I hope the bubble hasn't burst now I've bitten the bullet and bought one :lol:
Here's my bus prices story...
12 years ago I had a '72 tin-top (Danbury I think) in fairly good order, not perfect but presentable and useable. When I split with my ex, she was tasked with selling it and it went for £600
I'd paid £500 for it a year or so before so I wasn't massively upset at the price, although really if I'd known she was going to sell it for that little, I'd have kept it. At the same time, I scrapped a '73 late bay bodyshell, a '79 first year polo and an '81 polo... all for £20 each as I didn't have the space for them :?
...and then, prices went mental. I could no longer afford to buy another bay. I still had my other VWs and got on with those, 'slumming it' in a tent at shows and grumbling about the 'ridiculous price of buses' :lol:
...things move on and 12 years later I'm getting too old for tents
so I started looking at early bays again, thinking of selling the bug to buy one (which I didn't really
want to do). I wasn't seriously looking, just keeping an eye on what's out there
I spotted our new '72 a few weeks before I bought it... advertised on VZi for £4,500 I'd discounted it as over-priced for the work it needed but I kept coming back to it... waiting to see if it sold. A few weeks passed, a few folks went to see it... but still it was there, tempting me :lol:
...Until, over night, the owner dropped the price from £4.5K to £3k ono. They were paying crippling storage charges since the MOT ran out and they clearly just wanted rid. Unfortunately it was in Brighton, a 320 mile round trip for us, so I did something I wouldn't normally do... I bought it over the phone, based on photos alone :roll: for £2,800
It's more rotten than I'd hoped in some areas but better in others. I still think I over-paid for it but sod it, it's all I could afford in today's market. It'll take a bit of work to get it useable, and then a loooooong rolling resto of the bodywork