GTV6 pricing - long

["Don Happel" <zelatore@domain.elided>]

Sabu, I'm going to post this to the digest as well as sending it to your
personal address.  I'm sure the digest needs another thread to chew on and
this might just do it  :)  I'll leave your address out of it since you chose
to keep it off the digest in the first place.


- -----Original Message-----
>Hi Don
>Don't want to clutter up the digest so I'm writing direct since you have
>the car I'm looking for.
>
>Am thinking of buying a '81 GTV6, 104,000 mls, 1-owner, no-accident Calif.
>car, mostly orig and w/ all req'd maintenance/replacements/upkeep done by
>same Alfa shop.
>
>PO has set no price. Any ideas what a realistic/fair offer should be?
>
>Are '81s a good model year?
>
>TIA
>
>Sabu



Well, any year GTV6 is alright.  I've had an 83 and 81, and built an 84 for
my brother.

Probably the best place to look for info would be the GTV6 web site.  It's
at
www.gtv6.org
They have a good FAQ and pre-purchase check list that can walk you through
the differences in the model years and what to look for.

My basic opinion of the cars is that they are a lot of fun.  Stock I find
them to be to high in the front and to softly sprung, but that's all a
matter of taste.  The also make good track cars (my 83 ended up being used
nearly exclusively for time trials) with some suspension work.  They are
very easy to drive since the handling is quite neutral with a tendency
toward understeer.  You'll find it's a pretty heavy car if you push it hard
and I always wanted to run larger tires than the 205/50's I ran on stock
wheels when at the track.

Price is very hard to set without seeing the car.  I've been accused of
being overly picky about details of cars I'm purchasing, but I've rarely
found a good GTV6 for under $5000.  I've heard plenty of people talk about
buying good cars for (esp. pre-83 models- look under the web site to see the
differences) for around $3000, but whenever I've gone shopping for a car
there were always too many flaws at that price.  I recently sold my 83 GTV6
for about $4000 with a ton of mods.  I had more than that in the motor
alone.  The problem was I had modified it into a vehicle that wasn't much
fun to drive on the street since it was low, loud, rough-riding, and didn't
come on the cams until around 3500 rpm and was no longer able to pass CA
emissions testing.  I had built the car to be a time trials car that could
be driven on the street back when I was living in Indiana where there was no
testing.  Out here in California it had almost no value since it wasn't a
full blown race car, and couldn't easily be made to pass emissions without
taking away all the things that made it interesting.

I'd advise you to not trust the seller even if he seems to be a good, honest
man.  Plenty of times I've gone to look at a car and the seller was
representing it in all honesty, it's just that his idea of (for example)
'good paint'  or 'very strong motor' may not be the same as mine...  There
have been people who I wanted to believe and who didn't seem to be trying to
deceive me but the vehicle just didn't live up to my expectations when I
actually got there.

So, my best guess on price would probably be something like this:
          <$2000 - beaters and parts cars
$2000-$3000 - daily drivers with so-so paint and body and plenty of miles.
stock.
$3000-$4000 - nice well maintained daily drivers.  maybe one or two minor
mods (wheels, lowered, K&N air filter, etc).  nothing special, just good
maintenance.
$4000-$5000 - good stock cars with <100K miles or good cars with a few mods
$5000-$6000 - very nice street cars, or a more modified car- 3.0 cars start
in this range typically
$6000-$7000 -"perfect" stock cars or better modified cars
    over $7000 - excellent condition and very modified, or show winners

Most cars are in the $3000-$6000 range.

I don't put much value in any of the 'special' packages available for the
GTV6 such as the Maratona edition.  Personally I don't like the look, and
they don't seem to be particularly valuable... maybe an extra $500-$800 if
you like the package.  These cars aren't collectibles yet, and I'm not sure
if they ever will be in the same league as say a Guilietta or Duetto in
terms of collectiblity.  I'm sure that as they get older and rarer the price
will rise for very nice cars, but at this point there are still enough out
there that you can find one; either a nice car that's what you want, or a
cheap car that you can have made into what you want.  I've never been a big
fan of stock anything, so I've usually gone the route of the cheap car and
spent my money building the car I want.

Some examples:
When my brother got out of school he wanted a nice car and decided on a
GTV6.  He was prepared to spend around $7K to get what he wanted, but after
several months so searching we were disappointed in what we found after
looking at cars between $4K and $6K.  We decided to buy a tired $1500 car
and build our own from the ground up.  In the end he spent around $12-14K
building his idea of a perfect street GTV6.  164S 3.0 engine, Ansa headers
jet-hot coated with custom exhaust using a dynomax stainless steel muffler,
16" Millie Miglia wheels with Yoko AVSi tires, Shankle 'sport' suspenision
package, custom Flowfit front seats with the rear seats and the rest of the
interior upholstered to match, a bare-metel respray in the original
Anthracite color with some custom treatments, very nice Alpine stereo
system, and much more...  It's his dream car.  Were he to sell it today (we
built it about 3 years ago) he would probably list it around $10K.  Finding
a car like that is nearly impossible, and he would have a difficult time
selling it since the market for such a high-end GTV6 is small.

I recently bought an 81 GTV6 for a little under $6000.  It had a complete
Milano Verde power train (3.0, verde gearbox, verde shift linkage) and Ansa
headers with a custom exhaust, but other than that it was pretty much stock.
The owner had told me in email and via jpeg pictures that the paint was
pretty good but would need a re-spray in a few years, it had an "audiophile"
stereo system (more on that later) and was in good order all around.  When I
saw the car in person I found that the paint was basically dead, there was
some small rust areas I didn't expect, the "audiophile" stereo consisted of
an older Alpine CD and some no-name speakers and amps without so much as a
crossover, and that the tires were terrible.  I believe the owner was trying
to be honest with me in his descriptions, but I have different ideas of how
to describe things (again, some people think I'm too picky).  The car is in
good shape, the paint is serviceable, it runs perfectly and very strongly,
and handles like a very good stock car should (remember that I feel the
stock cars are a little to soft).  It did have Koni's on the front, and the
tires were in good shape, but 'terrible' by my definition in that they were
205/60-15 no-name passenger car tires that belong on a Buick, not an Alfa.
(I've already got a set of new 16" wheels and Pzeros waiting).  I bought the
car on the basis of the powertrain and the low mileage (50-odd K) and the
rest of the car being a solid base to build on.  I'll have her re-painted
with a good but not great job (maybe $3K?) and do new wheels, tires, and
suspension then I'll have the car I wanted in the first place.  All together
I'll spend close to $10K, but I'll end up with a very nice, very modified
car that suits my needs perfectly.  If I were to try to sell it after the
build up is through I wouldn't get my money back- it would probably be in
the $8K range.

But, I didn't feel like waiting for the off chance that somebody out there
had already built the car I wanted and was ready to sell it :)  There just
aren't all that many of them around.

Oh, and about 'audiophile' stereos in cars...  Several years ago I was into
competition stereo, so I do know what the high end of car stereo looks like.
I also know that the term audiophile has no business being associated with
car stereo.  If you want audiophile, you have to get out of the car and get
into a well designed room and system...  preferably with planers and tubes
and analog equipment!!

But enough of my ranting.  I've got to get some work done today, and I've
probably confused you enough for one sitting.  I hope I was of some use.
Everybody has there own opinions and if you ask the digest at large you'll
hear plenty of things different than what I have to say.  In the end it all
comes down to if you like driving the car...

Don Happel       zelatore@domain.elided
Shemp Mo-Din Italian Motorsports
"it's good to go very fast"       - Peter Egan

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