Hammer Time: Your Cheapest Car Ever

Steven Lang
by Steven Lang

Have you ever bought a car that was cheaper than dirt?

I’m not talking about a $2000 Shoney’s special that was owned by an elder statesmen or grand-mama. I’m talking cheap. As in cheaper than a Vegas wedding with a fake Elvis and a bottle of leftover hooch from the last couple that got hitched.

$500. $100. Free. Negative amounts. Nothing is better than cheap. Unless it’s also good.

Back in 2002 I was working at a nearby public auto auction that should have been given a bright red neon sign that read, “End Of The Line!” The cars were as rough as a worn out mop, and the dealers bordered between the usurious and the felonious.

Every Thursday night we went through the’ inoperable’ vehicles before having the regular sale. Attendance was ‘VERY’ optional with the inops. No more than ten dealers would go look at these vehicles and everyone bidding already ‘knew’ each other. Prices for an inop car back then were about as much as a good cell phone is now.

They weren’t buying much. Almost every one of these vehicles was worth more dead than alive and the final bid prices reflected it. $100 here. $200 there. Untold numbers of Lebarons, Celebritys and Caravans. The amounts were like a P2P lending enterprise except what the buyers invested in was ‘dead metal’ that couldn’t walk away with your money as easily.

Some were parts cars. Others were ‘bankable’ crusher fodder. Junkyards and recyclers would have acres upon acres used just to plant an old car and wait for metal prices to go the way of the Chinese economy.

I would do the bid calling. Sometimes work the ring… and then one day, I bought.

A nearby Chevy dealer had decided to get rid of a 1993 Subaru Impreza. 4-cylinder. 4-speed shlushomatic. Oh, and the color of the paint? None. Nothing. Somebody had decided to remove all of the paint off the vehicle as well as the battery.

It had been a repo from a nearby mechanic’s shop and thanks to GMAC’s liberal financing terms at the time, the dealership had zero interest in putting any more money into it.

Thankfully so did the other dealers that day. $200 went to $100… then fifty… fifty… fifty. NO SALE! On to the next car.

After the last inop vehicle was sold I went to the owner of the auction whose brother happened to own the Chevy dealership, “Hey. Do you think I can buy that Subaru for $25?”

I was afraid to ask. But without a moments hesitation he said ‘Sure!’, and the sale was written up. Price $25. Tax $1.25. Buy fee $50. Total $76.25.

The next day I came by with a new battery for $30 (remember those days!). I checked the fluids. Started the vehicle. “HOLY>>> it ran!”

The good news was that it ran. The bad news was that it wouldn’t go anywhere. No matter how hard I pushed the shifter, I could not put the thing out of park. A thousand stressful thought poured into my novice head. Was the transmission or shift linkage bad? Do I need to give this thing a Fonzi kick? Well, at least the engine sounded good.

I went to the Ultimate Subaru Message Board to divine an answer. Apparently the shift lock mechanism needed to be replaecd according to the Subaru faithful. I went back the next day with part in hand. Fixed it. Drove it. Perfect car.

By this time in my life though I already had ‘the auction bug’. No matter what I bought, I knew that it would be sold. So I cleaned it up a bit. Put it on Ebay and watched a painfully slow bidding process. The price was only in the $600 range until the very last day. An hour left? $900. I sweated it for a while. Took a nice long walk. Came home and…

$1576. To a guy from California!

Two weeks later I was greeted by a Rally Coordinator from Subaru who proceeded to take my $25 car and drive it all the way back to Southern California. A few years later I checked on the Carfax history and sure enough, 50,000 miles later, it was still on the road.

That was the cheapest car I ever bought. What’s yours?

Steven Lang
Steven Lang

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  • Deorew Deorew on Jan 03, 2012

    '73 Mercury Capri Bought $85. Used 6 months, senior year in high school. With 3 friends in car, it barely made it uphill. Sold $325. '73 Dodge Polara. Got free, 92K. Needed timing chain. Drove all through college years from NYC to Buffalo. Never had another problem. Sold $225 with 150K, and engine purring. '74 Dodge Dart. Bought $200 with 74K. Pristine from an estate sale. Kept 1 year. Sold $800 with 91K. '95 Mercury Mystique. Bought in 1998 with 39K for $9900. Still have now in 2012 with 329K.

  • Vmarks Vmarks on Jan 03, 2012

    I once bought an E21 320iS BMW for $100. The deal was, this college student needed to pay a long distance phone bill. One of the girls in his apartment complex had given him this car, which he didn't need since he drove a Ford F100. I paid him, the girl and I went to the bank and took care of the title. It had all the paint blistered off the hood from an engine fire. It wore a "Massachusetts Yacht Club" sticker in the rear quarter window, and had the rust to prove it was a northern car. It also needed valves. And welding the seat tracks back to the floor. And welding the rear shock towers back together. The first weekend I had it, I took the head off and had the machine shop deck it and do the valves. I had a local body shop do the seat tracks. I drove it 800 miles north on a road trip, and had a shop do the rear shock towers when they punched through. I took it back south, and put it up for sale. Several customers objected to the factory Recaro seats, explaining to me that a BMW should be cushy and comfortable, not with "those" seats. Heathens. I ended up selling it to a man from Ohio who didn't object to rusty cars, for 1300.

  • MaintenanceCosts It's not a Benz or a Jag / it's a 5-0 with a rag /And I don't wanna brag / but I could never be stag
  • 3-On-The-Tree Son has a 2016 Mustang GT 5.0 and I have a 2009 C6 Corvette LS3 6spd. And on paper they are pretty close.
  • 3-On-The-Tree Same as the Land Cruiser, emissions. I have a 1985 FJ60 Land Cruiser and it’s a beast off-roading.
  • CanadaCraig I would like for this anniversary special to be a bare-bones Plain-Jane model offered in Dynasty Green and Vintage Burgundy.
  • ToolGuy Ford is good at drifting all right... 😉
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