budgdawg

Don't you hate it when somebody has a car that is at that crucial point where it is going to become a parts car or could be brought back without much effort and they ask an outlandish price for it. I've had my eye on a 67 Cutlass Convertable (may be 442) for about 15 years. I knew the car as a teenager but couldn't afford it then. The current owner bought it and has kept it under a car shelter until recently. A string of tornadoes moved through the area and threw the car shelter in the trees. The car was unhurt except for the top being torn. I noticed he didn't replace the shelter. I found out who it belonged to and their grown child told me to go take a look and make an offer. The car would be a great resto candidate. It needed 1 floor pan but the quarter were good. It did not have the right motor in it. The interior had been recovered in plain vinyl probably 10-15 years ago. It needed a top and rt fender. All in all, i felt a fair price was 2500-3500 dollars, with all it needed. So the owner came out and he's got 1 foot in the grave. I told him his ppl told me it was for sale. He said it was but i might not want it at his price. $10000!!! Ok, ok, its his car and if he wants to keep it, I understand. So i ask, you are going to put it under another shelter ain't you? No, I'm not going to. So, to sum it up, I'll ask so much for it, nobody will buy it but i'll let it sit out and rot, with a hole in the top, so it won't be worth fixing ever. Sorry for the long rant, but I HATE to see a good Cutlass go down.

442much

See if there is a way to speed up the other foot that would get you to deal with the adult children, or better yet, see if the kids can talk sense into the old fart.

auto_editor

I have seen (and experienced) this over and over. Near as I can figure it's a combination of the owner's still thinking they can (and will) do whatever it is with the car they've been "considering" for a decade or more and the fact that they plain don't want to sell it.

Terrible as it sounds I've actually called a few on the bluff of that outrageous price, only to have some "problem" or other crop up--"Well, my brother half-owns it too and he won't sell"--to scuttle the deal.

I've found that the best way to handle this is to just get your name out there with them, and to show in whatever way that you are a true enthusiast who is knowledgeable about the car and who will, apparently, be the one to finally "fix the car up properly" as the owner would have done.

This way he or she knows that there is someone out there they can pass the car to other than their "damn kids" who will just want the "icky old car" gone ASAP...

dmcianfa

I have had similar experiences in the past in the mid nineties. When I was still living at home before and after college there was a '71 Nova that some old lady had rotting in her back of the farmyard. Her husband was long gone, rest his soul and I knew her from around town and would see her at the post office from time to time. I asked her numerous times what she would want for the car and she would come back with a new outrageous offer each time. I watched that car rott for ten years without it moving an inch and she still wouldn't sell it to me even after I made a more than generous offer for it. I'm not sure if she just plain didn't like me or if it held a place in her heart or something, but even after I explained that I would restore it to it's former glory and not "modernize" it in the process by putting some stupid spoiler or spinner rims on it, she would hear nothing of it. That car is long beyond repair now and it sickens me to this day. Oh whel, I guess it was for the better. Now I own an Olds and couldn't be happier I ended up with it, so jokes on her I guess. LOL

Willidog

Me an my buddy used to have a running joke about the guy with the car rotting in the back yard who was "going to fix er up one day!". It's really sad.

69442C

I purchased a 69 442 back in 1990 from a local guy (Mark) who had purchased it from an elderly woman. The woman had the car sitting in her front yard for many years and would never part with it. Year after year the car's condition would continue to decline. Finally, after several attempts to buy the car, Mark, who was in his late twenty's at the time and a car person and who owned several Oldsmobiles took a photo album over to her of other Olds cars he had restored or currently owned. Once the woman saw that Mark wouldn't scrap the car, she agreed to sell it to him for around $1500 I was told. The woman said she had many a person approach her and would tell her they just wanted the motor or wanted to use other parts and the would just junk the rest of it. That upset her as the car belonged to her son Donny who bought the car in '72 but ended up dying from bone cancer at the age of 24. To her, that car was Donny and she wanted it "cared for". Unfortunately, Mark never got a chance to do anything with the car and I happened to stumble upon it sitting behind a shed about 3 years after he bought it. Long story short, I bought the car, restored it and sold it 2001 shortly after completing the restoration. But...before I let the car go, I drove over to that woman's house and I showed her the car freshly restored. She was in her 80's at the time and lived with her sister. Both came out, looked at the car and cried. They patted the car and commented about Donny and they thanked me profusely for bringing it by. She also called Donny's brother who lived close by and he came over too. I wanted her to know that while Mark didn't get the chance to follow through with his plan that the car was saved and lived on. I was told that she died about a year later.

These cars at times have a much deeper meaning to people than we can begin to understand so if there is a way to figure them out or if the car has a special meaning to them, the ability to buy the car may be different if that is factored into the process.

Attached are a few pictures of "Donny" after I sold it to the new owner who lives in Dallas. The car has since gone to North Jersey.

GTI_Guru

there was a similar situation with a car here in town. Sitting in the back corner of a yard with an alley behind it. When I started to notice the car in the mid-80's, it already had 8-12" TREES penning it in. Would not be able to be moved without a chainsaw, or fence removal. I talked to her for a while off and on, and her "son" was always going to fix it up and restore it. Like some others here, she had a foot (or more) in the grave. I stopped by every other year or so for about a decade trying to get her to come off it, but she never budged.

The kicker? 1958 Plymouth fury with a 318 and 3-deuces. All original down to the hubcaps, and rotting into the ground. This lady had freaking CHRISTINE sitting in her yard... It was even a very faded white paint with the original red underneath. I did everything I could to try and get it before it wound up in a scrap yard, then she and the car disappeared somewhere in the late 90's/early 00's, and the house had been sold. I never did find out what happened to that one. I REALLY hope her son actually did finally restore it.

-Jeff