Your cheapest project car... $100 or less

Tell us about the cheapest project car you ever purchased for $100 or less... Pics if ya got 'em!

Here is my short list from my short memory...


1968 Javelin - $100
Car was sitting in an elderly lady's front yard just a few blocks from home.

1965 Impala SS 327 w 4-spd, had stuck 327 and I found the 4-spd in the trunk after I got it home! - $50

1956 Ford two door post, untouched original car less engine (traded a $10 carburetor for it)
A friend of my dad's helped me rig up a tow chain through a peice of pipe, so I wouldn't have to use the brakes and I could just steer the car while in tow. We dragged that thing about 10 or 15 miles into town.

 

I got a pair of 1970 Dart Swingers for free. Both 318 autos with 8 3/4" rears. And a 360 engine with the deal too.

I once got a 1972 Dart Swinger for giving a friend a ride but I gave it back the next day.

 

first car was a '53 Merc with some Minnesota rust for $35-best deal ever that I never got running was a almost complete '51 Ford Woodie for $35-free is always nice, or someone paying you to take a car away.

 

I bought this for $100.oo from the guy who dragged it up and out of a ravine , Before and after pics

 

Got this one for free 22 years ago . . .




. . . and today . . . after lots of $100 bills . . .

 

My buddy gave me my first car(51 Chevy) back a few years ago. Still working on her, but should have her on the road sometime this year. Another buddy hooked me up with this cut down 31 Chevy body awhile back, going to build a roadster pickup out of it some day.

 

Ya know how kids go out these days and but a Saturn or something like that as their first car . Well, when I was a sophamore in high school my first car was a 1940 Ford Coupe. It had a 324 Olds Rocket V8, Caddy LaSalle transmission and Olds rear. It was sitting beside a garage in the town of Easton, MA. I paid $100 for it (money that I had earned for mowing lawns and raking blueberries). A friend of my dad helped me build a towbar to fit the Ford and my Dad's 1962 Chevy. The friend actually drove me back to Mass from Maine then towed the 40 from Mass. to Maine on the towbar, 270 miles . I didn't have a lisence so I was along for the ride. Wish I had kept the 40, but then a new 1969 Chevelle SS cought my eye and the 40 went down the road.

 

I'm picking one up this weekend... 36 Ford... but this one is more or less scrap.

 

Keep 'em coming! The before and after pics are Cool!

 

I gave $15 for my coupe's body, a bare frame, and a radiator shell. Another $25 got me a complete 32 Chevy pickup chassis. Here's the before and after.

 

When I was in High School, around 1985, I picked up a 1967 Mustang coupe for $75, played with it for a few weeks and sold it for $300. I was young and broke and $300 was a huge score at the time.

somethimes wished i kept it

 

Got a 49 Plymouth 4 dr with a bashed in front end for a fifth of Jim Beam.. $30 dollars for junk yard front end.. $35 total in 1965......

 

I got a complete 49 ihc kb3 stake truck, a 48 stude bed, and a 40 ford cab for helping a guy fix a short stretch of fence

 

77 Cadillac bought for $87.50...won $500 at Demolition Derby..hauled over scales for $161.00..

 

57 Chevy...$75. No pic....Sold it for a couple hundred, dont remember

55 Chevy....traded an old beater, not worth a hundred for it....

 

68 bel air wagon 283 glide $25. drove it for 2 years

74 gremlin free from my old science teacher. didn't run. needed a coil. drove it for a year

73 datsun 610 58 K miles on it, got it for fixing the some rust on my bro in laws 66 volvo now it is my LS1 turbo th400 project

before and after/during

 

Does free count?
I pulled this out of a field where it was next to a container where it had been sitting for 5-6 years. It was the guys grandfathers and he had it painted maybe 10 years before I got it. So it was in in fairly good shape. He gave it to me because he didnt want it kicking around his property anymore and I was a good home for it. All I did to it was polish all the chrome inside and out and a tune up. When I sold it to my friend he put the radials wide whites and the Holiday hubcaps on it.

 

Don't have a pic anymore but my first car was a 1931 model A 2 door sedan, running and drivable had i had a license for just $75.00 and i got 4 months to pay it off!

 

FREE 56 chrysler windsor...he just wanted the engine out of it...said if I pulled it he would let me have the car...clean title too! Then I was given a 79 caddy ...used the front suspension and rearend and tilt column in the 56....sold the rest of the caddy to the scrap yard for $150....then scored a 84 cutlass with a low miles V8 for $150...used the motor and trans for the windsor...sold the scrap for $150....so it was free too!!! I have a grand in the airride...so that and a new master cylinder is all I am in the car so far...should be a driver on air for under 2 grand.

 

No pics but I bought a 57 Olds 4 door hardtop at an auction from the original owner's widow for $87.50 drove it home. Had original paperwork showing it was bought on my birthday ( 1 year old) in 57. She bought it for his b'day same as mine. Sold it to a neighbor kid for 1200 and he drove it forever.

1956 Pontiac Starchief 2 door hardtop for $50.00 out of a guys front yard. Drove it home. Sanded the surface rust and rattle canned a primer job and sold it 3 weeks later for 1500. Sold it to a transplant from Cali and he totaled it out 2 weeks after buying it from me. Shoulda kept that one.

Hell, shoulda kept both!!

48 Poncho

 

would this count 3 sheets of this was like 50 bucks. and it turned into a model A coupe.

 

I run across those deals from time to time. Most the time they have freshly "SHOT" paint jobs.

 

Thought I done good for $20 but I can't beat Free.

 

How about this?

I bought a '50 Chevy and a '65 Impala with no motor out of a guy's yard for $300 for the pair, put the '65 on eBay, sold it for $750, still have the '50. It needed glass - I went to a yard I knew and got almost all the glass I needed and a pair of Olds Rocket valve covers, total bill was $60. Sold the valve covers on eBay for $57.50. I could go on - the seats in it came from a $300 car I parted out and did about $800 out of -

 

I gave Louie Vargas 10.00 for the title to my 51 Merc coupe in 1966. I had bought the car as a sophomore in high school for 175 Drove it to High school my jr year, wrecked it and fixed it then blew the flathead up and sold it. One of my buddies found it in a field and we asked about it and found out that a friend owned it. I went to his house offered him ten bucks and he took it. Two hours later the car was back at my mom's house. My name was still on the title.
I put it together and drove it for several years after my wife an I moved back up here from Texas in the 70's and ended up selling it about 15 years ago when I got in a tight for money and someone came along with a lot of it.

 

I bought this '57 Ford Custom in 1997 for $50 out of a farmer's field and the title even came with it! Put some time and $ into it, drove it a ton of miles during college and a couple years after. Sold it in 2002 and never should have. Still see it around Omaha once in a while.
















Malcolm

 

I think you might have the coolest model A sedan I have ever seen, love the stance ,what color will it end up? Looking forward to seeing it finished.

 

Thanks! The front will come up about an inch. It was just mocked up with the main leaf up front. The body color will be the same color as the wheels.

 

'61 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88. Paid $300. Pulled the 394, trans, and a few other goodies (for a different project) out of the Olds and traded the body shell (which was like swiss cheese!) to the junkyard for a posi rear end with 3.73 gears. I figure I got the better end of that deal.

 

That is one full fendered sweetlooking sedan. I would like some more details onthis bad boy. Suspension,future color, etc.