Case history

From a website with expedition vehicles I had a link to a dealer of old military trucks, who offered some Unimog and Pinzgauer. Being interested in a Pinzgauer I got some information about the Volvo C303 in some internet boards. After a short time I was fascinated. That was the right car for us.

I printed out the old brochure and gathered more information. Some weeks later the desire was consolidated. It should be a Volvo C303. A stable vehicle with zinced body and a powerful, but quiet 6-cylinder engine. Following the classifieds in some Swedish internet portals for car sales it would eventually be possible to get one for 3.000, - Euro.

Emails

In some boards and from ebay I had collected some email addresses where I did send a request. Some days later I had answers from each address with more detailed information or check ups. An intense mail exchange developed where I got a lot of usefull hints.

Some of the offers where clearly too expensive for me, far more than 10.000,- Euro. From some offerers I did not get answers after a while, may be the did find an other willing customer. The fastest reply I got from Karl, who send me already some pictures with his first mail. 4 of these are to be seen on this page, that was my first impression of our Volvo C303.

Dirk and I did not only exchange mails, we phoned some times as well. His first offer had an other customer, but he was searching further for cars and customers. An other offerer had just tried to sell his car via ebay, and after that failed he made the deal by email shortly before I appeared on the scene.

Just like the offeres I was very candid about the competetive situation. I did not poker for a better price, but I always said and wrote, that I wanted do get the best car I could afford to the relativly best price. That must not be the cheapest. The offeres could understand that, they reduced the price in their margin, but they also had a lower limit not to go further down. This limit showed up for everyone what the value of the offer was. Unfortunately I had to give up my idea of 3.000,- Euro, the prices settled between 4.000,- und 5.500,- Euro.

Irritation

In the communication with Karl after some days a big confusion started. I should get a copy from the registration, but that was delayed somehow. That seemed to be strange for me, and my plan to go to Sweden very fast was delayed as well.

But my skeptizism just powered Karls ambition. He made gread efforts to win my confidence again and did not send a PDF from his registration, but in some mails together about 70 pictures by my wishlist: from inside, outside and below the car. Virtually I layed already under the car, and my questions about some special pictures were answered very fast.

Dirk also had some pictures to send, and with a german ownder of a Volvo C303 I could communicate and confirm some of these informations, where I did not trust my amateurish judgement.

Auction

While I was engaged to compare the different offers following descriptions, technical data and pictures in the background the next public auction on a swedish military base was starting. Some offerers tried to get some cars in this auction, and they hoped to get good cars for good prices, because the market seemed to be feed in the last time.

This interpretation was a fallacy at least for september 2005. May be that the auction was on a weekend, may that it took place relativly far south in Sweden, but the bidders nearly trashed themselves. Spare parts were stolen, cars became damaged with the intention to minimize the price and but regardless of that extremly high prices were bitten for cars in the lower quality range.

That confirmed my opinion to leave these auctions to persons who know enough about the case, not for a one time bidder like me. On the other hand the marked was cleared rapidly. Instead of 4 offers or potential offers I had 2 offers left. I could decide very quickly.

Decision

Karl was very pleased, that his offer was the best for me. He was inded very engaged all the time. Following my decision I booked a flight and a place on the ferry for the next weekend. One night I would stay at Karls home near Gothenburg, the next day we would have enough time for a long test drive, for briefing and for exchanging spare parts.

The last picture shows Karl in front of our Volvo C303, just before I start driving to the ferry. The price for the car, the travel and the ferry totalized up to 4.700,- Euro.