“Funny” Craigslist car sale ads: overdone? Surely. But every now and then one rises above the rest and becomes a work of literary genius—even if it was pretty obviously created by machines instead of humans.
Much like its description box makes this $2,300 2012 Toyota Camry out to be, this spam Craigslist listing is an absolute, one-of-a-kind work of art. The ad said this Camry, the epitome of all bland sedans back when bland sedans were the big thing, was “built to be a showpiece in a collection of rare automobiles.”
It also called the car a pickup truck throughout half of the ad, which itself was longer than most assigned reading in high school—except it was something you actually wanted to read.
Craigslist scammers are everywhere, and their methods usually aren’t pretty—although a lack of grammatical and punctuational skills can make them obvious sometimes. One targeted our own Jason Torchinsky when he put his mom’s car on Craigslist a couple of years ago, in a scam that would’ve sent a fake PayPal alert and taken the car for free. Jason knew something was up, but scammers have left plenty of others without the cars or cash they came into the deal with.
This Camry ad seems to have been bot generated, since it continually mixes up the Camry, a car known for beige coloring and its aptly named Camry Dent on the back bumper, with a Ford F-Series truck. The ad listed the Camry-truck thing at $2,300, which is about $8,000 under its market value. The ad went up on a Texas Craigslist page last Friday, and was flagged for removal within a day.
Both the Camry and its F-Series spirit animal somehow get thrown into the mix of being rare specimens, which is funny enough since the Camry has been one of the best-selling cars in America for about 15 years. But what makes the car truly unique, the ad said, “is the amount of detail and energy put into the build,” and the car is sure to be a showpiece in future collections of rare automobiles.
The ad itself should say the rest. It starts out well enough, in terms of correctly identifying the car, except for the list price:
Things start to get weird immediately after, when this average family sedan suddenly becomes a pickup “with the best dynamic aftermarket equipment” that’s “meticulously engineered to drive true to original.”
What kind of pickup? A Ford F-Series—built tough just like this Craigslist ad. Here are some of the highlights of this must-buy vehicle.
But we can’t have a Craigslist car ad without writing the entire history of the vehicle in the ad, and, in this case, the history of the wrong vehicle.
There’s a lot we didn’t know about the Camry! (Shame on us for making fun of it at Jalopnik.) But wait, now we need four exhausting paragraphs to learn about this particular one. An informed buyer is the best kind of buyer, after all.
This section starts out with a bang, guaranteed to lure in a buyer for such a rare and fine automobile.
It continues to talk about just how much of a big, bad truck Marty at Truck Toyz Performance, an actual shop, made this Camry into. This Camry sounds like a truly a one-of-a-kind car.
Oh, and would you look at that, another exhaustive list on just how lifted this Camry is. It’s sure to impress, especially in the age of crossovers and SUVs.
The seller ends this ad with a bang, telling owners just how special of a piece this $2,300 scammer Toyota Camry could be in their collection of rare and fine automobiles. That’s why the owner only put 580 miles on it from new, despite it having 79,655 on the odometer.
Please do not hesitate to contact for more information on this great truck, because if you do hesitate, someone will realize the ad is a scam and it’ll be gone before anyone can fall for it.