Highly optioned 71 Mach in STL...Interesting

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It's been listed for about two weeks and is about 2 miles from where I work. It may be possible to con me into having a look.

 
It is really well optioned with the dual altenator and power steering option!

 
It would be a shame to part out a car like this.

 
Yeah - that car's only slightly nicer than mine was when I bought it for only $1600. I'm not so sure that's a fair price.

Overall condition and missing items says "already picked over as a parts car" to me.

Missing carb, says "potentially seized engine."

Missing one of the ratty Magnum 500s.

Mach 1 sticker on the trunk, but not on the passenger fender says "front-end damage repaired" to me.

Hood's ginked, but repairable.

All that rust says "needs new door skins or complete doors, floor pans, quarter panels, fenders, drop-offs, battery apron & tray, rear bumper & hardware, and cowl/firewall damage." Also potentially, "front frame rails, shock towers, F&R torque boxes, rear frame rails, seat platforms, bumper brackets, gas-tank hangers, suspension, and cross-members."

All of the fluid lines (fuel & brakes) will need to be replaced.

Brakes will need replacement.

Engine, transmission, and rear axle will need complete rebuilds.

I'd wager a quart of water comes out of the oil pan before what used to be oil finally oozes out.

If that car was just complete in the same condition (rusty, worn-out, and not running), I'd still try to talk 'em down to something between $2-2500 - only because of the 'unobtainium parts' still there. Sorry, but that car's not road-worthy, even if it was running. Restorable, sure... but it ain't going anywhere under its own power any time soon.

Sorry for the negativity and not to dissuade, but I've been down that exact same road, and I'm just now seeing the off-ramp over 4 years and almost $40K later (doing it all myself). This car will take over $15K in parts & materials alone to get it drivable.

Gonna take a dedicated individual with a lot of desire, determination, skills, patience, and some money to make this one nice again.

 
Yeah - that car's only slightly nicer than mine was when I bought it for only $1600. I'm not so sure that's a fair price.

Overall condition and missing items says "already picked over as a parts car" to me.

Missing carb, says "potentially seized engine."

Missing one of the ratty Magnum 500s.

Mach 1 sticker on the trunk, but not on the passenger fender says "front-end damage repaired" to me.

Hood's ginked, but repairable.

All that rust says "needs new door skins or complete doors, floor pans, quarter panels, fenders, drop-offs, battery apron & tray, rear bumper & hardware, and cowl/firewall damage." Also potentially, "front frame rails, shock towers, F&R torque boxes, rear frame rails, seat platforms, bumper brackets, gas-tank hangers, suspension, and cross-members."

All of the fluid lines (fuel & brakes) will need to be replaced.

Brakes will need replacement.

Engine, transmission, and rear axle will need complete rebuilds.

I'd wager a quart of water comes out of the oil pan before what used to be oil finally oozes out.

If that car was just complete in the same condition (rusty, worn-out, and not running), I'd still try to talk 'em down to something between $2-2500 - only because of the 'unobtainium parts' still there. Sorry, but that car's not road-worthy, even if it was running. Restorable, sure... but it ain't going anywhere under its own power any time soon.

Sorry for the negativity and not to dissuade, but I've been down that exact same road, and I'm just now seeing the off-ramp over 4 years and almost $40K later (doing it all myself). This car will take over $15K in parts & materials alone to get it drivable.

Gonna take a dedicated individual with a lot of desire, determination, skills, patience, and some money to make this one nice again.
AS SVH said above, if I won the lottery fantasy, I would buy up cars like these and fix them. And I would want to keep eveyone of them!

 
I'm pretty sure that was on ebay a while back.

 
Dual altenator? Anyone car to elaborate on that. Like why? Apparently pretty rare?

 
All that rust says "needs new door skins or complete doors, floor pans, quarter panels, fenders, drop-offs, battery apron & tray, rear bumper & hardware, and cowl/firewall damage." Also potentially, "front frame rails, shock towers, F&R torque boxes, rear frame rails, seat platforms, bumper brackets, gas-tank hangers, suspension, and cross-members."
Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner.

It takes someone who's gone through one of these in poor condition to realize what's a POS and what isn't :p

-Kurt

 
Yeah - that car's only slightly nicer than mine was when I bought it for only $1600. I'm not so sure that's a fair price.

Overall condition and missing items says "already picked over as a parts car" to me.

Missing carb, says "potentially seized engine."

Missing one of the ratty Magnum 500s.

Mach 1 sticker on the trunk, but not on the passenger fender says "front-end damage repaired" to me.

Hood's ginked, but repairable.

All that rust says "needs new door skins or complete doors, floor pans, quarter panels, fenders, drop-offs, battery apron & tray, rear bumper & hardware, and cowl/firewall damage." Also potentially, "front frame rails, shock towers, F&R torque boxes, rear frame rails, seat platforms, bumper brackets, gas-tank hangers, suspension, and cross-members."

All of the fluid lines (fuel & brakes) will need to be replaced.

Brakes will need replacement.

Engine, transmission, and rear axle will need complete rebuilds.

I'd wager a quart of water comes out of the oil pan before what used to be oil finally oozes out.

If that car was just complete in the same condition (rusty, worn-out, and not running), I'd still try to talk 'em down to something between $2-2500 - only because of the 'unobtainium parts' still there. Sorry, but that car's not road-worthy, even if it was running. Restorable, sure... but it ain't going anywhere under its own power any time soon.

Sorry for the negativity and not to dissuade, but I've been down that exact same road, and I'm just now seeing the off-ramp over 4 years and almost $40K later (doing it all myself). This car will take over $15K in parts & materials alone to get it drivable.

Gonna take a dedicated individual with a lot of desire, determination, skills, patience, and some money to make this one nice again.
So unless a car is an easy resto it should be dismissed? If you don't live in the rust belt, then it's hard to understand what is left of cars after 40 years. It 's also hard to understand how sometimes they will surprise you with how little they do need. It does appear to need a fair amount of panel repair, but the pics inside the trunk do not show the typical rust horrors I usually see. Under the hood is the same, some rust where the aprons overlap but still nothing as bad as some cars I've seen driving. Underneath? Who knows. I know what I expect, call it a hunch, but it might be worth looking at. Cars around here do not usually have that roof rust like this one, if they do the lower part of the car would be much worse.

Some missing items after 40 years is not surprising. The carb looks to be a recent removal, possibly by the shop it appears to be sitting at.

No mention that the items not on the car are not included, could go either way.

I wouldn't expect a car like this to be drivable, either. Brakes and such are a given. People are restoring cars with much fewer options and less desirable motors. The asking price still doesn't look unreasonable to me.

 
It's also hard to understand how sometimes they will surprise you with how little they do need.
It's also hard to understand how they will often surprise you with how much they do need, which isn't initially apparent from pictures.

Can you take a guess at what sheet and structural metal needs to be replaced on this car? Peeking into it's project thread is cheating.

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-Kurt

 
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Kurt - drag your rear across the pavement for 100k miles plus and sit outside neglected (in all the bad weather, acid rain, etc.) for 40 plus years and see how rusty you get! :)

At least your car still looks like a Mustang! :)

Sorry - couldn't resist...

Ray

 
Actually, I read your thread a long time ago, so technically I can't cheat!

I'm just saying that without checking out the car, no one really knows. Years ago a friend and I went to look at a 73 Mach with 160K plus on it. Not a single panel on it looked good. The roof had that same rust, the interior was completely fried and exterior body parts were literally falling apart. The paint was almost gone and it ran horribly (but it did run). If we had seen pics of it before we went to see it we might not have bothered. BUT, aside from surface rust, the car was rust free. New plug wires and a tune -up and it ran okay (still not great, but well enough that the motor still hasn't been opened up).

This car need love and dollars for sure, but again, I'd hate to see it become a parts car for no real reason.

 
So unless a car is an easy resto it should be dismissed? If you don't live in the rust belt, then it's hard to understand what is left of cars after 40 years. It 's also hard to understand how sometimes they will surprise you with how little they do need.

((snip))

The asking price still doesn't look unreasonable to me.
No Sir, not saying that at all... I (of all people) would never say that. Visit my Facebook album below to see where I'm coming from. ;)

I was simply pointing out the things that I'm pretty sure will need attention, based on my personal experience after purchasing a car in admittedly worse shape. Unfortunately, old cars are a lot like apples that have fallen on the ground - they might still look OK from what you can see, but when you pick them up and find all the decay, the first instinct is to put it back or throw it away. Even if the apple only has one single worm hole in it, you won't know the extent of the damage until you slice it open.

Based on my personal experience [having bought into such an ambitious project], I can honestly say that I believe mine was even overpriced at $1600 - the original owner wanted $2200, but after highlighting the seized engine, frozen master cylinder, lack of keys, and the big hole in the front frame rail, and the fact that there were no other suckers available within 200 miles in any direction, he agreed (he had only paid something like $1000 for it anyway). Because our year models are still "less desirable" by the Vintage Mustanger crowd and the fact that I had my "1971 Mach 1 goggles" on (I literally saw the "restored" version of it every time I looked at it - which has also kept me motivated since the beginning), it was a little easier to get the seller to come off the lofty profit margin - especially when it sits for awhile and they realize that turd they bought for an easy flip won't be so easy to dump for a profit after all.

All I was trying to say is, "Buyer Beware. This is not going to be an easy or cheap restoration - even just to the point of 'drivable,' let alone 'nice.'" I still feel it's overpriced... not when the Fair Market Value for a #5 condition car (running vehicle needing work to be road-worthy) is around $7,000. http://www.mustangandfords.com/featured-vehicles/mump-1212-1964-1-2-1973-mustang-value-guide/

When it comes down to "not running" vs. "running," value based on engine code goes out the window, IMHO. Mine's only a 351C-2V, but it took over $5K just to get the engine running again (I actually spent more like $7K because of the performance things I bought, but even returning to stock would've been over $5K). A crate motor would've run about as much as well - so it was an easy decision to just stick with the original powerplant. But I have to ask: Is an unrestored 429 Mach 1 still worth as much if the engine is seized and the block/heads are non-rebuildable? I don't think so - but others obviously do. Realistically, aside from a digit in the VIN and that chunk of iron between the shock towers, an unrestored 429 Mach 1 is worth no more or less than a similarly equipped and conditioned 250 fastback - when you have to dig into a car and replace as much sheet metal and pretty much everything else like I had to, the engine code kinda means nothing... it still costs the same for all of the other parts, regardless of the model. Again, and this is my opinion, but the 'value' of an unrestored car being based on its potential as a [someday] restored car is bunk - until it's fully restored to that level of worth, it's just a hunk o' junk and only getting worse the longer it sits. After it's been restored - you bet! Until the work is done... not so much.

BTW - the DSO code on mine was "Lansing, Michigan," and it was only on the road for about 10 years (last registration expired in 1980) in Wichita Falls, TX (Sheppard AFB). I don't know how long it lived in Michigan, and it might've been parked in the Red River for awhile... but I think I've learned a thing or two about the "Rust Belt" cars. ;) :D

Sorry for the novel, and I hope I didn't offend anyone.

 
I'm probably a bit more sensitive to these things as I often see restorable cars (in our area and in particular the old Opels that I am involved in) cut up and used for parts for no reason than the owner can't (won't) spend the money on it. Instead of saving something that will never exist again that might need a floor pan or quarter work (seriously, a single wrecked fender will send a decent Opel to the sawzall).

The car in question is not for the amateur or lo-cash type, but for someone with experience and a serious wallet, a well optioned Mach may survive. It might not be concourse at the end, but saved is saved.

Even a 250 in the same condition with virtually no options would having an asking price of $2k+ around here. You pay extra for the options, especially if they are still with the car. Depending on who has the car, dealer or person, I can see the actual price hitting as low as mid 3's with some shrewd negotiating, but probably $4k. If the underside is worse case scenario, all bets are off and it's worth what the parts will bring, even if it isn't parted out.

 
I totally get what you're saying, Brutha! ::thumb:: (BTW I like Opels, too - especially Mantas and GTs)

It's unfortunate the way old cars are valued, and that's just the way it is. But I do know when I was I shopping all the replacement items for mine, there were no price breaks for having an H-Code rather than a more "valuable" M-Code - no cheaper H-Code door panels, or quarter panels, or fenders, or floor pans, or windshields, or... you get the point... it all costs the same for all models. As well, a junked headlight bezel out of a Boss 351 isn't worth any more than the same bezel in the same condition out of a Grande - they're the same P/N, they're [currently] not reproduced, and a major PITA to restore either way. ;) :D

What I do know is that I'm scrapin' $40K on mine, after being purchased in slightly worse shape... and that's not counting what I would've had to pay someone else to do it all - and that wouldn't even be for someone "good," like a bunch of the guys here on the forums who actually care about our cars as well as their work. I can see that car easily costing over $60K for someone to pay a professional to restore.

And you are indeed correct: it's certainly deserving of being saved, but it's not gonna be a cheap and/or easy flip.

 
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