For it's mileage, that's not one half bad car. Paint's good, Interior's good. As a keeper for daily driving, it'd be fine.

Sadly the mileage damns it for flipping purposes. It's a $1500 to $2000 car at auction in my book, but I'll bet it doesn't have much rust. May go to $2200 or so in this market, but that's too much.

Here's a pretty good 2003 P73 with extremely low miles in Atlanta for you east coasters, but it's probably going to go for over $4k.

Gold P73 with 35k miles

Wow that P73 just closed this morning for $6300 after fees. Ridiculous.
This is a nice looking SAP in North Carolina. Looks very clean, description says it was an admin car. Sitting at $3k with one day to go. How high you think for this?


https://www.govdeals.com/index.cfm?fa=Main.Item&itemid=83&acctid=3947

$6300 for a clean car if any kind isn't that ridiculous anymore.

If you think that's ridiculous, take a look at what clapped out pickups are selling for...

Now is the wrong time to be in the car business if you don't have a stomach to ride this rollercoaster.

That’s a fine looking white SAP, nearly identical to the two I bought at auction in the spring of last year from the city of Ogden Utah, with the same miles on it. one I got for 2100 and the other I got for 2300 which I thought at the time was a little bit on the high side. Now it seems that they weren't high at all. I flipped them both very quickly for 4100 and 4300.

That car is going to sell at auction for between 4500 and 5k, would be my guess. It won't go quite as high as the sub-75k mileage cars seem to go, but it won't be overlooked.

Yeah a customer came into the shop a month or so ago for an oil change on a crusty 2002-ish Chevy 1500 he just bought. He was convinced he stole it for only $5000. Whatever. Trucks go for stupid money around here. Glad I'm not a truck guy and got the Mercury back when I did.

That NC SAP sold for $4300 including fees, not quite as high as I thought, which is probably indicative of the drop-off affecting cars that have over 100k miles

Here's another one for your consideration, a very normal white SAP P71 in Colorado with lots of roof antenna stubs, push bar cutouts, and other indicators of typical patrol usage, but only 57K miles, which according to the algorithm should push it towards $5k.
p71 57k miles

Yeah reading the records I think it had a repaint. I'm hoping that's just dirt in the door jamb and not rust. Never seen a panther rust that way though. Knock on wood it's staying quite low but typically they pick up closer to the end.

After looking at it again, and reading all the service records, I give it a thumbs up for buying. The fact that it's had a repaint is a GOOD thing, took care of the peelformance white issue that otherwise would be present. And it's had an instrument cluster replacement taking care of the notorious dim OD issue on those 2008's. Good set of tires, good ac compressor, ALL SERVICE RECORDS, an interior that is far less sweaty than 90% of the P71's I follow. What's not to like.

Only downside is original transmission at 150k miles. I don't think that's significant rust, but I note that two of its sister vehicles currently for sale, have visible rust problems or rust disclosures. If you could use a daily driver, I'll bet you can get a ton of miles out of it if it stays under $2k. It not, there's another lower mileage one coming up from the same seller in two additional days.

Only time will tell. I'm not guessing either way but low mileage good condition ones will always be worth something. They'll never be at muscle car prices but look at the 60s and 70s police cars. They were also looked at as disposable and tons around but good ones are up in the 5 figure range and go for a lot more then your typical 4 door cars of the same era do. Even good 80s Caprice and Diplomat police cars have been going for high prices for a while now for what they are.

Sigh. I vehemently disagree. It’s a matter of perception, and call me a fanboi, so what? I’ll admit my bias. Consider this, Those Dodge Darts you refer to aren’t the piece of Americana that panther platform cars are. Look at any photograph of a Manhattan street from 1992-2015ish and you will see a flood of panthers, and to a lesser extent, Caprices from the 90’s.

Virtually any form of visual media over that 20 year period will contain a panther in it, wether as a taxi, cop car, mob boss car, whatever. That adds to the vehicles’ appeal, being such an icon. And yes, even vehicles considered “throwaways” when new sometimes get some love years down the road, as the aforementioned Dart. However, that’s usually a cult following or so on and so forth. And yes, rare does not equal valuable. I’m not implying that.

Ya know, I’ve never understood the seemingly popular notion, here of all places, that panther platform cars have reached a plateau of appeal and will continue to be throwaways until the last car in the bone yard is picked dry. I believe that’s not the case, mark my words.

So, what is the definition of a “collector car” exactly ? In 1969, that coveted ‘57 Bel Air was nothing more than a clunker, probably sold for $300 after sitting under a tree for 2 years. Cars from the 70’s are just now having their resurgence, and cars from the 80’s will be the next. (Followed by virtually every other period of cars, so on and so forth) Interest in cars fade, yes — and panthers are now at the decline of their interest, yes.. However, I do believe that in 20/30/40 years from now, there will be a new found interest in the platform, and those of us lucky enough to hold on to these cars will have something special.. yes, even the “vomit comets”.

Only specific cars from every era became collectible. Not all of them.

Not many care about collecting Checker cabs, which the panther platform is essentially a modern version of. The restoration business for Dodge Polaras, 4 door Biscaynes, Galaxies, etc aren't exactly booming either, and we are likely approaching the peak of collectability for those cars as people who are nostalgic about them continue to age.

Thats all we can do is see where it goes. Who guessed that 60s muscle cars would at some
point demand 6 figure asking prices.
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As for panthers, I appreciate the car for what it is, but I don't see it as a car that should (it could) demand luxury car prices. I don't even consider my square anything special, but people pay stupid money for them, like the panther, it was built by the millions and is a work vehicle. I year round daily drive my square, it sits outside 24/7 and see's salt and snow. Its a truck, doing truck stuff. Not something that should be hidden away becuase it is a "collector".

Here's the main ding against the Panther becoming a collector car. It wasn't popular in its day, except with police and livery companies, and today its cult following is solely based on the fact that we've all recognized that it represents great value for the money. Not because of cool styling or freaky performance. It's great because it's hardy, tough and above all cheap for what you get.

If it were to become not so cheap, then what you've got is less special.

I compare it to its GM sister sedans from the Oughts: the Buicks, Pontiacs, and Chevies with the 3800 Series III engines. Again, not loved in their day, again didn't sell real well, but today gearheads are gaga over their reliable hardy engines and value for the money.

But is anyone going to collect an 07 Park Avenue twenty years from now? Maybe the supercharged SS models, but little else.

And like it or not, we may all be facing electric car obsolescence by the time these cats hit collectible age. Ya wanna know how much film 35mm Canons and Nikons are worth in today's digital age? Something, but not big bucks. Ask you sister how much her giant collection of Disney VHS tapes are worth now, the ones she had to spend $49 on before Disney "locked them back up in the vault".

When the value for the $ disappears, so do I.

For those who like the follow up final prices on the auction cars mentioned in this thread, the white Colorado patrol P71 with 57k miles sold for $5280. I can't see what RipWixom's kentucky car with 150k sold for because it was on public surplus. I'm dying to know, but in order to see PS's closing prices you have to have bid on the car, otherwise the auction info disappears.