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

qbrozen

I do like that Toyota.... but for $6500?? Not bloody likely.

And just what the heck is a "lexis paintjob"??

stickguy

fiberglass does shatter. Wonder what it would look like if it had been a steel body?

Probably time to pull out the big motor and put it into a clean car. Don't think I would want to mess around with a bent frame on a car with that much HP, even if it is ovestated.

andre1969

probably means that they went down to the automotive paint store and picked out a Lexus color instead of a Toyota color. Heck, might even be the same color between both, but just called something different for each brand.

andre1969

had a '62 Corvette when I was real little, but I don't remember it. I've seen pictures, though. He hit a taxi with it. Broke out the passenger side fender and tore the fiberglass off the door. I think all it did to the taxi was break out the taillight! :surprise:

qbrozen

oh, i know, i figured that's probably what he meant. But if you are going to say something silly like that, the least he can do is spell it correctly. Geesh.

fintail

That 126 would have to be a grey market car to be an 88 500SEL. Unless you can do the work yourself or the damage is minor (timing chain can be not so bad or very bad), it's probably a parts car. It would also need to be really mint to bother with...there seems to be a lot of nice 126s out there all of a sudden

Mr_Shiftright

Toyota Sunchaser isn't worth much. Oddly enough you see them for sale more often than you'd think, and usually beat to hell. Old Japanese cars from the 80s don't wear very well. I'd say a clean un-chopped stock coupe would be worth more actually, since the chop job severely compromises the car.

Corvette: 700HP? Oh, sure.....try 450 if he did what he said he did. Too bad for the guy, though, all that work wiped out by one bonehead driver. Now you know why so many used Vipers in hemmings motor news are shown as damaged. People have to learn that HP is useless if you can't put it on the ground.

ghulet

....the engine in that Celica, while durable, isn't exactly a barn-burner. For $6500, I'd rather have a first-gen BMW 325i (heck, I could probably even get a second-gen 318i) convertible, or an Alpha, or (gasp!) a much newer Celica with a real, power convertible top and a bit more grunt. I'd say that's about a $4k car. The rarity is about the best thing it has going for it, as a car, per se, it's nothing special.

andre1969

of the old '79-83 Corolla and '79-83 200SX hardtops? Seems to me that they would've been better candidates than the Celica, since they already had roll-down rear windows and no B-pillar. Seems to me one of those would've looked much more complete. I see those Celica Sunchasers on occasion and yeah, usually all beat to hell. Wonder how hard it would be these days to get replacement top parts?

For some reason, another car that seemed popular to turn into a convertible was the 80's Cutlass Ciera and Century coupe. I've seen a few of those. I've also seen a few Monte Carlos from that era that were chopped. Oddly, the conversion seems to work on the Ciera/Century, but the Monte looks very awkward, top up or down.

Mr_Shiftright

Being "rare" isn't always an asset. Often a car is rare because nobody wanted it in the first place--hardly a collectible car.

The reason manufacturers stopped making convertibles was that nobody was buying them. There is this "fable" about them being "outlawed" or that they didn't met "federal safety standards" which is total hogwash.

What happened was much simpler----the convertible market fell apart. There were buyers, but too few to justify the expense of making these cars.

$4,000 would be more than fair, perhaps a tad generous considering what you get---a loosey-goosey, rather dull to drive, odd-looking old Japanese car.

stickguy

would that be the "Beta" model of the Alpha you would get??

ghulet

....I have seen convertible versions of both the 200SX and the '80-83 Corolla, usually in some putrid era-specific color scheme (like brown with tan vinyl interior, in both cases). Both were 'full' convertibles, as opposed to this metal basket-handle targa top 'cabrio' thing we see in that Celica. The way Japanese cars rusted back then, I don't think I'd want one with its structure compromised even more. Plus, I just had skin cancer removed, I seriously doubt I'll ever be in the market for a convertible!

andre1969

that probably killed the convertible in the 70's was the increasing popularity of air conditioning, and downsizing. Way back in 1957, for example, I think air conditioning cost about $500. That was an awful lot of money considering that a Chevy, Ford, or Plymouth usually started around $2,000, and mid-line cars like my DeSoto Firedome, about as mid-line as it gets, started around $3,000. IIRC, the base price of my hardtop DeSoto was something like $3085. A convertible might have cost around $250-300 over that, so it was cheaper to just go with a convertible than to go with air conditioning!

By the mid-late 60's though, air conditioning was down to around $350 or so. It would go up again in the 70's, but so did everything else.

As for downsizing, well a lot of pre-downsized cars weren't too space-efficient. And usually the coupes were worse than the sedans. For instance, while a '77 Caprice sedan is about as big inside as a '76 (main loss was in shoulder room), a '77 Caprice coupe is much bigger inside than a '76 (big improvement in rear seat legroom). Well, with a convertible, the top and folding mechanism pretty much made use of that wasted space...gave it someplace to tuck down inside, without giving up too much back seat room or trunk space. However, when the cars were downsized, in many cases they started making more use of that wasted space. Further, while the actual cars were smaller, the roofs were often as large or larger than the pre-downsized cars, and taller to boot, so there was still a whole lot of roof and mechanism, that had to fold down into an even smaller space.

A '75 Caprice convertible can still hold 3 people in the back seat, although legroom's a bit tight. And it still has a mammoth trunk. But if they tried to make a convertible out of a '77 Caprice coupe, the trunk capacity probably would have been reduced to about the size of a compact Nova, and the back seat would have shrunk to a two seater.

It's no coincidence that the vast majority of convertibles these days are cars that, in closed coupe form, had marginal or non-existent back seats to begin with. Nobody buys a Mustang for the back seat to begin with..it's only there to keep insurance costs down, and for an occasional third passenger. So it's really no big deal to sacrifice the back seat and trunk for a top that goes down.

As for the whole federal rollover thing, there actually is a grain of truth to that fable. The feds were PROPOSING strict new rollover standards, which the current crop of convertibles and hardtops would have been unable to meet. In anticipation of this, GM eliminated those styles from their midsized lineup when it was redesigned for 1973. Instead, they took the 2-door sedan, normally the dumpiest model in a lineup, and gave it sleeker, sportier styling. And 4-door hardtops were never popular in midsized cars anyway, so that was no big loss. GM was the only one that consistently offered that style, anyway. Ford did for like 2 years, maybe 1970-71. And Chrysler offered them around 1962-64. For the most part though, the 4-door hardtop was the domain of full-sized cars, and then mainly the pricier models.

Anywho, the rollover standards never materialized, so GM was left holding the bag. I believe that rumor also influenced the full-sized cars a bit, too. For '75-76 the big C-body coupes lost their pillarless styling altogether, going for the opera window look. And in '74, the Buick/Olds/Pontiac B-bodies went to a different type of hardtop coupe roofline, that had a smaller roll-down window and fixed triangular window in the C-pillar.

The hardtop is another style that was pretty much killed by downsizing, although it was gradually phasing out, anyway. Most of the downsized cars had more glass area, which would mean a larger window to roll down. Back then it was rare to get a back window to roll down all the way even with a sedan with a quarter window in the door...a hardtop would've been almost impossible to do.

Mr_Shiftright

Andre, you are too kind to GM, you should get a job in buffing up their corporate image, money well spent for them---when was the last time GM ever "anticipated" a federal regulation and acted beforehand? They have always been dragged kicking and screaming to comply with ANY regulation from the government. I can't recall one single instance of GM introducing anything pre-emptively in safety or emissions. They even fought the PCV valve tooth and nail in the 1960s.

Like we used to say in the 1980s -- "when the Feds came out with a new regulations, Honda called its engineers and GM called its lawyers."

andre1969

to be kind to GM, but just stating facts, or at least, what I've read in the past from various sources (Consumer Guide, Collectible Automobile, etc). I mean, c'mon, I'm not just going to make something like that up!

Besides, wouldn't it be more my character to apologize for something stupid that Chrysler did, than GM? :P Maybe Lemko can take that PR job for GM. :shades:

Plus, GM rushed a lot of stuff to the market in the 1970's, which is one reason why a lot of it didn't work right...it was rushed! The Olds Diesel, the Pontiac 301 V-8 (weighed less than some 6-cyl blocks, pretty efficient, but prone to early self destruction), the lightweight THM200C transmission, the V-8-6-4, the Vega aluminum 4-cyl, the 231 V-6 (similar problems as the Pontiac 301...too lightweight and fragile).

GM was also pretty quick to the market with 4-speed overdrive transmission, bringing one out in 1981. It was a year after Ford, though. Chrysler wouldn't have one until 1989, though. I don't think GM had a 4-speed FWD tranny until 1984 though, and Ford wouldn't have one until the 1986 Taurus. The Japanese were a bit late in coming out with their own 4-speed trannies, but once they did, they made the switchover quicker, offering them in even the more basic cars. In contrast, Chrysler wouldn't start putting a 4-speed in it's compact Neon until 2002...and by that time, 5-speeds were starting to gain in popularity!

andre1969

what about those airbags GM was experimenting around with in the 70's? It's a shame they never caught on. IMO they weren't that expensive. Around 1975, a dual airbag system cost something like $335. It was actually more expensive to add fuel injection to a '75 DeVille than it was airbags!

andre1969

of aftermarket convertibles, one of the prettiest ones from those dark disco days that I remember seeing was an early 80's Dodge Mirada that a local dealership had on their lot back in the early 90's. It was a midnight blue, and memory's getting fuzzy now, but I think it had a white leather interior. Gorgeous with the top down, but horrible with it up, not to mention some killer blind spots! I think they wanted around $12,000 for it back then! :surprise:

Evidently, there was a conversion or two done to the 81-83 Imperial...
http://www.imperialclub.com/Yr/1981/Factory/FrankSinatra/Convertible/
Pretty clumsy, IMO. That whole bustleback look just doesn't look right with the roof removed. The Mirada I drove was a much better conversions...wish I could find some pics of one!

fintail

Aftermarket convertibles usually look bad with the top down too....the assembly never folds anywhere nearly as nicely as a factory job.

Mr_Shiftright

LOL! Here I am, about an hour ago, waiting at a stop light and WHAT do I see behind me?

Yep, a Toyota Sunchaser! Yep, white, and yep, all beat to holy hell.

I think I've seen this car in town before.

andys120

while racing, a slight impact will send fiberglass spraying all over while the steel bodied car that hit it gets maybe a dented headlight ring.

Mr_Shiftright

Buying a cracked up Corvette can be a big challenge. It's a real skill to make the car look good again. Another tricky thing is that some people think "oh, they're fiberglass, they never rust". Oh, YEAH? What about the frame?

lemmer

I don't think I would want that Vette for anything. The engine might not be all he has cracked it up to be. The rest of the car looks like it was a pretty average example of a less desirable Corvette - before it was wrecked.

The Toyota might be an OK toy for a couple of thousand, but once you get into cheap older Miata territory, it doesn't make sense to me. Come to think of it, I would rather have a nice early MR2 for $2-3K.

lemmer

You know you want a Swinger

How about a new-old bug?

andre1969

or the owner didn't like the '72 grille, because that one looks like it's sporting a '71 front end! Pretty bad paintjob, too. I like the way you can see the original off white/creme color in the doorjambs! It has potential, but not for $4200!! '72 was probably the last year I really liked the Dart. They went to a somewhat pretentious beaky front end that I didn't care for in '73, and I think the emissions controls were starting to choke it off a bit after '72, as well. A 318 is an excellent motor in these cars, though...plenty of kick in the relatively lightweight body.

lemmer

What is the other green car in the pictures? A Duster, maybe?

stickguy

the lime green one looks like a Duster. I actually like that one better (my 2nd car was a '73 Duster). A 340/4 speed sounds good.

andre1969

that light green one is either a '73 or '74 Duster. I think they used the same grille both years. That lime green looks to be more of a correct color, too. Normally I like greens, but I just don't like that shade of green that ended up on that Dart! Maybe if the doorjambs were painted to match, and it had a better-matching interior I'd like it better.

lemmer

cheap 911

Quote from seller - "I was really tempted to keep it and put on a slant nose and a wide body rear end." Obviously a man with great judgement.

barnyard cadillac

Mr_Shiftright

The 911 has possibilities, but of course I wouldn't buy it on the blind without testing the engine. The engine is worth more than the car at this point. The interior does not look promising.

Cadillac -- parts car, strip it clean and flip it to the recycler.

ghulet

....actually, with the exception of the front seats, the interior of the 911 looks fine (back seat, door panels, dashboard). The paint looks nice, too, except for the roadrash on the front spoiler.

Mr_Shiftright

Sometimes (often) seat damage like that suggest a leaking targa top, which is expensive to fix---also can't see the door boxes which are pricey if they don't work right.Back seats look a bit funky but no big deal. Figure $1,200 to sort of patch up the interior and the targa seal (front edge looks crimped, too).

Anything that smacks of neglect is always scary on cars like this.

Mr_Shiftright

I just noticed that my Porsche 928 waterpump is leaking a little. Pardon me while I run myself onto my dipstick in a ritual suicide. Gee, only 10 hours labor and $400 in parts (it's one of those "while you're in there" kind of jobs, so one would be nuts not to replace the timing belt, all the drive belts, the water pump and of course the little roller bearings on all the idler wheels, etc. etc.)

Looks like one bowl of Cheerios 7 days a week for this kid for a while.

Actually I put in some stop leak and it's not leaking at the moment :P

andys120

from a guy who was so ignorant that he didn't know which motor it had.
He's not only ignorant, he's lazy, how hard is it to find out?

Cars like that don't fare well in the hands of the lazy and dumb. :mad:

Mr_Shiftright

People are nuts bidding on this car without looking it over...sheer folly. I wonder if they realize an engine rebuild is $12,000?

fintail

One for Shifty....kind of a custom 911

gsemike

I have a bed feeling that some sort of VW engine will end up in there if that engine is shot... maybe even a 350 Chevy

Mr_Shiftright

That's a LOT of damage! I'd guess $12,000--$15,000 in repairs.

Mr_Shiftright

Can't really put a VW engine in there, no way in hell it would fit and a 350 Chevy would be an abomination--to say nothing of a death trap.

Actually somebody will always fix a 911. My friend's shop always seems to have 2-3 in restoration process (he only does the mechanicals).

Part of the reason is for this that a 20 year old Porsche still looks great and still looks something like a new one. But you need to start with a sound body. A Porsche with underbelly rust is worthless and must be discarded, since the body IS the frame.

ghulet

.....but is it just me, or does the price seem suspiciously cheap to anyone else?

http://chicago.craigslist.org/car/97533929.html

'69s are not the absolute favorite, but they're right behind the '64-68s, and this one looks nice--not restored, not abused, and has the nice 'almost original owner' story. I smell a rat, someone who hasn't done any research as to how much this car is really worth (I'd say twice that, if the pictures are any indication), or the thing's not nearly as nice as the description or photos indicate. I'm going to check eBay, this could be a scam.

fintail

Yeah something is up. Either it's really a heap or the seller is a fraud. If it's as good as it looks it should be worth quite a bit more than 4K, and would sell fast in these musclecar crazed (not saying this is a musclecar, but it has looks) times.

Mr_Shiftright

Actually the price is close to market correct. 1969 plain vanilla Mustang coupe is a very common and ordinary car. Depends if the engine compartment and under-chassis is funky or sharp. If funky, $4K is plenty, if sharp all around, figure $6K is all the money. Looks like a car you might be able to clean up and flip for a small profit at $4K.

The money for these cars is in the engines.

ghulet

....considering this car is in IL, it's far from ordinary, IMO; maybe in CA it is. I mean, no, it's not a GT/Mach/CJ/Boss, but it is a V8 (strange the seller doesn't specify which one) fastback (though strangely, in '68, coupes sold 6:1 versus fastbacks, in '69, fastbacks outnumbered coupes by 10k units; actually, Mach fastbacks outsold base fastbacks by 10k units also). Most notable to me, though, is that (the seller claims) it's original, not modified nor owned by five different idiot teenagers over the last twenty-odd years, never sat on blocks in Bubba's back yard. The interior is beautiful and original, highly unusual for a pony car this age. OK, it's not a $15k car, but considering the heaps I see on eBay for more than this, $4k is a straight up give-away price, I could see this getting $7500 here pretty easily if it's described accurately. It's tough in Illinois to get any nice old car for less than $5k, let alone a Mustang. I do agree people buy pony cars (though I'd say Camaros more than Mustangs) for the engines, which is a shame, I'd buy one because they're pretty, and considering a modern Accord V6 would eat most Mustangs for lunch at this point, why focus on the engine? I mean, they weigh two tons and get 12mpg, they can't be too fun to have around. I'll have to keep checking craigslist and see if anyone flags it.

lemko

...maybe the guy doesn't know what it's worth and pulled the figure out of the air. If it's as nice as it appears, maybe one of us should bid on it. Mustangs aren't my thing. Now, a 1969 Cadillac would get my attention at that price!

lemmer

How much would it be to put in a decent used engine in an SC?

stickguy

I don't know if they have it by me (I only know about it from this board), but how does it work? I assumed it's just a classified ad, so couldn't you just call up and wander over to buy it? If it is a dog, should be easy enough to tell. If it's a good deal, you win!

I personally hate white on that car, and don't want an AT, but at that price and if the bones eally are sound, it should be a nice platform for a mile build up. Although I usually like survivors, there doesn't seem to be much upside to keeping this one all original.

fintail

Around here, I almost never see a 69 Mustang fastback on the market, plain jane or not. That thing would sell in a minute in my area, if it is as decent as pictured.

ghulet

....amiss with this one. Must be a misprint:

http://chicago.craigslist.org/car/97704265.html

No way a real, restored '68 SS396 is going for $5k, you hardly ever even see a shell of this car for that much. I don't get it.

stickguy

maybe he dropped a zero?

Hell, I would buy that for 5K, and I don't even particularly like em!

fintail

Looks like CL removed the cheapo Chevelle. There has been a rash of fake ads on Seattle CL lately - $5K 95 Supra and other fast n furious things.

Mr_Shiftright

I just don't see where a '69 Mustang with a small block is worth very much. It's pretty ordinary stuff. I wouldn't pay any more for it, especially as a Chicago car. If it were in California registry and was clean underneath, then yes, $4K would be a "good buy" and $5,500-$6,500 would not be unreasonable. I really can't see more than that except from a spendthrift kind of buyer on impulse. We who appraise a lot tend to cut the "ears" off the bell curve and disregard very high and very low prices as not being indicative of the market at large. But I agree, there may be some profit left in this car (a trip up on the lift would tell a lot).

RE: 911 used engine --- figure $3,500 for a good used engine and then labor to install + miscellaneous parts, like new clutch, reseal valve covers, oil, filters, tune up, blah blah.....maybe $5,500 total if nothing goes wrong. Contrary to popular belief, R&R-ing a 911 engine is not quite "like putting in a VW engine".

Bogus Cars on Craigslist --- yep, lots of that going on. Then they'll tell you the car is really in Indonesia or Mexico city but they'd be happy and pleased and honored to send it to you, if you would only be so kind as to send a cashier's check for shipping, etc....blah, blah, and the scamming begins.