Thank you Chip and Steve for the kind words.
As many of you know we have done pretty much everything there is to do a Ford GT over the past few years from complete rebuilds, finishing and completing "rescue cars" as I like to call them (from a company not to be named publicly), to major and minor performance mods, maintenance, and the list goes on.
ANYTHING can be repaired but it always comes down to how much do you want to spend. We have seen some pretty bad cars and had to quote them out for the insurance company just so the car can be totalled and the owner on their way to another car or whatever they want. Sometimes we hear from them again and sometimes we don't. The car could be repaired correctly but it would cost more than the car was new.
What scares (actually terrifies) me is the amount of people out there that are working on these cars and don't have a clue. Just had a call the other day: caller "Yeah you got one of those rear cover things", me "You mean a rear fascia", caller "Naw you know the thing that covers the motor", me "You mean a clamshell", caller "Yeah if that's what you call it, you got a used one we could get and how about some used or slightly damaged control arms we could fix up". Yeah I want them to work on my car, NOT.
Sure they will repair/replace the obvious parts that are bent or broke but what about parts that they are too lazy or cheap to look for. Like the knuckle that was cracked and they only put a control arm on it because that was the bent part. Seen one of those and notified the owner. Or maybe the car has a slight grinding noise now and the shop only put on a control arm and a wheel because that was bent and broke. When they should have put a new wheel bearing, knuckle, toe link and other control arm. If the corner is hit that hard then change the entire corner. You have to be safe and assume that every car will go 205mph if not more, not that it will but because it can.
Now back to the salvage title cars. If the price is right then it could be worth it but make sure the homework is done ahead of time. Everyone has their own "endgame" on what they want to do with a car, track car, show car, investment, flavor of the month, whatever. Just make sure you know what you are getting into before its too late.
The ones that we have done we showed the new owner pictures before we even start on the car so they can see how bad it was and as long as its repaired correctly (which we do to the best of our abilities) it will as good as if not better than new.
Just my .02 cents.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
