This is where so many of the tired old CC’s end up in Eugene, hoping to find one more owner willing to adopt them, warts, fleas, ticks and all; if not, they’ll have to be euthanized. So if you want to rescue one of these old dogs from an ignoble death, head on out to Eugene and bring home your newly adopted CC.
Today we’ll do the front lot, which is where the finer pedigree is kept. If they’re too pricey for you—the posted prices are negotiable, within reason—wait for Part 2 tomorrow, which is the back lot; there’s no posted prices back there so I suspect they’ll take just about any reasonable offer above scrap price for those tired dogs. And they accept Doge Coin.
I can’t vouch for the details of their health, but there’s essentially no rust mange to be seen anywhere. That alone makes them quite lovable. And hopefully they won’t bite.
Stopping in at St. Vinnie’s donated car sales lot is an old tradition, but one I’ve been neglecting for some time. I first stopped to shoot the inventory in 2011, when there were still quite a few cars from the ’70s, including a Vega, no less. When I returned in 2015, there was a rather shocking number of upscale imports there, including a Rolls Royce.
I shot this fine Aerostar on the way in, but forgot to shoot the price sticker. Perfect for hauling your other dogs.
That applies to this Dodge Durango too. Sorry. And yes, this one is the exception about rust, but strictly limited to its damaged bumper. A real cattle dog.
Let’s start with the front row, with a fine Toyota Highlander. It’s the Golden Retriever of cars, and good as gold. Seriously, if I was needing an affordable older CUV, an early Highlander would be near the top of my shopping list.
Actually, I’m not the only one here on this very quiet Memorial Day morning: someone was checking out this Toyota pickup, listening to the engine run. I’m not surprised it was the one vehicle with an interested shopper: old Toyota trucks are always in demand.
This one has a V6 too. It sounded pretty good to me. Maybe not exactly a gently purring…
I bet it’ll be adopted soon; these are as in demand as French Bulldogs. Or has that fad cooled off finally?
A Buick Afghan Sheephound looking for a new home. At that price it better be a cream puff.
A well-bronzed Jimmy. It’s a mutt.
Admit it, you’ve always wanted a Thunderdog.
Another LeSabre, but a bit older. Other than a wee bit of mange on the roof, it looks pretty good for its age.
For those worried about rising dog food prices, here’s an economical Hyundai Excel.
Or maybe a Neon? A terrier of some kind, I would say.
Now we’re getting into the serious CC’s: a Mercury Grand Marquis, and what a bargain. Alloys too.
How did a catfish Taurus wagon end up in here with all these dogs? Relive the glorious ’90s.
Can’t go wrong with a Chevy Impala. A true classic.
Now what’s the alpha-numeric name for these little Fords? Oh right; ZX2. So memorable.
This isn’t just any old minivan; it’s the Oldsmobile of minivans.
A rare Mazdog 626 of this generation. Better hope it’s not an automatic. Maybe that’s why there was no price tag.
A fish-less face Taurus. You probably rented this very car once upon a time. Maybe your lost sunglasses are still under the seat.
A Dog Grand Caravan.
Is this your father’s Buick?
A Korean Jindo.
A genuine Kishu Ken, the Subaru of Japanese dogs. Cheap too.
A Nissan Quest, a mixed Japanese-American breed that’s popular in villages.
Here’s a genuine all-American working dog. This sat not far from my house for many years.
One of the newer American breeds. Almost extinct now, except for some hardy survivors.
An Old Dog.
Another Quest. Villagers have long become extinct in these parts.
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I will admit that I always wanted one of those early Durangos with the V8 – preferably the 5.9. And I would probably take a flier on the Grand Marquis.
Flash $900 and you’d probably own it.
If I wasn’t on the southern part of the east coast the escort wagon would probably come home with me.
It’ll have a tan interior, yuk! And if it’s any MY other than ’94 I’d have to pass. And NO slushboxes, The A/T in those ‘scorts was trash. Is it a 5-cog, Paul?
Had a 96 LX wagon when I was in Germany. It was great until I pushed it to hard. It was a 5 speed In a bright purple color. I didn’t get to bring it home but would’ve been a great car if I had. I would love to find one with or without an automatic for a daily commuter car now. If I were not on the other side of the country I would seriously look at this one.
I had a ’94 5-speed wagon in the then nearly ubiquitous Ford teal green with gray int. I found it in Portland, and it turned out to have been owned by an older couple in Salem, where I live (I bought it from their son-in-law). They had bought it new at the now defunct Ford dealership in the nearby town of Dallas and had always been taken there for servicing. It was in excellent condition, no clearcoat peeling, perfect interior, and everything worked including the A/C. the ’94 is a unicorn, the only year with the earlier dash and driver’s airbag. In ’95 they added a passenger airbag which necessitated the fitting of the exceedingly ugly Tracer dash. It had a new alternator and had had the clutch replaced (it had 165k when I bought it), and new drive axle boots had been fitted. I replaced the head with a rebuilt one which eliminated the only weakness these cars had (other than the crappy automatic), namely dropping valve seats. The engine was in excellent heaIth, I could still see the honing marks. It was comfy, peppier than its 88 bhp would suggest, and it got 36 mpg. It was quieter than the Mazda P5 I now have, and I fitted a nice stereo and upgraded speakers. It met an ignominious end when I rear-ended someone on I-5 on my way to work. It was the the best $1200 I’ve ever spent, I’ll always mourn it’s loss.
If I’m going to have the fun of maintaining a Northstar, I’d take the Aurora over the Eldo, but not either one of those colors.
I know prices are up at the moment, but that 1st LeSabre seems high. I paid a little less than that for my ’04 a couple of years ago and that was a dealer price. This white one is a 2000-02 and probably isn’t as well optioned.
Now I know where to take the Twins in a few years for their cars!
Seems like at least half of that generation Econolines were that metallic blue. The rest fleet white, of course.
I prefer working breeds, so this one is for me.
I have been tempted by a few of there listings on CL, as I am relatively close to Eugene. One I remember in particular was a bronze Volare wagon that looked quite good. This batch looks pretty uninspiring.
Their, should have proofed.
The lot of St. Vinnie’s always interests me greatly, it’s been too long for one of these!
I did in fact once rent what looked exactly like that Taurus. I drove it from San Francisco to Beaverton, OR too as a one-way, so it’s not inconceivable that it ended up there…
The lack of price on the Saab of course means that if you have to ask the price, you automatically can’t afford the upkeep so best keep walking, son.
There’s a whole lot of less than inspiring choices here, but the prices reflect that as well with a good choice of wares that may well pay off along with a few ticking time bombs best avoided. On the whole it looks very much like the average aisle at the Pick’N’Pull just not on a dirt surface and without engine pieces scattered about (presumably, they could be out of frame). I have to think that if I were in the $1,495 Buyer’s Club I’d be trying out the various Camrys and perhaps seeing if I could figure out the best of the bunch. Me at half my age would be looking at the Saab and the Benzes and probably the Passat as well. Foolish me and my money would then be soon parted…
Do I have this right? St. Vinnies is a car “donation” place? You donate your car, I assume get a tax right off, and then St. Vinnies turns around and slaps a price on the car.? I can also assume St. Vinnies does nothing to the cars after being donated other than slapping on the sales price? I think I’d do better with Forrest Gumps box of chocolates.
Yes, and no. They will do some minimal work (depending on the car and shape) to make sure it’s running, at least those on the front lot. That’s my understanding, anyway. But no major work.
St Vinnes is more than a car donation place, their big business is all the household goods and clothing donations. Their locations in WA don’t have car sales lots. https://www.svdp.us/what-we-do/retail-thrift-stores/
But yeah they give you a receipt for a tax deduction and then in most cases put a price tag on them w/o doing anything to them. I’m not sure how this is much more of a crap shoot than buying from some random person on craiglist.
My Nissan pickup was purchased at this exact lot. After my purchase, the donator received a notice from St. Vinnies, indicating the sale price. This is the amount of their donation, which they can write off.
The donated vehicles receive a basic mechanical inspection – mainly to ensure safety. The exact condition of the vehicle is on the buyer to determine and satisfy themselves that it is acceptable. They are quite liberal in allowing inspection. They are very forthright with known defects and don’t hide anything. However, caveat emptor is the rule.
My experience with them I would rate as 100% positive – really decent folks to deal with. An added bonus is that your spent money is supporting the St. Vincent DePaul organization and not contributing towards some dealer’s boat payment. The only hazard that I can identify with the process is that you will never want to deal with a regular (for profit) dealer again – ever.
A comment on pricing seems to be needed:
1. Apply whatever significance to the posted price that you want.
2. Tell them what it is worth to YOU as a ready, willing and able buyer who is ready to perform now – you might just take your prize home.
The pricing seems rather unrelated to market values, though of course w/o more details it is hard to say.
A good example are the Grand Marquis the box seems a bit high while the end of line one is worth much more, at least around here.
So yeah as long as the interior isn’t trashed and it has less than 200k on the clock the late GM is at the top of my list.
I owned a ’97 Quest in that same light blue metallic color from ’99-’04. I wasn’t the primary operator of it, but when I did drive it I always felt pleasantly surprised by how spritely it was. It was actually a pretty decent performer for a minivan.
I grew rather attached to it. I might be tempted by another one for $1000.
Some of the prices shocked me at first, they seemed higher than I would have expected. This is a charity organization trying to raise funds for their activities, so there’s that aspect. Donating a car is the easiest way to get rid of it, much easier than trying to sell it on CL. A lot of those cars have little actual street value, and dealing with the inevitable flakes can be tiring and even hazardous to one’s health. Used cars are pricier than they’ve been in years so maybe some of them might have been accepted at a low buck car lot as a trade in. I put a couple of my “hobby cars” up for sale on a enthusiast forum for a month with almost no interest at all. I guess donating them might be the only way to quickly free up some driveway and garage space.
I did luck out once and find a one owner, ’77 Datsun 280Z with a five speed. It was in immaculate shape, and cheap at 1,200 bucks. It hadn’t sold right away because it was a 2+2 model. I bought it immediately and kept it for five or six years. So sometimes you do get lucky. I’m pretty sure that I bought it completely “as is” without a smog test cert. It ran so good and was in such well maintained, intact shape, that I didn’t think that I was taking too much of a chance. It did pass smog easily. I now will not buy any car w/o smog, I want to at least get two years potential use out of it.
Out of the pack of cars shown I got a thing for the late 80’s squared off Buick Le Sabre. I’d like to find a nice two door coupe.
After quickly scrolling through the pictures I would say that close to a dozen of these cars interest me…though that would change based on equipment and mileage.
To my knowledge, NONE of the St Vinnie’s I have ever run across sell cars. I am use to seeing them sell (?) clothing, and some adding furniture and appliances. Selling cars requires knowledge of a small mountain of paperwork so I imagine it wouldn’t be a sideline a charity would want if they could avoid it. The only charity that I have seen in Jacksonville that does it is The Salvation Army and they sell vehicles periodically on one, set aside day, and it often involves an auction type sale.
I found a charity out in the middle of nowhere while I was just aimlessly driving around one weekend. They had a near mint condition Ford Probe LX for sale that I still kick myself for not buying. It was a first generation V6 model in red over red. 7-8 years ago they wanted $1,500 for it and it had less than 90,000 miles showing on the odometer.
The Buick ‘Afgan Sheephound”. $4495? They literally couldn’t pay me to take it away. When I drive behind one of these, I feel like the owners’ wide bum must match the wide rear stance of this Buick, why else be caught in one of these. Definitely your obese fathers Buick.
Dang! This is where I could score my next Camping Car – the Forester is still going great, but it’s become harder for me to sleep in. Lousy headroom, and 80 YO bods have a tough time bending enough to put on their boots, especially when another part of said bod needs to relieve itself. There were some very nicely priced RVs and wagons there … but Eugene and Pasadena are a bit too widely separated for this to become more than a happy daydream. If anyone knows of a similar charity lot in or near L.A. County I’d love to know about it.
Ruff!
Eleven grand for that tired out Scooby wagon with half the paint burnt off by the sun. That’s a joke right?
The trim and grille on the Toyota looks the spitting image of the ’88 my Dad (and later, my wife and I) owned. Can anyone confirm or dispell?
I _love_ the charity lots, I didn’t know there were any near Pasadena…
In December 2019 I bought my low mileage 2001 Ford Ranger as a pig in a poke charity auction and I LOVE IT ! .
Yes , I’ve dropped about what I paid for it into the usual repair ; timing and accessory belts, U-Joints (just because) and a major tuneup but it runs great and the AC is ice cold, I’ve been driving it all over the South West…
I et the Toyota and Nissan pickups are close to work ready…
One has to GO LOOK at the charity vehicles, many are one owner and full of cigarette ashes but are also nice under all the dirt, just needing a little bit of love .
I eagerly await the back lot article .
-Nate
If it was cheap enough I’d get the LeSabre to troll my son since it’s a nicer example of the car he drove all through college. but he bought his 2003 in 2017 for $1700. Those 3800 powered Buick are good highway cars bu have the turning circle of a supertanker. The white Corolla would also counterpoint the black Corolla he’s currently finishing an engine swap on as his first car with a manual transmission. Other than that the pickups and oddly the Hyundai coupe interest me.
$2,995 for, “A fish-less face Taurus” in 2021??? A friend of mine sought cheap transportation over a decade ago when his 2008 VW GTI DSG turned into a pumpkin in less than two years. He needed something he could drive while he paid off the GTI and fought VW in the courts. A three-grand, 72K mile, 2002 Ford Taurus was what he came up with. It looked much better than the one here; being about a dozen years newer at the time. I remember my disgust when he bought it, and telling him not to call me when it broke. He called me when it broke anyway. It may sound mean to tell a friend not to ask for help, but I told him all about VWs before he bought one of them too.
Gas prices are skyrocketing and the Neon is only a grand. People were already saying that there weren’t any bad cars back in 2002. They were already lying.