Before he was leader of the free world cruising around in armor-plated vehicles with a Secret Service retinue, then-legislator Barack Obama allegedly tooled around in this tasteful gray Chrysler sedan. This is apparently a legitimate auction for the 2005 Chrysler 300C the President used while he was an Illinois State senator. Lisa Czibor, who has told reporters that she is holding the auction for someone else, says the first 19,000 miles were all [future] presidential powered.
The auction holders are also a little defensive about the $1,000,000 asking price:
Also, please understand that the $1 million dollar starting price is not a joke:
** The President of Iran’s ancient Peugeot fetched £1.5million at auction – only because it belonged to Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad drove the 1977 white sedan when he was the mayor of Tehran and put it up for sale on an auction site last year
** A light-blue 1975 Ford Escort GL once owned by Pope John Paul II sold for $690,000 to a Houston multimillionaire who put it in a museum.
** The current Pope Benedict’s 1999 VW sold for $244,000 and he probably never drove it (as he did not have a drivers’ license as a Cardinal, he had a driver).
** Billionaire buys Adolf Hitler’s convertible blue Mercedes for $8 million.
** Plus, being from Chicago, we have seen someone pay $113,000 for the “Bartman baseball” that (supposedly) kept the hapless Chicago Cubs from reaching the World Series in 2003 – just to blow up the ball as a publicity stunt (probably to try and break the Cubs’ curse). (No, hasn’t helped yet……)
** Marc Ecko paid $752,467 in the bidding war for Bonds’ 756th home-run ball.
The listing goes on to state that this is a “serious auction” and eBay “is not a playground”–an apparent nod to election year political tensions. However:
[What] you do with the Obama car after it is paid for is up to you….. you can put it in a museum, proudly drive it, or, you can use it as part of a Republican publicity stunt during the 2012 Election campaign – whatever you want once its bought & paid for…… I think just owning this vehicle would give the buyer a lot of coverage in the Press – maybe even $1 million worth of free publicity.
