BJ8Healeys
Jedi Warrior
Offline
As the BJ8 Registrar, I was contacted yesterday by someone who doesn't know much about Healeys but is very interested in purchasing one. He found one on eBay that he likes, and at an attractive price. His question was whether I knew anything about the car, which he identified by chassis number as 33223. As it happened, I had a long history recorded for that car going back through 10 owners to early 1969. I also had the details of the car recorded, but they didn't seem to match what the prospective buyer had been told. He was just about ready to send his money to "eBay escrow" when he learned from the photos that he provided to me that the whole thing was a scam. The photos were identical to those included in an eBay ad for 29947 in 2014. The description was almost identical, except for some added words to bait the hook.
The point of this story is that the BJ8 Registry is not just a collection of idle data that might be slightly interesting but that isn't of any actual use to anyone. By having a central database of information about these cars and their histories, good things can happen for the BJ8 community -- from being able to shut down scams and save someone some big money and grief, to returning original driver's handbooks, warranty booklets, and identity plates to the car that they belong to, to answering questions or problems that owners have about their own cars, etc., etc.
I hope that those of you who are BJ8 owners and don't know about the registry, or those who do but don't see the value in providing information about their car to the registry, will appreciate the importance of doing so. The information you provide may not benefit you directly or immediately, but it could add to the database as a resource for the Healey and BJ8 worlds. After all, none of us get to keep them forever. The knowledge and information you provide about your car may pass on with you unless you allow it to be documented.
Thanks for listening, and Happy Healeying!
The point of this story is that the BJ8 Registry is not just a collection of idle data that might be slightly interesting but that isn't of any actual use to anyone. By having a central database of information about these cars and their histories, good things can happen for the BJ8 community -- from being able to shut down scams and save someone some big money and grief, to returning original driver's handbooks, warranty booklets, and identity plates to the car that they belong to, to answering questions or problems that owners have about their own cars, etc., etc.
I hope that those of you who are BJ8 owners and don't know about the registry, or those who do but don't see the value in providing information about their car to the registry, will appreciate the importance of doing so. The information you provide may not benefit you directly or immediately, but it could add to the database as a resource for the Healey and BJ8 worlds. After all, none of us get to keep them forever. The knowledge and information you provide about your car may pass on with you unless you allow it to be documented.
Thanks for listening, and Happy Healeying!