After reading these posts everyone looks at the car itself as being rare, but it's the VIN and cowl tags that are. There's no difference in the construction between a Skylark and a GS Stage 1 convertible. The only things that differ are the options and badging of the vehicle. I wouldn't have a problem of using a different car and adding all the options that the Stage 1 came with from the factory and calling it a legitamate Stage 1 GS. The only kind of car I would call an original is a true unmolested survivor.
I know about a rough project, this is mine, car will need a rear clip but I don't think I'll have to rebody it, I don't know when I'll get started on it as I;ve had it for 2 1/2 years, it's a 70 GS455. Here is how I found it.
and here is how it sits today, all the suspension is just temp installed so it can be rolled around. I'll accept any donations to help me get it back together, it needs almost everything
Kurt, I laugh every time I see that picture.....good call on pulling that baby from the wreckers!!! And just to show many of us are n the same boat, here is a shot of the interior of my 72 ragtop when I bought it....the updates can be seen on my website... later Tim
the rest wasn't so bad....sorry the pics are so crappy, they are actually form my old camcorder... later tim
Up here in Minnesota we assume it has been seriously patched or rebodied whenever we see the words "new sheetmetal" or "new quarters and fenders" because of the level of rust we have here. I say save as many of these as we can, however we can. Some just need a little bit of TLC, some need a new body shell, but we shouldn't write off a viable method of saving the "worthy disasters". I honestly don't think it would be easy to restore that 72 stage 1 ragtop strictly for profit. Love and personal time is going to be necessary to save that puppy. Kurt, your project looks like some of mine. I picked up a rust free 70 GS 455 roller and am combining it with the world's rustiest GS 455 coupe that runs, drives and stops. Glad you are taking it on. I get such a charge when another one gets saved!(especially out of the junkyard!)
Tim, I like this one best... I've been following your project, you've come a long way, I, on the other hand have gotten no where
Chris, I just hope that I'll get to it, at least it's not a cube(or rebar) and that is where it was headed. I just couldn't let another get crushed...I've taken alot of crap over this car, like getting sued by the homeowners association and having my homeowners insurance threaten to drop me(Nationwide) I had to get plates and insurance on the car to prevent that
Kurt, you need a place to park that machine so you can putter on it and do some of the things needed. Maybe post a list of parts needed as well, I have some basic interior stuff I could donate. I have great respect for anyone who takes on a real project, and saves a car eveyone else has given up on. Mine has come a long way, but I've also been knocking myself silly doing it. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel (paint and final assembly). Money is the holdup now (of course). Perhaps, just perhaps, I will be on the road next summer.... Keep the faith. later Tim
When is it not worth it Since you are the only one who has seen this car up close, I say go with your heart. If it is truely one of eighty one, and you think the price is right and the restoration will not break you or cause a divorce, go for it.If there was a car I was very interested in, I would purchase it.As long as I'm truthfull when showing the car by saying it was restored or if the time came that I would sell the car, I would have to tell the next owner what the car is. If I but an AM/FM radio in my '73, or put the ralley rims on, is my LeSabre still not "original" ? If the dealer installs a part that the factory did not, but did offer, does that take away from the originallity ?
Kurt, (and all) Take heart! In some cases I don't get to the cars I save but I collect some pieces here or there, or get the title mess straightened out, or get them running and driving, or whatever. THAT makes them a saveable car to someone else and I move them down the road after they sit in one of my garages for awhile. I think of it as improving the timing until someone that really wants that particular car comes along and takes it the rest of the way. Sometimes it even gives me a little $$ to put back in the car fund. I did that last year with a 1971 GS 350 coupe. And have saved a 1972 GS 455 coupe, 1970 GS 350 and a 1970 GS 455 convertible in the past the same way. All 4 of these cars are either finished or well on their way to being finished and they all would have been parted out or crushed by the junkyard within days of me finding them. I just buy as many of the ones that need buying that I can and give them a temp. or permanent home. I live out in the woods, so I have an easier time of it though. Cool pics! Cool thread!
Tim, I know you've been bustin' your butt on yours. I'll get a list together for the 70 and post it. I need a place to store my bikes, once I haved that I can put the 70 in the garage and start playing with it!
"There's no difference in the construction between a Skylark and a GS Stage 1 convertible. The only things that differ are the options and badging....." I was under the impression that the GS conv frame is heavier (more boxing) than the Skylark conv frame. I know that was the case in 1970. Bruce
As someone who is currently restoring a very (VERY!) rusty GTO, let me give you my take on it. My car was a low mileage straight GTO (never hit). Due to it's use as a daily driver in NY salt has eaten almost every part of the car. By the time I am finished I will have replaced both quarters, all floors (it didn't need it but I did it anyway) both rear wheel wells, the tail panel, the door sills, and I am still uncertain if I should patch my original front fenders or outright replace them. The parts that I wll have saved from the original are the roof, the doors, the header panel, hood, trunk, and firewall. I still consider this car a real GTO and don't think it is misrepresenting at all if I tell people that it is original but has had rust repair. I had the chance to rebody (I have another cleaner GTO body as a donor) and decided to cut the cleaner body and us it to repair and patch my original body as needed because I just feel better about it that way. My personal take on it is that the car is a real (GTO, GS, SS, 442) if the tag stays on the firewall and door post, unless the donor you are putting it on is the same model car. If you keep the original frame engine/trans and the rest and rebody with another GS body I think there is nothing wrong with calling it a Restored original GS Stage 1 and leave it at that. Personally I think the lesser models (skylarks, tempests, malibus, cutalsses) have too many small differences (a trim hole here, a bolt hole there) to keep track of in order to have an accurate restoration.
The person, or shop, that rebodies, or retags, a rare, limited production vehicle, may have no intent to defraud someone, but what about the second, or third owner, after this little jewel has made its way around the country a few times.? sooner or later, someone is likely to pass it off as an original, or restored, classic. I have found my old 71 gs 455 on sale twice on ebay, being advertised as original with 76 thousand miles. I sold it for a grand in 89, with body so rusty, it whistled going down the road, and 138k on the clock. 15 years later, its a cream puff original, that now has a/c (didnt new), I verified the vin, as I still have documentation. I contacted both sellers, and of course, they were told it was "correct" when they got it. So, I guess you can justify doing anything to a car, in the name of preserving a classic. Maybe I'm a pessimist, at the end of the day, people will do anything for money.
I know what you mean.....I sold my driver 72 GS350. Guy immediately painted it red (was seamist green) and put it up for sale a few years later claiming 50 some thousand orig miles, little old lady owned, etc. When I had it I rolled it over 100K. I confronted the guy with a VA insp slip and he told me to get lost. I wish the old cars had the extra digit like the new cars! Bruce
Happens All the Time! The thing several of you have stated happens all the time. I wonder how many of these cars we see on these TV auctions are real. Corvettes are the worse. I used to sell blocks, heads, manifolds, etc. to a guy that specialized in supplying engines to Corvette restorers. He paid top dollar for 283, 327, and 427 parts and a bonus of certain dates. All of these engines went into "matching numbers" Vettes. That is why I would never pay top dollar for any of these cars unless I could follow up on the vehicle and paperwork. Now, a friend has a 66 Vette with 20,000 miles that I would pay well for it if he would sell because I know it from the first day he got it new. Same with a friends 70 Chevelle LS 6 car that I have worked on and know to be "right". That's why I would as soon have a rebodied car or one with a different engine, as pay high dollar for something that is not real or can't be proven. Remember, buyer BEWARE! Jim N.
I used to work in corvettes and it is almost as bad as it seems. For isntance: There are more 1957 Fuel injected cars now than were actually produced. In 1957 GM hadn't started using trim tags, so the only way to determine what the car had was to strip it and look for fuelie specific parts. Eventually someone will use a fuelie part on a non fuelie car and then 30 years down the road the restorer will find it, declare a fuelie car and build tha car aroud that. Since there are no trim tags who is to say it wasn't a fuelie car. Well, documentation in the Corvette hobby is supremely important. Documentation can add a minimum of $10K to the price of any rare corvette. It has gotten to the point where cars are no longer "made" at bloomington but how much paperwork you can go back and get to show the car was what it is. Survivors almost always ave paperwork, bloomington gold cars sometimes do. If you ask any 1957 corvette fuelie owner is the car an original fuelie he will always respond it's original - If you ask him to prove that is where the men get seperated from the boys. I have to admit I use the 57 corvette example because I resotred one for my mother a few years ago. The car's body from the firewall back was 1/2 the original 1957 body which was patched with cardboard, and 1/2 a 1959 corvette body (you couldn't tell except from underneath). I had to find and piece together an entire 1957 body out of original fibreglass peices (actually the body man did most of the hard work). The car happened to be a fuelie car, but let me tell you how I figured it out. When I bought the car it had been an ex drag car (complete with straight front axle and tilt front end). My father remembered the car and was the first to tell me he remembered it being a fuel car - then he pulled out his old drag photos and there it was in the background, with a hilborn unit. In the sparce remains of the car I managed to find a few origial fuelie pieces including the coveted throttle rod and air box. I then traced back five owners (three of them told me it was a fuelie car) and managed to come up with some documentation (like the owners manual), but no original bill of sale. I finally found out that one of the owners had sold the original fuelinjection unit to a local corvette restorer and was able to talk to him and he confirmed that my car was a fuelie car. SO what do I have, aside from a notrizied statement from previous owners a stil undocumented fuelie car. If peope ask me if it wa fuelie from the factory I can say yes because I did the leg work to find out. I imagine if you wnet to as great a lengths for buicks as i did for this corvette you could probably say it's an original GS. If you have paperwork the corresponds to the numbers - even better. Now I think I shoudl point out there are two definitions of the word original being thrown around here: 1) original GS - It was a GS from the factory, basically not a clone 2) Original GS - the car is largely untouched, all or most of the components ti came from the factory with are still in place. With a really rusty car you can still always claim #1. With a rebody, unless every nut and bolt except the body is still in place from the factory, you can rarely claim #2.
Resto Sorry to jump in since I'm new here but couldn't help but do it. I'm kinda out of my league on the boat I bought and definately won't come out on it. The pics make me feel a bit better about my ebay purchase on the Lesabre ragtop (literally). I am one of the camaro guys, actually can hold my own on 2nd gen info. I'm not use to working on rust but learning now. You got my respect saving it. If you fix it correctly, it is a revived survivor. It's alot easier working on camaros, you can about build one without the car. If you think it's worth the work, then it is. As rare as it is they won't be making anymore so it can't reproduce. Preservation. True I hate to see a falsely misrepresented car, like the guy who puts a Z28 emblem on the side and thinks that makes it a Z or the split bumpers on and leaves the bannanna lights it it's done to falsely misrepresent it but if for preference thats ok. It's more a passion, can't be the money. I have kept everything lately I've worked on. Told my wife I was going to sell the boat when I'm done but she didn't believe it, think adding another garage gave it away. :3gears:
My question is "Why" bother swapping the tags? If you want a Stage 1 convertible, put "Stage 1" badges on the fenders and leave the tags to die on the rusty car. What is gained by "re-tagging" a car? The car is not saved, only the tags are now 1 of 81. Where do I draw the line on restoration,? at re-tagging and re-stamping. If a person is that much of a purist, then having a re-tagged car should make them sick. I don't know how to answer the question if you replace all of the sheetmetal, frame, glass etc.. is the car still 1 of 81? o No: I would tend to say yes, but restored. Removing the tags is like removing the cars soul. I am just as impressed by a nicely made, clean, "non re-tagged clone" as I am an factory GS as long as it is represented as such. Someday I hope to build a GSX clone (with Skylark tags) becuase I love the way they look and I will never be able to afford a real one. My question still is, Why bother, what is gained? :beer
