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I was searching for wire wheels when another project raised it’s lovely head. 🙂
So my BCW TD is up for sale, but I haven’t the foggiest what to ask. It has a 1.6 Chevette engine, tan leather seats, chrome luggage rack, steel wheels and new tires,, smog-free California Registration, 16700 miles on the odometer, light yellow/cream color, new radiator, and looks and runs great.Any ideas or suggestions would be most welcome.
If I were going to sell one I’d probably do
1. Craigslist (’cause it’s free and local–you might get lucky)
2. ebay (’cause it’s a commission. reasonable reserve will probably get you a sale, but don’t lowball yourself)
3. Hemmings. Cause old guys read it and they remember these cars & have money.I’d go Hemmings first for a few weeks, then Craig’s and ebay.
I think $9k or so is probably an upper value limit for these cars, but I’m a cheapskate and tend to think everyone else is too–which they’re demonstrably not.
If you have all the time in the world you might consign it to a specialty dealer. They tend to price them crazy high, imho, but they must know something I don’t because they keep doing it.
Good luck.
Nice ride.
I have seen a few go for $6000 on the bay.Looks real close to the real thing,except for the 4 lug wheels and the headlight brackets.I would Think you could get $6000 or better. Dick, Remember it’s a British Coach Works and they are harder to find than some of the other brands. Unless you are in a big hurry to sell it, I’d try to hold out for something close to Ed’s ”upper value limit” figure. You just need to find the right buyer . I hate to see you give up on it ,would reall look good with those wire wheels you were considering.
That’s about the nicest TD replica I’ve ever seen. Very authentic looking and really, really clean. If it runs near as good as it looks it should be worth quite a bit more than your average one.
Here’s the thing with values. When everyday people see these cars on the street they think they’re $100,000 items. But car guys (our target market), shaped by vague info about “Ferr@ris,” Speedsters and Cobra replicas, generally think that a “kit” isn’t worth nearly as much as an “original.”
Original TDs in good shape are pretty common (almost 30,000 made; most sent to the states, and almost all kept in garages and passed down the generations). Near as I can tell, they go for $12,000-$16,000. And that’s usually after a restoration that cost more than that.
So because the “original” is only good for $15k or so, most car guys–to say nothing of your British car guys–will value even a nice replica at less than $10,000.
What the dealers must be doing is educating the everyday people who come into the showroom. In that setting, a $15,000 replica TD might seem like a bargain: it looks like a million bucks, is sticker-priced way less than the way-too-common rebodied ’69 Chevelle sitting next to it, gets good mileage, uses cheap and available spare parts, won’t rust in the body and is dependable.
Logically speaking that dependability factor, and the fact you can drive one faster than 75 mph, should bring the value up quite a bit above the original TDs.
But there isn’t much that’s logical about these cars or the market we’re trying to sell into.
Thanks, guys. Â I’m having a professional appraise the car next week. Â I will let you know, but I’m in no big hurry.
Ed,
I like what you said about logical. Even though most people that know me think my TD is cool, I have one now and again ask “why did you buy that”? They will never understand what I see when I look at my car or every car on this site. I mentioned once before in a post that I thought the TD body style was the epitome of what a british roadster should be. These same people that ask me that may own $25,000 dollars bass boats or motorhomes or whatever, but I do understand why they bought them. Cause they want them!!!
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