Never heard of any engine being refered to as a "classic" and the magnum series
of engines were made by the millions so it's not going to be valuable like say
a 426 Street Hemi where total production was only a few thousand. And even the
street hemi value has dropped dramatically since MP released crate motors,
short blocks and blocks. The engine now only has any real value to some one
doing a restoration where the original engine is gone but wants the next best
thing a proper date code engine.
Also, car/truck engines in general are not collectable items like say old steam
engines are. I would venture to say that a magnum engine in 30 years will have
the same value as the 30 year old LA 318 I have out behind the garage which I
can't give away.
I can't imagine how the production date in it self would make an engine more
desirable other than it being used to restore a vehicle of like vintage. Like
Jon mentioned the desirability of an engine is normally tied to design changes
that occured during the production life that would make it a better engine.
Dave Clement
99 SLT+ CC 4x4
In article <di1bi0$3pe$1@bent.twistedbits.net>, jon@dakota-truck.net writes:
>
>
> Dan Kramarsky <dkramarsky68@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> : Point 1: If the production years for the Magnum 318 are now over, and
they were only
> : made from 1992 to 1999, then wouldn't THAT make them a potential classic
in a few
> : decades? I mean most likely DC will never make Magnum 318's anymore.
It will be the
> : 4.7L taking its place. Correct?
>
>
> Technically, DC is still building them, but as 360 crate motors -
> but yeah, you're right, they aren't building them in a production
> sense (that I know of - who knows what they might be doing in other
> countries).
>
>
> : Point 2: Would having a motor from the first year of it's production be
any more or
> : less a potential classic in a few decades than the rest of the motors
produced? For
> : example, is having a first year production LA 273 engine (1964), any more a
classic than
> : an LA 273 from any other year of it's production life?
>
>
> I think there is more to it than just the age; for example as far
> as the big block motors go, the desireable years are in the 1968-1971
> range or so, because that is when they were making the most power, they
> often used forged components instead of cast, etc. I don't know if that
> answers your question at all, just figured I'd throw it out there. :-)
> I guess what I am trying to say is that having the first model year of
> a particular engine is certainly an interesting statistic, but there might
> be other factors which would make a later year more desireable. (For
example,
> for the few years that the Buick Grand National was around, the motor
> seemed to change from year to year, increasing in power each time. The
> last model year of that particular car (somewhere around 86 or 87 I think?)
> had the most powerful engine, so that is probably the most desireable car.
>
> Bringing it back to the Dakota realm, an '87 Dak is interesting from the
> "first model year" standpoint, but many folks would likely rather have
> a '92 or '93 since that was the best year for power. (Or they might
> prefer an R/T.)
>
> Ok, I guess I've rambled enough for now! :-) You can all
> slap yourselves out of the stupor that reading my message just
> caused and move on to the next post. ;-)
>
>
> --
> -Jon-
>
> .-- Jon Steiger --- jon@dakota-truck.net or jon@jonsteiger.com --.
> | '70 Barracuda, '90 Dakota Convertible, '92 Ram 4x4, '96 Dakota |
> | '96 Intruder, '96 Kolb FireFly, '99 Cherokee, '01 Ram 3500 |
> `----------------------------------- http://www.jonsteiger.com --'
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