A case of mistaken identity...

A case of mistaken identity...

Author
Discussion

malc350

Original Poster:

1,035 posts

253 months

Saturday 28th February 2004
quotequote all
One of the previous C3 posts about a dealer who may have a ZL1 (as if..) prompted me to tell you this little story (it's about people getting their information wrong, sound familiar..?)

Recently on the Callaway Forum someone posted that 1987 Callaway Corvette #001 was for sale for about $35,000. They posted it as "the first Callaway" which it would be with that number (each Callaway was individually numbered).

Would this not be cheap for a piece of history?

Turns out the car is not #001 but actually "1 of 184 cars made in 1987.

So actually what sounded like a deal as good as the "hemi 'cuda found in an old lady's barn that she didn't know she had" actually turns out to be in actual fact probably quite a dear car.

And it was all down to someone's interpretation of the number 1...

That's how we get people advertising L82s as L88s, and someone might make a litle typo just to get the buyers adrenaline going...

I've seen plenty of other "typos" (the sceptic in me says: a little embellishment to help the car sell) such as 1989 C4 35th Anniversary (should be 88), 1979 pace car (should be 1978).

The dealer who had my 93 for sale actually had it for sale as a 94 (it was registered 94) until I pointed out the 40th anniversary seats (i.e. it's a 93 then..)Same dealer also had a 95 Grand Sport for sale. Later the ad said "Grand Sport design". Ho, ho, someone must have pointed out that they were 96 only. Sickener: that also means it doesn't have an LT4...

Still if all else fails and you want to attract the novices just put these in your ad:

"No test pilots", "not for the faint hearted", "real musclecar", "no tyre kickers", "serious people only", "are you man enough", "500 horsepower", "runs 10 second quarters", etc...

malc350

Original Poster:

1,035 posts

253 months

Saturday 28th February 2004
quotequote all
Forgot to point out that Callaway Corvette #001 is actually in the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green.

That's how likely it was that it was for sale in a dealer's showroom...

anonymous-user

61 months

Saturday 28th February 2004
quotequote all
malc350 said:
"No test pilots", "not for the faint hearted", "real musclecar", "no tyre kickers", "serious people only", "are you man enough", "500 horsepower", "runs 10 second quarters", etc...

I was turning the pages of some car ads earlier today. Just where did "no canvassers" come from and what does it mean?! BTW I always dread having to sell cars for this reason but refuse to give in to dealers trade-in prices when if things go right you can save £000 within a month on the back of a £60 ad in AutoTrader. I always try to own cars that will sell when the time comes and then don't hold out for the last £ provided I get out of the car well ahead of trade-in.

C5RagTop

1,610 posts

255 months

Saturday 28th February 2004
quotequote all
Steve, in my experience 'canvassers' are other companies who have seen your ad and then phone you saying that they have hundreds of buyers for your car. All you have to do is cough up a fee and these buyers, armed with more cash than they can handle, will stampede your house. Oh yeh ...

malc350

Original Poster:

1,035 posts

253 months

Saturday 28th February 2004
quotequote all
Yeah, if you said "yes" to every obscure publication that "guaranteed to sell your car" you'd need to sell it to pay for the ads!

viperdave

5,572 posts

260 months

Saturday 28th February 2004
quotequote all
C5RagTop said:
Steve, in my experience 'canvassers' are other companies who have seen your ad and then phone you saying that they have hundreds of buyers for your car. All you have to do is cough up a fee and these buyers, armed with more cash than they can handle, will stampede your house. Oh yeh ...


Yeah guaranteed to sell they said, weren’t prepared to take my £100 AFTER the sale though were they. Wanted it up front now. If it was such a guaranteed sale why couldn’t they wait I have to wonder. Needles to say the third time they called I just hung up.

te51cle

2,342 posts

255 months

Saturday 28th February 2004
quotequote all
I thought the canvassers were people in the various trader magazines who called you up and tried to sell you space in their rags after you'd just put an advert in your local paper. I've had plenty of them before. I've never had anyone call me up with supposedly guaranteed buyers, but the term does make sense for them.