Project Car Purgatory

First off, I’m obviously new around these parts, but been reading the magazine on and off for over 10 years. I finally bought a subscription a few months ago and wanted to join the only forum I actually care to read. With that out of the way, my real question is about project cars. I am searching for a little spiritual guidance. I know there are many people here with the same problems I have, too many projects combined with automotive ADD. My new job has ramped up to where I spend 2-4 months a year traveling, for 2-4 weeks at a time, and sometimes work 80 hour weeks while not traveling. While I don’t mind this schedule it has taken its toll on my project cars over the past 3 years. I have had no problem accumulating them but finishing them hasn’t been happening. I currently have 5 project cars in various states of drivability and now I have am going diving into home buying and will be moving 2 times in the next 4-8 months (now back into family home then to new house).

My timeline is the worst part. Starting back in December I was traveling for work for 3 weeks then I have been working 80 hours since then which ends tomorrow. I have two weeks to move out of the house I’m in. Stupid of me I know but it all snuck up on me so fast and I’ve been focused on work. So it’s down to sell off quickly or pay to store them and “finish” them later. I need to call but I think I found a storage place for $50 a month per car. I also need a storage unit to store all my tools, welders, car parts, and garage items during the moving process. There’s no way around at least some storage. I like all the cars and have interest in working on them more but I have no emotional attachment to them.

So, basic questions open to thoughts, criticism, confused looks, emoticons, flaming, etc. One, has anyone here made the switch from multiple back burner projects to single projects? How has that worked out? Do you go through withdrawals every time someone mentions craigslist? Has the value of your neighbors house increased? Do your friends no longer call you up asking what cars you have for sale for a friend of theirs?

Two, my main conundrum, is it better to just sever all connections with these cars and take what little cash I can get and buy something else after I get settled later this year?

I'd say you have too many. Pick a favorite one or two. Now take all the energy and put it into those.

EDIT: Welcome, BTW

Thanks for the response. I think that is what I kind of had in mind, just wanted to get some thoughts on project cars. One of my cars (SRT4 swapped 1g neon) is GRM appropriate and will likely end up in the GRM classifieds this weekend.

Also, just got into your show, Turn Left, good stuff.

If I had the answer I wouldn't have a bunch of unfinished project cars!

I say choose your battles. If there is a car you can't bare to part with don't. If they are cars that have no real purpose and you have no real attachment, cut them loose. If there is a project that you can move forward on with your current schedule then do. If any of them are rust free Datsuns send them my way

If you don't have any emotional attachment, then it's a straight cost/benefit analysis. Pick a time-frame (say, I'd like to have this car running in two years"), estimate the amount of money & time it would take to finish it, then multiply that by 2 or 2.5 to be realistic (I think it'll take 200 hours & $1500 = 450 hours & $4500), add the amount of time & money you spend on storage (storage is half hour away, so it adds 1 hour for every trip, I can only get out there for two hours at a time = 100 additional hours in just travel to your project, $50/mo for 2 years = $1200), and you end up with what your cost is for the car.

In my hypothetical example, you have ~550 hours of time & at least $5700 involved in the car. This is a car you have no emotional attachment to. If you value your time @ $5/hr, that's at least $2750 added to the car. Can you sell the car for at least $8500 when you're done? If not, you've added a lot of stress to you & your family's life while trying to work on a car you don't care about and you're going to lose money on while you're shifting houses, which is always stressful in itself.

Now multiply this by 5. You're talking about having two more "full time jobs" just to "make" $5/hr if you're lucky over cars you don't care about. That just doesn't make economic or stress sense to me.

Fire sale the cars, get what you can and invest in a "good" project/driver car once you get settled.

Pick the favorite, fire-sale the rest. Since you're in New England, whatcha got? :D

I can't handle the three motorized toys I have (Ski-Doo, street XR4Ti, LeMons XR4Ti), and I don't work a third of the hours you do (but I do have a family with two boys who aren't quite of serious wrench turning age yet). When you figure out what it costs to store everything and move everything…there's probably enough money to buy another project car in a few months. And realistically, if you're working suicidal hours for the foreseeable future, nothing's going to get done.

This is unfortunately a craptastic time to unload cars with all the white stuff on the ground. Still classifieds and Craigslist can be your friend to make things disappear (or a horrific enemy with some of the flakes on Craig's). Keep the tools. I can't imagine life without my 110 MIG. Actually I can. It would involve a car payment instead of an 11-year-old Subaru daily driver.

Good luck. We're all counting on you.

I dont understand how you can have so many project cars. I make good money for GRM and blow at least 1/3 of it a year on car things and can only afford 1 project car and a daily driver. I found my inner peace by making those two separate cars rather than having a daily driven project car. But have more than 1 project car? berkeley that.

In reply to WonkoTheSane:

I like the way you laid that out. I hadn't been through it in that much detail yet. Thanks for the advice. Nothing I build or have built in the past is really a mainstream build so I never plan on making money on a vehicle, with one previous exception.

In reply to fiasco: Don't know what kind of cars you are into but most of the cars I need to sell are antiques. Barracuda, Falcon wagon, Comet. I do have a 1st gen Neon with a built up SRT4 swap. That one will end up in the Classifieds here. I tried Craigslisting that one earlier this year. OH MAN, that was the worst Craigslist experience I have ever had. So many foolish and ridiculous questions.

In reply to Leafy:

It's actually quite easy to acquire a lot of project cars. You wait around until someone who has 3 cars thinks they have way too many and get a great deal on it. Proceed that way through the years.

Leafy wrote: I dont understand how you can have so many project cars. I make good money for GRM and blow at least 1/3 of it a year on car things and can only afford 1 project car and a daily driver. I found my inner peace by making those two separate cars rather than having a daily driven project car. But have more than 1 project car? berkeley that.

Amatuer...

Unless you are making bank I would look for a new job.

In reply to ThingWithWheels:

Any projects I'd be interested in would be very LeMony in nature. I'm cheap AND broke. :D

And all three of those could go that way depending on their awesomeness/awfulness ratio.

aussiesmg wrote:

Leafy wrote: I dont understand how you can have so many project cars. I make good money for GRM and blow at least 1/3 of it a year on car things and can only afford 1 project car and a daily driver. I found my inner peace by making those two separate cars rather than having a daily driven project car. But have more than 1 project car? berkeley that.

Amatuer...

With the height that you have set the bar, everyone is an amateur.

I've always got at least 5-6 project vehicles, I love it, it keeps me from getting burnt out on any one of them, I just switch focus to another if I feel stalled out on one, then repeat. I like to have them be very different from one another, it helps.

I like to do one at a time, both for time and financial reasons (and garage space). Then again I guess I'm kind of OCD...once I start on a project I charge ahead on it full-speed until I get it near where I want it, and until any difficult/expensive stuff is done. Then I'll start a new project, while still doing minor things to the previous one as I think of them.

Where I go from there depends on the car. My e30 is a rallycross car, so I'm constantly doing little things on it to make it more competitive. But my GT6, which was "mostly" completed 4-5 years ago, I have no desire to work on for some reason. I totally burned myself out on it, and on dealing with old British cars in general.

With the GT6 dormant, and the e30 just getting little things for racing, my e21 is moving along slowly, and I haven't touched it in a month. Did a ton of work on it in the first few months and then just haven't really felt like it much (coinciding with this very cold winter). To get myself un-"stalled" on that one, I'm doing full timing/100k/waterpump/etc maintenance on the WRX this spring. Plus I got the wife a new (used) Sequoia that needs some things, so it's kind of like a "mini-project" for the winter (brakes, timing belt, some other minor issues, rust cleanup underneath). Big trucks are so easy to work on, I can do stuff with less effort here in the winter...

So yeah, I'm sure that doesn't help you at all ;)

ThingWithWheels wrote: In reply to WonkoTheSane: I like the way you laid that out. I hadn't been through it in that much detail yet. Thanks for the advice. Nothing I build or have built in the past is really a mainstream build so I never plan on making money on a vehicle, with one previous exception.

You're welcome :) My take on it is that if I'm not personally interested/love the project, or I'm not going to learn something that helps with what I love, then I'm going to make money with it :) I don't get to the last one very often, though!

No emotional attachment? Sell everything except your tools. When you're less busy with work, buy a project driver that you can tinker on when you have the urge. The $50 per month per car storage fees will soon add up to more than the cars are worth.

In reply to aussiesmg: I'm not making that much money, other than the sometimes crazy hours, personally, it would be hard to beat this job and I have looked, awesome travel, almost no boss, decent pay, free beer, free stainless fasteners, free hose clamps.

Got the Neon listed on here and hoping I won't need to on Craigslist. Modified cars are horrible to sell when the general public is looking at them.