At a certain point, unless you plan to keep the car long term for one reason or another, it becomes no longer cost effective to keep fixing up things. For many people the Gen III SHOs are starting to hit that point. I expect the number of them on the road will start to decline quickly over the next few years.
Mine is to that stage. It has over 190K on it and is still running like a Swiss watch, but it was an East coast car for a lot of winters and that means rot for the undersides. Both rockers are pretty much gone and the wheel wells are starting to go. I had some estimates done and it will not be cheap to fix. After thinking about it for a while, I have decided to go ahead and do it, though, and put the car body back in like new condition and then just keep her indefinitely as a show and shine vehicle heading slowly toward classic status, though that will be a long time yet.
The main reason for doing it this way is that we have the truck to drive for regular use and when we need to be out in the winter, and even at other times the car is really only getting taken out now for 20-40 miles at a time maybe once or twice a week. And then to top it off, I really do not see anything new out there that I want to spend all that money on to get a new vehicle to use for the same sorts of things that will be all that much better at it than the old SHO is. So this November I will put her in the body shop at the local specialist in car restoration (Little Valley Restorations) and spend 3-4 times what the blue book says she is worth to save her for the very long term. But I am not going to claim that is the sort of solution for everyone.
pax, smn
