Former car salesman Duncan Chappell takes the reins of our 911 for 2011 bid

Cast your mind back to the last issue and you’ll remember our 911 for 2011 update saw us post a small profit off the back of three car sales.

As the former car salesman of the Car Dealer team I knew there had to be more profit out there than that, so this month I took the lead in our challenge to turn £0 into a Porsche for charity.

I know every penny really does help, especially for BEN, our nominated charity, so I needed a plan. Number one was to get the right cars – then get them fixed up and sold quick. Easy. Well, at least that’s what you’d think, but as the used car dealers among you probably already know, times are tough out there at the moment.

What was soon clear was that there’s a real battle raging over decent used stock – and it seems our charity challenge has strolled right into the middle of it.

‘I always liked his sense of humour, but saying we could ‘double our money on it’ was one of his better one-liners.’

In just a couple of months, the contacts and dealers that were helping us had changed their tact completely. Michael Nobes, Hyundai star dealer down here on the south coast, still has £900 of BEN’s money which was left over after we chopped in our Citroen with him for the aforementioned three cars. Problem was, when we went back to spend that £900 all the trade cars we fancied were out of our price range.

Nobes’ used car manager had obviously been tasked with turning over some serious margin and the Lexus LS400 and Subaru Impreza which we wanted were both asking retail money. In fact, in one case he wanted over retail cash – and remember we’re trying to turn a profit on these cars, not lose BEN money…

Nobes’ ‘part exchange manager’ said his V-plate Subaru Impreza Estate was worth £2k, arguing that he could get that kind of money for it ‘all day long’. We’d already checked Auto Trader and seen they were going for around the £1,200 mark.

Even though it was a tidy, 70k WRX model, it seemed well over priced and we left it well alone. I decided to head down to my old stomping ground, Ridgeway Portsmouth, where my old boss offered me a Dodge Ram 3500 LPG conversion. I always liked Kevin Christmas’ sense of humour, but saying we could ‘double our money on it’ was one of his better one-liners.

The general reason for the lack of cars for us was that dealers are holding on to stock, because they really need it – now more than ever. We spent a day visiting dealers in the blazing sun feeling like lost souls. Dejected and out of our previous luck, we headed back to the office empty-handed.

The thing is, we were kind of thinking we could rock up to one of our contacts’ forecourts, have a nice coffee and mull over the brace of cheap, low-mileage part ex’s that they had to choose from. The realisation is those days are long gone. Everyone is fighting over every decent car out there that’s got even a few hundred quid profit in them while the real snotters end up down the auction.

I suppose, with the money we have, we could try and find a cheap, high mileage 996. But it will be in a horrid pearl green with baby poo interior. And that won’t sell for a profit which is, of course, the whole idea!

We need at least £2k from our next step to get the kind of porker we’ve been hoping for. And we need it quick! 996s are on the rise in price, still nowhere near the 964 or 993, but still moving in the wrong direction for our feature.

Next month, hopefully we’ll have some news. We might try and squeeze some manufacturer contacts for something or butter up some dealers – if you’ve got something you think would suit us please let us know (contact details here)! We keep asking in the office whether any of us can imagine doing this for a living? We tip our cap to you Mr Dealer. We can’t.

THE STORY SO FAR…