Photo: Mecum
Federal Reserve Bank data shows that the average price of houses sold in the United States in the third quarter of 2024 was $420,400. But that's when talking about homes you can immediately move in and start living your dream life. Zombie houses, the ones you can buy to restore and then keep or flip, go for a lot less.
In most cases, a price of $161,000 sounds about right for such a home. But what if I told you that's about how much someone invested into a 1948 Chevrolet 3100 pickup truck, and didn't even bother to make it look like it's brand new? In fact, quite the opposite.
We don't know the name of the crew responsible for making the beauty sitting before our eyes now, but exactly $161,300 is what went into making it. Quite a lot, true, but not something that can't be returned if the right crowd is in the house in Kissimmee, Florida, in January, when auction house Mecum will try to find a new owner for it.
A superficial look at the pickup will not reveal anything truly special about it, at least not that special to make it so expensive to build. Held together by an Art Morrison frame, the 3100 proudly displays the standard lines of its family, carefully exaggerated here and there on the bodywork that was crafted in patina.
Pyramid Designs billet wheels the likes of which you'll see nowhere else connect this truck to the ground beneath it, shining their bronze powder coating and Michelin tires from under massive fenders.
The rear of the build, where all the action takes place when it comes to pickup trucks, shows off a custom aluminum bed with rails. It's from here, but also on the doors, where we get a sense of what this zombified 3100 was up to at some point in existence: serve the needs of a dealer called Good Times Classic Cars.
The cabin of the Chevy doesn't look all that great once you open its doors. Ok, it probably looks great to some people, and it is definitely the result of very hard and quality work, but all that brown in there makes the interior look bleak. At least to these eyes, and not even the use of Classic Instruments gauges, leather on the seats, and the Bluetooth-capable radio aren't enough to change my mind.
At a build cost of $161,300, I would have expected the thing to have some sort of rocket engine under the hood. Instead, the bay is occupied by an unassuming LS3 that delivers 525 horsepower to the ground through a 4L70 automatic transmission and 9-inch Ford rear end.
As said, the truck is listed for sale during an upcoming auction, but we have no indication as to how much the current owner expects to fetch for it. We'll keep an eye on it, though, to see if someone is willing to pay the price of a zombie house for a pickup truck.
We don't know the name of the crew responsible for making the beauty sitting before our eyes now, but exactly $161,300 is what went into making it. Quite a lot, true, but not something that can't be returned if the right crowd is in the house in Kissimmee, Florida, in January, when auction house Mecum will try to find a new owner for it.
A superficial look at the pickup will not reveal anything truly special about it, at least not that special to make it so expensive to build. Held together by an Art Morrison frame, the 3100 proudly displays the standard lines of its family, carefully exaggerated here and there on the bodywork that was crafted in patina.
Pyramid Designs billet wheels the likes of which you'll see nowhere else connect this truck to the ground beneath it, shining their bronze powder coating and Michelin tires from under massive fenders.
The rear of the build, where all the action takes place when it comes to pickup trucks, shows off a custom aluminum bed with rails. It's from here, but also on the doors, where we get a sense of what this zombified 3100 was up to at some point in existence: serve the needs of a dealer called Good Times Classic Cars.
The cabin of the Chevy doesn't look all that great once you open its doors. Ok, it probably looks great to some people, and it is definitely the result of very hard and quality work, but all that brown in there makes the interior look bleak. At least to these eyes, and not even the use of Classic Instruments gauges, leather on the seats, and the Bluetooth-capable radio aren't enough to change my mind.
At a build cost of $161,300, I would have expected the thing to have some sort of rocket engine under the hood. Instead, the bay is occupied by an unassuming LS3 that delivers 525 horsepower to the ground through a 4L70 automatic transmission and 9-inch Ford rear end.
As said, the truck is listed for sale during an upcoming auction, but we have no indication as to how much the current owner expects to fetch for it. We'll keep an eye on it, though, to see if someone is willing to pay the price of a zombie house for a pickup truck.
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