Mad French Cars

This car is all my friend Tom has bubbled on about since we got back from Le Mans earlier in the month. Before I took Tom to this year's Le Mans Classic, he wasn't much of a car fan. He was just coming along for the ride, doing something a bit different, enjoying a break. When we left the Le Mans Classic, he had a new love in his life. (His previous love was beer, by all accounts, so this probably isn't a bad swap.)

The Panhard CD. Tom is now, officially, a petrol-head.

True to form, he had to pick a real odd one. This crazy, 850cc, two-stroke French saloon was actually entered in the Le Mans GT class, back in the '60s. It never had a prayer, of course, much as it looked rather silly in the glorious re-enactment, but nevertheless, it's a pretty special piece of engineering. It had all manor of technical innovations, unique at the time and not seen again for another decade, before becoming common-place in modern racing.

Sadly, so few CDs were made that the few remaining in good condition are worth a king's ransome. Since Tom is not a king, he'll be left gazing wistfully from a distance at the object of his desire. There is, however, some good news for Tom. Panhard also made a model called the Panhard 24, which is positively cheap in comparison. You can pick up a lovely 24 for just a few thousand quid, which is an absolute bargain for a truly unique car, especially here in the UK.

I love French engineering of that period. In fact, it was Clarkson who once bemoaned the way French car companies have ceased to make "big, mad cars", mostly in reference to the myriad of big Citroens launched in the '60s, '70s and '80s (some of which are still favourites of mine). It's nice to see Citroen weren't acting alone. Panhard were also doing plenty in the "big, mad" stakes.

If you're interested, here is the UK club (there may be others):

http://www.panhardclub.co.uk/

Ps - we stayed in this bed and breakfast, about a 45 minute drive from Le Mans, and it was simply stunning - highly recommended: http://www.manoirdesforges.fr/

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Electrocuted!

The lull in posts happened because I took a two month stay at the U of U hospital, with six surgeries and many painful days! I was electrocuted and got a nice set of brain injuries, as well as some other extra hard stuff. But I still like old cars, of course, and I will get to work on 'em possibly later this year.

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A Different Angle On eBay Sales

I have been Following Greg's efforts to sell his car on eBay, and wonder how one venue like eBay, can produce such different results, to a wild degree of ridiculousness.
One the one hand there is Gregs Lotus - a well loved, quite well kept usable car that one would think would sell reasonably well for various reasons - and on the other hand - there are cars like this car, Then and Now,
The 1954 Mercury XM800

This was a concept car

This 1954 Mercury Monterey XM800 was first unveiled at the 1954 Detroit Auto Show. The car was built for Ford by Creative Industries of Detroit, Michigan and was designed by the Mercury pre-production studio with John Najjar serving as the studio manager. Elwood Engle worked on the project as well, serving as a consultant assigned by George Walker's design firm.

The XM800 traveled the auto show circuit through 1954 it made a brief appearance in the 1954 20th Century Parade of Progress before fading from the spotlight.

Benson Ford promoted the idea of creating the car as a second Mercuy car line which would compete with Buick, Pontiac, and Oldsmobile.

Although the car was never put into production, it did take part in a Fox twentieth Century Film, and was made famous buy having its model put into Grape Post Nuts Cereal boxes.

The engine is supposed to be in excellent condition, and has only ever driven for 5 miles.
43 bids after it was posted on eBay, the bidding closed with the amazing amount of $125,350!!

So, my conclusion is that in order to make good sales on eBay, you need a lot of patients or a little stardust!

This is a guest post by Leslie, who's own blog is at Antique Cars Club

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Introductions

We have a new author on the Classic Cars Blog (AKA The Money Pit). Leslie is a blogger from the USA with a keen passion for classic and vintage cars and she has very kindly offered to write a few posts for this blog too. I look forward to reading her posts, as I'm sure you do as well!

Leslie's own blog can be found here: Antique Cars Club.

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Hard Sell

I have to tell you, I hate trading cars privately. It is a necessary evil, since forecourt dealerships are such a rip-off in this country, but it's not a pleasant business. It is a world full of sharks.

Everyone thinks it is acceptable to haggle the price of a car and you end up in a Catch 22 situation. You put your car up for several hundred pounds more that you actually want, to account for the inevitable, and no one comes to look. So you put it on at a fair price for the car and everyone still tries to knock £1,000 off of the asking price, even though they know it is fair.

Even eBay seems to be mostly populated by time-wasters and tyre kickers. I shan't try to sell a car of any value on eBay again. I think the problem is the classics market isn't really there. Your car ends up "watched" by four dozen dreaming teenagers and a couple of bargain hunters, none of whom can actually afford/are prepared to pay the reserve price of the car. At one point I was fielding daily offers of £6,000 cash for the Lotus. Eventually I stopped replying to these jokers.

Now, I'm no fool and I have done my research. I have valued my car fairly and I know my valuation is based on my own, extensive market research prior to deciding to list my car. When forecourt dealers are asking over £10,000 for a decent car, my £8,500 (or near offer) price is perfectly reasonable. That said, this sort of haggling nonsense continually undermines your confidence in your asking price and makes one of even the strongest resolve start to question if he or she is asking for too much money.

Fortunately I have sat tight and I finally got an email from a lovely chap called Dave the other day, which I will quote:

[Re: Your Car and Classic Ad: Lotus Elan +2S 130/5]

Greg, we have looked at some total dogs this last week.

There was one that looked like the interior had been done by the Scouts adventure group and the paintwork was put on with a lot of cans. We found another JPS that some Philistine had painted gold very amateurishly, and the interior was a bag of rags.

We are looking for a car that we can get in and drive, that will start, won't misfire that has the servo on the brakes still and that doesn't look as if it was last used at a storage for a big dog . From what I have seen, and have found your car on a number of sites, it is in good order and used and that is what we are after.

So do keep in touch, don't sell it for less than you have it up for and as soon as I get the chance we will drive down and see it for ourselves.

Isn't that nice? Just when my confidence was waivering Dave reminded me what I already knew but had almost forgotten. All the Plus 2 cars out there for £5-7,000 are dog rough. All these jokers offering me £6,000 for mine haven't a prayer of finding a car half as clean for the same money - they are simply taking a chance and hoping I'm desperate.

I guess the moral is if you've done your homework and you know your price is fair, hang tight. Selling luxury items is hard. They are expensive and exclusive so by definition the market is small and extremely sensitive to economic conditions. It also often takes a long time to shift luxury goods. Our local classics garage has not rotated any stock for months now. So, confidence restored, I am still hanging in for on and around my asking price and to hell with anyone who offers me a grossly reduced cash settlement.


For reference, the best avenues I have found are a couple of specialist classic car sales sites (this one and this one) who offer free advertisements and a free London-based noticeboard called Gumtree. In combination these websites are now spawning a couple of enquiries a week and finally I have a couple of "viewings" when I get back from Italy.

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At The Auction

Well, in spite of my pessimistic post about the British summer (which isn't exactly stunning, but not as bad as it could be) I have actually spent most of the last week driving the Lotus to work. This is an absolute pleasure, which makes it even more painful to see the poor girl listed on eBay.

I have really mixed feelings. In a funny sort of a way, even though I've been trying to sell her for ages, I don't really want to see her go. On the other hand, I know I won't find the time to use her and it will be the usual story come winter of sitting too long, seizing up and expensive repair bill in May.

I wonder if anyone will actually bid?? Last time I put a car on eBay I got nothing but a bunch of time-wasters. We shall see.

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Wasn't Summer Nice?

That's all folks. Here in England we had two weeks of beautiful sunshine in May. That was summer. And you know what? The Lotus was out of action throughout, on the ramp in Barry Ely's workshop. *sigh*

I just got her back with another punishing bill for leaving her standing for half of the winter. When will I learn? The story goes like this:

Some time in late January (I think) was the last time the Lotus actually started unassisted. The starter motor was sluggish but just when I was about to give up she fired and ran. We went for a spin and all was well, so I put her away again. When I next came to the garage, probably about two weeks later, the starter motor was so reluctant it was never going to turn the engine over quick enough to start a cold Lotus.

Clearly (or at least partly) a bad earth, but it being winter, me being in a cold garage, miles from the house with no tools and no power all stacked up to mean I wasn't going to fix it there! So I went away and about six weeks later I tried to get the car going with my father. However, by this stage the bad earth was even worse and to compound it, the battery was half dead too, refusing to hold any sensible charge. Even hooked up to a Volvo 940 via some hefty jump leads there was no starting her.

And so there she stayed, again. Until May came around, another six weeks or so later, and I decided to call Barry and have him come and fetch the car on a trailer. The result?

Clutch seized so solid he thought he might have to take the engine out to get at it. Seized brake calipers. Blocked accelerator jets in the carbs. Twelve hours of labour at £45/hour, simply because I'd let her stand too long. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

The moral of the story is if something breaks, especially something which prevents you from starting the car, don't leave it until spring! Repair it as soon as it happens. The longer a car like this sits unused, the bigger the bill will be when someone eventually comes to sort it out.

I know this, but a mix of laziness and fear of what might be wrong caused me to ignore it and hope it would go away. It did not.


On the plus side, I have the car back, so in the unlikely event the British summer gets a second wind, I'll have a lot of fun.

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Wash Out

April has been remarkably April-like, in spite of dire warnings of climate change, locust plagues, desertification, &c. It has "showered" regularly and constantly all month here in Blighty. So the fact Barry can't come out and fix the Lotus until 17th May is no big drama. I think I'll get the Fiat out later though. It could do with a run and there appears to be a short gap in the ever-present cloud cover!

Onwards. For those who don't know, my daughter was born on 13th April - as a result I have had little time for classic motoring, per se. Rather, with the Lotus out of action, a screaming baby at home and the weather resembling an Indian monsoon (causing a small leak in our bedroom window, via some blocked guttering) I have been reduced to planning my next purchase.

Now, I know I said last time I was definitely, 100%, beyond all doubt getting an MG-F. However my better half pointed out there are no rear seats. "And?" I enquired. It wasn't dignified with a response.

Prior to that you may remember I was set on a mid-1980s Porsche 911, preferably a Targa. That was until I met a chap who told me they are more expensive to run than a high-class "escort" (not the car). "I've got a 1985 911," he wept. "Front wings alone cost more than a new engine in your Lotus." And while he was standing there bemoaning his lot, a thick cloud of oil smoke engulfed us. This is the 911 way of declaring a serious coolant leak requiring a phone call to the AA and another £3,000 repair bill. So that was the end of that idea.

Lotus Sevens? Very tempting. I even toyed with TVR for a little while, until my partner pointed out there are no rear seats in those either. Rats.

Then I came to Jaguars. Now, having a father who's a Jag nut does rather put one off. Not because I have any sort of animosity or teenage angst remaining towards my father. Just simply that it conjures an image of, well, his generation, not mine. He has a rather nice V12 Convertible XJ-S, as regular readers will know, so I started looking around for any Jag other than an XJ-S, naturally.

Since my girlfriend has already vetoed any Jag prior to 1970 (too grandad-like, apparently) my choices were limited, so I was very interested to discover the Jaguar XK-8 is now in my price range for an early model. Here we have a good looking, 4-seater (nearly), comfortable, fast, sports tourer. For £8,000. Bargain! And, to cap it all off, it was love at first sight for herself.

Then I started reading up and discovered the reason: luxury cars always bottom out in the price department after 10 years or so, as worries about electricals and catalysers and the like creep in, but the early XK-8 particularly because it had rather serious engine issues caused by the sulphur content in British petrol at the time. You can buy a 1996 XK-8 for £8,000, but here's the kicker. You have no way of really knowing it you still have an £8,000 engine replacement bill ahead of you. It's Russian Roulette with your wallet.

*sigh*

Back to square one. It was about this time when my father piped up "you should look at a late XJ-S..." Well he would say that. But he had some compelling arguments:

It's every bit the fast, comfortable, sports tourer the XK-8 is - in fact, it's widely recognised as a better handler than the XK-8 coupé, courtesy of the saloon body shape. The late "facelift" models are very well resolved cars, with Jaguar having had nearly 25 years to iron out all the issues. They can go on a classic policy, even though the last ones are only 12 years old. And because they have always been the poor cousin to the E-Type and the later XK-8, they're cheap as chips.

Because I am likely to be doing a lot of driving in Europe, I'm sorely tempted to get a "left hooker", as they say - a left hand drive model. More problems. Search the European market for an XJ-S and they're rarer than hen's teeth. A 20-year-old standard V12 coupé in decent condition will cost you £10,000, which is just madness. About five times over the odds by British right hand drive prices, and it doesn't get any better with Cabrios and Convertibles. So someone like me, looking for a LHD Convertible in Europe, had better have deep pockets. I don't.

On the verge of giving up, I remembered another neat thing about the XJ-S. They sold it by the bucket-load in America. Our friends across the pond loved it. Comfortable, smooth, quick, stylish and not so cumbersome in American "parking lots", which are better designed for a car of those dimensions. (Try parking an XJ-S in a British multi-storey car park - if you get it right first time, I'll cut you a cheque for £1,000 on the spot - that's how confident I am you won't!)

Right now the American economy is in the dumpster. Granted, ours isn't exactly rosey, but with $2 to every £1 and luxury goods off nearly every American's shopping list, I can purchase a nice 4.0, 6-cylinder, LHD, Convertible XJ-S off a dealer's forecourt in the US for about £6,000. I can ship it to Europe for about £2,000 and bingo! I have a nice, 4.0 "facelift" Convertible, LHD XJ-S for £8,000. And the best part is, if I want to sell it I can ask for £25,000 and some rich collector in Monte Carlo won't even blink.

I'll let you know how I get on, but as of the last couple of weeks it seems I may yet end up with the same car as my father. Oh the shame! But I can live with it. They are nice.

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Headlight Stands

Besides other things, I made some headlight stands out of scraps. I tried the lights at every height and depth possible, coming up with this. Pretty low but so is the chopped grill. This height looks as good as it gets for this car.

Those "other things" include making a spring spacer to raise the frame 5/8" up and to put the spring on a 6-degree tilt so it matches the front axle. I made the spacer out of scrap and beveled it on the disc sander. It is rather crude, but it's strong and does the job out of sight. The only problem now is the axle can still top out on the frame under bumpy conditions. I can't raise the car higher or it will look stupid, so I may have to notch the frame above the axle as it is currently notched for the spring. You can see the spring notch in the picture below, as well as the headlight mount.




Plus, I finally waxed the convertible. And I took a picture. And I like the picture. So I posted the picture..!

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Test Drive

I slapped the car back together for a test drive. Boy was that fun! The car rode absolutely terrible-I felt every pebble. Also, I don't think the trans is shifting into third! Crap...but it was still a blast to drive this thing around the block.

In other news, I got my State-issued VIN number last week. WooHoo!

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