Ok, so here's the full story on the 97 Silver. (Ironically, I would not have possession of it had I not gotten the Monte Carlo Blue first.)
Background: like many of you, I was smitten by the NSX the first time I saw a picture of one. I was still in high school and couldn't afford the real thing, so I saved up my newspaper route money and lovingly built a 1/24th scale model. I even painted the roof black to make it match the NA1 NSX coupe. It was my first NSX and I still have it to this day. I loved the silver/black color combo and always wanted one. But alas it wasn't meant to be, as I found a pristine red/black 91 that I couldn't pass up on in 2002.
Here's a
drawing of one I did in high school. I was
seriously infatuated with this car.
Anyway, when I was ready to get back into the market and seriously kicked my search into gear last year,
I was looking for a silver car. As some of you may be aware, I encountered trouble securing a silver specimen, so when I saw my Monte Carlo Blue NSX-T was available, I pounced on it.
As I mentioned in my
MCB thread, I chanced upon my neighbor's silver 97 NSX as I was taking the blue sled home. My neighbor had purchased the car in 2005 with 34k miles, and only had 37k miles on the odo when I saw it.
He's more of a Porsche guy, and mentioned casually that he was thinking about selling the NSX. I didn't take him seriously of course, but we exchanged contact info as he had expressed interest in participating in future drives.
Imagine my surprise when he called me out of the blue about a week & half ago (while I was on vacation in Hawaii with my brother, talk about timing) to tell me that he was serious about selling his NSX, and was ready to place an ad in Autotrader and eBay, but wanted to check with me first to see if I might be interested in it. Perhaps it was the onset of my mid-life crisis, but there was little hesitation that I wanted it. My mind raced into overdrive trying to figure out how I could get
another NSX after draining my bank account just acquiring one. I knew that
Penfed offered an extremely attractive auto loan financing program, so I ran the numbers and determined that I could afford the payments. However my neighbor seemed to be in a hurry to sell his NSX, so I asked around and got a short term loan through one of my best friends to complete the deal.
I know I am an extremely lucky guy to be able to realize my dream of owning two awesome NSXs, and very fortunate to have some really good friends both within and outside the NSX community. Just a month ago I was feeling a little bummed about entering my 40s without an NSX in my stable. Now I feel like I'm on top of the world. Strange how a car can do that, but then again the NSX isn't just any car. :smile:
To those of you still searching for your NSX, keep looking and don't give up! Become active in the community and try to make connections; I was able to get both my NSXs because I had established rapport with the sellers. I kept striking out with sellers who didn't know me from adam, and didn't give a rat's ass about selling their NSX to someone else for a buck more. Not to mention the NSX community is one of the greatest ones I know, and once you become established you'll find people willing to help you out in whatever way they can. Good luck!