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

isellhondas

You know, those old VW engines were pretty tough. If they weren't abused, they would usually need a valve job around 60K and an overhaul at 100K.

They were so easy to pull out and work on.

I gusee I'll always have a soft spot for the cars I grew up with.

isellhondas

My first car was a 1952 Chevy that I paid 35.00 for.

Not a convertable but a four door sedan. If I could find another one I think I would go for it.

Shifty, in the dark recesses of my mind, I seem to recall that it was possible to somehow convert a 216 to insert bearings. Do you remember this? It seems to me that a machine shop could somehow do this.

The ultimate was to find and install a "Powerglide" engine in a stick shift car. The Powerglides had the 235's.

" You'll slip and slide with Powerglide"

qbrozen

a couple of decent ones were posted here recently. both ebay, i believe.

i think one was seattle (heck, every other car posted here is in seattle ;b). but i believe that one was a bad color, IIRC.

Mr_Shiftright

Yep, the 4 doors were the utilitarian models of course, the bread and butter cars for the company, so they have a kind of agricultural look to them. The converts are stylish, lots more chrome, cleaner lines, better options, and of course a lower silhouette. What's not to like? Besides, they are worth 10X as much, so your restoration dollar isn't in the toilet.

VW Bugs -- I'm not sure you could call an engine that holds 3 quarts of oil and has no oil filter "tough" but if you were careful with them they could last a pretty long time. The problem with the VW engine is that there is absolutely no "slack"....you run low on oil, you overheat them, you don't do the maintenance, and KABOOM! that's it. No mercy.
But they were simplicity itself, that's true.

qbrozen

well, of course they are worth more. but i don't see how you could really dislike one and really like the other. I mean, i see the same rear, same nose, same fenders. I dunno. Sure, I agree that the vert is better looking and more desirable, but i also like the sedan.

Mr_Shiftright

Well it's a fair question---all I can say is that the two cars look like night and day to me. The 4-door is dowdy, grandpa-like, very lumpy and blocky to me.

Let's look at two other Chevys that might amplify the issue:



And it's poor sister ======>

andre1969

I think the convertible version of just about any car is going to look better than its 4-door sedan counterpart. Of course, in the two '57 Chevies posted above, it doesn't hurt that the convertible is staged at a much more exciting locale, and it looks like the photo was stretched and flattened just a bit, to make the car look longer and lower than it really is.

qbrozen

exactly my thoughts. not to mention the much shinier paint and chrome and the better color.

I do think, however, the '52 sedan could benefit greatly from a chopped top.

qbrozen

i went back and looked. it was a '53 i posted. but it has alot more chrome than that vert. actually, i prefer the less chromey look. the sedan looks a bit tarted up in comparison.

wish i could post the 2 pics together, but i can't do it here at work.

texases

Here's another:



Looks about the same profile. My problem w/4dr vs. 2 dr coupe or convertible is the kink for the fins ends up in the rear door. Just doesn't look right to me.

Mr_Shiftright

The excitement generated by a '57 Chevy convertible isn't illusory. Go to any car show and eveyrone will be looking at the '57 Chevy convert and nobody will care about the 4-door sedan. That's the way it was in 1957 and that's the way it seems to be now. The 4-door cars weren't meant to be exciting, they were meant to take guys to their jobs.

4-door cars today can be a lot more sporty and performance oriented than in the 50s. In the 50s, 4-doors were old man cars and they look like it I think.

fintail

Ooh that one appears to be a fuelie, too

texases

Now what might that one go for? $50K+??

andre1969

Heck, if it's a fuelie, I have a feeling that on a B-J auction, some drunk CEOs might bid it up to $200-300K or so!

isellhondas

Oh, they had an oil filter all right!

Remember? You had to take out about ten 10mm nuts and slide that round plate off. The "filter" was a metal screen that probably would have caught some small rocks.

When I said "tough", I meant that little 40HP beast could last a long time. They held only three quarts of oil but I don't remember any of them using much oil. Drive with a broken fan belt and you would overheat that puny engine in a half-block.

I used to lie under my VW and check the valves as John Muir's book demanded that I do every 3000 miles. I never found one that needed to be adjusted. Still I did this faithfully.

Mr_Shiftright

The great merit of a VW bug is that you can plug in a new engine for $650--$850 or so.

I recall that they really got low on power after 40,000 miles or so. I suppose you could keep one running fairly long but they just got weaker and weaker.

If I owned one I'd just keep a rebuilt engine as a spare and plug it in as a maintenance item every 50,000 miles. A 2007 BMW starter motor probably costs more than an entire VW bug engine.

jlflemmons

Went to Alaska in the summer of '78. Drove around the interior in a 66 VW bug. Found out just before I left that the left front spindle had worn half in two from a bad wheel bearing. Considered all the ill manners of the little beast, and when I got home I kissed my little Oldsmobile.

Simple or not, those little turds were dangerous.

isellhondas

They got low on power because they would burn valves especially if people didn't keep them adjusted. I think my dad's (which became mine) '62 Bug needed a valve job right around the 60,000 mile mark. It needed a complete overhaul at about 90K. Most domestic cars were about the same.

Funny little car. It was a 6 volt system. If I was stopped for a light with my headlights and turn signals on, the turn signals would blink slower and slower until they stopped. I would goose the gas a bit and they would start blinking fast again.

One night a buddy and I were at a Rolling Stones concert in Hollywood and while we were in there somone stole BOTH headlights! Remember, they were in a "bucket" A large screw attached them to the fender at the bottom.

Here we were, 30 miles from home on a dark night with no lights. The car was black so it looked like someone had gouged it's eyes out. My buddy asked me for a quarter. Silly me, I thought he was going to call someone for a ride.

Nope, he came back ten minutes later with a VW headlight assembly under his arm! He had walked a couple of blocks, found a parked VW and using the quarter as a screwdriver, had stolen a headlight. His comment...

" If we can drive with one light, then so can somebody else!"

Taking side streets we made our way back to San Pedro.

Mr_Shiftright

I had a Ghia that was so rusted the heat couldn't travel through the body to the front seats; so I ran a hose from the back seat heater vents up to the front of the car, and stuffed rags in the rotted out rocker panels.

That worked to a point. My right foot nearly burned off while my left hand and left ear broke off from frostbite.

fintail

You're probably right.

Locally, I once ran across a 1958 Pontiac convertible that had air suspension and FI. When I saw this car, maybe 10 years ago, they wanted somethnig like 50K for it...and it was nice, but not concours by any means.

qbrozen

personally, i think its great. leaves the prices of sedans nice and sane for me. maybe i can get one before the rest of the world catches on.

texases

Bargain at 14.5k

40k

85k, no FI

isellhondas

I have TOTALLY lost it as to the reality of some of those PRICES!! 40,000 for that piece of JUNK??

And, once again, the looks of a beautiful car have been ruined by a hokey continental kit!

You were kidding about that first junker being a bargain at 14,500....weren't you?

Mr_Shiftright

Mr American Dream Car is eating last year's flavor of ice cream. He hasn't noticed that '57 Chevys are no longer the darling of the collector car set and are in fact dropping in price. All he needs is one other person equally unaware of current trends, who is reading auction results from two years ago.

texases

For 14.5k, what's not to like? No engine, transmission, or top, been sitting in field for 20 years, so no interior or floorpan, what more could you want in a project? You could probably fit the usable parts in a zip-lock!

Mr_Shiftright

Hey, buy it for $14.5K, put in another $75K-85K for a total restoration, sell it for $55K at Barrett Jackson next year.

What you lose on each individual '57 Chevy you restore, you can make back in volume.

jrosasmc

Your VW story is hilarious; I shudder when I think about those many Beetle and Ghia owners who had to suffer in winter time. But, in stark contrast to those little VWs, the Saabs and Volvos from the '60s definitely had heaters that worked MUCH better than their smaller German peers. Why? Because Sweden has a sub-arctic climate for much of their winters!

Mr_Shiftright

Ver-y toasty heaters in Swedish cars, yes.

Germany isn't exactly sub-tropical however. German cars generally have good heaters but air-cooled engines leave a lot to be desired...so much heat is lost in a VW on its long journey to the front of the car.

Some VWs used to have these trunk-mounted gas heaters---they were great when they worked. Corvairs had them, too.

fintail

Oddball

Mr_Shiftright

Very odd---wrong interior, flathead 6 engine, two door post sedan....no fun, no power, no looks, no thanks.

fintail

Yeah, I hate those modern velour interiors in old cars, just looks wrong. Vinyl can't be that expensive.

andre1969

And, once again, the looks of a beautiful car have been ruined by a hokey continental kit!

I can't stand continental kits myself, but the one on that $85K '57 Chevy is actually one of the less tasteless ones I've seen. What I really hate are the ones where they make the whole rear bumper of the car stick out about a foot or more, with a filler panel between it and the body of the car.

andre1969

Yeah, I hate those modern velour interiors in old cars, just looks wrong. Vinyl can't be that expensive.

I don't know what I hate more...modern velour or those interiors where they do tuck-and-roll vinyl on every possible surface, giving the interior kind of a "ribbed for her pleasure" look to it.

qbrozen

we have different tastes ... sometimes.

i think that stude is beautiful on the outside! WOW!

Mr_Shiftright

You should drive it and you'll change your tune

The hardtop coupe is so much better looking IMO.



That fat post on the 2-door sedan just ruins the entire roofline for me. Looks like a Neanderthal's skull or a [non-permissible content removed] helmet.

andre1969

I think those old Studes are pretty neat looking, too. And for 1953, that styling was definitely several years ahead of its time. The front-end also makes me think of the beaky Pontiacs we started seeing in the 60's, especially in the hood. And that grille makes me think just a bit of a '55-56 Dodge.

Mr_Shiftright

The coupes were a very attractive and modern looking car on the most primitive chassis and drivetrain you could imagine.

A textbook case of all show and no go. It would be kind of like having a Corvette coupe with a 75 HP diesel engine and a 1953 GMC truck chassis.

qbrozen

oh, i don't know about how it drives. i was just commenting on your comment that it has no looks. ;b

andre1969

would a '53 Stude with a flathead and 3 on the tree drive any worse than a similarly equipped '53 Plymouth, Ford, or Chevy? Maybe people back in the day could tell, but would the typical person of today, raised on modern cars, be able to tell the difference?

I guess one difference is that a '53 Ford would most likely have a flathead V-8. But then I've seen old comparison tests that put a Chevy 6-cyl ahead of a Ford flathead V-8 in areas like acceleration, top speed, etc.

Mr_Shiftright

Chevy is an OHV.

The Stude engine was really no better than a 1930s engine. Figure with a driver and gas you have about 80 HP pushing 3,000 lbs.----so not too bad really. Maybe 0-60 in 20 seconds or so.

My point was that it looked so fast and was so slow that the car was a disappointment, even back then.

The '55 President coupe with the 289 V-8 and 3-speed was pretty peppy, since Studebakers were relatively light cars.

bumpy

This will get you most of the way there. GDM yo!

fintail

The hated ponton

Speaking of pontons, I remember one I saw back in the summer of 2000. I was in school, so I had no way to buy it. It was a late model, a 1960 220SE sedan, with something like 70K miles on it, and it had a working Hydrak system. It was black with creme leather. It was an unrestored car, but was still pretty sharp, not easy for a black car to pull off. It had just come out of an estate, and the seller wanted like $4000 for it. It probably wouldn't have been a bad deal...but at the time I surely didn't have 4 grand to spare.

fintail

Ooh, I hate those too, that overdone look. Both the velour and the puffy vinyl give a car that Tijuana custom look that doesn't work well unless it's an old lowrider Chevy lol

texases

I'm sure you or Shifty may have said before, but what's the story on pontons? I did like her typo 'bare with me (single mom)'. And since when does NADA have meaningful used car prices on something like this?

fintail

Pontons are the lower and midlevel MB sedans that came before fintails. They are stodgy old cars, not exciting, but usually well-made, and the 6 cyl models are the best. The 219 is not cherished so much today, to be honest, I can't remember the issues it has.

fintail

It's cool in its own way, but that price...

Green car, maybe for Andre

texases

What's 0-60 in this - minutes? Hours?

fintail

Probably something like 40-50 seconds, might as well be months

gsemike

I'm a sucker for suicide doors

Where's the details He wants stupid money for this and can only write one line?

288k miles I didn't think that it was possible with these

qbrozen

pictures look rougher than the description, but what do you think of this 6-banger stang?
I know that vehicle quite well (well, not THAT one, but the 6-cyl automatic 60s stang). easy to work on. easy to get parts for. not a bad driver. i'm tempted, but seems maybe a bit high for the condition.(?)