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

hpmctorque

Wait! Wasn't the Cougar more upscale, and, therefore, more expensive than the Mustang?

andre1969

Wait, did we not already discuss this one a few weeks back? Whew, that sheer volume of parts is just overwhelming. I would take the dogs, though.

Yeah, I saw that ad a couple weeks ago, but at the time, I thought it was in Minnesota? How'd it get to Vermont? :confuse: A couple years back, I checked into having my house moved back further from the road, and got an estimate of $25,000. I'd imagine moving a junkyard 1000+ miles would cost a bit more.

andre1969

Wait! Wasn't the Cougar more upscale, and, therefore, more expensive than the Mustang?

Yeah, the Cougar was a more upscale, expensive car than the Mustang when new, but by the mid/late 80's, the Mustang was a really hot item, more coveted, and probably brought a much higher price. Cougars were probably just considered old cars, which meant you could get a lot more car for your money.

seminole_kev

Yep, I'll back Andre on that. I remember looking at some of those in the late 80's, and basically (for my then poor self)

67-69 Camaro's - yeah right. Dream on. Way too pricey
65-68 Mustangs - for regular models, they had not gotten out of hand just yet. Were cheaper by a couple grand at least than the Camaros.
Cougars were affordable. I've always liked the styling and the price was better than the Camaro or Mustang. Almost bought one, but found a 66 Mustang for a good price instead.

By the way, I was looking at daily drivers or worse. These were not showcar caliber conditions

qbrozen

Is it the same one? Didn't that other one include the property?? Does this one? (i didn't read it all the way through this time.)

qbrozen

i don't think he really believes it. Its like the hyundai salesman telling you the sonata is a sports sedan.

qbrozen

anybody watching the auction this year?

Its kinda become a joke, frankly. Every car that comes up, I think of what it might be worth, then add about 25%. Sure enough ...

My wife beat me on one last night. It was, I believe, a '71 280SL (definitely a 280, but I might be a year or 2 off). Anyway, it wasn't a showcar by any means. The seats were original and they showed it. The headlight lenses were yellowing. The paint looked real good, though. Anyway, she says $60k. I said she was out of her mind. Its ONLY a 280. Well, guess what? the FIRST bid was $50K!!! I know it went up to $55 before I got distracted, so I'm not sure the final, but she was definitely close.

Oh, and then there was the '76 Eldorado convertible. IIRC, that finished up around $26k. Also unrestored. Good grief!! I gotta tell that one to my FIL who is holding onto his nice unrestored '74 Eldo coupe because he hasn't been able to get his $6k asking for it.

210delray

Yes, this one in VT includes the property, including the house of course, which the owner claims was built in the late 1700s.

Mr_Shiftright

Well you can take many of those auction prices with a barrel of salt...you have a lot of things going on there...one, phoney bids (chandelier bids where an auction employee bids a car but under the unrealistic reserve set by the seller. This way the auction company gets its entrance fee for a car that can't possibly sell but it doesn't look like a dead item where nobody bids---very bad image for the auction).

Then you have bids where the owner buys his own car back on a no reserve (and only pays a small commission for the privilege).

Then you have the case of a bidding war between two large egos.

Then you have bidders who are drunk.

And sometimes you have a bid that does indicate a trend.

But only a fool pays $55K for a 280SL that isn't Pebble Beach perfect.

I feel certain I could deliver truckfuls of very nice, no questions 280SLs to you in the $$30,000--$40,000 range all the day long and into the night.

Quite often you will see this "overbid" cars at another auction for 60-70% of the price paid at the glam auction...I track VIN numbers and I've seen this many times.

Auctions are seductive, especially this one. You're on TV, and other people are (supposedly) real bidders driving the price up, so they can't be crazy, right? Right.

Also keep in mind that some bidders might be European, and they are paying in American freshly printed funny money, which means they must be making 25% discount for their Euro conversion I would guess.

andre1969

that went for a ridiculous amount was a 1977 Pontiac Can Am. It went for something like $23,000, but in its defense it only had something like 4500 miles on it, and was probably the nicest remaining Can Am in the world.

I guess when you have something that's ultra nice and ultra-low miles, it'll command a premium no matter what it is. Still, I doubt your run of the mill Can Am is going to fetch nearly that price.

fintail

I just like the pics

Mr_Shiftright

Some of the B-J cars are extraordinary restorations. Some of this old American iron never looked so good. I've seen some big block cars with restoration bills well over $100,000.

So you can't compare a $100K++ resto of a Hemi 'cuda with a clean '66 Hemi Plymouth Belvedere. "Hemi" ain't enough---it's the car it's in and the quality of the restoration.

As for a 280SL, there's also a world of difference between an 'auction freshening" restoration of a '69 280SL painted brown, and a nut and bolt restoration of a '71 280SL with the rare 5-speed transmission done in silver.

Same basic car, THREE times the value!!

Last of all, one auction doesn't make a market.

michaellno

That 280SL sold for over $61K.

You can see all the sales results from the auction at this website.

xwesx

Nope, same location. Calais, Vermont. Unless I was looking at it on a different forum, but my breadth is rather limited so I would be surprised if that was the case.

No matter, really. Always fun to take a second look.

fintail

Geez, I bet I could get 15K for my fintail there

qbrozen

Man, the choices of cars this year is really bizarre.
http://www.barrett-jackson.com/carlist/cardetails.asp?In_AuctionID=221&In_LotNum- - ber=14

Did they turn NOBODY away this year?

I'm not saying its not a nice truck ... but its an '80 Dodge!

Oh, another one that cracked me up last night was an absolute top-tier restoration (and tasteful modification) of a Thing. I think that also got somewhere around $26k. That HAD to cost way more to bring it to that standard, though, so I think the buyer got a good deal ... if you look at it a certain way.

xwesx

Hahahaha... oh yeah! That one is a real beauty! Looks like some punk just walking along the street, snapped a few photos of a random vehicle, and then posted an ad for it. Hahaha.

Fun little vans though. A friend of mine has one. I have always had a soft spot for vans, though.

qbrozen

here it is:
http://www.barrett-jackson.com/carlist/cardetails.asp?In_AuctionID=221&In_LotNum- ber=406

I think they are showing the results on their site WITH the buyer premium. So I guess the Thing sold for $29k. That makes it $31,900 with the 10% premium.

au1994

Say what you want about the nature of the bidding, and I'm sure Shifty is dead on in his assesments, I thin its still great TV.

Where else can you pile up on the couch and watch beautiful cars stream by for hours? Some of the commentary is interesting as well.

And I will be the first to admit, I get into the bidding when the cars break the century mark. Saturday night is usually the best. Thats when they save their big ticket cars and you'll see the bid cross the million dollar mark.

Mr_Shiftright

But gee, what can you buy these days for only $31K?...oh, an Evo X, supercharged Mini, Mazda3speed, Miata, etc......

andre1969

and even better, that 1980 Dodge truck has a slant six! I can't even begin to imagine how something like that would perform with an automatic transmission and 85 horsepower! Heck, by that time, I don't think you could even count on the slant six for much torque anymore. I want to say it was down to around 160 ft-lb by then?

Now I could see it being desireable if it was one of those Warlocks with the copcar 440, or the Lil Red Express with the copcar 360.

And wow, they were still building pickup trucks with wooden bed floors in 1980? :surprise:

andre1969

I kinda like this 1987 Cutlass Salon coupe:
http://www.barrett-jackson.com/carlist/cardetails.asp?In_AuctionID=221&In_LotNum- ber=7
Think if I offered them $2500 they'd take it? Heck I'd go as high as $3K if it was really nice.

I wish someone would point out to these people that once a car gets to a certain mileage, it's no longer "low mileage", no matter how many miles per year it calculates out to! I think if I ever try to sell my '68 Dart, I'm going to stress the fact that it was only driven an average of 8666 miles per year! :P

au1994

Not to sound like a Barrett-Jackson appologist, but I belive the reason you are seeing some the the items like the 6 cyl Dodge and the Cutlass, is that they made a consious effort to bring more cars to more people by adding the Tuesday sales and earmarking cars that are more "affordable".

Now whether or not they sell for an "affordable" price is at the whim of the auction, truly a free market economy if there ever was one.

Mr_Shiftright

It's kind of the same argument as to whether real estate agents drive up the price of houses by middling.

Well looking at the bright side of this madness, lots of restoration people are getting work selling goods and services.

qbrozen

oh, don't get me wrong. I think its great that they have more affordable cars. But it seems to me they still have an elitist attitude ... or maybe its just the TV advertisements that portray them that way.

In any case, it would be nice to actually see these bargains cross during televised times ... but I guess that doesn't exactly drive viewership, huh?

they are only hurting themselves, in my opinion. I'm surprised, actually, that those "lower-end" cars got the money they did. I mean, their attendance has gone through the roof due to the TV show ... but if you believe the TV show only, BJ ONLY has $50k+ cars (i know, there are a few that cross lower than that, but you get my meaning). So I would thing the number of people attending who actually want a relatively cheap vehicle would be extremely few.

au1994

It's just the ad's. Which is going to draw more people's interest: A run of the mill Mustang being hammered for 11k or a 1 off concept car form the 50's going ofr 3 mill?

seminole_kev

Well this one needs a respray, but has low miles and looks like all the bits are intact. Price is great....

Linky

qbrozen

you tease

seminole_kev

Well it needs some work, so it is a dinky project car :P

texases

Most reliable Jag you'll find...

seminole_kev

lol texases!

Well it does look like it needs some new tires. I wouldn't take it out on the highway with those that are on now ;-)

isellhondas

Andre,

I spent 20 minutes looking at all of that stuff and I kept thinking what a perfect partner you would be!

I can't imagine doing an inventory of that!

andre1969

Heck, if I had enough money that I could afford to take on something like a junkyard for fun (and not care if it ended up being not profitable), I'd go for it in a heartbeat!

I can't get a lot of the pictures to come up, unfortunately. He mentions in the description that there are two Hemi DeSotos in that mess. Any idea on the years? I remember the last time that ad was posted, there was a '57-58 Dodge sedan, dark blue, partly obscured by an evergreen tree. Isn't there a rusty 1977 Can Am in there somewhere, too?

Mr_Shiftright

Well nobody's going to give you serious money without an inventory...try to sell a stamp collection like that, but put each stamp in a different room and hide it under a pile of rubble.

qbrozen

what gets me is how serious the writeup is. they talk about a business plan, $10 million, etc, etc.

ummmm... so if its all so easy, hire someone to run it, like you would a store and make all that juicy profit yourself! [and, yes, the answer here is that they are simply full of it]

Mr_Shiftright

I mean, look at this pile of debris...what serious businessman would have such an inventory in this kind of condition? This is an eccentric pack-rat masquerading as a businessman. And who leaves valuable merchandise to sit outside and rot?

People like this kind of tick me off actually :surprise:

210delray

He must have OCD in the form of compulsive hoarding. In high school, a friend and I went to a teacher's home once, and you could barely walk through the place because of papers stacked up everywhere.

Now if he also had perfectionist OCD, then he'd have an inventory, everything would be neatly arranged by year, make, model, engine, etc., and all of the cars would be properly covered.

I mean, even that semi-decent '69 Caprice is slowly getting buried in pine needles.

And why in heaven's name did he stack cars on top of one another like cordwood?

fintail

Dreamer of the day

Mr_Shiftright

He's gonna be singing happy birthday to that car each and every year from now on at that price. Looks like about $1,500 to me.

texases

Yep, newer ones with half the miles are selling for half the price (Ebay)

fintail

I've always kind of liked '60 Ford styling in a twisted way...probably because my dad rescued one when I was a teenager, and it was a fun car

This is a little high, but it's unusual anyway. I've never seen those bumper guards before. Odd styling...heavy cues of German Fords that would be seen soon after, and even a hint of the 61 Continental in those sharp fender edges.

boomchek

The guy is out to lunch. Especially with that mileage and with all the work that still need to be done. The only way he could get close to what he wants for it is if this would be a 50k mile car in perfect shape.

Some people don't realize that the money they put in to keep a car in running condition will not increase the car in value by that amount.

isellhondas

There must be zero zoning rules where that junkyard is. Can you imagine the amount of oil and antifreeze is in the ground?

And SIX German Shepards!

Mr_Shiftright

He's asking #3 money for a #4 car. Try $2,500, take $2,250.

isellhondas

Those bumper guards were probably something aftermarket. I've never seen them either. We used to call things like that "Mickey Mouse"...right, Joe?

Mr_Shiftright

I don't know what to make of those things.

fintail

yeah that sounds right...and if that 390 burns gas like my old Galaxie did, that car would be no fun.

I would have thought factory bumper guards for that car would have been on the bumper. Still, something you don't see often. Those cars were very wide and heavy, and I am sure they rusted fast, so junkyards must have loved them.

british_rover

Be interesting to see what this does at BJ...

Defender

stickguy

haven't been that many interesting items, at least while I was watching.

But ANdre must be very proud, since as of EOD Friday, the high seller is a Desoto! Wonder what kind of odds you could have gotten on that?

I did see a '73 Vette that went for mid teens (nicely restored), and a 1970 Z-28 clone, super clean, for 18K that I would have liked to own. And a bunch of CHevy SS's that went for crazy money.

ALthough you aren't going to find any projects rolling across the block, just better than new cars that you can't actually drive.

Mr_Shiftright

I wonder if all 9 people who like these will be there? :P