It can be awkward selling a car to someone local, as odds are high you’ll see it again and you hope like crazy it doesn’t blow an engine or something expensive right after you sell it. Thus I was cheered a few days ago to see a familiar profile rapidly approaching in my rear-view mirror, and sure enough, it was good ol’ Herbie!
Purchased new in September, 2000 (as an ’00 model), when diesels typically sat on the lot for months, I owned the car almost thirteen years (it’s now pushing 17!). It had about 219,000 miles on it when I sold it, so if the owner has put the U.S. average of 13,474 miles driven annually on the car, it must be getting up around 265,000 by now. Volkswagen’s “ALH” 90hp (in U.S. market trim) TDI engine is a solid mill if well-maintained, and should net the owner a good 300-400,000 miles, if the body holds out that long.
It’s bittersweet, seeing an old car you liked, that you sold to a new owner…like spotting a special ex-girlfriend out and about with a new guy.
That car is kinda cool. Surprised the new owner didn’t beep at ya. 🙂
My Dad had a 65 Chevy Impala 4 door hardtop that he bought from a car salesman who had bought it as a demo from the dealership for his wife.
She rarely drove it because it had a 3 speed manual transmission and she preferred an automatic.
The car only had 2000 miles on it when it was 18 months old when my Dad bought it.
My Dad traded it in with 107,000 miles 8 years later.
Several months later as we were driving to a local shopping center we see a 65 Chevy pull out of a side street that the car salesman lived on……This 65 Impala was the same two tone color that my Dad’s was….crocus yellow with white roof….only this paint job was sparkling fresh….
We all said “There’s our old car!”…….We weren’t certain but it is plausible that the salesman heard that it was traded in locally on another Chevy and perhaps he bought it and had it repainted.
My Dad regretted selling that Impala….as the car he traded it in for rusted apart in 5 years.
On the other hand, I’ve sold broken cars only to see the new owner getting it running again in short order. Either they are a better mechanic than me or less lazy. Both of which are probably true
Nice catch indeed and glad the Bug is still in pretty good shspe. My family only sells to the junkyard so we never see our vehicles under their own power again. I did sell my Caprice to a Demolition Derby which was a bit painful.
I sold my third car , a Chevy van to a friend. Two years later he in turn sold it to another friend of ours, to use as a delivery truck for his business. A year later I worked for that friend and ended up driving my old van for 100,000 km. It was pretty surreal because I bought that thing for $300 and fixed it. Between the three of us we squeezed another 12 years and 200k km without much trouble. It sold me on the durability of old G-vans.
A good friend of my father’s drove a 1932 Chevy Confederate roadster until he got a draft notice and shipped off to Korea in 1952. He sold the car for $20 before he left. He made it through the war and came home and resumed a normal life, but he never forgot that roadster. Around 1975 he started doing some asking around with the hope that his old car might still be around and he could maybe buy it back. Come to find out, it was resold 3 or 4 times after he had sold it, and it was rumored to still be around. Cut to the chase, the last owner parked it in a delapitated barn, which under a heavy snowload, collapsed, crushing the old 32. He knew it as his old 32 from some telltale body damage, but his dream of restoring it was quite literally crushed. Very bittersweet.
I sold my stock Z-28 to a young lady who jacked up the rear end to comical height. The worst part was when she put a very large gold pot leaf decal on the rear window. It took longer than I wanted to tell people I no longer owned the car and did not make a drastic lifestyle change.
When I lived in Kalamazoo, the town was small enough that I saw my 70 Cougar once and the POS 78 Zephyr several times. Never saw the 67 Thunderbird after selling it and the 66 Plymouth was passed on to a cousin in PA.
In Grand Rapids, my Renault landed in the same neighborhood as the store I worked in after I traded it on the Mazda. Tinworm was getting a start when I traded it. Two years later, I got a good look at it as it was parked at a restaurant I was walking into for lunch…no doubt it was mine as it had the aftermarket BWA steering wheel and parking sticker from the place I had worked in 1980. Rust had run rampant and I couldn’t see what was holding the front fenders on.
Motown is much larger and I have never seen any of my old cars in their next lives. I sold the 97 Civic to a guy in Toledo. I sold the 98 Civic to a student at U of M. Carfax reports the 98 is now in Bellefontaine, Ohio, so it’s possible it is now a hobby car in the hands of an engineer at Honda, which is only a few miles down the freeway from Bellefontaine. The Taurus X is somewhere in Dearborn.
The saddest is my 02 Escort. Carfax said a salvage title had been issued for it only 3 months after I sold it. Cujo came to an untimely end. Found this pic on a salvage auction site. Can’t tell for sure if it’s Cujo, but the body style, wheel covers and color are correct.
I had a similar experience last year when I spotted my old vanagon fuelling up at a local gas station. I had given it a cheap paint job (tremclad blue rust paint and some truck box liner on the rockers) and it was looking good a couple years later. I was glad it was still tooling around as the young lady I sold it to didn’t seem that mechanically inclined. I think the thousands I had spent on repairs to the motor, fuel and ignition systems probably didn’t hurt.
The other vehicle I have spotted since I sold it was a tiny wooden tear drop trailer I built. It was out on the highway set for its next adventure still in the care of the people I sold it too.
It made me a little nostalgic seeing my old beasts again but I felt much better knowing someone was still enjoying them as intended. Compared to the many cars I have sold to the wreckers that by now have probably been turned into fridges or stoves…
Hah! I was completely bananas (ahem) for the Herbie movies when I was a kid. Before I got kicked out of the cub scouts, my Pinewood Derby car was…well, see for yourself.
As to cars sold locally: I’ve looked at that from both sides now. Most of my cars have been in better condition when I sold them than when I bought them. Some of their respective new owners have carried on improving them; others have let them (or helped them) go to crap. I extensively mechanically refurbished and reupholstered a ’71 Dart, but couldn’t face the bodywork it needed (rain outside = rain inside, etc). Next owner did a terrific job of all that. I kept an ’89 D100 spic and span and running as perfectly as could be. Next owner was fond of drinking his lunch (and breakfast, and dinner) and to enter his millwright shop was to get insta-stoned on solvent vapours. He was a block away from me, too, so I got to watch what had been a time-capsule specimen quickly degrade to about the same condition as most other beat-to-hell 2-decade-old pickup trucks.
I made my Pinewood Derby car the same thing! I didn’t get kicked out, but left on my own accord after being convinced the race (and the scouts) were rigged and created quite a scene.
More often than not, I have run most of my cars almost until the end and have given them to a very mechanically inclined friend. Who ironically then ruins them. Painful to watch indeed.
Before too long I am looking to get rid of a low mile, newer car because it is so strange compared to something older, bigger, etc and not my thing. Not really sure how to do it!
Of course the race was rigged—in favour of those whose daddies very obviously did all the work for them. I didn’t squawk about that, just grumbled a little; mine was a lower-intensity, longer-duration objection to the ridiculous busywork and the militaristic bulk wrap and the den mother, who was as brainless as her son and husband and dog (combined). My father had a great experience with scouting in Seattle in the 1950s; the place and time probably goes a long way toward explaining the difference to my experience with scouting in deep suburban Denver in the 1980s.
Suburban Boston in the 1980’s was the same. Must have been the times.
Too funny! I built my Herbie pinewood as an adult, but the Tonka was from my childhood. I probably painted it when I was around twelve or so.
I was a cubmaster, and encouraged our Dads to let their sons do all or most of the work. Mine sure did. They got sick of sanding, as I taught them how to get a mirror paint finish. Neither won anything, other than a new skill.
Darned Apple – posted right from my iPhone, sorry for the AUS photo.
Never seen any of my cars again. Herbie Moves On.
Didn’t realize the 90hp 1.9 TDi was sold over there! It’s one hell of a solid motor, as are most early TDi engines. I’ve already mentioned, but I know a Volvo S80 with a 140 hp VW 2.5 TDi 5 cyl that currently sits at almost 600.000 miles, only needing a rebuild at 550.000.
That 1.9 TDi gave VW a solid reputation for Diesel reliability around here, and used VW/Audi/SEAT/Skoda’s with a TDi are worth more than direct competitors.
And the 1.9 TDi is one of those engines you just KNOW it’s one when you hear the sound of it coming close!
I sold two cars to neighbors, both would now be CC’s (an E12 528i and a Vanagon Westfalia) and soldiered on in daily use for many years, and I’d see them regularly even after we moved a mile away. 15 years on, I sold my Land Cruiser to a fellow who lived about 40 miles away, and was pleased to see it pass me on the freeway in San Francisco, highly modified, about 5 years later. So I did a bit of Googling of Toyota offroad forums and found some nice pictures of it on its side at a popular off highway park. Finally, in CC effect fashion, I saw the T100 I sold last year, just yesterday when I was on a bike ride. Only the second time I’ve seen it in 13 months.
But wait, what car are you driving in that photo? I think it’s Buick regal judging by the hood vent, or maybe a Verano?
Holden Commodore SS-V Redline.
I’m sad to report that Herbie finally died about a year ago (in 2022). My son works at the same company as the owner – I asked him to find out the cause of death, but he keeps forgetting (they don’t see each other often).
Not a bad run.