Ford verses Chevy. a mini rant.

[Willowbilly3]

After dragging this 66 shortbed home, I remembered why I started dealing in mostly Fords. I grew up on Chevys and hated Fords in high school. But later on when I started buying and selling, I noticed way more of the chevys had been butchered and owned by hacks. Every shortbed chevy or Camaro I ever owned looked like it had been through a few different soundsystems, all installed with a railroad spike, a big rock and a roll of ductape. Most of the Fords I found were basically unmolested. Almost every 70s chevy pickup I look at has a big meat grinder fan with the shroud long gone and one or two spark plug wires a mile long and wrapped around the master cylinder. Fords are intimidating enough to keep most of the illiterate hacks looking for a chevy. Kinda like why there is a Camaro on blocks by every ghetto trailer house.
I don't mean any insult to chevy lovers, a lot of my best friends are and I would certainly rock a 59 Elky or a Fleetline. It's just that such a large percentage of them are magnets to people who make Forrest Gump look like a Rhodes scholar, especially shortbed pickups. And I've had a yard full of them all weekend. Tire kickers from the trailer court down by the river, with no money, and they just come by to talk about their own stuff. And apparently most of them can't read because all the questions they asked were already answered in the ad if they would have read it.
I just don't get any of that when I sell Ford stuff.

 

[skull]

best

l have the best of both worlds.

like you, one of the reasons l went a 48 dodge truck was all the fords/studie/international and chevy trucks in that era that was affordable had been butchered at one time in there life, no one wanted a dodge. so l have a small block chevy, best engine ever, with a cool body style.

Later

 

[AZRodDave]

Fords are intimidating enough to keep most of the illiterate hacks looking for a chevy.

I think this pretty well sums it up.

 

[Willowbilly3]

l have the best of both worlds.

like you, one of the reasons l went a 48 dodge truck was all the fords/studie/international and chevy trucks in that era that was affordable had been butchered at one time in there life, no one wanted a dodge. so l have a small block chevy, best engine ever, with a cool body style.

Later

I think you missed the best engine ever by 1, the 318 mopar, said the Ford guy.

 

[smallfoot]

HoHo! With my pocketbook, anything I can afford is a hack job from a previous life...but I love a challenge! "Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome" has to fit in there somewhere, along with "on a quiet night, you can hear a CHEVY rust", but that's not as daunting as FORD'S "better ideas" or MOPAR'S "most other products are repairable". So, in an attempt to be equally bashed, I put a "HEARTBEAT" motor in my "FIX OR REPAIR DAILY" and darned if I didn't find out most of them will play together well with the right "adjustable thinking" until you get to a transitional year JEEP, just eventually everybody's parts. Then you have a whole nother set of problems that forces you back into "Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome" again....

 

[Old Iron]

Let start off by saying, I'm not a basher of any make or model.
I have an idea the real reason Chevy's are hacked and butchered is, most of the younger generation, with limited skills, funds and knowledge, would rather modify a Chevy than a Ford.
It's cheaper to hotrod a Chevy. Used parts were easier to come by than any other engine or bodies on the market.
As a former young male, with extremely limited funds, that's only one of the reasons, I modified, built and raced Chevy.
Just my thoughts on the subject.

 

[Willowbilly3]

I always dirt track raced chevys too. Partly because everyone else did and you could swap parts at the track or find stuff cheap. But I towed to the track with a Ford so people wouldn't "borrow" parts off the truck. I have seen guys pull the engine from someone's tow vehicle on a 2 day meet and put it in the race car and have to put it back so the guy could get home.
But from now on, I will drag old chevys home a little more judiciously. Just so I don't have to deal with all the broke trailer trash. It's not that I even mind people who come to look and not buy, that's part of the game. But on this truck I was just swarmed with low lifes and liars who said they were coming back to get it and didn't One guy even said he was on his way and I put off 2 more callers, then the guy never calls back or shows up. I haven't had this many unsavory characters in the last 10 cars I've sold. weird.

 

[Bamamav]

I grew up in Fords, owned a few, then switched to GM stuff after I got married since that was what the wife grew up with, she was more comfortable with them. Had a few decent ones, then after two 80's Pontiacs we bought new were lemons and two S10's I couldn't keep engines in, I went back to my raising. Been back in Fords since the early 90's, the Vettes were the first ones I'd owned since back then. Only reason I bought them was Ford never made one, and I'd always wanted a Vette.

Chevy parts do seem to be cheaper than Ford stuff, except the 302-5.0 stuff is about the same. You get into the new mod motors, and it's sky high. I've been looking at 3/4 ton pickups for a while now, used of course, and the Fords are always cheaper in the gas versions, people think those Chevy trucks are gold.

 

[skull]

close

I think you missed the best engine ever by 1, the 318 mopar, said the Ford guy.

0K, maybe the sbc is a choice for everything 'cause to build a motor with a lot of HP its fairly cheap and l think that is why most people use 'em.

l really like the mopar 225 slant 6 for durability, it is hard to kill this motor, l seen a "brick it" car at a show they used a slant 6 and with no oil or water & it still ran at W0T for about 2O minutes.

Later

 

[Yankee Transplant]

chevys are cheap to build and why, I have no clue ,, same number of parts , just hire ? overhaul kits were always over $200 for a ford and the chevys about $150 ish or less .. back in the late 70s

 

[Willowbilly3]

Because there was so many of them and they never really changed. If Mopar had built 90 million 340s, every sprint car, race car and hotrod would be running one. They were 10 times better engine than the chevy ever was, said the Ford guy.
Plus chevy was never stingy with the high performance stuff like Ford was. But this thread wasn't intended as another what engine is better, it was about the larger percentage of slow people that are attracted to bowties. Just an observation of many years in the garage business and buying & selling.

 

[Sam_Fear]

WB - you nailed it! FORD - the smart mans truck. (because you gotta be a rocket scientist to figure out WTF fits interchanges.)

Kinda like why there is a Camaro on blocks by every ghetto trailer house.

We always referred to those as a Trans-Camaro - lawn ornament of the high class trailer park dweller.

 

[Willowbilly3]

WB - you nailed it! FORD - the smart mans truck. (because you gotta be a rocket scientist to figure out WTF fits interchanges.)



We always referred to those as a Trans-Camaro - lawn ornament of the high class trailer park dweller.

I heard Tansmaro,lol. I always say, anyone can work on a chevy but it takes a real mechanic to work on a Ford.

 

[05snopro440]

Because there was so many of them and they never really changed. If Mopar had built 90 million 340s, every sprint car, race car and hotrod would be running one. They were 10 times better engine than the chevy ever was, said the Ford guy.
Plus chevy was never stingy with the high performance stuff like Ford was. But this thread wasn't intended as another what engine is better, it was about the larger percentage of slow people that are attracted to bowties. Just an observation of many years in the garage business and buying & selling.

Maybe you're right, but I really don't believe that selling a Model A project would bring out a smaller number of idiots. I think you've just found something desirable to the stupid masses.

I'm trying to sell my snowmobile and there is an equal or larger number of idiots coming out of the woodwork for that.

Selling on the internet brings out a lot of idiots that don't actually read the ad. I always put "NO EMAILS. NO LOWBALLERS." in all my ads and I continually get ridiculous lowball offers through email.

 

[Willowbilly3]

I know, I used to put no texts and would get them anyway.
I generally have real good luck selling stuff on craigslist. I probably sell 75% of everything I put on there and sell it pretty fast.
I have to work hard on reversing my low opinion of the human race. Just when I think I'm making progress, they have to prove I was right all along.