I’m really conflicted. A 2000 Chevy Metro just sold on Bring A Trailer for a mind-bending price of $18,200, and I don’t really know how to feel about it. On one hand, this 400-mile survivor looks to be arguably the best-preserved 2000 Chevy Metro on the whole planet. On the other hand, it’s a 2000 Chevy Metro. So, you see my conundrum.
I want to be clear that I respect the Metro, as I respect most cheap, honest, Cars of the People. I adore old Volkswagen Beetles and Citroën 2CVs and Minis and Renault 4s and all those sorts of things (hell, even Yugos), and I think they have tons of value as collector cars.
Though, if I was going to have a Metro, I think I’d prefer an earlier, Geo (or, better Suzuki Swift)-badged one, with the original, crappier sealed beam headlights instead of the fancy-ass ones this 2000 Chevy-badged car has.
Woo-hoo-hoo look at those clear lenses, big shot!
I also get that mundane cars that were perceived as boring are generally ignored by collectors, and that makes finding well-preserved examples of them tricky. Just think how many more early ‘80s-era Porsches you still see people have compared to how many early ‘80s Honda Accords.
I get all this. I get that anything that’s as pristine as this thing is with such incredibly low mileage is something unusual. I get all that.
And yet, I still can’t feel like paying nearly 20 grand for a Geo Metro is a good idea.
A 2000 Metro in perfect shape is certainly interesting, but it’s a difficult car to actually desire. Lots of tiny shitboxes have tons of charm, but I’m not so sure the Metro really brings that much charm to the table, at least not yet.
Maybe in 20 more years, if the car remains so well preserved, it’ll be worth this kind of money. I think other super-basic economy cars can be worth plenty, like these cars from Brazil’s late-60s depression, but they’re all old and charming and rare enough that paying a lot of money for something like that feels like it might make sense.
But a Metro? Man, that’s tough. Even for a crazed hypermiler, this would be hard because the whole deal with this Metro is that it’s a time capsule you just can’t screw with.
That’s always the problem with crazy-low mileage cars like these; for them to keep their value, you can’t really drive them, so I hope you appreciate just having them around and looking at them. That could prove a difficult task with this Metro?
I mean, this is more than the Metro cost when new, even adjusting for inflation!
The ad states that the Metro was sold for $11,140, and there’s a window sticker to prove it. If we adjust that price to 2021 dollars, it comes to $17,745 in today’s money, which is $455 less than what this thing went for on Bring a Trailer. That difference is about what a beat-to-shit 2000 Metro would have sold for a year or two back on Craigslist, too.
I’m pretty sure my level of conflict puts me in the minority, too. I feel like most mainstream Car People will see this as absurd, full stop, no question. It’s a Metro, they’ll note, observantly, and it’s almost $20,000, and none of that squares for most people.
So, while I’m baffled, I’m at least trying to understand.
I’m not really succeeding, but still.