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Thread: Rodding on a budget ?

  1. #1
    NSRA member kapri's Avatar
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    Rodding on a budget ?

    Guess it will mean different things to different people depending on your disposable income .

    To some a budget build is £8-10,000 ( well compared to many cars out there that IS a cheap build ) , others are lucky to get £1000 to spend in a year on their hobby. I guess it depends how much you want a car and how much you like being married for many , having kids takes away a huge chunk of income for a long time.

    I remember picking up a 100E for £50 ( taxed and MOT'd ! ) and over 3 months I did a load of body mods, resprayed it and fitted a 1300GT , ended up owning me £350 ...it was 24 years back though !

    That's one of the reasons we formed UKK to show that it was possible to to have creative fun on a budget. Sure we got some stick cos they weren't 'proper' kustoms but many have learnt the skills and have gone on to build some outstanding stuff.

    Just like the Lowflyers who had heaps of fun often using other peoples cast offs to create usable fun motors.

    As you get older you get a little bit more disposable and can often build that long sought after dream car to a standard that you've always aspired to.

    I've got a fair amount invested in my long term 27T but it works out at peanuts per week over the build period ( it was never intended to take THIS long though ! ).

    I'm also trying to get back to my roots by building a real cheap motor from what I have lying around, what I can scrounge or modify to fit just to see how cheap you can build if you are not limited by this years 'must haves' or a wishlist to incorporate into the build.

    Just think what you can buy in the way of a new car for the sort of cash we spend on a toy ,not that the question normally enters our heads as we wouldn't even consider it. Just that when we look at a 'cheap' rod for £5000 that would actually buy you a base model new car from many manufacturers . Guess it makes you realise one of the stumbling blocks for youngsters trying to get into the hobby ?

    Waaaaaay back when I first started I really wanted a Jago 5 window but it was totally out of my reach and, even though costs have fallen in real terms since then ,would still be a push for me nowadays.

    Regardless of the budget just getting a car finished and on the road is a major achievement and anyone who's managed it deserves a pat on the back.
    Galations 6:7

  2. #2
    Guest chaley's Avatar
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    I'm with you no this one Kev, I can say how much my car has cost but I bet it's a whole lot more than I think and a lot less than most would guess at, I work on a tiny budget and have to make do or blag parts most of the time, because most of our money goes on the house and life the same as every one. The way fuel prices are going it's going to cost more to run than to build.
    As for young blood into the hobby it's a no brainer 5k gets you a c1, some wheels, some ice and a years free insurance how wouldn't?
    Chaley

  3. #3
    NSRA member weemark's Avatar
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    kev hopefully one of the advantages of a rod is once its finished the depreciation on it will be no where near that of a normal car and in some ways can be thought of as a piggy bank.

    nowadays i think it must be near on impossible to get a car on the road for less than 5-6k. given the cost of buying a project to begin with then adding on the build on top of it, even with doing it all yourself.

    as you say its not cheap. then on top of the building there is the maintenance costs and running costs... there is also the added complication of some of the older parts that are being used is they are becoming unreplaceable due to them not being manufactured any more...so instead of someone only carrying out simple maintenance they may find they need to change the build of the car to suit parts availability.
    Last edited by weemark; 18-12-07 at 12:21 PM.

    Your emotions will always interfere with your sense of truth

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by chaley View Post
    I'm with you no this one Kev, I can say how much my car has cost but I bet it's a whole lot more than I think and a lot less than most would guess at, I work on a tiny budget and have to make do or blag parts most of the time, because most of our money goes on the house and life the same as every one. The way fuel prices are going it's going to cost more to run than to build.
    As for young blood into the hobby it's a no brainer 5k gets you a c1, some wheels, some ice and a years free insurance how wouldn't?
    Chaley
    me to start with and i can think of a few others as well

    the fact you carnt insure anything "intresting" till your 21 kinda put a damper on my plans

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by weemark View Post
    kev hopefully one of the advantages of a rod is once its finished the depreciation on it will be no where near that of a normal car and in some ways can be thought of as a piggy bank.
    Mark, I think that's true if you can do the bulk of the work yourself, otherwise reckon on losing half what you put into it. It's the same with most classics aswell from what I can see. Whichever way you look at it, it's not a cheap hobby but it's all relative. Buying my first Pop for £60 was a major investment for me back in the olden days...

  6. #6
    Guest English Impala's Avatar
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    Don't forget that we've bread (and are still breeding) a nation of bone-idle young adults & kids who simply couldn't be arsed to get their hands dirty building a rod. We also live in a nation where being up to your ******ks in debt is usual & accepted. Years ago many never owned a credit card & you had to have an interview with the bank manager to borrow money!

    Yes, a rod could be built on a budget, but some of the "budget rods" of yesteryear were built to a low price AND a low safety standard. Countless folks would bring home a front end from the scrapyard (remember those?) and fit it into their project. If lucky, it would get a coat of paint & maybe a frsh set of brake pads. Now folks will strip it, blast it, powdercoat it, new bearings, calipers etc, etc..... It all adds up.

    The standard & quality of rods has risen imensley over the years & as the majority (IMO) strive to compete with todays feature cars, it invariably involves a lot more outlay.

  7. #7
    Guest gettinonabitmore's Avatar
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    Kev, et al, I totally agree, see

    http://www.nsra.org.uk/newforum/showthread.php?t=1344

    for my take on 'budgets'.

    The Zodi gets what it needs/I want for it, as and when I can afford it, the pop is just like Kevs ideal of begging/borrowing/stealing parts......

    The 'old school' way????

  8. #8
    NSRA member Captain Scarlet's Avatar
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    Always spent a lot less than i can afford,and still do,i find making something out of nothing more satisfiying,you learn more and it can lead to a more creative and ingenious build

  9. #9
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    maybe im just a tight ****, but to spend £5-10.000 on a hobby to me is just plain mad, especially when (sorry weemark) i think they do go down in price as soon as there on the road,how many times have you seen a rod for sale with the words" for sale cost well over £10.000 but will take £5 or £6000 for it" problem is if its a real good one and for £10.000 i would want a show winner,as soon as that happens it will always be known as that persons car, no matter who owns it, thus i think hard to sell, thus money thrown away if you cant even make back the cost of the build, i know to sum that kind of money is not a lot, im not saying im rich but i could afford that over a few years, but i personly think i would rather for that kind of money buy a nice luxury 5 year old car somthing i can use more than a few times a year.
    so for me if a car cant be build for less than £3500 im not going to build it. expected cost of my 300E V8 powered van when done around £3000 well in budget.

    please dont take this the wrong way its just my opinion being tight.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Daz View Post
    maybe im just a tight ****, but to spend £5-10.000 on a hobby to me is just plain mad, especially when (sorry weemark) i think they do go down in price as soon as there on the road,how many times have you seen a rod for sale with the words" for sale cost well over £10.000 but will take £5 or £6000 for it" problem is if its a real good one and for £10.000 i would want a show winner,as soon as that happens it will always be known as that persons car, no matter who owns it, thus i think hard to sell, thus money thrown away if you cant even make back the cost of the build, i know to sum that kind of money is not a lot, im not saying im rich but i could afford that over a few years, but i personly think i would rather for that kind of money buy a nice luxury 5 year old car somthing i can use more than a few times a year.
    so for me if a car cant be build for less than £3500 im not going to build it. expected cost of my 300E V8 powered van when done around £3000 well in budget.

    please dont take this the wrong way its just my opinion being tight.
    A pack of fags a day, and two pints a night, for the three years it took to build my Morris, would have been twice as expensive a hobby as building the hot rod.

    And there are a whole bunch of guys who do the first, whilst moaning they had the money to do the second!

    For £500 you can buy a ten year old Rover 800, a (once) luxury family car that does everything you need from a car, and spend the rest on your hot rod. I know, I have one such Rover. No rodder needs a £5k or £10k family runaround, but so many guys do drive them, whilst bemoaning they have no money.
    Polygamy is having more wives than you really need.
    Monogamy is essentially much the same thing.

  11. #11
    NSRA member weemark's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Daz View Post
    maybe im just a tight ****, but to spend £5-10.000 on a hobby to me is just plain mad, especially when (sorry weemark) i think they do go down in price as soon as there on the road,how many times have you seen a rod for sale with the words" for sale cost well over £10.000 but will take £5 or £6000 for it" problem is if its a real good one and for £10.000 i would want a show winner,as soon as that happens it will always be known as that persons car, no matter who owns it, thus i think hard to sell, thus money thrown away if you cant even make back the cost of the build, i know to sum that kind of money is not a lot, im not saying im rich but i could afford that over a few years, but i personly think i would rather for that kind of money buy a nice luxury 5 year old car somthing i can use more than a few times a year.
    so for me if a car cant be build for less than £3500 im not going to build it. expected cost of my 300E V8 powered van when done around £3000 well in budget.

    please dont take this the wrong way its just my opinion being tight.
    daz i do know what you mean but its all relative as you say... as an example i dont smoke, dont really drink a lot, dont have kids etc. so spending money on my cars is one of my vices... as a comparison to the cost of your van i couldnt rebuild the flathead for the roadster for £3k.. dont take this the wrong way im not loaded either BUT i am happy to sacrifice everyday things to spend money on my cars, im not really into new cars - my daily is 6 years old - they dont do much for me at all whereas a hopped up flatty would do it for me everytime.

    as for using them a few times a year, once it was on the road for the year the coupe got used week in week out, in 5 years ive put 40000 miles on it.

    i know rods go down in price but nowhere near as much as a car off the forecourt does.. also depends what kind of car you have - most of the early american ford tin will only go up in price as they become thinner on the ground - just got to look at the price of anything between '32-'36 just now..
    Last edited by weemark; 18-12-07 at 03:25 PM.

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  12. #12
    NSRA member randrhotrodimports's Avatar
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    Its all relative at the end of the day, and relient on your disposeable income, i,m sure most people will want the best they can afford, nothing wrong with that surely? Just because some people have a little more cash than others to spend on there hobby so what!!!!!!. I don,t know of many "hobbies" where you actually make a profit from what you are doing anyway!!!!, my idea of a hobby is to have fun and enjoy what ever it is, money is irrelevant if your having fun and 9 times out of 10 you will struggle to make a profit from it.
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  13. #13
    NSRA member kapri's Avatar
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    Totally agree Paul, as long it is reliable I don't care what I drive and luckily Marian doesn't care either. Having said that she was given an 'early' inheritance and instead of lashing a fortune out on a new car we lashed a fortune out on an old retro car, as HER fun car ,she's a star player.

    Also been lucky with my cars as I've always returned what they've cost but that isn't neccesarily the same as what they are 'worth'.That's the thing about being on a budget you have to consider each purchase and get the best deal going.Looking at the cars I have around me to some looks like I'm rich but I probably don't have more cash than a middle management new car in the lot. It just happens to be that every penny I've ever spent on motors ( well the bulk of it ) I still have , try that with buying new cars !! LOL
    Galations 6:7

  14. #14
    In the 8 years I have been driving a rod as a daily I could have spent £4000 per year 'keeping up with the Jones's' and changing a family saloon every three years. I have chosen to live with the rattles and freeze but in that time I have had the greatest 9 years of motoring and I have some Rods I am very happy with and they are still worth something. By choosing and building carefully it need not cost a fortune to run a rod and in my experience the more and harder you drive them the less they break. I found the first one is the hardest and most financially demanding as I did not know any rodders to get advise the forum was not on line then and I paid well over the odds for parts I needed.

  15. #15
    NSRA member kapri's Avatar
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    Rich, I've often said , in the past , that you have to build a dear one to find out how to build a cheap one ! With the net access to bargains and information should reduce the cost considerably.
    Galations 6:7

  16. #16
    The spiralling cost of Rodding was the factor behind Dooster , spend time rather than money on your project .... The VW based '32 Roadster Pickup , I am doing is aimed at cheaper , easier build methods and is , hopefully , going to be of interest to younger , would-be Rodders....

    You could get one of my '32's on the Road for about £2,500 - 3000

  17. #17
    NSRA member rottencorsair's Avatar
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    Well I just scared myself by toting up what ive got in the Model A pickup so far. Still need Rad, Gearbox, prop shaft, brake overhall/plumbing, glazing and tyres. Oh and paint and interior too. and Im already upto £2012 just the stuff I can remember. Not including numerous nuts and bolts and having bits machined at work and a lot of the thick steel out of the scrap bin. Thought I had about £1200 in it. Mind you i have been collecting parts for four years and building for exactly a year this coming weekend. And I have an all steel closed cab modified for the money.
    *edit Oh yeah and at least £220 of that wont be used on this car anyway. Which brings the total down to £1792. edit*
    Last edited by rottencorsair; 18-12-07 at 05:04 PM. Reason: Wanted to add the last bit. Well it cheered me up
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  18. #18
    Guest gettinonabitmore's Avatar
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    Or my pop pickup, with a shed load of my own work, hopefully on the road for well under a grand.

    That leaves me £400 to play with to get it legal.

    Begged/borrowed/stolen, not so much of the latter though...!!!!

  19. #19
    NSRA member Adam's Avatar
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    Exactly what Russ said. Double a blokes disposable income and he can spend twice as much on the car. Treat it as just a hobby and I guess you have to justify the spending. Treat it as a goal in life or something to own and do while your still fit enough to do it and it becomes easier. How many on here spend £50.oo on fags, £80.oo a week on booze, £3k a year on watching football etc. Sometimes other things have to take a back seat if funds are tight to get a car completed. It's really no point saying I only have 3 grand in the car but it's taken 15 years to build. The trick is planning the car to your intended and forseeable budget over the build time not building it based on what you have in your back pocket this week.

    All in all it's a hard one to answer as we all have different incomes, commitments and goals.
    Last edited by Adam; 18-12-07 at 05:42 PM.
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  20. #20
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    paul B
    totaly agree, my wife has a rover 820 owes my £200 shes had it 3 years now, i have a jaguar xj6 3.2 1995 model, owes me £700. so no you dont need £5000 to buy a luxury car, i dont think you need that much to get a rod either.

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