Project for sale...what to tell them.

I often get a call about an old Fiat Spider 124 project that is stalled and for sale. The body is poor but a lot of time and effort was put in to fix the engine. Do I know any buyers since I oversee a 4-state Fiat club. So I ask about it and get information like this: $3500 asking, bad interior, rusty body, unknown transmission and differential, stock wheels, no receipts and not run in over 10 years. I say put it in Craigslist or similar since most club members have all the Fiats, both junkers and show cars, that they want. There is no money anywhere in the car and your work on the engine can't be verified. $4-5000 is a decent operating average condition value for a Fiat 124. As gently as I can, I say that it is junk yard material in the $100 to $900 to have it towed away. I don't enjoy being negative about a model that I really like but neither can I offer false hope on a terminally dead project. Cheers Ron

Pull the engine and sell, part the rest then junk it. If they just want it gone, then yeah they will be lucky to get over $500.

Too many people believe what they spent is what something is worth.

I suggest to this crowd and for these cars that perhaps parting out the pieces is the best way to recoup the money spent.

The other way I present it is to work it backwards for them: A really nice running car is worth say $10,000.

Any car that needs body and paint is going to require pretty much $10,000 to get finished plus a lot of time, so why would I add the sale cost to what is an underwater price from the start? Take whatever you can get and move on.