Although the Taurus does resemble the Audi design, I think it's Ford that started adopting rounder jelly bean style shapes, as can be seen in the Taurus, the Sierra, and even the first Probe. By early 90s prett most manufacturers that had a refreshed model had adopted the new shape.
Ford was the mass market pioneer no doubt...with the aero T-Bird and Tempo before the Taurus, and in Europe with the Sierra and Scorpio. GM and Chrysler were addicted to early 80s angularity at that time and GM seemed to hold on to it for some time.
For my "driver" condition 911 that Shifty and I agreed was fairly bought by me at $12,500.
1) The 2000 Miata I posted earlier (oil sucking engine and weak transmission) and $7 or $8K. I can't imagine the Miata is worth much, and I don't want the headache.
2) The 1995 Porsche 968 with the awful graphics. The car is actually pretty nice inside and out (the graphics peel off) and excellent mechanically. It is the owner's personal car. He wants my 911 and $1,500. He started out at $2,500 and I told him I'd think about it. He called me 30 minutes later with the better offer. I think he needs to call back again with an even better offer. It is pretty much just a newer faster version of my '86 944. I am not sure it is worth $9K more than my old 944, but then again I haven't driven it yet.
3) 2002 Boxster S, gray with black interior. 38K miles. I think he wants my car and a few thousand $. I kind of like this idea, but the wife isn't crazy about me spending more money for a car that my little ones won't fit in.
What sayeth the peanut gallery? At this point I am inclined to keep my 911 and my '86 944.
1-That Miata sounds like way too much trouble and risk, plenty of decent ones out there 2-I never liked the looks of the 968, with or without the graphics. Your 944 would be my pick, it's not like the 968 is some giant killer. 3-Tough call on the Boxster (which do you really like to drive?), until you bring in the 'wife factor'...you're already pretty lucky to have her 'support' for your Porsche habit...
I'm about the same age as fezo, and I agree that the 1956 Cadillac is a very cool car. IMO, it is the best 50s Cadillac, with its understated elegance. After that, the cars got too flashy, culminating with those overwrought '59 models (the year GM went totally crazy). It wasn't until 1963 or maybe even 1965 that the Cadillacs became elegant again.
Speaking of styling changes, look at the difference between a '54 and a '59 Chevy. Or better yet, the difference between a '54 and '57 Plymouth! Such extravagance just isn't possible today.
The Boxster S is by far the most advantageous deal for you financially, if indeed you only have to kick in a few thousand. If it's really nice it should bring $17,000 easy. So you are okay there, and it's certainly the best driving of all the car you either have or have mentioned.
I wouldn't give more than $3000 for that Miata. And I probably wouldn't buy it for that. A clean 2000 that's turn key is a $6,000 car.
The 968 owner is dreaming big time. He should be giving you money!!
That Boxster, if you could get it for a couple thousand, and if it's clean---well, it's a no-brainer, pardon the expression. :P
Miata guy sold his car and says he will have cash on Sunday. If I had $5 every time I've heard this during the process, I would have appoximately $30 by now. Everybody asks what my rock bottom price is, they seem satisfied with the answer, then they never show up. People make offers without even looking at the car, even local people. It is weird.
Boxster guy has not got back with me. I wonder if it is because I asked about the title, paintwork, etc. He is a 10 hour drive from me. That makes me even more nervous. I don't really have much spare time on my hands to meet him halfway and have things not turn out.
968 guy put a lot of money into his getting all the maintenance up to date on the car and he has only had the car for five months. He found a 911 Turbo he wanted to use as his DE car instead. The brakes, timing belt/water pump/front seals, and clutch with a few miscellaneous things thrown in could run $4000 without too much trouble. Of course that doesn't go straight onto the value of the car. Both front fenders have been painted and so has the sunroof (but not the main part of the roof). I am kind of thinking it is about a $10K car. I think I could get him to even trade, but I don't think I would do it even then. I am sick of black cars anyway. This one already has a couple of bird poo/sap residue spots on it. I think all black cars do.
All the trade offers are interesting, but there sure are a lot of time wasters out there. It gets a little discouraging.
That '66 Bonneville is a sweet car. My Mom bought a brand-new '66 Catalina convertible when she was in 11th grade. She had a job waiting tables and saved up half the money for it, and one of her aunts lent her the rest.
It'd be cool to have that car around today, but I was part of the reason it went away. Mom didn't like the idea of riding around in a convertible with a small child, so she and my grandparents swapped cars...the '66 for their '68 Impala 4-door hardtop. They traded the '66 on a new '72 Impala 4-door hardtop. My Mom told me that my Dad liked to drive that convertible around, and was pretty hard on it, so I think it was kinda trashed by '72.
I'm amazed at how slim and trim that '66 Bonneville in the ad looks. Part of it might be that the fender skirts are pulled off. Those Rally 2 wheels also look like they're 15", which probably helps make the car look a bit more trim. I know when I swapped out the 14" for the 15" Rallys on my '67 Catalina, it seemed to change the proportioning, and make the car not look quite so big.
One tip-off about time-wasters is ANYONE who makes you an offer without seeing the car.
JUST HANG UP!
A close second to Time Waster's Top 5 is the guy who has to sell something before he can buy yours. Goodbye, thanks for calling.
968 -- from your description I don't think even $10K is fair market. $7500 sounds right in this market with that car in that condition.
Boxster S -- deal sounds almost too good to be true---but worth following up (to a point). If it were a clean car with a clean title and low miles and you had to throw a couple thousand + your car, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Even if wifey didn't like it, you could flip it for $2K-$3K profit in 6 months.
Make no mistake, in real life it's a BIG car. In the photo you just can't see it in relation to a Toyota Corolla (it looks like a building in comparison).
But I like the styling because it is pretty clean. Pontiac had their ____ together back then in the styling department. No mistaking that car for anything else.
Today I couldn't tell you the difference between a Chevy, Buick or Pontiac unless I read the trunk lid.
Make no mistake, in real life it's a BIG car. In the photo you just can't see it in relation to a Toyota Corolla (it looks like a building in comparison).
Oh I know, they're good-sized cars. I had a '69 Bonneville 4-door hardtop. It was 225" long, which would make it the biggest car I ever had. I imagine that '66 would be close, though...probably around 223-224".
As monstrous as that thing was, though, I thought it was a really good handler. It was also pretty ugly, compared to that '66 Bonneville, but I thought it was still neat looking, in its own way.
Shifty's right. There is a lot of time wasters out there. Here's some tips about dealing with over the phone offers:
"Are you buying it sight unseen, and would you like it shipped to you? If not then, I strongly encourage you to see it before you offer me anything. "
OR
"I'm not prepared to move on the price until I see a serious buyer with cash in hand here by my car."
OR
Someone already offered me $XXX (say $500-$1000 below asking price), and I am holding out for a better offer. Come and see it and we'll talk.
---------------------------------------------
For every 10 calls expect 1 person to show up and see it in person.
For every 2 show ups expect 1 sale.
Meaning you'll need about 20 calls before you will sell it. At least that's how it works in the car biz.
The Martini 968. Watch out when you peel off the graphics on the black car ity might leave an outline from the stripes. I had lettering on a new demo truck and after only 6 months of use when we peeled off the letters they were still visible outlines under certain angles. It required some heavy duty buffing and waxing.
More on the Boxster - guy bought it off of eBay from a dealer in November. Unfortunately it was a private transaction, so I can't figure out what he paid for it. Why would a dealer make all his transactions private anyway?
Shifty, do you think I should be able to get $12,500 for my '86 or has the market for 911s dropped a lot in the past five months?
I think you can get that price, yes. The 911 market is still pretty solid, especially for cars under $20K that look decent. I'd say $12K--$14K is the sweet spot.
I've dealt with this a lot over the years. Some lines that seem to work are:
-I can talk about the price, but you can't; you haven't seen the car.
-If you want to know what my best price is, you'll have to make me a serious offer.
-I've never yet failed to sell a car.
-I'm going to sell this car, but I will not haggle with myself.
Depending on the buyer, that seems to work pretty well.
Another thing I learned is to weed out the joyriders: - If you like the car, are you ready to buy? - If you like the car, how will you be paying? and take your cue from the answers. "I'll be ready to buy in three months" "I wanted to show my girlfriend what these drive like" and the ubiquitous, always popular, "I just gotta sell my car first." Ugh. On the plus side, I have about 2 out of 3 people show up for the appointment.
The number of numbskulls is just astounding. And none of this is foolproof. Last summer, I had a guy waste an hour of my Sunday and a couple gallons of gas driving my '85 conversion van around, only to tell me that he didn't think it would haul his, get this, horse trailer. With a 305 V8, 3sp auto, and a 2.73 rear end, I could have told him that over the phone.
Speaking of styling changes, look at the difference between a '54 and a '59 Chevy. Or better yet, the difference between a '54 and '57 Plymouth! Such extravagance just isn't possible today.
Right off the top of my head, the last redesign that I can think of that was a really radical change was when the Dodge Dynasty/Chrysler New Yorker/Imperial got replaced by the Dodge Intrepid/Chrysler Concorde/Eagle Vision and LHS/New Yorker. Comparing a 1992 Die-Nasty to a 1993 Intrepid is a night-and-day difference.
To be fair though, Chrysler had more modern looking cars out at that time than the Dynasty/New Yorker. Comparing a '93 Intrepid to, say, my old '88 LeBaron coupe, or a 1985 LeBaron GTS/Dodge Lancer, the leap doesn't seem so great.
That's a good comparo because those Chrsler cars were designed for the 70s, and haven't changed a bit until the very end of their production run. At least the Chevy Caprice was slightly rounded off and modernized during the 80s before it turned into a jelly bean in 91 or 92.
Now and then I am tempted by the idea of replacing the E55 with an 500E. Sometimes the W210 just seems too new for me. It's really hard to find a good 500E/E500 that a nutty owner doesn't want 30K+ for however.
I wonder if it's an import...no plates. Cheapo price though, indeed, maybe the cheapest I've ever seen, and it looks nice cosmetically.
I'd like one of those in a light-medium grey or maybe a silvery blue. My dark grey E55 is such a pain to keep clean, I don't know if I'll get a dark car again unless it's an amazing deal.
We don't sell cars with plates here, if you're talking about license plates/tags. You either transfer your old plates from your previous car, or get new ones. The plates never stay with the car when it changes ownership.
Oh...is that something new? I wasn't aware of that.
Here the plates stay on a car for 10 years unless the owner moves the plate when they get a new car. Vintage cars with vintage plates or year of manufacture plates are exempt.
I think that it makes a lot of sense for the owner to keep the plates, after all, he bought them.
That way the buyer would be forced to register the car or drive around plate-less.... I guess he could put his old plates on (if he had some), but at least that would identify the car as his, rather than the former owners.
IIRC, in California it could be either way. I know that lots of folks with personalized plates would move them from car to car when they bought new ones.
Of course, this didn't always make sense. At one point, my folks owned a '72 MB 220D and I got them the vanity plates "REAL SLO" for Christmas one year.
Well, they sold the MB and bought a Toyota Celica and transferred the plates ... which turned out to be quite ironic when I got pulled over for speeding by the CHP whilst bringing my aunt home from the airport before my first wedding. The officer actually commented on them when he approached me.
To me it looks as if this car's been trashed and/or heavily used more than it should have been. It doesn't look clean at all, and I think you could find at least 50 things wrong with it if you saw it up close. Qbrozen would concur as well.
He's certainly overstating the condition. But, putting that aside, it doesn't look all that bad. Good color. Interior needs work, without a doubt, but livable as is. No pics of the underside, which is critical on these in the NE.
"grinds when shifting fast" ... well, that's because you shouldn't shift an Alfa fast.
What concerns me most of all is 129K miles in Queens! Talk about a hard life...
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
Yeah this is a car that needs a good set of eyeballs on it before one bids anything. I can understand the deteriorated leather on a convertible, and of course the synchros are shot we all know that---but really HOW SHOT would be good to know---is it a little "hitch" or is it smash-a-roony all the way up and down?
And we have no pictures of the car underneath.
I used to live in Queens---it's like another planet's penal colony.
( or WAS--maybe it got yuppified? Kinda doubt it).
I would think Queen's potholes, slush, vandals and street debris would be like flying through flak on a bombing run.
ON THE PLUS SIDE --- if it were otherwise a decent car, and IF it sold at about opening bid price of $3,500, then there's room here to come out okay on the car, even with new seats and transmission overhaul. (You can install Porsche synchros and fix the problem forever).
Comments
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
(perhaps not coincidentally, I was 16 when it was new) :P
Wish it had better pictures.
Pontiac Bonneville 2 dr - $2750
1) The 2000 Miata I posted earlier (oil sucking engine and weak transmission) and $7 or $8K. I can't imagine the Miata is worth much, and I don't want the headache.
2) The 1995 Porsche 968 with the awful graphics. The car is actually pretty nice inside and out (the graphics peel off) and excellent mechanically. It is the owner's personal car. He wants my 911 and $1,500. He started out at $2,500 and I told him I'd think about it. He called me 30 minutes later with the better offer. I think he needs to call back again with an even better offer. It is pretty much just a newer faster version of my '86 944. I am not sure it is worth $9K more than my old 944, but then again I haven't driven it yet.
3) 2002 Boxster S, gray with black interior. 38K miles. I think he wants my car and a few thousand $. I kind of like this idea, but the wife isn't crazy about me spending more money for a car that my little ones won't fit in.
What sayeth the peanut gallery? At this point I am inclined to keep my 911 and my '86 944.
I had a '90 Sable with those "laced" alloy wheels. Pretty for the era, but they were a real pain to keep clean!
2-I never liked the looks of the 968, with or without the graphics. Your 944 would be my pick, it's not like the 968 is some giant killer.
3-Tough call on the Boxster (which do you really like to drive?), until you bring in the 'wife factor'...you're already pretty lucky to have her 'support' for your Porsche habit...
Speaking of styling changes, look at the difference between a '54 and a '59 Chevy. Or better yet, the difference between a '54 and '57 Plymouth! Such extravagance just isn't possible today.
I wouldn't give more than $3000 for that Miata. And I probably wouldn't buy it for that. A clean 2000 that's turn key is a $6,000 car.
The 968 owner is dreaming big time. He should be giving you money!!
That Boxster, if you could get it for a couple thousand, and if it's clean---well, it's a no-brainer, pardon the expression. :P
In today's NY Times
link">
Boxster guy has not got back with me. I wonder if it is because I asked about the title, paintwork, etc. He is a 10 hour drive from me. That makes me even more nervous. I don't really have much spare time on my hands to meet him halfway and have things not turn out.
968 guy put a lot of money into his getting all the maintenance up to date on the car and he has only had the car for five months. He found a 911 Turbo he wanted to use as his DE car instead. The brakes, timing belt/water pump/front seals, and clutch with a few miscellaneous things thrown in could run $4000 without too much trouble. Of course that doesn't go straight onto the value of the car. Both front fenders have been painted and so has the sunroof (but not the main part of the roof). I am kind of thinking it is about a $10K car. I think I could get him to even trade, but I don't think I would do it even then. I am sick of black cars anyway. This one already has a couple of bird poo/sap residue spots on it. I think all black cars do.
All the trade offers are interesting, but there sure are a lot of time wasters out there. It gets a little discouraging.
Just sell the 911 for cash and it completely opens up your options.
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
It'd be cool to have that car around today, but I was part of the reason it went away. Mom didn't like the idea of riding around in a convertible with a small child, so she and my grandparents swapped cars...the '66 for their '68 Impala 4-door hardtop. They traded the '66 on a new '72 Impala 4-door hardtop. My Mom told me that my Dad liked to drive that convertible around, and was pretty hard on it, so I think it was kinda trashed by '72.
I'm amazed at how slim and trim that '66 Bonneville in the ad looks. Part of it might be that the fender skirts are pulled off. Those Rally 2 wheels also look like they're 15", which probably helps make the car look a bit more trim. I know when I swapped out the 14" for the 15" Rallys on my '67 Catalina, it seemed to change the proportioning, and make the car not look quite so big.
JUST HANG UP!
A close second to Time Waster's Top 5 is the guy who has to sell something before he can buy yours. Goodbye, thanks for calling.
968 -- from your description I don't think even $10K is fair market. $7500 sounds right in this market with that car in that condition.
Boxster S -- deal sounds almost too good to be true---but worth following up (to a point). If it were a clean car with a clean title and low miles and you had to throw a couple thousand + your car, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Even if wifey didn't like it, you could flip it for $2K-$3K profit in 6 months.
But I like the styling because it is pretty clean. Pontiac had their ____ together back then in the styling department. No mistaking that car for anything else.
Today I couldn't tell you the difference between a Chevy, Buick or Pontiac unless I read the trunk lid.
Oh I know, they're good-sized cars. I had a '69 Bonneville 4-door hardtop. It was 225" long, which would make it the biggest car I ever had. I imagine that '66 would be close, though...probably around 223-224".
As monstrous as that thing was, though, I thought it was a really good handler. It was also pretty ugly, compared to that '66 Bonneville, but I thought it was still neat looking, in its own way.
"Are you buying it sight unseen, and would you like it shipped to you? If not then, I strongly encourage you to see it before you offer me anything. "
OR
"I'm not prepared to move on the price until I see a serious buyer with cash in hand here by my car."
OR
Someone already offered me $XXX (say $500-$1000 below asking price), and I am holding out for a better offer. Come and see it and we'll talk.
---------------------------------------------
For every 10 calls expect 1 person to show up and see it in person.
For every 2 show ups expect 1 sale.
Meaning you'll need about 20 calls before you will sell it. At least that's how it works in the car biz.
The Martini 968. Watch out when you peel off the graphics on the black car ity might leave an outline from the stripes. I had lettering on a new demo truck and after only 6 months of use when we peeled off the letters they were still visible outlines under certain angles. It required some heavy duty buffing and waxing.
Good luck
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
Shifty, do you think I should be able to get $12,500 for my '86 or has the market for 911s dropped a lot in the past five months?
Some lines that seem to work are:
-I can talk about the price, but you can't; you haven't seen the car.
-If you want to know what my best price is, you'll have to make me a serious offer.
-I've never yet failed to sell a car.
-I'm going to sell this car, but I will not haggle with myself.
Depending on the buyer, that seems to work pretty well.
Another thing I learned is to weed out the joyriders:
- If you like the car, are you ready to buy?
- If you like the car, how will you be paying?
and take your cue from the answers. "I'll be ready to buy in three months" "I wanted to show my girlfriend what these drive like" and the ubiquitous, always popular, "I just gotta sell my car first." Ugh.
On the plus side, I have about 2 out of 3 people show up for the appointment.
The number of numbskulls is just astounding. And none of this is foolproof. Last summer, I had a guy waste an hour of my Sunday and a couple gallons of gas driving my '85 conversion van around, only to tell me that he didn't think it would haul his, get this, horse trailer.
With a 305 V8, 3sp auto, and a 2.73 rear end, I could have told him that over the phone.
-Mathias
Right off the top of my head, the last redesign that I can think of that was a really radical change was when the Dodge Dynasty/Chrysler New Yorker/Imperial got replaced by the Dodge Intrepid/Chrysler Concorde/Eagle Vision and LHS/New Yorker. Comparing a 1992 Die-Nasty to a 1993 Intrepid is a night-and-day difference.
To be fair though, Chrysler had more modern looking cars out at that time than the Dynasty/New Yorker. Comparing a '93 Intrepid to, say, my old '88 LeBaron coupe, or a 1985 LeBaron GTS/Dodge Lancer, the leap doesn't seem so great.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
Neat lowline 123 wagon
Pretty W116
Crazy 6.9
Barely broken in diesel wagon
These are cool
I'd like to know what this went for
It's all about Supply and Demand after all.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
The problem is that the color is weird. I wouldn't want a weird green on a 500E. You need to get it in black or dark blue if it ever came in that.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
I'd like one of those in a light-medium grey or maybe a silvery blue. My dark grey E55 is such a pain to keep clean, I don't know if I'll get a dark car again unless it's an amazing deal.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
Here the plates stay on a car for 10 years unless the owner moves the plate when they get a new car. Vintage cars with vintage plates or year of manufacture plates are exempt.
I always wondered why dealer lots in the US have cars for sale with plates attached.....
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
But, in England the plates stay on the car, too. I wonder which way is more sensible.
That way the buyer would be forced to register the car or drive around plate-less.... I guess he could put his old plates on (if he had some), but at least that would identify the car as his, rather than the former owners.
Good point about making a new owner get his own registration - car buyers failing to do that causes problems here.
IIRC, in California it could be either way. I know that lots of folks with personalized plates would move them from car to car when they bought new ones.
Of course, this didn't always make sense. At one point, my folks owned a '72 MB 220D and I got them the vanity plates "REAL SLO" for Christmas one year.
Well, they sold the MB and bought a Toyota Celica and transferred the plates ... which turned out to be quite ironic when I got pulled over for speeding by the CHP whilst bringing my aunt home from the airport before my first wedding. The officer actually commented on them when he approached me.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&_trksid=p3907.m263&_trk- parms=algo%3DSI%26its%3DI%26itu%3DUCI%26otn%3D14%26po%3DLVI%26ps%3D54&item=30029- 6194272&category=84154&viewitem=
To me it looks as if this car's been trashed and/or heavily used more than it should have been. It doesn't look clean at all, and I think you could find at least 50 things wrong with it if you saw it up close. Qbrozen would concur as well.
"grinds when shifting fast" ... well, that's because you shouldn't shift an Alfa fast.
What concerns me most of all is 129K miles in Queens! Talk about a hard life...
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
And we have no pictures of the car underneath.
I used to live in Queens---it's like another planet's penal colony.
( or WAS--maybe it got yuppified? Kinda doubt it).
I would think Queen's potholes, slush, vandals and street debris would be like flying through flak on a bombing run.
ON THE PLUS SIDE --- if it were otherwise a decent car, and IF it sold at about opening bid price of $3,500, then there's room here to come out okay on the car, even with new seats and transmission overhaul. (You can install Porsche synchros and fix the problem forever).
If it was local, I'd be tempted to try saving it. But I guess it doesn't make much sense to try shipping a $650 car all the way across the country!
Here's a beauty 1975 model for asking price of $6200, no doubt you could get it for $5K right now, and it doesn't need anything.
http://cars-on-line.com/36225.html