Respect, History and Jet Cov't's

Swasp76063 wrote:

The reason I bought my Wasp is because I felt sorry for it. Someone had done a pretty good job of taking care of it over the years, but the fellow that I bought it from only wanted to get rid of it and make a dollar. He had kept the car for several years and let it go down considerably. I sold him another car later that was an absolutely mint condition 76 Cosworth Vega that had been garaged it's entire life and he kept it for a couple of years, left in outside in a field next to his house, exposed to the elements which was very hard on the fragile lacquer paint and interior parts. He effectively reduced the value of the car by half by trying to make the big bucks on a car that was only worth 6-7K at the most. Greed destroys.

That won't happen to my stepdown. If I sell it, I will try to get fair market value for it, and not worry about recouping any extra that I will have put into it. I only hope that the next owner would take good care of it and pass it on.

Bob

Mike (WA) wrote:

I'll throw my 2 bits worth in, because I share a little of the "disease" that causes people to do this. Do you remember the term from your childhood, "Your eyes are bigger than your stomach." When your parents said it, it was in the context of taking more food on your dinner plate than you could eat, but it could also apply to taking on more projects than you can accomplish, either from the standpoint of time to do them, or the skill to complete them, or both. Many of us take on more projects than we can complete (and in some cases, like the Jet owner, that may consist of a total of just one project)- but the complication comes in when you start to define your sense of self-worth in terms of how well you are accomplishing what you "promised" yourself and others that you were going to do. For some, it becomes an event of immense pain to admit that you aren't ever going to get to it- to the extent that you just put it off, rather than just selling/ giving it away, and moving on. It depends a lot on your support group- I suspect the Jet owner had a spouse who said little, as long as he was someday "going to get around to it", but who would have torn him a new one had he ever admitted defeat and put it up for sale. So, to minimize pain, the project was always something he was "going to get around to" in the undefined future. I doubt that desire for financial gain was ever really a part of it. The wild card here is that physical deterioration marches , to the point where the unique Jet convertible is now little more than parts.



Saying it "oughta be against the law" to let this happen simply ignores both the very human aspects of the situation, as well as the fact that it is just a "thing", and as such, the owner can do whatever he damn well pleases with it. People are people, with their human frailties, and it shall ever be thus. As my dad used to say, "Sometimes I think the only reasonable people in this world are you and me, and sometimes I'm not so sure about you."