Sometime around 1992 I was in the middle of acquiring parts for a Lotus Cortina restoration project. Former Lotus Corps member Dennis Duncan who had seriously raced a Lotus Cortina had stockpiled a warehouse full of parts, some new and some old. If you read my book "Tale of Two Tina's" you will find several chapters devoted to the numerous hours spent in his warehouse picking out the goodies I needed. On one particular visit I stopped off at Dennis's Glenview home and he took out a step ladder and pulled down a pair of fiberglass racing bucket seats from the rafters of his 1 car garage. They were tiny and simple little things weighing less than 10 lbs each. They were true to the original term of Bucket" seats in that they only supported your butt - about half of your back, none of your thighs but all of your butt. You sat in them and strapped the seat belts around them and you, thus holding you and the seat in place. Not really any good for preventing whiplash. On top of that, the padding underneath the vinyl consisted of about 1 inch layer of soft foam - more like insulation than padding. And there were no seat adjusters -- you just bolt them where you want them on the floor. Simple - plain bucket seats.
I really didn't need or want the seats but Dennis talked me into taking them for 50 bucks. I figured the kids could Use them for watching TV and playing video games and that they did - a lot! Year after year. they would sit in the family room, rocking in the chairs while starting out with Mario, super Mario. and progressively through all the bigger and better stuff on through the really cool F1 auto racing games of the present day. But more and more the seats spent more time being tripped over and shoved into the storage room. My butt had long since gotten too big for the seats. In fact. somewhere along the way Paul Quiniff had to repair the busted fiberglass on one of them, and the once perfect vinyl was now quite worn and torn in spots. So I decided the next time I did a garage/house cleaning and posted some stuff on ebay, these seats would he amongst the junk. I mean valuable historic artifacts, that I would sell.
I posted the pair up with an optimistic reserve of $100. In 1992 Dennis had told me they were real rally bucket seats from a real Lotus Cortina rally car so I hoped that they may be worth something to a collector and not just junk for somebody else's kids. The first day after posting the seats. I got emails from literally around the world. I got separate emails from New Zealand, Australia and England asking how much to ship them to their respective countries. After spending some time with a tape measure and the bathroom scale. I replied to the inquires, not expecting much furher response as the shipping to England was $490 and Australia and New Zealand was even more. Day two brought me an email offer of $350 if I take the seats off ebay and sell them outright - ca-ching! But I decided to hold out and told the guy he would have to bid with the others. Day three brought more questions and a request for more pictures from a potential buyer in Japan. Always interesting to converse with someone through email who sends his messages through a translation software program. You figure out what they are trying to say but you have a laugh too. I guess it must work both ways. Day 4 brought another offline offer of $700!!! Again. I decided to wait, even though the actual bidding on ebay was only up to $212.10. So I waited and squirmed a little as the days passed and the bidding escalation stopped.
Day 10, final day of the auction. I kept a close eye on my emails and the bidding for any last minute questions. I sent out an email to all the folks who had sent me questions, advising them that I had gotten several off line offers inferring that they should be ready to bid high! At least that was what I was hoping for but as the witching hour approached, the bidding was stalled. I was squirming in my chair and my wife Sue was laughing from the living room as with 4 minutes to go the bidding was still stuck at $212! 3 minutes to go - no change. 2 minutes to go - no change. Finally with 1 minute left. the bidding jumped to $515.25. OK, now I don't feel quite so bad. Not as good as $700, but better than $212. As the seconds ticked away, it's hard to track those last second snipers those with high speed hook ups that wait to the absolute last moment to bid. But when the auction is over, you can pull up a history and see who did what. The guy in Australia was the one that bid it up to $515 with 1 minute to go, beating out the guy in New Zealand. But with 9 seconds to go, the guy in England put in his final bid and with 8 seconds to go the California guy put in his. As it turned out. the England bid was the higher of the two and the final price on my beat up, worn out $50 fiberglass bucket seats came to $1026.20! Not a bad
profit.
Through further correspondence. I found that the winning, bidder was restoring an Alan Mann racing Lotus Cortina. Apparently the real Lotus Cortina freaks had heard stories about these particular seats disappearing in the states back in the 1960's and everyone thought they were long gone. They were very pleased about their winning bid. They were also pretty tired because the final bidding took place at 2:38 am on a Sunday morning - England time.
I got an email from the Japanese guy a few days later. He said he was sorry he missed the bidding because of a holiday. He said he would have bid even more! Oh well, you snooze, you lose.
So I did real well here, but just like a gambler who only tells you of all the money he's won, I won't tell you about the times where someone else got a real bargain off of me.
