Hurricanes Helene and Milton devastated the country earlier this year, wrecking houses, bursting river banks and flooding cars. Lots and lots of cars. Now, some of those flood-damaged vehicles are turning up at auctions, including real bedroom poster cars from the likes of McLaren, Porsche and Lamborghini.
After back-to-back flooding hit Florida earlier this year, auctioneers across the state are preparing to auction off around half a billion dollars worth of flood-damaged cars. A lot of those models will be pretty mundane motors like Honda CR-Vs, Chevy Malibus and the odd Toyota Corolla, however one auction house is about to offer up everything from Ford GTs to Porsche 911s.
Used car auctioneer Copart is selling off hundreds of flood damaged cars in Florida and Georgia, and the sale sheet is packed full of real dream motors. Right now, the auctioneer is offering a Bentley Continental from 2020 that’s bidding at $16,000 and a 2017 Ferrari F12 for $40,000 at its Georgia site, while in Florida the cars get even wilder.
To show off some of the dream cars that can be picked up on the cheap, automotive YouTuber Scrap Life Lee headed down to the Copart lot in Tampa, Florida, and unearthed some gems. In one of his latest uploads, Lee found a Lamborghini Aventador SV, Porsche GT3 RS and four McLarens that were all damaged in the flooding.
Some of the cars on the lot are in a sorry state, like a Nissan Skyline with the wrong wheels, no radiator, no brakes and all kind of damage to the paintwork. Then there are others that come with flood-damaged titles but look pristine. Cars like a Lamborghini Urus that even has some Mansory flourishes inside and out.
While the bougie SUV looks like it just needs a good clean, Lee does highlight that there’s no knowing what havoc the floodwater could have caused to the car’s complex electronics or if there is any damage to its mechanics. That warning can’t have alarmed many people on the lookout for a bargain Urus, however, as that particular car is currently bidding at north of $95,0000 at the time of writing.
There’s also an excellent Rolls-Royce Drophead Coupe on the lot that’s yet to go on sale, as well as a classic Roller from the 1920s. At least if you gambled your luck on a flooded car like that, there aren’t many electronics to worry about.
That’s what purchasing any of these cars would be, a gamble. Sure, you’d pick up a dreamy Aston Martin Vantage AMR at a massively reduced price, but there’s no knowing what condition it would be in when you got it back to your shop.
We’ve got a deep-dive into the dangers of buying bargain cars that have been caught up in floods right here, but the long and short of it is that it’s almost always more hassle than you think.
