I'm trying to sell my car at the moment so I've stuck it on Autotrader. Now December is not the perfect time to sell a convertible 'sports' car, so buyers have not been falling over themselves to buy it.

However, I received a call from the mother of all idiots yesterday. Amongst the usual questions, like service intervals, when the MOT is due, etc. he asked the following:

Have you ever put anything in boot?
Have you ever had passengers in the car?
How old are you and what job do you do?
Have you ever street raced it?
Has it ever been parked in a public car park?

He was of the opinion that a 2 year old car that's used every day to drive to work should still be in showroom condition. After all, his 7 year old car 'looked like it had just rolled off the production line'.

But apparently because I wasn't confident enough he's not interested. While I'd like to have sold the car, I did have a little chuckle.

You mean you actually drive your car??? What madness!

He also asked if I ever offroaded in it....

In a car like this?

Heh.. the photo looks vaguely like a dune-buggy with body panels, actually.. heh heh.

What you can't see in that photo is the intercooler scoop hanging underneath. It most definitely is not made of offroading!

Interesting thought: Wouldn't smart buyers LOVE to get a convertible in the winter? Simply because sellers are dying to get rid of them at this time of year (according to Mercedes-Benz Manhattan who were complaining about having a used convertible on the floor when I bought my wagon in March). I'm encouraging my sister to get a convertible now just for this reason.

I took my daily driver in to the dealer for routine maintenance.
He took a look at the mileage and said, "Wow, you actually drive this thing."

I've only been averaging 12,000 miles per year.
I guess most of his customers just leave their cars on the driveway and polish them a lot.

I reminded them their slogan isn't "The Ultimate Parking Machine."

It seems that some cars are typecast as hanger queens. People just seem to think that such cars are so special that they should be carefully preserved and only taken out for the occasional joy rides. Sort of like Sunday go to meeting clothes.

We get calls like that over here all the time when we try to sell a car, from Homeland Security.

Everyone always seems surprised that the TVR owners I know use them as their daily drivers. And even more surprised when they find out that they don't tend to break down when used this way

Interesting.
Count me among the surprised.
That's a very cool and interesting fact.
I've always kinda been interested in a TVR Tuscan (not. gonna. happen.)
Though I've never actually seen one in person -- and I assume that they can not ever be made street legal for the US.

I have _read_ that the old "Magnum PI" Ferraris (308 and 328) actually make good daily drivers and are fairly reliable and not so expensive to repair as you might at first think.

So that's another datapoint that's a bit surprising (if true).

It has happened before, so it isn't totally impossible.

http://www.pistonheads.com/tvr/features/usa/

The bad news for you is, you have to be non-American and you can only have the car for a year.

I expect 2008 to be the year I finally own a TVR Tuscan

Lucky dog! . . . . We expect some photos!

And on a somewhat related note, I'd like to take this opportunity to curse the falling dollar....

Edmund's got a 1984 308GTSi Quatrovalvolle (one of Ferrari's first fuel injected models) and they blog about it as a long-term tester. Let's just say that it's a blast but you wouldn't even think about making this your only car.