Pink 70 340 Duster goes for $62K on Mecum
@72bluNblu and
@dadsbee
A couple more guys that get it. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
There's a lot of people nowdays with a few brains and a little common sense that know that "you can't build it for that". Labor rates have doubled in the last 10 years. materials have gone crazy. Parts as well.
exactly, there's a ton of folks that have either owned their cars forever, bought just before the market started to change, don't account for inflation, or bought a project on the cheap years ago and somehow forgot how much it's taken to get it to where it is now.
for instance, paint work is a prime example. paint and body used to be cheap. now with all the new regulations and new products the pricing has gone through the roof. here in CA, we took even more of a hit with the regulations nearly doubling the cost of materials on the switch to waterborne.
used to be i could get a "production" paint job for about 3K and something very nice for about 6~8 with minimal body work. now days, a reasonably presentable job, not show quality is about 7 and that's with very very minimal bodywork.
to bring this back around to the "you couldn't build it for that" let's put it into perspective. that 74 duster from the other day on BAT sold for 6,500 so if you used that as your starting point and you didn't want to build a full tilt show car, just something nice and V8 powered. how far could you get for 15K, or 20?
the answer is not that far. paint and body is gonna set you back an easy 8K, let's keep it simple and just drop in a 408 stroker & 727 fully gift wrapped from blueprint, there's 16 G's. need a rear end, let's call up Dr. Diff or speedway, there's another 3K. headers and exhaust? there's another smooth G out the door. figure some incidentals for the install: radiator, mounts, driveshaft, etc so tack on another 1K in niggling details.
that's 30K plus the purchase price of the car at 6,5 and you're flirting with 40K before you consider suspension, interior and all the little detail things like: rewiring, rims and tires, disc brake upgrades, powdercoating and chrome plating, steering wheel or gauge restoration.
and that's with you doing all the work, so add a few hundred hours of labor in there.
could it be done cheaper, yes. but it's likely not going to be 50% cheaper.
