Yesterday there was a thread on a 1972 Stage 1 Convertible in what most agreed is the worst condition they had ever seen. http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?t=42268&page=2&pp=25 I have a real rookie question. What is the ethical and honest way to restore something in that shape? Clearly a donor car will be required, and cutting off the Stage 1 VIN and putting it on the donor is unethical. So what is the way to do it. Strip the Stage 1 down until you find something solid and start adding pieces until you have a car? At what point can you honestly say this is a true Stage 1 Convertible?
I feel if you use a donor clean body, and re tag it, it is only unethical if your goal is to mislead people. I have seen cars that their owners are open and honest about the car beind re bodied, and I don't have an issue with that. What is the real difference if you take a car and replace rockers, floors, firewall, hood, trunk, doors, quarters, etc. What part of that original car is actually left? Throwing on a set of tags and the original motor and trans and trying to pass the car off as an original is where morality becomes involved. This is exactly what they are doing with the new camaro bodies. It stated in the literature to add your vin and cowl tag, same thing write? I think you just stirred up the wasps nest though.
I guess the question comes down to, How much of a car can you replace and still say it was orginal. If you had a car that was optioned out and had a bad case of cancer and took all the internals, including the tag and moved it over to a clean body of the same year I think you could legitimatly call it original. Just as if you had the same car and replaced the doors skins, quarters, floor pans, tunk lid, hood and may be the dash but did not remove the vin tag. Because all the parts you changed would not be original. IMO. Changing the body is not different, per say, than replacing the hood or doors, its just a piece of metal. Because once you remove or replace anyting on the car, can you legitimatly call it "Original". So long as you restore it back to its original "like" condition I think your O.K. Especially if you got a clean body from the same year built at the same plant etc. Just my .02
Tough call. I am interested in the car. Even though I have a just finshed complete body ready for my 72 GS 350 ragtop, I would redo the body on the Stage 1. Maybe thats just me but it seems wrong to swap bodies out. I certianly see your point, even my 350 ragtop can hardly be called original with diff doors, diff fenders, quarter, floorpans, trunk floor etc...and also with all the NOS and reproduction parts ready to go on but it still has the same tags it left the factory with, despite the pieces all around being changed. Sure be a shame to see that car get parted. I think whoever takes it on, if anyone, they better be ready for a BIG project.... later Tim
Real Job! As bad as this car looks, a friend of mine that brokers cars, bought a 57 T-bird a few years ago that would make this one look slick. They had to cut down trees to get it moved. He took it to a friends shop and wanted to get it running. Believe it or not we got the engine unstuck and after about a week I was able to repair the Holley carb. to where it would work and new points and plugs and it started. After pouring 8 quarts of fluid into the trans. it actually moved under it's own power. I mean this car was rough, it was rusted away from the middle of the doors down and like this GS no floor at all. We thought the guy was crazy for giving $4500 for it and spending a few bucks to get it running. But he sells it to some one for $12,000, now this was when you could buy a nice one for under $20,000. Who would buy it I wondered. Had to be someone that had stolen one and needed the paper work as he had the title. All I can say is good luck with the GS. Jim N.
click on the link in my signature to see what my situation is. I think this is a true resto of a badly rusted car, and shouldn't raise eyebrows on numbers originality. Feel free to express your own opinion.
Very Brave Soul! YOu sure like punishment, should be a great car when finished but I just hate to do one that bad if I can buy a better one to start. Sometime you have to watch though, you buy what you think is a solid car and it has been covered up and when you get into it you still have a mess. A friend bought a 57 Chevy to build an Outlaw 10.5 car. It was a slick looking car on ebay. When they start working on it there is patches of all kinds and filler by the gallons. After all external sheet metal is replaced they ahve a car to start building now. Jim N.
I'd rather see a special car rebodied than have something that is completely gone pasted back together. If I were driving I'd prefer a solid car under me. I know there's a lot that can be done with restorations and donor cars, but something where every panel needs work or replacement just wouldn't justify it. There's nothing of the original car left so why would it matter? I'd want to know it's a rebody, but really I could care less. I'd rather have something that imitates very well rather than have a frankenstein of a car. Besides, the only thing that sets it apart is the VIN number, beyond that there is no difference.
Have to Agree! I'm with you Jim. I think it would be a better car to rebody. It's just sheet metal, the drive train and options make the car. For me I would pay more for a rebodied car that one that has had all the floor and every panel replaced. I just don't get all excited about a piece of tin vin tag. When I built my Super Stocker I looked at 20 GS cars that all had one problem or another and the price was high because it was a GS. Then I found a perfect all orginial Skylark that was running and driving any where with every piece of paper from the orginial owner. Since it was a race car anyway, I decided to clone it and have a solid piece to work with. Never regretted that either. Jim N.
Of course it would be easier to move the tags to another body/frame but it should thereafter never be called an original restoration unless you are talking about the tags themselves. That is they were "restored" by putting them on another car. A true restoration in my mind would only involve the Stage 1 conv in question with the ID tag staying on that body. Bruce
What about needing a cowl replacement for rust along the windshield line.....but everything else is pretty good ?? uzzled: :rant: ....Verrrrrry comon on A-Body Converts.
Like Tim said, it's a tough call, and folks have lots of different feelings on the subject. Kinda like a political or religious debate. In my mind, it's about intention. If a guy takes a car, rebodies it, and tries to pass it off as a "survivor" that just had the normal resto work, then I think that's wrong. For the car in question, you litterally would have to take a good convert body, build a jig, put that body on it, and then completely dissasemble it. Plan on spending about 5K on just that process, plus the cost of the body, and getting prolly a completed car dissasembled to just the body shell.. so we easily could be talking 10-15K for this whole deal, depending on what you pay for the donor car. And we cannot forget that since these cars are all spot welded together, there will be some parts that will be sacrificed to get other parts, or your going to end up with a ton of parts full of holes, where you drilled out the spot welds. Then, you take the original body, completely dissasemble it in the jig, and then install a mixture of the used good parts, and new parts. Example.. you would be installing the convert quarters and the outer half of the inner rear wheelwell, since those are parts you just can't get new.. But you prolly would use new inner halfs of the rear wheelhouse, since they are available. I would want to use repro rocker panels, but the original floorboards, from the donor car. With the advances in tech in adhesives, rust inhibiters, and welding processes, I do believe it is possible to build a shell that is just maybe better than the orginial one, in strength. I also believe it's possible to spend between 20-30K doing this. And the reality of what goes on out there, does not even come close to what I just described, in a lot of cases. When in the market for a completed car, I am more interested in what it looked like at one time, and how it was "fixed" than I am about the shiny paint job on the car now. We are not talking about throwing in an aftermarket trunk pan and hanging some quarters here.. this is something that goes way beyond that. And at the end of the day, the body you built is as good, maybe a little better, than the orginal. But when you consider the cost difference between building a shell, vs just using a different body shell assembly, you can understand why when I explain this to a potential customer, they generally opt for the replacement shell. In reality, I have only had to deal with this a couple times, since most folks start with a nicer car to begin with. But, there are the super rare cars, like that ragtop, that just may present themselves for this process. And as you have seen in this thread, there are a number of guys who would not be concerned about buying a re-bodied car, and I certainly would be more interested in that, than buying a rusty car, that had a whole bunch of patches put on it, and 10 gallons of filler. Doors, fenders, Convert top stacks and bows, trunk lids, hoods and bumpers should not be fixed, if they are rusty.. still plenty of good OE panels out there. The best thing you can do, if your looking to do a car like that '72, is to buy a nice '72 Skylark ragtop, for the parts. You will be money ahead, regardless of how you deal with the body shell issue. A lot more money is spend in all the little parts, than most folks would imagine. I have a saying around the shop... "Everyone is a Purist with somebody else's checkbook". :laugh: I have seen some stauch advocates of keeping an original rusted body, change their mind after weight all the options, and costs, and as a restorer, it's part of my job to offer several different ways to do something, and let the customer decided what's right for them. I consider it very unethical to take the stance of "No Sir, we have to use this body, so it's gonna cost $$$$ to do it.." that's more about the money, than it is about reality. And every car that we do for a complete here has the vin and cowl tags removed.. they have to come off, to do the work properly. You can't blast "around" a cowl tag. At least not of your going to do it right. JW
One thing is for sure.. at least to me, is the car can and should be saved. One of 81 and from the looks of it quite possibly the 1st stage 1 ragtop made in '72. And nicely optioned. No matter how you cut it they are not making any more of these and unlike the 69 Camaro probably never will. The purist will never be happy, too bad, I'd rebody the car using as much of the original as possible. Any knowledgable buyer will know if someone later tries to pass it off as a "survivor". If a buyer doesn't do homework then they get what they deserve. Not fixing a car to prevent it from someday being passed off seems like a pretty bad reason to me. It's going to be a labor of love and not a money maker for who ever restores it.
The best advice I ever got in this hobby was: "Buy the best body and frame you can find. It will be cheaper and better in the long run." I would not touch a car that rusty. Way to expensive to fix properly. Just my .02
Best Advice! Have to agree, buy the very best, solid car you can. For years I was always buying these deal cars for cheap but in the end they were not cheap or never turned out as nice as I wanted. I bought an orginial 66 Nova L79 car once that had been a straight axle, wheel well cut out, drag car and also wrecked in the driver's door post. I only gave $250 for it and thought it was a deal. After two donor cars and OEM quarters and searching the world over for all the parts to make it a car again, 3 years later still needing the right block I sold the whole deal to a guy that wanted the quarters. I decided I was going to have as much in it as I could go out and buy a nice car for and I would always know it was a cut-up wreck. Another example, a friend wanted to restore his father's 72 Chevy truck. He searched for parts and collected lots of stuff as this truck had been used on a farm and had 260,000 miles on it. The cab was rusty and in bad shape. After running up on a 70 truck that only had 19,000 miles and wrecked in the bed and rear frame, he decided to use that cab. It made a far nicer truck that the 72 cab ever would have. I mean the doors shut like a new truck and it has won several trohpies at shows. Yes, he knows it is not the cab his father rode all those miles in but he still considers it his dad's truck and it turned out great. Food for thought. JIm N.
Matching #s is Matching#s Where do you draw the line? If the first person is straight up and honest and tells you its a rebody that would be OK the price would reflect that and be cheaper but the next guy buys it cheap and resells it to someone that doesn't know its a rebody for big bucks he's misrepresenting the car and screwing the guy big time.Unfortunately its human nature, GREED, $$$$$$$ a rebody is NO different then a reblock (Restamping the#s in the block) Its NOT original or matching #s if you use a donor car (Skylark) that car even if you change the #s to a GS vin was still built as a skylark. No different then spending big money on a LS6 and finding out later it use to be a Malibu. Thats why there is laws in place,to protect us from fraud.Chris
resto rules I'm starting to restore a '67 GS 400 3-speed convertible that I just picked up. This car is complete and numbers matching. It has also sat outside since 1976 with no cover at all. The dash is rusted loose, the bottom of the cowl is rusted through, the floors do not exist, the rockers are shot, the trunk is gone, and the frame appears to be too gone too repair. How big of a piece of the cowl and door pillar do I have to cut out and save to make this an actual restoration? If I cut a long winding piece from the VIN tag to the cowl tag and weld it to my skylark body would that make it a restoration because the tags were not removed? That is basically what needs to be done to save this car. But, I figure that just transplanting the tags and every single piece that the GS has from the entire drivetrain to the smallest '67 GS only piece will make it enough of a true restoration for me. There is a lot more involved in this process than just swapping an engine and pop riveting some tags. I am also going to need three jobs if used trunk trim goes for over $200. I do agree that there is always going to be someone that would try to lie about a cars history. I also know that if I was about to throw down 15K or more on a GS or any restored car I would look it over so much that if it was a fake I would hopefully be able to tell and pass on it. On the other hand if I bought the car and later found out that someone had put a lark body on it, I couldn't be mad because I researched the car and all the numbers before I bought it. Just my feelings on the subject.
Trunk Trim! A friend gave me a trim piece for a 67 and I got it plated while I ran the car with the not so good stock piece and I paid $225. to get it done, turned out nice but not cheap. Good luck on the 67 ragtop. Jim N.
