Category Archives: Auctions

1988 Lamborghini Jalpa is for sale

The Lamborghini Jalpa has always existed just outside the spotlight, and that’s precisely what makes it interesting. Introduced during the final years of the V12-powered Countach, the Jalpa never tried to out-shout its headline-grabbing sibling. Instead, it served as Lamborghini’s smaller, lighter, and more approachable alternative—an entry point into Sant’Agata ownership that didn’t require full commitment to Countach theatrics.

That role didn’t earn the Jalpa instant icon status, but it did give the model lasting relevance. Today, clean examples are genuinely hard to find, which is why this 1988 Jalpa currently offered for sale stands out. It’s not just well preserved—it’s exceptionally so, showing just 5,900 kilometers and presenting in a condition that suggests it’s spent far more time being admired than driven.

Visually, subtlety was never part of the plan. Finished in Giallo Fly, this Jalpa wears one of Lamborghini’s most vivid yellows, applied not only to the bodywork but also to the wheels. It’s the kind of color that makes excuses for nothing and apologies for even less. Only seven U.S.-spec Jalpas were painted this way, making this one of approximately 100 federalized examples and among the rarest color combinations offered.

The car’s low mileage is backed up by the details collectors care about. It comes with its original tool kit and spare wheel, a clean Carfax report, and a clean New York title—boxes that are increasingly difficult to check on eighties Italian exotics.

Power comes from Lamborghini’s 3.5-liter V8, originally fed by four two-barrel Weber carburetors but now upgraded with fuel injection for improved drivability. Output remains at 258 horsepower, sent to the rear wheels through a five-speed manual transmission. While it lacks the Countach’s V12 drama, the Jalpa compensates with a lighter feel and a more cooperative personality—qualities that made it the most usable Lamborghini of its era.

Inside, the theme continues. Black leather seats are accented with yellow piping that extends across the door panels, center tunnel, and even the floor mats. A yellow Momo shift knob completes the look, delivering peak eighties excess without tipping into parody. It’s bold, cohesive, and unmistakably period-correct.

With modern Lamborghinis pushing ever further into six-figure territory—the new Temerario starts at nearly $390,000 in the U.S.—cars like this Jalpa represent a very different proposition. It’s a fully analog Lamborghini, built before drive modes and touchscreens, and one that offers genuine rarity without the astronomical price tag of the brand’s more famous models.

For buyers looking to own a piece of Lamborghini history rather than just the latest performance numbers, this Jalpa for sale isn’t merely an alternative—it’s an argument.

Source: Bring a Trailer

Low Mileage 2020 BMW i8 Coupe is for sale

The BMW i8 has always existed in a strange automotive limbo. It looks like a concept car that escaped an auto-show turntable, complete with dihedral doors and a silhouette that suggests six-figure exotica. Yet it was never truly fast in the way its looks promised, nor traditionally BMW in the way purists hoped. Its turbocharged three-cylinder engine paired with an electric motor felt futuristic in 2014 and mildly awkward ever since. And now, six years after production ended, the i8 remains an automotive question mark—especially in the collector market.

For years, the phrase “future classic” has hovered around the i8 like a half-remembered prophecy. But the market has been unconvinced. With rare exceptions, values have stubbornly stayed in five-digit territory, often well below original sticker prices. Even pristine examples haven’t triggered the kind of appreciation that usually follows low-production, design-forward cars with ambitious engineering.

That might be about to change—or at least be tested.

A 2020 BMW i8 coupe with just 426 miles has surfaced on Cars and Bids, and it represents one of the strongest cases yet for meaningful money. It’s not the lowest-mile i8 ever offered publicly, but it’s close. A 400-mile example appeared on Bring a Trailer back in 2019 and stalled at $75,000 without meeting reserve. Context matters, though: in 2019, you could still walk into a BMW dealership and buy an i8 brand new.

A more relevant comparison comes from 2024, when an E-Copper Orange i8 with 480 miles sold for $81,553. That sale quietly reset expectations for collector-grade coupes. This new example has a credible shot at eclipsing it—and not just because of the odometer reading.

Start with the configuration. The Crystal White exterior isn’t rare, but it’s paired with the E-Copper and black interior, a combination typically reserved for the full E-Copper exterior package. Here, it creates a striking contrast and subtly references the E-Copper theme BMW introduced late in the i8’s life cycle. It feels intentional, distinctive, and—importantly for collectors—unusual without being polarizing.

Then there’s the build date. As a 2020 model-year car, this i8 benefits from BMW’s Life Cycle Impulse updates and the incremental quality improvements that come with the final years of production. Late cars are almost always the ones collectors want, especially when a model’s early years were as experimental as the i8’s.

Even the auction venue works in this car’s favor. Cars and Bids has posted a slightly higher sell-through rate for BMW i8s than Bring a Trailer—79 percent versus 78. It’s a marginal difference, but when you’re chasing the right bidder for a niche modern collectible, marginal advantages matter.

Still, there’s an elephant in the room—or rather, a convertible. If the i8 ever earns true collector status, history suggests it will be the Roadster that leads the charge. BMW built just 3,884 of them, compared with 16,581 coupes. That disparity already shows up in pricing. A 1,000-mile i8 Roadster sold on Cars and Bids in 2022 for $105,000, well above what even ultra-low-mile coupes were bringing at the time.

So will this 426-mile coupe finally move the needle? Probably not in a dramatic way. But its outcome will matter. A sale north of the 2024 E-Copper car would help establish a clear value trajectory for delivery-mile i8s and reinforce the idea that condition and provenance now count. A reserve-not-met result—or a number that falls well short—would suggest the i8 still needs more time to mature, aging slowly and awkwardly, much like the technology that once made it feel revolutionary.

Either way, the BMW i8 remains exactly what it has always been: fascinating, frustrating, and just strange enough to keep us watching.

Source: Cars and Bids

The Taycan Turbo GT Is Losing Value Like a Regular Taycan—and That’s the Shock

Porsche’s GT badge usually acts like financial armor. Stick those two letters on a car, and history suggests depreciation becomes someone else’s problem—usually the second owner’s. The 911 GT3 RS, for example, barely has time to cool off before its resale value climbs north of MSRP. Motorsport pedigree, limited production, and Stuttgart credibility tend to do that.

So when Porsche unveiled the Taycan Turbo GT, the expectation was simple: electric or not, this was a GT car, and the market would treat it accordingly.

It hasn’t.

Instead of defying gravity, the Taycan Turbo GT appears to be falling at roughly the same rate as the rest of the Taycan lineup—a lineup that has already taken a notable beating on the used market. EVs depreciate faster than internal-combustion cars as a rule, but the Taycan’s drop has been particularly steep, mirroring the experience of its corporate cousin, the Audi e-tron GT.

This week delivered the clearest evidence yet. A near-new Taycan Turbo GT surfaced on Bring a Trailer and sold—or nearly sold—for a jaw-dropping $82,000 less than its original sticker price.

The car was listed by Gaudin Classic, a Porsche dealer in Nevada, and it was about as close to factory-fresh as a used car gets. It had never been privately owned and showed just 141 miles on the odometer. It also wore the full Weissach package, which deletes the rear seats, adds a fixed rear wing, and swaps in additional carbon fiber in the name of lap times and weight savings.

Translation: this was the Taycan Turbo GT in its most extreme, most Porsche-approved form.

The window sticker told the rest of the story. MSRP landed at $238,300, with nearly $10,000 in options piled on top. Highlights included $2,950 Shade Green Metallic paint, $1,380 satin black wheels, and $1,760 Race-Tex–trimmed inner door sills. It was, by any reasonable measure, fully loaded.

And yet, bidding stopped at $167,000.

According to the seller, the auction came close to meeting the reserve, and negotiations with the top bidder may still produce a deal. Whether it sells or not almost doesn’t matter. The message is already loud and clear: that’s a brutal level of depreciation for a car that hasn’t even completed its first meaningful charge cycle.

The irony is that the Taycan Turbo GT is objectively extraordinary. Dual electric motors produce 1,019 horsepower with launch control, briefly spiking to 1,092 hp in two-second bursts. Earlier this year, MotorTrend recorded a 0–60 mph run of 1.89 seconds with one-foot rollout—making it the quickest car the publication has ever tested in its 76-year history. Without rollout, the time stretches to 2.1 seconds, still quicker than a Tesla Model S Plaid, Ferrari SF90 Stradale Assetto Fiorano, and Lucid Air Sapphire.

Those are supercar numbers, full stop.

But numbers don’t always translate to demand. The Taycan Turbo GT’s track-focused mission—and especially the Weissach package—limits its appeal. It seats just two people, fewer than some 911s, and most owners will never take it anywhere near a circuit. For buyers shopping at this price point, emotional connection and long-term value matter just as much as acceleration figures.

And this is where the GT playbook breaks down. Electric or not, the Taycan Turbo GT doesn’t yet enjoy the collector confidence that surrounds Porsche’s combustion GT cars. Battery tech evolves quickly, resale values lag behind expectations, and the market hasn’t decided how to treat ultra-high-performance EVs once the novelty wears off.

For now, the Taycan Turbo GT isn’t appreciating, stabilizing, or even resisting the trend. It’s depreciating—hard—right alongside its lesser siblings.

For first owners, that’s painful. For second owners, though, this might be the most interesting Porsche performance bargain in years.

Source: Bring a Trailer