About this page:

“Used car salesman” doesn’t usually evoke positive associations in most people’s minds. I have no desire to profit from the financial transactions that take place between individuals regarding their automobiles. But I do want to see these cars being well-used, making their owners happy. Fair warning, though, I get lazy about updating things, so you may find information on this page to be quite out of date.

I’ve decided to create this page to facilitate an open marketplace for information about current asking/selling prices and conditions of Thinks for sale. When Hawthorne Auto Clinic was the warranty service center for Thinks in the area, co-owner, Jim Houser, facilitated sales of customers’ Thinks at a nominal fee of 10% of the selling price. (I don’t believe Jim wanted to get in to the used car sales racket, but he did spend quite a lot of time talking to potential buyers, taking them for test drives, allowing the cars to take up space in the shop’s tiny parking lot… I think the sellers got quite a bang for their buck.)

Owners that originally bought their Thinks from Think North America paid $16,000 for them with a 3-year warranty. Warranties are no longer in effect for any Thinks in the US. There was a total of $7,500 in tax incentives available to buyers in Oregon (I’m not sure how much was state and federal), so I suspect that all or nearly all Think owners paid a net of $8,500 for their new car.

A year after the initial purchase (I believe one year of ownership was required for the tax incentives), Thinks were being bought and sold for about $12,500. Recently (summer 2015) Thinks in various conditions and mileages have been trading around $8,000. I suspect that prices are down due to warranties being over, some repairs being fairly labor intensive and uncertainty of future parts availability.

Recently the Tom Wood dealer in Indianapolis announced that they would be selling their rental Thinks as-is. There were 12 cars available as of September 25, 2015, and you can email chad_kirchhoff@tomwood.com to bid on them.

In the first half of 2016, Jim sold 2 Thinks for out-of-town owners. One with 12,358 miles went for $7,500, and one with 17,477 went for $6,200. As of this update, in September 2016, there is one Think for sale in Beaverton with an asking price of $8,500. I recently (October, 2016, I think) sold a Think on behalf of a customer that moved out of convenient range of repairs. The car was in very good condition and went for $5,300.

Euro-Star Motors in Maryland also has 6 new (or at least never-before-sold) Thinks for sale. I believe they are asking $13,000 (according the their website), so with the federal tax incentive they would cost $5,500. I think they told me that Maryland and Georgia have state tax incentives of an additional $3,000. Can that be right? Only $2,500 for a new Think?

In late 2017 I know of 3 local (Portland) Think transactions with these basic parameters:

$5,100 for a Think in very good condition and only 14,000 miles.
$4,300 for a Think in very good condition with around 37,000 miles.
$2,900 for a Think that had some body damage and a running problem, with probably around 16,000 miles.
$3,000 for a Think that I don’t know very much about in the San Jose area. I got the impression the owner wasn’t really trying to squeeze every last penny from it, just trying to sell it fast.

Please let me know if you have a Think for sale that you would like to be posted here.