The Dumb Trade Thread

House rules:  There must be a photo of each part of the trade.  A "looks just like this one" will do.  You must also include a short explanation of why it is a dumb trade and why it might secretly be genius.  Bonus points for trades you actually made. 

I'll start:

Trade this:

For this:

Why it's dumb:  Miata is a low mile Shinsen that is very well sorted, easy to drive, cheap to own, massive aftermarket, rag top (for the approximately 15 days of convertible weather we get in Michigan), working air, a competent autocrosser with ZERO rust.  Datsun appears to be pretty jenky in assembly, "just needs an alternator bracket" (yeah, right), has rust, is poorly lowered and has basically zero motorsports potential.

Why it's genius:  Absolutely LOVED my Nissan hardbody.  I found a minitruck to be a great all around vehicle.  This thing has SOOO much style.  That's pretty much it for the positives.

Will I do it?  No, probably not.  I have a low tolerance for mechanical frustration.  I can't see getting this to a reasonable level of reliability without investing substantial coin.  

EDIT:  Do we need scoring?  For those that don't want to post their own trade but comment on others, we'll go with "Dumb and Dumber" scale:  1 - you totally redeemed yourself to 5 - just when I thought you couldn't get any dumber.

Fun premise for a discussion. One question: are there supposed to be images in your post?

A friend once traded this:

For this:

I thought he was crazy at the time and auction values have proven me to be correct - by a factor of 2-3X

Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:

Fun premise for a discussion. One question: are there supposed to be images in your post?

Crap, imagines are probably FB images, so they might not show up without an account.  I'll try to edit the first post. 

In reply to wspohn :

Oof. That might win the thread.

A few years ago I traded this.

for this.

It lasted for almost three whole weeks before the extra power and brakes caught out my skill and available traction.  I high sided off the bike at 50 mph and slid for far too far on pavement.

Now I have a Miata and that's a good thing.

I once traded this:

For one of these:

Which I then traded for this  CBX750:

I traded a TL1000 for a GSXR1000.  Major win on my part, keep in mind the TL was a rat and the GSXR was cherry.   

This.

For this.

I was offered a papered pit bull puppy for my rolling VW last week. I still have the car. 
 

I once traded an 84 C4 auto:

for an Mx-6, a LTD 7-string, and $400:

The only upside I can think of is I served my community by helping a high school kid get his own corvette. 

clutchsmoke said:

In reply to wspohn :

Oof. That might win the thread.

I might be up for the award myself. Back in the early 1970s I swapped a fairly complete MGA Twin Cam (engine out, stored in barn for years) for a car trailer so I could go racing.  Before you instantly call me an idiot, remember that back in those days the Twin Cams were considered failures and didn't attract much money. One former owner I met a few years later in Hawaii had taken his complete but broken Twin Cam engine and used it as an anchor for mooring his small boat, presumably replacing it in his car with a pushrod engine.

As the opposite to wspohn trading away an MGA Twin Cam, back in the late 1970's I responded to an ad in the local paper from someone who wanted a running 1500/1600 engine in exchange for a basket case MGA Twin Cam engine. I rebuilt one of my spare 1600cc engines and helped him and his son install it and then anxiously waited for it to roar into life, but instead it just cranked, cranked, spit, and popped.

Fuel? Check. Spark? Check. Compression? Check. Why won`t it fire? What did I do wrong? What else is there? Timing? Looked right, but…..yup... distributor 180 degrees out. Won’t make that mistake again.

That rebuilt engine has probably been rebuilt several more times by now, but I still have the Twin Cam engine, and it is still torn apart and residing in several cardboard boxes, just like when I first picked it up. I always thought that one day I would run across a Twin Cam car that needed an engine, and I would rebuild it and reunite them. But since it hasn’t happened in the last couple decades it probably isn’t going to happen now.

So why was this a dumb trade? Well, the trade itself was actually a really good one. What wasn't good, and still isn't, is that I have hauled that Twin Cam engine around for the last 40+ years, through several moves half way across the country, and still haven't done anything with it yet. Dumb!

So what should I do with it now? Rebuild it for fun and find it a good home? Sell it as is? Part it out? Maybe I'll trade it for a...?

edited to add pics

You can always sell the Twin Cam engine to Jim Alcorn at Autovintagery in CA - he restores the cars.

My engine out of the race car:

In reply to wspohn :

They are such pretty engines aren't they, especially with Webers! That must be a lot of fun.

Thanks for the suggestion!  I had actually looked into doing exactly that several years (decades?) ago, but at the time I was still optimistic about doing something with it myself. Now I am not so sure that I will ever get around to it due to other projects taking precedence.  At least I should throw it together to make sure I still have all the pieces. That would also make it much easier to ship if I did decide to sell it.

In reply to kazoospec :

I traded this 20' enclosed trailer:
 

For this:

A wise trade? Probably not. The trailer was a very useful item. A Samurai, not so much. 

A worthy trade? To me, yes and in the long run, the Samurai will increase in value more than a trailer would. 

So I traded this

For this

then this.

The RM 125 runs but it's got a sticky float needle and clutch doesn't want to fully release. The XR would have made a good pit bike but I have a 62 Honda 90.  I've ridden the RM once, the intent is to restore it but we'll see if it happens. 

In reply to Toyman01 (Moderately Supportive Dude) :

I'm in a deep state of want regarding samurais. The desire is real. 

In reply to barefootskater (Shaun) :

Allow me to encourage your want.

Or maybe this one from several years ago.

Or even this one from right after I got it.

Not that I would enable or anything like that...

Dumb amount of money for a piece of paper, but totally worth it.

the one I slap myself for not doing ?

trade a rebuilt VW 1600 engine for a Mercedes 190 SL project !

this was when a 190SL was just another weird "furrin" car that would be expensive to fix......

pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) said:

 

Dumb amount of money for a piece of paper, but totally worth it.

Worth every penny.

Not a trade, but a real dumb sequence of events I did once is that I bought a $500 dirt bike, rode it once for 20 feet and crashed it into a church, and then sold it for $250.

So I guess I traded $250 for the knowledge that I probably shouldn't ride motorcycles. Maybe not such a bad trade after all.

KyAllroad (Jeremy) (Forum Supporter) said:

 

It lasted for almost three whole weeks before the extra power and brakes caught out my skill and available traction.  I high sided off the bike at 50 mph and slid for far too far on pavement.

Now I have a Miata and that's a good thing.

That surprises me—not the crash but the "extra" comment. I never thought the Concours was all that fast, or great at braking. What it WAS, though, was top heavy. That gets old... a Miata doesn't!

In reply to Toyman01 (Moderately Supportive Dude) :

I did a job three weeks ago and the guy had the cleanest, most unmolested sammi I've seen in a decade or more. Such cool little machines. Still, if I had the money, I'd likely buy FILs YJ first. Not quite as cool, but probably a better fit for my needs. 

In reply to ebelements :

Cruisers are heavy and underpowered in comparison to most sport or sport touring bikes; high siding a Concours takes some doing, so I salute KyAllroad for his overly ambitious faux pas.

Due note my motorcycle racing buddies still remind me that I once crashed on a straightaway; something about still holding the throttle open, despite the huge tank slapper and finally crashing when the steering stops broke.