What was I thinking?

[Barfyspitz]

I was listening to a friend drooling over a Cuda for sale priced at $45000.  He was shocked when I said wasn't long ago you could find em at decent prices.  Then I began to remember all the shortsighted decisions and missed opportunities. I remember my neighbor offering to sell me his 73 for $4200, my buddy trading his 70 Cuda in on a brand new 94 ranger, selling my 383 charger for $1500 Cuz I was turning into "I'm gonna restore it oneday" guy,  roaming around a Texas carlot in 96 looking at dozens of 68-69 chargers for sale for chump change and passing on a beautiful green turnkey 68 318 charger for $3800. Don't even get me started on that superbee I didn't have space for lol

[Baldwinvette77]

Must have been a cool time.. i was hardly 1 year old in 94 

[Ghoste]

Then you're really going to hear about me buying my 68 Road Runner in 1979 for 75 bucks.  (I still have the receipt in my toolbox I believe)

[69wannabe]

Even in the late 90's charger's were still reasonable, I just missed a 69 R/T console automatic matching number's the ad said for 6 grand and it looked pretty nice in the pic's. I wound up with the one I have now for 3,500 bucks but it was in need of alot of work. I did drive it home from an hour away but I knew when I got it home it was going to be down for awhile getting some much needed attention!!!

[grdprx]

I remember sitting in class at high school, 95-96, over hearing the auto shop kids talking about a hemi cuda project for two grand they were trying to get.  I had no idea what they were talking about, was before I had the mopar bug.  What could have been....  

[ws23rt]

I bought my 69 hemi coronet 4sp in 1980 for $900. It was minus the engine and trans. but 49K showing.
The car is still as it was when I bought it (rust and accident free) aside the non original hemi and trans. it has now.

This car would be a cool "survivor" (one of 58) if it had the "numbers" matching engine and trans. As it is the only that thing needed changing in the interior  was the drivers seat cover and the headliner (to apply rust stopping treatment to the roof).

[Magnumcharger]

Lots of cool cars went for peanuts back in the early 1980's.
I remember one car lot had nothing but old musclecars, nothing was priced over $2500. I test drove everything!
I really wanted this Charger...

[RallyeMike]

Cars were cheap in the 70s and 80s, but you couldn't buy them all. I bought my first 69 Charger in 1979 for $150.

[ws23rt]

I missed a chance in 1984 to buy a 1967 hemi coronet with 24K on it (like new condition) for $1500. The seller called me (since I was first and trying to raise the funds). He said he had a buyer with cash as we spoke.  I recall saying---well he is there with the money and I am not there and don't have the money.

[Mike DC]

                               
The 1990s were cheaper than now, but they weren't as cheap as people are making them out to be.  The dollar figures don't mean squat without factoring inflation into it.  

In 1994 a brand new V8 Ram pickup was $14,000.  A pack of cigarettes was like $1.60.  And lots of solid B/RB Chargers changed hands for the better part of $10k.

Also a "nice car" means so much more now.  Back then an interior was "restored" if the seatcovers (not foam), carpet, and lower door panels were replaced.  You still normally found original crumbling wiring harnesses,  yellowed gauges, cracked dashpads, etc.  An acceptable body resto was the J.C. Whitney patch panels, flimsy ill-fitting early reproduction floorpans, etc.  Even if the metalworker was good he wasn't getting good metal to work with.  Finding tolerable quarter skins & trunkfloors in junkyards was already mostly a thing of the past outside of the desert states.  




I remember when the first "Dukes of Hazzard" reunion special was announced in 1996.  There was plenty of talk in the Mopar hobby about how everything had changed since the early/mid-1980s and Chargers had gotten expensive & rare.

[ws23rt]

The 1990s were cheaper than now, but they weren't as cheap as people are making them out to be.  The dollar figures don't mean squat without factoring inflation into it.  

In 1994 a brand new V8 Ram pickup was $14,000.  A pack of cigarettes was like $1.60.  And lots of decent solid B/RB Chargers solid for the better part of $10k.

That is right on as a factor to consider. Inflation has always moved us to feel that things keep getting more expensive.
Our sense of the value of the dollar lags behind the loss of it's value.

When I bought my first new car (69 superbee) gas was 35 cents a gal and so was a pack of cigs. I also was making $1.25 per hour to pay for it.----was going to use the two cents emoticon for this but two cents is inflated

[bull]

$500 for my first Charger in 1981.

[ws23rt]

Along with the same line of this topic. And the inflation factor. I have a need to vent.

I bought my 69 coronet in 1980 for $900 (1980 dollars). I fixed it for about $1500 (1985 dollars)=$2400 cost basis.
So I have a car that could sell for 80k-100k. ---$90,000-$2400 (cost basis)= $87,600. This would be taxable income if I sold the car for 90k.

If the value of money has changed by a factor of ten since 1980 then my investment of $2400 in those days would equal $24,000 today.

My point and beef is that IRS needs to know dollars of cost basis in order to establish taxable income on a sale.

What this boils down to is that my cost basis is in dollars that have ten times less value than todays dollars because it happened 35 years ago. If I sell my car for 90k I need to (or should) claim a basis of $2400 (which is the dollar amount of my investment at the time).

I would appreciate any correction to my thinking on this.

[myk]

Yeah not all was so great in the 90's.  Sure, you could pick up a great car for $5K but how would you take care of it?  Mopar pieces were difficult and relatively expensive to get a hold of-nevermind if you needed something like a grille or good body panels.  Also, I don't know about you guys but I didn't have the internet back then; didn't get my first internet connection until 2001.  Even if Mopar parts were plentiful, good and cheap (which they weren't), how would you go about getting it?  

[XS29L9Bxxxxxx]

Even in the late 90's charger's were still reasonable, I just missed a 69 R/T console automatic matching number's the ad said for 6 grand and it looked pretty nice in the pic's. I wound up with the one I have now for 3,500 bucks but it was in need of alot of work. I did drive it home from an hour away but I knew when I got it home it was going to be down for awhile getting some much needed attention!!!

In the mid-late 90s one could still get an R/T 1969 for 10-12 k which had paint sticking to the body.

I bought my first Charger in 1990 for around $1,400. It was a 1968 w/ a 440. Sold it in 1991 for $3k. Those were the days...

[XS29L9Bxxxxxx]

Yeah not all was so great in the 90's.  Sure, you could pick up a great car for $5K but how would you take care of it?  Mopar pieces were difficult and relatively expensive to get a hold of-nevermind if you needed something like a grille or good body panels.  Also, I don't know about you guys but I didn't have the internet back then; didn't get my first internet connection until 2001.  Even if Mopar parts were plentiful, good and cheap (which they weren't), how would you go about getting it?  

Got my first Year One catalog in November of 1990 after buying a new gas tank from them. Parts did exist, and cars were still in junk yards then.

But really, no internet until 2001? Wow. 

[Neal_J]

Bought my grandma-owned Charger in 1994 for $2K, negotiated down from $2,100.   Good times but times gone by...

[Barfyspitz]

I agree myk. All but two of the instances I mentioned were in the early 2000's.  Fenders and hoods were hard to come by.  But there were places like Texas acres. Year one had most of the other stuff you needed.  There were still a lot of decent cars around for $5000 and less. 

[RallyeMike]

The low starting cost is on thing to miss, but what I really miss is going to the u-pick to find my "restoration" parts. Now they come by mail, and typically are nowhere as good as originals.

One of the yards here had two 426 Hemi engines on the shelf in 1979-80. They were complete runners. Ya want just one, or both?

[67440chrg]

If i had smarts enough to buy a few back in the day and hide them I could retire early. I bought a 72 SE 400 auto with a locked up engine for $200. and put a 383 in it and did not take care of it at all. I knew of a 440 70 cuda in a salvage yard only missing the engine that could have been bought for several hundred all about 1980.

[Bronzedodge]

I passed on a 70 R/T for $150, it was motorless, auto.  Already had my 69 in 1998.

[Ghoste]

The low starting cost is on thing to miss, but what I really miss is going to the u-pick to find my "restoration" parts. Now they come by mail, and typically are nowhere as good as originals.

One of the yards here had two 426 Hemi engines on the shelf in 1979-80. They were complete runners. Ya want just one, or both?

Me too Mike!  That was one of my favorite things to do on a Saturday.

[h76]

In my opinion, most of the time life just happens. You just never know when something in your life or mind happens that makes the charger pretty unimportant. I had a 68 383 4 speed numbers matching,that was a very solid running car that had no underside rust, just needed quarters and interior redone. I paid $8k for it 10 years ago and sold it a year later when a house build came and wife decided to go back to school. That car would be a $18-$20k car in today's market. Sure I wish I had the car now, but house and family way more important for damn sure.

[Baldwinvette77]

I guess im off topic, but about the u-picks, i love going to the local vintage junkyard and pulling stuff off of cars in the woods or ontop of other cars, and i really miss driving all over ontario to pick up various body panels and such, buying stuff online just doesnt compare, not even close 

[HANDM]

Yeah, we were lucky we had the foresight to grab em when they were cheap

Got the 69  Charger for 1700 in 94
The 70 Challenger in 90 for 1000
The Cuda in 2000 for 2250

I though I got ripped off all three times....LOL!

[GT]

Then you're really going to hear about me buying my 68 Road Runner in 1979 for 75 bucks.  (I still have the receipt in my toolbox I believe)

Nice - i bought my 70 Charger in 1979 for $25...  $75 after the tow home.

[Lord Warlock]

Looking back, I only looked at cars a short time before I bought my first.  And a majority of the "good buys" that I ran into were actually in a 5 year time span between 1978-1983.  I bought my charger in 1978 for 800 hard earned dollars delivering papers every morning for 4 years.  At the time I got my car, I also looked at a friends 1966 GTO clone with a 400 4spd he was selling for 600, and a 69 Superbee with a 440 4spd for 400, engine was out of the car but was complete, I even went and looked at a Hemi Challenger convertible, body was rusted, holes in the floor and in rockers...but today it'd be classified as great foundation, then it was just too much ugly to fix, but it had a brand new chrome 426 hemi in the engine bay, and a 4spd on the floor, and they wanted a whole 1200 for it.  Only one car had me thinking of trading it and that was for a cherry looking 1970 GTO convertible with a 400 Ram Air III and a 4spd, I eventually talked my dad into looking at it and he offered the guy 2500 and got turned down, he said he'd trade me even for my charger though.  It was the first time I realized that the charger was going up in value rather than down. 
In that same 4 year time capsule, a shop owner offered to sell me a complete, brand new 426 hemi engine in boxes in his shop for 600 bucks...only I had just paid for repairs to my mom's car and couldn't afford it, and I had just recently completed a motor swap on the charger putting a 440 from another charger r/t into my car, and really didn't want to do a repeat so soon. 

[Barfyspitz]

Yeah, we were lucky we had the foresight to grab em when they were cheap

Got the 69  Charger for 1700 in 94
The 70 Challenger in 90 for 1000
The Cuda in 2000 for 2250

I though I got ripped off all three times....LOL!

lol sounds like you did pretty good

[HANDM]

Yeah, we were lucky we had the foresight to grab em when they were cheap

Got the 69  Charger for 1700 in 94
The 70 Challenger in 90 for 1000
The Cuda in 2000 for 2250

I though I got ripped off all three times....LOL!

lol sounds like you did pretty good

Yeah, now it does but then it was alotta cash that I didn't have.... I think I even put the Cuda on a credit card 

[Baldwinvette77]

inflation isnt that bad, in 1992 2000$ was about 3200$ in 2015 

[472 R/T SE]

I was a BowTie lover until after I graduated high school in '83.

Soon after one night we were out in my buddy's '57 Chevy trolling for races like every other weekend.  We came across a '68 Coronet R/T that had a reputation as one of the fastest cars in town.  He's the one who approached my buddy one night about a race.
My buddy Dave laughed @ him and said he heard about his car & was reluctant.  The Coronet owner said he blew up the 440 & now was just running a mild 383.  I remember his last words to entice Dave.  "Let's just do it for shits-n-giggles."
Well heck yeah, let's go.
My buddy Dave ate him up out of the hole up through the gears & I was hooping & hollering since the '57 would sometimes bog down during a race, not this time....we're gonna win.  About that time we heard the big Mopar hit 3rd & it started walking us like we were in molasses.  Holy shit we learned that night what Mopar torque was all about.

5 months later the R/T owner was in a bind.  His girlfriend was pregnant & the oil patch was slowing down.

He took the car out to Jerry J. @ Wheels'n'Spokes & he offered him $2500.  I told him that if he waited for me to sell my '70 Camaro I would buy the R/T for $2700 if he saved it for me.  He did.







Anyone remember the newsletter Galen G. used to distribute?  I remembered 2-4 wrecked Daytonas, one rolled, etc. in the $10-15k range.




I bought my all blue '70 Charger R/T 4 gear for like $17k.  I got one of Dane's Daytonas & $15k cash back around '04 for it after I became paralyzed.