[Help 1935 Chevy Sedan]

My step mother is still alive so she is the owner but she is 75 so I am helping her with this.

[Help 1935 Chevy Sedan]

14 hours ago, Digger914 said:

Mora, about half way between the Cambridge and Hinckley exits and about a 3 hour round trip drive from where I am. Know the area fairly well as my dads uncles and cousins once owned Chevy dealerships in those small towns. I know the Spears name, but I have no idea where Spears Customs is and I would need to make a call to find out if it is a new brick and mortar business, or a home garage shop. 

 

Best not to wait till spring to find out whats going on, Wayne is right about how fees add up quickly and Mora isn't the hand shake, mans word is his bond, little town that it used to be. 

I spoke to my brother who lives in Hermantown and travels to the Twin Cities often.  He is going to try to get ahold of the guy and at least stop in and see it.  Then we can start formulating a plan on what we should do with it.

[Help 1935 Chevy Sedan]

15 hours ago, wayne sheldon said:

Some words about this hobby, since you appear to be new to it.

Of course, we long-timers in the hobby think it is one of the best hobbies in the world! And, there are good reasons for that. Of course, in this hobby as with anything to do with human beings, there are the bad apples, some liars and thieves. Can't seem to get away from those no matter where you go in the human world. However, antique automobiles tend to attract people that care about history, and not for selfish reasons. They care about what other people did, in other times. They care about the remnants of those times because they understand that keeping in touch with history does matter. So this hobby has a tendency to attract good people. This hobby also has a way of chewing people up and spitting them out. A person can spend thousands of dollars buying and restoring a car, drive it for a year or two. Then plans are made for a "meet of a lifetime"!  (These do come around almost every year?) Going to a wonderful place, to drive around in the car you care about and truly enjoy driving. A couple days before time to load the trailer and go, something in the car breaks , and cannot be fixed in less than a month or more because of parts not available! It has happened to me, and I have seen it happen to dozens of my friends. No time to fix it. No time (or money?) to get another car. It happens. Maybe you go anyway and hitch a ride with friends? But that is never quite the same as driving your own car (I have carried friends a few times after their car broke down). Good people stay with the hobby anyhow.

Those a some of why this is a good hobby with good people.

 

While good money can be made by good craftsmen working on other people's cars for hourly pay? And people that earn a living that way in this hobby are usually very good people? It must be remembered that this is a "hobby". And it is not a cheap hobby. One does not have to be wealthy to be active in antique automobiles. I am far from being wealthy, most of my closest friends are not considered wealthy. I do have good friends, even a couple I consider close friends, that are wealthy. They treat me like an equal. They have many non-wealthy friends that they treat like equals. They do not owe me anything. And I do not expect them to pay my way or give me anything just because they have a lot of money and I do not. Most people in this hobby either work, or are retired from a lifetime of working, for a living.

 

As hobbies go, antique automobiles are far from the worst hobbies, financially speaking. While very few "hobbyists" ever make money in this hobby, they generally do not lose as much as many other hobbies can lose. One buys a car, usually paying a bit more than anyone else was willing to pay for that car. For all practical purposes, no antique automobile ever needed nothing. Whether a full restoration of everything, or fix a messed up clutch or bad radiator? Work will be done. Money will be spent. That work will very likely cost considerably more than it will add to the dollar value of the car. 

A car needing full restoration will be purchased, and then taken apart. The minute one obvious part is removed from the car, the dollar value of the car goes down. Every piece removed in the beginning drops the dollar value more. A fully disassembled unrestored car could be worth as little as one tenth of what it was worth before it was disassembled. Once pieces are repaired and painted, the value starts going back up, slowly. A car will likely be nearly half done before it reaches the point of being again worth what was paid for it, not counting what was spent getting it half done. Only in rare cases will a car ever be worth its unrestored purchase price plus the costs to restore it. The real value in the restored car is the well earned pride of the accomplishment, and knowing that you did something few people can do.

An antique automobile can be very expensive, or not, depending on the whats and hows of it. The value retained in the process can be very low. Maybe even less than ten cents on the dollar. On the other hand, a hobbyist that understands the hobby, and the car's values, if he can do much or most of the work himself? Might almost break even. A lot of hobbyists can manage to retain about seventy to eighty percent of what they spend on the cars. Not hard to do, if one knows what they are doing.

How many other hobbies can retain that much value? Boating? Between dock fees, license fees, insurance, storage, maintenance, and other costs, coupled with massive depreciation? Most boaters are lucky if they can retain twenty percent. Golf? Can be done cheaply. However serious golfers can spend thousands of dollars on clubs, and thousands of dollars in travel and fees to play every year (I have known some!). After a few years, be lucky to get $200 for the clubs in a yard sale. Percentage dollar retention? Single digits. Try flying a plane for a hobby (I know a few of those also).

Basically, unless one wants to sit and whittle scraps of wood to pass the time? Whether a few dollars or millions per year, hobbies cost money. And antique automobiles are not nearly the worst that way.

 

 

Thanks for the reply and yes I get it.  I'm part of the Jeep community and we spend endless hours wrenching.... upgrading and fixing.  We also dump in $$$$ and know that in the end it rarely increase the value.  I guess the value is in the community and the friendships that are built, which are priceless.

[Help 1935 Chevy Sedan]

31 minutes ago, Digger914 said:

Sorry to hear of your loss.

 

I'm not a pre war Chevy guy, but if the upholstery work is being done within twenty miles of me I probably know the shop owner and I can spare a couple of hours to take a look to see how close it is to done. If the car isn't to far outside of Minneapolis, I know a guy who knows these things upside down and sideways, he could look at this and know in minutes what parts are right, wrong, or missing. Don't think he could take a couple of business hours out of his day this time of the year, pretty sure he could spare an hour sometime in the next couple of weeks. 

 

 

Thanks Digger.... I see what I can find out but it might not be until spring.  The car might be at Spears Customs in Mora...atleast that is who is doing the interior from what I understand. 

[Help 1935 Chevy Sedan]

Thanks for all the responses and advice.  I live in SoCal and the car is in Minnesota and I don't think I have ever seen it in person.  I don't know if this is a recent photo even.  So I don't know what else needs to be done and I am not sure I want to ship it out here.  I doubt he was part of a club and to my knowledge he was having the work done since he was not very mechanical.

[Help 1935 Chevy Sedan]

My father recently passed away from Covid and had started restoring this 1935 Chevy Sedan.  The paint was done, the upholstery is being completed beyond that I don't know what other parts he has or if it is running.   Where is the best place to sell this and any ideas on the value?