[WARP TEN]

Ted, you raise several good questions which could take more time to thoroughly answer than I can offer. While I am by no means an expert, I will respond to them in a limited, but hopefully helpful, way.

First, as to scams and related concerns I have attached three recent articles from Sports Car Market magazine by their legal analyst John Draneas. One is on scams, one on how to deal with auction issues, one is on paperwork. SCM primarily covers auctions, both in person and online around the world. Certainly if you have concerns about a buyer's ability to complete a deal, you might look into having the process managed by a local attorney and closing it in escrow. Sometimes a local bank will help but sometimes they worry too much about liability. And when I worked in my early retirement for seven years at a local BMW/Mercedes/Land Rover dealer, I know that any cash deals required a Fed Wire transfer (not an ACH, which can sometimes be reversed) prior to title transfer. A Fed Wire is the safest way to insure you have good funds in your account when you transfer title.

Second, as to selling your 415 vs stock cars, I suggest you talk with Marty (DRM500RUBYZR-1) as he is very knowledgeable about this subject. (BTW I saw your car at Marc?s shop yesterday when we met for one of our roughly monthly lunches). My thoughts: The best buyer for a 415 modified by Marc is likely a forum member or some other person very knowledgeable about C4 ZR-1s and their mods. At the right price, I certainly would buy your 415 but a less knowledgeable person might have second thoughts and concerns about a modded car regardless of what we all know about Marc?s reputation. As you note, well maintained stock cars that are 25-30 years old are often easier to sell than modified ones due to a potentially bigger audience. I believe you will likely not recover much or all of your modification investment. My own experience with my 510 HP Marc-modified ?95 was that I sold it for about $37k in 2016 but had a total of about $50k in it by then. (The loss was well worth the Perma Grin amortized over the time I owned it!). I would suggest that if you plan to sell all but one of your ZR-1s that you hang on to the 415 and sell the rest. It will represent what they call an ?Unrealized Loss? until you sell and will be great fun while you own it. But when you sell it certainly start with the various forums where the knowledgeable folks lurk.

As to venue, I am sure there a lot of good opinions here and on other forums. Online auctions have come a long way but as an old school (and simply old) guy I have not utilized them. One way to deal with BAT or other good ones is to utilize an experienced broker/presenter and pay their fee; many are well known in the auction community but I don?t know how much they charge. Given my inexperience with auctions, were I selling a collector car I might choose that method. With a BMW 5 series a couple years ago I had surprisingly good luck with the local Facebook marketplace. It generated a quick sale from a guy who lived nearby and was a friend of our friends, making the sale easy using a personal check. Not sure it would work with a ZR-1. I have also had good luck with Hemmings over the years. They have print, online and auction formats available. I actually found my ?95 on Hemmings (print) in 2012 and when I advertised it there several years later, that is where I got my lead on its sale.

Anyway, my $.02. As I said, I believe that Marty would be a good resource for you on this. Good luck. And I hope you get to enjoy that 415! --Bob