Quote:
Originally Posted by Hatterasguy
Should have just bought a 911 or Ferrari with that $90k.
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If the intent was to try and start a replica car business, targeting those in the upper 5% income range who are nuts about exotic cars, then perhaps not a bad investment after all.
There's a gent down here in San Antonio with a conversion business called DieselToyz. We're talking around $20K and up for a turnkey "looks like it just rolled off the assembly line" diesel conversion, using current production diesel engines from Toyota and VM Motori. He started off specializing in Toyota pickups, SUV's, and 4X4's, and has branched out into Jeeps as well - one of his more recent offerings is converting U.S. model Wrangler Unlimiteds over to the same export version VM Motori diesel drivetrain that Chrysler is already selling out of country - helps a lot when everything is already OEM and still in production.
People with $20K or more just to drop on putting a diesel in their favorite Toyota pickup - we're definitely talking the upper end of the income scale here.
OTOH, for those of us that still have to work for a living, you definitely have a point. Six years ago, when I was looking for an older used diesel to supplement the Jeep Liberty diesel, as a second vehicle and something simple enough to work on in the driveway, then-used car market offerings gave me the basic choice of spending 8 grand or more on a late 90's/early 00's VW TDI, or around 4 grand or so on a late 80's/early 90's MB diesel. My mother cut thru the bull and asked me "what would you rather be driving - a Mercedes or a Volkswagon?".
