Think of selling my 25

[maddad]

I am thinking of buying a new home and that means losing the 25. I have been looking around trying to figure out what it is worth, but selling prices very greatly. What info can you give me. It is located in So Cal. No rust, it is missing the windshield vent and all the glass minus the windshield. It starts and runs and does not leak any fluids. I just noticed that the engine picture is missing the carb. I had it off getting it rebuilt. It is now on the engine and runs good.

 

[JohnnyC]

need more pics of the body and insides...it looks really nice ....but...if it starts.....where is the carb????

 

[maddad]

More photos are on my myspace page. MySpace.com - seth - 33 - Male - HELENDALE, California - www.myspace.com/maddad25

 

[Cruiser_Nerd]

Seth, as you noted the prices jump all over the place. Although lately there's been a flurry of nice running examples changing hands, maybe those guys will post up with a price. I won't confuse you with what 25's had been going for.

Is all the drivetrain original? Not that it affects value just curious.

I'm assuming that's the same rig that was on SOR classifieds, was that you (names don't seem to match)? If you bought it fairly recently...............it's worth somewhere between what you paid, and what the last three just changed hands for.

 

[maddad]

Yes, it is the same one. Although I did not buy it off SOR. I had been driving by it for two years and finally decided to see if it was for sale. The house was empty and for rent. It took several months of calling the numbers on the house before I got ahold of anyone. Then I had to drive down into the bowls of LA to pay for it. I drug it home, checked the fluids, poured some gas down the hole and it fired right up. I have been driving it ever since. I am curious, what did they have it listed for in the classifieds?

 

[Cruiser_Nerd]

I don't remember exactly. It started fairly high, and went down, I think the seller was in the service. I want to say it started around $5k, maybe someone else remembers.

Anyhow, in real general numbers, it seems that around $6k for a clean running example isn't out of line nowadays. Trick is finding a buyer..........

 

[maddad]

Thanks you guys for the help on the numbers. I guess that I got a good deal at $3000. Now to decide what to do with it. Sell, restore, or who knows.

 

[PolarBear]

That is indeed a very decent-looking FJ25! Your question about what they're worth hits on a very profound point regarding vehicles that are so rare that few examples change hands very frequently to establish any accepted norms/averages for values. (I was faced with that "What's-it-worth?" question when I purchased my very nice and mostly original 1958 FJ25 last summer in El Salvador, and more recently in trying to decide whether to buy an extremely rare Harley-Davidson commemorative edition motorcycle I had been keeping an eye out for.) Anyway, I ended up paying $5,000 for my nice blue FJ25 (photos featured elsewhere on this website); I probably would've paid close to that for yours. I have a second 1958 FJ25, with a split windshield like an old BJ or Jeep, that's still in El Salvador, undergoing restoration; I paid only $600 for it, but it was just a rusty junkpile that hadn't run in many years and was missing lots of parts. If you don't end up get any decent offers for your 1961 FJ25, let me know, but I'd have to figure out some way to ship it back home to northwest Arkansas at a reasonable cost.

 

[My wife said no FJ!]

You might find that $3000 was a good deal for your 25, but it was for sale for a while before you got it. My point is that while they are "rare" sometimes that is a point against it...not everyone wants to have to hunt for such rare parts.

You could list it for $3000 and not sell if for a year, and then again you could list it for $9000 and sell it in a week! It all comes down to finding the buyer looking for a 25 like yours...at the same time that you are looking to sell.

Don't want to discourage you, (you do have a really nice looking 25...too bad you are too far away) but I think that you should search on mud, and you'll see that some pretty nice cruisers (even 25's) were for sale for a long time before they found a new home.

Hope it works out for ya