I’m willing to bet that while you’re reading this, half-watching Love Island, you’ve got another browser window open with your favourite Auto Trader saved search parameters in it. Mine is something along the lines of:
Radius: National
Age: Up to 2005
Engine Size: Up to 1300cc
Keywords: Crap, rare, Daihatsu, FOTU
Colour: Any
It’s a nice little distraction from reality and a handy way to entertain myself once I’ve finished reading my column over and over again in Classic.Retro.Modern. Very occasionally, though, the virtual window shopping starts to get serious, and an overwhelming urge gets the better of me. A car is bought – although regrets are few.
This is all very exciting, and everyone knows the thrill of the chase. But it’s time to talk about the flip side of that experience: selling something to make way for new metal. For many, it’s too much of an ordeal. In the couple of months I’ve been trying to find a new home for my Perodua Nippa, I now understand how people end up with piles of cars parked outside their houses. Selling cars is rubbish.
I take that back – just a little. Selling a Perodua Nippa is rubbish. The last car I sold was a lovely, very yellow MG ZS (you may have seen it on the cover of the best car magazine money can buy last year). An online auction through a well-known company; sold at the reserve to a lovely chap who is enjoying the car immensely. The auctioneers handled the financials, took their fee – easy.
Truth be told, I don’t really want to sell this car. I have to, because – and this is a first-world problem and then some – I really struggle to focus when I have more than four cars to deal with. One of those is leased, so no big deal. I own one other modern car used as a family hack, but through that experience I described in my second paragraph, in addition to an entry-level Porsche, I now have two tiny 25-year-old city cars I don’t actually need. One of them has to go because I can’t concentrate. I also need my garage back.
While it may be extremely rare and in brilliant shape, a Perodua Nippa is not a car that will earn me lots of money. Quite the opposite, because I’ve sunk far too much into it. Steph ‘Idriveaclassic’ Holloway tries to explain this away as an enjoyment tax, and she’s right. I’ll never see that money back, but the genuinely happy memories the car has given me will last forever.
Because it’s worth so little, auction fees are out of the question. So, fresh from this year’s FOTU Concours – having achieved all I ever intended to with this car, and actually far more – the car is listed on a well-known site with a paid, featured ad. I’ve made a decision to let it go, and I want it done quickly – sort of a paying-the-executioner-to-sharpen-the-blade style.
Thousands – and I mean thousands – of views, hundreds of saves and dozens of shares later, there’s an offer. Emails, then texts are exchanged. Figures discussed, then logistics. Then… silence. The ad is still running, and I plug it on the usual social media. An instant response from two people who, yes, MUST have it. More messages, more emails. A phone call this time. Then silence.
All the right questions, all the right noises. Suitable homes, so I won’t worry about the car being turned into a rat rod or pizza delivery van. Each time, the enthusiasm builds – almost agreeing the deal, the date, the time – and then silence. The next one is more hopeful. It’s a week before the ad expires and this chap is coming to collect it tomorrow. I pull the advert.
The next morning, an email to apologise: there’s no money now. Or maybe they didn’t check if it was ULEZ compatible (it’s not, obviously). Some spurious nonsense. Now we’re onto Marketplace: a site I love to browse but where I never, ever make contact unless I’m ready with cash in hand. Same thing here. The dizzying, breathless, urgent contact, followed by silence.
eBay is the same. I have a full suite of analytics at hand and can see the staggering amount of interest this little car gets. Through eBay come the really daft queries: does it have air conditioning? Will you export it to East Timor (seriously)? Will you swap it for a Rover 600, a Vauxhall Astra, or a mountain bike? Yes, a mountain bike. At least here, a bid is legally binding – for all that’s worth. The auction ends without a bang, reserve not met, back to square one.
Marketplace again. More swaps. More ghosting. The common theme on the Facebook sales platform is for enquiries to arrive at 3am: an exchange of queries and answers, followed by a suddenly vague commitment to come back later if the money is there. It never is, apparently, although only once has that been conveyed to me with an apology.
I can’t bear to look at the Nippa sitting in the garage while this goes on for weeks and weeks. Poor thing deserves better. What is it about this specific car that draws out this cast of freaks from their PCs in their parents’ spare bedrooms, apparently unable to remember that they can’t afford the thing they’re enquiring about?
Perhaps if I were advertising a McLaren F1 GTR Longtail, would I have the same experience? The same rarity, the same fantasy, the same lack of funds against an abundance of excitement, albeit detached from reality. I’d understand that more. But this is a pocket-money car, and it’s well known in our little world of motoring detritus.
My last attempt in 2025 to see this car off to a new home is worded in that slightly passive-aggressive tone I’ve seen so many times in ads for exotica. I guess the Perodua really is quite exotic. It’s certainly rare and draws a lot of attention — admittedly for non-standard reasons.
So, it’s back on eBay again, where at least there’s a semblance of contractual obligation associated with hitting the bid button. I wish I could keep this one, but I can’t and I won’t. I want you to buy it. Yes, you. Please just check your bank balance first, OK?
And no swaps.
It’s back on eBay, looking for someone daft enough to appreciate it as much as I have.
Petrolblog may earn a small commission if you buy through the eBay link – sadly not enough to fund another Nippa.
