What is the cheapest running classic car that you have bought?

[BB BELLA]

when i was 8 yrs old my cousin about 100 miles away bought a new 68 RR 4 speed, then in 72 he bought another new RR440 with rat trap hood after riding in these cars a couple times i knew what i wanted. when i was 15 bought a green 69 RR 383 magnum 4 speed {$400}, all it needed was a battery and a vacuum, guy was using it as a dog house for his shepard! it was about a year before i could get my license so i use to sneak it through back alley"s in new toronto on saturday's and sunday's to continental can factory which was a huge property to practice speed shifting it! painted it added the hood scoop,wheels and shackles,took if for my driving test and the examiner wouldn't get in it,said come back with a normal car!
pretty sure ive told this all here before!
drove it like that for a few years and then i bought a 66 bellii drag car, pearl white with black vinyl roof and flat black hood, hemi, 4 speed, 3.91 dana 60 {$1800.}
drove it for a couple years and broke the torsion bars out of it so swapped powertrains with the roadrunner and drove it again for 2-3 yrs. best $2200 ever spent for a life time of memories!
68 camaro 12.5/1-355 ,rock crusher, 4.56 12 bolt $1200 around 1987 was cheap because rear quarters had been done with marginal quality and started to show after the guy had it for 2 years, i put about 500 miles hard miles on it over 3 yrs. and sold it for $3500!
end of the cheap stuff!

 

[69hemibeep]

They can be bought in running condition?

You took the long road Jack but you can stand back and say I built it. But never again LOL

 

[DeltaV]

1972 Fury III for around $100, but I had it running and on the road daily within a week. I put a ton of trouble free miles on it in Texas. Here it is:

1988 Fury cop car purchased with my winning bid of $750. I put a ton of trouble free miles on it in Washington State and New York State. Below is an example, but mine was white with a blue interior.

1988 Audi90 Quattro for around $200. I sold it after several years of enjoyable ownership in New York and Georgia. The car had been neglected. I would drive it during the week and do maintenance projects on the weekends. Ergonomically, it was perfect for me. I would consider getting another one if I could find a well maintained one. Below is an example, but mine was metallic black with a bluish grey/slate interior.

Inline 5 cylinder 10 valve engine with K-Jetronic fuel injection and a 5 speed manual. Some models came with a 20 valve set-up.

 

[68_661charger]

Before my senior year in high shool in 94 I bought my 70 Charger 500 running, but not driving for $700. A few days before Christmas that same year I found and bought my 69 Charger running and driving in the local trader paper for $845. I called into work sick that day and I remember the boss hung up on me. I still have the 69 and hope to start on the resto in a few years. Id love to find and buy the 70 back but it has fallen off the face of the earth.

 

[cap67]

Hi been on site for awhile now. New to posting. I brought a 68 road runner 383 auto $100, 69 charger se 440 auto $150, 68 383 4-speed Bee $150, 64 belvedere 318 $300, my crazy car was 68 charger 440, auto w/ 410 dana 67 heads, Holly 950 3 bbl. gear driven. Super fast. Also traded 75 fury for 69 383 4-speed r.r.

 

[Belvedere408]

I bought my 1965 Dart GT $1300 in 2002 out of the auto trader magazine. My mom gave me a ride and met in small town of Detroit Oregon. We met up it was a girl in her 20s was her friends grandpas dart originally. Was listed as a 318 but had the original 273 and most all the receipts in a binder. Was pretty dark out by the time we met up but luckily the car was in pretty good shape.

 

[ESOXER]

Wish we could still find cars for $300.
When I was a kid we could find 70s four door land yachts in front yards for 2-300$ that you could drive. Those days are sadly gone. We're having vehicle issues as we speak, wife's car has been at the dealership for two weeks, GM engineering doesn't even know what's wrong, we're trading it for a Jeep and I'm finally back to an all Mopar stable. Cummins has a bad caliper, fixing it today when it shows up. Wrangler had the oil changed and tires rotated last night, so only one useable vehicle. I'm also in talks with a guy to trade the the JKU Sahara for an 06 LJ. Interesting times with vehicles here.

 

[Dennis H]

Coronet was $3,450 back in 1988. About $103,450 ago. Includes about 130k miles of fuel since then.

 

[GTXDAN]

In 1973 I bought a 65 Coronet 500 $25 from a kid I went to school with. It ran but had a bad knock. 318 poly with a cracked piston. Rebuilt it and drove it for years. In 1975 I picked up a 68 RR, 383/4 4 speed for $500 and drove it home. Traded it off for a 76 Cordoba. I picked up a 69 RR 383/4 auto for $500 in 1980. Had a broken rocker shaft. Replaced it and it ran great. Sold it 3 or 4 yrs later for $1000.
Wish I had the 68 RR back. I put a cam, headers, Torker intake and 750 Holley and it ran great.

 

[RR Fan Dan]

1966 Buick Riviera 425 nailhead. All original. Only thing needed was repaint. Drove as daily driver for 3 years than gave it away to a friend in need down on their luck who trashed it. That was 1997. I wish I had not given it away to someone who didn’t appreciate it for what it was.

 

[Detective D]

Heh. lot's of stories going back to the 80's or even 70's! My father in law sold several different chargers in the 70's. He bought and sold them here in WI, ran them a year or two in between, ended up having a 68, 70, 71, couple 73's and a 74. Bought all of them but one for under 2 grand, bought 2 of them for under $500, sold one of them for $50. Of course, back then, they were 5-10 year old cars from WI with rust to go with it and they were just "old cars". He did keep a 70 out at my wife's Grandfather's farm in the pasture. He sold that about ten years ago for a pretty penny.

My personal "cheapest" was probably the '70 Mustang I bought when I was 19 for $1100. This was in 1998 though, right in the middle of "boomers gone crazy" nostalgia/retirement cash out insanity prices. It was not rusty at all(for WI!) but everything was tweaked, probably had a bent frame up front, 3(4?) coats of paint on it. But it also had the full Mach 1 Interior in mint shape and the exterior Mach 1 stuff from '70 also in prefect shape. Parts alone this car was worth triple what I paid back then. I got it running and after 2 years of righteous burnouts in the summers I sold it with bald tires when I got married and bought a home.

I did buy an '84 Mercury Capri with a 351W in it off ebay for $900 somewhere around 2009ish. I forget exactly. Had to drive 3 states over to get it, needed some love to fix a few hack jobs where the guy that did the swap didn't do enough homework. That thing was stupid fast, wife wouldn't ride in it, sold it for $1800 after I put about $150 into it after purchase. Well, $300 if you count the gas for the trip I suppose

I do have my '78 Monaco Police in the shed. I paid a tad over $2k for it, drove it home. Rust free(in WI!) with a verbal, but complete history on it, I am technically the 4th owner but it went from Marinette County to the auction with the second owner until 2021. Then the "third owner" bought it, pulled the 400 out of it, dropped a nicely warmed up 318 into it and sold it to me. It is at least as fast as the factory set up was, minus maybe right off the line, but I have a 383 I am going to put in it. Guy that wanted the 400 found out it had a cracked head and needed full rebuild also. I think I did alright on this, some might say a 4 door is worthless but it's a police version and when was the last time you saw one? Plus, I am talking 2021 money, not 1975 money.

 

[chargervert]

I bought a nice 383 4 speed Challenger R/T, matching number engine and transmission, B5 blue white gut,disc brakes. I paid $550.00 for the car. It needed a fender. I drove the car home with no fender. I drove the car for a year,then I pulled the engine and trans and sold it to a guy who said he was going to restore the car,he lied and parted it out. it was a solid R/T.

 

[TTSaleen]

Back when I was 19 (in 1991), I stumbled across my dream car (at the time) in a 1969 Camaro.
It was white, hideaway headlamps, rally wheels, black interior, horseshoe shifter with a 327 engine and powerglide transmission.
I immediately bought it for $3,000 and thought I had a great deal.

Being a kid, I had no idea how to look at bodywork or "mud/bondo".
After owning the car for a few weeks, I started finding items that were "not right".
The hideaway headlights didn't work, and prior owners had slapped some headlight doors in there with no vacuum canisters, hoses, etc. So it was not factory.
The console worked fine with the shifter, but the steering column showed it was originally a column mounted shifter from factory.
None of the lights worked, so I spent a weekend running all new wire and got that fixed.

The car was weak (even for a 327), but ran fine no smoke.
After about 2 months of driving, it started missing and I found a rocker was not moving and and a camshaft lobe had gone flat.

I parked it for a few weeks to save up money for a new cam and during that time, I found out what bad bondo work and bad body work could do. The driver door developed a cancer ball from the inside and looked like the door had a bubble in it. When I went to push on it, my hand went into the door! The entire car was a rust bucket someone had slapped pounds of bondo on and did a quick all white paint job, literally the week before I bought it possibly.
Determined the car was factory a green on green, column shift, and not the RS package.

I put a cam in the motor (from SuperShops) and got it running again, but car still had no power. I got in a bind being a kid and had to sell it. Lost over $2K selling it but learned a hard life lesson.

By comparison, I had sworn off old cars and it wasn't until 2020 (almost 30 years later) that I found my current 1968 Charger. It was in much better condition including paint, engine, etc.
Happy to say I still have it and it runs great, looks great, and is super reliable (Gen3 Hemi, 5 speed auto, Holley computer EFI).

Ryan