"Rough" GTV

["Scott Allen" <s4usea@domain.elided>]

Mr. Mosko writes:

>If he buys a rough one and finds rust in all the usual places he'll >be 
>faced
>with what could be a $25,000 plus restoration job.. and he'll still >never 
>get
>more than $10K to $12K for the car should he decide to sell in the >next 
>few
>years. Remember that any restoration follows the rule of 2. That's >twice 
>the
>cash outlay you could ever have magined before starting ( with the 
> >assumption
>that you had all costs figured out).

Ah well, having just put 13k into a '52 MG over the course of the last year 
I can understand Mr. Mosko's point of view, (a restoration in which 
everything that could have gone wrong did), but I neglected to go into 
detail into what I consider "rough".

Most folks figure "rough" alludes to the body, or overall condition.  I look 
at it as how much work I'll have to put into it to finish it.  In the former 
case, the GTV's body he's looking at has already been stripped down to a 
shell, acid dipped, and new panels welded on.  In the latter case there's 
lots of parts in boxes, and none on the body.

At a price of $1k it is a pretty good deal albeit assembly required.  I 
figure 3years of steady work.  For me, anything over a year constitutes 
"rough".

The guy who currently owns it races a GTV in SCCA and is also a well know 
Alfa mechanic in my area, (Northern Virginia) so he knows his stuff.

The rub of it is my friend knows what he's getting into, he just finished a 
restoration on a '72 BMW 2002 and the GTV is the "other" car he always 
wanted.  I hooked him up with a '72 that was going for $7k, but he'll have 
none of it.  He wants to put it together himself.

We're both young enough that our time isn't as valuable as our money.  I'm 
willing to bet that by the time he finishes his GTV that'll change.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions,

Scott Allen


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