Quality or Quanity:... Runners or Projects?..

[Brock Samson]

  I see alot of folks here have multiple projects littering the premisis.
  sometimes for years, decades even,.. and they bring new orphans home without finishing the older ones...
   And so,   just for the sake of argu, err,.. discussion, how is it you would rather have several projects depleting your pocket book,(and property values) and not a couple or a few finished bitchen cars?...

     

[greenpigs]

I wondered about that myself and I would like another project, but just one more which would bring the total to 2. Just chiming in as I do not have cars scattered around as my charger is just filling up my parents garage

Well I guess I want two more cars which would be:

A Volare\Aspen..with a \6 to drive to work in the nicer weather
Then a 64-66 barracuda to make an autocross\drag\street\ racer out of.

[Brock Samson]

and thank you for using shell kheck! 

[RD]

because good deals are just too damn hard to pass up!  plus in kansas, you are not a real musclecar fanatic unless you have 3 or more musclecars in varied stages of restoration or rustification.  Hey, we have rep's to protect damn't!!! j/k

[PocketThunder]

Well its a sickness...  When i lived in Chicago and had a two car garage i only had room for one car.  Now i've got a 3 car garage and a little more room to park a 4th car outside next to it.   I'm trying to only put money into one car at a time, but when surfing ebay and a part comes up that i need for the 69 i think, well i better buy it now, who knows when i'll find another one. and bam!  i'm tapped....

[dd44068]

i would some more but i have one and it keeps me depleted enough

[Telvis]

I am having a hard enough time getting my one car finished. I couldn't image stressing over multiple projects.

[Old Moparz]

This is too easy. I collected matchbox cars as a kid, so why not 1:1 scale cars now?

I think multiple cars, or even multiple projects, can happen by default, as well as intentionally causing your own stress & empty pockets because of fanaticism of the hobby. There are a lot of different reasons, & a combination of reasons that will do it. What causes one person to just about stalk a celebrity waiting for an autograph, while others won't even know who the person is? Where does the word "FAN" come from? How about the person who collects & saves all of one kind of item, like toys, dolls or records?

http://www.seattleweekly.com/music/9843/music-cruger.php

Maybe 25 to 30 years ago, I started seeing different Mopars at shows & kept thinking, I'll get one of those B-Bodies one day, or it would be cool to have one of those E-Body cars. Well, I started with my first '69 Charger, & had sold it when it became a POS sucking my funds every week. I bought a '70 GTX to replace it, but the tow truck driver screwed up the car. At that time I now had a Charger I was trying to sell, a GTX I was hoping to fix with the towing outfit's insurance payment, & my daily driver, a 4 door Coronet.

I sold the Charger, got some money to fix the GTX, but had found a ragtop I liked even more, the '69 Satellite that I still have to this day. Sold the GTX & later on, found my '71 Scamp with 42,000 miles for $1500 as my daily driver & eventually took it off the road to have painted. It was a long time before I owned more than 2 cars at the same time, but like someone mentioned, you sometimes can't pass up a killer deal. How about a '68 Barracuda ragtop at a yard sale you can drive home for $600? What about a rust free '68 Charger for $1200 with $2500 worth of new sheet metal already installed? I have the space to keep them, & the means to get them, so why not?

The '68 Coronet ragtop was another cheap local find, but my intention was to use it as the base car for a Charger convertible project. I sold the Barracuda ragtop to dive into this project. That would mean 2 cars for just making 1 car, so this puts me at a total of 4 cars soon to be 3 cars. I decided the convertible Charger project was a bad idea & beyond my capabilities, so I decided to sell the Coronet & build a Charger Daytona, another car I had always wanted, but can't afford to buy a real one.

I did get a '71 Barracuda, but only as a long way off, build it in the future project. The main reason was because I always wanted one, but watched prices of small block Cudas go totally beyond reach. I snagged one for $4000 & shelved it for later, or I'd never be able to own one at all. So now with all the projects on hand, I needed a car to drive & bought the '70 Road Runner. It's an almost finished car, a project which is not what I wanted, but the price was too good to pass on. For a car that needs about $1500 worth to get it to a show, I saved about $10,000 getting this one over a few others I had seen.

Of course me not knowing when to say when, or having a wife who doesn't care I get them is another couple of good reasons. I do have a goal for this year, & that's to have the Scamp & the Road Runner both on the road & finished. I am very tired of not having a finished car, but the main reason for that is I put a lot on hold to spend time with my daughter since she was born. The Coronet will either be on ebay soon, or I'll swap it with a good friend of mine for some major plumbing work I want done. At the end of the year I'll probably sell the Scamp & start assembling the Daytona project while I drive the Runner.

Unless I the guy I work with decides to let go of the AAR Cuda project that's been hidden in his garage since 1979. 

Current Junk List:
1968 Coronet 500 Convertible
1968 Charger (Daytona)
1969 Satellite Convertible
1970 Road Runner Coupe
1971 Scamp
1971 Barracuda

[sixpack70]

Deals on decent cars drive a lot of us. I know one guy with a 70 duster in his garage, a 68 Dart GT convertible mostly finished and a 70 charger 500 on the side of his house. I thought wow thats a lot of cars. Now I have my 70 charger, the the 69 mach 1 and a 67 mustang coupe for 900 bucks with only battery apron rust. It runs and drives pretty decent. I just have a sckness where I want more and more old cars. I guess I need to build a car lot out of my backyard.

[Charger_Fan]

What can I say, I like old cars. Yep, it's a sickness.

Most of the reason I bought my house where I did was that I had decent room to store project cars without having to pay for storage somewhere else. If I lived in a place where I couldn't keep my projects & had to sell them, it would really bum me out...moreso than having them sit there & not be able to do a proper resto. Because at least I still have them & will get to them one day.

If it weren't for some poor financial decisions in years gone by, I'm sure I'd have at least two of them done today. I have been making a definite effort to not buy things I really don't need & more project cars is one of them.
Although last fall, I did snag a 65 F100 from it's original owner for $400. That one was too good to pass on & if I needed to, I could easily get that money back out of it.

Let see here, project cars...
70 Charger
70 Charger parts car (undecided on whether I can actually part it or not)
66 F100 (my 1st vehicle)
65 F100 (still might just flip this one)

...that's not too bad, right?

[253862656971]

I have 4 Charger with 3 of them running.  Until just recently I only drove 1 more than in and out of the garage (69).  I have since driven my running 71 a total of 30 miles.  The 73 I have had running but I never have driven it.  All are projects in my book.  The 69 needs a paint job.  The 71 needs an interior and it needs all the trim put back on.  The 73 needs everything.  I also have another 71 but it's so rusty it's only good for a chopped up drag car.  I also have a 62 Pontiac Catalina.  It's been in the trailer for about 3 1/2 years now.  I had it started a few weeks ago.  It was also my first car and I'll be damned if I ever give it up!

So can we have another category?  How about running projects?

[Blown70]

Well I find a steal I cannot turn it down.  I will post some pics of the newbies once I pick them up.  I never over spend and know what I buy I can always sell for more.  Call it my stock market, if you will.

I only have no running driving mopars at the moment.

ask moparguy01, he has seen the shop and what will be soon to be in the shop.

Tom

[chrisII]

i think there are alot of diff reasns..in my case i have my charger, its driveable but neads some major work and paint to be a good driver. so i find my duster and i figure i really do want to stop driving my charger , so having a car with a fair paint job that doesnt nead major mechanical work seems like a good plann. im getting the car for less than the engine is worth and it will be a nice cruiser for a couple summers. once the charger is done then i will either sell the duster (with different driveline) or redo the duster to make it a truely nice car also. either way ive got 2 "projects" for a while. who knows what will turn up tomorow, but like somebody said above we never know if another of these cars will turn up. so if you can buy it and store it (someplace it isnt gettting trashed) i say go for it.

[Big Lebowski]

  The secret is always keep one Charger running and restored at all times. That way you can do your Sat. morning burnout, and the smell of burning rubber gives you that kick to get something done. I'm working on 3 cars.

[BigBlockSam]

because good deals are just too damn hard to pass up! 

:agree:

it's a sickness. what i do is i get them mechanically tight. so i can drive them and enjoy them as i fix the bodies and look for more mopars. Rene

[Brock Samson]

well i have no room, or funds for projects, they have to drive.. so i only have two vehicles,. it's a good thing too or i'd have prolly 50 planters in the front yard...   

[skip68]

Because we are collectors and they say it's a mental thing.    I look at it like this.  Take the one thing you like the most, now you find it somewhere for half the price what do you do? YOU MUST BUY.........! At least that's the way I look at it.  ...............It's an addiction......And now I am sick..............And I must not get help.  ............Chuck...

[TK73]

Wish I had focused on the Charger instead of hauling the Fury, then the D-100 and finally, the Valiant home.  I'd be way further along on the Charger...

[Old Moparz]

Wish I had focused on the Charger instead of hauling the Fury, then the D-100 and finally, the Valiant home.  I'd be way further along on the Charger...

Hunter-Gatherer-Syndrome. 

[rare69]

i want one really nice car first, then move on to the next. passed on a pretty nice 70 r/t charger for a bargin so i could finish the 69. not enough money to do everything i want to do on the 69 and dump money on other resto projects.

[hemihead]

I am rebuilding a 73 right now but I want to buy more just to park in my yard so I can be like everyone else and be a big shot ,macho guy and brag to everybody about the cars I have.Then when someone asks me if it's for sale I can say I'm going to fix it up some day.When it's half rotted I'll ask big dollars for it.   

[Charger Aficionado]

  I'd like everyone I touch to be running...  Sometimes it just isn't possible.  I took a spin in the GL today and it felt GREAT. 

[Lowprofile]

How can you pass up a good deal or the opportunity to save a car from the crusher. I guess I have the sickness, because I want to save them all.   

[MOPARHOUND!]

   And so,   just for the sake of argu, err,.. discussion, how is it you would rather have several projects depleting your pocket book,(and property values) and not a couple or a few finished bitchen cars?...

Depleting?  With the way Mopar prices keep going up, especially Chargers, I prefer using the term "investment" versus "expense". 

Sold some oil stock and "invested" in a 2nd generation Charger recently.  Still an investment, just via a different investment vehicle (pun intended, haha).

And the other cars in the barn?  I wouldn't sell the hoods to you today for what was paid for the entire cars years ago, their appreciation continues.

You have a good point though Strat, I have thought of selling it all, keeping an automatic and a 4 speed car, and maybe a 3rd.  Build a nice garage for them, and things would be a lot simpler.

[dodgeboy67]

because every mopar we save from the crusher is a potentiel chevy killer......or import eater whichever you prefer

i think some people by parts cars and then decide that they are too good to cut up