As you likely already know, here at EverythingBantam.com (TrustInRust.com) we offer multiple services for the Austin and Bantam enthusiast inside of us all. Among these services are the advertisement of vehicles for sale in the Virtual Showroom and the curation of a bimonthly Lead Sheet. The point of these services is to make sure that the people who are in search of a car have an avenue for making their dreams a reality.
Generally, I only include cars listed on eBay on the Lead Sheet and do not place them on the home page. However, I am making a rare exception this morning as a case study in the efficacy of advertising a Bantam on eBay.
On March 28, 2018, the following car was listed on eBay in the category of Salvage Parts Cars:
Click here to see the 1939 Bantam Roadster
Click here to see the third relisting: 1939 American Bantam Relist
The listing offers only a buy it now, and appears to either be of a 30 day duration or of the good until cancelled variety. The seller is asking $12,000 for the car and has not offered a make offer option on it. The entirety of the description reads:
“This car is made in America no rot four-cylinder engine 20 Horse power standard does 50 miles an hour good restoration project Motor transmission rear end 100% local pick up as is”
Here are the rest of the photos:
When publishing advertisements here, I work with the seller to describe their car in detail so the car is appropriately attractive to potential buyers, more easily found through search engine optimization, and so an interested party may be more confident in their potential purchase. For buyers looking for help in finding a car, we also offer a locating service which helps them find what they are looking for and includes advice in appraising the vehicles being considered.
This roadster looks to be quite complete and in decent shape. It appears that it has the some of the top bows, part of the original jack, a full set of trim rings, the proper seat, a correct tail light, correct headlights, and other important parts. At $12,000, this car is a crap shoot, it could provide a great numbers matching car that is complete and in decent enough shape to make an easy restoration, or it is a crap shoot with a seized engine (or worse yet one with a broken crank), shoddy body work under its newer paint, and no papers. As it is, we just don’t know what the true nature of this car is.
A similar project 1939 Bantam Roadster (one of our own cars) has been listed on eBay in the same category as an experiment. That car has been listed since early 2017 and after spending some time at the top of the “best match” search results, it quickly faded into an abyss of irrelevant parts ads. Now, you won’t find that car unless you are specifically looking for it. Any interest which that car received was in the beginning, appeared to primarily come from people interested in hot rodding it, and any offers were well below reasonable. I am a huge fan of eBay, but I’ll still not convinced that it is a good place to sell a Bantam.
I see a lot of potential in this pink roadster (although it doesn’t have the curb appeal of the car I wrote about here). I’m going to watch this car and report back occasionally to update you on its progress in the listing. I hope the seller is successful and it finds the good home which it deserves.
Click here to see the 1939 Bantam Roadster
4/9/2018 Update: This car has been relisted two times already. I didn’t pay much attention to the first relisting, but the second relisting has placed the car for sale as a vehicle and the price has been lowered to $11,800. Although an American Bantam, the car has been listed in the “Austin”. It’ll be interesting to see if the seller has any better luck in the 7 day sale format.
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