Just thinking today about 5 times in my life I left a note on a project car, when nobody was around, that I found in my travels along side a shed or garage. None of them turned out .As I never got a call from the owner or guardian of any of those cars of trucks. Anyone have a story where the note worked and you were able to actually purchase that vehicle. Or what car or truck you put a note on and never got a call either?
I’ve did it twice, one I never heard anything, the other, the lady owner actually called me a few months later right after I had bought something else and I couldn’t buy her car, a 35 humpback sedan. I was sick I was broke, but she needed to move it because she was moving after a divorce and couldn’t wait on me to hunt up the money. Shame too, it was a complete car, partially disassembled for body work and paint....
Left many, but got only 1 call back...it was on a little 6cyl 2 door Chevy, like the 2+2 cars, lil Nova maybe? few weeks later I get a call (all pre cell days) and the price is right, I head back...car is not there,,I knock on the guys door and seems he called all that left a note on the car, but I was a 1/2 hour late. Oh well.
My mother coming into the house and telling me the cops were looking at my car. The old woman who lived across the road whose place I'd parked it outside of had rung the cops complaining about an abandoned vehicle.
I have a street rod and restoration shop on a very busy highway where we work on customer cars only; none being fixed up to sell. We get at least two and up to ten a week wanting to know "if it's for sale". Used to explain that we just work on them by the hour but now I say "Hell yes but it's going to piss off the owner".
Back in the early 70s when I worked part time for a moving company, I seen a old 33ply in a back yard that only could be seen from the freeway. After seeing the car for a year or so, I figured where it was and went to the door and knocked. The owner came to the door and I asked him if he would consider selling the car. He told me that he was planning on leaving it to his kids. I left him my number just in case he might change his mind. A month later he called me and said he would sell it to me. This was the only time I ever did this. Should of kept the car!
Yep and scored big time. In the mid 70's saw a 32 pickup sittin next to a 1 car garage that the front end was off (rad/and fenders) went knocked on the door , no 1 home. Leave note. Get a call about 3 weeks later, lady says the truck is not for sale as she gave it to her brother after her husband had passed away a year before but she did have another car in her garage that she would sell. I asked what it was and all she knew it was a 30's something and did run. So I go over (40 miles away) with my trailer, some gas, a few tools and a battery. She opens the small 1 car garage and DAMN there sits a 33 Ford tudor sedan. Really a nice car. I get it runnin in about 15 minutes and ask if I can drive it around the block. OK she says. I get back and ask what she wants for itm she tells me -I reach in my pocket, pay her load it up and off I go. Even in the mid 70's I stole it.
I did exactly that with a 60s el Camino. When I got it running the asking price suddenly doubled I learned to buy them as if they were needing everything.
The Jalopy Journal
