I hear ya man, kinda like the old adage goes "If it has tits or wheels, you know there's gonna be problems". Having learned long ago that few build projects ever balance out on paper and that you have to be willing to drive your $$ outta the bitches, at least this iddn news to me.

That said, what I am starting with is a 25yr old car that's got such low mileage (69k), it's nearly new in the grand scheme of things (or at least so I keep tellin myself), that what I'll wind up with when I'm done is a nearly new car with improvements far above what Mitsu ever offered in any of these cars.

I get lotsa ribbin at work, where all my parts are shipped to, about what I'm spendin vs what the car's worth. One cat asked me one day when one of the shipments of AN fittings came in "So, what are you buildin, a race car?". Told him really quick "I'm buildin a Kim Steele car!".

On balance, most people who view my project as folly are themselves spending more in a single years payments and insurance for what they drive than I'll have in mine when it's finished, while theirs will rack up that same cost for 5 or 6 years and be worth little more than a decent trade in value on the next "shiny new one" they buy afterwards.

I've never owned a new car, nor will I. Much prefer to find what I want that has a few issues I can address, buy it cheap, do the work myself and drive it till the wheels fall off, which over my lifetime has likely saved me hundreds of thousands of dollars comparatively. 'Sides, I hafta justify havin all the $$ I have invested in tools and shop equipment somehow