Musings of Vehicle cost value and investment made.

[Tinker]

Hi everyone.

This is nothing new to veteran car owners and builders, and not nearly the scale of many builds.
There have been some threads pop up recently from members looking for cars at certain price levels or insurance agreed values and the like.

I was just contacted by my insurance company about my car, so I thought I would tally up some receipts. I knew in my head roughly what I have invested in my Firebird, but to actually add them up may be a daunting task for many of us.

I have owned the car for 30 years, so I like to justify as an annual hobby cost...it eases my mind (and sounds better to the wife).

Now it would be hard to do a build other than a stock rebuild and not change anything for 30 years, but we have been told numerous times make a plan and stick to it! Well, I don't listen very good. lol

My car was a running, driving, nice car that I paid $2700 for in 1989.
I made it 3 months before I changed the intake, and 8 months before the body started surgery.

I made a list for the insurance company when it hit the road back in '92. The total was $18440 for a nicely painted car with rebuilt motor/trans and frame off restoration. Maybe I should have stopped there and bought another car.

I just re-calculated the parts from that list that are no longer on the car. OMG $9400!

In 2009 I completely redid the car...again, well except paint-it is still holding up great. 6 speed 18" wheels, 4 link. Drove it for a few years and then started the latest upgrade: 14" brakes, good sway bars both ends, new efi system( the old Holley mpfi is good, just lacking some control features).

so just a little dis-assembly, total rewiring, re plumb, reengineer suspension, update the interior, and as long as were at it, a motor rebuild.

Kids, get used to this, and say it with me: "AS LONG AS WER'E AT IT..."
this one phrase WILL cost you a lot of money.

So, back to figures. my say $40,000 car has now about $48000 in it (not counting shipping for parts or a lot of small incidentals).

There is another estimated $11000 either sold for maybe 50 cents on the dollar or taking up room in my garage and basement.

$60000... For a car I could probably sell for $30000 (NO I'm not selling it!)
How do I put an agreed insured value on that?

For those of you looking to purchase a car (especially first timers) think of these things when a decent car for under $30000 comes along and you think that is a lot of money.

My $60000 investment to me is a good buy. That's $2000 a year for a hobby.
That's probably $1 per smile or big grin. I have been able to meet many people with the same "sickness" and hopefully when I crank up the car again I can meet many of you members too.

( I'll be the one talking about what I'm going to do to the car next)

[camcojb]

Great post Chris, and truer than I'd like to admit (especially to the wife lol).

[Musclerodz]

Insure it what what it would cost to replace it, plus some. Be able to prove you have that in the car, not what market value may be, because those are 2 seperate items.

[RdHuggr68]

Car Guy rule of thumb: Never total up your receipts!!

[214Chevy]

I'm almost ashamed to say what I have in my 69 Camaro and it hasn't even began its restoration yet.

[WILWAXU]

What's the cost of not having the car?

As long as the funds are discretionary, it's all about you.

[SSLance]

Originally Posted by Musclerodz

Insure it what what it would cost to replace it, plus some. Be able to prove you have that in the car, not what market value may be, because those are 2 seperate items.

That's what I did also, added up retail cost of all of the major component upgrades on the car (Full suspension kit, brakes, wheels, engine, trans, rear axle, seats, gauges, etc) and added that to the cost of a solid nice paint complete like kind car. I put links to each component with pricing in the list I sent to insurer and had no problem getting them to agree to value.

Granted, I did not pay full retail for a lot of said parts but I also did not include the labor spent installing and tweaking said parts either.