As I write this, our 2009 Nissan GT-R is somewhere between Los Angeles and the new owner's home near Atlanta, Georgia. After spirited early bidding the eBay auction closed quietly with the GT-R going for $52,600. The winner of the auction, Joao De Barros, an auto dealer who sells exotic cars and construction machinery, wired us the full payment, and then flew to Los Angeles. I picked him up at the airport, we signed papers, and he left the same night to return to Georgia.
I was selling the car by listing it on Mota's VIP service. Our Mota listing (which is also posted on Autotrader, produced a number of calls which were screened before I spoke with them. However, nobody was really stepping forward with any serious offers at our asking price of $66,000. With nearly 31,000 miles on the car, and the warranty expiring at 36,000 miles, I decided it was time to force the issue. I set up a 10 day eBay auction which seemed to get a lot of attention. There were 6,982 page views, 107 watchers and over 50 bids.
Derek Cohen, of eBay Motor's dealer services, suggested that we tickle buyers' excitement by lowering the reserve on the car by even a small amount. In this way, all bidders would receive an e-mail saying that the reserve had been lowered. They would then jump back in and start bidding again to see how low the reserve was.
The bidding stalled at $52,100 until the final minutes of the auction. Then De Barros jumped in and claimed the car with his bid of $52,600. It was the one and only time that he bid. He had, however, e-mailed me with a few questions about the car's condition.
I was a bit nervous picking De Barros up at the airport since he had never even seen the car in the flesh, so to speak. Before he arrived I had vacuumed the interior and washed the car carefully. As I dried the flanks of this impressive machine, I couldn't help thinking of a line of dialogue from "Anchorman." After Ron Burgundy goes on the skids he disappears into a washroom and then reemerges in his immaculate suit. The bartender who witnesses this says, "Dang, that dude cleans up good." That line kept ringing in my ears as I remove the layer of dirt from the GTR and saw the ivory white paint sparkle in the sunlight.
De Barros seemed very pleased with the car although he didn't want to drive it back from the airport, was which was a complete mad house. But he seemed eager to be underway for his 2,700 mile journey. We took his picture before he left. By the way, he promises that this car is a keeper and will be driven, not rubbed with diapers.
wobbly_ears says:
10:10 AM, 11/20/09
Inspite of its shaky reliability, I still like the car & respect it for what it can do.
Wish I had that kind of dough to blow it on a GT-R. Paraphrasing that famous line in the movie "Fiddler on the Roof", Even the lowly Engineer is entitled to some happiness in life.
Sigh. Someday GT-R, someday....
jasond52 says:
10:10 AM, 11/20/09
Wow, I can't imagine buying a car on eBay, especially an exspensive one like this. This guy has more guts than me.
broq3_5 says:
10:11 AM, 11/20/09
So, he's driving it across country? I would have had it shipped.
fuhteng says:
10:21 AM, 11/20/09
That poor, poor man.
allenychung says:
10:56 AM, 11/20/09
He sure looked excited!
mrryte says:
11:00 AM, 11/20/09
"By the way, he promises that this car is a keeper and will be driven, not rubbed with diapers."
Let's see how long that statement holds up. Have him keep us posted on the REAL ownership of this vehicle.
brn says:
11:29 AM, 11/20/09
I just ran the vehicle through the Edmunds appraisal. It came up with a value of $66,800 for a private party sale. That's $14,000 more than you got for it! It was off by more than 27%!
It looks like the Edmunds apprasial system needs a little work.
stwok says:
11:38 AM, 11/20/09
congrats on selling the car, the question now is what car is going to replace it?
ddoouugg says:
11:48 AM, 11/20/09
How about replacing it with the new 911 C2S, maybe with the PDK.
bankerdanny says:
12:16 PM, 11/20/09
By the time he gets it home he will have driven through the rest of the warranty.
The final price does show how reasonable CarMax's offer ($50K I think) was.
petrolhead85 says:
12:43 PM, 11/20/09
That poor bastard. He's just got himself a cruel, cruel mistress.
desmolicious says:
01:24 PM, 11/20/09
"an auto dealer who sells exotic cars and construction machinery"
"you like this Ferrari 355? No? How about a back hoe?"
philip17 says:
01:38 PM, 11/20/09
brn says:
I just ran the vehicle through the Edmunds appraisal. It came up with a value of $66,800 for a private party sale. That's $14,000 more than you got for it! It was off by more than 27%!
It looks like the Edmunds apprasial system needs a little work.
Brn: We opted to sell the GT-R on eBay for a number of reasons, one of which is that we are doing a story on it for our Tips and Advice section. We knew going in that cars on eBay often don't sell for more than wholesale value. Furthermore, we always follow the description of condition level which we had to put at "Clean." However, with an exotic like this, the buying public expects it to be perfect. In our case, while it had been repaired to the highest degree possible, it had its transaxle replaced and was in a low speed accident. Still, TVM could not be adjusted for this.
Clearly, the car had issues that impacted its value. Thus, we got less than TMV which is a guide and not a hard price.
And finally, most people listing GT-Rs for sale may take 3 to 4 months to sell their cars and probably never get what they ask. We don't have that luxury since we have other cars to buy and test.
I hope this helps explain this discrepancy.
Philip Reed, Senior Consumer Advice Editor
hybris says:
02:03 PM, 11/20/09
Get a Taurus SHO or if you need a two seater than get a Mustang it will make for good reading either way.
brn says:
03:31 PM, 11/20/09
Phillip,
It still seems a bit out of whack. I also selected "Clean" as the condition when I did the appraisal. Even the trade-in value was more than $10K over what you got for it.
Perhaps, word of all the repairs got out. I could see that driving the actual sale price down quite a bit. Maybe the buyers are more savvy than I thought they would be.
I'm curious to see if we can find out what the buyer resells the car for. He won't have the stigma of the Edmunds blogs.
efinils2 says:
09:29 PM, 11/20/09
"you like this Ferrari 355? No? How about a back hoe?"
That's the funniest thing I have read today!
ptcdawg says:
04:20 AM, 11/21/09
No way that car would be considered "clean"....as the Editor pointed out, it had issues...
charlesb says:
07:38 AM, 11/21/09
If the Edmund's appraiser is even close to accurate he should be able to flip this for a quick profit.
mozzz77788 says:
09:10 AM, 11/21/09
I could see them selling it for that much less. It had its transaxle replaced and they needed a quicker than normal sell. Totally reasonable.
johnnyr3 says:
03:23 AM, 11/23/09
[sigh]...bye bye, GT-R...
coletrickle says:
05:03 AM, 11/23/09
Goes to show that these gimmick cars simply do not hold their value no matter how fast they can go 0 to 60.
Someday in the not too distant future, I will be driving through South Jersey and spot one of these cars up on blocks in the front yard. Right next to the broken trampoline.