Day 30: Car Auction

Posted 8/29, because I am lazy.

So today, we went to the car auction!

It turns out that buying a car in New Zealand can be a really economical purchase. New Zealand has this perfect storm of getting a lot of good second hand cars (Japan apparently has really stringent maintenance requirements, and it is frequently cheaper to buy a new car than to maintain an old one) and having a really big backpacking culture. You can buy a decent car for a thousand dollars, provided you're smart about it, and if the previous owner was a backpacker, there's a decent chance he or she will try to sell you their camping gear as well. Originally, we didn't plan to get a car, didn't even conceive of it, but after talking to some people, both at the IEP orientation and other backpackers, the independence it would afford us started to sound really appealing. (Our budget is a bit higher than that, given that we don't have enough on-the-fly car skills in case of carmergency.)

Anyhow, after doing a ton of research (grumpface sidenote: One reason I've been a bit hush-hush on this point is that I really do not care to talk car specs or car care with anyone who is not standing beside me.), we toddled on over to Lower Hutt to go to our very first car auction.

(Lower Hutt, as our flatemate Libby explained to us, is apparently the Jersey of the Wellington (New Zealand?) area. Without dwelling too much on it, she had been explaining the stereotypes, and Claire and I went, Ah yes right. That being said, I'm sure Lower Hutt is lovely, but we didn't get to see a particularly nice side of it. The car auction was in the industrial part of town, and it felt a bit like those endless hours driving through Indiana.)

We grabbed ourselves a catalogue, poked and prodded our way through cars with great finesse (one of our notes read: "HAIRY AND SMELLS FUNNY."). After our exhaustive review, we went for lunch to a nearby fish 'n' chip shop (the restaurant's claim to fame was BEST FISH 'N' CHIP SHOP IN NEW ZEALAND 1995, 1997 !) and loitered with the uniformed school kids. We fit right in, let me tell you.

Anyhow, after our late lunch of far too much delicious grease, we headed back to the lot to prepare ourselves for the auction.

To be honest, the auction itself was a bit startling. The auctioneer had on the full crazy fast speech and a gavel, and his sidekick was a serious-faced man on the lookout for paddles who kept shouting "Hup! Hup!" Once you get used to the patter, though, the auction seemed pretty straightforward. There were online bidders, telephone bidders, and live bidders, so between the three types the auctions were pretty lively. Given that this wasn't a day for high rollers, there were no dizzyingly high bids or particularly competitive bidders. I was actually surprised by the number of cars that didn't even meet the reserve price.

We didn't get our car, but I suspect that's primarily because we were a bit too distinctive in our want for the car. (In fact, going back to the website, I'm positive it's because we were a bit too distinctive. The exact same car is back on auction, so I assume the house was trying to drive our price up. Too bad we're cheap and stuck to our budget.)

Overall, I'm glad that we didn't get it, though. Going to a car auction is really quite an experience, and I'm glad that we had a dry run. And, if nothing else, holy crap. We have traveled to another hemisphere and went to a car auction! Go us!