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I spotted an (insert obscure car name here) classic car today! (Archived)
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The electrics are okay on a Benz, but the HVAC is hopeless.
Seminole, you'll have to get some pics of the Jag when you get her all cleaned up and driveable.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item- - =2459999072&category=6458
I like, too, in the description..."this car has been driven, but not abused."
To which they should have added, "well, except that one time..."
Looking at the amount of damage to that car, it looks almost as bad as when my uncle hit a deer with his '03 Corolla a few months ago. That little hit came out to about $4800. I'd imagine Volvo parts are more expensive than Toyota parts. That sucker is totaled! I guess some do-it-yourselfer could get it running again, but for all intents and purposes, it's a total.
The reason they did this is because it was cheap. It was cheaper than putting in bucket seats which, believe it or not, often *adds* weight! This is one reason why a lot of intermediate Mopar musclecars in the late 60's came standard with a bench...it was lighter than two buckets! Having had to hoist both a Dart bench seat and Dart buckets, I can vouch for it in the compacts, too!
Anyway, the reason they put the little center bin in was to keep from offering a true bench seat, in which case they'd have to put a 3rd set of seatbelts up front, which would add to the cost! So basically, in the interests of cost, the Citation managed to give you a seat that was a cross between a bench and buckets, giving you the disadvantages of both and the advantages of none!
I've never seen the style with the bench bottom and bucket backs, though. It doesn't look like it has a middle row of seatbelts, either. Kinda strange that they did that, as the car was big enough to hold 3 across. Hell, a Citation is wider inside than the '97-03 Malibu, and still about on par with the '04! This was one area though, where Chrysler had a marketing advantage, as the K-cars were able to boast 6-passenger seating. Nevermind anybody who tried that would probably lose 5 friends really fast! ;-)
Boggles the mind...
-juice
Well, people bitched about it, and Chrysler did a study. They found out that once spread out over the course of hundreds of thousands of cars, it cost about the same whether they made the big window roll down and the quarter window stationary, as it did to make the big window stationary and the quarter window flip out!
So at some point in the 1982 model year, they switched the Aries and Reliant to roll-down rear windows. I have a feeling that something else may have led to this, as well. That year, Chrysler started offering upscale versions of the K-car: the Dodge 400 and Chrysler LeBaron, and for '83 they were going even further, with the Dodge 600 and Chrysler New Yorker. Maybe they figured that they'd better start making the rear windows roll down, because a fixed rear window wouldn't cut it in a more upscale car.
Too bad GM didn't follow suit. They made those damned rear windows stationary in 4-door right up through the final versions: the 1986 Bonneville and the 1987 Cutlass Supreme sedan! But then, GM would've had to change the door panels on those cars too, as they were recessed into where the window would have had to roll down, in order to give more elbow room. So it would've cost them what? An additional 5 cents per car to redesign the door panels, on top of whatever it cost to make the window roll down?!
The only time rare options matter is when the options are really significant ones.
Back in the 60s especially, it was entirely possible to put together an option list that was totally unique, there were so many combinations.
I have to deal with this "logic" all the time in appraising. Somebody thinks their car is worth more because of the "rare color", and I'm the one who has to tell them that the color is rare because everybody hated it in the first place.
RE: That "clean" volvo.....verdict---the wrecker.
Guy must have bought the car back from the insurance company after the total, and thinks maybe he can flip it for a little more. Geez, with over 100K this car is worth $5,000 all fixed up and ready to go. Deducting for repairs, the car is worth about.....nothing.
I'd say it's worth about $600.
On my trip to Milwaukee & Chicago I saw an Austin Mini & VW Thing (both looked nice!) a nasty early Corvair & a derelict BMW 2002. Also an IS 300 Sportcross.
The Chicago show was fun, more later.
TTFN
Renault R10
Plymouth Cricket
Fiat 128
Opel Manta
Also spotted an '84-85 LeSabre coupe, and an early 80's Delta 88 sedan, both pretty ratty looking. One thing that struck me as interesting though, as big as these cars are by todays standards (at least when you don't factor in trucks!), is how easy they really are to see around. Seriously, I think any compact car nowadays actually blocks your vision around it worse than one of these low-slung battlecruisers, because they're so upright. The high rumps, thicker roof pillars, windows with deeper tints, etc, all help to make it harder to see around these newer cars.
The last one I saw was a Citation 4-door hatchback. Still running, and fairly solid, although rust really wasn't an issue with these. It's about the only thing that wasn't an issue with these! ;-)
Bad, REAL bad.
Saw an old Subaru wagon with about 1,000 little rubber toys glued to it. Dont know if it was factory option or not.
Hey, got my "new" car on the road. Somebody gave me an '87 BMW L7 a while back which had received a death notice from the BMW dealer. It's amazing what you can do with Pick-a-Part, Ebay and a good repair manual. Total cost to bring her back, about $1,700 for rehab, including registration and a full detailing. The car looks GREAT, too. The slickest trick was fixing the jammed HVAC thumb wheel that works the automatic climate control (no heat, no air, no nuttin' without that part working). And besides, it is buried into the dashboard. BMW wanted some horrendous amount to fix it. We figured out how to sneak it out of there and then just filed off the tab that locks it into the off position. Works great, only downside is that there is no positive click when you move it to off...well, so what? Part new was $260, labor would be 3 hours @ $105/per.
Also did u-joint, power steering hoses, valve cover gasket, 4 used tires and rims (OEM tires were weird metrics), broken antenna, broken radio, windshield leak, broken windshield washer tank, burned out headlight, bad hood struts.
It's a nice ride! Body/interior are perfect.
-juice
The car had a very good life most of its years but then Dad passed it on to daughter and well you know "kids today". So when BMW wanted like 5 grand to fix it up he wouldn't do it. If the car pans out I'm going to offer him junk value for it, even though he doesn't need the money.
Oh, the best part. In the trunk was a brand new Michelin 220/55/390 metric tire, which I sold on Ebay for $100! (They list at $225-300 apiece).
Shopping Ebay for parts is a good value but kind of a pain. People take a long time to ship, sometimes you get the wrong part, or worse yet, only "part of the part". Somebody sent me an antenna but no mounting hardware, another sent 4 center wheel caps but 2 in chrome, one satin finish and one dented. Got a CD repair manual but they forget to mention it only runs on Win95. Fortunately, had an old laptop in the closet.
I did bid on the HVAC control unit, but someone bid it up past the wreckers' price! DOH! That's when I said, hey I can fix this!
Lots of power for such a big car. Must have killed ten cows for the interior. I was thinking of renting out the back seat to an artist or something.
I wonder how much it would cost to fix this one up?
MY.
GOD!
Wait a minute ... these are $650K new; why did the insurance company pay out $1.3M?
Still and all, a heck of a project ... can you imagine the buyer taking this to Maaco?
F1 influence, I know, but it's such a slave to the wind tunnel. Same with the SLR.
Of course the new F1 cars are even uglier, have you seen the elephant tusks on the Williams?
-juice
Value? Whatever the value of the engine, trans + a couple of baskets of parts and I presume the rear end.
I guess some celebrity met their driving limits up front and personal.
BMW 735i -- It shows 155k on the clock, but the M30 is a fine engine if you take care of it (translation---adjust the valves and don't overheat it!). I've seen much higher miles on these cars.
Just my personal opinion, but I think the 7 Series, E23 model is the best car BMW ever made. That's why I took a chance on it.
She's now at the detailers getting all scrubbed and shined. I found all new emblems for hood, trunk and hub caps (you know, it's the DETAILS that make a car look good). Next thing I want to clean out all the sunroof and heater drains. This can be a problem with older cars that have gone into neglect.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
Here's the problem. Every "new" Ferrari commands a high price until the next new Ferrari comes along, then it gets dicey. If the Enzo behaves like an F50, well fine and good, but if it behaves like last year's Maranello or 355, the value is going to sink fast. Depends on how many Enzos they end up making whether this car is worth rebuilding or not. But gee whiz, a Ferrari with a salvage title sounds sale-proof to me.
The engine might be worth $60,000, but I don't see how we make up the rest of the $165,000 of the bid.
But hey, what do I know. Maybe it's a real smart thing and I just can't get my brain around it.
Here's one for shifty...this should be a black hole to suck your bank account dry.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item- =2460302382&category=6315
It looks nice, but when I look at the details, it doesn't add up. First, the seller goes on about this huge restoration the car received....but look at the interior...I have seen cars in pretty sad shape with nicer innards. And when it was painted, they painted over all the nuts and bolts. That really bugs me. It's a '71 6.3 with a white steering wheel? I am pretty sure that isn't correct. The tires seem out of place on the car. On two tone cars, the hubcaps were supposed to be the same color as the roof, if I am not mistaken. This leads me to believe the colors are not original. Pinstripes? no. The engine looks really nice nice, but no old MB have a hood pad like that. It also looks like it is probably wearing fresh engine dressing. "hydraulic air lift suspension"? I don't even want to know. I also think the radio is too new for the car. I find it odd that a "famed restoration house" could get so many details wrong. I have to be skeptical...this is why I like original cars. I liked this car a lot when I first saw it (mainly for the colors and the outward appearance), but I would be leery now.
I'm not sure I get the connection between the car looking like "Miss America" and yet exhibiting the defects it does. It's like Miss America but now she's 54 years old, has a gap in her teeth and her dress is ripped. Her crown is a bit old and tarnished it seems.
His dream of $20,000 high retail is absurd. I've seen perfect 6.3s sell for much less. Value? $,8600-$9,500 should be plenty to get the job done. I see an easy $3,500 in work to be done to make it right and I'm not even there looking at it.!
This is still about the most beautiful 6.3 I have ever seen
http://www.dhc.net/~pmhack/mercedes/6-3693.htm
I'd rather have a W112 300SE LWB though, to be honest.
The radio should be a Becker with push buttons I think.
I drove one of these cars for 6 months when I worked for Benz, but when I needed repairs I just dropped it off at the Technical School and didn't pay for it.
Mr. Shiftright, if I were to get one of those '90s 300Ds, would I have to look for the usual bad points that plagued the E-Class of that era?
That car should be okay. They are very economical and have 121 HP. Not a speed demon but better than the old 300s.
I can tell the stereo in my 126 is low end (Becker Grand Prix and all), but I don't have many gripes about the HVAC, save for the un-intuitiveness of the setup. The AC works well, the windows clear off fine if they fog up, the car heats up well in the cold...although you can tell it is working, not a silent system.
Easily Restorable? Maybe if your name happens to be Rockefeller or you are some kind of Enron/Halliburton crook. Looks like this car needs *everything*...a real shame, it must have been a beauty when new, wide whites and all
Lowrider fintail
And the price is still too steep
This is pretty cool...I've never seen one before
Feeling lucky?
Wow, look at that front end. I wonder what those
Woodlights are worth. Please don't rod it
For Andre
Clone of my first car, same colors, year, and model
My dad would go nuts over this, so maybe that's where I get my unusual taste in cars
300d Adenauer --
Don't you just love statements like this?
"Even though this car does not run; the engine turns over very easily, so getting it to run should be effortless"
So WHY didn't he make the effortless effort, the world wants to know!
Let's see here...we got a car that looks like a pile of bolts left in an alley by a dumptruck, and on the other end, a nice #2 Adenauer really clean, all sorted and running like a Swiss watch is worth maybe $20,000 on the right day in the right place to that special someone.
So then, can we get from THAT to the above for $20,000? Impossible.
This is a parts car. Engine should go in a deserving cabriolet version.
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Matra --- This car is an odd duck, hard to value, but since prices are set by supply and demand, the Djet has a pretty good supply (oddly enough they are always popping up) and about as much demand as Enron stock. Given the current bid of some $6K, and with the car needing a complete going over, I can't see the buyer coming out on the other end, except bottoms up. I don't think these cars can pull over $15K even nice and running. But maybe in France they would be worth more and perhaps that's where it will go, with the Euro being so strong and the dollar weak--so every car a Frenchman buys in the US gives him an immediate 25% discount or so.
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Fiat Brava---hmmmm....selling the car with an extra cylinder head and a fuel injection system ripped out of another car does not inspire confidence. What is the seller trying to tell us here? And rust, and frozen a/c compressor and...blah blah....opening bid is high enough. You'd have to be pretty brava yourself to buy this car.
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Ford Courier Wagon:
Big fat American wagons from the 60s are really, really hot right now, although the hottest ones are not these strippers, but rather the luxo-barges. Still, someone could fix this up (eventually) and it would make a very cool tow car for the race track. I think the bidding shows the true value, and perhaps is a bit generous, but no great harm done.
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Morris: I agree, about $78 is current market valule. I bet his neighbors are out in front of his house right now with pitchforks and torches. I wouldn't take this wreck unless you gave it to me filled with quarters.
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Fintail lowrider: One has to raise one's eyes to heaven, hands outstretched, and cry into the cruel dark night...why? WHY? This looks like one of those deals where a bunch of guys are hanging around in the garage, having too many beers and then someone says: "Hey, why don't we....."
I'd hate to think how sluggish a 130 hp 318-2bbl would be in that car, though! By that time, I believe they were also slipping tall 2.26:1 rear-ends in them, although they'd change first and second gear to compensate somewhat.
The best thing in that Adenauer I can see is the radio, those are still worth a few hundred bucks. Otherwise...parts car for sure. Look at the rust on the lower parts of the doors. Bad news.
That fintail is sad, looks to be a mint original car that was screwed up.
In 1991 my dad dragged home a non-running 1960 Ford Country Sedan with 33K on the clock that he bought for $350. He traced the problem back to a faulty coil, and it started right up when replaced. The car was red and white, with a matching interior, and it was really clean, very little rust and the paint rubbed out beautifully. He drove it for a year, and then sold it for about 10 times his purchase price when other projects piled up. He still talks about that car. 1960 is a hard model year to find, low production and heavy, so they were scrapped. I've never been in a car that got so many looks and compliments/comments. People loved it.
I'd like to go back in time to around 1984 and get my friend's mom's car for you, Andre. They had a really high model Mirada, T-tops, special wheels, etc. It was white, and was immaculate. I've never seen another like it.
Strangely, there's someone near me who drives TWO 1960 Fords regularly, a mid-level sedan and a two-door Ranch Wagon, both are in pretty good shape.
There used to be a Fiat Brava wagon kicking around here up until a few years ago. I bet there aren't more than a few of those left.
The watch face is a fintail instrument cluster...cool
Parked right at the back door of a farmhouse was a 1950s Jaguar sports car, complete with wire wheels and fender-mounted mirrors. The body was primer gray, and a tarp covered the passenger compartment. It looked as though it was waiting for the restoration to begin.
On I-81, I passed one of those huge GMC motorhomes from the mid-1970s...it still looked better (and more modern) than the motorhomes sold today.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&cate- gory=6315&item=2458916593