It could be. When you see THAT much rust you have to think about the structural integrity of the frame. If a trailing arm braket or frame mount snaps, on some cars the tire will be kissing the fender and that can cost a few hundred to fix, *IF* you're lucky enough to know a welder who does cars. That happened to my car, actually. Not a pretty sight. The whole thing went out of alignment (had to have the steering wheel tilted to go STRAIGHT), and the mechanic wouldn't touch the car until the weld work was done.
I know another guy who had a 6000 custom hot rod with an L67 engine (yeah, he put one in, I can show a video even!) That car SCREAMED!! But, the frame went bad so he had to scrap the car (but kept the engine for another 6000 he's going to put it in).
If the frame is bad and sometimes you won't know until like a few months to a couple years later, then you could have nothing but a pile of undrivable scrap before you know it. Once that rust starts, it kinda isn't going to stop very quickly. There's things you could do, but some of those things can be pretty expensive, and depending on the severity of the rusting, maybe not even worth it.
I am lucky with my car. It's not in all that bad a shape at all. In fact, pretty good shape for it's age and the useage.
But this T/A in the auction, I'd be quite leary unless I could get a really good close-up in-person inspection of it and look it over with a fine-tooth comb.
I'm not looking for a T/A anyway. Well, kinda not. I mean I'd consider an 80s Firebird with a 4-cyl engine (yes, they made them
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) if the price tempted me enough.
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