I phoned the guy up & asked why he was selling, It turned out he is a Plasterer and was out of work due to the downturn in the housing market so was having to sell the car to pay the rent. He'd only owned the car for a few weeks and bought it in the condition it was in. He said he bought it from a guy in Tamworth who had done all the work.
I agreed to go & meet him the next day & have a look at the car.
That night & scoured the Internet & found that it was the same car that had sold on Pistonheads a few months earlier for the same £1500 & noticed that when it was originally sold it wasn't scraping it's belly in the weeds:

I went and viewed the car the following day & was disappointed

In comparison to my Raider the car was rough, there were small dents all over the bodywork, yes the bonnet had been painted black but it wasn't mentioned that the car roof had been sprayed with rattle cans & the bloke hadn't bothered to mask anywhere so there were spots of over spray all over the place. The interior was dirtier than a Mumbai Taxi, the front seats were all sagging & swapped around (left to right) because the squabs had collapsed The only redeeming feature was the fact that the car was a 1987 model WITHOUT the sunroof and the test drive proved that the engine ran well!.
I tried to look past all of the SH1TE to see the car underneath but no matter how hard I looked I could only see a sorry car looking back at me, I asked him what the lowest he would take for it & he said £1300 but seeing what needed doing I decided I wasn't going to pay that & left him my number with an offer of £1000.
During the journey home I had a few texts off him offering the car to me at £1250 but I stuck to my guns & said it wasn't for me.
A couple of days passed & I watched the e-Bay Auction finish & the car reached a maximum bid of £900. I then had a text off the seller asking me if I was interested in the car for £1100?? I thought about this & then decided to do what all considerate people would do to a poor guy down on his luck & out of work... Tell him no, I'm sticking to my £1000 offer!!

Again a couple of days passed & he then came back to me & eventually after a few texts we agreed to meet at £1050!
So on the 6th January 2011 Millie-bee & I went to pick the car up! I paid the money & checked over the paperwork etc & the deal was done. As it was all cold & miserable (January) I got in the car & wondered if it was going to start & on the first turn of the key it fired into life to which the seller was amazed!!
I reversed it off his drive & then it died..... No matter what tricks I tried I couldn't get it to start?? He then came out to me & said... I think it's out of petrol?! So off I went to the local garage with the lend of a couple of Jerry cans & got some fuel. With a taste of fresh juice she started on the first turn of the key & whilst she was idling (and kicking out a sh1t load of smoke) I took a couple of pictures:
Millie & I then dashed down to the local petrol station to fill it up with enough petrol to get home!
