Buying a Classic Car Sight Unseen

Today, with our world becoming smaller and smaller, thanks to our ever increasingly sophisticated forms of communication, is it becoming any easier to buy a used car? In other words, with our ability to be in contact with virtually anyone, do we need to rely on the local dealership or newspaper classified when in search of that elusive vehicle—the one that must be just so?


Put it another way, would you purchase a car sight unseen, or rather, without kicking its tires?


An informal survey of a number of car enthusiasts who have bought more than their fair share of used vehicles says they would not, unless...

Friends and Romans
They already knew the buyer. That's pretty much a given...although there's an old adage that you should never sell a car to a friend. Of course, there are exceptions to everything. Who would pass up a Shelby Daytona that was stored (hiding—) in an old shed? Plenty. Authenticity could be called into question by the more skeptical, or perhaps the more knowledgeable, but because passions run high in the big dollar stratosphere of collectible automobiles, many times it's shoot first and aim later. In these cases, it's the lawyers who try to settle the dust and, in fact, make the big dollars.

Dealer Reliability
It was a relatively new model being sold by a dealership. In this case, a low mileage vehicle (particularly one that has been certified pre-owned by either the dealership or the manufacturer) can be deemed trustworthy enough. However, even with assurances by the dealer's salesperson and a DMV or VIN query of the vehicle's history, one doesn't always know the complete record. Even passing a background check and receiving a dealer-authorized certification may not disclose that the vehicle had been crashed. This has happened more than once and has not always resulted in a happy ending.