In those days the New York Times newspaper was the standard by which all newspapers were compared. We always would get and read the Sunday addition. This kept us informed about books, plays, and the local high school sport scores.
It was the Sport section that I would read first. The Classified advertisements were located in this section. It was here that antique automobiles for sale were published.
I always liked the first series Corvettes, and would keep track of the asking prices for these cars. One Spring Sunday I saw an ad for a Jaguar SS-100 at the unbelievable price of one thousand dollars! I was on the phone immediately, getting direction to the Jag.
I arrived to find the Jaguar in the backyard of a normal home in Wayne, NJ. The owner was unloading the leaves from the cars cockpit.
The huge Lucas headlights were sitting in a cardboard box just taken out from the basement of the home. Obviously the car had been sitting out all winter long, and it looked it.
I fell in love with this car on first sight. The price was really cheap. The only problem was the recent birth of our second son, Kurt. I just did not have the thousand dollars needed to purchase it.
I just had to give up on this purchase. Fred told me that even if I had been able to buy the car I would not have had the money to restore it. He was right of course, but I still feel sorry I could not purchase that Jaguar.
One other near miss was a Cunningham C-3 convertible. Also found in the New York Times, this car was located in Connecticut. This was years after the Jaguar incident, and I was financially in better shape.
I drove up to see this beautiful car, one of about three ever made, again wanting to buy it. This time I was the third person on the list to buy the car, not the first! It sold but not to me.
I would love to hear from other collectors about the items they just missed to add or maybe were able to acquire that would prove to be near invaluable centerpieces of their collections.
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