Well….hmmm… There are so many paths you could take. I have three old cars. And all three will have had completely different approaches when they are finished. My first one was the 1968 Plymouth Valiant. It had a 273cid V-8. My plan was to build it up and hot-rod it a little while keeping it bone stock on the outside, dog-dish hub caps and all. The car cost me about $1000 to purchase, and another $8500 in restoration. All I had left to do was the interior, and it would have been 100% completed. But one night I had taken it to a car wash two blocks away to prepare for a car cruise the following day. On my way home a car load of teenagers plowed into me while I sat at a stop-light. So it now has a fair amount of damage and I’m now determining what to do with it. But that resto was mostly me paying for people to do the work. The only thing I did was sand and prep the body for paint.
During that time I stumbled on my 1965 Dodge Dart GT. It had the fairly rare factory high performance version of the 273cid. And the factory installed Hurst shifter. It was fairly worn out but original and untouched. So now I have that and it still runs, but I’m afraid to touch it. That car needs a full rotiserie top notch restoration. And will be valuable someday. And with all the GT trim, it’s a pretty involved project. And I want that car to be show car quality, factory correct, and all that. So for now I keep it running, and protected. And drive it once or twice a week.
So the Valiant was wrecked, and the Dart is a project for down the road when I have the money. So I needed something to drive. Thats when I found my Rambler. Bought it off an 18yr old kid for $900. The purpose was to have a simple car that got good gas mileage. And secondly that it be something I could restore myself. So that made the Rambler a really attractive project car. There was only one piece of trim below the rear window. Only a couple emblems, and very simple squarish and broad body panels. It is a uni-body, so the entire car is one piece. The only removable body panels are the front fenders. That means a lot less seams to negotiate when priming, sanding, and painting . And the engine is so simple it freaks me out. The instrument cluster in the dash is really simple, all the guages are mounted on a printed circuit board. So the whole intrument panel comes out as one piece with only a few wires to unplug. The upholstery is all vinyl with no designs or ornamentation. Its just two bench seats, and the doorpanels are wrapped in plain vinyl. The transmission is an automatic 3 speed Borg-Warner Flash-o-Matic. A very basic, air-cooled, straight ahead transmission.
There are no options on the car except that the engine was upgraded from the 199cid, to the 232cid. No power steering or power breaks. The breaks are self-adjusting drum type breaks with a dual resevoir master cylinder. So this is a car that I can handle most of the work myself. So lets look at cost. I paid $900 for the car , had the head machined and a valve job(but did all the removal and installation myself) for about $250 all together including new spark plugs, gaskets, radiator fluid, and spray paint. I paid $100 for a new exhaust manifold. About $60 in various fluids. About $240 in insurance for the year. And I titled and registered it for about $90. I’ve also spent another $100 or so in spray-paint primer, sand paper, bondo, etc.. So for a little less than $1900 I have a car thats in perfect running condition, primed, sanded and ready for paint. It is now my main source of transportation. Now I don’t intend to do a showroom quality restoration with this car, but I do plan on making it nice. What I have left to do is…. Paint, which I will do myself using rollers and Rustoleum for about $150(there are plenty of Forums with great info on the process). New tires eventually for around $250. I’m going to remove the front and back seats myself and take them to an upholstery shop. That will be about $150 per seat, since they are so basic. I will buy additional vinyl from the upholsterer and do the door pnels myself for about $50. And have the transmission rebuilt for about $600. I also recently had a new exhaust system put on for about $130. So for about $3400 I will have a clean mostly restored car.
There will always be little improvemnts here and there. But thats not much money for what I will have when I’m through. If I ever decided to sell it, I won’t have my life savings tied up in it. And I could probably make a tiny profit, and maybe get into something a little more advanced. I learned a lot from the Valiant, but would’ve never made my money back on that one. But it does take patience. And most things on these cars, while they can be time consuming, are not rocket science. But keep in mind almost everything I’ve mentioned can be done at home. And you don’t need much experience, don’t be intimidated. If you have a basic knowledge of how a car works, and a halfway decent set of sockets, wrenches, screwdrivers, pliers, and a hammer…. it can all be done. Next time we’ll talk about doing the body work and getting your car ready for paint. Do not be afraid!!!
