| Subject: |
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Re: Wish list for Sweptlines in 2008' |
| Name: |
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patrick |
| Date Posted: |
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Dec 16, 07 - 9:36 AM |
| IP Address: |
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68.229.210.14 |
| Dodge-Link |
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http://www.ussoklahoma.com |
| Message: |
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Reference restoring these trucks - there are several obstacles, of which several have already been addressed. Keep in mind, WE ARE the following! The $30K Power Wagon sale is definitely the EXCEPTION in these trucks.
Unless I was in freakin' LOVE with my particular Swepty, it would never get a full-on resto like you see with so many Fords and GM trucks of the same vintage. I've owned all three, driven all three, and restored all three, because I LIKE all three, for different reasons! The money is there and so are the buyers if I were to spend $20K on restoring a C-10 or an F150, I'd get it back and probably more. Spend that on restoring a Swepty (which would be really easy if much sheetmetal required fabbing up!!!), and you'd be lucky to find the buyer for the end product...which is why most of us drive what we drive. I'm pretty sure sure none of us are into Swepts for the money , because there isn't any to be made here. If there were, you'd see the owners of '61-'71 Mopar musclecars building matching tow vehicles with a Swepty - I think we can count those guys with just our fingers! Whereas, you see a LOT of vintage Fords and GM trucks being built as tow vehicles...lots of reasons, too, probably the best reason is the buggy wagon suspension Dodge saddled these trucks with. The front ends on both Ford and GM are a damn sight better, no doubt! The only way you really see one or our trucks built for modern freeway towing speeds is to take the body off the Swepty and put it on a later Dodge chassis, and preferably with Cummins power!
I'll state it again - these are merely THINGS; possessions that you can't take with you when you are dead. I've got a '66 Coronet 500 that I've owned for nearly 30 years, and it is a beautiful car and always has been! I feel about that car like Robin and others feel about their trucks. It was the only thing I owned that did not get damaged or destroyed in a tornado that hit my house 4-1/2 years ago, but the only reason was that it was not at my house at that particular moment. If it had been and got destroyed, I'd found another and built it. They are just things, stuff when it's all said and done...
Our Sweptys are just stuff, and not terribly popular stuff, either. If someone wants to repop parts, or worse, bitches and moans about the lack of NEW stuff for our trucks, keep in mind the lessons one learns in Econ 101 and apply them here. Supply and demand. I can buy ALL of the side trim for a '71-'72 Chevy truck (upper/lower, over 100 pieces in all, counting clips) for just over $1,200. Think anyone is going to repop that same trim for a '70-'71 Dodge, for anything close to that? Or, say, the thin stainless that runs along the '61-'63 trucks? Besides, the definition of "restoration" is to make the old look like new, not just bolt on new parts and claim it's restored. If that were the case, we'd be building Chevy trucks now, wouldn't we??? |
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