What's the most unusual circumstances you've bought a car in?

[HMC]

Sixcylinder's thread on excuses made me think about how I justify to myself and others buying another money pit. It also made be realise how I seem to have trained myself commando-like to be forever on the lookout for a car; and that often in odd circumstances I find an opportunity to set up a chod purchase. Im preaching to the converted here I know.

 

Mine is fairly tame. Off the top of my head I once broke down in an old 2cv, and coasted into a layby. Waiting for a friend to bring me a replacement coil ( I had already used my " spare" coil) I went to the local shop, browsed the ads in the window and ended up buying a ropey Rover 216 VDP EFI, as you do. I'm sure there are more tenuous and frankly odd circumstances that have lead you to make a chod purchase, so lets hear them.

[cms206]

Delivered an Optare Solo to Southampton. Checked train prices back to Glasgow. Messaged Gary to see if he still had his MOT-less 740 estate for sale. Did deal. Drove back via Cholmondeley Castle.

 

Car was about £138 quid cheaper than the train.

[dollywobbler]

My most desperate purchase was the Rover 416. I'd sold the Maestro van, and agreed to deliver it to Birmingham International. Before collection time, I'd headed off to buy a Rover 600. Only it was shit. And didn't actually have the MOT it was advertised with. And had a flat battery. And the bloke selling it was wearing sunglasses indoors. This was a problem, as if I couldn't find another car, I would have to catch the train home. How dreary.

 

I'd been watching the Rover 416 on Ebay and it hadn't sold. While sitting in the Maestro van waiting for it to be picked up, I managed to get hold of the bloke (via Facebook I think) selling it and arrange to go and view it. It was no crock of shit, so I handed over my money and drove home. WINNAH.

 

It did have the Check Engine light on, but I fixed that quite easily.

 

Was only a duff lambda sensor.

[doobietoo]

At one point in my life i was living in Devon and was working on a contract in London i was driving a triumph acclaim at the time on the 303 on the way up one Monday i broke down terminally bloke stopped and towed me to a lay by he said he only stopped because of the car and mentioned that he had a similar car for sale at home money exchanged hands and i was on my way only an hour late too

[Bucketeer]

Mine would probably be last year's Golf purchase.

 

I was camping in some woods in the centre of France and a dog walker's dog sniffed out my tent, shortly followed by the owner. We got chatting and he invited me back to his house for dinner. We got very drunk on Pastis and I stayed the night. In the morning I discovered that I'd bought a car from him during the previous night's reverie.

 

It made a nice but short-lived change from walking everywhere.

[holbeck]

 My mini was stolen overnight from the drive of my parents house, I spent the next days enforced holiday from work buying a Talbot Alpine. ('twas the 80's mind).

[forddeliveryboy]

Having travelled down into the Home Counties to pick up an old Mercedes bought on the bay, it turned out to be an antiques dealer's car and the description was less than accurate - it was badly neglected, needing loads of work and I didn't want it. So the best part of a lovely summer's day wasted and 10 gallons of fuel because of a greedy seller. He'd even pestered me almost every day between buying it on the Sunday evening and collection the following Saturday, "the second highest bidder is trying to bite my arm off mate, he's up North too and sez he can come down any evening".

 

Thinking on my feet for once, I suggested he ring the other potential buyer -  I asked what he'd give for it given the condition if I brought it back up the A1. The antiques trader begrudgingly dropped his price to what it was worth, I arranged to meet the buyer on the way home and I covered my fuel with a top up for the beer fund too. 

[Junkman]

It clearly must have been when I bought a '60 Imperial in Beirut and then drove it home through the Yugoslavian civil war.

[purplebargeken]

I don't actually know what to say about that. You is one mad bugger though, but in a good way

[Pillock]

Because a Mk2 Golf Driver was cheaper than train tickets to a party in Brighton.

[danthecapriman]

It clearly must have been when I bought a '60 Imperial in Beirut and then drove it home through the Yugoslavian civil war.

Wtf? Please elaborate, this sounds interesting.

 

 

Mine, one of my dad's colleagues, a chief in the Chilean navy over here on bussiness had a Volvo V40. I got talking to him and said I'd give it a service and a few mot repairs for him cheap.

He brought the V40 over to my place for the work and his wife had a lovely gold Volvo 740. I loved it, and offered to buy it (the car, not his wife!) there and then when they returned home to Chile. A week or so later he rang me and said it was mine if I wanted it. Turned out to be one of the best cars I've ever had and I still regret selling it now.

[Bobthebeard]

Was on holiday in Malaysia, wanted eddyramrods Mercury and Mrs Beard was asleep.....

Ooh... Internet banking.

Yummy

[xtriple]

Bought an original Skyline 240K GT with one of the lads wages once. I was coming out of the bank having just collected them and was offered this car and bought it on the spot. Don't suppose that counts though does it?

 

I've done loads of the 'bought a car to get home' jobbies and bought a car at auction just so it wasn't a wasted trip, bought a Mini once 'cos I wanted the wheels to go on another Mini! Swapped them over and sold the one I'd just bought for a fat profit!

 

Thinking about it, bought a 7 series BMW for the same reason (wheels) and an XJ6 for its interior. Both of those were transfers of parts and the one just bought, sold on.

 

Bought a Mini 1275 GT (Clubman) from a mate 'cos he wanted to borrow cash and I didn't trust him that much. Turned out to be right as the Mini had THE BENTEST MOT of eveh!

 

Bought a Transit van to park in a friends drive as I had nowhere to live (skint AND homeless that time!) and did live in it for a week or so. Coldest most miserable experience of my life!

[John F]

I had to get myself and three crates of beer from Southern Germany to Kent, via a party in Brussels.

 

Problem duly solved with a 1979 Audi 80 with 6 months' TÃœV bought from the local free paper for £20

[The Moog]

Delivered Scooters BX to kinrossshire and needed a beast to get me home. 

 

Gumtree to find cars in walking distance. V40 in red was 5 minutes away.  Turned up and it had been used as a tip. Guy wanted top dollar for it. I offered him half and he said no. I said fair enough and walked off. He chased me up the street and said if I took the rubbish to the tip I can have it for that price. Bargainous 

 

Also bought Eagle Limo for 1 euro to drive back across europe in after scrapping the mk4 escrot which had only two gears . 

[Mr A Lawrence]

Mine, needed a car to get from the north west to Leeds to "sort something out" but couldn't hire a car because of licence problems.

 

Saw some old shitty Renault thing in the local free ads for £200.

 

Arranged with the gut to go look at it and he turned up in a montego 1.6hl estate which was better than the Renault thing and a deal was struck.

 

£85 with 2 months mot and tax.

 

Used it for a few days then put it outside work with a sign for £150, sold within an hour!!

 

 

Mates tale,

 

one of my mates went to the TT races years ago with 5 other bikers and, due to the exorbitant ferry prices for 6 bikes they chipped in and bought an old transit taxed & tested for a month or so for £150 and loaded the bikes into it, paid one ferry price and unloaded the bikes when they got to Douglas harbour car park.

 

Two weeks later they loaded back up and caught the ferry to Holyhead, once there they unloaded the bikes, left the transit with the keys and logbook on the car park and rode home on their bikes!!

[chaseracer]

one of my mates went to the TT races years ago with 5 other bikers and, due to the exorbitant ferry prices for 6 bikes they chipped in and bought an old transit taxed & tested for a month or so for £150 and loaded the bikes into it, paid one ferry price and unloaded the bikes when they got to Douglas harbour car park.

 

Two weeks later they loaded back up and caught the ferry to Holyhead, once there they unloaded the bikes, left the transit with the keys and logbook on the car park and rode home on their bikes!!

 

Now that's clever thinking!

 

[Junkman]

 

It clearly must have been when I bought a '60 Imperial in Beirut and then drove it home through the Yugoslavian civil war.

Wtf? Please elaborate, this sounds interesting.

 

I'm a bit surprised there are still people not yet tired of that story.

 

In 1992 I had an assignment to install a test laboratory in a cement factory at Baabda, just outside Beirut, a six week project. I had sent my equipment ahead and once it arrived, I boarded one of those aeroplanes, like fools do, and got to work.

I stayed at the Hotel Dieu in the city centre and commuted to the site by bus every day. The route was passing a dealership for classic cars, mainly yanks. Of course it didn't escape me, that one of them was a '60 Imperial in LeBaron flavour. So one day I got off the bus and went there. A deal was struck, money wired, insurance documents faxed, new tyres fitted, oils, fanbelts and radiator hoses changed, etc.

After I was finished with the cement lab, I loaded up my belongings and set off. So I drove that short stint through a peaceful Syria, then Turkey, then Greece. All went well until I drove into Yugoslavia just at the time them Krawats decided to be no longer friends. Which would probably have been half as bad for someone whose surname wasn't Croatian, like so many Austrian surnames are. So I had to repeatedly convince some chetniks not to shoot me on the spot, which became a tad tiresome after a while. However, this all pales in comparison to the welcome* I received from the Austrian border control, when I showed up there with my Austrian passport, Belgian driving licence, in a '60 Imperial with Lebanese reg, fully loaded up with equipment and bits for installing a cement testing laboratory, which admittedly look a bit like they are intended for non-peaceful contraptions to those not in the know. Common sense (at least what Austrian border control officials consider common sense, which I could fill a book with) returned, after I explained that if this was indeed weaponry, I'd bring it into Yugoland, not out of it. So even they, thick as bricks, buckled under this metric ton of logic.

The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful. The Germans didn't give a shit one way or the other and the Belgians weren't even there. I must stress, however, that the Imperial didn't put as much as a foot wrong on this 2,500 mile trip. And why should it, actually?

 

This is the car in 2003, a few years after I had to sell off my Imperial collection because my life had imploded:

 

 

Its first owner was allegedly the Lebanese prime minister, but I don't know which one, because they had four in 1960.

[fordperv]

When I was 16 a lad I knew well who was 19 wanted to borrow my PlayStation as his had broken and he wanted to complete metal gear solid, i joked asking what's in it for me, he chucked me the keys to his taxed and m.o.td y reg metro 1275 and said it's yours mate, filled in the logbook and it got taken to mine. I sold it 2 days later and the guy who bought it crashed and demolished a wall with it the same day.

[twosmoke300]

Once bought a mazda 323 off the man from edf who came in to read the meter at the workshop .

[Junkman]

Now that I think of it, even more circumstantially unusual was the purchase of an Iso Grifo in 1986. I had just rear ended it with my Bimmer 2k Tilux WBoD (in July, when else?) courtesy of wet tram lines, when I made the owner an offer to buy it on the spot. A deal was made, then I had it fixed and sent the invoice to my insurance, as you would. They refused to pay, because of not being liable for damage I do to my car with my car. So I took them to court and they lost the case!

[Timewaster]

I woke up hungover one Saturday morning to discover that according to my texts, I had bought an unseen metro.

[danthecapriman]

I'm a bit surprised there are still people not yet tired of that story.

 

In 1992 I had an assignment to install a test laboratory in a cement factory at Baabda, just outside Beirut, a six week project. I had sent my equipment ahead and once it arrived, I boarded one of those aeroplanes, like fools do, and got to work.

I stayed at the Hotel Dieu in the city centre and commuted to the site by bus every day. The route was passing a dealership for classic cars, mainly yanks. Of course it didn't escape me, that one of them was a '60 Imperial in LeBaron flavour. So one day I got off the bus and went there. A deal was struck, money wired, insurance documents faxed, new tyres fitted, oils, fanbelts and radiator hoses changed, etc.

After I was finished with the cement lab, I loaded up my belongings and set off. So I drove that short stint through a peaceful Syria, then Turkey, then Greece. All went well until I drove into Yugoslavia just at the time them Krawats decided to be no longer friends. Which would probably have been half as bad for someone whose surname wasn't Croatian, like so many Austrian surnames are. So I had to repeatedly convince some chetniks not to shoot me on the spot, which became a tad tiresome after a while. However, this all pales in comparison to the welcome* I received from the Austrian border control, when I showed up there with my Austrian passport, Belgian driving licence, in a '60 Imperial with Lebanese reg, fully loaded up with equipment and bits for installing a cement testing laboratory, which admittedly look a bit like they are intended for non-peaceful contraptions to those not in the know. Common sense (at least what Austrian border control officials consider common sense, which I could fill a book with) returned, after I explained that if this was indeed weaponry, I'd bring it into Yugoland, not out of it. So even they, thick as bricks, buckled under this metric ton of logic.

The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful. The Germans didn't give a shit one way or the other and the Belgians weren't even there. I must stress, however, that the Imperial didn't put as much as a foot wrong on this 2,500 mile trip. And why should it, actually?

 

This is the car in 2003, a few years after I had to sell off my Imperial collection because my life had imploded:

 

 

Its first owner was allegedly the Lebanese prime minister, but I don't know which one, because they had four in 1960.

Brilliant, just brilliant!

That car is worth every bit of danger and grief that epic trip involved though. It's a beauty.

Imagine trying to do it nowadays though!

 

I wouldn't of thought such a thing as classic car dealers would exist somewhere like Beirut, didn't think they were really into stuff like that in that sort of place?

[andrew e]

2008ish, went out on the piss and ended up in the Coal hole, (the Strand no less),http://www.nicholsonspubs.co.uk/restaurants/london/thecoalholestrandlondon

 

Anyway whilst ordering a round of drinks and some cashews, shook hands on £400 of legal SD1:

 

 

Did a couple of thousand miles in it, got to Welsh Wales and back, ended selling it to Torsten for £200! If you own it I hope this is still in the history file:

 

[purplebargeken]

Ah, that's the one you upset the Ferrari owner with! Excellent

[Junkman]

I wouldn't of thought such a thing as classic car dealers would exist somewhere like Beirut, didn't think they were really into stuff like that in that sort of place?

 

There are as many normal people in Beirut as anywhere else. In fact, no matter where you go, there are a few normal people.

When I had this travelling occupation with relatively long assignments at a time, the local car scenes were usually my only way of having something similar to a socialisation.

[catsinthewelder]

I went into a scrapyard to buy an engine mount for my friends Uno and came out with a complete running Fiat Panda for £30. Unfortunately the engine mounts weren't interchangeable.

[purplebargeken]

In the early 90's Mrs PBK, a very young Ben and I went to the local Harvester (Green Dragon IIRC) for Sunday lunch. In the carpark was a lonely and forlorn Toyota Corolla in that pale metallic green. It was tidy inside and an auto. It belonged to one of the chefs there and I bought it for 50 quid on the spot. It needed a sill welding for the MOT but it ran well and lasted a couple of years

[xtriple]

Went to the scrappys  to buy a towbar for my XJ6 and came out with a black Rover 2600 with the roof cut off and all the doors welded shut. It was taxed and mot's and had a towbar so partial success. Ran that with a speedboat (and trailer) on the back for an entire summer, half a winter and then sold it for more than I paid for it.

 

Happy days.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

1982, I am 19 living in Milton Keynes. 6 pm I get a phone call to say my Dad has had a heart attack in Great Yarmouth, so me and brother jump in my Executive and head East, somewhere near Cambridge the B/w 35 does what they do best- fucks up, not for the 1st time the RAC tow it home.

As we were geniuses we decide to ' borrow ' a Cavalier hire car from the body shop my brother was an apprentice at, and drive 200 miles West to pick up my Dads Renault 16 from his house in Wales come back ,drop the Cavalier off at bro's work then carry on to Gt Yarmouth.

The Cavalier was caned senseless to Wales ,the 16 picked up and tried to keep up with a 17 year old in a technically stolen brand new Cavalier, we got back as far as Brackley when it gave up - red lights on dash , engine stopped then wouldn't turn over- game over.

By now it's about 5.00 am, so brother took Cavalier back to work and I waited in Brackley town centre for the RAC, again.

I'm sitting in the Renault when there's a knock on the window, an amazingly fit blonde American ,that lived in a flat above a shop, was asking if I was OK! Result!

She invited me in for a coffee, I nearly fell up the stairs ,I was so eager. In the light of the kitchen, I realised she was massively pregnant , she was also obviously in the army from pictures and uniforms etc scattered around.

Anyway coffee was consumed , she told me her life story. U.S. army, lesbian, accidental pregnancy etc. I listened then ended up in bed,.

08.00 there's a noise downstairs," Shit,it's my girlfriend. Hide in the bathroom , say you've come to buy the car"

I got dressed in the bog ,went into the kitchen and this scary GI Jane type in camouflage with a shaved head was glaring at me.

She wondered why I was there so early, but got the logbook out for me to fill in. At this stage I had no idea what the car was or where I was going to find any money. When she said ' so , you'll pay the HP and take care of the paperwork ' I just nodded- terrified. I signed all the paperwork ,they gave me the keys and I left.

When I got outside I realised I was the owner* of a 1979 Fiesta 1.3 GL.

The RAC turned up took the 16 home then me and brother drove the Fiesta to Gt Yarmouth, arriving at lunchtime.

Later that night I went back to Brackley , knocked on the door, to make sure she really wanted me to keep the Fiesta- no answer.

A few days later I took it into a dealer who checked the finance situation, settled it and gave me £150 cash- proper result!

The Old Man recovered, the 16 was just a low tension lead dropped off and earth cable broken.