The ’57 Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint “outlaw” I waxed enthusiastic about last week has been sold, but not to me. The car was in Limoux, FRA, and nicely represented by the European seller, RCEurope.
It was difficult enough for me to pull the trigger on our 2005 Porsche on a Bring a Trailer auction located 180 miles away in Seattle, WA. Now turn that into 5,200 miles and add in transport to a port in Europe, then shipping (either a container or roll-on, roll-off) to a port on the U.S. West Coast and things are infinitely more complicated. Plus, at every step of the way there is paperwork as well as fees and duties to be calculated.
The winning bid was €68,250 Euro, or about $79,000. In today’s soft market, that’s full retail (although far below replacement value) for this nicely done car.
The seller provided a rather bewildering array of options and charges to import the car, but it became clear that I could easily rack up $20,000 or more to get it from Limoux to Portland.
One option that was not mentioned was what it would cost to use a reputable shipper to handle the whole process from soup to nuts. A single email, followed by money, could make this process much easier. But it would still be expensive.
I should also mention that there are calculators out there to figure this stuff out, including this one at The Daily Vroom.
Regardless, it appears the car is going to a new home in Europe, so transport costs might be as little as petrol and a Chunnel crossing.
During this process, as the bids were going higher and higher, SCM’s Editor-in-Chief Jeff Sabatini posed an interesting question.
“Why do you want this car?” he asked. “You’ve already owned Alfa coupes including a 750 Sprint Veloce, a Giulietta Sprint Special and a GTV. What would you do with it that is new?”
Further, he continued, your desire to own this car is predicated on your belief that, despite medical advice to the contrary, you will have a clutch leg again in good time.
That’s a reasonable consideration. However, I’ve had some remarkable process recently. I’m now walking with a four-point cane for the first time in years. And I will never stop working.
Which leads me to this, a 1962 Austin-Healey 3000.
Or this one.
We’ll follow up with more on this next week, after these auctions have closed.
If I decide to go British, which of these cars would you prefer? I look forward to reading your comments below.
Read my previous blog posts here.
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