Trading a $100 SUV into a charity's windfall through used cars

One $100 bill. One SUV from the Jurassic Park era.

A couple of months ago, I found myself drinking while shopping on the Internet. Those weird things you would never buy when sober, such as, say, a 20-year-old Ford Explorer stuck in storage for nearly two years? All of a sudden they become your next personal treasure.

Little did I know that the old truck would guide me through an unusually long, strange trip. From a cheap risk and a flight of fancy, to a higher purpose for my life's work.

When I wrote the article about this drunken gamble of mine, a lot of folks chimed in with good ideas about how to make the most out of this older SUV. A charitable donation. A raffle. Even the thought of handing the keys to a complete stranger in need was an appealing possibility. The Explorer only had all of 93,400 miles,  so I knew it could potentially be a marketable item to someone who valued a low-mileage, rust-free vehicle .

So that's what I did. I sold it...but with a twist.

I've spent 15 years working around wholesale auto auctions; with over 10 million vehicles sold annually between dealers, it's the second-largest auction market in the United States (just behind Wall Street). I also happen to be a third-generation trader; my grandfather was a cattle trader in Germany, and my dad imported food for 60 years. I have an eye for buying, fixing and selling cars in much the same way as my dad and grandpa had an eye for gourmet foods and livestock.

So that's what I decided to do after selling the Explorer. I would invest the money. Buy. Fix. Sell. Repeat. By the end of the year, I would hopefully be able to raise enough money to buy and donate a refrigerated truck to Helping Hands, a charity here in rural Georgia that provides food and other assistance for those in need.

After a thorough clean up, I sold the Explorer for $2,000 to an auto enthusiast from Ohio. Then I re-invested all that money into a 1999 Ford Ranger Club Cab. It had 203,000 miles, an automatic, and a 3-liter V-6. Out here in Georgia, small trucks with automatic transmissions are in high demand. It took a month to sell the Explorer. The Ranger sold in a week.

The next week I decided to double down.

I bought a 2000 Ford F-150 with 220,000 miles for $1,735 ($1,600 plus the auction fee) and a 1999 Mercury Cougar in surprisingly good condition, which I bought for $1,335 ($1,200 plus the auction fee).

The F-150 sold in an hour for $2,000.  As soon as the auction was finished, I took six pictures, put it on Craigslist, and within minutes got in touch with the buyer. This Mercury Cougar took just over 48 hours.

While the F-150 has been America's best selling pickup for several decades, this front-wheel-drive Cougar was only available for four years and never gained traction with the buying public. Still, leather seats and a sunroof on an older, sporty vehicle is a highly marketable combination. A $2,000 sale price and a little bit of patience overcame the fact that Mercury is now a defunct brand.

So the $100 is now $4,000, and there are exactly eight months left until Christmas. I am thinking about using the money towards buying a well-kept refrigerated truck since frozen and refrigerated foods can't be picked up with regular vehicles due to liability concerns — which will run well past $10,000.

We'll see what happens from here.

Author's Note: In the spirit of full disclosure, I now have two auction fees ($270), a replaced windshield ($135), a new battery ($65), a tank of gas ($50), and a detail ($50), along with the $100 initial investment.