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The green one was a disappointment, but I bought it anyway. I walked in expecting a nearly $20K creampuff and quickly realized it was not. The car looks good, but like most cars of this age, it has a mix of flawed original paint and slightly imperfect touchups. It runs great, shifts great, and stops good. We put it up on a lift and got a better look at what I already had seen; there is some surface rust underneath, nothing cancerous, but not as clean as I hoped. They had little history on the car, mostly a convoluted story about a collection they were working with and some restoration payments that fell behind, so they ended up with some of the cars as payment. They did some brake work, put on tires (date code from 2023), and did a few other things. They indicated that the car did sit outside for “a while”. Before even thinking about negotiations, I asked them about shipping. They provided me a quote of $1800 which is right in line with what Hemings quotes for that distance.

Negotiations were the funniest I have ever experienced. I can be pretty pushy when I know what I want, but I was a bit off balance as I wasn’t sure if I wanted to even make an offer on this one because it wasn’t the condition I was hoping to see. It took me a while to realize that since there are few people interested in such cars, they really didn’t want me to leave. So we stood there and talked, which was quite fun since we were in a room full of interesting classic cars and GMJohnny was bouncing around, chatting them up in between my bouts of angst and discussion on the Jag. I never made an offer. They went from $19.5K plus shipping to $19.5K delivered to $17.5 delivered. At some point, he also promised to replace the hood struts that are too weak to hold the hood up. GM and I walked out into the showroom to discuss the car and its issues while the salesman sat in his office. I decided to walk away and keep shopping because I knew I could easily come back to this one online if I wanted to buy it. I headed into the office to thank the salesman and let him know my decision. He then asked what it would really cost to clean up that surface rust underneath, which was a reasonable enough question to complete stump me. While I stood there drooling, the other salesman walked in and gave me this story of how they were holding the month of September open because they were on the verge of setting a unit record that would net them a bonus. One of them then threw out $15K delivered which now made this a relatively cheap car with a few of the usual problems, but by my judgment, a good runner and in my preferred color combination. I never came up with a lowball offer, but had I, it might have been more than $15K delivered. I asked to take the car for another drive, buying a few more minutes to think about this. When I returned, we were out of there in short order as they were quick with the paperwork. Consistent with their story, they dated my paperwork as a September sale. I don’t really think I got a great deal, but I think I got a good car at a reasonable price with the convenience of having them handle shipping and fix one more thing for me (hood struts).

One reason I was hesitant to make an offer is that shopping is part of the fun. I wasn’t in a hurry to end that. One strange element of the day’s purchase is that we returned to the dealership that afternoon. We drove an hour each way, twice. I will leave that story to GM to tell, if he cares to share his brief encounter with temptation.

I will start a new thread to document my new project.

My suspicion was these two were not that far apart in value, just in price. What are your thoughts on how the green one is worth twice the red one? Seems the color is preferred and the oil leak on the red one are the two things I heard/read.

IAA charged me $600 to ship from NC to my house, $800 from Atlanta to my house. Pretty sure the trip your car has to take is about 75% longer than that trip so that price seems in range.

All I know is after the first one showed up on one of those mini 3-car trailers I have it changed my perception of seeing those trailers going down the freeway - carrying someone's next opportunity, toy, project.

This was a fun morning watching AK struggle mentally with a purchase decision. The sales guys really made it a fun transaction, and AK gets a decent car that he can have fun with an investment that didn’t break the bank. We visited the dealership twice as the salesman expressed an interest in taking my El Camino in on trade on a C-6 Corvette convertible with 6600 miles on it. We weren’t able to do the deal, the numbers were just too far apart. We did have fun with this potential transaction, but drove the El Camino home.

GM