A person can do all the work themselves and not pay themselves for the labor but you can not roll back the clock in a time machine and get the parts that you need for 1969 prices. Not to my knowledge anyway?
Depends on the car and to what level your building. Some builders don't need many parts outside of the parts that always get replaced and are often available as reproduction. Just depends IMHO on how much of a "catalog car" you are building. And at the same time people aren't planning on selling the car at 69 prices either. Parts prices are what they are and can vary allot. Have been fortunate enough that people have given me parts, in some cases demanded less than I was willing to pay and in some cases you bite the bullet. What you pay is your choice given the situation.
My friend paid MORE for a set of NOS Hubcaps than you would have paid for a new 68 Shelby in 1969. How's that for perspective?
Plenty of examples of that if your a long term owner given the rise of the values/sales. Recently paid more for a transmission than I paid for the car it was going in. At the same time the cost of the transmission was not a large percentage of the current value of the car.
I'm not offering a formula or even a logic here. I'm just reflecting what I am seeing.
What is happening to the entire "Shelby line" is what has happened to the Shelby Cobras. They have all become artifacts that seem to create their own emotional response far beyond a brass tax logic?
If you are in the right position they certainly can have their own financial benefits but with that there are certain negative effects the least of which is making them instant museum pieces that have well surpassed the ability sometimes of even super enthusiasts to deal with. Somewhat like a movie or music legend that lives a duality of still a real living human with now what seems like the curse of an icon that can't even appear in public "normally" as the real person they are, just who or what everyone else believes them to be.
What some are willing to pay for just a piece of "the Legend" or whatever it exactly is, is illogical. The strange phenomena is that in my reality, it devalues a complete honest car by comparison.
With people, eventually they will pass and just their memories will survive. With these cars, they seem to take on lives of themselves with an immortality that far survives all of us. A "Frankenstein Monster" of sorts.
It's strange for me living within a legend. It isn't really what I expected.