My experience has been that you get what you pay for. Quite frankly, nowadays, you don’t get much car for 15K. If you’re just looking for a weekend cruiser or a cruise night car, then you can do pretty good for 15K.
Originality and year correct factory stock restoration is important to me, so consequently, cars of this nature are much more expensive. I have’t seen too many cars lately that were original or have been restored to factory original specs, that were selling for this kind of money. That ’62 Impala convertible in need of a full restoration had an asking price of 25K! When finished, this car would have been worth 45K easy!
I would use the ‘442 as a good example. If you don’t care about the car not being an original red factory convertible, or the fact that the motor is not correct for the car, then the price was a screaming good deal. To take that car back to a factory stock 442 convertible with a correct motor and a repaint in the factory stock color, you’re looking at another 20K. You’d end up with $35K invested in a car that is not worth much more than about 30K. I am also very concerned about a fresh repaint. There is no way to tell how much body work or the quality of the bodywork is hiding underneath that fresh paint.
Marshall