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To the mods - sorry I posted my reaction in the wrong place. Thanks (sincerely) for the reminder about classifieds.
I’m in the “to each, his own camp”. Personally I’d love to see a tripower wagon or 88. Or do what I did and add 68 reproduction OAI to my ‘66 Starfire just for fun.
One thing we haven’t kicked around is when rare parts were pulled off irretrievably smashed or rusted carcasses. They’ll never be “original” on anything else again, but at least the fun stuff got saved and not lost to the sands of time.
All over the country some people knew & took time to preserve things they thought might be valuable again one day. Good for them. I’m sad about all the big-car 4 speeds we’ve lost to the crusher, sad about the Antispin rear ends that went the same way and all the other neat gear that are now toasters.
If those rare parts weren’t saved, stored and eventually resold to someone, for whatever purpose, we would have long forgotten about them. At least they live on all these decades later as part of the hobby.
Is it “better” to put ‘em on high $ perfect restorations? Maybe, but not all of us have the scratch to play in that arena, so why should the really rare stuff be exclusively preserved for a small group?
Just a note: Watch out for tik tok videos. My virus protection blocked threats when I clicked on that link. Just so you know. Tik tok is not your friend.
People who actually respect other people's car modifcation choices don't actually have to speak up about things they don't like about it. Unless someone asks for your opinion, it's perfectly fine to quietly die a little inside when you see some of the more rare cars get tore up from the floor up by people that don't feel the same way you do about a rare car's value to society as a whole. You know, first world problems.
Personally, I've seen enough LS conversions to not even blink when I just walk on by. I don't care what kind of car it's in. At this point, to me, they're just like another SBC build. Ho hum. I like modded cars, but an LS never belongs in an Oldsmobile, IMO. But that earlier meme did hit the nail on the head. People that do the LS swap thing always feel they must tell you about it. It's like those social media sites where someone always has to take a picture of the food they're eating or the turd they just dropped in the porcelin punch bowl. W...G...A...F. The owners may believe that modernization is the way to go, regardless of rarity of the car. I view original cars to be a portrait of an era, frozen in time. It's what I prefer to see and enjoy the most. But that's just me.
Most of the time, if I got to decide on a rare part's destiny, it would likely be different than the current owner's choice. And that's ok. You have to know someone will hate on that choice, no matter which way it goes.
Just a note: Watch out for tik tok videos. My virus protection blocked threats when I clicked on that link. Just so you know. Tik tok is not your friend.
People who actually respect other people's car modifcation choices don't actually have to speak up about things they don't like about it. Unless someone asks for your opinion, it's perfectly fine to quietly die a little inside when you see some of the more rare cars get tore up from the floor up by people that don't feel the same way you do about a rare car's value to society as a whole. You know, first world problems.
Personally, I've seen enough LS conversions to not even blink when I just walk on by. I don't care what kind of car it's in. At this point, to me, they're just like another SBC build. Ho hum. I like modded cars, but an LS never belongs in an Oldsmobile, IMO. But that earlier meme did hit the nail on the head. People that do the LS swap thing always feel they must tell you about it. It's like those social media sites where someone always has to take a picture of the food they're eating or the turd they just dropped in the porcelin punch bowl. W...G...A...F. The owners may believe that modernization is the way to go, regardless of rarity of the car. I view original cars to be a portrait of an era, frozen in time. It's what I prefer to see and enjoy the most. But that's just me.
Most of the time, if I got to decide on a rare part's destiny, it would likely be different than the current owner's choice. And that's ok. You have to know someone will hate on that choice, no matter which way it goes.
As several people have pointed out, the ability of someone to irrevocably modify a rare car that they own is within their control, despite whether or not the beholder approves or whether it is considered a good idea by most. This is fairly settled. The original discussion point, however, was whether, as an owner of an extremely rare part that is being pursued by someone for purchase who you full well know is not going to use it on a stock restoration, should you sell to that person or hold out for a sale for a better use of the part to better preserve the cars. Please also note that this is for extremely rare parts only as it makes no sense or manners otherwise.
As several people have pointed out, the ability of someone to irrevocably modify a rare car that they own is within their control, despite whether or not the beholder approves or whether it is considered a good idea by most. This is fairly settled. The original discussion point, however, was whether, as an owner of an extremely rare part that is being pursued by someone for purchase who you full well know is not going to use it on a stock restoration, should you sell to that person or hold out for a sale for a better use of the part to better preserve the cars. Please also note that this is for extremely rare parts only as it makes no sense or manners otherwise.
As with "it's your car", the "it's your part" dictum also applies. Sell or don't sell, that's the seller's call.
I've got to repeat verbatim what 69HO43 mentions above: "I view original cars to be a portrait of an era, frozen in time. It's what I prefer to see and enjoy the most. But that's just me". And this is exactly how I feel about it, I'll go x2 on his statement.
I also agree with his note : "Most of the time, if I got to decide on a rare part's destiny, it would likely be different than the current owner's choice. And that's ok. You have to know someone will hate on that choice, no matter which way it goes". And I say to this, one word: yup.
Hope you don't mind me doing a copy/paste on your post 69HO43 but we're 2 peas in a pod on this one.
We have a class in the OCA Nats for these Modified cars, and when I look at these cars, sometimes I admire them, sometimes I just wince and scoot away quick. HOWEVER, the winner of last year's OCA's best of class in the Modified class was IMHO an absolute gem. Now I may consider this as slightly biased as I know the owner and consider him a friend, but his car last year was absolutely outstanding, again IMHO.
Kind of the opposite of rare parts in a hot rod. It was the rare car. With nothing new. Now it's a restored nice car with new modern drivetrain. Still a very nice car but...
And IIRC, I believe he sold off the original W-30 engine to finance the LS swap, so between that and whatever modifications were necessary for fitment, there's pretty much no turning back. I dunno, I stopped reading that thread fairly early on because it made me angry.
As several people have pointed out, the ability of someone to irrevocably modify a rare car that they own is within their control, despite whether or not the beholder approves or whether it is considered a good idea by most. This is fairly settled. The original discussion point, however, was whether, as an owner of an extremely rare part that is being pursued by someone for purchase who you full well know is not going to use it on a stock restoration, should you sell to that person or hold out for a sale for a better use of the part to better preserve the cars. Please also note that this is for extremely rare parts only as it makes no sense or manners otherwise.
There's no parts police. At least not yet. If it's mine, and you can convince me to sell or not sell, that's totally how well your power of persuasion works. When it comes down to it, the part, or car, or lawn mower, or whatever else it is that I own, comes down to whether I think it's a good idea to sell or not. Just that simple. I don't worry myself about what others may need or think when I make the ultimate decision. Selfish? Maybe. Should have bought one while they weren't so rare.
My dad was one of those AACA purists, and was a judge at Charlotte Auto Fair. The weird thing was he had a '67 Cutlass Turnpike Cruiser convertible, a somewhat rare car in its own right, for which he had accumulated parts to convert it to a faux 442.. Go figure...
For better or worse, he never did the conversion, and after he passed, my mom gave that car and the '64 Dynamic 88 convertible that was to be mine to a friend of his, who was a mechanic. I really didn't agree with her doing that, but there was nothing I could do, besides voice my disapproval. The cars were legally hers to do with as she saw fit.
Last edited by Human; September 8th, 2023 at 10:09 AM.
The opinions are breaking about the way I figured they would with the more rare, high dollar car guys leaning more towards preserving that end of the spectrum, and the lesser value/more common car and/or custom car guys leaning more the other way, except Eric, who has rare cars but is fixing to put a 455 in a Chevelle and better bring a whole can of Clay County Whupass when he goes to LS Fest.
I wasn't going to post in this thread but I will. I have had probably 50 tri carb units & 8-10 66/67 OAI shrouds in my time. When I sold them I didn't ask what or where they were going. I don't care what a guy spends his money on, none of my or anybody's business.
I got thick skin but thank you Olds64. My 69 has the original drivetrain and will until it's no longer serviceable. So while I say I would like my 442 to perform like a tesla plaid, there isn't any way I would ever do that and take away from the character of the car. Yeah, I have EFI and a few mods on it to help it stop better than the drums it came with. I added power steering because my arms are already massive. I also took the factory AM radio and gutted it--replaced the internals with modern electronics so I can cruise with some tunes while looking original. And I'm adding air conditioning--vintage air, because it is hotter than Africa in Oklahoma. From the outside, it will look close to stock. From the inside, it will look original, and ride nicely in comfort like an Olds should. Any original part that is serviceable that I've had to remove is stored away, just in case I want to bring it back.
May the fleas of a 1000 camels infest his armpits!!!
I was not aware of that. I tend to ignore any threads with Chevy or LS swap questions. I see enough of that crap at the track and car shows, I refuse to give it any attention here.
Since the subject has come up, this is the perfect opportunity to share some of my favorite anti LS funnies.
So I would/wouldn't fit into the resto-mods category because of our W-30. I removed the stock suspension and installed the complete Old School Global West Suspension including the 1and 3/8" front and rear swaybars, bigger front brakes from Pontiac Trans Am. All this work was done in the1987-1988 winter in my little 1 car garage at the time. Why did I do it? Well I wanted a W-30 that could stay with a 1996 Corvette in the handling department.
Now for the really bad news. I kept all of the original parts and when that day comes where I will not be consuming oxygen anymore my kids can put the car back to stock if they want to. Being it's the car that they came home in from the hospital and at 1 time or another each help work on the car. I don't see them getting rid of it.
September 7th, 2023, 12:19 PM
