Spring is upon us, and quite predictably I have found another car to add to my garage. My primary excuses were:
- I just sold two cars
- My brown Porsche 944 project is finished and ready to go
- This was a good deal on what could be a ready-to-go "driver"
Consequently, my actual daily driver Mazda 3 has taken up residence in the driveway so my four-car garage can now have four classic Porsches in it instead of three. It's out there keeping my truck and 1965 Oldsmobile company.
Yes, I have a car problem — a reasonable one in my opinion, but a problem nonetheless. My daughters have learned to ignore my predilections, albeit with smug glances and rolling eyes. My sons (ages 23 and 15) are somewhat envious of Dad's weird and eclectic collection of "ancient" cars from the 1960s, '70s and '80s.
My oldest son Chris — one of those millennial kids — has recently developed a fondness for cars, driving and unusual bits of automotive history. His favorite cars seem to come from the early 1990s with his primary requirements being pop-up headlights and manual transmissions.
I wasn't aware he had inherited such a large infusion of the collector car genes until last spring. He sent me a cryptic email while I was on a business trip in Korea warning/telling/teasing me about a surprise waiting for me at my house.
When I returned, sitting in my driveway was a 1995 Dodge Stealth twin turbo six-speed manual AWD, resplendent in shiny black paint, aftermarket wheels and tires, a goofy (spelled loud) exhaust system and what appeared to be numerous prior owner modifications (including a manual boost controller). Not a vintage Porsche, but a pretty exotic old (20 years) car by any measure.
Oh dear.
Chris already had a reliable 1992 Stealth as a daily driver, but he explained to me that the TT Stealth was a dream car. Now he had the money to own one, or so he thought.
Clearly, I had slipped up. He was in over his head and didn't know it because I had failed to complete his education. I had shared my enthusiasm, my mechanical knowledge, my tools and my garage, but I had overlooked the lessons on how to make a smart and informed purchase — as opposed to a purely emotional one from a Craigslist ad.
Needless to say, the car was not as road ready as he had hoped. I won't even talk about the cost of insurance.
A pre-purchase inspection (PPI) is not something that necessarily comes to a young enthusiast's mind when buying his first collector car off Craigslist. Buying savvy comes with experience, patience and the school of hard knocks, so be prepared when someone close to you exhibits the obvious signs he/she is about to take the plunge into classic car ownership.
You know what I mean — endless YouTube views on "certain" sites, tuner magazines hidden under the bed, unusual questions like "Hey Dad, how much rust is too much rust?" and "How much do you know about XXX car from 1993?" Those are some of the sure signs it's time for an intervention. Help them avoid ending up in a financial and emotional ditch.
Some of my simple rules:
- Research, research, research. Knowledge can save you from disaster and disappointment.
- If you want a project car, buy a project car. If you want a driver, be patient until one becomes available.
- Your daily driver should not be your collector/project car and vice versa. This implies owning two cars.
- Have the cash in hand, and then some for all of the extra things you'll need to make the car safe, reliable and roadworthy. Don't be like me and finance your first Formula Ford race car using a line of credit.
- Patience, patience, patience. The right car will eventually become available
As far as additional costs beyond the purchase price, I'll give you a typical example with my latest addition. I just purchased a nice 1973 914 from a local seller who had only owned the car for a short time before deciding to sell it. It has some minor bubble rust here and there, but it is a complete unmolested car, runs well, original, with a nice interior and EMPI eight-spoke wheels. I also specifically asked about the original steel wheels, and the seller said they were part of deal.
The seller agreed to hold the car for a week as I preferred to trailer the car home instead of driving it — $60 for the trailer, $35 for gas and a day off work to bring the car home. Additional costs were already adding up, including the vacation/wage hours needed to bring the car home.
So as Adam (younger son) and I looked at the car and put together our work list, one of his obvious questions was "It runs great, so why can't we take it out for a ride now?" Thus begins the education of another budding enthusiast.
- The brake lights illuminate constantly when you turn the key on.
- The horn and wipers aren't working even though everything else does.
- The tires are the stock size but have no obvious date codes.
- The side walls of all four tires are cracking along the bead next to the rims.
- The rear tires have no clearance to the inner fender lip, and the right rear sidewall has obvious signs of rubbing on the inner edge of the fender lip.
- The brake pedal seems a little sticky.
- What appears to be a minor oil leak from the engine onto the exhaust is making an awesome cloud of mosquito-fighting smoke when the car first warms up. The seller attributed this to leaky push rod tubes, but I need to confirm that for my own piece of mind (and potentially wallet).
The tire issues alone were reason enough to trailer the car home for repairs before its maiden voyage. Explain to your young enthusiast why that is, and add another $250 to $350 to the purchase price for new factory-size tires. While you're at it, explain why you wanted those heavy, clunky factory steel wheels — because the racy shiny aluminum EMPIs have the wrong offset, and that's why the rear tires are dangerously close to the rear fender lips.
Never dismiss an obvious issue unless knowledge and/or experience tells you it's an easy fix (ask for the original wheels). Then fix it, and move on to the next issue. You just saved yourself the $200-500 you would have spent for a set of nice used factory steel wheels with the correct offset. Selling the EMPIs may even pay for a portion of those new tires.
The brake lights also proved to be an easy fix as the switch lever was hanging up on the pedal — no money added to the budget to fix that one. Unfortunately, the pedal assembly was just plain worn out with sloppy bushings and a tired/broken return spring, which is probably why the switch lever kept hanging up in the first place.
Unless you are like me, and just happen to have a freshly rebuilt pedal assembly sitting on your workbench, add another $350 to the purchase price or spend a weekend rebuilding the existing pedal assembly while cursing the invention of the roll pin and the number of masonry drill bits it took to finally get this one out.
Toss in a few more dollars while you're at it for some relays to fix the wipers and horns, a little more to buy a multimeter to troubleshoot the relay problem if you don't already own one, some time and money for a brake fluid flush and refill since you don't know when that was done last, a bit more cash to fix the oil leak, etc., etc.
Suddenly, my expenses just jumped an additional 20 percent over the purchase price, and my first collector car purchase isn't even safe to drive yet.
So you get the idea, a bargain is not a bargain unless you know when it's not. Why not share your experience and show someone else the ropes — especially one of those young millennials who supposedly doesn't like old cars. They may even teach you a thing or two about their favorite collector car.
