Howdy from NJSteve (I had a whole lotta 'cudas back in the day...)

[njsteve]

Welcome from Ontario

Have you ever sat down and did the math on what kind of money you'd be sitting on if you didn't have to sell any of your cars back in the day.........You have had some beauties!!

LOL

If I add up what I paid for all the cars Cudas and Chargers, together (excluding the Daytona), I get $65k.
I paid way too much for the Daytona which I bought in 1989 when the market was stupid high. I bought it from Otis Chandler/Greg Joseph as a project car for 100K unrestored, and then restored it and sold it in 1994 for $75k when I changed jobs which also coincided with the hemi market pooping out. Ugh!

The running joke back then was that I sold more million dollar cars BEFORE they were worth a million dollars than anyone else on the planet. I am the Schleprock of Mopars. Or in the alternative, if you ever bought a car from  me, it was guaranteed to be worth a million once you drove it home.   Sigh

[anlauto]

Steve
With being a pioneer of the hobby, what are your feelings on the current values of the top end Mopars ? Did you ever dream the cars you had owned would ever be worth millions ? When you were bombing around in a 1971 HEMICUDA convertible, did the thought ever occur that it would be an investment car worth millions ?

You must have sold the cars for a profit that made you happy at the time ?

You and Terry were talking about NOS panels, did you ever think there would be a day when we would see reproduction full Cuda quarter panels ? or

I came a little later to the hobby, my first Cuda was around 1987 or so....restored about 35 E Bodies since then.....Alan Gallant

[njsteve]

Steve
With being a pioneer of the hobby, what are your feelings on the current values of the top end Mopars ? Did you ever dream the cars you had owned would ever be worth millions ? When you were bombing around in a 1971 HEMICUDA convertible, did the thought ever occur that it would be an investment car worth millions ?

You must have sold the cars for a profit that made you happy at the time ?

You and Terry were talking about NOS panels, did you ever think there would be a day when we would see reproduction full Cuda quarter panels ? or

I came a little later to the hobby, my first Cuda was around 1987 or so....restored about 35 E Bodies since then.....Alan Gallant

Pioneer? - like a member of the Donner Party maybe!

But seriously, I just had fun back then hunting down the cars, finding them, and then restoring them in time for the following year's Mopar Nats where I would debut the car for show and then bring it to the Musclecar Nationals and drag race it. I knew how rare the cars were but that was what made the search more fun. Not that they were monetarily valuable in any real historic sense. Just that they were cool cars from my childhood days. And if they ran too slow (like the hemicuda ragtop at 14.05, I sold them).

I think the first car I actually made a profit on was the hemicuda ragtop. I bought it for $24K in a Wisconsin blizzard that no one else would go out in (hey, this IS sounding more and more like the Donner Party?) and sold it to Otis Chandler/Greg Joseph for $54K over the phone when he called me during my senior year in college and I thought it was a prank call. He had the money wired into my account within the hour. And from that day on, every hemi ragtop doubled in price with every subsequent transaction. So yes, that whole geometric progression of insane prices was my fault.

I think I brought the Schleprock curse back with me - I have been trying to find a complete B/E&A painted grill assembly but they seem to be long gone now. No more lenses available?

[anlauto]

My first year for the Nats was in Columbus in 1986, I remember drooling over your restorations likely....I need to dig out my old photo albums...

[7E-Bodies]

Wow. What an impressive history. And all this time, I've been remorseful over selling off so many...hence my handle name here. Mine were fun, but you had the primo! Welcome to the group.

Kevin