Hey Doug you got bigger ones than me!

So what what his reaction when you said that to him?

Did he give any explanation as to how the car got that way? He says he got it in a trade. But does he know what it was?

Twenty six bids to 17.5 is the amazing part. I'm watching Barret Jackson this year, and I've allready fell of the sofa a few times!

He said he didn't know anything about the car other than he took it in on trade. He didn't seem too interested in if it was original or not probably since his ebay name is "johnsrods". To the rodders who probably bid on this I guess it doesn't matter. It would be hard to believe that someone would bid on this as original.
As a sore point with me it is just as stupid that we have car clubs that are dedicated to the preservation of cars that welcome hot rods at their shows and wonder why this type of promotion has helped encourage the butchering of many nice original cars. Just check out ebay. Oh how did I get on this subject..sorry

You are right Doug. I think this guy might have had a few close friends place some of those 26 bids.
Like you say no one who knows would go up to 17.5 for a bogus Phaeton and even the parts are not worth it.
Typical scam.

my two cents worth of comments:

in this case, i give the seller the benefit of the doubt...

he admits that he is simply repeating what the previous owner's assertion and that he doesn't have any proof...he's saying: do your own homework if originality & rarity matter to the prospective bidder, because the story suits me, and I'd rather not do or know any more...

not everyone, apparently including this seller, know nor care about originality, rarity, or preservation...

there are a lot of people out there, myself included, that wouldn't know all the details to discern original from faked...certainly many of the guys here do -- and we have some outright authorities here that likely cannot be matched anywhere else -- but you guys are not reflective of the general population...

of the twenty-six bids, there were only twenty discrete bidders...of these, four were bottom fishers at $111 to $5k bid...only five were $10k and over...I'm speculating here, but in a nation of nearly three hundred million (I'll skip the possibility of international bidders), there are probably that many (five) people that would bid on the car...

one of the final bidders handle was "porsche747"...maybe a stretch here, but a porsche-driving, jumbo jet pilot?..$17.4k probably wouldn't be a lot of dough...

what's my point?..that it doesn't surprise me that there might be five people (that are not the sellers friends) in our part of the world that would want to drive a car that looks neat & different than what they see others driving, wouldn't really care nor worry about whether it was original or rare (as we do), and would spend between $10k-20k to have it...

or maybe they're thinking: cool, a rare car for them to drop on another $100k at the rod shop!..


epi

Chevrolet you are probably right.
It's a shame to see people with that much money ready to throw it away. But if I were a different person I sure would take the money and run.

rgwiz,

yeah...takes many a kind to make this world run 'round...


epi

I would still like to know who the nuts were that were biding on that car? As Doug pointed out there are many things that we can see in these pictures that tell us this is not a real car. But there are only about 20 plus people in the world that have a car like this that would know, and Doug and I are two of them.

The 1932 phaeton is a rare beast since so few of them survive today. It would be nice to use one of these rare cars as an example to show what a real 1932 phaeton actually looks like. Do you have any photos of one that you can post here Brucie?

great idea, dog...


epi

Chevrolet's theory may be a very good one, and I can understand it. But, I still have that bad feeling about this one. I've seen it first hand, that is where I was asked to bid on an eBay item just to drive up the price.

rg,

oh...well, that's different...that would make the owner appear to be engaging in deceitful sales practices...maybe I was wrong above?..


epi

I don't know if you noticed, but at the top of the completed auction it says "The seller ended this listing early because the item is no longer available for sale." Wonder what happened?

probably found a local buyer that met his minimum...


epi

Oh Kepi,

Actually the buyer could be local or anywhere. If, for instance, he had it advertised in Hemming's, it could have sold off that ad. And, of course, the auction would have ended 'early.'

As I said, could have been 'local' (like you suggested) or 'anywhere' (like the example I suggested).

Bill.

It's quite usual to use eBay as an advertising media for expensive items.
After letting the item run for a few days you have a list of possible buyers from the bidders & those who asked questions you then remove the item & do a private deal saving you the high final eBay costs.

Another way is to set a very high reserve.
If you reach the reserve then you don't mind paying eBay the percentage.
If it doesn't then you know what the highest bid is & who it is....You can then do a private deal with the bidder, his top bid may already be higher than what you wanted for the car...But there's no harm in trying to raise him a little more.
eBay is full of scams, some illegal, some just bend the rules a bit.

Buyer beware!!

Another give-away- look at the rear door door jambs, there is a missing piece there, the one thjat holds the catch and the rubber door bumper. I assume the 32 phaeton door jamb is the same as my 31 Phaeton jamb. Also, notice the closed-car instrument panel, Jo