Nick Larkin Nick’s advice on tactful buying.
Nick’s sage advice regards shopping for classics
In the Eighties, as a thrusting, young and almost Yuppie-like (apart from my bank balance and Austin Metro rather than Golf GTI company car) reporter on the Sussex Express and County Herald, I had the pleasure of working with a lady of a certain age, from Harrogate in Yorkshire.
Though a very fair boss, she was never prepared to suffer fools gladly or, ever, fail to speak her mind. One day, in a rare treat, lunch was taken in a quaint but tourist-orientated eatery where chocolate eclairs were so expensive that the cream curdled in embarrassment.
My colleague, having the sense to ask prices beforehand, came out with a wonderful expression. ‘I can’t thoil that,’ she pronounced, the Crown Derby and sash windows rattling at the sheer force of her words.’
The Yorkshire term means that, although you could actually afford an item it was too poor value to justify purchasing, I was later advised.
This incident suddenly clouded back into my mind more than 30 years later when I was truffling in the autojumble at the recent Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show. Items on some stalls were a little pricier than you might imagine that they really should be. I certainly couldn’t ‘thoil’ quite a lot of things.
Suddenly, a raised voice jangled my earlobes.
‘You can’t charge that much, it’s ridiculous,’ bellowed a gentleman at the shocked stallholder as other punters dived under tables for cover and fire alarms sounded.
Time to investigate the item that caused this continuing rant – an illuminated showroom sign priced at £380. The complainant did appear to come from the region of Geoff Boycott and parkin and I was tempted to ask: ‘You can’t thoil it then?’
But I didn’t want violence.
An interesting study here. What was our man actually trying to get from his rather rude utterance? The standholder to apologise profoundly and say: ‘Sorry our lad and thank you for pointing this out. Our pricing policy was totally wrong, and we are going to reduce the sign to a tenner?’
From this, a wave of price reductions would sweep across the world, resulting in Ferrari F40 prices dropping to £7.99 and a nice Mayfair apartment yours for £19.95?
Let’s be fair! You would probably never get another sign exactly like that again. The vendor would have to pay something to buy the sign, transport the item and fork out a very large stand fee. And do his VAT return.
Nowt as queer as folk
I once had the pleasure of being custodian of a Jaguar MKII 2.4-litre. Yes, it lacked the sparky performance of the 3.8, but was hardly slow and looked exactly the same as its hallowed stablemate inside and out. So why is it worth a third if the price? This is ridiculous, especially if, and to be honest this will probably be the case, you are only going to take your Jaguar to a couple of car shows each year.
Let’s not even bring the delicious Daimler V8 into this argument.
And what about the price differential between chrome bumper MGBS and the ‘rubber bumper’ variants, which have a better spec and, often, nice stripy seats?
Obviously, market prices dictate value, but some cars are still mysteriously stationed under the radar, whereas others are selling for ridiculous amounts.
The Triumph 1300 is surely one of the best value classics on the market today with its superb interior and front-wheel drive configuration and the Ford Consul MKII seems to hang on the coat tails of its six-cylinder sisters, yet is an excellent package full of its own period charm.
So, think ‘thoil’ before you buy, ignore the hype and then go for a better bargain!
‘Let’s be fair! You’d probably never get another sign exactly like that again’