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Like many enthusiasts and users of this fine website, I appreciate collectible and rare cars. I also seek out the high profile sales of some of these collectible and rare cars. It helps me form a better opinion of where the market is heading, so that I can offer that advice to you fine folks (and anyone else in the office who will listen to my soapbox rants). If you can’t find me browsing the forums here, I’m probably browsing Bring a Trailer, eBay Motors, or newcomer Cars and Bids. And in doing so, I’m noticing a scary trend: undesirable outliers setting the price to unobtainable for exceptional examples. Case in point, this 1990 240SX (S13)

Undesirable

This is an undesirable S13. Why, you ask? This is a USDM model with a single cam KA24E truck motor. It’s a “zenki” (or “pignose”), pre-facelift model, which is widely considered the ugliest variety, although some people (mainly zenki owners) do seem to appreciate the kitsch of it.
Short of being an automatic (this 240 does thankfully have the five speed manual), this is pretty much the least desirable iteration of the 240SX. While that’s not so bad for Facebook, this wasn’t listed on Facebook. This is Bring a Trailer. The name and reputation of the website itself implies that this vehicle is so rare, unique, and special that you need to Bring. A. Trailer. This car is none of those things, especially when you can import an example powered by the legendary SR20DET or with Type X parts equipped. This example is an average 240SX, which somehow evaded a drift kid strapping an eBay turbo on and cutting the fenders off.

This car sold for a whopping $32,750, and no, I did not make the number up. If you look at the data Bring a Trailer provides on specific models, you will see that this vehicle is an outlier. Prior to the sale of this example on August 24, 2020, the highest-selling 240SX went for $20,000, and that puts the average price of a unique and collectible S13 (at least according to the folks at Bring a Trailer) at approximately $8,800.

As I said in the beginning, I believe sites like Bring a Trailer, eBay Motors, and Cars and Bids are useful tools to help predict and set the market, especially as enthusiasts and collectors flock away from auction events like Barrett Jackson and Mecum, where they don’t often showcase cars that our generation wants. This is also equally important to note, because as import regulations become lifted for 25-year-old cars that were never sold in North America, we’re going to have to look somewhere else to get some guidance on pricing.

Why this S13 matters

So, you might be asking yourself: why does this particular 240SX, which sold in August of 2020, matter? Well, when I originally began to cogitate on this whole idea, I knew something like this was going to happen: here we have another S13 that just closed its an auction on Bring a Trailer. The high bid of $18,001 did not meet reserve. Upon learning this, I broke several pieces of furniture in the Feed’s office (sorry guys, I’ll get another coffee pot soon). Why does this make me irrationally angry? Because aside from the Juniper Green Metallic, the car in question was just as undesirable as the listing in August! [Editor’s note: I want both of them, but at 2005 prices pls] The seller even had the nerve to list the car with a reserve that was entirely too expensive! At the end of the day, these auctions set price trends in the secondary market. For evidence, check out the S13 listings page here on Collector Car Feed. Wow, that’s a lot of $1234 listings, isn’t it?

Observe the above BaT reject, recently found for sale using Collector Car Feed. An 80,000 mile example, its paint is far from perfect (note the peeling roof), it’s a single-cam KA, and it’s automatic. Three strikes and you’re out. But, because of that single moon shot S13, the price of a Nissan 240SX has risen so drastically that this formerly $4,000 car is now asking $9,000, which, coincidentally, is the average asking price on Bring a Trailer. [Editor’s note: I bet we see this constantly once I add finished auction analytics.]

I don’t think this is the first example of this issue in the market; in fact, I’m sure this has happened before, twenty or thirty years ago when companies like Barrett Jackson first began to auction cars. Except then it wasn’t S13s, it was Camaros and Mustangs. The only respite we’re going to get is when a real JDM legend hits the market, it should finally make the value of true collectibles reflect the opinion of their owners thirty years later.

TOP TEXT

First off, I’d like to apologize for leaving the story open for so long; I’ve had lots of requests to finish, so thank you to all that have read about my adventures with the Celsior.

Where we last left off, I had just dropped off the disabled Celsior with Lutz. It had been about two days, and he called and asked me to come in to talk about what they found. This didn’t bode well with me, and I prepared myself for the worst as I walked through the doors of his shop. I saw my car sitting on the lift with one of his mechanics working under the hood, while he explained to me the work they had done. That’s when I noticed it – the car was running! The glorious 1UZ-FE V8 was again back to its smooth and quiet self! The car had jumped timing just before I was set to replace the timing belt/water pump. Lutz also found one my camshaft position sensors had tested out of spec, so being the perfectionist he is, he went ahead and replaced them both, as well as the radiator, as he had found a slight leak. I was ecstatic, and couldn’t believe the work had been done so quickly.

Then came the bill, to the tune of $1,800 (maybe more, I don’t remember), which I couldn’t be happier to pay. I had my car back! As I drove away from the shop, the car felt as good as new, and it nestled into its spot on my driveway again, ready to take me to work in the morning.

About a day or so later, I had my family in the car, and we were coming back from my son’s taekwondo lesson. As I pulled into the driveway, I rolled the window down for some reason. Inside my safe cocoon of sound proof metal and glass, I couldn’t hear it, but now that the window was down, it was evident that a *sound* was coming from the engine bay.

As I popped the hood, my mind wandered and I again heard the voices of demons and my wife. Why must I be tested this way? With my spouse looking on puzzlingly, I donned my stethoscope and placed it on the idler pulley. Bingo. My mind left the dark place, and the next day I purchased both the idler and tensioner pulley for good measure.

Around this time, my friend in San Antonio was getting ready to celebrate his son’s first birthday, and I thought “Wow, how fun would it be to take a road trip in my newly fixed, 25 year old Japanese car?” What could go wrong? The Friday morning before the birthday party, I packed up my family and we began our journey from El Paso to San Antonio. My wife reclined in her plush passenger seat and my son napped in the back, as I started putting miles (or kilometers?) between us and El Paso. When we arrived at the first “major” city, Fort Stockton, my wife decided she needed to use the restroom. I pulled into a gas station, got out of the car to stretch, and noticed it smelled like a car was burning oil. I went inside and used the restroom as well, and when I came back out my wife asked “Is the car smoking?”

The demons immediately returned.

There were definite wisps of smoke coming from the undercarriage. I moved the air suspension switch from NORM to HIGH to try and get a better look, but all I could ascertain was that I had developed a transmission fluid leak. I had to make a quick decision, and it seemed my best option was to turn around and try and make it back home instead of continuing on, as home was the closer destination. I purchased a quart of transmission fluid and left the gas station, turning on my left blinker to enter I-10 *West*, defeated. I kept my eyes on the rear view mirrors as much as the road in front of me, ready to pull the car over at any sign of smoke and evacuate the car. At that point, my attitude towards the situation had changed to a very Ivan Drago like one: If she burns, she burns.

Thankfully, the God of Bomex was watching over us: we made it safely back to El Paso, straight to Lutz’s shop. I left the Celsior in his care once again, and walked back home. He called me later that day to inform me that he had found the source of the leak and had corrected it. I brought the Celsior home again, happy, but with a little less glint in my eyes. Driving old cars is tough, and I had three RHD projects I had to keep running.

Sadly, the story ends abruptly here. The Celsior was sold locally on July 20, 2020, for the sum of $6,750. It is survived by a 1991 Nissan Silvia K’s (KPS13), and a 1992 Toyota Land Cruiser ZX (HZJ77).

BOTTOM TEXT

First, thanks for reading and supporting this project! This thing has changed substantially since its inception as a Discord bot, first expanding to a blog with original journalistic endeavors sprinkled amongst auto-generated “Every X For Sale in America” daily posts to keep things moving, and then evolving to a forum format with tables of for-sale cars and trucks (and now bikes and ATVs!) to peruse.

You’ve scanned your last “Every X” style blog post. The aforementioned forum has rendered these posts obsolete. If you want to see “Every E36 BMW M3 For Sale in America”, for example, you can just go to the E36 M3 thread, which is updated every day, and now has some new sources beyond just Facebook: if you haven’t visited in a while, you may be elated to discover we now also search eBay Motors, Bring A Trailer, and Cars And Bids, and there are more sites coming! We want to see those gray market Canadian Skylines just as bad as the Canadians who browse this site, so Kijiji is on the table.

While “Every X” is gone, the blog isn’t going away. This week, we’re pushing car content every single day. There’s a new Collector Car Feed Podcast up right now (did you know we have a podcast?), in which four of us take turns presenting cars we’ve found on The Feed, while the other three shoot holes in our dreams. Part Four of the Toyota Celsior series is coming, detailing the ups and downs of importing a JDM classic. There’s a Datsun 240Z post coming this week as well, and a look at the insanity Bring A Trailer has wrought on the 240SX community.

Finally, to replace the “Every X” series, a new daily post format is coming, which better captures what I’ve been trying to recreate this whole time. This new, yet-unnamed daily post will now feature vehicles found in the past 24 hours: new listings only. Focusing on cars over 15 years old, we’re going to filter out junk prices ($1234) and junk mileage, only looking at cars with under 100,000 miles on the clock. The idea is to recreate cracking open a brand new, print-edition Auto Trader that you just brought home from the corner gas station, hopefully finding, without a laser focus on a single model, something worth looking into. The first post will drop this Friday.

Thanks again for reading, and thanks for all the suggestions and ideas you all have sent. You’ve all helped shape this site, and it’s starting to evolve into exactly what I was hoping for from the beginning. This coming week is full of journalistic gold, so stay tuned.

Lexus GS 300. Infiniti M30. Crown Victoria. Old mail trucks. When I pull back and take a macro view of my vehicular habits, a clear trend emerges. It’s undeniable: I fall in love with shitboxes. This is not how God or father intended, but since my teens, I have only had eyes for the shitty.

A large part of my obsession with ugly ducklings is rooted in my unshakable pragmatism: cars are depreciating assets (and on top of that, I’ve never had an excess of assets myself). So while I can appreciate the intricate mechanical workings of a Ferrari, I’ll never spiritually connect with one like I have with my former turd chariots.

This all started leading up to getting my learners permit. I would grab an Auto Trader and pore over every listing, checking the price first. At the time I had a few hundred dollars to my name, and based on my upcoming employment options, I estimated my 15-year-old net worth to top out around $1500.
With my given financial limitation, the Auto Trader became a much smaller publication. Only a few vehicles lived in my price point, many of them foreign, front wheel drive sedans; while this would be acceptable transportation for the working man, I abhorred the idea of pulling up to school in one.
When all seemed lost, I flipped to the back of the rag, and jumping off the page like a pin-up girl was my first crush: a decommissioned DJ postal jeep, 1973 vintage, running and driving for the low low price of $800. That jeep stared up at me with hope and wonder like the second prettiest girl at the trailer park.

This is the key to falling in love with the unlovable: you need to bend reality with obsession. Any problem was just an opportunity in disguise. No A/C? I’m just gonna open up that side door. 2WD instead of 4WD? Well, technically, it will be more reliable. Maximum speed 60 mph? I love back roads, who needs highways anyway.
For the year leading up to my 16th birthday, I inhaled every bit of information available on the postal jeep and by infatuating myself with the mail jeep through print advertising, then the internet, then celebrating them upon seeing them in the wild, I was teaching myself a pattern that I would follow into adulthood: the deep connection with the different. I never ended up getting the jeep (my father stepped in at the last moment with a nice 16-year-old stimulus package), but the shitbox seance had been completed, and there was no going back. I was drawn to the inexpensive and forgotten forever.

As I grew up, I came to learn that I needed my transportation to be reliable. While I love turning wrenches, at the end of the day I’m below average at it. Those front wheel drive foreign sedans were suddenly looking a whole lot sexier.
Around this time, I was driving a 1994 Toyota Camry station wagon on its last legs. This was a hand me down car, and while grateful, I didn’t love it like I would have my own. So when it finally wouldn’t pass emissions anymore, I went hunting for my next love.
Like an oak barrel to wine, age had refined my shitty palette, and I now viewed amenities like reliability and air conditioning as mandatory. After a few weeks of browsing craigslist I found myself gazing at my next long term relationship: a 2000 Toyota Echo coupe with a 5 speed. If I squinted just right it kinda looked sporty, a trick Tercel and Paseo owners perfected before me. One owner, 62,000 miles, and $3200 dollars. While the jeep showed me the power of delusion, the Echo helped me master it.

I learned patience with the Toyota early on. My twenties were turbulent times, and through it all I loved the Echo like it was an AC Shelby Cobra. Given there weren’t a plethora of modification options, I would study each one for months.
When I found Toyota made a factory trunk spoiler, I debated for a full year about it, savoring every thought. When an old man rear ended me and offered to pay cash for the damages, I knew it was my time. I purchased the decklid spoiler and had the body shop paint it with the rest. I had marked the beast: it was no longer an Echo, it was my Echo. And in the end, she was a masterpiece: meticulously cleaned and detailed, filled with premium fluids, and topped off with a service record that looked like a military flight log. This turd reliably took me to work for seven years and was polished to a mirror sheen the entire time.
When I finally went to let the old girl go, I saw in the buyer’s eyes what I knew to reside in my own. He loved the shitboxes too. He asked all the right questions of someone who had the bug. He had twenty-five $100 bills and big plans for how he was going to love this car and make it his own.
It was nice to know that another person like me was out there,
This love has never left me, and manifests now, every morning, in the form of browsing Facebook, eBay, BaT, or this site, looking for the sub-$4000 forgotten girl. I fantasize about a Buick Lesabre’s 3800 V6 purring, picture myself restoring a junkyard GS 300, or finding the right box Caprice Classic to mob around in. I could probably do better, but I’m reminded of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons crooning:

Little rag doll…
I’d change her sad rags into glad rags
If I could (if I could)
My folks won’t let me
‘Cause they say that she’s no good
She’s a rag doll, such a rag doll
Though I love her so
I can’t let her know

There’s space in my driveway for a third car, so when I see that 1993 base model Del Sol, I linger on the listing and wonder what that little rag doll would look like if I gave her glad rags and all of my heart.

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