[V8] What's it worth.....

[Roger M. Woodbury]

I wonder how many people right now are watching and waiting to find that perfect V8 to buy?  How many are sitting there, reading this and other lists, pouring through eBay, Autotrader.com, Cars.com and the local newspaper classifieds looking for a PERFECT Audi V8 Quattro to buy?  They have all the money necessary, and are willing to drive to see, arrange a mechanics prepurchase inspection for the right car, and can close the deal as soon as they see the car?  

How many?  One, two, five, ten, a thousand?  I’ll bet the number right now, when I am typing  this, and tomorrow morning when sane people are awake, approaches....ZERO.  

So the value of any one Audi V8 Quattro, automatic or stick, 4.2 or 3.6, white, green, black, panther black, red or otherwise is......well, look it up in the book, any book, and that is as good a number as any.  Certainly that is a number that the insurance company would use to pay off a total loss.  

But unless you have a buyer stamping his feet, hand shaking with anticipation, pen poised above an open checkbook, the car is only worth what it is worth to you, right now, key in hand ready to drive it.

When my car comes back from the body magical guy, it will be about as good as they get.  Cosmetically it will have no obvious warts.  The nose will appear perfect, the rocker panels will all be nice and blacked out, and there will be no bumps or dings elsewhere in the body. There will be BBS OEM wheels that are newly cleaned and refinished.  The interior is black with black headliner that is not saggy, and the interior will be clean. The car appears to have been occupied mostly by only one person, the rear unmarked, the rear webbed junk holders on the back of the front seats nice and tight, and so forth. I have very extensive maintenance records for the car since I bought it, including new brakes, suspension work, brake lines, timing belt and so on and so forth.  I don’t want to total the amount I have put into it since I bought it, around twenty thousand miles ago. It will be a very nice driver.  

It will be worth to me, around Twelve Thousand Dollars, because I know, right now, replacing it with one of the nice S8’s on the market would require that much. 

Could I convince anyone else,  a buyer or an insurance company adjuster, that was the value of MY V8?  

Of course not.  The car is only worth what a buyer will pay for it, standing there, with check and pen in hand.  

So it comes down to what it is worth to me, and it is worth a lot since I want THAT car, in THAT condition so that I can drive it and enjoy it.

I am sure you understand.  The car makes me smile.  It is very young, in relative terms of mileage.  It is very tight, as any looseness in the suspension has been taken out with the new work done since I have had it, and the Michelin tires on the car have around six or seven thousand miles on them.  On smooth roads the car is near silent unless I put my foot down, and the V8 murmur becomes a bit stronger as the car leaps ahead.  It makes me smile because the car is twenty-two years old, in car relative terms, represents chump change,  yet there it is, THAT quick, THAT smooth, and to me THAT interesting, to me.

Now for all you long suffering folk who read through my lengthy rambles, I am waxing a bit here about my wife’s 1994 100CS Avant.  Since it has been to the body shop to carry the new bumper and other parts there for the V8 nose job and rehab, (and carted me back home, thanks to my patient long suffering wife!), I have had an estimate done to refurbish the exterior of that car.  It isn’t pretty.  

The wagon will need all the side moldings replaced, the drivers’ side doors refinished, the chips and dings taken out of the nose and the nose repainted, the roof refinished, and the tailgate repainted, removing the one major rust point just below where the wiper rests “where they all rust”.  Quite a lot of prep time, quite a lot of labor.  Did you know that list price for the moldings for that car from Audi is almost TWELVE HUNDRED DOLLARS?
Total price to make the car a really decent keeper/driver?  Around $5100.

I have known the body guy since he was a sixteen year old snotty nosed high school kid who’s father had built the business into one with a reputation for doing THE body work in the upper New England states....it’s the place to take that vintage Rolls to be put back ready for the Queen to step into...it has always been THAT good, and THAT high end.  When I was there day before yesterday, inside was the finest looking Mercedes Adenauer I’ve ever seen...a “summer car” from a collector in Castine, Maine, I guess.  Outside awaiting transport was a vintage Porsche Speedster that was just sold to someone in California for $185 large.

Well, the owner is now the son in his early fifties.  He is still doing the higher end body work, but the majority of the shop is leased to a specialist mechanical service guy, and Ray is mostly interested in brokering, selling nice cars off his lot, and being a landlord as he moves slowly into retirement.  That’s where the V8 is awaiting its nose job, and undoubtedly, once done, the Avant would appear as near new as it could be, for a driver.  The Avant is wearing S4 wheels which are pretty good, and will not be refinished.

Right now, the Avant approaches mechanically perfect as far as the underpinnings and running gear are concerned.  I have every maintenance and service record for the last 140,000 miles, and will do a transmision flush plus repair the pneumatic leak in the right front door so the locks work properly and fix the cruise control so that works.  The ONLY known issue that remains are loud air conditioner bearings that have signalled a compressor failure for 50,000 miles yet never seem to fail.  Five grand will make it appear new.  Five grand will buy a 1998 or 99 Avant with 70,000 miles, too, and there are at least two within a long day’s round trip of here now.

The advantages of keeping the old, “Green Horny” as my wife calls it, are its age which makes licensing and insuring costs oh, so very, very nice.  It must be considered “the enemy we know”.

The advantages of buying something newer, IF it checked out as pretty decent, of course, is that all the unknowns of an Audi passing 175K on the clock, are reset.

The bottom line right now is that we don’t want a ‘new’ car.  I have not received the body work estimate in writing yet, but when I do I think I will look to see if we can approach this in a phased in manner, perhaps doing the job in stages, although I have no idea how that would work.  I have already found the body trim pieces in the aftermarket for less than $150 shipping included.  I know of a new set of fog lights for pretty cheap, too.  So we’ll see if in fact, the enemy we know is better than the enemy we don’t' know.

Roger