Yesterday afternoon I was able to finally check out a couple of cars.  Both of them I found off of Craigslist. 

    I went out to Altadena to meet Dean about his ’93 Tempo.  He’d explained on the phone that he was selling it for $500 but he wanted to get rid of it so he’d go $450. As I approached the car though, parked in the driveway of a well kept house for sale, it was impossible not to notice $350 written all over the car’s windows.  Dean might be the worst negotiator I’ve ever come across and I hadn’t met him yet.

    “What do you need the car for?” he asked.

    “Well, I’m doing a thing where I want to take a cheap car and see how far I can get across country.”

    “Yeah?  Well this car would be a good... start for you I think.”  That, I thought, was an outstanding response.

    “I think I told you, there’s an ignition problem so you have to start the car with the hood up.”

    He had told that.  He did the whole thing so nonchalantly though.  I immediately saw myself getting the car, stopping for lunch somewhere and then spending 3 hours in a gravel parking lot outside some greasy spoon wondering “now where did he touch the metal to?” 

    If you’re a car person I’m sure it’s pretty obvious what you’re supposed to do, but I’m not.  Not being a car person is embarrassing when you’re around car people.  It’s one of the few things that can make you feel dumber and less of a man simultaneously. 

    “Okay, so you just touched the metal to there?”  I said, pointing meekly to the right half of the engine.

    “Yeah, just right there” he replied, pointing to an only slightly less general area. 

    This was an issue though that I felt I could definitely live with.  The second issue I’m not quite so sure.  He pointed out where there’s a slight leak in the power steering fluid.  That leaks down on top of some muffler unit which creates smoke.  “How bad does it smoke?”  I asked.

    “It smokes” he said, pretty emphatically. 

    I took her for a spin.  The breaks weren’t awful but they weren’t great.  That might not be too big of a problem because it takes its time reaching dangerous speeds.  In fact, that might be a good “junker quotient.”  What is it’s deceleration vs. acceleration ratio.  There was no popping or banging or clanking sounds.  There’s a little bit of a “wowowowowowowowo” sound but that’s about it.  The interior might best be described as “shitty.” 

    “Did it smoke?”  Dean asked when I returned.

    “Nope.”

    “No smoke?”  He was surprised.  He looked at the car for a brief second as if to say, “you fucked me again.”  Dean is a great character because he’s not eccentric, just highly readable.  He slowly recovered and explained that he’d put in some special anti-leak fluids into the power steering and maybe it worked.  He emphasized twice that the fluids were expensive.  It was one of the few times he made direct eye contact with me.  “Like fifteen dollars.”  Was he trying to get the price up to $365 I wondered?

    The final issue is that the tags on the car are either from ’07 or ’08, I don’t remember.  When I asked about it he said the cars registered it just doesn’t have the stickers because it hasn’t been smogged.  He got the car a year ago from a guy who thought it wouldn’t pass the smog, Dean told me, but that’s because it was smoking. 

    I told Dean I liked the car and had a few more to look at and that I was going to try and get something in the next day or two.  I also told him I might need to take it to a smog test place before I get it.  He seemed really defeated by that.  I went on to explain that the one thing I really wanted to avoid on this trip was the police.  I figured if I couldn’t talk man to man with him about engine parts maybe I could establish some bond with a brotha over the man.  He just stared at the car for a moment and then stammered, “It’ll smog... It really could smog.” 

    I walked away not sure whether Dean just was the kind of guy totally uncomfortable with sales of any kind or if he knew something I didn’t.  I like the car and its price but I wasn’t lying when I told Dean that I wanted to avoid the police at all costs on this trip.  I’ll have to find out the rules about how long you have with a car before the tags need to be updated (if being a new owner even matters) and I also want to find out about driving in another state with expired tags. 

    So put Dean’s car down as a definite maybe.

    After meeting with Dean I made my way to Echo Park to meet with a guy whose last name was Muscles.  The Cougar was parked on the street with its windows down and wrapped up engine parts in its front seat.  There were no license plates on the car.  There were three black cats hanging around.

    Muscles came down to meet me.  He was wearing jeans, flip flops, a coca-cola t-shirt, aviator sunglasses and his head was covered by a bandana.  Muscles had posted the Cougar on Craigslist with a price of $600 firm.  I wrote back explaining that I didn’t want to insult him but I’m doing a project that requires I not spend more than $500 on a car.  If he’d be open to that let me know.  Muscles responded:  sounds good.

    The man wrote like he spoke.

    I’d also learned more about Muscles.  I can only guess that he was in his early 30s (between the covered eyes and head, it wasn’t easy to gage.)  He wanted to be rid of he car by Friday because he was going into the hospital for a month.

    “Oh my God,”  I said.  “Are you... all right?”

    Muscles also has four DUIs. 

    This man was a rich source of curiosities but I was most interested in his experience with car auctions.  He told me he usually buys a few cars a week and resells them through Craigslist

    “So the car auctions  you go to, are they the ones listed on Craigslist?”  I asked.

    “No.  Those are all bullshit.”

    “So what car auctions do you go to?”  I asked.

    He put both hands to his head and lightly secured his bandana then looked directly to his left, gazing a thousand miles away, “I have my sources.” 

    “Okay, I get it.  But let’s say I’m in Oklahoma and I need something, do you have any advice?’   

    “I only know about California.”

    “I went on to tell him about a friend I had whose father went to an auto auction with the idea in mind that he’d pick up some good bargains but bid on nothing because he’d felt threatened by the criminal element who was there just to get their cars back from government seizure.  Muscles shook his head no to that.

    “Look, I’ve had it to me happen a few times and it sucks.  But once the government takes your car your fucked.  I’ve seen it at these auctions where a chick is there crying, ‘that’s my car, don’t bid on it’ but how are you going to tell three hundred people not to bid on a car.” 

    I’d also learned that Muscles was from Michigan which did not surprise me.  In fact, the friend I had whose father went to the auto auction is from Michigan.  He and everyone I’ve ever met from Michigan is odd.  I mean it too.  EVERYONE I’ve met from Michigan is odd.  It’s quite possible the state is filled with the highest percentage of “normal” people around and they’ve simply expelled all their oddballs to Los Angeles.  I look forward to checking that state out though for several reasons - not least of which is to gauge the oddball quotient. 

    Anyway Muscles seemed willing to give me license plates for the car and suggested that I just register the car in another state which might be a possibility.  As for the car itself I’m concerned about the windows because I may need to be sleeping in the car at some point and I don’t want to be in a position where I have to leave my belongings in a car - even in the trunk of a car - whose windows are open.  I also want to avoid this whole license plate issue.  Finally, there’s the possibility that Muscles committed a felony with the car and is getting rid of the car and laying low in a hospital for a month.     

    The car is still in the running though.  I definitely felt like I had the right attitude when I got behind its wheel.  There was something bad ass about the Cougar.  Maybe it was the tough looking tires, the V6 engine, the seats filthy with car grease - I don’t know.  The car is a tiger - all right - it’s a cougar - and it wants to chew on road.  I might just let it.