Why do I torture myself? Am I sick? Someone take my '80s Auto Traders away!!!
 

It always begins the same way... I'm looking for something. This time my wife asked if I had a magnetic chess set. Hmm... I think it's in the box under our bed. I lift the lid and there it is. A stack of Auto Traders from the early '80s. Then the pain begins:

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In this same book... a Chevy Citation X11 Special for $8900.

You should read the ads in my 1967 and up PANO collection...:rolleyes:

I have an extensive collection of R&T magazines from the '50s to the '80s, the early '60s ones have ads for perfect '57 Speedsters for $900, etc.....

It would be even sadder to look at RE listings for L.A. from the '70s or '80s. The bottom line is that nothing ever seems cheap at the time, by definition it is selling for what it's worth. What it's going to be worth later is another story, and if you could predict that w/ accuracy you'd be a billionaire and the price of cars would be irrelevant. So there you have it. :)

Pre- Barret Jackson , obviously! :D

speeder, I have almost all the R&T from 1948 until about 2000 and those from the 50's and 60's are great reading. I love to read the prices in the classified area. Sure would be great to go back in time for a day or two.

Heh. I've got R&Ts from teh 50s on... in the early 70s, there were a couple of 550s listed for $2k each...

What are the odds that the people who sold these cars still have the same phone number. It would be interesting to hear their comments 25 years later.

I've got a couple dozen Hot Rod magazines from the late 60's and early 70's. Can't remember exact ads, but several GTO's, Barracudas and other classics for next to nothing.

Don't ya just want to grab the phone, call em up and say, "I'll take it!"

In '79, I advertised my 70-1/2 Trans Am in Hemmings. It needed everything. A guy shows up in an immaculate restored '65 GTO convertible and has to have it. I trade him straight across... 6 months later a guy stops me on the street and offers me $3450 for the GTO, and it's a done deal. I wish I could say I bought some up and coming tech stock with that money, but noooo...