buy a cool car for not much $, vehicles need work

[Fire-medic]

If you live close to Detroit, I'd be looking at what this guy has, to see about picking up a project:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news...me-cool-cars/ar-BBH2i6z?li=BBisPVf&ocid=ientp

Ron Dauzet, a Michigan man whose township is forcing him to rapidly get rid of his enormous car collection, is selling them off as he’s required to do. But it’s just not quite enough. Now the 70-year-old is resorting to just scrapping some seriously cool cars instead of selling them, and it’s a shame.

Northfield Township in Michigan is still dropping by Ron’s house every month to see if he’s meeting their quota of selling 20 cars a month. And because Ron doesn’t want any trouble with them, he’s doing whatever he can to match or exceed that number.

I knew Ron was scrapping a couple of cars, but he told told me today he’s really cranked it into high gear; he’s already sent 27 or 28 vehicles to the shredder, and 17 or 18 are in line to meet the same fate in the next few days if nobody buys them. While it’s fair to say that some of the cars on Ron’s property probably belong in the scrapyard, there’s no excuse for the beautiful, rust-free manualVolvo 740 GLE wagon in these photos to have been wiped from the face of the earth.

 

[jdeitz1979]

For us app users, yellow letters are very hard to read. I know it looks good on the pc version with the black background. As far as the cars, not a bad idea.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[one2dmax]

I'm not sure I would have described many of them as "cool". If they truly were cool then he'd had no problem selling them for a little more then scrap price.

 

[caseyjones955]

I see some cool stuff there. I see a 126 MB and a 1st gen Stang.

I still believe this guy should have a talk with his lawyer on this matter, it seems quite unfair that the city would give him such a short amount of time to clear a lifetime collection. I'm not sure I would say collector. Leno is a collector, this guy may have some heavy leanings towards hoarder. In any event if they are his cars and it's his land IMHO he should put up a legal fight. Shit, he's 70+, is it really necessary to put this old man through all this hassle as opposed to just waiting a few more years and allowing his POA to clear it all out?

 

[Fire-medic]

I posted about this guy before, he's making headway and the town should be satisfied.

What he should be doing is listing them in a video inventory, perhaps sorted by year and manufacturer/model, and any significant issues, like "missing engine" (or transmission, significant crash damage, deployed airbag, etc) and just so everyone understands, these are not 'drive-away' cars/vehicles. That way, he could get a larger # of people interested. And, maybe find a local transporter that would work to provide transport to the buyer.

As-to being 'cool,' I don't think he's got too-many 1976 Plymouth 4 dr Volares, Chrysler K cars, GM Sunbirds, 1984 Ford Escorts, and the like, typical throw-away cars that get used-up and when something expensive happens to it, being say 10 years-old, it gets sent to the recycler/crusher. He has a lot of imports, and a clean early Rabbit is now a collectible. SAABs are often much-loved by their owners, the article mentions he got rid of a handful recently.

I just think it would be fun to go there w/a trailer, and to walk the rows until you found something of-interest, and then to take it home, probably for hundreds of $. If you were anywhere near him, you could probably get a drivetrain for something you already have, or get another car for its drivetrain. Remove it, and scrap the remainder.

 

[one2dmax]

The cars listed as being scrapped were not on my cool list by any extent. I don't care what kind of SAAB they are crushing.

 

[forestdaledave]

An illegal junk yard.

 

[Bill Seward]

I wouldn't mind a nice Saab Sonnet..

 

[caseyjones955]

I wouldn't mind a nice Saab Sonnet..

You and me both. There arent many SAABs before the 9000 I would not have some fun driving, but the Sonnet and any of the 2 strokes are getting pretty scarce.

 

[Fire-medic]

Damn, this is the third time I've tried to post about this, the site keeps losing my post if I look at another window without hitting 'send.'

A co worker when I was working fire/rescue in the 1970's had a Sonnett III, it was tiny! Looking online, they weighed well-less than 2,000 lbs, evn with a driver! You don't need much HP to push that light a car down the road especially with a Cd of .31, a good thing as the 4 cyl made well-less than 80 RWHP.

I like the small 'vest-pocket' GT's of the 1960's and 1970's. Cars like the Opel GT, the Costin GT (look this one up, very rare but with amazing performance, and ingenious construction, the brother of the guy who designed it is the "cos-" in Cosworth engines), https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/september-1984/35/cars-frank-costin the Type 41 VW Karman Ghia, never officially imported to the USA, and not as 'pretty' as the VW Karman Ghia which was, but an interesting design, more room than a beetle; Fiat 124 Sport Coupe, Fiat 850, various Lancias, Marcos GT, the first-generation German Ford Capri 2000, sold here as a Mercury, it came in OHV 1600 cc and OHC 2000 cc 4 cyl engines, the 2000 version was a screamer, you could also get it in a 2.6 liter V-6, but the 4 was better handling, and much more fun to drive. I guess you could include the Chevy Vega Cosworth GT. The Renault Alpine I don't recall being sold here, the Renaults we got were stodgy cars like the Dauphine (which actually was the #1 sales import at the end of the 1950's, beating-out VW!) and the Alliance. Probably the only 'performance Renault' ever sold here was the LeCar Turbo. That didn't sell in any appreciable numbers. Still, a 'pocket rocket.' And a bit into the 1970's, the VW Scirocco, with beautiful body lines, as it should have, being designed by the most-famous of the Italians, Giugiaro.

If you ever wondered what a SAAB Sonnet III scaled-up, with some serious American horsepower could look-like, take a look at this: https://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z10062/Pontiac-Farago-CF-428.aspx

The body lines similarity to the SAAB Sonnet III but streched and allowing for a big American V8, a seven litre Pontiac, no-less, is because the SAAB Sonnet III and this Pontiac were designed by the same designer! It was commissioned by John Delorean when he was head of Pontiac. The designer also worked upon a number of American V-8 powered vehicles, like the Dual-Ghia, combining italian style and USA horsepower. These cars were Rat Pack favorites, so if you have Sinatra driving your exclusive designs, you got a lot of free publicity. Look up Monteverdi for another take on the theme of big, honking American V-8's and European style.

Another manufacturer to investigate for using English or continental style and American power is Jensen, such-as the Jensen Interceptor and the Jensen FF (Ferguson Formula, an all-wheel-drive car that used Mopar power, designed in Italy, American 440 cu inch V-8, and built in England, by hand). What would you like with your luxury 4-person GT? All-wheel drive, V-8, ABS, and traction control? Italian styling? Hand assembly? Jensen offered all-that, in 1966! Pretty-amazing! https://jalopnik.com/267959/jensen-ff

 

[gentsvmax]

Nothing as cool as that Capri with a scoop!!!

 

[sdt354]

Nothing as cool as that Capri with a scoop!!!

A small block V8 in that Capri would be a fun little car. Back many moons, a wrencher/street racer named Gordon,had a Cobra packing a 289 c.i. naturally aspirated engine. That car won a lot of street drag races.

 

[caseyjones955]

Little car/big engine is a time proven recipe for FUN! The evolution of the AC all the way up to the 427 side oiler has been fascinating. Pretty much an engine with a place to sit.

I agree with Fire Medic on the pocket sports cars thing too. I found a pic of the Midget I drove through nursing school every day, that was in 08 so not long ago. I picked up a 13b rotary motor for it but never got around to doing the conversion.

I got heckled because to get out of this car I had to open the door, crawl out onto the ground on my hands and knees then stand up, I'm 6'2. in 09 someone came to my door with a fist full of cash and a sympathetic restoration plan. I've seen her at local car shows since.

If I were closer I would love to go through this guys stuff, I'm sure I could find a few things I would enjoy.

 

[Fire-medic]

The AC Bristol, and the Acea (hardtop) version had an interesting connection to WW II. The AC Bristol was the donor car for the Shelby AC Cobra.

After WW II, England got the tooling for a BMW engine, and began manufacturing it. As war reparations, the engine was immediately put to use, and one version was installed in the AC Bristol.

Carroll Shelby was looking to Chrysler for a V8 to use in a small sports car, but he couldn't swing the deal for the cash to buy the engines, nor did he have the credit. He had looked at a few English and continental sports cars, and the AC Bristol just-happened to have sufficient room to accept a small-block American V8. The new thin-wall casting techniques being used in Detroit begat the LA-series Chrysler, the 221/260/289 cu.in. Fords, and there was always the 283/327 cu.in. GM-Chevy. Buick had an aluminum V6 and Olds had a 215 cu.in. aluminum V8 (that one was sold to British Leyland and made it past the millennium, where it ended up in MG's-MGB-GT, and Land Rovers), so there were plenty of different choices to make. But, ya gotta pay to play. Ford agreed to allow their newer version of their 221 cu. in. V8, the 260 cu.in. engine, to be used by Shelby. And that's where he made his reputation, with those first production models bearing 260 cu. in. which I believe totaled less-than 100 built. When Shelby was using his personal AC Cobra as a enthusiast print media test car, he would paint it a different color each time he gave it to a magazine, to make it seem as-if there was a fleet of media 'road-test vehicles.' In reality, it was his car, the same one, over and over. But when the pics showed-up in the magazines, each car was a different color! It worked.

That very car was just sold, and there were chips out of the bodywork that revealed all those different body colors, kinda like rings of a tree cross-section, showing how-old it was. I think the proceeds from that sale went to charity. That car had some interesting differences from the production AC Cobras, one thing was that I believe it had inboard disc brakes in the rear. It was pretty-ratty, Shelby never did cosmetics to it, so the paint bore those many layers of colors, the leather upholstery was torn and ragged, and it had been used as a driving instruction car at his 'school of high-performance driving.'

I had a friend gift me with a Triumph Spitfire, the body was very clean, not a running vehicle, but I just flipped it. I didn't have the space, time, or 'home approval' to encumber myself with another project. I always admired the lines on those, and the coupe version I thought was very pretty, and it got an inline-6 in-place of the roadster's 4-cyl. I thought it was a British alternative to the Volvo P-1800, driven by The Saint, Simon Templar, and I think also Dr. Who.

A Chevy similar to the AC Cobra was the Cheetah, very low production, and which made more money profits as a slot car (for Cox and others, Aurora had an HO scale version) than it ever did as a full-size automobile.

I tried to get my friend who lives in Ortonville MI to go by and get something for a project, but he's recently in a new home, and work on that comes before a toy. He's a master fabricator in composites, and is retired from GM's tech Center in Warren MI as a designer/stylist. Too, bad, I know he could make something cool out of one of those before it heads to the crusher.