I have been Following Greg's efforts to sell his car on eBay, and wonder how one venue like eBay, can produce such different results, to a wild degree of ridiculousness.One the one hand there is Gregs Lotus - a well loved, quite well kept usable car that one would think would sell reasonably well for various reasons - and on the other hand - there are cars like this car, Then and Now,
The 1954 Mercury XM800
This was a concept car
This 1954 Mercury Monterey XM800 was first unveiled at the 1954 Detroit Auto Show. The car was built for Ford by Creative Industries of Detroit, Michigan and was designed by the Mercury pre-production studio with John Najjar serving as the studio manager. Elwood Engle worked on the project as well, serving as a consultant assigned by George Walker's design firm.
The XM800 traveled the auto show circuit through 1954 it made a brief appearance in the 1954 20th Century Parade of Progress before fading from the spotlight.
Benson Ford promoted the idea of creating the car as a second Mercuy car line which would compete with Buick, Pontiac, and Oldsmobile.
Although the car was never put into production, it did take part in a Fox twentieth Century Film, and was made famous buy having its model put into Grape Post Nuts Cereal boxes.The engine is supposed to be in excellent condition, and has only ever driven for 5 miles.
43 bids after it was posted on eBay, the bidding closed with the amazing amount of $125,350!!
So, my conclusion is that in order to make good sales on eBay, you need a lot of patients or a little stardust!
This is a guest post by Leslie, who's own blog is at Antique Cars Club
5 comments:
Only driven 5 miles?? I'm amazed they bothered to put an engine in at all. Most of the time they don't waste money on engines in show-stand concepts any more. Shame. :-(
And did you notice, it didn't actually sell?? It's not just me:
"Reserve not met"
PS - thanks for the post, Leslie! :-)
No I didn't! It kind of makes the whole story irrelevent - doesn't it?!
P.S your welcome
Wow! $125,350 and the reserve was met?
My name is Tom Maruska and I own and am restoring the 1954 Mercury XM-800 Concept Car.
Just wanted everyone to know that the XM-800 is on it's way back to stardom!
The restoration is well under way with the chassis complete and rolling and body work has just begun (Dec '08). The interior will follow sometime in Feb '09 with completion expected around May '09. Follow the progress of the restoration at http://www.tbirdsquare.com by clicking on the picture of the XM-800.
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