I was talking with an acquaintance who is the Used Car Mgr at a nearby Toyota dealership. He went to an auction recently with the intent of picking up a few Priuses (Prii?) for his lot. He was shocked to watch final bids exceed the cars' original prices by thousands of dollars. Needless to say, he didn't come home with any. Examples - '92 Black at around $25K. (black is the least desired used color) '93 Sand(?) at almost $30K. (tan is the most desired used color) He was shocked, but now not surprised, that dealerships, at least in this area including his own, are getting up to $5K over MSRP for new units. BTW, the best he could get me from his manager was $750 over MSRP. Since his dealership is more than 50 miles away, I'm sticking with the local dealer, two miles from the house, at $1K over MSRP. He assumed that the bidders were probably from dealerships a couple of thousand miles away. Though that raises the question as to why there are Priuses showing up at auctions when their resale prices are so high. Why don't the trading dealers keep them for resale?
Maybe that is why they are worth so much! Very rare, said to be non-existent, must be early prototypes My local dealer related the same story to me when I got on his list last week. Frankly, I can't imagine anyone is desperate (stupid?) enough to pay $30K for a used '02-'03.
