Cars of Technology

or What’s My Car Actually  Worth? Appraisals are often triggered by some type of transaction you didn’t expect. You’re getting a divorce and her lawyers are disputing your claim that the car is only worth a few thousand dollars. Or, your insurance company is questioning the estimate for repairing your car. Remember when you donated your car to that museum? Now the IRS is asking for more documentation. All of these things will more than likely involve a lawyer and in many cases a judge. Will your appraisal hold up in an arbitration hearing or in court? You have to assume that  the value of the vehicle in your appraisal report will be disputed in an arbitration or a court room. The IRS will look at the competency of your appraiser to ensure that you’re not overstating the value of the donated property . The best way to minimize any problem is to hire a professional appraiser who follows the guidelines in IRS Publication 546 “Determining the Value of Donated Property.”  The ...

We all love driving events. We like them so much that we spend an inordinate amount of money trying to make our car go faster.  There is also a low budget approach to being faster. Let’s make the driver faster. Think about your fitness program.  Training outside the car will make you faster in the car. Think about how much time you spend working on your car. It may be time to think about working on you. Are you the same person who buys titanium bolts to save weight and then eats a whole pizza for lunch?  Your Fitness Program: You don't need strength to drive your autocross or track car. You need to be in peak physical condition for a relatively small amount of time. Brad Sikes works with NASCAR’s Kevin Harvick and he puts the emphasis on cardio training. He believes you should be doing short bursts of high intensity exercise where you reach your maximum heart rate. Once you reach your goal you should then back off to let your body recover. If you think of a roller coaster...

Remember when you started to rebuild your Porsche? It’s still under construction out in your garage and you’ve let the registration and insurance lapse to save a little money. Do you realize that the car and all those expensive parts in the garage are not insured? If your garage catches fire, your homeowner’s insurance will not cover an unregistered vehicle. Homeowner’s insurance does not cover your Porsche project unless you have a specific rider in the policy for that specific car. A basic rule in the insurance industry is, “If we don’t know about it, it’s not insured.” Most classic car insurance companies offer something called “Project Car” Insurance or “Vehicle under Construction” insurance. The premiums are usually less than $100 a year. The actual cost depends on the value of the car and the parts stored on the shelves. The exact cost of a policy is something you have to discuss with your agent. NCM Insurance (http://ncminsurance.com) offers a policy that has an automatic va...

A basic charter for any museum is to conserve the objects placed in their care. The Simeone Museum in Philadelphia (www.simeonemuseum.org) believes that certain cars because of their place in history are deserving of the term "historically important". These cars are like fine buildings and should be restricted from changes in their originality.   How does that apply to you? Do you, as an individual, really have any responsibility for conserving or preserving the car in your garage? Should the car in your garage be preserved? Or, does it require a restoration? Preservation: The essence of preservation is stabilization. Preservation is an effort to decrease the rate of deterioration. It involves maintaining the condition of the car.  You should also drive the car on a regular basis. The engine seals and brake components need to be used on a regular basis.  Letting a car sit idle for long periods of time can result in significant damage to a variety of parts. Not drivin...

The car is a 1973.5 911T and this is its story. I’ve owned this car for twenty-six years. A friend owned it for a few years before me and I always told him that I would buy it one day when decided to sell it. Then one afternoon in 1990 I got a call. “I’m bringing your 911 over – get your checkbook out.” At the time I was working with European Car magazine. Greg Brown and I decided that this 911 should become a magazine project car. Over the next several years I wrote a series of articles and participated in a number of driving events with the car. I even talked Derek Bell into testing the car for me once we finished all the modifications.  In the past twenty-six years this 911 has been both a daily driver and a track car. This car has never been stock since I’ve owned it. One of the early owners of this car removed the CIS fuel injection system. I have no intention of finding a replacement CIS. Life is too short for that. The Webers work just fine and the car has a lot of low-end t...