Upon reading Greymares account of going to see a car far away, I would be interested in hearing more stories of people who have gone to great lengths to see a car that has been decribed as " mint" and " cherry" and my personal favorite" better than new". only to find the car is held together with binder twine and duct tape. Hopefully, enough time has gone by that it can be recounted with some humour because since we have all been there, boy, you sure are angry at the time.. I would also be interested in opinions on how far you are willing to travel to see a car only described on thehone with " selected" pictues added. Thanks
road trippin' dude The farthest I ever traveled to look at a car and not buy it, was about 25-30 miles, to look at a 75 Cougar that looked like a salvage yard had just towed it back to the lot. The picture in the ad was a "stock photo", apparently, and of a much better off car. The one in the photo was red, the one on the lot had been blue, but was mostly rust. And, $1,299 seemed a bit steep for what the wife and I considered a $500 car. Traveled 55-60 miles to get our Colony Park. A situation that worked out way better.
In all honesty the furthest I have traveled is 45 minutes and that was in the early 90's for my a 80 Colony Park witch I bout. The closest was a 5 minute walk in the late 90's, 1/2 way to my Daughters elementary school a 84 Fox body Marquis went up for sale a fairly high price. I never walked up the drive way to look at it but something allways told me I would have it one day. A year later it was still for sale and the price had dropped several times to it was $1500 OBO. A few day later I got paid for a side job and was given a $1000 bill, I walked over with my honey and was greeted by a 17 year old who said it was his car, looked it over and there had been a lot of up keep done with many receipts in the glove box including a carb and trany rebuild. I wipped out the G-Note and thought the kid was gona pee his pants, he said yes. We get the papers and I notice the car is not in his name. It's in Mom's name so I say, "well I'm gona have to talk to Mom before I pay, it's her car". The kid went from too faster than you could imagine We left our phone # and as we had not gotton off the drive way when my honey saw the kid in the window on the phone... My said "Wana bet he's phoning Mom?" Minutes after we walk home his Mom phones and says yes and she'll be home in a hour. So now we are sitting at her dining room table doing the paper work and the kid is clearly pacing in the kitchen. She interrupts and says Give me a moment. She takes the G-Note walks into the kitchen and before she can sit down the kid is out the door and drives away in a new Mustang that was there before Mom got home....... I didn't ask but it was pretty clear Mom gave the kid, the $. Anyway, the Mom brings up that she gave the wagon to her son and he never liked it, he wanted a Mustang so she bout him a 1 year old Mustang.... This is the first of "jr didn't like it, so I bout him a new Mustang I have experienced, but that's another story. After a week of trouble free city driving I'm heading up island and it's steep. The wagon is gutless, I have no trany kick down for passing...???? Turned out the V6 had the wrong throttle cable on it, it was 3/4 inch to long, I replaced it and car was fine. A short time later I met the Mom at the gas station and mentioned that. She said sorry, I forgot to tell you but when I had the carb rebuilt I asked if they could make the wagon slower because my son likes to drive to fast....smart Mom in that respect. 1/2 hour is the furthest I've driven to only leave, and both times they were for a Colony Park. One had lots of body damage and I would have to get it running.....but it ran when parked many years prior or so the story goes. The second colony only had one broken tail lite, but the interior was so moldy I didn't even stay 2 minutes. None of the damage on both cars was disclosed over the phone when I asked about "damage"
I also don't have any long distance exciting stories. But have a few short sad disappointing tales. Probably the farthest away I went to buy a car, a 1929 Model A, was the next town. Maybe 25 miles. No one home so left a note. One of my friends had gone with me to drive it home. Well, he still drove it home. Bought it himself while I was at work! That's how to make "exfriends." Even my 55 wagon was only 10 miles from home. For years before this it was parked and occasionally used by a plumbing shop only a few blocks away. A sad one was the very nice Model T coupe around 10 miles away behind a metal building. Only needs a little work. Found a pile of rusty parts and what appeared to be a Model T fender! Two blocks from home a very early Buick coupe in great condition. Guy at work gave it to me. Belonged to a person he'd rented to and evicted over a year before. Swore he saw it only a few weeks before and locked the garage. We went to get it and the garage was empty. Everything else I bought right in our own small hometown.
Yes! He worked days and I worked nights. He'd called the people, looked, and bought it cheap!---------------------MY car!
got my chevy from virginia about 800 miles each way my ford was from kent. drove to perry ga abo t 500 miles each way got a 59 ford 4 door for 73.26 cost more in gas b t the front fenders were mint atlanta ga for a parts car sadly even the parts were crap
After a number of northerners retired to Florida and brought all their junk the state is now 6" closer to sea level! It continues to lower each year as more 1932 Fords. 57 Chevys and other old cars are transplanted here. Similar abnormalities of the terrain occur in Canada causing the United States to now be much higher in the middle. This is known as the middle aged or beer belly syndrome.
I have traveled 350 miles or so retrieving cars for friends. You are everyones friend when you have a couple car trailers. I have went couple hundred miles for myself only not to buy. All mine have been right place at right time within 40 miles of my house.
For me it was finding a 68 Barracuda Formula S 340 convertible in Hemings. It was in Montreal. I live in Virginia, just outside of Washington, DC, and had never been out of the country. This car was the factory electric blue metallic, and everything about it made it the car of my dreams. I've always loved 68 Barracudas, and especially the convertibles. Only 2400 Barracuda convertibles were made in '68. Only about 300 of them had the factory 340 under the hood. The 340 happens to be my favorite Mopar engine. My favorite 68 color is the electric blue one year only (and not often seen) color, and I had a 318 powered electric blue 68 Barracuda convertible throughout the 1980's. This particular car was sold new in Paris, France by Chrysler subsidiary, Simca. It had a few unusual features since it was an export model. One was a 240 KPH speedometer. Another was the dimer switch on the turn signal stalk (apparently required in France even then), and finally, factory installed "break-away" side view mirrors which I am told were also required in France at that time. The car spent its first 20 years as a tow vehicle for a ski boat on the French Riviera before ending up in Montreal. The car was never represented as perfect. I knew it needed upholstery and top, and I knew it had never had an engine rebuild. I knew it had been repainted but was in need of another repaint, and I was told it had no rust. This was the late 1990's and the asking price was $11,000.00. I had the seller talked down to $9000.00. I knew it needed some work, but it was an extremely rare car and one which I have always dreamed of owning. I rented a U-haul car trailer, hooked it to the back of my Dodge Ram pickup, and a buddy and I left for Montreal at about 6pm on a Friday night after work. We drove through the night and arrived in Montreal at about 6AM Saturday morning. We did have questions at the border about the empty trailer and the amount of cash I was taking out of the country. We looked at the convertible. The engine needed a rebuild sooner rather than later. But the part that really made me decide not to buy the car was the body. We crawled all over and under that car and were totally surprised that we indeed found no evidence of rust anywhere. But, unfortunantly, it must have been about the widest car on the road in France. There was no where on the car that the sheet metal had been straight. There had been body damage on every square inch of the car. None of that showed up in the photos, as someone very skilled with body filler had sculpted the shape of a 68 Barracuda over the crumpled sheet metal. Every panel would need to be replaced. In one area, a large 1/2" thick chunk of bondo had fallen off the car revealing the original blue paint underneath. Despite all that, I waned the car, but couldn't bring myself to spend $9000.00 for a car that needed everything. By noon on Saturday we were on our way back to Virginia. Of course, there were again questions at the border about the empty car trailer. My answer of driving 12 hours to look at a car I didn't buy resulted in some laughter and head shaking. The return trip took more like 14 hours as we had to stop a couple times to get some rest. I still regret not buying the car and have yet to even see another electric blue metallic 68 340-S convertible.
