For your viewing pleasure.

[Machiner 55]

Seen on Milwaukee CraigsList.

[harry yarnell]

Um, nice wheels....

[KDirk]

Why do people keep modifying Reattas like this and THEN try to sell it? Hell, this car probably has $3000 in it for rims and low profile tires alone. The paint job probably another $2+k and that is if they got a good deal. All this for a car that is, much as I hate to say it, a complete loser from an investment standpoint. My point is simply that most people have "conventional" taste in cars WRT appearance. So, stupidly large rims and strange paint jobs/colors serve to severely curtail the number of potentially interested buyers of a car that has been modified thusly. Then there is the undeniable fact that the Reatta is not a hot seller by any measure even in good stock condition. The market at present, and for the past few years at least, has borne this out with painful clarity.

So, if you own a Reatta and wish to modify it, hey go ahead, it is your property and your business. But if you drop $5-7000 (or more) dollars in paint, wheels, fuzzy dice and a pole dancer bobble head for the dash pad so that it suits your [very unique, to put it charitably] taste, why then turn around and try to sell it? You are going to get killed on that deal, because all the money you dropped on mods that appeal to you, and maybe .05% of the car buying public, is never going to be recovered in the sale, especially on a car with the bar set as low as it is for the Reatta.

Don't get me wrong, I love these cars, but I have to be honest - from a fiscal standpoint - they are a terrible investment. In terms of enjoyment and pride of owning and maintaining something special, they are hard to beat - but you can't put that in your wallet.

Mods like those done to this car are best suited for one that the person who commissioned the changes plans on keeping until it is destined for the crusher. Doing a car up like this with the intent to resell is one of the stupidest possible moves (financially speaking) one could possibly make. This car will either not sell, or - at least - will never get a price that recovers even half of what was spent to put it in it's current state.

If one looks at it strictly from that logical viewpoint, it is a total loser of a proposition to modify and then sell it. Sure, sometimes a car gets modded and then the owner suddenly has a need to divest themselves of it because they are short on money, or no longer have a place to store it. But these types of heavily customized Reattae have shown up too frequently over the last 3 or 4 years to all be explained away by that type of circumstance. It almost seems like there are people who think there is a market for heavily customized Reattae. Here's a news flash: there is barley a market for ones that aren't so unusual.

I should probably point out that I have an obscene (by my own standards) amount of money tied up in my cars, though most of the expenditure was on the the 91 Reatta as it got a full repaint, a lot of interior restoration work and a ton of mechanical parts replaced in the first 2 years of my ownership as I wanted it to be "like new". Also has a fair number of NOS parts I scrounged up on it. I know there is a snowball's chance of my ever seeing more than 1/4 of the total investment back out in what I could get in reselling it. That is why I never plan to sell it.

KDirk

[Machiner 55]

Kevin,

I think that if you lived in urban Milwaukee, you'd feel differently.

Seriously though, It'll be interesting to see if it sells and for how much. He's asking $4700.00

It's got a "flipping paint job."

John F.

Edited February 10, 2013 by Machiner 55
Added "flipping" (see edit history)

[Guest Mc_Reatta]

Remember KDirk, back in PT Barnum's day there was one born minute.

Birth rates are way up since then. Do the math.

All of us Reatta lovers are certainly suspect, we just don't stand out quite that obviously.

PS I'd sooner have the one with the V-8 in it.

[KDirk]

Heh, If P.T. were around today, his maxim on suckers would be need to be revised to one born every 1/16th of a nanosecond. And to the asking price of $4700? Well, that just made the whole point of my previous post. No way on earth the current owner did all that to this car, plus whatever it cost to purchase in the first place, for less than $4700. How much more was spent on the interior, audio gear and suspension mods to accommodate those wheels? So, he dropped some serious coin to trick this car out and now tries to sell it at a huge loss? Do come on now, he is probably flushing at least 6 large down the toilet IF it sells at the asking price. That's gotta hurt.

It might sell for $4700, or somewhat close to it, assuming the urban location provides a pool of buyers who really like this look, and that is not beyond the realm of possibility. Yet, I still maintain the current owner should wear a wet suit when he signs over the title to the next owner, as he surely is going to get hosed on this deal.

Nuts.

KDirk

[handmedownreatta]

those wheels wouldn't look good on anything.

[Guest Corvanti]

the "donk" is a popular car look in the small "urban" area here - and the punk suburban wannabes.

from the "Urban Dictionary":

[TABLE]

<tbody>[TR]

[TD=class: word]donk [/TD]

[TD=class: tools]-

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD][/TD]

[TD=class: text, colspan: 2] Any POS late 80's or early 90's American heap (preferably an Impala) that has large enough wheels installed until it resembles (and rides and handles like) a Conestoga wagon. This is done so it sits up high enough so as to be at the same eye level as the Playas with real juice ridin in their Escalades. Adding in a bad candy paint job and Wal-Mart sub box completes the transformation.

With no money left over for necessary suspension and brake upgrades, the lifespan is limited to a few drug runs or the first Police chase, whichever occurs first.

"That donk is fly and ridin high."

[/TD]

[/TR]

</tbody>[/TABLE]

[KDirk]

Donk - definition two [from the 1st edition of the American Dirkish Dictionary, edited and published by KDirk]

The sound made by suspension and steering components bottoming out under a car equipped with 22" rims when hitting pot holes, speed bumps, expansion joints, small furry mammals, roach clips and bottle caps off a 40 oz. that have been discarded in the roadway. Often accompanied by the sound of unintelligible booming and buzzing at a resonant frequency of approximately 25 Hz from trunk mounted subwoofers, as the pinch welds in the body are broken by excessive vibration. This may also result in spontaneous implosion of tempered glass windows on the vehicle.

Additionally, the above is frequently followed on by the sound of the motorized lift mechanism of a tow truck dispatched to clear the road of such a disabled vehicle.

I just had to do that.

KDirk

[Guest Mc_Reatta]

Definition 3: Lower posterior section of the female anatomy.

Immortalized in the Trace Adkins song, "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk"

[Machiner 55]

All,

In addition to "flipping paint job." it's gotta "new engine".

All for the low, low price of... Dang-it... I forget.

John F.

[Guest Corvanti]

i used to like "camo" paint - when it 1st came out around 20 years ago - i saw it on a new Trans-Am...