£4.5k?

[Gilles27]

This car looks great, but can it really be worth £4.5K? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MR2-MK1-A-...E:B:SS:GB:1123

[Master-B]

It looks tidy but agree with you Ant, the price is ambitious. Maybe he is trading using the "open extreme" method, which is guaranteed* to have a gaggle of punters ringing his phone off the hook

Edit - just had a proper look at the pics on my laptop as opposed to my phone...... cracked leather seats, discoloured cam covers & generally used looking engine bay? Deffo not A1 as the seller states & deffo not £4.5k worth. As clarky has shown below... you can get absolute concourse for that sort of money. £2.5k if the sun is shining.

[coverco]

When I see a listing with so little information on the history of a car and the spelling is as bad as it is in this case I immediately switch off. I suppose there may be someone out there who would pay it but they would obviously not be members of any of the MK1 clubs. With most people having internet access these days it is unlikely anyone would not check the market and this is well above market price.

[clarky]

Hi, I've just bought "brianuk"'s car a red t-bar and i paid a lot more than the blokes asking for the blue one!!. Mind you mine has had over £30,000 spent on the restoration and is in concourse condition. If you want the best of the best your going to have to pay more than £1500!.

[coverco]

It is a funny subject this and has been discussed many times before. I love my MK1 but I must be honest if I had £4500 to spend on a car I would not buy a MK1 no matter what condition it was in. My MK1 is rust free and in pretty good condition but I don't think I would get much more than a couple of grand for it. If someone offered me £4500 I would sell it straight away without hesitation. I have never been attached to any of the cars I have had, even the one I built from scratch, then again everyone is different

[clarky]

First of all thanks coverco for the info about the heater illumination the other day, i found what i was looking for!!. As for the price of the car you have to way it up. I looked at a pile of shite in leicester in november that the bloke wanted £1800 for. It needed both rear corners a front wing, respray, wheels refurbed, new set of tyres, exhaust and as it had been standing for years, a cambelt service, brakes and god knows what else. And to make matters worse i drove 120 miles for the bloke to tell me it had no mot's or history that he had told me it had on the phone. I'm not mechanically minded and with this in mind i thought it would cost £4000+, and it still wouldn't be half the car that i've got sitting in my garage for just a little bit more!!!

[Master-B]

Sadly there are plenty of jokers who think their £500 mk1 is worth £1500+ and so if you are in the market for a £1500 mk1 you just have to be patient and wade through the dross to find the bargains or wait for Gary to save another one (!). Its an education to see the poor examples as you soon learn what to look out for. Mine was bought for under a grand after a bit of hard negotiating, and was mint - owner last 21 years, rust free, service history, expensive restoration, full mot, tax, all the stuff you would want to see as a buyer. Ive basically just driven it around, kept to the maintenance schedule and had it retrimmed to bring the interior in line with the exterior... it owes me less than £1500 excluding consumables, yet won best mk1 at one of our shows last year. For me mk1 ownership is about cheap thrills, I dont think people need to spend big to get one of the best examples, but it defo helps weed out the rubbish if you have a big budget and want one quick. The market will change over the next 10 years as they become rarer, but I dont think it is there quite yet. If they had ford or vw badges the scene tax would be horrific now, but 1970s Japanese cars are geting valuable now so it is only a matter of time...

[coverco]

My car cost me a about £500, I have replaced all the major panels with Toyota originals and it has cost a bit but nowhere near £4000. I did the work myself so did not have massive labour bills. I still don't think I would get much more than £2000 though. By the way it is not for sale and I am not trying to sell it or anything like that.

I think as more are scrapped prices will increase as Kris says, they will get to Fiat X19 and Lancia Beta Monte Carlo levels which are good but not great.

[88mister2]

Just had a look at this car on ebay, it says it has ABS, power steering, and a passenger airbag. I'm not so sure about this!!!

[muckyman]

Sadly there are plenty of jokers who think their £500 mk1 is worth £1500+ and so if you are in the market for a £1500 mk1 you just have to be patient and wade through the dross to find the bargains or wait for Gary to save another one (!). Its an education to see the poor examples as you soon learn what to look out for.

Couldn't agree more with that statement, and while the ebay car does look nice, deffo not £4.5k nice.
My car was a Gary save/restored car and its rust free, and I love it - but if someone offered me £2.5k for it I would take it (and put that towards a S/C). Can't see how that one could be worth £4.5k when I see how good mine is.
Maybe someone will buy it for £4.5k, and good luck to the seller if they do - but I won't hold my breath....