(Ch. 3) Happy birthday, baby Boss!

At the end of the last chapter, I had thrown in the towel in my search for a Kona Blue Boss 302 Mustang. I had a Q3 allocation secured, but the dealer told me that Kona Blue had been discontinued. I would need to choose another color. He said that cars built after May 25, would not be made in Kona Blue. He provided a list of every dealer that had a Kona Blue Boss, but my calls yielded nothing. The cars had been sold, or were commanding premium prices over sticker. I had already started changing my Boss wallpapers to other colors to help see what I thought about them over time. I had been beaten. This new girl was already breaking my heart.

After my public wailing and gnashing of teeth, another helpful forum member found three more cars that hadn’t been on my previous list. But with an imminent business trip overseas, I had no time to make anything happen, even if I could find an unclaimed car for MSRP. I looked at the leads. One was in Kansas City and two were in Texas. Alright, I would call the dealers in Texas and then move on.

First up was a dealer in Arlington. To my surprise, things fell into place quickly. The dealer found the car in his system and after a check to make sure that nobody had already claimed it, he said we were free to deal on it. I told him that I already had a car for MSRP, so I wasn’t going to pay anything over. He seemed agreeable to that and emailed me the complete pricing, including TT&L. Sure enough, it was MSRP. I printed it out, signed it, scanned it, and emailed it back. I couldn’t believe it was really happening. I was ecstatic! The dealer said he would call back to get my credit card information for the deposit. I sent a text to my wife – I think it is happening! And then I got the email from the dealer saying that I had been punk’d. He took the deal to the GM for his signature and he said they needed more money. They had given me a price, asked for my word by way of a signature, and then tried to shake me down for more money. They had also wasted half of my day doing this. I was so full of righteous fury that I briefly caught on fire.

With nothing left to lose, I called the last dealer, located in McKinney, Texas. This would be it. The Hail Mary. It didn’t start well. I called the number that was on the website and it rang at some guy’s house! He told me he wouldn’t be in that day and that I should call his partner. “He should be at work,” he said. Sigh. So, I called his partner, Butch. Nice enough fella, but he didn’t know anything about a Boss and he would have to ask the GM if anybody had put any money down on it. Unfortunately, the GM only worked until 10 am that day. Somebody kill me. Butch promised to call me back the next day. Whatever. This didn’t seem like it was going to amount to anything. I was making my peace.

The next day, he didn’t call back. Honestly, no surprise, so I blew it off. I had work to do. Then today, being the Friday before Memorial Day, I decided to call Butch back, just to get this over and done. I left a message and he called back, saying that everything looked good. Sure enough, they had a Boss coming-in and nobody had claimed it. I could leave a deposit immediately. I told him I wouldn’t let him off the phone until he had taken my money. He took a few nerve-racking minutes finding out if they accepted American Express, but he finally said that it was good, he took my information, and he sent me the receipt. I signed the receipt and sent it back. I won’t lie, it was like deja vu all over again, but this time, actual money had exchanged hands. Did that mean anything? I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer. I thought signed contracts meant something. I was learning all kinds of new things and none of them were giving me any confidence in this transaction. Still, everything seemed correct.

Butch promised another email with information about my car. An hour passed. Then another. Uh oh. Then my phone rang. It was Butch. Where was my email? Why was he calling me? I knew the moment that he started talking that something was wrong. “Mr. Pribble, I started looking through the paperwork on this car and..well sir…this car isn’t blue, it’s red.” You know those depth-of-field rack shots in the movies where the person stands in shock, while the background looks like it gets further and further away? Yeah, that happened to me. Butch sent me the paperwork and sure enough, it said Race Red. Maybe my lead was wrong. Maybe my helpful forum member had made a mistake. This was a disaster. I sent a PM back to the tipster asking if he had more details on the order. I explained what happened and said I needed his help. I had no idea who this guy was, so I might not even hear from him again. But, he responded in less than five minutes. He sent a link to the window sticker and said, “Doesn’t say red to me…” I sent the link back to Butch and asked him to look into it. Then I waited. I saw that the VIN numbers were different. Butch said they only had one Boss coming. Maybe the blue car was going to a different dealer. It might have been one that I had already called about. This was just the final joke on me, some sort of Karmic justice, curse, or lesson.

The email from Butch said Looks like a winner!!!!!!!!!!! And that was that. With the help of numerous generous people, I had done it! I was still feeling a little once bitten and twice shy, so I wasn’t exactly coming out of my skin in joy. I guess I’ll really truly believe it when I’m driving it. But according to the paperwork, that drive should be happening in less than a month. In fact, as we started looking at the tracking reports, it became clear that my car had been born…today! Mazel Tov, my Kona Blue beauty. Happy birthday, little baby Boss.

jimmy