Yeah, I've noticed the prices skyrocketing too.Back in '81 or '82, I was building a hotrod Wankle to put in a Mazda RX-2. It was a realy cool car, and I did it right. Suspension mods to make neutral steer, good brakes, good shocks, great engine and rear-end. Painted it and put nice wheels on it. So it was a great car.
But while I was building it, I went to a car show and saw a 1968 Mustang with a 429 and a three-speed. Perfect shape, less than 10K miles, stock, white, with the original wheels, hubcaps and bias belted tires. The seller only wanted $4000 for it and I thought about buying it. I would have had to slow down on buying parts for the Mazda, so I chose not to buy the Mustang. But I thought long and hard about it.
Maybe 10 or 15 years after that, the Mustang's prices jumped up and it was probably worth $20K or better. By now, it's surely worth a 6-figure price tag. That $4K would have been a pretty good investment.
Then again, you don't see many Mazda RX-2's these days either. Wish I still had that too.
And then again, this will do.