TCG Stories

As a kid, I spent most Memorial Day weekends at Lime Rock Park, the so-called road racing center of the East. This was certainly the case 25 years ago, when the typical opening weekend of summer was mobbed with people and the racing was non-stop. Neon Challenge Series, Trans Am, Grand Am, GT2 - you name the racing series, it was there. 

I felt nostalgic this year as I was bringing my son for the first time. In celebration of this, I wore my Realtime Racing polo shirt, as the owner of this Acura-powered team, Peter Cunningham, absolutely made my summer one year when he signed a huge 24x36 poster featuring his championship winning NSX. That was what the Lime Rock of old was like, with the paddock a veritable red carpet tour of winning drivers and teams, with huge semi trucks packed nose-to-nose with competition cars stacked six deep. 

Well, blame it on the rain, but Lime Rock was deader than I have ever seen it this year. Trans Am was still alive and well, but that should come as no surprise - these are basically NASCAR racers that can tackle a road course. The paddock was quiet; there were no lines at the beer tent or other concessions; and despite arriving four hours after the gates opened, I still had just a short walk to the main viewing area. 

In a weird way, the gift shop was symbolic of the vibes at Lime Rock as a whole. The original "Driving Impressions" gift shop was like walking into Skip Barber's basement, with display cases full of model cars, racing memorabilia, signage and stickers, all of which represented a wide range of eras in professional racing. No longer - the current "gift shop" is the same store, with its footprint cut in half and a dozen variations on the same T-shirt design. Meaningless, I know, but as a kid, the original store was Heaven on Earth. What happened? 

I'm not sure what experience Lime Rock is trying to capture these days, but in my first visit since Skip Barber sold it, I now know that my memories are more meaningful than ever. And when reading about the new ownership team that's running the park these days, I can't say I'm surprised at the end result:

"For the last 37 years, Skip Barber—he of eponymous racing-school fame—has owned the Lime Rock, but today, a new group of investors, Lime Rock Group, LLC, announced it has acquired the track." Road & Track, April 2021

And another experience implodes at the hands of an investment group. From now on, I'll be pinning my hopes of a traditional track experience on Sebring. 

Here's something pretty cool: Hagerty, as we well know, is getting into the car enthusiast community in a pretty big way. Hiring Sam Smith from Road & Track, buying Radwood, going public - it's been a big couple of years for the boutique insurance company. 

Of course, you're always worried the other foot is going to drop. When are they going to pull the rug out from under us and say, "Surprise! We're just Liberty Mutual, disguised as a good guy, and we secretly hate all of those modifications you've been making. Claim DENIED." I'm one of those people, as I couldn't help but wonder what would happen to the Radwood show after Hagerty took over. 

Thankfully, my fears haven't been realized just yet, and with Hagerty's UK division hosting its first hillclimb event at the historic Shelsley Walsh course over the holiday weekend, our reassurance meter just jumped a few pegs. If nothing else, even if there is a finite horizon in place, Hagerty is using its time embedded with the enthusiast community to exceed our expectations. 

On top of that, they're shining a light on some of the lesser-known aspects of the hobby. Most of us have the basics - autocross, track days, LeMans, Lime Rock - but to get into hillclimbs and stack the deck with numerous priceless and historic open-wheel racers is just a whole 'nother level. Kudos to Hagerty for bringing more enthusiasts into the fold who gleefully pay their premiums every year, all while showcasing the intricate layers of motorsports, car collecting, and the enthusiast lifestyle. 

Check out the full photo gallery from this weekend's event here: https://www.hagerty.co.uk/articles/events-articles/the-only-way-is-up-you-meet-all-sorts-at-a-hagerty-hillclimb/

NOTE - THIS IS WORK-IN-PROCESS as the site is in Beta.

TCG is a site configured to allow users to be social in storing data that is useful to document ownership, as well as treat vehicles, project chronicles, maintenance chronicles, and receipts as digital assets.  The idea behind the site is that your receipts and ownership records, as well as project documentation, is a value-add that can be used to substantiate your ownership, as well as interact with like-minded enthusiasts.

TCG is currently in Beta.  This means there will be occasional changes and updates, and we'll do the best we can to be transparent with these changes so that there are no surprises.  While in Beta, the data storage and For Sale areas of the site are currently free.  The plan will be to keep document storage and vehicle chronicling free to registered users, and possibly charge a modest fee for For Sale listings and advertising.  We want to be up-front with our stakeholders, as we do not want you to be reluctant to do the work of chronicling your ownership, and then later have to pay for it.   

TCG will not resell user data, and may have the occasional ad or two to help pay for things.  We are not trust-funders (not that there's anything wrong with that in any way...!), so we have to pay for running the site.  If and when the site grows and matures, we're sure to have bills to pay, so we want to be as transparent as possible as to how we plan to do this.   We realize that a site is only as good as its stakeholders and constituents, and on this note, we're also planning on adding a Q&A and Suggestions Box to the site.  When that's ready to go we'll let you know. 

So how does this site work?  Site functionality and understanding how you can utilize the site for yourself will be documented below.  

• Vehicles as Unique Content
• Background Docs by Vehicle
• Vehicle Projects
• Vehicle Maintenance
• Vehicle Receipts
• Access Control

Over the last several months, I have been looking for an FJ80-series Toyota Land Cruiser. It was to be our beach vehicle, as it has three rows of seats and is also an appreciating model that shows no signs of slowing down. 

My friend Jeff, who was the mechanic that spent a fair amount of time on the blue 1986 Isuzu Trooper and allowed the white Range Rover County to live at his house for a spell, has connected me to a seller with my preferred variant of the FJ80: the Lexus-badged LX450. 

Now, I pointed this truck out to Jeff when he told me he felt the Range Rover wasn't worth working on, a noble gesture considering I was going to pay him too much to bring it back to life. He may have decided he didn't want the money that bad, which is also sort of what happed with the Trooper. I ended up feeling like the shop just wanted to be done with it, so I quickly sold it and a project-grade 1985 Toyota Cressida I had dropped off there a few months beforehand. It just felt like everyone was burnt out. But as I was preparing the Range Rover to get picked up by its new owner, I showed Jeff the picture of the dark blue/green LX450 parked at the shop and asked him about it.

Turns out it was a good customer of theirs, someone who lived outside of the U.S. half the year and whose son was using the truck in Newport. Jeff promised to inquire about it and indicated he felt it could be had for a good price. Fast forward a few weeks and Jeff indeed confirms he can make the deal happen, with the owner dropping the truck along with the title at his house in the coming weeks while he prepares a new vehicle for his son to drive around in.

The price is really good - well below current valuations for a Land Cruiser of this vintage - and the whole thing just seems too easy. I'm a firm believer in "If it's too good to be true, it probably is." But there's also a part of me that believes Jeff feels bad I sold the Trooper and that he never did any real work other than diagnostics on the Range Rover, so maybe he thinks he owes me a good truck. I don't know how strong his moral compass is.

Regardless, I'll find out in the coming days if this is all going to come together, and then I'll hopefully know for sure which end is up. 

I became aware of an auction / estate sale happening down in Georgia at the end of the month, tipped off by a friend who had previously bought cars from the now-deceased collector. The owner was mostly an American car/truck enthusiast, so the auction lot didn't seem like it'd have much to offer. 

Upon watching some videos posted up by the auctioneer, I noticed a car I've been casually hunting for: a late 90s Jaguar XJR sedan, which came with a supercharged V8 engine. Given this thing stood out like a sore thumb amongst numerous Mopar and Chevrolet products, I immediately registered to bid, convinced I would be the only one gunning for this high-powered sedan.

Like I do with every potential purchase, I Googled the VIN. And whoa Momma, did it tell some stories. One result was an archived auction report that showed the XJR was totaled due to flood in South Carolina in October of 2016, which is exactly when this British Racing Green sedan bit the dust. The deceased bought the XJR for $300; why, I don't know. The same archived auction photos showed the water line markings as being high enough to soak the carpets, so with that in mind, I quickly moved on from my British performance car ambitions. 

Always Google the VIN! 

While much has been said about the demise of the muscle car owing to the generational shift of power from baby boomers to millennials, these concerns may be overblown. I say this because of the very narrow lens I have into the selling of old American cars and trucks due to my connection to a property in Tennessee where I help to connect the seller with buyers from around the globe. 

A '66 Mustang to Australia. Fairlane 500 to Florida. Chevy Novas to multiple locations. Chevy C10s that go...everywhere. And as of today, an extremely rotten '69 Pontiac Firebird convertible that sold locally for $7,000. I've had this car listed for a few months, and had seen steady interest - but not actual buyers. Of course, it was very clear it was rotten as hell. Floorboards were gone, struts poking through the wheel arches in the trunk, the top and frame destroyed, and of course, an obliterated interior. 

Still, today a guy with the same name as yours truly showed up and negotiated down from $7,500 to buy it for an even $7,000. I'm mildly shocked. This was one of those cars my friend Steve put a price tag on that I felt would leave it rotting into the ground for the next 25 years. But that's the pull of old muscle cars - the standard rules don't apply, and that's a good thing. Why? Because it absolves the rest of us to go out and buy that total heap that's been keeping us up at night.

Every now and again, I feel a bit foolish for chasing some of the cars I lust after and then buy, typically in basketcase form. But as I've relayed before, I help a gentleman in Tennesee sell cars and trucks off of his property as a side hustle, and one of the fringe benefits besides the commission checks is that I get to see how desperate other enthusiasts are. 

Well, maybe desperate is the wrong word. Perhaps it's the justification angle - when I see what other enthusiasts spend money on, it makes me feel better about my own purchases. Take, for instance, this most recent sale: it's a 1992 Toyota 4Runner. It has no engine and has been off the road for the better part of five years. A guy from New York bought it sight unseen and paid $2,000 for the truck, plus likely somewhere in the range of $600 - $800 for transport. 

He wanted it to either rob body panels off of or to swap an engine over from his deceased dad's truck that held a lot of sentimental value but also a fair amount of rust. When he found out we had the title, there was no question he was grabbing it. When I look at the 1990 Audi Coupe Quattro I'm most likely picking up for $3,000 (+ $300 for the OEM Speedlines that he had promised to someone else), it seems like a genius purchase considering it runs and drives (somewhat) and is obviously far more desirable over the long-term than a mass-produced 4Runner. 

But I would never gotten that perspective without putting that sale together and seeing that - like me - almost all enthusiasts let passion be their guide when making vehicle acquisitions. 

We talk a lot here about how important records are to determining the integrity of a car. While it may seem like we're putting all the weight on the paper record itself, there's also a big part of the ownership experience that comes down to who you're buying the car from.

I'll buy cars with zero records (I do it a lot, actually) because I'm buying the seller. I'm buying what they tell me is true about the car. If I can't get a good vibe about the seller, it's incredibly difficult for me to want to part with the money. I'm slightly worried right now that I'm making a bad decision about the Audi Coupe Quattro I've committed to purchase, but overall, the seller strikes me as a fairly honest guy who isn't forcing me to do anything. He's shown the car to a close friend of mine and listed the numerous issues he's aware the car has. 

Matt Farrah bought a car with a receipt that supposedly detailed a good amount of work. The car in question was a Ferrari 328, which is the sort of vehicle you should buy with a healthy amount of due diligence. He purchased this car over one owned by an enthusiast in great colors who claimed he did all the work himself - but had no evidence of the work being done other than his word.

As it turned out, the receipt the selling dealer of the car Farrah bought was false. The work wasn't done, but the dealer didn't know that. The dealer bought the car from an individual who was told by his shop that the work was done. So, best case, everyone was honest except for the shop that charged the previous owner $10,000 for work not done. The service record isn't the end-all, be-all, because there's still a big part of this hobby that revolves around the integrity of the seller and the buyer's trust in the process. 

That's why we're such huge fans of The Common Gear. When you combine an actual history of work with great photos, heavy documentation, and the candor of community, the car's story becomes even more iron-clad, helping to avoid the exact scenario Matt Farrah found himself in. When you build the history of a car with all three legs on the stool, the transfer of ownership becomes much less nerve-wracking and encourages future owners to continue the cycle of obsessive maintenance and documentation. 

I have an agreement in principle to buy a 1990 Audi Quattro Coupe that has numerous needs of the mechanical and cosmetic sort. The timing belt hasn't been done; the cooling system untouched; the headliner is covered in mold; numerous electrical faults exist; and the obsolete front bumper is cracked to the point of being irreparably harmed. 

On that last part, I've already solved the problem. I found a parts car CQ in Missouri with a good front bumper assembly, and I have a friend there who routinely ships parts around the world. The CQ bumper is unique to the model, and spares are notoriously hard to find. This is the car's biggest obvious cosmetic flaw, that of the nose section looking pretty beat. 

Of course, this is pretty standard operating procedure for me at this point, which is to own parts for cars I've yet to buy, but I'm feeling confident about this one. The seller owes me more pictures and a compression test, but I'm getting a little cagey at this point as to why he hasn't yet sent me a PayPal address for a deposit - perhaps it's a sign he doesn't want to sell as badly as I want to buy it, and truth be told, that would put my mind at ease to some extent. 

The car in the picture is the wreck from Missouri I'm harvesting from; the real shame here is the smashed-out windshield, as that part is CQ-specific and near impossible to find. 

I often watched auctions for cars similar to ones I owned and wondered how the price got so high for a vehicle that didn't have the same thick stack of recent maintenance records my vehicle inevitably came with but was simply a stock, low-mileage vehicle. Since bringing home the 1990 Audi V8 Quattro, I now get it. 

Unadulterated cars are very special things. They remind us that the original design for most vehicles was pretty damn good right out of the gate. For example, my E30 may look night and day better with a lowered suspension, but if I drove a stock example back-to-back, would I notice a significant difference in handling quality? Probably not.

The V8 Quattro is a historically finicky car. In my example, aside from a yet-undiagnosed cold start stalling issue, everything just works. And not only that, they work well. The windows, door locks, stereo - all work. The door seals and rubber insulation - all thick and bouncy, still. The leather, preserved. The power seats, still adjustable in every which way. These are features that typically give out in well-worn examples and that are costly to fix. 

Still, there's one downside: you're scared to death to drive it. This time capsule is only as desirable as unmolested it remains. And while I hope that I turn a nice profit on what is likely one of the best examples left, I won't miss having a display piece that induces anxiety in traffic. 

But I sure do get, now, why people love them.