Help me understand BAT

In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :

As a reminder to all, Robbie is approaching 600 hours in the F-Dat, and the time accounting there is probably better than any shop I've seen.   1000+ hours for this truck is totally plausible to me

In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :

Well stated. 

Ranting against the wealthy is energy that would be better spent joining them. The pie is not a finite resource. Them having a bigger piece doesn't mean you can't go get yours. Getting there is not easy, but anyone with the drive and gumption can do it. 

https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/how-people-get-rich-paths-to-wealth

Edit: As to the truck, it's not my cup of tea. Looks like a $15k truck as far as I'm concerned. If they had bothered to paint it and I wouldn't pay that for it. I'm super happy that the seller got that much for it. I'm also super happy that the buyer could afford to pay the price. 

Everyone thinks they can restore a car themselves.

Until they try to restore a car themselves.

The MGTD I'm prepping for inspection right now is proof of that. This "restored" car is going to need a few thousand dollars in parts and quite a few hours just to make it a functioning car with everything it needs to pass a safety inspection, not actually make the car any nicer.

It's only ever going to be a daily driver, it would have to come completely apart and be done over if it were to be restored properly.

I just got done pulling the aluminum stove wire and wire nuts out of it yesterday. New wiring harness arrives this week.

Even the damn door hinges are installed upside down.

I think I would choose this one given a choice.

https://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/dealer/ford/f250/2505812.html

Steve_Jones said:

ccrunner said:

Thank you twentyover... The Volvo did much, much better than I ever thought it would.. Also bonus in that the new owner is truly a 'car guy' and plans to drive it and use it as intended.. A good outcome for sure..

You mean the $110k Volvo P1800? Did you ask him where he got his money? Apparently he must be a trust fund kid with more money than brains because no "normal" person would spend $100k on one of those.....

It's getting easier and easier to tell who once may have been accused as having "more money than brains".   :-)

In reply to A 401 CJ :

Lol, I never have. I just don't bitch about what other people spend their money on and somehow think it's not fair that they can and others can't. Some people have more than me, some have less, I'm happy with what I have and if I wanted more, it's up to me to figure it out. 

Having more money than brains doesn't always mean you're wealthy.......................yes you Mr I'm two payments behind and bought wheels for the car with my tax return........................two weeks before it got repossessed. 

Let's get back to talking about cool old trucks.

In reply to dculberson :

Before the I got the camper van I used older Ford F-series pick ups as my tow vehicles; a 68 F100 & a 74 F350, I look now and the prices have gone up quite a bit.

Ok, here's a good example of where all those hours come from.

I'm switching the door hinges on this MG side for side to put them right way up, so the pins don't fall out driving down the road.

16 bolts, should be simple, no?

I'm three hours in and I've done two of the hinges.  I'm using air / cordless tools too.

Why so long?

Because I've had to cut and extract several bolts the previous person bent, galled or stripped when these doors were installed (incorrectly) the last time.

It's not like unreality T.V. where everything just goes together like it did on the assembly line. I have to spend a lot of time fixing things just to be able to remove them from the car.

In reply to ShawnG :

This is why we have a race to the bottom.

No one wants to pay what quality work actually costs.

But they damn sure don't mind bitching about the quality of cheap. 

There is certainly a time and place for cheap, but there is also a time to break out the checkbook and write the big checks. 

In reply to Toyman01 + Sized and :

For sure. We're fortunate that our customers appreciate quality work. 

So, I'm done the door hinge swap. 3.25 hours to move four door hinges that should never have needed to be moved in the first place.

3/4 of that was unberkeleying someone elses work so I could do the job in the first place.

Years ago my fabricator beefed up the frame on my road race bike (circa 1987), he charged me $600 and my friends thought it was outrageous. A few years later I sold the bike to the then national champ, who immediately asked who did the frame because it was the best chassis he'd ever ridden.......go figure.

It's worth every penny to pay someone who can do the job right the first time.

Actually thinking about jobs I've done lately.. it's amazing how a little thing can derail and cost hours of time if you're doing it "right." I was closing up the Chevy Volt battery pack I worked on, and the bolts were all giving me trouble, acting tight before they bottomed out. I finally pulled all of them out and ran a tap through to chase the threads on 22 bolt holes. Yes it took time (especially as I couldn't use the tap handle due to clearance issues) but number of broken bolts: 0. Number of stripped holes: 0. The pack will come back apart easily for the next person and should go back together again easily. But apparent increas in value: 0.

All you guys arguing about hours this and labor that and parts this- you are missing the point. The point is WHY would someone want to spend that much money on that truck. But it's their money, they can spend it on wherever they want. Good for the seller finding a wiling sucker, er, buyer. 

In reply to Boost_Crazy :

I find the price completely absurd but I also get how the price could have gotten there.

People by watches that cost more than this truck did, I don't get that either.

Because they want to for whatever reason.

I'm amazed by the number of people who don't seem to understand that the world may not think exactly the same way they do.

I don't understand why people piss away money on boats or kit cars or Mustangs but they do. I also don't care because it's not my money.

Hell, some people have spent more than that on booze and drugs over the course of their lives. 

How much would one of Keith's v8 ND Miata cost to buy already done?

Now, how much do yall think it would cost to do it yourself? 

I wonder if y'all would be calling a buyer of such car a sucker or braindead of they paid $100k for it? Or is that different? 

I see this as either a "Holey crap this is my dream car and I can have it NOW and I have the money" buy, or an attempt to goose the market up.

It reminds me a bit of the Greenbrier that sold for 80 grand at auction (or something absurd, probably a 20 grand car at most realistically).  No one understands that either.  I suspect they got a bit confused with the VW van market. I know someone with a much nicer Greenbrier then the auction one, but I suspect he might get 30 for it?

Personally,  I don't see the value in the truck for the cost.  Someone did.  That's it. 

I'm curious that $100/hr is reasonable for this.   Is that charged based on each person, or that it spends 800 working hours in a spot, with all hands working on it at once?

$100/hr working 40 weeks is $160k/year.   And I'm betting that the workers are not making anywhere near that.  And it's also quite a bit more than a large portion of the public- which isn't to say that it's fair or not, but it seems dubious that anyone who worked on the truck earned anywhere near that.  The people who build the modern version of that don't come close to earning that much.

Do things take time to rebuild- sure, I don't doubt that.  But in theory, these workers are considerably more skilled than I am at doing this work, so it *should* take them substantially less time to do the work than I do (which is one reason people pay for work anyway).  So basing the time to do this on *me* would be very incorrect (and by me, I mean anyone here who does their own work and isn't a pro).  Based on the work from this board, that would be the absolute upper limit of time- and if they took longer to do the same thing, I would question the skill of the company in the first place.

$100k is more than I would have paid for a professional restoration of my '59 Giulietta Spider.  That's where I have the serious issue.  And I know most of the time would have been repairing the body, which wasn't done on this vehicle.  The truck is less complex, and far less rare- with suppliers of parts easy to find.  And, according to the description, less work was done than what would have been done on my car.

Justify it all you want- but I just can't see that much time and money spent on that truck, when compared to known full restoration prices of more complex and rare cars.

In reply to alfadriver :

Have you priced a mechanics hourly rate lately? Sure they don't make $100/hr take home but the shop charges $100+ per hour. Any moderately skilled and reputable shop is charging that. And that's per worker. 

In reply to alfadriver :

By the time you pay the employees, the workers comp, liability, employee taxes, holiday, vacation and sick leave, and countless other costs involved with employing a person, $100/hr is almost too cheap. Dont forget the building they are working in, all the sop tools and consumables. Those come out of that $100/hr as well.

I charge $130 an hour and sometimes that isn't enough. 

Fly by night prices get you fly by night quality. See Shawn's post above. 

Is the truck worth that kind of expense? Not to me, but it was to someone and that's all that really matters.

What's the cost to get a new, off the lot, truck? 

Regular cab, long box, 4x4, 3/4 ton with a Gas engine.

I get it to being $57,830 CAD for a 2022 F250 4x4 with the 6.2L gas in Atlas Blue (chosen for closest similarity to the 67). The only 'options' I chose were mudflaps and wheel well liners ($650 total), still would need a lift kit to have the same visual presence, budget maybe $10,000 for lift, wheels, tires and installation of everything and its still about 50% less than the 67. Is the 67 50% cooler than the 22? That's subjective to answer, and the buyer seems to have felt that way.