[NYNick]

I bought a muscle car once, 3000 miles away. It took me a few phone calls to the GTO Club guys all over the country, including the President, to find the right guy in California close enough to inspect the car.

Turns out the guy restored GTO's for a living, thought he might know the car, and was happy to take a drive to check it out, take pictures and even video the engine and sound. Charged me $100.

When he got back to me he basically said the car was so good, if I passed he was going to buy it...but only if I passed on it first. This BTW, was the same price as the Targa in this thread, but like 8 years ago.

People are mostly honest, so my glass is half full. If you do your homework when buying $30,000 cars, you should be fine. But you still gotta do the work.