Acolleague once bought a rescue dog. It was a cute, bright-eyed thing that looked like a cross between an Australian cattle dog and a German bierwurst sausage. Unfortunately, this lovable mutt had numerous congenital problems, including seizures that required substantial doses of time and money to diagnose and treat. The good news is that with the right medication, the little guy is happy and healthy today. This reminds me of what can happen when buying a collector car. What looks good on the surface — or online or inside the auction tent — may wind up needing diagnosis and treatment too. […]
Acolleague once bought a rescue dog. It was a cute, bright-eyed thing that looked like a cross between an Australian cattle dog and a German bierwurst sausage. Unfortunately, this lovable mutt had numerous congenital problems, including seizures that required substantial doses of time and money to diagnose and treat. The good news is that with the right medication, the little guy is happy and healthy today.
This reminds me of what can happen when buying a collector car. What looks good on the surface — or online or inside the auction tent — may wind up needing diagnosis and treatment too. No wonder smart buyers are cautious. But if you’re selling instead of buying, how do you allay buyers’ natural (and well-founded) cautions? By doing their job — due diligence — for them ahead of time.
This thinking drew into focus the time when a friend and I jumped into the ownership of a low-mileage 327/300 1964 Corvette convertible at what seemed to be a bargain price. It had started life as a normal Corvette, much like the other 13,924 convertibles built that year. Equipped with the base L75 engine rather than the 365-hp L76 or the 375-hp L84 Fuelie, it nevertheless had the desirable manual gearbox and an auxiliary hard top — with which only half of the convertibles were equipped.
But from there, the tale got fishy, as the ’Vette had morphed into a show car in the late 1960s. It had pearlescent paint, engine and suspension work, chrome plating, and body and interior modifications each more dramatic than the last. So while the car had covered only 20,000 miles since new, mechanically and cosmetically it had been through at least two to three lives by the time we found it. Or perhaps more accurately, it found us.
Pursue the truth
The pinball nature of our car’s history — with many puzzling gaps — made me wonder how, organizationally, one should prepare to sell a vehicle with such a complex past. Here’s what I came up with: Create a chart (either on paper or computer) with three vertical columns. The left-hand column is for negatives. The middle column is for neutrals. And the right-hand column is for positives.
By combing through the car and honestly placing important facts regarding its features, history and condition in these three columns, you’ll end up with a pretty good descriptive mosaic. Like NCRS judging encourages owners to do, you can then chip away at turning the negatives into positives (or at least neutrals) before putting the beast up for sale.
For my experiment, I decided to create separate charts for exterior, interior, powertrain, chassis and ownership history, recording whatever information was available, paying particular attention to original vs. non-original features, good or poor condition, and working vs. non-operational components. As expected, the resulting document became a precise, quick-access set of “stories” — some good and some bad — about the car. In the positives column were the 20,000-mile status, its original configuration as a 4-speed car, the original factory hard top, and its photographically documented build and show history.
Worrisomely in the negatives column — at least as far as Corvette purists are concerned — were the conversion to a tube front axle (which necessitated replacement of the original suspension pickups with leaf-spring mounts), the installation of an automatic transmission (and loss of the original manual), and numerous cosmetic alterations. As well, the car carried a “370 cu. in.” lettering atop one fender, suggesting that the original motor had been built to a higher spec. But how high? Nobody knew, although one clue was that the car proved difficult to start, dramatically backfiring and breaking starter-motor cases in the process. And once running, it also had an annoying habit of stalling after several miles, necessitating a tow home.
Fix what you can, reveal the rest
Clearly, it was essential to move some of the negatives over to the neutral or positives column. My buddy and I didn’t want to spend ridiculous money returning the car to its original state, so we focused on the best return for investment.
First up was solving the running issues. A Corvette racer friend immediately diagnosed the hard starting and backfiring as a mistimed distributor, and with that remedied and a high-output starter installed, the car fired up and idled fine. And we eventually traced the stalling problem to the old fuel tank and lines. Little by little, we were reforming the chart.
Then came a trip to a local shop to rent the lift. A ride up the rack revealed a clean, straight, accident-free car, and that the alternations it received were of high quality. The suspension components were good, and the lack of corrosion on the many chrome-plated parts showed that the car had rarely — if ever — been used in inclement weather. Nice! In another stroke of good luck, the engine, transmission and rear end were all oil-tight. While it was airborne, photographing the undersides documented the positives and showed the general absence of negatives — good follow-through in advance of a buyer asking. Rack time is time well spent.
Once this systematic check was complete, we decided to correct a few minor items and leave the major mods for the eventual buyer to reverse or not. The reason? A good, hard look at the facts convinced us that while returning the car to stock condition was possible, it wasn’t practical. Owing to its high level of modifications, our ’64 convertible was thus destined to remain a gasser, at least while in our custodianship. And wryly, we had to admit that all the period modifications that once made the car special later served only to hold its value back.
In the end, our systematic research and discovery process netted two valuable things. One was the ability to craft, in written form, as complete a history of the car as possible. And second, photographic proof of this history and current condition. Personally, I think such thoroughness and honesty count for a lot, because while straight info earns trust, when there’s doubt, buyers hold back. Getting the story straight helps mitigate those concerns — even if our once purebred car proved to be something of a mutt.