Okay, I've never posted before, but as a gearhead in the 80's, I'll put my two cents worth in. I had a 63 Chevy II Nova SS (yes you have to put all the names on it), and my dad and I found it next to a farmhouse for 600 bucks in 1984. Ran good, had a good interior, straight body, needed paint. In other words, dirt cheap. Sold it for a 57 Chevy Pickup (I know, not a musclecar, but bear with me). Sold that for a 73 Camaro that ran great and had a little rust for 800 bucks in 1987. Bought a 74 Plymouth Duster for 800 dollars right after Graduation in 1988. Last, but certainly not least, I found a 1968 Ford Falcon in my hometown for 100 dollars. All the cars were great examples of what you could get in the muscle car genre during the mid eighties. The Chevy II and the Chevy truck were the only ones without V-8's, they all ran great but needed small things, and nobody wanted them but me. I grew up in a small north Texas town where if it didn't have a bed, it was pretty much worthless. I doubt things have changed much there, either. At any rate, I had shots at true greats like a 69 440 Charger for 6K in 1990, a 1967 GTO for 4500 that same year, but I was flat broke from college, and the Duster had to make do. Big block cars and special models always brought a few bucks more, but a kid working his butt off in a garage every hour he wasn't in school could definitely put together the cash for a ride like that. Remember, he would be doing all the work himself, saves big dollars there. Junkyards were overflowing with musclecar parts, even cars, so a shell might have cost next to nothing. Nobody cared about Musclecars because gas went through the roof in the 70's and everybody wanted an econobox from Japan, and people had perfectly good cars towed to the junkyard just because nobody would buy them. So yeah, it would've been no problem in my opinion for a kid to build a bruiser like Mike's car.
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burroughs1111
15 years ago
I agree with the poster above. You people have to remember in the movie that John Stockwell's character, Mike had very, very few interests other than cars. Mike even admits to it, that was one of the whole points of the story. That way at the end when Mike shows that he cares more for Ellie than his car it shows real character growth.
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