https://bringatrailer.com/listing/19...c-firebird-28/

People on Bring a Trailer have lost their ever loving minds. If you ever want to sell your 3rd gen Camaro or Firebird or any other car then Bring a Trailer is where you want to sell it at.

This 1989 Firebird Formula is at best a $7,500 to $9,000 Craig's List quality project car. It is in no way Bring a Trailer quality car and no where near worth $14,250.

Today's lucky seller found the perfect combination of idiots bidding on this car. Great luck for him. Maybe the bidders mistook the FORMULA decals on the doors for IROC-Z decals and thought they was bidding on an IROC-Z instead. Only way I can make sense of why these bidders went insane.

This car lived in the two worse extremes a car could live in. Started out in Illinois in the rust belt with salted roads from 89 to 98 then to Arizona to be Sun baked from 98 to 2023. Car is ate up with surface rust underneath, not the body the car is straight and rust free, but the undercarriage, suspension components, and brackets are covered in surface rust and the car is Sun baked on top and inside. The aero wing is destroyed, hood and all top surfaces paint is shot and Sun baked, A pillar plastic trim is Sun warped as is some of the hatch trim, passenger door sill is cracked, weather strips shot, center console warped badly, passenger dash map pocket all out of shape, RP Multec injectors replaced with what looks like RP Multec injectors, TPI runners dented all up in the process, N10 dual cat exhaust system butchered, missing unique N10 dual cat to T5 exhaust hanger bracket, headliner, sun visors, speaker sail panel, T-top sun shades need recovered, and many other things you not going to notice until seeing a rust belt Sun baked desert car in person.

Saving grace is it is a desirable car not all hacked up by a half dozen teenage owners and it's probably never lived in a trailer park. It's straight and all there for the most part.

Knowing what it is going to cost to make this car right again I just can't see it being a $14,250 car. $6,000 to $8,000 more would have got you a much lower mile car in near mint condition. This isn't an IROC-Z people.

Maybe I'm completely wrong on this and I'm the idiot and I've lost my mind.

If that is the case than I guess I can feel much better about the much nicer condition 91 Formula project car I found for my friend that we are working on.

1991 Formula T-top, 88k miles, Bright Red/Medium Beechwood, LB9 5.0L H.O. TPI, MK6 5 speed, KC4 oil cooler, N10 dual cat, G80 posi, GU6 3.42 gear, WS6 suspension, J65 4 wheel disk brakes, U75 power antenna, RSA Formula Value Package, 1SC Formula Option Group #3.

http://www.compnine.com/mycar.php?id...f227e6f63bfd64

EDIT: Opinions are like a**holes and everyone has one.

 

I agree that if I were selling a car, BaT is a place I'd go nowadays. They just seem to get a higher price.


This is not a perfect car, but it's pretty unmolested - except for the hacked up exhaust. Me personally, I'd be done at $9K on this one. But maybe that's because I can't wrap my head around what folks are paying for our cars. It also might explain why I haven't bought another 3rd gen in years.

 

I'm pretty sure I read an article where someone at BaT even bragged about pulling in the amount of money that they do for their auctions. I've frequently said it's the online version of Barrett-Jackson due to the high bidding and questionable quality of some auctions. Not sure it's a place for actual car enthusiasts but, instead, a place to brag with money by buying any and everything they can in front of their "friends". Their comments section shows this. It doesn't really do good for the hobby when it's driving up prices and putting the cars into the hands of people who just have money and not really car enthusiasts.

That said, I've seen much worse examples on BaT (high bidding and lesser quality). This car, while has "high" mileage for a true collector, it's not terrible and it does have some of the right options.

 

You have hit the nail right on the head.

I've been around BaT for several years now and know several people on it. It's a great place for people with more money than sense to show off to their online buddies they aren't ever going to meet in real life how much of a high roller big man they are and a great place for guys that bid on everything but never enough to win anything and look like they about something while making dumb comments in the peanut gallery.

 

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1986-chevrolet-k10-8/

998-Mile 1986 Chevrolet K10 Silverado Stepside 4×4 4-Speed sold for $147,000.00

More money than sense. It's a 305. But I guess he does own the nicest one in the World.

 

Yeah, I saw that. Just crazy!

 

I think it's about right price wise.People have been paying insanely high prices for low performance versions of the iroc for quite awhile just because of the name on the door. Even with this cars cobbled exhaust, (these cats have issues breaking apart) at least someone is getting a pretty good performance car. (For it's day)

And sure, there are still good deals out there to be found.