My quest for a 69 Camaro will continue.......

[gearheads78]

Well 14 hours later I am home with an empty trailer. This was an expensive lesson costing me $250.00 in fuel and a $500.00 deposit.

I guess I am too trusting. If I am selling a car and someone asks me a question I am 100% truthful with my answers whether I know my answer my loose a sell or not.

I found this car in the Nashville TN Craigslist. Car looked great asked for more pics and got them and car still looked great. Talked with owner multiple times asking very specific questions about the quality of work, rust, floors, trunk floor ect. I was reassured over and over "its a great car I have been buying these, playing with for a little while and selling for 20+ years" He said the under carriage was not restored just painted over black but in great shape. I was fine with that since I am not looking for a show car just a really nice driver.




He was asking $29500.00 with some 17" Torque Trusts and after talking we agreed at $28,000.00 with a set of 15" TTS instead of the 17"
I could not make Nashville and back in one day and asked if he could meet me in Memphis. He a greed but required a $500.00 deposit to cover his time and effort and swaping the wheels in case I didn't show. (I would have done the same thing and I agreed to the terms and a pending deal was made)

I pulled up the the meeting spot and starting drooling. The car looking incredible in the sunlight. Looked to be everything I wanted and then some. Body looked arrow strait gaps and body alignment looked good. As I was walking up even 5 foot away this car could easily bring home a trophy at any local show in shine.

Things started going down hill from there. I got close and could see some sand scratch shrinkage and a few runs. This was troubling but not something I was going to walk away from. I then layed on he ground with my trusty flashlight and saw a hack job of installing through the floor sub frame connectors. There was huge gaps between the sheetmetal and connectors with a few tack welds and attempt with glass and seam sealer to fill the gaps. I then noticed a chip of paint loose on the rocker flange. I pulled it back with my finger nail and a 1" piece came loose. It was painted right on top of surface rust with no prep in that area at all and then looking closer about 6" away from there was a place where you could see most of rust hole was filled over leaving a part of it open big enough to stick a pencil through. Maybe that wanted more drainage.

At this point I'm thinking screw it I'm not happy but I came all this way maybe I can salvage this deal just take it home and put a for sale sign on it and find a better car later. I then layed down at the back of the car and see a 1/2 dollar size rust hole in the LH outer wheel house and 2" gap between the trunk floor and 1/4 drop down filled with a strip of fiberglass. There was hack patch work all over done by someone that does not know how to weld or fit patches and rear floors are just flat sheet metal with glob beads of seam sealer covering weld or rivets or whatever else thy might have attacted it with.

Now I am pretty furious after only looking at maybe 1/3 of the car and knew it couldn't get any better on the rest of it. I hopped up and hold him he can take it back home and he's like why and starts to get mad. I mentioned just a couple items and all he says is "that's a great car for the price. I hope you didn't think you can find a rotissory car for that money." I couldn't say anything else or I was going to lose my cool. I just jumped back in the truck and headed back to Dallas.