You can get a really cheap car from a postal vehicle auction

The USPS (US Postal Service) routinely liquidates their fleet vehicles through a postal vehicle auction.

The postal service has a wide variety of vehicles in their fleet, not just the cars that the letter carriers drive. They liquidate passenger, light, medium and heavy duty vehicles.

They were recently auctioning off older model cars (10 years old)  as well as older (20 years old) 2 Ton Parcel Delivery trucks and even Stake Body trucks equipped with snow plows.

These vehicles are usually very high mileage and have seen a lot of wear but the good news is that they have been well maintained by USPS fleet maintenance.

Local Auctions

To find out if there are any vehicles up for auction in your local area, contact your local postal fleet manager. Your local postal fleet manager can be found at http://www.usps.com/surplusvehicles/.

Online Auctions

In addition to liquidating their vehicles locally, the postal service also auctions vehicles online. These vehicles are shown on the eBay auction site under the seller name of "usps-al-pmsc".

And, of course, there are other places to look for car auction deals other than with a postal vehicle auction.