When I said "donor boat" I wasn't referring to a charitable donation, but using the good parts of one along with another comparable boat to restore one very nice one. Like they do with cars.
I'm like Lurker. I've had my MT for 8 years, paid about 30k for it back before the Great Depression, when that's what they were selling for. The decks were already glassed over, the tanks and leaky windows replaced, so I thought I was mostly looking at cosmetics, a couple of electronics upgrades, and so forth, but these boats have a way of sneaking up on you. The expensive jobs were the stern tube/shaft log repair, transmission rebuild, a/c replacement (did that one myself). With all of that, like Lurker says we'd never recoup our investment in a buyers market today.