Project Cars--You Get to Vote on "Hold 'em or Fold 'em"

doohickie

I'm a Dart fan, but that one should be folded. The rust is two severe (the rear quarter panel looks to be at least 30% bondo!) And is that sunroof OEM? :P

andre1969

any other opinions on my poor, tortured beast? I know that it's not worth restoring, at least not to me. But to some other brave soul, it might be. And if nothing else, at least it could serve as a good donor car.

Doohickie, actually that rear quarter is 0% bondo. It did have bondo, but back in late '96 the rust started coming back through (leak in the trunk, otherwise it would've held much longer). I finally got fed up with it, and got some big tin snips out of my granddad's garage, knocked out all the bondo and cut away as much of the rust as I could. Then I found some aluminum and bent it into shape as best I could, shoved it up in there, and pop-rivited it into place! If nothing else, it won't rust out again! :P Since then, the rust has broken out some over the top of the rear wheel opening, and another part started blossoming when a chunk of paint got chipped off and I let it sit exposed too long before painting over it. Back then, I was working two jobs trying to get rid of the massive debt that a bad marriage left me with, so I didn't have the money to get it fixed right.

I've seen entire rear quarter panels for the '67-69 Dart for like $250.00. But then, of course, you have to either put it on yourself, or pay someone to do it, and that's where the real expense comes in.

When I do call this guy back, I think I'm just going to tell him to make me a reasonable offer, and see what happens. And now that I thnk about it, there's a guy at work who's into Darts, and has been looking for an 8 3/4 rear end (nowadays they're pretty hard to find for the A-body). Maybe I could see if he'd be interested in buying it?

andre1969

I have no idea how old it is. I bought the car in 1992, and the guy who had it before me (I'm the 3rd owner, AFAIK) told me it was on there when he bought it. I forget how long he had it now, though. Still, I'm guessing it must be about 20 years old. As far as aftermarket sunroofs go, they actually didn't do a bad job putting it in. I've seen better jobs, sure, but I've also seen far worse!

doohickie

it was aftermarket. The first sunroofs offered as a factory option was on the 68 Cougar. I used to work for the company that made those sunroofs.

andre1969

I just found this http://baltimore.craigslist.org/car/85600646.html on Craigslist. Last thing I need is another boat, and this one ain't in the best shape, but I always was a sucker for a nice shade of green! So what do y'all think? Is this one worth a grand?

Now that I think about it, would Craigslist be a good place to try and list my Dart?

fintail

Craigslist is awesome. The price is right too. I sold some junk on there before I moved, great deal. You should list it there.

I dunno about that Caddy, though

Here's a nicer one from Craigslist that isn't much more dough

andre1969

it's amazing sometimes when you look around, how you can find the same car that's tons nicer, for really not a lot more. Okay, on one end you're looking at $2700 versus $1000, which is a 270% price increase. But there's no way in hell you could spend $1700 on the $1K car and get it as nice as the $2700 one!

The $1K car is a coupe, but by this time I don't think that means much. It's not like we're talking '57 Chevies or anything! And truth be told, once you get to this era I think I like the sedans a bit better, anyway!

ghulet

....maybe I just drive people around too much, but I'd take a sedan over a coupe in almost any case, save for someone giving me a collectible (that '57 Chevy is a good example). I would love to have a nice, old four-door hardtop; they're getting hard to find....check out how many Caprice sedans, for example, are still out there verus the coupes; prices are a lot lower, too.

I have a bit of a soft spot for those late '70s Cadillacs; when I was a kid, my best friend's dad was a GM exec, so he constantly had fancy new GM cars, one of which was a '77 Fleetwood, brown with tan leather, IIRC, and a factory astro roof. That was definitely one of my favorite cars. I remember him also having a late '70s Vette briefly (which didn't impress me, strangely), a silver (w/burgandy leather) '79ish Toronado, a white Eldorado and finally an '82 or so blue with the nicest blue velour I've ever seen Buick Park Avenue. I definitely had car envy, considering we usually had some beater or other at the time.

fintail

I prefer sedans too. I do haul junk or people now and then, and it's so much easier. As you mention, they can be rarer too, like 220SE fintails vs coupes and cabrios.

I think that blue Fleetwood could be a good deal...I mean, what else can you get for that money

ghulet

....as a vacation car, as long as you're not too worried about gas mileage (which, admittedly, isn't anywhere near as bad as the older--472/500 c.i.--Cadillacs). Very comfy, lots of power and room. I can't imagine it as a daily driver, it would suffer from the use and, again, at $2.60 a gallon, I'd want something stingier with fuel.

Mr_Shiftright

I think 70s Cadillacs are extremely unpleasant to drive. There's no control. I'd be white knuckling it all day. But maybe to drive to the doctor's office in Miami Beach, hey, why not? :P

andre1969

that I'd really love to have would be a '77-78 Catalina with a 400 or 403. Back in high school, my senior English teacher had a 2-tone burgundy-over-red '78 Catalina 4-door with a 403 that she wanted to sell. Only wanted $500 for it, and it looked like it was in fine shape. Just a big old car that nobody wanted anymore. Needless to say, my family wouldn't let me buy it! :mad:

Ooh, it just hit me, that with the Caddies we were talking about, it didn't register with me that the sedan was a Fleetwood and the coupe was just a DeVille. Again, by this time, I doubt that in and of itself would affect value much, but I'd much rather have Fleetwood!

I used to prefer coupes to sedans, because I'd actually find them easier to get into! I know most people say sedans are, but think about it. If you're tall, wouldn't a bigger opening be easier to get into than a smaller one? Also, with most sedans, the B-pillar is about even with my head when I'm in the seat, so that hampers my view out to the side. I haven't driven a coupe on a regular basis now in about 8 years, though, so between a '79 Newport, '89 Gran Fury, '00 Intrepid, and '79 New Yorker, I guess I've gotten used to the "sedan feel".

bumpy

"Also, with most sedans, the B-pillar is about even with my head when I'm in the seat, so that hampers my view out to the side."

That's one of the reasons I prefer sedans. I can look through the window in the rear door of a sedan to check my blind spot, but on coupes the B-pillar is in the way. Now, that is on small cars; land barges might be different.

Mr_Shiftright

This car might flip for a small profit if you were careful:

http://www.craigslist.org/sby/car/86616637.html

Not a high demand car however. Gee, after 32 years, you'd think this "classic" would be worth something....but alas, supply and demand sets the price....

Easy to buy, hard to sell...but $500 in down and dirty upholstery work and a ferocious detailing (presuming everything else works) and you could pocket $1,000 profit.

HERE'S ANOTHER:

No profit here but you could offer $1,950, cover the interior in sheep skins ($300), replace the brake pressure switch (this always goes out, there are 2 X $45= $90) and the AC, well, that could be ver-y pricey.

But clean Porsche V8 power for $2,500?? Best deal in town if the car doesn't break.

http://www.craigslist.org/sby/car/85073625.html

fintail

Those coupes really carry a low value...probably the only case where a 2 door HT carries a very minimal premium over the sedan. The seats in 70s MB tend to get that way too...the stuffing somehow deflates, and then the seat covering gets loose and baggy (look at that back seat), and falls apart with use. I've seen it a lot, esp on 116s. A good car to drive, but not to seek a profit.

Maybe it's the era. Period 450SLs are still falling in price, SLCs are worth even less, and only the mintest 116s are worth anything. Yet the 114 and 115 sedans have been steady, if not cheap.

That Porsche looks like a pretty good deal. A once exotic and still eyecatching car for the price of a worn Neon.

Mr_Shiftright

Yeah there's a lot of bang for the buck out there if you are cautious and knowledgable I think.

Those old German seats have that horsehair in them (or something similar) and they get hard as a rock. But you can fix that easily.

fintail

When I was a kid I really liked the 928. I'd stil be afraid to buy one now though...I can't get another car unless I can use it as my daily driver, and I am sure the maintenance in a 928 makes a normal MB look like a Honda.

My fintail has seats stuffed with a kind of laminated straw or something...people who joke with me about the car call it hay. It's still pretty cushiony, but I think this material aged inconsistently. Great seats...big, squashy yet supportive.

Mr_Shiftright

I remember when I worked for Benz that Americans buying a Benz for the first time REALLY complained that the seats were too hard and the ride was too harsh. It must have been a shock for an American car driver to actually point a car in a certain direction in 1975 and actually have it go that way.... :P Many didn't like it. They felt that a "luxury" car should be soft...which of course is the antithesis of a Benz or the German philosophy of car design. You didn't see too many Benzes done in pastels with throw pillows--LOL!

fintail

I bet that happened a lot. Something like a 220SE fintail, which cost as much as a Caddy when new, is a completely different experience. It's relatively loud, has a firm ride, clunky transmission, most had no AC, power accessories not even an option, an engine you have to rev to get anything out of, and semi-bizarre styling. But...it would handle.

andre1969

is that the hardtop just looks too much like an afterthought. While the domestics usually designed the coupes and hardtops first, with the sedans being more of an afterthought, with Benz it often seemed to be just the opposite! Now Benz always did their little 2-seater convertibles well, but it just seemed like with the bigger 4-seaters, the coupes didn't work out. They did start coming out with some beautiful hardtops in the 80's though, and continue to this day.

As for seats, one area where Benz tended to excel was contouring. The seats may have been hard, but when you take corners a bit too fast, at least they'll keep you planted. With a lot of domestics, you just sat on a flat seat surface with no side bolstering, and it would throw you in the curves.

fintail

That's true too. All of those MB coupes have been afterthoughts of sedans. From the pontons of the 50s to the E class of the 80s , they are all sedan (or roadster, as in the SLC) based and were introduced a couple years after the sedans. Some worked better than others, like the 126 hardtops.

andre1969

that I think came off pretty classy...

They did a much better job with the hardtop roofline, especially around the C-pillar area on this one.

I don't think Benz was the only one that sometimes had trouble with a coupe style, though. I always thought those Jag XJC's were just a bit awkward.



Now it's not ugly, not by a long shot, but it just doesn't seem as well thought-out as the sedan version.

fintail

That MB is the fintail based coupe, so it has a lot going for it LOL. That thing had a 10 year production run, remarkable as it was 1961-1971.

The Jag is more of a 2 door sedan than a coupe, IMO. It's really a short-roofed sedan with 2 less doord. From what I know they were poor sellers.

Mr_Shiftright

What spoils the coupes I think is that high grille. If you look at a low grille 70-71 3.5 V8 Coupe it is a much prettier car. Those old coupes look like a chrome dog kennel staring at you---too much for the body style, more suited to an upright and stately 4-door I think.

lemko

In 1942, Reinhardt Heydrich of the SS died as a result of a partisan attack while riding in his Mercedes touring car. He survived the attack but died a few days later of infection. The infection was caused by the horsehair seat stuffing of his Mercedes getting in the wounds from the attack.

fintail

Here's a low grille Cabrio. It does work better on this car, the grille is the same height as the light clusters, it's much smoother.

Cool story about that [non-permissible content removed] guy, looks like horsehair did a good deed.

andre1969

I still think I like the older, taller grille better. Just something more handsome about it, to me, at least. The low grille's still attractive, though.

fintail

I think the high grille is more stately. I think it depends on the image you want for the car. The low grille is seen as sporty and really only came into existence for the V8 cars, and was only used on 2 door cars. Low grille cars carry a marked price premium over high grille cars, too.

Mr_Shiftright

It's a bit subtle to appreciate the difference in photographs, but if you saw a high grille and low grille side by side in real life, I believe you'd get the impression that the low grille makes for a sleeker more modern car in the coupe or convertible renditions.

That's correct---buyers will pay a substantial premium for a low grille car.

fintail

And there was no low grille sedan, which I find odd...they could have put it on the V8 cars or even the 6.3 to differentiate it. But maybe the sedans weren't supposed to look so sleek.

I think this car could have pulled off a low grille too. It's a fintail replacement prototype from around 1963. I guess even styling-clueless MB realized that fins were passe almost from the day the fintails hit the road...but they didn't do much about it. Very elegant, with the coupe rear end.

andre1969

is that that high grille, IMO at least, looks really good when looking down on the car, as many of these pics are taken. Maybe up close and in person I'd feel differently, though? But then again, I like the earlier models that still had the little fins on 'em, too! Those rumps just look a bit naked without them! :shades:

fintail

Maybe the high grille makes it look boxier to some





And I like the fins too. However, MB didn't seem to realize that a car styled in 1957/58 would be out of date in 1960





And to be on topic a little...that fintail was a bit of a project car when I bought it. Very sound body and cosmetics, but it was an oil burner. I bought it for $1500...a couple years later put about double that into the engine...and the rest is history. It was too nice to 'fold em',

Mr_Shiftright

If you have a really really nice body and interior, almost any car is worth saving (presuming the price is right). But when the body is distressed and the interior looks like it was attacked by crazed weasels, you are so far behind already that the prospect of still having to do mechanical work is very daunting.

I know, someone would point at some wreck and say "But it's a '57 Chevy!" and I would have to say "No, it USED to be a '57 Chevy".

lemmer

I think this guy had his buddies send in some of the questions about this Porsche. I wouldn't pay anywhere near the current high bid. And yes, it is an Alabama car.

Mr_Shiftright

The questions are hilarious. The people are either total shills or complete idiots. The car is junk, it's not even worth...well, it's not worth anything.....parts maybe, bits and pieces....amazing display of chicanery and gullibility.

Take it to the crusher and do Porsche a favor.

lemmer

And what does he mean that he hasn't tried to start the car? Don't you just stick in the key and turn it and it starts or not?

I think he means the car won't start but he hasn't done any troubleshooting. Or even more likely, I think he means that if he ignores the health of the engine he can represent it as a newly rebuilt engine in great condition, but he can't guarantee this because he supposedly hasn't tried to start the car.

qbrozen

yeah, i was wondering the same thing. How can you buy a car and never even give the key a turn? Like you suggested, I also think he really is trying to say "i never tried," just so he doesn't have to explain the horrible results.

"hey, there's no bottom end to this engine!"

"oh, well, i told you i never tried to start it, so how would I know?"

Mr_Shiftright

Engine looks like a pile of junk, too. The whole car stinks to high heaven and so does the description.

fintail

Those questions have to be shills. How many cylinders does it have? Could it be worth 100K? Give me a break. Parts car.

andys120

I'm curious as to whether the "market" is poor for them vis-avis standard bodied 911s in equal condition.

Mr_Shiftright

It's not even a real slant-nose conversion---it's some kind of bogus kit-thing. Real slant noses are very intricate conversions, often made of metal, beautifully done, and they sure don't have beady-little Japanese headlights and cracking fiberglass panels bolted on by blind men.

This car is such a joke and such a gross misrepresentation I would SERIOUSLY suggest jail time for the seller.

gsemike

Q - Will this car go 1 million miles per hour?
A - Since I never started it, I don't know but I bet it could

Q - This car has some amazing mods. How much faster is it since you took the carpet out?
A - That mod is good for at least 10 hp

Q - Will you take 20 grand for it, if I let you sleep with my wife?
A - Send me a pic and we can talk but it will probably take at least $25k

Q - Only $8,500???????? Are you my guardian angel??????????
A - I am your guardian angel and I would neeeeeeeeeeeever rip you off.

Mr_Shiftright

Saaaay, are you SURE you didn't write that guy's ad? :P

lemmer

Did you notice that the high bidder has 0 feedback and registered on ebay a week ago? I think his shill bidder bid one time too many.

Mr_Shiftright

I'm tellin' ya, every red flag in my brain is going off here....

oregonboy

Here's an interesting twist on an auction:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&category=6458&item=456412958- 4

"If you bid on it before you see the car,I will cancell your bid!!!" :P

james

Mr_Shiftright

You might come out even on this one, maybe kinda:

http://www.craigslist.org/eby/car/87129106.html

and another you want to run away from screaming:

http://www.craigslist.org/nby/car/87089068.html

ghulet

....school is 'closein' Auto Shop, huh (and this revelation comes at the end of July, no less)? Can't imagine why; I think he needs to take third grade English more than any shop class. That's nice, he needs the money for his 4-H, alrighty. Seriously, I wonder how many clapped out '70s Mush-stangs have been a.) owned by teenage dufuses, b.) used as projects for Auto Shop, only to be c.) gone begging by order of parents who don't want their property looking like a set from Hee Haw.

I like that Corvette ad, the one that specifically says 'no parts missing' next to the picture of the dash with the big hole where the radio should be. Still, probably the only running Corvette one can get for $4k, and it looks certainly faded but at least not messed with too much. Of course, '74 is about the low point for almost any marque including Corvette, so I guess the prices is about right.

gsemike

Was the school closing, or did they ask him not to return and take his crapbox Mustang with him? At least it's good to see a young guy working some Detroit iron. It seems like every kid is all fast and the furious these days.

74 is nothing special for the Vette, but if you invest wisely in a modest paint job and other refreshing without doing a total resto, that could be a nice driver. Only thing is, did every set of aluminum slots end up on 74 Vettes?

Mr_Shiftright

I liked the part about "400-500 HP"

You know, SOMEWHERE in there....I guess maybe the dyno needle was bouncing around a lot? :P

Getting 500HP out of a 351 is not going to be exactly cheap. Is that flywheel HP, wheel HP or decal HP?