Checking out used car ads on Craigslist and eBay is one of our favorite past times. Even the shady listings are endlessly entertaining, but these two postings are even more suspicious than usual.
The first posting is for a $1.75-million BMW M1. Already a rare car, this model was apparently given to Niki Lauda after the 1979 BMW M1 Procar Championship season. Considering that the BMW M1 is already quite rare with just 400 examples made, the fact that this one used to belong to former F1 champion Niki Lauda makes it extra special. But it’s all a bit suspect: cars like these are typically sold through auction services like RM Sotheby’s or Barrett-Jackson, as the car collectors that use that service are more likely to shell out over a million dollars for a car. We’d think it’d have more success there than a Craiglist posting.
According to the seller of this BMW M1, Lauda was raising money for his airline Lauda Air, and sold the car. It was then shipped it over to the US in a container in a sale to another owner and it was never taken out of the container. The current owner bought the container and as a result this rare BMW M1 too. Honestly, it shouldn’t be on Craigslist, but should rather be in a museum! The BMW M1 is a mid-engine, rear-wheel drive car with a 3.5-liter six-cylinder engine that makes 275 horsepower, and is considered a very special halo car to BMW fans.
If a rare, old BMW doesn’t do it for you, how about a brand new Bugatti Chiron, which is up for sale on Craigslist as well. With an asking price of $1.2 million this car has less information than the BMW, although that doesn’t make it any more or less believable of a story. The owner says that they bought the car in January from a Miami dealership and had the car for only two weeks before deciding to sell it. Again, based on our experience during Monterey Car Week, this kind of car may find a more suitable buyer on somewhere other than Craigslist. This 16-cylinder, quad-turbocharged vehicle makes almost 1,500 horsepower and will do 60 MPH in just 2.5 seconds. What’s strange is when new, the Chiron commanded a price well above $2 million, so this buyer is taking a serious hit in depreciation. Only 500 of them were made, making this another very limited and rare vehicle, if the posting is a real one.
But really, we shouldn’t judge, if a seller is looking for a buyer, it doesn’t hurt to put an ad up everywhere they can. If you are looking at one of these two cars, we’d be wary. There’s only a few, tightly cropped photos that don’t show the vehicle very well at all. The information is a bit off (is a Chiron really considered a compact?) and the sellers are vague about details.
[Source: Craigslist LA and Craigslist ATL]