My neighbor is selling his Satelite and I was thinking about buying...can somebody tell me if this is a good deal???

Dark Green
383 ci.
pretty rough cam
full exhaust
intake mani.
Edelbrock Carb. not sure how many CFM
Posi
Interior and Exterior look to be in almost perfect shape
$7200
I went for a ride in it the other day and this thing really moves!!! I like it a lot but I'm worried about gas mileage, insurance, reliability, and winter performance, of course I'd get winter tires and put a lot of shit in the trunk to wiegh it down but I've never had a carburated car and I was a little worried about starting in the winter.

TIA

Andy,

They are great cars, but they had and have zero rust protection. If you drive it in snow and salt, the car will melt away like the Wicked Witch of the East.

$7200 seems pricey. Is it an auto or 4-speed? What other options does it have? Take a look underneath at the torsionbar crossmember, the trunk floor, the inner fenders, and the passenger floor for rust. What color is it?

Having the big block opens the car up to serious upgrades in power.

There is no visible rust on the car at all that I could find. Is there anything I can do for rust protection???
It's an auto. I'm not sure on the options right now, but I'll check with my neighbor on them.
The car is a very dark green color...almost like British Racing Green.

The problem is the crappy undercoating that Chrysler used traps moisture and salt. So you have three options:

1) Don't drive the car when there is salt on the roads.

2) Spend 50+ hours with a chisel + heat gun under the car removing every trace of the factory undercoating. When you've got it all removed you can apply a modern undercoating. Even then it won't be a 100%. There are areas of bare metal that you won't be able to coat and they will rust.

3) Completely disassemble the car. Repair any bodywork needed. Send the car, in pieces, to a powdercoater to get the car entirely coated in the vulnerable areas.

On the driver side inner fender there is a fender tag. It lists all of the options in the car. I can point you to a vin and fender tag decoder. Let us know if you decide to buy it.

Boy that sounds like a hell of a lot of work!!! I'll talk to my dad and see if he's up for helping me out with some of that, but if he isn't then I'll probably have to pass on it.

It is. That's why most people use them for fair weather drivers only. My own car, I still have the undercoating on there. I just stop driving it around mid-November and it sits in the garage until Spring.

Is Tuff-Kote Dinol still around? Who applies it these days?

I would let it sit in the garage until spring if I had something else to drive...damn me and my shitty job. Is there any muscle car that doesn't have an undercoating problem like that???