Hello to all. I am new to this forum. I was the high bidder for AK 1011 and it has been a bit of a saga in terms of the auction. Not sure where to start, but perhaps to advise that the sale has unraveled...not due to interest on my part! The seller was starting to flake out on me and then emailed me that he wanted to back out of the sale a couple of days ago. It seems that the seller was not quite prepared to sell the car, after owning it for 21 years, and due to being very busy, issues mechanically with the car (brakes seized), and seeming personal things going on such that he did not have the time to deal with the sale, he requested that we cancel the auction. I have to say I was disappointed, but it is probably for the best based on the way things were going. Here is the background on the car from my various discussions and emails with the owner. It is an early car and was imported directly from England by a friend of the current owner. The seller in England was a dealer (don't know who) and the first owner of the car was a Saudi prince who had two AK Mk IV's...a red one with white interior that went to France, and AK 1011 (the Ebay car) which is black but had a white interior at one point. I do not know when the interior was changed to black. AK 1011 was in England and then imported by a friend of the current owner. I was able to speak with Mark IV, a poster on this forum, and he kindly spoke with me about Autokraft cars and said he had heard a story from Mr. Angliss about the Saudi prince cars and relayed other interesting stories to me (thank you Mark IV!). The current owners's friend who imported the car was in a front end accident the badly tweaked the fenders and hood. The current owner purchased the car from the friend and then ordered an entire front clip from Brian Angliss. The new front clip was 427 style vs. short nose. The original engine is not with the car as it blew up at one point. The owner put in a stroker engine that apparently runs quite well. The original windshield was replaced with a more raked windshield but the one that came with the car is still available along with the A/C components and many other parts. I saw some photos of the chassis...mostly dry but some surface rust and one area that needed some attention. I had planned to fly into Miami to see the car and transact the sale. The owner was not easy to reach and not particularly communicative on when I could come there. He did not provide additional photos of the car and title as promised and did not have the parts together. When he got the car from storage, one of the rear brakes and front brakes had seized up. He wrote and asked to cancel the sale as the car was not in a condition for me to see and he did not have time to deal with the brake issues. As I was getting a bad feeling on how this was all coming together and changing stories from the seller on when i could come there, and then also pushing the details of the sale off on a friend as he was too busy to deal with it, I agreed to withdraw from the sale. So...I guess that is how it goes sometimes. As for the auction price, I felt I had room to not only acquire the car, but to invest some dollars to bring it up to proper snuff. My plan was to bring it back to original specification...its former glory. The end product would have been fantastic. I live in the Bay Area of California and had a shop lined up to work on it too. So, at some point perhaps the seller will be ready to sell the car again and hopefully be ready to conclude a sale with a buyer. For me...well, I am still in pursuit of an Autokraft car. The AC heritage, aluminum body, fantastic looks and performance have me sold to get a car. That's my story on AK 1011. Thanks for listening
