restoration for a profit?

[jdrumstik]

Thats right making money on a resotration! I have been planning for a couple of years now for a "one stop resoration shop" but calling it sunnday auto, im just a few months short of sixteen.

at any rate, I want to make a profit, I'm breaking a deal for a complimentory 72 beetle. I know I can make a profit on the bettle, It should sell for about 4-6 grand, leaving me somewher between 1,000 and 2,000 in profit, but the total cash is all that matters to me. It will be a quick build, to be completed by this august and sold. I have an easy school scedule as I am attending the community college and messing aournd with 9 units and scoring the easist teachers.


In august I will sign up for the colleges enigne rebuild class, with a high preformance blue printing class as an option, I could build a wicked 289, the teach says you can squeeze 400 hp out of a 350 pretty easily with $500! he has a dealers license and gets all the parts cheap! Holy crap!, the 289 might cost a bit more but it should be very reasonable, let say I have 4,000 green backs to spend for the rest of the car, put a grand towards the engine, header and carb, a grand towards paitn incase my planned diy job doesn't work out (by the way a grand paint job for me is 3 grand to any other walk in)leaving 2,000 dollars to streatch over the tranmision and clutch, interior, and suspesnion. but remember thats if my bug project doesnt go over to well I could have 4 grand left over! pluss all that time im still making $200-$350 a month that will be going into the project as I have nothing to pay for but the crap I want. It sounds easy to me.

I was thinking of doing a 289 mustang incase you hadn't picked that up yet, 289s arn't as common as chevy 350s but mustangs are more common than any single chevy, its the interior work that im most afraid of, I think that I can probably figure out a good paint job with a 24 coat acrylic paint job diy style, refinishing wood is easy and chrome can be polished, painted or simply sent out to be rechromed; its the seats, carpet, dash, and headliner that scare me most.

a lot of you probably think im just another stupid kid but this is my dream

by the way after the mustang I will go on to build my 454 enigine on a $3000 budget, but remember I get the parts for cheap and IM building it so the only cost is the super cheap parts, my goal is 600hp. then i will leave for byu in utah, orem, were I will be forced to drive my 5 speed 2 liter 4 wheeel steering super straight really nice black honda prelude with geaers so short Im blowing 3,500 rpm at 65mph, thers no way this thing can do a 100. then I will go on a mission for two years while my engine collects dust in our townhouses 2 car garage up there in utah and when i come back I will hopefully rush though the rest of shcool as a mechancial engineer and get married, buy a small house with the $164,000 and build the el camino and start up my shop while turning down offers for 80 grand a year with benefiets.

by the way my ultimate goal is 10 cars averging at a profit of $15,000 a car after overhead.

thats $150 grand a year when im fully operational, whith no house payments, how much money do you need to make?

sorry it was such an incredibly longpost its really just here to help me think.








BTW if any one thinks there is something other than a stang htat i should do let me know

[SpookyReuben]

oh my word. $3000 on a engine, you can basically do anything you want. comp cams, hypereutectic pistons(or forged), forged crank/connecting rods, headers, cold air intake, etc. that would own.

[jdrumstik]

exactly, and its a 454 I would do a 502, but those just came out, maybe later, i plan to do a small bore on the 454 as I want to be able to rebuild it several times through out my life, or atleast thats the plan,




oh and I'm glad some one here can read, I know its a little long thanks.

[MagicRat]

Getr some business experience before you open your own shop. Work for someone elses shop for a few years and learn the details of running a shop. It is very difficult to make much money buying and selling cars without really knowing what you are doing and knowing the marketplace for such cars very well.

[jdrumstik]

thanks for the wakeup call, while I would have realized that eventually, thanks. I agree, people do restore cars for a living, but I don't know how real this all is, I am majoring in mechanical engineering, so i always have something to fall back on.

[Ken_of_York]

Good Luck with your plans. I play around with old cars as a "free" hobby. I figure that even though I might not ever make money, I will usually not lose any money. Consider; a new mustang costs me aound $400 a month in payments for 5 years, after which it is worth 70% less than I paid for it. I picked up a 70 fastback for 1500, dropped around 4000 in it, and could most likely get $6000 if I sold it. (I will not sell it though, please see below) In the meantime, I had all the fun and challenge of playing around with it. Also, there is the fact that very few 70 fastbacks are actually tooling around. (my son drove it to school until the tickets piled up). Now what you are proposing is making profit on your restorations. It can be done, but mostly the big dollars are in the ultra rare collector cars. Things like hemi cars and such. Those buyers are going to pay you, drive it once a year for ice cream, and trailer it to a show. And they want to win that show. Not the type of cars the average guy can produce. I also HATE selling stuff. Most times the guys that show up are trying to rip you off so bad it is insane. The last time I tried to sell a car I gave up. Here is the car;
my 67 firebird convertible, drivable, inspected. Rebuilt 400, muncie 4-speed, excellent interior, power disc brakes and power steering. It had a bad paint job, (I did it myself and I am learning. no runs but lots of orange peel). The chrome was old and the rear quarters were not right. Someone had replaced them with Camaro 1/4's and welded in the louver section. Still, it needed NO rust repairs whatsoever. It also had tri-power that was not correct for the car. I put it in the paper for $$5500, figuring I could get$5000 easily. In the ad I wrote "not origonal". Still every caller asked if it was. When I said no, they hung up. I even had a guy who wanted the paint to be the factory paint. I did not sell it. Lets face it, this is a ragtop muscle car that will break your neck and leave you smiling. Kids have more in an entertainment system in a Ford Focus than I was asking for the entire car. While it might be great to make a living at it, I stick with it as a hobby. I am going to repaint the firebird now that I am a lot better at painting. I also am going to go with a 4-barrel ram-air set up. Some day when I am dead my kid will try to sell it and someone will be asking him if it is the factory paint.
Ken