Back in the day...

[rftroy]

Had to share this.  It may cause some of the younger members to cry.
I am cleaning up around the house and came across a bag with some small size documents in it.  Many I thought were gone forever.

These were two of them.
The transmission receipt if for a pristine 1968 Hemi transmission out of a Roadrunner.  I still have it and have since collected a complete aluminum case and upgraded to the later synchros.  Lord, since is 43 years!
The other is for an Air Grabber hood which came complete and included the firewall vacuum can, hoses and big red dash switch.  It is on my Roadrunner now.

Strange looking at these.  But, it makes me realize that I couldn't possibly own my cars if I had to buy them today.
Anyone else in the same relationship with their cars?

Robert

[JunkYardFind]

I am in the middle of a major upgrade for my 73 restomod and prices boggle my mind!

I go to alot of car shows and topic of "where's the kids now days in the hobby". Well the kids in no way can afford this hobby! I truly believe the repro folks are pricing themselves out of a market. I mean $109 for a plastic repro dash speaker grill...c'mon man, that is just greed!

Anyway, I am getting REALLY good at making what I have work. I won't have an award winning car but she will look and run fantastic & that's all I need.

[chargerdon]

Yep, part of this is because the classic car craze stared about 20 years ago.   Since then most of the Junkyard cars have been parted out, so not a lot left and the therefore the sellers are asking premium prices.   

back in 2005, i bought a 66 Dodge Charger which needed a total restore.    Was able to find lots of parts on Ebay and craigslist.   Its finished (thank god) and today if i look for say a replacement speedometer you find nothing !!    Back then i was able to buy an entire gauge cluster for $50.  So parts have all been scrounged up !! 

PS...   On Ebay you can now find New replacement speaker grilles for the 70-74 ebody for around $75.   That's better but still kind of ridiculous for a piece of plastic.   

[HP2]

Kids today are playing with cars that are less expensive and won't get them the third degree from some old fart about how they are mistreating classic iron.  LS engined cars, new Hemis, V8 tranplanted foreign cars, trucks, etc,  there are cheap entries in to the car hobby where cheap, ugly but fast without matching numbers are permisable and no one will give you grief because you tail light lens doesn't have the correct pentastar logo and part number.

[Skdmark]

Had to share this.  It may cause some of the younger members to cry.
I am cleaning up around the house and came across a bag with some small size documents in it. 

At first, I thought you were referring to making younger members cry because your first receipt is in cursive and they cannot read it.

[RUNCHARGER]

To be honest if you want to play with cars today like we did in our day I think the fairly modern Mustang is what to play with. RWD, manual trans Hipo V8 and lots of them around. You can probably get a decent, complete one for $5k or so and mod it or improve it paycheque to paycheque. I know lots of people with 4 or 5 Mopars or even more in varying states of being built and they've never driven them, always saving up for the next high priced part.

[bentpshrods]

    I'm lucky enough to have had my cuda for a long time. A year or so after I bought it (1977) I ran into a guy selling this Six pack set up for a 340. It's the mechanical set up --no vac. pods that I think came from the hustle stuff program. No air cleaner but I paid $200.00 for it. Been sitting on the shelf since but I recently got the lid and stuff to finish it and will finally install it this summer.  Back then you did a lot of trading and swapping of parts and labor for stuff as money was pretty tight. Biggest regret was not stashing away more parts that were around but you know what they say about hind sight. Blows me away at how much money gets invested in fixing these cars at today's prices.

[DeathProofCuda]

Had to share this.  It may cause some of the younger members to cry.
I am cleaning up around the house and came across a bag with some small size documents in it. 

At first, I thought you were referring to making younger members cry because your first receipt is in cursive and they cannot read it.

[CHL2T]

30 years ago I bought a complete drop in 69 Charger grille, latch tray, pods, wiring and hoses for 30 bucks. The dude also wanted to sell me 2 complete running rust free 69 Chargers and a storage room FULL of every removable part from 3 other Chargers for a whopping 3000!

If I wasn't just a broke kid i woulda snapped it all up

Around the same time there was a v code PCP 70 Challenger sitting behind a car lot that the sales guy said could be bought for 13,000 which at the time was a crazy price considering it was completely gutted  with the parts stored in a shed

[js27]

Yes the prices today are crazy but the availability of original parts gets harder and harder to fine each year so prices go up and up.. I collected many parts for 1967 Plymouth GTX's back in the early 90's when I bought and restored my 67 GTX. I bought a complete interior -front buckets and rear seat and shroud and a complete automatic console in perfect condition for $125.00. Kept it for 25 years covered up and sold the whole set up for $2200.00. I also bought a rust free 4 door out of a junk yard for $75.00 had it towed it to my house and stripped it and gave it back to the same junk yard. When I sold off all the parts I stripped I cleared $5200.00. Same with all the 70 Challenger parts I sold off I got top dollar for all the NOS stuff and it sold fast. I still have a few odds and ends left for both cars but haven't advertised them lately. If we only knew where this hobby was going back in the day we all would have bought every car and part we could afford and stashed them away---LOL.
JS27