What to do, drag my '72 Sprint or '87 Saleen

My dad fabricated most of the suff on his himself. Where some people would go buy something off the shelf, he would go buy some sheet metal or cheap junkyard parts and get to work. He made everything from the gas tank, to the shock tower braces, to the motor mounts and tranmission cross member himself. My grandma did the upholstery. The majority of money spent was bolts, fuel lines, wheels and tires, transmission, driveshaft, stuff like that. He traded a '91 4 cylinder Mustang Convertable that we had $600 in for the paint job.

He got a great deal on the long block of the engine from Lamar Walden. Lamar had built the engine for some guy and put it in the guys Mustang. Well the guy was behind on paying for the engine and was stupid enough to bring the car back to Lamar to get some fine tuneing done. Instead, Lamar pulled the engine and gave my dad a great deal on it. Lamar gave the guy his engineless Mustang back.

As far as stock cars go, Dan Hines' car is all stock Ford parts. The car appears 100% stock both inside and out and under the hood. No doubt in my mind that car would bring well over 10 grand. I do believe his is the nicest '71 Grabber in existance today.

 

I believe the Maverick that just sold on Barrett Jackson was an original unrestored car. It sold for 10,600 or 10,700. It wasn't a Grabber, Stallion, or Sprint, it was just a nice clean big bumper car. Don't think the Mavericks wont climb in price as they get harder and harder to find, and as every other Classic gets snatched up. At all the car shows I've been to around this area I have yet to see a Maverick at one. There's only one 4dr that I see on a regular basis driving around. I see umpteen Fox Stangs every day and one Saleen on a regular basis. To say Mavericks are plentiful is not an accurate statement, there are however alot of parts cars around, I know of about 20 or more in this town but they are not something you could restore. As people look for alternatives to all the main stream Muscle Cars, Mavericks will rise in price.

 

Exactly. I see at least 5 fox body Mustangs a day running around here, usually more. They are all over the place in junkyards around here to. Hell, there's 2 late 80's GT's in my neighborhood, one dark red with a grey along the bottom and the other is dark green with grey along the bottom. I've seen 2 Comet's and one Maverick in 6 years that I've lived here. I believe that was a Comet on Barret Jackson.

 

You may be right Jamie about that being a Comet. I will have to look at the issue of Hot Rod its in again.

I dont want anyone to get me wrong I don't hate the Fox Stangs. It's just there are so so many of them. And I know the Fox Bodied Saleen's are rare and yeah they will rise in price as well, but I don't see in 20 years from now a Saleen fetching the kind of money that say a Shelby does now, given about the same amount of years to become a Classic. Steve Saleen is no Carrol Shelby! But who know's people are crazy these days and only getting crazier.

 

now hold on just a minute here. you talk about a limited edition saleen or highly modded one and quote the high dollar prices. but a mav owner has to have a standard one unrestored before you even consider wether or not it is a high dollar car?:16suspect yes you can pick up a standard unrestored mav for around 5k or less. you can get a fox body standard stang for that as well. Im glad you like your fox, and im glad its a nice rarer saleen model. but comparing that to a standard mav is like comparing a 4cyl standard fox to my grabber.

 

I think the point here is that neither a Saleen or Sprint is a good choice to cut up nowadays.
There are too many 4 banger Fox bodies and big bumper Mavericks to play with out there.
The Fox bodies are nice to race because they have tons of room under the hood.
Your 302 or 351 can be worked on with ease, or you can stuff in a 460 without re-engineering the front end.
If you don't want the Sprint, sell it. Use part of the money to buy a more mediocre car. Or do so with the Saleen...
Fact is that either will be devalued by modding it too much.
The owner of such a vehicle is hurting the other hobbyists a little (offending might be a better word), but nowhere near as much as himself.
Dave

 

Bingo! I'd personally hate to see the Saleen cut up just as much as the Sprint. Thats why I said what I did in my first post way back on this thread.

 

Wow, these are some pretty passionate replies.

I'll have to say this tread has had some real differences of opinions, so I might as well get mine in there as well. First of all I will say I obviously love Mavericks. I think they are a nicely styled car with a great roofline. The cheap prices are also a big drawing point. However, in the last 20 years I've also owned a few classic Mustangs, a GTO, a GS Stage 1 Buick, yet for some reason I keep reverting back to Mavericks (And no, I'm not wealthy. I just have good credit and a very forgiving wife). The main reason I keep coming back is nostalgia. Like many of you a Maverick was my first car. My first taste of freedom, first thrill of drag racing, my first..., well, let's just say my first and leave it at that. That's the reason I've paid way too much for a few of these cars. It's all sentimental value, not a matter of rarity, or collectability.

Regarding Fox body Mustangs I will admit these cars in general are a dime a dozen (I have a 90 convertible myself), but like some of you have said, that's actually a good thing. These cars have single handedly created an aftermarket frenzy, not to mention a whole new generation of Ford lovers. When I was in high school in the late seventies and early eighties you were just plain weird if you weren't on the Chevy bandwagon. However, by the time I graduated in 1983 the general benchmark for a fast car of any make or model was: "Will it beat a 5.0". Although I have no real desire to build one of these cars as anything more than a daily driver, I still consider them to be the 55 Chevy's of my generation.

Lastly I have to defend the value of the Saleen. Any Mustang that is truly this specially equipped, hand assembled (in a separate special factory), and then sequentially numbered to only a few hundred models, is bound to go up in value, and at a much more dramatic rate than any Maverick.

I agree with what a few have said about nether of your cars being the ideal candidate for a drag car. However, if it were me, I would build the Sprint. It won't have to run 9's to get anyone's attention, and although it is more cramped to work on, it will hold up better for abuse, and then can be converted back to stock later on without any long-term structural damage.

This is just my 2 cents. That and about 3 bucks might buy you a gallon of gas these days.
Jim C.

 

I pretty much agree with most of what Jim just said. I too, have owned several Mustangs (about 75 in all). Heck, I owned 45 at one time but then again I owned a Mustang restoration shop at that time too. I too, always come back to the Mavericks.

Yes, the Saleens will retain a high value, not as high as a Shelby, but nevertheless, high. So if one is modified, I'd suggest very light mods.
Now our Mavericks on the other hand are going to be the rising stars. I've said it before and I'll say it again. The values of these cars are going up right now and I believe they will continue to rise. A true Sprint will no doubt turn into a valuable car one day, or should I say more valuable. These cars are very hard to find, especially in real nice condition. I predict they will be one of the more valuable of the Mavericks as the collector market starts to figure out there are some out there. The 71-72 Grabbers and Stallions are going to be up there too. I just purchased one of these rare Sprints myself, a factory v8 a/t rust free Sprint from Ca. You will soon see it on board...it's gonna make a beauty. I will however make mods to it, but nothing I can't change back if necessary. My blue Grabber however is a different story. I bought that car off the drag strip and converted it back to a street car. It was already modded so I just kept going...and still have more to do.
That's the strange part of this whole thing. The collectors are going crazy and it seems to be moreso with restomod cars. The all originals are still getting attention but the mod cars are bringing prices as high, sometimes higher. Take for example, Mavaholics car, long way from being original, but it is absolutely beautiful, extremely fast, and I guarantee you it would bring way more than any original Sprint out there. Dennis built his car like he wants it and that's all that matters. The guys that pay stupid high prices are doing it for one of two reasons, 1-lots of people out there like Dennis and myself love the restomods, 2-investors that buy them strictly because they know there are lots of people out there like Dennis and myself.
Seriously, try to count how many 100% all original Mustangs or Mavericks that you know of...then start counting the ones with modifications. You'll see very little originals compared to tons of mods. So don't be scared to modify your cars, just do it tastefully and carefully in case the market happens to go the other way some day. You never know what's going to happen. It is a CRAZY world out there.
Good Nite guys

 

Thank you for all of your comments. There is a lot of wisdom in this forum and I haven't doubted that. It is totally hard for me to leave a car alone, lol. I don't know at this point what will happen, but they will probably both be modified. I don't want to spoil the value of either. The stock mint Saleens are going for high teens or even high twenties right now and aren't as valuable even slightly modified. My Saleen will never be worth that due to previous owner undercoating carlessly and using jacks and jackstands carlessly on the subframes and such but it is a 65K original mile car. I'd love to make a 9 second car out of it with stock location suspension and a Windsor and just have something different. Look at the original Shelby's that are on the racetrack. Obviously they're not worried about resale value but of course those would bring in money anyway. I think the Saleen's will be close to the current value of Shelby's in another 15yrs or so, that's why I want to hang on to my Saleen. It could always be restored at some point and be very valuable. I probably still wouldn't sell it though. I don't want to be one of those guys that says, "I used to have one, but I sold it, and now I hate myself." lol. The Sprint will probably never be sold either because it was my first of a lot of things...