Projects My girl builds a hot rod for $1

A real, live, working car for a total investment of $1. No freebies either.

About a year ago I met a nice girl and we started dating, and I pitched an idea at her. I said we'd start with $1 and she'd buy something to resell, with the idea that we could build that one dollar into a car. In October 2012 we settled on an old pressed tin Tonka Jeep from a local thrift shop.



It ended up selling for $9 on eBay, and after some fees, she had about a $6 profit to re-invest. That got spent on some more cheapie thrift store junk and a lucky score of old cabinet hardware that brought in some nice profit, and by the time swap meet season rolled around in spring, she had a decent nest egg to work with. This was the haul we brought in from Spring Jefferson swap meet.



After reselling the majority of this stuff, the right car came along, a 51 Chevy 2 door sedan for $1000. Luckily, the proceeds from the Jefferson haul was enough to pay for the car with enough left over to re-invest at the Iola swap meet. Here's the car as-purchased on the day we brought it home.



Then we made a list of stuff that the car needed, and headed out to the Iola swap meet for some more resale investments and some parts for the car. The two highest priority items were fender skirts and a rear bumper, and she ended up finding a pair of the correct skirts for $5 and a rear bumper for $10. She couldn't have gotten luckier at the swap meet, we had to make 5 trips back to the car with full carts from all of our purchases.



We've been working on the car in the meantime, the straight 6 runs good and the brakes are all working thanks to a friend who stepped up to help out on the mechanical end of things, which I'm terrible at. The car came with some chrome wheels which cleaned up nice, and we made some wide whitewalls using my infamous Snow-Seal method. We cut up a set of '55 Buick side trim to run on the car and now we're trying to figure out the paint scheme and stance.

I showed her quite a few pics of custom cars of the era, she likes skirts and taildragger stance, and she wants the car to be two tone green. Just not sure if the car should be all light green with dark inside the Buick trim (like the Hirohata Mercury), or if the top of the roof should be dark green to match the cove, or if the car should be mostly dark green with the ligher color on the roof and cove. This is a pic we took of the car as it stands today, with the trim mocked up on it with tape.



Hoping to get some photoshop advice on colors and stance so we have a blueprint to work off of. I'll post this pic up in the photoshop thread as well.

And I'll add a bunch more pics and info on the car and I'll update it as the build progresses , just wanted to start this up as a build thread and hopefully get some photoshop advice and feedback on the project.

 

Congrats (on the girl and the car). You'd better marry her before she decides she likes the car better than you.

 

Im gunna start with 2 dollars and see if I can parlay that into a deuce Great job !!

 

Ahhhh to be young!!!!!!!!!!

 

this tread would be alot more interesting...if we had details of all the deals from the dollar up the coolest bild ever!!

 

Don't tell me, she's good looking too. Some guys have all the luck.

 

Some Guy's have all the Luck a nice gal & a nice car congrat's.

 

where's the pictures of the girl?

 

I've got pics and details on all the things we bought and sold so far, and Rachel kept a spread sheet style log book of each thing with what she paid, what she sold it for, and all the related fees and cost, I'll post up some more detailed pics and maybe a complete run through of everything when I get a chance.

 

That's great. I think one of the few things I like better than American iron is the great American dream. Great success story


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I can't wait to see more on this car you have been telling me about it for a while. Might have to make the might trek all the way 45 minutes up to your place again to check it out.

 

Thanks for all the feedback so far. I have lots more, but one of the more interesting resale purchases were these 1960's era diamond shaped chrome cabinet handle backing plates. They'd go behind the knobs on kitchen or bathroom cabinet knobs. We got these for 10 cents each at a big local closeout type store, all still new in the wrappers, and we sold them in groups, they were selling for $2 each and we went through probably 300 or more. They were the hot ticket for the midcentury modern house crowd. I know I put a couple hundred of them in my own house.

 

Awesome story! Reminds me of the story where a guys bought a house with a paper clip! same sort of idea, kept trading up and up until he eventually got a house.

Brent

 

Awesome story!! Congrats on the car!!! Thanks for sharing!

 

Sounds like " the barter queen!

 

very Cool - suggest the upper section of car being a dark color. with a tall roof will help to make it seem lower. plus, the lower lighter color will help accent the lower section being lower.

 

Good story. I like the side trim. There were original light and dark green colors on those cars which would probably look good......just need to decide on where to place them.

Would those diamond pieces attach to some backing and make a grille for some car?

 

get her a real estate license!

 

Awesome this is a good example of determination and goals pay off. Ill be watching..

 

good stuff

 

Awesome idea, I thought I was building my machine on a tight budget. Nice car to start with too, I'm really keen to see how this turns out.

 

That's how my Chevy was going. I added up all the stuff I bought and sold with that car and I was ahead by like $500 for it all when I sold it.

 

Interesting story, keep the photos on progress coming!

 

Great story. Keep us posted.

 

Certainly going to follow this one. Takes a lot of patience and good sense on how to resell and flip for profit like you are doing. Love it!

 

This thread should be required reading to all newbies and folks hoping to build a car!

 

Congrats on your barter sucess story. Marry that girl NOW! Shes a keeper. John

 

I was intrigued about this story when you mentioned it at Symco.
Very cool, I'll be watching for updates.

 

Yep.

 

Agreed, as a newbie builder it certainly got me thinking outside the box. Worked out a slightly different way to fund my own project that I wouldn't have thought of otherwise. Thanks guys!