President-elect Barack Obama’s tricked-out Chrysler sedan is on the auction block, but it may cost eBay bidders upwards of $150,000.
Obama leased the steel-blue 2005 Chrysler 300C for three years before he turned it in 2007. The sports sedan is fully loaded, with a V-8 engine, a GPS navigation system, a sunroof, leather seats and chrome wheels. (New models start in the $35,000-to-$40,000 range.) Obama put just 19,000 miles on the ride before upgrading to a Ford Escape Hybrid, an environmentally friendly sport-utility vehicle.
Last February, a few months after Obama turned the Chrysler in, a Chicago restaurant manager was out car-shopping and unknowingly stumbled upon Obama’s ride at Park Plaza Dodge in Forest Park, Ill.
“I bought the car and everything and after the fact when I was leaving the showroom, the salesman that was in there said, ‘You better hang on to that car,’ “ Tim O’Boyle said. “I said, ‘Why is that?’ He said, ‘It used to belong to Obama.’ “ “I couldn’t believe it,” said O’Boyle, who paid about $24,000 for the car. “It was immaculate. It was like brand new.”
Tim O’Boyle, the general manager of a restaurant in Hillside, Ill., west of Chicago, is selling Obama’s steel blue 2005 Chrysler 300C Hemi on the Internet auction site, hoping to cash in on history. The price is a cool $1 million under eBay’s “Buy It Now” option.
“In my mind, it’s a one-of-a-kind car,” O’Boyle said Wednesday.
O’Boyle tried to sell it on eBay in December, but stopped the bidding process when his accountant told him to wait until he had owned it for a year for tax reasons. O’Boyle said the top bid on eBay was $125,100, and another person contacted him offering $150,000.
The restaurateur hopes the bids surpass previous offers, but he’s not tipping his hand.
“I’ve got a number in my head and I’m not going to tell you what it is,” O’Boyle said. “If I can’t get what I’m after, I’m not really interested in selling it.”
