The Difficult Decision to Pass

I love cars. I hear about interesting older cars on a regular basis and never pass up an opportunity to go look at one, be it for myself or a like-minded friend. Unfortunately, due to space, time, and money, I am not able to have even a fraction of what I would like to have, and certainly not all at once. And that is just a shame considering I feel a call to action whenever I catch wind of an old road warrior about to be discarded or potentially fall into the hands of a careless or unappreciative new owner. The following is a small sampling of some of the recent potential fleet additions that just haven't quite panned out:

1957 Chevrolet 210 Station Wagon- This one was bought off of eBay about four years ago by the gentleman that sold me my 1979 Cadillac Coupe DeVille in the summer of 2005. It received an amateur restoration sometime in the 1980's complete with a cheesy aftermarket AM/FM/tape deck in the dash in place of the original Wonderbar; other than that it was still in alright shape, all things considered. This coupled with the fact that the car had no motor just made his $4500 asking price seem way to steep, especially for a cheap bastard like myself.

1967 Cadillac Miller-Meteor Duplex- Yes, that's right; I almost pulled the trigger on a hearse. Almost. The asking price? Talked its owner down to eight hundred dollars from fifteen hundred. Probably could have had it for six hundred seeing as that's how much he had in completely rebuilding the rear suspension and that's all he seemed to wanted to get back. It had 29,000 original miles and ran like a top, but had deep body rot in the rear quarters from languishing out in a farmer's field in Maine in its later years after being taken out of service. But the rest of the car was surprisingly solid and the interior was in amazing shape, save for being disassembled. The casket rollers and cot bars were also missing and would have required a considerable amount of time and money to locate. Not to say that I'm not up for a challenge, but I still have two other vehicles requiring a lot of attention before I'd ever get to the thing. Giving up my 1974 Lincoln Continental limousine to make a parking space for it was another reason that the grand old funeral coach wasn't able to come home with me. The good news in all of this, though, is that I passed the owner's information onto my friend Cadillac Bill, and now the hearse lives at his house where I can visit it whenever I want. Who knows? Maybe I'll be able to buy it somewhere down the line.

1961 Pontiac Tempest- This little honey of a car supposedly only had 67,000 original miles and lived inside from 1991-2004 after its original little old lady owner gave up on driving. Unfortunately, it lived outside for the three years after it was purchased from her estate and was rarely started. It probably would have cleaned up pretty well but a good amount of surface rust had started in those three years before I came to know of it. This aside, with half a Dixie cup full of gasoline poured down the throat of the little one barrel carburetor, the mighty Indy Four rumbled to life and ran excellent with the normal amount of engine shake expected from a 194.5 cubic inch inline four with no balance shaft. For those not in the know, the Indy Four is quite literally a Pontiac 389 cut in half and my vision for the car was to have a presentable original driver with an engine that would have all the trick stuff offered for its V8 brother inside of it. An Edelbrock dual-carb intake manifold is long out of production for this motor, but I had already tracked one down. Couldn't say I'd get to it any time soon, but at an overall length of 189 inches, the adorable little Pontiac could have been put on wheel dollies and pushed into the end of my storage unit sideways until I was ready for it. And at a starting price of $900, I could care less if I ever got to it because it'd be neat just to say I owned the rope-drive, rear-mounted transmission four cylinder 1961 Motor Trend Car of the Year. The reason for passing? The mental midget that owned it stopped corresponding with me. Hopefully because the car went to a better owner than me or because the owner himself decided to go the distance and restore it himself as was his intention when he bought it three years ago. I still want one of these cars and am now on the lookout for another. An Oldsmobile F-85 of the same vintage with the all aluminum Buick 215 V8 would be an acceptable substitute as well because I highly doubt I'll find one of the roughly 3,000 Buick V8-powered Tempests that rolled off the line that year.

1980 Cadillac Sedan DeVille- I've known about this car for about a year and a half and just now is it finally formally for sale. I'd want the car for a daily driver if I were to buy it. It's got 77,000 original miles on the only good engine Cadillac offered that year, the cast iron 368 (run in the other direction if the 1980 Cadillac you're considering comes with either the Oldsmobile 350 diesel or the aluminum block HT4100 unless your first order of business is to throw it in the dumpster and replace it with something that isn't completely awful. If this is the case, then the presence of one of these two possible boat anchors can end up being a fantastic negotiating point in your favor.). The car lived in Florida for a good portion of its life and even though its use was a backup car/winter beater for the remainder of its life to this point in New England, the car is only beginning to show any sort of age. on its exterior. The undercarriage is in remarkable shape and the pillowy-soft blue cloth interior may as well have never been sat in. The aftermarket CD player in the dash probably would have stayed unless its absence contributed to knocking another bill off the owner's bottom line of eight hundred dollars because it was installed correctly with no cutting of any kind; a stock radio could go back into the dash in a matter of minutes if I chose to do so. Its age was also attractive to me because it's exempt for emissions testing here in Massachusetts, making getting an inspection sticker a breeze. I had to pass because I had no room at the time, but know the owner fairly well and told him to come back to me if he had trouble selling it elsewhere and didn't want to see the car get hacked up, demolition derbied, or disgraced with cheesy rims and tinted windows.

So there you have it. Just a few of the many recently considered vehicles that just weren't meant to be. Some still have a little bit of a chance, but I'm not holding my breath. But tax return season is upon us; I will be finding myself with a few extra bills in my pocket and I've got the itch for a new toy. Know of anything interesting I don't in the New England area? Let me know! If I end up taking a reader's find home, there's a couple bucks in it for you. I promise!