918 Spyder

Make
Porsche
Segment
Compact

I am a firm believer in Craigslist as a reputable place to buy and sell cars of all kind. It's the go-to place for secondhand daily drivers but can also be used to snag a sweet deal on newly released cars with endless waiting lists, like the Ford Mustang Shelby GT350R. Of course sometimes there are scammers, like the person who was selling a "Buggati" Veyron. But Craigslist is slowly building clout as an automotive marketplace, as evidenced by dealerships like Texas' Empire Exotic Motors listing a Porsche 918 Spyder for sale on the site.

This 2015 918 has only 789 miles on it and is listed for $1.59 million. So far it's the first member of the hypercar holy trinity to hit Craigslist. (If you've seen a Ferrari LaFerrari or McLaren P1 on Craigslist please let us know!) In typical dealership fashion the photos are shot from obnoxious angles and with a camera that isn't as high quality as it should be, but overall this 918 looks pretty damn clean. It also may be one of the most powerful cars we've ever seen for sale on Craigslist. A few weeks ago we spotted a McLaren 675LT for sale but its twin-turbo 3.8-liter V8 looks like baby shoes compared to the 918 Spyder's output. A 4.6-liter V8 and two electric motors combine to give the Porsche 887 horsepower and 944 lb-ft of torque.

A run from 0-60 mph happens in just 2.5 seconds and the supercar can hit a top speed of 214 mph. Yeah, it's just a bit faster than that beater Civic you were checking out a few minutes earlier. At $1.59 million it's highly unlikely that many people searching the cars+trucks section of the site would find this listing. I did but that's because I write this series. How many rich gearheads actually go on Craigslist and look for a car with a starting budget of $1 million? Not many, obviously. But that's primarily the fault of dealerships. In the past few weeks we've seen the aforementioned 675LT, a Lexus LFA, a Carerra GT and now this 918 Spyder all up for sale on Craigslist. All of these cars were listed for sale by dealerships.

That means in order for Craigslist to become a legitimate place to shop for supercars more dealerships will need to post listings on the site. It only costs $5 per ad and the posts are live (and editable) for 30 days. Compare that to sites like JamesEdition that make listing a supercar for sale akin to purchasing an insurance plan. Of course Craigslist doesn't broker sales but how many people actually use the "Buy It Now" option when purchasing supercars? When there are more ways to buy and sell supercars online everyone wins. It will take some time but we're already one third of the way there to having the entire hypercar holy trinity on Craigslist so that has to count for something.