It's November 1963...

[SamIyam]

and you've just inherited $2000 from your great aunt Millie... so, you go down to the corner store to buy the new Hot Rod magazine and flip to the back, and this is what you see for sale: (I have a copy here right in front of me)

SELL- Best in class. Full custom '35 Ford pickup, chopped, Chrysler wires, Corvette engine, new 40-coat blue candy pearl lacquer; Price $1875 Gene Winfield
(no lie, Gene's shop truck! The gold one in TRJ)

Lets see what else is for sale... how about:

SELL- 1932 Ford (3 window no less) new 283 Chevy, roller, Chev 3 speed, Chev rear, full S-W dash, full black interior, legal street car, can be driven anywhere, $1500

Sounds ok... but I think Gene's shop truck will have better re-sale in 2003 http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif ... what about a:

SELL- 1932 Ford Tudor in mint condition with 32,000 original miles (whoa-daddy!) 239 c.i. 3/4 race '48 merc engine, 14" rims with new 7.50x14 and 9.50x14 tires $795.

I wonder if he has two???

How bout this one...

SELL- 1932 Ford, 327 Chevy, bored .030, balanced, fuek injection heads and pistons, mags (Hal small windows) slicks, quick change 2-4 AFB's Headman headers, tach, gagues $1650

well, it's in your price range...

but here's one you may want to take a loan out on:

SELL- Lister Corvette, world's fastest aspirated sports car, 402c.i. Chevy, Moldex billet (in 1963???) crank, Only one like it (no shit) $5500

Keep dreaming boys... she's out'ta your price range...

buuut... this one isn't:

SELL- '34 Ford panel, good condition, no rust, original, little work will make this a show piece $350

Well, that'll leave you with enough left over to buy this:
(and build them both)

SELL- 1932 Ford roadster, perfect body, set up for Chevy, Chevy rear, hydraulics, (brakes newbie), dropped axle, traction bars, all parts for restoration included, best offer over $400

I wonder if he still has it...
Sam.

[El Caballo]

No need to rub it in...

[abe lugo]

That's all nie and well. but if you add a zero to every one of those prices you'll adjust for inflation

[Django]

Interesting that they are all mainly set up for a SBC! http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif Fun post Sam.

[NealinCA]

[ QUOTE ]
That's all nie and well. but if you add a zero to every one of those prices you'll adjust for inflation

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe even a factor of 20.

I wonder what the median home price in Calif. was in 1963. I just read that it is now like $403,000.

Neal

[Sam F.]

yeah,its crazy reading those old adds,ive thought about calling one or two before. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[voodoo]

Sam, I remember an ad that Garlits had in Hot Rod. Tommy Ivo's four engine dragster without the motors. $750. Wonder what that would fetch now?

[John B]

[ QUOTE ]
SELL- Best in class. Full custom '35 Ford pickup, chopped, Chrysler wires, Corvette engine, new 40-coat blue candy pearl lacquer; Price $1875 Gene Winfield
(no lie, Gene's shop truck! The gold one in TRJ)

Lets see what else is for sale... how about:

SELL- 1932 Ford (3 window no less) new 283 Chevy, roller, Chev 3 speed, Chev rear, full S-W dash, full black interior, legal street car, can be driven anywhere, $1500

SELL- 1932 Ford Tudor in mint condition with 32,000 original miles (whoa-daddy!) 239 c.i. 3/4 race '48 merc engine, 14" rims with new 7.50x14 and 9.50x14 tires $795.



[/ QUOTE ]

Now Abelugo says to add a zero to adjust for inflation. Thats means that Winfields shop truck would be $18,750
, the 32 three window would now be $15,000 and the 32 tudor is adjusted to $7,950. Ok, seems cheap enough to me. But are they traditional enough to please everyone. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Christian]

Well the price of roadsters just went down 'cause of all the craaaazy people in deposetory's and on grassy knolls.

[plan9]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
That's all nie and well. but if you add a zero to every one of those prices you'll adjust for inflation

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe even a factor of 20.

I wonder what the median home price in Calif. was in 1963. I just read that it is now like $403,000.

Neal

[/ QUOTE ]

yah saw that on the news... in the valley, average home starts at 400k... near compton/watts its about 150k for a pretty decent plot of land... you just gotta deal with the depressing atmosphere

[DrJ]

Interesting date you picked.
That's the year and month my Grandmother died, and I think that's within a few dollars of what my Dad's 1/4 of the "Estate" came too!
I got an old Ansonia school clock out of it, whick I still have ticking on the kitchen wall today.
One of my aunts claimed she "had to have" the '62 Impala 2 dr ht...

A couple of other reference figures are;
'63 Impala Convertible $3024,
'63 LincolnContinental Convertible $6720.
(When I was selling Oldsmobiles in '67 we had a bunch of 250" I-6 F85s advertized at $1888.)
That same $2000 would probably have been a fair down payment on a typical three bedroom home that sold for around $17,000 back then, and today, well, one two blocks from me sold last week for $450,000.

I like to look at those old ads in my old Hotrods too. and remember looking at them when the magazines were new, thinking, "Gee, how could I possibly come up with all that money?..That's almost as much as a new car!

You are so right Sam, it would have taken an enheritance for the typical kid to afford even those prices. As it does today for a lot of guys.

I know a guy in his 20s who has built a really nice V8 powered '49 Chevy and a Model A coupe with a SBC and man-a-fre and is building some cars for other guys I think. The 49 chevy an Aunt gave him, and the model A was a "barn fresh" original that another uncle gave him out of his own barn.
Yep, a lot of good luck and fortune sure makes it easier.

[DrJ]

I remember a Rolls Royce article from when I was a teenager, (61-67) that made reference to the $17,000 price tag being the same as an average three bedroom house.

[NealinCA]

Well if a your average house was $17000 in 1963, then we could probably multiply all of those prices by 25 to see them in today's dollars.

Gene Winfields 35 p/u $46,875

32 3W $37,500

32 2dr $19,875

Lister Corvette $137,500

34 Panel $8750

32 Roadster project $10,000.

Those prices sound pretty close to taday's dollars. The last one seems like a pretty decent deal.

Neal

[DrJ]

...And the Rolls Royce still costs as much as a house. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Fat Hack]

One of my friends had the classifieds section of an old newspaper from 1964 wrapped around the pipes in the basement of the house she bought maybe five years ago. It's right above where she had a toilet installed downstairs, so on party nights when frequent trips to the potty were in order, I'd find myself reading the ads over and over! The phone numbers used letters in them, and no used car I saw listed was priced over $700! Most were under $300!

[ric]

[ QUOTE ]
I wonder what the median home price in Calif. was in 1963. I just read that it is now like $403,000.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'd be willin to bet it was about $10,000-$15,000.
Having grown up in California (and I turn a spry young 53 tomorrow !!!) I've seen the cost of housing just become unbelievable. Where I live $400,000 barely buys a fixer upper. Thank god I bought in many, many years ago. Wish I had the forsight to have bought some of the cars I wanted back then as well.

[55olds88]

Yup that housing thing is something we all got to ut up with, over here there is no capital gains tax on property, interest rates are low so lots of people speculating and buying rentals, drives the price way up !!! Old cars were almost always expensive here relative to other things due to the restrictive import policies we used to have, these days hardly anything is restricted or dutiable (5% of imports are dutiable by value according todays paper) so we are flooded with crap used Jap cars driving all the old cars we were well know for from the roads (and even outa the wreckers yards) as they are replaced by newer used cars !!!
oops ranting again....but I think dollar for dollar house prices in central Auckland probably match L.A.

[oldandkrusty]

Hey there '55 Olds, when my wife and I were in Auckland the one thing I remember seeing tahat really knocked me out-houses on trailers. We were told that it was not at all unusual for someone to buy a piece of land and then move their present house to that piece of land! WTF! We saw lots of houses sitting on trailers just waiting for their move to a new piece of land. Is that still going on?

[Mike Zenor]

I just checked the Consumer Price Index for 1963 against a base of 2003. The conversion factor is 0.166, meaning a dollar now buys about 1/6 what it did in 1963; conversely a $ in 1963 bought about 6 times what it does now. Obviously some stuff inflates quicker than others (like real estate) - but it would roughly equate to this in 2003 dollars...

Winfield Pickup: $11,250
3W Deuce Coupe: $9,000
'32 Tudor: $2370
'32 Coupe 327: $9,900
Lister 'Vette: $33,000
'34 Panel: $2,100
'32 Roadster project: $2400

Another way to think about it... what if, instead of buying one of those cars in 1963, you decided to stick the money in a DJIA stock index fund? DJIA in 1963 was about 700, today it's about 9800. Instead of the car, in forty years you would have had...

Winfield Pickup $26,250
3W Deuce Coupe $21,000
'32 Tudor $5,530
'32 Coupe 327 $23,100
Lister 'Vette $77,000
'34 Panel : $4,900
'32 Roadster project $5,600

[Mike Zenor]

Oh, by the way... November '63 was also the occasion of the Kennedy assassination.

[DrJ]

In the summer of 1967 I bought a '61 VW for $365. in December I sold it for $700 with a new '67 Riviera metallic cordovan brown lacquer job. Then I bought a '57 TR-3 for $240, painted it BRG drovethe shit out of it for 9 months and sold it for $300. Then still in 1968, I bought a 1960 MGA roadster for $200. a year later I added a 60 Valiant 2dr for anothe $200. Bought a running (but not stopping too good) Renault Caravelle for $10, fixed the brakes and sold it a week later for $80.
But ya gotta remember, My folks mortgage on the house they bought in '53 was $62 a month and my rent on my first appartment was $45 a month.
My first wife's Dad was a chemical engineer middle-manager at the Shell refinery and he made big bucks....almost $1500 a month in 1969....
When I was a teenage "high school graduate"(BFD)I usta load trucks out of the Teamsters hall on Terminal Island good union pay at $4.12 an hour. that was more than what my Dad made at the time as a "damn mechanic"
"They" have it set up so most of the people are always just scraping by, with the excuse that if people made more, it would only cause inflation!
I think the main case of inflation is the people with the power over the power monopolies raising prices. raise the cost of driving goods to their destination and the price of the goods has to go up to pay for it.
Another thing I figured out while shooting pool in a beer bar one afternoon.. The price of a pack of smokes, an average loaf of bread, a gallon of gas, and a glass of beer in a beer bar all cost roughly the same amount*, always have, probably always will.
*(not counting regional tax differences)

[DrJ]

[ QUOTE ]
Oh, by the way... November '63 was also the occasion of the Kennedy assassination.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yea, My grand mother died and my parents made me go to school the next day and that was when Kennedy got shot, so I said fuck it and walked off campus and went home. Then when I was at my grandmother's funeral, I could hear and see, since we were in a side "family room" the damn insensitive son of a bitch mortician's TV set tuned into the Kennedy funeral at the same time as my GM's funeral.
It wasn't a good time.
What was good was my to-be wife was born just the previous month!

[Smokin Joe]

Well, in may of 65 dad bought a 3 bedroom house that was Navy housing back in the 50's when it was built for $9500.
In 67 he bought a Datsun pickup and a 510 wagon brand new for $3200 for the pair. The pickup came with a camper shell already installed. In 66 I also bought my first car. A 58 Pontiac Superchief 2 door. 9 years old, everything worked, excellent paint and interior. It had 23,000 miles on it. I paid $125.00. Big money for me as I was moving sprinkler pipe, bucking hay, hoeing beets and other farm work.
10 bucks a day! 6 days a week. Big money for a 14 year old kid. After that, I never needed anyone else to take me to the drags or even buy my school lunch. The old man tried to slow me down by charging me 40 bucks a month room&board but I just worked harder. I went to work for a Dairy during the school year and made 10% commission minus the gas I used in the milk truck. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

The 18 year old puke that knocked up my 16 year old neice hasn't made $125 in the last year! Times have changed. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

[Paul]

In November 1963 I was in 1st grade and with my milk money (probably about seven cents) I could buy a small handfull of penny candy at the little mom and pop store across from the school.

Paul

[Smokin Joe]

You guys had to bring up the Kennedy thing again! November 22 is my birthday. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[SamIyam]

Mike, I'll take the '32 Roadster project for $2400. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
Sam.

[Paul]

1963 was also about the year I went with my dad to pick up the new family car.

The old lady was selling it for her son

who was going to make a hot rod out of it but lost interest.

A 1935 Dodge,

she was asking $25.00 for it,

but after talking for a while she asked my dad what the plates and title were going to cost

-and took the $7.00 off letting my dad have it for $18.00!

And I still have the car!

Paul

[TV]

Sam, I was there, and didn't have a pot to piss in.I could tell you stories that would turn your hair grey,about cool stuff that we all would love to have.But dream on--TV PS I also bought a bitchen 30 coupe in 60 for $125.00

[av8]

November 1963 has nothing to do with hot rodding in my memory bank. It is all about the assassination, and one of the Nation's worst days ever.

I'd been off active duty for about 14 months, in my junior year of college, assigned to a new Army Reserve CE unit as a section chief and training NCO, and was working 25 hours/week at North American Aviation as an engineering editor. I'd just finished my 11 o'clock class, climbed into my '58 Impala to head for work and turned on the radio to KFWB as was my habit. Instead of music it was all this incredibly horrifying news report about John Kennedy being shot in Dallas.

I can still recall the day and the following week in painful detail. As much as I'd like to participate in this thread with relative housing and car prices, and wages and such, I'm a bit bummed by the more important event of November 1963.

[Rix2Six]

[ QUOTE ]

I wonder what the median home price in Calif. was in 1963. I just read that it is now like $403,000.

Neal

[/ QUOTE ]

Well my folks bought an upper middle class home in Orange County in May 1962 and paid around $40,000. It was just appraised last month at $1.1m

[av8]

Hey, TV, speaking of pots . . . did you get the helmet?

[MercMan1951]

Keep in mind, in 1963 a "good" salary was probably a couple bucks an hour...

[MercMan1951]

Ric- I just found this today...a 250 sq. ft. co-op in Manhattan is going for $167,500. TWO HUNDERED-FIFTY SQUARE FEET!

[sawzall]

just many reasons NOT TO move to CALI

[SamIyam]

sawzall... why does everything about California always have to turn into a bashing session? I'm beginning to think that people outside of California are the haters... have you ever heard someone from California say "just another reason not to live in Pennsylvania?

BTW, have you EVER even been here to see our state? (not just SoCal... they suck down there) http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

I also did not realize that November of '63 was the month that JFK was assassinated... try to imagine it is October of '63, Mike... the month that the November issue probably hit the news stands.
Sam.

[Christian]

[ QUOTE ]
Oh, by the way... November '63 was also the occasion of the Kennedy assassination.

[/ QUOTE ]

Guess I'm always too subtle in my posts...

[tommy]

Nov. 1963 I was a 2nd year apprentice making 2.75 an hr.(good money) The big buck journeymen were making 5 an hour.

I met a guy that bought a 34 roadster from an ad in Hot Rod about that time. He still has the roadster and the magazine. I think that is cool.

I always felt the cars in Hot Rod were over priced. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif You don't pay too much, you just buy it too soon.

[MattStrube]

Minus inflation, that's about a 9% return. Instead of buying stocks, you should have bought about 20 32 roadsters. Investment: $400....today: $12000. Great return.....you could build 5 of them and still have plenty for retirement.

[Mike Zenor]

Long term, "collector" cars are usually a lousy investment. You should buy a car to enjoy it and use it, not with the idea that it's gonna make you money.

urkillingmesmalls - Sam's bro, right? Come to Big C show at Martyrs tomorrow night (on Lincoln just south of Irving Park Road) and meet the ChiTown HAMB brigade, get your free beer.

[plan9]

[ QUOTE ]
sawzall... why does everything about California always have to turn into a bashing session? I'm beginning to think that people outside of California are the haters... have you ever heard someone from California say "just another reason not to live in Pennsylvania?

BTW, have you EVER even been here to see our state? (not just SoCal... they suck down there) http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

I also did not realize that November of '63 was the month that JFK was assassinated... try to imagine it is October of '63, Mike... the month that the November issue probably hit the news stands.
Sam.

[/ QUOTE ]

soCal 1963 sounds pretty damn cool... when hollywood had speed shops, and still had orange groves. COMPTON.. a middle class neighborhood, traffic? minimal...

[SamIyam]

Urkillinmesmalls is getting married next weekend... so I think he's going down for the spinalectomy this weekend... then, it's off to get casterated after that... but you guys need to keep him in the loop, he's wanting to build a hot rod after the wedding (he'll have plenty of time after his chores to work on it) http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
Sam.

[Django]

WTF, is EVERYONE getting married the weekend of the Pile-up! (Incidentally, Bic C is on Thursday.)

Hey Sam, I'll be in SoCal in 3 weeks. I freakin' LOVE California. I'd move in a second if it was possible. Fastsporty has asked me when I'm moving every single phone call in the last 2 years. Not possible though.

Have him contact us when he's ready. There are plenty of helpful gearheads around Chicago.