There’s no depreciation like European luxury car depreciation, and the junkyard is the best place to see that phenomenon on vivid display. Today’s Junkyard Find now resides at Colorado Auto & Parts, just south of Denver, and it has plenty of fascinating stories to tell.
When I find a car like this one in a boneyard, I like to calculate its original MSRP in inflation-adjusted dollars. This lets me know how much present-day value evaporated during its life.
In this case, finding the actual out-the-door price of this car was easy; the Monroney was still inside. I was there with my fellow Denver-based car writer, Andrew Ganz, and he saves junkyard-found Monroneys for his collection. This one was a huge score for him, and it shows us that this A8 sold at Stammler Imports in Boulder for $122,470.
That comes to $208,062 in 2025 dollars, which puts this car in second place on my personal Most Depreciated Junkyard Cars list. First place is held by a 1974 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow I shot in a Northern California car graveyard a couple of years back; its inflation-adjusted MSRP is $232,901 in today’s frogskins. I’ve documented a bunch of 7 Series and S-Classes that get close to the $200k-in-2025 mark as well.
208 grand to scrap value in just 20 years is a steep downward spiral, and this car even suffered the final ignominy of being lifted by a forklift that shoved its tines through the side glass because the operator didn’t feel it was worth the hassle of taking a less damaging approach.
Csaba Csere, the man I know best as the 24 Hours of Lemons racer who has consistently pissed me off more than any other during my years as a wise and dignified official with that series, began his review of this car with this sentence: “There’s a lofty price point above which marketers talk about acquiring a car rather than merely buying it, as if one could assume ownership without the crass action of actually handing over money.”
Three years later, the founder of this publication reviewed the 2008 A8 L W12 and thought it was a good short… except for the governed 130 mph top speed.
It appears that Audi sold 474 of these cars in the United States for the 2005 model year.
The engine is a 6.0-liter four-bank monster rated at 444 horsepower and 428 pound-feet. As Mr. Csere put it, “114 more ponies than are present in the V-8-powered big Audis, and they make themselves known when you put your Ferragamos to the plush carpeting.”
That was then. Six months ago, a used-car shopper bought this Audi at a dealership in Golden (best-known as the home of Coors) for $4,200, plus taxes, a $799 “delivery handling” fee and $749 for three years of “appearance protection.” It had 115,510 miles on the clock at the time.
We can assume that the buyer who got this car for about the typical price of a ten-year-old Nissan Altima in halfway decent condition did not reside in the same socioeconomic stratum as the car’s original purchaser. Exhibit A: this decal on the rear glass.
Say what you will, but this car’s final owner was able to live The Plutocratic Automotive Dream™ for a couple of months. Is it better to commute to your 9-to-5 for years in an Altima?
The temporary cardboard license plate, still attached, indicates that this Audi never had a chance to get genuine registration after that purchase.
Most of the airbags are deployed, but there are no signs of major body damage.
The bumper cover and paint-pen markings from the Lakewood Police Department impound yard suggest that this car got launched hard at a good clip, off a speed bump or intersection with high road crown on the cross street, then achieved a gloriously long hang time before smashing back to earth and instantly depreciating from $4,200 to… much less.
Actually, this car is full of aluminum, which is worth decent money, and fat bundles of copper wire, which is worth serious money. CAP will make a profit from it.
Someone has already purchased the transmission. You know, ran when crashed and all that.
I thought about buying the Blaupunkt DVD changer, for a future junkyard boombox project, but I already have enough weird boombox parts to last me for quite a while.
CAP does have the best prices of any car graveyard in the Denver metro region, though, so I was tempted.
You’ll find one in every car.
2005 Audi A8 L W12 in Colorado junkyard.
2005 Audi A8 L W12 in Colorado junkyard.
2005 Audi A8 L W12 in Colorado junkyard.
2005 Audi A8 L W12 in Colorado junkyard.
2005 Audi A8 L W12 in Colorado junkyard.
2005 Audi A8 L W12 in Colorado junkyard.
2005 Audi A8 L W12 in Colorado junkyard.
2005 Audi A8 L W12 in Colorado junkyard.
2005 Audi A8 L W12 in Colorado junkyard.
2005 Audi A8 L W12 in Colorado junkyard.
2005 Audi A8 L W12 in Colorado junkyard.
2005 Audi A8 L W12 in Colorado junkyard.
2005 Audi A8 L W12 in Colorado junkyard.
2005 Audi A8 L W12 in Colorado junkyard.
[Images: The Author]
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