A little advice?

[Kory Fox]

I posted on here a while back about my I.D. tag problem. My body shop went out of business, I had to scramble to get my car back and lost some things in the process, one being the body tag. They apparently removed it to paint and it never got put back on. Someone here suggested that I could find donor car and use the tag from it. Well it just so happens that this guy in West Virginia (about 3 hours from me) that advertised 4 or 5 cars for sale has a '48 that is the same color combination as mine. However, he wants $700 for it and the car is, in my opinion, a total basket case. I don't think there's a single part on it that I could use except the tag. If you were in this situation, what would you be willing to offer?

Kory

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

If you are a member of the Kaiser-Frazer Owners club, you can put an ad in the WANTED section of the MONTHLY BULLETIN.  Indicate the car color and interior (if it is a Kaiser Special it wold seem to be easy) and let people in the club with parts cars see if they can help.   Otherwise, it used to be easier to find something in a junk yard and get the tag off one of those cars.

If the car is a basket case, and the only thing you want is the tag, I would suggest you pass on it if the owner won't sell you the tag itself.  After all, if the car is a basket case it would seem to me that the car would be worth little more than scrap.

The uninformed don't seem to realize that Kaiser does not mean $$$$$$$$ because you don't see them around much anymore.

[Gordie]

You might estimate what the other car would bring cleaned up after you get what you need from it.  If it would be within a couple of hundred dollars it might be worth it to get the data plate with the correct information for your car.  I have bought parts cars several times and got what I needed and even sold them at a profit.  Good luck

[Kory Fox]

Thanks for the replys guys. The car is so rusted. The door jambs are rusted all the way around, rocker panels are completely gone, floors pretty much the same. I could maybe sell the bumpers and the dash. That's about it as far as I could tell. The guy is advertising the car as restoreable. Nobody in their right mind would attempt to restore that car. He wouldn't sell me the I.D. tag because supposedly the county is making him sell all the cars (probably 20-30 cars, many orphans) because of storm water runoff issues and they told him no parting them out. I guess I'll keep looking.

Kory

[Gordie]

Make him an offer and wait it out.  If the car is junk he can always call a wrecker and he wouldn't get very much and if most of the cars are in that catagory he might have to junk them all but your bid would be above the junk price hopefully.  He is not going to get many offers like yours.