Reply to "Broken Deals"

I'd keep all options open and not limit the search to Southern California. I see beautiful Pantera's on e-bay that never meet the reserve, but they have contact info and the seller is ready, so contact them, go look at it and be ready to deal. I bought a Pantera that way. My loan came thru at 4:00 PM Saturday, and I immediately drove from the bank in Albuquerque, New Mexico to a no-tell motel in Irvine, California and arrived at 3:00 AM Sunday. I met the seller at John Wayne Int'l Airport, where the car was in a hangar, with the dude's airplane and Harley. I inspected it as well as I could. It had lot's of things I liked and was missing some things I wanted, but it was free of rust. I negotiated a deal, peeled out the certified check and another $1,000 from a sock, then showed the guy my wallet was nearly empty, like 'could I keep $60 for gasoline and a burger to get home with, guy?' He called his wife, walked away and haggled with her, then came back and told me he was going to have to find a way to come up with an additional $4,000 to put into the account to make the wife happy, then did the bill of sale. I loaded up the spare set of seats, and all the spare parts and drove home, leaving L.A. about 2:30 PM, then was dog tired at work on Monday. I got a one way ticket for the next Saturday, the red eye, and got a cab to the airport and called him from there to let me have my car. He took his time, and I started driving home about 3:00 PM on Saturday. What a blast! That was it! Horns honked and flash bulbs started popping at me going down the freeway in L.A., and I've been photographed driving it ever since. They always honk, wave and sometimes shoot pictures. That always makes me smile, and laugh sometimes too.

You need patience. It always takes at least a week longer than I expect to get my parts delivered, and every project I start ends up getting bigger and bigger, as I keep saying, 'hey, I should upgrade this, too, while I'm into this thing this deep already anyway'. And so it goes, a hobby turns into a passion. I learn more than I ever imagined. I buy tools without hesitation. I now have an air compressor and won't hesitate do do any project by myself. I know I don't need to drive it to work the following day, so it's not a problem if I get stuck with something I thought I could handle, but couldn't. I use this BB to find info, and print out electrical schematics, etc. I get help and people tell me how to solder or use an electricity conductivity instrument, which is still a mysterious thing to me. But I love it. And I feel a sense of accomplishment. And it's all worth it. The wait. The frustration. The doubt. The money. Finally, every time, the satisfaction and the thrill. I think people know it implicitly. I was walking out of a Walgreens Drug Store and I saw this guy about 5 years older than me walking around it, looking in the engine area while the screen was off. He kept saying 'Wow' then he walked to his car, but turned around again, stopped, and said 'Wow' then just as he got in his car a little behind me, he crouched down and checked out the underside, and said, 'Wow' shaking his head. Then he got in his car and looked at me as I inserted the key in the door and gave me the thumbs up and smiled and drove off.

What do you think he was thinking? Wow? Maybe. More like it, he was thinking, 'Man, I wish that was mine, or I wish I could at least drive it just one time at least half a mile, just once in my lifetime....' I'm telepathic and that's what I saw him thinking!

Wow.

So, just be patient, and pursue your dream and it'll happen. Now, you're ready to do the deal. And, oh yeah, the seller at the airport hangar told me he had three more offers that week before I picked it up. I said, probably so, but they are dreamers, for all you know, and I made the effort to show up, with the 'cash' and you know, a deal's a deal so thank you very much. I took pictures starting with him driving the car out of the hangar, and he asked me for a picture or two with him in the Pantera, on that last day. I said sure, and actually sent him several pictures of him in 'his' Pantera. I'm sure he still looks at them with fondness.

Oh, and I never even asked to drive it, and didn't until that next Saturday. A scary thing, driving a Pantera for the first time, everybody staring, and such power and performance. What a drive home. Something I had been looking forward to for decades, just like you, TT, just like you. And your day is coming, I know because you were so disappointed. But you can still call the guy back in Long Beach on Monday if you want. That's how I got my house, the buyer couldn't finance and couldn't sell his house, so the seller gave him a deadline, and I was ready to close. I closed in 10 days, a near record time. It's all possible for the patient and persistent amoung us. We know what each other goes thru with their Pantera's too. Part of the bond. Part of the respect. We'll see you in Vegas 2006 with your Pantera too, I'm confident.

Sort of wish I was searching for a Pantera right now, because I'm bored waiting for Pantera parts to arrive.... Arivaderci! VFI (on the loose)