Went to get the Jag washed at the attended car wash at Tescos. Wasn’t expected on my return to be suddenly engaged in what seemed to be serious offers from a “collector” (car dealer) to buy the thing (2004 Jag XJ8 3.6 (the aluminium bodied one), optioned up with the R-interior, 120k miles). The buyer seemed persistant, ranging from “I’ll give you a lift to the station now, money transferred to you”, “you can keep the car for a month to sort yourself out with another” “how about a sweet deal on this Lexus IS or Audi A5 sportback” (they were both diesels, no thanks). The offer was £5500. I paid £4000 for the car 4 years ago. I declined.
Its just an old Jag that at this point should be steadily depreciating towards banger price (in normal times). Seemed odd, or are car dealers this desperate?
Never had that with a car but I did have someone knock on my door saying they wanted to buy my house and that he had the cash in the boot of his car ready to give me.
Last summer I came into a note through my door from someone wanting to buy my MX5, just binned it, never even called his number. Not sure if he was someone who knew someone in my close or if it was put through early when the service entry button would still be working.
Had just taken delivery of the brand new company car a couple of days before, so maybe it was someone who thought I’d be selling my 5 and wanted to get in early, never heard from them again and have no idea who it was or who he may have known to get entry to the close.
I Sold a car years ago and took a deposit.
Another guy who viewed it earlier came back and offered more money after I told him it was sold and was being collected soon… he then waited on the road to watch it be picked up by new owner
After a year and a half of looking while prices were rocketing I finally bought my house in 1971 for 10,350. A month later a very smartly dressed man stood on my doorstep holding in his hand 14,000 in 50s rolled up inside a fat elastic band.
I pointed out how long I’d been looking and said no thanks. He fished out an envelope with another 2,000.
I said no thanks. He looked quite disappointed.
I don’t think he knew that half the long garden behind it had gone before I bought the house. Eventually another house went up there.
That’s a nice looking Jag so I’m not surprised someone offered good money for it.
Classic car prices, even modern classics like yours are a lottery. If someone wants it they’ll be prepared to pay. It’s a matter of falling lucky.
I watched a chap write a note and tuck it under the wiper blade of an Alfa Romeo GTV that I owned. When I wandered over he explained that his good lady wanted a sports car and liked the look of the Alfa. We agreed a deal, he left me a deposit and then paid the balance a few days later. I waited until it cleared after which they drove away happy. He paid me what I had paid two years earlier.
I used his money to buy a newer, higher spec GTV.
A few years back we moved out of London into (eventually) a house in a large (technically) village in Kent where I had a new job nearby. We’d sold our property in London and had cash in hand.
Long story short we leaflet dropped (well photocopied) a message to several streets in the village we wanted to move in to, asking if anyone was thinking of selling, to get in touch with us. We made it clear we would go through an estate agent of their choosing.
We had zero response and yet we were 100% genuine.
Not saying that’s the case here…only that sometimes you can look a gift horse in the mouth…and it will give you cash;-)
At least once a month, sometimes more frequently. No, not our MX5, but our VW T6 Kombi van. Some are dealers and most want to convert it into a camper van. Maybe one day I will say yes.
Its a £5000 car with a £50,000 car maintanence budget
At the NEC Classics show, there is always a dealer there trying to sell these for a ludicrous (to me) amount. Not that many around (not a big seller in its day, because it was judged to be old fashioned looking). I’m spending what is needed to keep this car going (and its got a better than average MOT history as a result). Prices seem to be all over the place, and I haven’t the time to go around tyre kicking again to find one withoutn £10k worth of deferred repairs. I guess its worth more to me right now, but I suspect if someone had something (not necessarily a Jag, now that itch has been scratched) interesting and “right”, I might have been tempted (ie. if that burgundy Lexus had been petrol/hybrid, this thread might not have been about being about how someone offered to buy my car, but about how I went to Tescos with a Jag and came back in a Lexus).
I used to run MGB’s as every day cars for many years, and about twenty years ago I had quite a nice MGB GT - it was damask red (maroon) with chrome bumpers, and was a tidy car.
I had gone shopping in it one day, and it was parked in our local high street. When I got back a chap approached me and said ‘can I ask you about the car?’ - I thought he was going to ask what year it was or something along those lines, but he said ‘its lovely, do you know where I can buy one just like this?’
Without really thinking it through, I flippantly said ‘you can buy this one if you want!’ so he took my number and said he would call me in an hour and would like to view it with his wife.
I drove home and told my husband, who said I was most unlikely to ever hear from the chap, but sure enough he rang me an hour later, arranged to look at the car with his wife, who also loved the look of it.
We agreed a price (that I thought was very acceptable from my point of view!) and within a couple of days he had paid for it and took it away!
So the moral of this story is that sometimes people really are genuine and enthusiastic. The chap in question had just retired and had always wanted an MGB.
I subsequently bought a cheap replacement (another MGB GT) and used that for about a year, then sold it and bought my first MX5!!
I built my own little sports car, a Liege, twenty years ago. I often get asked if I’ll sell it.
There will only ever be a maximum of sixty of them and the owners’ club has some members who don’t have one!
The main reason is that these cars are very competent off road cars and at the moment there are two of them in the top ten of a national trials league.
there is some very odd things going on in the car market (and car world in general) right now!
i would like to say that im not surprised by this but i cant because i find myslf being constantly surprised at the lenghs that people are going to at the moment.
from people getting cash offers on their cars while sitting traffic to gangs with autojacks stealing catalyitic converts in broad daylight from parked cars!
I bought an ex demo Honda Civic at the end of the first lockdown. Six months old and low mileage. Last October, so the car was now two years old, the dealer I bought it from emailed me offering to buy it back for nearly four thousand pounds more than I paid for it.
The second hand car market seems to have gone mad.
D
