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I've decided it's time to sell Thea, my 1980 Avanti II originally owned by Thea Gabor. It's not a bad car, in fact it's pretty darn good except the cosmetics are just OK. Solid #3 car. Anyway, my estate plans are to donate either cars or proceeds from the sale of cars to a mix of Studebaker Foundation, Studebaker National Museum, and McPherson College/Auto restoration program, so an auction now that supports this plan is my desire. I've done well on BaT, so-so on eBay, never tried Hagerty's , and there are other options. What are the opinions of my fellow Avanti owners on the merits and demerits of each of these platforms? Ron

I just tried ( 1/23 at 4:00 PM) and it's not working for me. Maybe it's short term glitches? I'll try again in a few minutes.

Keep us up on that...

Yup... 192mph is killing it.

Now THAT’S interesting!

Recently, I’ve seen a few price reductions on Avanti’s that have been on the market for quite awhile. The one I looked at last October in Ohio has dropped $5K from $54,900 to $49,900. At the time the seller said there was no room for negotiations because he didn’t want to sell the car. An R1 that I’d inquired about just dropped from $43K to $39K. This isn’t unusual, since a seller typically wants to get as much as possible and a buyer isn’t likely to offer more than the asking price, so starting a high, but reasonable price is to be expected. I do believe that there’s some spaghetti being thrown at the wall and this could be driven by the possibility that the sellers saw a single car sell for a handsome price and they’ve priced theirs similarly. As an example, the seller of the one in Connecticut specifically mentioned one that had sold for $57K and his is priced at $58K, even though the car most recently sold for $37,500 and is a $45K-$48K car at best. He has a multi-million dollar car collection and a $50K car is little more than a rounding error in the big picture, but his asking price is preventing car from being sold, driven and seen.

Please do not take offense… but you two have beaten this ‘Avanti Valuation’ subject to death… How about moving on and starting some other topic concerning your cars? Yes, I know I don’t have to look at this thread, but I normally check out posts to see if there are any new thoughts… This thread is now pretty much reduced to bickering.

I wrote it. The entire post was about information that I read on another forum (see paragraph 1). I felt the information was relevant to this discussion so I shared some of what was said on that forum. Is that clear?

Read paragraph 1.

Read para 5

The post wasn’t about you.

^ Sir.. I opened the discussion and am selling nothing.

Welcome. 1 of the videos is pretty good as well.

Great read. Thanks for posting it.

From Haggerty. Hope it comes up for Y'all. https://www.hagerty.com/media/people/before-he-finally-conquered-indy-andy-granatelli-took-on-bonneville/?hashed_email=1dfdc72d5be40fcdd9981423736a374fed1048af20ae93afd62e537405ff6270&dtm_em=1dfdc72d5be40fcdd9981423736a374fed1048af20ae93afd62e537405ff6270

There’s a similar discussion going on on another manufacturer forum. It’s more about the current market and I’d say that the market is similar for all 60’s “muscle cars” in general. One point mentioned was demographics. Many owners of cars from the 60’s were teenagers back then and are now in their 70’s and 80’s. They probably have one or more cars already and given their age aren’t in the market for another. The speculation was that younger folks with disposable income, looking to buy a vintage car might be in the market for cars from the 70’s-90’s. Another point was that a large percentage of owners have made their cars trailer queens and they’re only seen at car shows, if that. The idea here was to leave a few concourse points off the renovation and take the thing out so people can see it. One more thought was that people see a 1965 Fill in the Blank sell at Mecum for $100,000, so they’re all worth $100,000. This is along the lines of sellers believing they have a car that is one number higher than the actual condition would indicate The person who opened the discussion had his car listed for months, with little to no action. He lowered the price as well as stating that it was also OBO. One complication with OBO is that the seller has to actually commit to selling it for the best offer. If it’s listed for $30K but he won’t sell for an offer of $25K even though that is the best offer received, it isn’t really for sale for the best offer. It’s for sale for a price that’s fixed in his head and he’ll wait until that offer appears.

SDC forum administrator still saying… ”WE WILL BE RETURN SHORTLY!!!

Primer is a possibility….Several Lark types were exported that way.

My interpretation is that it would have been something other than the listed colors. During production Black was discontinued as a “Standard” color, being replaced with Gray. However, Black was still available as a special order at an additional cost and the number of Black cars produced in both ‘63 & ‘64 is provided in the Production Data booklet.

Bob, thank you for the information that you gave. Could you tell me what is meant by the color called Special?

A lower rear end ratio would help. (As ‘Murder’ said!)

Perfectly done. . .I am hopeful that at some point we can create a directory of those cars that were a part of the last generation-maybe with photos.

By far the one most noticeable bang for the buck change would be to swap out the 3.07 for a 3.73 or higher (numerically) ratio rear gear.

Put a full dual exhaust system on the car and remove the catalytic converter (if state laws allow by exempting cars over a certain age)...make the pipes 2.5" diameter and let that puppy breathe! I know you said "on a budget"...but performance costs and there's no way around it...especially with a smogger engine. We can really get into the weeds with recommendations but you have to start with a plan...what do you want out of the car regarding performance? A smooth boulevard cruiser...an all-around fun car or an all-out road burner? Each will require it's own set of plans and specifications to achieve the desired end result. You can go crazy with a carburetor...intake manifold change...headers...camshaft...pretty much everything mechanical. Before getting into the engine's internals (assuming it performing as designed with no issues)...look at installing a 200R4 or 700R4 transmission. The 700R4 will smoke the tire in first gear as it's designed for a much heavier vehicle. The 200R4 can be very stoutly built and has a better spread of gears for the average driver. The 4-speed automatic should give a nice improvement in performance by itself. If you want to go crazy with improvements...doesn't sound like that's your desire...get EFI and ditch the carburetor. One thing can easily lead to another and suddenly you're financially very deep. That's why you need a plan.