Just out of Interest , how much have you spent ?

[PininF]

Hello again,
It's been almost 6 months of ongoing restorations on my '79 Spider and will post pics when she's done but just out of interest how much have you guys spent on restoring these beautiful girls, Any estimates

My bill has already passed $25.000 on top of my purchase , I paid $10.500 for my baby and I'm still not finished I estimate another $10.000 and she's done , Total expected spend $45.000 to $50.000 that's ok but was thinking if I ever wanted to sell there's no way I would get that back.

Guess I'll just have to keep her for life

P.S Don't tell my wife.

[divace73]

let's hope you wife is not a reader of this forum??

Over the years who know's???
It haS been a lot, i'd rather not know, ignorance is bliss in my case....
just now I am putting in a new 3.9 oinion and ring gear and torsion style diff and thus far it was been over $1k and it is not even in the car.
I will still need to repair my pan hard bracket I bent while on the track and modify the tailshaft.....

[hayesbd]

Wow! Australian dollars are almost the same as US dollars right now so you are spending quite a bit. I just bought my 73 with the notion of restoring it gradually. It was appealing because of the low cost to purchase and restore (I'm not talking a show car, though). I have three categories of work lined up, priority A (immediate), B (soon), and C (eventual). My purchase price was $3000 and so far I've spent about $250 more. The expected totals for all three categories are A: $400, B: $800, and C: $1700, for a total of around $5900 when "finished" (are we ever?).

Here's a shot of what it looks like now:

[4uall]

I am going to go with "too much" & "not enough", reasons being is that I have never spent this kind of money on any other vehicle yet at the same time I want to do more

[PininF]

Wow, there's so much difference in purchase pricing here in OZ compered to the U.S , anything under $10K and you know your buying a shit heap with $$$ to spend, was looking at carsales.com It's advertising only one Spider at around $10K and its been there forever, with so many more cars on offer in the U.S prices are very reasonable , I had to import all my parts from the U.S as most of the parts here are from bone yard wreckers or companies that import at ridicules prices, adding up labour bills I'm already over $11K and it's not even finished.
On the up side I know my baby will be worth every cent as these cars will be very sort after especially here in OZ with so very few on offer.

Cheers
John.

[kmac33]

I have not had the nerve or fortitude to add up the HUGE folder of receipts from all of the resources that have gone into my baby.
My car went through a complete nuts and bolts tear down/rebuild and literally every part was either refinished or replaced/upgraded.
My Spider was my dad's, so she didn't cost me anything to acquire...except years of begging so at least I started off saving money .
What is really frightening for me to think about is how much would have been invested if I wasn't doing all of the work myself, and didn't have the friends I do. I have a very good friend that owns a body shop - so for all of the paint work (body, suspension, brackets, etc.), all I had to pay for were paint and materials - that ran me $3K. When we added up what the work would have cost a "retail customer" the total was $26,000 .
I'm guessing I've got at least another $15,000 (likely a very conservative estimate) invested in parts, powder coating of parts, chroming of parts, wheels/tires and other incidentals.
Throw on top of those costs, the hundreds, if not thousands of hours of work that I've put into my Spider and I'm driving one EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE Fiat Spider

With what the resale values are on our beloved Spiders, it is obvious that a bunch of us are either certifiably crazy, really really love these great little cars, or more likely BOTH!

[TX82FIAT]

Purchase price was $4,700 USD. $450 transport. I paid too much as the car would not start off the transport and once I got it started it stalled every other minute. I realized that i was lied to on evil bay and that to have a strong engine that was relaible i'd need to rebuild the engine. Completely rebuilt motor 2L 1800 head ported with performance part such as cam duration, 10:1 compression, adjustable cam gears, lightened flywheel, alternator upgrade, various wiring and relay upgrades, megasquirt fuel injection with a sensor attached to the crank wheel. This has increased reliability but also increased complexity as the tune is adjusted when I can get the laptop to sync up. All new rubber bits mounts/hoses, 2.5 inch exhaust system from new header all the way through. New paint engine bay black and exterior bright alpine white. New carpet. new rotors driled and slotted, new wheels/team dynamic 15" with new performance tires, rebuilt brake system with new brake lines. new master cylinder, new battery, new stereo system with amp in trunk. New heater core and heater valve. POR 15 and insulation under carpet. She runs great and looks great with the exception of a few chips in the paint now from use. She is a dependable street car and I'm looking to keep it that way. 138 hp to the rear wheel from a dyno meaning about 160 hp at the crank.

The improvements have cost me $17,200 over the last three years. So I have a $22,350 Spider. I'm probably missing a few small items but that is offset by the sale of some good parts I've pulled off the car and sold to people on this forum. Can't say thay my intention was to get this deap into the car. However, I know what I have and enjoy it greatly.

My wife thinks I'm into the car for about 15K. I too will never get my money back. Hope all goes well over the next 10 years so i do not need to ever sell.

[supplyguy]

$3050 purchase, $4000 paint job now underway, $1500 in mechanical work, and $3000 in carpets, seats, stereo, door panels, brakes, and impulse buying from the Fiat vendors - almost $12,000 so far. New tops when it comes out of the paint shop and then I gotta stop for a bit - wife still thinks the paint is going to be $2500. Already planning suspension and performance upgrades for next winter. Wondering if instead of a Fiat I should have dabbled in a crystal meth habit?

[81SPIDERMATT]

FIAT IS HABIT YOU COULD DO FOR LIFE...doubt you can say the same thing about meth.... not sure if my numbers will make me seam cheap or just plain poor.... my other car is an old scout that gets the type of gas mielage scouts do ..so i was looking for something that gets better gas mileage and came across my fiat on craigslist... say what you may but that website has been there for me over and again... previous owner had done a good tune up.. replaced the clutch and rebuilt the tranny... went to fire it up and lots of shorts and a little smoke.... got pissed off and threw it up for sale for 1000 bucks.. talked him down a little to just over 900 ... got her home and with the help of this site started tracing wires... while putting the tranny back together PO had pinched a few wires... fixed and she has purred like a kitten ever since ... cost 22 bucks.... rebuilt all the calipers ... new rotors.. all new bushings on the front ..lowering springs.. a trip to the frame shop for some straightening and welding... all together i am right around 2500 bucks after purchase.... i have washed her 4 times and she is my daily driver and i love her.... now if i had ten grand to throw at her (hahahahaha) all new interior kickass stereo new paint that would be cool.... again ..hahahaha... but a little at a time if i live forever i might get to 50 grand

[narfire]

Way too much... around the $16,000.00 + mark I suspect.. If I had purchased something like Spidernut's or K9Dr's car for 6-8 thou, I would have had great starting point and then built an engine and added if I wanted to upgrade.
main cost in mine was I had traded about $7000.00 worth of timbers and wood for the initial body work on the $1000.00 car. The job was absolute shite so I had to spend another $2500.00 for strip and repaint. This was at a time before I knew about this forum

[kev]

Purchased for $1,500 running with only a little rust. Put about 1k into new carb, intake, exhaust. Currently having my trans and engine rebuilt, probably going to be around 5k mark. I am currently redoing the interior and estimate around 1k when I'm done. New wheels and tires around 1k. Body and paint will be last...no clue what that will cost.

This is the best money pit I have ever had!

[Ramzi]

Ive been resisting posting on this thread all day.... I spent so much that my wife said "its time you get rid of some of this...."

Well I showed her.... Csaba and I bought even more stuff and started Auto Ricambi. Now I have the parts shipped to the shop rather than the house. I'll bet Mark does the same thing

Ramzi
(stopped saving receipts years ago)

[SunnySideUp]

My Spider is my favorite "non-profit."

[georgeramos]

gulp

[kilrwail]

Purchase price of $7750 in 1978, plus about $350 per year for 35 years. That feels better than saying $12,000 That includes a rebuilt transmission, a new rear end and a repaint. Like Kevin said, it would have been a lot more if I'd paid other people to do all the other things. Oh and the engine? It's never been open, with 126,000 km on the odo.