Restored Bugeye for sale

[BWillis]

Restored Bugeye for Sale [Price opinions requested]

As much as I hate to do it I must sell my Bugeye. Some of you may remember the when I restored this Bugeye back in 07 as I posted about my progress right here on BCF. I wanted to ask you guys what you thought a fair asking price would be before I put up an ad? I'll be listing on Craigslist and the Classifieds here. I don't plan to put it on ebay unless I don't get any interest from the 'community'.

61 Bugeye
Iris Blue
Black Interior
1275 with rib case transmission
Front disc brake conversion
New wiring harness
Stripped to bare metal
Resprated with PPG single Stage
Front tilt kit


Here are a few pictures:

Here's a link to all of the picture that I took for my ad: https://s719.beta.photobucket.com/user/telnetmanta/library/Bugeye
Restoration pictures can be found here: https://webpages.charter.net/brwillis/Bugeye/. Sorry for all of the pictures in this post but I wanted to get the best opinion on the asking price that I could and I felt that more pictures would help!!



Thanks!!
Ben in SC

 

[Boink]

Very nice.
$13,000-$16,000 (though surely much more, and hoping you can do much better - but realistically, it could go for only $12,000 on CL). :rolleye:

Gonna add (edit) that having your excellent series of photos during the restoration counts for a LOT in my book. All the spare bits and I'd sure hope you can hit $15,000. And, I agree with others to wait a few more months when the weather improves. Nothing wrong with eBay if you just accept that there could be some nonsense in the process.

 

[BWillis]

Thanks for the reply, Boink. Any suggestions for other places to post the car for sale?

 

[drooartz]

Really nice looking car!

As for selling, you'll get better price through the enthusiast sites like here. Better still if you can wait until spring -- even in warm climes roadsters sell better in the spring. Boink hit the price pretty well, really.

Hemmings, Collecter Car Trader, and any good local ads. eBay can work, but it's a bit more complicated. Depends, really, on how quickly you need to sell.

Good luck with the sale -- I know it's a tough thing to do (sold my Bugeye last year) but sometimes it's the correct thing to do as well.

 

[60Bugeyefan]

Great car! Agree that it would be best to wait until spring. Market is slow- havent seen many bids north of 11k on Flea Bay even for nice Sprite examples.

 

[BWillis]

Thanks guys, she really is a great car! I hope that it can go to someone that will drive it. I have only been able to put 536 miles on her since 2007. I love the car but it's not 'practical' for us as I now have a daughter to go along with the son that helped me build the car. The daughter doesn't like to be left at home either

To anyone interested, the car also comes with many spares including an engine, doors, roll bar, wheels, carbs and too many small parts to list. It also has a new, never installed soft top. I have always used the tonneau as it's never seen rain.........

 

[Rut]

Ben,
like everyone else said its a beautiful car! I would put the value in the $15k range as well and try Hemmings, Craig's List, enthusiasts sites and as a last resort, eBay. Bugeyes in original colors that look as good as yours always seem to do well and I would wait for spring, possibly March 1st to catch us Southerners. Good luck and I wish I was in the market.
Rut

 

[Guest]

Put it on ebay in the spring with a no reserve auction and a BIN of $22K.

Very nice car BTW.

 

[taskadog]

Ben,
That's a real beauty.
Put it out there on the Sridget sites, you never know who might be looking.
The prices of $12-15000 sound realistic, if a little depressed from a couple of years ago.
Good luck
Phil

 

[nomad]

Gorgeous car!! Wish mine looked as good!
Disagree with Kellysguy...if you go with Flea-bay [I would!], put a high reserve on it and just put up with the headaches. I sold my MGA on flea-bay last spring and a last minute buyer from overseas won the bid even though the listing said north america only. Ended up selling to the second highest bidder sans flea-bay and for cash. I figure I did well.

Kurt.

 

[Hap Waldrop]

Ben, you may want to send detailed information and pictures to the two local British car club in the area, Foothills British Car Club (Greenville/Anderson area), their website is www.fbccsc.org and the Southeastern British Motorcar Owners Club (Spartanburg area), thier website is www.sbmoc.com The FBCC meets every second Tuesday of the month, the SBMOC meets first Saturday of every month, so if you email the info and pics now to them, you make this month's meeting, normally the webmaster will print this stuff out, talk about it in a meeting and pass the info out to any interested parties, I would also mention your Bugeye class win at Euro, for the feature AH mark show, that should carry some clout. Hope this helps.

 

[HealeyRick]

Beautiful car, will be hard to give it up. You might also try submitting it to Bring a Trailer, there's a number of options and it will get a lot of exposure: https://bringatrailer.com/submissions/

 

[Whitephrog]

Here's few more photos of Ben's car (and Ben) taken at Eurofest a few years ago. The car is one of the best I've seen.

https://www.spritespot.com/gallery/EuroFest/DSC00698

https://www.spritespot.com/gallery/EuroFest/DSC00696

https://www.spritespot.com/gallery/EuroFest/DSC00697

https://www.spritespot.com/gallery/EuroFest/DSC00699

 

[Jim_Gruber]

Ben,

Gorgeous BE. How about an answer to another question. what is your setup for holding the Front Hinged Bonnet on? I don't see any exterior latches. So you must be using something interesting to hold down the back of the bonnet. Perhaps the prototype Tom Colby at Speedwell Engineering is working on?

 

[apbos]

The car and it's restoration photos are definitely BAT worthy!

 

[BWillis]

Hap: Thanks, I hadn't thought of that!
Ray: I had forgotten about the pictures over on SpriteSpot!

Jim: Thanks for the kind words. The bonnet is held down with gravity but the kit from Speedwell looks very interesting!



Ben

 

[David_Doan]

Ben,

Beautiful car! Any chance you have some detailed pics of the front tilt hinge setup? I'm doing the same to my car.

 

[BWillis]

I can take some for you and post later.

 

[RickB]

I can take some for you and post later.

I would also like to see them, for my natty old Bugeye Midget...

 

[BWillis]

Sorry this took so long, guys, had to get some compression numbers for a potential buyer first.

Here's a picture that should show everything. It's a laser cut and powder coated kit of the plans found on Gerards Garage. Here's the link in case you don't have it: https://gerardsgarage.com/Garage/Tech/tilthinge/tilthingeWS.htm