Wednesday, July 09, 2008

SELL YOUR CLASSIC FOR FREE 01

SELL YOUR CLASSIC FOR FREE 01
KL Nichols

So you want to sell your collector vehicle and you don't know where to begin?
Like everyone else, I like to save my money and if I can advertise for fr*ee, I will choose fr*ee every time!

Fr*ee was pretty hard to do before the Internet, but thanks to the many fr*ee classified ad websites on the Internet, it is now very possible.
Last issues of the Rag, I went into some detail about Craig's List, possibly
the largest Fr*ee Classified Ad Website on the internet. This issue I will go
into a couple of lesser trafficked, but still fr*ee classified ad websites.
The first is www.buzztrader.com , you can put several cars with 4 pictures
each on their website all for fr*ee and they will stay posted for up to 90 days.
BuzzTrader is not unique in the fact that they allow other website owners to post their html code on their website and this makes it look like the cars are posted on each website, when in fact it is one website posted to several,
possibly hundreds of other websites. This is good and bad. Good in that you do get extra views of your ads, bad in that it is confusing about who is
actually selling your car as each website pretends that the cars from
BuzzTrader are in fact proprietary to the website you actually view the ad
on. Confused? So are the potential buyers seeing the car for sale on several websites...

The second is www.Auto-RoundUp.com . You can advertise your cars fr*ee on this website too, but they do have the advantage of printing several Magazines and for $10, they will also put your photo ad in one of their magazines too.

I will tell you about some more Fr*ee classified ad website next issue, so,
meet me back here next week!

Copyright 2008 KL Nichols

IS GM HEADED FOR CHAPTER 11?

IS GM HEADED FOR CHAPTER 11?
-MaxChevy Magazine www.MaxChevy.com

Wall St. analysts say that GM may be forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection if the company is unable to secure funding. Merrill Lynch says the automaker may need to raise as much as $15 billion.

With sales plummeting, GM stock is doing likewise. Merrill Lynch analyst John Murphy moved GM’s rating from “buy” to “underperform” and said the stock might get as low as $7 per share. Stocks were at $10.07 per share Wednesday, July 2, on the New York Stock Exchange, the lowest value since 1954.

“While we do not believe GM is facing an immediate cash crunch, the urgency to shore up liquidity to navigate through a difficult 2008-2009 has risen significantly in recent months,” Citigroup analyst Itay Michaeli told Reuters. He predicted a full recovery in the U.S. auto market would not begin until 2010 or 2011.
Read More Here: http://www.maxchevy.com/news/2008/news-iii_6-10.html

STOLEN STREET RODS AND HOT RODS

STREET RODS AND HOT RODS- By Daniel Strohl – Hemmings Newsletter
Stolen car alerts: Three hot rods go missing during month of June
June was a fairly horrible month for stolen hot rods, with at least three reported nabbed across the country.

The first, stolen straight off the owner’s property in Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania, the week of June 9, was a 1932 Ford roadster with cycle fenders, painted flat black with red wheels, red interior and a 1953 Mercury flathead V-8. The owners of the car request that anybody with information about its whereabouts contact the Pennsylvania State Police at 570-593-2000. For pictures and more information about the car, visit www.hotrodhotline.com/pr/2008/08stolen32/

The second, stolen shortly after the Holley NHRA National Hot Rod Reunion, was a yellow 1940 Willys coupe with a new Chevrolet 572-cu.in. crate engine and was taken along with its tow vehicle, a burgundy 2005 Ford F-250 Supercab pickup, and its trailer, a white 2005 Haulmark Edge 26-footer. All three were taken the weekend of June 14 from the Springhill Suites on the west side of Knoxville, Tennessee. For pictures and more information, visit www.hotrodhotline.com/pr/2008/08stolenford or www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=272626 .

Finally, another car stolen from a major hot rod show, a 1955 Pontiac Star Chief, went missing from the Comfort Inn in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, June 22, during the Back to the ’50s weekend in and around Minneapolis. For more information and photos, visit http://winnipeg.kijiji.ca/c-cars-vehicles-classic-cars-Stolen-1955-Pontiac-Star-Chief-W0QQAdIdZ58620915 .

WOULD YOU PAY $10.00 A GALLON?

WOULD YOU PAY $10.00 A GALLON?
-BS Brash

Yeah, it's coming, and it ain't gonna go away either. I know, I know, you say it may drop in the future. BUT I can almost guarantee you that Gas is never going back to $2.00 a gallon again, unless the Dollar is devaluated.

American and the world too, are gearing up for some other kind of fuel, probably hydrogen and as we change over to any other kind of fuel, the scarcity of gasoline will drive the price up further. And why would that matter to you since you will probably buy a hydrogen powered car when they become available? Just what are you going to power your collector cars with, air? That's right, Gas! And I have no doubt that you will shell out any amount of money to have fuel for your musclecars? Because it just ain't right to run a classic on anything else! So my answer is, “Yes!” You will pay $10 a gallon or more.
Copyright 2008 BS Brash

ARE YOU USING CRAIG’S LIST?

ARE YOU USING CRAIG’S LIST?KL Nichols

If you aren’t aware of www.CraigsList.com , you are in for a treat. Craig’s List Is a huge network of things for sale covering most of the US, if not the world?

Craig’s List was started by an aging hippie in San Francisco approximately 7-10 years ago as a place to give stuff away. When the word got around, and it did quickly as the Internet was just exploding and America was looking for just such a website! It exploded so fast it out grew the San Francisco website and users were clamoring for their own city home page! So CL did just that and never looked back! So almost every major and a few minor cities have their own city page.

Now, after all of these years, you can still advertise FR*EE on CL! Not that it will always be that way? About a year or so ago, the Mother of all Websites, eBay bought 25% of Craig’s List. The investment turned out to be another snafu for eBay, Craig’s List has resisted charging for their ads, and now there is a Law Suite between CL & eBay trying for a change in whatever agreement that they originally entered into, what ever that was.

Any observer of eBay knows that they paid Kruse Auctions $250 million for their auction business a few years ago and then a couple of years later sold it back to Kruse for $50 million. Even a dummy can see that wasn’t a good business deal!

Enough about business, let’s get down to how you can use of Craig’s List to sell cars and parts.

First (this is for the beginners) you surf on over to www.CraigsList.com and then find your city or a city near you that you would like to advertise you merchandise in. This brings up a big complaint and something that you will have to work around, when you advertise on, let’s say the Kansas City Missouri page, the only people who will see your ad are the people who actually visit the KCMO page, and here’s another glitch, Craig’s list would let you list the same thing in more than one city…. A real big pain, but if you work with it, changing your wording and rename your pictures, etc, etc, you may be able to list on another city page. One good item is that you can post up to 4 pictures with your ad and for pete’s sake do post as many pictures an you can. Collectors are a visual group and will think you are hiding something if you don’t.
Okay, there are some other irritations with CL, the main one after the above problems is that if you post on a big city site, such as Kansas City Mo, your ad will disappear in a day or two because every ad is listed at the top of the page and if there is a lot of ads posted, pretty soon your ad is three or four pages down and CL only lists the 100 most recent ads first and then they post the link to the last 100 ads on a link at the bottom of the page, and so on…
My advice and you have to do it this way, is to cancel your ad if it hasn’t expired and repost it at the top of the list every 3 or 4 days or so. When you first register with CL, you will be sent to your back office where you can control your ads, there are no limits to the ads you post just as long as they are different. I suggest that you bookmark your back office so that you can go right to it when you want to. Another little detail I probably should mention, the ad posting times run from 7 days in major markets to 45 days in smaller markets. That’s just the way it is, deal with it!
CL doesn’t like links away from their website. Sometimes they will let you do it, sometimes not. Also, remember I told you this was a aging hippies website? There is a rating system on each page, and if the visitor thinks your ad or if CL thinks your ad is inappropriate, miscategorized, prohibited, or spam/overpost (this means posted more than once) , the reader can flag your ad and if CL agrees with them your ad is outathere! There is no court of recourse! If you run into a antagonistic local, post on another city page.

This is just a little info and if you have any questions, email me at route66er@cox.net and I will try to answer your question.

Copyright 2008 KL Nichols

COUNTING NOSES

COUNTING NOSES
KL Nichols

Saturdays in my neck of the woods is the day that the homeowners all get out the lawn mower, hedge clippers and the leaf blower and do the weekly maintenance that home ownership requires!

And while this ritual is going on, I get out my 57 Chevy and go for a snoop, looking for what antiques & classic vehicles my neighbors have tucked away in their garages! I have been doing this for years! In fact I actually got started on this in the early ‘80’s when I lived in a small college town of about 5000 permanent residents. I had just restored a beautiful 49 Ford Convertible and I was out to show it off with out bragging. As I drove around I started seeing Model-T’s and Model-A’s hiding in local garages. The amount was so large, I started counting and the inaccurate total was in the 50’s and in such a small town too!?”So what”, you say? I was so amazed at the booty I saw in those garages, I started investing in any stock I could find, related to the collector vehicles and their aftermarket. And the market exploded, my collector cars gained in value nicely every year until 1991 when the bottom fell out of the collector vehicle market, just after the First Gulf War.

Did I mention that I went back to that small town last month and I went for my “Snooping Drive”, I only counted 4 Model A’s? But I did see an amazing amount of other classics including 18 pre-70’s Mustangs and a couple of GTOs, not to mention several other potential keepers!

My advice to you is to take a ride whenever you get the chance, it’s likely to be profitable.

I BELONG TO SEVERAL COLLECTOR CAR CLUBS & YOU SHOULD TOO!!

I BELONG TO SEVERAL COLLECTOR CAR CLUBS & YOU SHOULD TOO!!
By Nick Cash

I was at a car club picnic the other day when another member asked me what I drove. I told him that I owned several classics and a couple of foreign models, and then I asked him what club this was? He looked shocked and said, “This is the Back Country Mustang Club, Aren’t you a member?” I told him yes, I was a member of this club and approximately 22 others. He asked me why, and I told him, I have several collector vehicles and belonged because I liked the people, enjoyed the social events and the clubs were a good source of parts and model information! Which brings me to my title of this small article. For the very same reasons that I mentioned above and one other, most times it costs less than $50 a year to be a member and support a local club! Plus I have to say that you meet the nicest people in car clubs!

PS. FYI, Car Clubs are a great place to get hard to find parts and a great place to sell parts and classics!! Generally, you can advertise for FR*EE on their website or in their club newsletter, but if not, the fairly inexpensively!

APPLE PIE & THE 4TH OF JULY!

APPLE PIE & THE 4TH OF JULY!
BS Brash

I am old enough to remember the summer picnics back when the classics and muscle cars of today were everyday drivers. And to top it all off, there were no car shows? The collector car industry as we know it, the car shows and the rich collector car auctions were things of the future and swap meets weren’t even a gleam in the inventors eye yet. The guys that started the collecting were ex-GIs running around in Model-Ts and Model-As stripped down to the now-famous hot rods and t-buckets the Street Rodders of today so emulate.I kinda miss that time when the biggest event in July was the 4th of July picnic and the Big $250 Fireworks event that was planned after it got dark and all of the horse shoe & softball games were over. After the big watermelon feast provided free by the local farmers for which their only pay was to ask us to spit our seeds in a bucket so that they would have seeds for the next years crop.

Yes, they were good times, but would I trade them for today? No way! I was too young to drink beer and I would have to sell my collection of classics and muscle cars which either didn’t exist back then or I couldn’t have afforded them if they did…

Copyright 2008 BS Brash

CHECK OUT THE NICK INDEX

CHECK OUT THE NICK INDEX KL Nichols

The Nick Index. Think of it as the Dow Jones Index for collector vehicles. Visit it at www.NickIndex.com/ ”Collector cars increase in value approximately 7 to 10% per year and some cars appreciate much more, why not make an investment you can have fun with!!” How is your 401K doing???We are interested in your input, so feel free to look it over and then drop us a line!

WATCH 'EM LIVE!

WATCH 'EM LIVE!
KL Nichols

I love web cams! One of my favorite is the 46th & Broadway in Times Square where the world never sleeps, here is that link for your edification;
http://www.earthcam.com/usa/newyork/timessquare/index.php?cam=fridays. It has a little microscope with a + in it down in the lower right hand corner that allows you to double the size of the viewing window.

What does that mean to you? How about being able to watch collector car
auctions while in progress?

While perusing the latest email from Mecum Auctions, I saw a Big Red Button that said, "Connect To Live Auction", so I clicked on it and lo and behold, a live auction did appear! Here is the link to that;
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/mecum-muscle-cars-and-more---live%21, be forewarned, you need a broadband connection to see it and it may be over by the time you read this.

"So", you ask, " What does this mean to me?" Maybe nothing right now, but this technology, like every other technology is expanding daily. My favorite Techie says that computers double in speed and intelligence every two years.
As a matter of fact, the technology is already available for you and me to
watch TV on the Internet; the big TV syndicates just haven't found a good
enough way to make money on it yet.

Kruse and others already have Internet options for high dollar absentee
bidders. Not that it bothers the high dollar folk, but maybe it could save gas
money for the rest of us, if they do need the rest of us! Internet viewing may cut down on ticket sales for lookee-lous so maybe they will have to charge for the Internet Viewing? As always, you can figure out a lot of stuff by just following the money!

900 CLASSIC CARS HEADED FOR THE CRUSHER

900 CLASSIC CARS HEADED FOR THE CRUSHER
By Rob Einaudi

It's the same old story. Crazy old man hoards cars on his property, then dies. Weird family doesn't want to deal with all the circling gearheads and sells off the lot to the scrap guys. If you look at the pics there are some rare and desirable cars here--Road Runners, Super Bees, Camaros, Impalas, Fairlanes, etc. This is especially upsetting to me cause a puke green Road Runner like the one below is pretty much my dream car, and this one is probably gonna be turned into five econoboxes.

See Pictures & Read More Here....http://blog.cardomain.com/blog/2008/06/900-classic-car.html

PHISHING FOR CLASSICS?

PHISHING FOR CLASSICS?
BS Brash

A friend of my forwarded me this email that he had received recently:
===========================================================
"Hello Seller, How are you doing today and also i am here to notify you my
interesting in your item you placed on this site for sale on behalf of my client,
Also i will like to know more about the item before we proceed on our to pay
you. So please kindly answer the following question below..
1,Are you the original owner of the item?
2,What is the condition of the item?
3,Can you acept certified check as a mode of payment?
4,Can you allow some company to pick up the item from you?
5,Can i trust you on this transaction?
6,What is the final asking price of this item?
So please kindly get back to me asap now with those question requested
from you,so we can proceed on payment asap and we complete this
transaction as soon as possible. Email me back now to
....LASSY1977@xxxxxxx.xxx "
===========================================================

This and tens of thousands of similar emails show up everyday in the in-boxes
of people who advertise their vehicles on the Internet! If you are an Internet
Newbie, you answer them back, if you are Internet Savvy, you just delete them
or forward them to the appropriate authorities.

Below is my answer:

Unfortunately there is no program for defense from scam emails except good
common sense. Spam and Phishing as this kind of email is called are a way
of life if you advertise anywhere on the internet. That being said, there are two
ways that you can get some satisfaction by forwarding any suspicious emails
to, they are www.coldrain.net & Spam@uce.gov . Coldrain.net has taken down
1000's of websites of scammers and spammers and you can join their
crusade, it's fr*ee to join. The other is a USGov email that you can forward any
suspicious emails to if there is no website listed, I think they pass them along
to the proper authorities

I have a friend that is a collector car dealer and he has played games with
these kind of people for several years and for his efforts, he has enough bad
checks and money orders to paper his office with them.

My advice is to forward them and forget them!

The Internet is a growing force and a great tool for buying and selling collector
vehicles, but like all tools, safety first, protect yourself!!
Copyright 2008 BS Brash

MUSCLE CARS

MUSCLE CARS
Z-L1 POWER RETURNS
Hemmings Blog

Chevrolet has reissued a 430hp 427 to celebrate the big-block's 50th.
photo courtesy GM
A few years back, GM Performance Parts rolled out a reissue of the ZL-1 aluminum block, claiming that the original tooling used in 1969 to create the infamous alloy rat engine installed in just ’69 Camaros and two Corvettes had been updated and pressed back into service. Now, a complete engine assembly is being produced as part of the 50th anniversary of the Chevrolet big-block engine (we’re assuming GM is considering the 348 the first big-block).

The Anniversary 427 is filled with a forged-steel crank, forged steel connecting rods and forged aluminum pistons that make 9.5:1 compression when paired with the 110cc combustion chambers in the aluminum oval-port GMPP heads, also featuring 2.19/1.88-inch valves. A hydraulic roller-tappet camshaft with .510/.540-inch lift controls the valves through 1.7:1 roller rocker arms and an 870cfm four-barrel carb feeds the beast through an aluminum intake.Read More Here…
http://www.hemmings.com/newsletter/newsletter.html?volume=4&issue=1&id=1729&refer=news&emlid=135074#1729

HOW NOT TO SELL YOUR CLASSIC

HOW NOT TO SELL YOUR CLASSIC
Nick Cash

A lot of people think that putting a for sale sign in the window of your classic & parking it down at the Wal-Mart parking lot will do the trick. Well, the concept is good, but your classic may be vandalized, stripped, stolen or towed to an impound lot because Wal-Mart is not happy about the liability you are forcing on them, plus in some cities, even parking a car in your driveway with a for sale sign in the window is illegal! This is a law that a city council has passed to make the local car dealers happy (they pay a lot of taxes).

You need to protect your classic investment, and parking it where the public has unattended access to it, is a real bad idea! I have heard horror stories of classic cars loosing steering wheels, chrome, door handles, tires & wheels, hubcaps, and even engines when left unattended. A #2 car can be reduced to a project car by a couple of determined parts thieves. It used to be that it was kids looking for parts or a crooked body man, but with the advent of eBay, your classic may wind up being parted out nationally! The unfortunate problem is that unless the thieves are actually caught in the act with the parts in their possession, most car parts are unidentifiable when found later and as such make recovery difficult is not impossible.

Another BIG No-No is letting a prospective buyer take your valuable classic for a drive alone. First of all, this may invalidate your insurance and never trust a buyer’s affirmation that his insurance covers him in your car, because he may be lying or may not have any insurance to start with and if he has larceny in his mind, he may just never come back with it. I have seen engines blown, transmissions ruined, clutches blown, parts stolen and in on case a wonderful person took the car and used it in a wedding! Never underestimate the devious nature of a potential buyer. Make sure you are perched in the front seat right next to the driver testing your classic and that way maybe you can ward off a potential wheelie popper!

Is there any safe way to show your classic? Yes the odds are in your favor that the guy looking at your classic is a good guy, but use your street smarts to make decisions on him. If he had “I feel the need for speed” tattooed on his arm, give him a good third degree grilling and wear your T-Shirt with, “I have The Cops On Speed Dial!”.

A little more advice, show your car somewhere public and not where you have it stored! The reason for this is that classics can be car-jacked too! And if the crook knows where your car is stored, it may not be there the next time you look.

Copyright 2008 by K & L Enterprises

HOW TO MAKE A FEW EASY BUCKS AND LIVE TO REGRET IT!

HOW TO MAKE A FEW EASY BUCKS AND LIVE TO REGRET IT!
BS Brash

Recently I was at a weekend swap meet and I spent a little more than I realized on the parts I bought, and when I added up the total, I was short about three weeks beer money...

I knew the little wife wasn't going to like it if I shorted her weekly salary, if you don't think your wife is worth a weekly salary, my guess is that you are on your third or forth wife?

Anyway, I was on the alert for a little extra cash flow when I read the paper that Sunday, I ran across a classified ad wanting to rent a classic car for a wedding. Cool, maybe my 57 Chevy convertible could earn a little towards it own keep? A great idea, so I called the guy about the ad and he mentioned that he had an extra $250 built into the wedding costs for a classic rental car just for the trip to the reception and then back to his home where he would pickup is own car for the trip to the airport. Seemed like easy money to me, so I asked him when and where? He said to bring it by his house Friday afternoon and he would put it in his garage, and I could pick it up Sat afternoon about 3:00pm.

I complied and dropped off the 57 at his house on Friday and watched as my baby slid into his garage and the door banged shut...

It was Friday and as I occasionally do, I went off to my favorite watering hole, Mother's Bar & Grill to tip a few suds with the guys. About 11:00pm, I came outside intent on going home when I heard the unmistakable sound of a 327 engine at high revs come roaring down the street. Nice, I thought, but as I looked for the car, when it passed me, to my horror I realized that it was MY 57 Chevy convertible with what looked like no less than 20 people in or hanging on madly as the car screamed by. OMG? What Have I done, I thought, or maybe I shouted out loud? Dang, that trip by me just then probably took about $5k off of the value of my car!! I had to get it back and right now!

I called Buba, a friend of mine who was the local sheriff and told him what was happening and he swung by and got me and we took off after the 57.

But the 57 proved impossible to find, there were over 50 reports of it all over the city, so after arriving too late at every report, we decided to just go to the guys house where I dropped it off and wait. We sat there until 2:15am when my 57 Chevy finally came limping in breathing really hard. To stop a murder, Bubba went and extracted the soon to be bridegroom and the remaining 3 or 4 passengers that hadn't been thrown out by the night's wild drive thru the city.

I got in my baby and drove slowly home. I parked her in the garage and shut the door and locked it! I was afraid to look too close because I needed to sleep all night to be braced for tomorrow.

It will suffice to say that it took me two months and $2800 to get the 57 back to #1 status. Plus the case of scotch I sent bubba for his help. No I didn't put a hit out on the stupid groom, but I kept the $250 and was happy that he unhappily had to get another car for his ceremony the next day.

The moral to this story and I think it is obvious, is; 1.) Never let anyone drive your classic! 2.) Never rent out your classic unless you are doing the driving! 3.) Get it in writing so that you can sue the b*st*rd when it goes wrong!!

Copyright BS Brash 2008

CARROLL SHELBY?

CARROLL SHELBY?KL Nichols

First off I want to state that I have never met Carroll Shelby and don’t even have his autograph. But that doesn’t stop me from loving him from afar.

But the above isn’t what I want to say about him.

Carroll Shelby, like all world champion fighters has maybe jumped into the square circle one too many times. But he is still great!I am not going to cater to his detractors by quoting what they have said about him lately, but it suffices to say, there is a lot of negativity going around about Mr. Shelby.

This is unfortunate and reminds me of the saying, When a mother asked her kids for some help, reminding them of how much she had done for them over the years, they said, “I know mom, but what have you done for me lately? Shelby is a made man, no one can take that away from him and the great stuff he has done speaks volumes about his status in the automotive world!

So for crying out loud, give the guy a break and get off his back, because like all of the greats, he is here only for a small amount of time and we may have to wait a long time for another key automotive figure as great as he is!
“Carroll, who loves ya baby?” I can definitely say, “I do!”

HOW DOES YOUR CAR RATE?

BusinessWeek.comHere's a preview of the Martin Rating System for Collectible Cars from Sports Car Market. They've selected 100 cars, each with something different to offer to a collector, and rated them on a 1–100 point scale, in five categories of 20 points each. Over 2,000 collectible cars will be rated in the upcoming book, The Martin Guide to Collectible Cars.Read the full article here; http://bwnt.businessweek.com/collectible_cars/index.asp