Introduction and Questions to aid my search Options

[DrinkMan]

My wife and I are getting close to pulling the trigger to buy a Porsche 914. As you can see from my signature line, I'm not scared to buy cars from that era. We love fun to drive small "value" sports cars from the late 60's-early 70's.

I'm currently studying 3 cars. 2 are local (which I strongly prefer) and 1 is not (I'm not scared to ship, after all I imported 2 of my current fleet and others have come from Arizona and New York). The car that is not local is quite frankly over our budget and I think overpriced. However, it is a color that my wife loves deeply and if it could be negotiated down a little bit and if it really is a great car, I may be willing.

I'm going to be going to look at and drive the two local cars soon.

Is it okay Forum Etiquette to post links and solicit input? I would love to see all the comments criticizing and tearing up the cars. They don't belong to me so you won't be insulting me and if I buy one of them, at least I know how bad they are. The VIN numbers don't show up in the databases here so I assume I won't be insulting members.

Our current desire (but willing to consider others)
Excellent Condition (2, may 3+) 1973 2.0
We don't care about A/C at all. None of our old (pre 2000) cars have A/C and we don't mind driving them in Atlanta summer (both my wife & I grew up in Georgia without Air Conditioning)
Color - needs to be interesting - Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, Orange, prefer not Gray-scale (but again, great condition may overcome that)
My original budget was <20k but I'm considering increasing that a little bit (again, great condition can overcome that)

I thought about posting this in the WTB Classified but since I'm soliciting discussion on specific cars, thought this would get attention. (Moderators - if you want to move to that forum, fine by me)

Thanks

[gereed75]

A quick look at the cars and my quick opinion

The blue car is way overpriced IMHO. Non standard exhaust (and one I have never seen before) means no heat in this car. That and other clues (the personalized cosmetics, the over the top radio, the average looking mechanicals) make me see this car as possibly "screwed around with" by a PO. I think that is a $16000 car at best

The orange car seems a much nicer car, cosmetically and mechanically. Looks pretty solid to me, well maintained and cared for. Maybe just slightly overpriced as you would expect from a "dealer car"

Assuming I am looking at the same green car as you at AA, it s very hard to tell anything from the presented pictures. At that price you should be getting a pretty primo car. In general I can not believe AA would present so many cars with very few pictures of mechanicals!!!

Neither the blue car nor the green car appear to be of the quality to warrant the premium car prices being asked.

My current market perception is that you could expect to find good solid presentable drivers in the $10,000 range, above average in the $14000 range and premium cars in the 18 - 22 range. To me, only some special car (low mileage, exceptionally presented, special provenance, very original etc) warrant a price above that.

As you are aware, you will pay a premium at the dealers. I would be very comfortable looking at cars offered by individuals on this site and would expect to get much closer to "market value" as opposed to "high retail"