Hey guys,
I just tried to sell a project car on eBay twice and failed to get
what I considered to be a reasonable reserve. I was honest about what was
there and put up an ad the first time that was the soul of transparency.
Second time I de-emphasized some of the downside a bit, but it didn't help
much.
The auction involved too tubs, only one of which was a roller,and the
Tiger itself was totally disassembled. Interestingly, the inquiries I got
were mostly related to the obvious difficulty in transporting all this, with a
few random questions about rust, even though I had noted the car's challenge.
I would agree with Paul that the market for project cars isn't too crazy yet;
I'm not sure there is one.
And though that would indicate a general knowledge of and aversion to
rust, it sure doesn't translate into 'inquiring minds want to know'. $17K for
that piece of crap is an obscenity and I say that as the potential seller of a
car with some problems. And I have to assert that the ad was deceptive for
the average buyer, because the only included picture of the underside looked
pretty clean if you didn't know enough to extrapolate from the impacted rust
in the rocker seam. The optional pictures demonstrate that that simply
couldn't have been accidental.
'Anything is fixable' with infinite money, but it's my opinion that
Stephen is right about unsafe and that the car is not salvageable (what would
you start welding to)? Chris Vaughn told me that with all the effort he put
into parting out his Tiger (down to the nuts and bolts just about), he netted
about $8500, including the tub. That means that this poor soul just paid 17
grand for something that's worth half that plus six months of his life**.
Maybe we need a TRP (Tiger Repudiation Program) to go along with TAC in saving
the unwary from themselves.
C
hris Hill
** or the moral quandary of whether to try and eBay $19K from the next
guy.....................stay tuned!
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