Youthful turns to Faithful, which eventually turns to Old Faithful, with the oil leaks to show. You’ve loved Old Faithful. But all around there are hotties and hussies that tempt you. Some are fun. Others are Chryslers. But the moment has come. It’s time to either fix or sell. What to do?
My wife has probably driven every single minivan and wagon model of the last six years. It all started with the second kid. Before that time, we always kept our rides as sporty and nimble as possible. We love driving. But when the wife was eight months pregnant with kid two, the thought of some ignorant Billy-Joe-Jim-Bob plowing into the progeny became too much to bear and so . . . we upsized. We found cupholders and comfort in the minivans. Flashbacks of sportiness in the Subarus. Luxury and strength in our Volvos. Finally my wife got fed up with playing musical cars and wanted a ‘keeper’. The requirements? The color silver, safe, economical, and . . . a hybrid? Enter the Civic.
No, we’re not talking about becoming the official web site for Michael Vick. This one involves two stronger dealers in a financial wrestling match. Yesterday afternoon there was a rarely used camper conversion van at the Carmax sale. The model year was 1993. It was a Chevy Van (of 1970s singing fame) with a mini fridge, plastic toilet, furnace and all the hookups you would need to go camping. A very nice package with only 43,000 original miles. The prior owner had been in the military and kept it all in tip-top shape. But then THEY arrived . . .
Well, I knew it was only a matter of time. Down in the furthest recesses of a new car dealer’s lot, I saw a line of vehicles with windshields covered in chalk. They all said the same thing: “C.A.R.S. Impound from K.O. Towing Company bought July.” There was a Ford Explorer, an Isuzu Rodeo, a purply swirly conversion van, and about 30 other bastard orphans. They were forsaken by their prior owners. Some voluntarily. Others perhaps on the influence of drug-laden stupidity. Then the real surprise came out . . .
Her aquatic face. Her distorted contortions . . . a Kermit Green 1998 Ford Taurus Wagon was coming through the auction lane. She had been loved by at least three other mommies and no doubt had an affair with at least a half dozen mechanics. She was big. She was beautiful. And for $600 she was mine. Then I put down the beer . . . “What the hell am I doing!” When the Carmax auction was all said and done, I had bought three cars that were the equivalent of automotive leprosy. The Taurus wagon was one of them of course. But the clean interior and Duratec engine took the sting out of that lapse of reason. She also drove well on the forty mile journey through Atlanta rush-hour traffic. This fat lady could apparently sing. But the other two?
I admit it. Freebies are awesome. Whether it’s a free portion of dim-sum in exchange for car advice, or a mowed lawn in exchange for storing industrial machinery at my auction holding yard. I relish the word free. To paraphrase Gordon Gecko, “Free is good!” and I’ll gladly Sawyer my way through the daily grind in pursuit of it. But there’s always a catch.
The bastards! I could deal with destroying the Cherokees, the Lincolns, even a Dynasty with a trombone case red interior. But a brick? These sick twisted bastards are going to take that one holy grail of tightwad functionality and turn it into a steaming pile of drek. Apparently the old Nordic God of automotive longevity is now on Washington’s ‘whacked’ list which means that defensive measures need to be taken. Stat!
Sajeev is lookin’ for a steenkin’ Lincoln. Well his dad is at least. They want a late model Town Car in black that hopefully, preferably, has less than 50k miles on it and a very certain trim level. It’s not an easy request for me to fulfill. Despite the fleet focus for this model, Ford has well over a dozen different trim combinations for TC’s (e.g., Signature, Limited, Cartier). Visits to the auction for this type of inventory are surprisingly rare. A few keystrokes. A secret password. And I get to see everything within a 100 mile radius. I find . . .
A 1994 Impreza for $25? Bought one back in 2003 with an auto tranny and all the paint stripped off. It needed a new battery and . . . that was it. I sold it on eBay for $1576 to a fellow who flew in from California and drove it all the way back to IOU-land. He was a rally coordinator for Subaru and although the car was going to be modified, it ended up slogging through So Cal traffic instead for another 50,000 miles. I’ve always wondered whether it would have been more profitable to keep it? Perhaps.
The good old days of 2007. A time when I could visit a parts store and walk away with hundreds of dollars in free stuff. I remember O’Reillys giving me 24 quarts of synthetic oil for about $8.00 in taxes. Advance Auto Parts seemed to have access to every cheap Chinese tool set ever made with mail-in coupon in tow. As for Autozone? They gave me 12 free batteries when I established a commercial account there. I used them all that winter and made money on the cores. Ahh, those were good times! They’re no more. But you can still pick up a good deal here and there.
Someone parks two cars near you. The first? A sports car. It could be a Porsche 911 C4 Cab, a Ferrari F430, or a Z06 ‘Vette. Something special. Expensive. Exotic. The other car is an oldie. Let’s say a 1976 Toyota Celica or a 1984 Volvo 240 wagon. Which one would interest you?
I started the bidding at $275. The faces in front of me went instantly from melancholy to downright sullen and FU’ish. Low end dealers, auto recyclers, crushers par excellence, this was an impound lot sale. A final howling call for the dead, the dying, and the DUI’s. In the past few months I had started the bidding at $100. But the tow company’s finances had taken a cliff deep dive (they lost the county contract). With one of his regular wreckers already being used for spare parts. The owner was clearly on the ropes. You know what? The strategy worked . . . and . . .
How many of you would pay $400 a month for a Ford Ranger? How about $600 and change? Not you? I didn’t think so. But you would be surprised how many actually do. As a remarketing rep for Capital One, it was my job to deal with the failures—over 10,000 per year. Good people. Bad people. Mediocre people. It didn’t really matter in the end because none of them could make the sub-prime car payments. It’s a vicious cycle at the auctions. Retail cars are sold to wholesale buyers. These cars are then sold with cheap credit and inflated prices to an ever clueless public. Here’s today’s question: “What’s the alternative?”
A few of my friends had their tongues hanging out. The year: 1984. The car: a brand new Toyota Celica Supra. It had the words ‘SUPRA’ in big bubble letters on the rear. Just in case you missed it. Pop-up headlights. Seats that actually had bolsters on them. A sunroof, and the very best AM/FM Cassette money could buy. My brother, that lucky and overachieving bastard, got it brand new as a thank you for the 4.0’s that would eventually land him in the world of radiology. After experiencing my very first “Holy Shit!” moment as a passenger (my folks were lifelong right lane drivers), and watching a five-speed shift for the first time, I was smitten. Later on that evening I watched my first Knight Rider and then all hell broke loose.
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