Are people just crazy??

ChaseRoads

do I need to lube this area?
Oct 29, 2020
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midwestern america
Been on the hunt for a fox GT drop top. As you know, prices are kinda crazy right now. Last week, went and looked at one, owner said it was low miles and in great condition... when I got there I found a car that had been painted with a roller and at least 2 panels needed replaced, along with home made straight pipes and cherry bombs. Asking price was 9K... i personally would put it at about 3K. Yesterday I looked at one, the paint was so badly painted that the factory primer was showing though, the top was shot and not one part of the interior was salvageable. asking 8500 and said he should ask 11K after a detail.... can't detail away rotting carpet and seats , I would put it at 1500 bucks tops. . This has been the way it's gone... everything is garbage and these people think they have gold.
 
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Fine with me. I own a 90 with no rust, and was just asking myself why I own this thing. I hardly ever drive it lately. Working on a Jeep, and my wife won't get in the Fox........I won't sell, because you can't get it back. Not for the price I would pay.
 
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Yes, people are crazy lately.
Now what was the specific subject of your question? ;)
Trying to find a good, used college car for my oldest with the generous settlement check from her first one was an adventure. Except for Dodge/Chrysler minivans, and Panther platform cars, asking prices were double what I thought was fair on most vehicles in the price range.
 
The days of buying a good, cheap, reliable, appliance car for $2K are over. The used car market got crazy with Covid sht, but now you have to add inflation in. I hate to say this, but those beat ass foxes you looked at also have scarcity and some demand behind the market so they are probably only a couple thousand dollars off the market.
 
Some guy on another forum was saying that we won't be able to drive our cars because they will be outlawed. Politicians will get together and say they can't be driven, leaving them almost worthless.
 
Yes, people are NUTS about valuing their cars.

When I was Mustang shopping, I was looking at a low mileage '95 for sale in SC. I was considering buying a 1-way plan ticket to go down and drive it back to MI. This was back in 2004 when digital pictures weren't quite so easy to exchange and the resolution wasn't anything like it is today. All of the pictures looked good and I was debating the adventure, but at the time adding extra $$$ to an already pricey car had me on the fence.

In the meantime, a similar car popped up on Autotrader that was being sold locally. 1995 Cobra, white, with 25k miles - reasonably priced and no plane ticket needed. The pictures looked pretty good so I gave the number a ring. The guy told me that he was selling the car for his "Mom" who only drove it in good weather as a "weekend cruiser," "never raced," and that it was totally stock in excellent condition. The only change was that it had $1200 in new tires(?). The car was parked along a main road outside of an office building with a for sale sign in the window, so I could look at it that night, and he could swing by after his classes got out if I wanted to test drive it. I drove over and the car looked good... from a distance. When i walked up, the first thing I noticed was the tasteless cobra-head sculpted valve stem covers [okay, easy fix]. Then I noticed that the front bumper paint was all spidered, with some large chunks of paint missing down to the urethane, probably from hitting something [not ideal but not the end of the world]. The left rear quarter had a sizable dent in front of the tail light [okay, this is getting sketchy]. The interior was fairly dirty and the wear didn't seem to jive with the mileage on the cluster [very sketchy now]. I looked under the car and even though the floor boards looked clean, someone had tried to weld in subframe connectors [super sketchy, for Mom?]. It looked like they were attempting to stick weld them in, pushed the rod into the bead, and when the bead went cold and trapped the rod they just cut it off leaving 1" of it extending from the weld, then started another attempt right next to the last one. The result was something that resembled a metal porcupine with about 10 1" to 2" welding rod spikes sticking out of each bead [I'm out]. This thing was barely worth 1/3 of what he was asking.

After that experience, I decided that I was NOT going to fly down to SC and spend plane ticket money to risk finding something like this. I might consider it now given how far digital pictures have come, but the main point is that a good percentage of the cars people say are in "excellent condition" are not, and not worth anything close to what they're asking. And cars almost always look better in pictures than they do in person.
 
everything’s crazy right now. Pricing on everything is nuts.

I used to say you can get a clean SN95 for $3-4k but even that has not turned into a crazy number. I pretty much gave up on finding a 2nd cruiser.

Park your funds in the market and let it climb with the inflation. I’ve done well with SPY/VOO which is where I parked my “fun car funds” the last few years.
 
saw another today. This was was on the other side of things. 89 GT vert, claiming 44K miles. Pics look good, but I would guess 144K and well taken care of and a professional detail, but could be either way. asking 25K. Seller refused engine pics and when asked for documentation of miles, said " previous owner made a statement".... told him to reach out when they had a carfax.
 
You have to be willing to drive a long way and don’t even look unless you get a ton of great pictures. Majority of the time people won’t provide pics is because they know they are hiding damage/wear.

Good deals are out there but you have to decide immediately to purchase. Those other people you describe will never sell their junk.
 
I firmly believe in buying a complete, unmolested example, even if worn out with flat tires, I have my own 'barn stored' stang body in pretty good shape for a future build or I'd sell it because I am realistic that at my age I have enough to do without a full on rebuild. I'd stick the engine back in it, freshen up a few things and drive the tires off it.
I can't count how many times a new member has come on here and swore they got a deal on a stang with a 347 or whatever the seller claimed with crowder rods, scat crank, johns pistons and whatever 'racecar' junk only to find that it's a stock block nothin special because you ain't gonna tear it down to verify.
JMO
 
Somewhat sad time for me...I am just about finishing this Jeep Wrangler 99. Complete paint, and new seats. I can't take pictures because my e mail has been down. My fairly unmolested Foxbody is going to get covered, and stored in a garage for a while until I get sick of this jeep. With Jeep prices way up, and living in Florida I may sell this soon to some spoiled young lady. I have five grand into it, and could get twelve according to local ads. If the wife can't handle the bumps and bad hair could be soon.
 
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I was just reading in my Classic Motorsports magazine that they have a list of classics to buy now, and in the top ten is the Foxbody. This list was for first time collectors. We win for sure. I assume most of us only paid a couple grand. They mentioned the mecum buy at $31,000
 
I’m looking to ditch the DD and get a new vehicle. In trying to see what the market is, I’ve found examples of the same exact car and miles as mine listed for 40% less than what I paid….6 years ago. That’s just nuts considering i have 150k+ miles on it now.
 
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No people are not crazy LATELY... They've been crazy for a long time!!! Spend an afternoon riding with a news crew or a first responder, we can all tell you stories from way back about how crazy people are. Remind me sometime to tell you the story of when I hit a deer with my news truck back sometime in the late 90's.
Anyway. Yes it's true that once upon a time the Foxbody Mustang was considered to be a dime a dozen. And why not, there were a million (or so it seemed) of them out there. Herds of them, right for the picking! They ran for what, like 14 years give or take. Probably the longest anyone has ever run any body style. Or at least any modern body style. Perhaps the Model T may have had a longer run.
Because they were so plentiful - and fast people would snatch them up to carve them up into race/track cars. In fact, I almost did just that to my Indian Outlaw; had it not been for the accident that caused it to sit on Humphry's lot for 6 years. As it sat, I began to notice for myself examples of Foxbody Mustangs in the wild becoming an endangered species. As I was driving it to the second guy (who actually fixed it BTW) I was thinking about the extensive surgery my pony was about to undergo, it got me to thinking about how hard it would be to replace the Outlaw if something were to go wrong. It was then I decided it was probably a better idea to keep my pony stock, or at least stock as possible to all outward appearances anyway.
That said, with the wild Fox Mustangs disappearing to captivity on some race track somewhere, and with a shortage in both the new and used car market created by Covid, it is not surprising to me to hear that people are getting out the long rubber gloves when they ask for the price on even a wounded wild Mustang. Plus you wanted a GT rag top, which is probably the most rare of the species.
If it were me, I think I wouldn't get in a hurry to get this car unless you or someone you're getting it for is sick or something... Wait for this Covid thing to blow over and when auto makers get back up to full capacity again, and people start buying new cars, then the used market will start to catch up. When that happens, perhaps the prices will start to come back down a little bit. With the Fox Mustang on the endangered species list however, they probably won't be bargain basement cars ever again, but at least the price gouging may subside a bit.
Perhaps you could find a track car that wasn't to badly cut up and free it from captivity and return it to the wild? You know, something that ran in a stock class that only had a simple roll bar instead of a full on roll cage, something that didn't get all tubed out, you know...
 
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