Matt Harwood

*SOLD* While muscle cars aren't really my thing, I can certainly appreciate the rarity and performance of a car like this gorgeous 1966 Impala SS convertible. Is it a luxury car packing some muscle or a muscle car with all the luxury features? Hard to say, but not only does this big ragtop feature a burly L36 427/390 V8, but it also has a long list of factory options including A/C, cruise control, power windows, center console with gauges, quadraphonic stereo, and a remote trunk release. Nice, right? It was pretty comprehensively restored about five years ago and has been driven about 7100 miles since it was completed. It was refinished in its original code W Chateau Slate color (which is basically silver metallic) with a black convertible top and the bodywork is extremely nice. All the chrome was freshened, the stainless was buffed and/or replaced as needed, and all the rubber weather-stripping is new, so it closes up rather well for a convertible. The styling wasn't dramatic, but this car definitely has presence, particularly when you notice those little '427' badges on the front fenders, details that it comes by honestly. The floors in the foot wells of all four positions were replaced, but there was no wholesale removal of the entire floor pan, so I don't believe this was a rust bucket, and as far as I can tell, the quarters and trunk are original and in excellent shape. I think like all convertibles, water accumulated in the footwells and the inevitable happens. The interior was originally code 844 Blue but during the restoration it was switched to code 813 black. All SS models came with buckets, and the upholstery is beautifully done and quite accurate. There are very minor signs of wear and use, but nothing worth noting, and everything from the door panels to the carpets is new. The console, which features a rare quartet of auxiliary gauges (vacuum, oil pressure, ammeter and temperature) is in good original condition, but new brushed aluminum appliques are included for the flat surfaces should you wish to freshen them up. Other options include power windows, factory A/C (not working at the moment because the compressor rear plate cracked, but we've got a replacement on order), tachometer, cruise control (not hooked up because of the Holley carb), and quadraphonic stereo, which is that four-knob control panel on the console. There's a brand new black power convertible top overhead and it works superbly with no fighting to latch, even when it's cold, and there's a fresh black boot to go with it. But the real thrill of this car is under the hood, where it packs a thundering 427 cubic inch V8 rated at 390 horsepower. This one has been upgraded to "Special Performance" specifications, which was essentially the Corvette's L72 427/425, and the cackling camshaft sounds wicked at idle and pulls like a freight train at speed. I only drove the car about a mile because of the salt on the streets, but there's really nothing like a big block kicking you down the road. There's a Holley double-pumper up top with a matching manifold, but the way the engine is dressed, you'll never notice it. Correct colors, emblems, decals, and hardware have been used to give it a show-quality look. It's a little cranky when it first fires up, but once it comes off the choke, watch out! The only other noteworthy upgrade is a more aggressive-sounding exhaust system that's a little loud for my tastes, but if you're going to have a 427, you may as well advertise a bit. As I said, the chassis is clean save for four modest floor patches and the TH400 3-speed automatic and heavy-duty 12-bolt rear with 3.36s on a Posi make for entertaining performance. New Coker redline radials have been fitted to the original 14-inch wheels and look just right. Luxury/muscle is cool, no matter how you slice it. I don't know how many of these were built with the 427, but it's a rare find and to be loaded with this many factory options is a real treat. Not a show car, but one of the nicest drivers you'll see, and people really light up when they see what's going on under the hood. We're asking $54,900, and I guarantee the first guy to drive this monster will insist on taking it home. Thanks for looking!

*SOLD* While muscle cars aren't really my thing, I can certainly appreciate the rarity and performance of a car like this gorgeous 1966 Impala SS convertible. Is it a luxury car packing some muscle or a muscle car with all the luxury features? Hard to say, but not only does this big ragtop feature a burly L36 427/390 V8, but it also has a long list of factory options including A/C, cruise control, power windows, center console with gauges, quadraphonic stereo, and a remote trunk release. Nice, right? It was pretty comprehensively restored about five years ago and has been driven about 7100 miles since it was completed. It was refinished in its original code W Chateau Slate color (which is basically silver metallic) with a black convertible top and the bodywork is extremely nice. All the chrome was freshened, the stainless was buffed and/or replaced as needed, and all the rubber weather-stripping is new, so it closes up rather well for a convertible. The styling wasn't dramatic, but this car definitely has presence, particularly when you notice those little '427' badges on the front fenders, details that it comes by honestly. The floors in the foot wells of all four positions were replaced, but there was no wholesale removal of the entire floor pan, so I don't believe this was a rust bucket, and as far as I can tell, the quarters and trunk are original and in excellent shape. I think like all convertibles, water accumulated in the footwells and the inevitable happens. The interior was originally code 844 Blue but during the restoration it was switched to code 813 black. All SS models came with buckets, and the upholstery is beautifully done and quite accurate. There are very minor signs of wear and use, but nothing worth noting, and everything from the door panels to the carpets is new. The console, which features a rare quartet of auxiliary gauges (vacuum, oil pressure, ammeter and temperature) is in good original condition, but new brushed aluminum appliques are included for the flat surfaces should you wish to freshen them up. Other options include power windows, factory A/C (not working at the moment because the compressor rear plate cracked, but we've got a replacement on order), tachometer, cruise control (not hooked up because of the Holley carb), and quadraphonic stereo, which is that four-knob control panel on the console. There's a brand new black power convertible top overhead and it works superbly with no fighting to latch, even when it's cold, and there's a fresh black boot to go with it. But the real thrill of this car is under the hood, where it packs a thundering 427 cubic inch V8 rated at 390 horsepower. This one has been upgraded to "Special Performance" specifications, which was essentially the Corvette's L72 427/425, and the cackling camshaft sounds wicked at idle and pulls like a freight train at speed. I only drove the car about a mile because of the salt on the streets, but there's really nothing like a big block kicking you down the road. There's a Holley double-pumper up top with a matching manifold, but the way the engine is dressed, you'll never notice it. Correct colors, emblems, decals, and hardware have been used to give it a show-quality look. It's a little cranky when it first fires up, but once it comes off the choke, watch out! The only other noteworthy upgrade is a more aggressive-sounding exhaust system that's a little loud for my tastes, but if you're going to have a 427, you may as well advertise a bit. As I said, the chassis is clean save for four modest floor patches and the TH400 3-speed automatic and heavy-duty 12-bolt rear with 3.36 gears on a Posi make for entertaining performance. New Coker redline radials have been fitted to the original 14-inch wheels and look just right. Luxury/muscle is cool, no matter how you slice it. I don't know how many of these were built with the 427, but it's a rare find and to be loaded with this many factory options is a real treat. Not a show car, but one of the nicest drivers you'll see, and people really light up when they see what's going on under the hood. We're asking $54,900, and I guarantee the first guy to drive this monster will insist on taking it home. Thanks for looking!

I have a 1966 Plymouth Belvedere III with 23,000 original miles and a 318 V8 coming in shortly. Should be priced under $20,000. I also have a big, red 1969 Chrysler 300 convertible at $19,900. Both would be great entry-level hobby cars that are in excellent shape and ready to enjoy. I don't have photos of the Belvedere but here's the 300, which is a heck of a lot of car for under $20K: More details: http://harwoodmotors.com/vehicles/admin_details.php?id=486

Ah, I see, you're looking to flip a car. If you're looking for a car to fix up and flip for a profit, I might humbly recommend getting in your daily driver, getting it up to about 75 MPH, roll down the driver's side window, and throw $100 bills out to get a feel for what it is like to restore a car. If it's cold and rainy while you're doing it, so much the better--it'll add realism. Not one of the cars you've listed will have a full retail, finished-car price high enough to justify the work you'll need to do to get them into markeable shape. The TV shows where it looks like you can throw $5000 at a car and triple your money are complete BS. Unless you're just going to paint over issues, not fix everything properly, and hope that the buyer doesn't notice until you can vanish, it's quite difficult to make money flipping low-end project cars. Not impossible, but difficult. Do it for love, do it because you love the challenge, do it because you want to build your skills, but doing it with an eye on profit will burn you down pretty fast. A better choice would be to find a car that's almost done, an aborted project, or a car that just needs one or two things (like a paint job) and try to make that work first. You can get decent results at a cheap paint shop by doing the prep and disassembly yourself, thereby adding value that might translate into profit. This is not an easy game. The most critical part of it is finding a car that someone else will actually want and investing your time and money in that rather than a ho-hum car that's merely got a low cost of entry. Fixing it up is probably the easy part--it's selling that's a PITA. Marketability is a big factor. Good luck!

Modern exhaust manifolds aren't like aftermarket long-tubes like most guys are talking about (which are leak-prone), but rather highly specialized manifolds that are made of tubing instead of cast iron. Actually, most modern cars using such designs use a double-wall construction to keep heat inside for quick catalyst light-off--any heat not radiating to the engine bay is purely a side-effect. Obviously a header can be more efficient than a log-style cast iron manifold, whose primary virtues were low cost, low maintenance, and easy packaging. These modern manifolds control noise almost as well as cast iron due to their construction, and by using heavy flanges, they do stay tight and leak free, which is also aided by the design, which usually uses a metal gasket of some kind with an O-ring seal. That's in direct contrast to the headers about which most guys are talking which had individual flanges on the tubes which were often leak-prone and needed frequent re-torquing to stay put. Then there's the ball-socket design of the exhaust end of the things, which provides vastly superior sealing to the familiar triangular flange with a gasket and three bolts used on many early header designs. Were long-tubes a contributing factor to exhaust noise in the good old bad old days (and even today with some designs)? Of course. Were they the primary cause of the dreaded Flowmaster drone? Unlikely. When I was doing R&D work for GM and we had one of the prototype C5 Corvettes, one of the things they asked us to do was try a variety of different exhaust manifolds, including a cast style setup that had individual runners much like a header. It actually made slightly more power on the dyno, but it was bigger and bulkier and when it came down to it, the differences were so miniscule as to be non-existent in the real world. The downside, which we only learned after the real science guys had a crack at it, was that the cast iron was absorbing too much heat instead of passing it downstream to the cat during cold starts, which is when your car is dirtiest. I'm guessing THAT was the final decision-maker for them to use the tubular style manifolds. And with or without tailpipes, I have yet to drive a car with a Flowmaster muffler that both made more horsepower and didn't have an annoying drone at 1800-2200 RPM, regardless of size, type, or location. Dual mufflers on a Mustang or a single transverse muffler on a Camaro or one big one under a pickup truck bed, when you drop into overdrive at 65 MPH your head felt like it was going to collapse. It isn't because the noise coming out of the muffler is getting into the car (and therefore, putting it farther away or burying it under sound deadening materials has no effect), it's a resonance frequency that sets up a harmonic in the exhaust system itself, the floors of the car, or other pieces that all start to vibrate to create the sound. Almost all high-performance mufflers do this because stock mufflers are specifically designed and tested so as to not create these specific harmonic frequencies, which vary from car to car. It has been my experience in driving high-performance cars and trucks (several hundred, I'd say) that no muffler drones more than a Flowmaster, and some are quite tolerable without squelching flow. Unfortunately, my experience also suggests using mufflers to make horsepower is akin to using a thinner radiator so the fan doesn't have to work as hard to pull air through it--the theory is sound, but the real-world results are harder to quantify. Sure, you might end up with one of the rare combinations that doesn't drone, but if you Google "droning exhaust," you'll find that a non-droning Flowmaster is as common as a unicorn.

The "no rust" thing is ridiculous. It's one of the first questions EVERY buyer gives me and every time I have to hedge my answer because I don't know what the right answer is. Does rust on the cast iron rear end count as rust to this buyer? Does some surface scale on floors count as rust? What about rust on fasteners? What about rusty exhaust components? What about rust on the inside of wheels? What about surface scale on the inside of the trunk under the mat where condensation is trapped? When I think of "rust" I think of holes in the floors and rotted body mounts, not crusty shock absorber housings. Most of this issue comes from litigation-happy buyers, who often have unreasonable expectations. Saying, "No rust," is poison. I never say it, I never tell anyone that a car is rust-free, I never even hint that it's perfect. ALL old cars will have some metal part with rust on it, and the minute I say "no rust" some jackhole is going to call me on it and act like I lied to him and caused the end of civilization. Professionally and as a hobbyist, surface rust is a non-issue. You know this, I know this, but a lot of morons don't understand the difference. Rot is what matters and what is hard to repair. There are so many idiot buyers out there who consider a rusty tailpipe to be a critical flaw on a car that I can't even risk mentioning a car is rust free lest they unleash their stupid all over me. Old cars are going to have rust somewhere, I guarantee it. If you look hard enough you'll find it. I can't promise it's not there, because it will be. What does "no rust" mean to you?

My '41 Century had a sheet of 3/4 inch plywood from the factory. 1/4 inch is too thin, but some kind of plywood is indeed correct. I don't think it was there as a fire break, but rather to simply separate the two compartments cheaply and with better sound damping characteristics than sheetmetal.

I'm of the opinion that it's hard to go wrong putting it back the way the factory did it. In '49, they used DyNoc instead of real mahogany veneers, and it does look cheesy. But, that is indeed how the factory did it. There's a sound argument to be made that real wood would look better, but it would not be correct. Whenever you stray from the factory recipe, you risk making your car less valuable (even if the "upgrade" is more expensive). Everyone can agree that the way the factory did it is the right way to restore it. Anything else is a matter of taste. That said, it's your car, do what you want and enjoy it. Let the future take care of itself.

Very impressive work, guys. I kept coming back to this one, surprised that our group of experts was stumped. You guys rock!

Sometimes it's a parent's job to prevent their children from being idiots. This is one of those times. If you have to spend any amount of time in the truck, regardless of what your son wants, please, do not put Flowmasters on it. Unless he's the exclusive driver of said truck, you will regret it within moments of getting on the highway. PS: Mufflers have no effect on warranty coverage. Put whatever muffler you want on it and the dealer can't void anything.

Power windows, power seats, power tops, air conditioning, radios and heater motors becoming standard instead of options, more powerful headlights, higher energy ignition systems, etc., etc., etc. In short, more features needed more power. I suspect it won't be too long before we see new cars switching to 24V systems to accommodate the many electronic features they're cramming into cars today. 200 amp alternators take A LOT of energy to turn and when every drop of fuel matters...

It's been my experience that folks switch to 12 volts simply because they believe (wrongly) that 6 volts are problematic and inferior. They've heard horror stories of hard starting and dead batteries (and yes, 6V has its limitations) so they scurry around to "upgrade" the car without thinking about the real issue. If 6V was so inferior and such a hassle, why didn't the automakers convert earlier? It's not like 12V didn't exist. Rolls-Royce was using 12V in the teens and 20s and eventually went back to 6V. Is 12V really superior on a car without a lot of electrical accessories to run? Nope. Add in the fact that all the hot rod guys and a majority of message boards will say that a 12 volt battery, GM 1-wire alternator and a Painless Wiring harness is the way to go to solve all your electrical problems, and everyone dutifully heads down that road without realizing that repairing the original system on a mostly stock car will deliver satisfactory results 99% of the time. As we've all said time and time again, a badly maintained 6V system will be a headache, but fixing it is often no more difficult than cleaning your grounds and installing bigger battery cables. Having tried to sort out a car converted to 12V by an amateur (he used only red wire in his new harness) I'll take a faulty factory 6V system any day rather than trying to reverse-engineer what some shade-tree mechanic figured was the ideal setup. Such conversions absolutely KILL resale values, too. I can fix a 6V system by looking in a factory shop manual. How do I diagnose, service, and replace parts on a setup some guy dreamed up at home? Oy.

Maybe a late-20s Stutz Model M or BB? They were big cars with hydraulic brakes. The golf bag door isn't quite the right size and shape, though.

God I HATE Flowmasters. If you want to sound like a kid in a Camaro with his hat on sideways, that's definitely the muffler you need. Every car I've driven with Flowmasters gets an annoying drone at highway speeds that feels like your forehead is caving in. But if that's what you want, go for it. Otherwise, ANYTHING ELSE is better. A muffler won't add horsepower, it'll just make it sound faster. I have Dynomax mufflers on my 1993 Mustang and like them because they're not too loud. I don't like to advertise my presence to the local constabulary with excessive exhaust noise...

Sorry, Curt, I didn't see your question here until just now. I'd have to say that it's hard to beat eBay for pure eyeballs, but I rarely sell cars there (two, to date, out of dozens). Lots of lowball offers, lots of tire-kickers, lots of photo collectors, but unless you're selling a car under $20,000 or so, buyers are pretty picky. And I absolutely dread the eBay "experts" that have no intention of buying but just want to tell me how much more about my car they know than I do. However, a great many cars have sold as a result of bidding in the eBay auction and I open discussions with the top few bidders once it ends. If they're not even close, I don't bother, but if they're within, say, 25% of the final price, I'll drop them a line and see if we can reach out and make a deal. Hemmings is probably the #1 place for genuine inquiries and sales. I list my entire inventory on Hemmings.com, but I also place 3 or 4 print ads each month as there are still a lot of guys who A) don't internet, and read the entire magazine cover-to-cover each month. Finding the right cars is the key--hot rods and late-model cars on Hemmings.com and in Hemmings magazine just sit there and die, but legitimate AACA-eligible cars always pop with Hemmings users. Finally, I have access to a tool that most regular sellers don't: an E-mail blast. Over the years, I have collected thousands of E-mails of people interested in cars, and every 2-3 weeks, I send out an E-mail with the latest offerings, some sneak previews of upcoming cars, and some cars with reduced prices. Of the thousands of E-mails that go out each time, about 20 users will unsubscribe each time and I get about a 40% open rate, which is impressive as hell. I sell a great many cars right away when people see the E-mail blast, and I consider it my most effective marketing tool because it's direct. But I understand that it's not something that the private seller would have access to (however, it is a part of how I am able to justify my commission on selling a car--it plain works). All that said, I'm still always excited to list a car here simply for the discussion. I like making this the first place I debut a new arrival and on those occasions where a listing on this board has sold a car, it has been very quick to sell, suggesting that there are people looking here all the time, even if they're not necessarily buyers. I know I read Buy/Sell every single day, and would do so even if I wasn't in the business. Hope this helps!

There's no such thing as a "bolt in" engine swap unless you're changing from one type of Y-block to another. It's a huge project just to get the engine in there, never mind running and driving properly. Sure, it can be done, but depending on your technical acumen, it's a long road and you'll spend more money on little stuff (engine mounts, wiring, transmission mount, custom driveshaft, linkages, radiator, oiling system, etc.) than you'd spend rebuilding the engine that's already in there, which IS a bolt-in. I agree with the others who say that dropping some garden-variety late-model V8 will hurt the car's value, and, more critically its marketability. Such a car will be VERY hard to sell if that day ever comes and you will likely need to discount it a significant amount to unload it (I don't think 50% is a crazy number). Stock Thunderbirds are a known quantity with good club and parts support, and you can buy good ones for $25-30,000 all day long. A modified car, regardless of how well done, will have a much smaller potential market and you'll have to convince those buyers that you didn't do hack work putting the engine in there. If you do it, document everything so that a future owner who has to repair the car knows what parts you used. Nothing worse than a modified car with a long list of mystery parts on it. Oh, the voltage regulator is bad, but the builder used one from a later car. Which one? How is it wired? What's the part number? A "build book" with all of these details will help build confidence. Think about it, what would you rather buy: a car that was built and engineered by the Ford factory or a car that was built and engineered by some home mechanic in his garage? Now, that said, I'd consider building a strong Y-block and doing something the an E-Bird dual quad setup or even an F-Bird supercharger. They had good power back then and you could have a lot of fun with an otherwise pretty stock 'Bird. Isn't that more interesting than a lame 5.0 with a carburetor? Or if you want more highway-friendly manners, a stock 312 Y-block with an AOD transmission and a set of taller 3.50 gears might make it feel quicker without fundamentally changing the car's personality, and it's a modification that is completely invisible until you're under the car. Unless you specifically want to build a full custom car, don't do an engine swap. If you just want a nice old 'Bird you can drive regularly, use what you've got and add some appropriate upgrades when you're rebuilding it. Good luck!

Look similar to the 1949 Cadillac I have, but there's no way to know for sure what it fits without being able to test fit it. Regardless, I don't think it has much value, even if you knew what kind of car it fit. It could have shrunk, the snaps on the car might be different, etc, so it might not even be usable today. It's in good condition if it's original, but vinyl has a tendency to shrink and change shape over time, so it may not fit today. Finally, it will have faded and changed color over the years, so even if you find someone with the year and make of car that it belongs to, AND it has a red interior, it probably won't match. Reproduction boots are relatively inexpensive, so I don't see anyone paying a premium for this original one. If you can identify the car on which it fits you might get $100-150 for it provided you can find that needle in a haystack buyer. Sadly, it'll be next to impossible to figure that out without going to a big show and test-fitting it to every convertible you can find from 1946 to 1957 or so. Good luck!

Price guides are dead-on accurate when you're a buyer and wildly pessimistic when you're a seller, right? Sure, on a Mustang or a Camaro or a Model A or something that changes hands often enough to create a reliable metric, a price guide is probably fairly accurate. But a '32 Twin Six? How many of those change hands each year? Three? Four? Surely less than ten, and a majority of them change hands privately so nobody knows the real numbers. At that point the number becomes pure speculation. They're putting a number on the car because they can't have a zero, but the math is more flawed than Hollywood bookkeeping. On some cars, the prices are actually moving faster than the guides can be updated. We recently sold a '56 Jaguar XK140 OTS. I did my research and saw that auction results were going up by $10-15,000 per year since 2011 or so. I looked at what else was on the market, and yes, I checked the price guides (NADA, Old Cars, Hagerty, and Sports Car Market) to get an idea. All of those various data points said that the car should sell for around $90-92,000. So I listed it at $99,000. It sold in less than two hours on eBay for full asking price. The new owner came to collect it personally and loaded it and vanished within minutes, not wanting to stick around and chat. I talked to him later to find out how he liked the car (loves it) and discovered that he is a rather well-known Jaguar collector with a large collection of similar cars. Anyway, he felt the car was under-priced by perhaps $15,000 and was afraid I'd wise up and refuse to let him take it. That's not how I work, but his point was well-made. The values are moving so fast on certain cars that what seems like a ridiculous price today will be eminently reasonable in fairly short order. I'm frankly tired of people waving price guides in my face. I'll admit that one of my secret pleasures is to talk to a price guide buyer about a car, have him decide that I'm crazy, only to sell it a short time later to someone who sees value in the car. Eventually price guide guy calls back (they always do, because there are never any cars priced like it says in the guide). At that point I take secret delight in telling him that it sold for a figure above the guide's number. They're always surprised, yet they always ask me to tell them first if I get another one. Why is that?

Of the 200 or so cars that I've sold since getting into the business, I would guess that I have sold about five cars as a direct result of an ad here on the forum, but there may be more (not many more, though). I don't use this as a primary advertising medium, but I always list appropriate cars here first to give my AACA friends the first opportunity to purchase any car I list. This particular Cadillac did not sell as a result of this ad, I am certain of that. If you're asking whether this is a good place to list a car for sale, I'd have to say that the price is right (it's free). It is probably not a smart idea to make this the ONLY place you list a car for sale, however. Does that help?

*SOLD* Thank you!

I think this is what is often referred to as a "gray area." It's probably not illegal to own, trade, or even sell the paper titles themselves. You won't find any statute that says, "We hereby decree that selling old car titles is punishable by 30 lashes in the town square." However, unscrupulous people can and do use such things to commit fraud--wasn't there one victim of such a thing on this message board a few years ago? Someone who was in a court battle over a car because he had a bogus title and a previous owner came and claimed it through a DMV search or something? I can't recall. Anyway, in my business, titles are a flat-out nightmare and I have experienced two cases where someone in the past obviously bought a car without a title, then "acquired" a title for a similar vehicle and used that title to register his car. In the old days, before computers and out-of-state VIN inspections, that was probably somewhat common. But when those two cars, which had been in Ohio for decades and therefore never needed a VIN inspection, came to me to be sold, I quickly realized that the titles were not valid by simply comparing the numbers on the paper and the numbers on the car. Someone, somewhere, sometime in the past committed fraud and it put the current owner's status in jeopardy. I could not sell a car with a title like that, as the new owner would unable to register his expensive new acquisition. Worse yet are the implications: Was the car stolen? Was the paperwork simply lost? Did someone die? Will someone come and claim that car, either an insurance company that once paid a claim (happens frequently) or a descendant of the owner? Who knows? That's a big problem and left two of my clients with cars that were virtually unsellable unless they somehow sold it to a local buyer who wouldn't check numbers (thereby perpetuating the fraud). I won't be a part of that and there is no easy solution for the honest seller aside from a bonded title, which can be very expensive (the last one we helped with was $21 per $1000 of value on an $85,000 vehicle). I can understand collecting such things, they can be interesting historical documents and sometimes the paper and printing itself is quite lovely. But fraud can and does happen with astonishing frequency and this is a fast, inexpensive, easy way to do it whereby the crime might not be discovered for a long time yet effectively renders a car worthless to a new owner (or worse, he loses it entirely). That's not cool and THAT is illegal.

I'm not entirely sure you should be blaming the alignment for the dartiness on the road. I had one particular old car from the '40s that came to me with modern Coker wide whitewall radials on it, and it was a real handful to keep on the road. It was all over the place. I had two alignment shops check everything and it was within spec and like you describe, the steering felt tight. Still, the sucker lunged for the curb every chance it got and it was impossible to keep it straight without constantly sawing on the wheel. At my father's suggestion, I aired up the tires to 45 PSI--the wandering decreased considerably. Following that train of thought, I pulled the radials and swapped out a set of wheels and bias-ply tires from a similar car in the shop and went for a drive. Voila! No wandering! I know that radials are supposed to be the cure, not the problem, but this particular car just wanted bias-ply tires (or perhaps the radials were just crap, I can't say for certain). We bought a new set of original-style bias-ply tires and the car drove properly once again. It looks like your car has a set of modern radials on it (skinny whitewalls give them away), and I might humbly suggest that could be part of the problem. Before going to the alignment shop, fill them up with 45-50 PSI and see what happens. You won't hurt anything (it'll ride like crap, though), but see if the wandering decreases. It might just be the tires...

Holy cow! At that price, this car won't last a week. Easily worth another $10K, even with the NOM engine. If you're interested, bargains don't get much more obvious than this.

SOLD! Thank you!

SOLD! Thank you!