#Auction
A Look At A Japanese Auto Auction And What It Holds For The Future
While we’re fortunate to be treated to a weekly look at American auto auctions courtesy of TTAC’s Steve Lang and his Hammer Time series, today we’re getting a glimpse of an auction on the other side of the world.
![Derek Kreindler](https://cdn-fastly.thetruthaboutcars.com/resources/imgs-responsive/avatar-letters/avatar-D-F1C40F.png?size=50x50)
Hammer Time: Reversing the Clusterscrews
I admit it. Every once in a while I buy a vehicle that simply doesn’t work out.
Everything checks out at the auction. But then, I get a birthday surprise.
It could be a transmission that randomly goes out of overdrive after about 20 or 30 miles. Or an engine that has far too many aged wires for me to easily track down a stubborn check engine light.
Sometimes I buy a 4000-pound ATM machine that only allows you to put money into it; a rolling lemon, par excellence. Then I have to figure out how to make it into lemonade, lemon meringue pie, lemon tart, and even repair fodder for the other rides on the road that are still lemon-free.
Lemons are never fun… but every once in a while fate has a wonderful way of smiling on a pitiful set of circumstances.
![Steven Lang](https://cdn-fastly.thetruthaboutcars.com/resources/imgs-responsive/avatar-letters/avatar-S-69E0FF.png?size=50x50)
Piston Slap: A High Mileage Tale to TL
Dan writes:
Hi Sajeev,
I enjoy your columns and thought I would get your input regarding what I should do with my current vehicle, a 2002 Acura TL 3.2. I purchased the vehicle new almost 12 years ago. The Acura has about 200,000 miles on it and is still on its third-transmission. As we all know, the transmission used on this vehicle was problematic but seems to be running okay. The car is very clean inside.
![Sajeev Mehta](https://cdn-fastly.thetruthaboutcars.com/media/profile/2022/07/20/8_1.jpg?size=50x50)
Thank You, Thank You Very Much
There’s been all sorts of interesting stuff on the auction block lately, but surely the car above has the Seventies lovers in the audience all shook up.
![Jack Baruth](https://cdn-fastly.thetruthaboutcars.com/media/profile/2022/07/20/38752_1.jpg?size=50x50)
Finally, A Chevrolet Dealership Has Cars That Someone Wants To Buy
How’d you like to buy a new Chevrolet? A real Chevrolet. Not a Daewoo. Not a New GM assemblage of lowest-bidder Chinese electronics and focus-grouped inoffensiveness. A brand-new Chevrolet from the time when Chevrolet ruled the world with a cast-iron fist. A brand-new 1958 Chevrolet. With four miles on the odometer.
![Jack Baruth](https://cdn-fastly.thetruthaboutcars.com/media/profile/2022/07/20/38752_1.jpg?size=50x50)
The Last Soldier Prepares To Cross The Block
The bare and plain fact that TTAC was, to some degree, built on the GM Death Watch series often causes our readers to think that we, as a group of writers, hate GM. Nothing could be further from the truth. Your humble author grew up thinking the “Mark Of Excellence” was a mandatory part of every seatbelt buckle and that the Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Regency was the most awesome sedan money could buy. If we’re angry at GM, it’s in large part because the people who ran the company destroyed an incomparable, irreplaceable legacy through their complacency, incompetence, and short-term thinking. The men who ran the company into the ground managed to snatch an improbable defeat from the jaws of victory. There is no hell hot enough for the architects of General Motors’ fall from grace. They destroyed a big part of the United States and there was no, repeat, no reason for it to happen.
And now the emblem of their seemingly deliberate failure is coming up for sale.
![Jack Baruth](https://cdn-fastly.thetruthaboutcars.com/media/profile/2022/07/20/38752_1.jpg?size=50x50)
Tales From The Cooler: Instant Karma Depreciation
During all the turmoil facing hybrid automaker Fisker Automotive recently, from closing its doors to a possible resuscitation led by Bob Lutz, one thing has remained constant: the rapidly collapsing values of the Fisker Karma cars themselves.
![Virgil Hilts](https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/wp-content/uploads/avatars/s2000-1.jpg?size=50x50)
Piston Slap: To Rent, To Own
Hi Sajeev –
I’m a longtime reader of the blog, and also have been car less for the past 17 years. I live in a major Pacific Northwest city and haven’t needed a car. But I’m getting older, I’m partnered up and need to visit in-laws out in the boonies, and I just find myself wanting a car. I don’t want an older car. The two cars I did own back in my teens and early 20s were a 1980s Buick Skylark and a 1988 Dodge Omni. I think dealing with the repairs on those two beaters put a bad taste in my mouth for very old cars. So I’m looking at new or slightly used.
![Sajeev Mehta](https://cdn-fastly.thetruthaboutcars.com/media/profile/2022/07/20/8_1.jpg?size=50x50)
Auction Day: Seconds!
There comes a time when the prices for used cars at the auto auctions go the way of an exuberant bubble.
A small army of consumers get their tax refunds. The car lots wake up from their winter slumber, and values for vehicles go the netheregions of the human imagination.
I sell cars during this time, not buy them. In the last three months of every year I will usually buy a lot to avoid the tax time market prices. Sometimes as many as 12 vehicles in a day. But when tax season comes, I buy a chosen few and sell them by the dozen.
Then, after the buying frenzy begins to ever slowly ebb, there will be a welcome break in those hedonistic valuations. Where instead of winding up $1000 to $1500 behind the selling price, I wind up second to another bidder. Almost always to a guy who has been buying cars for a long time. Today was that day.
![Steven Lang](https://cdn-fastly.thetruthaboutcars.com/resources/imgs-responsive/avatar-letters/avatar-S-69E0FF.png?size=50x50)
Looking For an Engine Donor For Your '53 Ford? Police Impound Auction!
Rich, the mastermind behind the Rocket Surgery Racing mid-VW-engined Renault 4CV, just got hired to install a daily-driver-suitable modern drivetrain in a ’53 Ford coupe. The owner wanted to keep it all Ford, EFI makes for much better real-world drivability, and so a late 1980s or newer Ford 5.0 or 5.8 (aka 302 or 351W) V8 engine looked to be the best choice. Running donor cars and trucks that fit those requirements tend to go for four figures, so it was time to hit a Denver-area police-impound auction. Here’s what happened yesterday.
![Murilee Martin](https://cdn-fastly.thetruthaboutcars.com/media/profile/2022/07/26/70200_2.jpg?size=50x50)
Seven The Hard Way: Possibly The Coolest Auction Of The Year
H.J Mulliners gave this model design the name “Flying Spur” which is well documented as the heraldic symbol of the Johnstone Clan in Scotland. The “Flying Spur” was awarded to the Johnstone clan for their help in allowing Bonnie Prince Charlie to escape on horseback.
That’s authentic British heritage, no Bentley-by-Breitling-by-Bentley-by-Brietling-by-Volkswagen needed. You’re looking at one of seven Flying Spurs for sale, from the collection of a Hungarian who escaped that Communist state to become an engineer, succeed beyond his wildest imagination, and acquire top-shelf examples of the Flying Spur wherever they could be found. That’s even cooler than the cars themselves, right?
![Jack Baruth](https://cdn-fastly.thetruthaboutcars.com/media/profile/2022/07/20/38752_1.jpg?size=50x50)
Doug DeMuro's Barrett-Jackson Roundup
Tune in, drop out
With Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale over, aging hairy-chested executives are now returning to McMansions all across America, short seven figures but up one or two muscle cars. Yes, there were some big sales this year, like the Batmobile that went for $4.6 million even though it’s based on a Lincoln and doesn’t have any rocket launchers. But this Barrett-Jackson summary is for all the car geeks out there, highlighting a few less publicized sales that still managed to raise my eyebrows as I sat on my couch watching the results and eating donuts.
![Doug DeMuro](https://cdn-fastly.thetruthaboutcars.com/media/profile/2022/07/20/106934_1.jpg?size=50x50)
Monday Mileage Midget: 2011 Honda Accord LX
Not too long ago (but in a galaxy far, far away) I wrote about the deals you can get on unpopular new cars that have brand new replacements waiting in the wings.
Today we’ll examine what happens when those vehicles fall off the depreciation cliff. Again.
![Steven Lang](https://cdn-fastly.thetruthaboutcars.com/resources/imgs-responsive/avatar-letters/avatar-S-69E0FF.png?size=50x50)
Monday Mileage Midget: 2000 Dodge Grand Caravan SE
11,285 miles. Or maybe not?
This 12 year old minivan graced a fairly large audience of dealers that were long dog tired of all the minivans that were passing through. There were green ones that were as unloved as they were large. Purple ones that dated back all the way back to the Y2K era and the peak of minivan mania. A red one that came in an unsellable three door version.
Then there was this one.
![Steven Lang](https://cdn-fastly.thetruthaboutcars.com/resources/imgs-responsive/avatar-letters/avatar-S-69E0FF.png?size=50x50)
I'm No Dummy
photo source: Wikipedia
Statistics Canada reports that there are more than 26 million registered vehicles deemed fit to ply our 900,000km of Canadian roadway. Not bad for a group of souls who wear wool socks for six months of the year and feast on poutine. Transport Canada sets regulations for such things (the cars, not the poutine) and is thus charged with crashing, smashing, and otherwise ruining brand new vehicles with single digits on their odometers – all in the name of safety, of course.
![Matthew Guy](https://cdn-fastly.thetruthaboutcars.com/media/profile/2022/07/21/101521_1.jpg?size=50x50)
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