nathan1

Am I the only one?...

The Excellence numbers are a joke. I can appreciate Bruce Anderson's technical expertise and I enjoy reading his tech notes BUT he should have been fired from writing the Buyers Guide series 10 years ago.

Why? Because he is simply mailing it in, every time he just cuts and pastes from his last article and changes numbers around slightly.

Just for fun I looked at his last 6 "Buyers Guides" for from Sep 2011 to 2012.

I would put my money where my mouth is on this one, I would BUY any of these cars he lists for EXCELLENT condition in cash today for anybody willing to sell one!

For example-

EXCELLENT 1972-1973 911S coupe for $53,400
EXCELLENT 1992-1994 964 C2 coupe for $23,500
EXCELLENT 1995 993 C2 Coupe for $24,100
EXCELLENT 1996-1997 C2 Coupe for $25,600
EXCELLENT 1997-1998 C2 "S" coupe for $36,200
EXCELLENT 1994 3.6 Turbo for $55,200

Am I the only one here that this drives me crazy? I was selling a 1995 993 coupe with 25k miles last year and I had a guy scan and email me Bruce's numbers last year when it showed $23,500. He insisted my 1 owner 25k mile car was worth $23,500. When I politely told him no he did say that Bruce told him to add 10% for the low mileage so he was willing to pay "top of market" and upped his offer to $25,850. I laughed when I sold it in 24 hours for $44k, almost freaking double what Bruce said it was worth.

I know he has a small disclaimer about "truly excellent" cars can trade for sometimes significantly more... But again I would buy any car offered here for these prices, I am clearing space in my garage as we speak...

goofballdeluxe

Dont worry about what Bruce says. No one else does anymore.

Benton

What I'm wondering is why they continue to publish this junk? It's a knock on the magazine's credibility.

goofballdeluxe

The same reason Road & Track has Viagra ads in the back of the magazine?

MarkD

is it already that time of year again?

Yep, it is quite ridiculous...

RudyP

Completely agree. As someone who is actively shopping for a 993 wide body, I'd love to see a C2S in excellent condition for $36k! At that price, I'll take 2 (or 10 - and resell 8 in the real world). In fact, I'd gladly pay him a $10k finder's fee if he can get me an excellent low mileage C2S for $36k.

IXLR8

This has been mentioned here many times before.

Why not write in and ask the editor where you might find the above car for sale at the prices he comes up with.

Tell them to get rid of that rabbit in the hat as well.

JPP

Don't get me started ....
He parades himself around as an expert appraiser and then pulls his data from Kelly Blue Book and NADA ... I think there's a few of you here that recall my experience dealing with him on my Widebody Cabriolet .. what a waste of time.

nathan1

It is a a knock on a magazines credibility one that is otherwise wonderful...

Norra Norra

If you dont like Bruce's numbers stay far away from Edmunds, those can be even lower. I tried using the Edmunds TMV price quote once when I was looking for a 993 and the owner politely shot me down, but I was well aware of the real value on the car and it was more of a negotiating ploy. Edmunds has an excuse though, since they have so many cars both new and old they are tracking, they have to rely on mathmatical depreciation curves to update their values quickly and you'll notice them change month to month. Its very effective on newer & more common cars but throw the numbers out the window for rare, old, or sought after models. Excellence should do a better job, since they are posing as a classic car "expert". Either do it correctly or don't do it at all.

Benton

Agreed.

BobbyT

Bruce's low-ball, out-of-touch, unrealistic evaluations are a disservice to the readers of Excellence, and should be discontinued. Are you reading this, Mr. Stout?

Kika

I simply ignore his pricing, but I generally pay attention to the technical information. It is getting awfully old though, in that Mr. Anderson simply re-hashes old articles over and over and over...

I wish I could be paid multiple times over for work I did a decade ago.

boman993

Rennlisters should send Excellence their thoughts via their contact form. Enough
response from you guys will definitely trigger some thought/change, I mean we
are a significant chunk of their readership!

http://www.excellence-mag.com/contact

Flying Finn

Awesome "Cinquecento"! When did you get it? Love those things and one day will get one.
(I have 600 custom made convertible in Finland)