71 GTX on ebay...

[DeanP]

I was thinking of making a serious offer on this 71 GTX that did not hit the reserve price on ebay. I emailed the seller and he said he wanted 45K which I think is too high in today's market. What do you guys think what this car is worth and do you see any red flags from the pics? I thought the landau (partial canopy) vinyl top was not available on the GTX, true? Also, are the two black stripes going down the tail-lights and down the rear valence supposed to be there? Kindly let me know and thanks...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Plymouth ... 215wt_1167

[Eric]

That car is a sore spot for me. When I last saw it for sale in 2005 it was a survivor. For some reason, whoever bought it decided to restore it, and didn't even bother to restore it correctly. The hood to fender stripes and the rear bumper/valance blackout were both options available on a 71 GTX, however, this car was not originally built with either of them. Does the car look cool with them, sure...but to take an original car and do that with it....It's also missing the black body line pinstripe.
I haven't spent a lot of time looking at the restored photos, but I'd assume there are a lot of other items that are now incorrect for the car. If you're looking for a nice looking incorrectly restored car, this one isn't bad. I do think he's about $10K too high in this market though.
Here's are pics from when it was a survivor in 2005.

[DeanP]

Hi Eric,
Thanks for the history on it and especially the survivor pics. Man, I cannot believe that it was only back to 2005 and it still looked decent and they decided to restore it. I say it definitely should've been left unrestored since it seemed like it was still in good shape in 2005. Dumb idea for this car!!!! As they always say, it's original only once. Thanks again.
Dean

[Eric]

After reading the auction, I noticed it stated "Car comes with Rally wheels with Red line tires from Coker tires."
So no only do you not get the original wheels/dog dish caps, you get a redline tire that never came on this car. It looks like someone spent some time and money restoring the car, too bad they ignored some of the original details. For what it is now (forgetting that is was a survivor) it seems like a very nice car.