<VV> VV-Talk

[alan WESSON]

> Hey, Alan, I know this is talk, but what happened with your van auction?
Did it sell?  I forgot to watch at the end.

A result!! It was only bid up to 830 GBP, but I had put a reserve of 2000
GBP on it - I didn't really expect it to make that, but I thought it was
worth a try.

In the end a local guy came round, who had seen it on eBay. He loved it, and
asked me what the least I would take was. I gave him two options (as I
always do):

1. The 'Gold option' - 1600 GBP ($2880)  for the van as it stands, with all
the parts needed to fix the engine but not the clutch, and my word that it
is as seen and straight, and the Alan Wesson Customer Care Guarantee (i.e.
I'm a nice bloke and you can trust me - which is true, but of course he had
no way of knowing that!).

2. The Platinum Option, which was 1750 GBP ($3150) for the van, a set of new
tyres I have for it, all the spare parts needed to fix it, the spare doors I
have for it (6 in all!), all the spare parts I still have (not many but
probably $100 worth), as much Vair knowledge as I can think of, contacts in
the club, VV, etc., to help him run it, original 1961 shop manual and 64
supplement, Underground and Clark's catalogues (don't forget that over here
no-one knows that Vair parts are easy and cheap to get!), a choice of
originals and scans of the Corvair literature I have been collecting since
1995, and pieces of history and photos of the van when it was in the USA and
here.

In the end he went for the Platinum Option. It might sound like a lot to pay
for a van that needs paint, but don't forget that the *real* purchasing
power of the GBP versus the $ is actually of the order of 1 : 1, and that it
actually cost me $2000 to get it through our (stiff) inspection when it got
here. O.K., so you don't expect to get all your money back when you sell an
unrestored classic car, but it would have cost him the $2000 to import and
fix a van himself, even if he had got one cheaply over there - so he in fact
got a bargain. And it really is a good, solid van - I wish I had had the
time and money to restore it, because it's an easy job.

Cheers

Alan