The prices im seeing you guys list seem ridiculous to me... Are they really worth that much? I paid 1500 for my first one and 500 for the one I drive now.
IMO an "average" srw 350 4wd(60 front) with manual trans would only be like 2k at most. Damn... Maybe I should fix mine up and sell it to one of you guys
Was this before or after cash for clinkers? That ****** waste of your money to buy perfectly good vehicles and destroy them quadrupled the price of old cars and trucks. Prior to that '80-'91 trucks were ubiquitous, you'd see dozens every day. After that I hardly see any, and see fewer '92-'97 trucks. Before that you could go on Craigslist and find plenty of good running driving $500-$1000 trucks, afterwards there are very few in that range and they're closer to parts trucks than drivers. Last year on the drive home from picking up my '86 a guy at one of the toll booths was oggling my truck, all "Wow man, nice classic truck!". I didn't know what to say because to me an '86 truck seems pretty new and is "just a truck" to me. Also the fact that it took me 6 mos of searching and when I found one I was thrilled it was only a 300+ mile drive each way illustrates how uncommon they have become. Used to be you could hop on CL or eBay and find dozens for sale within an hour drive at any time, in addition to all that you saw in driveways and parking lots for sale.
The government artificially increased the value several times over and drastically reduced spare parts availability as well as new/aftermarket parts availability by artificially reducing the number on the road and hence demand for quality replacement parts. Prior to clinkers anything for our trucks was stocked on the shelf in any parts store, now it's at a warehouse and you gotta wait and of course since demand is lower your choices are China junk or NLA.
An average 350 would never sell for $2k anymore unless it's very rotted out. $2k is on the cusp of part out vs sell whole. The D60 is $700-$1k alone. If that manual trans is a ZF5 there's $600+, 6.9/7.3 probably $500 and if turbo that'll part out separate for $500-$800. If bed is not rotted there's a few hundred. Sterling $200, Dash if tach $100, NP208 $50 or BW1356 $75-$100, etc... Nobody sells 'em cheap anymore as so many good parts were destroyed and now there is far less supply than demand.