Modern Vespa

At the risk of offending an NSM denizen, sometimes I see Scoot.net ads and wonder what people are thinking...

A Beater P200 frame and a box of parts for $1100? We've seen some nice original running and titled P200's for sale recently in the $1,500-2k range, so why would someone pay $1,100 for a beat up project scoot? I bought my project P200 (in better condition) for $300 on Craigslist.
http://scoot.net/classifieds/forsale.html?id=43441


A performance smallframe engine in pieces, needs some parts to complete, $1,000 plus shippping? Only needs bearings, seals, clutch parts, labor and a pipe to complete...I admit that I don't know much about performance smallframe engines, so maybe it's sticker shock?
http://scoot.net/classifieds/forsale.html?id=43437

Am I completely out of touch? (don't answer that.)

some people just dont know what the true value of what they are selling is. They might have paid $1100 for a basket of parts (because they were suckers) and think thye can get the same when selling it. Its also like the guy who has a rusty 89 Civic with $10,000 in parts in it and thinks he is going to get $10000 for a rusty half running Civic when in fact its worth $900... yeah I have seen that before as Im sure all of us have...

Considering I had a line on a complete Rally for a couple hundred bucks not you seem to be correct. It's summer, people get stupid.

Well, you have a point there. You'll always have more invested in a project than the project is actually worth, at least I have found that to be true with my own projects.

Some people think that what they spend is roughly what its worth.

I've spent over $1500-2000 on my smallframe engine. I don't really expect it to be worth more than $700 if I tried to sell it by itself.

If you knew the source on that smallie engine you'd know that you are buying from one of the best smallframe gurus out there - it will be a screamer. Just an FYI, not a criticism.

Hi John,

Sounds like you know what you are talking about, and I'll take your word for it. I guess my question would be...if he/she is a smallframe guru, why not order the seals, bearings and clutch kit and sell the motor as being complete, with work done by a smallframe guru? Then maybe someone would pop for the motor. As it is, it's an incomplete motor project for someone else to finish and he/she is not advertising/selling their expertise.

You're right of course, that put together would be more convincing. And without knowing the source, some folks won't get it.

I'm pretty sure he's been clearing out bikes and isn't looking to do a project to sell it but that's more of a guess than anything.

As with all things used the selling price and the asking price many times aren't the same. A study a while back said most times the seller will come down on average 30%. For the seller this means you have to ask about 30% more than you want to end up with what you want. People seem to feel they are getting a better buy when you ask $1500 and they buy it for $1000 over when you ask a $1000 they offer $750 and you say "no". There also tends to be value in doing something yourself. Many buyer would rather an untouched project that they get a slight discount over a redone one so they can say they know what they have, or know it's done right. When I was selling cars I would joke about there being a 'point of greatest return'. This was the point where the buyer would pay the most and you would have the least in it. It would come down to things like, putting new tires on a car didn't increase the value but cost a lot of money, carpet cleaning the seats didn't cost much but could net more buyers than I'm proud of. With a project just having it running could add thousands, even if the motor was shot. A fresh paint job may only bring up questions of quality of the body work.

It's a bunch of store bought parts without assembly. What does it matter who it is bought from?

Thats not a knock of whoever is selling it, but unless its actually built / assembled / ported by the person, it does not mean anything.

Totally agree. If the motor was done by a smallie gur but not finished then unless it's going to another guru all you have are some fancy parts.

I'd agree with you on the parts but there does appear to be some porting work on those cases, so there's at least some work been done.

I really have no skin in this one, I've only spoken to him on the phone. He's a top notch guy from my standpoint, helped me out with some free Lammy parts and helped convince me to keep my Lammy when I was ready to give up.

Parts are worth whatever the market says - if no one buys it I'm sure he'll drop the price.

This is what I always thought, but there are sellers on Ebay who have enamel legshield badges they're selling for 999,00 Euros, or a GS 160 exhaust for 599 GBP. It's fairly common to see on Ebay Italy. These items just sit there for months and months unbid. That I don't understand.

Yeah, I don't get that approach at all. It's like on Amazon where you find people list books or CD's used, tons of reasonably priced ones, but some guy has his copy for $300. What's up with that?