New member from Va

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tony20110

tony20110

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 14, 2013
Messages
218
Reaction score
9
Location
Manassas Va
Hello everyone. My first car at 16 years old was a 1964 Plymouth Barracuda. $1200 worth of pure joy at the time. I loved that car and always knew I shouldn't have let it go. But life happens and it couldn't have been helped, now 28 years later I am going to take the plunge and start the journey of finding another and restoring it.

I am currently looking for a 64-66 Barracuda. This is going to be very interesting. While I can do motor and body work and I have the help of my brother in law (20+ years professional mechanic) I've never attempted a restoration. But I do have the space and a few bucks to start so I'm going to see where this leads.

Any advice given will be very appreciated. I joined this site to pick the brains of the people on here that have gone down this road before.

First question is what should I look for and what to look out for in picking the car. I'm not worried about motor or trans. I'll be putting in a 340 and a transmission to compliment it. I'm also not too worried about simple fixes to the body. I guess I'm a little scared of all the little things people like me tend to overlook when starting this process. I am very confident that I have no idea what I'm getting into!

My main concern is what should be in good shape and what can be overlooked? I intend to spend between $1500-$4000 depending on the shape it's in and what I don't have to do to it later.

I know the answers are going to vary but I'll sit back and soak it all in. Anyway in closing thanks for the administrators of this forum. I'm going to need all the help I can get!

Tony20110
 
tony20110 said:
...First question is what should I look for and what to look out for in picking the car. I'm not worried about motor or trans. I'll be putting in a 340 and a transmission to compliment it. I'm also not too worried about simple fixes to the body.
Click to expand...

First, welcome! In my opinion the single largest expense is paint/body, unless you have the skill and tools to do it yourself. My recommendation is to look for a good rust and damage free car. Also, if you need to spend a little more to get one with good paint, even if it needs touch up, that would be even better. Average cost here for someone to do a decent job (minor rust/dent repair and good paint) is a crazy $8K - 10K! Second largest expense for you (because you have mechanicals covered) will be your appetite for "original/correct parts" versus after market parts. But, either way, enjoy the hunt!
 
Welcome to FABO Tony. You'll have a great time here. Good luck with your search. We will help find you a car! toolmanmike
 
Thanks for all the kind welcomes. I'm sure I will be posting a ton of questions on here in the future. Right now I'm just reviewing as many for sale ads as I can (expired or not) just to get an idea of what I'm really looking for and if my budget is realistic or not.

My initial thoughts are to find as complete a car as I can with either a 6 or no motor at all. Body as clean as I can find but paint job irrelevant as I want to choose the color. I think finding the right car may be a bit of a problem but I'm in it for the long haul so we will see.
 
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