Is $30,000 a lot of money for a car? It depends on what you’re spending it on. A new Mazda MX-5 starts at $31,065 including freight and feels like a screaming deal for one of the greatest new sports cars on the market. However, spending $30,000 on a 40-year-old Chevrolet Cavalier is enough to raise an eyebrow. That’s more than the thing cost when new, and it’s not like the Cavalier is a blue-chip car. However, the heart wants what the heart wants, which is part of the reason why a 1985 Cavalier just sold on Bring A Trailer for nigh-on as much as a new Miata.
The first-generation Chevrolet Cavalier wasn’t exactly a landmark car, but it sure was popular. It was America’s best-selling passenger vehicle in 1984 and 1985 thanks to a low starting price and a huge array of body styles and powertrains. You could order one as a sedan, a hatchback, a coupe, a convertible, and even a station wagon. Indeed, the practical wagon variant is what we’re looking at today.
Granted, this particular example doesn’t come equipped with the creme-de-la-creme engine option for the first-gen Cavalier, the 130-horsepower 2.8-liter V6. Instead, it makes do with an 85-horsepower two-liter inline-four with throttle body fuel injection. Hitched to a three-speed automatic, forward progress would’ve been adequate for the double-nickel era, but definitely on the glacial side by today’s standards.
However, one big reason this particular Cavalier fetched such a high sum is because of its condition. With just 1,400 miles on the clock, this has to be one of the nicest first-generation Cavaliers anywhere in the world. The upholstery’s absolutely pristine, the hood insulation looks brand new, and the engine bay’s pretty much clean enough to eat off of. While the original Cavalier was once a common sight, few were ever preserved. This really is a case where finding another would be almost impossible, and that’s before you get into any personal connection.
Chevrolet sold more than two million of these things over six years, and that’s just counting first owners. Who knows how many people grew up in the back of a Cavalier, learned to drive in a Cavalier, or picked up a second-hand Cavalier as their first car? With this sort of volume, it’s also entirely possible that at least one couple out there used a Cavalier as their wedding car. Even just on this context, it only makes sense that someone had to own this car.
Unsurprisingly, the market for a concours-grade Cavalier at new Miata money is small. This auction ended up being a two-bidder race from $18,250 up until the end, after which the second-place bidder commented words of advice we should all keep in mind when we see a crazy valuation like this: “Please don’t think this is a market value. This is double what the car is worth. I was willing to pay because I have a history with this car. I’ve been chasing it for 15 years.”
Love makes us do funny things, and sometimes that funny thing is being willing to pay way over market value for a pristine Chevrolet Cavalier. Then again, we don’t exactly know why the winning bidder of this Cavalier shelled out $30,000 on it, but so long as they’re happy, maybe it’s not so crazy. There are worse ways to spend $30,000, aren’t there?
Top graphic image: Bring A Trailer
Nuts, just crazy. Every bit of rubber and plastic is going to be oxidized and brittle. Could easily drop another 10k to make the thing reliable, safe and justify the vastly overinflated price. I commuted for a few years in a 85 Buick Skyhawk with that engine. It was a cramped, underpowered, rattle trap. It’s the buyer’s money though. Nostalgia can be a powerful drug.
“Someone Just Paid $30,000 For A 1985 Chevy Cavalier And I Want To Know Why”
Because some people have more dollars than sense. 🙂
A fool and his money are soon parted.
Yeah, they’re being very cavalier with their money
Quote I stole from a friend, that came from her mom:
“It is truly amazing what some people would rather have than money.”
My first car was an 85 Cavalier sedan with the 2 liter and a 3 speed auto.
I abused it terribly. It survived well, but then met its end when someone skipped a stop sign because they wanted to meet my cavalier so badly.
It was a perfectly cromulent appliance, evoking no emotions. I can’t believe somebody paid so much for one. They must be filthy rich and easily distracted.
It’s only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.
Reading the headline, I was thinking OK, maybe this is for a mint Z24 coupe, and a millenial had one in highschool when he was the starting quarterback and wants to buy back his glory years.
This is… not that.
It’s clearly worth it.
You can’t get a new wagon with two-tone paint and a velour interior at any price these days!
I mean, well, you’re not wrong.
Those wheels are totally awesome.
There, I said something nice.
My parents had a wagon just like this when I was a kid. It was blue, and there were 4 kids so we would argue about who got to ride in the ‘way back” when we went places. We also took it on a vacation half way across the US one summer. It took 3 days of heat, storms, and car sickness to get to the west coast all at the blistering speed of 55mph.
Ah, the good old days… (Kidding)
You know, it was a huge trip. First time seeing an ocean. As a family we only a few really big road trips growing up, so they kind of were the good old days.
I do know we had a lesser version of this wagon. It had no AC and hubcaps. I remember the heat baking us all trying to lay down in the back with the seats folded. We also had 3 of our 4 hubcaps stolen in Boise.
“Hey Dude – – There’s a Cavalier with Hubcaps! Lets go steal ’em!”
“Cool!”
*a few minutes later*
“Okay – lets go”
“But you only got three – what about the other one?”
“Nah Dude – I’m good”
*shrug*
and these didnt have a 3rd row… my family did the same thing though.
This listing was recently featured on Rare Classic Cars & Automotive History and even Adam was impressed with how clean the underside is. Must be a story behind it, especially for the 2nd place bidder to admit he was chasing it.
One of those ’84 Cavaliers belonged to my mom, and was the car I made my first ride in, home from the hospital. It was a fairly basic manual sedan, though it did have a tape player. Not sure about A/C; I remember the windows being rolled down a lot, which, if you didn’t have the rear windows cracked, caused the front seatbelts to flap violently in the draft.
This wagon is pretty much fully loaded, other than the V6. I’ve daydreamed in the past about building a Cimarron wagon, which would require Cimarron sedan and Cavalier wagon donor cars, but A) I’d never actually do it, because, why? and B) even if I did, I’d want to be way, way, waaaay under $30K all in.
No V6 for quite a few years, if they ever offered it in the wagon at all. I don’t think they did.
These are the auctions that make me think BaT is a money laundering enterprise.
IMO it’s not an outrageous price. There’s quite a few collectors of GM cars of this era, and it’s about the cleanest one you’ll ever come across in your life. It’s really no different than people paying thousands for super rare NES cartridges or Pokemon cards or something.
Plus, for better or worse, it’s a driving experience that you cannot find any more. You’re almost buying it for the experience and nostalgia more so than the actual vehicle itself.
I’d like someone to explain to my how you would launder money using a very public auction. This is simply two guys with lots of money getting into a dick-measuring contest over a weird old car.
This actually makes way more sense to me than over $100K for a wrecked piss-poor ancient EV. At least you can drive this one home.
Well, say you have some random thing that didn’t cost you much.
You auction it off and a confederate who wants to transfer money to you buys it at a vastly inflated price.
There are two drawbacks:
The auction house is going to take a commission. All things considered most money launderers take a higher percentage than most auction houses, eBay, or whoever, so it is not really a problem.
Someone other than your confederate might outbid him and you are stuck with even more legitimate money.
Oh, make that one drawback.
Of course you end up paying taxes, but with a little planning they could be capital gains.
Of course the “buyer” needs to account for how they got the cash but they can be a fake entity or laundering cash some other way.
Allegedly a lot of this goes on in the art world, and real estate is famous for it.
You can do it with things that don’t cost much – but then the volume of transactions to launder any meaningful amount of money is not worth the bother. Once you are over $10K in the US – very, very different story. The IRS is a whole lot smarter than people realize when it comes to tracking transactions. And the Feds will go after you for structuring in a heartbeat these days.
Well, that’s why the art market is good. You can sell a 11×14 inch drawing for $100,000 , nobody is going to ever check it, and it spends the next 50 years in a warehouse in a freeport.
Or you could print and sell some sort of collectable junk, at $5000 a piece on ebay, ship it all out of the country to foreign buyers.
I agree, especially as art is often sold very privately. It’s the very public nature of an online auction that makes it an absolutely horrible vehicle for money laundering, no pun intended. But even there – it’s more likely to be capital gains tax fraud by the seller than money laundering. I would be very tempted to just spend that cash here and there rather than try to put it in a bank and have to report it and pay the taxes on the likely substantial gain on that $100K painting.
eBay is absolutely going to report every single transaction to the Feds today. They have to issue you a 1099misc (or whatever the equivalent is when selling online) if you sell more than $600 (IIRC) worth of stuff in a year. Actually, that probably goes for EVERY auction at this point. Uncle Sam wants his slice. You get to prove that you didn’t make a small fortune selling that old Crapalier for $30K.
The only sane thing I can think of is a company that supplies vehicles for TV or movie production has a very specific request they need to fill. Maybe we’ll see this thing on NCIS Origins or something similar, set in the late ’80s/early ’90s.
We had a Seth McFarlane tv show filmed in my town recently. It was set in the 90s. Some pretty neat cars and mundane cars
counterpoint, there’s whole industries that stock and rent out essentially any car ever made for movie productions – most look very good but aren’t pristine by a looooooooong shot – so unless you are doing a documentary about the guy who got GM to add a wagon to the cavalier lineup …
I’ve stumbled on one of those companies websites before and they really do have everything. Running and non-running vehicles from the 20s to today. Some companies even stock wrecked cars! There’s a nonzero chance that some charred hulk of a car has been in more than one movie you’ve seen.
I was living in Newhall when they were filming Christine. You would see a transporter go by with a couple immaculate Christines, and a bunch of wrecked or rusted 1958 Plymouth Furies.
That’s so cool! I’m a huge Stephen King fan and Christine was the first book of his I read.
Or maybe they already had a car just like this one, and somethings happened to it mid production so they needed a clone pronto.
Who knows? Could be just about anything.
Sorry, I didn’t fully read/comprehend your comment before disagreeing with it x) this would be an excellent unit for that kind of business if they had a need for it, in any case!!
Lots of movie cars aren’t even drivable.
On the other hand, a friend in college had two cars looked like beater 59 Chevys , but they were identical right down to having the same minor dents and rusty spots.
They both had brand new engines and transmissions, and all the suspension was fresh with upgraded brakes. They were the “hero cars” that the lead character drove in a movie the friend’s father had directed. Originally they had built five but three were wrecked.
Also, there are a lot of movie cars that are folded or wrecked on the passenger side if they want a bunch of cars parked as they drive by.
“Someone Just Paid $30,000 For A 1985 Chevy Cavalier And I Want To Know Why”
For the same reason someone would pay six figures for a mint condition example of an impossible-to-find obscure baseball card.
Fair point, storage is easier with the baseball card, but very fair point.
After inflation it would be about $21K new toady right?
I bet someone is going to put this in a museum in a display called. “This is how the poors lived”
Subtitled “The Good Old Days actually kind of sucked”.
On a 30 year loan at 25%, that’s $105 per month. Someone got a great deal!
“There are worse ways to spend $30,000, aren’t there?”
Yes… you can use that money to put a deposit on a new Aptera and use the rest of the money to invest in Aptera.
Now having said that, I actually am hoping Aptera does actually make it to the production stage.
But they need a lot more than hope to get to that point.
This Cavalier for $30k though is pure crack pipe to me. Even factoring in the condition, the most this is worth to me is maaaybe $10K.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some money laundering at play here.
IDK, this has to be the only version of this car with 1,400 miles on it. Maybe the eds will get a scoop from the buyer and runner up and do a piece. Eh, eh?
Oh definitely it would be interesting to get more backstory on the buyer and seller.
And at 1400 miles, it means that this car would devalue fast if I actually wanted to use it as a car.
So essentially it’s a glorified museum piece. And as a museum piece, I still say the selling price is pure crack pipe.
Please do explain exactly how money laundering via a VERY public auction works. I’ll wait.
Of course it’s crackpipe to you or me. But it was evidently worth it to two wacky dudes out there, one slightly more than the other. Got to love auctions!
“Please do explain exactly how money laundering via a VERY public auction works”
I have no idea. All I’m saying is that I wouldn’t be surprised IF there is a money laundering aspect to this.
” But it was evidently worth it to two wacky dudes out there WHO ARE ON CRACK, one slightly ON more CRACK than the other.”
There… fixed it for accuracy.
LOL
People spend far more on dumber things. Hell, I am spending a half million dollars to have a 2-post lift of my own. <shrug>
Not that I am saying I am there, but there certainly comes a point where $30K is pocket change, you you just buy whatever strikes your fancy. Which explains most haute couture, IMHO.
Are those OEM wheels? They look Pontiac.
This is definitely an internet-enabled phenomenon, esp as summed up in the words of the second place guy.
I’m a casual collector of old Timex watches – I love their value and functionality. Among the small amount of people into this, there are various grails – a 60s skindiver with a surprising-for-then water resistance, some actual gold-filled ones, but the one that takes the cake is the 80s/90s Timex Camper.
As seen in MacGyver (both versions), they’re completely plastic field watches famous for having mechanical movements and being cheap – they’re not made to be repaired, not particuarly accurate, have a single piece case and a thin nylon strap. They also sell for $100+ when they appear on ebay. It’s crazy. But b/c of the reach of the internet and one of the dangers of auctions, peoples’s emotions sometimes get the better of them I guess.
Yes, those are correct wheels for an ’85 Cavalier–the fancy aluminum ones, at that.
https://www.oldcarbrochures.org/United%20States/Chevrolet/1985-Chevrolet/1985-Chevrolet-Cavalier-Brochure/slides/1985_Chevrolet_Cavalier-01.html
People are not logical and cars are always an emotional purchase, i will spend the same amount of money if i can find a car from my childhood (Mercedes W123 long) to buy and restore, it should be in golden color.
“People are not logical and cars are always an emotional purchase”
Or there is some money laundering going on here.
Not sure money laundering really works online (well except in crypto). The whole point to money laundering is to convert ill gotten paper cash into legitimate cash (paper or digital), that has to be done before going into a bank account.
Can’t say I’m an expert on the subject. But I have heard of art auctions being used to launder money.
And I just did a quick check on how payment is made on bringatrailer auction wins…
“Bring a Trailer uses a two-step payment process: a 5% buyer’s fee charged by BaT (via credit card at registration) and a final vehicle payment handled directly between the buyer and seller”
So yeah, the 5% buyer fee needs to be with legit money.
But then to pay the balance? I’m sure the “buyer” can still give the “seller” a suitcase full of cash.
Which the buyer than has to be damned careful to fill out all the correct paperwork for in the US, and not try to get cute about how they deposit the money in a bank. Lest they be arrested for “structuring”. Which is WAAAAAY more of a thing than money laundering via very public auction.
And the seller had best be careful to pay ALL the taxes on the substantial gain on this car.
I love how structuring is a crime..
Depositing $1-$9000- not a crime
Depositing $1-$9000– randomly – not a crime
Depositing $1-$9000 randomly at different branches – not a crime.
However, be prepared to be investigated if you do all three.
I mean I get it, it’s intent, but that can be a huge net you’re casting..
But any one of those things individually absolutely CAN be a crime, if you are doing it with intent to not have to report the money. That is the whole point of the crime of Structuring – and not all crooks are that smart. In fact, the smart ones rarely get caught.
Without this crime, why would anyone ever deposit more than $9999.99 at one time? You can be investigated for doing just ONE of those things if they see a pattern to it that smells. And yes, some cash-based businesses have a hard time with it.
Right, then there is step three, getting the clean cash back.
Plus while I’m not giving leadership any credit, it seems the DEA and the FBI could crack this pretty easy. Every “holy crap look how much that car went for!!” auction is very public and very traceable.
I’m not saying you can’t launder money this way, I’m just saying it’s a lot of risk. Plus money laundering involves millions, even at this ridiculous prices it would take ages to do it. So many better ways.
You sound very knowledgeable in this area.
Very VERY knowledgeable…
*looks at you suspiciously*
Oh like being on one more list would matter…
This is exactly why I always call out the cries of “this must be money laundering” whenever some random stupid car gets a couple guys hot and bothered at an auction and sells for a baffling amount of money. It’s not money laundering, it’s just people with more money than sense.
Same, I always allow for an explanation, I mean just because I haven’t figured out how it works, doesn’t mean someone hasn’t…
I would spend a TON of money if I ever come across a mint condition ’84 Jetta GLI with sunroof and A/C as I had though much of college and grad school. Maybe not $30K, but I might pay $20K.
a fool and their money are soon parted
Woah, this sparked a core memory. My high school had a cream colored one for the fleet of Drivers Ed cars, mostly GM donated vehicles of various ages and in states of unsafety. The Cavalier Wagon was the newest member of the fleet, and the auto shop class was tasked with maintaining the drivers ed fleet.
The hood got stuck shut on it, and the battery died over the summer. The auto shop teacher gleefully told us that we were gonna go get that hood open, and drug the oxy acetylene torch, battery charger, and a handful of tools out of the crib for us to walk over to the drivers ed garage.
I’m pretty sure his intention the entire time was to just torch a hole in the hood to pop the latch, but that seemed like a bad idea to even us freshmen. We futzed around with the thing for maybe five minutes before he jeered time for the torch! Fired it up and got to cutting on the three year old hood.
That’s when the under hood insulation lit on fire. We didn’t have a fire extinguisher. One of the students went running back into the school to grab one, and we doused the flames, the teacher (I just remembered his name) Mr Hulsa doused the now voluminous black smoke pouring out from under the hood.
Dejected he directed us to drag all the tools back to the shop and that was it for the day. Unsurprisingly we had a new Auto Shop teacher the following yea, who also got the hood open in five minutes without the torch.
TIL that mid-80’s GMs didn’t come from the factory with an old wire coat hook sticking out the grille as the hood release.
LOL memories for me too! One of the two Driver’s Ed cars I drove was also a Crapalier wagon of this vintage. The other was a Dodge Caravan. Took Driver’s Ed summer of ’85. ACE Driving School, Portland, ME. IIRC, $125. Could have done it for free at school but that took a whole semester, ACE was three weeks to get your learner’s permit.
My experience was nowhere near as exciting as yours though. Just a skinny guy named Nelson who ended every presentation with “Questions, Comments, Remarks?” And unlike the high school class, we got to watch all the gory death videos!
I did mine through the summer class offered by my High School, two years AFTER the fire incident.
The aforementioned wagon (fire damaged hood and all) was used entirely by the instructor to sit in with the AC blasting while it idled at the edge of the parking lot. All the student vehicles were 70s barges that could easily fit 6 students. We never went on the road, just crawled around the parking lot with some strategic lines and cones scattered around. There was a dedicated road legal vehicle we all had to use for our end of class road test.
The instructor drove a Cimmaron, and she had the exact same outfit in like 12 different color combinations. So the same dickie, thin sweater and pants in every possible pastel shade imaginable. We also got to watch the gore videos.
High School in the 80s was a special sort of special!
My school had a pair of K-cars they used for driver’s ed, and you went out on the road on day one, same as the private course. It just took forever to rotate everyone through to get however many hours of instructor-led driving you needed, because there were 20-30 kids taking it at once vs. <10 for the shorter private class. The Driver’s Ed teacher was the basketball coach, IIRC.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane! Hadn’t thought about any of this in years, and yeah crazy time to be alive.
Has to be for a “museum” that is open 39 seconds a year.
“Please don’t think this is a market value. This is double what the car is worth. I was willing to pay because I have a history with this car. I’ve been chasing it for 15 years.”
That must be some tragic fucked-up history to blow 30g’s on this pig.
They gave up at 30K!!!
*to be willing to blow $30g’s on this pig.
Right, imagine the actual winner!
My Grandma had one of these. Looking at these pictures, I can still smell the velour interior and pack of Double Mint Gum that she’d always keep in the coin tray all heated up by the Ukiah summer sun.
What about the pack of Merit cigarettes to go with?
She was a non-smoker.
crack pipe
BaT is largely playground for the wealthy. Whoever bought this probably won’t even notice the $30k missing from their bank account.
Maybe they needed to up their shopping cart total to get free shipping?
It’s funny how “Bring a Trailer” used to mean it doesn’t run, isn’t safe to drive, missing the engine/transmission etc, but has come to mean “Keep your priceless investment safe from the elements on the way to your hollowed out volcano base”