Insanity.....

I saw on a classic car dealer's website Carroll Shelby's personal 1983 Pantera for sale. For $250,000. Because of smog regulations Ford stopped selling Panteras in America after 1974. DeTomaso continued production in Europe until the late '80's. In the early '80's there was talk of bringing the Pantera back to America to compete with the Porsche 928, the new for '84 C4 Corvette, The Nissan 300ZX Turbo, etc. DeTomaso gifted Carroll Shelby this Pantera in the hopes that Shelby-American would market Panteras in North America. The deal never happened, but Carroll kept the car until his death. Now his estate is selling it. Great. Except Panteras sell all day long for $50,000-80,000. They want a quarter million just because Shelby owned it. Some filthy rich guy will buy it, just so he can say he has it, and never drive it. A Stutz Blackhawk bought by Elvis Presley is being auctioned at $600,000. A high-end car dealer in St Louis has a pristine, 60,000 original mile loaded Stutz Blackhawk for sale for $79,000. I saw another Stutz Blackhawk that was owned by Sammy Davis Jr, that needed restoration, for $25,000. That was a deal I thought.  I'm an Elvis fan, but 600K for an $80,000 dollar car that was $40K new?  Like Ditka says-"Come on, man!" I guarantee some fool will pay 600K for that car.  That's the price of 2 houses anywhere but New York or California. I read somewhere that some guy restoring a Boss 351 Mustang paid $4,200 for a "Date Correct" Autolite Carburator. Ugh!!!  First off the Autolite 4300 is the worst carburator ever made, bar none. Brand-new cars were hard to start, got 5-8 mpg, stumbled, ran like shit.  My dad and I worked for Ford back in the '70's and if you had a 351C Mustang, Torino, Cougar, Pantera, or a 460 T-Bird, or Lincoln and you bitched hard enough the factory would replace it with a 600 cfm Holley with an electric choke at no charge, and warranty it. That's how bad those carbs were. But this guy paid $4,200 for a 49 year old used one?  I guarantee if his pristine Boss 351 had an Edelbrock or Holley carb on it-which would make it run properly and start, etc- no one is going to not buy it because the freaking 4300 is missing!!!   There's got to be some reason and sanity. But as long as there's people with more money than brains-it will go on.