JohnByers wrote:
Gotta be a better place to look other than craigslist...
Been there, done that. Funny story of our first 'find' via CL.
Our first candidate was a ’91 CRX Si. It was reported not to look too good, but was mechanically sound. The price was advertised at $900 IIRC and according to Ryan lots of the interior could be sold to get us to the $500 limit. Anxious for a real contender, Stephen and I decided to make the drive and take a look at it.
First off this guy lived PAST the edge of BFE. As a matter of fact you go through BFE, turn left onto a 2 mile dirt road with pot holes bigger than a car (I'm not kidding), then keep going into the woods before you get there. Stephen and I both wondered where the h*ll we were going even though this dirt road was actually on the GPS.
So we pull up to this house at about 11:00 PM and a young kid comes out to meet us who looks like something from a Beavis and Butthead skit. He starts to tell us about the car and how the motor swap was done by a professional who was a friend of his. Mind you the exterior of this car is a COMPLETE piece of sh*t and the entire engine is covered in oil…although he said it didn’t leak any. While Stephen chatted it up with this clown I look underneath to look for rust or any other issues I could see with a flashlight in a pitch black yard. What I saw was undercoating about 1” thick on EVERY surface, wire, brake line, etc. Also the car had no exhaust, so to say it was loud was an understatement. Surprisingly though the interior (of the parts still there) was in “OK” shape for what we would use as a race car. We decided to take it for a drive anyway. Besides we drove all that way so why not right?
We finally convince this kid that we won’t make off with his POS, and head out on the dirt road with a surface akin to that of the moon. Once we finally made it to paved road, Stephen opened it up to see what kind of ‘mad-tite powah’ it had. Mind you this is 11:30 at night, in a residential subdivision, in a car with the exhaust coming straight from the downpipe. The car seemed to pull strong in 3rd gear, but the right front wheel bearing was so bad we were scared to drive it any longer. We decided on the way back if he’d give it to us for cheap like $200-$300 instead of the $900 asking price we
might consider it.
Once we get back we asked about spares like wheels and the missing rear bumper. He showed us four wheels that he said he would let us have for cheap but that they didn’t “look” too good. He said they were scratched, but were straight because he “straightened them with a hammer”.
Holy WTF Batman!? It was all Stephen and I could do to keep from laughing in his face.
We discussed a lower price, but he was firm on the $900 saying he had several offers, but had turned them down. I guess there were other buyers who straighten their wheels with hammers as well. No matter I guess, we said thanks, but no thanks, and left BFE hopefully never to return again.
Weeks later we found our Prelude via CL, and after 8 races it still runs like a top.
Keep looking.
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