Resto cost v's resale price.

[playwme]

Not at all. Like Adam says , if you have the bits and the body is good then there's no reason you couldn't do a good job for a very reasonable price. That doesn't make the vehicle worth that much less than something that has cost a lot more. Knowing what Jen and Rods yellow van owes them makes me curious on what the cost breakdown for that resto were (not that you guys have to share that with us). That was a resto that required a fair amount of bodywork, rust repairs , sourcing of original parts, full rebuild of all mechanicals. However, I'm fairly confident that I could do mine without reaching into my pocket for 1/3rd of that cost, but it wouldn't make mine worth a 3rd of theirs.
Things like
- no rust and very little bodywork needed
- car is already fairly complete.
- all parts needed can be pulled from the 9 others I have without devaluing those vehicles (apart from consumables).
- time spent working in a panelshop has given me a few very good contacts for painting, supplies and mechanics.
are going to make the whole exercise a lot cheaper than someone who has started with a bare shell, needs to source every part individually, finds nasty rust,gets ripped off by a spraypainter, rebuilds his engine wrong the first time etc.

[ozbox]

finds nasty rust,gets ripped off by a spraypainter, rebuilds his engine wrong the first time etc.

thats more common than you would believe...

[GNW1974]

I view it this way, what would you pay for a new vehicle today? Most restorations would fall short of this figure but if done right you have a near new car in many ways so the value would be much the same, except you have the pleasure, pain whatever through the process. The upside as well is that if you buy wisely and rebuild a vehicle worth doing, then you may have a nicely appreciating asset for the future or at least something that will give you some of your money back.