It's a hard lesson to learn but it's so true, nothing is more expensive than a cheap old car. My old 80 was rust free and ran great when I bought it just needed everything else, I wish I had just done tires, suspension, mechanical and drove the hell out of it instead of what I did which was try to make everything perfect on it because it never will be perfect no matter what you do.
I got KILLED "restoring" it, for the money and definitely the TIME I spent I could have just bought the nicest example possible and paid less. One of my friends just got into classic cars, mind you much less complicated than our 80's, and I tried to teach him from my lesson this but he just didn't listen. He went out and got a couple "great deals" (which means someone elses endless sucker burden) on these old garbage mopars and this is the second summer now which he probably won't even be driving them because instead of just driving the snot out of them as they were when he bought them like I pleaded with him to do instead he decided to "restore" them. They have cost him now to the point where he could have just bought the nicest ones possible but instead he's going to end up with frankensteined pieces of crap for all his money.
