Projects To Sell Or To Part? That is the question.

Here's how I see these kinds of things: If your heart is really not in it, fixing the car becomes a job, not "fun with cars". I had a little 57 Lloyd [German car] that I ran out of steam on---before I ever turned a wrench on it. I'd paid $500 for the car, paid another $500 to have it shipped to me from Michigan and built a privacy fence around it to keep the neighbors happy. That car sat for 10 years, getting rustier and rustier every year...
I finally had to swallow my pride and put it up for sale on craig's list...got a grand total of $250 for it and let it go.
My ass is still sore but I can now stay busy on my 34 coupe.

 

If you'd have bought a new Buick a few years ago, it would have depreciated by at least $6500 by now....



Get it running and driving, and sell it complete.

 

Now, that said, hers a photo of Gary M's 50 sedanette from DesMoines. It's identical to your car, right down to the manual trans. He made a killer street cruiser out of his and it made several magazines, even made the cover of Rodder's Digest. He kept the straight 8/3 speed and did a little tuning on it...split the exhaust to make a crazy-good sounding exhaust...

 

Looking at comparable Buicks on the internet, I don't think you'll get your $6500 back. If it was running and didn't have the rust issues, you would.
Most cars 60+ years old will need floor and rocker work, and most buyers at a certain budget/price point will fully expect to have rust repairs to deal with.
As other's suggested; invest some time in getting the engine to start/run, then update the ad as a running car. You'll get more interest.
If it doesn't move, start in on the rust repairs, which will make it more desirable. You may fall in love with it and keep it!
Once over the rust repair hurdle, you'll be looking at a really solid car, where the next step is to rebuild brakes and suspension.

Parting it out will be more time and work than doing the rust repair and you may only net a few grand. Pulling parts (dealing with shipping or "will you ship it" questions), answering calls, dealing with flakes, unloading the carcass, etc. is a pain.

 

I wish my Mercury was as nice as that Buick
measure, cut, bend, weld, repeat
crap, We just cut a bus in half, clipped it, replaced the floor, built wheel tubs, all new side structure, and front inner structure
could care less if I lost $ or made $
sometimes this stuff is just fun

 

So there you are far from the rust belt. What you get is cars dried out worse than a 70s porn star but the basics are still there. You can't find a $500 shell? Even $1,000, a car the same series or wheelbase with a solid frame and rockers would have you fixed in a couple months of weekends. Imagine all the little bits you'd get with it too vs sloggin through swapmeets or classifieds for the next couple years. Unless it's all you and you're just worn out lookin at it already. Best lemonade I can make from your lemon.

 

Seems to me it's a matter of wanting to put in the effort to fix it...it's a daunting task, even if you can find a free, solid body shell to use for parts

 

First thing I'd do is get it running and see what kind of condition the engine is in, that will make the next decision easier. If it runs good, then I'd start with the rust repair on the frame. Underneath it doesn't have to look like a show car, some time spent grinding and welding in some some repairs to the frame that are strong would be good enough. Think repair, not restoration. Then, I'd replace the rockers and the floors. Again, think repair, you could even cut pieces out of a junkyard car and adapt them to fit. Wouldn't even have to be the same kind of car, just put them in strong and neat, the carpet will cover them anyway. It will be a time consuming job, but with some careful measuring and shopping around, you can find something that will adapt in. Not that I'd do it now, but I've seen some pretty neat floor work done with old signs pop riveted in to the good metal to make floors. Many cars were done that way before wire welders became so cheap. Heck, even old household appliances have good steel on them, washers, dryers, refrigerators, and most have a good enamel paint on them. And best of all, you can usually pick them up for free! I know this is out of the mainstream now, but it's been done for ages.

If the engine is junk, then I wouldn't waste my time unless you just love the car, there are better examples out there. There is a lot of money in parting it out, but it will take a lot of labor to disassemble it, and it may take a while to sell the parts.

IMHO, it's WAY overpriced in the condition it's in. Around here, $500 to $750 would be about all it would bring, if it brought that much. There are similar vehicles on Craigslist priced at $1500 or more that have been on there for months with no buyers. Rust just won't sell......

 

This looks like a perfect candidate for a chassis swap. Get a modern car cut off everything above the floor and set the Buick, with floor cut out, on top and weld the body to the "new" floor. Easier said than done and I've never done it myself but I've seen posts on the H.A.M.B. From people who have done it. Just a thought.

 

I'd like to see the guy thats going to repair that frame and get those floors replaced in 2-3 weekends. Theres months if not years worth of work in resurrecting that rust bucket. If it were me I wouldn't throw good money after bad. After all that work you might get 10K on a good day for a running driving straight eight 50 Buick. There comes a time to admit you made a mistake, dump it and go down the road.

 

It's hard to walk away with a big loss but it gets less painful when you don't have to go out the door and look at your mistake every day. Sell it, take your lumps and put the money you get towards something you like and want.

 

To me, the key is finding out what shape the engine is in. If it's bad, down the road however you can get the most. If it's good, I wouldn't part it out. I had a car exactly like this (black '50 special with a manual transmission) at one time, and even stock, it was an awesome car. My brother-in-law and I would take it from the twin cities to go fishing in Canada. Never missed a beat and was a great road car. I only got rid of it because I bought a new Corvette. The car actually looks good in the pictures. If it is sound mechanically there is someone out there that will take it off your hands. Probably for a lot less than you have in it, but this car needs to be preserved.

 

I'm thinking that parting it out might be an option if you have the time. You can eBay all those parts. I bought a Crosley rust case once and the hood emblem alone brought $300. As you say, the grill is worth plenty. When you get down to the final metal heap, you can scrap the rest.


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Sell it complete...the time to part it out and the time dealing with buyers etc is an effort believe me....I'm serious....just lower the price or best offer....you'll be way ahead.......

 

It's a really cool body style......A 2 door, not a 4 door......As mentioned, except for the extensive rust in the floors and rockers it looks to be in very good and complete condition. Look for a parts car or just a body shell, for a good solid floor. Then it's cut, fit and weld in a new floor and rockers.

Just a quick search on Craigslist found this.

https://bakersfield.craigslist.org/cto/6140299854.html

Not sure how close the floor from a 52 Buick is to your 50, though.

My 56 is much worse than your Buick, but complete, new floors are available for 56 Chevys. It needs a complete floor and rockers from the cowl to the rear bumper. It's a scary thought, but it will get done.

 

Thanks for all the suggestions fellas. I guess once I find out if it runs or not that will answer my question.


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GreaserJosh.I feel your pain.I got burned on this one a few years back. Wasted 3 years and a ton of $$$ Lost my tail on it when I sold it. Bruce.

 

She looked good when I got done with it but couldn't trust it so down the road it went. I made sure the buyer knew what he was getting in to but he still wanted it.Bruce.

 

Man...Sedanette body, 'Torpedo back'...Stick Buick. Massive job to fix, hope some serious 'kustom/low rider' guys see this.
Sheet metal (upper) looks straight...those straight eights have nine lives.

 

Someone would probably pay $2K for it as-is with plans to sell the stick setup and weld that body onto a different chassis and floorpan. I'm not a fan of those kind of swaps but others are.

Or, you could part it out and probably get $4K out of it but plan on that taking 6 months and a lot of spare time, plus you'll end up scrapping quite a bit of it in the end.

If you got it running, and fixed the floors and frame rot, you could probably get your $6500 back but it'll take quite a bit of time and you'll need the tools and materials or you'll have to buy them which will add to your cost.

It's called the "sunk cost fallacy". Read about it, then decide how much effort you're willing to put in, chasing your investment down the rabbit hole.

 

Just read about "sunk cost fallacy". Very interesting & makes a lot of sense. I bet most guys on here have fallen victim to this.


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After reading about "sunk cost fallacy" it makes you think about how much more money you'd be willing to throw at it to get some money back. It also makes you think if any money is worth it. Ha ha. I guess most of us on here spend the money because we enjoy the cars & enjoy the hobby & don't really expect to get back s return. It's just hard to swallow when you realize just how bad of a mistake you made. Here's a quote I read somewhere, which I find you could apply to any type of hobby you enjoy.
"Buy what you want. Fix what you can. And remember, if you had all of the
money that you've spent on cars, you would spend it all on cars."
This helps take the sting away a little bit when I think about it. Ha ha.


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Don't feel too bad, I'm going through something similar with one of my projects that my heart isn't really into finishing but needs a bit more work than people seem to want to take on. I haven't decided which way I want to go with it yet, but it's either going to involve me losing a big part of the time/money I spent or dedicating a lot of time to finishing it that I'd kinda rather spend on other things. I think most of us have been there at one time or another.

 

Now that you understand how the fallacy works, here's a thought exercise to help figure out what you want to do.

(I'm using $2K as the number that I figure the car would sell for quickly in it's current condition, but it's just an example number. Consider it $X where X=whatever you'd get for it if you had to dump it within the next 30 days)

Forget what you have stuck in the car, that's meaningless. Let's just say that you have $2000 cash in your pocket and this car got offered to you, for that price. Would you buy it to part it out, would you buy it to fix up and resell, or to keep? If no to all those answers, then just sell it for the $2K and be done with it. In that case, the $2K is more valuable than the car is.

If yes to any of those questions, how far up the scale did you go? If you weren't willing to buy it to part it out and potentially double your $2K investment, then don't bother doing that.

If you were willing to take it on as a project and fix it up in the hopes of reselling it for more, then do that.

If you were willing to fix it with the intention of keeping it, then you're really just sore about how much you paid and not out-of-love with the car just yet. Dig in and don't let the purchase price ruin the fun.

That's the struggle I'm having with the car I'd like to sell, but looking at it from an outside perspective like this really helps. I hope it makes sense the way I explain it.

 

i lost money on that Edsel I bought last year...but not a lot of money, and I took it on an excellent adventure, so I got a lot of entertainment value out of it.

Get the Buick running and driving, and go drive it around, and get something out of it before you sell it cheap.

 

Don't know what year frames will interchange, but that rotted out frame is a safety hazard. It could break going down the road if you hit a pothole. Welding works only if you have solid metal to weld to. Like my old body shop mentor, the late Gene Akins, said, "I can weld steel, but I ain't ever figured out how to weld to rust or thin air."

 

I've fixed worse, when I lived on the East coast.

 

Well dang. OP looking for ideas to cash out his 1950 Biuck with the near new engine so I posted a humerus reply suggesting how to sell the unsaleable Buick with super engine. Apparently the moderators thought I was selling my own Buick, deleted my post, "Reason: strart your own for sale post in the classifieds.". I will ignore them, repost and perhaps get booted.
______________________________
For Sale
1950 Buick Engine $5000
Complete with engine stand (the sedan) and haul away 4 wheel trailer (the sedan)

 

The mods are cracking down lately, but I think "posting a humerus reply" is good. I read it fast and thought you said "posthumous reply", and I got confused and thought: "then who clicked send?"

 

I would love to take that on. To build one of them chopped. But me being in Australia its a bit far away. It would be great to see it fixed. Once its parted out its gone forever.

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