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Things to Consider When Buying a Vintage Car Online

If you’re an automobile enthusiast and you’re looking to buy a vintage car, chances are that you’ll start your search online. After all, it is the best way to find just about anything you could ever want. However, if your search ends with you finding a suitable vehicle online before you go ahead and purchase it, here are a few things you’ll need to consider:

Location

A lot of vintage cars that you find online aren’t exactly in a roadworthy state, and that makes their location very important. If, for example, the vehicle you are interested in is located hundreds of miles away, it won’t exactly be practical for you to pick it up and tow it home yourself; you’ll probably need to use vehicle transport services instead. You should factor this expense into the total cost of buying the car before you go ahead and do the deal.

Does it Have Documentation

Depending in where you’re buying from and where you’re going to be taking your vintage vehicle, there are going to be various pieces of paperwork, such as certifications and registrations that you might need before you can take the car out on the road. It’s always a good idea to work out what you will need and whether the buyer can provide it before you throw a lot of money at a vehicle you’ll never be able to drive.

View the Vehicle

Ideally, you should always view a vintage vehicle in person, so that you can truly see what you are4 buying – plenty of people have been scammed into buying expensive rust buckets online before – but if that isn’t possible, at least get the seller to take lots of pictures of the car from every possible angle. If you can get them to take pictures with the day’s newspaper in shot, or even better have them live stream images of the car to you, then so much the better.

Check the Service History

If you can’t inspect the car yourself, then it’s also really important that you try to take a look at the service history of the vehicle you’re interested in. By doing this, you can get a pretty good idea of what condition it’s in, how much it’s truly worth and how much you’re likely going to have to invest in the vehicle once it’s all yours. If the owner isn’t forthcoming about providing you with this, or any information you act for, then be very cautious about proceeding unless they have a very good reason.

Check Out the Seller

If you can, try to check out the seller. Look at their various online profiles; if they’ve sold before, check their feedback and most important of all, try to verify that the car they’re selling you legally belongs to them. These simple checks will significantly cut your risk of being scammed.

Use Escrow

Finally, you will need to use an escrow system to pay, so that you cannot be ripped off in any way. This is perhaps the most important tip of all.

Happy buying!