Confessions of a Former Barn Finder

by Wallace Wyss –

I know there’s still the AutoTrader but my short lived career as a barn finder was built on the original newspaper-style Auto Trader that you could get at any liquor store. My method was to not look like a slickster from The Big Apple though I was actually buying for a consortium based in New York City.

I had met my contact while attending a Ferrari national meet in Virginia. The guy I met–my future client–was an apartment house owner, who liked my running commentaries on various & sundry cars that rolled by (“Oh, there’s a first gen Boxer, Avoid those, they blow clutches like crazy!”) He told me he and a group would meet at some eatery once a week in The City and the conversation would go something like this;

Joe: “Hey, gotta Ghibli coming in from the Coast.”

Frank: “What color?”

Joe: “Fly yellow”

Tony: “5-speed”

Joe: “Automatic.”

Bill: “What kind money we talkin’ about?

Joe: “25k, that would take it.”

Bill: “Sold”

Maserati Ghibli

Now when some guy at the table didn’t live in New York we’d have to call Reliable, the truckers, and they’d have to stop along the way across the country, rent a storage space, store the car and another truck would come along that’s going to where the buyer lives. So some cars took a very zig-zag route across the US.

I didn’t give a damn about condition. This was in the early ’80s as far as I remember, and all the Italian cars were going up like a rocket. My “secret’ was to run as ratty an ad in the AT as possible, showing a tacky old Ferrari and saying something like “Ferrari or other Italian sports car wanted. Blown engine, OK Will take AS IS. Paying cash, yadda yadda”.

Of course I could run a picture of a clean car but why bother? I didn’t want primo. I wanted the cars where the wife has already issued The Order, to whit “Either that car goes or I go.”

Among the ones I remember:

-A white Bizzarrini GT5300 Strada out in the desert North of Los Angeles. I think I paid 60K. I got to drive it for three days, blew the clutch but it was the greatest 3 days of driving I ever had, better than my own Ferrari.

Bizzarrini GT 5300 Strada

-A Bentley Continental S2 Mulliner Park Ward drophead coupe. Heard that it was parked in a apartment on the beach in Venice. Paid a down and outer $30 a day to ask everyone going in and out who owned the Bentley. Turned out to be some cowboy. The car was indeed registered to a ranch in Texas. It had been parked for 7 years. When they got it back to NY they changed the fluids, put in a new battery and it started right up.

-An Iso Grifo long nose. Not concours but “street resto.” First saw it on used car lot in Santa Monica, found owner’s name and tracked him down when he was retiring to move to the beach in Mexico. He sold it to me for something like 13,000 and I thought it was a great deal when I resold it in the parking lot of the Barrett Jackson auction for $14,000.

Iso Grifo

But it all ended when I split from my wife and lost the marry-me-fly-free deal that airline employees use to fullest advantage. I could no longer roam the world looking for great buys.

Plus the internet ruined the ignorance of owners who had bought the car long ago and not kept up. Back then I could offer what I thought it was worth and they had no way to come back with a counter offer. Now a guy types in the model on his Smartphone and finds out what the last three sold for at auction.

Oh, I still keep an eye peeled when I’m driving hither and yon. But it’s no use. Every owner is more educated now, damn it…

Let us know what you think in the Comments.

 
 
THE AUTHOR: Wallace Wyss is incorporating many of his barn find experiences into the “bio” of his thriller novel Ferrari Hunters. Film rights queries can be directed to him at photojournalistpro2@gmail.com.

 
 
 
 

Summary

Article Name

Confessions of a Former Barn Finder

Description

This barn finder wanted the cars where the wife had already issued The Order, to whit "Either that car goes or I go."

Author

Wallace Wyss