Wanted: CAV GT40 small block car

[patrickt]

I say you two meet in the ring, three 3-minute rounds, 10 oz. gloves, I'll act as referee. Yep, that's the only way to settle something like this....

[fdjake]

Another swing and a MISS!!! You lost your bet.

I don't do seminars.....Never been to one in my life. (Love that commercial though) I also don't sell anything other than MY property....No "how to's" No nothing.

I built a business from NOTHING....N O T H I N G...I learned a TON along the way....Confident??? Hell yea....But I never met a successful person who wasn't.

I offered advice to the folks here for F R E E....Thought I could simply pass along some things that others taught me over the years....and that I learned from TRYING.

If you don't care......DON'T READ IT!

I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish...I have a CAV GT40 MONO sitting in my garage for a price that some people said I couldn't buy one for.....

I had a buyers lawyer a few months ago who held up a closing because when he did the title search he refused to believe the price I paid for the property I was selling to his client...This isn't bragging, it's not BS, it really happened...He wanted to talk to MY attorney to ask if any other "consideration" was given to the seller.....The reaction here doesn't surprise me. It's common. It's almost ENCOURAGING because the "it can't be real" mentality is rampant when people don't understand how you can buy these things for very short $$$$.

Sorry if I wasted peoples time here....It won't happen again

[twobjshelbys]

OK, let me say it another way. JERK!


I'm truly sorry I mentioned this. It's all my fault because I thought maybe some one was really interested in a car instead of thumping his chest or his d**c.

Go away now.

Mod, please shut this one down. I usually don't like it but this guy is so full of himself it's intolerable

[fdjake]

DON'T READ IT.....If it's that BAD....WHY the 2000+ views???

It's so INTOLERABLE that the topic is read by more people here than all but 2 other topics on the page???

I think a LOT of folks here GET IT......They have an interest in how it was done.

That's all this is...NOTHING ELSE. Some free advice on how to buy your next car for a great price??? You're right, I am a JERK! Offering some knowledge to members here for N O T H I N G.

SHUT IT DOWN, SHUT IT DOWN!!!

I have NO WEB SITE....Have solicited NO ONE....Have NOTHING to sell.

I'll make this offer to ANYONE here.....NO STRINGS attached....You report back to the guys here warts and all...

I'll walk ANYONE here through the process....Step by step..You can follow the advice or you can tell me to screw.....BUT......IF.....If what I teach you WORKS.....Just be honest and admit it and pass along the details to the guys here so they can benefit too.

I LOVE it when people doubt me.....NOTHING motivates me more.

So......ERA, KIRKHAM, SHELBY or GT40.....If you want to buy one, let me know and I'll help you with what worked for me....If it doesn't work and you think I'm full of sh*t....Tell everyone.....BUT...If you get your car.....Do the right thing and admit my advice helped you get it.

That's my offer.

[RodKnock]

Originally Posted by patrickt

I say you two meet in the ring, three 3-minute rounds, 10 oz. gloves, I'll act as referee. Yep, that's the only way to settle something like this....

10 oz. gloves are for sissies. 4-6 oz. is what the MMA fighters use.

At any rate, you couldn't referee 5-year old soccer match w/o both teams leaving the field in disgust.

[fdjake]

Hey I owe Rodknock an apology....I was out of line man....But I'll still fight ya!!!

GT40 vs Cobra!!!

[Mark IV]

Originally Posted by fdjake

Years ago I had a meeting with a retired Rolls Royce dealer named Howard Van Bortel....Howard was a GENIUS (literally)
He said something to me that I will never forget...

I asked him how he became the largest Rolls dealer on the East Coast?

He said......"I made sure EVERYONE knew I wanted to buy their Rolls Royces regardless of the situation...and then I made it EASY for them to sell to me."

AH yes, Howard, the Guru of Palmyra! Ask GMAC about what a "genius" Howard was.......they are still looking for a few million from him.

And was he wearing his fur coat when you met him?

Yes, he was the largest RR dealer in the East. And one of the five biggest Corvette sales volume dealers. All from "Mormontown NY"...after he "closed" the Chevy/RR store he travelled around the country selling dealers the "$100 over invoice" marketing program ("so what you do is advertise and sell at $100 over invoice........ten-thousand please.....make the check out to Howard")

[1ntCobra]

With this being a car website, I can understand how some small minority of users like RodKnock might want to see some car pictures. If I was fdjake, I would probably start a thread on this site Saving Money Forums - Saving Advice
I could briefly mention saving some money on a GT40 and then proceed to post dozens of pictures of the car there, where the audience would appreciate the car pictures more than the story about saving money.

With that in mind, I thought I would add to this thread about my financial genius in selling a car. A bunch of years ago, I broke the back window in the hatchback of my Merkur XR4Ti. I called around and was having trouble sourcing new glass. With the broken glass, I had the car in my garage, where my twin turbo RX-7 was supposed to be. Could you imagine RodKnock leaving his Kirkham in the driveway so he could put his keep the interior of his damaged Prius dry in the garage? This would not do, I needed to get the RX-7 back in the garage. I remembered a friend once offered me $100 dollars for any car, so he could use it in the annual demolition derby. Who needs Kelley Blue Book? I now knew the fair market value of my car, $100. So anyway, I found a Merkur forum, signed up and posted in the "for sale" section. I said, anyone interested in my XR4Ti? I've got an offer for $100 to use it in a demolition derby. There were a number of users who outraged about the demolition derby thing for some reason. But one of them bought the car from me for $160.

Wow, 60% over my asking price.

Even though I was a motivated seller, it turns out that I did not have to settle for a fraction of my car's worth. Hey that makes me a financial genius.

[twobjshelbys]

That's nothing. My wife had a tub of coins. I went through every one of them looking for stuff worth saving. The best I could do is a silver dime. I was offered 20c for it (a 100% profit). I'm going to try for 30c and settle for 25c.

[Cobra #3170]

Originally Posted by 1ntCobra

With this being a car website, I can understand how some small minority of users like RodKnock might want to see some car pictures. If I was fdjake, I would probably start a thread on this site Saving Money Forums - Saving Advice
I could briefly mention saving some money on a GT40 and then proceed to post dozens of pictures of the car there, where the audience would appreciate the car pictures more than the story about saving money.

With that in mind, I thought I would add to this thread about my financial genius in selling a car. A bunch of years ago, I broke the back window in the hatchback of my Merkur XR4Ti. I called around and was having trouble sourcing new glass. With the broken glass, I had the car in my garage, where my twin turbo RX-7 was supposed to be. Could you imagine RodKnock leaving his Kirkham in the driveway so he could put his keep the interior of his damaged Prius dry in the garage? This would not do, I needed to get the RX-7 back in the garage. I remembered a friend once offered me $100 dollars for any car, so he could use it in the annual demolition derby. Who needs Kelley Blue Book? I now knew the fair market value of my car, $100. So anyway, I found a Merkur forum, signed up and posted in the "for sale" section. I said, anyone interested in my XR4Ti? I've got an offer for $100 to use it in a demolition derby. There were a number of users who outraged about the demolition derby thing for some reason. But one of them bought the car from me for $160.

Wow, 60% over my asking price.

Even though I was a motivated seller, it turns out that I did not have to settle for a fraction of my car's worth. Hey that makes me a financial genius.

Great post, I wish I were that creative.

[Mark IV]

Originally Posted by twobjshelbys

That's nothing. My wife had a tub of coins. I went through every one of them looking for stuff worth saving. The best I could do is a silver dime. I was offered 20c for it (a 100% profit). I'm going to try for 30c and settle for 25c.

Well I might give you .25 for it but first I've got to call a buddy down to look at it and tell me all about it................................

[jhv48]

I think you guys are being pretty hard on the OP.

He's got a system that works. He has been a straight shooter. Nobody gets hurt and he has shared a money making strategy with us for free. Yet most if you are jumping on him like a pack of hyenas.

I say more power to him. He's not hurting anyone. He's not stealing from the poor. He's not telling lies. So what's the beef?

Are you guys all pissed because he's thumping his chest a bit? So what? If he is really doing what he says he is, and it sure looks like he is, then I congratulate his success.

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by jhv48

Are you guys all pissed because he's thumping his chest a bit? So what? If he is really doing what he says he is, and it sure looks like he is, then I congratulate his success.

Well, he doesn't bother me in the least. But, it's only human nature around here for some to be a little jealous of others who apparently make serious money by not working very hard. But, that's what makes this country great.

[fdjake]

As to the comments made here about Howard Van Bortel....

Instead of asking GMAC about Howard ( a company which went BANKRUPT because of their fantastic management and owes US tax payers $14 BILLION DOLLARS!!)....I would encourage anyone here interested to ask Howard's DAUGHTER Kitty about his methods.....Kitty Van Bortel is THE LARGEST SUBARU DEALER in the USA. She also owns Ford and Chevy franchises which are extremely successful.

If Kitty isn't available call Howard's son.....Howard, at VAN BORTEL AIRCRAFT.....He's the largest Cessna Dealer in the WORLD!!!!

Gee.....I think we might have a pattern here. Howard's daughter is largest Subaru Dealer in the USA and his SON is the worlds largest CESSNA DEALER....Yea, Howard was clueless.....(hold on while I bang my head against the wall)

Howard was a character, no doubt about it. And he had his demons. But I have NEVER met a more honest and inspiring person in my life. I learned more about business from him in a 4 hour conversation than from any single person in my life. I met him when he had mellowed a bit in his older days, he was BRUTALLY HONEST about his screw ups in life. ALL OF THEM. He helped me tremendously. No one in my family ever ran a business and Howard helped me find my customers and build my business by doing things NO ONE ELSE was doing. AND IT WORKED!!!! It worked for me in real estate and it's still working 21 years after meeting Howard.

I've gotten some nice PM's from members here thanking me for the original post...It was written to simply HELP with some tips that were passed to me by someone who was a marketing genius. I benefitted tremendously from that knowledge and simply wished to pass a bit of it along to the COBRA FAITHFUL here.

What a J E R K I am!! (I really liked that one!) What mastery of language!!

But my personal favorite of all the encouraging comments made here??

GO AWAY NOW!!!! Another "tour de force" example of lingual and mental jousting!!!

I love it!!

As the saying goes......You can't fix stupid

[Mark IV]

Yes I have met Kitty and she is VERY sucessful and very driven. Her Chevy store is in Newark, one town over from where Howard's was. In fact I went past it on Saturday (not that counts for anything).

I understand that the aircraft sales started with a version of the "$100 over" on reman Lycomings and I also have heard the other Cessna dealers are not real pleased with the marketing tactics used, but hey, that is business.

I don't doubt that Howard was a trove of information and he was a real shooter at one time. That said, he did hang some people out when he closed. I never said Howard was clueless, no far from it, he was/is very clever.

And GMAC was not part of the GM BK proceedings and in fact was controlled by other than GM at that time.

I think your business model is one that has great potential when run by the right person, who has ready cash and a big set of stones. I fail on all of those requirements!

I agree some here got a little snooty with you but in the immortal words of Sgt. Hulka "Lighten up Francis"

[fdjake]

I thank you Sir for your comments!!

I can be a little rough around the edges....No doubt about it. And I sure as hell ain't no writer, so maybe some of it gets lost between my pea sized brain and the keyboard.

When I talked with Tom yesterday it was a nice conversation, we had some laughs and I respect the guy for sending me his number. People like that make the effort worth while.

Thank you for the follow up on Howard....The guy changed my life....I had no idea how important that meeting would be to my future. It was one of those times you look back on and literally SEE the fork in the road you were standing at. Once you establish yourself and don't need to work as hard anymore, the FUN is in passing along the knowledge and watching others benefit from it.

That's what Howard did for me and I'll never forget it. He called it "FRIEND RAISING." Even his name for it was inspiring.

And GMAC did a debt swap to avoid bankruptcy PROCEEDINGS.....But make no mistake, they were absolutely and completely BANKRUPT. That debt swap allowed them to become a BANK HOLDING COMPANY (they changed the name from GMAC to Ally Financial) which in turn allowed them to access federal bailout money!! As soon as the ink was dry on the bond holders approval they bellied up to the government trough. The US tax payer STILL owns 74% of this "business" and we're all on the hook to the tune of $14 BILLION as of 2013.
What ever Howard owed when he closed his businesses wouldn't pay ONE DAYS INTEREST on the $14 BILLION "Ally Financial" owes. So the bankrupt, no longer in existence, GMAC's opinion of Howard Van Bortel means about as much to me as some of the brilliant commentary made here.

Howard Van Bortel passed away July 17th, 2011. He was one in a million. I owe him a debt that could never be repaid. I was 27 years old when I met him and knew NOTHING about business. He called me WEEKLY after our meeting to encourage me and give me PRICELESS insights into what a customer really wants. His ideas were amazing, his enthusiasm was endless and he LOVED seeing a "new guy" make it!!

I simply wanted to do what Howard did for me......SHARE

I have actually received numerous PM's from people here who THANKED ME for this post. One member even went as far as to explain the BS comments made to me as the reason he doesn't post much. What a shame.

[ENTDOC]

glad you found a car at a price that suited you. Car sales are simple supply and demand, no big secret really, pretty much like anything else.

[HI Cobra]

Interesting thread. I see fdjake as someone who has learned his business well
and the fact that his approach is not mainstream makes it interesting to me.
Thanks for sharing (or trying to) your approach to buying and selling and I think
your honesty in the deal process is rare and refreshing. Getting my Kirkham
was a 5 year dream and process that finally succeeded when the planets were
in perfect alignment, I had the money and the opportunity presented itself on
evilbay. Patience paid off and I will not be selling that car.

Glad you were able to get the car and hope you take the time to enjoy driving it.

[sea2jet]

Purchased a car out of CT last week for $57,500. The seller had the opportunity to purchase a 550 Maranello at a great price from a divorce situation. He needed to move fast and we got a deal done.

Lets see a picture of your new CAV.