"Excellent condition inside and out"

I

imported_Aurora40

New member
I guess this means a lot of different things to different people. I went to look at a car on Labor Day. It seems nice mechanically, though it first started up very very roughly (no smoke though). It ran smoothly, shifted nice, brakes, steering were good with no pulling or wander. I didn't take overal picts cause I'm a dope, I only wanted to capture the bad stuff I might forget.



Here's the seller's pict, and the description said "Excellent Condition Both In & Out. An eye catcher."



670247614.144708953.IM1.MAIN.240x180_A.240x125.jpg




Since this is Autopia where paint and appearance rule, I just thought I'd share this. In addition, the car overall had a lot of swirling and a substantial amount of linear deep scratches, on the lower areas especially, but to some extent everywhere.



paintcrack.jpg




doorchip.jpg




engine1.jpg




engine2.jpg




The car also had a few broken interior pieces but was pretty nice overall inside. The color top was severly scratched and the translucent one had water spotting. The Dymags were beautiful, though. And the paint has good gloss and is very red red, not faded. It looked quite red next to his new red Z06, which seemed orangish by comparison.



The car was very powerful, but very smooth. I was expecting it to be more hairy. I put it in 4th at about 60 mph, pressed the pedal to the floor, and was going 105mph in an instant. But it wasn't out of control or hairy, in fact it almost seemed pedestrian except for how in a few seconds we were going wickedly fast. The owner got on it easy and ran through 1st, 2nd, and a tad of 3rd, shifting short at maybe 4000 rpm, and we were hitting 75 mph in what seemed like just a few seconds (and within a block). :eek: It's hard for me to say if it's making the power it should, though. I've never been in a car with 400hp and 575lb-ft of torque.



I have some time to think about it, but I want one to keep for good, so I want one that is in great shape. I'm not sure how much effort or cost it would take to get this one that way. Stuff like the engine emblems or the discolored aluminum intercoolers or the peeling crinkle-finish on the intake runners might be expensive to have refinished. :nixweiss
 
yeah, everyone has a different (sometimes imaginative) definition of excellent condition.



saw a note in one the message board at work for a 98 Mazda 626 in "excellent condition inside and out" with 92K miles. What made me laugh was "brand new transmission just installed". My thought was, how great of a condition can a car be in if it's had a tranny replaced afte just 91000 miles.



Aurora, the car does look nice, but if you're going to use it for a show car then yeah it could get pretty expensive. Unless the owner is really wanting to sell, you may not be able to get it low enough to justify the overall cost to get it to the condition you want.
 
I dont know, it could be fun to take the car apart and "restore" it piece by piece. Youd really get to know the car and could make it perfect.



So why cant a car be in excellent cosmetic shape but need a new trans? 91k miles isnt that outrageuos to need a tranny.
 
I would consider it in good condition but that's about it....Any car is worth as much as you are willing to pay for it...decide what you want and go from there...would be negotiate on the price based on the flaws you found? (IN helping a buddy buy a Vette I found that most owners stick to the price becasue they know someone will pay it
 
:shockedits a callaway twin turbo......the due sort of what saleen does to mustang only better :bounce :bounce..im a huge blue oval fan so i dont know much of what a callaway vette consists of...i know this car must be alot of $$$$$ so unless you will be truly happy i would pass, unless you are getting such a good deal cause these cars from what i understand are hard to come by...going to online vette forums ( if you havent yet) will let you find out how many produced, what others have payed for a car similar to yours and so..from what you typed it looks like you have extenstively researched the car..would you mind posting specs of the car when it was new....ci, hp, tq, price and so on if you can....honestly though for a 9+ year car(im assuming) the car looks to be in very good condition..i mean it takes it great amount of dedication to keep cars to autopian levels for 8month never mind 8 +years....i see most cars severely neglected after 8months out of the dealer lot..one thing i've learned in my search for a good old car is be veeeery cautious of a car that looks to good with no scrapes or dings as it will be wayyyy to much or something is wrong that the owner is trying to hide...sorry for the long rant but i can share your dilemma as I to am searching for a limited edition car and the search is exhaustive
 
Because it has two turbochargers.



How many of these were made? Seem like kind of puny intercoolers to me, guess there isn't much room on the front end to mount them, huh? Anyways, that is an awesome car! I hope you are planning on working on it yourself, because I don't even want to think about how much mechanics would charge to work on a turbo vette.
 
holy :shocked



i have never heard of a twin turbo C4 vette.



i thought those looked like intercoolers/intercooler piping.



wow.



if you dont mind, whats the asking price?
 
LightngSVT said:
So why cant a car be in excellent cosmetic shape but need a new trans? 91k miles isnt that outrageuos to need a tranny.
Click to expand...



I guess it was that the statement about the new tranny was immedietly following the "excellent inside and out" comment. That and it was in BIG BOLD LETTERS making it seem like the owner was saying that's a good thing



Maybe it's just personal opinion, but I wouldn't consider a car to be excellent with 91K when it needed a new tranny, engine, or major item like that. A japanese car like a 626 should run an original tranny longer then that.



unless it's a manufacturing defect like the 99-03 Acura TL transmissions, to me it's a sign that the car wasn't well maintained. There are plenty of cars with over 200K on original engines and trannys, so 91K seems odd



I guess you could have a car of show car quality that has mechanical problems, but usuaully people that care about the look of a car also car about the drivability of that vehicle.
 
medic said:
I guess you could have a car of show car quality that has mechanical problems, but usuaully people that care about the look of a car also car about the drivability of that vehicle.
Click to expand...



Exactly my point. If you took good care of your car cosmetically and it developed a mechanical problem, you would want to fix it. So what if that problem required a new trans? You would replace it, right? So once it was replaced the car would again be in great shape. THings break, its not always neglect.



Im not trying to get on your case, or seem like a jerk.
 
hmmm, maybe you should make a list of all the stuff that you would want to get fixed, add that to the price of the car (unless you can get the owner to deduct that amount), and compare that price to other callaway twin turbo vettes. or maybe there are other ones out there that you can consider?



sometimes when it comes to rare, limited production cars, i feel like you can't be really picky otherwise you might just lose out. and considering that it will be keeper, maybe you can buy it with the intention of restoring it over the years.



also, if you are serious about buying this callaway, it would be a good idea to have it inspected further and in more detail, like take it to your mechanic and have him put it on a lift so you can inspect the underside, and have him to do a compression test on the all the cylinders to check that there aren't any hidden problems.
 
The picts don't capture the defects very well. They looked a lot worse in person, very noticeable. Also, it is not that hard to keep a garaged, only driven when you want to, car in great shape. It only has 29k miles, so it's been on the road about as much as my Aurora has, it's just sat in a garage more.



The problem with a mechanic was Labor Day was the ony day we both had free, no places open. And it's 5 hours away from me. The car was up at Callaway last year for a check-up.



Look at the engine picts closer, that's a fair amount of things to replace. The crinkle-finish is coming off the intake, the intercoolers have some bent fins and are discolored and heavily oxidized. The labels on them need to be replaced. These aren't easy things to get either.



Specs, Callaway made 58 in 1990, about 510 from 1987 to 1991. They were a twin-turbo and intercooled 350 V8. The intercoolers aren't that small, also there are two of them. Often TT cars still have one large IC. But mainly there isn't a lot of room. Front mounted would produce more power, but requires extensive repackaging. They look pretty cool where they are, if you ask me. :) In 1990 it was rated at 390hp and 570 lb-ft of torque. They were fairly underrated, though. There are a few mods like intake/exhaust, but more than that and you have to change a lot of things. The car is pretty tuned as-is. Also, while I can appreciate the Saleen comparo, the Callaway was a factory Chevrolet option. It has a GM RPO code and everything. Checking it meant your car was shipped from Bowling Green to Old Lyme, CT for Callaway to apply their magic.



They are cool cars and I want one to keep forever. So I want one that will be just perfect, though I can appreciate making it perfect eventually. But IMO, this car absolutely needs paint, and there is a lot of little stuff in the engine bay to fix. Plus, it has an aftermarket alarm and built-in radar detector (circa 1990 technology) which will require at least new trim peices due to lights and switches mounted inside. The state of the outside naturally makes one wonder about the state of the inside. Though he seems to have been pretty good about taking it to Callaway when there were issues.



Resale, they were about twice the price of a Corvette when new (though you could really go nuts with the aerobody and full leather interior and custom paint, etc, and pricing went nuts too) so they tend to be about twice the used price also. There aren't many for sale, but they sell slowly, probably due to the price and the fact not many people know what they are. Plus, the peak power isn't that different than a ZR-1 or Z06, though few cars make close to 600 lb-ft stock. We'll have to see. There's a black on red one about 6 hours from me with only 11k miles on it, I may have to take a look.
 
Aurora40- I've had enough "interesting" cars to have an idea where you're coming from on this. If you wanted the red one for a fun, high performance driver/beater, that would be one thing. But when you start pointing out the sort of detail that we here at Autopia really care about, I think that you oughta keep looking until you find one that doesn't need any esoteric repairs, let alone one that seems to have lived a pretty hard life for 29K miles. And the idea of buying a keeper of such recent vintage that needs paint just strikes me as all wrong.



No matter *how* rare something is, there are always more of 'em out there (and I've seen quite a few Callaway turbo 'vettes for sale over the years). I'd go very slow on this one and find the right car. There are people like *us* who own such things too, and the way we keep them makes all the difference. Just my $0.02....
 
Yikes I feel spoiled about my Dad's 'Vette when I saw the pic of the cracked paint :o I think Accumulator's right. I would let time steer you in the right direction to truly find "the one" :D :up
 
I agree with the others, there is always a better car. I too have bought a lot of project or interesting cars in the past. Buy with your head and not your heart. My experience says whatever you budget for in repairs, triple it.
 
Heheh, yeah I did list the bad mainly. I don't think it's the right car for me. But of course price could always change that. I'm going to talk to the seller this week and let him know I don't think it's the car for me, and I'm probably not the buyer for him. I do want a car in pristine shape, and there are a lot of people who bought theirs with 3k miles or so in mint condition.



But there are good parts, the car's not a total heap or anything. It ran, shifted, turned, braked nicely. And it has two Callaway upgrades (the hood scoops and an intake piece called the wonderbar). The Dymags are in excellent shape, and they are very expensive to replace (about $2000 per wheel from Callaway). But there are cars where everything is excellent. :)
 
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