Cool Shelbys ... on ebay.

[MosportGreen66]

nice patina... not mine... thought people would like this...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/AWESOME-U...1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1966-GT-3...1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Shelby-Pr...1QQcmdZViewItem

[TimG]

Holy cow, that seems like lots of money, especially for the last two. I know where a '65 Shelby is that looks something like the last one. Guess that I'll have to pay the owner a visit.

[csx289]

I felt sick to my stomach reading the 1966 listing. All these years I thought the 1982 Shelby Registry on my bookshelf was real, and now I learn that the first one was printed in 1987!

Seriously, I don't know what buyers think sometimes. They bid big money on cars like these that will NEVER be as good as an original, complete car that is either a nice unrestored one or a high level resto. I don't care how much money you throw at a resto, at some point with cars like these, somebody will show up with a picture of how they look now and people will always shy away from a car with such rough history. The best one of the bunch is obviously the 68 GT350, and the seller is very honest in his description. I just don't know how you could afford to buy any one of these cars (esp. the "halfa car"), sink in $100k or more for a proper resto, and come out ahead. No matter how nice they are at the end, they will always have the history attached that shows owners with obvious hatred for Shelbys

If I had a buck for every time I heard "yeah, I know your car is all N.O.S parts and has won some big concours awards, BUT, mine is worth only a little less because it (insert line here: only needs detailing; has a correct motor; looks the same; only been driven 20k miles since LeRoy restored it; doesn't have NOS parts but the repops are just as good; nobody really cares about original paint; I "seen" one sell "just like mine" at auction on TV and mine is just as good; etc., etc).

Hope springs eternal, but, with most "real" parts being extinct, resto shops charging $50.00 per hour and up, minimum of 1,000 hours to do a car right, and the inevitable "damn we didn't know that was missing - that part is how much?!?" , why buy (for example) a 66 GT350 for $60-70k that needs EVERYTHING when you can buy a done one with good history for maybe twice as much?

Ok, I am off my soap box now. In no way was this meant to be a self-serving post, only thinking out loud. It is amazing how optomistic people can be sometimes!

Colin

[PeteLeathersac]

On lighter note, I see this same seller has a Hone-O available. ~ Pete

[GRB]

Every one of those cars looks like a good beginning to a horror movie!

[dreemz]

Colin-
Apply your theory to late 60's early 70's Italian GT cars like Lamborghini Miura's (early, S,or SV)or Ferrari 275, 330 or 365 (Daytonas) and the cost differnce of unrestored, rough or otherwise vs a true sorted, concourse quality car is easily into six figures. The nuances and intricacies of these hand built cars compared to american muscle cars puts them in an entirely different category regarding restoration. Nonetheless buyers will still want to pay almost similar money for the unrestored car vs the completely restored car.

[csx289]

Very true. I have been restoring a 275 GTB/2 alloy body car for 5 years. You just can't call up NPD and buy parts for it - we've had to make 90% of what we needed. For example, the plastic defroster vent trim had warped from the sun. I had to have a buddy make a pattern on his cnc machine from billet, then we made a mold, then we poured a polymer into it, and finished the part off. I think about $1500 later I had 2 little plastic parts ! Another example, there is a special nut that holds the input flange on the transaxle, like on a nut on a regular pinion. $565.00 for this goofy 27.5mm nut from Italy! Just a comedy of errors, and we won't talk about having to make any body panels that are needed repair. The nice thing is that there is no "absolute" with these cars, no judging manual, no "they are all like this". So, when you restore one you duplicate what was there originally and if you can't figure it out, you guess and make it look right. Nobody can say it isn't so. A little artistic license if you will.

I remember having a Maserati Ghibli SS coupe, I think I paid about $20k for it, and went and ordered a parking brake cable. They asked if I needed a price, or if I just wanted it shipped. I thought, hey, how much can it be for a stupid cable, just ship it! Well, that cable was $2100. Needless to say, it went back and I had one made locally for about $80.00. Always and adventure.

The immortal glassy eyes always seem to buy the turd Ferraris and think they only cost $10k to restore. More like $10k for a valve job, if you are lucky. So yes, you are dead on - funny to watch guys pay $300k for a turd and another pay $400k for a gem. Who gets the better deal? LOL

Although I have to say muscle car restos are quickly catching up with the prices of finding correct and/or NOS parts and the labor being the same for these cars as anything else, i.e., paint is paint and it doesn't matter what kind of car it is.

The only exception and a reasonable one at that is people paying a premium for original unrestored cars that DON'T need to be restored. These cars should bring a premium over restored cars IMHO.

Colin

[12bolt]

Colin, you rule!