We’d all like to make money on the cars we buy. Unfortunately, as the saying goes, “things that get used, get used up.” Automotive depreciation is a fact of life for most vehicles we spend money on. But there are those special vehicles that become worth more used than they were new. Of course, if you wait long enough, nearly any car will appreciate in value simply due to the combination of monetary inflation and the general rarity of antique cars over a certain age. I’m talking cars that appreciate in value fairly rapidly—say, a decade old, give or take five years. Therefore, today’s Hoonatic task is to list cars from the Oughts* that are worth more now than they were new.
^{*Just to be clear, the Oughts encompass the 2000–2009 model years, fer all you young whippersnappers!}
BUT WAIT! I am sure you’re aware that there are always caveats, and today’s is a real doozy! Since any discussion of car values is likely to be rife with subjective opinion and groundless speculation, and the Encyclopedia is about objective lists, we must nail things down with hard, impartial, third-party data. Therefore, today’s assignment is to go the National Automobile Dealers Association used car price guide [NADAguides.com], find a MY 2000–09 vehicle whose current AVERAGE RETAIL value is greater than the listed ORIGINAL MSRP value, and then post a link to that page in the comments below. Of course, including a photo is worth extra cred points and always much appreciated, but the important thing today is the NADA values.
Difficulty: As hard as finding a kitten in a thunderstorm. (Yeah, I’ve never known what the heck that means, either.)
How This Works: Read the comments first and don’t post duplicates. Bonus points for adding photos. Remember, you can simply paste in the raw image URL now, thanks to the magic of Disqus.
Image Source: Screenshot from NADAguides.com …duh.