No offense taken at all. As much as I mess with these old cars for the love of them, I do try to approach the projects with a concern about the amount of money spent. I used to believe that anyone could build a first class show car without getting upside down on them. Televised auctions of Barret Jackson & Mecum give the impression that all these cars are worth a fortune. The real truth is that most cars are sold for less than what an owner puts in them. If you farm out a lot of the work you're much more likely to lose money.
I'm not saying that everybody loses money. If you can buy a car cheap enough and do most of the work on it yourself you can make a profit. The vast majority of the money made is by the places that sell parts and the shops that do restorations for others. Even the guys that do their own work and don't lose money have to ignore the value of the time they invest or be satisfied with paying themselves a few bucks an hour.
It's unlikely that I'll ever stumble upon a cheap A12 car or Hemi Superbird again like I did when I was young. It might be cool to have one but their values go to hell if you don't have a numbers matching car and you have to keep them stock. The more miles you put on those cars, - the more their values drop.
I'd rather build cars that I can personalize and enjoy driving. When the day comes that I need to part with one I hope I don't take a bath on the sale.