Hey Scotty, my girlfriend's dad has a 1979 Pontiac Catalina with a V6 and 3 speed automatic transmission. It's become a collect-all in front of the garage. I've been thinking about turning it into a project classic car. He says it only needs a new battery and fresh gas to at least start again, and the car ran daily until they parked it 5 years ago. The carburetor was rebuilt not long before it was parked. It has very minimal rust and still looks decent. He offered to sell for $750, What are your thoughts on a Catalina as a first-time classic car project?
@justin-shepherd
Mate, in future, please format your text correctly before you hit submit. Badly formatted text is painful to read.
That would be an excellent project car. Those old RWD land yahts were Ford's and GM's specialty and back then GMs were much better built. $750.00 is a steal, I would jump on it.
No, unless it would be a V8. V6's are not valuable for resale .
This post is almost 5 years old, now. The Admin and I were testing whether or not comments alerted an OP to their presence, if someone else already answered the question.
The engine in the car is a Pontiac V8 with 301 cubic inches of displacement and a Rochester Dual-Jet carburetor. I fixed the car up pretty well and I'll drive it 3 or 4x a week during the summertime.
I would say yes .. old school car are the most fun to work on .. you learn so much and it had room in the engine bay.
Simple cars ...
No, unless it would be a V8. V6's are not valuable for resale .
I have an update on my 1st question on Scotty's new site, lol. I was entertaining the idea of buying this '79 Catalina for $750 from my girlfriend's parents again the other day. My '99 Ranger is my DD and at times a project, but I would get a lot more enjoyment out of owning and restoring a genuinely classic car. Other than a sagging headliner and cracked dashboard, the only real cosmetic problem I've come across checking out this car is it has spots of surface rust on a few body panels where the paint has been knicked. The frame looks brand new, at least from where I've been able to look. Where would you find the paint code on a 42 year old GM vehicle, if it's even there anymore? I like this color silver and would keep it that color if I had it redone.
Were the full-size 3.8L 3-Speed automatic GM vehicles from the late 70s known for any real issues? I've considered snagging a battery and putting fresh gas in the thing to see how it runs, since it's sat for 5 or 6 years and I've never seen it run. They took the battery out to not have it corrode the engine bay, and it's bad.
If you are in a state that tests cars that old for emissions (i.e., Peoples' Republic of California) getting it smogged will be a challenge.
Haha, that wouldn't be a problem, I live outside of Dayton, Ohio, and the state doesn't care about emissions anywhere except Cleveland. People freely mod their cars around here and take their converters out for the performance boost because E-check went away 17 years ago.
@chucktobias Hello Justin.
It seems that it does work. I'll delete the response I posted. Thank you.