By the power of Greyskull... please talk me down from buying this

Very long story condensed.

Saw a Vauxhall Viva sitting in a guy's front yard in Ontario
Stopped to ask if it was for sale
Not for sale (but we know everything is for sale)
His Grandfather imported it

It is dead straight, no rust, no dents, nothing.  We ended up talking for 4 hours and drinking beers.  Just met the guy and I rebuilt the carb (my first Solex) and we got it running.  It's an HA version (63-66) and is even really clean on the interior.  Minor seat wear, but the car is 100% survivor.

Please give me a reason not to offer this guy a kidney for this car.  It is begging for a rotary swap and some minilites.

Pics when I can get them to load from the sticks

He also has this abomination of a 51 something-or-other Ford?  He also has a field with about 20 assorted buses, limos, trucks, and a couple tractors.

Where would you even go for a valuation on something like that to make an offer? 

After minor research pricing doesn’t look too bad for a decent example, just need to find an importer. 

I got to $2500 and he just laughed.

I did buy a couple wheels and a fishing rod from him for $20, so he can be bought :)

I'd offer $ for Snowflake, it's begging for an LS swap. 

A car like that on this continent is worth exactly what you are will to give.  There's no real market, no following, no club or owners scene.  Its value is whatever coolness figure you attach to it.  If that figure is equal too or greater than what he's willing to let it go for then get it, if not move on.  It's the sort of car that someone ends up getting for $500 when the current owner, their spouse or kids get fed up with it and want it gone and can't find a buyer.  You just need to improve your timing!

I'll give him $200 for the Snowflakecar.

If there's one thing I've learned, there's no reasoning with people who collect cars and name them all.  Airbrushing the car's name onto it is next level. Sounds like that car is Not For Sale.

The silver lining is that this guy inherited the property and all the junk from his dad when he died, so he's not the sentimental one who airbrushed a car.  He wants to keep the Viva because it was his grandfather's, and he won't part with Snowflake because his parents were married in it.  He would part with a 41 Vicky he has, but it's on an S10 frame with an SBC in it.  It's also pretty rough.

There is a 7.3 'stroke mini bus he has with only 70,000 km on it that I would kill for, but being a canadian school bus it's pretty rusty.

There is an Impreza wagon with leather, and a CRV with leather.  Also a box Lincoln limo with a 351 I wouldn't mind having.

Nothing useful to add other than I want Snowflake so bad. It has a tire cover with mural of itself on it. That's like 2 steps worse than Corvettes with underhood murals of themelves. 

I'd say the upper limit is when it becomes easier to just buy one in the UK and have it shipped over. These things aren't that expensive in the UK so I'd guess the ceiling is fairly low even for something in really nice condition.

Good luck getting him to part with it *right now*

I think the best takeaway from this is that you made a friend. Keep being a friend to this guy, help him get it running and driving and later on, when he realizes you're just not trying to flip the car and actually will take care of it, THEN make an offer.

Even if the long game fails, you've made a friend. Give him a couple of issues of Classic Motorsports- or better yet, direct him to the forum.

In reply to Brett_Murphy :

In addition, the life of us car people can take odd, or tragic turns. If I had something I cherished, but needed to get rid of it before I become worm food, I would hope to get it to a friend, that I know will take care of it and make me part of its legacy. 

BoxheadTim said:

I'd say the upper limit is when it becomes easier to just buy one in the UK and have it shipped over. These things aren't that expensive in the UK so I'd guess the ceiling is fairly low even for something in really nice condition.

You're forgetting the rust.  So much salt on the roads over there that cars rust like mad.  Restored, or preserved vehicles like this tend to go for prices beyond their true value as someone wants what they had, or their parents had and they want to relive or remember some past time.

I have a friend who has been monitoring the car hoarder status of someone we know since he was 16. He's stayed pretty close to this guy even when my friend had moved out of state.

This year, he finally got to buy the guy out. He got a 68 Camaro SS convertible with a Doug Nash 5-speed and a built 427, and enough parts to that it took months to even inventory it all.

The parts include things like a Winters 427 aluminum block still in the crate, the crank and two sets of heads that match that block plus two sets of cams for it. 

There are three sets of tripower intake manifolds with linkages and carbs. Multiple rear ends and differentials, limited slips, a nodular 9-inch...

Also complete interiors in a couple of different colors...

Then there's the new in the box 55 Chevy fenders...

I could literally go on for hours listing all of this stuff. it took two people a couple of months just to inventory it.

The car is almost ready to go back on the road. The engine needed a rebuild. He's not going to build the winters block, it's so rare that it's actually worth much more in the crate. It's quite possibly the only one in existence that hasn't been built.

This is what's going into the car. I think he's putting a new set of brodix heads on it and a contemporary roller cam. He's dropped to the compression ratio from the 13 or 14 to 1 that it was down to a pump gas level with some new Pistons.

So he hung in there and finally got the car and all of the parts. It did take a while, my friend is 60 years old now. A 44-year wait.

Hopefully that Vauxhall will be kept in the garage until he's willing to sell...so often those sorts of cars get pushed out into the weeds, and by the time they're willing to give them up there's nothing left to work with.

Adrian_Thompson said:

BoxheadTim said:

I'd say the upper limit is when it becomes easier to just buy one in the UK and have it shipped over. These things aren't that expensive in the UK so I'd guess the ceiling is fairly low even for something in really nice condition.

You're forgetting the rust.  So much salt on the roads over there that cars rust like mad. 

Oh, I remember the rust . Lived over there for over a decade, after all. I'm still amazed that I now own vehicles that I can remove suspension bolts from without having to break out propane or oxy torches.

My two "favourite" memories are when I noticed the council salting the little road I lived on in SE Kent because it was snowing something like 50 miles north of London, and the Alfa 75 I bought that had spent some time up in the Scottish Borders. I didn't know you could make a car underbody out of that many postage-sized pieces of sheetmetal. And it still passed its MOT multiple times.

Not that Germany was that much better when it came to salting roads and rusty Italian cars.

I've actually owned one of the Vivas. Well, the Canadian only Envoy Epic (yes they called it Epic ) variant. I bought mine for a few hundred bucks running but the interior was weathered. Before you get any hopes of engine swap take a look at the suspension. The smallest rear axle you'd ever see outside of a go-kart. From what I remember the "firewall" was mostly made of a stiff cardboard type material! They are kinda cool however.

Brett_Murphy said:

Good luck getting him to part with it *right now*

I think the best takeaway from this is that you made a friend. Keep being a friend to this guy, help him get it running and driving and later on, when he realizes you're just not trying to flip the car and actually will take care of it, THEN make an offer.

Even if the long game fails, you've made a friend. Give him a couple of issues of Classic Motorsports- or better yet, direct him to the forum.

So much truth.  I don't really care if I get the car (although I want it).  The best part of the story is that I stopped to ask about a car and 4 hours later we're both drinking a beer and turning wrenches together.

His neighbors came over and I got to hang with them too.

Did somebody say rotary swap Viva?

My. mother had a Viva that she paid $100 for. I learned to drive a manual transmission on that thing. You had to flog the living daylights out of it to make any sort of progress with the tiny engine. BUT, it was a lot of fun for a hundred dollar car. I wouldn't do a rotary in one though. Maybe an aluminum 1500cc something or another. The Toyota mill from an xB is apparently quite light.

Curtis said:
The best part of the story is that I stopped to ask about a car and 4 hours later we're both drinking a beer and turning wrenches together.

His neighbors came over and I got to hang with them too.

Best story I heard all week. 

Were vauxhalls ever sold in Canada, or are these examples I'm seeing imported?

Wiki says never sold here, but it would have been a pretty easy import back in the 60s.  They came over here as Envoys I recall, but not Vauxhalls.

Yes they were sold new in Canada back then. The first ever car my dad had was a 62 vauxhall super 90 victor.

I want the snowflake car.

Cotton said:

I want the snowflake car.

I look at the snowflake with that custom tail and want to vomit, but I guess to each their own.

When it comes to Rods I prefer mods that look good