Post by Lee Hedges on Jun 29, 2013 17:34:05 GMT -8
To be honest I really didn't need another T34 and I definitely was not out looking for one. I have my two T34s (1962 & 1965) that I'm perfectly happy with. So when a T34 owner asked me to buy his T34, I was completely unprepared. I didn't have the funds, didn't have the space, and definitely did not have the time to devote to another T34. Here's the story:
Tom Reay was contacted by a guy in Chicago that had just bought a Lotus White 1968 Electric Sunroof with Automatic transmission. The owner wanted to know what it was worth. So after getting a series of photos I evaluated it for him and gave him a US$8-10K value. Unexpectedly he asks me to buy it. I asked for photos of the VIN plates & engine # as well as videos of it driving. I confirmed it was a numbers-matching T34 with an original sunroof (weep holes in the roof, drain tubes under the dash, & sunroof switch plate). All this was happening via email, as I was in Germany driving T34s with Carsten & Heiko. Heiko thought I was nutty for considering a T34 without inspecting it first (I was) but was amazed at the selling price for a complete driving T34. So while driving in Heiko's 1964 T34 in Germany I called the 1968 owner in Chicago Illinois USA and told him that I'd buy it for the agreed upon price of US$5500.
I didn't tell my wife when I returned home from Germany but I did tell a few of my closest friends but swore them to secrecy. I was most interested in figuring out how to pay for it, where to store it, and what to do with it long-term. Late-model T34s are extremely rare in America, and Electric Sunroof models are 10X more rare. I know of only a handful in America today. And the Automatic option makes it the rarest. I know of only one other Automatic Sunroof, owned (by coincidence) by Tom Reay. So the rarity factor, the price, and the driving condition made the decision easy. Over the next month I scraped together the funds and had it transported from Chicago IL to San Diego CA in five days, arriving on 24 June 2013.
The exhaust was leaking so it sounded louder than it should have. But the automatic gears shifted fine, the brakes were great, and the steering was tight. The right door wouldn't stay closed so the owner had tied it to with rope to the steering column. The original interior was deteriorating (ripped seats, sad interior panels, & cracked pads). The chassis was dry & undamaged. It'd been repainted white (over the original Lotus White) which not done professionally. And there were signs of rust in the left-rear wheel arch, along the rocker panel ends, door frame edges, and in the spare tire area, all very common rust areas for T34s. It had a 160 kilometer speedometer & Euro headlight rings, so it was a European export to America likely done after a few years since none of the usual American-specification parts were fitted. But it was in better condition than I had anticipated.
I love learning the history of my T34s but the seller said he knew nothing since he just bought it. I asked him to contact the seller to learn more. He did and said the daughter of the long-time owner wasn't interested in talking about her father's car since he had recently passed-away and thinking about him was still painful. The owner did save the title he'd received when he bought it, so it had the name of the long-term owner on the title. I began with a Google search and over the next few days learned a great deal about this owner. His name was Dr. Roland "Rolly" Casis, born in the Philippines and graduated from college in 1965. He came to the USA to complete his medical school and spent the next 44 years practicing medicine as an anesthesiologist. He bought the T34 in 1988 with his younger brother Adelito and he died around 2007. The T34 was given to his daughter and she stored it until 2013. Matt McDonald (a friend of the daughter's husband) heard about it and bought it, but he didn't know much about T34s. Five days later he sold it to me.
I washed it and took these first photos before touching anything.
Tom Reay was contacted by a guy in Chicago that had just bought a Lotus White 1968 Electric Sunroof with Automatic transmission. The owner wanted to know what it was worth. So after getting a series of photos I evaluated it for him and gave him a US$8-10K value. Unexpectedly he asks me to buy it. I asked for photos of the VIN plates & engine # as well as videos of it driving. I confirmed it was a numbers-matching T34 with an original sunroof (weep holes in the roof, drain tubes under the dash, & sunroof switch plate). All this was happening via email, as I was in Germany driving T34s with Carsten & Heiko. Heiko thought I was nutty for considering a T34 without inspecting it first (I was) but was amazed at the selling price for a complete driving T34. So while driving in Heiko's 1964 T34 in Germany I called the 1968 owner in Chicago Illinois USA and told him that I'd buy it for the agreed upon price of US$5500.
I didn't tell my wife when I returned home from Germany but I did tell a few of my closest friends but swore them to secrecy. I was most interested in figuring out how to pay for it, where to store it, and what to do with it long-term. Late-model T34s are extremely rare in America, and Electric Sunroof models are 10X more rare. I know of only a handful in America today. And the Automatic option makes it the rarest. I know of only one other Automatic Sunroof, owned (by coincidence) by Tom Reay. So the rarity factor, the price, and the driving condition made the decision easy. Over the next month I scraped together the funds and had it transported from Chicago IL to San Diego CA in five days, arriving on 24 June 2013.
The exhaust was leaking so it sounded louder than it should have. But the automatic gears shifted fine, the brakes were great, and the steering was tight. The right door wouldn't stay closed so the owner had tied it to with rope to the steering column. The original interior was deteriorating (ripped seats, sad interior panels, & cracked pads). The chassis was dry & undamaged. It'd been repainted white (over the original Lotus White) which not done professionally. And there were signs of rust in the left-rear wheel arch, along the rocker panel ends, door frame edges, and in the spare tire area, all very common rust areas for T34s. It had a 160 kilometer speedometer & Euro headlight rings, so it was a European export to America likely done after a few years since none of the usual American-specification parts were fitted. But it was in better condition than I had anticipated.
I love learning the history of my T34s but the seller said he knew nothing since he just bought it. I asked him to contact the seller to learn more. He did and said the daughter of the long-time owner wasn't interested in talking about her father's car since he had recently passed-away and thinking about him was still painful. The owner did save the title he'd received when he bought it, so it had the name of the long-term owner on the title. I began with a Google search and over the next few days learned a great deal about this owner. His name was Dr. Roland "Rolly" Casis, born in the Philippines and graduated from college in 1965. He came to the USA to complete his medical school and spent the next 44 years practicing medicine as an anesthesiologist. He bought the T34 in 1988 with his younger brother Adelito and he died around 2007. The T34 was given to his daughter and she stored it until 2013. Matt McDonald (a friend of the daughter's husband) heard about it and bought it, but he didn't know much about T34s. Five days later he sold it to me.
I washed it and took these first photos before touching anything.
