80's car scene VS today's?

[MeanBuicks]

In '86 I bought my numbers matching but basket case 1967 GS400 for $400 and that included a new radiator and two rechromed bumpers. That was the year I began college so I worked on it steadily when home on breaks. I hit the road in '88 and proceeded to wipe up 5.0 Mustangs and the myriad of IROC Camaros cruising the Jersey Shore. They thought nothing of a big, old ragtop with white walls carrying four people until all they saw were tail lights.

Of course, I pined for a GN at the time but that was unattainable until I graduated. Bought my first one in 1990...while employed at IROC of all places. :lol: (That is, the race facility that was in Tinton Falls, NJ that built and maintained all the stock cars for the now defunct championship series.)

 

[Intragration]

Ha ha cool thread idea. It's all relative. I was thinking pretty much the same thing about the '60s in the '80s that you're thinking about the '80s now. First, "Any muscle car" wasn't going for $1k-$3k in the '80s. Maybe a junky one, but 318 Darts in good shape were going for around $2,500 by the mid- to late-'80s, not too far from what they're going for now. (I was primarily Mopar in the '80s) True muscle cars? They were still going for a good buck even by then.

So what's the trend here? Whoever has the most money and/or newest cars wins.

This has been true since cars were invented. Money buys horsepower. Having said that, in 1988 I bought a '74 'Cuda with no motor for $800, bought a New Yorker with a 440 for $400, drove the New Yorker for a while then swapped the motor into the 'Cuda and beat up on pretty much everything on the street. Fast forward 20-some years, I bought an '83 Cutlass with no motor for $1,200, picked up a recently rebuilt 455 for $1,500, swapped it in, and I'm beating up on a wider range of cars, and still generally holding my own against everything but the wildest stuff. Most everything from the '70s through the '90s is gone now, and we've got everything from the '00s and the '10s, and I'm still doing reasonably well against them, with about the same technology as I had in 1988. The difference is, the faster non-factory modern cars require some dude with a laptop to program them. Add headers? Reprogram. Other bolt-ons? Reprogram. Quick cars are still in the 14s. Really quick cars are in the 13s. Super quick cars are in the 12s. 99.9% of the performance cars fit into these categories. It hasn't really changed, except some guys still like to tinker, some don't mind paying another guy to program their car, and life goes on. The big difference now for me is, if I lose, I still win, because I have a junky '80s Cutlass. And if I win, some guy feels pretty crappy about his $40k computer car with infotainment. 😀

Anyway, this is just my take on it. There will always be someone who's quicker than you. Go in the direction that calls you, and be happy with your decision. If it's not working for you, change direction.

 

[Bonnewagon]

One thing hasn't really changed at all. All along the average Joe with kids and a mortgage could only afford basic transportation. While you were able to option together a killer combination, it cost a lot of money. Please don't get the impression everyone in the 60's/70's/80's drove around in big block Camaros. Oh sure, guys with plenty of money bought Trans Ams, Z28s and Vettes, and those eventually filtered down to high school kids and gear heads. But most cars were a six cylinder with few options. Thus, hot rodders did what decades of guys before them did- bought what ever they could afford and swapped in a huge motor. It's a winning game plan then and now. What was different then was that no matter what you cobbled together, you got respect for your effort. Nowadays, with billet everything and $5,000 paint jobs, what kid would even want to get involved?

 

[Clone TIE Pilot]

One thing hasn't really changed at all. All along the average Joe with kids and a mortgage could only afford basic transportation. While you were able to option together a killer combination, it cost a lot of money. Please don't get the impression everyone in the 60's/70's/80's drove around in big block Camaros. Oh sure, guys with plenty of money bought Trans Ams, Z28s and Vettes, and those eventually filtered down to high school kids and gear heads. But most cars were a six cylinder with few options. Thus, hot rodders did what decades of guys before them did- bought what ever they could afford and swapped in a huge motor. It's a winning game plan then and now. What was different then was that no matter what you cobbled together, you got respect for your effort. Nowadays, with billet everything and $5,000 paint jobs, what kid would even want to get involved?

It's even worse than that, with $13,000+ powertrain swaps being pushed by the car mags and GM as the new wave of hotrodding while creating a gearhead culture that disdains older powertrain tech. That is besides low cost and mid cost options being discontinued right and left.

 

[King_V]

Ha ha cool thread idea. It's all relative. I was thinking pretty much the same thing about the '60s in the '80s that you're thinking about the '80s now. First, "Any muscle car" wasn't going for $1k-$3k in the '80s. Maybe a junky one, but 318 Darts in good shape were going for around $2,500 by the mid- to late-'80s, not too far from what they're going for now. (I was primarily Mopar in the '80s) True muscle cars? They were still going for a good buck even by then.

I remember two friends of mine were into Mopars in the late 80s and early 90s.

However, I also stumbled across an article I think in 1992 about how to get a reasonably fast car for cheap, and among the various things, was that Mopars were very undervalued on the market, and that "even the lowly 318 could outpace most of the 'sporty' cars around today"

I managed to pick up a 1974 Dart Sport with a 318 2-bbl with mid-70k miles on it. It had A/C, 2.45 gears, oddly a mechanic had swapped in a lockup 904 trans (998 I think it was called?). It had some damage to the middle of the header panel, and thus some to the front of the hood. Oddly, the bumper and grille were unharmed. It was as if someone had taken a bat or crowbar to the one spot and hit it exactly once and walked away.

Picked it up for $600. Was listed as a Dart, and that's what I was expecting, was definitely pleasantly surprised that it was a way-cooler-looking Dart Sport.

Quarter-sized rust hole at the bottom edge of the quarter panel in front of one of the rear wheels. Otherwise the car was clean and rust free, the 3/4 vinyl top perfect, stripe that wrapped over the top behind the vinyl was perfect, and the paint on the car bright and shiny.

Despite having spark plugs that were so crudded up that they should NOT have been able to start the car, it ran well. Tune up was the first thing done.

Ultimately, with a bad carb (some obstruction in an air bleed that caused a little fuel drippage), a 195 degree t-stat (should've been 180 I think), a Blaster 2 coil, and dual exhaust off the factory manifolds, it did 15.6 @ 90 MPH. While going down the track, the motor actually stopped running briefly on the 1->2 upshift (at 55MPH!), then fired back up and continued as if nothing had gone wrong.

Even my Mopar buddies were like "your car should NOT be able to do that" - however, the bone-stock 5.0HO SEFI Mustang only beat me by a car length, and had done the typical 14.9 those cars could do.

To this day, one of those guys still tells me that my Dart was a freak of nature. I wish I'd've gone back and tried the 1/4 mile again after the carb rebuild, and with a 180 t-stat. I'd also considered switching to a small 4-bbl intake system - never understood how the 318 managed to work so well with that TINY 2-bbl carb!

That car I absolutely, DEFINITELY regret selling. I couldn't touch it for 3x the money I sold it for back then.

It was my first classic.

 

[Mikej89]

[/quote]Ultimately, with a bad carb (some obstruction in an air bleed that caused a little fuel drippage), a 195 degree t-stat (should've been 180 I think), a Blaster 2 coil, and dual exhaust off the factory manifolds, it did 15.6 @ 90 MPH. While going down the track, the motor actually stopped running briefly on the 1->2 upshift (at 55MPH!), then fired back up and continued as if nothing had gone wrong.[/quote]

That's amazing, I would guess low 17's high 16's for that car stock... With the dual exhaust maybe mid 16's.

 

[Mikej89]

Even back then the 442 / SS / GS ect.. 2 door cars were getting good money and if they were cheap they'd be really beat up for the most part.

How much was a Chevelle SS, 442, GTO, etc. say a pretty clean driver but not perfect show car? I've heard so many stories of guys getting them for so cheap back then. It probably seemed expensive for an old car at the time though, but gosh can't go wrong with those things.

 

[Mikej89]

I agree with you MikeJ, in some ways it was better back in the 80s. These days they rasied the bar of performance, but also rasied the price far above what most gear heads can spend. You see these magazine builds for old cars that cost as much as just buying a new car. LS swaps cost 5K for a pretty basic conversion, then this and that also needs to be upgraded too and it just ads up.

What I really dislike is how the gearheah market, GM, car mags, aftermarket, etc are pushing that older generation powertrains are so called junk and need to be replaced with LS swaps for your old car too be cool.

I know what you mean, but I have noticed lots of modern pro-touring builds with old gen motors in the magazines. Still about 10k motors though lol. I don't really get the appeal of the LS swaps but to each their own. In certain cars that would be cool but I like the look and sound of the old motors. The LS motors have such a tame idle.

Those magazines are probably pushing articles about "certain swaps" to attract parts companies to buy ad space. Unfortunately that's a big part of it.

 

[RegalBegal]

OK, I'll make you really sick. Here's some cars I owned in the 80's and what I paid for them. Mind you, some we're better that others but all we're in better shape then my Regal was when I got them....

1969 Pontiac Custom S Tempest convertible with GTO hood & interior including dual gate shifter, 400 V8...........FREE
1969 Chevy Nova, 307 (chevy) with factory AC...................$200
1968 Chevy Impala coupe, 327.......................................$200
1970 Pontiac Tempest coupe 350, 4speed.........................$150
1973 Pontiac Ventura 350 Pontiac...................................$100
1968 Plymouth Fury III coupe 318.....................................$150
1971 Pontiac LeMans 350................................................$150
1970 Pontiac LeMans Sport Coupe 350 (beautiful car!)...........$400
1973 Dodge Demon 318 (another beautiful car)....................$200
1971 Chevy Caprice coupe, 454.........................................$250

I can't tell you how many 350 engine swaps i did from a Caprice to a Nova for under $300. LOL!! There we're a lot more but needless to say, it was way cheaper then to got into a good car. LOL, showing my age again.

 

[lilbowtie]

OK, I'll make you really sick. Here's some cars I owned in the 80's and what I paid for them. Mind you, some we're better that others but all we're in better shape then my Regal was when I got them....

1969 Pontiac Custom S Tempest convertible with GTO hood & interior including dual gate shifter, 400 V8...........FREE
1969 Chevy Nova, 307 (chevy) with factory AC...................$200
1968 Chevy Impala coupe, 327.......................................$200
1970 Pontiac Tempest coupe 350, 4speed.........................$150
1973 Pontiac Ventura 350 Pontiac...................................$100
1968 Plymouth Fury III coupe 318.....................................$150
1971 Pontiac LeMans 350................................................$150
1970 Pontiac LeMans Sport Coupe 350 (beautiful car!)...........$400
1973 Dodge Demon 318 (another beautiful car)....................$200
1971 Chevy Caprice coupe, 454.........................................$250

I can't tell you how many 350 engine swaps i did from a Caprice to a Nova for under $300. LOL!! There we're a lot more but needless to say, it was way cheaper then to got into a good car. LOL, showing my age again.

Once again you need to remember a junk car was worth only $35 to $50.00 back then. Now days you get 3 to $400. You can also thank cash for clunkers for wiping out cars.