A very good example of resto cost and value of a 69 Cuda

68original said

I know this is a little off-topic from OP, but I can't resist throwing my two cents in.
Just a little color to add to the discussion about restoring a car back to OEM condition, from a guy that has one in OEM condition.
In my opinion, you will never restore back to factory OEM condition because quite frankly, it sucked back then.
Many people on FABO have seen my car in person and can attest to the originality the car presents.
The body panels wave at you when you walk by, not to mention the panel gaps are all over the place.
The orange peel makes an orange look smooth.
Paint runs and drips galore, weatherstripping glue smeared all over hell.
Undercoating where undercoating doesn't belong because the "new guy" on the assembly line was in the pit spraying upwards and couldn't stand the crap falling in his eyes so he would just hold the gun and spray.
If you paid a shop to "restore" your car like that back to OEM condition, it would probably be the last job the shop did.

I used to think about project cars and yeah, it would've been nice at one time. Not anymore, life happens.
If you think you are going to sell your restoration at some time down the road and "come ahead on money", it probably isn't going to happen.
Buy what you want, for what you can afford, and do what you want with it.

The issue I have is when someone tries to hold out a vehicle as "original this" or "original that" when it obviously is not, regardless of price.

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i completely agree with you that today's "restored" muscle cars - any make or model - ARE NOT representative of what these cars looked like when they rolled off the car carriers 50 years ago. i know because i "loitered" at our local Plymouth Dealer every weekend when i was in high school (1970-72) and after high school, i was a salesman at the used car lot of a local Chevy dealership where i got to see how "quality control" worked at GM versus Chrysler. there just was NO quality control for anything on the new cars back then. the cars that are being "restored" today would have been considered "custom cars" 50 years ago. look at the paint work on restored cars today. NOT A SINGLE COMPANY was mass producing cars in the 1967-1971 era with the quality of paint on the restored cars today. MAYBE you could have compared a Cadillac or a Lincoln Mark IV Continental paint job to something "common" today - but i even doubt that thought. Chrysler used acrylic enamel and GM used acrylic lacquer on their cars. neither of those paints would look anything close to the depth of shine of today's paints. i also know a little bit about this topic because i owned and ran a body shop from 1973 to 1976. when i painted my 68 Barracuda Turbine Bronze, i painted it with original old school ACRYLIC LACQUER because i wanted the car to LOOK like the cars did "back then." yes, acrylic enamel would have been OEM mopar, but PPG wanted $1000/gallon for that paint and i got A. Lacquer for $325/gallon and AE and AL "look" pretty close the same. when i take this car to local car shows, i always get asked if i'm going to have the car painted - LOL! yes, i laugh because it's always a "younger person" who asks this question. i just smile and say "No, i want the car to look the way it would have looked 50 years ago." naturally, the person i say this to never understands what i mean. so EVERYTHING "68original" above is saying about how no one actually "restores" their cars to "what they looked like" from the factory is absolutely CORRECT! here's my Turbine Bronze 68 Barracuda painted with "not very shinny" but "more original looking" acrylic lacquer.