In 2006 I decided I was going to buy myself another 240Z. I found a 1972 car that was a one-owner car from Hawaii (that eventually wound up in Albuquerque) - after looking over the car and taking a test drive with him I didn't see the car being worth the $10k that he wanted for it - even after talking him down to $8k I still saw the car as needing a lot of work (and money). I couldn't find anything else local so I hit the Internet. On eBay I noticed quite a few cars in really good shape being advertised; I narrowed down to a dark blue 1973 model with Panasport rims, triple Webers, flawless interior - an absolutely stunning car. The seller wanted $4000 for the car, which would have been a steal; making it even better, the car was being sold from a person living near my parent's house. Unfortunately, that car didn't even exist - it was a scam! The seller had used a false name and address on the auction (which I discovered PRIOR to sending his broker in New York the cashier's check). I got lucky with that transaction - I didn't lose any money... I notified eBay to halt the auction but learned that putting these online crooks in jail is difficult. I've caught the same moron advertising the same car on eBay THREE more times since my first encounter with him. Moral of the story - don't buy a vehicle on eBay if the seller has zero feedbacks...

With my eBay experience leaving a sour taste in my mouth I decided I would scour the Z-car forums on the Internet - I'd read countless times that the best place to find a quality classic car is via a marquee forum. I narrowed my choices down to a 1970 model nicknamed "Ruby" - little did I know how wrong my choice would be.

I contacted the seller via email; she wanted $6k for the car. She had posted pictures of the car online in several Z-car forums. The car looked stunning in the pictures: glossy red paint, front lip spoiler added; decent interior, and claims of all sorts of restoration work (brake job, interior parts, tune-up). She explained that the car was owned by two brothers in North Carolina - she bought it after it sat in their garage for quite some time and herself/her husband were restoring the car. She was selling the car due to rising medical bills and her husband's (Danny) need for money to continue restoration on his 1969 Camaro. After spending nearly two weeks trying to find a transport company to move the car from the southeast tip of Texas to Albuquerque I finally succeeded in getting a Z-car back in my garage. Let the saga begin...

The car arrived on a flatbed trailer - less than five seconds later I wished I could tell the trailer driver that I wasn't the person who was supposed to pickup the car and for him to take it back to Texas. The car looked nothing like the pictures I had seen on the Internet. The car was missing the front lip spoiler and the headlight buckets were primered. The left side body panel covering the wheel was literally flapping in the wind. Significant amounts of rust were plainly visible on both sides of the car - the bottom 1' of the car had rust bubbles under the paint. The car barely made it on it's own power from the dropoff point to my house (1/8 mile). Stopping the car was a pulse-raising experience. You could probably see my disappointment on my face from 10 miles away. And this story only gets worse..

I befriended a local area Z-car expert who was kind enough to look over my project car. From 50' away he was impressed.. after spending an hour trying to fix an electrical problem (all of the exterior lights would stay lit when the car was turned on) he turned his attention to the underside of the car. He discovered that nearly 40% of the bottom of the car was rusted out. The frame rails had bondo/putty embedded within the gaping holes to make them look complete - completely shot. If I had driven the car at 40MPH over a set of railrroad tracks the car would probably split in half. The floor pan had been replaced with fiberglass as had several pieces of the body. The car had been hit in the left front without straightening the frame - it had been repaired "on the cheap". There were fist sized holes on both sides of the floor. The only "good news" regarding my $6k purchase were the engine (which started immediately and purred very nicely - it just had zero power) and the glossy paint job (which I had waxed the day prior). Before leaving an hour later he strongly urged me to forget about restoring this car... there was simply too much rot.

My story gets worse... I tried selling my new prize on eBay.. after accurately describing the car's problems my online auction reached my pitifully low reserve price and ultimately reached $2800... under half of what I paid for the car but better than nothing. The auction winner turned out to be a loser - he backed out of the auction after a confusing sob story. I turn again to my local Z-car buddy, who unselfishly took on the task of trying to retrieve any salvagable parts and selling them for me.  After airing up the tires and putting gas into the car he attempted to drive the car to his house (on the other side of town, mind you). He quickly learned that the car was nearly undrivable above 45MPH - there was so much front end shimmy and lack of brakes that it turned out to be a scary drive home. So much for the previous owner's claim of the car being a "daily driver" and having a recent brake job.

Several months of effort determined that nearly every part on the car was so rusted that they either broke off when trying to be removed or turned out to be unusable once closely examined. The gas tank that the previous owner claimed to have been professionally fixed had at least one hole in it. One of the wheels had to be cut off it's lugs - if that tire had ever gone flat I wouldn't have been able to swap it out. After he exerted countless hours of pulling parts and manuevering deals the car has been retired to a local area junk yard, where it will spend the rest of its days baking in the hot southwestern sun. To date I've recouped $200 of my $6000 car.

Hopefully karma will catch up to the previous owner, whose husband (who is mechanically inclined) certainly recognized the poor shape of this 1970 Z-car... and to the woman who sold me this car, as she knew full well the condition of "Ruby". Based upon the Texas registration stickers on the windshield being compared to the transaction date I believe she wrecked the car after buying it from the NC owners and had the car cheaply fixed (or tried to fix it herself). This would explain the lack of the front spoiler and new headlight buckets (and the poorly hidden repair work to the left front end of the car). She tried repairing the many electrical problems on the car (and ended up making them worse). After recognizing that the car was beyond repair she posted early pre-crash pictures of the car online to gain interest in the car... of which I fell prey to.

I personally wouldn't be able to sleep at night knowing I screwed someone out of $6k for a car that wasn't even restorable to begin with. Brandy C - pleasant dreams....

Posts from Brandy on the Internet:

Pictures of the 1970 240Z train wreck:

Doors: Rust bubbles all along the bottom of both doors

Left Fender: Rusted off the car - tried taping it to the underbelly of the car to prevent flapping

Floorboards: Baseball sized holes on both sides of the FIBERGLASS replacement panels!

Center console: Rusted and pieces of plastic snapped off

Dash: Complete wreck with sizable splits

Engine: Entire block was rusted; very little power left to drive it one block home from trailer

Wiring: Homemade wiring EVERYWHERE. Not a single light worked correctly

Interior: Rust; torn seats