Well, I don't know what you have been offered as generic carbodies in various stages of decomposition are generally cheap to acquire if not free, providing you pay for the move. If you can't afford the move, you can't afford the project. What's unobtainable except through years of networking and finagling and dumb luck is the original style electric hardware to make the coop operational. We can't yet just place an order for a complete set of parts to fit out the carbody, but I'm working on it - it's a slow process with lots of obstacles to overcome. If and when we can, we don't know what it will cost, but any cost is cheaper than unavailable..... or infinitely more expensive, depending.

I'm with eze.... get a coop and build a doodlebug. You can find drive trains off the shelf and supportable that will do nicely, including air conditioning and heat if you want a luxury model.

dave

Start with the list, determine what is within reasonable distance, make courteous contact and work out from there. Gutted is to be expected, the tarpaper is a bonus. Two of the carbodies I have worked on were incomplete steel frames with no wood left on them.

dave

Have you seen this guy?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Real-small-Trai ... 4aadb0da15

Here is a birney body with bus transmission installed and lots of rot in the last 10 years:
http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=24956

At least it's pretty much there....... not a bad start.

dave

According to the PNAERC link, the city of Petersburg. You can see an antique fire hose reel or something on the nose of the trailer. It probably would not take too much convincing that the restoration project is now beyond their capability, and that you will provide a good future for the car (with possibly offering them first rights of refusal for a sale?).

Perhaps then, this car would be more to your liking:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/oncewas/5774036304/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lch4/2131947053/
http://www.bera.org/cgi-bin/pnaerc-query.pl?sel_curown=City%20of%20Petersburg

It has sat under this bridge in Petersburg VA for perhaps 8 or 10 or more years now. It sits on a lowboy, perhaps you can take ownership of that as well?
Best of luck-
O.