Keith’s Blog: How I Bid Online, Part Two: Pulling the Trigger

Last week I noted that I always have a few cars on my watch list.

At any given time, there will be a few marques I am following for no particular reason. Right now, it is Volvo 240s and Avantis. Let’s add to that Chevy Corvairs and Porsche Macans.

Part of my desire to purchase a particular car comes from all of the elements falling into place. Those include it being one of the models I am interested in, with a price within what looks like a reasonable range, offered by a responsive seller, and located not too far away. And of course, it has to be a solid car.

These factors can mix and match in interesting ways.

For instance, when I bought my 1971 Jaguar E-type V12 coupe on Bring a Trailer in February 2020, it was far away in Georgia. That was a negative. The plusses were long-term ownership, a verified 22k miles, and all original paint and interior.

The trolls were out in force, and the seller promptly and informatively responded to all of them. That was encouraging to me.

I had decided that $40k was my limit. I placed a couple of early bids just to make sure that everything was right with my computer and financials.

The bidding jumped from $28,500 to $37,500 in the last eight minutes. My last bid was a $2,000 bump hoping it would knock out the competition, and it did.

My final price, with 5% buyer’s premium, was $39,375.

It cost another $3,000 top ship it to Portland. I’ve since spend another $10k or so on rebuilding the suspension to get rid of the crappy “upgraded” polyurethane bushings and replace them with OEM rubber, a new alternator, new tires, etc. All the work was done at Ed and Barb Grayson’s Consolidated Autoworks here in Portland.

The Jag has been on two SCM 1000 tours and now shows 29,242 miles. I’m in the car around $50,000. I think that’s about what it is worth, on a good day. It’s been a great ride and I look forward to more tours.

I think in this case my approach to bidding was exactly correct. I looked for the best car I could find. I let the trolls pick it to pieces and was satisfied by the questions and answers. I set my price and stuck to it.

Next week, I’ll discuss the Corvair and the Macan.