Wife, kids, my parents and I all took a trip to inspect the Rolls Royce Silver Shadow II that is for sale for $29,000 ono. It's a nice car and seems to be running OK, but there were a few touched up spots on the paintwork, the air con needs regassing (which the seller, who's a mechanic offered to include in the sale price), and there was something a bit fishy about the car's alleged history. The owner claimed that the odometer reading of 61,500 km was legit, and it is possible for a 28 year old car to have that low mileage if it's been kept in garage and just used once or twice a month. But, he also claimed that it had been produced for sale in Australia (it has an Australian compliance plate), but the service log book that comes with car shows the first 40,000 km of servicing was done in the UK, prior to 1985. Then there is a gap of almost twenty years in the service records until the current owner bought it in 2003. The car allegedly only travelled 20,000 km in that intervening period while being used as a wedding reception car. It's possible for the mileage to have been that low if it was only used once a month for a wedding or two, but I would have expected the service log book to have been maintained while it was used as a reception hire car.
The running costs of the car would be high (it has twin SU carbys that would help fuel efficiency, but it would still probably use a full tank of gas, 103L, each week. Since it was designed to use leaded petrol it would run best on 'super' unleaded, which will add another 20% or so to the cost of fuel compared to regular ULP. Regular servicing should only cost around $500 pa, but if anything went seriously wrong it could cost a small fortune to repair.
The Rolls would be a sumptuous ride to and from work each day, but as my workplace is located in an inner city suburb with small winding streets and limited parking spaces close to work, it would be a pain to find a good parking place every morning. I'd also have to clear out the garage at home so it could be parked securely at night - currently the garage is used to store gym and gardening equipment and the Festiva just sits outside under the car port at night.
Anyhow, I'm in no rush to buy a "new" car just yet, so I'll think about it for another year to two. The price of RR Silver Shadows won't be going up in the meantime, and it will be interesting to see how the price of petrol changes over the next couple of years.
Copyright Enough Wealth 2007
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