Back in '82...

[special-K]

...in the Auto Locator for South Central PA

[special-K]

one grainy picture and a short description was all we had to get worked up over

[special-K]

...

[special-K]

I bought these every week, the book not the vehicles. That was at least once I year

[Ol Blue K20]

Wow! I need a time machine.

[57taskforce]

There’s a few numbers I’m gonna call in the morning thanks for sharing Tim, pretty cool to see.

[cwcarpenter98]

I'd like to have that 65!

[davischevy]

I was broke in 1982.

[Grumpy old man]

Originally Posted by davischevy

I was broke in 1982.

Everyone was broke in 1982 , My son was born in 1982 so I was really broke . I was so broke I drove a 71 ford f250 4x4 .

[FleetsidePaul]

Originally Posted by davischevy

I was broke in 1982.

I'll join the broke in 82 club. I had a job but between rent and car payments there wasn't much left. I made $6.60 an hour and that was decent money back then.

Looking at those ads makes me feel better about how cheap I sold my stuff back then. But that's just what things went for.

[special-K]

'82 was a rough year for me, too. I had an accident in April and only had a '55 1st design to drive until I could get something else on the road. By fall I bought a '71 K/20 for $1,000. It had miss matched tires, needed brake work, and a broken stub axle. By '83 I had that truck set up to start into the aluminum siding business. I started making over $200 a week that winter!

[special-K]

I'll show more later. I came across a box of old magazines with this auto Locator laying on top. These were all from before '87 when I bought the house.

[tutone]

Originally Posted by davischevy

I was broke in 1982.

Tell me about it. And to top that off, I was driving a wore out VW beetle.

[CG]

I wish I had a do over for 79-82

[special-K]

These prices tend to run a bit high. Maryland had little good stuff and in PA everybody was a used car salesman. Our clean late-model trade-ins get swooped up by wholesalers from other regions and they come back as classics. Figure most prices seen are sellers asking as much as they can. and you'd have to really look them over closely. Lots of Saturdays running out to look at trucks, most not as good as hoped. But there were also exceptionally well kept vehicles out of PA

[72c20customcamper]

On some of the older 60s vehicles the prices were good . I was doing well in 82 bought my first house for 58 k I sold it 20 years later because the taxes were too high for 172k same house now is about 800k+ in lower Westchester county . Besides the point but I was driving a new 81 Buick Lesabre . Was a newlywed and she had a good job too .

[special-K]

'60s vehicle prices were still great. '50s, too, if they didn't already have money put into them. For $2-$3k you could have a cool ride. I could buy at least one old ride a year. This was the year I met my former wife who had two children. I was 27. By '83 I bought her a '55 Chevy Wagon and I bought a '71 Blazer to haul the kids. By '84 I got her a '63 Riviera and got myself a big block short bed '78.

My helper when I first started my own work in '83 was able to own a '70 GTO convertible, a '72 GMC C2500, and a '71 Sportster.

In '82, after I wrecked my truck I first bought a '69 K/10 that I wish I had today. It was a Custom Camper with all the goodies and in excellent original condition. I bought it for $800. I saw it put out to pasture behind a house I was working on and asked about it. Then a mechanic I knew decided to sell his '71 K/20 so I sold the K/10 to get that. I think I sold the '69 for $1,200 and that was big profit! Paid 40% of the price of the K/20

[tutone]

In Jan of 82, I was working full time at a grocery store, getting married in March and fixing up a house trailer. No money floating around. I had a decent 69 Chevelle SS and a 57 Chevy ht to sell to go on the trailer. I bought a January 1982, Hemmings Motor News to get an idea what to sell for.
I sold all my junk and bought the vw but kept the Hemmings. A nice Yenko Camaro was about 12,500 then and over 700,000 now. I see what I should have done.

[FleetsidePaul]

I bought my first house in 84 for $65,900 it is now worth around 600K. My second house I paid 175K for and it's 760K now. My third house was 179K and it's 1.1 million now. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I have no idea how people can afford this.

[special-K]

$10 an hour was way far off. When I left my last job before going into business I was making $7.25 per hr. and about a year overdue a $.50 raise. $8 an hr was top money around here. It was a full custom builder and we did it all from laying out to dig the whole to the house numbers. For each house was a job foreman. We were the lead carpenter with whatever crew got sent that day while we also ordered materials, scheduled subs, kept a schedule, meetings Wed after work, and oversaw any of the other crews the company sent in. Basically a superintendent/lead carpenter. That was the first (only) steady job with benefits and a company truck (at the shop) I ever had. I wrecked my truck while working there and was taking the '55 1st Design in to work daily until I got another truck together

[GOPAPA]

The last months of 1981 and into 1982 I had to travel to get work ,, bought a truck and camper on payments and stayed in a gravel pit where RV parking was the only place near the job at Elma Washington ,,

A Company named Morrison -Knudsen was building a Nuclear Plant there ,, I was a Carpenter Forman and got $16.72 @hr.. plus .75 cents towards vacation .. I have a book that the wife typed up for me and it has every job I ever had of working for companies ,, Starting with $3.00 @ thousand in a two man sawmill , I was 17 years old then ..and my last job was number 68 and I retired .. building a grade school in Astoria Oregon $23.78 @ hour.. that was 4-29-02

[Steeveedee]

In '82 I was making about $10/hour as a piecework mechanic. Base of $4.25/hour and commission. By then I was married, so getting about $460/month from the GI Bill while in school. Didn't miss that money in the summer, as I worked full time. I also did mechanic work on the side and flipped Chevy Vegas. Made mint on those things.

[Ironhorse]

Tim, thanks for posting those old car / truck sales magazines. Don't we wish we had invested more heavily in classic and muscle cars & trucks back then!
I bought my '57 2 dr. from a similar style magazine for $500 and drove it home. All the sale ad said was " '57 Chevy - 2 dr. - V8 - 4 spd. $500 " This was in 1975.

Have a couple printer copies of a local car dealership newspaper ads from the early 60s. Framed and hanging in my shop. Now there is some real eye popping prices also. Will try and get a couple pics tomorrow and post them up. Hope they come out well.


I also remember my wife and I wanted to build a new house on an acre of property just inside city limits. Wanted to borrow $125K for a split level in ground walk out. Lowest interest rate we could find at the time was 14 3/4 % !!! Making $12 an hour just couldn't swing that amount.

[Rich84]

The year I graduated from high school. I was making $3.30 an hour at Bradlees department store. I bought my first car a 1970 Lemans sport convertible. Only convertible I ever owned.

[Boog]

We could sure swing some of those prices now days.