Apology accepted, Steve, I would like to say I am sorry as well. We both got off on the wrong foot back then. This post may be long winded, but I just want you to see where I am coming from since I get upset when I see good looking stuff getting parted. Its because there is nothing like that out my way.
Heck i was looking at a white and granny green 70 Dart more door slant sux automatic that needed everything mechanical gone over, but was thinking nice patina daily driver. $1500 being more than fair since it needed front floor pan patches, tires, brakes, engine and trans tuneup type work. The usual take apart, clean and lube general stuff to get stuff working again etc. Old lady told me her daughter wanted it. Named it petunia of all things. Car hasn't moved in 20 years. On 4 rotted flat tires. I enquired about it 5 years ago. Still hasn't moved. Car living up to its given name I guess. Gonna stay planted right where it's at.
Yeah out here its rust free steel when you can find it. Like the half a scamp a fabo member and I bought out of a salvage yard, and he took a rust free roof and quarter skins from. It was a vinyl top car, but that's far and few in between. Other than that the cars are completely shot.
The fun suckers got to the state with that half a car B.S. I used to buy salvage cars all the time to fix and flip. Mostly FWD daytonas and lebarons. State changed that. I got one last car with a Tx salvage title. Its grandfathered in because I got it before the ruling. That scamp had a clean front clip you would have actually wanted. We wanted the whole car, they said no. Cant do it per state law. We took the *** end since it had the parts we both needed. Now the rest of it will stay there until they flatten it per state law.
I also got real upset when I wasnt able to buy those roof structure pieces to fix that barracuda. I know I can probably fab something as good as a factory part, I just didnt want to, as it's probably going to be a pain in the ***. We had 1 67 notch coupe in my boneyard. Like all the old stuff, the owner moves it around when clearing out rows of cars and replants it. I was going to go back for those pieces and the trunk hinge supports since the roof was cut off and sold, and all that was still intact. A new guy he hired flattened about 8 rows of cars including the old ones that the owner holds on to. He was fired that same day. He was told the old stuff that's marked w spray paint was not to get flattened. That 67 had 1 decent fender and a good trunk lid on it as well, it was in the 8 rows that got flattened.
Heres what we see all the time. Paint sunbaked off em, huge dents from epic hailstorms, sunbaked and dry rotted interiors. When I say epic hailstorms it's no joke. In 2009 we had a hailstorm on Easter sunday. Half the city had softball sized hail. It went through the roofs of houses. I have a metal roof so that didnt happen, but it tore up about 70% of the vehicles in the city. We had another one like it several years ago. Everything I have is either garaged or under a carport.
The reason i say when you can find it is that this is truck country. I have a 10 acre wrecking yard to buy stuff out of. Theres 4 picked clean A bodies, a few M bodies, 1 69 C body, no B or E bodies. Rest of the cars is new FWD stuff, and foreign. The majority of the 10 acres is trucks probably 75%.
Now that's great if you want a magnum engine, or a hemi, maybe an o/d trans. Or a locker, gears, and rear discs out of a jeep for an A body 8&1/4, or an explorer 8.8 to narrow. We just dont come across nice stuff like that out here. The Dallas area yards are all high turn pick n pulls. Stuff sits 2 weeks and is gone. Nothing old there. Great for modern driveline stuff. You get a helluva deal. But I dont ever see anything older than mid 80s in those places.
