(Btw, there’s a RHD 1974 Cooper available in Portland for the reduced price of $6,500. Hey, I’ve always wanted another one of those, and it’s cheap!)
Resolution #1: Don’t buy anything that I haven’t looked at with a specialist, or had a specialist look at on my behalf. With shop rates hovering at $100 / hour, it just costs too much to take care of all the little things that a distant seller can “forget” to mention.
Resolution #2: Don’t buy a car that is advertised as “nearly completely restored.” That’s like leaning into a punch, don’t you think? If it was so easy to put the car back together, why hasn’t the seller already done it?
Resolution #3: Don’t buy a car that has been color-changed. It’s just so tiresome, saying “Well, it was born green, but now it’s mostly red.”
Resolution #4: Don’t confuse a mass email sent out to 20,000 car guys with a “special offer meant only for me.”
Resolution #5: Try to cut back the number of saved searches on eBay. (The current ten include any BMW 2002 Tii, pre-1975 Alfa or Ducati Monster within 250 miles of PDX; Triumph GT6 or Austin-Healey 3000 within 500 miles of PDX; Porsche 911SC, Range Rover Classic and so on…)
Resolution #6: Ditto with the Craigslist RSS feeds, streaming from a variety of West Coast cities.
Resolution #7: Work with the ACC team to buy an ACC muscle car for the garage – I’m just nervous they’ll do something like run over the Isetta with a Road Runner and not even feel the bump.
Resolution #8: And finally, find time this year to create an SCM tour where we can invite our friends from around the country to spend a couple of days exploring the spectacular roads of central and eastern Oregon.
Have tweaks for my resolutions, or thoughts of your own? I look forward to reading them in your responses below.
Happy New Year to everyone, and thanks for being a friend of SCM.