QOTD: More Money Than Sense?

Matthew Guy
by Matthew Guy

You know the type: it’s the one who starts their ad with “RARE!” and ends it with “I know what I’ve got!!!1!” No matter what type of cars you’re into – classic muscle, JDM imports, or modern supercars – there’s almost always one person in the crew who thinks what they own is worth a king’s ransom.

Never, though, have I even seen someone so massively, incredibly, ginormously overvalue their car like this seller.

Look, there’s nothing wrong with setting an asking price more than your car is worth. At the very least, it gives you a bit of negotiating room. At worst, it leads to the thing sitting in your driveway (or worse, your lot) until it celebrates its next birthday.

But this Caprice, listed on eBay by the seller for $300,000, is priced like something I’ve never seen. Painted refrigerator white, it does appear to be perhaps the cleanest Box Caprice I’ve ever seen. According to the seller (in ALL CAPS, natch), this is a handbuilt one-of-one prototype, with “definition technology” and “to much to list.” Erm, okay.

According to a few other internet sleuths, this same car was offered for sale in the past, once for 10 millions dollars and another time for 1.5 million dollars.

I recall, ages ago, driving with a high school buddy trying to find a good car for that year’s demolition derby. A mid-80s Grand Marquis appeared, parked in the weedy ditch outside the owner’s home in a one-road town. The owner, an older gent, ambled out and spoke to us about all the “good parts” still left on the car. Keep in mind, this not-so-Grand Marquis was rustier than an anchor.

“I’ll take four for it…” the white-haired man said, chainsmoking unfiltered Player’s.

Four hundred bucks, I thought. It’s a start, if I can get him down to two fifty…

“…but I suppose I could go down to $3,500.”

Needless to say, we beat feet back to the truck. What’s the most gonzo-priced car you’ve ever happened upon?

[Image: Mr Hicks46/ Flickr ( CC BY-SA 2.0)]

Matthew Guy
Matthew Guy

Matthew buys, sells, fixes, & races cars. As a human index of auto & auction knowledge, he is fond of making money and offering loud opinions.

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  • JK43123 JK43123 on Jul 31, 2017

    Any used pickup these days. 10 years old, 130k miles, 23 grant? Yeah right.

    • NoGoYo NoGoYo on Jul 31, 2017

      I saw a Chevy 3500 with the 6.0(!!!) and 235k miles selling for like 8 grand around here. That's used up!

  • Erikstrawn Erikstrawn on Aug 01, 2017

    I've been accused of being that guy. About ten years ago the transmission in my wife's beat-to-hell Lumina crapped out and I put the car on craigslist for $300. Some guy called several times asking if I'd take $100 for it, even though I could have dragged it across the scales for more. I kept turning him down and finally he said, "You're never going to get $300 for that piece of $#!+!". The next day I got a call from a body shop owner. He came out, took one look at the front end and handed me $300.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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