TCG Stories

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. 

As part of my therapy around the enormously crappy Saab 9000 Aero that I bought last year (and managed to make a few bucks on when it came time to dump it), I pillaged everything I could from it to flip on craigslist and Facebook Marketplace short of stripping off parts that actually made it run. 

Thinking back to my days as a teenager when big subwoofers and amplifiers with clever names like "Sound Storm" and "Desert Thunder" reigned supreme, I was delighted to see a custom enclosure with two 12" Infinity subs in the hatch area. I thought this would be an easy $200 for the subs plus another $200 for the amp. Did anyone tell you that today's kids no longer share this same enthusiasm for putting bass in your face?

I was a pretty nerdy white guy living in the suburbs when high school rolled around, but loud stereos with bass that rattled trunk lids were both must-haves when trolling the student parking lot. For some reason, my parents went along with this and even paid for some of the stereo equipment, seemingly unmoved by the fact that I was blasting gangster rap in places where actual gangsters lived. Recalling how much of my meager earnings were spent at stereo shops made me convinced that someone would jump at the chance to own this setup, especially since Infinity was the high-end option compared to the Sony Xplod and Kicker crap I had. 

Well, news flash: no one wants this stuff. I finally got so sick of tripping over this huge, heavy box in the garage that I sold it AND the amp to a middle-aged guy for $100. He was cool, turns out one of the subs didn't work so I gave him the amp for free. He told me the box alone was worth my asking price (which I knew), but he was the only guy to appreciate the unmatched value I was offering him. 

I still think big stereos are cool, but I'm guessing they now have Bluetooth-enabled sub boxes that fit under the driver's seat and pump out as much bass as my two 12s did back in the day - and likely for half the price. But no matter what, I'm now at the age where I'm just grateful to have an extra 12 inches back in the doorway from the garage to the house. 

The thing I keep learning about myself is I get way more excited about a basketcase project car than I do a completely turnkey, ready-to-go example. Case in point: this week, I was offered first bite at two desirable enthusiast vehicles: a 1979 Porsche 928, gray-market car that supposedly runs and drives well. And a 1990 Audi Coupe Quattro that is partially disassembled and full of mold.

The Porsche is $7,500 and about 20 minutes away; the Audi is - well, I'm guessing a $3,000 sale price and in New Jersey. It will need to be picked up and transported to RI. 

While the price difference is one thing, I'm also just turned off by the prospect of basically paying more for the 928 and seeing no way to improve it myself. It won't look any better; it won't' be any faster; and honestly, it's going to be more expensive to fix when it does break (which it will).

The Audi needs lots of cosmetic love but it has no rust. The interior, yeah, it's gross - but it needs a new headliner anyway, so just rip out the moldy stuff. The real risk with the Audi is that it has some electrical faults due to a water leak, which is what caused the mold. It's a potentially big-ass can of worms that will cause the Audi to surpass the Porsche, quickly, in terms of cost.

But it will be better when I'm done with it. It will go from being a hunk of moldy, early 90s sport compact metal with zero factory parts support to a driver that loves to let its five-cylinder engine sing (possibly). And given the risks I've taken on some cars, the rough projects that actually still ran usually ended up being mild success stories - so I feel like I'm ahead of the curve with a car like this Audi. 

We'll see where I end up, but no matter what I do, it won't make any sense. 

The other day, a fairly prominent dealer - Duncan Imports, which has an arsenal of imported Japanese classics - got caught pumping up the bids on its supposedly super clean S14 chassis Nissan 240SX on Bring A Trailer. While the collective car community lost its ever-loving mind over this, the bigger fault that was exposed is how BaT really doesn't screen anything that they approve for auction, which violates a key aspect of the supposed relationship BaT has with the enthusiast community. 

While the outrage was largely directed at Duncan as there was sufficient evidence that it wasn't the first time he pumped his own listing, some commenters also called into question why BaT has missed so many red flags on a car that had very clearly been in a significant front-end collision. Duncan shared emails with the community showing how he alerted BaT to these flaws, as well as emails showing BaT's refusal to pull the listing down. It's all very weird but also confirms how hell-bent BaT is to complete every auction with a win, regardless of whether the buyer gets a car that's not nearly as nice as advertised. 

I've felt for a while now that BaT is just another version of the stock market, and this seems to reinforce that notion. It's like the middle America farmer finding out the $40,000 he sent to some hotshot in New York was for stock in a company that doesn't exist, or at least has no shot at returning anything close to that investment. There was a time when many of us would trust BaT without hesitating because we felt like we were a part of a community that looked out for one another. And while that community may have been pivotal in pulling a shoddy 240SX off the auction block and banning a disreputable seller, why were either of those things on the platform in the first place?  

One of our community members is a fella named bonehed927 out of the great state of Pennsylvania. He actually contacted me a ways back for help finding the project we're talking about today, which is a delightfully yellow Audi 100 LS coupe. 

I actually knew about this car down in Georgia where it was parked on a farm as part of a sprawling private collection. The gentleman who owned it had a little bit of everything, and it was clear he liked makes and models of every stripe. I arrange for the purchase and gave him the all-clear to head down to GA and pick it up; since then, he's done quite a bit of work on this rare early Audi. 

Some of his recent work includes replacing the lighting; chasing a phantom brake light issue; sorting out the cold-start idle; and making some cosmetic enhancements, like shades in the rear window, which is a very period-correct modification for a European car of this vintage. 

It's a gorgeous color, too, and on an Audi model we don't see very often. Can't wait to see what other improvements he has in store for this rare two-door.