Gentlemen (I use the term loosely): :wink
As mentioned previously, the GT I looked at is red/white stripe, 4500 miles and was advertised on Ebay a couple weeks ago. It has a salvage title. I bid on it at $147,345, and ended up as the high bidder. I did some research for the VIN on CarFax and the internet. In 2010 it was in an accident in California, it spun, banged and tore the front bumper cover, and hit the back end hard against a wall or something flat. Google the VIN, 1fafp90s05y400540 to see the Autobid site with the pictures of the car as damaged when it was auctioned.
The guy who is selling it bought it at auction in 2010 and had it repaired. In the Ebay ad, he says it was repaired "LIKE NEW" (yes, he used all caps in his ad). So I figured, what the heck, it was cheap enough to bid on and go look at it. I also scheduled an pre-purchase inspection at a shop that does exotics and race cars, and they service several Ford GTs, including at least one that is raced.
I drove the car from the owner's warehouse to the shop (ANSA Motorsports), about 15 minutes, and it seemed to run well and drive straight and brake straight. I noted that the voltmeter was not working, the A/C was blowing only slightly cool, but not cold air, and the window switches seemed to be reversed--that is, the left switch controlled the right window, and vice versa. Of somewhat greater concern was a grinding sound the clutch made when it was engaged in 1st gear to get going. It sounded like metal-on-metal scraping, or a bad rattle. A clutch replacement on that car is probably around $4500. But it might also be a result of the collision and something bent or out of alignment.
The techs carefully checked it out, noting what was repaired instead of replaced, and any residual damage. It turns out that the repairs were done as cheaply as possible, and not very well in many places. From 10 feet away the car looked great, but not when someone who knows what to look for got up close. The rear frame was significantly damaged in the accident. The frame was straightened, but not enough to get all the body gaps lined up correctly, and they welded repairs on the large complex castings that are at the back on each side, that the frame members tie into. The welds looked okay from the top, but when we put the car up on the lift, we could see areas that were welded up that had been broken. In particular, on the right rear lower A-arm, where the front bushing bolts to the frame, one of the frame mounting ears had broken off in the collision. It was welded back on, mostly being composed of built up weld metal, and the bolt holes re-drilled, but probably not precisely. The mechanic said right there that he would recommend that I not buy it because he thought it was unsafe, certainly for racing, but even for street driving.
They had another Ford GT in the shop that had crashed into the wall at Daytona the week before (mashed up the right side), so I could compare one car to the other (very helpful!). In addition to the panel shape and alignment problems, I also noticed that the rear window (over the engine) on the other car was bonded to the engine hood, but on this car it was held on with a rubber bead weatherstrip of some sort; and the rear window on the other car had defroster elements in it, but this car it did not have defrost elements--another sign of a cheap, non-OEM repair.
Other nits: It only had one key and fob, no car cover, no battery tender, no owner's manual or other documentation; and the battery was replaced with a cheap regular battery, not the Optima gel cell battery it originally had. The tires, especially the fronts, were pretty worn, and the wheels were scuffed from curb rubs. The wheels were the optional lightweight forged ones, but when I rotated them by hand, they had some runout, maybe 5-10 100ths. They may have been straightened too. The fact that the front tires were much more worn than the rears, and at only 4500 miles, gave me concerns about why that might be.
Bottom line, this car was not repaired anything near "LIKE NEW" and would require a large investment of time and money to put right, even to just get it safe to drive. I would guess that correctly aligning the frame and re-doing the frame repairs would easily run to $7000, and maybe much more, as you typically find other problems when you pull everything apart. Then add the clutch, air conditioning, rear window and other minor stuff, and you're headed towards $20,000 or more. And that doesn't even correct the rear engine hood that looked good at a distance, but up close, it wasn't straightened out correctly either, so the panel joints and window didn't align evenly.
In the next message I'll tell you what I did today.
