I think you were bidding on the 575 6spd on BAT today?

BaT doesn't care IMHO if the sale never happens. They've already been paid ! This is just noise to them.

 

Let's hear from the wife !

 

Just curious what this means. Can you clarify?

 

yeah good luck getting her to post here.

 

Posts regarding 575 6-speed split off to here from Dan's classified ad thread

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/5600-mile-1999-sl500-red-black.590693/

 

If the party's are still serious about trying to make this work, I could take a drive to take a look once the transport arrives and before it gets re-titled. I'm probably a 60 minutes drive from SF.

 

To whoever said that a bonded title is not a branded title; that's not true. A bonded title means there is a brand on the title; i.e. that it's bonded. Just like if a title had a salvage brand, rebuilt brand, etc.

Now, I will admit that I don't know all of the rules for every state with regards to titles, and different states do things different ways. But, I've had a fair amount of experience with buying and selling cars as a dealer, doing over a thousand transactions, and I just don't want to deal with a bonded title, or frankly any other brand on a title. That car will be next to impossible to sell. Maybe the brand will come off when it is re-titled, maybe it won't, and that will depend on which state you are in.

 

I will also reiterate that, almost certainly the reason that you got outbid on the car is that the seller had one or more shill bidders trying to drive the price up, and they got caught with their pants down when BaT closed the auction with a sale. The owner just wants to get rid of the car, because it's going to be difficult to sell the car for a while after the "sale" on BaT.

Or, possibly, there is something more nefarious going on, and someone in this long chain of actors is trying to pull a scam. When something is too good to be true...

 

If I am following this correctly, the car is in Miami, you are in Miami, you know where the car actually is, you should show up to that facility, and ask if they would release the car to you if you had paperwork showing you were the new owner.

I am thinking you may have a hard time getting them to release the car ,if it has indeed been in storage there for 3+ years @ $400 per month, that is unless you pay their storage fees...

Random thoughts..

S

 

I was once in a situation similar to this. Greed clouded my judgement and my friends saved me. Hence my posts.

 

This seemed bad when it was just the BaT listing. The posts in this thread scream "scam".

 

The seller posted a picture of the title on the auction site. Not only is it a bonded title, but also a "UT- Salvage" title previously. This car is a train wreck!

 

Yes and no.

Bonded titles are not always brands. So yes you are right. It depends on the state. But in most states a bonded title is not a branded title.

 

Yup. Im surprised people put up with it from bring a trailer.

They get paid. You get your time wasted.

 

I made some comments on BaT about a really dodgy E60 M5 and I was moved to moderation after the seller and his buddies complained. They didn't lift the punishment until I actually bought a car.

 

I think the salvage history is something to steer clear of for this car unless you really plan on keeping the car for life and want to drive it and enjoy it like it was made to be driven.

The posts calling a $46k brand new 90s SL500 a bubble are funny to me. The car brand new back then was $80k+ not accounting for inflation. It still depreciated a ton considering it's still new. We had a '95 SL500 in my family growing up and I actually used it to get my drivers license way back then...I love that car. I would love to have an opportunity to buy a brand new one at some point and a brand new E39 M5. For less than MSRP that's a deal...better than the 2020 models and cheaper than restoring imo. If prices are over MSRP then I suppose you can use the term bubble for the time being call it new-old-stock.

 

The car may be real, but I'd be very surprised if it is for sale for $80K.

 

Dan on the 575 .. there are a lot of scammers in the world and this whole story sounds like BS to me. I would pass on the car period....without a doubt ..I have bought a lot of cars in my life and if there is any hair on a deal I pass ...lots of cars to buy might as well get a clean deal....

 

You should have bought Dan's. He lost $k on it when he ended up selling it for 27k.

 

I want a black/black with AMG kit (1999 and later).

 

The msrp means nothing. The fact remains that you can buy nice clean driver r129s with decent to higher miles 60-100k for roughly 9-10 thousand dollars. This has been the case for the past decade. Take a jaguar e type for instance. higher production car as well and the really nice ones sell for what, roughly 90 grand? Are those worth 5x what a nice clean driver e type would be worth? That would mean you should be able to buy a very clean E type with higher miles on it for 18 grand. Obviously that isn't the case. The only R129 price that "changed" over the past 3 years or so are the garage queens, which apparently have "appreciated" for no reason at all (mostly on the cult BAT site) by 5x in just a few years while the driver quality cars have done nothing. Both prices cannot be true at the same time. One of the prices isn't real. Yet you think that the real price is 50 grand. laughable. Garage queen R129s are Extremely common and aren't worth anything, let alone 50 grand. I have a friend who bought a 20k mile 1999 for 18 thousand just a few years ago. He had the deal closed and confirmed at 16 but got taken advantage of (got emotional about the deal) by the slimey broker who sold him the car. Guy claimed "I just got a bunch of interest on my car and now the price is 18". I would have told the guy to go **** himself and bought a different car. Sign of the times.

So Ferrari prices are falling with most of the top of the market but somehow the market for mass produced and I mean mass produced mercedes from the 90s are appreciating. Makes perfect sense LOL!!

 

Again you're grasping for straws here

1) you're pontificating over really nothing, how people spend their money shouldn't concern you

2) your friends 20k mile car is pretty meh, dime a dozen, no offense. Take your Testarossa, the delta between a 4k mile car and a 20k mile car is pretty enormous, you will pay way way way more for the 4k mile car

3) Collectors buy random crap with low miles for no reason other than having the lowest mile car they've found. What is a 1980s 560sec mercedes worth with 120k miles, not much, my dad has one with 300 miles on it, whats that worth? Probably $100k if not more. Why? bc the 560sec was not a weekend car, you drove it, so finding one with 300 miles probably wont happen again, it really may be the lowest mile one on earth. The SL500 was not rare, most people daily drove theres. Mine had a special place in my heart bc my mother had a red SL when I was growing up, i imagine with 200k made, plenty of others have a special place in their heart for whatever reason, now if you want to toss one in your collection, you dont want one with 165k miles, you want the best, not many are left in perfect shape. If I had room I would have kept mine but I found an SL600 with super low miles and just decided thats the one to keep.

4) you realize even if you find something like a 1998 camry with 2k miles, its going be worth way way way more than a regular one with 50k miles just bc you have something that is super rare and nobody has one, its a conversation piece like why a bottle of 1996 screaming eagle is thousands of dollars yet it tastes like barefoot wine you buy at the store....it is what it is. So if you look at something like say a testarossa, nearly every last one was babied by the owner and driven on special occasions, id be willing to bet there's less low mile ie 5k or less mile R129 SL's out there than something like your testarossa just bc many testarossa went into collections and the mercedes were mostly daily drivers

I still don't get how/why you care so much, really I would love to see you email tomini classics in dubai where the car is now and ask them why they paid so much to pick up a car from america, pay a fortune in freight to get it to dubai to sell it there, when its a dumb idea. They're only possibly the biggest classic car dealer in the middle east and they thought it was a worthwhile car, obviously you feel otherwise. Their inventory says they sorta know something about cool cars.

here is the link please record the email or phone call and post it, would love to hear the reasoning on their end.

https://www.tominiclassics.com/featcar/mercedes-benz-sl500-3/

 

Hi Dan, Back to the 575... First real post for me as I spend most of my time here learning on this forum, BTW. I was watching that 575 auction closely, and having been scammed in the past, I tend to agree with everyone else that you should be careful. It just seems like something LE should get involved with. Something very troubling there, IMHO. Just felt the need to post this because it smells so bad I can smell it out here in the Bay Area, and that's saying something. Hope you can share what you learned with us and thanks for all your posts to date. On the other hand, if it was legit, congrats!

Best,
Mark

 

Honestly I haven't even cared since I spoke to the guy who revived the thread "enrique" on the phone. You know when you talk to someone and you get a feeling it isn't the person in the picture. I can't explain it but the guy emailed me his bio and link to his company website and I just know the guy I spoke to on the phone was not the hispanic guy in the pic. The car is 100% real and 100% at the place the guy said it was, other than that I just didn't want to waste time. The cars and coffee community in miami is pretty close and like I said 1 guy knew the owner of the facility the car is at, the owner of the facility confirmed its been there for years. The owner of the car is a well known guy in miami. He's the CEO of a big co, race car driver,etc. He is the owner but I never got the whole why someone bid and then was willing to lose $20k and move on. I think that person found me on here, bc someone in the comments of the auction mentioned they knew me from here, so that drove them here. The guy on the phone told me the owner had a 918 and on and on, ok so the owner has a 918 but his wife cares that much to leave him as he said in this thread if he buys a crappy 575 for $100k? Sure I believe that, could be true, but likelihood is really low.

Again if you don't want to pay for the car he could lose $5k and move on, not sure why the whole hullaballoo over losing $20k and then paying the owner and then me paying them, I don't know and I know BS and I just didn't even waste time. I did bid $90k so I was willing to waste that even if the car was a pile of trash, I've spent the last 2.5 years with a maranello so I know the costs of running one and I think even if I had to waste $30k, getting to $120k its a cool driver for that price. Not an investment, but a cool driver as there's just a hand few out there. Obviously getting perfect is one thing, but getting it into driving shape I don't think would have been $30k. Even so if i even found a comparable 575 with 11k miles and it was clean, it would be $230-250k. So for $120k all in, great deal.

So all in all, car is real, its been rotting sitting in storage for a few hundred bucks a month in miami but owner and whoever the hell posted in here, not sure whats going on there, but I didn't even waste anymore time. BAT has really gone downhill, I was actually bidding on another car at the same time as all this began and I just quit, I think its better to just do deals in person or with people you know/trust, I've done the site unseen thing twice with bat now and honestly without seeing the car, you can't tell. I bought a 5k mile SL500 on there which I thought to be brand new and perfect and when I was selling it later the person came by with a paint gun and the hood was painted. I had asked seller originally if it was painted he said he didn't have a paint gun and no bc the owner was 95 and it wasn't driven blah blah blah and I trust people, they guy had sold others on bat with good reviews.... I don't know how/why the hood on a 5k mile car was painted but it was and I got taken by the seller I originally bought it from.

Still a sweet car, too bad its been abdandoned. Looking now seems the same seller hasn't replied on his testarossa on BAT now for a long time either. So either way he either doesn't know his cars are listed or he doesn't care.....not good either way.

 

I just wanna know where this rockstar rich owner is who’s to good to show up on his auctions.