• Hi Guest!
    If you appreciate British Car Forum and our 25 years of supporting British car enthusiasts with technical and anicdotal information, collected from our thousands of great members, please support us with a low-cost subscription. You can become a supporting member for less than the dues of most car clubs.

    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Another Ebay trouble child?

Oregon and Washington are relatively strict. HOWEVER, although they'll inspect the car to confirm the VIN tag, most of those officers will not know various models and dates... so I'll bet as long as there is a body tag on the car, it will be easy to license almost anywhere (again, presuming it currently is registered).
 
The main thing I would worry about would be that the BE was a stolen vehicle. He states right in the ad that the title was lost for the BE by the "previous owner". Now he has switched the VIN plate from a different vehicle. Could be hiding something. I still can't believe that he is getting so much action.
 
Spriteman65 said:
The main thing I would worry about would be that the BE was a stolen vehicle. He states right in the ad that the title was lost for the BE by the "previous owner". Now he has switched the VIN plate from a different vehicle. Could be hiding something. I still can't believe that he is getting so much action.

Good point. There's nothing like provenance in the purchase of anything of value (wine, art, cars).
 
Morris said:
In Texas... if you show up with a piece of paper they will register your car. No one has ever asked to inspect any car I have registered. Back in the day, unless you bought a car from a dealer, it was your word as a gentleman as to how much you paid as well. No you have to feel out a little piece of paper. I guess some people feel worse about lying on paper than they do in speech. If you get pulled over, the police only want to see if you have a registration sticker in the window. I have never been asked to show proof of registration.... and I have been pulled over plenty.

1. the car manufacturer is Austin Healey not MG. are you saying in Texas you could take the vin# off of a 1970 firebird and put it on a 1967 Camaro?
This seller is a scammer looking for a chump. Other than the motor, disc brake and wire wheel axles. what does is 70s midget?
 
Boink said:
Oregon and Washington are relatively strict. HOWEVER, although they'll inspect the car to confirm the VIN tag, most of those officers will not know various models and dates... so I'll bet as long as there is a body tag on the car, it will be easy to license almost anywhere (again, presuming it currently is registered).

Yes officer I was going a little fast...what's that officer, yes sir that says Austin Healey on the car. Yes officer I know registration says MG..................
 
It just went for $15,504.
 
LOL good money!!
 
mightymidget said:
amazing ........and a well restored correctly title bugeye would bring less

My thoughts exactly... I've seen much nicer Bugeyes, even concours level cars that would not bring this much.
 
sooo...does that mean the faithful who have a concours car have to basterize it to get top dollar when they offer it on E-bay?...Well auctions tend to be a more emotional buy than otherwise... I speak from experience... Don't do it much anymore for that reason alone...
 
Having been in advertising, EVERY buy is mostly emotional..soooo are these bidding titans buying a Judson with a badge on the trunk? I want to conduct a post buyers interview..
 
Winning bidder has zero feedback. I'd say that means there's a 99% chance the car will be re-listed and we'll see it all over again.
 
"Previous Owner had lost the title, engine, gearbox, suspension, and just about everything else"

"prefer not to answer questions through eBay's "ask the seller" function."

This thing reeks of Stolen-Car that was fixed up in an attempt to disguise it.
I suspect the "buyer" was just the seller trying to keep himself out of jail.
I don't care how lax the authorities are in Texas or any other state. It's still a federal offense to switch vin numbers.
 
Just so you guys know, I was the guy who was bidding on the car only to lose to a guy with zero eBay history. I thought the Judson might be interesting to play around with and I wanted a car to drive while restoring another. I started bidding around $13K and went to more than $15K. I then decided that I wasn't interested and suspected that the winner would never pay anyway. The next day the seller contacted me because he also thought he'd never collect. Oddly enough the seller reported that the buyer paid the deposit about an hour later.

I wasn't bothered by the title issue because I live in Texas and the people at the DMV aren't very sharp. I've got lots of spare titles too, including BE's, so it wasn't going to be a problem for me.

As a consolation prize, I bought a different BE today from an old friend. It's rust-free project car with a fiberglass bonnet, a factory hard top and lots of nice parts. I plan to restore it along with another BE shell. One car will definitely have a Sebring fiberglass nose and I think the other will have a square-bodied steel nose (like the prototype MK 1.5 car).

Cheers!
 
Welcome to the asylum.
 
Thanks for the welcome, Jim.

I'm new to this asylum but not new to LBC's. I've been wasting my time on rusty British cars since 1990. My only currently running LBC is a '62 Midget racer that cannot be street-driven. A few years ago I divested myself of my MGB, MGB GT and MGC and a few other projects to concentrate on side curtain Sprites and Midgets (and old Vespas). I hosted British Car Day in Dallas from 1999-2003 and I'm active with the Texas MG Register. I ran my Midget with Corinthian Vintage Auto Racing from 2002-2007.

I've been spending too much time working and traveling, so I decided it was time to get back into Spridgets. As of today, I have two nice BE tubs to build into street cars.
 
Back
Top