Official old grumpy assholes of zilvia thread

[mechanicalmoron]

Originally Posted by KA24DESOneThree

The 356 may be "crappy" compared to moderns but it's light years ahead of most of its contemporaries. Only when '63 rolled around and Alfa came out with the 105-series did the 356 start slipping badly.

The rust isn't necessary. The provenance of being able to prove the numbers match and having some service records is important. If there's no rust, it's a hell of a lot cheaper to restore than if there is rust- I have a car in the shop that's had over 2,000 hours of metal work alone. That's six digits of metal work. No one who wants a good car wants rust, period. Rust isn't part of the nostalgia.

People like old cars because they've had old cars or because they have/had modern cars and realized that they're boring as hell to live with. Some old cars are rarer than others and are more expensive to restore than others.

Source: I've been working on and selling classic air-cooleds for 13 years.

Also, this thread made no sense from day one. It's OG (or second-wave OG) S-chassis dudes shooting the shit.

Well yeah, you're right. I think you might have misinterpreted my point(s).

But yeah, they're exactly crappy old cars. I'm not talking about their potential. They're beautiful things I love, how crappy they are is NOT a point against them, or their value.

The honest rusty one is a lot better than a dishonest badly done rust-less one. That one's surface rust - would you buy a car like that, with totally pristine black wheel wells? No, they're fucking lying to you and you know it's crud spread over cancer.

What I'm saying is, the "market forces" and "values" supa sees, or that the guys writing the masturbatory articles in panorama that talk about the things effecting the air cooled bubble (or now, lack thereof) and all that, are seeing without perceiving. Horsepower is not value. Power to weight is not value. New things without rust, not value. Things you love that they don't make anymore? That's value.

Now that I think about it, supa's probably reading the classic-camaro-jerks version of pano. So he would understand THOSE crappy old cars being worth a mint.