[magnetglue]

My grandmother bought it in 1968. Original baby blue paint (chipping and rusting a bit, but nothing major). The interior needs love, and it's been sitting in my garage for the last 7 years.

I want to restore it but not sure if it's worth it. If it costs more to fix than to sell it, I would like to sell it for parts, but it's been in my family for years and it's a sentimental piece.

Any idea where I can start and how much I'm probably going to spend? Sorry my question is so broad, if you have any questions I can be more specific.

Appreciate your help, thanks.

 

[tazdevil]

Our club has three cars in the Boise Roadster Show this weekend. One is a 1962 Lancer two door, slant six (seriously warmed up) four speed, and a 1968 Valiant Wagon, fully restored. The attention and praise these cars get from the crowd is overwhelming. I think it would be heresy to not restore a very important piece of the past. think of the sense of accomplishment when you show off such a fun project.

 

[valiant67]

it is extremely easy to spend more restoring a car than the car ends up being worth.
Here is what think your best bets are:
1) If you have a sentimental attachment to the car and want to keep it, fix it up and enjoy it.
2) If circumstances are that you can't keep the car, I'd see if you an get it running (assuming it is not currently) and sell it as is. You won't make money on a Valiant restoring and selling it.

I love Valiants, so I hope the car survives either way. But if there is perforation from the rust, that gets expensive really fast. And there aren't many reproduction parts for the early Valiant. If it cost $1k to fix the rust, $1k to paint the car, $1k to redo the interior and $500 to make it road worthy (all wild guesses without seeing the car), you've got $3500 in the car. If it's a 4 door, it would probably be a hard sale at $3500. A wagon, 2 door or convertible would bring more.

 

[CudaPete]

2 dr or 4dr? 6 cyl or 8 cyl?

 

[Bearhawke]

it is extremely easy to spend more restoring a car than the car ends up being worth.
Here is what think your best bets are:
1) If you have a sentimental attachment to the car and want to keep it, fix it up and enjoy it.
2) If circumstances are that you can't keep the car, I'd see if you an get it running (assuming it is not currently) and sell it as is. You won't make money on a Valiant restoring and selling it.

I love Valiants, so I hope the car survives either way. But if there is perforation from the rust, that gets expensive really fast. And there aren't many reproduction parts for the early Valiant. If it cost $1k to fix the rust, $1k to paint the car, $1k to redo the interior and $500 to make it road worthy (all wild guesses without seeing the car), you've got $3500 in the car. If it's a 4 door, it would probably be a hard sale at $3500. A wagon, 2 door or convertible would bring more.

The nastiest part by far would be rust repair if it means cutting out the rotted sections and welding in replacement metal IMHO.

 

[magnetglue]

Thanks for the responses.

It's a 2-door, slant 6 engine. 3-on-a-tree manual.

I love Valiants, so I hope the car survives either way. But if there is perforation from the rust, that gets expensive really fast. And there aren't many reproduction parts for the early Valiant. If it cost $1k to fix the rust, $1k to paint the car, $1k to redo the interior and $500 to make it road worthy (all wild guesses without seeing the car), you've got $3500 in the car. If it's a 4 door, it would probably be a hard sale at $3500. A wagon, 2 door or convertible would bring more.

Thanks valiant67 (love the name). The car used to give me constant trouble when I used to drive it (little things here and there), was thinking about selling it but like you said, the sentimental values always get in the way. If I can fix it up, that'll be the ultimate, if someone who loves Valiants as much as I do, that would be the second best.

 

[dana44]

If you look at it as a project of love, do a majority of the work yourself, labor is what costs more than the parts by three times easy. If you can do the work yourself except for the actual painting, by doing the prep yourself, you can have a really good paint job at a reasonable price, rebuilding the engine, you can save a lot of money yourself, interior removed from a car and delivered for recovering is a lot less than taking the car in and having it removed, done, and reinstalled, redoing brakes and suspension bushings is not difficult, time consuming is the hardest part. If the car was running and parked, a matter of cleaning, regasketing, painting, replacing some worn parts here and there is a lot less than one would expect, as long as you do it yourself.

If she has 4 doors, she is worth less, if she has a slant six she is worth less, but, if she has 2 doors she is worth more, and if she has 4 doors and a V8 she is worth more, but 2 doors and a V8 is worth the most, add a 4 speed and she is worth the most.

On the other hand, if what you are doing is trying to justify getting rid of the car, well, you won't recoup your money from the car for another 20 years if you are simply be taking it to someone else to do, it was a fairly common car, so sentimental value has to go a long way, and if you are asking these questions, it does mean something to you.

 

[CudaPete]

Sounds like a nice ride. Fix it up as a hobby because you like it, not as an investment. Parts are cheap and it won't get too expensive if you do the work yourself. It's a simple car so you should be able to do a lot yourself. Interior work can be a special skill set though so you may have to job this out or just install some seat covers that match the orignal color as close as possible.

 

[Bob Lincoln]

In my mind a slant-6 is worth more than a V-8, partly because they so rare now - everyone seems to be stuffing 340s or bigger in these cars; and partly because the 6 gave good power and economy. There are some tricks you can do with this engine to make the wheels break loose.

 

[dana44]

True about the slant six, but if not mistaken, it would have been the 273, right?

 

[covertopps]

As with anything it is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. The 66 Valiant is boxy and doesn't have a great reputation in the market for getting any kind of decent money. They pop up for sale quite a bit and generally the owners ask far more than what the market tends to want to pay. When you do a restoration the amount you will get back in a sale reflects how well the restoration is, and how advanced the restoration is. A stock (lookimg) full nut and bolt restoration of a 66 Valiant with new interior, underside, bumpers, brakes, paint body, emblems, dash.....can easily cost 4-10K and that is if you do most of the work yourself. There are some big ticket items that just cannot be avoided. Chrome, interior, paint and body, tires. Bumpers alone can be 500-1000 depending on condition and the shop you send them to. After everything is said and done the car is probably well under 10K in value in the market place. Down here in Florida I have seen these cars as resto mods and they have gotten some decent money (15-20) but going the resto mod route costs a lot of money. A nicely done cleaned up driver quality restoration is probably in the 4-5K range depending on color. Unfortunately the car falls into that inbetween catagory. It is past the pushbutton era cars that are popular, and not up to the Scamp era that is popular. A three on the tree slant six is about as basic as they get, and that also hurts the car in the market place. There will always be someone out there who will pay a good dollar for a restored 66 valint, you just have to find that one person and that's the hard part.

 

[magnetglue]

Thanks for all the comments. They are all very valuable. Especially the brutal ones, ha ha.

I am going to hand my car over to an enthusiast so that they can work on restoring the car.

The hardest part is letting it go.