Posted on 01/09/2022 5:54:08 AM PST by super7man
Let's get right to business.
What car have you owned and then sold, that you wish you could get back? When did you buy it and what did it cost? When did you sell it and for how much? Why did you sell it? What is it worth today?
Pictures are allowed.
I'll start.
Sold: 1989. $7900. Once my wife realized that there was only 1/8" of fiberglass between me and the outside world, she was not pleased. She called it my cardboard car. We negotiated that if I would sell it I could by a Jaguar XJS. So I did.
Value Today: $45,000.
Lotus Elan
1967 Corvette Coupe. 427/390 horse. Loaded.
Sold it during the early 702 gas crisis because I was naive enough back then to believe the media which stated that oil was running out.
Yes, I was a dumb*ss, but I did learn my lesson. About the media.
Oops, forgot the price that I sold the ‘vette: $2,200. And also that it was mint - I babied my cars.
‘71 Barracuda. Was dating and the bucket seats were not cool.
Bought it used for $600 and sold it for $1,200. No idea what it would be worth now.
My dad had a junk yard near the G.W. Bridge in N.J. and it was condemned by the county in ‘69. He had 6 months to clean up the 30 acres of stacked cars and so everything went in the crusher. Actually 4 crushers running full time. Who knew?
70 Cuda Convertible
Yellow with black top. 340 not numbers matching.
A friend owned not one but two of the 1971 Hemi Cuda convertibles. There were 11 made all together. They are now selling for $3-4 million each
He drag raced both and sold both for $5-6000.00 each back in mid 70’s. Once included the transport truck he hauled it to races with
His son to this day says his dad sold off his inheritence especially when the dad died with very little money
I had an Impala and my next car was a Monte....Both were awesome...and years with no problems.
1965 Mustang
1967 Mustang
1968 Firebird
1969 Firebird
1970 Impala Convertible
66 T-5 Convertible, not a Mustang, what the GI’s bought in Germany etc while on stationed their. They had to call it the code name of the program. Someone had the copyrights to the name Mustang in Europe.Pony Interior, Roof Rac. bought 400, sold 650 no place to restore it. 50k today easy.
1965 Mustang convertible.
Sold it for $1200 when our first kid was born.
With one exception, every car I owned was used and when I finally let go of it, I had to whisk all the parts into a dustpan. With one exception, I loved them all.
The exception was a 2010 Jetta diesel wagon. Every surface was as hard as diamond. It was comfortable for no more than an hour’s drive. Volkswagen never heard of plush or springs. The dealer experience was the worst of any repair or maintenance experience I ever had.
I am working on my next love, a ‘48 Plymouth Special Deluxe. I have a ‘56 Studebaker in the wings. I’ll let go of them when I die.
1977 Camaro with a blueprinted .40 over 4-bolt main with a Stage II Competition Cam from Tennessee Racing. It ate mustang 5.0s for breakfast. When the catalytic converter rule kicked in, I bought one for each side; she was still fast.
I still have dreams about that car.
My 1980 Chevy C-10 pickup.
Bench seats, 3 on-the-column, no air, no electric windows, no nothin’.
8-foot bed could haul plywood, pianos, etc. Got tired of friends & relatives coming out of the woodwork to ask me to help them move, haul stuff, etc. Put a cap on it for camping, road trips, sleeping-it-off, etc.
I could do my own engine work, etc. (of course, installed my own cassette player and speakers).
Had so many dents and dings, other cars would not come near me on the highways.
Traded it to a buddy of mine for help converting an attic to extra rooms.
Owned a 1976 Porsche 914 purchased new for $7K. Basically a glorified go-kart with a 2 liter air-cooled engine. Mechanical, non-assisted steering. Manual 5-speed. Hand-cranked windows. No A/C.
No airbags (not sure the technology even existed then). It did have seat-belts, but with no engine up front, and the engine mounted just midship behind the only 2 seats, I don’t want to think about the crash rating.
The thing sat so low to the ground you could look at the undercarriage of 18 wheelers on the highway. Top speed 115 MPH, which turned out to be totally doable (but scary). A blast to drive. However, if it rained for more than 2 days, the entire electrical system shorted out and the car would not start until it dried out. Luckily I lived in a pretty warm, dry area at the time.
Sold it and got an even *less* reliable Porsche 924. *sigh*. Sold that and bought Toyotas since then. Not as exciting, but that’s a good thing.
Prices on Porsche 914’s is all over the map.
1959 MGA Fixed Head coupe. My first car and still my favorite. Sold it for about $600 if I recall correctly, when I joined the Navy. Good examples today are very rare and run upwards of $25K-$35K.
My dad bought a gas station that went into forclosure for a business opportunity in 1978.
There was 10-12 junk cars around and behind the station. My dad was given 30 days to remove them and clean up the property
One of the cars was a 1969 Camaro Indy Pace car convertible.
Yep a salvage yard came and crushed it. The hood had been stolen at one point but it was nearly rust free.
I was fixing up a 57 Chevy at the time and had no interest in it and also thought it would be a hassle to get a title.
I’ve never had what you’d consider a really cool car, but I’ve always liked what they now refer to as hot hatchbacks.
In the early 90’s I bought a Dodge Omni GLH Turbo. That little thing was a rocket.
When I bought it, the national speed limit was still 55. When I took it out for a test drive, the seller told me that he really liked the car and that he took it all the way to 70 mph once.
I looked at him and said “I’m doing 85 right now.”
A few years later, I blew the engine and sold the car far too cheap.
Ten years later, I saw one for sale and briefly considered getting it but didn’t.
Bought the camaro for 2850 in 1989. Sold it for 4k. in 1992 Bought a truck and paid off the dirtbike (Kawasaki 200KDX).
Point of reference; I’m 77, graduated from HS 1963.
1952 Willys Station Wagon
1951 Ford, flat head V-8
1956 T-Bird
1963 Buick Skylark 2 door Ht, aluminum V-8
1965 Impala SS
1969 Toyota Corona 2 door HT
Been driving pick up’s ever since
1966 Dodge Dart. I had gotten it for $5 with 29,000 on the odometer in 1990. Body was clean. Four door turquoise with a 225 slant six and straight benches to seat six. Lap belts only. Literally owned by a little old lady (mother of a college prof I worked with). It would be marked as a survivor. Car sat in the garage for several years, and started right up with a new battery. It was probably the last leaded gas burned in Connecticut. The only thing really wrong at the outset was a broken spring under the hood that meant the accelerator was racing until I got it to a full service gas station that had a spring to replace it. EXEMPT FROM EMISSIONS!
Fun car, good torque. No power anything. Five fuses. Automatic transmission. Front end always stunk, and I never did shell out for ball joints. I did have to redo the brakes completely (drums all around, scored a drum broken).
At 125,000 miles I managed to kill the trusty slant six because it leaked oil and I did not keep up with it (frequently broke at the time). It was down over three quarts and I took it on the highway before the engine made a horrible scratching noise. Ran poorly but never started again. I parted it out for $200. If that happened again I would have rebuilt the Slant-Six and redone the front end. I replaced it with a similar ‘66 Dart with 59,000 (that one had power steering) that slid on ice in winter into a police cruiser.
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