The car hobby is expensive so we don’t need any help driving up the costs any higher. What defines expensive is different for everyone. The buy/sell is the point of this article. If you are going to flip a car do something to add value vs. flip the darn thing. Do some research and at least clean the thing up. You can shoot for the moon on a price but the guy who has restored even one car knows what it will take, so be realistic. Before you buy it, think about giving the info to someone you know that has been looking for that particular car. No need to drive up the price of the hobby. I find that when restorers sell a project car it is priced fairly because they know what it will take to build the car.
Unethical and unscrupulous people create mistrust. I despise them. Pay a fair price and always make sure you tell an unsuspecting seller what they have. Steeling the Hemi GTX from the little old lady is wrong and most certainly not something to brag about. Everyone wants to be a flipper but very few will want to be the “flippee”. Buying a car filled with short cuts like house wiring and countless plumbing junctions after junctions is bad quality and is unsafe. People can die. While everyone including myself likes to make a buck, creating an unsafe vehicle that goes down the road is wrong.
Reality TV shows are good entertainment but some programs have created unsafe and ironically unrealistic picture of the car hobby. Finding, building driving is what the car hobby is all about. Flipping unsafe low quality junk for big fast profit is not a hobby but instead is a business model, and a bad one for the hobby at that. Don’t be that guy and please don’t be that unsuspecting consumer and buy an unsafe car in haste. Talk to the owner and get the story. If you can’t get the story on a car, say at an auction, please do not buy the car. Identify your seller as either a businessman or a hobbyist. A good hobbyist can and oftentimes will make a profit, when done ethically, meaning some value was added, this is grand for all parties. A well respected attorney once told me, “to defend profit be able to demonstrate that you actually did work for the money. “- Jake