We’re Buying A Fun Car On Copart And We Need Your Help Choosing The Right One [PARTNER POST]

We get invited to so many great car shows, and we want to show up to them in something fancier than an Aztek. At the same time, I think we’ve all engaged in the fantasy of buying a car off Copart. That’s why I’m so excited to announce that we’ve partnered with Copart to go through all the steps of buying a car from them. Even better, you’re going to help us pick the car.

Buying cars has gotten increasingly miserable, with many of the traditional online sources becoming a better fit for masochists than hobbyists. Copart has long been known to enthusiasts as a place to find cars in all sorts of conditions. It serves as a single-source auto solution for enthusiasts and wrenchers like us, but one with a more curated experience that allows you to find, inspect, buy, and receive delivery in one place. And with more than 220 locations, the selection is basically untouchable (imports, trucks, classics, even vintage Rolls-Royces!)

Copart has a relatively low-cost Membership, which brings a bunch of perks, especially because every state has its own laws about who can bid and buy at auction, and Copart makes navigating those regulations a lot easier. Copart also puts verifications in place to avoid issues like fraudulent sellers.

Here’s What We Want

We’ve been watching Copart auctions for the last few weeks as this deal has been coming together, and there’s been some gold. Gold, Jerry! Just look at this Benz. It’s gorgeous. Check out this Olds!

If you’re not familiar, Copart is a massive online source for cars, utilized by everyone from individual hobbyists to large government agencies. Last year they moved more than four million units (mostly cars but also a lot excavators and other construction/farm equipment), many of which were cars with clean titles and keys, in running condition. Where do these cars come from? Everywhere. Fleets, financial institutions/ banks, dealers, rental car companies, governments, and individuals. I’ve noticed a lot of great cars, lately, have been donated vehicles.

What we’re looking for on Copart is a car that’s going to impress. We want to make a statement when we roll up to a car show or a fancy auction. We’re going to pick something suggested by a reader and bid on it in order to guarantee maximum impact, but we do have a few suggestions before you start searching.

• We want something incredible and interesting. You can easily find a nice Maserati Ghibli on Copart and it’s a lovely-looking car, but it’s not interesting or exciting. Wow us.
• It’s gotta be drivable. We’re ok with doing a little mechanical refresh on a car so long as we can make sure it can take us to whatever car shows we end up attending. When you search Copart you want to look for vehicles that run and drive (which means that it’ll start and move forward/back one at least one full tire rotation on its owner power).
• We’re open to spending a little money, within reason. There are some nice cars on Copart (like this Lamborghini Gallardo), but spending a ton of money is easy. There are a lot of great deals here and the story is more fun if we get a smokin’ hot deal, right?
• Copart will help arrange delivery so we’re open to getting a car from anywhere. Still, it would be cool to check out the car ahead of time so we’re going to put a small premium on something that’s near one of our contributors (Chicago, LA, Toronto, New York, North Carolina).
• If it’s carb’d, ideally it’s a car before 1975 so we don’t have to worry about registering it in California.
• The more unlikely the better! Surprise us.

Again, these are just guidelines and we’ll definitely bend them for the right car.

How To Use Copart To Find The Perfectly Imperfect Cars

You don’t need a Copart Membership to look for cars, but my guess is that once you start looking at cars you’re going to start considering it. I’ve got a Membership, and I’ll explain how to get one and the perks that come along with it a little further in this post.

In the meantime, searching for cars on Copart is pretty straightforward, and there are a lot of options. First, go to the Search bar or Vehicle Finder tool. Or just click this link.

You can search, sort, and filter results by make/model, types of damage, year, location, and radius from wherever you are. If you’re feeling super weird I highly recommend searching Other/Other as there’s some wild stuff available.

Condition is important because there are a lot of vehicles on here that would make a great project car, or even daily driver, that you’d never find on a regular auction site. Copart makes it possible to get access to these cars, either directly or through a third-party. If you’re going to build a weekend racer do you really care about light hail damage? Absolutely not. If you’re looking to swap the drivetrain from a newer Viper into an older Volvo how much do you care about some scratches in the paint?

How And Why To Become A Member

There are three levels of Membership and you can see the full details right here. Here’s when/why/how to become a Member at each level:

• Guest Member: View auctions and get updates on vehicles on your watch list. If you want to help us/help yourselves out please sign up!
• Basic Membership: I think this is the sweet spot for most people who are looking to just buy one or two cars a year. For $99 a year, you can bid up to $2,000 with no deposit and just a 10% deposit over that.
• Premier Membership: This is what I have, and for $249 a year I can put down a $400 deposit and bid up to $100,000 daily, track multiple cars, et cetera. This is for people like David who seem to constantly be buying and selling cars.

Again, what you’re planning to do will indicate which plan you want. Either way, if you love the site and love browsing cars, do yourself (and us) a favor and register.

What’s Next?

Start dropping the most interesting cars you find right here in the comments, or email us at tips@theautopian.com and we’ll start bidding on the most interesting cars!