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71 purchase issues-help!

  • Thread starter Thread starter lyle nelson
  • Start date Start date
L

lyle nelson

Guest
Ok guys, not sure how the wife is going to react, but thinking about adding a 2d vette to the garage. But needs some opinions on this.
Have a line on what appears to be a good 1971. Here's the story. 2d owner. Seems to have all paperwork. Original dealer sells it. Guy dies about 2 years ago. Wife tries to drive it, but craps out the engine. Selling dealer gets it back in trade. They toss engine, and put in year appropriate engine, but is nom now. a 350/270 base motor, which is what came on the car. All this is verifiable. Selling dealer is well known vette dealer, good friend to local clubs, here, etc. Guy buys it from dealer with 59k original miles on it, 2 years ago, and now has about 85k miles. Car is original red coupe, red paint. Has M22 4 speed, rear rack, a/c, and it works, he just replaced all seals in that, and is willing to upgrade to R134 and give original compressor with it. Has put in over $3500 in parts in last two years. Basically, whole underside has been re-done. Bushing, tie rods, trailing arms, u-joints, new rotors, stainless lines. REplaced all vacuum lines.
He wanted a better driver, so replaced the rear end with new eaton diff, spring from F-41 suspension, replaced manifold and carburator and distributor with holly and an eldebrock and MSD (though has all of the original parts if want to replace those). Basically, made a better daily driver. All weather stripping replaced. Dash pad has no cracks, seats ok. carpet and door skins very faded.
Few small cosmetic dents on bumper, and a little spider webbing around side grate and head light. Basically, a solid 3 in looks, and 2 on mechanicalls. southern car, frame is not even sniffing rust. If you painted it and redid the interior, it would be lights out. Car looks very good for its year, just red paint is fading.
He's asking $12k for car, and might take a little less.
What do you think? Is that out of line for a NOM?
 
$12k for a nice condition 71! Sounds like a bargain to me. If you don't want it at that price I'll take it!

Seriously, $12k doesn't get you much of a chrome-bumpered car these days. If it's all as solid as you describe and you know the history, even without the original motor it sounds like a steal.

Let's see what others think.

John
 
Sounds like a great price to me.
 
Work him for the "little less" and put it firmly in the deal well struck column.
 
I don't agree that all the crap he did to the engine and chassis made it a better driver, but some people are fascinated with shiny stuff. In my mind it's a BIG minus.

I doubt also it's got an M-22 transmission, maybe m-21 but probably an m-20.

No more than ten K if you don't want to get upside down. Paint and interior will cost you 6-8 K, removing Bubba's handiwork maybe another 2 K and you still have a partially restored base engine NOM car...............
 
Hi Lyle -

My opinion - if all said is true and correct, then $12k for a nice daily driver is a good deal.

I helped refurb. a 71 war bonnet car with the 350/270 auto. the owner paid 13,500 for it with 80k miles showing.

We needed to do complete brakes, trans, suspension incl. trailing arms etc, complete vacuum system for headlights and wiper door, and the weatherstrips were in bad shape.

All in all he wound up paying more for the daily-driver 71 than he could have bought a very nice origninal car IMO.

At least he knew what he had. He sold it and bought a 2001 Z06.

I don;t think it would be good to buy it and attempt to make it a show car, but for $12, it'd be a great car to drive the wheels off of....

best regadds -

mqqn
 
I think it's a fair go-especially if you can recover all the replaced parts (intake/carb/distributor) and particularly if you can get back the original numbers engine for storage now, rebuild/replace later as you "restore" the car, if that's what you are leaning towards.

Sounds like a good driver at a a decent buy-in price. I say go for it. As for the wife, do what I did-GIVE her a cool car that you found and fixed ('86 Camaro Z-28) for yourself, and surprise her with it (Valentine's Day). Bonus points! ;)

Rick

:w
 
mqqn said:
I don;t think it would be good to buy it and attempt to make it a show car, but for $12, it'd be a great car to drive the wheels off of....mqqn
I pretty much agree with this ... sounds good for a driver you could take out any ol' time for fun.
JACK:gap
 
not that you need any additional "me too" type posting, but it sounds like a reasonable offerering to me also. i also agree that i might give it the old college try for "a little less" to see how much happier you can get with the purchase. if you want a NCRS type vehicle you will pay for one. if you want a driver type that you can use and enjoy (and maybe even restore a bit as you go), it seems like a pretty good deal to me. 12k won't get you very far in my area for a chrome bumper C3, certainly not one that seems to very presentable and usable for the $$ out of the box.

keep in mind, the above is nothing more than my $.02

steve
 

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