This car probably isn't worth restoring actually. You should be able to find a very nice one for $10,000 and the world's best for $15000 and you aren't going to get paint, top, interior and mechanicals for anything near that. Since it isn't rare, why take on a poor example like this one?
Of course, you could think of it as an installment plan restoration I suppose, (with heavy interest).
Remember this type of car is no less expensive to restore than a Cadillac Eldo or an Impala SS convert. and you have a car worth twice as much (with the SS, not the Cadillac).
That's why I was figuring a whole new interior (leather maybe?) and top mechanism. The whole car screams "I DON'T CARE ABOUT IT!"
You know it doesn't take a lot to buy a hi-tech cover, drain the block, fill the interior with bags of drying agent, plug the air filter and tail pipe and put 300 lbs of air in the tires. I mean, at least TRY to help the car.
That was actually the trunk..... probably to illustrate the "I have extra parts!" statement in the text. Not that what we see would "sweeten" the deal much!
Or, maybe to assure the observer that there was not a body (or two) in there.... the real motive for trying to get rid of this car! :P
2018 Subaru Crosstrek, 2014 Audi Q7 TDI, 2013 Subaru Forester, 2013 Ford F250 Lariat D, 1976 Ford F250, 1969 Chevrolet C20, 1969 Ford Econoline 100
It's a $500 car at best and even then I'm not sure if it would pay for itself in parts. Most restorers don't use old junk anyway, they want NOS or repos.
Can you easily get NOS or reproduction stuff for something like a '65 Electra? I know you could practically build something like a '65 Mustang or '65 Impala from the ground up just on NOS and repros, but with that Electra wouldn't you be more relegated to scrounging the junkyards and swap meets in the hopes of finding the parts you need?
There's a '65 Electra convertible at a repair shop not too far from my house for sale, in a similar color to that one. I think they wanted $3500 for it. I want to say it had a rebuilt 430 V-8 mated to a THM350. Is a THM350 strong enough for an engine like that? I'm sure that it originally would've had a THM400. I don't think the 350 came out until later, and then it was mainly an intermediate/smallblock type of tranny. The one in my neighborhood looks better than the '65 Fintail posted in every respect except one...rust-out around the rear wheel openings.
offer different grades of vinyl? I know they have that "MB-Tex" or whatever it's called, which is very high quality. And I think BMW has some equivalent. But in Europe, perhaps they offer a cheaper grade of vinyl?
The biodiesel nuts here would be drooling over that 250D. That's kind of a cool car, I like it. And as far as I know, MB has but one grade of vinyl, that being MB-Tex. It's an excellent material, lasts for decades and does a passable leather imitation.
'67 GTO convertible --- price is totally stupid. Hemmings Muscle Cars Price Guide (and they oughta know) says $30K on the very high end. This car may not even have correct #s. Even $25K would be a strong price but reachable. Pity the fool who pays $45K for an automatic 335HP model.
90 Infiniti --- really boring car, but for the money, not bad at all....
Saab convertible -- well the car has issues but the price doesn't reflect that quite enough. The $4,200 should be the price for an average car with 100K miles with no problems, but when you think about the bad muffler (you know it's more than just a muffler), the leaky convertible back window (typical), the balky tonneau mechanism (can that be cheap? NOooooooo), the need for the dashboard to be torn apart to get at the electrics,a ripped up interior well gee, what have you got here? Value? $2,500 all day long if he's lucky.
Deal with it---if you own a Saab or Jaguar ten years old, you are going to get pounded on resale big time because these cars tend to nickel and dime you to death over time and everybody out there knows that.
no, I mean thin, plain black, no texture vinyl. Not the "leatherette" This is clearly low grade stuff made just for taxis so it can be replaced periodically.
police/taxi only type of vinyl? Kinda like what used to be common on police/taxi spec Gran Furys, Diplomats, Caprices, Crown Vics, etc here? That cheap, yet thick stuff like what they use to cover school bus seats with?
Just curious but what is your opinion on the resale value of ten-year-old Volvos (any model)? Have they been good or bad in comparison to other near-lux brands?
those Eagles were actually pretty expensive new. Nicely equipped, it wasn't hard to get them up to around $16-17K, which was a lot of money back then. For comparison, my grandparents bought a new LeSabre Limited in '85 for around $16,200 out the door, and a nicely equipped Silverado for around $13,500. Heck, I think the first Acura Legends were only around $20,000!
Oh, and with the 258-6 and 4WD, expect 0-60 in around 17-18 seconds. I don't know the value of that AMC today, but I hope nobody tries to outbid the shill who started it off at $3,000! :P Now granted, it does look like it's in nice shape, and low miles, so I guess if someone really HAD to have this car, maybe $4,000 tops?
Hmmm, ugly body dating back to MY1970, horrible gas mileage, likely difficult to find anyone to repair and $3k. I can't find anything to recommend one, except maybe the AWD, but at $3k, I could probably find an old Audi I'd be less embarrassed to drive around in, or any old SUV, really.
...not sure if they're 65s or 66s (or one of each), but there are TWO Ninety-Eights of that era in my neighborhood (and they're not exactly ideal city cars!), one's a lighter aqua four-door hardtop (no vinyl top) and one's a silver with black vinyl top LS (post sedan). The aqua is in beautiful condition, the LS needs some help, but they both run.
Where I used to live, I would see an old man in an Olds like that all the time...it was in pretty nice condition too. I remember it had stock looking mudflaps on it, which seemed odd to me.
I never minded that T-Bird either. Odd that it was a mere 2 year style. I wonder if those had the same self-destruct trannys as period Taurus, as I am sure the V6 Birds had the same powertrain. I also recall that Bird with a 4cyl turbo and I am pretty sure a V8 too.
I drove around my cousin's turbo T-bird for a while, I think it was an '87. It had a switch on the dash that would set the ignition timing / boost / etc. based on the octane of gas you were using. It was decently quick set to regular, but switch it to premium and it was really fast for the time, in spite of some pretty serious turbo lag.
I wonder how many of those motors blew up when folks put in regular but set it for premium... :sick: Probably not something you want the driver to be able to control.
I think the casualty rate for Turbo T-Birds was pretty high but I doubt the boost level had anything to do with it. It wasn't boosted very high as I recall (for good reasons as it turned out).
Most 80s turbo technology was rather mediocre. It's gotten so much better now. 80s turbos are basically KABOOM cars--T-Bird, Dodge, Saab.... except maybe Porsche, who did it right....but of course early Porsche turbos had some vicious lag, which often sent their high profile newbie drivers into trees and guardrails.
Now they have all these slick turbos, and twin turbos and they really work well without overstressing the engine.
the '87-88 T-bird, too. Being RWD, I don't think it would've had the same tranny problems as the Taurus. I'd imagine that it used the same tranny that the Crown Vic had in it. That particular T-bird looks fairly basic, too...base-level interior, column shift. I imagine it's just a V-6.
Now the V-6 is something you might have to watch out for, being the 3.8 that tends to blow its head gasket around 90,000 miles.
As for turbos, I know this is only a sample of one, but the 2.2 Turbo I in my ex-wife's '88 LeBaron finally blew around the 115,000 mile mark. That car had been stolen on several occasions, and while I'd like to think that the joy riders were gentle on it, I have a feeling that's not the case! :P The ex- could get a bit rough on it, too.
One problem with turbos back then is you had to let them cool down. After driving one for awhile you weren't supposed to just park it and turn it off...you were supposed to let them idle for a bit first. Unfortunately, most people didn't know that back then. Do you still have to let modern turbos cool down, or has that issue been addressed?
You should really let them idle for a little while to extend their life to the fullest. The aftermarket does make Turbo Timers that are installed into the car. You park the vehicle take the key out and walk away and the computer will idle the car for 1-2 minutes and then shut it off automaticly. That is enough time for the turbos to spool down and they cool off.
I think if you let them cool down you can extend their life but most people don't do that and the turbos today seem to hold up for at least as long as most people hold onto cars.
If you are buying a turbo "project car" there are tell-tale signs of turbo wear....two things that come to my mind are of course excessive turbo "whine" and also puffs of blue smoke when you start the car that go away after a while.
Overall though, I think a turbo engine, even a new one, loses about 10% life expectancy to a n/a engine. You don't get something for nothing.
But you shouldn't let a bad turbo deter you from a good buy on a car you like. Turbos can be rebuilt very economically and usually they aren't too hard to remove. It's really all plumbing and rusty bolts, not rocket science---the rebuilders do the science part you just do the plumbing.
wasn't a bad car, up until around the 90,000 mile mark. After that? Well, I guess about the most polite way to put it is that the car went "[non-permissible content removed] up"!
My uncle had bought it used in April of '90, but ended up not driving it much because it was too low for him to get into and out of. I forget how many mile he had on it when he bought it, but when he sold it to us in the summer of '95, I think it had around 75,000 miles on it. He'd had problems with the trip computer, and I think the turn signal switch had actually fallen off at one point, but nothing really catastrophic went bad on it.
At 90,000 miles, we had the timing belt changed (really shoulda been done at 60K...oops! ) It also needed CV boots or half-shafts or something to do with the FWD setup...in the end it ran around $1000 to fix, total. Soon after that we split up, and I let her have the LeBaron.
While it was under her "care", it ended up needing a new radiator. And a few other things I've probably forgotten about. The a/c compressor died on her...froze up and actually sent some shrapnel flying! I took off the belt for her. Power antenna broke. Trip computer started going bad again and literally lied through its teeth...would tell you that you had 200 miles to empty as you ran out of gas! The turbo died. And then it blew a head gasket. She took it to someplace her mother found, and they put on a new gasket and a used head for around $750, but it ran like crap. I talked her into letting me borrow it and take it to my mechanic. He got it running semi-correctly again. It turned out that most of the vacuum lines and wires on top of the head were either not hooked up or hooked up wrong. It didn't run too bad once my guy fixed it, but he warned us not to put another dime into it. He said compression was shot in two cylinders, and weak in the other two, and that it was on its deathbed.
At around the 115,000 mile mark, the ex- sold it back to me for the cost of a ticket to go see Faith No More at some local club, which was 90 bucks. It made it back to my place under its own power, barely, and I sold it for parts. The body on it was very good, and so was the interior. It had these nice alloy wheels too, and the 3-speed automatic tranny still worked fine (about the only thing on the car that did) although the pan had a leak in it where it looked like it rusted through (odd...I thought it would've been aluminum. Oh well, aluminum can still corrode)
I guess in the late 80's the old addage "they don't build 'em like they used to" still held true. Thank God they've improved since those dim dark days. My Intrepid is pushing 112,000 miles, about the same point that LeBaron did it's suicide dance, yet the Intrepid feels like it's got plenty of life left in it. I just hope it doesn't go "[non-permissible content removed] up" around 115K like the LeBaron did! :P
You just have to wonder why it's being sold in this shape after all the work that has gone into it.
It sounds like it's got a nice motor. I think I see some alignment problems on the body panels. I guess that you've got to be concerned with what's not mentioned such as the floors and interior and what exactly from the body is missing.
Since the car isn't super desirable, what is the high end moneywise?
does seem to have potential, but Craigs is even harder to tell from than Ebay, where you sometimes get decent pictures.
DOn't like the wheels though, and it would be nice to see the interior.
Price might be OK if it really only need final prep and paint. But, you you said, if you got this close, why not finish it? You would think that the cars value would go up even more than the cost of the paint? If not, no one should buy it.
IMO (since you asked), I think the most likely reasons they sell after all that work are a) they are broke (or need money for something else), or b) their SO is tired of the junker in the driveway ans wants it gone. Or, some combo of the 2!
I agree about the wheels. They look like something that would have been put on an 85 Camaro with a 6 cyl. They're probably $49 a piece of so. For a driver, you still can't go wrong with some nice Center Lines.
I would think that it's getting dumped as is because it was supposed to be done for the summer and the guy doesn't have garage spot for it now that the summer has come and gone and the weather is turning bad.
If the interior and underpinnings are decent, picture it with a nice black paint job and some center lines. That would be sharp.
Wow, that SL is one of the scariest pieces I have seen here in a long time. It ain't a classic, and it ain't an "easy" (or cheap) restore. Buy a super clean one for a few K more if you really want one of these.
And it is hard to believe that you could cure a smoking/fouling problem for $250, and not do it before trying to sell the car. It could be the difference between a good runner (if the story is true) and a bomber that also needs an engine rebuild (which is what I would assume)
The 911 seems decent, but looks like it is riding low. Probably a beater with needs.
run like hell from the 928. Needs engine rebuild and AC done? ChaChing!
I really like the 944 as a car, especially with all the (Expensive) recent work done. Certianly shows how pricey it is to keep one of these alive. Of course, a few things with the story make alarm bells go off, but on this board, I always assume things are as described (unlike in real life).
928S -- I pretty much fell down laughing at that one. Yeah, all it needs is one crankshaft bearing? And what does Mr. mangled crankshaft have to say about this?
Well a mere $12,000 should rebuild that engine, which, on an $8,000 car may not be a good idea.
Value? About $2,500 bucks, get used engine if you can find one.
911S --- BAD year, worst year for a 911, period. 2.7 engines love to pull studs. Best thing for that car? Buy it very cheap, buy a used 3.0 engine and be happy.
450SL -- talk about shooting yourself in the foot with how you write an ad. Delusion pricing. These cars are cows, dime a dozen, mostly unloved, VERY expensive to maintain.
I can tell how this car has been treated by the quote from the bodyshop. All that rust work, bodywork AND a paint job for $5,500. Well yeah, if they bondo it and paint it with a broom maybe. Wrecking yard for that baby I'm afraid. Hard life, hard death.
Proper cosmetic restoration alone on that 450SL would equal or exceed the price of a good original car. There's no upside, it's a parts car - a parts car for a car where parts cars are not in demand.
what I thought. Do the supposed $250 seal fix to stabalize the oil problem, then just drive it like it is until it craps out. maybe do some light DIY type body work (let the kids practice on it) just to keep it in one piece, and use it on up.
with the 911, maybe they can swap a 350 small block into it??
A ratty 450SL will grab your pants leg and never let go. You won't have a week's peace with a car like that.
Yes, you could put a V8 in that 911 and kill yourself, why not, or save time and money and just drive into a tree backwards with the car you now own. :P
Comments
This car probably isn't worth restoring actually. You should be able to find a very nice one for $10,000 and the world's best for $15000 and you aren't going to get paint, top, interior and mechanicals for anything near that. Since it isn't rare, why take on a poor example like this one?
Of course, you could think of it as an installment plan restoration I suppose, (with heavy interest).
Remember this type of car is no less expensive to restore than a Cadillac Eldo or an Impala SS convert. and you have a car worth twice as much (with the SS, not the Cadillac).
You know it doesn't take a lot to buy a hi-tech cover, drain the block, fill the interior with bags of drying agent, plug the air filter and tail pipe and put 300 lbs of air in the tires. I mean, at least TRY to help the car.
Or, maybe to assure the observer that there was not a body (or two) in there.... the real motive for trying to get rid of this car! :P
There's a '65 Electra convertible at a repair shop not too far from my house for sale, in a similar color to that one. I think they wanted $3500 for it. I want to say it had a rebuilt 430 V-8 mated to a THM350. Is a THM350 strong enough for an engine like that? I'm sure that it originally would've had a THM400. I don't think the 350 came out until later, and then it was mainly an intermediate/smallblock type of tranny. The one in my neighborhood looks better than the '65 Fintail posted in every respect except one...rust-out around the rear wheel openings.
Look at this Mercedes. It looks like the taxis lined up in front of every European airport.
Cute pair
So what's it worth? 25K? It's not a frame-off or something. Give me a break
These sure held value poorly
90 Infiniti --- really boring car, but for the money, not bad at all....
Saab convertible -- well the car has issues but the price doesn't reflect that quite enough. The $4,200 should be the price for an average car with 100K miles with no problems, but when you think about the bad muffler (you know it's more than just a muffler), the leaky convertible back window (typical), the balky tonneau mechanism (can that be cheap? NOooooooo), the need for the dashboard to be torn apart to get at the electrics,a ripped up interior well gee, what have you got here? Value? $2,500 all day long if he's lucky.
Deal with it---if you own a Saab or Jaguar ten years old, you are going to get pounded on resale big time because these cars tend to nickel and dime you to death over time and everybody out there knows that.
The school bus seat I mean, not the cop car.
And I also saw this on Ebay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Eagle-AMC-Eagle-1985-AMC-Eagle-Showroom-Condition-Only-1672- 1-Miles_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ6214QQitemZ4588033335QQrdZ1
Anybody know how much that AMC really costs tops?
Oh, and with the 258-6 and 4WD, expect 0-60 in around 17-18 seconds. I don't know the value of that AMC today, but I hope nobody tries to outbid the shill who started it off at $3,000! :P Now granted, it does look like it's in nice shape, and low miles, so I guess if someone really HAD to have this car, maybe $4,000 tops?
Probably $1,000 for a really clean one, if you go by all the price guides.
Basically the car is sale-proof but it's just the kind of think that some propeller head who lives with his mom might buy.
I did not realize there was anyone who would ever put one in a showroom. :P
Not many left like this
I never minded that T-Bird either. Odd that it was a mere 2 year style. I wonder if those had the same self-destruct trannys as period Taurus, as I am sure the V6 Birds had the same powertrain. I also recall that Bird with a 4cyl turbo and I am pretty sure a V8 too.
I wonder how many of those motors blew up when folks put in regular but set it for premium... :sick: Probably not something you want the driver to be able to control.
-Jason
Now they have all these slick turbos, and twin turbos and they really work well without overstressing the engine.
Now the V-6 is something you might have to watch out for, being the 3.8 that tends to blow its head gasket around 90,000 miles.
As for turbos, I know this is only a sample of one, but the 2.2 Turbo I in my ex-wife's '88 LeBaron finally blew around the 115,000 mile mark. That car had been stolen on several occasions, and while I'd like to think that the joy riders were gentle on it, I have a feeling that's not the case! :P The ex- could get a bit rough on it, too.
One problem with turbos back then is you had to let them cool down. After driving one for awhile you weren't supposed to just park it and turn it off...you were supposed to let them idle for a bit first. Unfortunately, most people didn't know that back then. Do you still have to let modern turbos cool down, or has that issue been addressed?
If you are buying a turbo "project car" there are tell-tale signs of turbo wear....two things that come to my mind are of course excessive turbo "whine" and also puffs of blue smoke when you start the car that go away after a while.
Overall though, I think a turbo engine, even a new one, loses about 10% life expectancy to a n/a engine. You don't get something for nothing.
But you shouldn't let a bad turbo deter you from a good buy on a car you like. Turbos can be rebuilt very economically and usually they aren't too hard to remove. It's really all plumbing and rusty bolts, not rocket science---the rebuilders do the science part you just do the plumbing.
Cost to rebuild? Maybe $300-$500 for a nice job.
Now, the rest of the car was crap.
My uncle had bought it used in April of '90, but ended up not driving it much because it was too low for him to get into and out of. I forget how many mile he had on it when he bought it, but when he sold it to us in the summer of '95, I think it had around 75,000 miles on it. He'd had problems with the trip computer, and I think the turn signal switch had actually fallen off at one point, but nothing really catastrophic went bad on it.
At 90,000 miles, we had the timing belt changed (really shoulda been done at 60K...oops!
While it was under her "care", it ended up needing a new radiator. And a few other things I've probably forgotten about. The a/c compressor died on her...froze up and actually sent some shrapnel flying! I took off the belt for her. Power antenna broke. Trip computer started going bad again and literally lied through its teeth...would tell you that you had 200 miles to empty as you ran out of gas! The turbo died. And then it blew a head gasket. She took it to someplace her mother found, and they put on a new gasket and a used head for around $750, but it ran like crap. I talked her into letting me borrow it and take it to my mechanic. He got it running semi-correctly again. It turned out that most of the vacuum lines and wires on top of the head were either not hooked up or hooked up wrong. It didn't run too bad once my guy fixed it, but he warned us not to put another dime into it. He said compression was shot in two cylinders, and weak in the other two, and that it was on its deathbed.
At around the 115,000 mile mark, the ex- sold it back to me for the cost of a ticket to go see Faith No More at some local club, which was 90 bucks. It made it back to my place under its own power, barely, and I sold it for parts. The body on it was very good, and so was the interior. It had these nice alloy wheels too, and the 3-speed automatic tranny still worked fine (about the only thing on the car that did) although the pan had a leak in it where it looked like it rusted through (odd...I thought it would've been aluminum. Oh well, aluminum can still corrode)
I guess in the late 80's the old addage "they don't build 'em like they used to" still held true. Thank God they've improved since those dim dark days. My Intrepid is pushing 112,000 miles, about the same point that LeBaron did it's suicide dance, yet the Intrepid feels like it's got plenty of life left in it. I just hope it doesn't go "[non-permissible content removed] up" around 115K like the LeBaron did! :P
http://newyork.craigslist.org/lgi/car/111010005.html">69 Firebird Project
You just have to wonder why it's being sold in this shape after all the work that has gone into it.
It sounds like it's got a nice motor. I think I see some alignment problems on the body panels. I guess that you've got to be concerned with what's not mentioned such as the floors and interior and what exactly from the body is missing.
Since the car isn't super desirable, what is the high end moneywise?
DOn't like the wheels though, and it would be nice to see the interior.
Price might be OK if it really only need final prep and paint. But, you you said, if you got this close, why not finish it? You would think that the cars value would go up even more than the cost of the paint? If not, no one should buy it.
IMO (since you asked), I think the most likely reasons they sell after all that work are a) they are broke (or need money for something else), or b) their SO is tired of the junker in the driveway ans wants it gone. Or, some combo of the 2!
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
I would think that it's getting dumped as is because it was supposed to be done for the summer and the guy doesn't have garage spot for it now that the summer has come and gone and the weather is turning bad.
If the interior and underpinnings are decent, picture it with a nice black paint job and some center lines. That would be sharp.
A decent 928 that only needs a $150 part. Of course, you probably should rebuild the whole engine when you put it in.
911S Iffy year, looks like the paint is weak.
Bad idea Mercedes.
And it is hard to believe that you could cure a smoking/fouling problem for $250, and not do it before trying to sell the car. It could be the difference between a good runner (if the story is true) and a bomber that also needs an engine rebuild (which is what I would assume)
The 911 seems decent, but looks like it is riding low. Probably a beater with needs.
run like hell from the 928. Needs engine rebuild and AC done? ChaChing!
I really like the 944 as a car, especially with all the (Expensive) recent work done. Certianly shows how pricey it is to keep one of these alive. Of course, a few things with the story make alarm bells go off, but on this board, I always assume things are as described (unlike in real life).
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
Well a mere $12,000 should rebuild that engine, which, on an $8,000 car may not be a good idea.
Value? About $2,500 bucks, get used engine if you can find one.
911S --- BAD year, worst year for a 911, period. 2.7 engines love to pull studs. Best thing for that car? Buy it very cheap, buy a used 3.0 engine and be happy.
450SL -- talk about shooting yourself in the foot with how you write an ad. Delusion pricing. These cars are cows, dime a dozen, mostly unloved, VERY expensive to maintain.
I can tell how this car has been treated by the quote from the bodyshop. All that rust work, bodywork AND a paint job for $5,500. Well yeah, if they bondo it and paint it with a broom maybe. Wrecking yard for that baby I'm afraid. Hard life, hard death.
with the 911, maybe they can swap a 350 small block into it??
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
Yes, you could put a V8 in that 911 and kill yourself, why not, or save time and money and just drive into a tree backwards with the car you now own. :P
And a correct market price is how much less?
If it's a clone well $25K should be plenty.