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What's wrong with buying a Vitesse from the US? 

Posted By : Christoph Leonhard, 04-Mar-2005, 10:54pm

Here we go again, this is my third year, admittedly off and on, to try to buy a Vitesse. Impossible you say? -- well I live in the US, Chicago actually, and there really aren't any Vitesses over here.

I've been trying various strategies to try to buy a car in the U.K. and I always come up dry. Could someone please help out a sad Vitesse-deprived German-American?

Here's what I've done so far.
1) Contact the Club for some guidance. I got the name and email of a person that supposedly helps folks find cars. I emailed him three times, got a short response (not a helpful one) back to the first email and that was it.
2) Contact a trader (I won't name names, but they're all on this website). I got an offer from him to find me a car for 20,000, (no, not dollars). When I respectfully declined, he offered to sell me a car that "had a lot of work done to it about 15 years ago and hasn't had much use since" for 10,000.
3) I bid on a car on ebay. I bid it up to 7,500. It seemed like a nice car but going higher for something I couldn't look at myself seemed less than smart
4) Contacted another trader, he said a car in good shape could be had for about 20,000 (there's a theme here). I respectfully declined.
5) Contacted another trader, actually this one I contacted 3 times so far. He keeps telling me: Oh, no problem, I'll keep my eyes open for you. Maybe he's myopic...
6) Contacted another trader. He was willing to sell me a decent car for 7,500 (my limit). I got some pictures from cars he'd done before, I sent very detailed emails back and forth about what exactly I was looking for (just a nice car, farily stock, nothing fancy). We talked about a tentative itinerary for me to come to the U.K. to look at the car when the body work was done, etc. Then nothing. I called, I sent 3 emails. No reply. I loathe to hunt down folks prior to the sale being made. Makes me nervous to think what kind of responsiveness I will get after they have my money - or at least a good portion of it - in their hands
7) Occasionally contacted folks based on TSSC classifieds, but cars were either sold or I didn't hear back.
8)Monitor the Yahoo Vitesse Group - not many sales come up there, though.
9) Try to hire two U.K.-based "classic car buying services". One never responded. The other one said:"No problem, nothing available now, but I'll keep my eyes open for you". -- another theme here and this was last year.

.... sorry this is long, but I'm starting to wonder whether I am missing something really basic here. Is it wrong to want to buy a British car to take to the US? Do Traders generally think anyone in the US has money to burn? (to wit the quotes I got for a 20,000 Pound Sterling Vitesse)

I'd be greatful for any guidance as to how to do this. Has anyone done something like this?

Thanks a bunch for any thoughts folks might have on this!

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