So, I want to invest in an 60s-70s muscle/pony car and am willing to get my hands dirty but I've never done a project car before. Can you please explain to me which of the three would best fit my wants? I've heard they're all easy to work on and less costly to get parts than newer cars and I want to also change drum brakes to disc brakes, as well as add seat belts and maybe an airbag. How much would it cost me to fully restore a classic car with these criteria in mind? (New England weather and am 16 so not a whole lot of experience with cars)
There are probably more Mustangs around than any other car from that time period and parts are plentiful. Any of those models though could make for a good project.
Doing a real restoration on an old car is a huge investment in time and money. What you should probably shoot for is buy the best example you can afford that is solid but may have some issues that you can learn to work on yourself. Stay away from rust-buckets. You are better off buying one with a blown engine or transmission than an example that is rusted. While true restoration is not likely to be in the cards at this point in your life you can certainly learn to wrench on any of those old timers and install some modern upgrades to make it a fun driver. That's what I do with my older vehicles - they'll never be show cars but they're still great fun knock around with.
Fully restore, as in, make it like brand new? Or restore it as in make it a nice driver?
A full, frame off restoration could run anywhere from $80k to hundreds of thousands depending on the exact car and the exact standards you have.
Just to bring it up to good driver status could be $40k - $60k. There are a LOT of variables involved with restorations. The biggest is what shape your car is starting out in. It also matters how much you can do yourself versus having to pay a shop to handle.
I do custom builds all the time. It typically takes about 30 minutes to an hour of just conversation with the customer to determine what they want, what their budget is, when they need it, etc.
1970s mustang
