Is it worth $125K?
01-01-2011, 01:15 PM
#16
At that time (the '80s) there were hundreds of shops converting cars (attempting anyway) to EPA and DOT specs for the salivating US market. Goverment oversight and monitoring of these shops was sporatic at best with absolutely no consistency in the quality of work from shop to shop and most shops not knowing a damn thing about the make, model of the cars that they were supposedly converting.
These same "experts" were converting Bentleys, jags, Porsches, Lambos, Ferraris, Land Rovers, Mercedes, etc...... and these cars were bastardized though the mandatory EPA and DOT requirements.
On top of this, many of these "Grey market" cars were accident victims to begin with. These grey market importers were able to buy the wrecked cars in Europe much cheaper than good cars and they paid much less import tax when the cars arrived in U.S. ports because the declared value was a fraction of what it should've been. The thought at the time being, " well, I've got to replace the headlights, tail lights, bumpers, exhaust, etc. anyway, so whats an extra fender, hood or door going to matter!
The Europeans were tickled pink to unload their wrecked cars on the stupid americans !
90% (not all, but most) of every EPA-DOT converted "grey market" car that I've seen in the past 25 years have been hack-jobs with electrical gremlins that can't come close to passing a Maryland (let alone a california) emissions test.
Most European Porsche guys that I know would prefer a US spec'd early 911-930 than a "converted" Euro car (grey market).
Very few "grey market" or " Euro cars" ( Ferrari F-40, Ferrari 288 GTO, Porsche 959 ) have held their value.
History (and ebay) has shown that most grey market cars have not held value on par with their US counterparts.
01-01-2011, 06:20 PM
#17
Absolutely right. It is worth what someone pays. We will see at Gooding in AZ in late Jan there is a very nice 930 there. ... I hope it sells for a big block of money- and you guys should too.