Bought Black Jack back in the Summer of '22 for $3,800. The guy had run the car down a bit, and I had to put a lot of elbow grease in to get it where I genuinely enjoy driving it every day. I've just paid the price to keep the project moving along. For example, I paid $600 for the beautiful TMI door panels, and felt sheepish about it. Seemed crazy to pay that much, but look now:
$945! Less than 2 years later.
I paid $650 for a used QT bellhousing to do the T56 swap. Also crazy, but they've got the market cornered as the McLeods & Lakewoods are no longer made.
The prices are high because not only has inflation hit, but foxes are back in fashion. So many people are restoring and are willing to drop 50-60k on their build. It has squeezed out the budget guy from doing as much as he could before, for sure.
I could have flipped this car for $7k pretty easily when I bought it. If you count what my spare T56 would've sold for, I have about $20k in the car, now and wouldn't get that back out. The idea of that stings a little, but then again, before I decided to daily a fox again, I was considering a Charger or similar as a daily, and would've paid even more if I had gone that route. But, I see 10-15 of them on my 30 min drive to work every morning. Can ya guess how many foxes I see? Plus, it's been really fun to get back to my roots with a simple H/C/I, stockish
suspension, stock block, fox that rides & cruises nicely and is equally fun to hit the strip or the autocross with. I am genuinely excited to hop in it before and after work, each day.