Doing the JPCavanaugh method of digging through old photos has yielded a few nuggets. This 2001 Ford Crown Victoria I found in 2013 or 2014 is one such nugget.
Why? I used to own this car and sold it in 2012.
I encountered it near Ft. Leonard Wood in the town of Waynesville, ninety minutes south of where I live. See the missing paint on the rear left? That came from replacing brake lines and lowering the car some with a tire leaned against it. Oops.
Incidentally, the driver was not the person I met when I sold it. Here’s where I once wrote about it. You can see the missing paint there also.
But this leads to my question: Have you ever encountered a car you used to own? Had it deteriorated? Was it an enjoyable experience? Or, was it irksome to see its condition?
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-outtake/curbside-outtake-passed-on-the-left-by-my-former-herbie/
I still get sighting reports from friends who live in town, although I haven’t personally seen old Herb since writing up the above. He must have well over 300K miles on him by now!
Traded in my 84 Plymouth Colt on a Jetta GLI, and a few months later spotted the Colt on a side street a couple towns away. It looked good, but also juvenile now that I had a nice car. I drove by a few more times before it seemed to disappear. Sold my 93 G20 to a neighbor, and saw it every day…it is weird to see yourself coming and going all the time. It was starting to rust, and got worse by the day.
Yes, and it was very sad. It strangely ended up at the same mechanic shop that I often took it for oil changes and other service. The owner told me it barely ran when they got it in. Ironically he was going to recoup his investment by selling the same whitewall tires I bought from him some months before selling the car.
My first car was a hand-me-down from mom, a ’73 Opel Manta. I drove that car from the end of my Sophomore to nearly the end of my senior year of high school (1983). About a month before graduation I was stopped at a light and another driver rear ended me. The car was driveable, but extensively damaged. My family took the pittance of insurance money and I ended up with dad’s old Volvo 142 for college. The Manta was sold off.
I probably could have held out for more. I remember rubbing my neck after getting out of the car, and the other driver was freaking out. Being 18, I was quick to heal but not cunning enough to mastermind a plot for more dough.
Five years later I had graduated from college and was traveling down a freeway in the Seattle suburbs. I saw the car and it had matching dents on both sides of the car, along with the original rear end damage. That car was a tough little bugger to take all of that and keep on ticking.
If you count family members’ cars – yes, twice.
When my grandmother traded her green ‘96 Volvo 960 for a new 2011 S60, some dealership employee put aftermarket wheels on the 960 and drove it for around town for a few more years.
I was walking around Cabo San Lucas in 2014, and saw a gray Buick Skyhawk T-Type coupe identical to the one my father bought new in 1983 and drove until 1996. I doubt it was the same one driven through more than a decade of New England winters, but you never know.
The last 3 vehicles I owned went right to the scrapper once I was done with them!
I encountered an early 80s Volvo 242 I used to own in the Pick-n-Pull once. Mostly because I sold it to the Pick-n-Pull 🙂
That would have been a sad moment had you not sold it to the yard.
I sold my POS Kia Rio to a lady that was down on her luck and only had a few hundred dollars to spare. I just wanted that blue eyesore gone. I found it a couple months later, abandoned outside an apartment complex where it slowly rusted away until it was picked up by the city.
Not to bring up old wounds, but what of the lovely Helen?
She was sold to a Mazda dealership after it no longer made sense to keep paying for repairs. I miss her so much. Lily, my El Camino, has made the loss somewhat easier to take. However, I know that one day I’ll own another big red American sedan from the Malaise era. I know I can’t afford it, but I’ve got my eye on a 1973 Ford LTD on CL. Sadly, I never saw Helen again. If l do, I’ll be sure to take pictures… and maybe try to buy her back!
Funny, and sort of a CC Effect… My first car was a ’73 LTD (similar to the one pictured below), and I discovered this place by accident while reminiscing about her…
She’s still the only car in my family that was ever given a name. When my Mom got her ’77 Nova Concours (a red coupe, BTW), the family LTD that would become my first car was christened “Old Bessie”. I didn’t personally think that 4 years old was THAT old to deserve a name like that, but somehow it stuck. LOL.
This was a car I saw again after it changed hands, as it was given to my sister when I bought my ’79 Futura. If you like Malaise Cars, there’s one for ya… It would not even get out of its own way with that wheezy 200 straight-six, but I loved her all the same. ;o)
You’ll have to give us an update on Lily! We’ve heard from Dave Skinner recently on his girl, El-Kyle-mino – sorry Dave if I got that wrong – but an update from you would be great!
Saw 3 ex-rides of mine.
Saw my 70 Cougar once, in traffic a few months after I parted with it. I recognized the rust pattern.
Saw my 80 Renault several times over 2 years. Rust was really getting at it when I parted with it. Two years later, the last time I saw it, I don’t know what was still holding the front fenders on.
The laffer was the POS 78 Zephyr that came between the Cougar and Renault. I had suspected I was seeing it around several times. One evening I dropped my g/f off and saw a silver Z7 parking at the next apartment building. Walked over, looked and recognized a spot where I had touched up the paint.
The owner was getting out of the car and looked at me looking at the car. I explained I had used to own that car. The first thing out of his mouth was “have any trouble with it?” I went through the litany of 2 years of monthly trips to the shop and asked “how about you?”. He said, in maybe three months of ownership, “had the carb rebuilt and the a/c has quit”. I went “uh-huh”.
To my surprise I once saw my old 1980 Concord going the other way, since I gave it away for a kid to fool with I was not expecting it would ever be back on the road:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-1980-amc-concord-little-green-concord-you-dont-know-what-i-got/
Also we regularly saw our 2007 Caravan at Ontario Pioneer Camp, last sighting was July 13th:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-2007-dodge-caravan-always-there-always-back/
Hope to see it again next year!
Like this
I sold my Father-in-Law’s 2003 Camry to a real shifty guy. The transaction started out difficultly until I told the buyer, “Take it or leave it” actually hoping he’d leave it. He paid and I let him transport the car away with my tag.
I never got the tag back though the car passed me one day at least a year after I sold it. I let DMV know that the tag had been absconded. It’s expired by now and there was no repercussion but I don’t recommend doing that in the future.
I had a similar experience in 1991 when I sold my first car, a 1981 Audi. I sold it for about $1,200 to a man and his teenage son; from the outset they seemed shifty. For example, the guy was jittery and pananoid. But he paid me in cash, for the asking price, and we went to the tag agency, but beforehand, the guy said “don’t bother taking your tags off; I’ll do it.”
I wanted to keep my license plate as a memento, so I took it off anyway. Inside the tag agency, the guy couldn’t produce proof of insurance, and got into an argument with the clerk. I just left eventually, since I had my cash, and my old tag.
A few years later, I got a call from the police that the car was involved in some kind of drug transaction, and was still registered to me. The buyers never transferred the title… just put on stolen plates and drove it around for a few years.
I always insist on visiting the title transfer shop when ever I sell one of my cars to an individual.
As an example, when I sold my ’05 Ford Escape, the purchaser was taking the car to Mexico for his wife!! Therefore, no need for insurance since it was leaving the country. We pulled the plates, the title transfer shop gave me an act of sale and contacted the state to cancel the registration. The new owner used his copy of the act of sale as his temp registration until the car left the country.
In California, The title form includes a removable tag that allows the seller to records the sale to the state, avoiding some of these hassles.
Of course, the new buyer does not have to title the car, but if it is involved in shady transactions or abandoned on the side of the road, the State has a record of the transaction absolving you from any responsibility.
Same thing in Wa, but now you have to pay to file the notice of sale. In the past the plate stayed with the car but recently to boost revenue they require new plates with the new title and there is no credit given even if the tabs were renewed a week ago. So the state gets some amount of double tax every time a car changes hands, assuming they were still good when the vehicle changed hands.
Hi Eric 703,
Your comment reminded me that I was once contacted by the Indiana State Police about an abandoned 2000 Suzuki Esteem. This was in 2008, about 3 years after I had sold the car to a dealer. The registration had never been updated from when I owned it. I just let the police know it was no longer mine and never heard about it again. We had actually seen in on the side of the highway a couple days earlier and wondered if it was our old car, because they were never very common around here.
In 2008 I sold my pristine ’89 Dodge D-100* to a millwright a block away. He had to have been constantly stoned and drain-bamaged; to walk into his shop was to be hit with a hard wave of solvent vapours. Also I’m told he preferred to carry his lunch in a flask. It was hard to see the truck get banged up in a big hurry.
*COAL eventually, so I keep saying; meanwhile, here’s a pic:
Reminds me of my Dad’s cousin who owned a body shop. We dropped by one Sunday afternoon while he was in the shop alone to inquire about some work my Dad wanted done. I must have been 14 or 15 at the time.
Dad’s cousin comes out of the paint booth smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer…
No. I tend to keep my cars for a long time, which means there aren’t many of my ex-cars out there to see. And the cars I did own all met kind of unfortunate ends.
My 1995 Saturn went to California’s Vehicle Retirement Program (kind of like Cash for Clunkers) after it failed the smog test yet again and I was getting tired of having to fix the constant emissions related problems. I dropped it off at Pick N Pull, where I would assume it went on their lot for people to harvest parts from before going to the crusher. I got $1000 from the state which was more than likely more than I could have sold it for. So there might be some old Saturn driving around California with a headlight or something off of my old car, there is no chance of seeing the actual car again.
My 2009 Corolla somehow lost all its coolant, overheated, and did catastrophic damage to the engine before I knew anything was wrong (The only warning light that came on was “check engine”, which I didn’t consider that urgent). It left me stranded about 65 miles from home. I ended up selling it to the guy who owned the shop it got towed to for $200. Presumably he intended to replace the engine and get it back on the road, but it’s far enough from home that I’m not likely to see it when it is.
Yea, I saw my 1987 Caprice Estate at the 2009 and 2010 Trumansburg Fair after I sold it to a Demolition Derby Team since 20 years of New York ruined the body. In the end it was flattened by a monster truck.
I sold my 2003 Caravan for parts in January of 2017 after the Flywheel shattered and it moldered in the same spot for about four months until towed away by the apartment’s contracted towing company. The people who paid me never came to get it and I let the Oregon DMV know it was no longer mine.
Every other car I’ve owned has been sent to the junkyard and never seen again. I do not even bother looking them up online.
My Sprite was bought from the guy I sold it to, to my parts guy. My first car a 59 Ford I sold to a friends Mom, who blew it up and sold it to her neighbor who rebuilt the engine and said it was a good car. I saw one of my Healeys at a Britich car meet, but never met the owner. I sold my 67 Beetle to my brother who I had bought it from. Lastly both my Chevy trucks a 89 and a 99 were sold locally in a small town so I would see now and then. I tried to keep track of my Audi A3 but I lost track after the third dealer.
I drove a Toyota Solara for several years, 2006-10. I traded it in to a local Ford dealer when I got my 2011 Mustang. I used to see it in my neighborhood all the time, delivering pizzas for a well known chain. I knew it was my old Solara from the color and some scuff marks on the bumper cover. It apparently has been retired from the delivery business as I haven’t seen it in several months.
I sold my ‘92 Ranger almost 5 years ago and I still see it around town every so often. It was a 2.3 and a 5-speed. I’d just put a fresh clutch in it. They’re slow but tough little trucks so I’m not surprised.
The funniest was my ‘84 Jetta GLi. I sold it to someone in north Alabama. It changed hands a few more times and I didn’t know where it was. I was at the VW show in Chattanooga, TN in the ‘64 Panel Bus I owned at the time. A bit later a silver ‘84 Jetta GLi parked right behind me. I noticed after we’d been walking around the show and a friend of mine said “hey that looks like your old car” I walked up and saw the little circles on the trunk where the paint was chipped off and I said “This IS my old car!”
The new owner and I couldn’t believe in a show of 400 cars he ended parking behind me. He’d rebuilt the engine and put some BBS wheels on it. Otherwise it looked the same. (It was an all original and pretty clean car save for the weird chips on the trunk I mentioned before)
Not including cars either given or sold to relatives, all of my cars but one were traded in on the next car.
Whatever the dealer does with high mileage cars (presumably they’re sold off at an auction) has never ended up providing me with a sighting opportunity of one of my old cars.
The only one that did not meet one of these fates is still in my possession….
I’ve never seen any of my former cars again, though I often wonder where they wound up. I’ve only sold 5 cars though… here’s what I know of their lives after me:
1981 Audi Coupe: Sold in 1991 to a sketchy guy and his teenage son. I left the details in reply to rpol35’s comment above.
1988 Saab 900 Turbo: This car had lots of problems and I sold it in 1997 to someone who worked at a Saab dealership who said he could get cheap repairs. I hope he had luck.
1988 Mazda 323GTX: Sold it in 2004 to someone on Long Island, NY who intended to race it. Through Google searches I found it was run in a few races, but have found no recent history of it.
1998 Ford Contour SVT: Sold to CarMax in 2010. A few weeks later, it was for sale at a Ford dealer near my house, but I never saw it again.
2006 Ford Crown Victoria: Sold to CarMax in 2018. A few weeks later, it was for sale at an easy-credit used car dealer in Mississippi for an eye-popping $10,000 – yes, for a 12-year-old Crown Vic. Whoever bought it got ripped off. Given that it’s 1,000 miles from where I live, I doubt I’ll ever see it again.
In 2011, my pristine ’07/53k miles Fit Sport was t-boned by a hit ‘n run driver. Insurance totalled it, and paid me off. One day while idly purusing Craigslist, I spotted a similar car, and upon closer inspection, discovered that it was mine! It was at a little garage/sales shop, and I drove past it several times before it disappeared! I always intended to drive by slowly and press the remote spare key that I kept, but I never did, LOL!! 🙂
Not my car, but my Dad’s ’74 Mercury Comet (black vinyl over white) with 302 V8. Soo typical of the mid 70’s engine issues (hesitation, sputtering, etc). Eventually, my brother’s drag races with the car burnt a valve and the car knocked like hell. Dad traded for a Toyota.
One day in a grocery store parking lot, I heard the knocking sound. Apparently, one of the clerks at the grocery had bought the car (knock and all) and used it as a daily driver!!!!!
One time . shortly after trading in my blue 71 v w type 3 I saw it at a stop light
I knew I was my former car because I replaced the faded carpet on the parcel shelf
Well I rolled down my window and told the middle age couple driving that that was my old car. The woman then told me in tears that her mother just died
Never forgot it
In 1993, at nineteen years of age, I bought a 1973 Dodge pickup for $300. It ran poorly and guzzled gas, but I figured I could flip it and make a few hundred bucks, which I did. A leather-clad biker bought it for $800. He knew I curbed vehicles and he asked me how much I made on his purchase, and I foolishly answered.
Two months later I bumped into him at the repair shop. He was not happy with me. He said that amongst the other problems, the carburator wasn’t even the right unit for the truck. “If you sell sh!t like this to people, you’re going to get your ass kicked!” was what I remember him telling me.
I took his advice, and still feel a tinge of embarrassment when I think of this exchange.
The truth is his statement came from a place of trying to make you a better person.
Pretty good for a biker dude.
Great story. I think it was the buyer that should have learned the biggest lesson from this. Always have a car your looking at buying checked out by a mechanic, if you can’t evaluate its condition yourself.
We already know many sellers are shady. Intentionally, or not. I’d be thinking a 19 year old may not have the cash to get serious repairs made before the sale. He got burned because of his own negligence IMO. He was likely trying to save a buck, by not having the vehicle checked. Great chance there are going to be issues on a $800 twenty year old pickup. Beyond the ethics of not disclosing issues with a car for sale, as a buyer I’m going to take the safest route, and have it checked out before I buy.
Three times.
In about 1990, I sold an Austin Metro and later that year parked next to it, noticing that the new owner had left the lights on and the door unlocked. I turned the lights off, but didn’t lock the door. You never know.
A year or so later, I saw the car and a new owner, not the person I sold it to, filling up next to me, and said “hello”. She bemoaned the intervening owner’s keep of the car, blaming him for the rust.
Many years later, I was driving on motorway in the my Fiesta and was overtaken at significant speed (over 90 mph I estimated) by a Focus I had sold 30 months earlier. To add to the coincidence, I was on the (hands free) phone to my wife at the time and the exclamation was quite distinctive, apparently.
Such sightings are easier when the car keeps the registration number of course.
I’ve owned 42 cars/trucks in my lifetime. I see several of them once in awhile. I think of them as my illegitimate kids.
In 1976 I bought a 1970 Fiat 850 Spyder. The original owner drove it sparingly. It was like a 3rd or 4th car. A dream car from childhood, I took great care of it and drove it gently. When getting married I sold it to a man who treated it brutally. He called one night to say he was shifting gears one night and asked if “I’d ever had the (remote) shift lever rip off the floor before”?! I kinda quit looking for it after that.
I’m fairly certain I could find where my former 2010 Highlander and 2004 F150 Heritage are parked right now with a little forewarning. The F150 is a commuter car now for a guy whose other ride is an 8 ltr V8 GMC truck – my F150 is his “gas sipper”.
The 2010 Highlander was quickly flipped by the dealer I sold it to and is in a neighborhood were its ownership by youngish, hard working, spendthrift, AARP members causes it to blend even further into the background.
I see my wife’s old 2005 Vibe occasionally (sold in 2016) and I only find it remarkable because it had 140,000 plus miles on it when it was traded in. I wonder if it is still on the clutch she had installed during her ownership.
Did not realize you had sold your 2004 F150 Heritage.
2004 F150 Heritage 4.6 ltr V8, 4 speed auto, 4×2
Bought with 68,000 miles on it, sold with 121,000 on it. The last few years of ownership I wasn’t driving it enough to even keep the battery charged. I mostly used it to haul wood pellets for my in-laws and bring the live Christmas tree into the school lobby that the community insisted on having (although one year I tied it to the roof rack of my Highlander, because the dang battery was dead in the truck again.) I finally installed an Optima battery and that helped.
But at any rate I was barely putting enough miles on it per year to justify a once a year oil change. Most of those miles was essentially forcing myself to do it to remember to keep everything in working order. The old girl deserved better than that. I had put new tires on it a few years before selling it and they barely got 6,000 miles put on them. Ball joints needed to be done…
Sold it to the ranch owning husband of one of my teachers, his day job is maintenance at the local hospital and his 1 ton GMC gas 8 ltr V8 was killing him on fuel. He’s using my old F150 to commute and to occasionally haul bales of hay. He had the skill to do the ball joints himself and to install some helper springs.
I predict the old gal will have a fruitful life at least. Only thing that chaps my hide is he put a NE Patriots sticker on the headache rack… 🙁
Ouch, Patriots sticker!? I know they are all winnning, but I like my Bills! Thank you for the information.
Back in ’81 I had to sell my stock, well maintained ’74 Z-28 to pay for my last semester of college. I sold it to a high school girl who lived in my parent’s neighborhood. I saw it twice afterward. The new owner decided to jack up the rear and put very wide tires on the back that extended beyond the fenders. The icing on the cake was the application of a very large, gold pot leaf on the back window.
I had to explain to some people that I no longer owned the car and my personality hadn’t changed.
In high school I had a 1988 7-series. My father sold it when I went to college in an actually reliable car and I came across it about 3 years later on Craigslist. Then I bought it, so I encounter it almost on a daily basis.
Sold my last daily driver to a friend. I still find it strange that he drives my car.
In high school a friend’s father sold the truck he was driving saying he wasn’t responsible enough to have it. We later found it parked outside the new owner’s place of employment about 20 miles away. He still had the keys so he began moving it to a different parking spot beginning with a few spots over and gradually getting further and further away. After a month or so of this we never saw it again.
This post sure got a lot of responses.
The (much-maligned) ’89 Seville that I had bought for $800, drove it a year, and sold it for $800 when it developed a hiccup on acceleration comes to mind.
I sold it to a shop who was willing to pay for it because it looked good enough to where he knew he could make a profit on it. Silly fake convertible top and all.
I saw the Seville several times over the next couple of years. One day I saw the owner coming out of the store and struck up a conversation with him. Turns out he paid about 3 times what I sold it for. It was running well and he really liked it. The Caddy’s rear was drooping and I showed him where a prior owner had put an inflation tip for the rear shocks as the leveling system had long broken. It needed a periodic hit of air.
Out of curiosity I went to the shop that had sold it to him and asked what it had needed to fix the hiccup. Turns out it needed all new fuel injectors. Then after it was sold, it had a recurring problem with the “chip in the key” starting system, whatever that’s called. It required a lot of visits and was expensive. So I guess I sold it at the right time.
I last saw it about 3 years ago, at the park, about six years after selling it. I meant to give him the “gold edition” (fancy!) keys next time I saw him, but didn’t have them on me anymore.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that the touch-up paint which I had carefully applied over at least a hundred tiny chips was still intact and the whitewalls were still clean.
So at least it was getting some love. Me and that guy both liked that Seville.
That makes two…
I still see my 2000 suburban I sold a year ago and my 1997 oldsmobile. I should start writing some coals
Many years ago, I saw my dad’s ’52 Cadillac under new ownership; Dad had traded it in on a ’61 Mercedes 190Db in 1966. Eventually, I think the Cadillac died; it certainly disappeared.
In 1994 we transferred our ’84 Mazda 626 to my brother-in-law; we saw that car once or twice on our trips to Prescott, and then it disappeared. We’ve never seen any of our other cars again, not even our ’03 Civic Hybrid that looked really very nice in the dealer photos after we traded it in on our Camry Hybrid. It had optional wheels from Honda that we never saw on another Civic Hybrid, so it would have been easy to recognize.
I had a high-mileage 1992 C33 Nissan Laurel diesel which I sold in 2002ish, advertising with complete honesty that the engine was worn out, smoked like a train and used a litre of oil per 1,000km. It still did 1,200km per 60L tank of diesel though, so was still economical in a way. The elderly couple who bought it did so because they wanted a manual transmission car, which it was. They fitted fluffy purple seat covers (!) and drove it for another 5-6 years. I’m assuming they lived next to an oil well…! The engine did eventually succumb to lack of oil and I last saw it advertised online for parts with a seized engine. And still not a hint of rust anywhere…
An older retired guy who does the bulk milk with me runs an old Nissan Skyline diesel the RUC label is paid to 514,000 kms it still goes just fine but he looks longingly at my Citroen C5 diesel, he may be thinking of trading up.
In 1989 I traded in my 1982 Mercury Capri 5.0 4-speed for a 1988 Saleen Mustang 5-speed at Peyton Cramer Ford in Torrance California. A year later, while waiting in line to see Jay Leno at the Comedy & Magic Club in nearby Hermosa Beach, I saw him pull up in his black Bentley Turbo, and then noticed my Capri parked across the street, still in great condition.
A red ’96 Neon 5-speed I sold locally for a teen driver’s first car. Noted it passed through 3-4 more young owners over the next five years. It was a tough little rig, good for 38 mpg, suppose that’s why they all used it for so long.
I had a K car that we gave to my sister in law when we replaced it. She used it for close to two more years, and I saw it on the road occasionally.
I owned a ’68 4-door T-Bird. It had languished in the garage for 10 years or so, neither of the boys had any interest in it, and with the “coaxing” of my wife I sold it in 1998. I had a tear of sadness/happiness as I watched disappear into the sunset on a flatbed tow truck. May it live again.
At the time of sale I hadn’t seen anything even remotely resembling my Bird in at least a decade.
We were driving through a neighborhood a few years later and I saw it. Complete with its certain nuances (proving it was my car) and current plates on it. I blurted out to my wife “there’s my car, pull over”!
She didn’t.
She questioned how I could know for sure it was my old car. I foolishly tried explaining.
She didn’t understand.
On the way home we passed the spot and it was gone. Probably never to be seen again.
A few years ago, I was visiting another location of the company I work for, one town over. I’ve known the operations manager for that division for years, and as she walked to her car I said, “That looks like my old Pontiac Vibe.” To which she replied, “This IS your old Pontiac Vibe!”
Sure enough, it was, down to the cushy rubber mat in the cargo area, which I bought from Lowe’s several years earlier and cut to fit. She had been looking for a used car at about the same time that I traded it. I’m not sure if I left something with my name in it in the vehicle (not like me to do) or perhaps the salesman thought it was a coincidence that we worked for the same company and mentioned my name to her when she bought it (more likely).
It almost happened again with another coworker last year, shortly after I traded my Escape. But this time, the coworker decided on another vehicle; we later crossed paths and he told me it would’ve been a strange coincidence, and then I told him the story of the Vibe.
A few months after having consigned it for sale, I came across my Toyota Celica being parked downtown. I knew it was mine from the unique rust holes atop the fenders. Chatting up the driver, I learned he had paid about 50% more for it than the dealer had reported to me. Dropping by said dealer later the day, I found a sheriff’s notice on the door informing all and sundry of the bankruptcy and seizure of their assets.
A few lessons were learned that day.
Aside from vehicles sold to friends or family members (which I have stopped doing)…
’73 AMC Hornet, sold locally via classified ad in newspaper. Saw it regularly in the guy’s driveway for a few years as it slowly got driven into the ground.
’62 MG Midget. Sold to a friend-of-a-friend. Saw it around town occasionally, and then it disappeared. I was on vacation about 10 years later when I saw it at the end of a rural driveway with a for sale sign in the windshield. This was about 150 miles from my house. The car had been stored in his parents’ barn and looked like the day I sold it to him!
’73 MGB GT. (Maybe this doesn’t count, because I didn’t actually see it) I sold the car to another friend-of-a-friend who kept asking me to buy it until I gave in. 14 years later I received a rather thick letter in the mail from the guy who bought it. He sent me pictures of the car, which had recently gone through a thorough restoration, and asked me if I wanted to buy it back. Tempting, but I passed.
This pic was about a year before I sold it.
I sold my 71 Plymouth Scamp in 1985 to a friend who needed a short term car to replace a wrecked one while he shopped for his permanent wheels. After he bought his car he had the Scamp for sale. Some guys who test drove it got in a wreck. About 4 or 5 years later I saw it in a forlorn used car lot. The engine had been replaced and there was a big old hole in the rear floor.
My 77 New Yorker was traded in on my new GTI in late 1985. About 2 or 3 years later I saw it for sale in a grocery store parking lot.
And then there was this one.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/the-many-cars-of-my-life-1989-cadillac-brougham-hello-old-friend/
2001 Buick LeSabre. After 7 window regulators, the most uncomfortable adjustable power seat ever made and with the dash pad shrinking and pulling up 1 inch inside the base of the windshield, it was time to let it go.
But i didnt want to look the future buyer in the eye, so I drove over the hill to another town to a consignment lot.
After getting a paltry 2 grand, I was hoping that would be the last i’d see of it..
No way. Whoever bought it lived in my town and I spotted it in a Blockbuster parking lot, shrinking dash pad and all. Kind of creeped me out, like it followed me back home.
Maybe it missed you?
I haven’t, but a dear freind of my family did. We all loved Bob. He was the grandfather that we never had, as ours both died young. In his younger years, Bob had a 1932 Chevrolet Confederate rumbleseat roadster that he loved! He drove it until his service was requested in the Korean Conflict, as it was called then. He sold it cheap because it was just an old jalopy. When he came home he started searching for his old car, hoping to buy it back. He tracked many leads but all to no avail. Finally, many years later, around 1970, going on an old story he found his old Chevy in the vines and weeds and other old junk behind an old abandoned dirt airstrip. Some previous body damage confirmed that this was indeed Bob’s old car. The car was totally delapitated and had been used for target practice, a lot. Bob’s search was over.
Bought a mid 80’s 6.2 liter Diesel Chevy van from a friend who said the rear end was going out, marched right down to pull a part and brought the “new” to me complete rear end back to the office in the wheel barrow, loaded it up and swapped it out and put it up for sale. The buyer was coming over the next morning and the starter refused to budge. I called the original owner who had purchased a lifetime guaranteed starter, after some checking and paperwork shuffling and zero dollars out of my pocket (lucky me!), got that installed, (it is still the biggest, heaviest starter I’ve ever dealt with). Next morning we made the deal and parted ways. Saw it on the side of the road about a month later with an impound sticker on it, it sat for a few days, never saw it again and wondered what exactly happened
Aside from two of our cars passed on to our kids, and a couple we sold to neighbors, I’ve had two interesting encounters. One was our old Land Cruiser, which passed me on the freeway with a huge lift and a new paint scheme consisting primarily of pickup truck bed liner. A little Internet sleuthing revealed some pictures of it on its side in the dunes at Pismo Beach.
A few weeks after selling my Mk 1 Ford Fiesta in 1982, a car which had seen a hard life as an SCCA Showroom Stock racer as well as a hard former life as a Budget rental, I got a knock at my front door. A gentleman asked for me by name, and when I said that was me, he looked puzzled. It turned out he had bought my Fiesta from the guy I had sold it too, who had flipped it and used my registration and signed title for the sale, passing himself off as me. The sale had been cash … and for quite a bit more than I had sold it for, and with no disclosure of its past history. The new buyer was rejected at the DMV when he went to register it, as I had submitted a transfer of ownership document after I sold it. The guy who bought it from me had repainted it and it actually looked pretty good. I saw it again on the street about six months later.
I saw my ’03 Subaru Legacy wagon twice in the last two years since I sold it. (127k, bought new for 17.1k sold for 3.1k). The Rockefeller University post-doc I sold it to uses it to drive his kids to daycare in Corona, and I drove past it on Junction Boulevard not four weeks ago, big missing paint on rear bumper cover from where the drunk Israeli smacked me on Woodhaven Boulevard, and the unpainted front bumper from when the doctor smashed my front trying to park his Navigator.
It was the relentless drumbeat of repairs; the final feather on the measure was a fickle flicker of the verfluchten check engine light. Yes, the downstream oxygen sensor, but what is next after it? Also it smelled a little moldy after a rain accident in the moonroof, 14 years of salty street parking, two airbags instead of six, the agita from driving a car without adaptive cruise control after driving one so equipped, and…I think the brake rotors were beginning to go. Oh, and the all-wheel drive was snorfling, positively snorfling gasoline. I think the transaxle was commanding 50/50 front rear, which gave me the mileage of a 1974 Chrysler Newport in town. Highway was high twenties, like always.
I drove my 99-year-old grandmother to my wedding and drove my wife home from that wedding in that car. I helped friends move boxes weighing hundreds of pounds of books from storage. I brought my son home from the hospital in that car after driving my pregnant wife to the hospital, eating snow off the windshield of that car in the great northeastern blizzard of Halloween 2011. The car successfully destroyed a Hyundai Excel on queens boulevard in 2013, Suffering significant damage (almost $6500 worth of damage ).
I maintained that car like it was a family member. New head gaskets new brakes new control arms and suspensions new bearings new exhaust system , Completely repairing the vehicle after the aforementioned accident because I knew exactly what I had done to it and who knows what kind of experience I would have with a replacement car. But cars are like dogs and people.
Not actually my car so maybe it doesn’t count but my parents ended up selling a 1954 Plymouth to the daughter of a neighbor, a single mom who needed some cheap wheels. This was in 1963 and we saw the Plymouth at her mom’s house on a regular basis through 1969 or so. At that point the car was so rusty that it was no longer safe to drive but apparently the flathead six ran as well as it ever did. As long as you made sure they had some oil and didn’t try to spin them very fast those old Mopar flathead sixes would run forever; great as long as you weren’t in any kind of hurry.
I traded my 1st car 1987 Pontiac Acadian in to the local Pontiac dealer on a a new 1995 Firefly. The salesman told me a friend of his was looking for a cheap car to get to and from work for the next 6 months. I told him I would not sell it to anyone I knew, it had around 400,000 kms was burning and leaking oil in addition to bad undercarriage rust. I was told and shown by a mechanic that the transmission could fall out at any time. Anyways, it turned out the guy did buy it and lived in the same neighborhood. I saw it on a regular basis for the next 3 months or so, until one day I saw it on the side of the highway with no plates on it. I guess it finally broke down and he abandoned it for the city to pick it up. It made me feel sad as that was my 1st car.
There have been some that went to friends and family so I did see those on a regular basis.
For ones sold to strangers, there have been a couple, a Pinto Wagon was sold to a guy that lived down the street, though he moved away a few months later. I also had an 80 Mustang that the wife drove that was bought by a kid who lived just off of a main road several miles away that I frequently traveled. Since it was the kids car it parked on the street so I’d frequently see it if sitting at the curb if I looked down that street.
I’ve run into my old cars quite a few times over the years.
The first one was my handed down from mom ’72 Cutlass that I hadn’t seen since I traded it in Nov of ’74. I was in Bowling Green Ohio in June of ’82, where i had last seen it, and I was stopped behind it at a traffic light. At first, I didn’t think it was the same car, but I had added a rear sway bar to it and when I backed off as we pulled away from the light, I saw it clearly, and I followed it to the local Burger King, where I asked the driver about it. She let me look under the hood and I instantly recognized my handwriting on an old sticker. It was remarkably rust free. I never saw it again.
Next one is my ’79 Trans Am that I wrote about and the post was made into an article. Last time I saw it about a year ago, I guess, it was back running after sitting on blocks a long time. The guy I sold it to in ’87 had it running again with a new TH350 in it, and other than needing paint, it seemed to be running well. I passed a ’79 T/A a few weeks ago on a nice sunshiny Sun morning and after I passed it, I realized it was my old car with a pretty decent looking new paint job. I turned around and finally saw it moving through a Meijer’s parking lot. It was driven by the wife of the guy I sold it to. She let me drive it and it still has the same amazing throttle response it had years ago. The 403 is still a lot of fun to drive, and sounds great. The interior is pretty good in general, but the speedometer has the shaky needle that a bad cable usually causes, and the tach is messed up. The JVC stereo I put in back in ’85 still works great. I would say the paint quality is about 2X better than it was originally from the factory. Not bad, but not super great.
And once in a while, I see my 2003 Ram 1500 Quad Cab 4×4 driving around. The rear wheel area is rotting away, but it seems to be running well and last time I talked to the present owner, it was 155K miles on it with only a water pump, battery, and brakes/tires since he bought it in Dec ’07 with 63K on it. I miss that truck in the winter.
For 7 years I had a ’90 Civic hatchback, which I sold in 2010 with 255K on the odo. Years later in 2014 I saw it in someone’s driveway in Lafayette CO, where I used to work. Would still see it being driven around town into the following year, confirming that it still ran. Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s still running today.
The only car from the past that I got to see again was a 1971 Valiant wagon that was the family car when I was about 10 years old.
I saw it in about 1983, it was a bit of a shock to see it in such poor condition, mismatched wheels, dents, probably not been washed for years. I knew it was our old car, as it had the same registration, KZM 343.
I used to see my old 93 Amon Corona on a regular basis I sold it to members of the local Blackpower chapter and they ran it for years, I know where the Mitsubishi Mirage VIE X I sold has ended up its with a few dozen other JDM refugees in a front yard in Napier it took a long time to die and the high mileage Nissan Sentra I flipped last year drives past occasionably still giving its new owner reliable service, and my old Xsara still graces my driveway when my daughter comes back for a visit she even lets me drive it to explain any new noises its making and it still goes great and is fun to drive the whistle from the turbo and roofed in gocart like handling made it a fun car for yers in my ownership.
Only once. I briefly owned a Dodge Horizon RV that I sold when money was tight. I sold it to a nice guy who made it a quick and easy sale.
Maybe about 6 months or a year later, I saw the van in oncoming traffic heading north up the coast. He had installed a rack on the back and was carrying his bike. I was glad to see that he was enjoying the van.
Sometimes I’ll look through Carfax to see what became of my old cars. I’m proud when I see they are still going and sad when I see they have finally reached the boneyard.
Yes, my immaculate gold ’66 Falcon about 2 years after I sold it in the late ’80’s.
And here’s a thing. It just looked weird to have someone else casually driving my car! The thought really did flicker across my brain, “Do you MIND?”
Anyone ever felt a twinge of embarrassment because your own thoughts?
Reverse case:
In 2017, mechanics working on my 1958 Cadillac sedan unearthed a 1985 credit card receipt in the trunk with the name “Daniel S******”. I looked up D.S. and called him on the phone. “Did you ever own a 1958 Cadillac?” “Yes!” “Do you want to see it?” “Sure!”
Turns out the Cadillac was purchased almost new in late 1958 or ’59 in Reading, PA by Dan’s grandfather. The car remained in his family until the early ’90s when Dan sold it to a neighbor. That neighbor then sold the car to me in 1995. Dan hadn’t seen it since.
Nov. 2017: I visit Dan and he is reunited with his car after 25 years. Dan remarks that the car looks virtually the same as he remembered it and is in excellent condition. He gets to sit behind the wheel one last time.
Sept. 2018: I sell the Cadillac in order to buy a better one. After the sale, I learn that the buyer’s plan is to ship the car to Germany for full restoration and resale, possibly to someone in the Eastern bloc countries, “Where people have cash!” So a new stage of life begins for this old car.
Nothing is permanent, time never stops moving, and life goes on.
Photo: Me, Dan, and the ’58 Caddy back home at Dan’s house.
Actually never. I have had the use of 16 cars over my life. Four were company cars in the 70s so not really mine nor sold. One went straight to the junk yard. One was sold and never seen again in 1986. The other ten are still with me today.
I have a few times:
1) Traded in my 1985 Plymouth Turismo for my 1993 Topaz GS. I saw the Turismo about 6 months later on a used car lot, asking for $3K more than we got for trade in still sporting the bald tires and worn clutch. I saw it again a year later at a chance encounter in a parking lot at University of New Mexico.
2) After selling our “baller” 1995 S420 with 20″ chrome wheels, I saw it about 3 years later. We had sold it to a friend, who had sold it about a year after we sold it to him. I saw it about a half a dozen times around the same area.
3) We sold a 2001 Excursion. After several moves around San Diego, about 10 years later we bought a house and have been there since. We are about 2 miles from the family who bought it, and I’ve seen it a handful of times around the area.
I’ve never gotten rid of a car I own, BUT…
This week I’ve been in Denver helping my Mom transition my Grandma into hospice, moving furniture and whatnot in the Prius V my grandpa bought in 2014(he passed away in ‘16), which he traded in a 98 Sienna for that my Dad originally bought for him as a repayment/gift for helping my parents buy a house several years earlier. On one of the trips back and forth from building to car a similar looking Sienna was parked by us, and lo and behold it had a Schaumburg Toyota dealer sticker on the bottom left corner of the tailgate, the dealer my Dad bought it brand new from in Illinois that I happened to tag along with as a little boy 20 years ago!
It was not dented 5 years ago
Yes, weekly. That’s what happens when you sell your car to family. My Subaru Liberty (Legacy) wagon is actually a beloved member of the family. I got to drive it again recently and I forgot how light it felt compared to my Falcon. Perhaps a bit too light in the steering but it’s certainly an easy car to drive. It also scoots surprisingly fast for a naturally-aspirated four.
Never seen any of my other ex-cars in person. The guy I sold my Falcon XR6 to kept showing up as a Facebook suggestion because he was a contact in my phone and one day I finally looked at his profile. He was younger than I was (19? And I was around 23) and he enjoyed his XR6 for a year or so more before trading it for a dual-cab Hilux or something (makes sense, he lived out in a regional area and seemed pretty outdoorsy). I saw a post he published when he sold the XR6 thanking it for being such a great car. I was glad he loved it as much as I did! I wonder if it’s still roaming around regional Queensland.
Only once or twice did we ever see my mom’s ’83 Plymouth Horizon or ’97 Mercury Tracer still in town after we sold them. The paint was BADLY peeling off on the Plymouth. A guy in Florida bought my dad’s ’89 Lincoln Town Car but I still see similar-vintage models every so often. The ’06 Focus wagon that I wrecked AND my ’96 Aerostar both went to the junkyard. My grandparents’ ’88 Cutlass Ciera was donated to Goodwill; several similar models are still seen but I would know which one was theirs (haven’t seen it). One of my cousins bought their ’96 Dodge Ram & to my knowledge is still driving it.
Now if we include TRAILERS into the mix, I DO know of one for certain: an old red trailer that my dad used for getting up yard debris around our home up to at least a decade ago. Around the yard it was just fine, but pull it on the highway for any given time and the coupler would break loose even after checking it was secured to the hitch ball. This happened one time too many and dad declared “THAT’S IT!” & shunned it away deep into the woods. A guy named Lathan who’s in the woodworking business happened to find it several years later; dad practically gave it to him for free but warned: “DON’T pull it ANYWHERE on the highway!” No problem: it was simply loaded onto Lathan’s wood-hauling trailer–which has a grabber arm on the front for lifting heavy pieces of timber–and hauled away to his home where he does most of his work. I didn’t see it again until just this past February in the middle of his working area finally being put to good use after so many years being left in the woods: a wood-cutting platform was added to the top of the trailer to aid in his work. And it can STILL be pulled by a lawnmower for a utility bonus as shown below; I guess the mower was also repurposed as the mower deck’s gone!
I used to have a 1975 Mercury Comet GT. It was bright yellow with black racing stripes and a black vinyl roof (on the top of the roof only, the rear pillars were still bare paint). It had optional aluminum wheels (which I thought looked cool) and was equipped with a 302 V-8 and a 3-speed automatic.
Unfortunately, it was a bit of a lemon and I could never really afford to keep up with all the repairs it needed. There were problems with the front suspension (upper control arm bushings) what with the weight of the V-8 in a car originally designed for a 6, and with the automatic transmission (band adjustment they said). I gave up on the car when it threw a rod at 140,000 miles when I was driving to work one day in 1985. I put my foot down on the accelerator and nothing happened. I steered the car to the side of the road, eventually coming to rest in front of, I kid you not, an automotive recycling center.
I did get the car started again and I drove it home, but it was making a terrible racket and it wouldn’t have been driveable for much longer. So I sold it and didn’t see it for a year or so. When I did see it, I hardly recognized it. The new owner had replaced the original engine with a 289 from an older Ford Mustang (the state I lived in did not have any emissions control tests). The car had been repainted a kind of beige (no more racing stripes), but the vinyl roof was still there and the optional aluminum wheels had been replaced by nice-looking chrome mag-style wheels. I always thought the aluminum wheels were the best thing about the car, so I was a bit sad to see them gone. Anyway, it was weird seeing the car again and how much had been done to it.
My first new car was a blue ’75 Mustang II coupe. It was an alright car for the most part except for the dealer installed AC which gave me problems. However, I never really bonded with it. After a month of driving it to work I gave it to my wife to drive and went back to driving the ’67 Mustang we kept instead of trading in. In February 1979 we traded the Mustang II for the then new Malibu that I still have. I didn’t know who bought the Mustang II except that the dealer who was a friend of mine told me that it went to a neighboring town in another county. At the time I was in the restaurant business. One day a year or two later I was outside my restaurant checking things out. I walked by a Mustang II the same blue color as mine in the parking lot. I took a closer look and it was my old car and it was absolutely trashed! Although It was not my favorite car and I really didn’t miss it, it was sad to see it in that shape. That was the only time it crossed my path.
Owning a Mustang II must have not made too bad an impression on me, though. Years later we bought a nice ’78 Mustang II for our two older daughters to drive in high school. That was one tough little car and the factory air worked just fine!
Yes, a few over the years. I sold a ’76 LTD Landau back in ’82 while in college to my landlord’s mother in law, and saw it regularly until I moved away.
The sad one: about 3 years after I sold a ’68 Falcon Futura Sports Coupe, I saw it in a junkyard. It was the best running car I’d ever had — that 289 ran like a watch — and I’d say that the person I sold it to just mechanically abused that nice old car a bit too much.
– In around 2002 I totaled my “beloved” 77 Pinto and bought a brand new 2002 Hyundai Elantra hatchback that I had to sell only two months later due to an electrical issue I couldn’t fix. Lady that bought it ended up being my friend Kery’s grandmother who was nearing 75 and needed a better form of transportation. Three weeks later I saw it in traffic, but it turns out Kery was driving it to her funeral.
– In early 2005, I sold my bright blue 1975 Catalina Safari (with the praised 455 Big Block) to a rather suspicious and iffy looking pair of gentlemen who pretty much just gave me the 4K I was asking and trying to get my keys. I didn’t see it in person, but it was in a news report about some scandal with a string of robberies that they did using it.
-Finally, the wife’s first car was a bright yellow 1979 AMC Concord Wagon that she sold in 1995 to one of her friends. In 2007, the day we got married, we saw it on the way back home Parker right next to us. Her friend Toby was still driving it.