Obama's Chrysler 300 on Auction for $1 Million
A Chrysler 300C that was once leased by the Commander-in-Chief is now being auctioned on eBay. The opening bid for the presidential Chrysler is $1 million.
Opening bids on eBay are chosen by the seller, meaning bidding for the car must begin at the whopping price Lisa Czibor, the woman who posted the car on eBay Motors, is asking for.
Czibor told CNNMoney that she listed the car for someone else but can't wait for its commission when it sells. She also described herself as a "life-long Ronald Reagan old-school conservative."
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"It's all about the money for me," Czibor said.
Craig Jackson, president of the Barrett-Jackson auto-auction company told CNN he doubts the car will get anywhere near its $1million price tag.
"Maybe this car would be worth $50,000 to $100,000," Jackson said, adding that his company has sold several presidential cars and none have been purchased for anything close to $1 million.
Barrett-Jackson sold the hearse that carried the body of assassinated president John F. Kennedy at an auction for $160,000.
Czibor may indeed have trouble getting her asking price. The Obama Chrysler is a stock late-model Chrysler similar to thousands of others still on the road. Without its connection to America's first African American president, it would be worth approximately $20,000 as a used car, CNNMoney reported.
The eBay listing also gives potential buyers a few examples of other cars previously owned by members of the public eye, including the Peugeot formerly owned by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sold for £1.5 million, or nearly $2.4 million.
Recently, a Cadillac V-16 convertible, a presidential parade limousine used by Franklin Roosevelt, was auctioned off in Arizona for $270,000.
Czibor showed CNNMoney a scanned copy of an Illinois Certificate of Title showing Barack Obama was indeed the lessee, but she did not say how the current owner got the car.
In the summer of 2007, Obama traded the Chrysler sedan he drove as a U.S. Senator for a 2007 Ford Escape Hybrid nearing his presidential campaign.
