Building custom cars and trucks is cool, but once you’re done with the project and you want to move on to the next one, you’ve got to sell it. The question is, how?

Of course this all comes from a personal place for me, because recently I decided to sell one of my long term projects - the blue truck pictured above - so that I could pay off some bills and move forward on one of the other four projects I have in the queue. Problem is, where do you sell something that’s custom? Here’s what I found…

eBay Motors - eBay has always thrown up huge red flags for me, because as a custom builder, I don’t want someone to get my ride for substantially less than I’m asking. Now though, they have options for a “Buy it now or best offer”, which lists the car for a number of days with a set price and a “make an offer” option. You pay $40 to list, and $50 if it sells — so $90 in total fees to get it in a nationwide forum.

Mautofied - Mautofied is a relatively new custom car and truck site which is pretty easy to use. Fill out the forms, get some pics up, and you’re good to go. At $10 it’s pretty affordable, but since the site isn’t as well known, it’s a little hit or miss. They do have a “trade” option, too, which either works to your advantage or disadvantage depending on your perspective.

Craigslist - Craigslist is great because it’s free to list, it’s easy to put up, and it’s quick. Problem is, it’s local, and your post can easily get lost in the shuffle unless you repost it up daily. It has its place, and you can find some killer projects in there, but you have to keep up with it.

Street Source Magazine - Price is ok at $12 for an ad, free for subscribing members, but it’s really a mini-trucker oriented site. If you’ve got a car or truck in that vein, give it a shot, but you may get mixed results. It gets a lot of daily hits though, so your exposure level is high.

Auto Trader - The Auto Trader is a great option for local sales — many people I know pick up the book just to browse for potential projects. Now the online option works even better for national sales, but it isn’t cheap. I ended up paying $129 for a larger print ad and lots of pics online: one of the pricier options, but also one with historically good results. The “Run till it sells” option is also a very nice feature.

The Auctions - Barret Jackson, Russo & Steele, all of those have come to mind when selling my truck, particularly since I live in the Phoenix area. I happen to own a custom truck though, which doesn’t really fit into their target demographic. I have a friend who’s taking his ‘67 Cadillac to Russo & Steele soon though, and he should get good results.

A “For Sale” Sign - It sounds stupid, because a simple sign only gets seen by anyone who sees your ride, but the fact is it works. I sold my last project because I took the car to Sears to get a hose for my compressor and a 15 year old kid saw it in the parking lot and asked about the sign. A day later I had a deposit and it was gone in a week.

So what do you choose? For me, I picked all of them but the auctions. It ended up setting me back around $150 (eBay Motors was having a $1 listing sale) and if that $150 puts the truck in someone else’s hands, then I’m better off long-term. How have the results been so far? 1,000+ hits and three people watching it on eBay, and 650 hits on Mautofied. The Auto Trader print ad comes out this week, so we’ll see how it all goes. All I know is I want it gone. I’ve got more projects to work on!

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 12:27 pm and is filed under Editorial. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.