What's your best old car Deal ?

Ready? I bought a 34 Ford roadster for $65. Complete car with no top. Now the problem, I was 14 and not a clue but was going to try. Long story short I had to get rid of it because my Dad needed the garage back. I think I sold it for $45. Ok remember it was over 53 years ago.

 

1976-working as a Lineman in Central Valley. Bought my 57 fuely for $1100 and drove it home. Also bought a big block 67 vette with a bad trans for $1000-sold it for $2500 after fixing trans--thought I hit a home run !!!!

 

1983/84, this Willys coupe. $1500

 

In the early '90's I bought a 1968 Fury with less than 30,000 miles from the original owners grandson for$75.00, he thought the timing chain was out, I popped the distributor cap off and reset the points, fired it up and drove it home. About the same time I bought a 1974 Imperial from a drunk for $50.00, filled the transmission and drove it home. I also bought a 1966 D200 Dodge pick - up from the original owner for$200.00, used it to pull a buddies 1963 Fury drag car to the races, a sharp looking outfit. About this same time frame I bought a running driving 1970 Dodge challenger for $350.00.

 

1960 Pontiac Catalina 2-door HT from 1st owner for $500.00- Survivor!

 

a couple of summers ago I bought a 50 Chevy Deluxe for $200 with a ton of rust and a locked up motor....3 weeks later traded even for a 40 Ford pickup project. About 3 months ago I traded a $200 mini bike and $400 cash for a 49 Chevy Styleline.

 

A couple years ago, I bought the "remains" of a '27 Model T sedan that sat in a barn for 50+ years. The guy I bought the "remains" from just wanted the body and the title. I got all the fenders, running boards, two sets of tires, seats, a complete running chassis for $400..sold it all and tripled my money.

 

This one pulls all of my Old cars home after I buy them. Bought it for $200 1 1/2 years ago. I know I'm going to get deleted on this one. '05 3/4 ton 6.0 litre, 133k miles . A running mo-fo

 

$16500

 

I bought a 1935 ford truck about 8 years ago for 2500$. It was a craigslist ad. Not running old
Hot rod.
When
I
Showed up it was complete, with a poly 318, for speed, 50 Chevy steering, juice
Brakes and an 8.75 posi rear end. The reason it didn't run was a bad generator and the need of a battery. Got it running that day, drove it for a year and sold
It on ebay after sanding the rattle can paint job off of it to expose the red patina paint job and recovering the seat. I really miss that truck.


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Drove past a house in rural Hood River, Oregon to see a 55 Pontiac hardtop parked in the side yard. Stopped and asked the guy about it and he said his mom was driving it back from California when the engine "blew up"...
I asked how much and he said if I brought my own wheels and tires I could have it for free.
Came back in a few hours with borrowed wheels and tires.grabbed the title and dragged it out on the road with a chain. Pulled the valve covers to find 3 broken rocker arms and got 3 used ones from a local junk yard, slipped a battery in it and fired it up....ran like a top and drove it for about a year..sold it to my dad.

 

nother time i spied a decrepit 57 Pontiac super chief on the back row of the local chevy dealer..it was rough! Showed it to my step brother and told him when my check came in the mail the next day I was gonna give the $50 asking price for it..........slept in late and when I got to the dealers about 11 am, the car was gone! My step brother told his buddy about my deal and that rat bastard bought it at 8 am that morning. I hunted him down and read him the riot act and he apologized, saying he just needed a car until he could find a 4X4 pickup and he'd make it right...damned if he didn't! About 2 months later he found me and told me I could have the car fro $10 if I still wanted it. It ran but that was about it. I tuned on it, cleaned it for weeks it was so filthy. Hell, I didn't even know if it had carpet , there was so much dirt in it...
Got it all cleaned up, had a complete new dual exhaust system put on it, bought new chrome wheels and tires for it and rubbed the green paint out to find it was actually dark silver metallic! Eventually sold it to my little brother, Janglehead here on the HAMB....was a helluva good car, especially for 10 dollars.....

 

I've been quite fortunate. My first old vehicle was/is a '42 Fargo p/u given to me by my uncle. My girlfriend/wife's aunt was the guardian of her father's '46 Chev; all her cousins were going to "restore it" by losing the engine (how do you lose a 216?). They knew I was interested so they said come and get it or the crusher does. My uncle in the mid eighties trade a fellow farmer one cold January a use house furnace for a '32 5W which he wanted for his rebuilt to original spec model B engine. He was going to restore it and lost interest so I bought the car and the engine in the mid 90's for $2000 after bargaining him down from $2200. After he passed away my promise to restore became voided so I sold the engine and two rebuilt model B trannies for $2800 for a profit of $800. I wanted a '47-48 Buick convertible for a long time and overheard a fellow at a Buick picnic saying he had one for $18000 which needed to be restored. Heartbroken another fellow mentioned that there was one in Alberta for $5000 but I'd have to take the fastback and the sedan for that price! So you know what happened. I don't want to appear to be bragging but I must have been one hell of a guy in another life for this luck to been given to me. Still have them all plus a couple of others. The downside is that I have a hell of a lot of work to do. (All of these have relatively minor rust.)

 

$10 Model A rdstr pu in 1987. It was missing alot of parts, but had a cab frame, engine, springs and front fenders. Several more good deals over the coarse of time including my delivery sedan body and a 27 T tudor body for $450 in 2006. Rod

 

Got a patient that owns a small boneyard in my area who specializes in vintage tin ONLY GM products. He won't even LOOK at a Ford or a Mopar. About eight years ago he knows I'm looking for a project for me and my kids to work on after being out of the hobby for like 20 years. Shows up at my home/office at the end of my day with an old pickup on his hook. I ask him if it's for sale. He says, "Go take a look at it and then see if you still want it". It's an ex-Old Navy store display truck, a '55 first series AD Chevy pickup. I tell him I LOVE it and ask him how much. He says, "My landlord is on my ass for having too many cars in my yard. If you take it NOW, it's free". He backs it up and leaves it next to my garage. Took me and my kids two years to get it on the road, but they absolutely loved every minute of putting it back together. I still have it and will never sell it. Kids and I decided to build a traditional hotrod next. Unfortunately, life gets in the way, the kids got older and busier and the hotrod has been mostly MY project.

Andy

 

My dad gave me my sedan for my 40th birthday!( I just turned 48) It was a frame, body, doors, and a pile of parts. When he gave it to me I told him I didnt want it because it was to much(dollar wise, I knew what he had spent on it to that point). Sounds like I grew up with a silver spoon in my mouth but I didnt. When I grew up my folks didnt have a pot to piss in, the house i grew up in had no bath room so we went out to an outhouse(I dont know very many people my age that grew up pissn in an outhouse). And I had to walk to school up hill both ways!

 

The best deal in recent years is my sons 59 2-door Biscayne. I helped a guy get rid of several old cars out of his pasture 6 or 7 years ago and told him I would be interested in buying the 59. When it was all said and done, he gave me the car. So, at this point, we have a little time and some gas to pick it up as the starting point for my son's first project car.

 

My best deal not counting the bargains of the '50's was a '34 Ford deluxe coupe with 283, 39 trans with Zephyr gears, Lincoln brakes all around, 3X2 intake with 97's, all chrome garnish mouldings, perfect body with '60's paint job. Found it in a barn (really) with fenders off and engine disassembled. Got it for 1000. Kept it for 30 years.

 

In the early 80's a friend had a 46-48 Ford Coupe that he gave to me if we would haul it out, the trim/bezels were inside and the car was basically a shell, I took it to the swap meet later that year and got $350 (I think) for it, maybe I should have kept it

 

Some of you seem to be confusing "best old car deal" with I "paid market price 30-50 years ago and forgot about inflation"

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My first car was a $5.00 1954 Ford wagon with a full gas tank. I think he seller filled the tank so I wouldn't bring it back. Sold it 8 weeks later for $35.
My next deal was a$50 1930 Ford sedan delivery , drove that for a year while everyone else had the custom vans, sold it for a whopping $250.

 

Oh yeah.....forgot about my free running 54 Chevy pickup I got about 6 months ago.

 

O.K. I paid $15.00 for a completely original, good running 1940 Chevy coupe in 1959. The guy I sold it to drove it from California to Georgia. $15 in 1959 had the buying power of $121.73 today. I'd snap that car up at that price faster than a duck can jump on a junebug.

 

Way back when .I bought a 55 chevy, 283 bored out 30 over with a 4 speed trans.Drove it home but could never get it thru inspection in N.J. Like I said it had a 4 speed in it with a 3 speed shifter handle on it. Everytime the guy got in to check the brakes he would throw it in to reverse instead of 1 st gear. Laugh my ass off. He was yelling whats wrong with this car! Then they made me rev it up and all the steel wool I had packed in the glass packs blew out. The guy said I thought so so they put a red sticker on the windshield. I didn't care I ran the crap out of that car and got a lot of tickets but man it was fun!!!!!Bruce.

 

In 1968 I got this one for $25.00 will not get that deal again

 

still comparing apples to oranges. Not many cars from 1994-96 I would want to buy.... and as a matter of fact I just scrapped a running driving cavalier that no one wanted to buy (admittedly a pos)..anyways it went to pull a part...they paid $155 dollars.

 

My first old car was a 1936 Packard 120 for 100.00 in pieces,drove it a year later and sold it for 800.00 to buy a 29 for Ford 2 dr for 800.00 barn car and drove it for 2 years. The paint still shined on it. I was in the Army at the time. Sold it to buy a house.

 

This fall I answered an ad for :" old ford v8, running" turned out a young guy pulled the engine from a '30 coupe he just bought to install a " 327 out of a 'vette " (aren't they all . Turns out to be a '42, raised intake deck, complete. Oh yeah, with an original Slingshot intake w/ 2 94's ! All for the princely sum of 400 bucks! It was all I could do to keep from jumping up and down and punching the air .wiped some of the grime off with a little diesel and it has that beautiful old satin glow, Did I mention I LOVE sbc's?