Hi All. With much regret I had to cut up a 68 2 door hardtop to save my 68 Imperial convertible. And it is also one that is in the first made. It was built on the 1,st day of production. I hated to cut up the 2 door but There is no one that I could find making body parts for these cars. This my 1,st imperial and I like it the most from other cars that I have. Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark McDonald" <tomswift@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Sunday, August 04, 2002 4:44 PM Subject: Re: IML: how many are left > Jim, > > Thanks for that info. Kind of sad, to me, to think that %90 of the 68s > are gone. > > I do think while those statistics may be true in general, some cars are > exceptions. For instance, convertibles, and/or the first and last model > of anything. I think people tend to preserve rarer bodystyles, or if > they think the car will be more valuable later on. The reason I say > this is, there seem to be an awful lot of '68 convertibles out there. > > Jim Gathmann wrote: > > > Actually, the '71 car would be about as rare (if not > > more rare) due to the rate in which cars are > > destroyed. > > > > Once I had stats on the % of cars which survive after > > production. It basically came down to a small majority > > of cars of a specific model (+/-65%) will be destroyed > > within the first decade after production. > > > > By two decades, that number is up to +/- 80% destroyed > > since production date (also- destroyed referes to > > being crashed, sent to a junk yard, recycled, etc.). > > > > By three or more decades, about 90% of the cars made > > since production date are gone. Fogret if those > > numbers are right (going by memory- had it all nicely > > done up on a poster once). > > > > So if you really think about it, your '83 is far more > > common then the 1987 Reliant KPL21 sedan (2 door), as > > only 200 of those were made originally! (as seen @ > > www.allpar.com). > > >