I haven’t really searched for a car on the internet in almost a decade. I tend to be very specific about the cars I want, and that one was a 1997 Toyota Land Cruiser 40th Anniversary Edition in Antique Sage with triple lockers (not the one pictured above). J80s were just on the cusp of skyrocketing in price, so it was still possible to find one listed as a used car. I searched the main sites (Autotrader, Cars.com, eBay, Craigslist/SearchTempest) daily and found one within the 2-month timeframe that I had. It had some dings and was located in North Carolina, but the asking price was reasonable.
These days, there are so many sites, algorithms, and flippers that it’s nearly impossible to cast a country-wide net. Do you sift through the detritus on a mainstream site to find a deal, or try to beat the scalpers that lurk on Facebook Marketplace for a living? Japanese cars are no longer a “secret” so many are appearing on classic car sites like Hemmings. I try to avoid collector car auction sites because by definition an auction means you’re paying the maximum possible market value. And don’t even get me started on the physical auctions like Barrett-Jackson.
How do you find the car of your dreams for sale?
The most entertaining comment by next week will receive a prize. Scroll down to see the winner of last week’s QotW, “What’s your most terrifying near miss story?“.
It’s a dangerous world out there. Tom‘s tale of a near miss sounds like something straight out of a horror movie. Or a romantic comedy. Either way, sounds like the slick engineering of Honda Motor Co. saved the day. Rogue wheels bouncing along the roadway seem to be more common than you’d expect, because Negishi no Keibajo experienced one as well. And Joe Musashi‘s anecdote only reinforces the stereotype about BMW drivers. In any case, we’re glad everyone survived to tell us about their near miss stories.
This week’s winner was Ernie, who sounds like he used up a year or two’s worth of luck on a single night:
One very early morning back in the late 90s, I was driving home in my ’87 Corolla FX hatch hand-me-down after a late night of hanging with friends. While approaching a red light from the right lane of a two-lane street, I could see that there was an old Dodge conversion style van already stopped at the light up ahead. Rather than stop behind the van, I changed into the open left lane where I was next to it instead.
As I came to a stop, I glanced over at my passenger side mirror and saw a flash of headlights. There was a third vehicle pulling up behind us but by the speed of its headlights passing through my mirror, I knew it was moving way too quickly to stop at the light with us. I barely had enough time to finish that thought when it slammed into the back of the van next to me. The impact was violent and loud, splashing coolant, plastic, and glass onto my ‘rolla like a tidal wave of car blood and guts. The van was pushed halfway through the intersection in front of me and turned nearly 90 degrees. The third vehicle slid sideways and came to a 90 degree stop in the middle of the intersection.
At that point, I got a look at the third vehicle to see it was a Nissan Pathfinder style SUV. I turned on my emergency lights and pulled the emergency brake but with no more time to react than that, I hear the SUV attempting to start back up. It was dark but it looked like it was missing half its front end so I couldn’t believe that after several cranks, it started and struggled to stay in a straight line as it sped off into the dark.
I couldn’t just leave the driver of van, so I pulled off next to it and thankfully, the driver got out and appeared okay. There was a hole in the van’s driver rear quarter big enough for me to crawl into. The driver told me about how he would normally be driving home with his infant daughter as a passenger, but that she was with his wife that night (I found it strange that he’d have his daughter on a regular drive that late, but I wasn’t in a space to question). I agreed to stay until the police arrived despite having to work early. After giving my statement, the police shared that the SUV only made it a few blocks where it jumped a curb, taking out a phone booth and coming to a stop in a business parking lot.
Had I not made the last second lane change out from behind the van to next to it, my little hatchy and me would have been sandwiched in between it and the SUV. If you made it this far, thanks for reading and be safe out there!
Omedetou, your comment has earned you a set of decals from the JNC Shop!
Some of you may remember that I have worked for nearly 30 years as the mechanic at a small antique car museum in the mid west. I have seen the parts situation go from easy and plentiful, to almost untenable in that time. It seems each passing month makes my job harder and harder to accomplish. With the ongoing consolidation in the old car parts supply business, and the ever deteriorating quality of the parts that are available, my avocation has become a frustrating game with diminishing personal satisfaction.
In lieu of this, the next car of my dreams will one day be sitting on the showroom floor of the local Mazda dealer. A nice shiny brand new MX5 Club, which will be my retirement gift to myself.