This being Labor Day here in the U.S., it’s a great opportunity to reflect on how hard we all work and what sort of rewards that work can afford. One such reward could be a cool Italian car like today’s Maserati, that is if its price works for you.

Do you remember when Michael Jackson sang “Bad”? That song extolled the virtues of a bad reputation, suggesting that aggressors should steer clear, lest Michael would open a can of moon-dancing whoop-ass on them.

A bad reputation can sometimes be parlayed into a marketable commodity — just look at Jack Nicholson or Jägermeister. In the case of last Friday’s , the bad reputation maintained by its Olds diesel engine came almost as a badge of honor. Unfortunately for the seller, that honor did not extend to the car/truck’s $12,000 asking price. When we called it a day, it was trailing substantially with an 86 percent No Dice loss.

I used to take the bus to and from work. It was a lot less of a hassle than fighting LA traffic, and it kept the miles down on my car. I also gained an appreciation for how best to work the system; timing transfers and perhaps most important, learning to let the first one or two express buses go by without me as the next one would be far less crowded.

That strategy of waiting for the most opportune moment works in other aspects of life as well. Take, for example, this . Here’s a car that’s just six years old and seems to be in very nice shape, with fewer than 51,000 miles on the clock. Had you been the one to buy this car when it was spankin’ new, it would have set you back somewhere north of $70,000, a sizable chunk of change. Now it can be had for about a third of that, or around what a competitively sized Honda Accord might cost.

Why did this Ghibli drop so much in value? Well, there are two main reasons. The first is that modern Maseratis simply do not hold their value in any substantial way. Much as is the case with their corporate sibling Alfa Romeo, people aren’t jonesing to grab up used editions. Uncertain reliability and the thickly contented categories in which they play are additional factors in depressing values.

The other and more specific reason for this Ghibli’s price is because at one point it apparently looked like . If you’ll note, the VIN in the Craigslist ad and the auction — ZAM57XSA4E1087639 — is the same.

First off, I’d like to note that somebody did a hell of a job putting Humpty Dumpty back together again. The next thing I’d like to note is that the dealer offering the car claims in the ad that it has a clean title. I guess they mean that nobody has used it as a coffee coaster or napkin.

Okay, so it has a bit of history under its belt. Big deal. This is still a beautiful Italian sedan with a raucous-sounding three-liter V6 under its hood. That quad-cam all-alloy mill should be good for 345 horsepower and the kind of noises that will turn your knees to Jello. Hell, hearing any of the modern-day Maseratis at full chat can make even men want to have their babies.

The interior looks lustworthy too, and it appears that all of the deployed airbags have been replaced, as has the seatbelt pretensioner. Over all, the black leather and lovely wood trim all seem to present as-new.

How does the car drive? Well, that will just have to be determined via a test drive. Of course, that may be a moot point after you’ve been scared a bit by the before pics from the auction yard. If you’re actually made of sterner stuff — or are — then we’ll just have to concern ourselves with the Maserati’s current asking.

That’s $24,750 and that, as you will recall, is just a third of what this car went for when new. It is a good bit more than the $8,300 it took to spring it from the auction yard, but you have to admit that a ton of work has gone into it since then. A few more miles have apparently been laid down in it since the yard as well, as the mileage in the auction ad is given as 34,315, and it now seemingly sports 51k.

What do you think? Would you spend that $24,750 for this Maserati as it sits today? Or, does the Labor Day holiday have you thinking that your hard-earned money would be better spent elsewhere?

You decide!

Sacramento, CA , or go if the ad disappears.

H/T to FauxShizzle for the hookup!

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