So, everybody has their moments of doubt. In a nutshell though, I'm attempting to sell my house and move 861 miles away to S.C. I like my half track, I really do and don't ever regret owning it. On the other side though, my family requires a certain amount of attention and I'm just not able to enjoy the White as much as I would like to. So coupling the potential move with life time constraints equals downsize thoughts in my head.
I'm pretty sure it's human nature to dream that whatever vehicle that we've put blood, sweat and tears into should sell for 1 million dollars. My problem is that every now and then I see HT's get put up on David Uhrig's site for what I consider to be astronomical numbers and then get an over inflated idea of what mine's worth. Stating the obvious, my toy is only worth what somebody else is willing to pay for it. So consider this as an exploratory email to ask for opinions on where to start in terms of pricing. Some pictures, although a few years old, are here on our unit website:
http://www.10dragoons.wwiipolishlhg.org/about6.html The first picture on there is what the vehicle looked like when I first got it. As you scroll down the webpage you'll see some more detailed shots. These were taken at a local event just after I had painted it though. It's probably been five years since that so now the paint is faded and stained on the lateral surfaces. There's a couple of rust bubbles popping up here and there but nothing cancerous by any stretch.
In generic summary, mechanically and cosmetically it's not bad. It runs fine, shifts fine, stops okay and the tracks are 1989 dated Israelis. The vast majority of the work on it is done. I purchased this from a group of guys who used it for reenacting and parades. It wasn't meant to be a museum restoration but a functioning piece of equipment.
I'm a generally negative person so I'll start with the bad things.
1. The rear brakes aren't hooked up, I stop with the front ones.
2. Only the left side fuel tank is hooked up, I can't afford to burn through two 30 gal. tanks of fuel anyway.
3. I've got an annoying carb issue in that when I shut the engine down hot, it tends to leak fuel into the
manifold therefore flooding itself out. ( I don't want to go into troubleshooting float settings and other
possibilities right now.I'm just noting this as a mechanical drawback)
4. All of my lights work but the wiring's been done with modern plastic as needed so there's no original
wiring harness on there.
5. There are a few oil weeps here and there but nothing major.
6. There's some definite wear on the drive sprockets.
7. I wouldn't be selling the .30 cal or WS19 radio with it.
8. I have no idea if the rear armor is original. I have seen some numbers stamped on certain parts here or
there but it's probably better to say that it's all repro to keep expectations even.
I'm sure there's about another thousand little details I could pick apart but I could also do the same thing with my 2012 Grand Caravan.
The good points, well with the exception of the fuel gauge, most of the dash stuff works. Tach, instrument cluster, all that works. Dash map light doesn't. Somehow I don't think the light would be a show stopper though. I just had the starter rebuilt two months ago and I put a new voltage regulator in this year as well. The radiator is NOS, less than five years old but come out of a IH, not a White so I had to repipe it. Again, functionally no big deal as this baby has never overheated but if you're looking to prop open the hood and show everything off as being 100% original, then you'd be saddened by the radiator. As I mentioned the tracks are modern and seem to be fine. There's no rubber coming off the road wheels, they look good as far as I know.
This is just the most basic break down of what we're looking at. I'm trying to get a general idea if it's worth me attempting to sell it. I know everybody's got an opinion on pricing. I was thinking maybe 35k. Needless to say if anybody is seriously interested, then many more pictures and details will be forthcoming. If the general consensus however is that it's only worth 20k, then I think I'll keep it. This is just exploratory thinking out loud for those of you willing to give me an idea.
On a side note, the 1979 Peterbilt rig I use to haul it as seen in the pictures would probably be on the market as well. I'd be willing to talk about a properly price adjusted package deal if somebody were interested in the whole she-bang.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Chris (almost forgot, HT is in Upstate NY near Albany)
