hey all i have a suzuki 800 hatch and me and my grandfather have been working on it in the past whe have completely striped it, pannel beated it and also cut and replaced all the rust its nearly bak to bare metal i dunno if i should continue or sell and get a mighty boy ??? any sugestions????
Student/Apprentice - 17yrs,
Father 40+ & Grandfather 50+.
'We can all help each other in this world'
Mate, you have invested time & effort into the Hatch. It is not all that different from a MightyBoy - they share mechanicals & you have a secure cargo space.
I think you would be best to continue with the Hatch until it is finished & no doubt so would your Grandfather. The end product will not only be a good little car but knowledge, experience & capabilities you have/will learn.
Once you get as far as you have it is silly to abandon the project.
So many delays to getting my MB back in order with 993cc & 5 speed transaxle... neighbor issue gone, donor shell up on rotisserie, new sheds on the way.... another project also..
The problem you'll run into with the Hatch is resale. If you invest more time and money into it you will never see a return if you end up selling it to get an MB. I've seen some really nice genuine, rust free, low km Hatches struggle to sell for $1500. FAT660 sold for peanuts, but if it was an MB I'd say it would have sold in a split second.
Honestly, if you really want an MB then cut the Hatch loose and start over before you go any further.
I would keep the hatch,finnish it but still buy a mb for your next project,some one will buy the hatch 1 day.good second car for a family as a run about.nearly all families have 2 car-1 good big car to fit the whole family and 1 small car for general duties...what year is it?...ken
i dunno what do to.... brayden has a point put the
$$ into it a get stuff all bak and if i do sell i dunno any priceing or anything...... I JUST WANT A MIGHTY BOY >< I <3 THESE LIL CARS
Student/Apprentice - 17yrs,
Father 40+ & Grandfather 50+.
'We can all help each other in this world'
Unfortunately Brayden has a point.
In regard to FAT660 though, I kinda disagree.
The $8000 or so it sold for, even if you had a Mighty Boy that had that extensive amount of work done, I would be surprised if someone actually coughed up more than that amount of dough for it. As I said, maybe would've got that, but would someone have paid $10K +? And I guarantee you're not approaching the cost of the build.
If you're going to go ballistic and really do a high end build, I think you have to face facts and realise that you're going to loose money one way or another.
You may see this change in years to come, depending on how long you keep your car for. You may see attitudes change in regard to small Japanese cars and they may become collectable. I wouldn't expect this to change any time soon.
But, if you complete a hatch, mighty boy or whatever you always need a buyer on the other side willing to pay what you want. There was a mighty boy for sale earlier in the year with a fantastic turbo conversion, fully repainted, retrimmed, a ground up restoration. I was surprised at how little it was advertised for. Was advertised for a while, but sold. It would've been sold for greatly under the build cost. This is the reality at the moment.
A restored example is better value that restoring a car. Of course you don't get the satisfaction of restoring a car, but you'll probably end up spending less money.
Back when I was working on vintage Holdens, this was the case only about 10 years ago. The tables have turned now and you can restore a car and maybe get your money back or more as people's perception of value has changed. You can pick up an XY Sedan and turn it into a GT replica and charge $50K. Unheard of back in the day.
My advice is build what you want and don't look at it as an investment or a way to get your money back. If you're owning any car, this is overwhelmingly not the case. There are some exceptions with collector cars, but my advice is don't expect this as it will end up causing a lot of frustration and probably drive you nuts.
Oh, and if you've never rebuilt a car before, start with a budget and then double it and you might have an appropriate estimate of what it may cost.
Bomber is right there.
'Normal' cars don't make money. They just cost it.
I try not to add up how much gets spent, but when you add up all the smaller things, it can get scary.
Bought the MB for $1k.. reckon I've already spent about $2k to get it on the road and registered.
Probably going to top out around $15-20k if I get through everything I'd like to do, which will be over a few years.
If I were to try sell it.. $8k would be a realistic price.
Don;t intend to sell it though.
1987 Suzuki Mighty Boy - F5A, stocker.
Work fleet, or Wife's Jeep Rubicon.
Its called a hobby in my day,if you want to make money on your hobby its called a buisness.i enjoy my hobby and the experiance and knowledge is priceless...ken---1970 gtr-xu1 in 1980,i brought for $3000,spent a heap restoring it-sold for $4500,now worth $30000.00
hey all i have a suzuki 800 hatch and me and my grandfather have been working on it in the past whe have completely striped it, pannel beated it and also cut and replaced all the rust its nearly bak to bare metal i dunno if i should continue or sell and get a mighty boy ??? any sugestions???? 
