We say some welding experience could have fixed this car but we didn't see a before picture. Some rusted frame rails cannot be patched (my feelings on this car). Replacement is the only answer so that means halo bracing etc..etc. beyond most peoples expertise, time and patience. This was just slap it up..polish it and criminally rip someone off.
What kills me as a former body man is the time and effort spent avoiding the most fun part of restoration, the cutting, welding, and fabrication is more fun than bondoing, prep and painting.
Actually the undercarriage part is the EASIEST, all straight lines and holes, compared to exterior body panels, window and trunk channels, door sills, or panels with complex shapes.
@@borisjankovici662 yeah, bodywork was a passion for about ten years until insurance companies got a stranglehold on collision repairs, I switched to mechanics in the mid 80's for the money, way less satisfying than bodywork, except for when you build an engine, there's satisfaction doing that.
@@diegosilang4823 I mildly disagree with you, metalwork is metalwork wether it's undercarriage or outer skin, undercarriage has every bit as many compound curves as outer skins with the addition of different gauges of metal that isn't as prevalent on the outer sections. Regardless of the amount of work needed under or outer, I much prefer moving metal than Bondo, priming, prepping and painting.
I had a few mn12 90s cougars and thunderbirds..imo , the cougar has always been nicer in always than than the mustang.. I wish they'd come out with a new SPORTY thunderbird again and use the 3.5tt and 5.0 init
When I saw the framerails made of rotten layers of bondo I could feel a sadness settle onto my heart. They expended so much effort on the visible parts... So they know how to do it, they just chose not to. What terrible people they must be.
I wonder if they would know how to make a car like this safe. They did a good job bondoing the visible parts, but they might have had no clue how to weld anything, let along how to restore the strength of the frame and keep the rust away for good.
@@mustangracer5124exactly most of these people that are getting burned on these cars aren't even car people anyway they're just spending money to impress other men
We would have nothing but prisons. Then we get to choose if the murderer or this scammer gets that jail cell... It goes far deeper than punishment. Our Society has been devolved by the Progressive left on purpose.
My Toronado was a steal. It doesn't need that much in repairs. If I can't get up underneath to check it something's up. I can't imagine buying a car that's already "done."
I own a small shop where I build suspension for lifted trucks in my free time. You are right about not being safe. I’ve seen people try to build suspension. I’m talking 16-30 in lift so big trucks and they bubblegum weld stuff and things it looks “so good” it’s not what’s on the eye level it’s what’s underneath. Think of a car as a person when purchasing it. It is good on the inside, outside, places you can’t see, pull the carpet up, slide under that bad boy. Some people trust to much. Also I don’t know how you could spend 30+k on a classic and not see the giant bondoed door.
The people who deal in these cars are not just professionals, they are professional thieves. I owned a Mustang restoration and parts business for 10 years and if I had attempted to get away with this kind of workmanship I would have been ridden out of town on a rail. Of course I live in California and we usually don't have to deal with the rust buckets that you have in the eastern parts of the country. You are doing a great service to the collector car community by uncovering these crooks. 🤠🏁 👍
A long time ago when I was a kid we had a guy in the neighborhood who would buy junk cars, fix them up and resell them. His answer to rust was fiberglass and bondo. He'd fill in missing chunks of frame, whole floors, etc. He was probably high school age when he started. His paint procedure was to paint every panel separately, with a rattle can with rattle can clear. They looked passable from about 30ft or more but that was about it. The worst I saw was a Ford with a ripped out control arm and radius rod, he used a piece of old car fender to make up a patch plate where the unibody was ripped open, then reinstalled the parts. It sat a little funny and pulled hard but he sold it. In his mind, it was fixed. He never put out money for anything, he'd buy the junk car for $200, use leftover fiberglass and resin from his dad's pool business, and he bought everything else at kmart and the dollar store. He'd go to all sorts of trouble to patch something up without putting any money out. When it was done, he'd price it in the stratosphere and sit back and take the best offer he got. He would also never sell them from home, he'd park them out on the highway with a sale sign and meet buyers there. The bad part was that most thought they got a deal since they didn't pay what they were asking for real restorations, even if it fell apart in a few years.
There was a place that shut down recently here in Sacramento called A&M auto wrecking. They had literal tons of old Ford parts, i was very saddened to hear that. My uncle also ran a ford only dismantler for years called freeway auto wrecking. Also gone with the wind, but he kept a lot of the stuff he cared to have, like 9 inch axles, stock sbf headers for fox bodies, ect ect all the typical stock rod parts.
Working at a body shop was probably the worst thing that ever happened to me with cars. Now every time I go to a car show I'm seeing every flaw. I don't really even like going to them any longer.
glad i’m not the only guy me that feels like this, I was a post body work detailer making sure they were ready to go back to the customer. Now if i see even a dirt nib or shitty polishing job i’m crawling out of my skin.
My teacher at autobody school told us on day 1 that after working on cars for awhile we would see things that would ruin our love for cars. He was right. All I see are imperfections, all the new cars look the same, and I am very unimpressed with the "cool, super cars" that cost a billion dollars.
One speed bump and it's over!! I worked on a 73 Plymouth convertible. The floor was replaced 😮 it was cut and the new floor was tack welded . I 👉 it out to him and suggested a refitting and burn in the metal all the way around. Never did when he went to sell it the new owner seen it and wanted his money back,so he got a big price drop . Right Larry S.
I'm 5 years into my own Mustang nightmare story after being robbed in the same way. What was worse for me is that I had it shipped to me overseas, throwing even more money into the pit. Pretty close to finishing all the body work now, but what a journey it's been. And not only for me but my family as well, that's the worst part..
Don't give up on it. It will be worth it in the end. In the end you know what's done to it. It's your baby that you can make however you want now. :) Have a nice day
I had a 72 Cougar XR7. Full leather. 351 Cleveland. A very squirrelly rear end in accelerating turns. Especially on a wet road They had zero anti corrosion on the entire car. As a result, they were rotting from the inside out in year #2 of ownership. Best long road trip car I ever drove.
I was at a buddies shop last fall and he had a 'Fully Restored' Dodge on the lift for some basic maintenance. The first thing I noticed when I walked under it was a bright shiny Frigidaire emblem on one part of the floor underneath. Apparently they had made all the floor patches out of an old refrigerator and left the emblem on the one panel. They were smooth like those on that Cougar, with lots of bondo and sketchy welds too.
I mean if it's strong metal and it works the floors and basically all the metal surfaces on my grandpa's super beattle are made out of an old refrigerator that he was cutting up at work they've lasted 30 years so
I live in Canada. You wouldn't believe the amount of nice looking bondo buckets there are here. I work in a country garage and restore mostly British stuff on the side. I know rust only too well. Nothing survives 10 years + on our salted roads. You may get a couple more years out of it, but it is eventually done. Thankfully, there are a good number of cars up here that have been stored for half of every year, and they are worth restoring.. Thanks for the vid Uncle Tony. Cheers from the right coast of Canada!
it's a shame they didn't have in the past what we have now. I have an electronic anti rust system on my 2014 Honda called FinalCoat I think. The thing is pristine, at least when it comes to rust and of course I drive it year round. But you're right. In my teens friends and I restored a few cars and it was all spot welds and pails of Bondo.
@@seanarthur8392 Those things are pretty much snake-oil. Newer vehicles (some more than others) hold up better than the older ones, that is why your Honda isn't a rust bucket yet, but it would probably be in the same shape if you unplugged that little magic box the day you bought it. Cars are not boats, that tech just doesn't work like they claim it does. Oil spray is the way to go. No thick undercoating junk, just oil once a year.
... but isn't it because the best deals get snatched up immediately? My wife watched me look at ad after ad, then car after car, for four years before I bought my dream car. Because we both worked in serving the public we have very little savings so I had to save $100 here and $50 there over more than 25 years. Finally, one day recently the dream car I had wanted (one in an original factory color that is almost 1 of 1 surviving) dropped $10,000 in price because the flipper-owner got himself in over his head after installing a $3000 Vintage air system on his own, a new interior (unfortunate because not needed) and a number of other crazy projects while some serious things - horn and brakes - still needed work. I not only bought it on the spot but also purchased my alternative "modern" dream car (also an incredible deal) when one just happened to become available the very next week and am enjoying both cars every weekend. There are deals happening out there but you have to be patient and then quick with the cash. Along the way I reluctantly passed on a completely original and rust-free 1974 Roadrunner with a factory 360 for $10,000; a rust-free, low-mile, factory 350 1975 Chevrolet Monza with the original plaid cloth interior for $8,000; and many, many more rare and unusual old vehicles that I will dream of having for years to come. By the way -- I have too many cars now!
This is exactly why I seek out original, unmessed with cars and trucks when possible. Original paint is gold to me, even if its worn with dents and scars!
I hate seeing vintage cars repainted, you can spot the repaint a mile away. Also the modern polymer paints don't match the lead paint and 60 years of age wear, so it looks extremely out of place on a vintage car. Especially when people candy them and polish to an ultra high gloss.
Totally agree! I bought a 1976 Camaro for $4000 that everyone passed up five years ago because it had two small rust holes staining the paint under one side of that wrap-around rear window (many of these windows collect water at the base sill and anyone thinking California cars don't rust even if left outside should read up on the Chinese dust cloud of heavy metals that now causes acid rain here each spring). Those stains that I buffed off were on factory original paint, and my suspicion that the car was low mile (82,000) caused by the shiny new-looking taillights and glass was confirmed when I inspected the entire car, top to bottom and found zero rust. When I removed the carpeting from the near-perfect interior I even found that the floors shined like new with the factory yellow paint! I drove that car to PA because I got a job there and the locals were flabbergasted to see me during it all year to work, coating the underside with thick maritime petroleum gel to protect it from road salt. I could never leave a gas station quickly because everyone loved talking to me about it! All for $4000! I hated leaving it in the east when I came back but at least someone got a nice old car cheap.
Not almost, this is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS! It's not a full frame car or it would be be "shoddy". This is the whole structure of the car that's rotted out and hidden intentionally. If someone died in this thing, it would be manslaughter without question.
"As is". No buyer has any leg to stand on. People who build cars like this are scum, but the answer isn't more government and legal oversight. Do you do everything 100%? (no, you don't) Do you want to be on the hook for every little that you may have done wrong, even unknowingly? That's what you're asking for. Simply play by the rules: "As is". If you're not competent enough to spot bondo and sheet metal screws take it to someone who is!! Someone likely spent $30k-$50k on this car and it's evident they knew absolutely nothing about cars. It's in our best interest that stupidity be expensive. UTG is doing a great job of exposing this stuff. This awareness campaign about the classic car market is what needs to happen.
The buyer would most likely spend a lot of money on an attorney and lose his claim. Even if he were to prevail, the way these auctions typically work is that the actual culprit who doctored up the vehicle in order to deceive would have disappeared back into some hole; making the judgement uncollectable.
No, welding is way harder and much more expensive, especially if you use reproduction sheet metal. This is what happens when idiots drool over Mecum and barret jackson. Now that Cougars are selling for $50k (That's right, cougars, cars that NOBODY cared about 5 years ago) there's a fortune to be made by putting a nice paint job and interior on a trash car like this. There's an industry running on "fixing up" junk cars in exactly the wrong way. If classic cars went back to the values they were, then we'd all be better off. A well done XR7 would cost $20k to build and be worth only $10k. Just as a it should be. There'd be no room for flippers and muscle cars would be attainable by true car people, not the yuppy investors that own them all now.
@@Warrior_Resisting_Colonialism I don’t know, but I do a lot of metal restoration and the metal work is much less time than the body work. Slinging all of that stuff under there and trying to get it looking passable is no small effort. A colossal waste of time that is more likely due to a complete lack of brains and skill.
21:06 Tennessee doesn't have salt on the roads but it does have weeds. This is a car that was abandoned in some hillbilly farm, it was sunk up to the axles in the mud for 30+ years, then it was drug out and cleaned up, bondoed, and painted.
Just subscribed to you both. That happened to my father when he bought me my first car in 1980. It was a ‘66 mustang convertible, he found it at an auction and it looked beautiful. We were so excited. After getting it home and when it came time for him to teach me how to change it’s oil we put it on ramps and rolled underneath to find out it was a rust bucket full of bondo. Just like that cougar floor pans were gone, frame was rusted out and bondo patched, a complete mess. It took loads of cash to get that all cut out and new metal properly welded in.
When I do a pre purchase inspection.. I use a check list.. because I to can get side tracked from pretty paint and shiny paint ... my check list makes me re-focus and pay attention... My job is to talk my client out of buying the car...
That much cost on the paint was just stupid over such a sh pile. The bondo work was likely a hundred hours or more. The paint hundreds of dollars. The underbody coverup was probably 50 hrs of sht work. That's 3000$+ in time/money just to rip people off.
I had the same happen to a ‘63 Nova convertible…if you ever plan to buy a classic, always be suspicious when you see any type of undercoating. I guarantee it’s there to hide something.
I'm a plumber by trade, this job reminds me of a job I came across the other day. All the abs drainage pipe was just dry fitted together, NO GLUE anywhere! Boy it took a lot of duct tape to fix it up.
If you thought that was bad, have a leak due to a cold snap and have a pipe split near the back spigot and in the attempt to repair the split, parts of the old pipe began to split at joints, only to find out that the bathroom, while redone and replumbed with copper, was connected directly to the old galvanized pipes in the kitchen and the lead in pipe from the street, galvanic corrosion. I still need to completely redo it all but funds are nil at the moment for it. So far, the repairs are holding, knock on wood.
@@brianbrigg57 Nope, duct tape better known as Saskatchewan chrome is the finest repair product known to man . Red green swears by it and the rumour is he is the man who has performed the repair on the undercarriage of this cougar. My mind is full of jokes about old cougars and their rotten undercarriages not suitable for this platform
It's abhorrent that an auction house can be allowed to pass these through. This should be traced back so this thief can be locked up. They should fine the auction big too.
The auctions are as big of a scam as the sellers. I keep asking why any real car guy would support these trash auctions. Including Mecum and barrett jackson. They are all dirt bags.
Pleased to say that my state in Australia has annual inspections for all cars more than five hears old, including those on historic registration (for cars over 30 years old). Stops the worst of those botch jobs.
... should but there's that ol' greed factor in " everybody's " minds other than the guy that got had. NOTE : This is so wrong ( ehhhh an indefinte pronoun) -----> Is everybodys correct grammar? Just as the word group is singular (groups is plural), so everyone also is singular. So to show possession, the apostrophe should go between the final e and s as in everyone's. 🤣 What ??? 🤣 Who thinks up this chit !!!
I learned the hard way. A few years ago I bought my dream truck from a dealer even spent time under it before purchase. Seemed to be a beautiful truck... so I thought.. Dealer didn't know I had plans to take it apart and re-restore it to my taste. Got it home, started doing some real looking and poking around on the frame....there were some questionable areas that once u REALLY got in there... the frame was severely rotted all over, really it was ready to fold in half in 3 places. Structural damage and rot from front to back but someone took the time to pack all frame damage with bondo and paint over it... did a good job making it look good so never would have noticed had I not started stripping the frame. Long story short. Turned them in, truck sat for a year because police deamed it unsafe to drive, pulled the FRESH, from dealer, inspection sticker, went to court... Judge sided with the dealer, cuz they grew up together, I ended up loosing my ass on that truck. Even the police were suprised in the outcome givin all the evidence. Bought another truck from a junkyard with a good frame... used what I could from the dealer fraud truck to build my current dream truck myself. Cut the rest of fraud truck up into 3 foot sections and hauled it in for scrap. Never trust anyones "restoration/ showtruck" without checking every square inch first. Had anyone else bought that truck and just drove it... would have ended up in an accident when the frame finally folded going down the highway, or the front end or steering box ripped off the tin foil bondo packed frame.
Good advice. I owned a car like this in mud 70s. It was a rusty piece of crap. So why do adults buy these thinking because the paint shines car is good? These scams were alive and used all the time for past 50 years. Even if you buy one of these cars from a so called professionals, do you really think it's restored to like new? You have to really trust who you buy your car from. I don't know anyway you can verify someone's repairs, once the paints on not to mention engine and transmissions, axles etc. I love to see the old classics on the road, can't say I know a way to ensue you get your money's worth. Used anything is always a gamble.
Yup. This buyer is out 100% of his money. He can sue but the lawyer will get it all. Sucks. Best thing he can do is find who did the fraud and expose them.
Uncle Tony's Garage, You are doing a great Service by Exposing The Amount of Fraud by all those Flippers out there......Just disgusting seeing all that Butchery.
There was a local used car dealer who lived in the same small town I grew up in. He was an autobody man by trade and would buy vehicles damaged in accidents, rotted out (from MassaTwoSh!ts so lots of salt), even pickups that were sitting in farmer's fields for 10+ years, slap some paint on them, making them look better than new, and sell them for top dollar. He would go drinking every weekend in the local bars and would laugh at how he's ripping people off after getting drunk. I saw a 1985 3/4-ton Chevy 4x4 he was selling for big $$. The body was beautiful looking, but the interior was cleaned up but well worn, the suspension was sagging and he didn't even bother cleaning up the thick scale rust on the under carriage from sitting in tall grass for many years. I saw the new owner driving it about 6 months later and a chunk of bondo the size of the whole door fell off, exposing a caved in driver's side door. He never even bothered sanding the original paint before doing any filler work or spraying the new paint! The "new" paint was flaking off as it was driven down the road. But it looked great until it drove off the lot!
When watching this I thought about putting a phone on a selfie stick to check out the bottoms of the vehicles. I have never done this, but maybe to a more trained eye it could help provide some info.
If you’re interested in knowing the trouble spots for classic Cougars, Don Rush of West Coast Classic Cougars has an excellent series where he goes year by year on excellent survivors in detail, up on a lift etc. He points out the expensive fixes and the easy fixes, and the dealbreakers alike.
@@donrush5690 Hey Don, you’re very welcome, you are an asset to and ally of the classic Cougar fan base. I’m ‘Sunroof ‘69’ Matt btw. I do original LEGO vehicle designs on YT.
This makes me think of the required vehicle inspections they have in many states. In MA they weren't going to pass this '78 Chev van I had, until I fix rusted through rocker panels. But that's just cosmetic. This car has frame rails made of rust an bondo.
Unfortunately, unless seller specifies conditions etc? That is not possible as is no liability for most places as far as I know for selling an unsafe vehicle. All liability on driver. So unless seller knowingly falsifies document or other parts of a sales agreement? Buyer beware. Treat buying a car like buying a home. Dont touch without a valid and reputable inspection.
I'm in Australia at a small classic shop and we had a new customer contact us to get the car legal for Australian roads (can be as simple as changing headlights and adding amber indicators) after they bought a classic at one of those big TV actions in the USA. The front brakes didn't work and the rear brake hard lines were wrapped around the rear springs as a small example of what had to be done. It took 9 months (most parts have to ship from USA) and doubled the purchases price.
Yeah, but he was rich to start with ......... so who better to absorb that cost than some rich dilettante ? And now it's been properly done, so he can enjoy it.
We all know that lipstick on a pig is nothing new, especially in the classic market. Years ago, I actually lost a "friend" over a similar situation. He was selling a 69 Z28 (not 100% original as it had a 70 LT1 engine) that appeared to be a very nice "20 footer". Another friend was a serious buyer until I told him to use a magnet on the trunk floor and rear sub-frame rails. BOTH were mostly made of fiberglass mat, a bunch of resin and, a bunch more rubberized undercoating. I knew this because I'd watched him "restore" it. The buyer took my advice on his 2nd look and told the seller that I'd suggested where to use the magnet. I'm still friends with the buyer and, he actually did end up with a very nice, driver quality 69 Camaro later on. I guess the seller wasn't really much of a friend to begin with and, even though I still run into him now and then, it's basically a hi/bye thing and I'm OK with that.
Like a woman all dolled up, perfumed, tight dress...then she takes the majority of your possessions a couple of years later...same thing...only she bangs another man in your bed before leaving...the car won't do that to you.
I'm 60 and I know most classic cars were junk when they were built and most are rotted out junk now. I don't understand why classic cars are selling for more than new cars. You human beings are odd.
@@sp-yj5wr Nonsense...we had new cars from the 60's and 70's and they had no rust when new or even 20 years old...New cars are crap and ugly,thats why old cars hold their value..You are not a car guy,its okay!
We made a ton of money taking before, during and after pictures of our restorations and body work. People loved to know what was under the paint and undercarriage refinishing. Some Kodak film, probably $120 total with developing was worth thousands of extra dollars. Actually amazed us that other honest guys were not doing this to prove that it was reasonable work and not covering up something. Once one takes that doubt out of the customer's mind, the deal goes so well.
Yikes. I've owned cars worthy of 8 pages of inspection snags, but usually at about 2-5% of the outlay, so I can part it and break even. 😂 You and this channel remind me to never buy an unknown quantity because I'm over-eager. The smart money is the money you avoid spending needlessly. $500 is cheap medicine for a $30k rolling s**tbox.
I'd wager that car has been through several auctions. Someone buys it, gets it home, and sees what they bought. The auction doesn't help them out, but offers them a free rerun fee at the auction. So the car goes back, gets resold, someone else gets stuck with it, and the auction gets another buyers fee. And if a buyer makes a big stink about the car, then it will get put back in the auction system with a declaration of structural damage, and instantly loses 75% of its value. So always beware if you see a car sell, and a few weeks later it shows back up, it's cursed like this Cougar!
The first sign of trouble is all that overspray. A sloppy spray job usually hides sloppy work underneath. It just went downhill from there. Parts for these are expensive and the person that "restored" it knew that the parts are expensive and hard to find and they cost a mint to obtain and get right, so they went with what can be seen and that's the lipstick on a pig scenario you're describing here.
I really wish I knew more about cars.. Its the only shop class I didn't take but now in my 50s I really can appreciate the cars that were still all over the roads in the late 70s and into the 80s that you really don't see that much of anymore.. But with that being said when you go to one of these car auctions, are you aloud to look at these cars up close and get under them ect... Or do they just trust that what they're buying is the real deal and worth what they're biding on?
I am working on something similar, just not quite as bad. A 70 Cyclone Spoiler with front floor patches that don't weld to the frame rails making the front of those frame rails moveable. Holes hacked in the floor and tranny tunnel too. A car that looks real nice but i'll probably be buying a new one piece floorpan for.
When I seen the title and the opening of this vid, I knew exactly where it was going when they put it on the lift. There are so many of these turds out there. How could a buyer miss this stuff? I'm old but very first thing I've always done is get down and look underneath when I'm looking at ANY car to buy. I do understand a cast majority of people just don't know cars, and that's fine. It's just that when you are fixing to drop big money at least have it checked by someone who Does know!
It doesn't matter if it's Vintage or late model, people only see the shiny things on the outside. I'm a woman and I pissed off a used car dealer when I started getting down in the mud and slush to look under the cars. He got even more pissed off when I came back out with handfuls of rotted frame.
One of the WW2 veterans in my neighbourhood once told me the story how they "repaired" the frames of unibody cars in the 70s by "rebuilding" the rusted out frame rails from wood, then molding them in with bondo and finally covering everything up with underbody coating. This car reminds me of this story.
I love these videos, being from Buffalo, NY, where cars rot out quickly, I have seen many bondo over newspaper, or bondo over twigs and sticks patch jobs. One guy took a crushed motorcycle tank and "restored" it with two cans of bondo. It would only hold a cup of gas or so, but looked nice.
I once put Bondo in a tail light lens!!! Yes, that's right, a tail light lens! It was a '92 Mustang GT with the louvered lenses. The lens broke from some dip$h!t in a Grand Cherokee backing into it, and I picked up all the pieces and superglued them. The only piece I was missing was in the painted louver portion, so I filled it with Bondo and masked it off and repainted it, and you couldn't tell till you got real close to it!
I learned a long long time ago to look under cars. It didn't matter how old they were. I've looked at a lot of old cars with people because they know I'll crawl under them, and most of them have had lots of rust under them. A few had way too much undercoating which I automatically consider an attempt to hide rot.
@@fredharvey2720 I've walked away from many cars as soon as I saw fresh undercoating. I'm not searching for what they covered up. I just crawled out and left. I looked at one Mustang for a friend and the owner said it was 100% original. I said both front fenders were replaced. He got all pissy and called me a liar, so I asked him why the fender tabs had ''Made in Taiwan'' stamped in them. He looked, and closed the hood. We left. It was actually stamped in the fender tabs on both sides.
As a Cougar enthusiast, I died a little inside! As an XR7 he probably paid a pretty penny too. About to go really look 👀 under my ‘67. Thank you for these videos!
What gets me the most, is that all that time and labor used to cover up the problem areas could have been used to fix them. Would have cost the same. This is ridiculous.
Great video. I have thought about buying an older car like that and after seeing this, I'll definitely be getting some sort of inspection before I purchase one.
God bless you and kiwi for doing these videos. And warning people, like me to avoid this nightmare. It's somebody's dream, that becomes their nightmare. Keep it up
I has a BEAUTIFUL Gold /white/white 68 California Special come in for a new, complete dual exhaust. I rarely ever use the twin post to pick up old cars, we use the drive on instead. In the case of this car, it was a solid choice. On the ground the car appeared as it just rolled on the show room floor, in the air it was a rotted, POP RIVET FRAME REPAIR POS. I called the owner and asked her to come down, they were furious, the had paid 24400 for a restoration (1988) the restorer never went under the car, but knew the floors were gone as they riveted tin over the holes before installing new carper. It immediately explained why the restoration shop told the owners why they needed to have an exhaust shop do the exhaust, they could claim they never saw under the car. It was rotted enough it would have folded on the twin post.
Most low buck, or low skill restorations (not necessarily flip cars) are pretty obvious. Some are cleaned up nice, and it takes a minute to see how butchered they are, but this is on another level. Even up fairly close this looks really nice. The nice bumpers and chrome and general attention to detail, especially under the hood is unusual. Id say someone got burned, then took some time to clean it up better so that they could run it back thru an auction and recoup their money.
Yeah , Bad news gets 10x the views and comments. Your all correct how dare someone sell a 54 year old car. That was used then sell it. You should all run not walk to the nearest. Tesla dealer. An leave these cars with lovely paint jobs and bondo issues. To me , I wish you all the Prius you deserve.
This is a work of art. The skill it takes to make a car that bad look so damn good only comes from a prodigy. Someone probably made a killing flipping this car, and you have to admit they went the extra mile to make this car look the part; on an auction floor.
To be honest this job reminds me of houses I have worked on that were subdivided for per room rent. A lot of the time the guys will create walls out of drywall mud and construction dumpster scraps because the material all comes from job site dumpsters and "fell off the truck" stuff.
Unfortunately, this is going to happen more often over the next several years. The only 50 -70 year old cars that will not have extensive body rot are those that spent their life in the southwestern US or kept very clean and in a garage during the winter. I've seen that you can now buy new floor pans and other body parts for some of the more popular models, paying the labor for a first class job of installing these parts will price it out of the range of most. A short story about how I got over old cars. My first car was a 1964 Falcon that I inherited from my parents in 1971. It was a well maintained daily driver from the southern MO area. when I stripped out the old carpet and floor sound deadening material, the floor pan was full of tiny holes. I steel brushed it well and painted it with several coats of Rustolium inside and out. Three years later I helped my younger brother do the same thing again and there were silver dollar size holes there. We were poor boys and could just barely afford to keep the oil, air filter and spark plugs changed so we got hold of some galvanized sheet metal and cut at couple pieces big enough to cover the foot pan, secured with roofer calk and screws and put in some cheap JC Whitney custom fit carpet over it. Fast forward 5 more years, brother number 3 started driving it and came home after a thunder storm with wet feet. We tapped it with a small hammer and part of the pan fell out. Not to give up, we got some larger pieces of sheet metal, some cheap kitchen linoleum and a few tubes of the best window calk we could find and went to work. Shaped the stiff linoleum with a hair dryer to conform it, installed it over the whole floor pan and sealed it up. With he help of a shade tree rings and rod bearings and a hand lapped valve job, it got him through high school. When baby brother got his first job and a decent car, we built some small berms with the tractor and took turns doing General Lee jumps until the unibody folded up, he doors sprang open and the roof warped. We had a good laugh, put in on a trailer with a front loader and got $50 at the scrap yard. 😁
@@youtubecarspottersguide1 No thanks. They could have saved some money and made that a good 318 Coronet base model and got the money, I know, it's consignment but just say no when they bring this garbage in. It isn't worth sacraficing your reputation over.
WOW, that is the worst butchery I have ever seen. An expensive lesson hard learned. If you don't know what to look for pay someone knowledgable to inspect it. A small fee could save you a fortune in the long run. Thanks for sharing Tony, hopefully this helps someone from making the same mistake.
I was wholesaler for a bunch of years, mostly everyday auction cars. My job was looking for problems so I knew how much I had to fix and how much I'd have into a vehicle before it went up for sale. It's definitely a good idea to look underneath a car, especially a classic and bring a bright flashlight too even during the day.
Absolutely horrifying. It appears as though they actually put more effort to do it this way than to have done it correctly. Sadly, this seems to be much more common than people realize, especially at classic car dealers and well-known auctions.
yes..terrible...but what now, the customer doesnt want it, does it just get flipped to the next sucker? or broken for parts? crying shame if there is no one to save it.
I really wasn't expecting that. It seemed like they put so much effort into restoring the rest of the car, interior and engine. Replacement unibody parts and frame rails are available for these cars, so they wouldn't even need to do that much fabrication to do this properly.
That export brace looks like they bent it up out of an old trashcan. The wheel lip moldings are rippled b/c they used Mustang parts that don't fit right. You didn't open up the trunk but I can only imagine the horrors 😮
Why?? Who buys a 50 year old car and never gets under it or pays someone to inspect it beforehand? All these weekend warriors who all of a sudden want to look “cool.”
@@sidefx996sadly I do believe this is where the phrase "more money then brains" was born? I'm sorry dropping that kind of money without a simple lookie under her skirt is ludicrous. Buyers come on quit giving these bandits the motivation to do these things! If you can't see your hand in front of your face pay someone who can to take in this case a 30 second look.
@@sidefx996I gotta agree with you. Check book classic car owners. Can’t lift a wrench or fix anything, but know how to spend and price people that like to work on the cars out of the market.
I've learnt over the past 30 years that if I'm buying a cheap under £1000 car that I need to check for corrosion - I expect to see dents scratches and rips in seats. If I'm paying good money for a car then I would look at a really nice example first and get to know the curves, lines, angles, fixings etc so that when I look at one to purchase I know what it should.look like. Most pre-90s cars have strengthening forms in footwells and floor pans (modern cars are all hidden with plastic underside moldings) - surely a quick nose under a car with a torch and a mirror is mandatory when spending big money? I'd be looking for fluid leaks, worn tyres, bodged exhaust, chassis damage etc. That car is ten times worse than a rusty car in a scrap yard - at least you could see what it needs and how viable it would be.
I'm glad you guys didn't keep picking at the car, you almost picked it a part on the hoist! This reminds me a 70 Cuda I once saw for sale. Body seemed fine, but if you looked underneath, it was solid orange for rust.
Probably take it down to a bare shell, then sand blast that so you can see what’s what. At that point it would be cutting out the bad metal and welding in new proper metal. It’s fixable for a large price. In reality it’d be better to find a good shell that’s incomplete. Then swap the good bits and eventually have an actually decent car.
The last time I saw a Cougar hiding that much damage she was leaving the bar.
Lol nice
The one I saw had pink fuzzy slippers,green fuzzy bathrobe and curlers in her hair 😂😂😂
!?! 😅
AT CLOSING TIME!!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🍻🍻🍻
These guys in the video be mentioning a "pig wearing lipstick"
amazes me how much effort flippers put into doing it wrong...
When it could've been fixed correctly with some more effort....and a welding lesson or two.
It shouldn't amaze you. Doing a car this way results in enormous profits due to the barret jackson and mecum effect.
@@jeffduncan9140 Welding is a lot easier than it looks, kind of like soldering electronics.
@diegosilang4823 It is, but that was some sloppy "work".
We say some welding experience could have fixed this car but we didn't see a before picture. Some rusted frame rails cannot be patched (my feelings on this car). Replacement is the only answer so that means halo bracing etc..etc. beyond most peoples expertise, time and patience. This was just slap it up..polish it and criminally rip someone off.
It's a miracle that the lift supports didn't just go through the floor...
Yeah.... I was thinking I wouldn't want to stand under it.
Flintsons car...no floor s9on
I'm surprised it didn't fold in half
Exactly .. I was wondering if it would fold
I put one car on a lift and couldn't open the doors, Think there was a problem? The rockers were gone.
Tony, you’re educating potential classic car buyers. Kiwi, you are to be commended.
I've had girlfriends just like this car. Gorgeous on the outside, rotten to the core, covered up up with pancake makeup, and potentially deadly.
You know you miss at least one of your girlfriends
And you can’t even get any resale value when you send them back.
When you go home with Bo Derek and you wake up with Bo Diddley!.
Sounds like you have a type lol jk 😂
You would think you would learn after just one. But, hey, I'm sure as hell nobody to judge.
What kills me as a former body man is the time and effort spent avoiding the most fun part of restoration, the cutting, welding, and fabrication is more fun than bondoing, prep and painting.
Actually the undercarriage part is the EASIEST, all straight lines and holes, compared to exterior body panels, window and trunk channels, door sills, or panels with complex shapes.
Well, you were in it for the passion. These people are in it for the money.
@@borisjankovici662 yeah, bodywork was a passion for about ten years until insurance companies got a stranglehold on collision repairs, I switched to mechanics in the mid 80's for the money, way less satisfying than bodywork, except for when you build an engine, there's satisfaction doing that.
@@diegosilang4823 I mildly disagree with you, metalwork is metalwork wether it's undercarriage or outer skin, undercarriage has every bit as many compound curves as outer skins with the addition of different gauges of metal that isn't as prevalent on the outer sections. Regardless of the amount of work needed under or outer, I much prefer moving metal than Bondo, priming, prepping and painting.
Ya, this thing needs a full restoration.
Tony, you're brave to walk around underneath. I wouldn't trust it to hold together on the lift.
thats a good point!
Thought about that too. Those feet were holding bondo up
Was thinkin same! 4post only for this thing. Wow man!
I was thinking the same thing 😂
I had a few mn12 90s cougars and thunderbirds..imo , the cougar has always been nicer in always than than the mustang.. I wish they'd come out with a new SPORTY thunderbird again and use the 3.5tt and 5.0 init
Someone share the name of the dealer that did this so I can make sure I never buy anything from them, ever.
When I saw the framerails made of rotten layers of bondo I could feel a sadness settle onto my heart. They expended so much effort on the visible parts... So they know how to do it, they just chose not to. What terrible people they must be.
Quick buck flippers
I wonder if they would know how to make a car like this safe. They did a good job bondoing the visible parts, but they might have had no clue how to weld anything, let along how to restore the strength of the frame and keep the rust away for good.
😂😂😂
@@pcno2832rebuild the frame with full runs and good welds.
They don't know how to do it - they're painters, not welders.
Whoever did that flip should be behind bars. Scammers are everywhere these days.
That's exactly my thoughts! Dirtbags. Ugh.
I agree Robert, they are parasites.
I have an honest rust free car that is not candy coated and no one wants it!.. Bling sells.. quality does not.
@@mustangracer5124exactly most of these people that are getting burned on these cars aren't even car people anyway they're just spending money to impress other men
We would have nothing but prisons. Then we get to choose if the murderer or this scammer gets that jail cell... It goes far deeper than punishment. Our Society has been devolved by the Progressive left on purpose.
An honest $500 car that needs $20,000 in repairs is better than a fraud $20,000 car that's needs $20,000 in repairs.
I'm betting 30/30
My Toronado was a steal. It doesn't need that much in repairs. If I can't get up underneath to check it something's up. I can't imagine buying a car that's already "done."
Remove all the good parts and replace the body
at least it's not a "tribute" car.
Cars are now a way for the Socialist left to punish everyone while stealing their money.
I own a small shop where I build suspension for lifted trucks in my free time. You are right about not being safe. I’ve seen people try to build suspension. I’m talking 16-30 in lift so big trucks and they bubblegum weld stuff and things it looks “so good” it’s not what’s on the eye level it’s what’s underneath. Think of a car as a person when purchasing it. It is good on the inside, outside, places you can’t see, pull the carpet up, slide under that bad boy. Some people trust to much. Also I don’t know how you could spend 30+k on a classic and not see the giant bondoed door.
The people who deal in these cars are not just professionals, they are professional thieves. I owned a Mustang restoration and parts business for 10 years and if I had attempted to get away with this kind of workmanship I would have been ridden out of town on a rail. Of course I live in California and we usually don't have to deal with the rust buckets that you have in the eastern parts of the country. You are doing a great service to the collector car community by uncovering these crooks. 🤠🏁 👍
I'm in Nevada and didn't know things like this existed.
A long time ago when I was a kid we had a guy in the neighborhood who would buy junk cars, fix them up and resell them. His answer to rust was fiberglass and bondo. He'd fill in missing chunks of frame, whole floors, etc.
He was probably high school age when he started. His paint procedure was to paint every panel separately, with a rattle can with rattle can clear. They looked passable from about 30ft or more but that was about it. The worst I saw was a Ford with a ripped out control arm and radius rod, he used a piece of old car fender to make up a patch plate where the unibody was ripped open, then reinstalled the parts. It sat a little funny and pulled hard but he sold it. In his mind, it was fixed. He never put out money for anything, he'd buy the junk car for $200, use leftover fiberglass and resin from his dad's pool business, and he bought everything else at kmart and the dollar store. He'd go to all sorts of trouble to patch something up without putting any money out. When it was done, he'd price it in the stratosphere and sit back and take the best offer he got.
He would also never sell them from home, he'd park them out on the highway with a sale sign and meet buyers there.
The bad part was that most thought they got a deal since they didn't pay what they were asking for real restorations, even if it fell apart in a few years.
Jeeez.. that guy was a human parasite. These kinda people are 'successes' in their mind with all the so called hard work they put in to rip people off
Like the US Government
There was a place that shut down recently here in Sacramento called A&M auto wrecking. They had literal tons of old Ford parts, i was very saddened to hear that. My uncle also ran a ford only dismantler for years called freeway auto wrecking. Also gone with the wind, but he kept a lot of the stuff he cared to have, like 9 inch axles, stock sbf headers for fox bodies, ect ect all the typical stock rod parts.
Working at a body shop was probably the worst thing that ever happened to me with cars. Now every time I go to a car show I'm seeing every flaw. I don't really even like going to them any longer.
glad i’m not the only guy me that feels like this, I was a post body work detailer making sure they were ready to go back to the customer. Now if i see even a dirt nib or shitty polishing job i’m crawling out of my skin.
Grew up in shops and worked em for most of life. I feel your pain.
My teacher at autobody school told us on day 1 that after working on cars for awhile we would see things that would ruin our love for cars. He was right. All I see are imperfections, all the new cars look the same, and I am very unimpressed with the "cool, super cars" that cost a billion dollars.
You should still go to car shows. A lot of fun.
One speed bump and it's over!!
I worked on a 73 Plymouth convertible. The floor was replaced 😮 it was cut and the new floor was tack welded . I 👉 it out to him and suggested a refitting and burn in the metal all the way around. Never did when he went to sell it the new owner seen it and wanted his money back,so he got a big price drop . Right Larry S.
I'm 5 years into my own Mustang nightmare story after being robbed in the same way. What was worse for me is that I had it shipped to me overseas, throwing even more money into the pit. Pretty close to finishing all the body work now, but what a journey it's been. And not only for me but my family as well, that's the worst part..
Don't give up on it. It will be worth it in the end. In the end you know what's done to it. It's your baby that you can make however you want now. :) Have a nice day
Well the first issue was buying a mustang.
@@Censortubes funny.
@@Censortubes We drag race the 2011/14 5.0s great platform and run like hell we love them!
@@andrewslagle1974 nobody asked.
I had a 72 Cougar XR7.
Full leather. 351 Cleveland.
A very squirrelly rear end in accelerating turns. Especially on a wet road
They had zero anti corrosion on the entire car. As a result, they were rotting from the inside out in year #2 of ownership.
Best long road trip car I ever drove.
Hard not to burn rubber taking off from a stop and turning.
@@robertherrmann4823
Churped going into second gear if you got on it good.
"Best long road trip car I ever drove." You need to drive more things.
Damn! That is one of the nicest polish job I've ever seen on a turd.
Right? Kinda ruins my favorite line… You can’t polish a turd.
Basically all classic car flippers are like this. If you do it with care it will be too expensive and you won't make any money.
@@cxeroannuki2840ain't that the truth
Well said
exactly
dogpoop covered with chocolate
I was at a buddies shop last fall and he had a 'Fully Restored' Dodge on the lift for some basic maintenance.
The first thing I noticed when I walked under it was a bright shiny Frigidaire emblem on one part of the floor underneath.
Apparently they had made all the floor patches out of an old refrigerator and left the emblem on the one panel. They were smooth like those on that Cougar, with lots of bondo and sketchy welds too.
I mean if it's strong metal and it works the floors and basically all the metal surfaces on my grandpa's super beattle are made out of an old refrigerator that he was cutting up at work they've lasted 30 years so
I was under one and it said STOP and the other side was yellow with an arrow like around a bend
@@brinkee7674 street signs were a known way of patching floors in Illinois when I was growing up with the the salt on the roads.
That's just an EFF YOU from the fraudster to the first real car guy who looks underneath it. That's just a slap in the face.
I live in Canada. You wouldn't believe the amount of nice looking bondo buckets there are here. I work in a country garage and restore mostly British stuff on the side. I know rust only too well. Nothing survives 10 years + on our salted roads. You may get a couple more years out of it, but it is eventually done. Thankfully, there are a good number of cars up here that have been stored for half of every year, and they are worth restoring.. Thanks for the vid Uncle Tony. Cheers from the right coast of Canada!
Bondo buggy 😢
no salt in Victoria, bud
Atlantic Canada here, even in the daily summer ocean fog lots of salt in the air.
it's a shame they didn't have in the past what we have now. I have an electronic anti rust system on my 2014 Honda called FinalCoat I think. The thing is pristine, at least when it comes to rust and of course I drive it year round. But you're right. In my teens friends and I restored a few cars and it was all spot welds and pails of Bondo.
@@seanarthur8392 Those things are pretty much snake-oil. Newer vehicles (some more than others) hold up better than the older ones, that is why your Honda isn't a rust bucket yet, but it would probably be in the same shape if you unplugged that little magic box the day you bought it. Cars are not boats, that tech just doesn't work like they claim it does. Oil spray is the way to go. No thick undercoating junk, just oil once a year.
I always like how they have it inspected AFTER they buy it.
Like wiping your butt and then go take a dump.
... but isn't it because the best deals get snatched up immediately? My wife watched me look at ad after ad, then car after car, for four years before I bought my dream car. Because we both worked in serving the public we have very little savings so I had to save $100 here and $50 there over more than 25 years. Finally, one day recently the dream car I had wanted (one in an original factory color that is almost 1 of 1 surviving) dropped $10,000 in price because the flipper-owner got himself in over his head after installing a $3000 Vintage air system on his own, a new interior (unfortunate because not needed) and a number of other crazy projects while some serious things - horn and brakes - still needed work. I not only bought it on the spot but also purchased my alternative "modern" dream car (also an incredible deal) when one just happened to become available the very next week and am enjoying both cars every weekend. There are deals happening out there but you have to be patient and then quick with the cash. Along the way I reluctantly passed on a completely original and rust-free 1974 Roadrunner with a factory 360 for $10,000; a rust-free, low-mile, factory 350 1975 Chevrolet Monza with the original plaid cloth interior for $8,000; and many, many more rare and unusual old vehicles that I will dream of having for years to come.
By the way -- I have too many cars now!
This is exactly why I seek out original, unmessed with cars and trucks when possible. Original paint is gold to me, even if its worn with dents and scars!
i have two 57 chevies, both a bought with that very thing in mind. If its strait with original paint its a hit.
Yup
Yep. Never buy a repainted car.
I hate seeing vintage cars repainted, you can spot the repaint a mile away. Also the modern polymer paints don't match the lead paint and 60 years of age wear, so it looks extremely out of place on a vintage car. Especially when people candy them and polish to an ultra high gloss.
Totally agree! I bought a 1976 Camaro for $4000 that everyone passed up five years ago because it had two small rust holes staining the paint under one side of that wrap-around rear window (many of these windows collect water at the base sill and anyone thinking California cars don't rust even if left outside should read up on the Chinese dust cloud of heavy metals that now causes acid rain here each spring). Those stains that I buffed off were on factory original paint, and my suspicion that the car was low mile (82,000) caused by the shiny new-looking taillights and glass was confirmed when I inspected the entire car, top to bottom and found zero rust. When I removed the carpeting from the near-perfect interior I even found that the floors shined like new with the factory yellow paint! I drove that car to PA because I got a job there and the locals were flabbergasted to see me during it all year to work, coating the underside with thick maritime petroleum gel to protect it from road salt. I could never leave a gas station quickly because everyone loved talking to me about it! All for $4000! I hated leaving it in the east when I came back but at least someone got a nice old car cheap.
The owner needs to hire a lawyer and sue for misrepresentation. It almost looks dangerous.
Not almost, this is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS! It's not a full frame car or it would be be "shoddy". This is the whole structure of the car that's rotted out and hidden intentionally. If someone died in this thing, it would be manslaughter without question.
"As is". No buyer has any leg to stand on. People who build cars like this are scum, but the answer isn't more government and legal oversight. Do you do everything 100%? (no, you don't) Do you want to be on the hook for every little that you may have done wrong, even unknowingly? That's what you're asking for.
Simply play by the rules: "As is". If you're not competent enough to spot bondo and sheet metal screws take it to someone who is!! Someone likely spent $30k-$50k on this car and it's evident they knew absolutely nothing about cars. It's in our best interest that stupidity be expensive.
UTG is doing a great job of exposing this stuff. This awareness campaign about the classic car market is what needs to happen.
The buyer would most likely spend a lot of money on an attorney and lose his claim. Even if he were to prevail, the way these auctions typically work is that the actual culprit who doctored up the vehicle in order to deceive would have disappeared back into some hole; making the judgement uncollectable.
@@borisjankovici662 Well said. We have enough government BS
Auctions : Buyers are suckers and sellers are criminals...simple as that.
They spent more time putting in mud and sealer than it takes to fix it. Unbelievable!
You can’t fix that
Oh no they didn't! hahaha Not oven 1% the time to do this vs making it right.
@@dflf Yes. That can be fixed.... It will take hundreds of hours but it can be fixed.
No, welding is way harder and much more expensive, especially if you use reproduction sheet metal.
This is what happens when idiots drool over Mecum and barret jackson. Now that Cougars are selling for $50k (That's right, cougars, cars that NOBODY cared about 5 years ago) there's a fortune to be made by putting a nice paint job and interior on a trash car like this. There's an industry running on "fixing up" junk cars in exactly the wrong way.
If classic cars went back to the values they were, then we'd all be better off. A well done XR7 would cost $20k to build and be worth only $10k. Just as a it should be. There'd be no room for flippers and muscle cars would be attainable by true car people, not the yuppy investors that own them all now.
@@Warrior_Resisting_Colonialism I don’t know, but I do a lot of metal restoration and the metal work is much less time than the body work. Slinging all of that stuff under there and trying to get it looking passable is no small effort. A colossal waste of time that is more likely due to a complete lack of brains and skill.
21:06 Tennessee doesn't have salt on the roads but it does have weeds. This is a car that was abandoned in some hillbilly farm, it was sunk up to the axles in the mud for 30+ years, then it was drug out and cleaned up, bondoed, and painted.
That's what it looks like to me too, the upper area seems fairly good if old but the bottom is all rusted out
Just subscribed to you both. That happened to my father when he bought me my first car in 1980. It was a ‘66 mustang convertible, he found it at an auction and it looked beautiful. We were so excited. After getting it home and when it came time for him to teach me how to change it’s oil we put it on ramps and rolled underneath to find out it was a rust bucket full of bondo. Just like that cougar floor pans were gone, frame was rusted out and bondo patched, a complete mess. It took loads of cash to get that all cut out and new metal properly welded in.
A public flogging, and having CROOKED CAR FLIPPER tattooed across their forehead might be an adequate penalty.
Not flogging、but a return to public humiliation is not such a bad idea
What a great looking paint job. I would have fallen for that mess.
Whoever painted it didn’t do the work underneath.
When I do a pre purchase inspection.. I use a check list.. because I to can get side tracked from pretty paint and shiny paint ... my check list makes me re-focus and pay attention...
My job is to talk my client out of buying the car...
That much cost on the paint was just stupid over such a sh pile. The bondo work was likely a hundred hours or more. The paint hundreds of dollars. The underbody coverup was probably 50 hrs of sht work.
That's 3000$+ in time/money just to rip people off.
And the interior. It is gorgeous too.
Flippers know this.. My car is honest and no one wants it.
I had the same happen to a ‘63 Nova convertible…if you ever plan to buy a classic, always be suspicious when you see any type of undercoating. I guarantee it’s there to hide something.
I'm a plumber by trade, this job reminds me of a job I came across the other day. All the abs drainage pipe was just dry fitted together, NO GLUE anywhere! Boy it took a lot of duct tape to fix it up.
Duct tape is expensive. You need some dollar store silicon.
If you thought that was bad, have a leak due to a cold snap and have a pipe split near the back spigot and in the attempt to repair the split, parts of the old pipe began to split at joints, only to find out that the bathroom, while redone and replumbed with copper, was connected directly to the old galvanized pipes in the kitchen and the lead in pipe from the street, galvanic corrosion. I still need to completely redo it all but funds are nil at the moment for it. So far, the repairs are holding, knock on wood.
@@brianbrigg57 Nope, duct tape better known as Saskatchewan chrome is the finest repair product known to man . Red green swears by it and the rumour is he is the man who has performed the repair on the undercarriage of this cougar. My mind is full of jokes about old cougars and their rotten undercarriages not suitable for this platform
@@benvolman4976 Red Green is the greatest philosopher of our modern Era and the undisputed wizard of duct tape.
I'm a UA-cam neurosurgeon
It's abhorrent that an auction house can be allowed to pass these through. This should be traced back so this thief can be locked up. They should fine the auction big too.
The auctions are as big of a scam as the sellers. I keep asking why any real car guy would support these trash auctions. Including Mecum and barrett jackson. They are all dirt bags.
It got sold when they did the Cash for Clunkers they save the parts car the craftsmanship is parallel to none
Pleased to say that my state in Australia has annual inspections for all cars more than five hears old, including those on historic registration (for cars over 30 years old). Stops the worst of those botch jobs.
@@phillipleeds296 Sorry 'Mate' but your Gov is full on Tyrannical pos scums...as bad as Canadas commie Turdo.
... should but there's that ol' greed factor in " everybody's " minds other than the guy that got had.
NOTE : This is so wrong ( ehhhh an indefinte pronoun) -----> Is everybodys correct grammar?
Just as the word group is singular (groups is plural), so everyone also is singular. So to show possession, the apostrophe should go between the final e and s as in everyone's. 🤣 What ??? 🤣 Who thinks up this chit !!!
I learned the hard way. A few years ago I bought my dream truck from a dealer even spent time under it before purchase. Seemed to be a beautiful truck... so I thought.. Dealer didn't know I had plans to take it apart and re-restore it to my taste. Got it home, started doing some real looking and poking around on the frame....there were some questionable areas that once u REALLY got in there... the frame was severely rotted all over, really it was ready to fold in half in 3 places. Structural damage and rot from front to back but someone took the time to pack all frame damage with bondo and paint over it... did a good job making it look good so never would have noticed had I not started stripping the frame. Long story short. Turned them in, truck sat for a year because police deamed it unsafe to drive, pulled the FRESH, from dealer, inspection sticker, went to court... Judge sided with the dealer, cuz they grew up together, I ended up loosing my ass on that truck. Even the police were suprised in the outcome givin all the evidence. Bought another truck from a junkyard with a good frame... used what I could from the dealer fraud truck to build my current dream truck myself. Cut the rest of fraud truck up into 3 foot sections and hauled it in for scrap. Never trust anyones "restoration/ showtruck" without checking every square inch first. Had anyone else bought that truck and just drove it... would have ended up in an accident when the frame finally folded going down the highway, or the front end or steering box ripped off the tin foil bondo packed frame.
Good advice. I owned a car like this in mud 70s. It was a rusty piece of crap. So why do adults buy these thinking because the paint shines car is good?
These scams were alive and used all the time for past 50 years. Even if you buy one of these cars from a so called professionals, do you really think it's restored to like new?
You have to really trust who you buy your car from. I don't know anyway you can verify someone's repairs, once the paints on not to mention engine and transmissions, axles etc.
I love to see the old classics on the road, can't say I know a way to ensue you get your money's worth. Used anything is always a gamble.
1000%!@@jimw6991
A crooked judge? say it ain't so!
freshly restored vehicles scare the crap out of me! I go after the untouched one's.
Thanks, Trump
These types videos make me feel really good about my amateur restoration project. I am almost finished.
I would be afraid to walk under that while on the lift
I was thinking the same thing
Sketchy sjit in a shop is a man’s job, go find your safe space 🌈
No joke!
Wow I cannot even imagine how bad the customer felt after seeing this I think it's the first time I've seen bondo used to make a floor and frame rails
But it’s structural bondo…
We call it bog and not bondo.
Yup. This buyer is out 100% of his money. He can sue but the lawyer will get it all. Sucks. Best thing he can do is find who did the fraud and expose them.
He would have had to stood there holding the bondo up, for like a couple hours while it was drying, so it wouldn't sag! lol.
and what welds there were, are terrible.
Uncle Tony's Garage, You are doing a great Service by Exposing The Amount of Fraud by all those Flippers out there......Just disgusting seeing all that Butchery.
that car DEFINITELY is to dangerous for the road poor buyer got totally ripped off.
There was a local used car dealer who lived in the same small town I grew up in. He was an autobody man by trade and would buy vehicles damaged in accidents, rotted out (from MassaTwoSh!ts so lots of salt), even pickups that were sitting in farmer's fields for 10+ years, slap some paint on them, making them look better than new, and sell them for top dollar. He would go drinking every weekend in the local bars and would laugh at how he's ripping people off after getting drunk.
I saw a 1985 3/4-ton Chevy 4x4 he was selling for big $$. The body was beautiful looking, but the interior was cleaned up but well worn, the suspension was sagging and he didn't even bother cleaning up the thick scale rust on the under carriage from sitting in tall grass for many years. I saw the new owner driving it about 6 months later and a chunk of bondo the size of the whole door fell off, exposing a caved in driver's side door. He never even bothered sanding the original paint before doing any filler work or spraying the new paint! The "new" paint was flaking off as it was driven down the road. But it looked great until it drove off the lot!
So scary and sad for the customer but thanks for reminding us to look and inspect them better .
I don't think the auction houses allow you to scrutinize the cars before you bid. I hope im wrong
When watching this I thought about putting a phone on a selfie stick to check out the bottoms of the vehicles. I have never done this, but maybe to a more trained eye it could help provide some info.
If you’re interested in knowing the trouble spots for classic Cougars, Don Rush of West Coast Classic Cougars has an excellent series where he goes year by year on excellent survivors in detail, up on a lift etc. He points out the expensive fixes and the easy fixes, and the dealbreakers alike.
Yes Matt, good channel.
@@robertclymer6948 Yep, good guy too.
Don is King of the Cougars for sure
Thanks guys!
@@donrush5690 Hey Don, you’re very welcome, you are an asset to and ally of the classic Cougar fan base. I’m ‘Sunroof ‘69’ Matt btw. I do original LEGO vehicle designs on YT.
I love these videos so I know what kind of poor workmanship I need to avoid working on the truck I’m restoring.
The sad irony is videos like this dont teach much because most all of us car people fixing it ourselves know this is wrong in the first place.
This makes me think of the required vehicle inspections they have in many states.
In MA they weren't going to pass this '78 Chev van I had, until I fix rusted through rocker panels. But that's just cosmetic. This car has frame rails made of rust an bondo.
Wheels and tires are nice. It's surprising how good the top of the car looks for a rust bucket. Which makes it an auction special.
I am a not a auto body guy, I am dumb. Lol. BUT, is it possible to replace that frame??..if so ? 🤷 cost a fortune
@@jamie.777no frame, uni-body
Seems the builder/seller could or should face significant liabilities for putting this on the road.
Unfortunately, unless seller specifies conditions etc? That is not possible as is no liability for most places as far as I know for selling an unsafe vehicle. All liability on driver.
So unless seller knowingly falsifies document or other parts of a sales agreement? Buyer beware.
Treat buying a car like buying a home. Dont touch without a valid and reputable inspection.
Sold “as is.”
Even if someone is hurt or killed because of the horrible work done on this car, there's virtually zero chance of the "builder" being found liable.
dont they have car "control" stations in the US? like they do have in Britain or europe?
@@Driessens_Peter haha good joke
I'm in Australia at a small classic shop and we had a new customer contact us to get the car legal for Australian roads (can be as simple as changing headlights and adding amber indicators) after they bought a classic at one of those big TV actions in the USA. The front brakes didn't work and the rear brake hard lines were wrapped around the rear springs as a small example of what had to be done. It took 9 months (most parts have to ship from USA) and doubled the purchases price.
Yeah, but he was rich to start with ......... so who better to absorb that cost than some rich dilettante ? And now it's been properly done, so he can enjoy it.
Some of the stuff that comes in from the US is bad it reminds me of that early Japanese imports in New Zealand in the late 80s
Really like this australian guy. He's very to the point and stand up. Keep doing these videos they are insanely helpful
He's a Kiwi, i.e. from New Zealand. Big country 3 hours flight timeaway from Australia, the poor next door neighbour.
KIWI not Aussie
He's a Kiwi as in New Zealand .
kiwi kool
Kiwi,,,New Zealander thank you,, ,Aussies are our distant cousins.....a different breed..
Keep picking on them! I learn so much from your flipper reveals and enjoy your commentary. Thank you!!
We all know that lipstick on a pig is nothing new, especially in the classic market.
Years ago, I actually lost a "friend" over a similar situation. He was selling a 69 Z28 (not 100% original as it had a 70 LT1 engine) that appeared to be a very nice "20 footer". Another friend was a serious buyer until I told him to use a magnet on the trunk floor and rear sub-frame rails. BOTH were mostly made of fiberglass mat, a bunch of resin and, a bunch more rubberized undercoating. I knew this because I'd watched him "restore" it.
The buyer took my advice on his 2nd look and told the seller that I'd suggested where to use the magnet. I'm still friends with the buyer and, he actually did end up with a very nice, driver quality 69 Camaro later on. I guess the seller wasn't really much of a friend to begin with and, even though I still run into him now and then, it's basically a hi/bye thing and I'm OK with that.
Keep these kinds of videos coming. They make me feel great about my cars. Never seen bondo on a frame, unreal.
I want to know about the old Cherokee parked outside. It's the same color as my 99 before it got painted white.
When I see newly painted classic cars for sale I always wonder if it's a rust bucket haha..
Yeah no I'm always suspicious of pretty paint.
My first thought: what are they hiding.
Like a woman all dolled up, perfumed, tight dress...then she takes the majority of your possessions a couple of years later...same thing...only she bangs another man in your bed before leaving...the car won't do that to you.
I'm 60 and I know most classic cars were junk when they were built and most are rotted out junk now. I don't understand why classic cars are selling for more than new cars. You human beings are odd.
@@sp-yj5wr Nonsense...we had new cars from the 60's and 70's and they had no rust when new or even 20 years old...New cars are crap and ugly,thats why old cars hold their value..You are not a car guy,its okay!
We made a ton of money taking before, during and after pictures of our restorations and body work. People loved to know what was under the paint and undercarriage refinishing. Some Kodak film, probably $120 total with developing was worth thousands of extra dollars. Actually amazed us that other honest guys were not doing this to prove that it was reasonable work and not covering up something. Once one takes that doubt out of the customer's mind, the deal goes so well.
Kiwi's Catastrophic Cougars has a nice ring to it! HAHAHA
I like these team up videos. Kiwi is such a great guy and a master craftsman.
that's just criminal!! people who do that to people should be in jail
i agree
I paid a inspector 500.00 to inspect a car at a consignment dealer. He handed me 8 pages of issues. He saved me 30 grand!
Well worth the money.
Yikes. I've owned cars worthy of 8 pages of inspection snags, but usually at about 2-5% of the outlay, so I can part it and break even. 😂 You and this channel remind me to never buy an unknown quantity because I'm over-eager. The smart money is the money you avoid spending needlessly. $500 is cheap medicine for a $30k rolling s**tbox.
I'd wager that car has been through several auctions. Someone buys it, gets it home, and sees what they bought. The auction doesn't help them out, but offers them a free rerun fee at the auction. So the car goes back, gets resold, someone else gets stuck with it, and the auction gets another buyers fee. And if a buyer makes a big stink about the car, then it will get put back in the auction system with a declaration of structural damage, and instantly loses 75% of its value. So always beware if you see a car sell, and a few weeks later it shows back up, it's cursed like this Cougar!
... pretty much 'spot on'
That’s a bummer. Always liked that body style Cougar and they’re still relatively reasonably priced.
Go to any car show or auction, half the cars look like this. You just need to know what to look for, most folks don’t.
True
Uncle Tony and Kiwi walking under a car that is lifted on bondo frame rails 😱
The first sign of trouble is all that overspray. A sloppy spray job usually hides sloppy work underneath. It just went downhill from there. Parts for these are expensive and the person that "restored" it knew that the parts are expensive and hard to find and they cost a mint to obtain and get right, so they went with what can be seen and that's the lipstick on a pig scenario you're describing here.
Is it from maple salvage ?
I really wish I knew more about cars.. Its the only shop class I didn't take but now in my 50s I really can appreciate the cars that were still all over the roads in the late 70s and into the 80s that you really don't see that much of anymore.. But with that being said when you go to one of these car auctions, are you aloud to look at these cars up close and get under them ect... Or do they just trust that what they're buying is the real deal and worth what they're biding on?
I am working on something similar, just not quite as bad. A 70 Cyclone Spoiler with front floor patches that don't weld to the frame rails making the front of those frame rails moveable. Holes hacked in the floor and tranny tunnel too. A car that looks real nice but i'll probably be buying a new one piece floorpan for.
When I seen the title and the opening of this vid, I knew exactly where it was going when they put it on the lift. There are so many of these turds out there. How could a buyer miss this stuff? I'm old but very first thing I've always done is get down and look underneath when I'm looking at ANY car to buy. I do understand a cast majority of people just don't know cars, and that's fine. It's just that when you are fixing to drop big money at least have it checked by someone who Does know!
It doesn't matter if it's Vintage or late model, people only see the shiny things on the outside. I'm a woman and I pissed off a used car dealer when I started getting down in the mud and slush to look under the cars. He got even more pissed off when I came back out with handfuls of rotted frame.
Just a quick look with a torch underneath.. but he likely bought it from an online auction.
Tony, that isn't poor craftsmanship. The restorer added energy absorbent crumple zones to the frame.
water-absorbent
Structural bondo built with space-age composite material
probably some ripple potato chips in the frame to absorb energy.
One of the WW2 veterans in my neighbourhood once told me the story how they "repaired" the frames of unibody cars in the 70s by "rebuilding" the rusted out frame rails from wood, then molding them in with bondo and finally covering everything up with underbody coating. This car reminds me of this story.
I love these videos, being from Buffalo, NY, where cars rot out quickly, I have seen many bondo over newspaper, or bondo over twigs and sticks patch jobs.
One guy took a crushed motorcycle tank and "restored" it with two cans of bondo. It would only hold a cup of gas or so, but looked nice.
I once put Bondo in a tail light lens!!! Yes, that's right, a tail light lens! It was a '92 Mustang GT with the louvered lenses. The lens broke from some dip$h!t in a Grand Cherokee backing into it, and I picked up all the pieces and superglued them. The only piece I was missing was in the painted louver portion, so I filled it with Bondo and masked it off and repainted it, and you couldn't tell till you got real close to it!
Buffalo cars are the worst….. I can’t tell you how many mopars I’ve been thru with gallons of bondo in them 😂
@@DanEBoyd Hee, but this kinda shit makes my worst -ever intended-to-be-temporary floorboard fixes look meticulous.
Lol he shoulda filled it with water and froze it ,I got one to pop some dents out a little. More for capacity reasons than looks.
@@MrTheHillfolk Dang good idea!!!
I learned a long long time ago to look under cars. It didn't matter how old they were. I've looked at a lot of old cars with people because they know I'll crawl under them, and most of them have had lots of rust under them. A few had way too much undercoating which I automatically consider an attempt to hide rot.
That's the only reason for undercoating
im 63 and still climb under to have a good look no mater the age of the car to see whats its like on the under side.
@@fredharvey2720 I've walked away from many cars as soon as I saw fresh undercoating. I'm not searching for what they covered up. I just crawled out and left.
I looked at one Mustang for a friend and the owner said it was 100% original. I said both front fenders were replaced. He got all pissy and called me a liar, so I asked him why the fender tabs had ''Made in Taiwan'' stamped in them. He looked, and closed the hood. We left. It was actually stamped in the fender tabs on both sides.
As a Cougar enthusiast, I died a little inside! As an XR7 he probably paid a pretty penny too.
About to go really look 👀 under my ‘67. Thank you for these videos!
What gets me the most, is that all that time and labor used to cover up the problem areas could have been used to fix them. Would have cost the same. This is ridiculous.
That's awful I hate seeing people getting screwed, and it's dangerous
Great video. I have thought about buying an older car like that and after seeing this, I'll definitely be getting some sort of inspection before I purchase one.
God bless you and kiwi for doing these videos. And warning people, like me to avoid this nightmare. It's somebody's dream, that becomes their nightmare. Keep it up
I think, if you're looking to buy a vintage car and don't have Kiwi to help you, you'd best look at the car in person before handing over your loot.
I has a BEAUTIFUL Gold /white/white 68 California Special come in for a new, complete dual exhaust.
I rarely ever use the twin post to pick up old cars, we use the drive on instead. In the case of this car, it was a solid choice.
On the ground the car appeared as it just rolled on the show room floor, in the air it was a rotted, POP RIVET FRAME REPAIR POS.
I called the owner and asked her to come down, they were furious, the had paid 24400 for a restoration (1988) the restorer never went under the car, but knew the floors were gone as they riveted tin over the holes before installing new carper.
It immediately explained why the restoration shop told the owners why they needed to have an exhaust shop do the exhaust, they could claim they never saw under the car.
It was rotted enough it would have folded on the twin post.
Thanks for doing these “scammer” videos
Most low buck, or low skill restorations (not necessarily flip cars) are pretty obvious. Some are cleaned up nice, and it takes a minute to see how butchered they are, but this is on another level. Even up fairly close this looks really nice. The nice bumpers and chrome and general attention to detail, especially under the hood is unusual. Id say someone got burned, then took some time to clean it up better so that they could run it back thru an auction and recoup their money.
Poor Kiwi does he ever get to share positive news with his customers? LOL 😂
Yeah , Bad news gets 10x the views and comments. Your all correct how dare someone sell a 54 year old car. That was used then sell it. You should all run not walk to the nearest. Tesla dealer. An leave these cars with lovely paint jobs and bondo issues. To me ,
I wish you all the Prius you deserve.
@@tresmosaicyou're a dikhead
@@tresmosaic found the flipper
He did a great job inspecting the vehicle before he bought it.
This is a work of art. The skill it takes to make a car that bad look so damn good only comes from a prodigy.
Someone probably made a killing flipping this car, and you have to admit they went the extra mile to make this car look the part; on an auction floor.
This would make a good museum piece. Looks great but not safe for the highway.
I suppose if you just trailer it to shows and trailer at home it'll be fine
I was almost thinking that. The only thing its good for is looking at, like at a museum. Its Dangerous anywhere else!
To be honest this job reminds me of houses I have worked on that were subdivided for per room rent. A lot of the time the guys will create walls out of drywall mud and construction dumpster scraps because the material all comes from job site dumpsters and "fell off the truck" stuff.
Unfortunately, this is going to happen more often over the next several years. The only 50 -70 year old cars that will not have extensive body rot are those that spent their life in the southwestern US or kept very clean and in a garage during the winter. I've seen that you can now buy new floor pans and other body parts for some of the more popular models, paying the labor for a first class job of installing these parts will price it out of the range of most.
A short story about how I got over old cars.
My first car was a 1964 Falcon that I inherited from my parents in 1971. It was a well maintained daily driver from the southern MO area. when I stripped out the old carpet and floor sound deadening material, the floor pan was full of tiny holes. I steel brushed it well and painted it with several coats of Rustolium inside and out. Three years later I helped my younger brother do the same thing again and there were silver dollar size holes there. We were poor boys and could just barely afford to keep the oil, air filter and spark plugs changed so we got hold of some galvanized sheet metal and cut at couple pieces big enough to cover the foot pan, secured with roofer calk and screws and put in some cheap JC Whitney custom fit carpet over it.
Fast forward 5 more years, brother number 3 started driving it and came home after a thunder storm with wet feet. We tapped it with a small hammer and part of the pan fell out. Not to give up, we got some larger pieces of sheet metal, some cheap kitchen linoleum and a few tubes of the best window calk we could find and went to work. Shaped the stiff linoleum with a hair dryer to conform it, installed it over the whole floor pan and sealed it up. With he help of a shade tree rings and rod bearings and a hand lapped valve job, it got him through high school. When baby brother got his first job and a decent car, we built some small berms with the tractor and took turns doing General Lee jumps until the unibody folded up, he doors sprang open and the roof warped.
We had a good laugh, put in on a trailer with a front loader and got $50 at the scrap yard. 😁
You can't crawl under a car at Mecum, but they serve wine. You should visit Smoky Mountain Traders and get under a few of those cars.
maple motors for a 318 v8 68 super bee clone
@@youtubecarspottersguide133k
@@youtubecarspottersguide1 Would never buy a car from that place
@@youtubecarspottersguide1 No thanks. They could have saved some money and made that a good 318 Coronet base model and got the money, I know, it's consignment but just say no when they bring this garbage in. It isn't worth sacraficing your reputation over.
@@youtubecarspottersguide1 that’s absolutely labeled as such, champ. 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦♂️
WOW, that is the worst butchery I have ever seen. An expensive lesson hard learned. If you don't know what to look for pay someone knowledgable to inspect it. A small fee could save you a fortune in the long run. Thanks for sharing Tony, hopefully this helps someone from making the same mistake.
Absolutely!! It’s not like this “work” was hidden. 🤦♂️🤦♂️
You're doing everyone a great service by exposing these cars and hopefully people will start looking closer
I was wholesaler for a bunch of years, mostly everyday auction cars. My job was looking for problems so I knew how much I had to fix and how much I'd have into a vehicle before it went up for sale. It's definitely a good idea to look underneath a car, especially a classic and bring a bright flashlight too even during the day.
Absolutely horrifying. It appears as though they actually put more effort to do it this way than to have done it correctly. Sadly, this seems to be much more common than people realize, especially at classic car dealers and well-known auctions.
These cat is breaking my heart! My all time favorite cars are 1967-1970 Cougars. I don't know what is worse a flipper special or a resto mod.
yes..terrible...but what now, the customer doesnt want it, does it just get flipped to the next sucker? or broken for parts? crying shame if there is no one to save it.
I really wasn't expecting that. It seemed like they put so much effort into restoring the rest of the car, interior and engine. Replacement unibody parts and frame rails are available for these cars, so they wouldn't even need to do that much fabrication to do this properly.
"That's not shoddy workmanship... *I* do shoddy workmanship! That's thievery." Had me laughing.
Love the old cougars that's too bad need to expose some of the people that sell these Band-Aids.
Old Cougars only like guys with lots of $$$
That export brace looks like they bent it up out of an old trashcan. The wheel lip moldings are rippled b/c they used Mustang parts that don't fit right. You didn't open up the trunk but I can only imagine the horrors 😮
I saw a shop put a new trunk floor over the old one. 😲
My heart goes out to the owner. Man, what a terrible situation.
Why?? Who buys a 50 year old car and never gets under it or pays someone to inspect it beforehand? All these weekend warriors who all of a sudden want to look “cool.”
@@sidefx996sadly I do believe this is where the phrase "more money then brains" was born? I'm sorry dropping that kind of money without a simple lookie under her skirt is ludicrous. Buyers come on quit giving these bandits the motivation to do these things! If you can't see your hand in front of your face pay someone who can to take in this case a 30 second look.
@@sidefx996 Malachi Jones would be prod of the flipper.mbs/cs/dd
@@goleafsgo8496 This exactly.
@@sidefx996I gotta agree with you. Check book classic car owners. Can’t lift a wrench or fix anything, but know how to spend and price people that like to work on the cars out of the market.
WOW!! That's horrible that people can do that and think it's ok... What a shame... That thing is so bad, it's likely not even worth fixing...
Uncle Tony, please keep doing these videos! 🙏🏾
They are my favorites of all! 👍🏾🙌🏾👍🏾
I've learnt over the past 30 years that if I'm buying a cheap under £1000 car that I need to check for corrosion - I expect to see dents scratches and rips in seats. If I'm paying good money for a car then I would look at a really nice example first and get to know the curves, lines, angles, fixings etc so that when I look at one to purchase I know what it should.look like. Most pre-90s cars have strengthening forms in footwells and floor pans (modern cars are all hidden with plastic underside moldings) - surely a quick nose under a car with a torch and a mirror is mandatory when spending big money? I'd be looking for fluid leaks, worn tyres, bodged exhaust, chassis damage etc. That car is ten times worse than a rusty car in a scrap yard - at least you could see what it needs and how viable it would be.
Wow, I learn so much by watching both of your channels. Keep up the great work helping those that don't have your expertise!
I'm glad you guys didn't keep picking at the car, you almost picked it a part on the hoist! This reminds me a 70 Cuda I once saw for sale. Body seemed fine, but if you looked underneath, it was solid orange for rust.
10:20 that thing was literally built for an auction where it's a little dark and hard to see underneath
How do you even begin to fix that? And at what cost? Unreal… not only is it bad bodywork, it’s extremely unsafe!
I would feel horrible selling this to someone for anything more than scrap $
Probably take it down to a bare shell, then sand blast that so you can see what’s what. At that point it would be cutting out the bad metal and welding in new proper metal.
It’s fixable for a large price. In reality it’d be better to find a good shell that’s incomplete. Then swap the good bits and eventually have an actually decent car.
You two should hire out as an auction consultants as most places allow pre-inspection of vehicles.
You all are awesome! Thank you for sharing.
This happened to me, too. I wish I had discovered this channel back then.
Now my Bondo-heap lies dormant in the shed. :(