Thread: It's funny what some people won't save

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I remember growing up before the internet was around. (Not nearly as long as like most of you) You had to stumble on to an actual rare car, or know someone who had or knew about it. Or, your nose was in the paper as soon as your delivery boy threw it on your porch so you could snipe those good deals up in the classifieds.

Where's this going you might be asking yourself? I grew up around guys that lived in the 60s and 70s that had these muscle cars, much like all of you. These guys were buying back their old cars and restoring them, or finding ones to replace them. It didn't matter if they were half rolled, rusted in half, they fixed them because they were true rare pieces.

My friend's Dad I talked about that had the body shop in Seth's thread, ended up being my employer for quite a while. He is one of them who fixed pretty totaled or rotted out cars. He had several 69 GTO judges over the years. It didn't matter the shape, he fixed them and sold them. He did several rare 69 Camaros, Novas, Pontiac Super duty's, Chevelles, all kinds of them. His friend Craig was a mustang fanatic and was into 69s. He had a 69 Boss 429 we painted for him that started out it's life as a back halved race car that had stupid low original miles. We put it all back to original sheet metal and that car was a 99 out of 100 Mustang club of America restored car. Craig was meticulous. He had a pretty sweet line up. He had that Boss 429, 2 69 Boss 302s, and 3 69 Super Cobra Jet Cars. He only got 1 of the 302 cars done, and wasn't able to finish the 2 cobra jet cars before he passed away. Another guy I ran into hanging around these guys was a guy named Dick Mathern. He used to own the Corvette hospital in Des Moines Iowa. Dick had stacks of picture books of the Corvettes he fixed over the years. It was pretty amazing to go into his shop and see 7 C2's being restored. Several were rolled, end overs, it didn't matter, he fixed them. He had the best corvette parts selection behind his shop too. Unfortunately he has passed on too.

When I was on power tour, I met some guys from Michigan that told me they won't touch any rust with a 10' pole no matter what it was. It just isn't worth it they said. I told them it must be expensive being picky. There were others in their group that had the same attitude. I had to go away. Haha Then, we took the Corvette to the race track back in July and I had guys telling me I ruined this car. After I told them the condition I got it in, they pretty much told me I was dumb for even saving the car. I just shook my head.

That leads me to my Buick project. I joined a Buick forum back in 2007 to start finding parts for it. I posted a thread on it, included pics of it's current status then, and 80% of the people whom posted on it said the car isn't worth fixing, it's junk. Granted, the car will need everything and quite a few parts are 1 year only. But, GM sure isn't making anymore, and it truly is an original GS400 convertible with some decent options. I told them if it was an LS6 Chevelle guys would be fighting to buy the dang thing.

It just got me thinking the other day at what some people think is junk and what other people will do with said junk. From my stand point, I start with nothing because that's usually what I found, or in my price range. Yeah, I could be going about it all wrong. But everything I want is stupid expensive and I don't buy to sell. I just love to build things. Plus if no one saves some of this stuff, how much will be left in 50 years?