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Oh my goodness gracious

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And, what's with the whole big story of the previous owner, and no explanation of why the car is being sold?!? Are they flipping it for a profit? Odd, certainly.

-D
 
I suspect it's a rather ordinary case of someone with a really nice car, figuring it's worth a lot more than most are willing to pay. And, then, he probably came close to getting it. $27K could look like a good buy to someone wanting a ready-made show car; easily you could put that much into a restoration.

This also brings up an interesting question (to me, at least): how do you guys feel about the long, personal story? Being a shameless rationalist, I consider it just something that gets in the way of the hard info about the car. But other people might find it attractive--maybe gives it some provenance? So, how does it affect you?

Believe me, if it makes my Bugeye worth $27K, I'll whip up a real doozy!
 
If you look at the bids, it didn't go to 27,700, somebody put a bid of 30k on there. "The seller ended the listing early and cancelled all bids."

Obviously something fishy is going on here, the bidder names are not listed, but it's still obvious by putting the bids in order. Each time what looks like a legitimate bid is put in and the auction stays stagnant for some time a (east coast from the times) bidder comes up and puts some feeler bids to push it higher. Then, right after the 30k bid, the auction gets cancelled. Why do that when you're getting much higher than the barret jackson prices?

There are a bunch of non-original parts...no way you could show this car as concourse, as nice as the restoration is. Finally, haven't we seen this car in pictures around before?

Ben
 
Amazing how many Sprites are subject to a "frame off" restoration. Must be tricky to cut the upper body off and re-weld it to look like stock...
When I sell a car I simply state whether it has a full service history or not. If it is a restored classic, it would ideally come with a photographic record of the restoration.
This listing just didn't seem right, although if he did get rid of it to close on $30k then fair play to him.
There's been a couple of warnings over here in the mags about ebay: scammers are lifting pics of classics from other sites (in the case I read about it was a classic car hire company) and listing them with a low reserve. The listing states that a 20% deposit is to be paid electronically within 24hrs of winning the item, and once the deposit is paid the seller vanishes. So keep your eyes open for familiar cars!
 
and now we get to watch round two....I'm with the rest of you but it's tough to tell what type of scam this one is...creative...usually a seasoned ebayer can spot the
phonies in a second...since this jus pics of an aftermarket
rebuild I suspect the Seller is going through steps to inflate the bidding price....but he probably ended sellingit back to himself..therefore the cancel
 
I thought from the get go that this "sale" was bogus. The guy goes on and on as to why he just had to have it and offers up this heart string tugging testimonal about that. Now he wants to sell it??? He didn't offer any compelling reason for doing so after the big to do about the emotional bond, blah, blah.
Someone else has mentioned he may have been the sole bidder all along as the "bidders" identity were hidden the whole time. He could have various reasons from just trying to set an inflated value on the car for insurance purposes (theft scam) to an outright scam. Who knows, but to get up to 27K and that doesn't meet the reserve??? BS.
Roy /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/devilgrin.gif /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/cheers.gif
 
I originally posted this ebay listing when it first showed up to see what would happen, and my suspicions were well founded /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/confused.gif !! Someone early-on called this as pretty suspect and I had to agree /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/bow.gif ...all those little clues, the write-up /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/nopity.gif , "frame-off resto" /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/lol.gif etc. etc, with the OBVIOUS non-concours modifications evident in the photos!!! This will be a vehicle to watch for in the future (and maybe warn the unwary about!?). /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif
This car was certainly no match to the Team Sprite effort which went for a very good price, and in a LEGITIMATE auction!!! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/thumbsup.gif
 
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