I'm no BMW expert (but I loved driving the 325, too!)... but, I'd say NOT an automatic and not $1250 would be a good place to start.

Maybe Barry will sell you one?

 

aaawww.....we all know true $500 cars don't exist in Florida.

 

Yano, I was gonna post this on the LeMons forum because so many people believe a $500 Miata can't be had...

But a friend of mine just snagged a '95 in decent condition for $500. Some minor fender damage, blown clutch slave, typical Miata oil leaks and not running due to a dead battery. Would have been the perfect LeMons car... sell the nose piece for $150, the rear finish panel for $50, tail lights for $50, front signal lights for $50, misc interior bits for $50. With all of that, you could afford to put a new set of GR2 shocks on it and even be honest about the minor maintenance costs required to make it uber-reliable.

Just keep your eyes on Craigslist, something juicy will come up. BMW, Miata... hell, just about anything that's common, reliable and decent-handling would make a good LeMons car.

 

I really got TWO 325e BMWs for $500. one was the Lemons car and the other is the white car we brought as a spare. Now we had to do alot of fixing the one up. And selling parts off it to keep it at $500. But we were really legal.

 

I only have access to Trash Talkin'

 

Try it now.

 

Just want to see what you guys feel on this one.

Back in 2002 myself and a friend bought a car from Nissan of Brandon for $0+$500 dealer fee (he worked at the dealership, it was a non-US market car and the dealer tried for 2 months to dump it and no one wanted it, and they couldn't sell it due to repairs required making it a neg profit car), well we split the $$ and it was around $275, say $300 at most per person. About a year later he bought my half of the car for $500, leaving me with a "profit" of $200 to $225 or so. Fast forward a few years, the car is sitting on jack stands in his parents backyard while he's in Virginia/Iraq, and he sends me the title to go get the car if I want it because his parents needed it removed from the property.

So, for LeMons, does that mean I'm currently say -$200, or $700 under the $500 budget, or would I have to "assign" a value to the car even though he gave it back at no cost?

yeah, just working on our 09 LeMons car already

 

They tend to like a paper trail.

Transfer the title to someone you know right now. Then, a few months from now, transfer it back from them to you as a sale for a reasonable value. $100... whatever.

Then you've got a solid paper trail of what you "paid" for the car.

The less of a story you have to tell at BS judging, the better!

 

And the sad thing is, it's the truth.

However, I could just create a bill of sale, that's all we had for the Civic. The chassis was a prior theft recovery and wasn't registered for a few years, and we certainly didn't retitle it in our name. They did impound the Civic since it had coilover sleeves, which were purchased on eBay for 9.99+shipping, they confirmed it on ebay and let it out of impound

You've seen pics of the car before, it's that SE-R I was going to autocross with.. who needs an autocross car? screw it, LeMons it is

 

I thought that might have been the car you were talking about. Good Lemon.