subject: Grunt car owners - Are you sitting on a fortune? [print this page] Grunt car owners - Are you sitting on a fortune?
Grunt car economics
The famous grunt cars like Chargers and other powerful beasts are well known, but older grunt cars have their fans, too. Obscure cars and former hot cars are very popular. Even a relatively recent car like an RX 7 can bring in a lot of interest from car re-builders and enthusiasts. Famous cars like E type Jaguars and the original V8s are also much sought after.
Figuring out what a car is worth, however, isn't necessarily easy. Nobody will knock back spare parts, but prices can vary, a lot. You need to research your market online, and make a few inquiries with professional dealers.
An added complication emerges in the case of hotted up grunt cars. These are effectively custom jobs. The standard of work, obviously, various quite a lot. Although there'll be no lack of interest in these cars, there are lot of them, and you'll find, if you have one, that you're in competition with them.
Grunt car parts
This area is potentially tricky. Authentic parts are always in demand, and the true collectors will literally travel the world to get them. Most, however, wind up with dealers, and the prices, inevitably, are high for sales but not necessarily high when the dealers are buying. OK, they have to make a living, but you want the best price yourself, so you need to strike a balance.
The best way to check out grunt car part prices is online. Use US dollar prices as a reference, but also remember that you need to see current prices. As with any collectible item, that can be difficult, and a lot of sales aren't done on regular markets, but privately. The private sales, as a matter of fact, can be much more lucrative- If you find the right buyer. Top of the range collectors don't throw their money around mindlessly, but if you've got what they want, they won't have too much loss of sleep paying a good price.
The possible pitfalls
Fake parts, shoddy parts, and ripoffs aren't particularly popular in the grunt car economy. They're not a smart move, and this particular economy has a lot of money behind it to pay for retribution to "clever" people who try to rip it off. That said, ripoffs aren't unknown. Occasionally a genuine mistake in identifying a part is made, or a car has different components installed as part of a car service. Another common issue is well known- car series parts are pretty easy to pass off as being something they're not, particularly with more modern grunt cars, and some people do try to do that. It's advisable, therefore, if you want to get into the grunt car trade, to get a reliable expert or so on standby to check your possible acquisitions.
