This may be the last post about the Mistress, at least under my ownership. She’s on her way to Denver with her new owner. But how did we get here?
I made several attempts to attack areas left on my To Do list. Many of them were electrical. Never seemed to make any progress, which was frustrating. I started leaning towards time to sell her to someone who could get her to the finish line. Like Clint Eastwood says, “A man’s gotta know his own limitations.” Plus I was seeing some Boxsters & Caymans with more reasonable prices, so my eye was beginning wonder. There was a delicious ’11 Boxster Spyder on PCA that really had my attn. So I put the interior back together and plotted a sales strategy. Here she is with everything back in place.
The first person I contacted was the guy in KC who had expressed interest in buying the Mistress not long after I’d purchased her. When I told him back then I was keeping her, I said I’d give him 1st crack at buying her when I was going to sell. I PM’d him thru Pelican and asked if he was still interested. He said yes. We emailed back and forth a bit, then had a long phone conversation. He wanted to buy her but the timing wasn’t right. He had fewer jobs coming in the last yr due to COVID but thought things were going to pick up in the spring. Initially he thought my price was too high but changed his mind after studying the spreadsheet of my expenses that I’d sent him. He wanted to do payments. Sorry, I’m not a bank. So we left it where we’d stay in contact if anything changed.
I put together several ads, customizing them as needed for PCA, Rennlist, Pelican, and Craigslist. I got several bites off PCA the day I placed my ad. In fact, late that day someone from Maine contacted me. He was all excited as this was the car he wanted. He was even going to pay my full asking price. He wanted to know if I wanted a down payment. I’m iffy on them and said it wasn’t necessary. He sounded very convincing that he was going to buy. We talked about shipping and PPIs. This was a Sun night. The next morning I woke up realizing I’d sold the Mistress. But I felt good about it. Then I opened my emails and read a note from him saying he didn’t sleep all night and he was going to back out of the deal. Alrighty then. And Sun night when I thought she was sold, I looked at the PCA ad for the Spyder. It had just sold that day.
I get a few more bites but none of them appear too serious. It seems most of the prospects are going to have to hire all the remaining work to be done, but that’s going to be cost prohibitive and was when they checked with their mechanics. I needed to find a buyer who could do the work themselves. Then I got an interesting email from a person in Luxembourg (yes, in Europe). He seemed very interested, gave me his name, phone #, and email addr and wanted to know if I could recommend any shipping companies. Hence my thread asking about global shipping. While I was waiting for responses to that thread, I did some due diligence on the prospective buyer, wondering if he was some rich prince, ha ha. Turns out he’s a famous race driver from there and owns an exotic dealership. This would be perfect! I chased down 3 estimates and sent them to him as I got them. Then he went silent. Oh well.
Somewhere in here I got an email from someone who saw my ad on PCA. He asked if the Mistress would be drivable to Columbus, OH? Yeah right! I clearly stated in all my ad the timing belt and water pump needed replacing. Towards the end of my ad I said she’s a running / driving car, meaning she could be driven onto a trailer (which is important when getting a shipping quote). I guess people were fixating on the latter stmt and ignoring the fact that you shouldn’t trust a 22 yr old TB on a long trip. I replied that I wouldn’t drive her to Columbus, NE, which is 50 mi from OMA. Plus we were in the depths of a record cold snap (-30 below zero one night) and it would be dangerous to even attempt a long trip in any 30 yr old car. It took a week, but amazingly I heard back from him. He was going to pass. Shocking!
It was about this time I got several bites from my Denver CL ad. Denver must have a shortage of Porsches because I always get inquiries from CL ads I post there. In fact, I’ve sold 2 cars to ppl in the Denver area (the black 06 CS and the red 14 CS) from CL ads. One prospective buyer and I had several emails and long phone conversations, but in the end he thought it would be too expensive to have someone fix the issues that remained. I also got a txt from someone who wanted to know if I’d trade for a 944 Turbo. I wasn’t too keen to trade and figured I wouldn’t hear back from him. A week goes by and then late Wed afternoon I get another txt from him asking what my bottom dollar was. I sent him the answer and he said he’d taker her. I called and he wanted to make a down payment so he’d be sure I didn’t sell the Mistress out from under him. We agreed on an amount and began planning the exchange. He thought Sat would work for him to come out.
Thur & Fri I got her ready to go and drove her around the neighborhood for about 15 min. She hadn’t been out since late Sep, so she appreciated the exercise. I started making piles of parts that I has scattered around the basement, dining room, and garage. Then I gave her a bath and some detailer. She looked marvelous. Fri I txtd my friend Phil, who had gone with me on the adventure to Spencer, IA to buy her, and said I was selling the Mistress tomorrow. He came over this morning and checked her out, having not seen her since I bought her in her sad shape. He was impressed with how she looked.
My buyer arrived around 12:30 (he left the Denver area at 3am). He spent quite a lot of time looking her over and we drove around the neighborhood a bit too. After what seemed like a lot of deliberation, he said he’d take her, so we did the paperwork and then loaded her on a U-haul trailer. Kind of funny – she arrived at my house on a U-haul trailer and left on a U-haul trailer. The Mistress’ new owner has had 928s before, so he has experience with them. I hope he’s able to take her to the finish line and have a great car. I guess I never asked him if he planned to keep her or sell her, but it doesn’t matter as long as he gets her issues resolved. She deserves it.
It’s been a long and winding road, but overall a great experience. I’ve gotten to own and learn about one of the coolest Porsches ever made. For being 34 yrs old, she still has a modern look to her. I hope you’ve enjoyed my journey. While I’ve only driven her 5 or so miles at a time, she’s taken me places I’ve never been before. I don’t know if the new owner will keep me informed of his progress or not. If he does, I’ll pass it along.
As I was logging on to various platforms to delete my ads, I had a PM from the KC guy on Pelican. He asked if I still had the shark. Nope, I just sold her. There were also 3 guys I had to email saying she was sold. Why do potential buyers always appear after a car is spoken for?
And a couple of hrs after the Mistress left for Denver, I got a txt from a friend asking if I’d sold the shark. I said yes, how did he know? He said he passed her around Kearney, NE. She’s still turnin heads on I-80. Good for her!