phase III top FOR-SALE

there is a ebay sale for a top that does NOT seem to meet the criteria of a 1993 top.

BUYER BEWARE

review the facts:
http://www.cadillacforum.com/m_6551/tm.htm


here is the subject top:


ebay item 230121946043

The seller ended this listing early because of an error in the listing.
rbilafer1221

Bidder 4 Cancelled: US $1,050.00
Explanation: The seller ended the listing early and cancelled all bids. Bid: Apr-29-07 08:00:08 PDT
Cancelled: May-02-07 12:29:24 PDT View

Bidder 1 Cancelled: US $750.00
Explanation: The seller ended the listing early and cancelled all bids. Bid: Apr-25-07 04:50:11 PDT
Cancelled: May-02-07 12:29:25 PDT View

Bidder 3 Cancelled: US $1,000.00
Explanation: The seller ended the listing early and cancelled all bids. Bid: Apr-27-07 12:01:39 PDT
Cancelled: May-02-07 12:29:25 PDT View

Bidder 5 Cancelled: US $1,777.77
Explanation: The seller ended the listing early and cancelled all bids. Bid: Apr-29-07 17:49:55 PDT
Cancelled: May-02-07 12:29:24 PDT View

Bidder 2 Cancelled: US $1,000.00
Explanation: The seller ended the listing early and cancelled all bids. Bid: Apr-26-07 09:22:29 PDT
Cancelled: May-02-07 12:29:25 PDT View

Zal:
 
I suspect the seller cancelled the sale after somebody clued him in on what he had there.
 
I'm becoming a terrible cynic these days, but that's what I suspect.
 
It's all about the money.
 
Money isn't everything, but I learned early on that they wouldn't go out with you if you didn't have any.
 
JCS

 I'm sure that he received many inquiries but was cancelled shortly after the below was sent.  We are a tight little clan we owners of this neat little car.  Have received much help from JCS, Stealth, and G.A.R.Y. over my last 18 months of ownership.  Owners should take heed of what these experts say.  Proud to be a newer member of this little clan,  Can not for the life of me understand the prices for phase 2 and 3 tops when phase one's are cheap and adaptable! 
Question from coat69 coat69( 107) Positive feedback:99.1% Member since:Nov-19-00 Location:OH, United States Registered on:www.ebay.com Item: 1993 Cadillac Allante Hard top - like new (230121946043) This message was sent while the listing was active. coat69 is a bidder. Was of the opinion that all '93 factory hardtops had a black headliner.
please advise! thank you!

Now, Bill, admit it. If money were absolutely no object for you and you had a Phase II or III Allante, wouldn't you really prefer the "real thing?"
 
There's so much money out there these days that everything is routinely bid up into the stratosphere. This has been a development over only the last few years ...
 
I can remember when lots of very well-heeled individuals nevertheless watched their pennies in most cases. No splashy homes, no ostentatious display of things like cars, boats and the like. That was back in the days of hyper-class consciousness. That doesn't exist in many places these days. The old style "quiet" wealthy are slowly but surely departing "on that journey from which no man returns"*
 
Conspicuous spending has become more the norm now than the exception. Ergo, the outrageous prices to which some scarce items are bid. And in this game, Allante hard tops are small change.
 
JCS
 
*Line spoken by the actor John Vernon (RIP) in the movie "Topaz."

you think that's the difference between the old ... I earned it  vs the new  the inheretance ?

Zal:
 
I think you've got it backwards. The old, except for the founder, was the province of inheritance, and way back then, one inherited exalted social position right along with the money, the family estate, the habit of having servants (somewhat like european royalty, and, indeed, many of America's very wealthy actually had more money than most of european royalty).
 
The children of these people weren't really raised by the parents, who were too busy tending to their estate and their social obligations to bother. These people dressed for meals every day. There were no peanut butter sandwiches in the kitchen. The children were raised by servants and educated in schools far from their homes, many of them in New England. Children were often sent to Europe for some of their schooling, and were never permitted to associate with the children of the hoi polloi.
 
Today is the heyday of the self-made fortunes, and a lot of that was made possible when labor went out the window and technology came in. Nowadays the bright among the poor have every chance to establish fortunes by the use of their brains plus a public school education. And they do eat peanut butter sandwiches in the kitchen and hob-nob with friends and business associates regardless of their "social class."
 
Chances are, you'll recognise "old money" when you see it. It has an air about it. Neither intrinsically bad or good. Just ... different.
 
Who said "The rich are different from you and me." That was the old days. Nowadays, it is very difficult to tell.
 
On a related theme, I personally believe that Cadillac began to lose its cachet the minute those outside of the upper levels of polite society began to be able to afford Cadillacs and did.
 
But Cadillac knew how to survive. In the 1930's, when the market for luxury automobiles had all but dried up, some genius at Cadillac marketing noticed that there had arisen a rather large number of wealthy blacks, all unnoticed outside their own communities, and began aiming their advertizing directly at these folks. And "Those folks" responded by buying easily enough Cadillacs to keep the division solvent. Still, color aside, Cadillac pretty much remained within the province of the truly wealthy. Right up into the 50s. Then Union wages began to make the common man pretty well-off relatively speaking, and sales began to really skyrocket. Those were great days for Cadillac and for GM, and the others as well, but GM especially.
 
But, there is a quirk among the old rich. They really don't like to see people in blue jeans driving their favorite automobiles, so they simply switched automobiles. Cadillac has had to fight for its share ever since when before, it was a matter of right.
 
No matter how how high Cadillac pegs the price of their super-luxury convertible hardtop, heavily disguised Corvette, the so-called "Right people" still aren't buying it.
 
That genie is out of the bottle for good, I fear.
 
The new cars bought to impress the neighbors in the US are the Lexus and its heavily government subsidized fellow travellers built by companies whose ownership resides in the far east.
 
This posting has gone on way too long and I see no end to it. It has already shifted focus about a half-dozen times and it will stop here.
 
JCS

JCS,

how did i miss this?  busy busy week is all i can say.

all that you refer to i see around here, daily.
we have a habit of going to the pier in Santa Monica and i have a need to
drive my 20 year old 4x4 to carry the beach equip and bodies.  we  make
it a point to park on top of the pier, creeking the boards as we plow our
6,000+ lbs  4x4  through the ailes looking for TWO empty spots to perform
a proper parking maneuver. 

the looks we get from the "hybrid" crowd, the looks  .. as we decend dressed
in less than jeans while they exit the hybrids wearing outfits well fitted for a
"social" .. then my aging 4x4 is scanned as if it was in peril or contaminating
the air the hybrids migh breathe.  my gut tells me that there is "old" money or
"sugar daddy" money in much of that i see there.  they simply display their
assets different.

funny that they all look the same once they get to the water, except for the few
foolish enough to take their 18K adornments. 
ohh, that  gold detector in the back of 4x4 just keeps paying itself over and over.

i told my kids to forget about any old money in our side.   i am fully determined to
spend the $2 i still have long before my time comes and expect them to spend
a little of their own on me .. a return on investment is what i tell them. 






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