"Dave Stadt" writes:

Buy it for $25K put $100K into it and you will have a $75K airplane.

Wow! Those numbers tell almost the exact story of my 1966 Turbo Aztec.
Mine was sold as "salvage - parts only" though.

The subject line of this story caught my eye because that's the amount
of the first check we wrote for our plane (as "salvage - for parts
only"). We've often said it would have still been a bad deal if we'd
gotten it for nothing, but it's a great plane and I have a hard time
imagining anything else working so well for our typical trips.

If I went through this again, I'd want to work out something with the
seller so that I could buy an airworthy plane. That might mean making
some agreement on paying up to some maximum amount to have a mechanic
work on the plane before it becomes yours. You'd still pay for the
work but if it turns out that the spar needs to be replaced (about the
only thing mine *didn't* need), you'd be off the hook.

--kyler