20/20 hindsight.

At 13 my dad took the family to California. Out there at the end of the block was a 1932 Ford Roadster hot rod  53 Mercury  Flathead with 3x2's Edelbrock heads freshly rebuilt. LaSall 3 spd.  Wire wheels big/little. Halibrand quick change center section.  The body was neatly channeled over the frame rails  dropped front axle.  Split wishbones  

For Sale $50.    The owner was putting his 3 rd generator on it and this one even though it was recently rebuilt  wouldn't charge either.  But what a sweet running motor.   
    I went running to my dad  trying to get him to buy it for me ( yes I had the $50 )  long story short I knew what to do to get it charging( generator  so all you do is full field the regulator for a few seconds )  but My dad didn't have faith that I could keep it running all the way back to Minnesota.  

    Today a car like that would easily sell for $75,000  

I was looking for a XKE head and carb manifold for my Black Jack Spl  I came across a dirty XKE that didn't run but they only wanted $300 for it. ( about 1975) 

  Fair price to pay for the parts so I brought it home.  Out of curiosity I set the timing right adjusted the points.  Then correctly adjusted the carbs.  It popped off immediately and idled smoothly.   
 Decades later that same engine was running perfectly when it went into the Packard Museum. 
 However today an XKE like that car would sell for about $175,000.   
   
How about you? 
  
 

I don't play that game anymore.  Its unhealthy to my mental health.

I try to enjoy the good decisions I make now instead of the ones I could have made.

I'm with Mr. Asa on this one. The past isn't a healthy place to live. 

If I think about all the money I've spent on cars and motorcycles between the age of 16 and now 40.......well it's why my 401k and home aren't much larger. So I don't think about it. 

My Uncle bought a '65 Shelby new and recently the family cashed in.  I used to run into my Uncle at Road America at the races in the 90's and I'd blow him off as I was a young knucklehead.  He and my Aunt scored races there on the 1960's.  He had that Corvette and an early 60's Impala SS.

I would've spent more time writing down all his sports car stories because he was a diehard sports car guy and the few stories I know today are pretty awesome.

https://www.yenko.net/forum/showthread.php?p=1553400

In the late 1970s a coworker was selling a really nice 1967 Corvette coupe.  Small block, four speed, Marlboro Maroon w/black interior.  I could have bought it, but instead I went practical and bought a new Mazda 626 for about the same amount of money.  The Mazda served me very well for many years, but it certainly wasn't the investment that the Corvette would have been.

I passed on the opportunity to grow unlimited funds by >10x on Tesla and >100x on Bitcoin, both over a much shorter timeframe and with much less effort than storing and caring for old cars. Such is life.

I married a woman because it seemed like the thing to do.

I stayed married to her at the 6 month point when she showed she was....untrustworthy.

The eventual divorce cost me roughly half a million doll hairs.

Hindsight can be brutal.

I've been lucky on both accounts.....cars and wife.  I've won the wife lotto and none of the cars I've owned or passed on would have been worth huge money.

Closet was 3K in 1986 for a driver quality Porsche 356.  It would be worth about 60K now but I would have never been able to go racing or do all the other things I've done because I'd have put that money into the 356.

Driven5 said:

I passed on the opportunity to grow unlimited funds by >10x on Tesla and >100x on Bitcoin, both over a much shorter timeframe and with much less effort than storing and caring for old cars. Such is life.

I SHOW wish I had actually looked in to Bitcoins back in 2014 when I built my driving rig. It would have mined like crazy. I'd probably be a millionair at this point. 

I am continually haunted by never procuring an Alfa Romeo GTV --- they were under-appreciated for such a long time and I always lusted after them, but never did fully commit even though I had ample opportunity and in hindsight I should have made the plunge because I don't think their market value will ever be so low ever again.

timeline early to mid 90's

1974 GTV 2000 - growing up in Atlanta so was hip to Paul Spruell, had this listed for a cool $5,500 but it had a really really bad repaint in an ugly purplish plum color, didn't buy it but Paul's son accompanied me on a test drive with it and urged me on to 'give it the beans' when I was grannying, it was spectacular mechanically and a memory that sticks out in my head

1967 GT Jr. - right down the road from Spruell was the Auto Delta mechanic shop, one of their techs had his personal car up for sale, in white and looked lovely with stepnose, he was asking $4,500 but I was broke and just there to tirekick looksee, no test drive

1972 GTV 2000 - later when living in Athens spotted this behind a race shop, stopped in one day and the dudes were super friendly, working on a Triumph TR3 when  walked in, I inquired about the Alfa and told asking price of $2,500, it was a basket case with motor needing rebuild but would come with GTAm flares that were all piled up on the inside, again I was too poor to partake

1969 GTV 1750 - spotted this one in front of a dilapidated gas station while visiting the folks up in north Georgia, the property was for sale so I called the number  and the guy said I could have it for $2,000, it would have been a total restoration and likely some body work too, but interior was damn immaculate complete with those special seats

Toyman! said:

I'm with Mr. Asa on this one. The past isn't a healthy place to live. 

 

Depends on how you look at it. I'm going backwards. I like records, finding new to me music that's 60 years old, old tools, historical documentaries. We bought a 71 year old oven.

Old fascinates me. Always has.

But things buried in the past, mistakes, missed opportunities ,  yeah, that's stuff is gone. Dead. If I added up all the shoulda, woulda, coulda in my life, my head would explode. 

Had a clean E30 offered to me for the price of 'get it out of my driveway' when I was a senior in college. Only needed a starter to get it happy again.  

That's the only one I regret, because it would have been a great car to play with, while already having reliable transportation.  Oh well, thems the breaks.

There's the might-have-beens, and there's also that-was-luckys. Sometimes things work out. Unintentional happy accidents.

In the early days of my car ownership (mid-to-late 90's) I really wanted something smallish, rear-wheel-drive, sporty, and European, but I couldn't afford an Alfa GTV, BMW 2002, Lotus, etc...so I bought the next best thing I could afford, a 1985 Toyota Corolla GT-S coupe. Then I bought a Toyota MR2. Then I bought several Corolla GT-S hatchbacks, and a Toyota Starlet. The cheapest of them was $80, and the expensive one was $2500. I kept some for several years, and a couple of the AE86s were in my possession for almost 20. I put work and parts into all of them, had fun and got good use out of them, and doubled my original purchase  or better on all of them. The biggest gain was the one I sold for 15x the original purchase price.

I'm no genius. It was pure luck that the world caught up and realized that they are cool cars, and then tons of the ones in the wild got crashed, crushed, or rusted, and all of the sudden I had something collectible!

I'm not sharing this to brag. I've also missed some golden opportunities, and I've totally taken a bath on some vehicles. I guess the moral of the story is that it isn't just the obvious vehicles that might become worth something if you hang onto it long enough and fix it up along the way.

In reply to ae86andkp61 (Forum Supporter) :

I just think it's fun all those could have beens.  
  The real function of cars is transportation.   If you got enough of that, then you got your money's worth.  
 It it's fun to see  what you missed on too.   
     It's not about regret or bragging. 
  I mean I got so many Jaguars that I scrapped some were bound to appreciate the same way select cars appreciate. 
  I always liked the looks of a 1959 Chevy Impala convertible. But that's not anywhere near most people favorite car. 
 

Unfortunately my income was crap at this point and didn't kick in until the next year.  

Plus delivering newspapers 2X a week in 1973 paid E36 M3.

Sometimes I just want to call these numbers to see if some 90 year old guy answers......

In 2005 I had a chance to buy a henna red E30 M3 for $5500.  It wasn't perfect but it was still an all original car, paint, panels, very nice interior etc.  That car today would be worth $50,000 or more. 

All my M3's that I sold have gone up in value since, the 2 E36 M3's and 1 E46 M3, along with the first 944 turbo.  However I just don't have the space or money to keep them all...

I bought my 1970 Dino Ferrari coupe in 1975 with 30K on the clock for $8500 with the engine in pieces......put it together and drove it for 2 years - loved the car, I fit it perfectly and I loved the way it drove. Sold it for $15K as I was moving to Colorado and didn't have a job.....thought I'd made a good lick on it. Today they sell for $350-500K.

If I hadn't sold it then I would still be driving it now, I liked it that much.

'94 Supra Turbo.  Black.  Around 2003 time frame.  My boss' brother had it.  Said he'd take $14k for it but he thought 6th gear was going out on it.  No thanks.

Fast forward two years and new boss with new different story but same disappointing outcome for me.  This guy had two 911's.  Both '69s and one was an S!  Neither ran and both had rust issues but were repairable.  This was long before BAT and the whole cult of the 911.  He said he'd "entertain" $10k for the pair.  But I wasn't interested in buying rusty non-running junk at that price.

I passed up a '65 Corvette around 2002 for $9500.  327  4 speed running driving well.  It had been customized in the 70's and needed a new tail section to be right. Who wouldn't want 68 Camaro taillights and bumper hacked into a Vette?

Well I think your passing was smart.  Always start with a solid foundation.  

Datsun310Guy said:

Unfortunately my income was crap at this point and didn't kick in until the next year.  

Plus delivering newspapers 2X a week in 1973 paid E36 M3.

 

Wonder if William Zeigenbein is still "just outside of Detroit". For some reason I still remember that name and location from classified ads in the back of car magazines in the 80's 

Looking forward instead of back, get to work on that time machine.

That aside, I only bought cars that never sold for much even after I sold them, so I have that going for me.