Subject: Re: [TR] Value/restoration

From: "Dave Connitt" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2012 08:22:11 -0500

List,
I have to put in my .02 too on this.

I think very few of us actually start out on our restoration thinking in the 
back of our minds we are actually going to create some kind of major 
investment bonanza. It's more along the lines of at some point in our lives, 
we see this really cool looking car and think, "someday I am going to own 
one of those". And, we start looking.. From then on it's pretty much a 
"target of opportunity" kind of situation. At that point, you find a car, 
you have enough money to buy it, and the car's condition is within what you 
think your range of restoration skills are at that moment. When you are 
"done", you still have the car, you are out of money, and your restoration 
skills are about 1000% more than when you started..
You go to your first show and a someone comes up to you and says something 
like, " Man, I always wanted one of those" and it start all over again..

Dave Connitt
'67 TR4A IRS  (Have the car, have some money left, I am pretty good at 
bodywork and paint now)
http://home.fuse.net/davestr4a

** [email-masked] **

Archive: http://www.team.net/archive

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From: "TeriAnn J. Wakeman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2012 07:28:16 -0700

On 11/3/12 8:27 PM, Gary Nafziger wrote:
> I tried to
> keep a very accurate count of hours spent but this can be somewhat flexible.
> I did not count time spent "sitting and thinking", reading up on procedures,
> thinking through problems or consulting with experts.  I came up with 1470
> hours.
>
> Adding up invoices came to a little over $15,000.
I was just the opposite when I rebuilt my TR3.  I purposely did not want 
to know what this folly of mine was costing me.  Had I known I might 
well have gone without fixing some stuff because the project had become 
too expensive.  Or perhaps found ways to do some things more cheaply.

I had no idea what I was getting into and did my best to hide costs from 
myself.  Even then the project almost didn't get finished if it were not 
for my extreme tenacity and and absolute refusal to give up.

Since I had never done this kind of thing before I just assumed 
important parts of the car would drop off when I first started driving 
it, just because I didn't have much of a clue as to what I was doing.  
As it was there was only 2 problems. A headlight rim fell off and I 
drove over it when I first took it down the road and about a month or 
two later I had front wheel bearing issues because I set them up per the 
main part of the red book which was for front drum brake TRs and not to 
a supplement page at the back of the manual which was for disc brake 
cars.  It took me several months before I would trust that the car would 
stay together if I put any stress on it under cornering.  I had a hard 
time believing that I could take all the parts off a car and put parts 
back on and have the thing actually work.

You ask about value.  After the perspiration (women don't sweat we 
perspire), worry, anxiety and unknown lots of hours I put into my TR3 I 
would be totally daft if I were to ever sell it.  If one day they decide 
I was too infirm to drive I could always sit behind the wheel as it sat 
in the garage and make put put noises as I try to remember throwing it 
through winding mountain roads.

Of course everything I have is for sale.  The current price for my TR3 
is a mint condition TR250 plus US$35,000. I might also consider a trade 
of a DB4, XK120C or 250GTO plus cash for my 3.  I value my time,  blood, 
perspiration  and tears highly.

TeriAnn

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From: "TeriAnn J. Wakeman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2012 07:36:25 -0700

On 11/4/12 6:22 AM, Dave Connitt wrote:
> You go to your first show and a someone comes up to you and says 
> something like, " Man, I always wanted one of those" and it start all 
> over again..
And after I give a price the next thing out of their mouth is "You want 
how much for it?"  Followed by "Do you really expect someone to pay that 
much for it?"

Silly boy to assume I actually want to sell the TR and am willing to set 
a price that I think anyone might be willing to pay for it.

TeriAnn