Hi all – here is a bit of a reality check.
1. Assess what you want as a finished product against what you are starting out with.
2. How skilful are you in a workshop and how much can you do without outsourcing work? Are you skilful enough to end up with a safe, roadworthy vehicle?
3. Are you restoring with your head, ergo prepared to spend money, or with your heart and hoping it won’t cost much. Probably seven out of ten restoration efforts end up in failure as lack of finances, resources, skills and lack of networking stretch the restoration period into years and often cause considerable emotional strains on partners. I have seen so many restoration start ups where everything is immediately stripped down into a thousand pieces, not catalogued or photographed and then finished up lying on the shed floor for years to be eventually sold as a jigsaw puzzle or just scrapped. Personally I would rather spend several thousand dollars on something that won’t take years and/or thousands of dollars to restore.
4. Plushy, put yourself in the place of the F15A crane Blitz owner. What would you sell it for given that it could be worth up to $1000 in scrap depending on whether it is a real crane on the back or just a glorified jib arm? A scrappy acquaintance is currently getting $170 a ton for heavy steel and $120 a ton for cars. You say you haven’t spent over $400 per vehicle so far, but what have you actually got for your money and how extensive is your shopping list and budget.
5. Richard, re. your argument about comparing the value of a Blitz to your ambulance, could it be that there are not as many people interested in Land Rovers as there are in Blitzs hence they sell for far less. Besides which you can’t compare a small softskin to a full grown truck, and remember Blitzs are trucks.
6. Ryan, firstly if it is going to cost thousands to restore then perhaps don’t buy it in the first place and secondly the seller couldn’t give a rat’s A how much it will cost you to restore and, as I said to Plushy, put yourself in the seller’s place.
7. Everybody should take a leaf out of Ron’s book with his spectacular and swift Carrier restoration. He both fabricated and outsourced and just got on with it.
8. Another thing I have noticed is people baulking about having to travel afar to obtain something. Ada and I go on lengthy field trips but we treat it as much as a holiday as a field trip. If you have to worry about travel costs then I suggest you have a problem before you even start to tackle a restoration project.
9. My final comment is, and this is critically important, make the effort to involve your partner even if it is only by communicating what you are doing. Our rule here is that this hobby is kept in perspective and if it imposes on our lifestyle or relationship then it would be time for me to pull my head in a bit.
There, put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Bob
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