Furthest you have travelled and not purchased?

[Semi-C]

I naively bought a one way train ticket from Elmswell to Seaham to purchase a mk3 Cortina estate. (Shocker!)

Based on the strength of some honest* photos and two lengthy phone conversations, I adopted the WCPGW stance and set off.

Upon arrival at the vendors residence I was greeted by a nail of a shed of a hound of a Cortina.

 

"S'only been welded once" said they

 

"And that was badly, in a continuous run around the whole car I guess?" said I

 

Somewhere in the distance, a church bell rang....

 

Vendor returned me to the station but not before exacting a little revenge on this "timewaster".

Twas a proper cold day and I had underdressed wholesale. The kindly* seller had gifted ma a XXXL, Arsene Wenger style, sleeping bag of a coat. My distinctly XS frame was most grateful of this as I stood waiting for my train back to Peterboghorror (too late to return to Elmswell by this point).

Train arrives and I board it, stopping only to apply some Sudocrem to my now baggy balloon knot following the royal shafting I received whilst purchasing my ticket.

As I winced, I did spy a quartet of rather fierce looking, NUFC shirt sporting fellas sitting opposite me in the carriage. I was getting thoroughly eyed down for no apparent reason....until I glanced down at the coat I was wearing.

Sunderland AFC eh....Oooh Fuck.

One squeaky walk to the toilet, one casual discarding of the coat and one sensible relocating later, I felt like I may survive this ordeal.

 

And then I got stuck at Darlington station for 2.5 hours due to a suicide.

[2MB]

2x470 mile round trips to Paisley to view and collect a Nissan. Never come back empty handed so far, it must be awful

[Jazoli]

But we've all had the "on my way now mate" brigade who never turn up

He knew I was on the way as I'd rang him before setting off to confirm 'och aye mate nae bother' and had got his bank details the day before to set up a bank transfer for when I arrived, he was a prick

[Split_Pin]

I drove from Falkirk to Northampton to buy an Astra Coupe Turbo in September 2009. The seller had sent me loads of pictures, it looked mint and had only 40k on it.

 

I hired a Nissan Note and my then girlfriend (now my wife!) and I drove all the way, stopping in Chester overnight at an awful Holiday Inn filled with pissed up tarts going to the races.

 

The intention was to buy the car for the agreed price of £5230 , drop off the note at the local Avis and drive the new car home and then sell my existing 1.8 Coupe.

 

Got down there and the car did look nice however it belched white smoke on startup, had no boost, the radiator fan was cutting in and out at 5 second intervals from cold and it had a massive oil leak. The seller was adamant that nothing was wrong with the car despite "not being an engines man".

 

When I walked away he seemed polite but then as soon as I was around the corner he started texting me saying that I had wasted his time.

 

A few weeks later someone that was a member of an Astra Forum that I used bought the car and almost immediately posted io asking for help as the Turbo had died.

 

I still have my original Astra!

[Matt]

There is nothing worth buying in Workington or Whitehaven, it's mostly populated by thick inbred retards who can't even write, some of the local fb car selling pages are just unbelievable when it comes to that part of Cumbria.

 

Duly-noted. To be fair the BX chap was decent enough. I made an offer but he was firm on his price which I wasn't quite prepared to meet. The woman I met was the seller of the Micras son so she basically just let me get on with it. I'd still really like a BX but it'd have to be a diesel.

[fred]

Did a 300 mile round trip to  Cardiff to buy a Vauxhall FD only to find out the twat had sold it on the morning and never bothered to call me - Cock womble

[Junkman]

However: on two of our US road trips I've come across cars for sale that I really did like, and might have bought if I had more money available.  Does across the Atlantic count if the purpose of the trip wasn't actually to buy cars?

 

I lost count how many times I crossed the Atlantic to buy a car, and either returned empty handed, or with a completely different car.

It would be an unfair braggage anyway, I imported thousands of cars from the US in my life, because dealer for many years.

This holds true simple counting, I sold about 400 new Corvettes annually in Germany during the late 80s.

 

In the spirit of this thread, however, one trip comes to mind, and it wasn't for a car for me. Actually, it wasn't even for a complete car, now that I think of it.

My late and dearly missed friend Roland was a true European Hot Rod movement pioneer, if being a founding member of the EHRA counts in your opinion.

 

We were both living in Eastern Belgium during the Nineties. One day, he told me about a Bentley R-Type body for sale in the Altes Land, an area of

reclaimed marshland straddling parts of Lower Saxony and Hamburg, a 500km one way trip from where we lived. He wanted to have a peekaboo to see if

said body could be used for a Hot Rod project.

 

Now, everyone who knows me, probably is aware, that I suffer from an acute case of redneckophobia (them country bumpkins also all look the same to me),

and the Altes Land is about as country bumpkin, as you can possibly get in Germany. You can thus imagine, that I was a tad reluctant to go there to begin with.

However, friend is friend and jada jada, so off we went with my venerable '78 Caprice.

My plan was to enter that twilight zone without stopping (and hopefully not breaking down), and after the deed is done, get our arses out of there without any

further ado, because any such thing would have inevitably resulted in us being captured by the indigenous, who would inevitably have captured us and spit roasted

us in front of a beer tent during one of their traditional rituals.

 

Sadly, Roland had Austrian genes courtesy of his father, and I don't think that I have to explain, that we Austrians are dependent on coffee and cake at least

once a day, to merely survive. Unfortunately, Roland's daily coffee and cake craving set in just after we had entered the bushland.

The conversation was similar to this:

 

R: I need coffee and cake.

JM: You gotta be fucking joking.

R: No, seriously, can't you just pull in at the next Gasthaus and we'll have some coffee and cake?

JM: It's only your fault that we are in this godforsaken bog, and I'm not stopping for no bloody coffee and cake, because I love life.

      Them's landeggs out there are just waiting for us to stop, and they have this typical expression on their faces, like "what will happen if we grab those strangers'   

      wallets, before we throw them into the swamps for them to be found by archeologists in thousands of years hence".

R: Come on, this Gasthaus over there looks really inviting.

 

I carefully parked the Caprice arse end to the wall to facilitate easy getaway if things get messy.

We went into the place, and it was this typical situation some of you may have encountered in other thoroughly scary places, like Lincolnshire, or similar.

You walk in, and there are those bumpkins engaged in conversation, lots of noise in the place, etc etc.

Then they notice that you appeared and one by one, the eyes are turned on you, while at the same time, the noise level goes down, like someone turned down

the volume regulator of a radio.

We stood there, everything turned quiet, and all eyes were on us.

After a minute or so of silence, Roland said:

 

"Does anyone here speak my language?"

 

I had no idea a '78 Caprice can make such long black stripes.

 

Needless to say, that once we got sight of the Bentley R body, we drove back home.

[BavarianRetro]

Glasgow to Portsmouth or Southampton - can't remember which - in a V8 3 speed auto Range Rover pulling 900kg of trailer to view an E30 M3 described as "excellent condition. BMW Car Club owner". It'd have been weighed in if it was a 316i and the BMW Car Club owner very nearly was. I honestly thought, "Good sign. He's bought a spares car." Then I realised that was the one I was there to see.

 

Broke my purchasing rule and bought an E24 in Birmingham on the way back up to minimise the loss/hassle.

 

Years later saw a 635 CSi Motorsport advertised in Cumbria. Sounded good. Rust free low miles. Low owners. Not that far away. Got the VIN and discovered from the colour that it wasn't a Motorsport, but it's only an option list edition anyway, if it's still a good car, it's still a good car.

 

Confirmed with the owner/seller that it had 12 months MoT and no visible rust anywhere. Specifically asked about usual places, inner wings etc. Wings have apparently been replaced with new at a cost of £2000 only months before.

 

Firstly, who decided that Maryport is in the same fucking county as Carlisle? Bloody hours away.

 

Anyway. Get there and there's holes in both inner wings that I can genuinely get my fist through. How anyone could fit new wings and leave the inners is utterly beyond me.

 

Another wasted trip.

[sloth]

hull to bristol to buy a vauxhal tigra mtv, in that yellow. listed as noisy alt but ran ok, no damage, the cunt had had a end to end shunt, the boot was silver inside and th front wings red. the fucker wouldnt run and had no alt belt..... she insisted it was out of fuel, then wasted 50 mins getting a can of juice. no go. 

 

drove home and bought a e36 bmw 328ise touring manual. best car ive had. 

[John F]

MattLikesCars, on 25 Oct 2015 - 11:29 PM, said:

The woman I met was the seller of the Micras son...

 

[Taff]

From down here in Essex (SS4) to Darrington (WF8) in West Yorkshire to buy a Rover 2600 VDP (SD1)

 

Major disappointment, and no paperwork or S/History as mentioned. 

 

Promptly left, with the seller looking quite gobsmacked because he thought the sale was nailed on because I travelled so far. About a 420 mile round trip...

 

In a similar vein, I drove from Exeter to Dartford on a friday to collect a two- door Mk2 Cortina. Only to discover on arrival that, despite me asking the vendor specifically if it was a two-door, it actually had four doors. His comment along the lines of "yeah, but it's a good, solid body mate" just made me even crosser. The day ended with his slamming the door in my face and me shouting "c**t" through his letterbox until I got bored.

I've seen him at events since and I never miss the opportunity to point out to others that he is a timewasting bullshitter.

[dieselnutjob]

I went to Paris once to look at two different 504 coupes.

 

One looked lovely but the paint was blistering in the boot floor and I couldn't really afford it.

 

The other was tatty and the diff exploded on a dual carriageway somewhere in Paris.

 

Basically I chickened out.

[Matt]

 

Like Jazoli said. 

 

mostly populated by thick inbred retards who can't even write,

It's fucked up down there.

[brickwall]

Birmingham fro Glasgow to buy an Astra GTE. Turns out it wasn't a GTE.

 

Got home about 11pm and 50 notes lighter...total waste of time and breath and money. Fucking wanker -I can still see his face.