Hey…we have only two entires!!!! One looks like it has the lock on the Disaster Garage and the second, although a good try for the Disaster Garage, looks like the leader in in the clean garage contest.
I know there are more aweful garages out there…bring on.
Two $25.00 gift cards in the running. Home Depot and Checkers Auto parts
Ok so we need to touch on sources for help us come to a decision on the value of our cars.
There are several areas. NADA has an online collector cars section and Kelly’s Blue Book doesn’t cover cars as old as mine, at least their on-line services only goes to year 1990.
So for a “collector value” you need to turn to one of the other publications, there are many, the one I use most often is Old Cars Price Guide. I have a copy sent to me but they have an on-line service as well. www.oldcarspriceguide.net.
Most price guides require a selection of “condition”. errkkk……there we go again, subjective, subjective, subjective. The Old Cars Price Guide gives you a 1 -6 rating with 1 being the top condition. In the front of the guide there is a listing of what the conditions mean and what’s required for meeting that goal.
Here is how my cars stack up.
The Mustang:
Old Cars Price guide – 1. $22,500 2. $15,750 3. $10,130 4. $4,500 5. $2,700 6. $900 (wow the at the drop of value)
NADA’s Used price – 1. $17,440 2. $13,140 3. $8, 110
The Vette:
Old Cars Price guide – 1. $27,000 2. $18,900 3. $12,150 4. $5,400 5. $3,240 6. $1,080
NADA’s Used price – 1. $17,350 2. $13,510 3. $8, 503
Over $20k drop in prices by condition with the Old Cars Price guide. and $5k there ’bouts with NADA’s Used price.
Couple of things are clear right up front. There is no way my cars are going to bring Old Cars Pice Guide’s top money, either one of them, and the Mustang is pretty close to a 2 condition and the Corvette is about the same. I won’t say how much money I’ve spent on the cars but considering the Mustang has had a ton of “stuff'” done. Lets just say that the 1 condition price is still under that. (more on that later.)
The next areas are online car sales. You can search Craig’s list and Cars.com and AutoTrader and one of my favorites Hemming’s Motor News. But the draw back of all those is that the prices are offered prices – they don’t often give you the “sold” price and the conditions are only as reliable as the sellers assessment. Now, Hemmings Motor News does have auctions listed with in their pages and the do tell you what the selling price was and/or the top bid if they didn’t.
“Whoa..there” you say..”that’s a lot of work.” And yup it is. First you have to be lucky enough to see your car listed more then once…I hate to keep picking on Mr. Sears, but you just aren’t going to seem too many Mercury Cougar station wagons for sale….nor will you see too many ’70 Mustang Coupes…you just won’t. Once you find some, and you’ll need a few so you can find the average price..errk…. but even then the actual conditions may vary.
One other way is to search on-line auctions, like Ebay. There are some companies out there that will mine the data for you and give you the sold prices. But again you have the condition variable you have to account for.
Drop me note if you have some idea.
Next up is a “formula” for you to use for helping determine the value..oh… don’t worry it will be straight forward………..yeah..right.
Thanks for reading.
Tim
First let’s get a couple of …sayings out-of-the-way.
1. It’s worth what someone will pay for it!!!!
2. It has sentimental value!!!!!!
These comments are so useless, but you hear them all the time.
Determining the value of your car isn’t easy. Especially these days with the roller coaster ride that is collector car prices and the huge difference between a million plus ‘cuda and a run of the mill rare Charger.
What makes it tougher is the fact that you might not have a cuda or even a run of the mill Charger. I have a 70 Mustang coupe…you aren’t going to find them on Barrett Jackson bringing hundreds of thousands of dollars. One of our readers has a Mercury Cougar Station Wagon, come on..I love that car, but you won’t see it crossing an auction block.
So there are several ways to ‘try’ to obtain a reasonable value. This is important for resale, estate planning, and insurance. In the next few posts I’ll toss out a few options. Here are the areas:
Blue Book
NADA
Bean Counter
Auctions
On line sales.
More tomorrow.
Thanks for reading
Tim
Here ya go…this is PDawg’s entry.
Disaster? or Clean?
2/15/1944 the SCCA was formed
2/15/1944 Graham Hill was born in London – In 1972 he won the 24 Hours of Le Mans for Matra with Henri Pescarolo. With this win he finished the so-called Triple Crown of motor sport: winning the F1 World Championship, the Indy 500 and the Le Mans 24 Hours. Till today he is the only person ever to have achieved this.
2/16/1951 Nash-Healey’s début in the US
2/17/1934 The first high school drivers ed classes in Pa.
2/18/1952 Studebaker turned 100. Stopped production in the US in 1963 and finished up in Canada in 1966.
2/18/1898 -Enzo Ferrari born in Italy
Anyone have this problems? I love my two cars (the Mustang and the Vette), but I like a lot of other cars as well and the only thing stopping from owning a few more is a 5ft 100lbs lady and of course a place to keep them and of course $$$$ and believe it or not what little bit of common sense I a scrape up…which isn’t easy when it comes to cars.
So every now and then, I go through this cycle. I want another Vette or 2011 Mustang or a vintage Mopar (wouldn’t it be cool to have one of each brand??), but the only way to get another car is to get rid of one of my existing cars. Man..that’s a tough call to make. So I guess I’ll have to sell my wife’s Lexus..yeah..that’s the ticket….of course I’ll need a place to live after that….No problem…I can live in my cars!!! Yeah..that’s a good plan.
I’ve gone back and forth with “trading the Mustang for a Vette”. I actually had a guy willing do just that. (If you read one of my earliest post, that’s how I got my Corvette in the first place – traded my Celica title for title for the Corvette). I’ve toyed with “selling the Mustang on online and buying a vette” or “selling the both and buying a new vette.” It seems to be a constant dilemma, at least for me.
But I get to thinking about value. Can I get the money I’ve put into them back? What should I sell them for? (Next post will be about determining value.) Will I be sorry after words
The last time I went through this cycle, I had the Mustang almost sold and I when outside to start it and as I sat in it I realized ‘I can’t sell this, it’s my first Muscle car that I’ve built from the ground up (as an adult)!!’ I knew that later on when I’m old… I’d be saying “I wish I still had that one!”
There is something about them that sticks to you (those of us that own them). I think it’s character. They have character. I read an article where the author said they had “soul”….a bit of a stretch for me to get behind, but it’s something.
So I good. For now!!!! Oh but I’d love an old Plymouth with fins, and 1950’s Ford and big old Chevy wagon….and..oh yea…a 1966 T-bird….sigh!!!!!
Don’t forget. $25.00 gift card in the balance. Get the photos in.
2/7/1942 Our government order the production of cars halted and production lines converted for producing wartime functionality. ( Hemmings had a great series of articles a couple years ago that covered what each car manufacture produced for the war-time effort. If you can find them they are a great read.)
2/7/1958 – The Dutch DAF 600 automatic transmission was intro’ed.
2/10/1942 – Pontiac physically halts car production for war-time effort
2/11/1932 – Ford introduced this new flathead V8. It had a good run through 1953
2/12/1908 – First New York to Paris Auto Race.
Thanks for reading.
Tim
This ties in very well with the discussion of restoration or restromods…almost. I reading one of Hemmings Classic Cars mags (March 2010)…..erk…how the heck can it be a March 2010 and I got it two weeks ago ..that would be January…never mind. The theme running through the edition was cars that are unrestored originals, basically cars that are old and haven’t been….well … restored.
First the main kick-off article (that’s one that explains the “theme” of the issue) was written by one of my favorite Hemming’s editors, Rich Lentinello- hopefully he won’t mind me call him Rich. He touches on the idea of preservation and not restoration. A repeated phrase used in the other articles is “it’s only original once” and of course you can’t argue with that. (Oh..that is also the name of Rich’s book…I haven’t picked it up yet, but I intent do.)
As I read the articles covering 1932 Ford, 1937 Packard, 1971 Cuda, 1930 Oakland, 1948 Chrysler, ’60 Corvette (needs paint…really), ’67 Eldorado and a few more, I enjoyed the stories..all car guys love “the story”. But each car had something changed about it. There was the 1954 Hudson the car had dents repaired, gas tank dropped and boiled(common practice when a car has sat for years), window cylinders replaces and brakes all redone. The ’60 vette had the engine rebuild and all the upholstery replaced. The fact that the paint is pealing off makes it more original? I don’t know.
Now does that hold up against replacing the control arms on the Mustang or the upholstery being redone (using original materials..I might add.) Restromod? Restored? Original? How about drivable, race- able (yes the Mustang makes it to the drags at least twice a year) and fun…yup that’s the ticket.
I guess I’m still not comfortable with the “restromod” moniker that guy stuck on my car. (I bet you could tell, could ya?) More therapy coming up.
Thanks for reading.
Tim
I’m always reading where a guy had replace every part on his car and saved all the old parts. As with all things there is line of demarcation. What made me think of this was the new front end of the Mustang and a previous conversation when I was needed to rebuild the transmission for the 2nd time in the Corvette.
I was pretty fed up with the T400R (I’ll share the story when I talk about the mods for the Vette in another post). I had trouble with it when I first got it —only 32K miles, and then a horrible rebuild and on the second rebuild I was considering just replacing with another level 2. A fee of the guys from the Corvette club (ACE) that I belong to encouraged me to keep the old trans because it would be important at some point to have the matching number trans.
I’ve read were some have even kept old sheet metal because of the part number and the new after market ones don’t have that. But there can’t be much value in having an old front valance for my Mustang laying around..ya think? (Ok..fine I do still have it and it does have the original part number on it..but I wouldn’t put it on again.)
So saw no reason to keep the old control arms no value in that.
BTW I had the Corvette transmission rebuilt. This really leads me to another topic I read about in a car magazine. The topic was survivor cars or the most original. That one later.
Thanks for reading.
Tim
