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Old Economy Cars Enjoying A Revival

With gasoline prices closing in on $4 per gallon, some strange things are happening in the used-car world. Like aging crooners getting rediscovered -- think Tony Bennett or Mel Torme -- some of yesterday's high-mileage models are cool again.

There's a run on old economy cars, such as the early-'90s Geo Metro, Honda CRX HF and any diesel-powered Volkswagen. Prices for those cars --even if they have more than 200,000 miles on the clock and rust holes big enough to drop your wallet through -- are bringing crazy prices on eBay Motors and elsewhere.

Good used versions of the ugly duckling Geo Metro XFi, with its wheezing, 1.0-liter three-cylinder, 49-hp engine, are selling for $3,000 to $6,000 -- even though used-car guides such as Kelley Blue Book show them to be worth around $1,500. The XFi model, equipped with a manual transmission, should get about 51 mpg on the highway under the revised EPA fuel economy estimates.

The CRX HF, which has a revised EPA rating of 47 mpg on the highway, also is a hot item. Several have sold recently for more than $5,000.

A clean mid-'80s VW Jetta diesel with about 225,000 miles on the odometer is worth $3,000 to $4,000, according to completed auctions on eBay Motors. Old VW diesels get about 40 mpg on the highway.

Tom Kontos, an executive vice president and veteran data cruncher at auction giant ADESA, says he sees no solid statistical proof of an old-timers revival. Anecdotally, though, he says some buy-here, pay-here dealers have told him that "older cars were harder to find and more expensive to obtain."

(Source: Automotive News, 05/26/08)

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