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

lemmer

Without google, I would be lost in many conversations. Apparently, Dr. 'Dre is talking about the Bewitched house.

andre1969

Yup, Lemmer, you got it! I was actually vague on purpose, to see if anyone would pick up on that... :shades:

lemmer

The problem is most of the sellers believe their car is worth what the guides say, and it seems like the owners of most pristine Porsches (whether they be 914s or Carrera GTs) can afford to fish until they hook someone.

Let me know if you see any nice 968s for a reasonable price.

Mr_Shiftright

Well most of the price guides are far more accurate--they would sober these folks up.

ghulet

http://chicago.craigslist.org/car/102079917.html

....I know these were (originally) much maligned (I think more so than its contemporary, the 320i) for some mechanical problem (warping cylinder heads? I can't remember), and for being fuelish. Were their inherent problems likely repaired when the car was much younger, or is it a lifelong thing? I know the subsequent 528i was a much better car all around. This at least gets points for being one of the first real 'sports sedans'. Anyway, looks damn clean for an almost 30 year-old car, has had lots of recent maintenance, so at $1100, seems fair enough to me, at least as a second car.

Mr_Shiftright

Sure why not at that price? If the head cracks, just junk it. I sure wouldn't invest anything in it cosmetically or mechanically though.

If you want a nice old BMW sedan, buy a 735 or as you say a 528i.

fintail

This seems nice for the money

Very much like my first car, which was a dark blue 66, 390/4bbl

Mr_Shiftright

Maybe even a $500 too cheap bargain there.

xwesx

A friend of mine has a '66 Galaxy sedan in original condition... though not perfect! This was one of those granny cars. The lady had this one from new and her husband had two vehicles from the same era. After he passed away, she traded them all for some econo-car of the day (this was 1998). It only had about 40K on the odo when he bought it, but it had quite a bit of upholstery wear in the driver's seat, so they must have been a series of very short trips!

fintail

It's the size of an aircraft carrier and driving it will make big oil happy...but you never see these anymore

Re: Galaxies...I like the 65 and 66 compared to 67, which gained the curvy look at the same time as Chevy and looks a little fat at some angles. But it can look good at others. I like the slight curve of the rear roofline of the 66 HT like I had.

ghulet

....I can't remember what the main problem was when the 530i came out in '75 or '76. Anyone know? I think '78 was the last year for the 530i (or maybe '79), so was it fixed by then? Shiftright....anyone?

lemmer

That would be a sweet car for a young college guy. I am all for buying it at that price.

lemko

...was her Dad's old teal blue 1966 Ford Galaxie 500 sedan he purchased new. She went to a rich high school where a lot of the girls had new BMW 3-series and Mercedes 190s. I'd have ignored those princesses and thought she was cool with the Galaxie!

lemmer

no engine, transmissions, tires, or wheels - only $50,000

lemmer

Is it that hard to find a Charger?

lemmer

I think he should hold onto this for sentimental value, mainly because the actual value is around zero.

stickguy

I don't remember the first year for it, but the early V8 (the "30") had a problem with the alloy in th eblock. I think it would wear away in some circumstances. They actually had an extended warranty of some kind to replace the block if it went bad.

I looked at a mid-90's 530 at one point (about 4-5 years ago) and remember digging into this stuff. You needed to do a cylinder leak down test to know for sure if it was bad.

I think the type of gas used contributed to the problem.

lemmer

Still thinking about 968s since you made me realize that they are more affordable than I thought. I looked up pricing in a couple of places and found the following.

1993 Porsche 968

Edmunds - $ 8,379
KBB - $8,840
Sports Car Market - $14,000 to $19,500

Maybe the key is buy one from a used car dealer, rather than a private party or specialty dealer who is more likely to seek an SCM or Excellence value.

fintail

Cheap pimpmobile

Mr_Shiftright

Oops! Sports Car Market goofed bigtime on that one. I'll write and tell them. Totally wrong.

bumpy

on that local Corvair coupe. No windshield wipers, no horn button, some rust bubbles around the rear windows, a double-quarter-sized chunk missing in the rear quarter panel, some broken tailight lenses, and general signs that it had been sitting neglected for most of the last 20 years. It had a "140" badge on the trunklid, which I believe makes it a high-output version of the flat 6 with four(!) single-barrel carbs. Still, it's a project car at best and not street-legal as is (and no floor shifter, hence a nonstandard Powerglide 2-speed slushbox), so PASS.

andre1969

for the price I really like that '76 Pimp DeVille! If it were closer I'd be tempted, but as it stands it would probably cost at least the selling price in fuel to drive it back here!

lemko

...that 1976 Coupe DeVille is pretty close to stock. I'd check this one closely for rust as that price is suspiciously cheap. Looks like it needs tires and they aren't cheap on this big ride.

Mr_Shiftright

If that '76 were clean in and out, should be worth $2,500. We always wonder what "TLC" means however.

stickguy

On Ebay, I think it means Transmission Likely Crappy..

Or maybe Too Little Compression, take your pick.

stickguy

to me, it should me basic stuff (detail in/out, maybe breaks/tires/full tune up, and a few non-essential odds and ends to patch up.

To some of these sellers, it is closer to needing a full frame-off retoration.

Mr_Shiftright

Wouldn't be my first choice for an old Caddy by a long shot.

andre1969

that DeVille would take a 235/75/R15 tire as standard. If you shop around, you can probably get 'em for about $50 per tire off Tirerack.com or someplace like that, and get a local shop to mount and balance 'em for $50-60 total.

andre1969

it wouldn't be my first choice in an old Caddy either, but hey, for that price, if there's nothing major wrong with it, there's still enough there for me to like. In fact, there's a lot there to like! Something like what? 233 inches? :P

When it comes to these mammoth old cruisers though, I actually prefer the Oldsmobiles and especially the Buicks. And with the big C-bodies I prefer the 4-doors, after they started going opera-window with the coupes. Give me a nice '76 Electra hardtop sedan in a light metallic blue and I'll absolutely drool! :shades:

xwesx

HAHAHAHHAHA! That car looks identical to one my grandmother owned and kept in Oregon for her real estate trips there. She eventually instructed my mother to sell it for her, but then the "buyer" never paid her (and therefore never received the title) and it was sold twice after that from the first "buyer" to another then another. She finally tracked the car down about 3 years later and asked my Dad to go and repossess it from the guy who currently "owned" it. He/we did, and we loaded it up on his 18' flatbed trailer. The beast sat there for a few months, but it was more or less trashed via the three "owners" that tossed it about for those three years. My grandmother gave it to me, and I was going to work on it, but my Dad said, "What you have there is a $50 car that gets 6 mpg. If you work on it, you're going to have a $50 car that you spent $5000 on and it will still get 6 mpg."

We took it to a recycling place and they gave us $50 for it. It had a monstrous engine in it though.... did Cadillac put a 500 in them that year? It made the 305/350 block look like a little baby engine.

Mr_Shiftright

Yeah, but as they say in Texas, that engine was "big hat, no cattle".

lemmer

I have my limits with fuel economy. Unless it is a race car, I don't think I could own anything that got less than maybe 12 mpg, even if it was just a weekend car.

andre1969

would something like that '76 only get like 6 mpg?! That just sounds astounding to me, but I guess I can see it. After all, cars like my '76 LeMans 350, '79 New Yorker 360, and '67 Catalina 400 only get around 10 mpg around town. And that '76 would probably have a half-ton on my Catalina, and more on the other two!

I think my buddy with the '78 Mark V 460 says he gets around 14-15 on the highway.

Consumer Reports tested an early 70's Electra with the 455 once. I think it was a '73. I want to say hp was around 230 by that time, which was sad, but it would get worse. I think it did 0-60 in about 12.5 seconds. I'd imagine the Caddy would be about the same? Just to show you how quick it got bad though, they also tested a '71 or so Impala or Caprice with a 454, and it did 0-60 in around 8.7 seconds! I'm sure it would've weighed about 500-600 lb or so less than the Electra, though.

Mr_Shiftright

Well do the math....a 5,025 lb car, shaped like a cinder block, powered by a 500 cid engine putting out 190 HP coupled to a three-speed automatic. That's a 26.5 :1 weight to power ratio---not good. I'm sure a new Caddy is about half that ratio.

xwesx

Haha.... that's an absolutely apt description. I am guessing that the mpg was a bit better than 6 if the car was in mechanically sound condition. After all, both of the exhaust manifolds were cracked on this one and you had to add fuel or starting fluid to the carb directly in order to start it. The guy from whom we repossessed the car had "inserted" a screwdriver into the ignition core with a 2# sledge because he lost his key... so this was not a well maintained car. Have you ever watched the Red Green Show? :P

Friend of mine had a '69 Eldorado with a.... hmm. I'm bad at these engine displacements. 454? Big. But the big difference between this car and the DeVille (other than the much more appealing look of the Eldorado) was that this car hauled [non-permissible content removed]. I had to drive it one time for him (he owned a car, but didn't know how to drive it!) to get it to a shop, and I was momentarily expecting an old boat like my '69 Econoline (daily driver at that point). I punched the gas to enter the main drag, and the darned thing burned a heck of a lot of rubber, but didn't get too far. I had to drive it very gingerly because while it would really take off, it still drove like a slushy old Caddy....

andre1969

here's this one doesn't seem too bad And heck, the price is only $225 more than I paid for mine 11 years ago! Can't tell too much from the pics, but that's not the right interior pattern. And no a/c. On my screen I can't tell if it's white or a really sickly pale blue. And I have no idea what those hubcaps came off of. Still, I guess you could do worse. Funny though, as much as I normally go crazy over the big '67 Pontiacs, this one's just not doing it for me. I wonder if it's just the color?

andre1969

IIRC, the '69 Eldorado had a 472. They were still heavy cars, but it probably weighed about 400 lb or so less than the '76 I guess. Also, back then the engines weren't strangled down, so that 472 probably had something like 375 hp gross, which is probably around 280-300 net. They also started gearing them really taller by the mid 70's, so I'm sure a '69 Eldo probably had a quicker axle ratio.

Mr_Shiftright

Also in '69 engines with 10:1 or 11:1 compression were common, but not in 1976!

jaserb

Truck Loads of Corrosion, maybe?

-Jason

fintail

It's probably not worth the effort, but it's an engine you rarely see

When I was about 8 years old (c. 1985) my dad wanted to buy one of these and keep it, as he was sure it would become a collectible. I kid you not.

stickguy

you don't see a good cruisin wagon (I believe that's the actual name for it) very often. There's one near me all tarted up (graphics, nostril hood scoops) that is scary.

Nice blind spot too.

lemmer

The Pinto is a great high school car (to me anyway, around here a perfect high school car is apparently a new 4Runner or S2000).

The Monte Carlo is worth it just for the engine. In many Southern states all you need is a bill of sale to register it, so the title issue wouldn't be a problem here.

gsemike

"Great" is a bit of a stretch. If you can nail the guy down on what runs but needs work entails, it could be on OK local car. If for example, it needs 4 wheel brakes, a radiator and a differential, not much of a deal. If it needs new tires and a tune up, maybe OK.

Thing is, the ad says 6 cyl. How the heck did it get that? They were all 4s, no?

andre1969

I like 'em both! I always thought the Pinto sportwagons with the portholes were cool, even if the hatchbacks were the objects of ridicule back then!

That Monte is cool too...I didn't even know they offered a turbo in 1981! I thought 1980 was the only year for it. FWIW though, this 3.8 is a different beast from the one that later went in the Grand National. This 1981 only has around 165-170 hp, and is the older, more fragile block that had all the lubrication issues. The 3.8 got a new, much stronger block for 1985 that eliminated most of the lubrication problems, and by that time hp was up into the 220-230 range. Still would be a cool car, though.

andre1969

a 2.8 liter V-6 in the Pinto, which I think came from Brazil. It may have only gone in the wagons though; I'm not sure. I believe it was the same V-6 that the Capri used. I think it put out around 100 hp. IIRC, the Pinto's 2.3 OHC engine was also from Brazil.

lemmer

I stand by my assertion of greatness. The portholes alone make it great. Even if it doesn't run, you could hang out in the back and look out the portholes at all the poor suckers in their characterless Acuras and BMWs.

lemmer

original Lincoln

another car to sit in and look cool

lemmer

Z car with the rare slant 6 option

fintail

Reminds me of all the V6 MB and BMW ads I see,

I am surprised people like the Pinto Cruisin Wagons so much. I remember when I was about 12, my dad found a mint one locally...it was all tarted up with graphics of course. They wanted $1500 for it, but my mother said no to even having it in the driveway.

Even the nice RX7s aren't worth much

lemmer

Keep the car, lose the louvers.