The cars that got away

Hello guys and welcome to mattsbeamer.

I haven’t made this topic into a video yet, but maybe I should.

It’s about cars, that we could have bought at a good price, but didn’t. I say ‘we’ because some of these cars, are ones I strongly recommend to my Dad, but he went against my recommendation

If any of you have read my post called * An introduction to my car history. BMW aged 15*, you may see that there was an exotic car I wanted to buy, when I was 15. Did any of you guess what it was?

Well the car that was a Ferrari Mondial. Unfortunately I was not able to take a photo of this car as I didn’t have a digital camera back then. This was a very long time ago.
The Ferrari was finished in a beautiful, light metallic blue and had white leather seats. How much did the man at the ford dealer want for this car? Have you guessed yet? You will now see why I wanted to buy this car so much, and was gutted when my Dad said no....

£400. Yes £400!!!! Not £4000, Not £40,000, but £400.
Ok, ok the car wasn’t in good shape, infact it had front end damage, the leather was moldy and there was a very big spider living inside it. But why did I want it, if it was obviously a big Italian mess.
Well I know, I would never be able to do it up properly, because it would of been so exspensive. And back then, the Mondials were very cheap, now a-days a cheap project one is about £18k. The thing is thou, there were plenty of good parts on this car. It even ran....apparently.
If any of you have owned a Ferrari, or have friends that own them, you will know that parts for Ferrari’s are big money, so I would have recouped that £400 almost straight away, anyway I was very lucky and happy to get my first car a little later, which was a BMW e30 318i.

A second car I saw and regret not having the guts to call about it (I was a bit phone shy back then) was an Aston Martin Lagonda. It was a 1980 one, finished in a very dark blue. It was so dark it was probably black. Anyway this car was up for £8000. It would have been a risky buy, because they were know for their electronic issues, and people thought they wouldn’t go up in price. Anyway, I kept an eye on the Uk used market and you can get a cheap one nowadays for £40,000 plus!

The 3rd car wasn’t big money and isn’t big money at all, but it was a special car.

It was a 1995 Jaguar XJR6 supercharged, which my best friend had for sale.

It was finished in a beautiful black, and she looked very elegant. I could of had this car for under a grand, but now the cheapest I have seen is about £4500.

Now this next car is a car I strongly recommended my dad to buy, but he didn’t agree with me, due to them being LHD only.
Cast you mind back to the end of 1999, and you will most likely remember that a James Bond film came out. That film was called ‘The world is not enough’. It was a film that made BMW fans like me, weak at the knees. It was the debut of the new E52 BMW Z8. It was, and still is one of the most beautiful BMWs ever made. I really wanted to see one in person, but they were hard to find.
This z8 has the same engine as my Dads 2000 E39 4.9 v8 M5, but it seems the previous owner of my dads M5 specced it up to about £90,000. It was a ac schnitzer version, that went through BMWs individual workshop. It was a stunner.
Back to the z8, I finally got to see one of the Z8s sat in my local dealership (at this time dad had a 2003 730d sport). The BMW Z8 had stopped production in 2002, so this z8 was an unregistered one. I can’t remember the colour but it was very similar to the Alpina z8s blue, and it had a very light creamy interior. It was perfection.
It was up for £80,000 I believe, and I said to dad, you really need to buy it. There were a few reasons he didn’t want to buy it.

He always said he would never buy cars brand new, as cars devalue fast.
It was only available in Left Hand Drive
And Jeremy Clarkson didn’t like the way this car drove.
Anyway to cut a long story short he went a bought a used but the new shape (for back then) 2002 Mercedes SL500, in silver with the AMG alloys. I agree, it was a stunning car. He kept it many years, but it was so unreliable, due to the roof. He part exchanged it many years later against his Porsche Cayenne S for about £13,000. So he lost a lot of money on that car.
How much was the BMW z8 worth now.... £150,000 plus. I’ve seen some over the £250,000 mark.

My dads been listening to me a little bit now. Lol. Oh well we live and learn. Have a great day.

What cars have you regretted not buying. Comment down below :)