[breinhar]

I will try and answer you to the best of my abilities and memory.

I am in PA and I bought a car from TX.

First transport:

I think either is a good option. If you have the time to fly out and drive it back that is the best choice in my opinion because you get to see the car before you buy it. And I am sure you would have a great drive on the way back. But if you are like me and you dont have the time for that you can have it shipping. I personally used Fedex which was an enclosed carrier. The other nice thing about Fedex is they took care of the money for me, I mailed a cashiers check to them and their driver took the check to the owner. The drive did a visual inspection of the car and then loaded it up. It took about a week to come to me from TX. The driver of the truck was awesome and I could call him at any time and he would tell me exactly where he was.

The other thing you can do if you are buying it sight unseen is try and find a forum memeber close to the owner to check it out. Or have the owner take it to a lotus dealer where for a couple hundred dollars they will inspect it inside out for you.

Papers:

If I remember correctly the ower signed his title for me and wrote up a bill of sale. He then mailed them to me once he got his money. I then took that (along with the car) to a notery by me and I signed it. This worked in PA i dont know if NC is different.

Mine worked out quite well for buying a car sight unseen, and the previous owner was awesome and always answered my questions.

I hope this helps.