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

andre1969

back in the old days just shipped out as a chassis and driveline, and perhaps the front fenders, grille, headlights, cowl etc, and then a custom coachbuilder handled the rest of the body work? It could be possible that a few stainless steel ones were built by customizers.

As for that Eldorado, even though I was defending Cadillac's reason for making those types of seats (because that's what the people wanted), I personally don't like them that much. I always preferred the interior and seats of the Toronado and Riviera from that timeframe, which seemed much more understated and classy. One thing I also remember about those Eldo seats is that the leather was kind of thick and hard, with very little give. It wasn't soft and cushy, the kind you just sink into and get coddled, like the pimpy New Yorker seats, or even the older '71-78 Eldorado seats.

Oh, I really like that '76 Caprice. I think I could see Andre in it, too! :shades: I hope it at least has a 350 in it though. I think by this time a 305 was actually standard.

andre1969

Here's a nice looking 1956 Plymouth Belvedere that might not need too much work...although they always end up needing more than you think they do! I think it's tacky though that the seller says he needs to keep the battery. :confuse: I mean, c'mon, if nothing else just throw a cheap little 30 buck battery in there! :mad:

lemmer

Nice old Chevy truck

similar old Ford that needs a little work

michaellno

Looks a bit like my dad's '70. The only differences:

Dad's truck has the white roof, dog dish hubcaps on white steel wheels (original), no A/C or tach, and I think it's a long bed vs. the short bed shown.

Otherwise, it's the same color (puce, I think it was called), both have the 350 with the 3 speed auto and dual exhaust, the sticker inside the glove box door outlining all the options (which my sister marked up with crayon not long after we bought it), and, most importantly, Dad's truck is a one owner vehicle that has been recently restored to like new condition.

I know that Dad turned down an offer of $8500 before the restoration was started .. I think it cost him somewhere around $5-6K when the restore was all said and done. I wonder how much it might be worth.

lemko

Guess you never saw "Casino." Robert DeNiro's character survives a bomb planted in his '83 Cadillac Eldorado due to a metal plate that was installed at the factory under the driver's seat.

andre1969

somebody PLEASE tell me the reserve on this is a joke!

Mr_Shiftright

Well it's not a reserve, it's a buy it now price...so it'll sell for a lot less than that --LOL!

I think the first (and probably only) bid is generous enough, thank you very much...

83 Eldo -- no, didn't see that movie but I would have enjoyed seeing the car blown up. I'll have to rent it.

fintail

Yeah, most RR before the war were coachbuilt, sent from the factory as a chassis. Starting with the Silver Cloud ca. 1956 factory built cars became the majority.

Does that Dart have an extra zero in the price?

"Casino" has many old cars, esp lots of 70s Detroit iron. I like when Sharon Stone rams her MB 107 SL into the Eldo, causing some nice damage.

Nice looking old car, price seems out of line for the bodystyle

OK what am I missing??

Mr_Shiftright

SCOUT -- you're missing the copy of the admissions certificate to get the seller into the state sanitorium.

carsrme

i think scion should chill with their designing its scratchy
the new car they posted has got some hot features but the styling again is sad

qbrozen

One statement in there really confuses the heck out of me. Can anyone translate???

This car i believe is going to be on the Jan edition of Barrett Jackson so this is your only chance to get this sweet car 1000's less then it goes through the block for!!!

Soooo... ummmm... wait. how can they sell it at BJ next year if they sell it on Ebay now??

ghulet

....windshield aside, this looks pretty clean and straight, if weathered, especially for the price:

http://chicago.craigslist.org/car/153148803.html

Mr_Shiftright

Uh...with no title and a fairly high book value, this sale is going to hit some big bumps at DMV. I would certainly NOT give the man a dime until all the paperwork has been filled out and presented to DMV.

SOMEBODY always owns a car, even if it is abandoned. So you can't just sell it because somebody left it with you and never came back.

RE: Barrett Jackson -- what makes the seller think anyone at Barrett Jackson would bother to bid any more than an eBay bidder for this very plain jane car?

andre1969

saw how ape-poop people went a few months ago bidding a 1977.5 Can Am up to something like $23,000. :P Or maybe Barrett Jackson sent him a free sample of their Kool Aid in the mail, and now he believes all their hype, too.

xwesx

That E-Bay '72 is a joke. That's not a truck!

fintail

I am sure someone likes this look

Might be a good driver with the bumpers put back on

Mr_Shiftright

I'm not too keen on cars without air filters and bumpers.... :P

ghulet

....from the 'difficult to acquire' file:

http://chicago.craigslist.org/car/153501184.html

(I read this ad several times, and still don't understand--is the car in California, Indiana or Glen Ellyn [correct spelling, it's a suburb of Chicago]?)

This is the most liberal use of the term 'nice car' I can remember, lol:

http://chicago.craigslist.org/car/153521476.html

With the title drama comes the free cabrio top, how nice.

fintail

ROFL at that Tempo, oh my! That's he funniest thing I've seen today.

british_rover

I like the Galaxie.

fintail

Nice upholstery pattern!

Mr_Shiftright

oh lord....

gsemike

Going back a few posts, but change the wheels and you've got a really nice driver for $5,200. Picture that with some nice Cragar SS rimes.... now we're talking.

xwesx

haha.... those are gems.

The Accord ad was hilarious, but I think the verdict is this: The car is in Glen Ellyn, the owner is in California, and the potential buyer is in Lafayette, IN. That fella is definitely a grammatical all-star.

Mr_Shiftright

Saw a really good man-trap of a car yesterday.

It was a 1980 Porsche Targa for sale. VERY clean car, 200K on engine, asking price $10,000, which is about right given the mileage, maybe a bit low.

I noticed an oil leak in the rear of the engine, with a fairly large puddle on the ground (size of a beer coaster).

SELLER: "Oh, that a seal behind the pulley. You just take off the pulley and maybe lower the engine a bit and punch in a new seal".

OH YEAH? In fact, that's called a "nose cone seal" and while it's true it's just an o-ring gone bad, the bad news is that you have to split the engine case to replace it (no other way to access it, sorry).

So in fact, this $10,000 car is really a $2,000 car at best, because when you break down a 200K Porsche engine you'd be pretty crazy not to rebuild it after splitting the case....and that costs $12,000.

Given that a really sharp '80 targa with a rebuilt engine should sell at about $15,000, what we have here is a parts car.

When it comes to old Porsches, buyer beware X 2.

lemmer

Nice RX-7 but I suspect the price is a little high. I like the simplicity of this particular one. It doesn't even have alloy wheels. This guy gets some amazingly original cars from around this time, but they are usually something more like an '82 Caprice.

Decent MGB but something seems a little odd about it - maybe I am not used to seeing steel wheels on Bs.

lemmer

Buying the car for $2000, could I just squirt silicon all over it, buy lots of oil, and drive it for a year?

Did the guy drop his price when you informed him of the necessary repair?

qbrozen

thank god he's asking the moon on that RX7. if it was a no reserve auction, I'd be begging the wife rather than typing this.

fintail

That white RX7 looks exactly like the car the people across the street from us had when I was in kindergarten or so...I loved that car, I'd look at it a lot and they had kids, so I'd go along with them in it whenever I could.

Mr_Shiftright

Nope, the oil leak will just get worse and worse. The seal (and the collar it goes around) are INSIDE the engine. You can't goop it or even talk to it.

The seller actually got mad at me for telling him and said I didn't know what I was talking about. I love it when people say that, since my friend was with me who has been rebuilding porsche engines and racing them for 25 years and has his own Porsche shop. Like ...what does HE know?

Oh, he'll sell it to some poor soul who doesn't get the car checked out by a pro...it happens all the time.

MGB -- might be a nice car, although the mention of "new floorboards" is a scary thing on an MGB. The wheels look to be from an MGA. But in the photos the car looks pretty good. 1967 was a good year, with all-synchro transmission and first year for dual system brakes. MGBs are great fun to own and drive, one of my favorite cars.

RX-7 -- he is priced too high--try $2750.

au1994

nice RX-7. In my HS years, graduated in 90, that was one of the semi-obtainable cars we lusted for. Graduated just up I-65 from Birmingham, glad I've moved now otherwise that might be tempting as a weekender if I lived closer. And it were cheaper...

lilengineerboy

I like the RX7 too, I have fond memories of those things in high school and the seat belt buzzer that went off at redline. A 12a isn't that hard to work on, and overall the car isn't that powerful, so it was an okay combo for a high school kid (not that we couldn't get into trouble). Its biggest problem is 80s Japanese car interior disintegration when exposed to sunlight.
I think shifty is on the right track when he noted that the floorboards were fabricated. Everyone and their mother (Moss, Victoria British, etc.) makes floorboards and rust panel replacement. Why is he making his own?
The 911 story is why I would never get one without a PPI. I think I know something about them (I knew it was the seal when he mentioned the puddle) but there is so much on those. All these little intricacies with the motor (although that one does have 200k) scare me away.

lemmer

That RX-7 is only about 10 miles from where I am sitting. I am almost glad his price is too high, because it makes the decision for me.

I had a silver '84 at the end of my undergraduate years in 1992. I drove it for a year before it blew out an apex seal.

Mr_Shiftright

The motor is the heart and soul of a 911---without a sound motor, you got nuttin' and you're staring a $12,000 repair bill in the face.

These are GREAT and long-lived motors but after years of use they give it up just like any other engine.

At least with an MGB or RX-7, if you have a bad motor you can buy the cars for practically nothing and build one up for WAY less money than a Porsche.

michaellno

...somewhere in Edmunds, but my sister had an '85 RX-7 GS. Blue and she added a "whale tail" spoiler to it.

She bought it used in '86 (can't remember the purchase price, but the monthly nut was $262/mo, and her and my dad went round and round on whether she should get it or not, since he co-signed for the loan).

Anyway, she absolutely loved that car. I did too, when I had the rare opportunity to drive it. It's amazing what 100HP can do when the car is so light. I, too, loved the shift warning buzzer at 7000 on the tach. Took it up into the mountains with a friend of mine one night - what a blast in the tight corners! Actually got it to oversteer a couple of times in some of the sharper turns.

She kept that car for close to 10 years. It got stolen when she lived in San Diego - the sheriff's department called her when they recovered the car.

She sold it only when she got pregnant with the first of my three nephews. I think she got $2200 for it - she sold it to a firefighter and cried the day he drove off in it.

For me, a RWD RX-7 may not be the best car to own in Colorado, unless I was financially able to park it in the garage during the winter months. Would love to have either a Gen-I or Gen-II RX-7 someday, however.

lemmer

Maybe not in total dollars, but the RX-7 is just as bad in percentages as the Porsche.

From a quick scan of the web, it looks like a cheap RX-7 rebuild is right at about $2000 plus installation, and you probably don't want the cheapest rebuild. So, it looks like you can go over the value of the car pretty easily. Also, piston engined cars are nice enough to give warning signs instead of just instantly crapping out like a rotary - still love the rotary anyway.

How much for a decent MGB rebuild?

Mr_Shiftright

Well the nice thing about an MGB is that just about ANYBODY can rebuild one, which is not true of a 911 or an RX-7.

So right there the "B" offers a tremendous advantage. You could probably rebuild a B engine with parts you found lying in the street. They are so simple and there aren't really any "traps" in there beyond normal common sense and diligent assembly.

An amateur working on a 911 engine thinking it's "just like a VW" is in for a nasty surprise about that myth.

An RX-7 requires very precise machining tolerances and a clear understanding of how to put a rotary engine together.

But you're right, percentage wise the RX-7 and the older 911 are essentially "totalled" when the engine blows up. Perhaps not the MGB however.

stickguy

I found a site a year or so back when i was considering a gen 2 RX-7 convert. They sold the engines all ready to go, shipped to you on a pallet. pretty much just plug and play. They offered various iterations, so you could easily upgrade to a later version i guess, and i think different levels of hop up.

I don't recall them being particularly expensive, 2K sounds about right. makes sense if you get a super clean car with a blown motor for real cheap. At least you would have a reasonable expectaion (and a warranty!) that it wouldn't blow up a week after you bought it.

lilengineerboy

The 12a (carbureted) and 13b (fuel injected)motors used in the gen 1 and gen 2s were pretty robust, especially in naturally aspirated dress. The turbo and turbo II slightly less so but they seem to last pretty well. The 3rd gen (93-95) are VERY sensitive to modification, tuning and maintenance.

qbrozen

You're right, the early NA rotaries were reliable ... if cared for properly. Unfortunately, by now, most have fallen into the wrong hands at one point or another.

lemmer

I was reviewing an older lady's tax return. She is about 60, but has already been widowed for about two years. All of her investments and everything are still listed in her husband's name and social security number. This could mean a)she doesn't know how to handle her financial affairs b)she is having trouble accepting her husband's death c)she has been too lazy to get the stuff changed over.

Here is where the interesting part comes in - while perusing her ad valorem taxes paid on her cars I noticed that in addition to a jointly owned late model Buick, in her husband's name she has a pickup truck and a 1974 Porsche 911. This is all I know (well I do have the VIN and that might provide some clues). I don't know if it is a rusted out hulk or a show car, but it probably is drivable since she has kept it registered.

Do I discreetly call the woman and inquire about its condition and its availability?

au1994

I think that comes down to the spoken or unspoken code of ethics in your field. I'm sure you have come across a few potential hot stocks or land deals in you time that would have proved to be a financial windfall. Whether or not you are allowed to take advantage I, don't know, leagally, ethically or otherwise.

If it were me, yes, I would casually mention to her when you return her taxes that if she was ever interested in getting rid of the car to make sure she calls you first.

xwesx

I think I would tend to fall somewhere in there. I think I would be more inclined just to inquire about it if I have an interest in the vehicle type (for example, I would probably be inquiring about the pickup! haha) and the potential history I could learn about it. I think that is one of the best aspects of old cars - they often have very interesting pasts. If something developed into an offer of sale, etc., then that is where your own values or professional code of conduct would have to dictate your actions.

imidazol97

I am not sure about ethics questions...

I just know when I was doing a closing on a mortgage for a condo long ago the person doing the closing knew I had won a contest with several items in it and asked me for my opening day tickets for the Reds.

Ain't no way she would have gotten them. I thought it took chutpah to ask. We were sitting 1000 feet from the ballpark in the offices. She can go find her own tickets. She took advantage of her knowledge of my situation to ask. Not proper.

xwesx

Absolutely not and that was unethical. Especially if there was some sort of negotiation going on that could be or could be implied to be affected by the outcome of such an inquiry. When it comes to ethics, you really have to ask yourself how your actions could affect another person if they will affect another person. Something as mundane as just congratulating someone on winning some tickets could be highly inapporpriate if such sentiments were offered at the wrong time! Let alone asking for them. Hahah... almost makes you want to kick yourself for doing business with such a person/company and definitely does not put them on the list of potentials for future transactions!

andre1969

if you strike up a conversation with her about the car, in a casual way, and perhaps you might be interested in it if she ever decides to sell. Just don't try to pressure her or get all stalky about it or anything. And don't try to rip her off, like it sounded like that mortgage lady was trying to do with Imidazol97!

andre1969

but wouldn't this beast look nice sitting in my yard? Well, as long as it's in the driveway and not off to the side, up on blocks with weeds growing up around it! :P

This one's actually not too far away, just in Jersey. And I've always loved the '77 Catalina. Something about that front, I think. I like the crosshair grille.

lemmer

Surely you can at least pony up the $100 opening bid.

fintail

What is it with Galaxies missing bumpers?

british_rover

by a some what local company that always has interesting things around.

They are coming out of the wood work.