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Finding the right car
I didn't have an SVX, so the first thing I needed was to find one.
Because the car will be virtually destroyed (I'm sorry to some of you guys), the main goal was to get one for as cheap as possible.
I rang virtually every wrecker in Australia to see if they had any. Considered importing one from Japan (without a sunroof would have been great), but unfortunately, the rules and regulations of Australia meant that wasn't possible.
Most road going ones were in reasonable shape, but were asking about $10,000AUD ($7500USD) and more. That was too much, so I kept watching auction sites, and various other places where they come up cheap.
I just missed out Misanthropy's one which was traded for $6,000AUD ($4500USD) as it went too quickly through to the wholesalers.
When I was almost giving up hope, I happened across one that was for auction through one of the damaged vehicle auctions. Yay!!
The car was in Adelaide (about 1300miles) so it was challenging to "drop in" and have a look. The advertisement said it had "front right damage" and the photos showed virtually no damage whatsover...that was weird? So I rang the place and spoke to one of the guys who goes out into the yard and has a look at them for you. Just at that same time as I was ringing them, the ad was updated showing now that it had "significant underbody damage". Aaahhh...that would explain that the photos showed not much damage...so how bad can underbody damage be? I had worst case ideas that the entire chassis would be bent...or worse, that the engine or box had been hit by something?
The guy was helpful, he said there were no leaks from underneath (phew), but that the front right wheel was pointing at a really bad angle, and both rear wheels also seemed to be pointing at funny angles...hmmm, could be bad.
I asked him to check panel gaps around the car to see if it was really banana'd or something, but it came up clean.
So I figured, the most I had to lose was to bid on it and see where it got to.
The auction is a whole separate story (internet bidding was down on the day, so the lady said "bad luck, you'll miss out" aaaaghh!!) but suffice to say, that I got it finally as it was passed in. Ended up paying $3500 for the car, but then add in auction fees, GST etc, and then shipping to Brisbane and it landed for about $5000AUD ($3800USD).
Yay, so I now owned the car, but hadn't laid eyes on it, let alone driven it...what would the delivery truck give me...a pile of crap, or a great project???
Stay tuned
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