Car people are lying to you about their budgets, and I have the receipts
If you want to see a car person squirm, ask them how much they’ve spent on their car. Most of us don’t have the number handy. If we do, we are lying about it. I know this because I am guilty. There has long been a number in my head totaling the money I’ve invested in my ’65 Corvair Corsa over the last six years. After saying that figure out loud to a friend the other day, I decided to check myself.
I was off by about 30 percent.
Could it be because we tell ourselves that $5 here and $100 there doesn’t add up across paychecks? We are likely all guilty of some “creative accounting” when it comes to our project cars, and I hold myself as example number one. We apply this to other people’s cars, too.
Last weekend, David Freiburger listed his 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1, better known as “Disgustang,” for sale on Facebook, asking $75K. My first reaction was surprise at the fact that he was selling it publicly. The second was confusion—by listing it on Facebook, he was probably losing money. (He could likely get more on Bring a Trailer. Clearly, he wanted it to go to a fan.) Even if he was being helped by sponsorships, Freiburger has a lot of dough tied up in that car. Anyone could find the parts list by reviewing dozens of episodes from the three different video series he leads.
When you want OEM+ looks and effective air-conditioning, you don’t have many choices. Freiburger didn’t even try to hide the cash he put in: The front drive alone for the built Ford small-block under the hood was $3000. Then there was a set of Air Flow Research cylinder heads, and hours of tuning to make the car ready to drive daily—and comfortably, at that.
Despite the handle, Disgustang is a true restomod that puts modern function into a beautiful vintage wrapper. The design brief never included the word budget.
And yet a dozen comments on his post railed that Freiburger was taking advantage of people: “You got those parts for free.” “You got paid to install them.” “I could build the same thing in my garage for $15K.”
Freiburger laughed in the faces of a few commenters, and rightfully so, but I can see both sides. He is not completely off the hook. The brand in which he has so carefully wrapped himself centers on labeling project vehicles as “junk,” and rescuing such “garbage” by doing the right thing the wrong way. If you’ve paid attention, you’ve seen that while his schtick has remained consistent, the ambition of the projects he undertakes and the level of polish on the resulting builds has steadily risen.
Lots of fans didn’t catch the point when the Disgustang’s ratty look became only that. Everything not cosmetic was redone, and a bunch of carefully selected mechanical upgrades were installed. The shift didn’t click for me until I saw the for-sale listing.
We didn’t realize how much Freiburger had invested in that car because we often fail to acknowledge how much time and money we have invested in our own cars. Those who label his Mustang a $15K car are the same people still spouting off about sub-$1000 LS swaps. I mean, technically an LS swap that cheap is possible; but is that level of hackery really what you want to spend your limited amount of time doing? Why not just do it right?
Owning vintage cars is not cheap. If you think it is, you have been at this a long time.
Experience allows for creative accounting. A part or piece “just sitting on the shelf” often didn’t get there for free; yet you’ll pull it from storage and install it on your project with a zero next to it on your mental balance sheet. Look no further than a drawer of specialty tools in the tool chest of your favorite veteran wrencher. The first time they used those tools, the thought of their cost probably hurt. After two decades, suddenly that tool is basically free. It’s been paid off and costs nothing to keep. It has value, but the act of using it rarely triggers a thought of the original receipt.
Creative accounting isn’t limited to dollars and cents; it applies to time as well. A 15 minute job for you or I is a solid hour or possibly an entire evening for someone new to that same project. Experience creates efficiency, which we can leverage into value. Did you buy a project off Facebook Marketplace, something the last person gave up on, because you knew it would only take you an hour to rebuild the fuel system? That’s creative accounting. So many of us value our time at zero—or somehow less than that—but opportunity cost is real.
It’s easy to become jaded and thus unwelcoming when talking to those with less time invested in cars or their maintenance. We convince people that things are easy when in fact they are not, yet act surprised when newcomers are put off by the time, money, and emotional investment required to do things “right.”
The fact of the matter is next to nothing pertaining to our old cars is approachable, easy, or cheap. That’s not a good thing, or a bad thing, but it is a fact. The moment we stop lying to ourselves and accept this, the entirety of our hobby—and all the people on its sidelines—come into focus.
Some of us are good at finding and taking advantage of deals. Others use creative accounting. Regardless, we often end up with way more money tied up in our projects than we realize. I’m not calling for everyone at a cruise night to have a window sticker that says how much money they have tied up in their car—though I have seen it. I’m just asking that when people who are new to the hobby ask how much a build costs, we be honest. Nothing is more frustrating than getting excited about building a cool car for $5000 only to find out there is no way you can afford it.
Normalize being honest, and ditch the flair of “I did X or Y for so cheap!” Such a claim can be impressive, but it is more often disingenuous and makes us all look like liars who squirm when asked about specifics.
I suggest a rock-solid “I love this car enough that I don’t keep track. The car matters more than the money.”
That’s the truth, right?
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When I retired, the wife encouraged me to buy a new project car to keep busy. Something needing work, something I liked, something to keep me busy. House is paid off and kids are grown up, so costs for parts really didn’t matter, as long as I stayed busy, doing what I liked. Years later, I find myself much happier in retirement than other friends who don’t have a project to work on. It’s not how much money you spend on your project that is most important. It is how working on your project makes you feel. Of course, having a good wife also helps a lot.
adding Time to the cost of your hobby that you do in Your “FREE” time is really Dumb– doing that is like tallying up how much it cost you to watch TV last year-
I can honestly say that I don’t have a tremendous amount of cash tied up in parts and labor on any of my toys. I did invest lots and lots of my time, both doing repairs and travelling to get parts and hours and hours of research on how to do specific repairs
I’ve got a folder with everything I ever bought for my 63 Rambler sort of restomod. More mod than resto at this point. I’ve never really added it all up. Probably around $15K, but that’s beside the point. I’ve been driving the car 20 years now! I don’t include normal wear and tear items like tires, oil changes, belts, etc. Or my time. If we started putting a dollar figure on every hour we spent on a hobby car we’d really be up there! as a handyman I work for $50-55 an hour now, started at $35-40/hr eight years ago. How many hours do I have in my car? When first built I would say I averaged one full day (8 hours) every week. Some weeks none, some weeks a couple days. 52 weeks x 8 hours is 416 hours. In 2003 I as an E-6 in the USAF, $2204 a month (plus extras, but will skip that). Average month has 30 days, $73.47 a day. Let’s assume that’s an 8 hour day, though anyone in the military knows it’s usually more, but we’re counting weekends/holidays/paid vacation too. 52 x $73.47 = $3820.44. Now that’s a modest amount — but only $9.18 an hour. Including benefits would bring it up to almost double, $18.32/hr or $7640.88. still a very modest amount. I would guess I only had about $10K in the car during that first year, the other estimated $5K added after. That’s still $17640 in a car that was worth at most $8K in 2003 if it had been restored. It’s valued at ~$13K now restored, #2 condition (which is the average condition of most cars — #1 is a museum piece). Even at nearly $18K I’d say I have got my money’s worth. Can’t buy a unique vehicle and drive it for 20 year for that! I always tell people when they are “fixing up” an old car that the only way they are likely to get their money back is to enjoy it that much. Only a few cars can be restored and sold for a profit, and then you have to get lucky on purchase price AND know what you’re doing. The shops doing the work are really who’s making the money in the collector car market. That’s why learning to do things yourself is important for the budget!
I’m 72.I have been messing around with old cars since I was 16.I keep a spiral notebook and envelope with receipts for all my project cars.I used to keep track of hours spent but gave up on that.I can tell you what I have into my cars by looking at my records. I don’t let my wife see them.At present I’m paring down on my collection. In the last year I have sold 3 and gave 1 to my son.Have 2 more up for sale which will leave me 2.
Did I make money on them? No chance.But it’s a hobby. Getting tired in my old age.
Thanks for another great article.
A couple years ago I started restoring a 1969 Volvo 1800S that my dad had picked up at the factory. It hadn’t moved in over 20 years, after having accumulated 61,000. It had been garaged since new, and as a Southern California car that was never a daily driver, had scarcely, if ever, seen rain.
He had handed it down to my sister, who grew up with it and learned to drive in it. Unfortunately, she couldn’t afford to pay someone to do all the work to make the car roadworthy again.
Since I have an extensive collection of tools, including a lift, that are handicapped by my very modest skills, I said I’d take the task on, with the proviso that she pay for all my out-of-pocket costs, and labor for requiring specialized tools/skills I couldn’t perform.
My pre-project estimate — downloaded directly from my rectal data bank — was $10,000 in parts, and $7,000 in labor.
Since I had to justify all my expenses to her, I kept a very detailed spreadsheet, and scanned every invoice into PDFs.
At project completion, parts came to $10,505; labor $11515. Amazingly close on the former. The labor element isn’t quite as far off as it sounds — my estimate didn’t include transportation from LA to Boise and back.
Of course, since my labor was free, I didn’t track even a second of it.
So I know the truth of the project, which was pretty much in line with expectations. Garaged and rust-free deserve the credit.
Like most Any “”Hobby” that folks enjoy—-We like to remember only the good things— How much did it ?Really cost for that meat you went hunting or fishing for food (telling yourself & others you were saving money by hunting or fishing to supplement your food budget—-Gamblers brag when they win a few thousand dollars but forget all the money they lost 1 or $200.00 at a time- Last summer I went shpping for a new project car & just laughed at the prices some people wanted because they had X dollars “Invested” in the car— Hobbies can rarely work that way– just Enjoy the hobby-
I find here’s two camps when people talk about the money they have “invested” in their car. The “I’m a wheeler dealer, mechanic savant and look what I stole/adapted” camp and the “look how money I can spend on a car” camp… Either way, when someone starts talking money and their car, I politely acknowledge their prowess and walk away. When someone asks how much I have in my car (69 SS Chevelle convertible, 68 Datsun Roadster. 37 Chevy two door sedan street rod), my answer is “Probably a lot more than I planned, but it’s worth it to me in funbucks”… FYI, I bought the Chevelle completed, built the Datsun and the street rod. In the end they’re all the same in funbucks!!!!!
It’s just arithmetic. Gees.
Kyle is rite on, after 30+years of weekend swap meets and trading with friends I got to build my dream. I wouldn’t even start to try calculating money spent on my bike. Got recipes stashed in a file , but some don’t come near what they cost today. My project isn’t a monitory thing. It’s what I built, in my style, on my terms, and pride of doing so has no price. An eternal smile every time I hit that kickstarter and hear that….. braaap-braaap! Now that’s an investment.
I have blocked this article & comments on every device in my home & all phones just in case my wife might stumble onto this. Now, I just have to figure out to tag it as “fake news”…. hmmm…
Honesty hurts sometimes doesn’t it?
I always tell people there are two rules to follow when building a project.
1. Keep all of your receipts.
2. Never add them up.
So true! I have a LOT more in my ’56 Chevy than what Hagerty Insurance agreed to cover. And I don’t think I could get more than about 60K on the open market for it.
I DID pay for all the labor and parts to restore and update the car because I’m old, don’t have the facilities or expertise to raise the car to the level where she is now. I did it because it’s a legacy car, a bucket list car and I couldn’t do it myself.
Cars are an expensive hobby. Buy somebody else’s finished project for half to a third of their costs and have fun.
I recently thought to myself that I should add a spreadsheet for tools only to the ones for the cars. Then I thought better of it.
I tracked down the last mechanic to work on the 2007 MINI S that I bought for $2000 almost two years ago. “You people. If it says it doesn’t run it’s $250 for scrap or you find another car.” I wish he was my mechanic. I even asked him to move across the country. That said, I’m over $6k now and I can’t find a $2.37 crankshaft dowel pin in the US and no word from BMW when they might send some. So the engine hangs in space. Opportunity cost for sure! But I WILL finish it out and be proud of my work and just not think about what the lesson cost me. Oh, right, add in the 2002 TT I bought as a stopgap because I couldn’t wait to drive another turbo. Joy in the journey, peace in the process.
What a fantastic article.
guilty of not factoring in MY time spent on fixing/restoring a car. That’s a mistake when determining how much $ you put into a car. time IS money. So ask yourself, what was YOUR time worth to you for all that was spent on working on that car instead of a million other things you could’ve been doing?
This is the most honest and to-the-point article about the economic relationship most of us have with our classic cars. I was thinking about budgeting a little more for 2024, and I wondered where did a great amount go in 2023, and then I looked in the garage. I knew it went towards my ’77 280Z, but I didn’t want to really figure out the exact amount. So I continued to plan to budget, knowing there isn’t much more “she” needs-not for now. This article represents us all. Well done and said.