BELLETTPR10 wrote:I am surprised it hasn't more buzz here
Anyone noticed the recession / depression / global economic crisis lately?
Under the best of circumstances, there were two people with the resources to work on early Isuzus in North America. The 117 Coupe guy got out of Isuzus, shipped all his cars back to buyers in Japan, and is done with the subject. And as for the second person, that high pitched twanging sound is me being stretched so tight that I emit a high E Sharp when strummed.
There are two or three other people on this forum who are putting forth a good effort with respectable results, and I exclude them from the following comment.
The entire remainder of what could be called a "scene" is made up of high school dropouts, who flip burgers for a living, and wanna-gonna-shunna-but-never-succeed at gutting one of a handful of the remaining turbo AWD car engines and drive trains to put into their FWD car so they can go out and street race their friends whose parents bought them new cars.
I get the feeling this is another of those cars that looks like it is in perfect condition from 100 yards away, but once you get close enough to touch it, you find out that it is one big rust blister, covered with a thin and about to flake layer of paint, and don't lean on it or the rust bubble will break and all that will be left is dust.
I have not seen any of these that was not described as "needs a little brake work", which actually means that the front pads are gone, the rotors were cut down to pizza cutter thickness, and the car was finally parked to rust because it was too dangerous to drive. New rotors exist one place. Anyone up for a multi-thousand dollar adventure only to find that there are no caliper rebuild parts to be had.
And how about five thousand dollars for new window weatherstrip?
Ten thousand Australian dollars to buy it and ship it to the other side of the world?
The US Dollar and Australian Dollar are about one-to-one now. For $10,000, I could pay for purchase of, and drive-on-drive-off boat transport of, just about any of the non-DOHC cars on Eagle Sayama/Isuzu Sport's lot. Or, one of the three GT Fastbacks that is
still listed for sale. And all of those options actually drive under their own power when you get in and turn the ignition key.
What's that one worth? One dollar more than the second highest offer.
Any non-fan of the car is going to shy away because they do not know the difficulty level they that might scare them away, and if they actually knew the level, they would run, not walk away. That leaves the irrational fans who think with their heart and not their mind.
If the trunk were stacked full of 40 year old Japanese fog lamps, it might be worth a couple thousand dollars in sales of a pairs of lamps to Australian buyers at $300 per pair for the same lamps selling on Yahoo Japan for $25 per pair.
Oddly, those same recession exempted buyers on the other side of the world are not spending much if any money on new US made parts. They look and "click to watch". For the people unfamiliar with the auction websites, "click to watch" is the button that bookmarks an auction listing so that you can go back and look at the listing again, instead of spending money and buying it. Usually going back to look after the listing is expired. It is sort of the thick catalog with glossy pictures so that people have something to look at and dream about after they win the lottery.
It is a truly lousy time to try to sell anything, and even worse to try to sell anything for what it should be worth or what it cost to make. Best to just pack everything up and put it in storage and hibernate until the next economic boom. Hope they still have gasoline left when the world recovers.
Why isn't there more buzz?
Because everyone just "clicks to watch". No one has any money to spend.
Not a common opportunity. 
the little kids want toys too ... 
