The one that got away..........

[Tamworthbay]

So what near misses have you had where you nearly got a gem? I have had two, one I couldn’t have done anything about, the other was just one of those bad timing things.

The  first - I used to do a lot of target shooting and would turn up in various old cars so was well known for liking a sad case. One shoot a guy I knew fairly well asked if I would be interested in an MGF, it had been laid up for years and was in ‘a bit of a state’. It belonged to mate of his who wanted a grand for it. It seemed a lot of cash but I thought I would give the guy a call as you never know. It turned out he had been trying to shift the car for about 6 months but knew nothing about it as it has been his Dad’s. It had sold the week before and been collected a couple of days earlier. Only thing was, it wasn’t an F, it was a TF and not a new TF either, a 50s one. His Dad had had it from two years old and there was full history file with it. It would have been the bargain of the century.

 

The second - friend of my Mum’s needed an old car shifting. My mum knows little about cars but thought it was an Orion as it was ‘like the one you had’, it sounded like a mk4 or 5, had been laid up for ten years, was 100 miles away and I was knee deep at work and a big project at home I sort of fobbed it off. It ended up being collected for scrap. My mum took a couple of pics - it was only a bloody cosworth (sapphire version, but still..........). It went for £200.

 

There have been others but those two really bug me even now. The first I couldn’t have done anything about but the second I should have at least had a look.

[busmansholiday]

There was a Rover 75, auto, BMW diesel, 250 squid in Sheffield at a dealer a few months ago with a month's MoT. 

Rang up, available but for some reason ignored the dealer comments of "nobody's put a deposit on it yet".

Yep, drive there, somebody did.

 

 

[ETCHY]

As posted elsewhere -

For me it was in the very  early 1990's, I looked at an early 1970's BMW Touring the one based on the 2002 but the rare hatchback model. It was in original BMW orange, had BMW factory alloys, BMW sport steering wheel, BMW headrests & an autobox. It was sodding incredible !  However I had a shitty 105e Anglia at the time that I couldn't sell,  plus living at may parents they didn't want another car on the drive..

I still dream about that car

I should have just bought the damned thing !

 

Another was a poo brown 1970's 850 Mini auto it was hilariously slow but a 1 owner minter going for virtually nowt. Thing is I was trying to impress a girl at the time & that wouldn't..

I didn't get anywhere with the sodding girl anyway

[NorfolkNWeigh]

A genuine RS2000 Mk1 , which I lost for the sake of £25! 

1986, me and MrsN had dropped out from our London lives, swapped a flat  in Wimbledon for an isolated hovel in a place called Cwmsymlog, not far from Aberystwyth, living off benefit fraud and casual farm labouring. My company XR3i was swapped for an XJ6 2.8 mo/d with a bent ticket and a life of West End partying exchanged for trying to keep warm.

Anyway in the carpark behind Aberystwyth Police Staion was a dust covered Escort RS200O Custom in silver, no stripes , no modifications and looked OK. I made lots of enqiries and eventually after about 2 months was told it was for disposal ( along with a purple Morris 2200 )  and it would be by means of a sealed bid..."

Did I mention I was skint? Properly skint , as in coasting the Jag 4 miles round treacherous bends to get into town to sign on, skint.

i bid £75 for the RS, as it had sat for years with no interest whatsoever according to the desk Sergeant ( remember those?) and £15 for the Landcrab.

The day of the bid opening came and...  Someone else , a bloke called Ken Scrap got them both for £120, even then that RS was worth a few quid and I'd have willingly paid £500 if I'd got it. It did lead to some casual work for Ken Scrap though, taking copper, lead etc down to Newport in an ancient 7.5 tonne Bedford TK.

[Robson3022]

944 Turbo with 170000 miles about 6/7 years ago was going to go halfys with a mate but he wouldn’t drop to £1500 from £2000. 

 

E32 M5 for 3k from a colleague of my brothers at about the same time  I just couldn’t agree a time to see it quickly so was due to go after a week. He sold it to someone else in 2 days.

 

Had an E30 325i Touring when I was 19. It needed testing and discs and pads. Because I was a knob I flogged it for £300. 

 

All 3 id happily still have now were I not such a dick when younger! 

[eddyramrod]

Near misses?  Yeah, one or two!

 

1990 or 91, a neighbour from maybe 3 or 4 doors away offered me the old car that was taking up space in his back yard.  So obviously I went to have a look.  I'd lived there a couple of years and never seen hide nor hair of this thing.  It turned out to be a 1974 Mustang II hatchback in piss yellow, with a 2.8V6, auto and dartboard wheels.  BMA 3M.  It wasn't running, the driver's window was broken and the car hadn't rolled for years.  I was terminally short of cash and couldn't take it on.  We didn't get as far as discussing price but it wouldn't have been much.

A couple of years later there was a shabby-looking Yank on the forecourt of a dealer I knew, so I asked about it.  1978 Ford Thunderbird, with the 351V8.  I got as far as sitting in it, as I had with the Mustang, but this time it would have run if I'd started the engine.  I didn't dare as I knew I would have been unable to resist.  It was £800, an unheard-of, impossible budget for me at the time.

 

In 1997/8 things improved for me, considerably.  I met MrsR, got my HGV and even got married.  An old friend was disposing of his American car collection and I was very tempted by a seventies Lincoln Town Car (SCK 8X).  I hummed and hawed a bit, then found a Cadillac, which was my first, so I never got hold of the Lincoln.  Eric also had a pair of 1978 Cadillac factory-limos, one black, one white, and again, I couldn't move fast enough, they went elsewhere.

We took the Cadillac out for a Sunday afternoon drive a couple of years later (2001 maybe) and down a country lane I spotted a flash of red and white through a hedge, so I turned round when I could and came at it from the other direction.  This time I could see it was a 1981 Dodge Ram pickup (a similar one appears in the Bond film Licence To Kill and is available in the partwork model collection) and better yet, it had a big sign in the windscreen offering it For Sale.  Obviously I talked to the owner!  It had been a chassis-cab from new, sold to be an ambulance somewhere in the Middle East.  360V8 and four-on-the-floor, low miles, with an ex-army pickup bed on the back, painted to match.  This time I did start the engine, and oh boy!  No ticket but I could have had it for £500.  I was trying (and failing) to sell my daily Lada Riva at the time so I didn't have the money to spare.  I spotted it on ebay a couple of years later, brush-painted in matt NATO green with a 2.8 Nissan diesel under the hood.  Ruined.

 

Then there was one on holiday, 2010.  We flew in and out of Las Vegas and fitted in a California road trip, our hire car being a vast Chevy Suburban.  So on the way from Vegas to San Francisco we put in an overnight stop at Fresno.  Next to the motel was a car lot, and of course I had to have a little look.  In among the sea of blobs there was a flash of chrome and baby-blue:  a 1979 Mercury Cougar XR7.  Naturally I went back in the morning when they were open!  It was a gorgeous one-owner car for $3000, with the 351 (again) and blue leather interior.  Buying it would have killed my credit card, and shipping (to Cyprus) wouldn't have been cheap either, not to mention port and registration fees when it got there, so I chickened out.  I'm still kicking myself.

As I am about all of these really!

[Tadhg Tiogar]

21 hours ago, Tamworthbay said:

So what near misses have you had where you nearly got a gem?...

1992, I think it was. "HGU 219J", a 1971 NSU Ro80 in metallic light green had come up in Friern Barnet. Went to see it. It had everything original. Bi-optic halogens. Orange carpeting. The chestnut leatherette seats even had original headrests, when most Ro80s didn't have them in 1971. The original paintwork was starting to flake away in places, but there wasn't any rust that I could see. No dents. The brightwork was all unmarked. Original NSU Wankel took three attempts to start it, but that was because the seller (who was a Triumph enthusiast) wasn't quite familiar with it. I think he had bought it almost by accident out of the Sotheby's Hendon auction for £550 the previous week, and was asking only £750 for it.

It ran and idled really well. I knew how to get best use out of the 3-speed clutchless manual. Classic car insurance would have been a couple of hundred a year, but the VED exemptions hadn't been introduced by the Major government at that time, and obviously you still had to do the MoT every year.

I took a fair few photos of it (no digicam back then). I had the money. Why the fuck in God's name didn't I buy it? Possibly because I was a student running an Audi 90CD at the time and couldn't work out where I was going to park a spare car.

That Ro80 would be worth about six grand now. Fuck fuck fuckitty fuck.

[Dan the van]

Well that would be the mk1 escort twincam in about 1986.Good car apart from frilly front wings.It was £500.I knocked it back because I preferred my Manta. Be worth 35k now.Ah well can't win em all.Sigh.

[Iamgroot]

My elderly relative had an immaculate, owned since new white dolomite 1850hl, still had the plastic covers on the door skins. 30 ISH thousand miles, garaged it's whole life, Chamois leather dried if it went out in the rain.

Visiting one day and went to drool over as was my usual habit and was told "oh I sold it.... For £1000.....I didn't think anyone in the family would be interested?!...."

Never wanted to beat up an old lady so badly.

[Dannyk]

For my first car  i was going to buy a 1 owner 70's mini. In harvest gold. For £400. But let my mate persuade me it wouldn't pull birds which is whats important to an 18 year old.

Also missed out on a spotless one owner paris blue capri 2.8 for £500. but being 19.i got a "what the fuck" sort of qoute from my insurance, pretty sure he was trying not to laugh aswell.

[Lankytim]

I rented a council lock up back in around 2002 and got friendly with a couple of the locals residents from the surrounding houses. I was told about a Rover P4 that was MOTd and on the road but was wasn't firing on one cylinder, the owner ust wanted shot of it . It had just had a respray too! I was given the keys and allowed to get it out of its garage and take it for a spin at my leisure. I dropped the keys back in and said I'd think about it. Pretty good overall but I suspect it had burned a valve.. or maybe it was the plug... The price? £200. I turned it down. Dickhead. 

 

Around the same time I picked up a mint Capri 1600 LS in black for £40 and sold it for £100... and thought i'd done well out of it. Double dickhead. 

 

Nearly forgot about the J reg Astra GSI that one of the old guys at church had had for years, really great shape... told him if he ever decided to sell to let me know. Of course he sold it for £200 to someone else without telling me. "didn't think you'd want it"

[Lord Sterling]

5 years ago, I came back from living in the South of France. I had just under £5k in my back pocket and a mint 1987 D-reg 825 Sterling was up for offers of about £1.5k, I knew the car and had driven it extensively, it really was my dream to own it. Most of the money I needed for various things but had about £2k to spare.

At the same time, a mate, of whom had helped me out financially and with cars when I needed it was in dire straights himself and needed some help. I lent him the money and eventually the 1987 825 Sterling went. I know the car is still around but fliting between enthusiasts who actually have money to spare. ☹

[Lord Sterling]

Another one that springs to mind;

Mk2 Fiesta XR2i in Red. As a penniless early 20-something year old student living at home with Mum in the early 2000s (2003 or 4), a mate of mine who was buying and selling snotters at the time got his hands on a mid 80s Mk2 Fiesta XR2i. He said I could have it for £300, but even then £300 was a huge amount of money to me so I passed. A similar example would be at least £3k now

[shedenvy]

In 2002 I crashed my 1985 Mini City into a telegraph pole in the snow.  I put an ad in the local paper to find a project suitable to re-shell the mini.  Had three leads, one of which was a 1983 van, running and needing a bit of fettling to finish.  £200.

In the end I went with a 1979 shell which had eleventy million patches for £100.  Cobbled the mess together and got it to the local MOT place.  It ran out of fuel the day of the MOT so the tester used the starter in gear to get it into the building.  He left the choke out and the car started up and shot off into a raising ramp.  Pretty much wrote it off.

 

Many regrets from my Mini saga but I really shouldn't have let that van get away for £200.... sigh.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

27 minutes ago, Lord Sterling said:

..... early 2000s (2003 or 4), .... Mk2 Fiesta XR2i. ....£300 was a huge amount of money to me so I passed. A similar example would be at least £3k now

£300 then would be £460/470 now, according to the BoE inflation calculator.

[barrett]

A couple of months ago I had the chance to buy one of these for virtually nothing. Obviously not a minter, but a complete car in need of work, but not a rot-box. Was one of the original rhd cars, too... It would have required a certain amount of dodgyness getting it back on the road as its ID was a bit questionable, but it was all doable with a cheap donor ID lined up. Didn't quite get round to pulling the trigger, and then I found out it had essentially been scrapped. shoulda woulda coulda

[anonymous user]

I'm sure I've mentioned on here before somewhere. When I was 19 (about 40 years ago) my father talked me out of swapping my Triumph Spitfire for a Bristol 405 as he thought the Bristol was a car for an old man. Then there was the Swallow Doretti a few years later, that I had agreed a deal, but the chap took a subsequent higher offer from someone else. Also walked away from a deal when offered a Series 4 Lotus 7 and Lancia Fulvia in exchange for my Morgan.

[Inspector Morose]

Excuse me for sullying this thread with another picture of a bus but this was really the one that got away that I regret not buying the most.

For the uninitiated, what you are looking at is a BMMO S23, a service bus built and operated by Midland Red and this was one of the last built by the company before ending bespoke production and buying from the regular manufacturers. 
They were a little different to the usual fare that was available on the market at the time in that they featured independent front suspension, front disk brakes, full power hydraulic braking and much more, all wrapped up in a fully integral body using much fiberglass componentry all at a time when the bus world was fixed on drum brakes, rigid axles and a beefy chassis. 
This particular example was offered to me for three grand, a hefty sum but not outside my meager bank balance and was fully roadworthy and original. I turned it down for no other reason than that I couldn't be bothered after suffering personally from other bus preservationists bile and bitterness. I wish I'd just bought it and just kept it for myself now.

[lesapandre]

12 minutes ago, Inspector Morose said:

Excuse me for sullying this thread with another picture of a bus but this was really the one that got away that I regret not buying the most.

For the uninitiated, what you are looking at is a BMMO S23, a service bus built and operated by Midland Red and this was one of the last built by the company before ending bespoke production and buying from the regular manufacturers. 
They were a little different to the usual fare that was available on the market at the time in that they featured independent front suspension, front disk brakes, full power hydraulic braking and much more, all wrapped up in a fully integral body using much fiberglass componentry all at a time when the bus world was fixed on drum brakes, rigid axles and a beefy chassis. 
This particular example was offered to me for three grand, a hefty sum but not outside my meager bank balance and was fully roadworthy and original. I turned it down for no other reason than that I couldn't be bothered after suffering personally from other bus preservationists bile and bitterness. I wish I'd just bought it and just kept it for myself now.

Are bus people particularly bad tempered? I had a brief chat with someone who ran a Green Line single decker I remember from my childhood. It was parked in London. The man was very bad tempered. I was a bit nonplussed - surprising as these are vehicles that usually involve a lot of people. It was quite an amusing incident - a bit like those car shows where owners glare at you for being interested. Ho hum.

[Amishtat]

For me it was RYM66E, a maroon Wolseley 6/110 automatic. Recently resprayed to a pretty fair standard, just wanted the trim putting back on,ran nicely and even had some brakes left. I wanted it badly but as a penniless sixth former I just couldn't raise the 350 the owner wanted, even then (1998) that was cheap. Fuck knows what happened to it in the end. 

[Uncle Jimmy]

On 9/4/2019 at 9:54 AM, barrett said:

A couple of months ago I had the chance to buy one of these for virtually nothing. Obviously not a minter, but a complete car in need of work, but not a rot-box. Was one of the original rhd cars, too... It would have required a certain amount of dodgyness getting it back on the road as its ID was a bit questionable, but it was all doable with a cheap donor ID lined up. Didn't quite get round to pulling the trigger, and then I found out it had essentially been scrapped. shoulda woulda coulda

I looked at one in Wareham about 10 years ago; blue RHD,  delightful, tiny pedal box.