Scooter Guy

Another element to consider: Unless we are talking about something exceedingly rare or valuable (virtually regardless of condition), there is almost no reason to buy a car without a title. I know low prices are attractive and that there can be sentimental attachment, but when you really stop and think about it, there's probably another one out there somewhere that's available without the headache associated with not having a title. It's another angle to the "buy the best you can" motto that is often repeated in old car circles.

That is absolutely at the heart of the matter: it 100% depends on the laws in your state. Some are evidently easy to navigate, while others make it impossible or nearly so. Buyers should also beware that loopholes are closing (i.e. using the lost title companies, running the vehicle through non-title states, etc.). Do your homework before you buy!

As with many things, the results lie almost completely in the prep. If the surface is exceptionally good, the ceramic coating looks nice. If the surface is not so good and is full of defects and needs (broadly defined) "paint correction" then that's what it needs before ceramic coating will do you any good. The ceramic is just the last step. Ceramic coating is currently the hot thing in the detailing world, but I wonder if anyone could really tell a difference between a ceramic coated car and one that is just really clean and well prepped, but perhaps waxed instead. I have personally watched the professional ceramic coating process and assure you there is more going on in the prep phase than the coating phase and I can do all of that myself. I occasionally will wax my car, but honestly my approach is that the less I mess with the paint, the better off I am. In my case it's thin and somewhat fragile original lacquer, so I don't like to be grinding on it very often. Always by hand, never with power tools...to easy to burn through.

I've been down this road several times with scooter parts. You want to talk about a microscopic market? It's non-Cushman and non-Vespa vintage scooter parts. The number of people that are restoring those and care enough to obtain and pay for the correct parts is ridiculously small. I have supplied many original parts, emblems, decals, and documents to a few professional shops that were either going to restore my originals or reproduce them for my projects. In every case I then paid for the reproduction that was created and never felt that I was being wronged. Although I supplied information or patterns, I didn't actually make the reproduction...they did. Of course, you can say that they wouldn't have been able to do that without what I suppied, but I always have considered doing something that like that to be "giving back" or to be "in service to the hobby" and I've always felt good about doing that for nothing. Having other enthusiasts able to buy a reproduction of a part or decal that took me a lifetime to find is a cool thing, I think. That said, in the case of a part that is retailing for all of $35, if it were my business I'd probably have sent you one as a thank you, for free. I agree that the information that was provided sounds like it was worth at least that much.

It's hard to image that anyone is actually combing through real estate listings shopping for a junkyard/salvage yard to buy, let alone in that area and for $400k. Personally I think it's a mistake to list it this way and the seller should have brought in an auction company to sell everything off or a scrapper to haul away or crush the cars. Then you're left with the (project) house and the acreage to sell rather than a property littered with 300 something cars the buyer has to deal with. I don't really see a lot of value in the "business" that is being offered or the inventory. Seems to be more of a liability than anything. As has been pointed out already, any serious buyer should do their due diligence on the potential environmental issues and liability as well. You certainly don't want to find out that your new purchase has turned out to be a mini superfund site that you are on the hook to clean up. For that matter, there could also be code related issues with the buildings and getting them finished out - that's not for me to figure out either, but a serious buyer should look into that as well. I wish the seller all the luck in the world, but I think this is going to be tough sell.

Assuming we're talking about non-face-to-face transactions: For me, if I can't use Paypal with my credit card, I'm probably not going to buy something online that's being sold by an individual. Paypal has good buyer and seller protections (NOT friends & family - suck it up and pay the small fee for the protection of their goods and services division!) and using my credit card through their system provides another layer of protection if anything goes sideways. I have used Venmo a couple time (in much the same way - with credit card) and it's fine, but I've used Paypal for many years and have never had a payment related issue with their system so I go there first. I do think it's important to always use a credit card when using these online payment systems as that provides some added protection against fraud and unauthorized charges. Bank wires are, to me, only for major transactions. I'm not going to setup a wire to an online stranger for run-of-the-mill transactions and certainly not for things found on FB, craigslist, or eBay. Money orders are a pain to get and it's been a long time since a seller insisted on receiving them, but I've done those too. There's buyer protection there by virtue of what the system is, so it's understandable that some sellers would prefer this. I will rarely send a check to someone. I have to REALLY want the item and there has to be no other payment option for me to bother with sending a check in the mail and waiting for it to clear. You can get scammed with ANY payment method. It's just about which method is the easiest for me to use and provides me with the easiest way to get my money back if there are problems. For me that is the double layered protection of paypal (again, not friends/family) used with a credit card.

I agree completely: the brine is the worst! I am in Texas and the winter weather we get usually only amounts to a handful of days that get much below freezing and a handful of days with a dusting of light snow (less than a couple inches total) and a few days dealing with ice storms. There have been a couple of exceptions (2021 especially) where things got unusually bad for a much longer period of time, but for the most part it's a matter of a few cold days here and there. The procedure had always been that the entire area essentially shuts down until it warms up and everything melts away. Since that usually only takes a couple of days, it wasn't really ever a big deal. Then everyone from the local municipalities to the state highway departments discovered brine. They are so trigger happy here with that brine garbage that they'll start spraying the roads here 5-6 days before we might get snow or ice so we get to drive around in it for nearly a week before anything happens. There is so much of it that it's like driving down the road on streets that have been painted white. Eventually it gets so dusty it's like driving through a dust storm. Then we have to wait for a major rain event or two to get is all washed off the roads. The stuff is horrible. I don't even like to drive my modern daily driver in it, let alone any of my old stuff. At least we only get it here in short bursts. I feel bad for those of you that have to deal with this stuff for months on end. I spend a lot of time in the rust belt and upper midwest part of the country and the amount of rust seen on even relatively new vehicles is just unbelievable.

There was a fire at the Henry Ford Museum, but the timeline isn't even close to what you're asking about as it was in August of 1970. Fire at Henry Ford Museum, August 9, 1970 - The Henry Ford Is it possible the vehicle was there at that time and lost in the 1970 fire and the dates just got mixed up?

Corvette got mentioned right off the bat, but I would have said '62 - '63 (last of the first generation going to the beginning of the second generation or "mid-year" cars). There was no mistaking the '63 Corvette for anything else, much less for an older model. Drastically different styling.

Anyone using Apple Airtags for this purpose should research how they operate (how the network fuctions), what they can and cannot do and how notifications and tracking can be disabled. I'm not saying that they are worthless, I'm just saying make sure you understand what they do and don't do so you're not surprised or disappointed with the product if you're going to rely on it.

I have never been called by a previous owner, but have been contacted by the underbidder of a two-wheeler I bought at auction many years ago. Somehow he tracked me down and called me up out of the blue to see if I would consider selling the bike to him. I declined, but we had a good conversation. Turns out we had met each other previously though some other club activities and didn't know we were bidding against each other. I have, on the other hand, contacted the original dealership and family that sold my car when it was new (still operating and still owned by the same family, though a couple generations later). After being passed along to the now long retired original owner's son, the trail went cold I didn't obtain any information from them. I have full documentation and ownership history of the car, which has been in my family for a long time, but I was hoping to find out why it took them almost a year and half to sell the car to the original buyer, especially since it's a Corvette. My most successful inquiry was about 5 years ago when I tracked down the previous owner of one of my two-wheelers. The person that I purchased the machine from owned it only for a short time and was rather tight-lipped about it's history though over the course of a year or so did give me enough clues that I eventually put the pieces together and took a shot in the dark and called up the person I thought he was referring to. I left a message with his wife (who probably initially thought I was crazy) that I wanted to speak with the man and as soon as I said "cycle" she lit up and said "oh! he'll call you back right away!" Sure enough, he called me back and said that he had in fact "found" it and then he spent at least a half-hour filling me in on where it came from and what he knew about it. Well worth cold calling him, I'd say.

My wife is in the museum business as a curator at a well-known museum (non-automotive, but still...) Most well-established museums would not agree to accept an object (i.e. car) with strings attached unless it was one of truly exceptional historical value. They will likely tell you that there are two choices: you do a donation free and clear and relinquish control over the object entirely or you that you loan them the object so that you can retain control over it and get it back. Museums do not exist just to serve as a vault for our personal collections nor do they wish to provide free housing and maintenance. Yes, museums do deaccession items, but having a museum give the object back for free would be highly unusual, and would have some legal implications in some cases, if, for instance, the donor received a tax write off for the initial donation. Museums should also not be thought of as forever homes for our stuff. They can come and go and run into financial challenges, managers can leave and so forth. Just look at what happened with the National Motorcycle Museum in Anamosa, Iowa. They had a huge collection of bikes (hundreds) and memorabilia and the institution seemed rock solid. But behind the scenes it was ultimately mostly the work of one man and his family and although they were established as a non-profit, had a governing board, charged admission, and owned a huge facility, disaster struck. The man that was the driving force got sick and passed away. The family and board continued to operate the museum for a few years after his passing but the challenges became insurmountable, and they closed late this summer and ultimately had a massive auction of all of the holdings of the museum which included bikes and memorabilia that had been donated to them (those that loaned items did get them back). Those that donated items there with the idea that they would be cared for and displayed in perpetuity were surely left disappointed. I agree that once the car leaves your garage, anything can happen. In my opinion the best way to ensure your cars and memorabilia live on is to let your family or friends take what they love and then circulate the rest back into the hobby via auctions or private sales. That can happen before you die or can be spelled out in a will for your estate to deal with. There probably is a museum somewhere that would accept a car donation under the sort of conditions mentioned, but I think that would pretty rare. Anyone that is seriously considering a museum future for their cars really should do their homework to avoid having the situation end in heartbreak.

Do the ozone generators harm interior materials: plastics, metals, rubber bits, leather/fabrics? What about the effect on electronics? I know it's common in the rental car / fleet industry (especially when cleaning up cars that have been smoked in) but those are generally modern cars and those companies are likely not concerned about much beyond getting the smoke smell out of the vehicle. I've never used one, so just wondering about this.

Doesn't the vegetable oil go rancid or get sticky? Coating with wax after polishing makes sense. Have any of you ever used Renaissance Wax after polishing? I've had good luck with it on polished metals. A little goes a long way.

This is, unfortunately, not an uncommon scenario. My observation and opinion is that many restorers and shops are run by folks that really do love cars and may be exceptionally good at working on them but that those same people often have no interest or skills in the business side of the operation. That is, things like scheduling/timelines and project management. Some struggle with communication to their customers, others have issues on the financial side with invoicing and collecting payments. Some just plain bite off more than they can chew and complicated projects languish while the shop decides to fish or cut bait, and some don't even realize that they've done it until they walk in one day there isn't anywhere else to park one more car. What to do about it depends on how badly you want the skills of any particular restorer. It really comes down to tolerating the way they do business or moving on. And I don't mean to minimize moving on either: if you've got a car torn apart in someone's shop, it's much easier said than done to tell someone to cut their losses and move on. There certainly are those unicorn shops out there that don't have issues but they're really few and far between.