The Official CC Sales lot may be thriving, thanks to easy daily payment terms starting at $5 per day. But some lovers of vintage iron just can’t seem to keep up, and that’s when the trouble starts. Or maybe it’s because the car won’t start and they can’t make their daily payment. Whatever. But slip behind more than five days, and it’s Judgment Day, and not just on May 21. But their loss is your gain, as these cars are for sale, again. And there are some real gems here.
Now this De Soto is not exactly your typical repo, and it took a while to find it; thirty-four years, actually. But just because someone stashed it behind the barn doesn’t mean it won’t eventually be recovered.
It’s the highly desirable business coupe no less.
Here’s an increasingly rare Colonnade coupe, a Pontiac Le Mans. Sorry, it’s been ages since we repoed a Grand Am.
Here’s a handsome ’75 or so Nova coupe, eager to get back on the road.
I’m afraid I can’t quite say the same about this rare Versailles. The owner ripped it’s highly desirable disc-brake rear axle out of it, which is undoubtedly planted in a hot Mustang 5.0 now. That’s ok; we put a chip on all Versailles rear axles, and we know where you are. Get ready for your Judgment Day.
Here’s the rest of the fine pickings on tap. Are you drooling yet? If not, I’ve saved the best for last.
This beauty of a ’68 Riviera is sure to get an CC fan’s heart going.
I’m a lover of Rivieras, especially the first one. But this one does talk eloquently, and it even spoke to Stephanie, which I hadn’t exactly expected. So before I clean it up a bit (not too much; that would spoil the effect) and give it to her, make an offer.
I’ve also got bricks, windows, tires; you name it. And of course, there’s the truck that does the dirty business.
The name is good, but the truck is way too new; I know. But that’s part of the whole strategy: if we drove up in a real vintage tow truck, folks would know the jig is up. In order to be really stealthy, we sneak up in this rather newish (if 25 years old fits that description) Ford, the Stealthmobile. Keep those payments current, or your baby will be riding away on the back of it.
I want that Nova! Hopefully it has the 350 in it, but the 305 will do.
Junkyard LT1’s are a dime a dozen. Dropping one into an old Nova would probably double the MPG.
OK Paul you have coxed the story off when I was a mechanic at a used car dealership out of me.
So it was back in the day when I was aspiring to be a self employed mechanic and my wife had a real job. I was working on an old Chevy truck for a contractor and we needed a part no one had (something to do with electro-hydraulic assist brakes as I recall). So my friend, lets call him Juan, says “we should go see my friend CR, that’s who I bought the truck from and he might know where to get one”. So we cruised down the road to a nasty little place in a poor section of town. “CR’s Stop and Swap” was choked full of cars just like the official CC lot. Plus several old city buses (he lived in one of them) and of course a stack or two of bikes. Well we all got to talking and it turned out CR, who was an old southerner with slick hair and a syrupy accent, needed a new mechanic. He was pretty vague on what had become of the last guy but he often extolled his virtues to me, especial how much cheaper he was. Well I thought to myself “here’s the chance to become a real mechanic and all”. He told me he would let me use the shop building (an old shed/barn structure with no lighting) and pay me fifteen dollars an hour. But only when I was actually wrenching.
So the first day I showed up for work he said, “lets get this Reliant K ready for the customer who wants it, he is coming in an hour and it has no key”. I was instructed to disable the steering lock and put in a push button start switch, which I did. The customer came and negotiated awhile with CR. Then CR came over to me and said “lets change out those tires, he can’t have those good ones” so I did. Before the customer returned CR said “take out that battery, it’s my good one”, so I did but could not find a good battery in the pile of crap in the shop. He told me not to worry about it. When the customer came to pick up his car it would not start, to which CR simply said, “thats the battery that comes with it, you can’t have my good battery”, and then offered to jump start it for a small fee (going to me). Surprisingly after a bit of haggling the customer approved and payed me ten dollars to jump start it and drove off.
Turns out that was a pretty typical transaction at CR’s. He was the kind of old coot who could sell newspapers to blind people. Once, I was driving him to an auction (as he had lost his license) in one of the lot jalopies when he suddenly said “stop”! I stopped and he said “did you see that lamp in that window” ? Then he got out walked up to the door of a house we had passed and knocked. A lady came to the door and he told her how he had noticed her lamp and was wondering if she would sell it to him. He was so flattering and smooth that she seemed not at all surprised at the offer. He then produced from his pocket several silver coins and told her how collectible they were and that he would give her three of them for the lamp. I helped him load it in the trunk.
I worked for him on and off for a couple of weeks but didn’t see any money from him. So I brought up the matter and was told that he did not have it just then, but that I could pick out any car I wanted from the lot and that he would sell it to me for only three hundred dollars over what he owed me. Strangely at the time I thought this sounded like a pretty good deal and thats how I ended up with a gold Peugeot 504 diesel wagon.
In the end it was not the low or non existent pay, or the shady, or strange dealings that finally made me quite, it was one instant in particular. It was CR’s custom to sell cars for a small down and to take weekly payments until the customer would inevitable default. And then he would reposes the car. By doing this, he was able to make well over what the car would have been worth had he only sold it once. Sometimes he would even sell to the same customer again, with a small down payment of course. One day I was asked to come help out on a repo. CR gave me a car key and told me he always keeps an extra with every car he sells. Then he told me the game plan. I would quietly get in the car and put the key in the ignition, then he would go to the door and get the title and other key back. I asked him why they would just give it to him and he assured me that they would, so off we went. I sneaked up and got in the repo car, he went to the door. The customer opened the door and CR pulled out a 38 caliber revolver and pointed it at him. The customer gave him the signed title and the key, I drove away, parked the repo car, got in my Peugeot, and never returned
Great story, and very vividly told. Snakes, but the world is richer for them.
That F-body would get snatched up in a heartbeat around here. Ditto the 300ZX.
I wouldn’t mind the chance to own a ’72 Duster. I enjoyed the CC take on the car.
I remember my brother had a ’72 LeMans out of high school. I thought that car was so cool. Now? Not so much.
Make ya a two-fer on the Nova and LeMans.
Love the old coupe
I had a high school teacher that had a Versailles. At some point it was at a collision shop for a rear end collision. Apparently the shop was confused about what kind of car it was and they ordered the Continental letters to put around the round hump on the deck lid. They could not fit all of the letters in so they just left some of the vowels out. The spelling ended up looking a little like the spelling of a particular sex act and my teacher used to call it the cunnXXXXXXXXX-mobile.
He was a different sort of character in that he never thought about getting the correct letters and just drove it like that until he traded it in for a Dodge Diplomat.
Seems like it would have been simpler for Ford just to manufacture a bunch of heavy duty disc brake rear ends for sale in the aftermarket to Mustang owners, without the intermediate step of putting them in Versailles-es that we had to endure for some number of years first.
The one I want is that LeMans coupe. Especially if it has the sport coupe interior with buckets and console. One of the best Colonnade cars, second only to the 73-74 Buick Century Gran Sport, IMHO.
The Lincoln Versailles had a number of unique features, not just the disc brake rear. It featured an early engine management system with a variable venturii carb and aluminum intake manifold. The drive shaft was a double cardin design. There were other small differences as well, like a special exhaust system, that were not used on the Granada and Monarch.
These cars were comfortable to drive and fairly reliable. To see one today is remarkable considering they are over 30 years old and largely ignored.
The rear lights on that Nova are interesting. Were they part of some sort of deluxe package?
How much for that LeMans?
I’ll take the LeMans. I always liked the Collonades. The Riviera is nice, too, and I think you could make something cool out of that DeSoto.