Final Drive Thursday
Backing up briefly — we listed these cars on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace on Thursday afternoon. The response has been mixed and not what I had anticipated. I saw the Volvo (an AWD wagon) as ideally suited to this market, with the Tracker close behind. I knew from the beginning that finding a buyer for a soft-top on the edge of fall in Alaska would be a tall order, but I did price it with that in mind. So we set off from the internet cafe down to our finish line in Seward and had a lovely Thursday evening and following morning.
In town that evening my phone would blow up about the Celica every time I hit a pocket of cell coverage. Over 600 people viewed my Facebook ad and I got a dozen messages, half a dozen texts (not counting the scam ones), and three phone calls about it. I was actually a bit unsettled because I was not expecting this level of response. I also felt weird about pushing people of until Friday or the weekend — they were more interested than I’d expected in a car with obvious issues, so I didn’t want to risk losing the opportunity. Did this mean I was asking too little? But I was busy:
I was determined not to get “go fever” and sacrifice what little time we had in Seward in a rush to sell. I’d driven over five thousand miles to get here and I was going to enjoy it.
Evan, on the other hand, got less interest than I had anticipated for his — George and I were forced to admit — perfect car for this market. By dinnertime, he had two solid leads that he set times with for after our arrival back into town on Friday.
And then there’s George. There’s no easy way to say this — so I’ve delayed writing this post a couple days — there were not many bites on the Tracker. As an SUV driver myself, this surprised me. It may not be a 4×4 but clearance is worth something; how was it not generating more interest than this? By bedtime, George only had one serious offer, but it wasn’t a cash offer, it was a trade. For this:
Friday the Thirteenth
After our hike at Exit Glacier and making peace with the end of the journey, we made a mad dash back up to Anchorage. There was so much to do. When we hit town, we found our AirBnB in South Anchorage. As promised in the ad, it is a very large but lovely modern cabin in an otherwise highfalutin neighborhood on a private airstrip. It almost reminds me of some of the 90s-modern beach houses in Galveston.
The owner of the place lives in an apartment downstairs and came out with his adult son, who I gather is our AirBnB host. The son started driving off but the owner struck up conversation. Inevitably, the questions about the roadtrip and separate cars came out. In a bit of a hurry, and on top of trying to unload and strip the cars of all our belongings, we told the story. When we mentioned that they were all for sale, he actually started looking them over. When he got to the Volvo, he waved after his son to pull back in, but after looking inside, waved him off again. Brutal, but priceless. Somewhere in all of this one of Evan’s two appointments cancelled on him, too.
After unloading, we gathered for one final cars-and-drivers group photo before splitting up to run final errands.
Then, as quickly as we parked in formation, we disbanded to run errands. And though we didn’t know it in the moment, that would be the last time these three cars would see each other.
Oklahoma vehicle titles have to be notarized to be released for sale, so the boys went to do that, then a quick auto-wash carwash to remove as much of the dirt as possible. I didn’t need a notary and I can’t use an autowash, so I ran to a self-service wash with what I really needed — a bigass vacuum and a foaming brush because I didn’t want the Celica to look like I’d been offroading in it. It was a sketchy cash-only kinda place and I was down to my last $20 bill, so I bought a pound of quarters (thankfully they’re actual quarters, not tokens) and got to work. Also did I mention that it was raining during all of this? But if I am to sell a convertible with questionable roof mechanics, I would like to do so in the rain.
In between all of this, Evan and I were juggling setting up times with the kinds of people who want to buy cars in this price-range — notably disorganized and noncommittal. In the flood of messages, I had a hard time getting people to pick times, but ultimately I landed a 6pm, a 7pm, two people who were okay with 8ish, and a handful of “tomorrow mornings.” He still only had the one, but they were interested enough to make a rather long drive to come check it out.
My first appointment was the most enthusiastic but also most difficult to set up. A gentleman named Mark had called me wanting to see the Celica. … He also called Evan, not realizing we were selling together. And when he mixed up the addresses and make of vehicle, I gathered he was shopping around with other people, too. But ultimately I was able to get him to commit by promising that we had three vehicles to choose from. So I gave him biking directions to our cabin from his bus stop (he didn’t have a phone that could do maps) as I furiously dried off the rest of the Celica and scrubbed away as much dirt as possible before leaving the carwash as George pulled in to do a little more detailing.
When I pulled up to the aircabin, I saw Mark biking up the lane and Evan shaking hands over the Volvo. Mark and I started talking about the Celica and Evan wandered over with a beer as the Volvo drove away. I wanted to see it off, but I had a deal to push.
Like this one, Mark’s story was also rather long. To summarize: his Saab blew a head gasket and then someone looking to buy it in that condition ruined its handbrake by test driving with that engaged. So he needed a car for transportation to and from work by Sunday and was touchy about cars that potentially had expensive leaky issues. You know, like the Celica’s. I was up front about the nature and magnitude of the leakage. He checked the oil level — which I neglected to do this morning — and found it to be low. I should have done this before he got to me, but I didn’t have the chance. I felt so stupid. But I also had a half-liter of 5W-30 from Whitehorse in the trunk and Mark was surprisingly undeterred. He added the oil and took it out for a spin, leaving his bike and backpack as collateral.
George returned as Mark rolled back in. He liked the feel of the Celica but wanted to see the Tracker until he discovered that it’s an automatic. Man after my own heart (which I still can’t believe is a thing about me, either). After a more more questions and debates, we settled on a deal. That he didn’t have enough cash for.
And here’s where I made a questionable decision, but I’m not sure what the better option was: Mark gave me the cash he had, then drove me in the untitled Celica to the grocery store to get the rest from the ATM and sign the title in the Starbucks. Then he drove me back in… his Celica — side notes: 1) 😢 2) he does not drive standard very well.
At this point, he realized he didn’t know what to do about his bicycle, which would not fit in the car, nor could it be disassembled because it had weird security/locking nuts on the wheels. So he left the bike under the outside stairs at our AirBnB (remember how the host lives on property?) and promised to come back and get it quietly before we leave. As he drove away in my car, I stood in the driveway-taxiway and watched. Everything had happened so astonishingly fast that it was so procedural. But then, as Evan walked over to console me with a “closer beer,” it hit me:
Here’s to the Celica. What a grand time.
That left only the Tracker, which didn’t have any leads yet, so we did a little tweaking to its ads and posted it on a few other networks. Then we piled into the Tracker and went out for our first dinner in Anchorage.