Landie88

Yes. I'm sure you're correct.  I'll keep my eyes open to see if it turns up on eBay or the usual classic car for sale sites over here and post the link on here if I see it

Always very interesting to understand the buyers motivation....

• stick it back online to try to make a quick profit?
• try not to spend money on it and get it back on the road as-is for a bit of fun and then sell it on further down the line - but, you're gonna have to spend some money unless you're happy to risk spending hours for a recovery truck to turn up that's big enough to get you home
• break it for spares, but apart from the engine and trans, I can't see much demand for the other parts over here unless the plan is to sell and ship the bits globally
• run it round as a hack? - OK, it's tax and MoT exempt so apart from fuel it's cheap to own, but it's too much money invested to have as a hack
• restore it? possibly, but there's plenty of other US V8's around over here you could buy and classic owners are not fazed by big motors that are LHD - only their wives are !!

My motivations were...

• It's a V8 - I really want a V8 and for what I was prepared to go to (£5K), I might get one 
• It was RHD so my wife would (might?) drive it
• I could hopefully appease her by selling my Volvo 940 estate (which she hates) for something else she might hate less
• It would be a talking point up at our local pub!

Yes, the website crashed about 15 minutes in ;-).

It went for £7,550 plus 12% buyers premium (with 20% VAT added to the buyers premium).  That brought the total sale price up to around £8,500.

I thought it was too much TBH.  It will have needed at least £2,500 spending on it to get it properly back on the road, perhaps also with a few cosmetics jobs added into this cost.

It will be interesting to see where it turns up.  I'm half expecting to see it on ebay ;-).

If someone was thinking of buying it and exporting it to Oz, it would cost around £2,500 to get it from the UK to the other side of the port in Syndney.

Cheers

Graham

Hi folks...

So I went to see the Fairmont yesterday....

Good points....

• Glass all good, no cracks or chips - imagine windscreens are difficult (impossible?) to get hold of
• Engine looked dry - no visible water leakage, no major oil leaks
• Transmission looked OK - slight weeping, but hey, that's normal
• Car is complete - it's all there, including interior
• Main structural sections of the chassis underneath look OK
• Overall, the bodywork looks straight - doesn't look like its had any major damage

Bad points...

• Front inner wings have been repaired at some point by tack welding plated steel in - not a good job, would need cutting out and re-doing
• Sills have been plated in parts - part welded, part filled - again, untidy repairs
• Fuel tank badly corroded - has been leaking at the front adjacent to rear axle
• Is not currently running and hasn't been for a long time, but that's not to say it wouldn't!
• Evidence of filler in and around door bottoms and wheel arches
• Over-spray to paintwork on several panels - looks OK from a distance, but untidy close up.

To be fair, it's a 50 year old car so to have survived this long as a complete car in the UK is a credit to it's original build quality - it still feels very solid!  I expect that the 'patching up' that's been done in the past has been to keep it on the road during the 1980's and into the 90's and to get it through the MoT test.  At that point, it was probably seen as an old car rather than a classic and the quick cheap repairs were done to keep it on the road.

Bidding is currently at around £6,000.  That's more than I would have thought at this stage.  Not sure how many folks have viewed it, but I learnt a painful lesson once with a merc W124 wagon I bought off eBay that looked good in the photos, but when I got it home the rear chassis subframe mounts were completely rotten :-/.  I'm sure many of us have been there!

Will post the final sale price on here later.

Cheers

Graham

Hi guys.  Thanks very much for all your replies.  I've learnt a load of stuff from you and you've been really helpful.  Current bid price is now £4K, so we'll see what happens with the bidding over the next few days.  Maybe someone is thinking of buying it and shipping it back home to Oz ;-).

Cheers

Graham

Here's a couple of photos of the engine from the auction website.  Not sure if this helps with identification....

19 minutes ago, bear351c said:

 

Hey @bear351c

Thanks very much for your insight.  The chassis and engine numbers match from what the auction house say on their website, but I can't verify this.  There's a photo they took of the chassis plate, but I can't see the engine number on it - maybe it's at the top of the plate....

Reg No: AOM2K
Chassis Number: J935LE72036
Engine Number: 72036K
Engine Size: 5000cc

Hi All

This Fairmont station wagon has just come up for auction over here in the UK.  I'd be buying it for the V8 and because the steering wheel is on the proper side

I'm interested to know what reputation the V8's fitted to these have - it's the 302 (5 litre).  I thought I read somewhere that this was called the 'economy engine' and it has the small inlet ports.  I'm guessing the same engine was fitted to Aussie Falcoln's and maybe others.

https://www.brightwellslive.com/lot/details/514318?fbclid=IwAR3YB70VirQ7Q4lz-fy7M4CvnALBySoVALRMzDuijWZXlDN07xnY6IrvXa8

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Cheers

Graham