Re: P.O.P. on ebay
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. They're all clones... If they're not, then what difference does it make, because buyers don't care.
The days of the barn-find holy grails, or the rusted and abused '69 RS/Z in a guy's driveway for $3500 (which I passed on in 1990, by the way) are essentially gone. There's too much money involved to think that sellers aren't aware of values, and that people aren't motivated by profit, making some bent on screwing each other on cars, parts, any associated crap, etc. because of the dollars... You can thank your friends at e-bay for making any point of sale a world-wide market; coincidentally, the same people that make cloning a Camaro so easy.
To take it even further, the nice clones (or as I've recently seen them called-- "Tributes" or "Recreations", terms which I feel are both somewhat funny) are often better than the originals because the initial cost for the car that a person starts with is less, so you have more money for cloning bits.... Nobody wins. Or, everybody wins, if that's what side of the fence you're on...
Why is this? Because excellent originals are not driven as they were designed to be, if at all, and those that were driven were used cars by 1980, and were all trashed by 1985. I saw it with my own two eyes. I was with my neighbor when he threw a rod somewhere north of 7K in a red '68 Z that his dad bought for him. It was fun while it lasted... A guy in town had a white '74 SD Trans Am that was totaled in a snowstorm. A guy I knew had one of those stupid chrome "foot for a gas pedal" things in his '66 SS Nova. I don't know what happened to that car, but I can only imagine that it's no longer with us from what I remember. My friend John hit a guardrail with his '70 1/2 Cortez Z-- Totaled. Other than crapping my pants most of the times I was in that Z, the last thing I remember about it was seeing a half-eaten McD's hamburger in the rear package shelf and laughing about it. Then it was no longer with us. They were just used cars... Cars that happened to be cool, fast, and desirable to any kid my age that had a few bucks, and away they went. Think about it...
So what's left for the non-dollar endowed that can no longer afford the stupid prices for originals? You said it-- Clones, or pieced-together backyard specials that you don't want anything to do with.
When I saw the original blue Hemi Road Runner trade for significantly less than the Hemi "Recreation" on your favorite testosterone convention (Barrett-Jackson), I said to myself-- This hobby is now officially stupid...
What does this all mean? It's solely one person's opinion that all of this is what it is. Unfortunately, all of these things are bad for the hobby if you paid too much for an original and/or care too much. If you have the money and/or don't care, more power to you.
If the people on this board didn't think so or don't care, then they wouldn't post about this stuff here. I guess it's all part of the love...?
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