At last, Bradley has picked out a car that he actually wants.
When he turned 16, I bought him a 1982 Corvette C3 Collector Edition. That was my personal decision driven totally by my vanity. I wanted Bradley to be able to say, “I turned 16 and Dad bought me a Corvette.” And since you only turn 16 once, if I was going to do this, it had to happen now.
This turned out to be a particularly good C3, which means it was a decent example of a not-very-good car. Bradley replaced the shocks (he did the work himself), we threw new tires on it, had the A/C repaired and a leak in the heater core fixed ($2,000). We were in the car nearly $20,000.
Bradley enjoyed driving it and his friends thought it was cool, especially the astronaut-style center stack with analog gauges.
But GM was dealing with smog compliance issues in the early 1980s, so the 350-ci V8 produced an anemic 200 hp. This was alleviated somewhat by the 4-speed automatic, but the car was still a slug. And while the “cease-fire” fuel injection never let us down, we kept anticipating that some day it would.
We listed the Corvette on Doug DeMuro’s Cars & Bids, where we had a good experience and the car sold for $12,000. It was a good deal for the buyer and about the correct market value. I just don’t think you can come out ahead when you buy a relatively common old car, and pour money into making the car right.
Bradley doesn’t want another one.
His winter car was our 2000 Land Rover Discovery 2. A sound car, I had splurged by adding steel bumpers and a locking center differential linkage. Bradley’s friends love going snowboarding with him, and it was his ride of choice in the winter.
But as he is heading off to college in the fall, it was time for the Disco to go. Preparing to list it online, I sent it to a shop for an oil and filter change, and to have a compression test done to have some data for potential buyers.
The shop looked it over, and reported that for $8,000 they could fix the leaking head gaskets and the bad rear brakes. I basically gifted it for a small sum of money to a Rover friend who will find a good home for it. Discos are cheap to buy but expensive to fix, so this car had to go.
Next week we’ll talk about the “Longroof” that’s now in the SCM garage, the first car that Bradley has picked out for himself.
Read my previous blog posts here.
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Old “Rovers” are money Pits , typically requiring unorthodox McGuiver fixes ! Wait till Bradley has to soend his own money fixing one ! Get him into Japanese enginered
Mountain cars . Hope we see you during Monterey Car week in August !
Keith,
“Discos are cheap to buy but expensive to fix, so this car had to go.” I’ve got news for you. NEW Land Rover products consistently rank as the lowest quality year after year, with the most defects per 100 vehicles, by J.D. Powers & Associates. I honestly don’t understand how they continue to sell vehicles and stay in business. Some people say that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again expecting a different result each time. Land Rover’s customers must qualify then as insane (but rich), because they continue to buy Range Rovers, Discovery’s, and Defenders, and Evoques, although they probably spend more time on a dealer’s lift than on the road.
Glenn in Brooklyn, NY.
“Discos are cheap to buy, but expensive to fix”. Truer words have never been spoken! I have since discovered that while 5th generation Toyota 4Runners (especially the TRD ORP and TRD Pro models) are more expensive to buy, they are MUCH cheaper to fix (or not fix), since they are extremely reliable and durable. Long-term, it works out to be a much less expensive proposition, while retaining a similarly engaging old-school off-road oriented SUV vibe. Perhaps, a “sensible” Disco alternative for Bradley?