Biggest Regret: The One that Got Away

[Fred Zwicker]

<span style="font-weight: bold">1937 Dodge Convertible Coupe with rumble seat.</span> Paid $125 for the car in 1950 or 1951. It was all original, straight, had a good solid body, good chrome and glass, but needed a new top and the leather upholstery was worn, but useable. Ran good but rod bearings were rattling. A friend of mine gave me a low-mileage engine from a DeSoto or Chrysler that should "bolt right up". So I proceeded to do the installation on the side of the street in front of our apartment. After removing the front end and then bolting up the engine, then realized that it was about 2" longer than the Dodge engine, so couldn't get the body to fit (hood too short, etc.). I sold the car for $12 to a friend who needed the engine and the rest of the car was scrapped for $5.

[Guest bossmustang]

This is a tough decision. Would I rather have my '54 Ford, '62

Fairlane or first '70 BOSS 302 back again. Yea, no brainer, I'll take the BOSS but the '54 is a close second. We had it when Joan and I got married and we drove it the whole time I was in the U.S. Air Force. Our oldest granddaughter has her eye on the '70 BOSS that we have now, so it will probably be with us for a longtime. Our daughter is attached to the Mustang II so it's going to be a family heirloom. That's ok with us.

Jim Aberts

[Tim Wolfe]

I bought a 1969 428 SCJ Mustang for $1795, got married and traded it in for a differnt car and they gave me $1795 for it. I thought (at the time) I got a good deal. Let's see--what is the Mustang worth today ??????

[Guest AlK]

While living in Calif. back in the late 60's I came accross a 1957 Cadillac coupe deVille convertible. the owner said it needed some electrical wiring help, but I could have the car for $200. Within a week I got transferred from San Jose to Los Angeles and on a return visit some time later the car was gone.

[keiser31]

O.K. the Mustang story got to me. I gave up my really nice 1968 Road Runner with a cracked 383 block....for $1.00. I still have the original four speed wood grained shifter knob and a "ROADRUNNER" door nameplate from the car. Heck...I miss ALL of the cars I have had. My near mint 1936 Dodge Brothers touring sedan with dual sidemounts was sold and the guy left it out in an apartment complex parking lot. His wife didn't want "that old car" to take up space in the garage. The last time I saw the car, it was sitting there with all of the glass bashed out, including the dashboard instruments, all of the tires slashed and the beautiful original mint upholstery cut to shreds. I still cry over the senseless vandalism of that sweet ride. Here it is as I drove it. John

[kevin1221]

My "one that got away" was also a Mustang...a 1969 Shelby GT 350 convertible. It was 1974-1975 and I was buying and selling cars to suppliment my job earnings while attending college. I ran across a driver quality Shelby for $1100.00. I offered $800.00, and neither myself nor the seller would budge.

I guess I showed him!!

Kevin

[Big Beat]

'69 Pontiac Catalina hardtop. I bought it off an old lady original owner for $100 and was in the process of restoring it, my first old car project. The car ran beautifully and had a dead mint interior, but had rust issues and needed lots of bodywork. Then the frame rusted out under the engine and the car was no longer drivable. I was a student, living in an apartment, no place to store a car, no money to rent a garage. I begged my father to leave it in his driveway through the winter, so that I could save a little money and pick up the restoration in the spring. He refused. I couldn't even hold the car long enough to sell it because I kept getting parking tickets every week, so I wedged a 2x4 under the engine and drove the car to the junkyard under its own power. I still cannot calmly look at an old Catalina, especially considering what they cost now. And it was mine, for just $100. Ughhh.

[nsbrassnut]

Old car regrets.

I chased up a story of an old '34 Packard Super 8 sedan in a garage in town. Eventually found it stored in a small garage where it sat for nearly 20 years while the owner planned to "restore" it. It was rough, rotton wood, engine in boxes, but had great potential.

I ask about buying it, but could only leave my number. A year later I was returning from an out of town assignment, went on vacation and planned to look up up after I returned. While away, it got dragged off to the local annual old car flea market and sold for the $2,500 I wanted to pay for it. Instead of being retored, a dealer bought it and took it out of province and sold it for parts for aroun 3 times the price (this was the late '80's).

I still get pangs looking at those big Packards, all know well out of my range. At least I still have my first car, bought while in university in '78, a 1936 Packard 120 (Canadian built). This fall, 30 years and 30,000 miles.

Drive safe

[Guest Hinckley]

It was 1974, I had just gotten my drivers license and the elderly neighbor across the street was about to relocate from Michigan to Florida. One of the little gems he had to sell was a car he had bought new and pamperd - 1939 Lincoln Zephyr convertible coupe. The asking price was $225.

I had $200 and begged dad to loan me the rest. Every time I asked he gave me long winded tales of the poor engines and brakes on these cars.

After weeks of begging he said, "Give me your money and I will get you a good car". I ended up with a 1964 Rambler American station wagon.

The good news is I fell in love with station wagons and now drive a 1988 Ford Crown Victoria wagon. The bad news is the owner ended up letting the Lincoln go for a song to the local scrap dealer who also had a small pot lot of used cars. I later heard his barn, where the car was stored, burned to the ground.

[Bill Clark]

When I was a teenager it was great sport to get a car and destroy it. 40 years later I try to spend my hard earned time, money and skills more constructively and sometimes wish I had some cars back. Last weekend as I was walking through Macungie I noted this beautiful 40 Packard 110 and thought of what I'd done.

Bill Clark

[Starfire61]

When I was in high school in around 1981, a tired, '62 Olds Starfire convertible appeared in a local used car lot for the princely sum of somewhere between $500-1000. My dad had a '62 88 when I was little, so I was somewhat familiar with the big Olds of the early '60s, but I'd never seen a Starfire convertible before.

The car was painted a beautiful shade of metallic blue called Wedgewood Mist; I later learned that this color was used to illustrate the Starfire convertible in the '62 Olds catalog.

Anyway, I fell in love with this car & had visions of fixing it up with my dad, driving it in the homecoming parade, going to prom, & doing lots of high school cruising with my friends in my big blue convertible.

Unfortunately, my dad thought the idea of his high school kid buying a nearly 20 year-old convertible was about the dumbest thing he'd ever heard. He said I'd never get parts, it burned too much gas, nobody'd ever want a big, gaudy, outdated car like a Starfire convertible, etc. We fought about that car like banshees, but he wouldn't budge.

One day it was gone. I was crushed. I never found out what happened to it.

Over 25 years later, I found another Wedgewood Mist '62 Starfire convertible. It's a bit tired, but it's MINE. Someday I hope to make a showpiece out of it, but for now I enjoy it the way it is. I'm grateful that my dad lived long enough to drive it.

If I could just track down some of those chicks from high school....

Chuck

[MarkV]

Ahh Wooster! My family lives in Shreve, Mansfield and Wooster! Or Wister as it is pronounced! They are the Mcclaran family

[MarkV]

I dont get rid of my cars and I search for the ones that my fam. was dumb enough to sell/ neglect, and I get them back! But, my biggest regret was not being born about 20 years earlier than I was, because my mother's dad died in 1983, 5 years before I existed. And when he died he had about 20 Chrysler, Dodge, Plymouth, and Desoto Unrestored in immaculate condition all running all from the 1920's-1950's Including a 1958 Chrysler Imperial Lebaron that they only made 300 of which was his daily driver, all the cars were sold for like $500 a piece, with the exception of my 1941 Dodge, which was saved, because it was not worth much and it wasnt in to good of condition even then.