No affiliation but 2 days to go...in Houston.
Definitely a worth while project. My eyes lit up when I saw it was a dry sump / Euro car. I gather the owner doesn't know or he'd have mentioned it!
Thanks for the post. With all due respect, may we dispense with the stupid contractions? Regaining civility one post at a time. Rick.
When you use the word stupid after "with all due respect", you are either being completely disrespectful or implying that I am not due any respect whatsoever. So, I have some contractions in mind regarding you, which out of respect for everyone else, I will keep to myself. So much for civility.
It's listed as a 1980 which should be an injected car but they say it's a carb car. They also say..."AS FAR AS I KNOW THE ENGINE WAS DAMAGED BY NOT CLOCKING TIMING BELT PROPERLY AND CAUSING VALVE PROBLEMS."
Euro, drysump cars can be carb cars till the end of 1980. I'm not sure, what this auctioned car is. It wears US side markers and US speedometer, but has a dry sump engine, what never was a US-thing. On the other hand it has an Euro engine lid and mirrors, small gauges and a fasten seat belts warning light. Strange mix of things. And the VIN seems too low to be a 1980 car. It more fits into 1978. Looking closer onto the engine pictures I almost suspect, that they quickly threw in that engine, which doesn't belong to the car. Coolant hose missing, engine torque bar missing. A/C compressor thrown into a place, where the coolant header tank should be Looks like halfway through a dirty reinstallation job. Best Regards from Germany Martin
Martin is correct, it is a 1978. But it is an original dry sump car. All of the sump reservoir and oil cooler mounting points are correct and the ID plate is also correct for a Euro GTB. Someone threw in a US speedo and added a seatbelt light to get it in the country. Clearly, it will be a box of surprises to anyone, either good or bad. If I didn't already have one going through a full restoration at the moment, I would be in Texas already, checking this one out, and not writing about it. Might make a great donor to send to MAT or just pace yourself and restore it locally. I hope someone here gets a shot at it if it is up their alley. "Do you have what it takes to take on a fixer upper?" (Sorry, I had to steal that from HGTV)
for what it is worth; I had a 1979 carb GTB with a S/N starting in 37xxx. 25031 is an earlier model, and is carb as well. The real question is why would the dealer not research and advertise the car properly?
a great buy at 30k, considering that it may cost 20 or 30 more to restore it mechanically completely (I did it on mine about 10 years ago for ~24k) , and then you have a 100k car... a great project car; I wish I had the room and the time to buy it
even at 60k... you are in the money, and have the adventure of a lifetime restoring a masterpiece of automotive. What is not to like? Remember it is about the journey, not only the destination...
The side US-legal side markers and speedometer are a couple of things that do get added/changed on almost all euro brought to the US (even if the rest of the "importation modification" is done poorly) -- so those make sense. It wouldn't be easy to "quickly" put that engine in a US chassis as a lot of the chassis fittings in the engine bay are different so I'll go with it being a euro. Agree that the SN seems lowish, but a car made in 1978 that sat unsold for a long time and final got sent to the US could wind up with "1980" euro papers since "model year" for euros didn't really exist until 1980. I usually don't like the body-colored rocker panels, but the body-colored belt line on this one just makes it way worse -- looks naked and fat with no pants on -- JMO...
Definately a Euro car..... Definately broken motor. He knows what he has, I just talked on the phone.....
A dry sump Euro GTB is definately past the $100K mark...well past it. Someone is going to get this in the last 10 seconds of bidding........the only question is "who and how much"???
I think that's the "I give up" presentation... I say "original" motor based upon the rare air box, uninsulated with the Firing Order plate, those are rare here and have not been on North American cars since 1976!!! Also note, the correct 8 plug single distributor, for a Euro dry sump version. Lots of positive indicators, all the dash vents are there!!
I like how the lightweight Euro rear bumper has been "pushed out"!! Someone went thru the paces to get this thing legal.... Interior looks pretty nice really.....seats and rugs. I wonder if the Parking Brake handle light comes on??
Yep...... If you look closely that's actually a dual range speedo, it does have the KpH scale on the inside of the MPH markings. I had one of those, in my #20405 (an "in period" failure replacement).
