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I'll keep an eye on this one. It is interesting in and of itself, and also what sort of price it will pull. While I will keep my evaluation of the car to myself, I do want to post this picture for posterity.
A $12,700 service in 2023 included media-blasting and painting the lower control arms, lubricating the suspension joints, bleeding the brakes, installing a rebuilt steering box, and replacing the idler arm, center link, sway bar bushings, rear wheel studs, inner and outer tie rods, brake hoses, control arm bushings, and ball joints.
The painted bezel openings would be correct if these were the correct wheels. This is a wheel for a 78-87 Cutlass. Maybe they wanted a wider wheel. That color looks off too.
Meh, so there's a few things wrong with it, but overall it looks pretty good. It's not a showpiece, but I'd drive it. Nobody's convincing me that putting 80 coats of paint on the incorrect-looking engine pad stamp trying to bury it means it's the right block. If it's got all the right goodies on it, it's still worth something. Not "full" price, though. I've gotten to the point these "restorations" are 9 times out of 10 just half-assed attempts to finish a car with what's available instead of doing it correctly. They think tossing a shiny coat of paint that looks correct on a car with the right VIN or other documentation makes it automatically worth a zillion dollars. Some effort was put into it, though. I would probably pay upwards of 50K range max for this particular car due to its incorrectness. MAYBE a little more if I really wanted it. The NOM killed the bigger price it could bring, IMO. I know it would never be 100% correct, but they started with only 515 of them. That was rare to begin with. There's not very many left. It is kind of refreshing to see the pleated seats with the proper "puffiness" of those pleats, even with a slight rip in the seam. That looks fixable. Many I've seen look rather flat. JMO.
They are dodging my question about the transmission.
Originally Posted by 69HO43
Nobody's convincing me that putting 80 coats of paint on the incorrect-looking engine pad stamp trying to bury it means it's the right block.
I am seeing at least 4 verifications/correlations of engine and car. Cowl tag, vin number, the build tag pic #271, and the engine pad stamp you mention.
How do you guys feel about the last question posted there, regarding the cowl tag rivets ? Ok during the time I was writing this post, the seller just posted.
To me, it looks like when the car was repainted or fixed, whatever, at some point the cowl tag was removed. During the removal it seems as the lower RH side of the tag corner is missing. Perhaps someone may have tried to pry it off the original rivet and damaged it way back when? Who knows. The peeling paint around it tells me it wasn't the first coat of paint that cowl has seen, either.
Boy 2 years ago I would have said this car would easily bring 70-75k.. however the market is very fickle right now.. hard to say what it will hammer at. Depends if two folks want it bad enough to keep bumping the number to win. It sure looks like a legit car minus some of the things pointed out here, cowl tag was probably an amateur mistake but the engine paint on the vin derivative pad surely questions a few things. Finding these cars 100% oe even 85% ‘factory correct is not an easy task. An example on a couple FB olds pages, a pristine , beautiful restoration on a factory 67 w30, red started at 100k, now down to 89k or best offer and still not sold. Time will tell what this car brings. I think, maybe wrong but the 69 HO brings more money.. is that correct?
To me, it looks like when the car was repainted or fixed, whatever, at some point the cowl tag was removed. During the removal it seems as the lower RH side of the tag corner is missing. Perhaps someone may have tried to pry it off the original rivet and damaged it way back when? Who knows. The peeling paint around it tells me it wasn't the first coat of paint that cowl has seen, either.
Personally I never like to see the cowl tag messed with, it opens up an entire other level of distrust in my book.
Boy 2 years ago I would have said this car would easily bring 70-75k.. however the market is very fickle right now.. hard to say what it will hammer at.
Yes, I was feeling confident a couple of days ago that it would hit 75k but coming on 36 hours now with 0 movement and not even halfway there. I notice these auctions generally seem to have two common patterns. Consistent bidding up till conclusion. Or heavy 11th hour activity. Lets see...
Originally Posted by Andy
An example on a couple FB olds pages, a pristine , beautiful restoration on a factory 67 w30, red started at 100k, now down to 89k or best offer and still not sold. Time will tell what this car brings. I think, maybe wrong but the 69 HO brings more money.. is that correct?
Interesting question. With regards to the magnificent 7 and without researching it whatsoever I think order of preference by amount paid would be.
Personally I never like to see the cowl tag messed with, it opens up an entire other level of distrust in my book.
Agreed ! Leave that area completely alone no matter what. I doubt a potential well versed buyer would complain if those few square inches were still factory correct. And if the potential buyer is clueless and just wants what he wants, well the significance of not having touched that area should suffice.
What a bummer the cowl tag was messed with, who knows why.. probably some bozo thought they could remove it to restore the firewall better or it got caught by a wire wheel tearing the corner up.. Speculation at best. However the vin number is registered with the HO site so it’s definitely a real car with much history as the owner will provide all owners info that they are aware of with the sale. Could be a great buy depending on the reserve. My guess is the reserve is higher than the bidding will go.
Once the cowl tag is removed, we can't tell if the body shell is original, or if the car was re-bodied.
Yeah, but anyone trying to do that would likely know that you can get the correct cowl tag rivets and the tool to correctly set them pretty much everywhere.
You'd have to look close, but if that's a true numbers matching non-A/C H/O, you're in a very limited quantity of cars with their original blocks. They just didn't survive with the 3.90 gears. The A/C cars survived a lot better with the 3.08's. Mine has a service block in it from the early 70's.
I couldn't tell if the 8255 carb is there or not. Seller noted in the comments that it originally came with it, but doesn't mean it's there now. That's about the only hens teeth part on the 68.
There is a stamp on the quarter panel as it folds down into the trunk, can't remember the side. I think it was a build date code for the bodyshell. That would help in determining if it was a rebody.
It still bothers me that while there was some questions about the cowl tag rivets on the auction, but nobody seems to be questioning the authenticity of the block stamping at all. Let alone the transmission itself. Picture of the trans tag isn't 100% proof positive it's correct. It would be just as easy to take a picture of the VIN stamp on the transmission, too, so why not? I would own that car, but the seller is trying too hard, IMO, to pitch it as an original without actually misrepresenting the car with his politician talk. Ad states block stamping matches VIN. Well, so what? That's about as impactful as "Title's VIN matches car." Doesn't make it a bad thing, but the "original block" seems to be implied, like trying to do a Jedi mind trick into making you think it's original without saying so for plausible deniability.
I'm not bashing the car, I actually do like it, but with the scrutiny people seem to lack when it comes to buying a car like this, especially now that it hit $40K (as of right now) and likely will be more, I just don't know how many people actually know what they're spending their money on. Hence, as far as I'm concerned, this car would be approaching about the max I'd pay for it. The drivetrain is the star of the car, just like W-30s, etc. Drivetrain originality is the difference between the big bucks or not, at least IMO.
This car's block VIN stamp, the font doesn't seem right and the numbers seem to be spaced too far apart and non-uniform and a couple tilted; the consistency just isn't there, at least for my liking. Also, the depth of the stampings isn't consistent, as many coats of paint isn't covering it very well. If you extrapolate the 38M3 that should be in front of the numbers that you can actaully see with the same spacing, I think it would fall off the pad in the front. I call it super-highly suspect:
Then compare it to a "Real" stamping of the era:
Or maybe this one from a slightly earlier car than the one being sold:
From what I understand, the typical method was to gang-stamp in one line the Car line, last digit of year, final assembly plant, then the last 6 of the VIN. Sometimes angled, sometimes tilted to where they don't get a clean stamp, but typically they're consistent, however they come out.
They did post an OW trans tag. I don't know if it's the original one, but, that's something.
I did not see the rivets on the first go, but, yeah, those be pop rivets.
Based on (limited) registry data, the sequence number on the OW tag puts it in the right around other cars built in that date range, so I'd say high probability it's the original.
Looks like the 8255 is gone but not surprising, pretty typical.
Someone could get a pretty good deal here if there's no reserve.
24 hours before the auction closed it was 41k... When I saw the number this morning I said to myself it would be lucky to cross 50k. Especially after so many great points were brought up on this board. 69HO43 particularly struck a chord with me in post #33.
