If you’re like me, you’re probably wishing that you had a way to spend even more money than you do now. House expenses, family obligations, vehicle maintenance, and just living expenses in general don’t quite offer enough ways to spend all of the money that you have left over at the end of every month… Well, you’re in luck, you can just peel off 3,000 $100 bills from that roll of bills that you have stashed away in your sock drawer and pick up this 1989 Chevrolet Caprice! This car is listed on eBay with a buy it now price of $300,000 – or you can make an offer. I say, or you can make an offer.. And, that’s cheap, they were asking $1,500,000 a couple of days ago! It’s located in Niles, Illinois, future home of the world-famous 1989 Chevy Caprice Museum.. Thanks to Streamliner for sending in this find!
NADA lists the highest value of a 1989 Chevy Caprice as being $2,675, and that’s for a Caprice Classic, this is a regular ol’ Caprice. Or is it?! (raised eyebrow, eyes shifting back and forth..).. In one of the most confusing ads that I’ve ever read, the owner sort of tells us that this is one special car, I think. As I wrote this a couple of days ago, they were asking $1,500,000, or the price of a 4-bedroom, 3-bath house on Searidge St. in Malibu, California. In doing a search for this car a couple of days ago, I ran across an even more eye-opening story: he was asking $10,000,000 for it a few months ago, and as I mentioned, they were asking $1,500,000 a few days ago! That $10,000,000 would get you a much nicer house on the beach in Malibu and a Lear Jet to get you there and back. Yeah, but what about this Caprice?
That’s what I’m wondering: what about this Caprice? Apparently, this 411-mile car has 102 options, but is that an oil light on in the odometer photo. I’m wondering what this car would have looked like without 102 options, and yet it still doesn’t have power windows? It has more numbers and SEO logos embroidered on the seats than a tv reality show star has arm tattoos. This is an SEO car, which stands for Special Equipment Options, according to this walk-through YouTube video of the car by the seller, or is that the former owner? Did he buy it for $10,000,000 and is now listing it for $300,000 after trying it for a few days at $1,500,000? That sounds like one of my business deals. I have no clue why this car would be worth any more than a regular Caprice, but one of you GM gurus will let us know why this one is worth 112 times more than a regular one is. Is it the wrinkled carpet? Was that one of the options? “Honey, check box 45J, that’s the Shar Pei carpet option, that brings us up to 94 – just 8 more to go!”
In 1989, Chevrolet added throttle-body fuel-injection for its V8 engine for the first time. So that isn’t an option here, were the green hoses an option? WHAT WERE THE 102 OPTIONS???! Come on! Actually, they list the options on a sticker on the underside of the trunk lid, if anyone cares to look up each and every one of them to confirm. I ran across that website that talks about this car being for sale for $10,000,000 a few months ago and it mentions that this is a “Caprice COPO SEO. The owner spent 36,000 hours and 22 years (TWENTY TWO) years on the special project. It features a Z28 engine with a Ram Air cleaner housing, aircon, OEM engine oil and transmission oil coolers, power steering, F41 suspension and a 342 Positraction rear end. For the law fans there’s armored seats to go with the “ultra deluxe” interior that has official logos and special embroidery splashed around.”
Huh? Now I’m really confused. But, to make it worse, here’s a piece from the eBay ad, you’d better take a seat for this: “(***FOR SALE***) (**A: 1989 9C1 S.D. SEVIRED DUTY***) (***RPO,COPO,SEO: HAND BUILT 1OF1 PROTOTYPE***) (***EXPERTIMENTAL GROUP***) (***DEFINITION TECHNOLOGY***) (***9C1 S.D, SEVIRE DUTY CHEVROLET CAPRICE – WITH OVER 100 RPO,COPO,SEO, PROTOTYPE OPTIONS***)… (***WE ALSO HAVE: FACTORY PROTOTYPE LOGO PHOTOS: SOME NEVER SEEN OR USED***)…” and on and on and on. Not a clue. Not one clue what any of that means. All I know is that someone was asking $10-million, and then they were asking $1.5-million, and now they’re asking $300,000 for a Caprice with 102 options but without power windows. Have any of you seen this car before, and if so, or even if not, what do you make of this thing?! Is it a $10,000,000 car? A $1,500,000 car? A $300,000 car? A $2,675 car?
This is a joke right? Maybe a misprint? Or maybe in a state where certain mind altering substances are legal? I guess I don’t get it. There one of these down the street for 750.00, maybe I should get it & put green hoses on it, who knew.
By the way thanks for the good laugh, needed it today.
Yes .I was wondering about those green hoses my self.LOL.Bruce.
Bruce the Green Radiator hoses are a special high temp reinforced hoses that we put on all SEO orders…stronger than the regular hoses we installed
Maybe that means they are filled with nitrogen? 🤣
Grandma asked if I wanted her ’89 white Caprice when she stopped driving. Did I pass on my retirement plan? LOL
That’s what I’m thinking, seller has no 401k so this car is his ticket.
You are most likely correct.
The seller has no clue how to format an ad so it is understandable (not to mention not knowing how to use spell check) let alone know what a 401k is. I hope they plan on living in one of those tiny houses while living off of the land because this B body Chevy sure ain’t Willy Wonka’s Golden Ticket. Fixed income will be an understatement.
Ad says odometer was zeroed during a rebuild.
What a deal, wish they had two of them for sale ! Someone in California will buy it, put the jumping air ride on it, pin stripe it, 26″ rims and then sell it for $ 1,000.00
You missed this part.
(***REG: MILES***) THIS PROTOTYPE: WAS A GROUND UP BEBUILD: SPEDO : WAS RESTORED AND (**0000** – OUT) MADE NEW***)
That says the car was rebuilt and the odometer was zeroed out, and made new.
So how many miles has the car really seen and where did this car come from.
It is not a low VIN so it was not an experiment car from GM for the 1989 year.
Who actually did all these changes to this car?
According to the included – at no extra charge (!) – vehicle history report, it had 45,368 miles in 1996.
This has got to be a joke, or maybe it’s a Nigerian prince’s personal vehicle.
I think this would be the perfect car for that Nigerian Prince who keeps emailing that he has millions to give away if only one of us will send him a few thousand dollars so he can get his millions out of the country. When he finally gets here this is the car for him.
the 8th digit of the vin is the engine code it is a 7 which is 5.7l for caprice if it was a camaro engine it would have been a f not a 7.i think hes smoking something real good lol
Maybe if it was a 2 door
An unbelievable fraud and the owner/seller is obviously nuttier than your Aunt Fannie’s fruitcake.
Would like to know more about the car. A true 1 of 1 COPO prototype should command high dollars….just think in this case the owner is 20 years ahead of the hobby with the current asking price….
This is what you get when the inmates at the asylum are allowed to access the internet on the library computers.
For that price?
I think Paul Lynde would do all the Miss Americas before you would see that car sold at that price.
For real laughs, watch his videos!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsIJ5Q9HNHM
It’s on the Seoul, Korea Craigslist too!
http://seoul.craigslist.co.kr/cto/6211993802.html
Why are being so sevire about this?
Hey maybe he’s from Tennessee…
Or a professional sign painter at tea party events…
Even if all this were true where does this person come up with this ask?
Here’s a link to the “higher quality” video…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PLu_53JTQ4SYvBXne23aYHaKqL9JYJlKnt&v=hrWLI7leU9M
I offered $3,000…fingers crossed. The fluids that never wear out are with that much alone!
Those green hoses are very high tech and expensive.
It’s $30,000. The guy has ( TTS) typing Tourette syndrome
With apologies to Johnny Cash:
He built it one piece at a time
And he’s charging you every dime
For a car that never really was around
You’re gonna have to love this style
But it sure doesn’t make me smile
Investment in this wouldn’t be too sound
Well, It’s a ’69, ’70, ’71, ’72, ’73, ’74, ’75, ’76
’77, ’78’ 79′ automobile
It’s a ’80, ’81, ’82, ’83, ’84, ’85, ’86, ’87
’88, ’89, ’90 automobile.
This is someone’s fantasy, and I’m glad whatever they have doesn’t afflict me. It’s a real car in the physical sense, but not something that came out of the factory this way. Many of the parts seen were many years out of date by 1989. All of the plaques and stickers look nothing like factory pieces.
Human nature dictates that sometimes, under the right set of circumstances, people would rather believe the convoluted tall tale than make their own logical deduction. In this case, it seems someone spent way too much time polishing a turd, which in itself is hard to believe, so the next step of belief that this is some unicorn the General crapped out of it’s skunkworks is not a hard sell.
There was a Phil Hartman Saturday night live sketch that comes to mind from the early ’90’s. He’s an appraiser somewhere in Appalachia. They show him their ‘Stratavarious’ and he informs them its a plastic ukulele with the word ‘Stratavarious’ hand written in erasable ink. They show him ‘Hitlers Squad Car’ and he informs them it’s a 1963 Plymouth Valiant. Then they show him a huge diamond. He looks at it, sees it’s real, but says, ‘This is just a piece of glass’. They of course know he’s lying and pronounce he’s clueless because that IS the diamond and therefore the others must also be real. In this case, all of the added on gimmicks demonstrate this car is the plastic ukulele covered in highly dellible ink. Ridiculous and gives the hobby a bad name.
The moose out front shoulda told ya.
I’d like to see the build sheet in it’s original, yellowed, faded condition.
A verified, certified, documented, temp mile on the odometer 69 COPO Camaro 427ci 435hp 4speed that pushed everyone’s every button would have trouble reaching this price! An 89 Caprice? Whatever he’s smoking ain’t legal here!
The sticker on the trunk lid shows “As Built Equipment” not options.
Example: If there are two rear axle ratios offered, the standard and the optional, the sticker tells which one this car has. The number for the axle that was used will be on that list to assist with service needs and part identification.
Just because there are lots of numbers on the sticker doesn’t mean it has lot of options.
I’ve seen many a SPI tag forged over the years working for GM Service Parts Operations. With today’s digital technology…easy peasy.
Is this one even a good forgery? It looks to be over an eighth of an inch thick and the font seems off.
For a second, I thought someone put LSD in my coffee, but then I realized it is as real as Hitler’s squid car. I think he should list it The Barrett Auction, so we can all watch it sell for that million.
I am sticking with my plan to buy a clapped out police car for $400. It might have hauled some “special” local criminal.
Oh, I forgot. If that car can sell for the big dollar, Paul Linde has a chance to win the Miss America beauty pageant in his present state. ( No disrespect to Paul Linde)
I find it more than a little hard to believe a prototype would be built at the Lakewood Assembly Plant in Georgia (as was this car) or that it would carry a production number of…well, it wouldn’t carry a production number. In one of the ads I found for this car (it’s advertised around the world on Craigslist), the owner states he has spent 22 years and 36,000 man-hours restoring this car. That, of course, begs the question: “Why?”
Because this is the car ‘before’:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1989-Chevrolet-Caprice-BASE/292195281262?_trksid=p2047675.c100010.m2109&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D41376%26meid%3Dac0ba646bda0406d920b32568baa770d%26pid%3D100010%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D232409589064
Squid 🐙 car??? Does it swim?
Didn’t you know he was into fish?
Bob
A fish smells from the head down.
This is what happens when the inmates at the mental institution are allowed to access the internet with the computers in the Institution’s Library.
I know a guy who has a Caprice just like this one but a 2 door model. Only has about 3500 miles on it.
He only drives it around the block on weekends to keep it in shape. Supposedly I’m first in line to buy it when he decides to sell it.
Green hoses are silicon long life hoses that GM used on cop cars up til ’96 on full size Chevs. It does have the certified speedo, another cop car feature. If it was a true “experimental” car the first digit of the VIN would be an “X”. This was likely just a random car pulled off the line and had alot of Brougham parts/options added. 9C1 cruisers didn’t come with a bench seat and painted mirrors, that was the 9C3 option car.
Not correct, the ‘79-90 Caprice 9C1’s all had the option of a bench front seat standard, all else was optional. Seattle and Washington State Patrol had several Boxy 9C1’s with the Bench front seats..
Digital Electronic Fuel Injection requires fuels with only 0s and 1s. Here in Florida, they outlawed that kind of fuel because of the risk of chads, the same condition that resulted in George W’s election victory in 2000. Also, since this is purported to be a prototype, it’s fair to conclude that the current owner is also a prototype, and not the final version of a sane human being. At the end of the day, an overpriced item is still overpriced, whether it is by $295,000 or by one thin penny. This is another instance of ten minutes that I’ll never get back.
Hey Brian you know that Nigerian prince he called today said he had 10 million dollars for me if he calls you tell him we’ll split the money LOL. My father had one of these what a great car was in good condition when he sold it and got 1,000.00 for it that was when it was about 5 years old this guy is out in left field.takes all kinds
I offered 500 and I think I’m
Going to get it. Scammers slogan something is better than nothing.
He accepts offers hugh, guess I’ll offer him $1.50 plus a lovely piece of pocket lint for it….
I feel sorry for the guy thinking those part codes are options…but he figured out how to list it, and who knows, if there’s one more guy out there like him (but with money), maybe he’ll get it sold!
Oh I get it! It must be the Cadillac steering wheel design that bumped the price up so high.
10 million down to 300k… nudge me when he gets down to $2500 Ok. Definitely interested at that point
I watched about 7 minutes of the video and couldn’t watch anymore, what a joke!
yeah, real painful listening to this putz
I feel sorry for all of his family members
Is there a place in this country where people like him live? I need to avoid that place. My thought is that he is on a bowling team in Toledo Ohio …
CarFax Report shows that it had 45368 miles on 7/5/1996 when the title was issued or updated.
An optimistic price for an old police car.
Bargain price, $9.7 million off regular price! Don’t wait, this deal will not last!
Smoke weed everyday, it’s 4:20 man.
Nice example of a Caprice but the story is wackadoo. This was a 12-year old design by 1989 so it can’t possibly be a prototype. Options mule, maybe. There’s some kind of story to it, but definitely not the one Al the Kitty’s Pal is telling.
It has the ultra rare pickup truck wheel option!
Probably an options showcase car.
I feel sorry for this guy and I see this regularly in my business, can’t see that rare and desirable can be 2 different things.
Neat car though.
See what happens when you smoke crack!
Just put an offer in for $300 and he didn’t accept it. Oh well…
Jimmy Hoffa is in the trunk.
Jimmy Hoffa is in the trunk
Was this listed on April first? And still available
The pics look like they was took in 89 or out of a book when it was new so i wonder if the pics are even the same car that he is selling now the highest box chevy i have seen go for about 10,000 and it looked like it was one of them cars someones granddad passed and no one found out about the car because they lived out of state and years later trying to sell the house found it in a barn that never been drove now i ask what is the deal with this one is it 300,000 in cash in the trunk or in the tires or is he trying to get his money back for the photos that look like they where dunn by who takes the pics for playboy
Green Hoses Was A Police Package Silicon
Prototype eh? This design had been around since the 70’s and was replaced in 1991 with the more rounded style. Hardly a prototype at that point, all they did was add a few more gimmicks each year to carry it on until the replacement style was ready.
I watched the entire video and noticed a few interesting things: first, at about the 15:55 mark, the camera pans quickly across the speedometer. If you look closely, you can make out that the odo says 870 miles. The car is being advertised as having 411. About a minute or two before that, he states, “this is a very rare car. If I couldn’t find the parts I needed, I MADE THEM” (emphasis mine). I dunno, the AutoCheck Vehicle History Report shows that the car wasn’t registered until 6/25/1996 and on 7/05/1996 it had 45,368 miles. My opinion, for what its worth is that it was a cop car (9C1) and at some point this man got it, got a TON of misinformation and stuffed a pantload of Cadillac parts into it. After all, he admits in his video that whatever he couldn’t find, he made. So, my opinion and $5.00 will get you a coffee at Starbucks.
I hope it doesn’t have an Oldsmobile engine
I dont think so homey dont play that
IT WILL NEVER SELL. What a joke of a car.
If it sells,will the museum be closed down?
Pfft, 300g’s and it has roll up windows? And looks like some dirt in the gas pedal grooves,,,deal’s off,,,
Every car I have owned was a one of one or a prototype when I got finished with it.
Like my dad always said “everybody is entitled to their own wrong opinion”!
Like the first words spoken by the baby: “Ahhh Soul”.
Like the old PSA’s on TV used to say: “This is your brain on drugs……any questions?”
ok,ok,ooo k
An ’89 Caprice in any form is about as special as a badly warped K-Mart guitar. The moron selling his “one of a kind”, wiz-bang, million dollar Caprice, is either one of ebay’s biggest fraudsters of 2017, or he’s just an old gear head with the intelligence level of a mold spore thinking he can bait his hook and reel in a big catch. Well, he’s both of those in my opinion.
I mean, seriously, someone takes a clapped out 1989 Caprice, re-paints it, installs a Cadillac steering wheel, has some tacky anodized plaques applied all over the interior extolling the car’s “exclusivity”, applies tacky embroidered insignias sewn into the seats, installs a set of ’70s or ’80s Chevy Silverado or Chevy van road wheels, plops on a Cadillac air cleaner cover and adds very ugly slime green radiator and heater hoses. Plus there’s wrinkled carpeting and a worn brake and accelator pedal to boot. All that for a million bucks!
Looking at all of the spelling errors and grammatical errors in the seller’s eBay listing, it’s not hard to tell where this guy is coming from. I wrote to the seller regarding his eBay listing of the Caprice and I was constructively critical of his car. He email’s me back (more bad grammar and spelling) saying how rare and special his Caprice is and that he acquired the Caprice directly from GM soon after they were done with the car…. blah, blah, blah, and the cow jumped over the moon.
I had intentions of reporting this cretin’s listing to eBay alerting them to seller fraud, but I figure that even if someone is really that dumb and would actually fork over that amount of cash for a Crap-rice, they wouldn’t have that kind of money in their possession even if they lived a cazillion lifetimes!
Hey, maybe the seller has an incredible “one of a kind” 1984 Pontiac Fiero going up for bids for only $2.2 million that’s been sitting under water for 10 years!
Hahahahaha.
You guys are missing the point. The guy works 17 years and 4 months on the restoration (36,000 hours). You gotta pay him something for his time even if it did take him an average of a week to tighten each bolt…
This looks like a nice , clean Caprice police car. If you have never driven a tight low mileage one of these, you don’t know hog good they were.The feel is totally different than a regular Caprice. That being said, I think this is a $4000 car.
I woulda plunked down the 300 grand for the preece, but it don’t got any BIG speakers in the trunk so NO deal.
Possibly asking for such a high price because he’s wanting to help his Great Uncle ______ from the ________ Royal Family to help him get his funds from the Locked Account & he’ll pay you 50% for your assistance? He’d probably be better spending $20 on a Decent Keyboard since the one he used seems to have a problem with the * symbol appearing randomly during any use of the keyboard?
Just remember that there’s One Born Every Minute so someone might reckon that it’s a Deal? Not this guy here though!!
A $300,000 Chevy Caprice…. That’s about as comical as a drunken Peter Lawford on a Dean Martin Celebrity Roast.
So, I politely inquired about the “more information upon request” from the seller, and on Friday morning (August 4th) I received a personal note from the seller that he would actually take $60k for the auction to end – which it was going to do anyway. Prior to that the seller sent me this link to see – in better(?) detail – exactly what makes this vehicle so spectacular!(?) FULL DEMO VIDEO AT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsIJ5Q9HNHM
So, the seller is willing to take $60K for the Caprice. He’s still dwelling in la-la land with those figures. If the seller decides that he wants to descend back to earth, then he’ll need to reduce the $60K asking price by another $55K. Then maybe, and that’s a slim maybe, he might be able to sell his bogus Caprice for $5K. But who in their right mind would want it for even $5K?!
So by this guy’s logic I am able to sell my 1985 Buick LeSabre Limited Collectors Edition Sedan with 29K miles for $500,000? Yes? Maybe? LOL!!!! Not to mention my Buick has all these options but the “super rare” manual windows and auto dim mirror.
I think that if this car had the desirable F41 sport suspension option, it would have a dashboard gauge package which includes a smaller, ROUND speedometer.
What I want to know is…. why do both of my ’89 F41-equipped Caprices… have a very noisy right front radio speaker in the dashboard? Why is static from that speaker alone… in both of my ’89 Caprices?
Ha Ha Ha Ha…the seller’s gotta be joking