Hot Rods where's the money?

Everything has gone up around here, the quotes for a paint job on my roadster went from 10k for a so so to 30k for a nice one. 250k for a build is average in the Bay Area. Juts look at chrome, the quote I got for my 34 grill was 7k, its already nice with no pitting or other issues. This is just a a sign of the times, the days of buying a roadster for $500 are over.

This is from our county Santa Clara:
Santa Clara County is close behind. There, a household of four bringing in $94,450 is now considered low income under the HUD guidelines, and for Alameda and Contra Costa counties, $89,600 is the low-income threshold.Jun 25, 2018

 

In San Francisco, $82,800 is low income, for an individual. You can still get into public housing with that income.

A mid/senior professional job will bring in $200k+/yr.

 

You're better off making $50k in the midwest-except for tornados.

 

No surfing, and no snowboarding.

 

If you want it done right it takes time. My F-I-L was billing $95 and hour because the cost to build at $120 and hour would be enormous. The amount of time my F-I-L spent on trim pieces alone would buy a brand new car.
But that's why the cars he did won awards.

 

I will guess that wages and real estate prices are lower in Utah.

 

Low income for a family of 4 in Salt Lake City, UT is $73,750.

Low income for a family of 4 in San Francisco, CA is: $117,400.

 

Real estate prices (and most other prices) are always higher in places where the average income is higher. They are not set by what the item is worth, but rather by what the area's market will bear. If you choose to live in a high income area, be prepared to be fleeced to a certain extent. It's the cost of perceived prestige......

 

No prestige for me. My line of work only exists in Silicon Valley. If I want to work a job that can cover my living expenses, it is here, or nowhere.

If I left the area I would need to go to a fall-back skill to earn a living. I would be behind the curve, instead of ahead of it.

 

Life in a high income area becomes a dead-serious game of musical chairs. The unlucky and or less able get squeezed out.

I did the All-American game of lots of night school and got to work for a few good companies. Built a house on acreage in 1972 (Boston - Nashua, NH employment market). In 1979, I took a field assignment and transferred to Arizona. In 4 years, inflation was so great, I could not afford to transfer back.

As I got into my 40's, there were folks who were brighter, better educated and had the stamina to work the longer hours. After an expensive divorce at age 42, I stepped down to a fixer-upper mobile home on land that I owned, small mortgage, easy payments. It took a few years to financially recover, then most of my surplus earnings went to helping the kids get started.

At age 58, there was an economic downturn and my employment ended (There is no age discrimination, I simply was deemed overqualified by prospective employers). I was able to get by on a retirement from a previous employer and a part time job (aka half-assed retired). Retired (aka full-assed retired) at age 64.

Living in paid-off mobile home made my life much easier (just utilities and a small property tax bill).

Russ

 

High cost of living - High wages
Low cost of living - Low wages
Ability to maintain lifestyle - About the same

 

Found out last year that a consultant was charging more than 2x what I was for essentially the same service. I raised my rates. From good to very good..

 

All I can say is the money is not on my bank account so I will not be able to buy any high dollar cars.

 

Well, the only difference is most are these cars leased or the owner has a 5-7 year car payment. Not sure you could get a loan for $250K for a build like that. I could be wrong.

 

Heloc's have bought many a toy.

 

I had to Google Heloc...

Not much equity in a 1970 doublewide...

 

I skipped a bunch of pages, but has anyone mentioned how the car in the original post likely isn't actually a Brizio car?

Your job exists outside of Silicon Valley, too.

 

I know of a few guys who got Helocs to build expensive race cars-they are retired too. Insane to me-kinda like gutting your 401K for a toy. Then when you need to sell get maybe 30 cents on the dollar

 

Self Rule: No loans for toys! Toy money is what is left over after all, and I mean ALL, other expenses are taken care of. Of course I'm the type who will do without rather than borrow money, with very, very few exceptions.

 

Back in the '80's, I started feelin' a bit nervous, as my "Ranching-Family", started selling off The Rancho for "age-and health-related reasons". Large sums of money started moving in the direction of the Church, and I realized that I needed to buy my own place. At that point, I found that my family was NOT interested in selling me any part-or-parcel of the home place... claiming it was worth much more as a whole. In '89, I stumbled onto a smaller (re-po) ranch that my wife and I had lived on several years prior. It was part of a HUGE mess of re-po ranches being re-assessed by Interstate Farm Credit. It was intentionally priced low, to help new ranchers get a foothold. LOW rate, low price, with considerations for "First-Timers"... The Folks "helped" me get started, buying me out of my Rancho stock, although, at a lower value. It took $40,000 to get into our 234-Acre, $115,000 ranch (Nicknamed "DeadOxRanch", in honor of the ACTUAL Dead Ox in the yard) It wasn't easy, along the way, as the cattle market is nutty. We sold 'em, to get off the "roller-coaster".

Same rules go here. We sold off 80 Acres, and ended up paying off the loan early. What a ride. After after all these years, Our "Jump overboard and SWIM" tactic is still working for us. We lease the place to neighbors to pay the bills, and the property values have risen so much, that our "net-worth" may rival my Dad's. We live very conservatively, and comfortably, basically on our SS... Our biggest fear, is that prop. values will climb to the point where we can't pay the prop. taxes... I was born out here, and most of our neighbors have changed 3-4 times... the place next door sold a coupla years ago, couldn't sell @450,000 for years, then "New Blood" showed up, and offered $750,000. BOOM. our taxes jumped $800/yr. Love it here. Might have to change a bit in the future.

 

All I want to know is how has this thread gotten sidetracked and lasted 7 pages without being locked, while I’ve seen other threads get just one or two posts off topic, and bam! lockdown.

 

I agree with Ron. At the start of this thread we were talking about the expense of having a car built now we're talking real estate. Maybe it's time to shut this thread owns unless it gets back on track.

 

So, was the car built by Brizios shop or was it a side deal of a guy who worked at Brizios? I suspect the latter. If I were a potential buyer I'd want confirmation from Brizios together with the relevant invoices if I thought I was in any way paying for the suggested provenance. Whats the current price of a glass 34 coupe? Interesting thread nevertheless.

Chris

 

Only if your ability to earn a living is portable.

 

No it does not, unless I leave the country. I do not build hot rods for a living.

I am an Automotive Engineer and Technical Program Manager that specializes in the management of the operations of design, testing, and production of autonomous vehicles, and the systems that makes them possible.

All of the top 30 US-based companies are here. Of the lesser companies that remain past the first 30, there are only startups that do not have operations of the scale that require someone like me to be present. The top 45, irrespective of scale are here.

Many of the top 30 are testing in other locations, but that is not where I would be working. I might have to fly periodically, but could not be based there.

 

And like many there’s a commute involved if you like to not spend 1m for a home, but then you give up another 5 or 6 hours of the day in the car to get to and from work.
I used to dread the Friday commute home 15 or so years ago, can’t imagine what it’s like now.

 

I would venture that the cost of building a car varies between areas of different income levels too. And I do not think the cost increase can always be attributed to greater skill level. There are absolutely brilliant builders who chose to ply their trade away from the 'rat race', and can offer top notch services at a more reasonable rate. You pay more for everything in a high income area so the supplier can afford to survive in the high cost environment. Catch 22.
Not a criticism, just an observation........

 

Exactly.

No blanket statement about the cost to produce a custom car can be made. There are too many variables.

If Brizio relocated to central Iowa, they could charge a whole lot less, but would they? They have established a price for the quality of their work. They can get that price no matter where they are, but it would require relocating their entire team, and creating an all new vendor structure, plus so much more.

Way too many variables.

 

There are far too many people here caught up in the myth-of-value, and the attachment to numbers.

It does not matter if this car was built by Brizio, an ex-Brizio employee, Brizio's third-uncle, or me.

The seller has a idea of what they would like to sell it for. There are any number of buyers out there with an ideas of what they would like to buy it for. If the seller and a buyer can come to an agreement on a price, that is what it is worth.

Nobody gets a say in it, except those two parties. Y'all can say you would not pay that, or could not pay that, but you cannot say that it is not worth that, unless nobody paid that.

 

So, depending on the ad you believe, we have a 1998 build costing $250k or a 2008 build costing $190k, either way it was built for a music video shot in 2000.
I'm willing to cut a guy a little slack for confusion based on simply repeating what a previous owner said, but this goes way beyond that. Without documentation, provenance isn't worth much. In this case he won't be able to prove his conflicting claims. With a crate 302, I suspect it'd sell for $25-30k. The seller is finding that the market for a street-roddy glass '34 coupe with a blown flathead is pretty thin on the ground.