Schaefft's (transatlantic) Bargain Barge Extravaganza - Double the Trouble!

[Schaefft]

So the car is arriving around midnight now. This will be quite the late night reveal I guess... Great guesses so far though!

[Jim Bell]

It's not a c4 Corvette from Southport is it?!

[Schaefft]

6 minutes ago, Jim Bell said:

It's not a c4 Corvette from Southport is it?!

No, but some people might say that the later model years have the heart of a Corvette. This one doesn't though.

[Jim Bell]

Well it's not a V6 or a straight six. It's definitely a V8, because well, I've met you. 

A GM v8 with a flip down fuel filler behind the rear plate. And it's Yellow. 

If I'm reading the clues correctly, it can only be one thing. 

 

Awesome!

[hairnet]

has TEH MAN used it as a company vehicle

 

[High Jetter]

Is it called Sally?

[Dyslexic Viking]

Chevrolet Caprice?

[Surface Rust]

9 minutes ago, Dyslexic Viking said:

Chevrolet Caprice?

This was my first thought, as a yellow cab, but I thought the number plate recess looked too wide. 

The suspense is high.

[GMcD]

😎 Very nice! 

 

 

[D.E]

10 minutes ago, Surface Rust said:

but I thought the number plate recess looked too wide. 

The EU spec Impalas and Caprices had a wider recess to fit European sized plates😉

[Jim Bell]

Honk honk. 

Take me to to the train station pls

[Schaefft]

Back home, and I think its time for the reveal!

People have guessed the car fairly quickly! It is indeed a Chevy Caprice, a 1991 Caprice Classic in very rare Euro spec to be exact, hence the wide reg plate cutout in the back!

The '91 Caprice probably is the car that influenced my taste for cars the most when I was little, you could still see them in pretty much every movie ever back then (much like the Crown Vic up until somewhat recently) and it definitely left an impression on my 8 year old self. It was my favorite car for a very very long time and its amazing that it took so long for me to find the right one (I've sat and ridden in a few B/D-bodies before and test-drove a very tired '91 a few years ago).

As you can tell the car was made to look like a NYC taxi (its Maple Red underneath the wrap) riding on what look to be 2-piece Cragars painted black. The story behind it is quite an interesting one: The guy I bought it from is a Dutch marketing director living in London. He originally bought the car for Jet2's UK to NYC flights marketing campaign for which the car toured all major cities throught the UK in August 2017. The car had (and actually mostly still has!) a karaoke system installed, people would sing pop songs and compete for plane tickets to New York. You can still find most videos by googling for #Jet2cabaoke on FB.

https://fb.watch/b7zHkOqnwQ/

After they were done with it the previous owner continued to use it as rolling billboard for his wife's health and beauty business down in London, that's also when it was spotted on here years ago. The livery is still from that.

It's mostly sat in his drive over the last few years though, Covid probably didn't help. He was probably too busy to really give it the attention it needs. It was listed as Chevy Aveo on FB Marketplace, I actually had to contact him through LinkedIn as he didnt leave a number, neither could he log into FB anymore. It took a few weeks of back and forth before I was confident enough that this car would be worth my time and money.

Andy just had it in for a pre-MOT check and it actually is in pretty decent condition, despite being 30! years old and having 307k km on the odometer. It won't need much money at all to get it on the road from what I could see so I'm really looking forward to registering it and bringing over to mine to start cleaning and ordering parts for it. A replacment steering wheel and US-rear bumper being the first on the list as I hate GM's half-arsed way of federalizing their cars for Europe back then.

The trunk lock is a bit iffy so everything inside came with the car. As you can tell its got a Prins LPG system which should help keeping running costs down, its a quality system and clean install. I'm sure I can make some money back by selling the karaoke system and absolutely massive battery for it.

It sounds pretty amazing, too and probably rides better than my W140 S-Class which an achievement in itself. One of the mufflers got replaced with what almost looks like a cherry bomb. Aside from that it needs a tranny output shaft seal and just a decent service.

All in all Im very happy with my purchase so far, I definitely bought it for the right price and can finally call a Caprice my own. More updates coming soon!

[D.E]

Cool! To add some more info, it seems that this one used to be an actual taxi untill fairly recently:

[Schaefft]

That is very interesting, the PO said it was used as taxi, that would explain the high mileage as well (307k km).

Here's the Spotted post:

https://autoshite.com/topic/13441-lazy-spotters-thread/page/183/

[mk2_craig]

This is all kinds of awesome! Is the plan to de-yellow it?

[LightBulbFun]

ooh this is very cool!

as always do love me a US Land yatch! very much looking forward to seeing more on this one  

its neat to hear/see they made European spec ones, I had no idea these where actually sold in Europe  

 

[Schaefft]

32 minutes ago, mk2_craig said:

This is all kinds of awesome! Is the plan to de-yellow it?

I'm actually quite torn on that. The company signs and logos are a separate layer so I could leave it yellow. The driver rear quarter is the wrong shade of yellow though. I always thought the NYC taxi yellow suits the Caprice extremely well, at the same time I don't necessarily want to drive in a taxi anywhere I go.

The maple red color underneath suits the car perfectly as well, I kinda doubt that the clearcoat survived for this long though, its hard to say what would happen if I (carefully) remove the wrap. I might have to get half the car repainted.

27 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

ooh this is very cool!

as always do love me a US Land yatch! very much looking forward to seeing more on this one  

its neat to hear/see they made European spec ones, I had no idea these where actually sold in Europe  

 

They did, mostly in Germany and the Netherlands, Sweden probably as well. I think most people would be surprised how many US Fords, Chryslers and GM cars made it over the pond officially, they just sold in very small numbers (probably only in the mid hundreds). I think there weren't many Opel dealers that would have these in their showrooms in the first place.

They usually come fully loaded with all the goodies (as does mine, minus leather and the Bose sound system) and have a few obvious and more subtle differences to their US counterparts. The headlights are one of them, they look the same but are superior in their light output. These are pretty sought after in the states and make car registration a lot easier in the EU. They are probably worth a third of what I paid for the car on their own.

[Bren]

305 or 350?

[TrabbieRonnie]

Very cool, a great addition to an already great fleet, well done!

[Schaefft]

6 minutes ago, Bren said:

305 or 350?

305 as all Euro market Caprice. Before the LT1 was introduced in '94 the difference between the 305 and 350 was pretty minimal.

[brownnova]

Fantastic purchase!!  That’s an awesome looking thing. Always loved the Caprice, such a a great looking car. Just archetypal 90s American car. I’d love one to keep the TransSport company! 

[Bren]

1 hour ago, Schaefft said:

305 as all Euro market Caprice. Before the LT1 was introduced in '94 the difference between the 305 and 350 was pretty minimal.

I remember watching an American programme on youtube where two old police cars were compared - a 2000's crown vic and a caprice. The caprice had the 5.7 motor ( and a large advantage ) over the fords 4.6 - it left it for dead.

[loserone]

top work dude, this looks a great buy!

 

 

[Dave_Q]

You've spelt "the WINNING continues" wrong in the thread title.

Top purchase, you are definitely the right type of mental to be the custodian of this beast.

[Schaefft]

Thanks guys, great to see so much appreciation for the old Caprice.

1 hour ago, Bren said:

I remember watching an American programme on youtube where two old police cars were compared - a 2000's crown vic and a caprice. The caprice had the 5.7 motor ( and a large advantage ) over the fords 4.6 - it left it for dead.

Yeah, the '94-96 LT1 Caprice was pretty much the best performing copcar until Dodge released the Hemi Charger Pursuit in ~2006ish. Caprice was 260hp, Crown Vic around 215, Charger 340.  Mine is not an LT1 but it still has around 350Nm of torque which seems good enough to get this thing moving when in 1st.

1 hour ago, brownnova said:

Fantastic purchase!!  That’s an awesome looking thing. Always loved the Caprice, such a a great looking car. Just archetypal 90s American car. I’d love one to keep the TransSport company! 

I just love the aero styling of the car. It was such a stark contrast to the generation before it. I think thats where the beauty lies with it, the rear wheel skirts play a big part in that as well. And they are excellent cars, very cheap to fix, durable, spacious, comfortable and probably not too bad to run with the LPG system.

 

[Schaefft]

As you can tell the car is still on Dutch plates, and has been since it arrived 5 years ago.

As part of the registration process I need to report the car with HMRC. Back when I registered my German reg E39 that meant zero tax for me and the process was easy. Things are a little harder this time around. The form wants to know when where I imported the vehicle...

https://www.gov.uk/importing-vehicles-into-the-uk/telling-hmrc

[Dave_Q]

If you're trying to declare NOVA for it then use the paper form and send a covering letter explaining the situation. 

https://lambrettajourney.co.uk/dvla-and-registration/nova/

Basically they should only consider you liable from the day you bought it. And, as it came from the Netherlands pre-brexit there wouldn't have been any tax due anyway.

Fill in the paper form with what you can and the date you bought the car and put the rest in a letter, they will give you a NOVA number and there shouldn't be anything to pay.

[Schaefft]

36 minutes ago, Dave_Q said:

If you're trying to declare NOVA for it then use the paper form and send a covering letter explaining the situation. 

https://lambrettajourney.co.uk/dvla-and-registration/nova/

Basically they should only consider you liable from the day you bought it. And, as it came from the Netherlands pre-brexit there wouldn't have been any tax due anyway.

Fill in the paper form with what you can and the date you bought the car and put the rest in a letter, they will give you a NOVA number and there shouldn't be anything to pay.

Thanks, this is very helpful. The only problem I see with this is that the car wasn't declared by the previous owner, potentially making him liable for a pretty hefty fee as he didn't mention anything to HRMC within the 14 day limit.

[D.E]

Mmm, that's unusual. Dutch RDW doesn't know this plate anymore, but when I delve a bit deeper (some other online plate checking services are a bit more extensive) it seems that the export was never officially declared here as well.

[Schaefft]

The PO never really had the time to do the paperwork. He did plan to work with a UK importer to get it registered officially a few years back and started filling out a Nova but never had it submitted.

The usual reg plate site doesn't recognize the plate anymore, apparently that's normal if nothing has happened after a few years time.