PT Barnum says, "Step Right UP!"

There's one born every minute.

cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=6428&item=4502980700&rd=1

"Trust me.... I know what I'm doing", he says as he cashes the check. Over $10K in a couple of hours. He says he'll finish it. Honest he will.

Wow!

"What you see is a car that I took pictures in May 2004. Since then, all the welding work has been done correctly."

Why no pictures from November?
Also, the mention of "all the welding work" I find pretty scary!


"I need to receive half the payment upfront and the balance in progress payments. I will email you pictures in different stages."

Hmmm.... an innovative new concept in vehicle financing
Half upfront and progress payments - ie if you pay, you get lovely jpegs of the car

If you don't - hey! no pay, no progress!
But look on the bright side, you still get to keep the jpegs.......

And, take a look at all the feedback that is going to guarantee this great deal. One Eraserhead DVD for $7.00 -- and then send about $15K for a nice digital photo of a hunk of junk --- but it's not "fiber" and it's not "a kit".

I was wondering, what ever happened to fellow who posted a while back about a free assembly and delivery in time for the Carlisle get together? Did anyone bite? Fishing on the web is getting crowded.

That looks like a D to me????? Look at the windshield side view. He says he also has a D that he can do the same thing for and this one is a speedster.

OK,OK, so we are learning to be a little wary of these new internet waters... BUT think about it. The guy has an incomplete car that he can't afford to finish inmorder to resell it. How hard would it be to check title and see if that is indeed a starting point?

Second, the money can be placed in escrow. If the seller refuses to consider that initially it is most likely because he hasn't done a real estate transaction requiring repairs performed prior to release of funds...

For nearly twenty years I operated my custom cabinet shop on this very principal. I took a 50% deposit and depending of the job complexity, an additional progress payment and then balance due upon installation or pick-up. I never built anything for anybody financed by my money.

The few exceptions I made to my payment plans over that period of time usually rerared up and bit me in the butt. The number of times I wound up in court over that period of time was twice; both times rulings were in my favor...I collected on one and I rode a mechanic's lien on a guy's condo complex through to his last stop in Bankruptcy-ville.

I think before we condemn this guy for what I see on the surface as entrepenurial spirit, more facts need to be known. It could be that he is not qualified to sell the car. It could be that he has never ventured forth in this area with any degree of accomplishment...Or he could be a starry-eyed Porsche-lover who wants to make some money while making someone else the proud owner of an otherwise unaffordable car.

Wary but not willing to condemn,
P.

I was going to actually buy this car. But since I got this bump on my head from falling off the turnip truck, I can't find my wallet.

My two cents,

Oz

Porsche has been touting the-It's not just a car, it's a way of life-kind of hype for YEARS. All of the little clubs and registers for the various models continue to do something along the same lines. They ought to come right out with it-It's not just a car, it's a form of INSANITY!"

Whom ever bites that hook is NUTS!

Paul,

In the skilled trades her in the Midwest, its called "progressive billing". It also requires that a contractor be licenced, bonded, and insured. Contractors can still end up getting stiffed by non-performing subs, which is why there is insurance for such an event. Subs can get stiffed by the contractor holding a 10% retainage at the end of the job (sometimes forever), which requires a visit to the county courthouse to resolve. Contractors usually win over subs, because they have the money and the future work.

The thing is- this isn't a 15 million dollar municipal works project. It isn't hardly even a car (from the pictures). Business on ebay is conducted long distance, and the buyer really has very little protection in the event that something goes south. On a car restoration project with so little to start with, I can't really imagine anything going right. On a restoration, you are buying reputation. Does anybody really want a cobbled up speedster restoration?

If you had an original, basket case speedster, and the capibility to restore it right, wouldn't you just go ahead and do it? Even if you had no money- you'd find a way. The fact that he either can not or will not finance the project on his own gives me pause as to the reliability of the seller as a subcontractor, as well as his dependability as a restorer. Complete speedsters go for BIG bucks.

Let the buyer beware.

Stan:

We've got one of those "Municipal Works Projects" here in Boston, called the "Big Dig" but it cost $15 BILLION, not a measily $15 Million.

You should see some of the heated court action of some of those subs trying to collect their money.....and today they (finally) announced what a lot of people driving though the underground highway system have known for months, now......the damn tunnels have leaks! Now the finger pointing is getting pretty fast and furious.

Of course, we're also told that the pumping facilities are more than adequate to handle any potential leaks. They SHOULD be for $15 Bil - should be able to pump out the whole damn Boston Harbor!!

gn

Just imagine the pork belly projects you would have in Mass. if one of your current senators had become our president. Good thing he let the other one campaign with him, or else that might have actually happened.

Yeah, but you have to understand that we LOVE our pork! AND the guys who deliver it! Without the Kennedys and the Kerrys and the O'Neils and the like, we'd just be another Rhode Island or Connecticut. It's SO COOL being so small and having so much power and position on the national stage. A tiny, crappy little back water like Massachusetts and we raked in BILLIONS for the stupidest project in the world and funded vacation homes and power boats for every idiot with a hard hat and a Boston accent who coud locate a union hall between benders. AND with this "leak thing" happening, the jobs and work load will continue for another ten years, I mean some of these guys will have spent their entire working life on a single municipal project, AND find a full retirement at the end of it on the public tit.

Now THAT'S some fine pork! Cookin' it up Boston-Style ! ! Gotta have SOMETHIN' to eat along with the beans . . .

tc

about the pork, vacation homes, and yacht charters: i spent four years working for those fine bechtel/ parsons folks on that project and all i got was a dusty 'ol hardhat.

gordon

regarding the leaks and so forth: i could write a book about that place. i could even write a book about the guy that wrote the book about that place. problem is, i'd need about five beers in me to do it.

george

Hey Gordon,

Didn't I see on the news that the "Big Dig" is leaking so bad that it may jeoprodize the whole project?

Jerome

Really George?!?

What did you do on the project? I didn't know that you were involved or I would have more directly insulting :^)

TC

While I have you on the phone, why don't you pick up some of those suspension up-grades over the Winter (sway bars, shocks, caster shims, urethane, etc) and we can schedule a Saturday this Spring and start installing it all. I'm doing the SAME up-grades to my Ghia, having just completed them on the Porsche. We have a local Dust-off on Duxbury Beach the first Sunday in May each year and usually spend the previous two weekends getting the cars back in shape. You're more than welcome to hang and get some supervised work done on your ride.

Geez.....all you guys outside of New England are just jealous 'cause YOU didn't get any part of this boondoggle.......of course, you've got those pork swelled military bases, wind farms, Tennessee Valley projects (complete with Super Fund supported Nuclear Waste clean-up sites), Water-diversion projects keeping Las Vegas green and on and on. It was just OUR turn this time - y'all be next! Besides - they're fixin to close down 3/4's of the military bases left in New England, now that the 24/7 ASW madness off the coast is supposedly winding down (don't tell that to the all those submariners still out there...)

What we first heard, is that the tunnel sides were leaking because, when they built the tunnels, they dug a super-big trench, filled it with a clay slurry, then pumped concrete in UNDER the clay forcing it up and using the weight of that clay to compact/stabilize the concrete as it cured. That process wasn't done quite right and THAT caused cracks and leaks.....that's what they said a week or so ago.

NOW what we're hearing is that water is collecting ("pooling" is the word) above the roof of the tunnel system in places, and leaking in from hundreds of places.

QUICK! STAND BACK! The finger pointing is about to become monumental (like the "hard-hat-Georges" of the project didn't already know this would happen - DUH!)

I'm glad I'm moving to South Carolina where they've not yet finished the "Broad River Bridge" and already found that the surface concrete is cracking because it wasn't cured correctly in the Summer heat and cracked right down to the I-Beam supports. Doesn't anyone know how to do concrete anymore??

gn

Gordon,

Don't be TOO happy that you heading South . . . once the bases are "closed" there will be that many more outlets for weekend autocrossing! Remember how wonderful it was on Sundays at the air base down the Cape. I LOVED that layout! When we weren't autocrossing or working the course, we were at the golf course "club house" having tuna salad sandwiches! The older woman behind the counter made the BEST tuna salad and always tossed in an extra little bag of chips.

I HOPE that they re-open it soon . . .

TC

Why moving South, by the way?

OK- Back to the car... $16K- reserve not yet met.

Gordon
apparently not. The Cheasapeake bay bridge has the same concrete problem. They are having to redo most of the work they thought they'd just finished.
ed

This one is already over the 35K mark, still not meeting the reserve with two days to go and a seller with a feedback rating of 1.....

my only comment is NO COMMENT

Ok guys...this is the sequel....

cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=6428&item=4508960289&rd=1

We'll see what happens.....

Ok, ok, I fess up. I've been selling these babies to make some moola for the IM.

The high bidders last purchase on Ebay was a "Large ENERGIZER BUNNY"

Same guy again; different car....seems legit, what do you think?

Check the link: cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=6428&item=4512786091&rd=1