I was in the market for a used car this week. Like most in my situation I was looking for that 1967 Cadillac that had been sitting in the garage since the day poor old Uncle Bubba drove it here new from Detroit, walked in the house, and collapsed with a fatal attack of the grippe.

Of course the other part of that story is that his surviving sister couldn’t bare the thought of profiting from her departed brother’s last car and would agree to sell it only for the required legal minimum of $1 to transfer the registration.

Actually I found such a Cadillac once if you substitute $500 for the $1 but that’s another column.

When you go to buy a used car you must start by making one basic decision. Are you going to buy from an individual or are you going to buy from a car lot?

The pessimist in me sees the horror in both options. If you buy from an individual you are running the risk that they are moving to Keokuk next week and don’t care how far afield they mislead you since they won’t be around to hear any complaints.

Generally speaking you avoid such amateurish scams if you go to a car lot. There you can have it professionally done.

Now I don’t mean to suggest that all car dealers are dishonest. Just like pleasant attorneys and The Holy Grail, I’m sure they exist..they just aren’t always easy to find.

I decided, this time, to be taken by amateurs and began calling on compelling want ads in the paper.

The first thing I would recommend to those selling cars on their own is to make sure that you have described the correct year and model in your ad. More than once I ran across a divorced lady who was selling her ex’s car and lacked vital information. In such cases either the model or production year was an uncertainty. Invariably however, they always seem to know that it “Runs real good.” In retrospect I suppose they might not have been referring to the car.

People should also buy a car pricing guide of some sort. Folks seem awfully proud of their heaps. You can almost reconstruct the change in perception. While they were trying to depend upon it to start every morning and get them to work the incidence of fender kicking and blue streak cussing would have reached crescendo levels. Now that the decision to part with it has been made, a reverence for its dependability and a confidence in its status as a “classic” surge like an upside down Dow Jones graph.

I never realized how many classic cars there were in the world. Why to hear them tell it there hasn’t been a run-of-the-mill transportation car to come through town since the Truman administration. I actually had one man describe his 1982 Ford Taurus as a “classic”. I wonder if I have any of those rare Roosevelt dimes still in the pickle jar?

While it may be true that your ripped headliner has a warm and endearing story about Little Freddie and the really funny thing he did with the cat that time...buyers are unlikely to consider hunks of shredded foam and fabric in the same nostalgic manner as those who were there to see Freddie’s rendition of David & Goliath...with the cat starring as the sling.

Anyhow my experiences last weekend cured me of my car buying frenzy. I guess I will just hang on to my old Camaro. It’s a classic you know.