Buying and Selling an Avanti using AOAI

[ronmanfredi]

Selling an Avanti can be challenging for many and sometimes an interested buyer never sees a car that is for sale.  Since these cars are being sold through fragmented methods throughout the country, one thought is to create a marketplace connected to the AOAI website (not forums) to bring sellers and buyers together to facilitate the selling and purchase of these cars.  While this would take quite a bit of effort and time to get started, it could end up benefitting all concerned.  Besides the back-end programming of the website, we would need to contact anyone who is selling an Avanti and encourage them to list their car with AOAI.  This includes individuals, used car dealers and national classic car dealers. A thought to go along with this is to charge a nominal fee for the listing.  Just thinking out loud this could be a simple $25 fee paid to AOAI as a basic 12-month sales membership for a single car sale, or a higher $$ multicar fee for a dealer who could list as many Avanti's as he had for sale over a period of a year. These low-cost memberships would keep AOAI as a non-profit automobile club yet provide some income to offset the ever-rising cost of doing business.

In addition, what if some of you were interested in becoming a paid expert advisor for a buyer who is looking at a car but needs help due to a lack of knowledge?  The advisor would charge a fee to discuss the vehicles condition, review photos and make suggestions as to what the buyer should do next.  On the reverse side, a seller could ask the advisor for help as well. The advisor would have a profile on the site with fees advertised and the ability to take internet payments such as Zelle, Venmo, Cash App, etc.

I am interested in positive thoughts and comments from you about how this could work in your mind and ideas not mentioned here.  I know all about the amount of work and time that this would take and about the number of sellers who wouldn't want to spend the time or money to participate.  So please, if this is not of any interest to you, then thanks for reading.

One more thing to support this.  I have worked for nearly 18 months trying to locate the owners of 2001-2007 Avanti's.  In this journey, I have personally contacted every owner of these cars that we have found and had really good communication with them by phone or email.  The last 2 that I found this year are widows who own these cars and would like to sell them.  I mentioned the AOAI magazine and how they could use it to advertise their car for up to a year for free by joining AOAI for a year.  Or they can pay AOAI $30 plus $15 a photo to list the car in the magazine for 2 issues. (this was the pricing that Lew provided on my inquiry).  Within a couple of weeks, the 2 women became members.  It seems to me that this is an opportunity here.  

 

 

[aardvark]

KISS Method.

Me personally I've bought 2 Avanti's right off this sites "For Sale" section. It's cost the Sellers $0.oo. Take that as You will. The 2 Avantis are the 2002 and the 1973 (which is listed now).

On a different front I'm on a (semi) popular Porsche 928 site... I've had the same car up "For Sale" 2 separate times.. Both times there have been ''lookers'' (35-40 views) but I've never had so much as a comment or question..So why would I use such a source of that manner  to sell an item?  From a Buyers point of view, It's an easy way to find a good priced vehicle... since no one else reacts to the ad's. I suspect the same happens here.. No serious lookers.. But I really don't know that to be true.

Seems research needs to be done to track effectiveness.

Edited Saturday at 04:34 AM by aardvark

[Skip Lackie]

People who buy and sell vehicles regularly will be sensitive to the cost of a listing. Widows and/or geezers like me who are just considering thinning out their herd of vehicles won't care much about whether the fee is $25 or $100 -- they just want to get rid of the car.

[psdenno]

11 hours ago, ronmanfredi said:

I am interested in positive thoughts and comments from you about how this could work..........

 

 

I feel this idea goes beyond the scope of the Avanti forum.  There are already numerous established venues available for selling an Avanti.  Turning it into a business venture and monetizing a "Cars for Sale" aspect that already exists on the forum is a step backward.  

[ronmanfredi]

Just now, psdenno said:

I feel this idea goes beyond the scope of the Avanti forum.  There are already numerous established venues available for selling an Avanti.  Turning it into a business venture and monetizing a "Cars for Sale" aspect that already exists on the forum is a step backward.  

The goal would be to create the selling page on the AOAI website, not this Forum.

[ronmanfredi]

8 hours ago, aardvark said:

KISS Method.

Me personally I've bought 2 Avanti's right off this sites "For Sale" section. It's cost the Sellers $0.oo. Take that as You will. The 2 Avantis are the 2002 and the 1973 (which is listed now).

On a different front I'm on a (semi) popular Porsche 928 site... I've had the same car up "For Sale" 2 separate times.. Both times there have been ''lookers'' (35-40 views) but I've never had so much as a comment or question..So why would I use such a source of that manner  to sell an item?  From a Buyers point of view, It's an easy way to find a good priced vehicle... since no one else reacts to the ad's. I suspect the same happens here.. No serious lookers.. But I really don't know that to be true.

Seems research needs to be done to track effectiveness.

Yes, I agree.  In a few conversations that I have had with those who listed their cars in the AOAI magazine and this forum, they were successful in selling their car without going to Facebook or a dealer.  My thoughts are that AOAI members are a focused group of individuals who either are interested in their next car or may know someone who is interested, so it makes sense for anyone who wants to sell their car to offer it in this environment. My recent experience with selling the 89 thru Gateway Classic cars was that there were many interested calls from lookers or potential buyers who didn't know what an Avanti was.  The gentleman who bought the car didn't know either, his wife just loved the look. 

[psdenno]

6 minutes ago, ronmanfredi said:

The goal would be to create the selling page on the AOAI website, not this Forum.

Regardless of where the suggested page would be posted, it duplicates an existing "Cars for Sale" AOAI forum feature and monetizes the process.  Having two features doing the same thing (one free, one pay a fee) on the AOAI site makes no sense to me.  Dropping the free sale forum and adding a pay as you go feature is an idea, just not a good one.

[aardvark]

If I had to pay to be on this ''For Sale ''section, I would likely opt out. 

Yes, I bought 2 vehicles off of the site , but I seem to be the exception rather than the rule,

How many Avanti owners would do the same? Unknown.

Edited Saturday at 01:29 PM by aardvark

[ronmanfredi]

6 minutes ago, aardvark said:

If I had to pay to be on this ''For Sale ''section, I would likely opt out. 

Yes, I bought 2 vehicles off of the site , but I seem to be the exception rather than the rule,

How many Avanti owners would do the same? Unknown.

If you are an AOAI member, then there wouldn't be any cost.  The fee would be for non members.

[ronmanfredi]

28 minutes ago, psdenno said:

Regardless of where the suggested page would be posted, it duplicates an existing "Cars for Sale" AOAI forum feature and monetizes the process.  Having two features doing the same thing (one free, one pay a fee) on the AOAI site makes no sense to me.  Dropping the free sale forum and adding a pay as you go feature is an idea, just not a good one.

The forums would lose the Cars for Sale section.  The fee would only be for sellers that are not members.  The fee would make them members to sell the car(s).  The fee would go to supporting the AOAI organization. 

[aardvark]

So the For Sale section disappears?    What replaces it?

Edited Saturday at 02:02 PM by aardvark

[ronmanfredi]

25 minutes ago, aardvark said:

So the For Sale section disappears?    What replaces it?

My thoughts would be to move it to the AOAI main website.  There is a long game here.  It's not just about car and parts sales, it's about bringing new members into the organization which is desperately needed.  Facebook / Instagram will be one tool.  The other is to educate car owners about the Avanti Automobile through those platforms and the website.  I'm willing to spend my own money on Facebook ads to promote these sites and get some new people interested.   

[mfg]

1 hour ago, ronmanfredi said:

My thoughts would be to move it to the AOAI main website.  There is a long game here.  It's not just about car and parts sales, it's about bringing new members into the organization which is desperately needed.  Facebook / Instagram will be one tool.  The other is to educate car owners about the Avanti Automobile through those platforms and the website.  I'm willing to spend my own money on Facebook ads to promote these sites and get some new people interested.   

I’m not sure if this is a good idea or not. I’m definitely a dinosaur when it comes to computers. However, I do compliment you for attempting to advance the AOAI.

I tried to do the same several years ago by starting the ‘Avanti Trivia’ section… which turned out to be a moderate success!

Before trivia started up, this forum was lucky to get one or two posts a week.. and that was on a GOOD week!

So, best of luck with your AOAI club endeavors…. Good group of people here!…. Ed

[aardvark]

Sorry Ron. I don't use the other site,,, just the Avanti stuff.

 

[psdenno]

2 hours ago, mfg said:

I’m not sure if this is a good idea or not. I’m definitely a dinosaur when it comes to computers. However, I do compliment you for attempting to advance the AOAI.

I tried to do the same several years ago by starting the ‘Avanti Trivia’ section… which turned out to be a moderate success!

Before trivia started up, this forum was lucky to get one or two posts a week.. and that was on a GOOD week!

So, best of luck with your AOAI club endeavors…. Good group of people here!…. Ed

MFG, the Trivia sub-forum was a great idea and keeps folks checking back frequently.  Ideally, after they check Trivia, they scroll through a few other sub-forums to see what's new.  We had a trivia quiz at the recent Palm Springs Avanti meet.  I should post some of the questions.

[psdenno]

4 hours ago, ronmanfredi said:

My thoughts would be to move it to the AOAI main website.  There is a long game here.  It's not just about car and parts sales, it's about bringing new members into the organization which is desperately needed.  Facebook / Instagram will be one tool.  The other is to educate car owners about the Avanti Automobile through those platforms and the website.  I'm willing to spend my own money on Facebook ads to promote these sites and get some new people interested.   

Drawing in new members is probably more effectively accomplished when Avanti owners take their cars to shows or just park them in the driveway to allow the public to become familiar with the car.  When owners sell an Avanti, telling the new owner about the AOAI also plants the membership seed.  As with other vintage car clubs I belong to, owners are aging out and younger car enthusiasts are not replacing them.   Hence the membership decline.  Look at pictures taken at any Avanti gathering.  All you see are old people.

When I started attending local Avanti events back in the 1970s, most of the attendees were about my age -  people like Ed Reynolds and John Meyer.  Now, I'm almost 50 years older and most of the people I met at the recent Palm Springs event were about my age.  We're an aging group and need to make the Avanti relevant to a younger population.

[mfg]

30 minutes ago, psdenno said:

MFG, the Trivia sub-forum was a great idea and keeps folks checking back frequently.  Ideally, after they check Trivia, they scroll through a few other sub-forums to see what's new.  We had a trivia quiz at the recent Palm Springs Avanti meet.  I should post some of the questions.

Thanks very much …It’s been fun, and, I’LL GET BACK WITH IT!!

[ronmanfredi]

13 minutes ago, psdenno said:

Drawing in new members is probably more effectively accomplished when Avanti owners take their cars to shows or just park them in the driveway to allow the public to become familiar with the car.  When owners sell an Avanti, telling the new owner about the AOAI also plants the membership seed.  As with other vintage car clubs I belong to, owners are aging out and younger car enthusiasts are not replacing them.   Hence the membership decline.  Look at pictures taken at any Avanti gathering.  All you see are old people.

When I started attending local Avanti events back in the 1970s, most of the attendees were about my age -  people like Ed Reynolds and John Meyer.  Now, I'm almost 50 years older and most of the people I met at the recent Palm Springs event were about my age.  We're an aging group and need to make the Avanti relevant to a younger population.

You are right on with your assessment.  I turned 73 today and have been a gear head all of my adult life.  Todays 20s-40s adults usually don't know a lot about Avanti cars due to a lack of exposure.  Like you, we attend at least 2 car shows a month and repeatedly spend the entire time talking about our 06 and the R3 that I'm building.  When we had our 82 and 89, we found the same thing happening.  Yet the reach isn't where it needs to be and the decline continues.  As a test, I'm going to invest some money and time into a social media blitz to see what can be accomplished with that.  Upgrades to website (with the Board of Directors approval) and the Forums (which is mostly done) are being done with the need to "grow the business".  We need to think outside of the box in order to do this.  

[ronmanfredi]

1 hour ago, aardvark said:

Sorry Ron. I don't use the other site,,, just the Avanti stuff.

 

The other site is only Avanti stuff.  Maybe someday it'll be worth taking a look at.

[Bob Preston]

My $.02 is that it would be a convenient resource to have most or all For Sale Avantis listed in one place. That said, this website/forum has a limited number of members and those members probably already own an Avanti or two. Put simply, an ad placed here isn’t going to reach the broad market of classic car buyers, so a seller would likely list the car elsewhere if possible. 
 

With some, if not all consignment dealers, part of the agreement is that the car can’t be listed elsewhere and if you take the car back before the end of the contract you’ll have to pay the consignment fee. Perhaps a way around that conundrum would be to compile a list of cars for sale on this website and provide links to where they are listed. A sticky thread at the top of the Avanti’s For Sale section might do the trick. 
 

Normally I’d say grown men who have chosen to be involved in the classic car hobby shouldn’t whine about a $25-100 fee to list a car for sale. Given the tiny audience that an ad placed on this website would reach, it may be a valid complaint. 

[ronmanfredi]

4 hours ago, Bob Preston said:

My $.02 is that it would be a convenient resource to have most or all For Sale Avantis listed in one place. That said, this website/forum has a limited number of members and those members probably already own an Avanti or two. Put simply, an ad placed here isn’t going to reach the broad market of classic car buyers, so a seller would likely list the car elsewhere if possible. 
 

With some, if not all consignment dealers, part of the agreement is that the car can’t be listed elsewhere and if you take the car back before the end of the contract you’ll have to pay the consignment fee. Perhaps a way around that conundrum would be to compile a list of cars for sale on this website and provide links to where they are listed. A sticky thread at the top of the Avanti’s For Sale section might do the trick. 
 

Normally I’d say grown men who have chosen to be involved in the classic car hobby shouldn’t whine about a $25-100 fee to list a car for sale. Given the tiny audience that an ad placed on this website would reach, it may be a valid complaint. 

Good ideas.  I recently did a consignment with Gateway who sold the car and yes, I couldn't sell it during the contract period without them.  My thoughts were to get the consignment dealer to list the cars with us in addition to the other methods that they use and get a fee for AOAI.  Gateway uses several sites to list their cars already so I don't know if they would pay a small fee to add us, it's just a possibility. 

Providing links to other sales would be good for the users of this site, it just wouldn't bring in new members.  Thoughts continue!

[Bob Preston]

On 5/3/2026 at 12:55 PM, ronmanfredi said:

Providing links to other sales would be good for the users of this site, it just wouldn't bring in new members. 

I’m not following how a section listing cars for sale might bring in new members. Realistically, membership is going to be limited by the number of current or previous Avanti owners and that isn’t a huge number. It is after all an Avanti Owners Association. 
 

I was a member of what was once called the Family Motor Coach Association. It used to be an exclusive association of Motor Coach owners, as the name implies. Well, exclusive became insensitive, so the leaders decided to allow owners of towable RV’s join. The back story is that membership was declining because it’s mosly old codgers who own Motorhomes. I suggested they change the name to the Family RV Association, but they opted to make it just FMCA. Probably saved a fortune on stationary. 
 

I also tried to join a Sunbeam Tiger Association to gain more information about the car, but apparently you have to actually own one to join. That must be a pretty small group. 

[ronmanfredi]

11 hours ago, Bob Preston said:

I’m not following how a section listing cars for sale might bring in new members. Realistically, membership is going to be limited by the number of current or previous Avanti owners and that isn’t a huge number. It is after all an Avanti Owners Association. 
 

I was a member of what was once called the Family Motor Coach Association. It used to be an exclusive association of Motor Coach owners, as the name implies. Well, exclusive became insensitive, so the leaders decided to allow owners of towable RV’s join. The back story is that membership was declining because it’s mosly old codgers who own Motorhomes. I suggested they change the name to the Family RV Association, but they opted to make it just FMCA. Probably saved a fortune on stationary. 
 

I also tried to join a Sunbeam Tiger Association to gain more information about the car, but apparently you have to actually own one to join. That must be a pretty small group. 

We currently have single to muti-year AOAI memberships available.  With those, you can sell your car in the AOAI magazine or use the forum section without additional costs.  For those who are not members, they can place an ad only in the magazine with a photo for around $45. The benefit to offering a car to AOAI members through these methods is that most cars actually sell to a member or someone that they know (a focused buyer group).

If we offered a membership that is focused on car sales then that creates additional income for AOAI.  As a member, the individual or business, has the option to use the website and forums also. For the seller the main benefit is to put their car in front of a focused group. 

There are cars that are for sale on Facebook for several months that I watch regularly.  Had they been easily seen by AOAI members, there is a strong chance that the car would sell much faster.

Development of this process would be slow and take quite a bit of time and effort, yet if it worked then both AOAI, buyers and sellers would benefit. This could also give us the new car owners to contact for new memberships.   

[Bob Preston]

It seems like a convoluted way to increase membership and raise revenue. Why not just raise the membership fee by $10-15? What is the number of current members? 

The 2 widows that joined to sell their cars aren’t likely, in my opinion, to renew their membership. Anyone who joins to sell a car would be selling into the focused group who are probably already members, so the new owner would not be a new member, and the seller might not renew after the sale. 
 

I’ve seen Avantis that are for sale on Hemmings, Classic.com, and numerous other sites for months. That’s a good indicator that the price is too high. I can’t be certain but it’s likely that those sites get much more traffic that this site, particularly the For Sale section. 
 

I’m not trying to be your rain cloud. It just seems that if an effort is going to be made to achieve your stated goal, we might see more productive results by informing non-member owners of the benefits of membership through direct contact, as you’ve done, or by attending car shows and approaching Avanti owners to ask if they are members. That is also a lot of work, but if we can get as many members as possible to take some of those steps we could increase the membership numbers. That’s would provide a steady flow of revenue as long as those members renew each year. Revenue from ad placement on the other hand would be variable. 

Edited 3 hours ago by Bob Preston

[ronmanfredi]

2 hours ago, Bob Preston said:

It seems like a convoluted way to increase membership and raise revenue. Why not just raise the membership fee by $10-15? What is the number of current members? 

The 2 widows that joined to sell their cars aren’t likely, in my opinion, to renew their membership. Anyone who joins to sell a car would be selling into the focused group who are probably already members, so the new owner would not be a new member, and the seller might not renew after the sale. 
 

I’ve seen Avantis that are for sale on Hemmings, Classic.com, and numerous other sites for months. That’s a good indicator that the price is too high. I can’t be certain but it’s likely that those sites get much more traffic that this site, particularly the For Sale section. 
 

I’m not trying to be your rain cloud. It just seems that if an effort is going to be made to achieve your stated goal, we might see more productive results by informing non-member owners of the benefits of membership through direct contact, as you’ve done, or by attending car shows and approaching Avanti owners to ask if they are members. That is also a lot of work, but if we can get as many members as possible to take some of those steps we could increase the membership numbers. That’s would provide a steady flow of revenue as long as those members renew each year. Revenue from ad placement on the other hand would be variable. 

Raising the price of membership is always a possibility but there are already complaints about the price being too high already.  

Of the 2 women I mentioned, one still hasn't posted her car yet and the other decided not to sell instead enjoying it more, we stay in contact on Facebook.  

Most of the car prices you are mentioning are way high and that's why they haven't sold.  Part of the problem is the average 15% markup that some of the sites have. 

My thoughts on creating an Avanti online marketplace is to grow the AOAI business using different tools that currently aren't being used.  The ideas that you mentioned are right on and a lot of it is already happening. Avanti owners whose membership expired are being contacted to see if they will sign up again. 

There seems to be a huge resistance to change here, not only about this topic but change of the forums platform etc.  It's all part of the age group of AOAI / Forum members.  I also participate with another vehicle group of which the majority are much younger than my 73 years.  New ideas come almost weekly across the country.  Membership with those organizations is growing at the exponential rate which is absolutely incredible.  The question is, can we make the changes needed to increase public knowledge of the Avanti car and can we provide more benefits to the owners?  If we can figure that out, then the business should grow.