i put some parts on one of the predominatly restorer sites, thought maybe somebody needed a gmc 4 speed( cheap,btw) so i get this person whinning about how much it costs to ship,blah,blah,blah....and the bonehead thought i ought to GIVE it to him AND take it to a truck terminal(closest would be denver,50 miles). i told him it would be going in the next car i scrapped out you guys got stories? let 'er rip!
I know an old boy who had a cobrajet motor layin in his shop and some guy kept tellin him I give you 50.00 for that old motor.well this went on forever and finally the old boy went out smacked the block with a sledge hammer and said now I'll take 50.00 bucks for it.This was way back when they were still around but may have not been the smartest thing to do. later Shoe
A few years back I was hanging out at the junkyard for a few hours, not a U pull. Couple of guys wanted the windshield out of a '58 chevy back there, they agreed on $50 (cheap I thought?). The buyers left and the shop guys pulled the windshield and left it on the floor out of the way. When the guys came back they insisted on paying $25 for it . They went back and forth for a few minutes, finally the guy working there was so pissed off he threw a tranny through the windshield, then threw them the fuck out. I thought it was entertaining
My wife insists on havng a garage sale at least once a year, and while I haggle, I don't put up with cheap assholes. I hate when you try selling something that's worth $100, and you're only asking $10, and some idiot comes along offering you $3. I had a nice old gt bmx bike for sale, and this guy (who was probably going to ebay it) was being a complete ass trying to tell me how worthless it is and he'll take it off my hands, etc. Some cool little 10 year old was next to it, drooling all over, but his Grandma kept saying she didn't have enough money. I asked him if he had a quarter and handed him the bike. Really pissed off the jerk.
So, I'm moving and having a garage sale. In the pile there's a pair of white patent leather(probably plastic) loafers that had belonged to my father-inlaw. I have a 50 cent price tag on them. A guy spends a half hour walking around the garage in them trying to decide whether to buy them, taking up space. Finally I tell him, if he leaves right fucking now, he can have the shoes. Otherwise just leave. So, he leaves with them on forgetting the shoes he came in. Ten minutes later I sold his shoes for two bucks
Several years I had a 66 Dodge wagon. It was in fair condition, but was a running, driving, and fully functional car. Being a 66 it had a lot of good parts. I figured the car was worth #300-$400 in parts, and was asking $200 for it. Some guy called me up asking about what parts were on the car and what shape they were in. He insisted the car was junk and he would give me $75 for it. The car was worth $75 in scrap if it was stripped at that time. I told him what parts were on the car and what shape they were in, besides being a drivable car the $200 was as low as I would go. He insisted all it was worth was $75. I told him I could get $75 for it at the junk yard and would do that before I would sell it to anyone for $75. He told me I might as well scrap it out because that was all it was worth. End of conversation. About 2 weeks later this same guy called me up and wanted to know if I was ready to sell him the car for $75 yet. I politely told him I took the car to the jy and got $75 for it! He wanted to know if I kept any parts from it. I told him "no, I just took it in" He wanted to know where I took it. I told him it didn't matter becauuse I stood there and watched him crush it. He called me all kinds of nasty names and ask me what the hell I was thinking. I reminded him he told me the car was junk and it was worth $75 and i might just as well scrap it out, so I did what he told me to do with it. I think he was crying when he hung up the phone. I parted out that car and made almost $500 from it, then took its remains to the JY. I think its remains may still be there, and that was 15 years ago. Gene
See, i'm so glad you guys are posting this stuff. now will people realize that if they just try to "screw you over before they get screwed attitude" is only screwing themselves? if they were fair they would get what they need, and you would get what you want. but by being dicks they don't get crap. this is common sense to me but for god's sake, look how many cheap bastards think they can pull one over on someone. is there a way we can all pitch in a few bucks and get all these stories listed in classifieds of a well know newspaper? then maybe people will start being cool. and then we'll get stuff at a fair price both ways.
Here is a good one. In a local J-yard a teenaged kid goes in to the yard, pulls a rad for a 5-O stang himself. He goes to the owner and asks how much. He says $15. A very respectible price. The kid says "it aint worth that much how about $10" The owner promptly rips the rad out of the kids hands, throws it over a pils of axles next to him,and replys "now it ain't worth shit! get the fuck out and don't come back!" Man I rolled hearing that one. This one pissed me off. I had a 56 PU for sale a couple years agoe. It was in rough shape and I was desperate to get rid of it and i guess it showed. I had a price of $400. There was a guy comming over to look at it when somone stopped in and affered me $300. I said i had to wait for the other guy first but i'd let him know. It didn't sell and a fiew weeks later the guy stops back and says he'd give me $100 for it I conceded and said sure. The next day the guy stops in to pick it up while i was at work. I never thought to tell my wife the selling price, and the guy hands her a 50 smiles and leaves. Man i was fired up!!! Of course i didn't have his name or number so basically i lost my ass. It was my fault not taking precautions but that's no excuise for that guy being a dick. life lesson learned i guess.
a friend of mine told me once that he wanted to take a model A door and chop it about 1". do it real nice and metal finish it so nobody could tell it had been cut. then take it to a restorers type swap meet and sell it to someone who is restoring a STOCK model A. here's where it gets even better. make sure you give the guy your number so when he trys to put the door on his stock car and realizes it's an inch too short he can call you and tell you. thats when you tell him that the door is for a special limited production "deluxe" model. he'll spend forever trying to locate a "deluxe model" or trying to sell the door to someone who has one. which ofcourse they won't because you made it up.
KB, I hope your friend doesn't think he is the first one to think about doing that. I heard about that proposition the first time about 25 years ago. Frank
It must be about 15 years ago that I took a 1976 Hurst/Olds in payment for some remodeling work I'd done for a guy that had run out of money, also got a first year Firebird. The guys kid drove the H/O over to my house and I put it in the local pager for a few weeks, and got a bunch of tire kickers and no buyers. So one Sunday morning I went out and unboltded the hood, trunk lid, doors and T Tops, and put a new blade in Mr Sawz-All and quarteded the car. Now I was in the Hurst/Olds parts business! Standard question was "Where did you get all the parts?" "I quartered the car." was the standard answer, and followed by the guy telling me the cars are RARE and VALUEABLE! "No, they are not you could have driven this one home for $500.00 last week, what parts do you want?" There were boxes of NOS parts and trim, I cleared two grand on that wreck, and made every 1976 Hurst/Olds just a bit more rare in the process. Felt real good about that one.
This is a little off the subject but still was fun. One nice Saturday I was at the DQ for a burger and run into a friend of mine that pulled up in a pretty decent looking 68 Caprice 2 door. He said they were just getting ready to part it out because he had no title. I ask if I could back into it and he said ok. I was driving my 57 F-350 with a steel flatbed. He goes out first and I got in my truck and came all the way across the parking lot to wham him in the rear quarter panel. It caved the shit out of it and made a big rip, knocked the back of the car over a couple feet. He never stopped eating his hamburger and I drove off like I didn't even notice too. A couple familys were going to their cars and the look on their faces was priceless, And the noise of the crash had the people coming out to see what was going on. Messing with people's minds has always been big fun. Another funny one was this rich snotty bitch that came in my shop and was giving me the once over on an estimate to do something to her Volvo wagon. I finally had enough of her crap and politely told her I really didn't need her business. She made a big scene and stomped out only to find that her poodle had hit the door lock button and the keys were locked in her car. Then she had to come back in and ask to use the phone. I made her go out and wait in line with the junkies to use the pay phone and then she had to hang out for about 2 hours before the locksmith showed up. And it was 20 below out so she had to wait inside the waiting room too. I later found out she had been thrown out of every shop in town including the dealership.
i would try to track him down with my once percenter friends and beat the shit out of him. unless for some possible reason I know he might have memory problems or dimensia.
My story isn't nearly as good as most of these, but it gives me such pleasure I had to share. I've got a few assorted model A parts and had a full stock chassis in great condition with a nice motor in it. I was asking what i thought was a fair (low) price for such a nice setup. I wanted to sell the chassis and get an aftermarket frame for my roadster. The father of my receptionist brought a friend ( mike) over who kicked the tires, pulled all my crap out all over the shop, took the drums off to check the brake shoes. An hour later tells me he had a friend that got two of these for free. The guy just wanted them gone from his garage. I told him I wanted my price. Mikes last words were, "call me and tell me what is the lowest price you'll take". I'm thinking, "I just told you asswipe". So i got tired of trying to hock the chassis and took it apart. I have been boxing it and installing an x-member. Mike calls back and says he has a friend that wants to look at my stuff. He comes over and is shocked to see the chassis not how he left it. He asked about the price for the front and rear suspension and engine. I told him half what i had asked before. Still a great deal in my mind for any restorer. He tells me Yeah but I don't know about the engine, and waits to see if i'll cave. The next day I find out that my receptionist's dad needs a model A carburator. I gave him one for free because I know it will get back to Mike. If Mike calls me again The price just doubled.
This one is from a guy at work (Mark). Mark called a srapyard and asked how much they'd give him for his car. The guy told him: "it' won't be much, but if it's running and you drive it in, we'll give you something for it". So he gets there, fills in the papers and when time came to get paid, the guy refused to give him anything. Mark's father was there to give him a ride back from the yard. He told Mark to just forget about it. The father walked to the car saying he had forgotten something in it, took the wheel nut bar and DESTROYED the whole car, busting every window, light, the radio and the battery! He also ripped the interior. He looked at the scapyard guy and said: "Now it's not worth anything anymore!"
ok, this is slightly off topic but same principle. My grandmother use to be a organizer/planner for rich people in Palm Beach since forever. She worked for the same family for years and would give her all kinds of gifts bonuses, as is customary because it's hard to find help that you can trust. Anyways since i like ancient coins and history she gave me two ancient coins that were made into gold earrings with diamonds (these were given to her by her employers but she won't wear such things). I took the two coins out to put in my collection because the earrings were big and tacky anyways. The gold was solid and each of the 3 diamonds on both earings (6 diamonds total) were not that big, but they were Real and at least 1/10 carat each. The weight of the gold should of been worth a hundred bucks at least. and when i took it to a pawn shop the guy offered me like 20 bucks for the both freaking earrings. i said ummm, ok. So i left, had a friend of mine who is a jeweler take the diamonds out, then i returned to the pawner and said hey, you can have these for 20 bucks now. (the gold) then he looked at it and said "oh, but you took all the diamonds out"... I looked at him and said " well i did not think you were insulting yourself with math the last time i came in here......" then when he did not respond i said fuck this and gave a homeless guy the two gold earings and the diamonds i put in a ziplock bag in my safe.... pawners are always assholes, i swore to never deal with one again. they prey on the desperate, when i was just not in any need of the pieces.
I posted this once before a few years ago, but it fits this thread perfectly. A local rodder has a nicely built '32 Ford 5-window coupe. It was a rod in the 70's, then it was bought buy a restorer and put back to original in the 80's, then re-rodded in the 90's by the current owner. A group of older restorers who knew the car were standing by it while it was at the World of Wheels car show. They were all complaining about how such a terrible thing could happen to the car, and how all rodders were butchers, etc, etc, etc. One of our rod club members was standing by listening to all this. He finally went over, joined the group, and calmly told them "You guys are all getting old. Pretty soon you'll die, and WE'LL get your precious cars!" He said they all looked like someone just ran over a puppy!! He was afraid a few of them would keel over from a heart attack. He said it was the best reaction he could have ever had. LOL
I was a vendor at the Pittsburgh Parts-O-Rama last summer. A guy by me was hawking a one-off billet aluminum rear wheel for a chopper, it was brand new in plastic.. I think he wanted $900 for it or something... All weekend cheapskates made stupid offers for it... Anyhow, alchohol is consumed in mass quanities at these events... At one point the guy was pretty well tuned up and a guy came over and offered him $50 for it. He got up, grabbed a blunt object and smashed the hell out of the wheel. He then accepted the guy's offer of $50.00. The worst offer I ever got was with my Ford Torino I had for sale... it was a pretty damn nice car that looked and ran great. I was asking $5000 for it. A dirty looking kid with his chain smoking mother came over and looked at it. He asked how much I was asking. I replied "Five,"... He said $500 doesn't sound reasonable, how about $350? I almost cracked the kid on the head. I sold it a month later for $5500.
Ok, I've got a couple. When I was 16 I joined a local squeaker club (I needed some connections for parts sources). Went with the "club" to a local charity show one Saturday and was hangin with a few old timers listening to some lies when this guy with a really nice mid thirties Chrysler sedan rolls in, resto rod type setup, won some major awards at an NSRA event, yadda yadda. Well, these fine old gentlemen that I was with seemed somewhat appalled, and started the standard ranting (I can't believe he ruined that car, if he had the money to do buy all that crap he could've afforded to restore it, blah blah blah.) I snuck off quietly. A few weeks later when I appeared at another show with my non original chrome tipped dual exhaust and I lost every friend I never had! Next up, went to a local festival car show with my gang out here, same senior citizens club is also in attendance. We were eyeballin' this clean all orginal 46 Chev business coupe that this guy would not get more that 4 ft away from, so what the hell we decide to go talk to him. My buddy Duke starts off the show "this your car?" he asks, "sure is young man, this car was in a movie!" he replies, "really, what movie was it?" (some shit no one ever saw), so Duke tells the guy, "I sure do like this car, but I'd like it even more if that top was about six inches shorter, and those running boards were draggin the asphalt." This guy swells up like a pimple and yells "oh no, you're just wantin to ruin this car! You young people ain't got no respect for nuthin!" got in his famous car and left! We laughed our asses off for hours over that crap. The guy parked next to him had an all original 66 Chevy Biscayne 4dr and was showin us the water stains in the trunk mat where the barn it was kept in leaked water and the weatherstrip was shot and the water leaked in and stained it thirty years, but that goddamned car was ORIGINAL damnit!!! And being one of the few four doors they made that year, holy shit it was worth gold! Fuckin retards!
There are restorers still? Actually, though, most times I'd rather look at a restored car (or an original) than something modified. C'mon, does a Nova subframe and a 350 really make a '48 Dodge sedan cooler?
A local guy "DW the ghost host" had a bunch of "hangers on restorers" from the "roaring 20's" car club hanging around in his garage while he dismantled the brakes on his '37 tudor. One door knob of the bunch says "hey what you going to do with the old brake set up (DW's '37 was a stock runner at the time)..... DW replies something like $20 and they are yours.... the roaring 20's club member says $20 is alot! I was thinking if you were gonna throw them out I'd take them (fucker would have resold them before he got home).... DW paused went and got out his bolt cutters and took the short route to dismantling the cables. This guy screamed like he'd been gut shot, what are you doing! DW said "my time is worth $20". The thing was if this roaring door knob would have got a wrench and pitched in or even offered to go get a cold 6 pack, I'm sure DW would have taken the time to take the entire set-up apart and probably even labeled it for the guy. The whole club is filled with these worthless individuals, they'll tell you "its not worth much" while they already have a buyer in mind and then they'll run off to tell all the rest of the door knobs how much they screwed you for. swdobbs....
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