OK, guys, I'm going after this one, at least half-heartedly. It's being sold by our favorite dealer, Gateway Classic Cars, and it is way overpriced at $10,500. They've provided lots of photos, and I've noticed some issues. It appears that there is a large, shallow dent just ahead of the right front wheel. There's some kind of discoloration along the upper part of the left rear fender, as though a somewhat lengthy scratch had been rather poorly painted over. There's also some kind of weird chrome peeling off of the lower part of the front bumper on the driver's side. If you scroll through the photos, you can find these and probably other issues. Overall, the paint is old and tired. The rear fender extensions, which are often missing on these cars, look pretty good, but they're a slightly different shade of white versus the body around them. I'm guessing that this is just a difference in fading between paint on plastic and paint on metal over the decades. Again, this points to the likelihood that that's the original paint job and that the car could use a repainting I sent them questions about these and other things, and we'll see if they answer. The car is in Dallas, which is not the end-of-the-world far from me, but I wouldn't pay anywhere near $10K for it, and I think they'll be sitting on it a long time if they stick to that price. I think the car is worth something in the range of $4,000 to $5,000. For $10K, the car should not need much of anything. It certainly should not have dents or rusty bumpers, and all options should work. I asked about that as well. I noticed that the power antenna is not all the way down. That's not uncommon on these cars when they get this old, either. I asked if the antenna goes up at all or if it is stuck where it is. The car does have things going for it. Mileage is apparently only 58,000. The interior looks very good. I don't see any real rust on it except for the aforementioned bumper. Assuming their answers are at least semi-satisfactory, I'm willing to throw an offer of maybe $4500 on it. I'm guessing they'll laugh that off, and that will be the end of it. I'll update this thread as things develop, if they do. https://www.ebay.com/itm/164450044535
Oh, feel free to pile on! I have not yet gotten answers to my questions. Regarding the front bumper, yes it does look a bit droopy, but they all look like that to some extent. Below is a comparison to my car. The angles of the photos are not identical as the angle towards the white car is higher because you can see more of the windshield. So we're seeing the bumper from a slightly higher angle, which will tend to make it look more droopy than if the photo were taken from a lower angle. Despite this difference, my car's front bumper definitely does look a little higher than the one on this car, but the overall appearance is not that much different. From the side, the white car does look worse. Something else to think about. I really would like to see this car in person. If it stays up for sale at all, which I will take to mean that he's not getting any interest at his $10K asking price, I may just take a drive over there and look at it in person.
You know, by putting the two photos together like I did above, I just noticed that the for-sale car might be a '77, but it has a '78 Toro grille! I didn't ask them about that, but that makes me wonder why it has that grille. Was the car in an accident? I'm starting to lose interest in this car. Too much weird about it. The grille on a '77 has a horizontal slot look, not vertical. Here's a '77 with the correct grille.
Front bumper was the first thing I noticed. Looks like an elephant sat on it. The engine bay looks relatively clean. The front driver's seat looks a little lumpy.
Looks to me like the front bumper got impacted on the end (coincides with the rest of the collision damage there...). The top surface of the chrome bumper appears to have a 'crown' to it on the right side, as if the impact distorted it. I've seen this type of damage before. If you can find an 'old school' bumper rechromer, they can fix that and rechrome it.
This car didn't ever sell, so what did they do? RAISE the price, of course! Was $10,500. It's now $11,000. This car has numerous problems, and I briefly corresponded with someone at the dealership about it. In addition to the incorrect grill, it has body damage on the right front fender and a poor repair job on the left rear fender. The dealer told me that they're selling the car on consignment from the owner, and apparently the owner controls the asking price Good luck to them. The car is worth at most $4000 to $5000. https://www.ebay.com/itm/164620718241?ul_noapp=true
Sometimes the seller simply is not listening when the market is speaking. This seems to be one of those times. This is a highly obscure special model that only those of us in a very specific age-range would even remember or possibly care about in 2021. Not to mention it also comes from a now defunct make.
I would think that the dealer would have something to say. It's a waste of their time to try to sell an overpriced car. Plus they probably spend some money advertising it. If I'm them, I tell the seller what I think the price should be, and if he doesn't agree, tell him to find someone else to sell it. I can see giving the seller some leeway in setting the price as long as it's not ridiculous. But his asking price is well more than the car's value in the marketplace. Who knows.
Yeah but Jaunty the dealer knows/thinks about how many Jaunty’s are there in the world? Is Joe and Jane Sixpack gonna know a ‘77 from a ‘78 grill? We would, but I think they count on catching the guy who has to have this kinda car. The new owner will find out later, and they probably tell the seller they’ll try to get his price. It’s an ugly world.
Yes, but the number of people in the universe who have to have this kind of car can be counted on the fingers of one hand of a bad explosives expert. If they're waiting for that person to come along, they could have a very long wait.
The price of this car has come down a bit. Now $9000. Still about double what the car is worth, but at least it's heading in the right direction. https://www.ebay.com/itm/164639414786?ul_noapp=true
