1970 Shelby GT500

[Juggs]

hello everybody, im new here so please excuse me if i make some newbie mistakes. anyways i'd like to get some help from you guys on my problem. my dad owns a 1970 GT500. I love her like shes mine tho and i hope that one day she will be all mine. heres where my problems start tho. my dad is the second owner of this car. its pretty much all original. 54,000 miles on it. its grabber blue, automatic (i wish it was a 4 speed but its kinda crazy even having a car like this), white interior its pretty cool lookin. anyways my dad put it into storage probably 12 years ago. it ran good when we put it away but he stored it in a barn with a dirt floor and no tarp on it. we took it out of storage 2 years ago and brought it home, somebody had opened one of the back windows and a coon got in and ate up all the interior pretty much, the paints shot, and it could use a lot of TLC. it needs a little body work and probably an engine and trans overhaul and all kinds of things. it has no brakes right now pretty much. basically its gonna need a frame off to get her lookin good again. my dad and i love this car and he let me drive it around the block once (yes in the bad condition its in right now but it still drives and runs at least haha) and he was really happy to see me driving it. i want to get it restored and so does he...problem is we dont have any money to do that sort of thing. we buy parts here and there for it but he wants to do all the work ourselves which i think would be cool but both of us are too busy to do that sort of thing and so i want to take it to somebody to have it fixed up sometime. what are your guy's opinions on that matter? we have people stopping over all the time trying to buy it from us but my dad wont sell it and i dont want him to either. i know we cant afford to have it fixed for a while but it has tons of sedimental value for the both of us. some of my best memories as a child were sitting in the passenger side and being pushed back into the seat as he put the pedal down. most people think we should just sell it but i want to fix it one day. what would you guys do if you know you wouldnt be able to fix a car like that for a long time but you dont want to get rid of it? my dad and i are torn on what to do. i dont know i guess what im asking is if any of you were in our situation what would you do?

[johnnynumfiv]

I would sell it, restorations cost a lot of money even if you do it yourself. My restorations have stalled many times because I didn't have any money to buy stuff for it, and it would just cost a lot more if you had someone do it. So I would sell it, buy an earlier mustang that is in good condition, (67,68,69) and have fun with that.

[drakkie]

if you want to keep it, saving up a lot of money is the best advise ai can give...

[Quiggs]

Store it properly until one or both of you can afford and have the time to restore it right.

[Juggs]

yeah thanks guys we want to avoid selling it if possible but if thats what it comes down to we might just have to. i dont know tho we'll prob just keep her for a while and see what we can do to her this summer. ill post a picture of her from back in the day for you all to look at lol


another reason we kind of want to avoid selling it is because my dads owned a couple shelby's over the years and he ended up selling all those one and kinda misses them now. he actually had a 68 GT500KR convertable and the 1970 we have now at the same time. he sold the KR convertable right around the time i was born. man i wish he would have held onto that car. hes trying to save at least one good car hes had

[Manik]

Danm you have a nice car there. I agree with Quiggs, you should wait untill you and your father have enough money to restore it. I love that car.

[forza_autodelta]

If you don't have money enough,think about another car,it will be a shame since shelby are quite rare and have a nice look

[CdocZ]

Luuuuuuucky bastard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[sandwich]

Here's my advice to you:

Shelby's fetch quite a bit of money, even in poor condition. You could probably expect <10000 for it, if the body is solid. Rust is another issue, but mechanicals and interior can be replaced. The problem is, stuff like that costs money, and in a genuine Shelby it'll cost quite a bit. You don't want to replace that interior with just anything do you? Nor the engine, it's gotta be shelby parts or similar, and that costs more money, which you don't have.

Therefore, I would say sell it. You can take the money you earn from the sale of that car and buy another car, whether it be a similar mustang, or anything else, and spend time with just you and your father fixing it up. Believe me, when that car is finished, and your blood sweat and tears are mixed in the the paint and engine oil, you'll care way more about it than you would about this car. In the end, the new car may not be worth as much, or as fast, but the experience will be worth it in the end.

Paying somebody else to restore it will cost twice as much as all the parts plus all the food you eat plus all the time you spend on the car instead of studying. My vote, post the shelby on Ebay, see what you can get for it. Stash the money you save in a bank account or elsewhere, and when you and your father have a little bit more time, you can pick out a new car and spend the time fixing that up.

You'd be surprised at what you can get with a little bit of money, just wait until the right car comes along. If you absolutely have resolved not to sell it, then store the car someplace safe until you can begin fixing it up. If the car is in fair, driving condition, replace what you need to make it a good driver, and use it as a daily driver, saving all the money you can to invest it back into the car. Over time, it'll start to become a lot nicer, and you'll never forget about it, as you'll be driving it everyday.

It happened to me, when I got my audi. The car now sits at home, waiting for a cyllinder head repair, and I've just kind of forgotten about it. When I first got it, all I wanted to do was spend everything I could on making it better...now I just want it back on the road, or in somebody else's garage. Try not to forget what the car could be like, and someday, it'll be restored.

[ashes2ashes]

I haven't been on in a while BUT as long as you guys don't actaully need the extra cash, why sell the car? I f it were me, I would save up and restore it.. However if you guys need the money for other things then sell it, but if not, then keep it..andsave up lots of money...

[Juggs]

yeah..i guess we probably should sell it but it just holds so much sentimental value with my dad and i that i dont think we could ever bear to part with it. we've been offered 17 grand for it a couple times in the condition its in right now. my dad was tempted but didnt do it. hes still salty about gettin rid of his KR like i said earlier haha...maybe one of you dudes overseas would wanna trade us for a skyline GTR or somethin haha. yeah right..i wish. i dunno..i think this summer i am going to bring it over to our friends house and start fixing it ourselves, at least do as much to it as we can. all we really want is a nice car that we dont have to worry about driving every so often. we dont want a super nice restoration where its going to be worth 100 grand plus...just a decent restoration where it will look nice and we can show it but prob not win any major awards with it you know what i mean?

[greg.harvey]

What a shame!

Like everyone says though, restoration is something you do for love, not for money! You won't see any change from a restoration job, even if you ended up selling an immaculate Shelby. That said, if the car has a lot of sentimental value and you think one day you will be able to restore it, in your position I'd be tempted to keep it. I'm a sucker for old cars. I swear I'm going to need to buy a car park the way I'm going ... I never sell them! It's just too painful!

[Juggs]

we're not selling it and we've already begun the restoration process. this was my first thread i ever posted here. thanks for bringin it back.

[greg.harvey]

Hehe ... nice! Glad to hear it!

A pleasure.

["Clevor" Angel]

IF YOU SELL IT YOU WILL REGRET IT! The prices are going through the roof on shelby's. My dad also had a KR convertable, red, white tiop, Saddle interior(NOT TAN), automatic, and the standard kelsey hayes mags, he sold that years ago though, he also had a 67 GT350, a 67 GT500, and a 69 GT350, all of which he sold long ago unfortunately. As soon as you sell it, you'll find you could've sold it for almost half again as much. Bad condition 70 shelby's bring 30-80,000 US but restored it'll bring twice that. They didn't even make 70 shelby's they were all leftover 69's and so that leaves about 795 or so 1970 shelby's, making your GT500 apart of the rarest year for the 500. Don't sell it unless you absolutely have to. I say do what you can when you can, even if it takes 7 or 10 years to complete, I say restore it yourselves. New cars and supercars are cool but building one from the ground up is MUCH MORE SATISFYING than just buying it or paying someone else to do it. Contrary to popular belief shelby parts do not cost an arm and a leg. Thats only ORIGIONAL parts like the factory 10 spoke aluminium wheels and the tik wood steering wheel, neither of which were offered on your car, those fiberglass fenders and hood will be expensive IF you have to replace them, you'd be surprised what can be saved. Parts for the 428 cobra jet are alittle pricey but other than that you'll be ok price wise. I'd say, if there is bad rust, if you have to replace the fenders, if you have to replace the floors, if you have numerous engine problems, you'll be spending about 10-15k for a pretty driver. If you want a concourse totally perfect, non-driver, MCA gold car then you'll spend over 100,000. Final thought: DON'T SELL KEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!