My dad loved to restore cars and could do it pretty well. About the only thing he wouldn't do is upholstery and painting (he would take the car to the booth prepped perfectly, however) because he was so picky about finishes. In fact, he had a garage with a lift at his house. When he died, he had 14 restored cars and 11 parts cars. I now have his tools, but never developed his skill. When I was 14, my dad decided we would rebuild a car together and then it would be mine when I was 16. He purchased a 1965Maserati Sebring. I worked my ass off on that car for over a year. When it was done, my father decided it was too nice for me to have, so he kept it himself. He did the same thing years later with my brother with a 1968 Mustang fastback. The only one of us that actually got a car was my sister. She was just given a 1982 Volvo 240 because it was the safest car my dad could find.
Found this one for sale up in Kent Washington for $75,000. Sounds like a lot, but that is a very good price. http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1424272
A child hood friend of mine was given a pimped-out one back when we were like 8. His dad was holding on to it until he was 16. We took it around town a few times, but at 16, even he was too paranoid to take it around too much. Sadly, he died my senior year of HS. I imagine his younger brother has it now. I always wonder what happened to the car, though, because it was sooo freakin' pimp. Those things often go for the price of a condo.
Ya, I was talking with my father recently about how when I was 18-20 years old I wanted a 23window and found one for 10K. I could only swing 4K at the time and asked my pops to foot the rest. He thought I was crazy spending so much for a used van and would not help. That VW, 20 years later would be worth 75K easy and likely more in the 150K range as it was one of the older ones (58 I think) with the full chrome rack and all the trim. On the other hand, It might not be worth anything cause I was a dumb kid who did lots of dumb things. Who knows, I may have tried to chop it down or perhaps just abandoned it on the side of the road when I threw a rod. But I would dig one now.
