I think a lot more would go into fitting a GENIII into a VL than an injected 8 into a VH, both in labour and engineering. If anyone can build a car as good for $10k, you either have good mates in the right businesses, or are giving out sexual favours in leiu of cash.

While i have never even owned a VL of any description i have bought an sold a bucketload of highly modified cars over the years and i'd like to put forward my own thoughts. In my experience (10+ years) of owning modified cars about the average return on your modifications i find is around 40% of what you spent. For example if you spend 50k on mods you could expect maybe a 20k premium over the price of the car on which it was built on, in this case a Calais. Okay let's assume he bought a nice straight N/A series 1 Calais for $5000 (for simplicity i won't take into consideration depreciation on the original car). Using my formula he would have had to have spent around 75k on mods to justify the price he is asking. As i have never built a VL from the ground up i can't say categorically what it has spent on it, but i HAVE done an LS1 conversion into a VS and i find it extremely difficult to believe that it would come to anymore than maybe 12 or 13k for the complete conversion, and that's assuming you are paying top dollar for parts and labour. Now this leaves around the 60k mark to make up with paint, bodywork, kit, rims, brakes, suspension, diff, interior... etc. While i don't doubt that it has cost a packet and it looks absolutely bloody fantastic but IMO there would be no way in hell it would come close to the 60k required to fit my formula. My very rough guess is maybe an extra 30k on top of the conversion which would leave guess at rough market value of somewhere between $21000-$24000 allowing a bit of margin for error. I know everyone is going to jump up and down and scream 'it's worth way more than that d^&khead' but anyone who has built cars from the ground up, and i mean more than 1 or 2 won't disagree with my return on modification analysis. I can tell you that without exception that ALL of my cars that i've sold have returned 30%-50% on my initial modification outlay. One last point is that his market is way way smaller than say someone who had spent the same amount on a VY Clubby or something. A VL like that is shooting for the youth market in general, whereas a VY will appeal to the older and business types, more of which have the required funds. There are not all that many 17-25 year olds that are going to have $35000 in liquid funds to buy this car, i know there will be some, but clearly nowhere near as many as say the 25-50 age bracket. He may find someone willing to pay that, but i believe he'll be waiting a while. Plus you have a sporting chance of obtaining finance for a highly modified late model car, try walking into a bank and say i wanna borrow 35k to buy an 18 year old Calais and i hope you wore your running shoes because you'll need them to run away from the bank manager who will be chasing you with a pointy stick. Anyway that's my rant over, don't get me wrong it's one of the nicest VL i have ever seen, but i don't see how he can justify the price given the cold hard facts. Especially as there doesn't appear to have been many (any?) engine mods given the description. We all know the story of guys who wanted 40k for their car, got an offer of 35k... refused and then had to sell 6 months down the track when things got desperate for around 26k. Let's just hope that doesn't happen here. Cheers

xxxxgold, welcome to the forum. How ever xxxx sux, but I'll forgive ya. I agree with you 100% "One last point is that his market is way way smaller than say someone who had spent the same amount on a VY Clubby or something. A VL like that is shooting for the youth market in general, whereas a VY will appeal to the older and business types, more of which have the required funds. There are not all that many 17-25 year olds that are going to have $35000 in liquid funds to buy this car, i know there will be some, but clearly nowhere near as many as say the 25-50 age bracket. He may find someone willing to pay that, but i believe he'll be waiting a while. Plus you have a sporting chance of obtaining finance for a highly modified late model car, try walking into a bank and say i wanna borrow 35k to buy an 18 year old Calais and i hope you wore your running shoes because you'll need them to run away from the bank manager who will be chasing you with a pointy stick." But trust me there are idiots out there that pay this sort of cash, it may take them some time to sell them, but idiot in the end pay. TTJET is a classic case, thats why I belive 35k for this car is warrented. There also was another car (a blue VLCT) sold for some stupid price at the start of this year as well, plus most of these 20k + car are thrashed down the 1/4, great bargains, just pray the donk stays togeather.

what a head tuner well worth 35k in my opinion

Thanks for the welcome VLT_RB30. I definately agree with you that at some stage it may be possible to find some idiot who is willing to double what a car is really worth. A case in point is an old guy was selling his series 1 VS SS near me. I had seen it around a bit and it looked in reasonable unmodified condition and wondered why it had been for sale for 8 or 9 months and found no takers..... One day i saw it parked and decided to go up and read his little for sale sheet he had taped up on one of the windows. He wanted $23900 for it! A series 1 with over 150k on the clock! Anyway a few weeks later when i had eventually stopped laughing i saw the same car again, no for sale sign and a young guy driving it. I asked him how much he paid for it and was very proud of himself when he said 'got it for 23 grand dude'. I didn't have the heart to tell him to go and look in the trading post and see similar cars in better condition going for around 12-14k. I know it's a bit off topic but it reinforces your point that hang around long enough and you will find someone stupid enough.

Quote: Originally Posted by xxxxgold While i have never even owned a VL of any description i have bought an sold a bucketload of highly modified cars over the years and i'd like to put forward my own thoughts. In my experience (10+ years) of owning modified cars about the average return on your modifications i find is around 40% of what you spent. For example if you spend 50k on mods you could expect maybe a 20k premium over the price of the car on which it was built on, in this case a Calais. Okay let's assume he bought a nice straight N/A series 1 Calais for $5000 (for simplicity i won't take into consideration depreciation on the original car). Using my formula he would have had to have spent around 75k on mods to justify the price he is asking. As i have never built a VL from the ground up i can't say categorically what it has spent on it, but i HAVE done an LS1 conversion into a VS and i find it extremely difficult to believe that it would come to anymore than maybe 12 or 13k for the complete conversion, and that's assuming you are paying top dollar for parts and labour. Now this leaves around the 60k mark to make up with paint, bodywork, kit, rims, brakes, suspension, diff, interior... etc. While i don't doubt that it has cost a packet and it looks absolutely bloody fantastic but IMO there would be no way in hell it would come close to the 60k required to fit my formula. My very rough guess is maybe an extra 30k on top of the conversion which would leave guess at rough market value of somewhere between $21000-$24000 allowing a bit of margin for error. I know everyone is going to jump up and down and scream 'it's worth way more than that d^&khead' but anyone who has built cars from the ground up, and i mean more than 1 or 2 won't disagree with my return on modification analysis. I can tell you that without exception that ALL of my cars that i've sold have returned 30%-50% on my initial modification outlay. One last point is that his market is way way smaller than say someone who had spent the same amount on a VY Clubby or something. A VL like that is shooting for the youth market in general, whereas a VY will appeal to the older and business types, more of which have the required funds. There are not all that many 17-25 year olds that are going to have $35000 in liquid funds to buy this car, i know there will be some, but clearly nowhere near as many as say the 25-50 age bracket. He may find someone willing to pay that, but i believe he'll be waiting a while. Plus you have a sporting chance of obtaining finance for a highly modified late model car, try walking into a bank and say i wanna borrow 35k to buy an 18 year old Calais and i hope you wore your running shoes because you'll need them to run away from the bank manager who will be chasing you with a pointy stick. Anyway that's my rant over, don't get me wrong it's one of the nicest VL i have ever seen, but i don't see how he can justify the price given the cold hard facts. Especially as there doesn't appear to have been many (any?) engine mods given the description. We all know the story of guys who wanted 40k for their car, got an offer of 35k... refused and then had to sell 6 months down the track when things got desperate for around 26k. Let's just hope that doesn't happen here. Cheers finally someone else spoke who knows what things are really worth without being a cheque book car builder. Good post mate (y)

i swear i was thinking of buying a vl calais shell and throwing in a gen 3 and someone done it but good on him i f***ing love it!!!!! *plays powerball this week* if i win im buying it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lol

vlt-dreamer is that wat the calaisturbo.com.au car is gona turn out like???? lol Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

f u k definiltey worth the money. i reckon there would be over 75gs in that vl. car prolly cost 7k, motor & gearbox atleast 10k fitted and engineerd ATLEAST, interior id say over 5k, diff suspension exaust bushes(undercarrige) etc 6-10k, paint and sunroof and panels and kit and of that standard another 10k. theres around 30k already and thered be atleast and 30k worth of **** in such a nice car. BEST V8 VL EVA

I have seen this car in flesh at Summernat's it's one of the best show car VL's I have seen, not too many are as detailed as this beast. Too good to drive. Well worth the price if you ask me, if your a hardcore VL guy.

I suppose i better clear things up too. I honestly hope the seller gets the price he's asking for, as everyone says it's up to him to decide what price to put on his car. He could put 100k on it for all i care and i would still hope he got his price. What some people are misunderstanding is that we are just pointing out the fact that we believe that you will be getting shafted if you pay 35k for it. If you can afford to make a big, big loss on resale then by all means buy it. But for whoever is seriously considering buying this car as someone has said whack 28k cash on the table and be careful you don't get windburn as he snaps the offer up. For low 20's i would buy the car myself, however he's not going to take that and that's fine by me. I believe that's what it's worth based on past experiences, if you believe it's worth more then ignore me and go and buy yourself one hell of a nice piece of machinery, you may think the car is worth that much as passionately as i believe it's not. It's not my place to tell someone they are wrong, hell how many times have i been wrong in the past? But the old saying 'knowledge is power' applies to anything in life, before making any large decisions it is best to have all options and all opinions laid out before you before you even think about making a decision. For those people who are PM'ing me to stop sh|tting on his thread, look closely and you will see it was started by Gatecrasher simply to point out a nice car for sale. This thread wasn't started by the owner so please quit with the insults that i have some personal vendetta against the seller, because as i hope i've just made clear, i certainly don't. If the owner is in fact reading this or has been made aware of this thread, good luck mate, hope it all goes well and you don't wind up in jail for murdering some of the ****head tyre kickers that no doubt have plagued you. Cheers

Brett A no hard feelings man, said some things i shouldn't have, you have my apologies. I xxxxgold hereby declare that i will not dig this thread up again no matter how big the urge Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

Quote: Originally Posted by Brett_A I mean, so what if you can build this car for 10k cheaper? If you can, why not do it. Then if you put in the other 10k to make up 35k you would most certainly be the winner of SMOTY. You could build a car for 100k dosn't mean you will make Street Machine let alone SMOTY.

Quote: Originally Posted by xxxxgold I xxxxgold hereby declare that i will not dig this thread up again... I will though! Because man... this has been a much more entertaining thread to read than expected! Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

lmfao this is a classic

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrr SINISTER u pooooooffffffffffffffffff

Brett A: 2 words- Shuttup Idiot.

If you know your english, thats actually three Anyway, yeah xxxxgold no hard feelings bro Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

Yep, that sure is one heck of a nice VL and i'm sure the owner will b sad to c it go. best of luck in selling it! But i gotta agree with some of the comments regarding value. Say u did have the 35k to buy, how often would u be able to use it? can u imagine the insurance premiums, if u could get insurance! Then u'd b 2 frieghtened to leave it anywhere coz u'd b spending more time worrying about it! I doubt if this car really appeals to the type of person who'd have $35k to spare Sorry guys, if i had the $35K it'd b VT/VX HSV or SS 4 me! Good luck with the sale, i hope u get what u r after.

CME-247: "If you think its not worth $35,000, go buy a 'better than factory' perfromance car for $35000. Gen III, big wheels, leather, comp stereo, show quality paint!! Hmmm, sounds like a HSV with a stereo and paint to me. Tell me where you can buy a brand new HSV for $35000. So what if it has no engine mods, ppl buy clubby's everyday with stock Gen III's and they pay alot more than 35k. I think its worth it, but I don't know if he'll sell it for 35k." I agree with you mate, if any body has ever done up a car here will know that much much more has been spent on it to get it to this stage. I my-self have done up 2 cars, a LJ Torana which was actully my brothers, but I helped him, spent $15,000 on his car for sold for $5,000. And you know what, the amount I'd sell my Original BT-1 for, with $14,000 put into it... I'd sell it for no less than $7000. And the amount of hours spent on doing her up, and money etc, it is well worth $7,000. As with the legend who owns this prostine example of a VL with nuts modifications, his car is well worth it, I mean how many HSV's can you buy for that price which are actually better than this and in this condition, and even speed, I mean the car is litterally in better condition than it came from factory. The proof is there, the price is right. Who ever wants a modified VL, then this is the one than the respect of a nation would give. It is not as simple as saying, "Oh yeah, I'd rather buy a Walki," well then if that's how you feel, fine, you do that, this car is not for you. I'm not saying I would buy the car, I'd probably buy the Walki too for Originality reasons, as I obsess over stuff like that, but who really cares, it is a car for the modified car scene. The guy has clearly spent well over $35,000. And whoever sais he hasn't is a stooge. I wouldn't be surprised if he has spent 80G. And if he has, good for him. PRIME EXAMPLE, Who knows Gary Myers??!! You should, the man is mad. Now he has spent $250,000 on his Mustang, THAT IS A RECORDED FACT! For all of you dis-believers out there, guess how much he'd probably sell it for $50,000 to $80,000. Now stick that in your pipe and smoke it!!! Price is cheep dudes, if you don't believe that fact, look it up, it's true, and for that car sales-man out there who has never done up a car, well not to pay you out or anything, but if Gary wants only about $50,000 for his car and has spent $250K, I don't see the 40% resemblance in that figure!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I see how people get less and more, hence the average price, but I'm trying to say that is car is damm well worth it. People who believe me, stick together and lets give these people an Education Lession in VL's. (In a nice way of course if they have respet for the cars.) And at the end of the day, it is not worth fighting about it anyway, if you like Vl's and are on this forum for the right reasons, then support them, and if you know anything about them then comment, but if you don't like this guy who has the smart suggestion of saying; who wouldn't rather buy a Caprice over a VL on a VL Forum has obviously rocks in his head. Mate stick to another Holden web-site, possibly one for Caprices and Statesmans because as you can see, You don't even deserve to own a Holden in my Opinion, many people have been offended by what you have said, and in-turn you have been crucified with comments you have made, by the majority of people who know what they are talking about. Cheers.