It’s 1992 and Pontiac is the division of driving excitement. A power hungry driver with leather gloves and an intense maniacal stare takes on the ‘call of the road’ in between TV football games. His beautiful black Bonneville, 200+ horsepower, screeches from a stand still and thrusts right to the edge of the posted speed limit… and not a single mph more. No Cadillac zags through double yellow lines. No country clubber saying, “You bet your Ascot!” This is GM in the heart of the Stempel era. Another frigging rental car marketed as sporty.

Fast forward 18 years later and I have the 1996 version of the exact same car. 3800 V6. 102,000 original miles. I bought it for $1500 and threw in a new water pump and tune-up. Overall I have about $1800 in this plasticized, full-sized Pontiac. Not a bad amount given the mileage and the good paint. The question now is what to do?
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What makes a vehicle valuable? Most folks chose to invest in the myth. A given brand a ‘Supername’ alone can save them from a Kryptonite’s worth of expenses and maintenance issues. I work backwards. The name alone doesn’t tell me very much. The owners do. When I find an owner who has been a good steward of their vehicle, I take the plunge regardless of the name involved. Does this always work?

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Boring. Small. The automotive equivalent of an advanced econ class. That’s pretty much what a 2000 Elantra Wagon was in the auction world back in 07’. You know that the automotive fashionistas won’t be knocking on your door… and three years ago you wouldn’t get much more than the extraordinarily cheap and chancy taking another glance at it. Hyundai still suffered from the stigma that came with making second-rate cars in a world where sub-prime buyers could buy far better vehicles with a pulse and a paycheck. To put it kindly, this one was a tough sell.
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Like the Chrysler LHS, this one was bought for $1000. A red, automatic 4 door model with power nothing and an aftermarket radio system. Florida, land of a million rentals was flooded with these vehicles ten years ago, and why not? It is an honest and decent piece of transportation that can go well north of 200k with proper maintenance. This particular one was bought at 150k with no paint fade on it. A very surprising plus for a car from Hotlanta. But the rear seat cushion has the usual ‘smile curl’ where the ends peak upwards due to excess sun exposure and let’s face it… this one is a parts bin special.
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Who wants a 1996 Chrysler LHS? The last car to ever impersonate an Iacocca inspired Chrysler New Yorker glided down the auction lane in pure anonymous bliss. The Mazda 3 behind it had already hooked all the dealers looking for some sub-prime finance fodder and hey, I knew that the 3’s transmission was toast. I was not in the mood to have a dogfight with half the dealers at this sale. My job was to pick my battles and find the dealer queens, but which ones?

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I’m going drifting. I’m going drifting dressed in the finest English brown velour ever to roll out of Dagenham, England. I’m going drifting in what this week’s Curbside Classic should have been, a 1983 Ford Sierra. And with that, I rejoin TTAC after a long hiatus due to our wonderful country sending me to various deserts to hunt for Osama bin Laden.

I have survived, although my Hilux did not after one ill-placed Taliban rocket sent shrapnel through the radiator. I also relish returning to write for one of the finest audiences I know, the Best and Brightest.

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TTAC commenter esager writes in:

I have a dilemma that may interest our readership (yes, I feel a sense of ownership after being a daily reader for 3-4 years now).

A few years back, my wife and I bought a nice 2007 CPO 328i that was formerly used as a customer service loaner car for the one of our Seattle area BMW dealerships. We really enjoy its performance and sophistication and are happy with the car for the most part, save for the various and sundry trips to the dealership to fix a few warranty items – more trips than I think should be necessary, though not truly excessive. She drove it to work every day and was glad to have it. It’s under CPO warranty coverage for 2 more years.

Earlier this year, a note I left on the windshield of a 1991 318is (the one year E30 model with the M42 engine) allowed me to purchase said car from a co-worker as a daily driver and fixer. I got it for very cheap and have been dutifully cleaning, updating (oil pan gaskets, rear shock mounts, hydraulic timing chain tensioner, differential output shaft seal replacement, etc, etc), and generally enjoying the heck out of it. Lower control arms, ball joints etc. are in the future for this car.

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Certain cars make you feel better after you have driven them. A late-90’s Jaguar XJ8 swathed in Connolly Leather. A late model Mercedes S-Class that’s running properly. And of course a Lexus LS430 which has been known to put some drivers in a near euthanasia state. Then of course there’s the classic American Buick of the 21st Century… the Toyota Camry.
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From conflict-torn Afghanistan [via Newsweek] comes this strange tale of Taliban tribute to the “the vehicular equivalent of the AK-47”: the Toyota Hilux (more famous among Western car nuts for its infamous Top Gear adventures).

There was a time when nearly every customer asked, “Does it come with a clean Carfax history?” It came to a point where I would just routinely leave them on the driver’s seat so that the questioner could peruse what they thought was a complete ownership history. Then certain things happened in the marketplace.

Dealers began targeting vehicles that ‘did’ have frame damage, but were not mentioned on Carfax. Not every insurance company or state police agency agency had (or has) a relationship with Carfax… and some of the nastiest of damage came with the most expensive of vehicles. Carfax got blamed, threatened, sued, and dragged through the sensationalistic dreck we now find on network news. The price of Carfax subscriptions went up while this was happening, and as a result dealers and individuals began to seek alternatives. Autocheck became a de facto standard at the auto auctions, and now it is the leading competitor to Carfax. But is it better?

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Back in 2008 I saw some of the weirdest optioned vehicles to have ever gone through any auto auction. Vehicles that were given power everything including cruise, ABS and traction control… but manual windows. Long wheel base minivans that offered captain’s chairs and premium sound… but no rear air. Even midsized sedans that had all the features a family would want. Except side airbags which the rental car company decided would cost too much to repair in the event of an accident. Fast forward two years later. Used car inventories are at their lowest point in 35 years and used car prices are up over a thousand bucks from last year. Have the manufacturers finally found some pearls of wisdom? Or are there still too many penny wise, pound foolish practices running amuck in the industry. Well???

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With the Mitsubishi i-miev electric car about to hit the British market, the BBC decided to break down the Pounds and tuppence behind the EV hype. And though it found that the i-miev comes out looking quite well thanks to Britain’s EV consumer subsidy, its freedom from congestion charges and road tax, fuel price differences and estimated servicing costs, it has one eye-popping cost associated with it: nearly 50 percent depreciation over the first three years. And that’s what Mitsubishi is willing to cop to. So not only will your new i-miev cost about twice as much as a little Fiat 500, it will lose about enough value after three years to have paid for that same Cinquecento. Needless to say, as American consumers begin their own first flirtations with the electric automobile, we will continue to keep a close eye on this issue.

Edmunds is tracking an $1,800 average increase in the price of used cars, as new-car sales have faltered with the shaky economy. But the increase in prices isn’t solely due to Americans tightening their belts and buying used instead of new. The biggest price increases by nameplate appear to be for large SUVs and vans like the Cadillac Escalade, Chevy Suburban, Dodge Grand Caravan, BMW X5 and Acura MDX. Edmunds senior analyst Joe Spina explains

So many economic factors affect automobile sales and prices. It’s believed that the program delayed purchases prior to the program and also pulled sales forward while in place. The program also eliminated inventory of older vehicles that were traded and then scrapped… Now, those who need trucks and large SUVs are buying them and in many cases are turning to used vehicles as a way to save money. Prices are high because this demand comes at a time when inventory is low as a result of the current shortage of lease returns and trade-ins for vehicles of this type.

Edmunds’ “Large SUV” segment shows prices up by nearly $7k per vehicle (over July 2009), compared to increases of less than $500 per vehicle for midsize and compact cars over the same period. Gas prices, meanwhile, are nearly unchanged from July of last year. Clearly something is affecting the price of used SUVs… if it’s not Cash-For-Clunkers, what is it?

I went to a public sale this past Thursday. Dozens of vehicles were sold for four figure premiums, but unfortunately virtually all of them were complete and utter trash. A repo’d 2008 Dodge Avenger SXT was riddled with 89,000 torturous miles of abuse and neglect. It shaked, rattled, and barely rolled through the block. Thanks to an owner who considered the numerous warning lights to be mere suggestions.. But it still went for $8800. How? Why? We’re talking clean book value for a rough car in every sense of the word.

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Schadenfreude recently brought the elder Niedermeyer out of his summer semi-retirement, and for the most part, it’s a consistent inspiration for much of our content here at TTAC. But as natural and healthy as it is to laugh and learn from the mistakes of others, for some reason I’m just not feeling it today. Blame it, if you must, on a certain mellowness that settles in over the glorious course of an Oregon Summer. One Robert Farago always said that hate must come from a place of love, so in the interests of getting TTAC back in lean, mean fighting form, I’m going to indulge in the worst kind of of auto-writing love-fest: I’m going to tell you about how much I love my car. Except that it’s not a car, and it’s not actually mine…

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