conundrum/opportunity/nightmare involving a DB7 V12 Vantage
Discussion
Hello everyone, I have a bit of a conundrum/opportunity/nightmare to deal with. It’s a long story with a buckingham green Aston Martin DB7 V12 Vantage as the central character. I'll try to put up some pics.
I bought the Aston in 2010 from a dealer. The dealer handled the servicing and any fixes - all seemed great. In 2018 I decided to sell the Aston and get something more economical. I got a lovely little Honda Insight Mk1 at 72 miles to the gallon. Nice.
The dealer took the car under a brokerage contract - and great news - after a month or so he had a buyer! He instructed me to send all of the paperwork to facilitate the exchange. I did so. I never heard from him again. From here on we refer to him as ‘The Perp’.
After a month of failed attempts to contact the perp I reported the car stolen to the police. The police tracked the car to a garage and retrieved it. The police held the car in custody while pursuing a criminal case against the perp, who was also implicated in regard to several other performance cars.
It turned out that the car had been seized from the perp by persons acting for a finance company he had fallen out of contract with. The finance company put it up to auction, someone with a garage bought it and decided to take off pieces of bodywork and the windscreen. The police seized it back from this chap in the middle of the night - it was all very exciting - and put it in storage.
Eventually - after three and a half years - the police released the Aston back to me. In a bit of a sorry state. But definitely still a great car - just needs a bit of sorting out.
(By the way - if anyone is thinking that surely the insurance should have covered me for the loss/damage/devaluing of the car - yes you’d be correct if it was in fact insured. Naively perhaps - I trusted the dealer when he said he had put the car on his trade insurance and to stop my insurance. We live, we learn …)
Here’s a sad summary of the damage caused while the car was out of my possession:
Removal and partial sanding of two front wings
Removal of front windscreen
Putting a large crack in the front windscreen - now unusable
Cutting away part of the bumper
Welding in new pieces in the bumper
Broken electrical mechanism on the passenger seat
Loss of several small parts associated with the various removals and other things they did to the car
The car doesn’t start - even with the use of a new battery. We think the fuel pump has been damaged by being left standing, undrained. Tyres are flat, obviously.
So here I am now with what was a gorgeous car and is now a bit sorry for itself, sitting in a barn. I don’t have the time, money, energy or basically the heart to restore it. I would dearly love for someone to take pleasure in this vehicle. And obviously I’d like to recoup some of my losses. In short - I want to find a home for it.
I’ve never been in this position before with a car, I have no idea what I’m doing, and I’m still a bit shook up by the whole sorry debacle!
Basically - any advice, suggestions, comments, stories about how you dealt with a situation like this, would be very greatly appreciated.
Anyone?
I bought the Aston in 2010 from a dealer. The dealer handled the servicing and any fixes - all seemed great. In 2018 I decided to sell the Aston and get something more economical. I got a lovely little Honda Insight Mk1 at 72 miles to the gallon. Nice.
The dealer took the car under a brokerage contract - and great news - after a month or so he had a buyer! He instructed me to send all of the paperwork to facilitate the exchange. I did so. I never heard from him again. From here on we refer to him as ‘The Perp’.
After a month of failed attempts to contact the perp I reported the car stolen to the police. The police tracked the car to a garage and retrieved it. The police held the car in custody while pursuing a criminal case against the perp, who was also implicated in regard to several other performance cars.
It turned out that the car had been seized from the perp by persons acting for a finance company he had fallen out of contract with. The finance company put it up to auction, someone with a garage bought it and decided to take off pieces of bodywork and the windscreen. The police seized it back from this chap in the middle of the night - it was all very exciting - and put it in storage.
Eventually - after three and a half years - the police released the Aston back to me. In a bit of a sorry state. But definitely still a great car - just needs a bit of sorting out.
(By the way - if anyone is thinking that surely the insurance should have covered me for the loss/damage/devaluing of the car - yes you’d be correct if it was in fact insured. Naively perhaps - I trusted the dealer when he said he had put the car on his trade insurance and to stop my insurance. We live, we learn …)
Here’s a sad summary of the damage caused while the car was out of my possession:
Removal and partial sanding of two front wings
Removal of front windscreen
Putting a large crack in the front windscreen - now unusable
Cutting away part of the bumper
Welding in new pieces in the bumper
Broken electrical mechanism on the passenger seat
Loss of several small parts associated with the various removals and other things they did to the car
The car doesn’t start - even with the use of a new battery. We think the fuel pump has been damaged by being left standing, undrained. Tyres are flat, obviously.
So here I am now with what was a gorgeous car and is now a bit sorry for itself, sitting in a barn. I don’t have the time, money, energy or basically the heart to restore it. I would dearly love for someone to take pleasure in this vehicle. And obviously I’d like to recoup some of my losses. In short - I want to find a home for it.
I’ve never been in this position before with a car, I have no idea what I’m doing, and I’m still a bit shook up by the whole sorry debacle!
Basically - any advice, suggestions, comments, stories about how you dealt with a situation like this, would be very greatly appreciated.
Anyone?
Edited by morgaana on Thursday 17th March 18:47
Wow, I'm so sorry. That is incredible bad luck.
The finance company shouldn't have taken it and auction it because it was still your car. Does that give you an angle?
Can the original bandit be sued? But maybe you don't want to start a war and drag it all up again.
As for the car, you could sell it as is, or pay to fix it (do the maths first) or maybe you'd get more as parts, I don't know.
I'm sorry I don't have any other ideas
The finance company shouldn't have taken it and auction it because it was still your car. Does that give you an angle?
Can the original bandit be sued? But maybe you don't want to start a war and drag it all up again.
As for the car, you could sell it as is, or pay to fix it (do the maths first) or maybe you'd get more as parts, I don't know.
I'm sorry I don't have any other ideas
Simpo thank you :-) I looked into that but the seizers had a High Court permission to do it! Decided not to sue the High Court ... https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/imgs/10.gif
morgaana said:
Simpo thank you :-) I looked into that but the seizers had a High Court permission to do it! Decided not to sue the High Court ... https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/imgs/10.gif
High Court bailiffs have good powers but they can't take stuff if it's proven to belong to somebody else. Maybe nobody told them it was yours and they didn't check... I smell a possible miscarriage of justice there. But you probably don't want to spoil the next 2-3 years of your life fighting over it. Sometimes you have to walk away.And you're not the only victim - the garage that bought it in good faith lost their money and the car.
Maybe look into the cost to fix it. DB7 Vantages are a good price now.
Sorry to hear. If it is at all feasible or viable to fix I would do so.
A totally different situation, but if it is any inspiration, I inherited last year my late fathers Jag XKR that had sat unused since 2017. It was in quite a state, worthless maybe aside from spares, and totally 50/50 if it was worth trying to rescue. Now said rescue is in progress I am glad I did.
Admittedly I am not doing it myself and the cost will probably exceed any future value the car has, not to any particularly large degree, I don’t have the means for that, but its not the point, its becoming a small pleasure to see it come back to life again and with potential for hopefully many more memories to come.
If you can overlook the present and recent history, and I appreciate that is always easier said than done, you may get similarly positive results... it is also a lovely colour combination
A totally different situation, but if it is any inspiration, I inherited last year my late fathers Jag XKR that had sat unused since 2017. It was in quite a state, worthless maybe aside from spares, and totally 50/50 if it was worth trying to rescue. Now said rescue is in progress I am glad I did.
Admittedly I am not doing it myself and the cost will probably exceed any future value the car has, not to any particularly large degree, I don’t have the means for that, but its not the point, its becoming a small pleasure to see it come back to life again and with potential for hopefully many more memories to come.
If you can overlook the present and recent history, and I appreciate that is always easier said than done, you may get similarly positive results... it is also a lovely colour combination
What a palaver! I'd propose a chat with Chilton Aston, find out realistically what your options might be and ROM costs/values of repair or dismantling. There are one or two other DB7 owners on here, so if you can it might be worth editing your title to refer to DB7, to invite their view. There are also some out there who have restored flood damaged AMs, so anything is possible...
I have to say, that all looks very doable. Windscreen can be claimed on the insurance for glass cover. Wings will bolt back on and can then be sprayed. Similar with the bumper.
If I didn't have a full garage I'd happily take it on as a project.
I think it looks a lot worse than it is, you just need a sympathetic garage to help out.
Where are you based ?
Edit - why not try the Car SOS boys ? They love a good story !
If I didn't have a full garage I'd happily take it on as a project.
I think it looks a lot worse than it is, you just need a sympathetic garage to help out.
Where are you based ?
Edit - why not try the Car SOS boys ? They love a good story !
Edited by JonnyCJ on Friday 18th March 10:09
Simpo Two said:
High Court bailiffs have good powers but they can't take stuff if it's proven to belong to somebody else. Maybe nobody told them it was yours and they didn't check... I smell a possible miscarriage of justice there. But you probably don't want to spoil the next 2-3 years of your life fighting over it. Sometimes you have to walk away.
And you're not the only victim - the garage that bought it in good faith lost their money and the car.
Maybe look into the cost to fix it. DB7 Vantages are a good price now.
Thanks Simpo - yes a miscarriage of justice for sure, but as we all know justice and the law are not always the same thing :-/And you're not the only victim - the garage that bought it in good faith lost their money and the car.
Maybe look into the cost to fix it. DB7 Vantages are a good price now.
Actually the garage that bought it were refunded by the seizers - so they were annoyed but made whole, apart from their time doing stuff to the car.
We've looked into fixing it and w have an idea how much that might cost - unfortunately this whole nightmare has hit my finances badly and there's no funding for doing it up :-(
mabbott said:
Sorry to hear. If it is at all feasible or viable to fix I would do so.
A totally different situation, but if it is any inspiration, I inherited last year my late fathers Jag XKR that had sat unused since 2017. It was in quite a state, worthless maybe aside from spares, and totally 50/50 if it was worth trying to rescue. Now said rescue is in progress I am glad I did.
Admittedly I am not doing it myself and the cost will probably exceed any future value the car has, not to any particularly large degree, I don’t have the means for that, but its not the point, its becoming a small pleasure to see it come back to life again and with potential for hopefully many more memories to come.
If you can overlook the present and recent history, and I appreciate that is always easier said than done, you may get similarly positive results... it is also a lovely colour combination
Thanks Mabbott I hear you and I really appreciate what you say. I would love to see it restored. It was a really beautiful car and a wonderful drive. A totally different situation, but if it is any inspiration, I inherited last year my late fathers Jag XKR that had sat unused since 2017. It was in quite a state, worthless maybe aside from spares, and totally 50/50 if it was worth trying to rescue. Now said rescue is in progress I am glad I did.
Admittedly I am not doing it myself and the cost will probably exceed any future value the car has, not to any particularly large degree, I don’t have the means for that, but its not the point, its becoming a small pleasure to see it come back to life again and with potential for hopefully many more memories to come.
If you can overlook the present and recent history, and I appreciate that is always easier said than done, you may get similarly positive results... it is also a lovely colour combination
Agent57 said:
What an awful story.
Sorry, just for my understanding, is ‘The Perp’ the dealer who took the car under a brokerage contract or the buyer?
Or was there no 'buyer' and the dealer made it all up?
Agent57 (if that is indeed your name ...) 'The Perp' is the dealer under the brokerage contract. As to was there really a buyer? this is an answer no-one has managed to establish - we'll probably never know. We do know The Perp sold someone else's car and pocketed the cash - and is being charged in criminal court for this. Unfortunately they couldn't work up a good enough case against him to charge him on my behalf :-( BUT it does feel better he'll get a slapping for something!Sorry, just for my understanding, is ‘The Perp’ the dealer who took the car under a brokerage contract or the buyer?
Or was there no 'buyer' and the dealer made it all up?
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