Bringing My Michigan Cars To California Was A Mistake

“Don’t bother bringing anything,” my friend Fred Williams (the off-road legend) told me when he heard I was moving to LA. “You’re going to find better options out here; there is no point in bringing your rusty cars out west,” said. It was advice that I immediately ignored, because I loved my 1985 Jeep J10, I thought my 1979 Jeep Cherokee Golden Eagle was the bee’s knees, and come on — my manual Jeep ZJ is basically rust free! Plus I bet I couldn’t afford replacements in California. Now, a few years later, Fred asked me over the phone: “That advice I gave you a few years ago… was it… good advice?” Yes, Fred. Yes it was.

I don’t think I fully understood California’s old car market when I moved here in early 2023.

Just a few month prior, some guy from here had stopped in my Troy, Michigan driveway and aggressively tried to get me to sell my brother’s 1966 Mustang, responding to my refusal with, essentially, “Just call your brother; everything in this world is for sale.”

This, plus just the general sentiments that many in the midwest have towards California had me thinking I wouldn’t have enough scratch to find a decent Jeep J10 or other classic out west. The prices would be inflated, I figured.

But I was wrong. In fact, I’ve written all about how I wrong I was in an article aptly titled “I Was Totally Wrong About California Craigslist.” See, while average salaries are higher in California, and while the upper end of the income distribution is absolutely through the roof, the reality is that owning a car in California is hard for most people.

Most don’t have the disposable income to buy a weekend-driver Jeep J10, and if they do, they don’t have the space for it. It’s for this reason that I not only regret having brought my J10 to the west coast, I actually regret having bought it in the first place from anywhere else. I should have bought all my project cars from here.

The cars in California are just better. So, so much better, and they are not more expensive.

That’s what I didn’t understand when Fred gave me that advice. Craigslist here is filled with rust-free gems for dirt-cheap. It’s only the minty-fresh, shiny cars that command an absurd premium. A sun-faded XJ that needs a headliner and maybe a little dent on the hood repaired is $3000. In Michigan, $3000 gets you that, plus rusty rocker panels that would cost four-figures to repair, and even then the rest of the car will have already started its journey towards becoming a pile of brown particles

All of this is coming to mind because I’m currently in the process of choosing which truck to keep. There’s the Jeep J10, shown above (that’s how it looked 10 years ago, and it hasn’t improved), and then there’s my Chevy K1500, which I had no plans to keep when I bought it.

I love the J10; I think it’s more interesting and soulful than the K1500. But folks, just look at this:

Aside from the exhaust, only the chassis has even a tiny bit of surface rust. otherwise this truck is MINT. I don’t have to worry about sanding or priming or cutting bits out or sections of it possibly starting to perforate — a major concern on my Jeep J10 exacerbated by a design flaw. 

No, the K1500 should last for the rest of my life if I just do routine maintenance and avoid collisions. It’s rock solid, and it was relatively cheap at $4,900. In Detroit, this truck would have cost more.

My having ignored Fred’s advice means I’m in the unenviable position of possibly having to sell a slightly rusty machine in California, and this is extremely difficult. Folks around here don’t do rust. I’m not joking when I say: Vehicles that in Michigan would literally be described as “rust free” would be considered “rusty” here. That’s because, in Michigan — where older vehicles are expected to have huge rust holes in their floors, frames, and rockers — surface rust doesn’t really count as rust. In California, surface rust is a big deal; it spells the beginning of the end, and people run from it.

So finding a home for my J10, if I am able to get myself to part ways with it, isn’t really going to happen here in California unless I give it away. Especially since it won’t pass SMOG.

The thing is, even though the J10 has a few rust holes, once those are patched, this thing’s body will be in great shape overall. It doesn’t need much, which is why part of me wants to just sell the Chevy for a decent sum after detailing it and dialing it in, and then giving the J10 the love (and perhaps fuel injection) it deserves. Because I worry nobody else around here will.

Anyway, this was a random little article, but this is on my mind right now: I should have listened to Fred.