Possibly Cheap/Project A610

I think a fair bit of bidding will happen in the next 3 days. As mentioned above, if they are going for 15,000E + for a rough car in Europe then this is mega cheap. The wheel on the wrong side isn't too much of a problem if you can get it for that price.

Don't know of any other cars for sale at the moment. It's a rare thing for sure.

What I don't understand is - you get an OK A610 that struggles to sell for £10K. You then get a car like this that needs work - and we all know just how much an A610 can eat up money - and we are all falling over ourselves to buy it.

I'm as bad as the rest of you. I've pawned the family silver and I've got the mrs and the daughter out tonight in their fishnets and boob tubes looking for business to get a bit more in the Ebay fund for it but I don't understand why.

We must be crazy but there is something about the A610 that just looks so right. It's not a bad drive either

What I don't understand is - you get an OK A610 that struggles to sell for £10K. You then get a car like this that needs work - and we all know just how much an A610 can eat up money - and we are all falling over ourselves to buy it.

I'm as bad as the rest of you. I've pawned the family silver and I've got the mrs and the daughter out tonight in their fishnets and boob tubes looking for business to get a bit more in the Ebay fund for it but I don't understand why.

A610's are sooooo thin on the ground the man in the know is martin (BIGMVS) but prices are deffo on the up, I think fitz patrick was going to sell his at a sensible price but have not seen it up for sale. If you are serious and want one that is not a money pit you will need at least £10K!!!

[BIG_MVS]

Everyone loves a bargain and on the face of it this is cheap as chips.

Now the rest of the pics have come through it looks like it needs more than a bag of sand spending on it, but to the french this is still half the price of a left hooker when restored.

I think decent A610's (if they ever come up for sale) can now command £12k upwards. This is because of the French buyers looking to save money on a LHD 30k euro purchase on the continent. Unfortunately that will mean less and less 610's left in the UK

A610beaver - Haven't you sold your last 2 to France?

A610beaver - Haven't you sold your last 2 to France?

I've kept quiet about it so far as I couldn't bear to be named and shamed but ..... yes. The temptation was too great.

The red one was the better of the two cars by far - and LHD so you can imagine the interest from France. I suspect the last time there was such an invasion from over the water, a small town on the south coast was the focus of attention and some bloke called Harold ended up with an arrow in his eye. I just ended up with a tear in mine and a wheelbarrow full of Euros which was nice conmpensation but you can always get money - an A610 is harder to find. The guy who had owned the red one maintained the car on a money no object basis and it showed.

The blue one was OK but having driven both - these cars are better in LHD. The pedal spacing is better. Anyway, the guy who bought it was a real Alpine and F1 fanatic. He was going to return the car to the F1 "safety car" spec as it appeared at Silverstone in the 90s but since then he has done a nut and bolt restoration and converted it to LHD. He reckons he has spent about €30K on it in parts and labour on top of what he paid me which was about twice what it would have been in the UK. He says he still has the original bonnet on his garage wall though and bought a new one for the restoration.

Do I miss them? You bet. I can't rememebr how many miles I put on those 2 cars but it was a lot for the year or 18 months I had them. No major issues and lots of fun.

Yea I bet you miss them!!! Just think how much you could make now, mate you are going to make no friends on here just to get a car cheap and selling for a large profit to the FRENCH or any country for that matter, as that is more Alpines leaving the UK!!! If you get another hold on to it as they are fab!!

Don't get me wrong - I'm no Wheeler dealer although I can understand it looks that way. It was a fluke that 2 cars came up together within days of each other. In fact I only found the red one as the ebay listing for the blue one said "advertised elsewhere". I didn't even knock the vendors prices down. Some said I paid too much for the blue one but I was happy with the deal.

Within a day of driving the red one, I realised that my wife was not going to be able to live with LHD and I started looking to sell overseas where I thought there would be more interest. I did in fact keep it until well into the following year as I enyoyed driving it so much. More so than some of my other cars that many consider to be more desireable.

My wife drove the blue one for a similar time and she loved that but she became paranoid about driving such a rare car daily as she had been involved in an accident in another rare car some years which was not her fault but she still feels guilty that her decision to drive the car regularly meant there was one less in the world.

I eventually felt under pressure to sell as I'd had intel telling me the Euro was going to lose value (which it subsequently did). The Euro is back to where it was and I don't think the real value of the cars now would be more than I got then so there is no sleep loss over that.

We all get lucky now and again - I guess that was my time.

No I don't miss them because of what their future financial worth is - I miss them because they are such special cars.

It's up to the individual as to what they want to do with their car. Sell it in the UK for a fraction of its real worth or go to the trouble of selling overseas and take the financial benefit of doing so. Both of my old cars have gone to very good homes and it is great to see these cars getting the appreciation they deserve.

Is there anyone here who would have spent €30K to restore my old blue car? I was derided by some for paying £8K for it in the first place!

The opinion of many in the UK was summed up quite well by my boss when he saw me in the red A610 for the first time. He said "that was my dream car years ago but to end up with that you must have been screwed into a shitty divorce settlement".

Not sure why he mentioned divorce as I'm not but I think it was his way of saying "what a pile of crap". The day I got the bankers draft for the red one - it was good fun slapping it on his desk and saying - when you get divorced - let's see if you can get that!

[BIG_MVS]

Hey Beaver I wouldn't get too upset about the Red one as every man and his dog wanted to buy that one and do exactly the same as you did. Dell Boy was even on the train up to Stockport to buy it when you gazumped him at the last minute (Sorry Dell Boy ), don't try to join the club by the way - ever!

Anyway with the profits you have made you can buy this one and do it up surely

Believe me - there was no gazumping. It went like this.

ME: Is your A610 still for sale?
SELLER: Yes
ME: I'll take it then

Meanwhile, I'd already been talking with the seller of the blue car who said he would hold the car until Saturday on the basis that I buy it if it is as described. There was "sum geezer from Lundun who'z well inta deez Ren Alts who iz big in de club who iz pushing to pay more for the car but he liked me as I was "real genuine".
The vendor turned out to be Alvin who I've since learned has a reputation for spinning A610s. That's spinning as in the Wheeler Dealer term not Jeremy Clarkson term.

Alvin just wins you over with charm - a nicer guy I suspect you would struggle to meet but my mrs couldn't live with the drug dealer wheels the car had. No sooner said and Alvin had a set of original wheels on the car. He was happy with that as he knew someone who would "pay big money for them wheels" and he knocked "big money" off the agreed price.

Neither of us knew at the time that the car was the ex Silverstone car and with the history that was subsequently sent through to me, the car even in the UK was going to be worth a bit more.

Regarding the current car up for sale - I've been too busy to get the time to view it and more to the point, I'm too busy to spend time on a restoration. I am however tempted to buy it and stick it away in dry storage until I do have time.

I'm not keeping it a secret that I will be bidding as these cars are thin on the ground and I do have a passion for them.

There is a blue 610 for sale on Club Alpine Renault at the mo.

http://www.clubalpinerenault.org.uk/cla ... s_sale.asp

Who bought it then £6K was a bargin and whoever it was is quicker than me with the bid!! Whoever has bought it I wish you luck and please make her good again!!

That has been on CAR for well over a year. The car has a cream leather interior which is of debateable taste. Looks OK in some photos but not one for the Alpine purist. Was for sale for offers over £10k at the time with approx 100k miles.

Will be interesting to find out who has bought L5 GEO and whether it is currently on a Stena line across the chunnel.

There is a blue 610 for sale on Club Alpine Renault at the mo.

http://www.clubalpinerenault.org.uk/cla ... s_sale.asp

Considering that there have been some nice cars that have exchanged hands for £8-£9K, I'm not convinced it's a massive bargain but it gets an A610 into my collection and is a worthy project.

I just need to work out how to get it "back up North".

NO - this one is staying this side of the water!