Prices on old cars that need total restoration

I know this is a sore spot to a lot of us, and to see cars that we show interest in that never make it to Barrett Jackson or Kruse priced out of this world kind of makes me wonder what the heck is going on. Ebay is classic for this, and the Edmunds reports are no help. I can understand the popular or 'hot' brands bringing the bucks when they are nice, but come on. Must be that these people have no idea what it costs to put a car back on the road. I see my favorites, the big old Chryslers and Imperials that only a mother could love, out of the early 50's and 60's, and it is crazy to think they will sell. The completed listings show these cars have been on sale for sometimes years.
I wish our hobby would regain it's senses, just a little bit.

 

Funny it was the same in the Hot Wheel collecting world. Some guy finds some Redline in the sand box in his parents house crushed corroded and beaten and burnt when he was a kid and they think it's worth a 200 dollars "cuz it's a redline" ( and it has no wheels either so the redline part is pretty funny)

I have friends who talk about BJ like it's " Wow they go a million bux for that car! Isn't that cool?" No, it's not cool that greedy bastards ruin everything....

 

Around $300, depending on the weight...

 

people watch too much Barret Jackson

 

My thoughts exactly.

Our hobby has a bigger threat than TV auctions.....the price of scrap metal.
If you think 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s cars aren't being crushed every day, think again.

Rarity drives up the price more than anything.

Now having said that, when I make an offer on a car, it's usually a little more than what it would bring scrap-weight. Then I go from there depending on how much I want it.

 

It's not the greedy bastard selling, its the idiots out of touch with reality who bid that high, they are the ones who ruin it. Their fellow idiots who are not as rich but who are equally out of touch with reality now think their junk is worth 100 times its true value.

 

If people wouldn't sit and watch BJ and look on the on-line auctions for prices , then maybe someone would get one for a fair price . When I see one on the road forsale and the sign says Best Offer . I make an offer and all I get is bitched at because they say on on Ebay go for X amount and this one the other night on Cable went for so & so . Then I calmly ask them this one question ,
Now Honestly , does yours look like new , was it restored to mint condition like the ones you saw on TV ? HELL NO !
So why do you exspect to get that much when the car has been sitting in your back yard for the last 20 years , rusting away with a frozen engine that has 150,000 mile on the odometer and the interior has taken home to the last 20 years of rodents pissing and shitting while they make that car their new home to raise their families in all this time ?
So then you tell me this junk is worth how much ?


Retro Jim

 

Well said yet we all know if we had a car the idiot buyers wanted we would sell it to them. I dont picture a scenario where a sellers says:
"Sorry,but your offer is $10,000 more than it should be.If you pay me that extra $10K it will screw up the pricing for my fellow hobbyists"

 

Here's what I blame:

-The cable TV shows... ALL OF THEM.
-Kelly Blue Book, NADA, etc. Back not so long ago, Old Car Price Guide had prices that
were at least somewhat realistic. And they had the well-defined condition ratings
listed 1 through 6. Remember what a true condition #1 car is??
-Internet (Ebay) !

 

Cant forget about those guys with 30 cars and, I have plans for that one or it just needs a little work.... I finally got a guy to give me some prices one time and he started comparing them to what he saw online and with just a little paint job it would bring this much and so on.... Its sad when you have people out there that dont work on them and let them rot because they are asking $3500 for a 4 door 52 chevy that has no rockers or floors left and every window blown out of it. A little paint job isnt going to fix all the rust and the floors and it sure isnt going to get that motor running either. That car wasnt worth $400 bucks but im polite enough to walk away after trying for a minute. I dont look at anything older than a couple days on CL it either means its too much or not what it says it is, Most of the good deals there are gone quick and there are some good deals that pop up alot.

 

Personally I don't have a problem with what stuff sells for at BJ or other auctions, I pretty much always figure if you got people willing to pay that much that's what it's worth.
It is to bad so many nieve people watch them and do hosestly think their POS is worth that much. Couple years ago an 80 year old lady offered me her 35 Ford 3 window, a really nice complete car that needed a total redo, I wanted it bad, offered 15k for it which in my mind was top dollar. Unfortunatally she insisted that it was worth 30K, she researched "restored" 35 3 windows to get to the price. She honestly thought that because her late husband painted and upholstered the car in 1969 that it was restored!
She wasn't in the ground a week and her son sold it for 12K.

 

A lot of those prices are phony. Some sharpie will put his 1957 Nausey Eight convertible in the auction and get a shill to bid it up. "No sale" did not make reserve. Go to another auction, do the same thing, at a still higher price. Do this 3 or 4 times, pretty soon everyone knows a 1957 Nausey Eight convertible is worth $500,000. Except the same guy has bought up all the Nausey Eight convertibles in the market over the last 5 years. They are awful hard to get, they only built 286 of them you know. But one guy has 12 of them which he is slowly rationing out to the market when the price is right.

 

sems like our shop was doing 80k-225k on most concourse restos and hot rod builds..

 

I looked in one of the old car guides a few years ago, pricing my (priceless treasures)junk, and looked up a 41 willys coupe for laughs. A project was only valued at 400 dollars. If only.

 

Depends on the car for most i would say if it is without a title scrap price maybe a little more . If it has a title twice going scrap price .

 

Condition tells the tale, for me anyway. How complete is the car/truck and what condition are it's parts in. I've learned my lessons the hard way and will never buy another car needing everything for a "project".

 

Even finished cars. I have a customer who has a truck, at the most worth 18k. Says he was offered 50k (must have been offered it by Stevie Wonder), says he feels its worth 60 or 70k.............This, a day after, while it was sitting in his driveway, the axle snapped off and the wheel took off the fender...........insane

 

Here in California, everyone thinks that they are sitting on gold. Its b.s.

 

There's alot of cars on Barrett Jackson that are not that nice in person. Yea you do have the tent full of the professionally restored 100k on up cars but most of them outside are ok restorations. I went there this year and there was a 72' chevy suburban there, turquoise in color, overspray all over the frame, all the chrome was painted body color, motor was filthy, 22" rims, it looked like hell. I think the thing went for 8k!!! Hell the burb I have is way cleaner than that thing was and it's never been "restored"! It is pretty much whatever someone will pay though.

I've got one for you guys too. There was a kid up here that had a GMC just like the one in my avatar. Not a hydramatic or a big back window, just a standard 6 banger 4 on the floor. Someone told him it was super "rare" and that he could get 20k for it!! It was for sale FOREVER, I think he finally lowered the price to like 6k and sold it. Just because its old don't mean its worth a ton of money.....

 

Its worth what someone will pay for it. If any one of us were on the selling end and someone offered us big money for what we have. We would sell it in a heart beat. Who here would say.. "You know what, that is 5, 10, 20, 30k over what it is really worth why dont you just gimme X amount for it.."? Not many, if any..

There are just as many people out there that don´t have any idea what they do have and they sell it for nothing! Those are the deals I am after . When I search on craigslist I set my price limit a 1000 or so above my limit and dont ever screw with anything above it. That way I have room to talk someone down. I also am just patient and believe that screaming deal is gonna come my way.. and it always does.. sooner or later.

 

My philosophy, I suppose, is "buy high, sell low", cause thats the way it always seems to work out. In these prosperous times, money just does not seem to be so easy to come by and only the ubber wealthy are spending the big money on the BJ cars. Just watching eBay bids for cars that have been relisted time after time shows that what the seller wants is no where near what the bids reach even on a favorable car. Every fiberglass 32, 350/350, is trying to sell for 35K and up, and they just don't bring that kind of money in most cases. They probably got 50K + in the car and are just trying to recoup some of their money but todays market, in my opinion, is down for all but the really high end cars that belong to a celebrity or built by Foose, Hollywood Hor Rods, etc. JMO

BOutlaw

 

I'm also of the "buy high-sell low" line of thinking when it comes to cars I've bought and sold over the years. But here's something else to consider: I see a LOT of nice cars on B-J that sell for less than the cost of their restoration. I don't know who in their right mind is buying project cars for $10K, paying $60K for a full resto then selling it for $50k, but they do what I do, just on a larger scale.

 

You don't say?...

But on a serious note, it always seems to me that the good deals are in California when I look through the classifieds. All these inbred hillbillies around here want ridiculous prices for rusted out junk.

 

the only problem I have is with cheap bastards who don't want to pay a fair price for cars and parts. they want everything for pennies on the dollar. I get buttheads giving low offers on the phone without ever seeing what they are buying. over the last year or so I started putting "$XXX.00. no offers considered" in the listings.

 

I think the BJ deal seems as though the bidders have the money and it's the only way they can get on TV. American Idol or dancing with the stars is out for them. And Fink, quit stepping on my posts. I.E. quarter panel repair. Lippy

 

Maybe there are times at no reserve auctions where the seller buys his own car back if it looks like the car is going to sell to someone way too low.

 

Its only worth what someone is willing to pay. no matter what is on tv. Real car guys are real car guys, and schmucks that want to show off how much there junk is worth, are schmucks

 

I find it interesting that most people have no idea how much work it takes to build most of the cars. Even more how much extra time it takes to do it right. it seems as I get older the level of the cars seems to get worse.. People seem so proud of what I would call drivers and brag on how they restored it with crappy paint and real poor fit and finish and then brag on how much it's worth. All I see is how much work it would take to fix it right. Am I missing something...

 

swap meets are the best.buying old junk for more than any retail.

 

Seems to me this problem with high prices for build material is,not only auction prices
but old age. I know that when I see some thing that I think is out of line, I have to remember that I bought 70 or 80 old cars when I was a lot younger for $30.00 to $125.00,
some were drivers and some some were fixers. This fact seems to color almost every transaction I done in the last 20 years. But the fact is I still get lucky from time to time.

............Jack