You don’t have to be Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein to come to the logical conclusion that, if at least two examples of a car exist, there has to be a nicest version and a worst version. For extremely rare and valuable cars like the Ferrari 250 GTO, collectors and appraisers often have a good idea of exactly who owns those superlative vehicles. For more common cars, like a 1993 Oldsmobile Silhouette, it’s a lot harder to know.
This is the fun of online auction sites and virtual marketplaces. Eventually, some niece or nephew gets bequeathed a perfectly clean 1996 Subaru SVX, and we all get to gawk at how pristine the steering wheel is, and how the wood inserts have somehow resisted cracking for all these years. I’m definitely of the belief that cars should be driven, but there’s something appealing about having the cleanest version of a car, which is usually achieved by a car not being driven all that much relative to its age.


I thought of this as I watched the auction for a 1999 Mitsubishi 3000GT VR-4 over at Cars & Bids. This is a rare-ish car, with fewer than 300 sold in the last year. It also has some features that make it specifically valuable, including the “Combat Wing” rear spoiler and revised headlights. I’m generally not a fan of white cars, but I think Glacier White-over-tan is the ideal spec for this car. Other than the 18-inch chrome-finished alloy wheels, it’s pretty much perfect.
If you’re not aware, the 3000GT VR-4 was, as Doug DeMuro put it when talking about a different car, peak Japanese sports car from the end of the Bubble Era.
The hard-top convertible is wild, too, and if you can’t get white-over-tan, then red-over-black is the second-best combination. These are desirable cars, both as historic objects and for drivers. This was as far into the future as Mitsubishi could look, and the combination of a turbocharged engine with all-wheel drive, active aero, and four-wheel steering feels very much like what life is like a quarter of a century later.
Also this this was capable of a sub-5-second 0-60 mph trip, thanks to the 300+ horsepower turbo V6 and excellent traction. Here’s MotorWeek‘s take:
I revise my earlier ranking of colors. I still think white-over-tan is the best, but maybe tennis ball yellow-over-black is the second best? Either way, it looks great at Roebling Road Raceway. While it doesn’t carry the same cultural appeal as an MKIV Toyota Supra or R32 GT-R, it’s a performance car you’ll enjoy driving.
What is a pristine version of one of these worth? What’s the best one worth? A red 1999 with 3,800 miles on the ODO was sold on BaT for $75,000 in 2022. Was this the nicest one? Perhaps. It also sold near the peak of bonkers pandemic pricing, so as a comparable, it’s a little hard to judge. Just to provide a huge range, there’s also a 9,000-mile Spyder SL for sale with bidding below $10,000 and a 1994 with 91,000 miles that sold earlier this month for $24,500.
Back to the 1999 I mentioned earlier, I’m not sure this is the nicest one of these in private hands. It’s maybe not the lowest mileage 3000GT in existence at 27,300 miles, but it’s possibly the best of the last model year of this vehicle. I mean, look at this thing:

There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with this specific vehicle other than some touched-up paint and tires that are seven years old, which is to say it’s nicer than almost anything any of us on the site own.

Especially with the wing, which is taller than all but one Torchinsky, I am enamored with this car. I think that this is probably the exact one to get, and the fact that it isn’t so low in miles that it’s not drivable makes it even more appealing.
Let’s also please enjoy the interior together:

The seller, P1 Exotics, took photos that make me just want to climb into the car and never leave.
So what is this car worth? Surprisingly, it hit $58,000 and didn’t meet the reserve.

This gets into the interesting psychology of both buyers and sellers in these situations. If this is your childhood dream car, and you are of means, the upper limit is likely very high. The same is true if you had one of these and had to get rid of it for some reason.
But how do you handicap that as a seller? There are maybe a few people who fit that description for a car like this Mitsubishi. That Silhouette I referenced earlier? That’s a real car, with only 69,000 California miles on it when it was sold in March.

A super clean Dustbuster is still a Dustbuster, so the $10,000 the family got for that particular Olds seems like a high-but-fair price. That’s double the price someone got for this 23,000-mile automatic Ford Tempo GL coupe. That’s not to say that ’90s Fords can’t fetch big money; this 150-mile F-150 SVT Lightning just crossed the line at $75,000 even.

In the case of the Lightning, it’s probably both an emotional purchase and a reasonable investment. These are well-appreciated trucks, and that is almost certainly the nicest one anywhere outside of Ford’s collection. And even then, maybe it’s nicer!
Where does this leave the 3000GT VR4? Looking at the market comps, only two cars on BaT have transacted for more than $50,000 since 2016, and both were lower miles. Maybe the reserve was set at $60,000, which would put it in between the two highest sold cars on BaT. Or maybe it was set at $67,000, which is what this exact car sold for on Cars & Bids in June of last year.

Logically, we know there was one person willing to spend over $65,000 for one of these cars, but maybe not two people. Either way, there’s good news at the end of this story. The seller and the highest bidder were united after the auction and were able to come to an agreement.
I am a person who would spend silly money for the nicest Cayman Green Ford Escort GT, though thankfully I don’t have the discretionary budget to wield at the moment. What car would you want the nicest version of, and what would you be willing to pay for it?
Top photo: C&B
All DSM are 60K timing belt interval interference engine cars. that was 25 years ago. I would not even start these after purchase
While i want a svx again, realise parts was hard to find 10 years ago. Some of these are better like I assume 99% of the lightning was stolen from “lesser” models Ford made a few million of. The rarer models didn’t use common parts and thus you should stick to lesser models. Like a 97 forester is less cool than the 96 svx, but far easier to keep running. (Avoid 96 2.5l subaru)
Unless you like failing sun visers and propping up a hood with a long snow brush.
I’d love a mint Plymouth Laser Turbo. White on black, like the one some douchenosel agreed to sell highschool me before backing out two days later and ripping up my check. I’ll never get over him denying me entry to the world of DSM.
This is a left field answer, but I’d for sure have a V6 Mazda MX3
I want nowhere near the best example of any car. After hearing the interview with the Wolf of Wall Street Countach owner and how he went from driving it to the grocery store to super paranoid about keeping it pristine to the point where he sold it to get rid of the stress, I’ll keep my 20 footer cars.
The example he gave was he pulled it out into his driveway before a drive, a kid fell off of a skateboard and almost hit the car, and he was so unnerved he put it back in the garage. I couldn’t deal with that kind of stress.
My S1 Elise was almost certainly the worst road legal example of that car. In desperate need of paint, crash damage at the rear, a full service history that included a log of its hours on track as a driver training car (and subsequent engine rebuild). I commuted in that thing for 9 years, including in the snow, and used it for sprints.
I now have what was definitely the nicest Europa S available when I bought it. I’ve had to clear out my garage to keep it in, it doesn’t go on the road during salting season, and I felt bad for driving it in the wet last weekend. It’s a much better car, but I miss the carefree days of having a terrible Lotus.
Also I’m selling my pristine RVF400 because it’s too nice to leave anywhere, which has made it useless as transport. I’ve replaced it with a faster, better motorcycle with less charm, that I won’t mind commuting on. It’s more fun to ride, but less fun to look at.
I always loved these cars. My only issue with them is that being 6′ 4″ (or 6′ 5″ according to my last doctor visit) meant that I just could not fit well inside. And it’s kind of a big car! My mother had a 1990 Z32 300ZX and I fit that pretty well. A colleague had an FD RX-7 that was tight, but not horrible. The interior packaging of the Mitsubishi/Dodge 3S chassis was mystifying.
On a side note, my go-to evil scheme if I were ever to become stupid wealthy is to buy ridiculously low mileage cars and then proceed to DRIVE them. I get irrationally upset when I see a car, especially one made for fun behind the wheel, for sale with insanely low miles. BaT has had numerous recent Ford GTs with what seemed to be little more than delivery miles. It drives me t distraction.
Headroom is a common issue.
Dropping seats or shortening them may help.
In hot rodding, perfect show cars are appreciated, but never like a daily driver.
I’ll second the respect the drivers get over the trailer queens.
I grew up around the street rodder scene and the people in the know ALWAYS had more love for the more modest builds that drove several states to get there than for the immaculate cars that were trailered and only drove from the hotel parking lot to the venue…
I finally made it to Bonneville on speed week.
There was a guy with his personal 30s street rod, a bright yellow sedan parked halfway down the course, watching.
Commitment to the concept, driving anything personal on the salt lake.
Incredible experience!
I used to go to the Monterey historics every year, and the cars parked up on the hill were always fun. There was a really ragged 1960 300SL roadster with the interior held together with duct tape that always made me happy.
At 6’5″ at the time, I fit into a Z31 300ZX (with t-tops) just fine.
*Wittgenstein*!
Not many other car sites are going to be invoking a name that usually pops up in CS logic classes!
Nonsense!
I love 3000GT Spyders. I had a friend out of college who had a Pearl Yellow Spyder SL. It was so beautiful. He ended up putting a supercharger on it to get to about 350HP. I moved to the west coast and didn’t know when he sold it, or I’d have bought it off him.
I tried to buy a red Spyder SL just before the pandemic, but the seller wised up and kept it.
I’d get that SL on BaT in a sec if I wasn’t in the middle of selling/buying a house.
I don’t want the nicest version of any car. My ideal condition is a 20 footer. I like cars that are presentable but have enough flaws I am not worried about driving them. I wouldn’t pay a premium to get anything nicer than maybe a 10 footer. I would actually prefer a shitbox version of a car I like to a perfect example of a car I like (assuming the shitbox version comes at an appropriate discount, of course).
If I had to pick a car to have the nicest version of, I would go with something cheap since the price premium won’t be much. For whatever reason I really like the first-generation Nissan Leaf. I miss mine, even if it was a primitive vehicle. If I saw a councours-quality Leaf for $9,000 I would have a hard time passing it up.
Which sells for more- the best 3000GT or the best Dodge Stealth?
I always thought the Talon was better looking than the Eclipse but the 3KGT was better looking than the Stealth.
I really want a GMT400 454SS, but unfortunately I am unwilling to pay what the best versions of those go for. Same for a Buick Grand National (especially a GNX), GMC Syclone, GMC Typhoon, and…well, I could go on, but obviously I am too cheap to buy nice things.
Honestly, the 454SS isn’t that great, and the cab is tiny. Friend of mine had one. Liked riding in his V10 Dodge more.
Feels like shots fired at DT and his best of the best i3….
It’s not the best, it’s the most decontented. He’s complained a lot about his earlier, much cheaper, i3 having a better interior and a diff fill plug.
Whether it’s the-best-of-the-best, or one-of-one, the value of any item is exactly what one single individual is willing to pay for it. Placing a price on selling such an item isn’t possible.
The price one person paid when they saw it for sale at the right time does not make the benchmark indeed
I have a soft spot for these VR4s, but I would pay more for one of the earlier models with the pop up headlights. I think they kinda ruined the styling with the bubbly eyes. Same with the refreshed first-gen NSX.
My mans is so bitter about those nine gees he’s down.
The nicest version of a car is one that is mechanically perfect but isn’t so pretty you’re unwilling to put miles on it.
The greatest purpose you can give a machine is a well used life, and the greatest purpose a machine can give you is lots of positive memories.
Never tell anyone the top dollar you are willing to spend.