Realistic Values.

[stangtjk]

What are these trucks worth... Broad question I know, looking for more of discussion than a direct answer.

I bought a 72 that "moved" under its own power and the body didn't look too terrible for $5500 last year.. Everyone loves pictures so below is how I bought it...I definitely don't think I got a steal but didn't get shafted either so I'll say it was fair value for a restoration candidate.

Ever since I bought mine I've been watching eBay pretty closely and there doesn't seam to be much consistency in prices. From what I gather a pretty decent driver (older/amateur resto or a survivor that is still decent) will set you back $12-16K. Frame off restos look to be in the $25-35K.

One blazer I saw go though really surprised me though. It sold for around $7k in its original ocre color then 3 months later it turned back up from another seller with some fresh dark grey metallic paint and the guy tried to start the bidding at like $30K. No one bid of course and the price dropped and dropped until it finally sold for $19K. Couldn't believe it brought that much because there were so many obvious faults in the photos. Few days later it was relisted by the same seller (deal fell through I guess)... I'll be damned if it didn't sell for $19K again after that. It hasn't been listed again so who knows if the poor buyer actually went through with it.... All you gotta do is slap some shiny paint on one of these and it triples in value.... Wait gotta give a little more credit as they did also install some late model seats.

[stangtjk]

This is 19K?

I'm not trying to offend anyone but take a look at the where the wheel wells meet the bed and also where the roll cage meets the bed. The back 2-3 inches of the bed was also obviously rusted out and patched with a flat piece of sheet metal. And that's all right out in the open. Hard to tell whats been covered up. Bottom of the drivers door also looks like it sticking way out and the picture looking down the passengers side looks like the body is waving at you.... I guess I should feel encouraged by this..... I was thinking I'd have a $16K truck once I'm done with it but if this is all the effort it takes to get $19k I wasted too much time already haha. Shiny paint and wheels work miracles I guess.

[dubds10]

Lots of guys out there buy these trucks and get "taken" pretty good by shady flippers. Unfortunately lots don't really understand how much $ it takes to make them right and go in the red. Location also affects value along with TV shows & auctions lol

Here are a couple in the PNW which have been up for awhile as they used to go for $3-4k all day long but guys are asking $5-7k now for projects. I'd sooner buy a done one for $10-15k vs a $5k rust bucket though.

https://seattle.craigslist.org/sno/cto/6021248506.html

https://seattle.craigslist.org/skc/cto/6012320894.html

[Lieferson]

I saw that yellow one for sale down in Oregon about a year ago. It was in descent shape and a fair asking price. Almost bought it for the double wall with sliding side windows! That definitely has to be one of the more half-assed flips i have ever seen though. I am hoping that every deal he has falls through once the buyer actually sees what kind condition the truck is really in... the grey one for 5500 is in about the same condition mine was when i bought it up here in Seattle just a few years ago... I only paid 2,000$ and i drove it 50 miles home. I am glad values are going up but some people need a reality check!


Nice Rig by the way. Much better starting point than most of us!

[dubds10]

Yeah the last K5 I bought was $1800 from southwest WA & drove it 4hrs back home to BC. It needed a bit of rust repair, but already had some completed and wasn't a rust bucket like some of the ones I see out there. You can still find partially restored ones for $5-7k needing very little work but the prices have gone up due to social media more so than inflation or demand, at least from what I see. Otherwise ever K5 would sell asap if the demand was as high as some guys believe.

[chevy72blu]

I think a few things are at play here.

First and foremost is recency bias. For the past 10 years with a crappy economy, the price of "luxury" items like car projects fell through the floor. I was shocked at how cheap even very desirable project cars (chevelle, camaro, GTO, etc) were selling for locally a few years ago. The economy is now improving, salaries are raising (at least according to the news), which is raising the price of these trucks.

They also aren't getting any newer. Every year we lose more and more to rot and being parted out/scrapped. As rarity increases, so will price.

Barrett Jackson and other auctions on TV has led everyone to believe that their rusted out 250 I6 3OTT base model is made of pure gold. That being said, a lot these trucks have been parted out and been donors for rarer/better optioned trucks. Those will command higher prices, while eliminating the lower cost, lower optioned trucks which are cheaper to get into.

Have a beat up truck thats in bare primer? Put on a set of red steelies, and now its a "rat rod".

And last but not least, things are worth what someone is willing to pay. I wouldnt pay $19k for that blazer, but if someone wants to, more power to you. Caveat emptor

[vancelot69]

Originally Posted by chevy72blu

I think a few things are at play here.

First and foremost is recency bias. For the past 10 years with a crappy economy, the price of "luxury" items like car projects fell through the floor. I was shocked at how cheap even very desirable project cars (chevelle, camaro, GTO, etc) were selling for locally a few years ago. The economy is now improving, salaries are raising (at least according to the news), which is raising the price of these trucks.

They also aren't getting any newer. Every year we lose more and more to rot and being parted out/scrapped. As rarity increases, so will price.

Barrett Jackson and other auctions on TV has led everyone to believe that their rusted out 250 I6 3OTT base model is made of pure gold. That being said, a lot these trucks have been parted out and been donors for rarer/better optioned trucks. Those will command higher prices, while eliminating the lower cost, lower optioned trucks which are cheaper to get into.

Have a beat up truck thats in bare primer? Put on a set of red steelies, and now its a "rat rod".

And last but not least, things are worth what someone is willing to pay. I wouldnt pay $19k for that blazer, but if someone wants to, more power to you. Caveat emptor

+1 +1 +1

I agree whole heartedly that a major contributor to prices going up, on anything, not just K5s, is people watching Barrett-Jackson and thinking their rust bucket is a gold mine, and watching shows like Fast 'n Loud and thinking they can buy a vehicle, wash it, and flip it for 3x just like they do on that show.

I also agree with another sentiment that I have heard put "there is an ass for every seat", which is both good and bad at the same time because someone will buy that $19k truck, which is good for the seller, but bad for the rest of us who aren't independently wealthy.

I want to relay my own story too, if you don't mind:
When I bought my Jimmy in April of 2014, I got it from a guy in Pittsburgh, sight unseen except for the pics on craigslist, who was asking $4000 for it, but I was able to get it for $2500. When it got delivered, the rust was significantly worse than the pics indicated, but, similar to what stangtjk said in the original post, I didn't feel I got robbed. However, the longer I had it, the more that thought changed, and after almost 3 years of ownership the rust turned out to be more than I could handle, so I just sold it last week for the same price I paid for it. In the course of my ownership, I replaced the battery tray, passenger side ball joints & tie rod end, and almost the entire fuel system except for the metal line on the frame and carburetor. I will admit that when I first started to put it out there I was a victim of thinking I was sitting on a gold mine because I had put $6000 in chalk on the back window. Didn't get any bites at that price except for one troll asking what I was on. So I reduced asking price to $3000 obo, and, as mentioned, got $2500 for it. I had the $3000 on the back window for over a year, but no real bites, and the bites I did get backed out once they saw all the rust + the mechanical issues it had. I put it on FB and had similar results, I even told one guy I would take as little as $1500 for it, for a little over a week before I put it on craigslist and sold it the next day.

The pics in this post are some shots from the guy I bought it from, I'll post some pics I posted when I was trying to sell it next.

EDIT: it just dawned on me that posting pics of the truck how I sold it is not in the spirit of this thread, so I decided not to do it, and I can't delete some of the pics on this post to put one or two in. If stangtjk wants to see more pics, I will post them up. Sorry for the hijack.

[stangtjk]

Wouldn't consider that a hijack. Any story involving price is relevant. The more stories we get like this helps paint a better picture of whats reasonable although I have a feeling that the more I see the more I'll feel like I got taken on mine lol.

[4oldcars]

I have been surprised at the prices on the Broncos compared to the Blazers.

[hemi43]

Originally Posted by 4oldcars

I have been surprised at the prices on the Broncos compared to the Blazers.

I used to like those little Broncos, but now it seems like they are popping up everywhere. I attended SEMA a couple years ago, and there must have been at least 20 on display in one form or another. I'm sure the reason is because the Bronco shell is now available aftermarket, and probably not one there was an original. I sure hope no one ever re-pops a complete Blazer body, because the main reason I like them so much is because there are so few around.

[stangtjk]

Originally Posted by hemi43

I used to like those little Broncos, but now it seems like they are popping up everywhere. I attended SEMA a couple years ago, and there must have been at least 20 on display in one form or another. I'm sure the reason is because the Bronco shell is now available aftermarket, and probably not one there was an original. I sure hope no one ever re-pops a complete Blazer body, because the main reason I like them so much is because there are so few around.

Who's selling the bronco shells? I an article years ago that dynacorn was coming out with one but I didn't think anything ever came of it.

[LuckyScott]

Dennis carpenter is the company in North Carolina that makes a brand new bronco body

[dubds10]

The Bronco prices have always been higher than the K5s out here in the PNW at least. You'd pay double the price for a Bronco is worse shape than a K5 lol Seems the prices had started to drop a bit though on them this past year from the ones I've seen, so not sure if they peaked already or if there's any room left in them.

[vancelot69]

Oh, something else I thought of. When I bought mine, I had some cash burning a hole in my pocket, and I was afraid that vehicles I was interested in, others were also interested in and it would get sold out from under me if I lollygagged around. So I pulled the trigger on the one I bought probably quicker than I should have, but like you, I never felt I got robbed until later on. I started noticing a lot of decent 1st gens and square bodies around the $5k range, even closer to where I live (i.e. not in the rust belt) on FB and craigslist, and I started saying to myself that I should have waited. I'm sitting on some cash now and am afraid to pull the trigger prematurely again heh..

Here are some of the pics I put on my ad trying to be as up front as possible, and someone still paid $2500 for it, but he was more equipped to de-rustify it than I am. So it also depends on your skill level, the skill level of your friends (i.e. if you have a friend who can do body work), and what your pain threshold is, how much is the cutoff point, how much can you spend getting on it after purchase before saying "too much". For me, I'm not a body guy, but I'm pretty mechanically capable, so I couldn't justify spending the money I would have had to on the mechanicals when I wouldn't be able to do anything about the rust cheaply. If the truck was relatively rust-free, I would have been more than happy to fix the mechanical issues it had.

[stangtjk]

I've seen a few truck in the $2-3k range near me and yours looks like it was in better shape than those. A lot of the ones in that price range don't seem to be worth the effort to bring them back.

I'm no expert but I can handle the rust... I thought mine was in better shape than it was. I knew the rocker boxes were shot but but it came with the replacements.... The floors also had some garbage patches on both sides in the corners. The rockers had been replaced though and unfortunately it was just a cover up of all the rust lurking below.

So this is what I had to work with on my $5500 truck.....

The first picture was from the first night I got it home, followed by the carnage after cutting out the rocker and rocker boxes. Both sides were ate up about the same.

[stangtjk]

I might post in the build section to show the transformation from then to now but that nastyness above has been rectified so don't feel too sorry for me haha.

[hemi43]

I hope you braced the cab before cutting out the torque boxes and rockers.

[stangtjk]

It's braced now but I didn't think of it at the time.... It caused some problems at first but was easy to overcome... As I was doing the driver's side i was having trouble fitting up the floor patch and thought it was just a poor reproduction. Then I noticed​ the top of the door rubbing the windshield frame and I realized what had happened.... At that point I was thinking to myself "damn I f***ed up" but I got it straightened back out by jacking up under the body just behind the firewall which allowed the windshield to roll forward. That corrected the door gap and made the floor patch fit much better. After put the bolts in at the bottom of the A pillar it held itself where it needed to be.

[Walter White]

Originally Posted by stangtjk

It's braced now but I didn't think of it at the time.... It caused some problems at first but was easy to overcome... As I was doing the driver's side i was having trouble fitting up the floor patch and thought it was just a poor reproduction. Then I noticed​ the top of the door rubbing the windshield frame and I realized what had happened.... At that point I was thinking to myself "damn I f***ed up" but I got it straightened back out by jacking up under the body just behind the firewall which allowed the windshield to roll forward. That corrected the door gap and made the floor patch fit much better. After put the bolts in at the bottom of the A pillar it held itself where it needed to be.

PO did the metal work on my 72. drivers side is right on--passenger side gaps are screwy and the hardtop has a little gap to the bedside near the door.

one of these days when i tear into my 70, I'm going to great pains to keep alignment. seems like it should be braced up with top on, new mounts and a lotta tack welding
.
good looking work and progress you have going

[stangtjk]

Getting off topic but based on my limited experience with these the bolts at the bottom of the A pillar can have a big affect on the alignment. Just the way every thing is assembled I'd bet you could pop the rocker panel off, take those 4 bolt out and tilt the A pillar right back to where it needs to be. Probably have to elongate the holes to bolt it back together and with the holes elongated I'd put a weld on it to make sure it doesn't shift back to where it was.