This IS a really cool thread, and I just wanted to add my thoughts.
In the Fall of 1964, I was 11 years old. The '65 Barracuda my Dad had ordered was at the Plymouth dealership. I went with him to pick it up, and can still remember him shaking his head, saying, "Damn, I've never paid $2700 for a car before".
It's been a family car since - Dad driving it for a couple years, then Mom, me as a teenager (several good memories "under the glass"), and my older brother, who used it as a daily during the '80s.
Unfortunately, my brother drove the car into ruin. He let it become a rust bucket, and managed to lock up the engine (apparently ran it out of oil). Dad was pissed. This had been one of the first "sporty" cars he had ever owned, and he reclaimed it from 'bro, then had the engine blueprinted and the car repainted. He found some carpet and other various sundry parts at a local junkyard, and pretty much got the car back into "survivor" status.
Then he suddenly died in 1990. The car sat in Mom's garage 10 years. Out of the clear blue, she called me one day and asked, "Do you want this car? .....If not, I'm going to sell it to the first person that'll give me $50."
I had a trailer at her house the next weekend.
Since then, I've re-spent Dad's original $2700 several times over..... wheels, tires, tranny overhaul, steering wheel, springs, shocks, brakes, dual exhaust, headers, chrome doodads under the hood, and a myriad of all the little things you have to do to keep a 45 year old car running.
It's kind of funny. I don't think that I would have ever just gone out and bought a '65 Cuda as a project car..... (maybe a 67 or 68 - which, to me, are by far the sharpest looking Barracudas that Plymouth ever made - and I'd sure love to have one)....... but because this '65 is - literally - part of my life - heck, it's part of me.... it's flat out worth a fortune.
No matter what the cost of A Bodies will eventually rise to - I don't think anybody could ever give me enough money for mine..... and I fall more in love with it as each year passes.
