E. Hampton eyes bids on impounded cars

It wasn't exactly the Oscars, but for two hours this week East Hampton village administrator Larry Cantwell sat with a stack of envelopes - 93 in all - and opened them one at a time, looking for a winner.

They were bids on 37 cars that had been accumulating in the village's impound lot for the past three years. It being East Hampton, there was a Porsche and a Mercedes-Benz, but most of the cars were being sold for scrap and, with a minimum bid of $150, most bids were for $300 or less.

The most popular car wasn't the Jeep Cherokee or the white 1995 Ford Thunderbird, but a blue Toyota FJ Cruiser, which got 49 bids - forcing June Lester, secretary to the village board of trustees - to use two bid sheets. It got the apparent high bid of $15,287.34, more than half the $25,000 to $30,000 the village expects to make on the auction.

Though Cantwell opened the bids on Tuesday, they will not become official until the village board of trustees votes to award them at its regular March 3 meeting.

No deposit was required on the bids - Cantwell explained it would be a logistical nightmare keeping track of them all, especially since several people bid on every car - and if an apparent winner changes his mind, the next highest bidder will get a chance at the vehicle.

Under village rules, the owner of an impounded car will get back any excess money, once tickets and other fines are paid. The village has been charging a $15-a-day storage fee, and some cars have been in the village lot for three years - racking up more than $19,000 in storage fees.

Every car was sold "as is," which put the FJ Cruiser's top bid a little under the $17,450 to $20,400 range listed in the Kelley Blue Book.

Still, Cantwell admitted that making around $30,000 for the village in two hours on Tuesday was a good use of his time on a quiet winter day.

He said the village acquired the cars for many different reasons, including because tickets and storage costs totaled more than the car was worth. "There are probably 37 different stories," Cantwell said.