In 1971 I had the money and opportunity to buy 10 brand new 1/2 ton step side 6 cylinder three speed Chevy pickups from a dealer that had ordered too many. If I remember correctly they were $2,895 each. My grandfather had a big barn I could store them in but I decided that because they were 6 cylinder 3 speeds that I would get only one but ended up with two. I drove both of those trucks about 175,000 miles each and because I was usually overloaded with wood, wet sawdust or scrap metal they went through a couple of transmissions each and wore out shocks and steering parts. Had to retighten the carburetor every so often as they somehow would vibrate loose and after 150,000 miles the column shifter would get jammed once and a while if you shifted to fast. Traveled across the country several times but never above 70 miles per hour and got about 15 miles per gallon of fuel. There are still to this day tons of parts available but restored examples are selling for several times what both those trucks together were new. In 1986 I sold them and bought a new Honda Civic for $6,000. I don't regret doing that but I do regret not buying all ten trucks in 1971 and it is much more expensive to restore one today. It is easy to spend $500 to $1500 just on things like door hinges, latches, dash, door panels, seats and head liners. After paying $2,500 for my 1987 Suburban and making the drive train 1 ton, with rebuilt engine, L480E transmission, adaptors, 205 transfer case with twin sticks, new heavy duty drive shafts, complete exhaust and some electrical work (I still need to paint it and rebuild the doors) even with doing none of the work myself I will have much more money in it than if I would have been able to do it myself but still less than 1/2 or maybe even a 1/3 of what a new one would cost. I could of just done repairs to the original truck and had a good tow vehicle to pull 5,000 lb. easily for less than $6,000. My 1978 J10 Jeep body is about worn out and has rusted floor pans. I bought it in 2006 for $1500 and we used it daily until 2016. We spent about $6000 on the drive train and $2200 in tires as it spent most of its 60,000 miles off road. It now sits most of the time with a mounted topper. Seems like a lot of money to me but when you consider most new vehicle insurance and payments it has been cheap. Could I have done what I did cheaper? I tried by buying a new 2013 base line 2.7 four cylinder Toyota Tacoma 4x4 with a topper and later used it to pull a very small trailer. Unfortunately my wife has to wear a brace on her ankle that prevented her form working the Toyota clutch. After four years and 60,000 miles we sold it for $6,000 less than we paid for it, so we got 4 years as compared to 10 years of service but the Toyota was super reliable and only had one recall for a converter where as there were several minor issues and a few major issues with the Jeep not to mention fuel mileage. Still old seems to beat new in most cases for us. Making sure the old is at it's best and dependable is the key, they won't be as creature comfortable many times and they won't get as good fuel mileage but they will work and be less money if you insure a good mechanic is available and able to keep them in shape. I solved a lot of my concerns by taking along a second vehicle which even considering the cost of 2 vehicles is still less than a new vehicle by far. I don't think you will find a vehicle cheaper to restore and maintain than a 1980 through 1990 3/4 ton Suburban for towing.
