The sum of the parts is worth more than the whole, or so it's said. I know some people who think I'm nuts, but regarding 4x4s and trading parts, it's a truism; a true fact. It's an existentialist sort of concept that works forward and backwards depending where in the Garden of 15 Rocks you happen to be standing.
I was looking at making another bad purchase the other day of an orphan Jeep that needed a good home. The price was only a grand, and considering the age and condition I figured it was not too bad a deal. I've made a habit of buying derelict rigs because they are too cool to pass up, and here was another one that just had to come home with me. But then I started doing the math, something a rational buyer should always do but a true 4x4 aficionado should never even consider. I knew better, but I let myself go anyway and added up what I would pay for the components, and what I could sell all of them for. Of course I would never do either one, but the exercise was to keep me in check with reality, whatever strange concept that may be. And since when does collecting old piles of cruddy 4x4s have to do with reality? But back to the pirce-to-worth conundrum I was trying to figure out. On this particular ride any semi-sane person into this type of stuff would have paid at least $200 for a running engine, $200 for the tranny and transfer case, $100 each for the axle assemblies, $100 for the frame, $400 for the dang-fine sheetmetal, and $100 for the tires and wheels. Add the priceless 1948 title that was clean and clear and I had a $1,200 Jeep for only a grand. I could easily part out the rest of the stuff and nickel and dime myself to death pulling parts as well, and make a tidy 500-buck profit in only a matter of days, or months, or years if I ever got around to it.
But as a buyer of the same sort of stuff I also realized that this 60-year-old relic wasn't in much better shape than me. Those priceless $100 axles would cost between $200 and $800 each to put back to mint, even doing the labor yourself. Likewise the engine would be $2K for a professional rebuild, and I'd never pay $100 for rusty wheels and rock-solid rubber tires. Even though the sheetmetal was good, by the time it needed to be torched off the frame it would end up being more trouble than it was worth-a very disconcerting concept that had finally come home to roost solidly in my head. I finally realized (as I often have in the past) that there was no need to analyze the purchase, the vehicle, or even the reality of the scenario. Bottom lining the whole thought process was "buy it and haul the 4x4 to its new resting place," and to look at the prized purchase in a whole new light: It was fine as is and shall ever be as it was and is, amen.