Jeep Cherokee, Chevy Tahoe, Subaru Impreza 2.5RS: The Biggest Suckers On Bring A Trailer This Week

Hagerty value: With a car this modified, you can’t really get a fixed estimate

Subarus, to a degree, are built like Legos — just slap pieces from various kits together, and they’ll probably work. Go ahead, pull a turbo engine out of a WRX and throw it into an earlier two-door Impreza. As long as you’ve got room in the engine bay, the only issue you’re likely to run into is wiring.

Americans, still hurt and bitter over never having received the legendary 22B STi, have used this interoperability to their advantage. If Subaru won’t ship a two-door rally car to the States, enthusiasts will build one themselves. But a home-built project comes with its on odds and ends and uniquities, like an air-oil separator that’s only described as “custom-built.” Would you pay $19,000 for a turbo Subaru that forces you to decipher multiple owners’ worth of modifications if anything goes wrong? I sure wouldn’t.

Kelley Blue Book value: $10,254

For much of my college career, I rode around in the back of a friend’s fantastic early ‘90s two-door Blazer. Shortly after that particular truck was built, the line was reintroduced as the Tahoe, but the two-door body style stuck around for just a few years under the new name. This truck, from the last year of the two-door Tahoe, is an extremely clean example that brings back the memories of that classic college ride. Unfortunately, it sold for about the price of a year’s tuition.

These trucks are, admittedly, incredibly cool. For the just-over-ten-grand price Kelley Blue Book estimates, a two-door jacked-up off-roader is a tempting proposition. But for over $30,000, with six-figure mileage, the value just isn’t there.

Hagerty value: $18,700

Speaking of extremely cool and extremely overpriced off-roaders, we have a final-year XJ Jeep Cherokee. Though this isn’t the famed Holy Grail Jeep, it’s still a capable ‘froader with the indestructible AMC 4.0-liter inline six. Unfortunately, it’s made the shift from “car” to “investment piece” here — actually driving it would change that four-digit mileage, and collapse its artificial value.

This transition from “usable vehicle” to “object of value” is one of the most disappointing things in modern car culture. The prices on cars that have made the switch aren’t based on the underlying engineering but are purely speculative — based on what the car might be worth in two years. This Jeep will be traded back and forth between collectors, never driven, and forever stay out of reach of people who just want to go off road.

Hagerty value: Much like the 2.5RS above, there aren’t exactly defined values for cars like this

This ‘67 Camaro is a strange build. Muscle car restomods aren’t new, and people have been putting LS engines in old Chevys since the invention of the LS. Modern engines, transmissions, brakes, and suspensions can help older cars compete with modern engineering on the track — while keeping those classic looks intact.

This Camaro, however, isn’t that. Its 5.3 Vortec is an iron-block truck engine, not the lightweight aluminum LS. It’s paired to a 4L60E four-speed auto, and the car only has modern coilover suspension on the front. The modified front end, with its halo headlights and air dam, doesn’t really preserve the looks of the original car either. I can’t fathom the purpose behind this build, but the concept of spending over $70,000 on it is even more foreign to me.

NADA value: $49,100

This Alfa Romeo is a fun microcosm of Bring A Trailer’s history over the past few years. It was originally sold on the site as a fixer-upper, with a worn interior and visible rust. It ran, but the seller warned that the fuel injection system needed to be serviced — the buyer would, in fact, have to Bring A Trailer.

Now, it’s been relisted by the buyer from that last auction as a full restoration. The car has been torn apart, reupholstered, repainted, and had the engine rebuilt. It’s gone from a fixer-upper to just fixed up — a collector piece, sold on a site that now caters to collectors.

Hagerty value: $34,900

You can’t go wrong with a good ‘90s teal paint job. It’s a color so emblematic of the era, so unique to its time, that one glance immediately transports you back in time. This shade is so common on cars of that age but has since disappeared almost entirely from U.S. markets. Put that color on a turbocharged Supra, and you really have my attention. Sell it for $75,000, though, and that enthusiasm turns to bile in the back of your throat.

This is not the fourth-generation A80 Toyota Supra, of Fast and Furious fame. It’s not the modern A90, with its nimble handling and incredible sound. This is the less-beloved A70 Supra — still a classic in the right eyes, but those eyes don’t often have $75,000 to spare.

Hagerty value: $54,000

Ford built nearly 560,000 Mustangs for the 1965 model year. It was offered with three separate 289 cubic inch V8 engines, including the “High Performance” 271-horsepower option. This Mustang doesn’t have that top-shelf powerplant, but it does have a three-speed automatic transmission. This is what peak performance looks like, right?

I’ll never denigrate a car for being more focused on a comfortable cruise than all-out performance. That’s fine, different strokes for different folks. What I will argue, however, is that this is not the best top-down cruiser that $77,500 will get you. Ancient suspension technology, finnicky carburetion, and those three tall gears — time hasn’t been kind to the comforts of 1965.

Hagerty value: Once again, too modified for a firm valuation, but a new Gladiator plus the Hellcat conversion kit, plus a crate engine, is $93,735

I understand, logically, that there is a person out there who wants a 700-horsepower Jeep Gladiator. Even one built on the jacked-up suspension of the Rubicon, sure, I can buy that. What’s harder for me to swallow is the idea of paying over ninety thousand United States dollars for one — and then paying even more for a used one.

The conversion kit used to install this Hellcat engine in this Jeep costs $28,980, and that doesn’t include the $17,495 crate engine. Putting those together with a Gladiator Rubicon (MSRP $47,260) gets you a total of $93,735. That makes this truck’s original BaT sale price last year, $93,000, make some twisted form of sense — but to pay even more money for a truck that’s been even more used doesn’t compute.

Hagerty value: $147,000

Years ago, there was a Monro Muffler Brake near my parents’ house in Connecticut. The shop may still be there, but the Buick Grand National that was always sitting outside with a For Sale sign in the window is long gone. That car sat on the Monro lot for at least a year and a half, asking a mere eight thousand dollars. I should’ve bought it.

This Buick GNX is, admittedly, much more rare than a run-of-the-mill Grand National. Prices for these never seem to dip below six figures, and extremely-low-mileage collector pieces can hit over $200,000. This car, however, has mileage far exceeding those never-driven collector cars — but a price within spitting distance of their lofty sums.

Kelley Blue Book value: $138,447

Much like last week, our highest-priced entry is a couple-year-old version of a car you can still buy new. I understand that the current Mercedes G-Wagen is a slightly softer, more rounded, modernized affair. Without seeing them next to each other, however, most people wouldn’t notice the revised aesthetics — though they’d certainly notice the $50,000 premium someone spent to buy this example over a new one.

The G-Wagen will never be a cheap car, but it’s unusual to see something skyrocket in value immediately after it’s purchased. Limited-production special editions, sure, those have a constrained supply. This is Just A Truck — you can wander into your local Mercedes dealer and just buy one.