http://www.hotrod.com/how-to/additio...body-problems/

 

hahaha true article. luckily my hatch pull down still works great, haha.

 

Fast forward 13 years. No longer are "junkyards full of these". Some are still quite affordable but the nicer ones are increasing in value. Also didnt like the use of the word "ratty".

None of these problems should surprise anyone who is familar with the cars. At the time we still had Pontiac, now we don't.

I do have to agree with the Van Nuys paint comment.

 

Not a bad article. My hatch motor is still good, but I just recently lost a headlight motor.

Like kymmee points out... All the boneyards in our area tend to only keep cars for 10 - 15 years. Older models go to the car shredder to make room for newer stuff. When I got my car, third gens were pretty common at the junkers, one place had a whole row of them, but now there are none.

 

Here in New England, the few "complete" cars are typically picked out fairly soon after arriving these days. Its the same story pretty much everywhere. 3rd Gens are just about over the "common" hill... pric3s are climbing because these cars simply are subject to diminishing numbers... supply and demand 101. At some point within the next 10 years, there wont be many "in between" cars left out there... IE, salvagable/restorable/core parts cars... it''ll be the "nice ones" and "the scrap".
Every desirable car/truck that has any kind of following goes through these phases... 3rd Gens are just now entering the second desirability phase... There are enough out there and many folks that grew up with them have some money to burn. Addi g to this is the fact that the list of "RWD V8 performance potential" cars dropped dramatically in 1976, then again in 1988... then again in 1996...and 2002. That makes the overall number of performance car options limited. This already has created a higher demand for 3rd Gens, and the '78-'88 G-Body's notorious rot issues sent a significant number of them to the boneyards.

As said above, '76 was the swan song year for many models and big cube engines, 1988 was the end of the mid-size RWD V8 GM G-Body, and 1996 was swan song for Ford's Cougar/T-Bird Fox platform, & GM's RWD V8 B-Body. 2002 was the Firebird's death, and the Camaro hiatus... 3rd Gens are smack dab in the middle of the "Affordability" & "Availability" performance platform market

 

Initially Reading the article I did not realize it was from 2002... And I thought some of his comments odd... now reading it was from 2002, the comments make more sense. And He is right on the counts of - Crappy Van Nuys Paint, - Rear Hatch pulldown and the lower air scoop missing is a big no-no...

He was right, but now good luck finding anything in a junkyard, especially a piece you might need.