Whats my car worth?

[patmckinneyracing]

Maybe up there g-bodies are worth something if you plan on racing them. I see too many of them get gutted and chopped either for roundy rounds, ice racing, or the drags. People can't get rid of them down here because there were so many produced that came out of Mexico, to the best of my knowledge.

I just don't see a g-body, unless its a top dog name like the GN, 442, etc ever bringing decent money. I have yet to hear of g-bodies selling at a consistent $6-5000 range. Most of the time you can barely get 2-3000 for them.

People want regals because of that last fast and furious :lol: 8)

I know what you mean about the whole cars in yards thing. Before I bought my roadrunner, my dad's friend owned a body shop in his day (WW2 fighter pilot), and one of the cars in his backyard that's been sitting for years now was a 1982 nissan 280zx anniversary edition. This thing is an inline 6, twin turbos, with t-tops, black paint, with a tan leather interior. The car only has 5700 factory miles on it. I sat in that car and the interior is showroom quality and the engine looks to be in great shape. He wouldn't part with it. His wife tried to sell me here 84' Dodge Caravan with 50k original miles .

 

[Phoenyx]

...does anybody else cringe when they drive by someone's house and they've got 10+ classic cars just rotting away in their yard? "Ohh, I'm gonna restore that someday....."

Ow wow I know how that feels. So many people like that in my city. For example, there's a guy with an all original 1958 Plymouth Fury. It has a continental kit and the 350 in it. He bought it new back in the day. And the car has a rep with the old guys because back in it's hay day it was one of the fastest cars in town. But he got married, had kids, and parked in his back yard in the 70s. It's been sitting there ever since and hasn't been touched. Aside from his kids and grand kids useing the roof as a trampoline. So sad

 

[SScamino]

oh they can easily be worth 6-7,000 dollars you just gota put the time and money into them. I have seen myself the prices of gbody el caminos rise a couple thousand just in the past 6 years from when I started looking at them a couple years ago, and a nice malibu around here just STOCK with a 350 is about 4500 and cutlasses around 3200 so they can get there easy just gota do the work!

 

[khan0165]

oh they can easily be worth 6-7,000 dollars you just gota put the time and money into them. I have seen myself the prices of gbody el caminos rise a couple thousand just in the past 6 years from when I started looking at them a couple years ago, and a nice malibu around here just STOCK with a 350 is about 4500 and cutlasses around 3200 so they can get there easy just gota do the work!

... do you not find something wrong with this logic?

why would anyone put in money to get $3200 back?

$2000 engine, $1000 rear-end, $1500 body/paint job, and $600 tires

why would I do ALL that, for $3200?

And don't start sh*t about how those prices are expensive, a MILD engine build can easily climb into the thousands, specially if you're having someone build it. A decent rear-end these days is going for $1300, used. For a simple strip & spray paint job, without prep/buffing/polishing is in the $1500 range, and a set of decent tires, new, is atleast $600.

I dunno how you do your math, but that's not worth it to turn around and sell for $3200...

or am I just stupid? Cuz around here, those are the prices I can find.

 

[patmckinneyracing]

I spent a grand building my 350 but that was because the shop up in Maine was surprised to see a 14 year old working on a muscle car. So the freebies those guys threw at me helped big time. Got lucky with a monte ss rear end for $200 with 3.73 auburn posi. I mean when your building a car its all about luck in finding parts at good prices and who you know.

I may be able to get 5000 for my malibu if I'm lucky even now when it is still in restored condition and most of the parts are new on the damn thing. You show me a plain jane g-body that has sold in the 5-6000 dollar range cause it sure as hell ain't common.

In all I probably have 10-12k sunk into my car. With a g-body you won't get your money back. They may be worth more 10-20 years down the road, but you can't tell me the prices for these cars have gone up. Basic economics and craigslist shows prices for g-bodies, and everything else in general, isn't worth what it was 4 years ago.

 

[dogsht]

If it does not have any bad rust and it runs good anywhere from 1,000 to 1,500. But expect a lot of low ball offers because of how it looks. Craigslist will be your best bet. You might wet sand it and black primer it yourself for cheap as that will help the looks/saleability. Even if they don't like the color you can say its (semi) ready to paint even without fixing the rust. The buyer most likely will never get around to painting it but he can tell himself that he will. Take a look at the black Cutlass in my pics. Its was in similar condition. Somebody owed me for a days labor and offered it instead. I put another days labor into the car & $167 in paint & supplys and sold it for a grand.

 

[jae]

I think Pat, Khan & Dog hit the nails on their heads. Pat & Khan show perfectly that location and want / what's "hot" are going to be the main deciding factors with looks as Dog said coming in next. I'm kind of in agreement with both Pat & Khan. To me, the G-Body cars are not going to bring money like their previous gens, not counting the turbo Regals, but a nice G-Body can bring you some decent cash. Its what differentiates your G-Body from the rest that's going to bring that money. And it depends on where you live. For my areas, the Cutlass coupes always brought the most money, with the regular Regals seconds unless you found a V8 Regal, then it brought about as much as a Cutlass. The MC, SS or not, and the Malibu swapped positions all the time but on average the Malibus sold for more money, with the GP being last on the list. In other areas it could be different & it changes all the time - I can remember here at one point you couldn't give a MC away, then they got a little movement when the rebadged Lumina version came out, then faded again when the younger crowd starting fixing up those FWD ones.

As Pat said, just be prepared not to get your money back; hell it's rare to get your money back on anything you rebuild unless you do a high-end job & you don't farm any of the work out. But you still lose on your time, blood/sweat/tears.

As dog said, what will help you sell the car is clean up the exterior, at least black primer it and try to make the exterior as straight as possible. That will help cut down the low-ball offers, kind of presenting it to a potential as one less thing to do right away. The less a buyer has to do up-front the less likely they are going to make a ridiculously low offer.

 

[Hemihauler]

If you wanted to get top dollar out of the car, part it. Any potential buyer that is looking for something to drive-is most likely going to walk away from it. The interior is the big factor-cover the seats, remove the rest of the head liner-clean up whats there, I would be ashamed to drive something that looked like that on the inside. Here in Pa., you would be lucky to get $350 the way it sits. Now if you have clean rust free doors $75-$150 each. As said before, find your receipts-you may be able to get close to what you paid for some of the parts. Unfotunatly as someone else mentioned, when you rebuild a car-your gonna put more into it than what it is worth-but the idea is you are doing it for enjoyment or love of the hobby.

 

[jayschevy]

im in east texas,and about 30 mi. away there is a ill say an 86 cutlass,one owner ,faded paint job.havent looked at the int. he wanted 4950.00 for it.the next week 3500.00. last week it was 2600.00.gonna go check it out this weekend and see if the price went down again.
i bought my 86 mc for 700.00,it sat in the yard for over 2 yrs. at 1500.00.there is also one bad *ss 70's chevelle and a 68 camaro.both restored in town.been for sale for awhile,nobody is buying them.
and there are alot of people around here with money oozing out of there skin.i just dont understand.





p.s. ive got over 3300.00 aside from the 700.00 i paid for it in the car,just to drive it.gbodys aint cheap dude.

 

[dogsht]

Upgrading & hotrodding cars in general is not cheap especially if you need new or have to pay someone for the labor.
That said as hot rodding cars go g-bodys are very cheap and great bang for your hot rod buck. As a whole cheaper on the buy in cheaper & availability on salvage yard parts n upgrades.