Posting for David Allen:
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I thought I’d share my two NSX buying experiences with everyone – especially since the first one is a real doozie.
It was spring of ’96 if I recall – I was ready to purchase a used NSX (I had a TT Supra at that time). I wanted to purchase from a private party, so I started contacting NSX owners in the Seattle area. That’s where I befriended Lloyd Woodall, a really cool guy who lived 5 minutes from me who had a beautiful ’92 with Comptech mods (no SC) and around 24K miles. He wasn’t interested in selling his car, but he said he would help me in looking at an NSX I was interested in and trying to track down a buyer. So I began the hunt – and nothing came up.
Finally, I broke down and contacted Acura of Seattle (Southcenter). That’s where I met Joe Gerassi. He said he would find me the car I wanted for the price I wanted (I could get anything under $50K). Well, weeks went by, and Joe kept on telling me that ‘a car should be in next week – red/black like you requested – I think it’s a ’92 with 30K miles. For weeks he continued to pull this – it was at that time I sensed that something was up, so I started making follow-up calls based on what he was telling me (like the car was coming from a dealer in San Diego, etc). Well, I found out that nothing was happening anywhere. So, I made a call to Joe and asked him what was going on. At first he denied the issues, but I told him “I talked with that dealership – they said they never had the car you mentioned nor never planned on shipping anything here. How do you explain that?” Of course he got all defensive; I then told him that I didn’t appreciate his lying to me, nor the fact that he was doing it to try to keep me from shopping elsewhere (which is exactly what he was doing). It was then that he went off on me, and told me that he had no problem lying to me to keep me ‘hooked’ to them. He ended up hanging up on me.
A day later, I wrote a nice letter to the owner of Acura of Seattle. Joe was fired the next week
Well, Lloyd couldn’t believe the hell I was going through trying to find the right car, so he finally told me that he would sell me his car – it was hurting his neck anyway (he was in a bad accident a few years ago – not in the NSX tho). So, I purchased my first ’92 NSX from Lloyd for $45,000. The car was in excellent shape, and I was happy as a clam – I finally had my dream car. Only problem I ever had with it was the snap-ring issue (a completely different story – ugh).
Unfortunately, I had to sell my first NSX roughly 3.5 years later when I was starting my new company – I sold it for $42,500 (had around 40K miles if I recall).
Almost a year later, I was finally in a position to buy another NSX. I ended up buying my new ’00 Silverstone from Acura of Scottsdale. At that time there were only 2-3 left on the west coast, and the only dealer that would sell theirs to another dealership was in Portland. So, Acura of Scottsdale purchased me a ticket to the dealer in Portland where I took delivery of my new baby (and had to shell out cash to buy floor mats – how stupid is that?) and proceeded to drive it back to Phoenix. Ahhhh – one of the best trips in my life.
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