MTFCA Forum

Has anyone other than myself ever purchased a car from a collector, where it is obvious one or more collectors have kept some of the parts from the car, or at least replaced some parts from another vehicle that are not original to the car?

Many times, it's called "creaming". The seller skims off the good parts like cream off the top of a milk bottle. When you check out the car in person and some parts don't match what was shown in the original photos, pass on the car and make sure the seller knows why you passed.

I've had it happen to me more than once.

I've learned to politely ask them about the parts/changes right then and there. Sometimes it means the death of the deal, and so be it.

I believe that there are some parts on one of my cars that previously has a better parts in places. I believe the high grading of parts happened with a previous owner who had other same-year cars.

: ^ (

Quite the opposite happened when i bought my 23 T from Kent Sumner, not only was he very clear on all the faults of the car, it had a lot of nice period goodies on it that i had not noticed myself from the pictures, plus it came with a complete toolset, new battery and two extra good rims.
You can only hope to have a seller like that, but i found my T through this forum and believe a lot of the folks on here are made of the same stuff , which is good to know and not that common these days !
Thank you all for keeping it that way.

The barn find cars or cars that are ‘actually’ barn finds probably are the cars that have the most original parts on them.
And if those cars are kept that way that’s the one s that are most correct.
It’s possible to build a car from parts and be pretty much correct and really nice. Hopefully the seller would tell you that but not so sure nowadays so it’s best to ask and know what your looking for.
A few years ago a car that was in great shape was sold piece by piece at Chickasha because the seller could make more that way than selling the whole car.
A knowledgeable collector should know to ask and know beforehand what or hasn’t been changed out if he wants to buy a car if he really wants a correct car.

It’s fortunate the rip van winkle T didn’t wind up being bought by a guy who wanted to restore it. Undoubtably there were cars in the 50’s or earlier that were really untouched that wound up being redone or parts taken off them to sell.

More than that, through fifty-plus years close to the hobby, i mourn the number of complete and interesting cars that were scattered in misguided restoration attempts, never to be made whole again.