These Two Craigslist Ads Are Highly Suspicious
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 only about 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: Rare cars like these are typically sold through auction services like RM Sotheby’s or Barrett-Jackson, as the car collectors who use those services are more likely to shell out big bucks. Posting it on Craigslist makes us question this car’s legitimacy.
According to the seller of this BMW M1, Lauda was raising money for his airline Lauda Air and sold the car. The car was shipped over to the U.S. in a container when it was sold, and it was apparently never even taken out of the container.
This car should be in a museum, not rotting away in a container. The owner couldn’t even bother to take the rag off to take a photo!
If this rare BMW doesn’t do it for you, how about a brand new Bugatti Chiron that we also found on Craigslist? With an asking price of $1.2-million, this car has even less information on its posting than the BMW and has “sketchy” written all over it. 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, this kind of car might 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. The Chiron, of which only 500 will be made, sells for more than $2.6-million on legit channels, so if this posting is real, it’s a great deal…
All we can say about these listings is buyer beware.
[Source: Craigslist LA and Craigslist ATL]
Sami has an unquenchable thirst for car knowledge and has been at AutoGuide for the past six years. He has a degree in journalism and media studies from the University of Guelph-Humber in Toronto and has won multiple journalism awards from the Automotive Journalist Association of Canada. Sami is also on the jury for the World Car Awards.
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Those auction houses you mentioned take a pretty big cut and the vehicle would need to be made auction ready and shipped(money+time). Craigslist is free and you could potentially have the money the same day. If someone was interested it wouldn't be too hard to find out if either of these cars were legit.
This happens up and down the price spectrum. In 2016 I responded to an ad for a 2010 Mercedes-Benz S65 that was posted in quite a few different forums. Great pictures but they all were of a vehicle that was previously for sale in Texas. The seller claimed to be a used car dealership in Ohio. Turns out the real owner died and likely this con-artist got possession of the old telephone number. No "law enforcement" agency I contacted cared one bit except to get me off the phone as quickly as possible. Caveat Emptor