Chapter 2: Buying a Car or Two

Once I had talked to Dad, we had arranged a time to meet with Mr and Mrs Clover.

Mr Clover was a big guy, not tall, just very well built, lots of muscles. But he was nice enough, after a couple of minutes of chat he led us out to the car.

With Dad’s help he pulled off the tarpaulin, we discovered that the car was a Pontiac Trans Am, (the one that the bandit drives in the film smokey and the bandit). It was filthy, even having had the tarpaulin on it for the last few years, it also had a big dent in the front wing. Mr Clover told us the front wheel was also damaged and the car wouldn’t drive properly, even if we could get the engine to start.

Mr Clover had been at first resistant about selling the car. But after a quick conversation with his wife, he came around. He offered to sell it to us for the same price he bought it, just so he didn’t lose any money on it.

As it was, the price he quoted was far less than I expected. It turned out that he had a friend who knew he was interested in something along the lines of an american classic. His friend had managed to get the car in a deal after it had been in an accident. He sold it to Mr Clover for much less than the car was worth, even with all the damage that it had.

Dad agreed with the price and wrote a cheque for them there and then. They couldn’t know that the cheque he wrote was from my trust of which I was the owner and Dad was just a trustee.

Obviously since the car was un-roadworthy we would need some assistance getting it on a trailer, or for a recovery vehicle to move it to our house. I had already agreed with Dad that I could build a garage on our land to leave it in while I got it renovated. We had agreed to build a multiple garage on the land we had spare, to hold not only this but up to six vehicles.

After we left we drove past our turn for the house, heading into town. I was going to ask why, but guessed dad had a reason, so remained silent.

When we came into town Dad drove us to a car sales lot. It had a bunch of new cars, but it also had a lot of other older types of cars on the lot.

We got out and went to the offices, Dad brushed off a salesman who looked unhappy about a possible loss of a sale. He walked up to a young woman who I took to be an administration type. He asked to speak to someone who could help us with moving an un-roadworthy vehicle. She looked at the two of us for a moment before leaving, going into another office to the right of us.

When she reemerged, she was being followed by a big looking guy who was in a suit. But he looked like the type who would prefer being in overalls actually working on cars.

“Hello, I’m Stan Johnson and this is my lot. Jane said that you were looking to move a car that was un-roadworthy.”

“Yes that right, I’m Brian Owens. We just bought a car from the Clovers that we need to get from their place to ours. As we can’t drive it there, we wondered if we could hire you or one of your employees, if you had the necessary equipment to move it for us.” Dad answered.

“I can’t believe they are finally allowing someone to do up that old Trans Am they have. I have been after buying that car a number of times, but they never let me purchase it.”

“Oh we didn’t know that, if you’re unhappy with us buying it, we will try somewhere different.” Dad apologised.

“Oh it’s not a problem, I’m just glad that someone will finally get to put that car back on the road. It’s a crime for a car like that just to be sat outside a house with a tarpaulin over it. I take it you want to do it for yourself, did you have one before?”

“It’s my boy here Jack, who wants to do it up. He loved watching me do up an old Harley a few years back, so we got him a 50cc bike to do up. Now he wanted to move onto doing up cars.” Dad explained.

“Really, well if that is the case I have a recovery truck that can move the car easily enough. It’s a shame that you decided to move onto that car though, I also have an old Harley out back that he could have had for a song had you come here first.”

I finally joined the conversation, “Really, could we look at it?”

“Sure you can, but why would you want to, when you just bought a car that is going to take a while to get running?”

“I know what is needed to renovate a Harley after watching Dad do his, I could probably do the bike a lot easier than the car. It’s going to be years before I can drive either anyway, so if it looks OK, I could be interested in doing both.”

“Come along then, let’s take a look at it. Then I will get one of my boys to go and get that old car, he will move it to your place if that is where you want it.”

We followed him to the back of the lot, where he had a compound of battered and old looking cars.

He showed us the Harley, it was similar to Dad’s so I was definitely interested. Dad looked excited about it as well, so he talked Stan into a deal on it, and the cost of moving the car to our house.

Before we left I mentioned to Stan that I would also be interested if he came across any jeeps I might also be able to do up. The Trans Am would be a lot of boys’ dream car, but the back seats were miniscule, so something which was fun for a young guy but had four seats, I would be willing to bargain about.

He seemed glad to talk to people who were interested in renovated vehicles, which otherwise would just go to rust. He told us he would keep us in mind, if he came across any vehicles we might be interested in doing up.