One thing that has always baffled me when it comes to cars is how they are valued, and how those values vary on so many factors. If certain, well known builders, put their hands on a car, it seems to be transformed into an instant high dollar car. On the flip side, if Joe Average spends his life savings restoring his ride, it's not unusual to see it advertised for sale for 1/2 the money invested in the project.
With that said, it leaves me to question as to why this particular trade, automotive restoration, is not on par with other specialty trades? Plumbers, carpenters, electricians, and even your mechanic at your local dealership, make a respectable rate for their experience. So why do car projects often fail to offer the type of return on money invested that they deserve? All too often, labor costs/time invested is an automatic wash, and almost as often, even the money invested in parts alone is hard to recover, depending upon the project.
Perhaps the most puzzling of all to me is the direction the street rod market has gone. You can pick up an all original, or at least an era correct restoration, for a fraction of the cost that many kit cars will fetch. When I say kit car, I'm referring to what is now likely the majority of street rods on the road, either fiberglass bodied cars, or a steel reproduction of an original. Street Rods often lacked the special engine/special options that drive the prices amongst the muscle car era, and yet these kit cars often demand more money than all but the rarest of muscle cars.
I have always had a deep love for 3rd generation Firebirds/Camaros, and there is no denying their performance abilities with an updated powertrain/suspension. Yet this is another example of a car being a lost cause when it comes to your return on investment. For my particular Formula, I envision an LS3 with around 400 hp under the hood, backed by a T56, drop the curb weight from 3,400 lbs down to something below 3,000 lbs. Update the suspension, and stiffen the car up (expecially the t-top cars), and you have a nimble, lightweight, powerful car that would knock down around 30 mpg. With gas prices seemingly going to stay north of $4 a gallon, and likely keep rising, one would think there would be a market for such a performance car that gets such respectable mpg and performance. Reality is, you'd likely have $20,000-$25,000 invested, while lucky to fetch $10,000-$12,000 on the open market.
Why a topic on car values? Well, I have a deep desire to start restoring cars in the coming years, with the plan being to sell, and hopefully make a little money to put into future projects. I have a few cars I have come across locally that I'd like to restore, though I question whether some of them would equate to a loss when it came time to sell.
I enjoy wrenching on cars almost as much as I do driving them, which is evident by how long my projects sit undrivable. That said, anybody who has restored a car knows the attachment that often comes with it. Any future projects I start with plans to sell, I will have to carefully choose, so as I don't have such an attachment that it becomes just another one of my cars that I end up holding on to. Ideally, it would be nice to finish a car, hit some major shows around the area and out of state, and sell it during the car show season, and move onto the next project. At least that's how it would go in a perfect world.
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