Hot Rods Best Car hunting stories

I need that roadster Steve! I'll be by to pick it up tomorrow night.

 

In Colorado...You'll have to wait till the weekend. Buy the Franklin, you like '32's

 

How much for the Franklin?
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Not my car, not sure. I can check with the lady that owns the Franklin & give you her contact info if interested, when I'm back in town this weekend.

 

Doh, kid bought a car - not Hamb approved though. He has a lifetime of getting more fish in the boat so, first of many. He'll come around eventually.

We saw a bunch of rotted out hulks , which represented his price range. He's buying it - not me. The journey was a good one though. Saw lot's of crap and talked to some less than honest owners. The type that just saw the asking price and figured you fell off the fruit truck this morning. I, not being the type to slag anyone, took it as a learning op for my kid. The other day on the way home from looking at another wreck, I said I think you're ready to go hunt one down on your own. You know where to look, you know what to say. Get 'em talking and if he's not giving you the info, walk. Lot's of fish in the sea. So yesterday my wife needed to take him to an Open House at the College and they detour to look at a car. I know what you're thinking - That Car guy has a Car wife! Anyway it's an import early 80's - not my wheelhouse but, a 17 year olds for sure. Fortunately for my kid, I have a B.I.L that is the expert. So now I have to listen to that guy raz me every time we see each other (I like him) about how we ended up with an import owner in a Classic car household. The Universe is pulling my leg a good one.

 

Young folks usually end up wrecking their first car, so if he wrecks a late model import, so what as long as he's not hurt! At least he won't be wrecking a classic!

 

I agree with @BamaMav .... Just tell your B.I.L. that this is his learner-car, training wheels, and disposable POS until he can find a REAL car!!! But don't piss him off too bad... you may need to still be able to suck him into fixing it!

 

That Franklin is air cooled, right? man what a beast!

 

I searched for years trying to find a '39 / '40 Ford coupe that I could actually afford... I was in the Chicago area getting ready to move to California, so I was checking out e-bay, Craigslist, etc. looking to score something. I found what ended up being my '39 on CL, contacted the guy and right after I moved I dragged the trailer down to Los Gatos & bought it. Shortly after that I , just by chance, came a cross a gentleman in Folsom who had a stock '38 DeLuxe coupe squirreled away in his garage for 35 years. I ended up buying that one as well.
So I went from Jones-ing for a coupe to having two in a very short amount of time! Funny how stuff goes, ain't it?

 

I love that 38 deluxe. Cool find.

 

I used to always think that 38s were ugly. But that one looks great. Guess my tastes have changed cause I really like that car.

 

Yeah, it turned out to be a great car.

 

My buddy Bill and I went to look at a '39 Dodge coupe. Turned out to be a '40 and Bill bought it. I was tired of ending up with old orphan cars that I really didn't like that much and told him that if I found another car, it had better be a '40 Ford. Within days, I'm told about a '40 Tudor advertised in the Western Producer which is a farmer based newsletter somewhere in Saskatchewan. Bill was a pastor and somehow he wound up with a speaking engagement with the Full Gospel Businessmen in Saskatoon. We headed there with his van and a trailer. He stayed to speak at the convention and I took off deep into Saskatchewan. When I arrived at the farm where the car was located, I found a note on the door saying the owner had forgotten about me and had a prior engagement elsewere but I was welcome to take the car and send him a cheque later. Also, he left the shop unlocked in case I needed to use some tools. Got to love trusting Saskatchewan farmers.

 

Quite OT but cool nonetheless. . . .
All of us kids in the late eighties were into musclecars in our town North of Boston. We were a tight knit group and we knew where ALL the cars were squirreled away in back yards, alleys, aunts garages, etc. Or so we thought.
A friend was cruising by a house for sale right in our neighborhood, tons of junk on the curb ready for the next trash pick up. In the pile of trash is a red, smashed fender with a white stripe on the bottom with GT 500 written on it. He peeks in the garage and immediately knocks on the door. The old lady sells him the low mileage (crashed in 1974) 1968 Shelby convertible 428 4spd for $3500.00 red, black interior, white top.
He fixed it, drove it for a few years, and sold it- he never disclosed the selling price but he bought a house and a road runner cash.

 

15 or so years ago I had the burn for a VW camper ( I know, its sad) put the word out and got feedback that a fella 25 miles from me had one in his drive that could be for sale . No other info just a rough location and that he had a boat .!! So Off i treck a few weeks later with a trailer , a gallon of gas and a fresh battery .. My glass half full .
Following the directions I was given finding the fellas place was easy , It was all fields down one side of the road so onlly had to concentrate on one side and stop when I saw an unfeasibly large boat tucked away up one of the driveways .

I knoceked the door and spoke with the fella asking if he had a VW for sale ..He implied he indeed did have a VW but it was a wreck and it might be for sale .. We went around th back ofhis house and under several torn and weathered Tarps there it was in allits rusted abandoned glory A worthless 74 VW camper with the body sills cut off and most of its history unceremoniously dumped inside .

A quick look around revealed that despite its delapidated appearance it was pretty solid underneath , and had received some engine work with what looked like new heads and coil.. Oil also looked fresh ..

I went with £1000 dispersed around my pockets and offered half to take the van away .. Thats wasnt good enough so ended up paying £750 and shaking his hand .. It turned out that the van had been bought 15 years previous with good intentions but he got distracted with his new boating hobby so the van was covered and forgotten .

Having checked the oil replaced the plugs and cleaned the points I gave it a crank and the oillight went out .. so run a hose from the tin to the pump and dropped a little gas down the carb . After one false start and a cough the sucker fired on the second turn and drove onto the trailer .

The fella marched to hs house and slammed the door real hard as he went in, obviously pissed LOL

I took a while to rebuild the old bus but 8 years later me and the wife were taking a drive and I just happened to be in the same road the bus was recovered from so I looked out for a boat and there it was , same boat same position no change .. Stopped and knocked the fellas door, same fella answered ,told him I had his old van back on the road if he wanted to see it .. He came out , walked around it said nothing, walked back to his house went in and slammed the door

Fast forward to just before the Pandemic . I met an old fella that was loosing storage and was looking to get rid of some cars and parts ( this is also VW related so I appologise ) . I went along with a view to helping him but he really liked to speak about the past ( as we do ) . Any way he offers me a 57 bug.totally original factory paint down to the double pinstripe on the wheels .. asks for £2000 .. This car was 100% genuine driveable survivor and the guy was 80 and spent a lifetime with VWs but had lost pace with prices .. I couldn't buy it from him at that price as I felt that I would have been ripping him off or at very least taking advantage of him ,so I told him that he had way undervalued the car and that it was probably worth 3 times that at least to the right buyer . ( its since gone to a collection for slightly more than 3 times that ) and I put the right buyer his way ( the collector ) . So that was all good but the prize was yet to be revealed . As we worked through the stuff he had we came to a small area of the storage shed and there was a large lump under a pile of tarps and blankets . Recognising the shape as that of a van he pulled the covers and there was a RHD 64 VW split screen camper .. owned by him for over 40 years . I wasnt slow to make an offer on that but unfortunately it wasnt for sale,he wanted to get it done and drive it . That was understood and I never pushed him.. I did offer to provide him with a space to store it if he was desperate though ..

That seemed to be about that I knew he sold a few things to the collector fella and moved some mechanical parts to storage at a nearby garage belonging to a mutual friend . This was probably 18moonths before covid came along .

A few days ago I got in touch with the old fella just a social call to see how he was and what he was up to and as you might expect,I asked what ever happened to the Van ..Would you believe he still has it , it out side at his house , up the drive under a tarp .. so you guessed it , I asked if he was selling and the story just starts again LOL.. Im going to see him next week

 

Update. So this thread has turned into a a kid's first car flip. Figured the free car would be a keeper for a short while then my 17 yr old bought another OT import - here we go. Holidays turned the 'Free' car into a summer long resident of the driveway. Got both kids fixing brakes and writing a FB marketplace ad to sell. It turns out selling a cheap car is harder than selling an expensive one - been a while since I've sold a car. They got all the typical responses one gets from a posted add. Lot's of learning, and prodding, my daily was parked on the street around the corner for 2 months. In the end they split $1700. Not a bad pay day for the both of them and a bushel of lessons on pricing appropriately and what info you include in an add - no one actually reads them. So something I've never encountered. Right at the closing days of holidays we started getting replies, 3 a day. Who knew a 1990 Gold OT sedan was suddenly so popular. A guy shows up, (3rd potential buyer in the journey) and I stepped in and negotiated (with my 17 year old beside me). Lots of B.S'ing but, guy said I'll take it but, had no cash and said some rather unusually uninformed remarks about paperwork. Sent him off to the bank and told my kid he will probably Flake but, to send a note to the woman supposedly on her way that a guy committed to taking it but, gave no deposit. My kid was suffering through the ethics of how to stack visitors. A minute later middle aged woman steps on the driveway, sees the car and proceeds to ask how to pay for it. She wanted to pay with e-transfer and would give $2000, kids were asking $2200. I told her we knew history of the car but, maintenance was questionable based on what we fixed. She said she would pay for the whole thing but, would need to have a mechanic check it out (who does that). Meanwhile as she's trying to get me to give our email info so she can send us money, the first dude shows up. Two people wanting a Gold 1990 sedan? As the guy gets out of his car I have to admit this is a first for me - 2 buyers at the same time. Being Dad the life lesson was, I took the envelope of cash from guy #1. $300 less than Woman#2 but, done deal, guy was a fleet manager for Costco's trucks so mechanicals were on him. I said to the woman he was here first and we had to honour that deal. Her response was, I was here first. The exchange between the two buyers turned into, I have cash. I'm paying e-transfer. WTF. I asked if she received a text from my kid about the status of the car to which she replied, I'm probably paying more. She was correct but, the lesson for my kid was Guy handed over cash and the deal is done. I appreciated her interest but, the car is sold. The look she gave me was one of the dirtiest looks I've had in a while. She proceeded to throw shade at my kid on FB saying it was uncool what he did. Back to the real world. The lesson on ethics was a solid one. Guy who bought the car says, never seen that before. My kid learned the value of 'a bird in hand is better than 2 in the Bush, or something like that. I learned, I never want to have a Gold 90's sedan in my driveway again. And - no one lost a tooth.