Plymouth Prowler

I remember back in 2001 when I was buying a Jeep Grand Cherokee V8, at the showroom of the dealership they had this car that looked like something created in the future by a designer from the past, it was stunning and I remember  thinking how much I wanted one.

I also remember being surprised by the price, at the time it was about 40k, and it was exactly the same I was paying for the Jeep … Humm, but I needed a Jeep, not a two seater, so it was not to be.

Not to say 40k was little money, back in 2001 was quite dear, but the car had a styling of a car 2-3x more expensive, over the years I’d see a picture of one here and there, and always tought “one day”, but then moved back to Europe and the tough subsided.

Now the car was only produced in 97, 99, 00, 01 and 02, it was never meant to be a long running production car, only about 11.578 were sold, and all of them were only available in North America, anybody outside it had to buy it there and have it imported to their own country.

A few months back, out of the blue I decided to check them out again, I found out that only 11 exist in the UK, and for one to come up for sale is a rarity, but luck has it, there was one for sale, in Red !, so I contacted the seller and told him I’d go by and check it out on Saturday… But was not to be, somebody bought it on Friday !

I was quite upset by it, but never the less I was decided I wanted one, I work hard and it was time to give myself a prize, so I started to look in Germany for one, and found a black one near Koln, called the seller, we haggled for a while and settled on a price.

I started the convertion of sterling to euros via Transferwise and waited for it to finish, as it was the time of the elections in the UK, the sterling was taking a pounding against the euro, so in order to keep my convertion at the rates I had specified, the whole transfer would take a few days, I was on cloud 9, so I decided to go and visit the London Motor Museum, where I heard they had a prowler on display.

And then it all went to hell …

When I arrived at the “museum” I was uber-excited, I had not seen a prowler in person in many years, but I rembered how great they looked, but then I was faced with this !

I was gutted, what had happened ?, this was not the car I remembered … It looked like crap !, I looked to see if it was a replica, but it was not, it was the real deal !

I immediately (while still at the museum) called Transferwise and cancelled the money transfer, then called the seller and cancelled the deal, no way I was going to buy this POS.

But I was confused, I rembered the prowler was a great looking car, how come my memory was so wrong, so I went home and called the seller of that red one that got away, asked him if the new owner had picked it up, No ?, good, can I see it ?

So I went to see his, to understand what had gone wrong, well when I got there I realised right away what was wrong, the one in the museum was simply shit, a poorly maintained, dirty and with horrible wheels and a nackered interior … The red one .. stunning !!!!

I was happy again, tought about calling and buying the German black one again, but decided I wanted a red one, so was time to go searching once more.

After a bit of digging, I found the perfect one, problem was it resided on the other side of the Atlantic, in Toronto, Canada !

Still, after doing the math, it was cheaper to get it here and have it shipped over, plus there are none for sale in the UK, and this one had some hard to find upgrades and a killer (to my taste) custom paintjob.

I asked my cousin who lives nearby to go check it, he gave me the thumbs up and the deal was made, after that I hired a local company in UK called ShipMyCar to deal with bringing it over, registration, MOT, mods, etc.

And now, finally after more than 2 months waiting, the car has arrived in the UK, I went to see it yesterday, I still can’t take it home or drive it, it needs modifications to make it UK road legal, plus MOT and registration, plus with me going to the Azores at the end of next week, it will be another month before I get it, but it’s here and I love it !

The intention is to later on bring it to the Azores, and hopefully over the years add a couple more of my dream cars to the collection (such as the 1960 corvette), but for now it’s my first dream car and could not be happier.

Now if I could only drive it 🙂 … Patience is not something I have plenty of!