Car Guy Speaks

You thought it was annoying selling your car online didn’t you? Well, now you’ve got some cash and you’re going to shop online. Good, you’re about to get a taste of your own medicine. Don’t look for advice here. I’m not advising as much as complaining for my own amusement. If you learn something, it’s not my fault. Shopping at a used car dealers makes me want to barf.  But not every private seller is a pleasure either.   If you are patient and wise, then purchase from someone  in your car club. It will be worth the wait.  Sadly, I've never been able to wait very long for anything, ever.  So I'm stuck with all the irritations described below. The less time or money it takes for someone to post online the more annoying a purchase will be. When it's really easy to post an add you’re going to get all sorts of lame sellers. Heck, you can post an add on Craigslist from your phone! For free!  So brace yourself for some real ass-hats. The more excited you get finding a car o

The sale of the Cobra took over 18 months. It was appraised at $75,000 and cost much more. I clearly missed the golden opportunity to sell it to some rich athlete back some years ago. Hind sight is 20/20 they say. Then the economic downturn took it’s toll on my selling price as well. In the end, I sold it for about the cost of the engine and paint job. The good news is I was happy to sell it to the buyer, he was a true car guy. That’s good enough for me. But let’s review some of the joys of selling shall we? Should have sold it 5 years ago.  Listed on  Cobracountry  , Facebook , and this blog .   Buyer was a perfect match, knowledgable, good communication, respectful.    I try not to think about it to much or I'll cry.  You've got to sell one if you want to buy one.  We can't all be Jay Leno.   As a seller I can tell you it ain’t easy keeping positive when morons are bothering you constantly. You post in the usual places: the forums, Autotrader, Craigslist or pe

First a little back story... Corvettes have had a soft spot in my heart for a long time.   The only Matchbox car I remember was a ’63 split window coupe.   The Corellian Corvettes in Star Wars didn’t escape my attention.   How could it?   I watched the movie 30 times.    I learned to draw by tracing Corvettes from the pages of CarToons magazine.   In high school I read everything printed about Corvettes.   I worshiped the collaborative genius of the 32 valved C4 ZR1.  My teens will give an honorable mention to both the movie "Corvette Summer" and the song "Little Red Corvette."   A very tired C3 almost took me off to college; luckily my Camaro was fast enough to take my license. Freshman year speech class was all about about Corvettes, at least for me. Somewhere in college my attention drifted to the brutal power of the Shelby Cobra.   After I built that Cobra, the C5 came out and immediately got my attention at the local track.   I’ve been watching them out of t

After purchasing any used car comes some anxiety. Fear of finding all the things you might have missed lingers for a while.  Carfax has alleviated a good amount of that anxiety, but all incidents don't necessarily involve the police or insurance claims.  So Carfax is certainly not infallible, and not to mention it can even discourage the purchase of  great cars.  So clearly the first few weeks after getting a your dream car can be stressful, till you're reassured  of your brilliance.   My garage is very cool during this transition. The Cobra joins the Carrera for a short time while awaiting pickup. Soon all that will be left is photos, magazine reprints & trophies.  I took the Carrera out for it's first real ride on Wednesday and I'm going to detail my discoveries here as I find them.  Do not despair, even the best used car is still used. 70K miles is not much for a Porsche, but the miles take still their toll somewhere. The good part is that I enjoy taki