The pre-purchase inspection, era by era

A pre-purchase inspection is the cheapest money in this entire process. It is also the step most often skipped, because an online auction has a clock on it and arranging an inspection inside that window takes effort.

Make the effort. An inspection costs a few hundred dollars. The things it finds cost thousands.

Non-negotiables, whatever the car

Put it on a lift. Everything expensive is underneath. An inspection done in a driveway is a conversation, not an inspection.

See it start cold. Genuinely cold — not warmed up before you arrived, which is the single most common piece of seller stage management. A cold start reveals smoke colour and duration, lifter noise, cold-oil pressure and whether it actually wants to run. Ask for the car not to be touched that morning and ask the inspector to confirm the engine was cold to the hand.

Compression and leakdown on anything older. Compression tells you the cylinders are roughly equal. Leakdown tells you where the pressure goes — rings, valves or head gasket. A set of even numbers is worth more than any assurance.

Photographs of what was found, not a verdict. A one-line "good car" is useless. You want images of the floors, the inner wings, the suspension mounting points, the engine bay cold, the boot floor under the mat, and every panel gap.

By era

Pre-war and 1950s. Structure first and everything else second. Chassis rails, box sections, spring hangers, anything that was originally wood. Mechanical originality matters enormously to value here, and a replaced engine of the correct type is a different car from a numbers-matching one. Brakes and steering wear are safety items, not bargaining chips.

1960s. Rust in the places the factory sealed badly: screen surrounds, rear wheel arches, the seams under the sills, the spare wheel well, the base of the A-pillars. Water enters at the screen and leaves through the floor. Check for filler with a magnet and a paint depth gauge, both cheap.

1970s and 1980s. Still rust, plus the first generation of emissions equipment, which is routinely found missing. Completeness is value: deleted smog gear is expensive and sometimes impossible to put back, and in some states it is an inspection failure. Interior plastics and dashboards of this era crack and are often unobtainable.

1990s and 2000s. The structure is usually fine and the systems are the risk. Service interval documentation becomes critical — anything with a rubber timing belt needs a date, not an assurance. Electronics, climate systems and early infotainment are expensive and frequently written off as "just needs a module". Plug in a scanner: anything sold in the US from the 1996 model year has OBD-II, which means stored codes, readiness monitors and evidence of whether something was cleared recently.

Modern collectibles. Accident history, paint depth across every panel, and whether the car has been tracked. Tracked is not disqualifying but it changes the service picture completely, and it is visible in brake and tyre wear patterns and in the data if the car logs any.

Who should do it

A marque specialist, not a general garage, and not the shop the seller recommends. The specialist knows the three things that generation gets wrong and will check them in ten minutes; a generalist will give you a careful report that misses all three. Pay for the specialist.

If the car is at an auction venue, ask what inspection access the venue allows and when. Some permit an independent inspector during preview; some permit nothing. A venue that permits no inspection is information — price the car accordingly, or do not bid.

What to demand in writing

Before you commit money, have on paper: the inspection report with photographs, the service records the seller claims exist, and clear images of the title. "The records are with my mechanic" is not records. If a document is described as existing and cannot be produced, assume it does not exist and value the car on that basis.