[elky] OT: 34 Ford Coupe for sale (long story)

  • From: Ray Buck <rbuck@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: elky@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2010 17:56:22 -0700

My friend in Illinois called me the other day and said, "You otta get in touch with Dick Williams.  You know, the guy who owns Poli-Form ( www.poli-form.com ) and makes all the kool fiberglass (steel reinforced) hot rod bodies.  He wants to sell a 34 Coupe with all the goodies and needs some help."  Ok.  I can help.  Well, it took a week to get in touch with the guy because he doesn't read the email that comes from his web site.  That was done by his daughter...but she doesn't work for him any more.  So apparently the emails go into the great bit bucket in the sky.

Well, I finally got his home and shop phone numbers.  I called both of 'em.  I get answering machines/voicemail.  I leave messages.  Eventually I get a call back from Dick, who's a real nice guy.  Just a little out of touch with technology, but I spose he can be somewhat forgiven because he was building his own version of the dream sports car in 1958 and finished it in 59: http://www.forgottenfiberglass.com/?p=7506  This, btw, is why the 34 is being unloaded.  Dick's located the "Dick Williams Special" that's written about on that website article and is going to pick it up from Florida next week. 

Well, I'd reserved a spot on my website's main page for stuff like this.  So finally, I get a coupla photos and they're absolute shit.  Here's one:



That's after 30 minutes of massaging in on my part.  Ok.  So the photos aren't great.  Oh.  The car's in a basket.  And no drive train other than a polished quickchange rear end.  Now for the best part:  He wants $39,500 for it and it has to be sold by Monday.  Aye-Yi-Yi!!  He also wants me to use the For Sale ad and parts list that his wife wrote up.  So she sends it to me.  In some ancient Micro$oft Works format that I can't begin to open in any program I have.  (I use Open Office cuz it's free and it's NOT M$.)  So a couple more phone calls and I talk her into saving it in .doc format.  Fine.  That works.  I ask her to email it to me.  She sends it into the great bit bucket somewhere.  Several more phone calls/emails and I finally get it.  Then I gotta correct all the errors, covert it to html and integrate it with my site.  When it's done, she sends me a bunch more photos and asks me to put 'em with the others.  They're every bit as good as the first ones and in varying sizes and resolutions.  I finish that up about 11 pm, email 'em and tell 'em I'm done for the nite and it'll have to do.  Oh...I also posted the thing in various places in hopes of getting some visibility.

I should mention that on the outside chance that somebody has $40k and a masochistic desire to put all this together (and and another $10-20k to finish it), I'll make some money in finder's fees.  Right.

So today I get another group of images that his daughter had sent.  One of 'em is of a completed '34 coupe...full-fendered, painted in black and flamed...well, I really can't use that...or any but two of the other images she sent without either misrepresenting the thing or doing a whole lotta writing to explain that it "could" look like that with a whole lot more work.  Btw, Dick tells me that he has $70k in this basketweaving project.  I'm beginning to wander...I mean wonder about this whole deal. 

Here's the For Sale page:
http://www.chevyasylum.com/williams/forsale.html  Again, I didn't write it.  I just did the error correction and a quickie html conversion from .doc format. 

Who knows?  Maybe George Poteet will see it and decide that he can't live without it.  He can afford it. 

One other thing.  I'm gonna see if I can get Dick to hire me as web elf for his site cuz it needs serious help.  The reason behind this whole thing is that we (my friend/business partner in Illinois) really want Dick to carry our line of products, the first of which should be ready for marketing very soon...as quickly as the patent application can be filed.  Yanno, if all the pies that I have fingers in ever get fully baked...well, I'm gonna have a lotta burned fingers.  But I might also make some money and that would be a very nice thing.  I'd love to be able to pay off my mortgage, donate my house to...say...the Catholic church with the proviso that they keep it as rental property and not re-sell it and that I'd have the option to buy it from them for a reasonable sum for the period of 10 years.  I'd do this just to keep the state of Utah, Salt Lake County and the city of Taylorsville from getting a dime out of its sale or any taxes, since it'd be owned by a church.  I'd get a lot of satisfaction out of flipping the fiduciary bird at the governmental entities here in the USSR (Utah Sovereign State Republic) as I moved to Nevada where a lot of tax stuff is paid for my gambling revenue...even if it is crooked as hell.  Ask Harry Reid.

Ok.  I gotta get on to the next project.

r

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