If you’ve got $50,000, a piece of DC history is potentially for sale: A car that a seller says is one of Marion Barry‘s Jaguars is for sale on Craigslist. You’ll also need some time to deal with the DMV: The ad says the car’s title is missing.
The seller has not yet replied to Washingtonian, which would love to learn more about how it came into their possession. Photos on the listing show about 93,000 miles on the odometer and suggest that several cardboard boxes and tall kitchen bags full of stuff may convey with the car.
Barry was especially enamored of Jags, especially silver 2002 X-Types. In March 2002, the US Park Police said they’d responded to a call about an illegally parked car and found the former mayor, who’d just announced he planned to run for DC Council, with a “powdery substance” under his nose. They said they found traces of cocaine and cannabis in the car but claimed the amounts were “too small to support a prosecution,” according to a Washington Post account at the time. Barry said the drugs were planted. That summer, Barry’s silver Jag was booted in Dupont Circle.
In 2010, Barry bought another silver 2002 X-Type that was stolen on Livingston Road, Southeast. (“An authority said that the keys had been left in the ignition,” the Post reported. Police found the car a few days later. That Jag went on to have many adventures–it was booted, seen parked in front of a fire hydrant, earned hizzoner more than $2,800 in traffic and parking fines, and involved in a crash that a Barry spokesperson attributed to low blood sugar.
Andrew Beaujon joined Washingtonian in late 2014. He was previously with the Poynter Institute, TBD.com, and Washington City Paper. He lives in Del Ray.
