are prices crazy?

[tparker]

I was just looking for a air cleaner for my 340 70 challenger. Of course these draw a high price. Apparently they are going for about $900 on Ebay. I'm not really complaining, but just saying. I bought my car for $900 in '89 or '90. Most things seem to have tripled in price. Pretty crazy.

PS ping me if you have one for sale for $100

[pschlosser]

Back in the 1980 and 90s, passing on an overpriced part paid off for me, many many times.  The message seemed "if you're patient, you will find the part you want at a fair price."  But those days seem like they're gone.

For now (and it won't last) we live in a world where many of the parts we want are being made reproduction.  so buying an OEM part isn't the only option for some items.  and the days of finding an NOS part are pretty much gone.  unless it's some obscure part no one even cares if it's NOS or not, like a light bulb.  when I see someone post a "WTB Must be NOS" request, I'm thinking to myself, "dare to dream, my friend."  

The highly publicized auctions on cable television showing fake muscle cars selling for big $$$ seem to be pushing the price of used OEM parts up.  Another result of those auctions is many on the path to "get rich quick" get the idea of building their own retirement muscle car.  The demand for OEM parts is up, as a result.  

In recent years, I've passed on parts because I thought the selling price was too high.  More than once, have I gotten a direct message telling me if I want the part, not to pass on it, as the prices are only going up, and the availability is going down.

So it comes down to this, if you want a part, and it must be OEM, if you pass up on an expensive one, what are the odds of your finding another one for less?  We're seeing fewer and fewer of these parts for sale.

[dodj]

I was just looking for a air cleaner for my 340 70 challenger. Of course these draw a high price. Apparently they are going for about $900 on Ebay. I'm not really complaining, but just saying. I bought my car for $900 in '89 or '90. Most things seem to have tripled in price. Pretty crazy.

PS ping me if you have one for sale for $100

Ya, I traded a Remington model 700ADL for my Challenger in, I think, 1985. You could go to junk yards and remove parts off ebodies and walk home with an armload of parts for 10 bucks.
When I see part prices now I think I must have tossed a $100k worth of parts in the dump.

[Katfish]

If we only knew........
I paid $300 for a Panther Pink 383 R/T Challenger in 82, although it was in primer and had a 413.  Roasted the tires off it for a couple of weeks and then pulled the dash pad, rally gauges and rear valance to use on my 72 318 Challenger.
Then had it towed to junkyard to be scraped.

[cuda hunter]

Definitely crazy prices.
It has become a rich man's hobby.   

[JH27N0B]

I started doing the concours restoration of my T/A in the late 90s and at the time chasing parts was the restoration chore that I enjoyed most.  There was still a lot of jewels out there to be found and prices seemed to be on the rise, but as the old saying goes "you ain't seen nothing yet".
One of the first rare items I tracked down, might have been 98, was a set of '450 wheels a NW IL parts seller had.  He wouldn't budge off the $1100 he wanted for them and to add insult to injury had to charge me sales tax since I was also an IL resident.  I decided to buy them even though not happy with the price.  A few years later I could have flipped the set of wheels for $3000!
3 had them had the same date code and the other was a few months earlier. 5 or 6 years later a guy on one of the forums said he had a wheel with the same date code as my 3 that he'd sell me for $450 (nice symmetry there, 450 for a 450).  I bought it and sold my earlier dated one, and was happy to have a matching date code set for my car. The seller is a real active forum poster, one of these guys who'll use any excuse to run up his post count, and for years and years afterwards whenever anyone would post anything about steel wheels he'd post whining about how he'd sold a 450 wheel to a forum member too cheap.
When I got the car done, I'd post a response to his griping with a picture of my finished car saying hey it went to a great home, look!  I didn't flip your wheel I used it on my restoration! The guy hates dog dish hubcaps and to this day posts when someone posts about a car with dig dish caps rips on the wheels and caps calling them "dork dishes".  So I don't know why he is so upset about selling a steel wheel, you'd think he'd be glad he found some "dork" buyer to get the boring wheel out of his sight! 
Those were the good old days.  I hate to think of trying to find all those parts I was buying 25 years ago, let alone what I'd have to pay now.  Selling sucks too.  Glad I got to enjoy buying and selling when it was still fun, but I miss the good old days.

[340Challman]

If we only knew........
I paid $300 for a Panther Pink R/T Challenger in 82, although it was in primer and had a 413.  Roasted the tires off it for a couple of weeks and then pulled the dash pad, rally gauges and rear valance to use on my 72 318 Challenger.
Then had it towed to junkyard to be scraped.

I remember those days. The days when if a car was over 10 years old it was worthless. Sell it for a couple hundred dollars and get something newer. Granted a fairly new replacement car could be had for $2500. As Cuda hunter said, it has become a rich mans game. It's not even a hobby for them. It's an investment and it's chest pounding. Showing off what they just bought.

I have heads off of the 69 Hurst/Olds I had. Last time I saw, they were bringing $5000. The intake was somewhere around $8000. That is the state of our muscle cars today. The majority of people who truly love them can't afford to own them. It's disappointing.

[JH27N0B]

It's not just part prices that have skyrocketed, it's everything.  In 1981 I had a Challenger front bumper rechromed and it cost $75.  Now the same bumper would cost at least 10x that much to have rechromed!
I doubt one can do a ground up rotisserie restoration using mostly NOS parts on a Mopar today for under $200,000, unless you can do most of the work yourself. 1000-2000 hours at $100 to $125 an hour at a good shop, add materials and  parts, maybe my 200K estimate is low! 

[HP2]

Used cars that used to cost $500-800 when we were young are now $3000-4500, and they aren't even cool old V8, RWD models any more. Yeah, sometimes you can find sub $1000 vehicles, but they are usually clapped out POSs and nothing you would want to keep.

[Cuda Cody]

Prices were already high enough.  $900 is crazy town! 

[ec_co]

I've been feeling this really hard the last couple of months, pushing to get mine done before prices keep getting too out of control. It's a good thing I've been buying parts for the last 10 years. Legendary seat covers are $200 more than what I paid 10 years ago, the good door panels are now twice what I paid for them about 6 years ago. By the time I'm done with my absolutely bare bones Slant six Barracuda that I got for free, I'll still be 35 Grand deep. And that's not even a rotisserie restoration. It's hard to imagine the costs of a higher trim level and especially trying to go for an oem spec build.

However, the other way that I'm looking at it is if you look at the cost of new car prices I'm right there and mine won't lose value like a newer car will and it will be a hell of a lot more fun to drive.

[Brads70]

I'm very glad I was able to buy my car when I did 18 years ago. No way I could afford one now let alone restore it.

[blown motor]

I'm very glad I was able to buy my car when I did 18 years ago. No way I could afford one now let alone restore it.

Yes, especially for us Canadians with the exchange rate.

[Katfish]

I'm very glad I was able to buy my car when I did 18 years ago. No way I could afford one now let alone restore it.

So true, if I was just starting now, I'd be looking at a 3-4yr old Mustang.

[Brads70]

I'm very glad I was able to buy my car when I did 18 years ago. No way I could afford one now let alone restore it.

So true, if I was just starting now, I'd be looking at a 3-4yr old Mustang.

Well.... don't know if I'd stoop that low?