1963 Mercury Monterey.....

[youngrauderlvr]

I found this car today and was wondering what ya'll thought would be a decent price on it would be, or if it is worth buying. It is a complete "Y" code car. Factory air, original 390 (runs), all but one chrome pieces are on the car, all badges are on it. It is rusty in many places,including the bumpers, and needs a new gas tank. One of the seats needs to be fixed. Other than that the interior and all lights are in good shape. I just need some opinions from the "experts". lol.

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[youngrauderlvr]

I'll figure out how to post pics one day.:shake:

[sailsmen]

Old cars are best left as memories or toys. Despite what many say cars get better every year. I grew up driving what are now becoming "classics" and frankly compared to todays cars they were POS.
We used to trade them in every 40K becasue they requred a minor rebuild. Whenever you replaced a part you never used OEM because it was junk. Today in many cases it's hard to find a replacement part as good as OEM.

[jerrym3]

I assume that you are not planning this car as a daily driver, so if you're willing to spend time at various car shows and Saturday night cruises, go for it.

Make sure you check the frame, especially if the car came from the northeast.

I was under my 64 Galaxie one day and, with some poking/prodding, found that my frame side rails were shot. That was the late 70's. Car's still running fine on the bad frame, but it is a convertible, and the X member is intact.

The FE block is a pretty long running motor. I got 160,000 miles out of my first 352 in my 64 Galaxie, and the present 352 motor has 110,000 miles, does not blow oil, but has a ton of leaks. (installed it when it had about 60,000 miles.)

Overall, my car has 213,000 miles on the OD with one trans rebuild back in 19??.

[kirk]

Yes, check the frame thoroughly. It's not that hard to find other parts you may need, but you might want to see if you can find a fuel tank before you get too far into a purchase.

[jerrym3]

Don't know about Mercs, but Galaxie rear bumpers are hard to find, and, assuming you find one, you pay a bundle.

They easily rust out.

[Dragcity]

Re-chroming these days is rediculously expensive. I have a 65 Thunderbird and these old cars are hard to keep. Need lots of time, space and money. They always need something.

And at 10 miles per gallon, it sits a lot more than it likes.

[youngrauderlvr]

ok thanks for the advice. Im still not sure what to do,but at $800 the decision is really hard to make. This will not be a daily driver, but a weekend cruiser. I think i'll look around a little bit more for parts and see how hard it is going to be to find what I need. The guy is going to be buying another one of these as a parts car so we would probably be getting that one also.