TCG Stories

One of the most recognized and well-loved vintage racers is the Ferrari 250 GT SWB with its distinctive one-off coachwork that has earned it the affectionate title of "The Breadvan." This is due, of course, to the hump out the back that looks like it should be delivering pies to some quaint village in the English countryside. 

But instead of being put to work on the road, the Breadvan has been put into duty on the track, taking part in vintage racing events for decades. Really, this is what these cars were meant to do, and while we can all respect the significance of one-off bodywork and priceless engineering, it's akin to marrying Jenny McCarthy and, well, you know. Never holding hands. (Yes, I'm an 80s kid, and Jenny left a crater-sized imprint on my brain.) 

The Breadvan recently took to the track for the Le Mans Classic at Circuit de la Sarthe in France and sadly encountered a few banana peels near the chicane. It collided with the safety barrier and did a few millions' worth of damage to the bodywork and certainly other areas not visible from the outside world. Of course, this isn't the first time the Breadvan has had a scuffle on the track and it won't be the last - which is exactly how cars like these were meant to be used. 

Of course, it still reminds me of the iconic line from Jeff Jordan in the movie Grand Prix: "Drive the car! Don't try to stand it on its bloody ear!"

"Access Control" is functionality that allows you to control who sees the content that you post on the site.  Along with the switch in your Vehicle Content that allows you to make your content visible on the site, Access Control allows you granular-level access to your data.  This granular-level access allows you to decide to share potentially sensitive data (receipts with your name and address, your license plate, insurance docs, etc...) with other users on the site, or publicly via TCG.

In each of the posts that you create, you'll see a tab at the top called "Access Control", as shown below:

When you click the "Access Control" tab, you are shown a page that allows you to adjust which users can see / access your content within your post with a series of checkboxes that allow adjustability:

Under this section, there is a second section that allows you to key in the username for sharing, and also gives options for other users to be able to modify / update, and delete your content.  This allows flexibility if you have multiple vehicle owners (co-owners), or others that maintain your vehicle's content (mechanic, caretaker, etc...):

Testing

As with any web-based functionality, if you have any concern about who can see your data, it's best to test it.  You can do it in the following way:

• Go ahead and create your post, and adjust Access Control settings to match.
• IF THE POST SHOULD NOT BE PUBLIC-FACING - Copy the URL of the content from the top of your screen's address bar, and log out of TCG.  
  • As a non-logged in user, paste the URL into a new web page.  You should see a blank screen without any content. 
• IF THE POST SHOULD BE PUBLIC-FACING - Copy the URL of the content from the top of your screen's address bar, and log out of TCG.  
  • As a non-logged in user, paste the URL into a new web page.  You should see your content.
• IF THE POST SHOULD BE VISIBLE TO ANOTHER USER WITHIN TCG - Create your post, and ask the other user to confirm it's visible.  

Questions / Help

If you have any questions or need additional help, please contact TCG Support. 

"Background Docs" is the content type to support the vehicle you have uploaded into your garage.  Adding photos and non-photo files to Background Docs allows you to document the history of the vehicle's background.  The best way to think about it is this - This is your "Online Manila Folder", or the physical documents that exist in binders, folders, file cabinets, or boxes in your attic or basement.

Uploading your Background Docs into TCG allows you to safely house all of your documents in one convenient place, and also allows you the flexibility to share them privately with prospective buyers, and appraisal or insurance company, or as a reference if you ever need to dig out a specific piece of information associated with your vehicle.  

Privacy and Flexibility in Sharing

By default, the Background Docs are only visible by you on the site.  You can choose to share them at various levels of granularity, and you can refer to the "Access Control" settings that accompany each post:

Please refer to the "Access Control" document to fully understand how this functionality works. 

Records Stay with the Vehicle

Let's say you love your vehicle, but it's time to move it to the next caretaker.  One of the awesome features of this site is that the records will stay with the vehicle - They are not dependent on the user.   If you are moving the vehicle to a new owner, here's how simple it is to migrate the vehicle:

• Send a note to "admin@thecommongear.com", with a screenshot of the vehicle that you are selling.
• Let the new user know that they need to set up an account at The Common Gear.
• Include the new user's username in the note sent to Admin.
• That's it. 

Once the vehicle is in the new owner's garage, they are free to upload their own Background Docs, as this is the starting point of their ownership journey.

RealTime Racing, a Honda/Acura racing team owned by Peter Cunningham, has always had a warm place in my heart. Cunningham himself was in the paddock at Lime Rock on Memorial Day weekend eons ago, and not only was his outfit giving out huge, 24x36 posters of their winning NSX, but Peter was cheerfully autographing for the long line of attendees. Memorial Day weekend is Lime Rock's kick-off to the summer racing season, so attendance was robust. 

Cunningham has made a name for himself racing an NSX; Acura Integra Type R; Acura TSX; and Honda Civic Si. He's done quite well with them, too, as RealTime Racing is the most successful team ever in the World Challenge series. RealTime has amassed 101 race victories on its way to 15 Drivers' and 14 Manufacturers' Championships, and done so with cars that still look much like the ones you'd find at your local dealership. 

They've also made a point of saving the original team cars or tracking down the ones that were sold. Not only that, they put these cars - veritable antiques by competition standards - and repeated their original successes. Over the weekend, RealTime reported via Facebook that Cunningham piloted one of the original TSX cars to victory in the WeatherTech International Challenge at Road America on July 17. Cunningham shared the Group 8 podium with two Porsche 911s, which is as much a credit to him as it is the platform provided by Honda. 

Not many people place value on history these days; it's great to see Cunningham and RealTime Racing remembering what got them to where they are today. 

I don't consider myself a huge Doug DeMuro fan but I do like that he's putting himself out there as an ambassador for his brand. He does it in a meaningful way, not just talking about the results that Cars & Bids has collected but about the overall economy and how it intersects with the collector car marketplace. 

A recent Facebook post explained that he is still personally involved in setting reserves, and how this relates to making sure Cars & Bids makes money by ensuring as many submitted vehicles sell as possible. He relayed how many of the current submissions are somewhat shocked that the reserve prices are as low as they are, which DeMuro cites as necessary owing to the new realities of the enthusiast car marketplace - in other words, things are cooling just a bit. 

There's one line in his recent post (photo above) that blew my mind: the seller who claims he needs to set a $100K reserve to pay off his $100K loan. Wait - people take out loans for these cars? Every day, I see some exotic rolling down the street, or a suburban housewife in a brand-new Grand Wagoneer or X7, and I'm wondering why I'm still driving a 2011 BMW 3-Series wagon. Well, it's because I hate car payments - but with this latest revelation from Doug, perhaps I'm in the minority. 

I'd love to hear some comments on this, as this latest insight from Doug really blew my mind. Are any of your as surprised as I am? 

One of the more under-the-radar stories that came out over the past year was the revelation that a dingy former fire station in the down-on-its-luck Western Massachusetts town of Holyoke housed a massive stash of a Fast and the Furious fanboy's wet dream stored inside. Yes, a multitude of MKIV Supras, E46 BMW M3s, Honda S2000s, and many more were all sitting on racks among the luxurious confines of a former municipal facility converted to the fashionable hideout of a massive hustler of the devil's lettuce. 

The story is absolutely bananas, with no one really knowing what was inside the old station house until one Cory Taylor was stopped by police and found to have a respectable 138 pounds of Mary-Jane in his van. Mr. Taylor posted a measly $2,000 in bail money, skipped his next hearing, and was later found dead in an abandoned warehouse amongst circumstances that are still listed as "suspicious" months later. Note that the police are not exactly spending a lot of time finding his killer if there was one. 

The collection included no fewer than 13 MKIV Supras, including one with just under 23,000 original miles on the clock. There was also a '93 with just over 8,000 miles on the odometer. With the rest of the collection consisting of BMW M3s, Honda S2000s, Mitsubishi Evolutions, and a Nissan 350Z, he really did just buy what was featured predominantly in the F&F movies. It's like he was the cheaper, criminally-active version of Paul Walker, but with far fewer E36 M3 LTWs in his stash. 

I recently traded a few messages with one of the buyers of several of the Supras that went up for auction after the assets of this ill-gotten collection were seized. He tells me that they grabbed a non-running black Supra and two of the pristine white Supras that came up for grabs. Wisely, they also jumped on two of the E46 cars for the rare color codes, which included a super desirable Phoenix Yellow car and another featuring an Imola Red exterior over Impulse Black leather. Both M3s are six-speed cars and the Phoenix Yellow example is stunning. 

The lesson here? If your property abuts an abandoned police precinct that occasionally has lights on inside, maybe peek in the windows from time to time. 

I had finally resolved with myself that I was going to hoard some cash and get serious about the cars I truly want: my Cosworth 190E and my '89 Isuzu Trooper RS. Downsize, sell off cars you don't love, fix the rust on the Cossie and the Trooper, and drive them. That's the mission, no deviation from course.

Then I go on Facebook and see some guy trying to unload a Mitsubishi Delica 4x4 with "rust issues" that of course means nothing to someone living in the snow belt of New England but look like joy-killing cancer to someone living south of the Mason-Dixon. Yes, this is one of those vehicles I have had an on-again, off-again desire to own, but I know it'll be back into the rabbit hole of importing parts and waiting weeks for a repair.

....but as far as Delicas go, this one is cheap - $13,000 - and there's perhaps some more room to bargain if you make the rust out to be something abhorrent that you can't stomach the thought of living with. 

What needs to happen is the LX450 should be (quickly) refreshed and used for an inaugural camping trip on the beach before Labor Day so I can vanquish these demons immediately and finish two projects that have been on the proverbial back-burner since 2018. Not that I've been successful in that mission to date.

You don't have to look too far to see that anyone who has been snatching up modern enthusiast cars at auction and sticking them in a field or giant warehouse is pretty goddamned brilliant. In a few years, when cars like the Porsche 944 and first-generation Toyota Celica are near unobtainable and even harder to find in good shape, a former parts car may, in fact, be deemed worthy of restoring. 

Every now and again, I flag eBay sellers who have seen the winds shifting and begun stockpiling enthusiast vehicles that are still dirt cheap to buy off of Copart but can immediately yield big-time value in terms of the parts they contain. For years, J&J Auto Wrecking out of Ohio has been the clear leader in this arena, seemingly equipped with a sixth sense about which cars and trucks to buy while they're cheap. They definitely saw the trend towards Ford Excursions and H2 Hummers getting a second shot at life and began yanking those things off of auction lots left and right. Then it was the Impala SS, another car that was dirt cheap to buy when found in a state of neglect. The list goes on, and I actually grabbed a minty Recaro interior out of a rusty Mercedes-Benz Cosworth they had (which was ironically in better shape than my own car. 

Now, there's another player on the field, with the name goldat out of Houston, Texas. I just came across this outfit as their eBay page shows several first-generation Celicas, an Alfa Romeo Milano Verde, Porsche 944 Turbo, a second-generation Toyota MR2, and an early Volvo 242 Turbo coupe, among many others. Thinking about how much they likely paid for these cars and the treasure-trove of parts within each one makes me wish I had grabbed some acreage at some point long ago and started hoarding like these shops have done. 

The Great Race is one of the last major cross-country events catering largely to pre-WWII cars. Typically running from West to East but occasionally going the other direction, this weeks-long speed-controlled event is one of the last of its kind, as it even outlaws GPS and other helpful devices to help you get from point A to point B. It's described as, "....a test of a driver/navigator team's ability to follow precise course instructions and the car's (and team's) ability to endure on a cross-country trip. The course instructions require the competing teams to drive at or below the posted speed limits at all times."

So, it's not a speed competition, but it is an event designed to test your navigational skills and ability to follow directions, all while managing the unpredictable nature of a pre-war car. That being said, the rules have softened in recent years, now allowing for any classic car up to 1974 to participate. These leaves the door open for lots of desirable muscle cars, and the photos from this year's kick-off - which happened right in my own backyard of Warwick, RI - reveal plenty of Shebly Mustangs and Pontiac GTOs in the mix. 

I wish I had known about this with more advance warning, as 10,000 car fans swarmed Rocky Point Park and even Governor McKee came down to wave the proverbial green flag. Hagerty is a sponsor, as is Hemmings, Coker Tires, and McCollister's Auto Transport, a very respectable list of corporate supporters. The teams left Warwick on Saturday morning, en route to Connecticut with plenty of stops planned along the way, including Wayne Carini's F40 Motorsports.

To drive a pre-war car anywhere is likely a watershed moment for most automotive enthusiasts, but to take one from Rhode Island to Fargo, North Dakota, deserves a lifetime achievement award. 

This week - for the first time ever - I had three vehicles up for sale. My 1991 Saab 900 Turbo SE convertible; my 1990 Audi V8 Quattro; and a 1988 Alfa Romeo Milano Verde, a non-running project car. Long and short of it? Two sales and one no-sale. Here's what went down:

Saab 900 SE: With three minutes left, it was sitting at $9,000. Over the course of three minutes, it went slightly nuts and bidding ended at $23,750. The winning bidder, a woman from Massachusetts, won the car and quickly fell apart over several phone calls. She wanted the car but clearly was surprised at what it took to win it. I never heard from her in the hours after the auction, a very, very bad sign for any seller, and my phone call that night did nothing to inspire further confidence. She cried. She cried some more. She asked for more time. She refused to send a deposit of any sustenance. She wanted me to bring the car to her. The whole thing reeked. Thankfully, the runner-up bidder contacted me the next morning expressing his interest should the first bidder flake out. Within three hours, the winning bidder had conceded she didn't have the means to store the car (which is something you should know before you enter a single, Goddamn bid) and the second bidder had wired funds within two hours of my confirming with him the car was his for the taking. A win, but one that was hard-fought. 

Audi Quattro V8: This one stung a bit. There was seemingly a good amount of interest in this obscure luxury sedan early on, easily outpacing where my Euro-spec E21 was a few years back. However, the mad rush of bidding at the end never happened and the auction stalled out at $7,400. In some respects, I wish this car had sold, as it was the perfect car for Bring A Trailer: a real-deal survivor with very little in the way of flaws and in completely original condition. That's the audience for a car like that, and it will be a slightly harder sell (I think, who knows) without an educated audience that knows how few of these Autobahn cruisers are left in this sort of condition. I am in conversations with the high bidder and if we can land on a compromise number, I will likely sell it just to have the space back in the garage. 

Alfa Romeo Milano Verde: This was the surprise of the week, as the Milano was a non-running project that hadn't run in at least two to three years. The sale was very quick, with a deposit received within 48 hours of listing it here on The Common Gear. The car was a good one, as it was completely stock and still had its original Recaro interior in very good condition. I sold it with a fairly generous assortment of spare parts, but that not only helped to seal the deal but also gave me some much-needed space back in the garage and got rid of parts I will no longer need. I will miss this car as I really wanted to own an Alfa with that gorgeous Busso V6 under the hood but I will need to find one that doesn't need nearly as much love given I have limited local resources for Italian car restoration. Perhaps I will buy this one back down the road when it is a runner once again. 

So, there you have it. Bring A Trailer still works well when it does work, but it's by no means a guarantee of a sale. They do very little to support you in your goal of closing the transaction out successfully, which does strip away some of the magic that many of us seem to assume is part of the BaT equation. However, with the resources that The Common Gear brings to bear, I feel far more comfortable losing an auction these days knowing that my work and time invested in a given car will still be easy for the next owner to find, understand, and appreciate. I'm confident we'll find a new owner for the gorgeous Audi V8 soon.