I guess junkyard A-bodies are all gone now
Amazing just how short sighted you guys are. I bought a 69 Cuda at the end of 69. But even today it is not worth the same dollars that a new challenger is bringing. You guys hear stories about how "someone" bought a car for salvage price then parted it out for big money and all of a sudden you demonize them as "flippers". There are more"collector" cars sitting on blocks that are owned by"hobbyists" that will someday build them when the parts prices drop! Good luck with that! I saw a 68 barracuda coupe that had chrome duct tape around the rear glass because the owner was too cheap to buy a good set of trim. You don't have the aftermarket because "you won't buy the parts"! And it don't take a brain surgeon to understand that GM and Ford guys have bought the parts structure and now they have reasonably priced parts. You can waaah,waaah,waah all you want about prices/flippers and blame everyone and everything else but "you" are to blame. You can wait for the "hoarders" to die and their stupid uninformed relatives to sell their stash but the reality is 90% of the time the parts are either crushed or sold to other "hoarders". If you really like these cars buy the parts build the cars and drive them. Or of course you still have the option of starting more threads about the "crazy high prices" of chryslers!!!!
You're misinformed. There's no aftermarket like Chevy and Ford because there isn't even half as many Mopars out there. Do yourself a favor and look at Mustang and Camaro production numbers. Even if Mopar owners "bought all the parts" the market share would be a fraction of the Ford and Chevy market.
Let's look at the production numbers. Here's the reference for the Mustang's and Camaro's
WARNING: Graphic Content! 50 Years of Camaro vs. Mustang Sales Numbers in Living Color. This is what I'm using for the Mopar's.
Dodge Challenger - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia,
Talk:Plymouth Barracuda/Production totals - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
You'll see just by looking at 1966 how crazy this is. In 1966 alone, Ford made
607,568 Mustangs. Do you know how many Challengers and Barracuda's were made from 1970 to 1974?
278,816. That's all of them. Every Challenger, every Barracuda from 1970 to 1974. Every single E-body ever made. And really, that's not a fair comparison because every 1966 Mustang uses the same parts. Combining a 4 year run of E-bodies means that not all of those cars use the same parts, even from the aftermarket. For example, there's 4 different styles of quarter panels in that range. At least 5 different fenders. That means different tooling, and that means smaller sales numbers for each set of tooling. That's higher prices.
So ok, you say that's not fair because Ma Mopar made a whole bunch of A-bodies and E-bodies were never that big on production numbers. Ok, let's use the Duster.
Production Figures
Highest production year was 1974 and they only made 277,409. Let's get crazy, lets add them all up. 1970 to 1976.
1,219,505. That's every Duster ever made over a 7 year run. Back to those pesky Mustangs. Just the 1st gen Mustangs, 1964 1/2 to 1966,
1,288,557. Right. Yes, I'm aware that 64 1/2 to 66 was the biggest production #'s for the Mustang, but it doesn't matter. That's a single body style and a single generation, and there are more of them than the highest production Mopar musclecar made over it's entire range (Duster). Which included a couple of body style changes, which means all the parts aren't the same again, so really it's still not an apples to apples comparison. Dart production numbers were lower, so was everything else. And of course Ford made more cars than just the Mustang.
Bottom line is, Mopar guys hoard parts because you can't buy them in the aftermarket. Yeah, there will always be those guys that hoard a phenomenal number of parts, but every make has them, there are mustang guys like that too. Just like there are plenty of Mustang guys that are going to "fix it up someday" or whatever. No matter what the argument is, the scale is totally different. Mopar parts will always cost more, because there are simply less cars to create the demand.
