer for $100.
It's not too bad now that he's spent some time pushing the body panels back out after cows had been standing on it.



My personal best was scoring a '57 Chevy sedan for $45. It was a 4 door, but that didn't matter - I just needed a new chassis to replace the one I bent up when a bar ditch on a muddy farm road inconsiderately jumped out in front of me and my '55 wagon.

It was nice getting a stash of extra door handles, steering box and linkage, too. The rest of the '57 and sedan specific parts I gave to the local wrecking yard owner who had always been a pretty good friend to us.


My second best is still sitting in the driveway waiting for me to get started... the '37 Tplane I grabbed from Unclescooby for $100. 'Course we won't go into all the other purchases that spurred on. LOL

 

In 1967 or 68 i ferget which I traded a pair of black cowboy boots for a non running 56 chevy 2 door post. I painted a perfect green and white interior black. Dumb Fuckin Kid ! I bought a 57 4 door and pulled the broke 265 and installed the 283 out of the 57.
You will like this one. We went and bull shitted a guy to sign over a title for the dam thing and he thought i really restored his old car..
Drove it for 2 years then dad took it for a ride and decided it was unsafe and bought me a 63 nova convert. I sold the 56 to my cousin and he never got it on the road and took it to the junk yard. was standin at the gas station one afternoon and saw it go by! new paint and everything! the thing only has rust over the headlights and i fixed that .........
Dave

 

back in 2003 I bought a '53 buick special off egay for tha low low price of........$3.50 complete...and runs ( well if I put a gas tank and new ignition switch or get keys cut to the one in it). tha only thing that sux is my wife claims it now...which really doesn't suck now that i think about it...L8R

 

Seriously??? $3.50??? and he took it?

 

my first car was a 47 chev for $15.00 in 1965

 

bout 2 years ago I bought a '66 Chev C10 for $100, loaded it FULL with stuff and drove it 40+ miles home. Wood bed was almost perfect, truck wasn't overly rusty but did have lots of nice sheetmetal patches here and there. The rear control arms were even really nice. Had a propane setup on it, 80 gallon tank in the bed. original 283 was litterally like brand new inside and didn't leak a drop of oil. No joke it started in -10 weather without pumping the carb, no choke and would stay running, ask Squablow. Three on the tree linkage was still tight as the day it was new. I think the truck has about 60 or 70 thou on it. I drove it daily for a few months and spent about $70 on a full tune-up. Didn't really need it, but the wires and plugs were probably 20 years old. Drove it almost all winter, never had to do anything else to it except for a $15 master cly and 20 minutes to install it. I never tried the propane setup, but I am sure it worked. I almost took it on Hot Rod Power Tour, and I would have trusted it without even thinking twice I ended up selling the truck to a guy in Iowa, drove it 400 some miles home and called me raving about how nice it ran.

Few months after I sold it I bought a '47 Chev woody wagon at an auction for $300. Those who know will know that is a much better deal than buying a duece body years ago for $50 with the exception of how much it costs for a new wood kit.

Two Xmas' ago I won an ebay auction for a 26,000 original mile '69 Galaxie 500 390 2dr hardtop for $26 and some change. Still had the original everything...battery, tires, wires, plugs, belts, exhaust, all but the oil and filter was original to the car. It needs a light resto but is VERY, VERY, VERY nice for $26.

Wanna hear some more stories, I have a few more where these came from. Deals are still out there....

 

hell yeah..had to since he had no reserve on it....when I called to get dir. for pick up he said he didn't care cause his ol' lady had left him. 'bout tha only time I paid in cold hard cash for a car

 

In 67 my dads boss paid him $25.00 to haul off a 59 chevy 2 door sedan off that his ex-son-in-law left at his house.Car was a 283,factory a/c,with a power glide. I put a fuel pump in it and drove it all through high school. Last year I bought a 50 canadian 2 door merc,perfect floors,trunk floor,needed outer rockers for $200 out of a storage lot.

 

Three or four years ago, for $400 I drove home a running/currently registered '70 Dodge Challenger, 440 HP, intake/headers/etc, auto, disc brakes, 3.91 limited slip. Never thought I'd own one, this was my "white elephant". Not a hot rod, but....

 

got some swamp land for $50 bucks.......................rooster

 

Back then $50 was a lot of money.....................

In about 1972 I bought a 57 Chevy for $75.............

 

Lived in Lincoln Nebraska in the mid 50's. Between my friends and I we bought 4 Model A's in the course of 1 1/2 years and gave anywhere from $50-$150 for them. Three of them were running and driving. The $50 one came home on a rope and was driving in less than a week. The $150 one, a 1931 2dr., would have won best restored at most shows and was totally origional. It was always garage parked from new.
When my dad was transfered (he was an Air Force bomber pilot stationed at Lincoln Air Force Base) I asked him if I could take the '40 Ford 2dr I had bought without his knowledge, with us. I had bought it from a farmer just outside of town next to the subdivision where we lived. I had paid $20 for it and managed to get it running and up on 4 tires that held air. He said "get in the car and we'll go take a look". When we pulled in the driveway of the farm he never got out of the car, took one look at the '40, wheeled a u-turn and left stating "that piece of junk isn't coming with us." This was a totally rust free '40 2dr with 98% of the origional paint still in tact, one dent the size of an orange, and a slightly musty smelling interior from being parked for years with the windows rolled up. I sold it to a school friend for $35 before we moved and I always wondered if he still had it.

Frank

 

all cars I've bought..
1965....running, driving 40 ford 2 door for $8 from a high school buddy
good running 1940 chevy 2 door sedan...$10 from a girlfriend's dad.
The 55 Pontiac in the photo was free for the taking but I had to furnish my own wheels and tires....replaced 3 broken rocker arms and drove it home...great car!
50 ford crestliner with correct trim and steering wheel...50 bucks, ride and drive [cracked valve seat] but I paid another $15 for a good 53 Merc motor for it.
Free model A [29 coupe] but after I got home from the army, it was gone.
57 Pontiac hardtop, $10
There are many more too.

 

a dollar an hour? if you work 8 hours a day for a 5 day week thats $45, work for 2 weeks and you could get yourself a nice running model A. try doin that on todays salary

 

Some of the best car finding jobs to have is phone guy, cable guy, or linemen. Your job is going down every alley in every town you service, and you work 20 or more feet off the ground so you can see everything. Around 1985 while working for the phone company I came across a old dude cleaning out his old barn. He had two model a coupe bodies and a 32 5w body that he just drug out of the barn. I stopped to ask about them and he took me into the barn and showed me a complete model A pickup that he was going to start to restore. I didn't think I had a chance of buying the 32 so I asked him if he would sell me 1 of the model A bodies. He said " Hell no, those things are priceless, but I'll sell you that hunk of shit for $150 bucks" So thats how I bought my first project car. Never started on the thing, started having kids and sold it for $300 bucks. Dumbass.
A week or two after I bought the 32 somebody broke into the guys barn and stripped the Model A pickup, a week after that I found out who did it and went and told the guy.

 

A few years back I bought a 1955 Caddilac for a sixer. It took me four hours to cut the tree out of her. Still sitting in the back of the barn. Ran after a few new plugs and a battery. Guy with the six pack thinks I parted her out. That was my intention, until I heard her run.

 

I say the dollar used to go a lot further years ago.
I was 14 back in 1962 when I bought my first car, a $10 '50 Merc 2 door that was nosed and decked.

1964 a '37 Ford 2 door slant back for $10.
1965 a '56 Chevy convertible (my high school ride) for $10 that needed a new engine, cost another $25 for a good V8.
1965 a '57 Pontiac 2 door HT with factory 3 speed stick for $50.
1965 a '38 Ford 2 door sedan $25
1965 a '38 Ford Coupe channeled 8" (no engine) for $50 + $10 for SBC for it.
1966 a '55 Chevy V8 Bel Air 2 door HT for $50.
1967 a '48 Ford 2 door sedan for $50.
1968 2 '57 Chevies, a Bel Air 2 door HT V8 for $25, a 2 door sedan 6 cyl for $25.
1970 a '63 Buick Wildcat 2 door HT 401 c.i. V8 for $50.
1971 a '66 GTO HT 4 speed $600.
1973 a '65 GTO HT tri-power 4 speed for $250. The last good car I bought and sold until the '40 PU in 1992.

 

Bought a 1941 Zephyr for a Benji about two months ago !!!!

 

Chuckdaddy.... show some pics!!!

 

I bought a Model A 2 door sedan body at an auction near Columbus, KS a year ago for $7. It does have a tree limb, (hedge, I believe) grown onto the drivers door post, but does have a pretty nice cowl. At the same auction a running 54 Cheb 2 door sold for $800, but I didn't have it at the time. I screwed up and didn't buy an Essex cowl for $3.

BlackCherry

 

I've gotten a few cars for free but the cheapest one I ever bought was a '42 Plymouth Special Deluxe 4door sedan in Mobile AL for $10. I towed it to my apartment, spent an hour or two cleaning it up and put in a battery and fired her up. Fixed the 3wheel brakes, right rear cylinder had blown so they smacked the line on the rearend with a hammer, cut it and rolled it up, ouch. Drove the car alternately with my 47 Plymouth, sold it about a year later for $450.

 

bought this a year and a half ago for $2700. 61k orig. documented miles. 352, ford o matic, red immaculate int. sold it 6 mos. later for $5800. I wish i still had that car. I could jump in and drive that thing anywhere anytime.

 

Back in the early 70's I traded a riding lawnmower for a 40 Ford Deluxe 2 dr sedan with a 283 in it. Drove it for two or three years.

 

my granpa bought my dads 55 chevy for 150 dollars. and it was in perfect shape.

 

I remember when I was 15 or so, (I'm 59 now) me and a friend used to go to his uncles to hang out at his body shop. He had a 32 pickup with a Merc flathad and juice brakes, black primer with wide whites and red rims sitting there that belonged to a customer, and it was for sale for $200.00. I begged my dad to let me buy it but no go. Don't know what ever happened to it.
Then in the mid 60's I bought a 33 five window coupe, fenderless with an Olds in it. Paid $400.00 for it. Sure wish I had it back.

 

Here's pictures of my Dad old coupe he paid $350 for it (needing a motor ..Parked next to it is The 57 Chevy Bel Air Convertible .He went to buy the motor out of the 57 for $50 for the coupe and ended up buying the whole car for $100 ..He used the 57 to tow the coupe to the track /street races ...Back in 1967 i am still looking for the coupe sold to a shop teacher from Broomall ,PA

Here a link to my cars My 66 Chevelle SS396 4 spped car i bought for $400 back in early 90's . # matching motor was in the trunk ..Also my 73 L-82 vett running driving i paid $2000 ..Not pictured is my 57 Bel Air hardtop factory 2x4 245hp basket case i bought late year for $8000 (cheap by todays prices

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/457001