What's it worth?

No pics, but I have a line on an all original, nearly new, 1978 Plymouth Horizon. It's(unfortunately) a 4-door automatic, but it still smells & looks new, and has been driven just enough to not have problems. It has 36kmi on it, perfect paint, trim & interior. The only real flaw is it just developed a power steering fluid leak, and the engine bay needs detailed.

Any rough estimates on what it might be worth? I'm not trying to steal it from the seller, but I know myself well enough that I'd want to be able to sell it in a couple years & not loose money either.

Whats scrap these days?

Probably about $150/ton.

The very finest, brand new, sealed in a plastic bag, stored in a temperature and humidity controlled vault might be worth a couple thousand dollars, purely for historical interest.

Sounds like $300 worth of un-fun headache to me. I might go $350 if it's got the fake-woodgrain and roof-rack.

If it was a first gen Cavalier Z-24, or a Citation X11, or an Omni GLH, or a Rampage/Scamp, or an Indy Beretta, or any COOL late 70s or early 80s car, I would be insanely jealous. But a plain 1978 Horizon (1.7 VW powered) is not very cool.

Yeah, I agree. But I figure there's some freak out there who's totally into them, and this is their dream-car...and chances are someone on this board knows them.

well... look at it this way.. could be the start to a cool challenge car. Low ball them!

MG v8 converters will buy the fenders for $50 apiece, plus parts. At $500 you can get your money back. At a grand or more you'll need to find a special buyer

petegossett wrote: Yeah, I agree. But I figure there's some freak out there who's totally into them, and this is their dream-car...and chances are someone on this board knows them.

You rang?

In reply to moparman76_69:

I'm planning on stopping by this week to drive it, check it all out in daylight & get some pics. Are you possibly interested or know someone who might be?

If the underside is as clean & straight as the rest of the car looked in a brightly-lit garage, then this thing really belongs on the car-show circuit or in a museum. If it's not, then it would still be a great sleeper project for someone.

Depends on the price, honestly it probably wouldn't sell for over 1000 right now unless it was super rust free and low mileage. Even then most will buy it as the basis of a turbo swap. If it is a woody with a roof rack I'd be interested.

It's worth it just so you can play this and sing along:

"Horizon" by The Arrogant Worms

like anything else.. worth what somebody will pay for it

I found one of these very low mileage Omni/Horizons on my local CL about a year ago. I almost called called the seller but that automatic transmission made it tough to go through with. If I remember, at the time, the seller wanted either $700-$800, or about $1200. These are really only worth what you want to pay for a low mileage....anycar.

A '78 is about the first year for these, so it has that VW engine built under license, or whatever the deal was with VW for that 1.7 liter these had and the automatic is a 3 speed...so not really all that fast or economical compared to later Omni/Horizons. I'll bet it has a 2-tone paint job and vinyl seats.

No I remember it has the cloth/velour/whatever seats, and I'm pretty sure it's a woodie. I'll get the details this week.

I stopped by & went over the car really well tonight. It is in very good condition - if it were almost any other car from 1978, it would be worth way more - but it's not "showroom new".

The interior is almost mint. There's tape holding the rear defrost switch in place, two screws next to it(possibly for a CB mic mount?), and they used some black tar/goo to hold a piece of dash trim on.

There are only 4 dings on the body, and 3 on the left-rear wheel-arch chrome. But at some point it scraped into something along the rocker & bottom of the passenger's front door, and it looks like someone with my level of bodywork skills tried to fix it. It also appears they patched some rust behind the rear wheels as well, though it's solid metal underneath, so maybe the just sanded & skimmed the bubbles? There's a general layer of crust underneath, but no perforation or weak spots. All the rust I saw could be coated with POR-15 and be OK. The paint is all original, and the lenses, grill and trim are all good. The bumpers are straight, although one of the end-caps is held on with sheetmetal screws. The carb seems gunked up, as it was hard to start, but seemed to run better after a while. It almost didn't re-start though, but once it did it ran fine. The left-rear wheel bearing is loose/shot too.

All in all, it is a really nice car - but for what/who?

Here's more pics.

petegossett wrote: All in all, it *is* a really nice car - but for what/who?

Someone who needs cheap, temporary transportation?

Jeez--I haven't seen one of those in that condition since I was in high school. Certainly is interesting. Green vinyl...

Are parts even still available for it???

I'd really hate to see someone trash it as a DD and it end up just another trashed old car in a couple years.

That's such a great color.

Someone needs to swap a decent drivetrain into it, retain a/c, tighten up the suspension and enjoy the hell out of it for the next 20 years.

Note the rare factory fender mounter turn signal indicators.

These used to be real popular on Chrysler products.
Here on a '73 Scamp

Here on an Imperial

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

Hose-O-Rama!!!

In reply to aircooled:

.. like a box of snakes

needs megasquirt

wow thats cleaner then the '87 we sold in '96...

wonder how hard it is to swap/upgrade to the 2.2turbo...

I would love to find something like that to putter back and forth to the train station with.