Im new to this stuff but have formed some opinions based on first hand experience. I only bring up my opinions to be helpful.
My interest is primarily in vintage Corvettes. I am building a pro-touring 65 Coupe and have a 68 Coupe rolling body ready for deployment. There are 50-75 custom Corvettes that go up for sale every year at the auction houses. Generally they are called resto-mods but are closer to pro-touring than most would think. Few come with roll over protection so that is one difference and most are geared towards comfort and driveabliity versus top-end performance.
Generally a pro-touring Camaro with all the functional bells and whistles, will cost +- $100k if there are no issues/compromises with $$$. Many end up being two seater performance cars. Most will have custom subframes but not chassis. Few to none will have irs.
A pro-touring Corvette/resto-mod will cost the same or less depending on donor car purchase cost. The C1-C3 modded car will have custom chassis, modern irs, drive train etc. For the same build cost and quality components, a superior car can be built if you consider custom chassis and irs superior. I know lots of guys will disagree with that "superior" comment. I say superior because it is mentioned many times in the Camaro/Mustang comparisons of newer cars.
C2 Corvettes are expensive. My build $$$ goal was to build the 65 to 100% of the performance values of a C6 Z06 and not exceed the cost of a new C6 ZR1. Im 90% done and so far so good. For the C3, I can almost reverse the goals and build ZR1 performance for the cost of a top of the line Z06.
Z06/ZR1 cars are expensive so it is easier to build a vintage PT corvette and have a better potential resale value. For evidence go to the BJ auction site search section, and type in custom Corvettes. It will spit up several years of auction sales and each car can be studied to estimate build cost versus return.
Last, my 65 donor car was around $35k, way too expensive, lol. My 68 donor was $3.5k with many C3 nom driveable cars in the $4k-$10k range. I am not building these cars to make money but didnt want to pi$$ it away either, lol. I will never sell them or at least have no plans to do so. I am simply sharing info for the guy who is searching for his next project and isnt happy with the prices of available vintage donor cars. When the cars are done I will join a motorsports ranch and have fun on the weekends. Watch out for the old retired Army guy, lol.
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