As I got on the plane on Thursday morning, I wondered, “What am I doing?” Only a week earlier I had gone to Raleigh, North Carolina with high hopes of buying a 1964 356 Cabriolet. I had the car inspected by Roads Scholars, which revealed quite a bit of rust. I went home empty-handed.

I quickly started my search over, and found a 1965 Cabriolet in Michigan. Now, I was flying up to go to the prepurchase inspection (PPI) of the Signal Red convertible Porsche. Sounds easy enough, right? No big deal.

Except, the next day I was supposed to be in New York City, and two days after that (Sunday) I was signed up to run the New York Marathon. To get it all done, I needed to fly to Michigan on Thursday, fly back to Orlando that night, then meet my family Friday morning to fly to New York. It was doable, but, certainly a tight, tiring schedule.

When I got to Detroit, I rented a car and drove the 45 minutes north to the shop that was doing the PPI. Even though they had been recommended by a couple people, I didn’t quite know what to expect from the shop. I was pleasantly surprised when I arrived. They had a really nice conversion 914-6, a number of 911s, and an amazing 912, all in for service.

They put the 356 on a lift, and we took a look. After my experience in Raleigh the week before, I knew better than to get my hopes up. But, I was pleased with what we found. The car was fairly solid. At some point someone had repaired the battery tray in the front trunk. And they had done a poor job. But other than that there were no signs of significant rust.

Despite the lack of rust, there were some issues with the car. First the paint was nicked, chipped, and dinged. It was not as clean in that regard as I would have liked. And there appeared to be some accident damage in the right front. The inner front fender was wrinkled, which was easily visible in the front trunk. However, other than those things, it was a fairly tight driver. The interior was in good shape. It ran well. And appeared to be pretty solid.

I spent a few hours inspecting the car with the shop. Then, I took it for a drive, and went back to the airport to fly home. The seller of the car wasn’t at the PPI due to a work commitment. So there wasn’t a whole lot of opportunity to negotiate the price.

Although the car was in fairly good shape, I couldn’t pay the asking price. Originally, the car was listed at $125,000. Before flying to Michigan for the PPI, the broker and I discussed something in the range of $105,000, if the car passed the PPI. However, the accident damage in the front trunk (which wasn’t revealed until the PPI), and the overall condition of the body, particularly the paint on the right front, gave me pause at that price. I decided to sleep on it.

Interestingly, while I was at the shop taking a look at the car, the owner of the 356 in Raleigh called. He had given the rust some thought, and wanted to let me know that he was willing to discount the car to account for the condition. He was prepared to take $30,000 off the price. I was surprised that he was coming down that much. I told him I would think about it. But the fact is that it will cost more than $30,000 to fix the rust. And I don’t need another project. So i decided to keep looking.

Read the next part of the story HERE.