zeroptzero

nothing turns me off classic cars like rust, before buying the s2k I first wanted a classic Corvette. But after looking and driving a few of them the rust issue was bad, even with a fibreglass body. After that I settled on my second favourite car which is the S2000. We once owned a Datsun 240z which was an awesome car in the day, but no matter how much we had the body repaired the rust kept coming back every couple years. On older cars it's like a cancer that just keeps spreading. llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll lllllllllllllllllllllllllll

darcyw

everyone is speaking the truth. There is nothing...nothing more difficult to work around than the tin worm. Even if all the mechanicals are shiite, and the body is rust free, then you're good to go. I have been to Arizona many times. Car bodies there live forever. A friend's 1998 Ford Windstar (a POS in Canadian climate- actually these things are always shiite no matter where you live), is completely rust free in AZ.

Check out southern US cars or Bring a Trailer.

darcy

1DarkChaos

you must be insane to restore this. i guess it is ok to restore n flip but definitely not to keep and hold. You will be constantly dumping money to fix the body.

Spoon Fed

While the Alfa GTV is lovely, I would wait on a better donor car. As someone who works with metal almost daily (I have my welders tickets) I know It will be impossible to truly get rid of all the rust, and properly weld in new panels, on that example. As others have mentioned you'll be chasing rust the rest of its life.

Himura357

I've decided to not pursue it. Too much negativity towards the restoration, and I understand it. But then, if rust really is so bad, how does anything get saved? It is just a question of how much money you can throw at it?

darcyw

when the value of the car is greater than the restoration costs or the love for a particular car is greater than the bank account.

darcy

Amplified_AP1

There are different answers to this question, there are those that will frame up restore a car at any cost, see Boot Hill or Cyrious Garage for example however this can be north of six figures but the result is something of higher quality than when it left the assembly line. There are also those who will restore but more along the lines as you seemed to want to, strip the car, cut and replace floors, body work etc with NOS/ reproduction parts, blast the frame and rebuild.

It's not impossible, but it's not something you'll find your average body shop wanting to take on, you need a more start to finish shop and while they will take on your project, it's not cheap, however to those speaking in term of investment, it's not an investment, you do it for you.

zeroptzero

If you love the project and money is not a concern then go for it, the project could be very rewarding in ways other than money. I would just hate to see the reoccurrence of rust 2 years down the road ruin a project that you thought was complete. Nothing looks worse than rust and it would be something that would drive me nuts as I would have to fix it immediately and it would not be something I could overlook.