Classic Cars 101: What to Know Before You Buy Your Dream Ride

Summary

In this episode of The Straight Shift, The Car Chick® and Rudy Samsel, founder of Guys With Rides, delve into the world of classic cars, discussing the emotional and financial aspects of buying and restoring these vehicles. They explore what defines a classic car, key considerations for potential buyers, and the importance of documentation and condition. Rudy shares insights on where to find classic cars, underrated models, and cars to avoid. The conversation emphasizes the need for rational thinking in the buying process and offers practical tips for navigating the classic car market.

Guest Bio

Rudy Samsel has been a car fanatic since childhood—his first word was “car,” and he grew up devouring everything from owner’s manuals to magazines. Known by friends and family as a true “Car Savant,” he can recall obscure details about nearly any make and model and has the wrenching skills to back it up, having rebuilt suspensions, swapped engines, and tackled countless projects. Together with his wife Nancy, Rudy co-founded Guys With Rides, a dealer-free classic car auction site built on honesty, trust, and a passion for preserving the hobby for real enthusiasts.

Takeaways

• Classic cars can be both amazing and financially draining.
• Emotional attachment can cloud judgment when buying a classic car.
• Documentation is crucial for understanding a car's history.
• Rust is a significant concern in classic car restoration.
• Buyers should be aware of scams in the classic car market.
• Condition and originality are key factors in valuation.
• Agreed value insurance policies are recommended for classic cars.

Resources

www.GuysWithRides.com

www.GuysWithRides.bid

You can view a full list of resources and episode transcripts here.

Connect with LeeAnn:

• Website
• Instagram
• Facebook
• YouTube

Work with LeeAnn:

• Course: The No BS Guide to Buying a Car
• Car Buying Service

Copyright ©2024 Women’s Automotive Solutions Inc., dba The Car Chick. All rights reserved.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Classic Cars and Their Allure
• 1:39 Guys With Rides: A Dealer-Free Classic Car Auction Site
• 5:06 How to Pick the Right Classic Car
• 6:33 What is a Classic Car Today?
• 10:50 What to Look for When Shopping for a classic Car
• 18:54 The Most Underrated (& Overrated) Classic Cars
• 23:11 Classic Car Value & Pricing
• 29:06 Final Thoughts on Classic Car Ownership

Transcript

LeeAnn Shattuck (00:00)
Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Straight Shift, the no-nonsense podcast that slices through the dealership BS and brings you real talk about cars, car buying, and driving. Those of you who've been following me for a long time know that I have restored a few classic cars myself, or at least I've helped to do it. I was one of the hosts of a TV show called Rust Rescue, where we brought rusted out automotive corpses back to life, or at least we tried to.

Let's just say I've seen firsthand what can lurk underneath decades old paint and Bondo. But that experience taught me a lot, mostly the hard way, about what makes a classic car a gem versus a giant money pit. And that's why I wanted to do this episode, because I've had some clients over the years want help buying a classic car, at least advice on what they should get. And they just don't even know where to begin. And so I want to help out anyone who is thinking about buying

their dream car from decades past, yet avoid the mistakes that I have seen and some of the ones that we have actually made ourselves. Classic cars can be just amazing, but they can also be heartbreakers and wallet breakers. So I have invited someone who knows the classic car world inside and out and is working to redefine it.

Rudy Samsel is the co-founder of Guys with Rides, a classic car auction site

that does not sugarcoat the truth and leaves the dealership at home. Rudy, welcome to the show.

Rudy Samsel (01:33)
Well, LeeAnn, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

LeeAnn Shattuck (01:36)
What motivated you to start this auction website to help people find that perfect classic car.

Rudy Samsel (01:44)
Sure, so go back to 2018 and I was an analytics executive for a pharmaceutical company. And yeah, well, it can be. ⁓ But I was doing that and unfortunately I was the victim of a downsizing. That's what happens when you have seven businesses go to two.

LeeAnn Shattuck (01:50)
Wow, that sounds boring.

Mm-hmm,

been there, done that.

Rudy Samsel (02:05)
And I came home that,

yeah, and I came home and my wife said, well, what are you going to do next? And I said, I don't know. She said, well, why don't you do something for yourself for a change? And so you're always talking about this "Bring a Trailer" and car auctions on there. Why can't you do something like that? So this was the middle of 2019. And as many of the analytics tool sets, if you will, that I have in my bag,

one of the things I really didn't have was Google Analytics, basically web analytics. And I said, well, if I'm to be more marketable, I need to focus on that. So I built the website and said, I'm just going to learn all about Google Analytics, all the things that go with it and digital marketing, and then I'll sell it. Well, I'm maybe four or five months into it and the pandemic hits.

So I just was blogging and I was going all in on just writing every day. And that really grew to a small but interesting following. And doing that

now since 2019 and a couple years into it, it morphed into, why don't you offer a marketplace? Around the time of COVID, a lot of auction sites were popping up like whack-a-mole. ⁓ Yeah, and every...

LeeAnn Shattuck (03:15)
absolutely. Because nobody could go anywhere

to look at a car, so you had to buy everything online.

Rudy Samsel (03:19)
Exactly. And so I spun one up as well. But I said, you know, marketing 101, if you're going to try to be a David in a Goliath industry, you've got to you've got to niche a couple of different ways. So based on my experience on Bring a Trailer I said, you know, I want to be dealer free.

when you look at any site out there, they're heavily influenced by dealer offerings. And a lot of times those cars, you don't know the history. It's lost when it's transacted with a dealer and they just start looking to sell it as quickly as they can.

I wanted to offer the only true dealer free online resource and marketplace for classic car enthusiasts. They can come to me and I'll be brutally honest with them, but I think they may not like it at first, but I think they'll respect it somewhere down the road. ⁓

LeeAnn Shattuck (04:10)
When it comes to car

buying, you very often have to tell people what they don't want to hear because they really need to hear it.

Rudy Samsel (04:16)
Yeah.

But

that's so true and it's particularly when they're thinking about a classic car there's a lot of romance involved with it and you gotta get you still got it it's still a car at the end of the day and you need to take the emotion out of it and think with a rational yeah yeah so yeah

LeeAnn Shattuck (04:34)
⁓ preach it. Yes. Thank you. I talk about that all the time and

any car purchase is emotional, but a classic car. You're right. There's so much more emotion and nostalgia. You have to be able to take that step back and look at it as a widget. And this is a financial transaction so that you don't get yourself in even more trouble because

Rudy Samsel (04:50)
Exactly.

LeeAnn Shattuck (04:57)
If there's one way to get yourself in even more trouble buying a car, it's by buying a classic car.

Rudy Samsel (05:02)
Absolutely.

And you know, we're in the middle of 2025. We're spoiled by all of the technology and the comfort and convenience of a modern car.

And so I tell people,

if you don't know the driving dynamics of the car without all the nanny controls were spoiled with now, you have to really know

what you're doing when you're behind that wheel. One of the things I encourage people is before you really if you say they say well I want to buy this car, okay have you driven it? If you're thinking about a particular make and get the experience of it and make sure you really want it first of all you could live with that car

I think it's very important.

LeeAnn Shattuck (05:43)
Right. Especially if it's

something that you're going to drive on a more regular basis. I had a 66 Mustang GT that was with my first marriage and that was the car that my first husband's, his parents bought it new the year they got married. And so it stayed in the family and it was a phenomenal car. We loved it dearly. And it was not the easiest thing to drive. There was no power steering.

Rudy Samsel (06:09)
Mm-hmm.

LeeAnn Shattuck (06:10)
You know, everything

was super duper heavy. The, the clutch was heavy. The throw was long. I personally loved that because, you know, I'm a child of, you know, the seventies and eighties. And so I'm, I'm used to driving something that doesn't have any of bells and whistles, but it, it's still, it's a totally different driving experience.

Rudy Samsel (06:16)
Yeah.

Right.

LeeAnn Shattuck (06:29)
I think that's a good segue into let's talk about, what, is the official definition of a classic car these days? And I'm starting to worry that I'm a classic now.

Rudy Samsel (06:36)
Well, yeah,

well, yeah, we both are, ⁓ vintage, I guess. ⁓ so ⁓ I go by the antique automobile club, the AACA's definitions. Anything 25 years or older is considered classic.

LeeAnn Shattuck (06:39)
You

Rudy Samsel (06:52)
A lot of people talk about the young timers cars and that's generally ⁓ what I would call the rad era. That's been defined as 1980 to 2000. know so

LeeAnn Shattuck (07:02)
You see a lot of the Toyota

Supras in that category, a lot of your Nissan 240s, a lot of those Japanese fun cars are in that area. My first, well, my second car, my first one died after six months ⁓ because it was a classic after just 10 years in Wisconsin. But I had an 85 Toyota Supra and I would give anything to have that car back. It was so much fun.

Rudy Samsel (07:05)
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Absolutely.

⁓ nice

Yeah,

yeah, and you know that was the 80s and the 90s and even into the early 2000s. That was the golden age for Japanese cars.

LeeAnn Shattuck (07:38)
It's kind of funny that those are now considered classic cars because, when I think of classic cars and I'm sure when you think of classic cars, we're thinking, you know, the 65, 66 Mustangs, we're thinking 57 Chevy Bel Airs. And we're really thinking of those forties, fifties, sixties, maybe early seventies.

We also still think that the 1980s were just a couple decades ago, and apparently they weren't. ⁓

Rudy Samsel (08:00)
Well, that's, yeah, yeah. And I'm

in this weird place, not gonna ask your age, but I was born in October of 64. So I'm one of the last boomers, I like to say. How, there we go, there you go. So you're in the Gen X era. I'm kind of teetering on that. When I look back, I can think of the cars my parents owned and people around me.

LeeAnn Shattuck (08:06)
Hey

October of 71, right here. Yep.

Rudy Samsel (08:26)
but I never really identified with muscle cars

The Rad era when that came about the first Rad show, Radwood show I went to it was like I'm home. I feel like I bought that car new. I bought that car new. I remember test driving that car in college. It was like, okay, now I identify much more with these cars and that's really where I've gravitated towards. ⁓

LeeAnn Shattuck (08:49)
It's kind of like

when the 80s rock bands come on the radio, know, ACDC and Guns N' Roses and Bon Jovi. Those are now on the classic rock station. But I'm like, wait a minute, that's what I grew up with. That's my music. When did that become classic? So it's...

Rudy Samsel (08:53)
Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah,

and really what it fundamentally comes back to is people tend to gravitate towards the car they long for in high school or college, right?

It's just, what did you gravitate towards when you you longed, what were your heroes as a kid? And that's, ⁓

they tend to go for.

LeeAnn Shattuck (09:22)
When we were teenagers, you know, getting that license, was all about, you know, freedom. Yay! We don't have to ride around with mom anymore. And cars were so much more part of our culture. I kind of wonder if the current generation of kids who are not as into cars... I wonder if they're going to have the same nostalgia for a certain type of vehicle or if that effect is going to be lost.

Rudy Samsel (09:27)
Absolutely.

Yeah.

LeeAnn Shattuck (09:44)
with this

younger generation, or even if they do, it's like, ⁓ what are they gonna want? Are they gonna be like, ooh, you know, they're gonna long for an electric car? That's just terrifying to me.

Rudy Samsel (09:53)
Well, there's some...

And you're seeing that a little bit in what the young timers are calling analog cars, where they don't have a computer. Yeah, that's what they call them. You know, doesn't have a computer, you know, they have to manage their brakes and anticipate better.

And they like the thrill of that. And maybe that'll be a trend where I don't want to be driven by the car. I want, I want to drive it. And yeah.

LeeAnn Shattuck (10:22)
to introduced to, I bet you're right, especially

as self-driving cars become more and more of a reality in our society. It is going to be kind of special if you have a car that actually allows you to control it as opposed to the AI. So, well, I'm going to hang on to my analog cars. I love that term. That's just crazy. Oh my gosh.

Rudy Samsel (10:36)
right.

There you go.

LeeAnn Shattuck (10:44)
Well, let's talk about some of the things that people

need to look for and most specifically look out for when they are looking for one of these classic cars. And especially as these cars get older and older, know, obviously, you know, the one that we dealt with, which is why we named our show Rust Rescue is rust.

Rudy Samsel (11:02)
Yeah, well

my advice is the first thing you look for in a classic car is how good is the body. Most mechanicals you can fix.

But you start the wild card becomes if I've got to start fixing body panels. Mustangs and ⁓ Chevelles and whatnot, you can buy literal welded bodies that are brand new and you can change. But at the other end, a gentleman I manage a collection for, he's got a 1960 Lincoln Continental we're restoring. You can't find anything for that.

LeeAnn Shattuck (11:23)
Right, yeah.

Rudy Samsel (11:33)
The second thing I like to look at is how much documentation. If a car is well documented, that's usually a proxy that the car has been taken care of throughout its life or periods of significant periods of it. If somebody can produce that and knows the history, that brings my anxiety down quite a that's.

LeeAnn Shattuck (11:51)
Yeah, because you're not going

to pull a Carfax, on a 66 Mustang and see the maintenance history on it. That's not going to happen.

Rudy Samsel (11:56)
That's right.

In the absence of that, often what you'll find is if somebody's been diligent with doing the restoration, the next best thing is, OK, how did they restore it? They might have a three ring notebook or

I've had cars where they provided me a stick with photographs on it and they documented it. You may not know the car's history when it first started, but at least you know they took it through the restoration, they show you the body panels and show you what they did to get the car back to the condition as you're looking at it right then and there.

LeeAnn Shattuck (12:26)
Right, because there are, there are restorations and then there are restorations. There's a lot of stuff that you can hide under Bondo and

Rudy Samsel (12:32)
Yeah, right.

Absent.

LeeAnn Shattuck (12:38)
That's what we ran into so much with Rust Rescue because we were literally rescuing rust buckets out of barns and garages and stuff. And, but we still had to look at, okay, are we going to be able to get parts? We found this beautiful 1940 Packard but like, we can't get parts for this thing. And so like, ah, we had to pass that one up.

And we ended up buying 1949 Plymouth special Deluxe, which is neither special nor Deluxe, by the way. But it was actually one of the cheaper things that Plymouth made at the time. But we also knew that we could get parts that would be compatible for it. And we knew we were not going to try to restore its stock because stock, was a piece of junk entry level car. We were going to chop the roof and rat rod it and do sort

Rudy Samsel (12:58)
Right.

No, that's marketing.

Sure.

LeeAnn Shattuck (13:26)
weird things. So we weren't worried about that. Mostly we bought it because it was cheap. And when we inspected it, the body wasn't bad. What we did not expect was

Rudy Samsel (13:28)
Mm-hmm.

LeeAnn Shattuck (13:38)
the previous owner, whoever quote, tried to restore this car...

They had filled the rocker panels and the A pillars with expanding foam. Expanding foam. Now granted that might have, you know, helped with the leaking, but have you ever tried to chisel expanding foam out of, you know, inside the frame of a car?

Rudy Samsel (13:58)
Yeah.

that can't be a fun experience. That's right up there with removing undercoating. It's probably just as painful, if not more.

LeeAnn Shattuck (14:07)
⁓ my, yeah, that was interesting.

Yeah. So that's,

know, when you're doing a restoration on one of these old cars, the only thing that is guaranteed is that nothing will go the way you think it will.

So definitely really look over the car if it's one you are looking to restore yourself. But as you said, if it's something that you're buying that has supposedly already been restored, just like with flipping houses,

there are people that cut corners and slap lipstick on a pig, and there are people who do it right. So find the ones that have done it right.

Rudy Samsel (14:40)
Yeah,

that's right. If you find somebody that did an amateur restoration, that should be kind of a red flag because you don't know how they did it. So if you're looking at a car and you find out it's a professional restoration, that's usually a good sign that you're going to get a quality car. ⁓ As you should, yeah.

LeeAnn Shattuck (14:56)
You'll pay more for it, but it'll also you get

what you pay for.

Rudy Samsel (15:01)
I'm going to say this because if anybody wants it, I have a free download on my website.

But it'll be a 90 point pre-purchase inspection that they can use. Anybody should use it. I don't care how experienced you are because with my ADD, even when I go to look at a car, I'll forget and the romance takes over. I'm like, I really like this car. And then you've got to put your level head on. I use the checklist and then I say, okay, how are the brakes? Do the wipers work?

LeeAnn Shattuck (15:11)
that's fantastic.

Rudy Samsel (15:31)
All those things you don't check on a sunny day that you probably should. so absolutely.

LeeAnn Shattuck (15:33)
Yep. And that applies to any used car. don't care if it's two

years old or if it's, you know, a hundred years old. You got to go through those things. So that's great. And I'll put a link to that checklist in the description below. Where are some of the best places to look for these cars? Other obviously than your website, but where do you go

Rudy Samsel (15:41)
Yep. Yeah. Great.

LeeAnn Shattuck (15:55)
when you really want to find classic cars because it's just it's a different marketplace.

Rudy Samsel (16:01)
So it depends on your level of expertise. If you are somebody that just wants a classic car but you're not gonna work on the car yourself, that's where I say maybe a dealership is the right place for you.

I tell anybody if you're thinking about a classic car become an expert. Between YouTube and the internet you can become an expert on a car in no time and every car has an Achilles heel. I don't care what make or model.

LeeAnn Shattuck (16:19)
Absolutely.

Rudy Samsel (16:28)
Generally, if you're looking at a car, if they can provide the documentation about the history of it and you're not that good at looking at those are the cars you want to look at.

I think originality is important. If you're looking at anything newer than 81, 81 or newer, you could pull the Carfax, and that's a relatively reliable proxy of what the car's been through.

If you're particular about a mark, you can join a Facebook group if you're on there. A lot of Facebook groups you'll see cars come up for sale on there. online auction industry and all the talk might have you think that everybody's putting their car on the big guns, but really only one in seven cars are sold at auction online. ⁓ yes, it can be, yes. ⁓

LeeAnn Shattuck (16:57)
yeah.

Right, listing them is expensive. So that's why so

many people are just using Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist because it's free. Now, beware, folks, there are so many scams, particularly on Facebook Marketplace. And there's a lot of very specific classic car scams. There are fake classic car ads. You really have to talk to the person. And this is true just buying

Rudy Samsel (17:16)
Yes.

Yes.

LeeAnn Shattuck (17:35)
Anytime you're buying a used car private party, especially if you find it on a place like marketplace or Craigslist, make sure that you can talk to the person on the phone. Make sure they are real because I come across these all the time. Like, that's fake. Okay. That's fake. But the classic car fake ones are even harder to spot because those are more sophisticated scammers.

Rudy Samsel (17:46)
Absolutely.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

LeeAnn Shattuck (17:58)
than the

ones that are trying to advertise a $3,000 Honda that doesn't exist and are preying on poor

Rudy Samsel (18:05)
If you're dealing with a seller that only wants to deal with by text or email, walk. Walk away. Get out.

LeeAnn Shattuck (18:12)
Especially if you're buying

a classic car because that person in theory should be older like us and they know what it's like to live without a cell phone. They lived, you know, they learned how to communicate before texting. So they should know how to actually speak through this device and even in person. ⁓

Rudy Samsel (18:26)
It's true. Absolutely. Right, right.

If you're not knowledgeable in it, take it to a mechanic you trust. Have them go through the car. Or you can even hire a service like Lemon Squad. Oh, do you? Okay. Yeah, yeah. It's, you know, $350 worth of insurance.

LeeAnn Shattuck (18:41)
Yeah, I love Lemon Squad. Everybody knows I preach Lemon Squad and they have a classic car package, yes.

So what are some of the most underrated classic cars on the market right now? So somebody's you know, they want something fun. They're not necessarily sure what they want. What can you actually get a good deal on? That's a great car versus which ones are just ridiculously overpriced and overhyped.

Rudy Samsel (19:08)
First generation Mazda Miata's are starting to creep up in price and it's getting very hard to find low mileage ones. For years you could find, know somebody bought it as their third car and they only used it in the summer and you could find these but now the prices of those are creeping up into the mid teens. So I tell people

LeeAnn Shattuck (19:26)
Well,

that's because everybody's buying them and turning them into track cars.

Rudy Samsel (19:29)
Well, that's the other problem. So

the next best alternative are the NBs. have it in my head.

LeeAnn Shattuck (19:33)
Right, yeah, the second generation

little Miatas.

Rudy Samsel (19:36)
The pop-up headlights are gone, but they went to fixed lights, but other than that, it's very similar to the original car. So just as good of an experience and just as reliable, decent fuel economy and it's a great reliable car.

If you're looking for a more modern cheap classic, anything with the 3800 V6 that Buick made, that's a cool car I think would be like the Buick Riyada. It's a two seat. It was essentially hand built.

But it's got the Buick V6 in it. So that's a good reliable motor.

And then I come back to the Boxster. The problem with the Boxster is when something goes, it's expensive like any Porsche, right? Yeah, yeah, so I recommend Boxsters because they are a great weekend car with plenty of room.

LeeAnn Shattuck (20:14)
Yeah, that's German car syndrome. ⁓

Rudy Samsel (20:25)
that don't break the bank and I think they're very underrated. Yeah.

LeeAnn Shattuck (20:27)
Oh yes, absolutely.

loved mine was named Penelope. She was the love of my life. Yeah, don't tell my husband that. But

Rudy Samsel (20:32)
There you go.

LeeAnn Shattuck (20:36)
It's kind of nice that those are now considered classic because I think of the old 944s and 924s and the 928s which are crazy. If you want an older Porsche, that Boxster is definitely a good one to look at.

Rudy Samsel (20:49)
look at 80s and 90s trucks and SUVs. Everybody's into SUVs now. The trucks, if you could find a rust-free Chevy Square Body, which is the 73 to 87 truck, very classic look, simple to work on. You can get plenty of parts for Any of the SUVs,

particularly the Japanese ones were very reliable. Again, it comes back to how good is the body. just don't want to be going down that rabbit hole of fixing rust, it's just time consuming.

LeeAnn Shattuck (21:15)
Yeah, and especially on the

newer cars that are unibody, that's a whole different

Rudy Samsel (21:20)
Yeah, what people don't realize, there's a fair amount of 50s and 60s cars that are particularly Ford Thunderbirds to '66, I think they were. The first generation Mustang and Falcons, classic example of a unibody. So you have to be careful.

LeeAnn Shattuck (21:33)
Yeah, we

restored a Mach-E and it was unibody.

Rudy Samsel (21:37)
Yeah, yeah, it's gotta be careful there.

LeeAnn Shattuck (21:40)
Is there like a specific car or a couple of cars that if you see one of these like we did with the Packer, just run. I don't care how pretty it is. Just run far away. Do not buy.

Rudy Samsel (21:51)
There's so many, so many. Well I can speak from personal experience... Porsche 928s stay away. They're a very complicated car I would stay away from Jaguars particularly the V12. Yeah.

LeeAnn Shattuck (21:52)
Hahaha!

⁓ yeah.

Yes, I say that like even nowadays, like in general,

they're beautiful, especially the old classic Jags. There's rarely been a more beautiful car, but they never learned how to actually build one.

Rudy Samsel (22:14)
⁓ yeah.

LeeAnn Shattuck (22:21)
actually the Porsche dealer in Charlotte years ago when my car was fixed and they gave me this as the loaner because they had already loaned out all of their Porsche loaner cars. So they had this old huge like land yacht Jaguar sedan that had a olive green shag carpet interior. We called it the Shaguar, and this was the loaner car you got

if you didn't plan ahead and it was, I mean, had that same carpet in my dorm room in college. It was just hilarious. It would have made a good episode of Pimp My Ride. I've never seen shag carpeting in a car before.

Rudy Samsel (22:50)
world.

Hahaha

I can imagine, yeah. ⁓

LeeAnn Shattuck (23:07)
Well, let's talk

about one of the challenges with buying a classic car is again, you don't have Kelly Blue Book or something that will at least give you a gauge of what you should pay for this car. So how do you determine what is a fair price to pay for one of these cars?

Rudy Samsel (23:26)
Classic.com is a really up-and-comer in terms of getting car values. What I like about that is you see they have scatter plots of what's sold not necessarily what's been asked. Now the other ones I use are the classic car market does it based on condition.

The Old Cars Weekly, I believe I have a subscription to that but you might be able to do that on trial thing, that has values by condition. Then there's Haggerty. So I Yeah, it's the trouble with Haggerty's values...

LeeAnn Shattuck (23:53)
I love how you say that.

Rudy Samsel (24:01)
Anytime you rely on self-reported data, everybody thinks their car is a condition one. And when I say condition one, there's four conditions, four to six conditions. Condition one is considered concord. That's where like next week is Pebble Beach. That would be a car that would be able to cross Pebble Beach, perhaps win an award. It is clean to a surgical level. And

LeeAnn Shattuck (24:07)
Yes.

Right, it's

damn near perfect. The numbers match. I mean, it just, doesn't get any better than that. And that's probably what? Like a fraction of 1 % of the cars out there.

Rudy Samsel (24:29)
Yeah.

Exactly, you think it's really a bell curve. Everybody thinks their car is the number one and they want that price, but in reality their car is probably a... I'll tell people, if you saw my Boxster, it's a Concord quality car. I've won repeated Concords with it. That is a condition three car all day long.

That's why I tend to avoid Haggerty's because they tend to and I've proven it their number one values they'll rely on one or two data points yeah exactly so so you have to take that their data with it and you know

LeeAnn Shattuck (25:01)
That's not statistically valid.

Rudy Samsel (25:08)
They're relying on people when they, hey, I bought a classic car. Well, what did you buy? What'd you pay for? And conversely, I just sold my classic car, canceled the policy. Okay, what did you get for it? So there's some, there's some, ⁓ gaming.

LeeAnn Shattuck (25:19)
Right, because they're

primarily an insurance company. So they would love for your car to be one of these higher conditions because then they can charge you more money to insure it. That's how that game works.

Rudy Samsel (25:23)
Yes. Yes.

Exactly right right so

LeeAnn Shattuck (25:32)
You know, insurance is an important thing to consider too, are just certain companies that will insure a classic car. You know, can't just necessarily call up Geico and hey, give me a quote. You do have to make sure you do your homework and find an insurance company that has special policies for these cars. Because it is just, it's a whole different ball game. And owning a classic car is

Rudy Samsel (25:41)
Right.

Yes.

LeeAnn Shattuck (25:55)
It's a lifestyle. A classic car is a toy. It's very rarely something that's going to be your daily driver. They only do that on TV. It doesn't actually work in the real world.

Rudy Samsel (26:07)
Yeah, and for your listeners and viewers, that's called an agreed value policy. That's what you want to go for. Okay, yeah, and you're, you know, depending on your insurance company, you may or may not offer it, but you want to go for agreed value. So you'll have to put pictures in for it. And you say, okay, I paid this much for it. And generally, the companies, they'll insure it. There are a couple of restrictions. Some of them,

LeeAnn Shattuck (26:13)
Okay, it's called an agreed value policy.

Rudy Samsel (26:32)
you know when you can drive it, how often you can drive, how many miles you can put on it. But just like leasing terms on a modern car, you can say I plan to drive this 5,000 miles and they'll adjust the policy accordingly but what agreed value is the way to go

LeeAnn Shattuck (26:45)
Yeah.

Rudy Samsel (26:46)
Generally though, if you look up those you'll find the values for any car you're looking at. You can get a pretty good picture of what you should pay for the car based on its condition.

LeeAnn Shattuck (26:56)
And that's good because it's so many people do have an inflated idea of what their car is worth, not only because they have an emotional attachment to it, but because the fact that they put the Barrett Jackson auctions on TV and those prices are ridiculously inflated. mean, anybody who buys a car through one of those auctions is probably paying more than it's worth because they're kind of paying for that Barrett Jackson experience.

Rudy Samsel (27:02)
⁓

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

LeeAnn Shattuck (27:22)
No, you know, yeah, maybe you have a 66 Mustang sitting in your garage, but no, it's not worth $100,000. You know, if it runs and it's in good condition, maybe it's worth, 10 to 15, but it's not worth $100,000. People have this complete rusted out piece of junk that doesn't even have a drive train in it.

Rudy Samsel (27:28)
Yeah.

Yeah,

LeeAnn Shattuck (27:45)
in their barn and they want $10,000 for it. And you just have to laugh. It's like, yeah, not gonna happen. know, honestly, you should pay me to haul it off your property.

Rudy Samsel (27:49)
You have to. have to.

Yeah, I, I,

With people, if they call me and they say, I want to the car up, there's a couple of tells I'll say, okay, what are you hoping to get for the car?

And if they start the conversation by saying, I have X into it, I know it's going to go south. what you, as you know from restoring, what you have into the car is not what it's worth.

Got to remember that. Yeah, true.

LeeAnn Shattuck (28:16)
No, definitely not. And that's true on any car, but especially

on one of these, because you will always be putting more into it than you'll ever be able to get out of it. So if you can, you know, if you can break even, you know, sometimes you're doing very, very well.

Rudy Samsel (28:27)
Absolutely.

That's exactly

how I look at it. I bought the Boxster I have. I've had 10 years. Bought it with 70,000 miles for $10,000. I've maintained it. I did a full suspension rebuild on it and it cost me probably close to the just of the car. Right now I probably could sell that car for 10 to 12 and I have 50,000 miles of memories with that car.

And that's the holy grail, right? I got the enjoyment but I still broke even on the car yeah yeah

LeeAnn Shattuck (29:01)
Yeah, absolutely.

has been so helpful, Rudy. I mean, your knowledge is just tremendous on these classic cars. And I love that you have built a marketplace that is not going to get taken over

Rudy Samsel (29:04)
Okay.

LeeAnn Shattuck (29:13)
by the dealers the way auto trader and even Facebook marketplace is getting taken over by dealers now. And it's nice just to have a place where us normal people can go and sell our cars or buy our cars with other like minded individuals and not have to worry about the dealerships coming in and taking over or jacking up the prices or anything like that. It's nice to have our own sandbox. So tell people

Rudy Samsel (29:18)
Yes. Yeah.

LeeAnn Shattuck (29:39)
where they can find not only your auction site for the classic cars, but also all the great educational resources that you provide.

Rudy Samsel (29:42)
Mm-hmm.

Sure, so you can go to guyswithrides.com, that's the main portal. And when you get there, you can see the link to my marketplace, which is guyswithrides.bid. I keep the two separate because it's a more secure marketplace to do it that way. And then all of the resources are on the guyswithrides.com page.

I'm doing a lot of resources on what to look for in the classic car auction world. And if I'm not doing guides like that, I'm doing video of whatever I'm working on behind this wall here. And yeah, yeah. and right now, yeah.

LeeAnn Shattuck (30:19)
We always have a project car in the garage. That's just the kind of people we are. Well, I love it. That's fantastic.

Well, thanks again, Rudy. And folks, if you're thinking about buying a classic car, collector car, but you don't know where to start,

Rudy Samsel (30:27)
Yeah. Thank you.

LeeAnn Shattuck (30:34)
but you know you want to have something or maybe you want to get something for one of your loved ones for a significant birthday. I do offer a specialty car buying package. You can check that out at TheCarChick.com, and I can help you figure out what is the right vintage ride for you and avoid all these mistakes and help you get the right one at the right price. So it's something that you want to wrench on or just want to show off at Cars and Coffee. We can handle that so...

Rudy Samsel (30:47)
Nice.

awesome.

LeeAnn Shattuck (31:02)
If you're chasing your dream car from like high school, make sure it doesn't turn into a nightmare in your driveway. Do it smart and just don't fall for the shiny paint trap because it might be covering expanding foam. Drive safely, folks. Rudy and I are out of

Rudy Samsel (31:09)
Absolutely.

That's