Caterham 21

[Ash.Bailey]

and not (unlike the 7's club) a commercial concern

 

I'll get the popcorn if you get the comphy seats 😬

 

If ^It aint ^yellow, wonky ^and wobbly................ 😬

 

[Roger Ford]

😬

 

Looks like the reserve was £10K.

[paul jacobs]

On a point of order Dave, the current vendor was not the boiler engineer who obtained the car for free from the 'wealthy' first owner. When the car was withdrawn the last time it came up on ebay, it must have been because the current vendor bought the car privately from the boiler engineer. This current vendor is the gentleman who has "refurbished" the car.

 

Frankly though, the chassis was so bad in places, especially around the back, that I cannot see how it has been repaired with no welding. I do indeed haver pictures taken last autumn, and there is clearly at least one tube with large rust holes in it, and many more with deep pitted, rusty areas.

[paul jacobs]

I have now been to see the car again, and had a long talk with the vendor, who impressed me as being a thoroughly honest and likable man. He freely admits that he knows nothing about Caterhams in general and 21s in particular, but just bought this car because of its' low mileage.

 

Having had a good look at the car, I am convinced he is not hiding anything, but has cleaned up and thinly black painted over the areas of rust on the chassis, suspension and other minor areas to tidy it up, but not deliberately hidden anything, but it is therefore imperative that if anyone is serious about bidding on this car they must either make a point of going to see it to satisfy themselves as to the extent of the rust or assume a worst case scenario of it needing a complete new chassis at some stage, to return it to it's low mileage condition, and bid on that assumption.

 

The owner is actually very concerned that he is being cast as the villain of the piece and is misrepresenting the car. I must state that this is definitely not the case, his advert is correct in every sense, as far as it goes, and it is for buyers to ask the right questions. He did not know the value of the car when he bought it, and is now a little alarmed that it may fetch a price substantially higher than his [very fair] reserve of £10,000 and the purchaser may feel he has paid too much for a car with this level of rust. My opinion as an ex 21 owner is that it is worth around £10,000, and would be worth more than double that if the chassis had been in pristine condition.

 

I also have to say that in my last post, I stated that there was a hole in some of the chassis tubes, having now had a chance not only to check the car but look again at the pictures I took of it originally, although there is an enormous amount of rust in various places, what I took to be a hole is actually the powder coating peeling off in great sheets, leaving badly pitted and rusted metal behind. So my apologies for having given the wrong impression on that score, everything else I have said is however correct and the vendor concurs with me on the accuracy of it.

 

The auction ends tomorrow, so it is perhaps a little late to view the car if a bidder does not live close by, but I'm sure that the vendor would make himself and the 21 available for an inspection, even at this late stage.

 

If anyone wants to PM me for any further opinions, please do not hesitate to do so.

 

Paul J.

My CSR now back with it's new and remapped Omex ECU - Hooray no more kangarooing and 268.6 bhp / 204lb-ft :-))

[Gridgway]

I don't know why, but this thread makes me frown. If I were the seller, I'd have told us to bog off quite a long time ago. It just feels pretty poor form for a set of distant experts to be casting opinions about this bloke's car.

 

I'm thinking we are on thin ice with regards to the posting rules. Not meaning to get at anyone, it just feels wrong. The dangers of posting these opinions must be highlighted by the Paul's "the hole in the chassis that is not a hole" correction.

 

Graham

[henry21p]

Paul - cheers for the update! Will correct my notes.

 

 

Hoping it goes to a good home...

 

Edited by - Dave21P on 30 Mar 2009 15:54:40

[paul jacobs]

You are quite right Graham, it is an uncomfortable situation, but the circumstances of this unique car coming back to the market were a little odd, to say the least, and having spoken to the owner, in person, I did recheck my pictures which do show a pretty ghastly chassis, but no actual hole and I did make amends on the forums which I had posted well before the end of the auction. These things do happen, and if I was interested in buying a low mileage car and probably paying a premium for it, I think I may be grateful for a little prior knowledge.

 

The amazing thing is that nobody has actually been to see it, I think that is being a little foolish?

[henry21p]

It's rare that I admit being wrong (I won't claim to always be right, as I'm often wrong and rarely admit it) but in this case I think it's needed.

 

A heartfelt apology to Jeff who is selling the car. It wasn't him, but the previous owner that had sent me all the e-mails and I wasn't aware that the car had changed hands - as Paul rightly corrected me earlier, this is a NEW owner who has now restored the car and contacted me directly.

 

So - to the previous chap, to Jeff (who is selling at the moment).

 

I've heard from Paul J as well, who has confirmed that Jeff has indeed put a lot of effort into correcting the flaking powdercoat on the car (something all 7's and 21's of that age suffer from unfortauntely).

[IKB]

Cannot agree with Graham as this car is rare and the comments were particularly addressed to Caterham owners/enthusiasts; if I was in the market for one of these I would be pleased to hear from one of the few experts on this model of any problems. Clearly there is an issue with the chassis which has been exposed to the elements for too long and a dose of Hammerite is probably not enough in the long term.

 

The benefit of belonging to the "band of brothers" is that we can share our specialist knowledge and if that is sometimes unpalettable then that can be tough but "buyer beware" and any help should be welcomed. Similarly when members can support an advertised car from their own detailed knowledge then this should be encouraged.

 

 

[Gridgway]

The problem though is that as we have seen, some of the information provided has been *wrong*. It smacks of poorly judged dis-information. I think that's poor form at best and open to the seller being cross and litigious at worst.

 

If it's two people discussing a potential purchase that may be one thing, but a broadcast on a forum is different.

 

If I were the owner, I'd be asking the mods to get us to desist!

 

Graham

 

 

[Irrelevant]

Clearly there is an issue with the chassis which has been exposed to the elements for too long and a dose of Hammerite is probably not enough in the long term

 

Hmmmmm . . .. Surface rust is not in itself necessarily a major concern. Flaking powdercoat and surface rust CAN be dealt with by treating and recoating/painting. It's rusting from inside which is the real problem IMO and there is no visible way to tell if this is occurring or not. Internal rusting can be an issue on the most pampered looking cars.

 

Gridgway . . . I totally agree .

[henry21p]

Having rebuilt my own 21, the extent of the penetration of the corrosion in unseen areas - particularly in the rear "knuckle" just forward of the ARB mounting point on the passenger side was quite scary. I suspect that a lot of the caution shown by Paul et al regarding the corrosion has been based on seeing the extent of that on my car. Needless to say, mine had a far more active life before its rebuild than this car and lived/was driven outdoors in all weathers, including salty winter roads.

 

There is an interesting line between advising fellow club members to be cautious about an unknown, or inspected car and deliberately putting someone's product down. If the person selling was a club member, I suspect people would speak a little differently, just out of a little "club courtesy"!

 

However - as i admitted above, my answers were based on the knowledge i had, and unfortunately, the car had changed hands once more than i was aware of, so have edited my posts.

 

It's an interesting line as (for instance), what if someone put up a car on here in "for sale" that was KNOWN to have a problem (let's say for argument's sake, a suspected cracked front wishbone) and then the new purchaser found out afterwards that you had concerns but didn't voice anything until after you ended up nose first in a river. Tricky! Do you voice your concerns and risk offending the seller, or stay schtum? (p.s. there is nothing of the sort wrong with the car being advertised here...) I have at least once put an item up for sale in here and the very first response by someone has been "it's not worth even 60% of that". I got my asking price btw and it caused a bit of interest in the item i was selling, but I wasn't half hacked off at the person who posted it.

 

Anyway - as has been said on this thread already - it's nice to find another one of the missing 21's, great that someone's put some elbow grease into it and prevented it rusting away into memory and even better news that it seems to be doing very well on e-bay.

[Cheeseboard]

£11,101

 

I hope it goes to a good home, and the next owner doesn't re-list it for sale!!!

 

[henry21p]

That's a fair price for the car! Well done Jeff.