We used to call it 60-80. You could buy a two-year-old used car with 80 percent of it’s life left for 60 percent of the new car price. Then, as Detroit & Co. started to overproduce ad nauseam, the ratio went down to 50/80. Then 40/80. These days you can pretty much buy a decent two-year-old car (think discontinued Ford, Mercury & Buick models) for about 35 percent of it’s new car price without dickering too hard. So, is that the sweet spot in today’s market? Nope. At least not for the non-enthusiast. The biggest bang for your buck lingers a little further down the curve. Specifically the five to six-year-old commuter vehicle with about 75k miles that has become as popular as an old can of buckwheat. Think Ford Taurus, Buick Regal/Century/LeSabre, Mercury Sable and virtually anything with the name Oldsmobile on it. Sure these are the equivalent of leisure suits for the self-effacing car snob. But I’d be damned if they aren’t the best deals for those who, in Rhett Butler-speak, “Frankly, don’t give a damn.”

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We just had a public sale close up in Atlanta. This was a place I called ‘The Red Light District’ for the whorific dealers and management team that ran it. These putzes used to steal keys after the cars ran through, knock out odometers (to hide real mileage), put racing oil in the engines, and did everything short of telling the truth to their customers. But for every jerkoff at this place that bought a near dead car at the impound lot sales and sold to a clueless public, there were other public sales that did offer some (not all) good vehicles. How can you tell the difference? Here’s one clue. Look for the names of the sellers. If new car dealerships, credit unions, banks and rental companies make up the bulk of their business, it’s generally a good operation. It doesn’t mean the car you eventually buy will be worth a flip. But if you’re willing to play the automotive lottery you deserve to dream. Just make sure you don’t buy anything too shiny or hip.

The Geo Metro. One Liter. Three Cylinders. A near-car that represented automotive nirvana for tree-huggers and penny pinchers throughout America. Except not anymore. Gas is down 60 percent from its zenith; the Metro has once again become as fashionable as OJ Simpson at a Jewish family reunion. I bought one today with only 95k miles on it for only $500. White. Base. Nothing special. But then again, what is these days? I’ll tell you what is. Toyota and Lexus SUVs. These things are getting bought with price premiums that would make a Kuwaiti Mercedes dealer blanch. Spied a 2001 Toyota 4Runner Limited in Blue loaded up with 178,524 miles. It sold for $6800. A same year Lexus RX300 with, get this, 236,499 miles, sold for the same price. Why? Well a mint condition Toyota SUV is apparently worth its weight in lead (which is still expensive these days) if you’re willing to press the mileage ‘reset’ button. Meanwhile, a 2005 Toyota Celica GT with 100k miles sold for $7k. No one seemed to care. Young buyers are becoming an endangered species with the credit markets flipping the bird to the young and equity deprived. Also, it’s a complete bastard these days to get financing approved for any late model vehicle with over 80k.

Looking for higher returns? How about 25 percent! That’s right 25 percent a month, every month. Plus penalties. Plus fees. Plus the entire value of any car you repo and sell off. Not a bad deal for aspiring deca-millionaires if you ask me. The minus? Well, you have to spend a few of your crumbs to have a well funded lobbying group pay off the politicians. Welcome to the Title Pawn industry in the great state of GA, and yes, the repo side of this business is becoming absolutely huge at the auctions. Thousands of cars have been ‘involuntarily donated’ to a group of hyenas that would make Jesus remove his flip-flops and wear steel tipped boots. As for the rest of us dealers and auctioneers? We just get a first glimpse of the collateral damage that comes with a bad economy and a well-funded government.

Just a few weeks ago I wrote about the Pontiac G8, one of my favorite cars, and how the prices for lightly used examples are getting rather low. Back in November, a V6 model with around 10,000 miles was $20,000. Cars with the big V8 were landing around $24,000. Now they’re even cheaper. The V8 models have hit the $20,000 mark on several have been offered below it. A Cuyahoga Falls, OH Pontiac dealer offered a 12,000 mile car for $19,994 (didn’t sell). That same dealer was, however, able to move a 361 hp G8 GT with 11,000 miles for $18,994. AutoTrader, too, is jam packed with 8-cylinder Pontiac G8s for just under $20,000 and some even have under 10,000 miles on the clock. If you are willing to get the V6 version with some 260 horsepower (though with the V8s so cheap, I’m not sure it makes sense even now), a Houston reseller was offering a 10,500 mile G8 V6 for a hair under $16,000. If the G8 is your cup of tea (and I realize that for many folks it’s not), these are stonking good deals. The question is where they will bottom out. Assuming the warranties stay intact (whether GM stays around or the government does an FDIC-style arrangement), I would think about $16,000-$17,000 is the absolute lowest a low-mileage 8-cylinder G8 could cost. That would be 50% of the original MSRP, but it remains to be seen.

This one is dumber than a box of hair. While my countless hours spent trolling have come up with some really crappy, world class pieces of junk, this is crazy on a new level. The Hyundai Excel was one of the worst cars sold in America in the last 30 years. It’s so bad, in fact, that we used to say it Excelled only at breaking down. So when I saw this one on eBay with 195,000 miles, I was positively shocked. I never thought an Excel could survive for so long. But then the part that really floored me: the seller – a Chevy dealership – is asking $2799 for it. I think the Kelly Blue Book value of $1500 is about $1250 too high, so this dealership is riding off into the sunset of delusional country.

Thanks to some hard-nosed detective work by Edmunds’ Inside Line, Ford has confirmed that the Mercury Sable (now, as always, a twin of the Ford Taurus) will be ending production in April. As a likely April Fool’s joke, Ford may announce on April 1 that the Sable is being replaced with something not boring. In other, equally important news, GM has confirmed that all cupholders will grow in size by approximately 0.01 millimeters, and Audi announced that the popular A4 sedan will probably be available in “some colors” next year. I have fond memories of riding in the rear-facing seats of a Sable wagon as a kid, but that’s only because years of therapy have suppressed the memories of being terribly nauseous back there. All joking aside, dont tell anyone, but I do like the current Sable.

Those who know the least are screwed the most (both figuratively and literally). Case in point. 1997 Nissan Pathfinder XE. No leather, but a roof and a helluva good look. 206,852 miles. It sold for the mind numbingly high price of $3800. Why? Well, to find the answer you have to go back to the good old days of the 1970’s when odometers were turned back more often than a stoner at the Lion’s Club. This one will undoubtedly be sold to an immigrant who knows as much about Carfax as yours truly knows about Lawrence Welk’s bubble making machine. As for the domesticated mastodons, a 2004 Explorer repo with 94k miles sold for $4100 and a 2003 Trailblazer with leather and all the options checked, but 131k, sold for $4700. As they say in Detroit Yiddish, “Oy vay! [sic]”

Sometimes it’s the stingiest person who pays too much. Case in point. A 2007 Chevy Aveo with no a/c, ugly gray color, and wheel covers made out of recycled Chinese plastic. Yours truly was the high bidder on this 25k mile car for only $4000. It was a reasonable offer given the lightning quick depreciation of any stripper in Atlanta. In Georgia, no a/c in a car means no customers. Nada! In fact, the neighborhood Kia dealer used to give them away if the customer in question would finance a regular Rio. Some people never learn.

How cheap are work trucks when no one’s working? Case in point. 2008 Ford F250 Superduty with rear seats, Automatic, and a throbbing 6.4L V8 powerstroke diesel with 350 Hp and 650 lbs. of torque. 41k highway miles, and, oh yeah. Like most other trucks at the auctions it’s a repo which has become a mantra for Atlanta inventory. Charge out price this morning at Carmax Auctions was $10,500, and that was with absolutely no announcements that would normally detract from the truck’s value (Engine Noise, Transmission Slips, Frame Damage, etc.). Oh, and every other truck and SUV repo that was at today’s sale, didn’t sell. Even a Toyota Tacoma and Hyundai Santa Fe Limited found no buyers.

We just had the local Dodge dealership close down in Marietta. This coincided with one of the briefest sales I’ve ever seen at a nearby Friday afternoon sale. With that in mind… Dealers make a LOT of money off of trade-in’s and ‘we buy your POS’ lowball offers. No big deal. That’s always been a big part of any auto retailers bottom line. Until now. At a time when some of the larger dealer networks used to offer 80 to 100 trade-ins on a weekly basis at the dealer auctions, sources now say metro-Atlanta’s trade-in inventory is down by well over a third.  Neutron bombed metro-Atlanta also appears to be fielding far more repos at these sales, and even a few high demand models that apparently are ‘Not needed in inventory’. With a local landscape that resembles the bad old days of Tecumseh Sherman, and a new emphasis on even finding reliable lending sources, it’s no surprise that even the billion dollar retail outfits are feeling more than a credit pinch.

With GM’s resale values and stock price hovering at record lows, two Texas dealers have come up with one hell of a sales gimmick. Buy a GM vehicle at Frank Kent Motor Co. in Fort Worth, Texas by the end of the month and the owners will give you 50 shares in General Motors. The scheme is advertised as a celebration of GM’s 100th anniversary, but when asked by Automotive News [sub], Frank Kent Motors owners admit that the promotion was actually inspired by the depths to which GM stock had sunk. And while “50 shares of General Motors” sounds better than “$327” (based on GM’s $6.54/share price at the time of writing), the dealers see the stock as (get this) a hedge against depreciation. “Typically when a customer buys a car and they go to trade it in in two or three years, it has depreciated,” Frank Ken Motors owner Will Churchill said. “Hopefully in two or three years (the stock) will probably be worth more.” Or, as we are fond of saying around here, not. There are very few scenarios for GM’s next several years that involve good news for its stock holders, and quite a few that could see your “incentive” stock wiped out to zero. And then all you have is a massively depreciated Aveo (or whatever). And twice the buyers remorse.

Atlanta area. Fire engine red 1999 Chevrolet Tahoe with 119k on the clock. Loaded to the gills with everything save leather. One owner, no accidents, perfect Carfax. Looks like it just came out of the showroom. My older brother (who considers himself the world’s best bargain hunter and resident expert on everything) gave the Tahoe the once-over and couldn’t find anything wrong with it to point out where I’d done it wrong.  I asked him how much he thought I paid for it. He said “hmmm… I’d say around $7500.” Bought at auction for $4825. Oh, and this one went to former TTAC Managing Editor Frank Williams, who also gave me a 1993 VW Eurovan for $750 that I’d bought for him a year ago.

Interesting photo. Either Bruce is majorly pissed about something the photographer said or did (see: Winston Churchill Karsh), or he’s finally perfected the art of looking like a something other than an endlessly pampered, egomaniacal movie star. Anyway, his timing for this sale sucks. Anyone who clings to the belief that prices for vintage muscle cars will defy the gravity of the stock market is seriously deluded. By the time this deal goes down– Saturday, October 25 at Bonham’s in LA— the muscle car market will have tanked. Are there enough “crotch sniffers” (nice one Stephan) who’d pay a premium to own a muscle car owned by a man famous for saying “Yippie ki-yay, motherfucker”? I doubt it. It’s one thing to own an example of the breed purchased by Steve McQueen (or similar) back in the day. It’s another to own a muscle car bought by a celebrity who uses it to pose like a tough guy, even though the toughest thing about him is his agent.

The 2006 Jetta came with everything but a willing buyer. This time, it wasn’t the VW’s fault. Like the 12 Kias that came before it, the Jetta was a repo, complete with its own customized owner-inspired design. A few tears in the floor where stereo wiring used to be. Gashes on each corner to test out those European bumpers. Then of course, they had to blow the damned glovebox into a thousand pieces of plastic using an M-40. The poor Jetta may have already suffered enough from modern day German electronics and a Euro denominated price tag. But like an errant animal, kid, spouse, or Wall Street executive, it was the owner that made it a truly bloody mess. No sale @ $9800. The big question: is this Jetta the harbinger of hundreds of thousands of repos– new SUVs, pickups and cars sold to anyone with a pulse via easy credit and no money down deals– yet to come? You know; once lenders stop allowing deadbeats to drive them for free, rather than take the hit to the bank’s balance sheet.