I recently bought a '69 that looks fair to good from a few feet away. Did the deal in 100 degree heat after a five hour drive. Believed too much what the seller was telling me and didn't spend enough time underneath. Found it needs more work than I bargained for. Just got the PHS docs and found it started life as a basic 350. The front clip is in good shape, doors good, rockers good. Trunk, floor pans, rear quarters and rear frame rails - not good. Drive train seems strong, car tracks straight. Do I part it out? Patch the worst and drive it? Maybe find a parts car and frankenstein a good one?
Not worth 20k+ in body work for a basic 350. Give me your opinions.

What ballpark price do you have into it? What condition is the interior?

9K
Interior - 43 years old - complete, but worn. About the only option worth mentioning is A/C (which is gone).
rear speakers
remote mirror
deluxe steering wheel
dual horns
F70X14 ralleys (great shape!)
PS/PB

Completely restored, I'd guess the car would be worth somewhere in the mid to upper teens.

Parting out, you might clear a few grand.

A true rock-and-a-hard-place situation I'm afraid.

Unless you can do all the work yourself, I think you will be further ahead selling it in driving condition rather than parting it. Probably not a lot of valuable parts on that one.

Thanks.
I think I'll fix what needs to be done and learn in the process. Drive and enjoy it.

Somewhere down the road will be "the one" that will make it all worthwhile.

Thank you for the advice!

Absolutely do not part it out. That will maximize and solidify your financial loss immediately.

To minimize financial loss, if you want out of it, your best bet is to clean it up pretty and try to sell it as-is...drivable. You might not be as bad off as you think you are. A driveable 69, "fair to good"? Presumably it looks/cloned like something BETTER than a "basic 350?" Does this mean it looks like a 400? If you got all that, then heck, $9K doesn't sound too awful bad to me! You might have actually done OK on this purchase...just didn't get the steal you hoped for.

Or, as it seems you intend to do, there's not a thing wrong with just patching it and driving it...and enjoy it. As long as you don't have structural issues that are true safety items, like the car is going to crack in half on you, then patching and driving and enjoying will be well worth your price of admission.

Restoring one of these cars almost NEVER makes any financial sense at all...unless you do it all yourself and consider your labor time to be free. Even then, parts and materials alone will cause you to probably break even at best.

To get the best bang for your buck on ANY classic/antique car purchase, you gotta buy the car DONE. Fully restored, and PROPERLY restored/researched/documented. Those cars are the best deals out there, unless you have a true love for the work that goes into doing it yourself. Few people have that love.

Just recognize that your current $9K is not 100% lost, only a small portion of it MIGHT be. And that portion is simply written off as "tuition" for the education you just received in the process of making this purchase and researching it later.

We've all spent "tuition" at some point in our lives, whether related to our cars or not...write it off and move on. Enjoy the car! Post up some pics! It's OK to skip photos of the hidden bad parts...we don't care...

crazecars.
THANK YOU!

[img]http://WTF.moreliaviridis.yuku.com/photos/next/pid/1954540[/img]

Just perusing Ebay sales for some comparisons...didn't find many comps. But lookie what I did find!
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1969-Fire...9#ht_500wt_1184

IMO that's a pretty nice looking car! Monetary value is always in the eyes of the buyer and seller. But FWIW, I really don't think you did too bad at all, and pretty much got your money's worth. Don't beat yourself up over it. Any car if this type, in this price range, will NOT be a truly original 400 that looks that pretty, and WILL have some substantial issues to address. That's just the way it is...

Assuming you were seeking a driver, and not a concourse restoration candidate, I think you did fine, even if it didn't turn out to be what you had hoped. Just enjoy driving it!

crazecars,
Thanks for the kind words. Got myself all psyched up over getting a finished condition car. When I found I couldn't afford one, I went with one in my budget. I'll have fun driving it and performing the upgrades myself. At least I'll learn in the process.

[quote=crazecars]Just perusing Ebay sales for some comparisons...didn't find many comps. But lookie what I did find!
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1969-Fire...9#ht_500wt_1184

That's it!

That's what??

The firebird I just bought.

I think you might be going through a small case of "buyers remorse". Give it time to wear off and I think you'll realize you did pretty good. Then you'll get excited about the car and begin to enjoy it.

Well, if you decide to sell, you have the ad all set up already...

I just bought a 64 Tempest and felt the same way. The buyers remorse has worn off and now I'm starting to enjoy it. I would call it a rat muscle car.

I now have mods in mind. It kind of nice to have a classic car you can park at wal mart.

It looks like a nice car in those pictures.

The resto-mod ideas are flowing. Thinking of a stealth firebird all in camouflage.............

Thanks. The total project was a little overwhelming at first. One bite at a time.

I did the opposite, bought a 69 T/A convertible tribute that I knew needed a lot, sat it in the garage for several months and contemplated everything that had to be done. Decided I really didn't have the time for it, ended up selling it for about what I had in it. Didn't loose anything in the deal.
Buyer knew exactly what he was getting and was excited about it, just shows there's a buyer out there for every car.

Keep it for awhile and you'll figure it out.

8 or 9 years ago my GF bought a 69 firebird convertible from ebay. She won it for 2800.00 delivered. at first it looked OK. until i started tearing it down. i think i have about 10% of the car she bought left. i replaced everything, the only nice thing on the car was sombody did a cheap and quick resto in the 80's im guessing as i has NOS fenders on it, GM stickers were still on them. everything else was trash. Im well over 25k in PARTS alone i did all the labor. but i did it cause i wanted to build MY firebird and i wanted a ragtop. so i did a 400 clone. almost done. i'll never sell it.

OK, gotta ask.... Do you still have the GF?

Well all I can go by is my experience from 2-1/2 years ago when our 68 bird was rear ended and wrecked pretty good. I offered the car for sale complete (drive train and all) for 10k and what I received was a couple of low ball offers for 3-4k. So I then decided to part the car out and did so. I parted the car out for 13k and kept the motor and trans. Just a couple of months ago I sold the motor for another 5k. The trans in in my 67 LeMans and is worth at least another $2500 due to the fact that it had been completely rebuilt just prior to the bird being rear ended. Then in addition I traded 3k in parts from the bird for parts for the LeMans. Plus, this did not included the repair money from the ins. co. (Hagerty) from the accident itself.

So as I learned from my own first hand experience you can always make more parting a car than you will getting low balled by someone else in the hobby. Had someone bought my car for the 10k when I offered it, they would have gotten a 10k drive train alone as I had one killer 400/4-speed/3.55 rear combo that was all completely rebuilt, and built with nothing but the best of everything top to bottom front to back. From steel ram air pans to long branch manifolds. The rest of the stuff such as bird glass, fold down seat and darn near every OEM option available would have been the icing on the cake for the buyer.

I am now in a similar situation with my LeMans. We may be buying a home. The house has been gutted and needs all the interior trim (carpet, doors, trim moldings etc.) we are getting a great deal on the house but we would have to sell our LeMans for the money to finish the interior.

Well, in my opinion the LeMans being a 100% rust free, ALL original sheet metal car, 90% original paint, ALL original interior (that is basically perfect a 9 out of 10) and with the OEM options that I have put on the car ie: tilt wheel, red fender well liners, rear window defroster, power seat, power trunk release, rear power antenna, and the list goes on. I feel the car is worth 20k. Here again I am being offered 15k etc. Now I realize this is rough economy etc. however, I know for an absolute FACT that I could part this car for well over 28k without any question in my mind.

Now do I want to part out a completely perfect 69k original mile 67 LeMans with it's original: motor, rear end, interior, original paint, Rally I rims and 5k in OEM options, 5k aftermarket upgrades ie: 4-wheel disc brakes, original AM radio conversion with single front & rear speakers upgraded to dual voice coils for true stereo sound but yet maintaining it's 100% original bone stock look but having 80watts of power and sounding like a modern sound system. Diamondback red line tires. Stainless steel brake lines and the list goes on and on.

So as you can see, I am also in a quandary..

Oh took that wrong. No i dont. she is now an ex-wife with a lot of my money , 1962 Impala SS (real) 1985 benz 380-sl and anything else that wasnt bolted down. iddid what most people joke about i traded her in on a way newer model 26 years old. runs way better, not a spot of rust,no body work needed and doesnt make loud whiney noises. ;-)