Just because you can get SOME parts doesn't mean much.
I have two customers with beautiful NAs that desperately need certain A/C lines that are NLA and no aftermarket.
It is the little things like that what will wear you down trying to treat an older car like a commuter.
No one will give you a loan for an old car, so you get a less expensive home improvement loan. You're improving the inside of your garage!
I recently bought a 1991 Saab 900s. Love the color, love driving it and it's pretty versatile for uses. Younger people don't even know what it is, most people smile at it. Would I get a $20k loan for it, no; it was <$10k all in. Would I have a heart attack if a soccer Mom dinged a door? Maybe, but not as badly if I just paid $25 - 30,000 for a new SUV or something.
In reply to 914Driver :
New SUV, you can get a door fairly easily. Old SAAB, the nearest one is a few hours away and may be in worse shape than what you have.
The nice thing about new cars is, paradoxically, how disposable they are.
I just sold my one nice vehicle, to go full rad era fleet. We will see how it goes...
In reply to Peabody :
Yeah, You can. Heck, My CC will give me a $20K 60 month loan at 6.9%
Not wonderful but really not bad overall considering my bank would be 6.25% for the same loan if they would write it for something that old.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:In reply to 914Driver :
New SUV, you can get a door fairly easily. Old SAAB, the nearest one is a few hours away and may be in worse shape than what you have.
The nice thing about new cars is, paradoxically, how disposable they are.
This ^^^^^
If you're going to drive an older vehicle, you want one with strong aftermarket and/or factory support for parts. Nothing is more frustrating than trying to track down parts for your daily driver. When you need it to run.
The sheet metal part is important too particularly for something financed and fully insured. You could end up with a totaled car from a relatively minor accident and a check for 2/3rds of your financed amount, all because they can't find parts. Insurance coverage rates don't keep up with 'classics' very well and you need solid documentation to demonstrate your vehicle's value. Gap coverage would be critical in this venture, because the market for these vehicles can be volatile. To get gap insurance also means proper financing, not merely a personal loan. Personal loan would be great for a second or third vehicle. I wouldn't go that route for a daily driver. You want the car to be the collateral for a number of reasons.
BTW, lest folks think I'm "anti-older daily driver". My current vehicle is 15-years old and has 205k miles on it. I think vehicles that are 5-15 years old, <$15k, with ~100k miles on them are some of the absolute best values you can buy. Particularly anything from Toyota, Honda, or full-size SUVs/Trucks from the Big 3.
If you want to keep it nice, make sure you have/can get all the needed interior parts. It sounds like I just got the last few trim parts for our E46 M3.
Racebrick said:I just sold my one nice vehicle, to go full rad era fleet. We will see how it goes...
As I mentioned previously I'd been doing it for years; it was fine for me. I only drive about 10,000 miles per year
Also note that when I bought my 2011 Outback (9yrs ago) I only paid 17K for it...............it was the most expensive car I'd ever bought. LOL
If I were looking today I'd seriously consider a rad era car; I saw a really nice Prelude Si for 7K on craigslist a few weeks ago. There's currently a clean LS400 for 9K (not sure this is Rad era though).
Something like this seems like a deal to me. I know Saabs and parts and totaled if wrecked. I also know this is super premium $ for a 9-3 but this versus a new car, lots of room to fix stuff.
I think it is this spirit of car that the thread is talking about, even though this one is too new.
In reply to David S. Wallens :
Reminds me I need to order some trim pieces for my FJ Cruiser. Next year, it will have been 10-years since they built any FJCs and I suspect in the next ~5-6 years they'll discontinue virtually all of the FJC-specific trim pieces.
Seems like most production vehicles have about a 10-15-year life for 'complete' parts availability from the last production year. And then it starts to turn into mostly mechanical parts until the aftermarket catches back up. That's really an if/when the aftermarket catches back up.
Working on a '63 Sunbeam Alpine has taught me that even less obscure, obscure cars, are a pain in the taillights to deal with. I can open one to two tabs and order almost every part for a 1960-1973 FoMoCo Unibody (Falcon, Comet, Fairlane, Mustang, Torino, etc) today and have it all within a month. For Sunbeam parts, it'll take me 5-6 orders, from 3-4 countries, and I might have it all within a year.
Tom1200 said:For the record I'd routinely driven older cars. It's only been in the last 15 years or so that I started driving newer cars (5yrs old). My outback is now 12yrs old and I may well keep it for 10 more but in the back of my mind I'm always scheming a way to drive an old car again.
I used to drive a lot of 70s cars but found the 80s-90s to be the sweet spot where the cars come with AC and things like power windows and a decent radio.
I saw a nice 944 the other day that I think would fit the bill nicely............but maybe a CRX or 240SX or a Celica GTS would be nice as well.
Stay with Jaguars. Some of those newish ( rad era ) will have what you seek. That 4.0 4 valve 6 is astonishingly reliable and decently quick.
Plus the prices are extremely affordable.
I need the lid for the center console, but the guy with all the old wrecked 700s around here lost them all in a prairie fire a few years back.
The hard parts are easy. Its the little stuff that drives you nuts. Or, the common parts that failed reasonably regularly in the old days, but are now only made by aftermarket companies. B230 exhaust manifold gaskets, for example.
One of the things I found with running 25-30 yr old cars is while you can always get the parts to keep them running the small bits may be hard to find.
If my Datsun was still road driven I'd have to make some parts for the interior bits and modify some switch gear to fit. I can't remember which but one of my beater old cars had a headlight switch from another car because that was the closest fit.
I've also taken apart bits and cleaned them (yes you Bosch D fuel injection).
In reply to frenchyd :
There you are..........Jags nope; I'm a Japanese car guy.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:Just because you can get SOME parts doesn't mean much.
I have two customers with beautiful NAs that desperately need certain A/C lines that are NLA and no aftermarket.
It is the little things like that what will wear you down trying to treat an older car like a commuter.
Can you not have the AC lines made? I've done this in the past...........I think I went to an industrial place to get it done. I also seem to remember the price being double or triple of the OEM part but it at least fixed the issue.
A few years back, I was looking for a new DD and considered getting something older to replace my ailing Mazda 3. These were my requirements:
-Has to have a popular powertrain for serviceability
-Comfortable
-EFI a must, the more modern, the better
-Has to be "cool" and "fun", but popular enough for some aftermarket support
-Somewhat decent on fuel, and low maintenance costs
-$5000 and under for a budget
I ended up looking for a while at all sorts of stuff and ended up zeroing in on the following platforms:
-1983-88 Thunderbird Turbo Coupe and Cougar XR7 (especially the 87-88 models)
-4th Gen F Body
-SN95 Mustang
-1998-up GM W Body with the 3800SC
-3rd gen Nissan Maxima SE
I found a few examples, but with the pandemic in full rage, it was tough to get out to see some of them, as they were far away. My "white whale" was finding another 1987-88 Cougar XR7 like I had in high school. That thing had the most comfortable interior and got surprisingly decent gas mileage for what it was. Plus it was a Fox Body so everything under the sun could be purchased. But alas, I couldn't find one after months of looking, I came up with nothing. I ended up giving in after dealing with a number of flaky sellers on other cars and just traded the Mazda in while I could get value for it.
LanEvo said:You can find a really clean Mercedes (W124) 300TE wagon for under $10k. Early-'90s models with 24-valve M104 engines are awesome daily drivers that will more than keep up with modern traffic. Quiet and comfortable, too. The big Brembos from later 500E and various AMG models will bolt right on (if you're into that kind of thing).
That. Is. Aweosme!
frenchyd said:Tom1200 said:For the record I'd routinely driven older cars. It's only been in the last 15 years or so that I started driving newer cars (5yrs old). My outback is now 12yrs old and I may well keep it for 10 more but in the back of my mind I'm always scheming a way to drive an old car again.
I used to drive a lot of 70s cars but found the 80s-90s to be the sweet spot where the cars come with AC and things like power windows and a decent radio.
I saw a nice 944 the other day that I think would fit the bill nicely............but maybe a CRX or 240SX or a Celica GTS would be nice as well.
Stay with Jaguars. Some of those newish ( rad era ) will have what you seek. That 4.0 4 valve 6 is astonishingly reliable and decently quick.
Plus the prices are extremely affordable.
Having owned and worked on a lot of British cars, including jags, I'm just going to shake my head and pretend I didn't actually read this as a serious post on a motorsports oriented forum.
I drive a 98 Jeep Wrangler semi-daily. It's fuel injected, reasonably reliable, and I really don't care if someone bumps into it. It has air conditioning, and I installed a bluetooth head unit. It's positively modern. One of the Millennial-Zennial? kids at work asked if it was carbureted. Haha
I would probably have another Fox-SN95 Mustang if I could find a decent one that wasn't $$$$$. Eventually, I will probably accept that $20k is the floor for a decent Fox.
To be fair, my wife drives a 2019 VW Golf.
Given most of my vehicles are Rad-era cars, the one thing I'll say is you can't have one vintage vehicle. As in, you have to assume it's going to go down for repairs and you'll have a hard time finding a part or it will take a while or whatever. So you need a small fleet to rotate through. It's definitely not for everyone, and I'll admit that having a '19 Silverado as a fallback does provide a bit of psychological comfort.
The big issue to me is less mechanical and more cosmetic / interior. The plastics get brittle, break, and then good luck finding a replacement. I have a MB 190E and 400E and the sun visor clips - all of which broke - are only available from MB, for ~$40 EACH. Ha! I bought some vaguely correctly colored plastic bar from McMaster and made some myself.
Get used to that approach.
ToManyProjects said:Having owned and worked on a lot of British cars, including jags, I'm just going to shake my head and pretend I didn't actually read this as a serious post on a motorsports oriented forum.
A little over 20-years ago now, I tried to buy a '59/60 S-type Saloon, I loved the style. Saw it and immediately dreamed of it lowered and setup for racing.
My father, a long time British car guy (who owned over the years a XK120, XK140, 100m, 3000 MKIII, three Bugeye Sprites, two MGAs, two TR3s, a half-dozen MGBs, and finally the Sunbeam Alpine Series 3 that is in my garage now), convinced me that buying an S-Type was about the stupidest thing my 15-year old brain had come up with to that point. And this is from a kid that also wanted to a buy a Bugeye with a 327/4spd shoved into it (my dad put the kibosh on that, because he knew it was way too fast for me).
The car was rusty, didn't run, and I figured out after some research that parts were almost impossible to find. More research and talking to British car guys more, it also became clear that Jag owners fall into a Venn Diagram of "Delusional" and "Extremely Rich". Turns out, I'm neither of those. 
Don't get me wrong I think a Jag XJ is a really nice car but if I'm going 90s Lux I would get an LS400.
Tom1200 said:In reply to frenchyd :
There you are..........Jags nope; I'm a Japanese car guy.
Fair enough. But there are some wonderful bargains there. $1000 buys a lot and sometimes leaves money in your wallet.
I can go to several junkyards and find them. Nice interior pieces, parts and upholstery. Sometimes shockingly low mileage.
I'm a bottom feeder and Know that non running cars because they sat in some old geezers garage too long are almost scrap metal prices.
But you clean them up and replace filters etc. there is potentially several hundred thousand miles in those.
In reply to Tom1200 :
What would a decent LS400 cost? Something with less than 100,000 miles?
tester (Forum Supporter) said:I would probably have another Fox-SN95 Mustang if I could find a decent one that wasn't $$$$$. Eventually, I will probably accept that $20k is the floor for a decent Fox.
To be fair, my wife drives a 2019 VW Golf.
The other Fox is not much cheaper, either.
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