My reasons for posting on this subject were to try to educate others in what I have learned, my points are as follows.
1, Gone are the days when you could step off a plane at LAX, drive around LA & find heaps of classic cars. When I first started travelling to the US, my first call was always with Karl at Mustang Country in Paramount CA. There were always good cars for sale there, especially fastbacks of all model years. That has now dried up & only this week I was talking to a friend of mine that turns over hundreds of Mustangs. His statement was that GOOD fastbacks are scarce (his definition of "good", as his standards, are way below mine !).
Even armed with GPS and have all the "cars for sale" publications, it is a daunting & time consuming task, running around trying to find cars. Yes, include a bit of looking on your vacation, but it becomes very old quickly if you are calling this a holiday. I am networked with people all over the USA that collect rare & desireable cars, however it still is a lot of work to get around to them all.
Remember these Mustangs can be up to 45 years old & you are searching for them in a country that is only slightly smaller than the "island" here downunder!
2, These cars were "consumer cars" never designed to last this long. The factory designed life was 5 to 7 years. That was why big model changes occurred every two years, because of the "baby boomer mentality", this does not happen now, models stay similar for longer, keeps tooling costs down. Cars were thrown together in the 60's through to the 80's, if you were lucky (or unlucky) enough to visit a production line in those days, as I was, you would have seen the predominant tool of choice was a hammer ! These cars were also cheap, especially during the mid 70's during the fuel crisis, they were worth nothing & treated that way. I have friends that purchased Shelby's, Cobra's & Boss cars for a few hundred dollars each in the mid 70's, so what would a generic Mustang been worth then? Ok, with the millions produced, some managed to get through in decent condition, but that, in my opinion, was a minority.
3, Salted roads were the norm in snow country from the 1940's , so that means most of the USA, & these cars being cheap modes of transportation were driven in those conditions. If not salted roads, then some cars lived in humid conditions, ie; the southern states of the US. Anyone having a car in coastal NSW, in that same time frame, will remember the problems of rust in humid areas.
4, Yes I agree with both USAtoAUS & Shermat, that examining each car is a must and it should be carried out by a professional as these two appear to be. Remember that the US has different standards to Australia when it comes to body & mechanical condition of cars & expectations of the buyer here in Australia are usually very high. You only have to search posts on this & other Australian forums to see that some expectations are too high. People do not consider what these vehicles may have been exposed to during their life. Example; our 69 Mach 1 was owned by a "Lady of Leisure" so that meant gloved hands when disassembling & cleaning !!! Joke
5, I have restored too many "basket cases", luckily most of them were very valuable cars. A couple come to mind, a 68 Shelby GT500, early build car, that required a complete floor, torque boxes & rails, huge job, but the owner became a good friend as he had been "caught" with the car after paying way too much for it. Luckily the market skyrocketed during the rebuild process & he was able to come out nicely with that car (he would not on sell while it was rusty). Another is the Paxton blown car in my photobucket site. The original car was so bad & had VIN issues (he purchased sight unseen), we actually renegotiated with the seller & was able to use the recovered money to buy another fastback body that you see in the photos. That is what I mean about having a "professional" look at a car, as all this could have been prevented.
6, I too, spent a lot of time in the Pacific Northwest, have many contacts up there, it is also where my Boss 302 comes from & it was a basket case as it had been driven hard, then left to rot. I have easily restored or repaired over a dozen cars from up that way, all were in advanced state of rust. That may be the exception, but in my mind, I don't think so.
