The Camaro Club (UK)

We need some help !! Due to a car pulling out of a side street in to the side of the car it has been written of by insurers.

The car is a 1980 Camaro with a 5.7 V8 engine and automatic transmission. It has a metallic flake paint job and was in fair to good condition. It has T tops.

Insurers have offered £1,000 which is a pain. Has anyone bought or sold a similar car recently or has any old Ebay results lurking on their pc.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Firstly, never accept the first offer, ever.

Next, gather evidence to show how much you spent, what you paid for it, other similar car valuations and classified and eBay links. If you do their job for them they will find it difficult to resist an increased offer. What are you hoping for by the way ?

I've been through all this with an old VW and ended up not only stripping the car of all expensive parts but making a profit on what remained. I highlighted the fact that I'd saved them a fortune in storage costs because I managed to get the car to my parents driveway myself (it still drove fine, testament to VW build strength) and that I was car-less and had to hire my own car (the courtesy car only lasted 2 weeks).

It took 18 months before it was finally sorted but like I said, I did all their work for them including computer simulations of what actually happened in my case. I had photos at the scene and even got a witness.

Are you going to buy it back, restore it or use it for parts ? Just check out sites like www.carandclassic.co.uk & www.classiccarsforsale.co.uk for a price guide.

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1993 Chevrolet Camaro - Buck

Thanks for the info.
I do not think liability will be an issue. The other car in question carried on out into the road and having hit the camaro went on into the front garden of the house opposite.

As Knight Watchman says, don't accept their first offer, the insurance company will always come in with a low price & then work to get a payment that's acceptable to both parties. Did you have an agreed value policy? have you pics of how the car was before it was damaged? I might be speaking out of term here, but maybe Tim Bowles (Topcat on here) can write an appraisal for the value of the car as he's the head of the "Classic Camaro Club". Insurance companies tend to listen to valuations/appraisals from "model specific" car clubs. Send them copies of adverts from Ebay, (even US ebay as it'd show the value /cost to import another matching yours), magazines & maybe try to see if American car dealers would give an appraisal, but it'd probably cost for you to do this, but it all helps the cause.

I was involved with insurance companies for 30 years, on a daily basis when I owned my bodyshop, they will eventually offer you a larger payment once you prove the value to replace the car or they will offer the car back to you as salvage plus a payment to cover potential repairs. "He who shouts loudest gets seen to first" in insurance circles, in other words, get the name of the insurance engineer that's dealing with the case & keep him informed as to what you require as a payment & to what you're doing to prove the true value of your car. Just stay calm, friendly, but firm with him & you should do fine. His job is to save the insurance company money after all, but if you had an agreed value then that really will help your cause. Hope that helps, cheers.....Nige

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Too much power...not enough hands!!