Sometimes, I hate family

Son of a....

My one aunt has had an MGTF sitting in her barn since I was in diapers. I've loved that car since then, and she knows it. I've tried to buy it over the years, but she's a prickly old thing, so I've never been able to. Came close a few times, but never could quite get it sold or to my house.

So today I go over to help get her ready for the hurricane. I'm moving things into the barn, and there's an empty space where the MG always sat.

With dread, I ask. She tells me she sold it. She got kinda snotty when I reminded her that I'd been trying to buy it for years from her.

Then to rub a bit more salt into the wounds, she get all snarky about the side curtains, all but saying I stole them when I'd done work on it for her in the past.

Was all I could do to stay civil and finish getting her ready for the storm.

God damn it.

Ugh. That sucks... In her defense, she probably thought she'd get money money for it than what you may have paid. Some folks just don't like doing business within family.

If she didn't call you first when she wanted to sell it, she doesn't deserve to have face saved.

berkeley em!

Dude, sorry. That's all I have to say. I could call her an old.... bat, but, that would be redundant. Especially having you over to help her get ready for a storm.

I felt this way when my uncle sent both my grandpa's '67 IH 1300C AND my grandma's '66 Mercury Montclair off to the scrapper a month ago.

I feel your pain.

foxtrapper wrote: Was all I could do to stay civil and finish getting her ready for the storm.

you're a better man than I am .. I'd more that likely said berkeley it and walked off and let get ready for the storm on her own ... AND I'd have let her know why she was doing it herself

Ordinarily I'm a live and let live sort, but on this one I side with wbjones. If she's known all these years, then she should have at least let you have a crack at it.

Yeah that's horseE36 M3. She should have at least let you know she was selling it.

Non enthusiast family member selling car to you? Someone who hates cars.

Non enthusiast family member selling car to someone other than you? Someone who hates you. Or at least, family member thinking they're cashing in on the "barn find" phenomenon.

As always, YMMV.

Appropriate picture for this thread:

Yeah, the minute the accusation happened, I woulda packed my ish, and left.

I would have been a small person and left her to fend for her own. I wonder f the person she sold the car to would have come and helped her?

I hold the title to the car in my aunts barn. Then again, if she heard me say that, shed probably slap the E36 M3 out me.

It's just one of those things. Sometimes you're the windshield, and sometimes you're the bug. This time, I was the bug. I'm not going to hate over it. I lived that type of life years ago, and I'll be damned if I'm going back to it. Chuckle, and I'll repeat that to myself as many times as it takes. It's not like it was the only MG-TF on the planet.

Wife and I were talking about this last night. My aunt has always been weird about this car of hers. There's a lot of weird emotional baggage for her associated with it. So probably I was never going to get it, and only in moments of weakness would she consider it. I'd take those moments of hope and clutch them close to my heart. Cripes, I sound like a teenage girl with a crush saying that. And it's not like I was the only kin who lusted after it, my father and a cousin were in the mix as well.

What the hell. She says she sold it to a restoration shop for a good bit of coin. So I can hope it wasn't parted out, and is in fact being restored and will be back on the road as another very nice MG-TF, with a story about being yet another barn rescue. And if I should decide I really want one of my own, I'll just have to go out there shopping. In fact, darn, I see I just missed a really interesting one the other month on ebay. A scruffy but solid good runner for a few grand.

Thanks for being a bunch of car nuts, who can understand.

It probably wouldn't be hard to locate it if you are serious. And a resto shop would probably flip it for a quick profit if it was presented to them. Though it sounds like you don't have all that much emotional attachment to this particular car.

My grandma sold he 63 Impala Sport Coupe with the 300HP 327 out from under my dad. My grand dad had an Edsel that I had shown some love for, but he sold it to his wife's douchebag son.

Well, at least its being restored or made parts for other restorations, but I hear those side curtains are rare and expensive.

You took the high road, and are the bigger man for it.

In reply to foxtrapper:

Yeah, that's some strange passive-aggressive E36 M3 right there.

There was no harm in giving you first crack with the caveat that she wanted fair market value.

maybe she decided that if she sold it, she'd never want to see it again? a nice, clean break. some people are like that with cars and other possessions that they hold dear.

I feel your pain. If you don't already, you need a dog. They have a healing effect when stung by people.

Lesley wrote: You took the high road, and are the bigger man for it.

Yes. I admire that, because I probably wouldn't have had the self restraint to do the same.

Since you weren't the only family member that wanted the car, sounds like she didn't want to play favorites and sell it to one of you, so she sold it to someone outside the family.

My aunt asked me a few years ago what I thought the Model A roadster her husband left her was worth. I said about $19K....and then explained why : market conditions (this was PRE 2008) and other reasons why it wasn't ever going to crack the high $20K mark in her remaining lifetime. We talked a bit more about the car and I got the feeling she MIGHT be feeling me out as to whether I was interested in purchasing it. I wasn't, and said as much. (I'm more interested in cars 1955 and newer.) Well, my aunt never again mentioned the car again, but I found out from my folks she had sold the car to another nephew for $19K, with the provision she had 1st right of refusal if he ever sold the car. Apparently, she wanted confirmation that she hadn't been taken by my cousin.

About a decade before the above happened, she had a Mustang that she sold...even tho I expressed an interest in that car. She (and her not yet dead husband/my uncle) decided it would NEVER be a good idea to sell a car to a relative, as it always seems to create hard feelings if the car isn't perfect. I guess a Model A is exempt from that rule.

Strizzo wrote: Since you weren't the only family member that wanted the car, sounds like she didn't want to play favorites and sell it to one of you, so she sold it to someone outside the family.

Or she could have called the interested parties and said, "shop XXX is offering $XXX for the TF, does anyone want to offer more than that?