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Excerpt:
Ultimately, I found my car just 60 miles from home, in Long Island City, a shabby New York neighborhood near LaGuardia Airport, amid sidewalks littered with broken bottles, bodegas on the corners and stripped cars perched on milk crates at every other curb. The dealer was an Indian, perhaps a Pakistani, and his wares, though advertised in Hemmings as "exoticars," were a motley collection of dreadful Jaguar Marks, ugly mass-market Ferraris, Cobra kit cars, shabby Royces and Bentleys, poseur Panteras, ratty Porsches-yeah, a lot of Targas-and phony fiberglass MGs. They were packed grill to bumper, fender to dusty fender in a dim, foul warehouse. The mechanical expertise of the place seemed limited to recharging dead batteries.
"Hiya. I'm here to look at the red Porsche coupe? The '83 that you're advertising for ten five?" I said to Mr. Patel.
"Oh, dear me, sir" he grimaced, "It is a very nice car, but it is $11,500 and not a penny less." I had planned to start at $9,000 and maybe end up at $10,000-an excellent deal for a year and model that sold for twice that in perfect condition.
"Gee, you faxed me that it was $10,500, and I made the trip all the way down here on that basis," I said.
"I would certainly like to see that fax," he countered.
See it he did, since I'd brought it with me. "Huh," he grunted.
The car was a sad little rat. The mechanic started it, and it idled smokily at a warm-up setting, the haphazard Porsche threshing-machine clatter a sound that brought back memories. The interior was shabby, the driver's leather seat split, the carpeting bunched and filthy, the glareshield terminally cracked, the rear-bulkhead paneling waterlogged and crumbling, loose wires showing the harsh removal of an aftermarket amplifier and a boombox speaker rig that had been parked crudely on the jump-seat cushions, the engine compartment slick with spilled oil, the air conditioner hoses dangling loose, the Guards Red paint cracked and faded where the Neanderthal PO (previous owner, in Porschespeak) had rigged a nose-protecting bra and then never removed it. The driver's door sagged half an inch when opened, so he was probably fat as well, accustomed to using the door as a crutch.
pard Perfect.
