thinking about looking at an 83...off the cuff price?

As I'm sure you know, oil in the coolant is often diagnosed as a head gasket issue, when in fact more often with a 928 it is a leak in the radiator - but that should be confirmed of course. But you could leverage the 'needs' $X of work to fix a head gasket to get a lower price and maybe com out 'ahead'

Josh,
A non-running 928 can hide a litany of issues. (tranny, A/C, etc) Any or all of those issues can be expensive to fix. In addition, it would be best to pull the engine. The head gasket has probably rotted and done untold terrible things to the heads as well. So you're looking at basically a $300 gasket set, $400 in head work, and labor to do it all. (Your time is worth something to you I presume)

All told, from the one picture, the car looks like a nice car, and probably worth rebuilding/restoring/reworking, but not at $5K. The owner wants $5K, so lets work from there: subtract a minimum of $2K for the engine work. That makes $3K. Subtract a generous amount for anything not perfect or at least to your liking and you will probably end up around $2K. If you can talk the owner into any amount around this figure, I'd say you probably did okay (based on the one picture).

My $.02.

Go for it.

if it turns out to start to look like a parts car, you can buy another one . . . maybe not as cheep and you have all the spare parts plus some to recoop you money from.

personally I don't have time to put the new parts on so a parts car for me would not be a wise idea

Consider traveling a bit to find something better.

chicago.craigslist.org/wcl/cto/3152022931.html

Only $1500 (or offer!), looks decent and it supposedly "runs".

A bit more but still under $5K. I'm tempted to check this one out, might make a nice daily driver/grocery getter.
chicago.craigslist.org/chc/cto/3092734248.html

I have an 83 auto I really like. If that one is, it is indeed non-interference. Get the VIN and check it out or let us do it. 83-84 can be a very good model to own from a maint/refurb standpoint and still fun to drive.

However, that head gasket thing is not good at all. These things are built really well. Certainly could be a lot of time bombs in there if the owner is not up front and you don't know what to look for. Take someone with you in the area if you can, or pass like other say and find a better deal.

A good Euro is ....good! I would like to have one, But a bad one....yikes.


I paid much more than that 2 years ago for mine, but it was from someone I trust and the list of things that were wrong were not major, plus I got a 30/hr mechanic along with the deal....it is balancing out I think.

5K is definitely too much in that condition.
Good luck