"I'm getting out of MoPar" threads.........
Its the money for me . but my heart will all way have mopar blood running though it .
I have had a few old cars over the years and have gone for long stretches in between where I don't have a car at all. I guess it all boils down to what your priorites are at the time. Family, finances or even a person's health can have a huge impact on their ability or desire to own a classic Mopar.
I'm prob going with a GM product after I get all my cars sold. And it is not because I don't love my mopars, cause I do. But the aftermarket for our loved Mopars is getting ridiculous! The prices of normal pieces are getting way out of wack, and I blame the times of the "car investor". People who are buying the classic car in order to only make a profit, not because they have a love for driving or building them.
Rolling Cuda's costing $10k for a PILE OF JUNK needing full quarters, fenders, floor boards, full interior pieces. That's why people are leaving the classic mopar scene, cause it now cost $15k-20k to build a decent driver.
I am 44 and bought my first Mopar when I was 15 in 1985.I have thought about getting out of Mopar a few times over the last few years but I just can not do it.For me it's the gas prices and the cost of parts.I would say the cost of the cars too but if you look long and hard enough you can find a car at a fair price.I used to have 3-4 Mopar toys at all times but nowadays it is hard to keep one car going.And for the last several years I have ran big blocks, but now have a slant 6 Duster....Way easier on gas.I have always said if you want to play you must pay!!!
Agreed! In a way, I am almost the "poster child" for this thread. I owned nothing but Mopars from when I was 16 in 1976 until I was 33 in 1993. I had everything from an '85 Omni GLH in '93 (don't laugh - that little turbo four banger was pretty fast!) to an original '70 HemiCuda from '83 thru '86. They were my car of choice, they were plentiful, and you could get into one for a very reasonable amount of money.
I got out in '93 for several reasons - mostly disposable income and my priorities for it. The main thing was that I was recently married and started having kids. Before that in '89 I had a '70 Challenger convertible street car and a '69 440 powered Dart drag car. As my time and money got tighter I had to sell off the Dart and hoped I could hang onto the Challenger. Later that same year the Challenger got wrecked in a parking lot - some moron backed into it with his Ford F250 caving in the passenger side quarter panel. They didn't make all the repop restoration sheetmetal then like they do now. I needed a whole quarter from a "donor" Challenger convertible and I couldn't find one. I gave up in disgust and sold the Challenger off for next to nothing.
I hung on until '93 owning a '70 Duster, a '68 Dart and the aforementioned '85 Omni GLH. Then the needs of the family necessitated the need for a "mini-van" (gasp!) so I sold off the Omni GLH and went with the van. At the time I thought that when the kids were grown, or my financial position improved, that I could just jump back in to the classic Mopar scene like I had never left.
Fast forward 20 years to 2013 the kids are grown and out of the house and my financial position has improved. In 2013 I join FABO and some other Mopar sites and start looking around to get reconnected with the Mopar scene. My first impression was "sticker shock" - restored cars are not cheap! For that matter, rusted out rolling E-bodies in need of a total resto are not cheap either! Either way, to wind up with something nice you can either pay now for a done car or pay over time to restore a car - either way you are going to pay.
When my dad was '53 he bought an old Packard to restore and he finally finished it 12 years later when he was 65. He only got to enjoy it for two years and then he was gone. I'm 53 now myself and I don't want to go the drawn out restoration route my dad went. After depriving myself of Mopar enjoyment the past 20 years I would rather have something sooner than later.
So I am going to have to pay the $$$ to get back in. As the price to get back in goes up (way up) I give pause to think about my motivation. I love these old Mopars but at 10 mpg and $3.50 a gallon how much will I actually be able to drive it? Almost never see them out on the streets anymore. It would pretty much be just a car show cruiser. I hope thats enough to justify the expense of getting back in.