Thanks again for the great info guys.
This car is for my own enjoyment. I don’t mind going over resale value, especially for aftermarket customization, which I know full well I’ll never collect on.

What I want to avoid though is paying more that the price of a fully restored car. If I start to cross that line it just doesn’t make sense. The problem is finding a correct price. According to Hagerty the car is worth $18,200 (and climbing) in flawless “Concourse” grade. However, most restored car’s I’ve seen sell for about $17,000, and while very nice, they aren’t even close to “flawless”.

As for the taillights; both of mine are cracked badly and all over. Water got in and ruined the circuit boards. IAP has charges $360 for each lens and $140 for each board.

As for the work, I’m pretty handy with a mechanical stuff; just give me a wrench and a beer, but I won’t even attempt the body work because I know myself. I assume the process is about as detail oriented and tedious as finishing drywall, which is something else I’ll never do again!

Ebay and the junk yard can be your friend, buying new may be best but it clearly isn't the least expensive.

I would step into the expensive items slowly, there are lots of folks who are parting out hulks so I would watch for those having the parts you need (non safety critical items of course).

Karl

You will be lucky if you will get 50% of what you put into it which means you can buy one for 50% of what it will cost you to do it yourself.

An example of parts: http://www.fiatspider.com/f08/viewtopic ... 11&t=16945

Try shopping around for better prices on work ! and if you can do some of the work yourself that
will shave off a bunch ...

narfire wrote:When I saw the price of new replacement parts, I ended up purchasing a couple of parts cars over the years. They had good rear lights lights, brakes, seats etc. I also purchased a number of used parts from Auto Italia and Craigslist. There are a number of new parts of course and a couple of engine re builds to finally get what I want. Paint and rust repair was around $5000.00 I had started with a non running car and spent way too much to get it to where it is today. As others have mentioned I'd buy a rust free car and from there get it sorted with new and used parts. (I have bought another rust free shell )
Total $$$ spent over the years.... yes way north of $10,000.00
Chris

Ditto to this, but if you don't have a place for parts cars, and are patient, you can find almost anything on eBay. The plain truth is,
if you bought a Fiat Spider as an investment, you may as well have bitten on one of those emails from the Nigerian Ambassador who just needs to use your money for a week or two!
You either need to change that objective to "something to do, and some fun driving," or get rid of it and cut your losses. As they say in ChiFLU ( http://www.meetup.com/chicagolandfiatandlancia/,) "we are not a car clubs, we are support group!"

Oh - and if you are handy with electrical, taillight boards can often be repaired. Electrical issues are the most likely to sink a project if you have to have them all fixed professionally.

Best of luck with your decision.

Thanks for the link, I’ll sign up!
I think your right about the circuit boards, I’m pretty sure I can fix this.

We’ll I purchased a second car so I’ve not got 2
The second is a 84 Pininfarina with half the mileage of the original and is in much better shape.
That’s going to be the restored car.

My original ’80 Fiat, I’m just going to fix it up from fair, to ‘good’ condition and resell it in the spring.

Thanks for the link, I’ll sign up!
I think your right about the circuit boards, I’m pretty sure I can fix this.

We’ll I purchased a second car so I’ve now got 2
The second is a 84 Pininfarina with half the mileage of the original and is in much better shape.
That’s going to be the restored car.

My original ’80 Fiat, I’m just going to fix it up from fair, to ‘good’ condition and resell it in the spring.


One other thing; I don’t agree that the FIAT series of cars here are an absolute loss in financial terms.
It’s a beautiful car, and fewer and fewer is on the road. For every one that gets restored, many are parted out. Even in a poor economy the value of these cars in high grade is increasing.
From my research, I’m guessing a restored 2000 is worth about $13-$17k.
If anyone has more specific info or a closer price range data, I’d be interested.

CLudwig wrote: From my research, I’m guessing a restored 2000 is worth about $13-$17k.
If anyone has more specific info or a closer price range data, I’d be interested.

I would love to see the data to back that up.
I see the occasional nut-job asking for more than $10k, but I've never actually seen one sell for that much, no matter the condition.

I think that CLudwig is not to far off. In Canada, well restored Spiders have sold for that much. If you want the data just Google "Andy's Spiders" and contact Andy. I've seen his work and it is amazing. I have also heard stories of German buyers paying that much for restored Spiders.

maytag wrote: I would love to see the data to back that up.
I see the occasional nut-job asking for more than $10k, but I've never actually seen one sell for that much, no matter the condition.

My research came in three ways:

1. Hagerty, which tends to be on the low side, valued the 1980 FIAT at $8,600 in "good" condition $13,200 in "excellent" and $18,200 in "concours" grade in December 2011, and at $8.5K, 12.8K, and $17.2K respectively in Sept 2011. Going up.

2. I've been watching auctions, eBay, and car sale magazines for a while now. Most FIATs sell cheap but most are junk or amateur, home restores. Any low mileage one I've seen in good condition is selling for more and any properly restored one for 12-17K. These look amazing but are far from "concours" grade.

3. All restoration shops I received quotes from were small shops. All were familiar with the FIAT, had restored some recently, and had proof. This leads me to believe that they are increasing in popularity as a candidate for professional restoration. This means that they most likely are increasing in price.

One other thing. Most high value FIAT's are either 100% original, low mileage cars or "restomods" restored to better than original condition.

Just my $0.02 to add: My observation up here in New England is that a basically good, rust-free one on Craigslist, etc. is in the $5K range. It will need a lot of sorting out at his price, but they can be found with almost no rust and in very good shape in this price range. I think it is part of the great appeal of these cars that they are relatively inexpensive and that there are great parts suppliers around to help keep us rolling!

CLudwig wrote:... One other thing; I don’t agree that the FIAT series of cars here are an absolute loss in financial terms.
It’s a beautiful car, and fewer and fewer is on the road. For every one that gets restored, many are parted out. Even in a poor economy the value of these cars in high grade is increasing.
From my research, I’m guessing a restored 2000 is worth about $13-$17k.
If anyone has more specific info or a closer price range data, I’d be interested.

If one can afford a concourse car and hang on to it, that may be true. Last year, there was a guy parting out ELEVEN cars on this board, and that is the sort of thing that will reduce the supply of complete cars pretty quickly. But there were more that a quarter million of these imported over the years, and I think the strongest sales were in the mid 70's to early 80's, so those are the ones least likely to appreciate in value. Still, they are perhaps a better prospect than a Miata, (I think there are at about 1.5 million) plus, until recent models, they've been ugly,IMHO.
I bought my Fiat with NO provenance, as a non-runner because working on it was something I wanted to do, since I finally had the TIME. So getting it to where we could put over 2K miles on it last year was worth more than any profit I could make by getting it perfect and selling it. I guess I'm a "Rescuer" more than a restorer or a collector! If I were to spend 3K on a perfect paint job, I would probably be 2K further underwater ... but I might do it anyway!

I'm with Maytag on this one. The ones on Ebay that are asking over $15,000 have been relisted time and time again and have not sold. I've seen some of them keep going by for a year now.

aj81spider wrote:I'm with Maytag on this one. The ones on Ebay that are asking over $15,000 have been relisted time and time again and have not sold. I've seen some of them keep going by for a year now.

You might be right; but I hope your not!
These guys http://roadstersalon.com/ claim to sell 30 a year (all at 17K or more), and have over 20 in stock.

I really don't know the "true" answer, or even if there is such a thing though which is why I posted this question.