Seriously?

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

That car is Holy Grail terrotory though Alan! Wouldn't be surprised if it makes double what it's currently at although i think £50-55k is more realistic.

£46,250. Some folk have a bit more money than sense,

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Othen

£46,250. Some folk have a bit more money than sense,

I wasn't too far off in my estimate then Alan! I should have hung on to my last C210 Skyline........

[Existential Crisis]

Originally Posted by Othen

£34,250 (and still bidding) for a 1987 Corolla:

https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/auct...ae86-gt-Dn7b6g

... people just have too much money!!!!!!!

An iconic car with competition pedigree and at less than people pay for manky mark 1 and 2 escorts. Proper bit of kit. Wish I'd bought a few and shoved them away when they were 1500 quid....many went to Ireland back then, make wonderful tarmac rally cars, competitive even now in their class

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Othen

It will be interesting to see what this one makes, it is a 1979 244 auto, as rough as a badger's arse, but everything has a value:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203527041...gAAOSwJNBg6dsw

... it has a bit of a ropey MoT history (and no test for a couple of years, it no longer needs one, but I don't think it would pass). The mileage is pretty suspect, according to the MoT history it has only done a hundred or so miles per year for the past decade or more, so my guess is the previous owner has been disconnecting the speedometer cable after the Mot test each year (I remember that was quite a common thing to do back in the day).

Everything has a value though - my guess is £1,800 for this one. At that price it could be brought back from the dead and made a nice running project for a grand or so as long as it doesn't need any welding.

:-)

£1,561 - everything has a value :-)

Alan

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Othen

An update: eBay tells me that this one received no bids at the £6,000 starting price - in spite of the seller claiming it was a cheap car!

Whilst ostensibly a nice car, it looks like the rather silly modifications (lowered suspension, bling wheels and lower profile tyres) have seriously detracted from this car's value. It may well also be the case that £6,000 is just too much for a middling 244, even if it is qualified as an historic car.

I think both are true: if the owner had not bothered with the modifications and kept the car as a good original car it would sell much easier; it is true also that the car isn't cheap (as the seller claims) and £4,000 to £4,500 would be a sensible price.

The best course of action for the seller would probably be to return the suspension and wheels to standard, sell those parts (I suppose they might be worth something like £600-£800) and re-advertise the car at a more sensible price in the light of this failed attempt at a sale. I rather suspect that will not happen though: we will probably see this one for some months yet.

In this thread we are always happy to celebrate cars that sell well (like the Bude car that made just over a grand), but most of the time we end up lamenting sales that don't happen because the owners think their cars are worth much more than they really are.

:-(

I thought I’d seen this one previously (we last saw it in April):

http://https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vo...-127635-2958-0

…it will b interesting to see what it makes this time round :-)

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Othen

I thought I’d seen this one previously (we last saw it in April):

http://https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vo...-127635-2958-0

…it will b interesting to see what it makes this time round :-)

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/284400528755

Try that link Alan, the one you gave had some weird financial ads on the end of it!

Anyway, ignoring my first line, can you remind me - did it have those outsize alloy wheels on in April?
Also i see it hasn't been presented for MoT - kind of worrying! Has it developed a serious problem that would prevent it getting an MoT or is the seller just assuming people will take it at face value that it's MoT exempt and therefore perfect?

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/284400528755

Try that link Alan, the one you gave had some weird financial ads on the end of it!

Anyway, ignoring my first line, can you remind me - did it have those outsize alloy wheels on in April?
Also i see it hasn't been presented for MoT - kind of worrying! Has it developed a serious problem that would prevent it getting an MoT or is the seller just assuming people will take it at face value that it's MoT exempt and therefore perfect?

Thank you for sorting out that link Dave, the one I posted does not seem to work at all, so I must have done something wrong in the simple cut and paste procedure.

The wheels: yes, it had those rather silly (in my opinion) big wheels last time, I recognised them straight away.

The car won't need a MoT test, but like you I have a feeling there is something fishy going on. Last time it was for sale at £6,000 (it didn't seem to get any bids at that price, but I wonder if the buyer agreed a price then made the car 'no longer available' and so avoided the eBay charges?). This time the seller just wants to unload it. I suppose it could be the same seller (if it failed to sell in April) trying it again from a different address, it could be the new owner having discovered some sinister secret trying to unload it... or it could be genuine as per the ad.

It will be interesting to see what it makes, it looks a nice enough car but a bit too bling for my taste.

Alan

PS. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Volvo-244...-127635-2958-0

... for some reason that link to the original ad works on my iPad, but not on a PC. Life is far too short to bother working out the reason why. It is certainly the same car though:

[Laird Scooby]

Strange about the link Alan, may be an Apple thing, don't know.

The original location of the car was Norwich as can be seen in your screen shot, it's now in Bewdley which appears to be west of Birmingham.

Perhaps he's realised dropping a V8 into it would erase the premium that being a special edition model gives it and the historical interest in the car and is genuine that he doesn't get time to drive it - that said, if he has no time to drive it now, after all the time taken to convert to V8 would he have time to drive it then? Probably not.

Maybe it's the more sinister aspect and he's not put it in for an MoT because he's found something it would fail on, with a car such as this, despite the fact it's MoT exempt for the sake of £50 for a test, it would give buyers a lot more confidence.

[Othen]

This one will be a good test of my hypothesis regarding the value of nearly historic Volvos:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/403054314...gAAOSwI-thC9rQ

... it looks like a nice 244 and will qualify as an historic vehicle next year. If it was 5 years younger I think it would be worth £2,500 - but if being (nearly) an historic vehicle adds 50% to 100% then it should end up in the £3,750 to £5,000 range.

We'll see on Sunday :-)

Alan

PS. I may be cynical, but it seems more than a bit odd that the seller says he has replaced lots of bits and had the car painted, but has not set up the carburettor, which is an hour's work. I'm slightly wondering whether he/she is hiding something more sinister under the veil of 'the carb just needs a bit of tinkering'.
PPS. There is just one recorded MoT (28 July this year), so the story sounds plausible.
PPPS. In the YouTube video the car looks very nice - and does seem to have been repainted.

[Laird Scooby]

That's right on the borderline of being Historic and not at the moment Alan. Very similar to when you bought the RB, only about a year to wait for Historic status so he didn't really have much choice to put it in for MoT as it doesn't yet qualify for exemption.

That said, i concur with your comments about not setting the carb up. However i have a slightly more jaundiced view of him having paintwork done. That colour (as well as many reds) is what i've always known as a fugitive colour. I strongly suspect he gave it to one of his mates who just happens to do body/paint work and said words to the effect of "Sort the paint cheap for me".
Said mate then mopped it and polished it.

As for the idle, it wouldn't have passed the MoT, even at 3.5%CO if the carb was that far out, it's more likely to be the PCV system needs cleaning, new seal on the oil filler cap (possibly a new cap as well) or that he's too used to more modern engines that idle smoothly without the characteristic off-beat redblock idle.

That said, it could be that lack of use has caused cavitation in the torque converter and this is causing a lumpy idle. Luckily this usually clears with gentle use (before giving it the beans!) to recirculate the fluid throughout the box.

Value-wise, because at first glance it looks clean and tidy and generally in good condition, i suspect it will go to about £4000 +/- £250, i might be wrong but the bidding is already strong (haven't looked for possible shill bidding yet) so time will tell. However as is often said in this thread, it does look familiar, i'm sure we've seen this one before.