How to Evaluate the Condition of a Classic Car

How to Evaluate the Condition of a Classic Car
Alright you the client has come to me with your car and we’re about to start the appraisal, what do I do? Well my particular style of doing an appraisal is I will circle this car many, many times each time I’m doing something different and one of the most important things on the value of an automobile a special interest, a collector car, a modern car, all cars is what’s kind of condition is it in, that is one of the main things that establishes a value on a car. You want to find out what’s the body like on these cars, what kind of condition are they in? Well I start circling the car and I am looking everywhere and especially areas like around the wheel wells, the quarter panels, back behind the window, along the rocker panels, everywhere there’s going to be rust and how do I do this? I just start looking at the car, little magic tool here not very sophisticated called a magnet, I use this magnet and just go around to various parts of the car to find these and you may get to some spots where there is just nothing holding this magnet on, well that’s going to tell you that there has been some damage, some perhaps at one time there was a lot of rust in this area and it’s been filled with body filler or bond or lead or whatever they use and that just gives you a good idea of what the condition the body is. Just because a car has been repaired doesn’t mean it’s a bad car, just about every car that’s of any length of age a car 10, 15, 20 years old and still on the road and still looks like it’s in good shape its probably had a little bodywork somewhere along the line but you want to take a close look at how well that bodywork has been done. If it’s been repaired in this area and you can’t tell well maybe it’s not a big deal, if you’re talking about a 58 Rambler it’s not really a big deal but if you’re talking about a Ducenburg something like that then it might be a big deal, I have a real reflection on the valuable but we may talk about that later. So I go around the entire car, I’m looking very, very closely just everywhere, I always open the doors and I get down, take a close look underneath the doors that’s where you’re going to see a lot of hidden problems, you see a car it looks really good you get down into this area and you see a lot of rust underneath here, take a look here is it rusty, check again for bodywork that’s been done in this area, does that magnet hold and of course if you’re looking at a Corvette something like that that’s not an issue because it’s fiberglass. You can tell a lot of pass damage by the condition of the soleplate, is it wet in there, is there beat rust along here, are the nuts and bolts and screws are they rusty what kind of condition are they in? There’s lots of secrets that can hide below the surface on cars.