A lot of people would love to buy a classic car, but they always seem to think that classic means cheap, they just don’t understand that you get what you pay for, if your looking for a car to restore, and you don’t want to start with a junk yard special, you’d better save up some cash. This is not the 1970′s, or the 1980′s prices of classic cars go up every year, like clock work, it’s not that same thing as your new car that loses value as soon as you drive it off of the lot, this is all just a matter of thinking about it in a logical way, you get what you pay for. If you want to replace floor boards, rocker panels, and trunk floors, it may be possible to locate that $3,500 classic car that you long for, but if you plan on doing the work yourself, and learning how to to a restoration, you may want to start with a fairly solid car. What I mean by solid is a car that you don’t have to replace the floor boards, rocker panels, quarter panels, and trunk floors on, a car that survived the storm, and didn’t see a lot of salt in it’s day, for the pleasure of finding such a car, you should plan to spend no less then $10,000 to start. If you have more to spend, you will be able to start with a better car, if you start with the best car you can afford, you’ll be more likely to get the car all the way restored, and you’ll more the likely make it look like the pros did the work. If you start by spending as little as you can on the car, you will be spending all of the money that you thought you saved to restore the car, you will with out a doubt be buying a lot more parts for it, and the chances that you’ll end up letting a shop finish it for you are great. Wouldn’t you rather start with a car that you’ll be able to finish for sure, I realize that any car will take a lot of time to restore, but at least you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you did all of the work yourself, you’ll be proud to show it off, and you’ll probably build another car. But if you have a bad experience while your restoring the car, it may never get finished, and you’ll end up hating the car, and it will never see another day on the road, so if you just spend the extra cash when you start the project you can save a lot of agony in the end. I love to hear stories about people who finished their cars, and they enjoyed building them because they didn’t go outside their comfort zone when they bought the car, take a good hard look at the car before you buy it, if you look at a certain part of the car, and in your head you say I don’t know. That is a good indication that the car is outside of your comfort zone, if your really good with the mechanical areas of a restoration, but weak in the body, electrical, and paint, you may want to focus on getting a car that is good in the areas that you comfortable repairing. All I’m saying here is to give it some thought, and don’t plan on buying a $3,500 dollar classic car, good $3,500 dollar classic cars are very hard to find, if do find one, it will be a stroke of luck, and it will not be in very good shape, just think before you buy, and you’ll love your car in the end.