Jeffrey Chappell figured he had made the deal of a lifetime when he bought a 1995 Volks-wagen Golf for $5,450, sight unseen, at a federal auction in April. After all, the car had only 3,600 miles on it—how bad could it be? But in June the VW conked out an hour away from the Kansas City, Mo., home Chappell, 35, shares with his mother, Helen, 76, a retired computer operator. A mechanic, suspecting fuel pump problems, found $82,000 in cash bundled by denomination in the gas tank. Helen, for whom Chappell had bought the VW, began dreaming of a trip to Ireland. "I felt like we'd won the lottery," she says.

The government felt differently. Contacted by the mechanic, U.S. drug agents grabbed the money at the repair shop. The Chappells say they were assured that the Federal Reserve Bank would cut them a check as soon as the gas-tainted cash was destroyed. But the government went to court in September to claim the loot as illegal drug proceeds hidden by the suspect from whom the car had been seized. "I felt betrayed," says Chappell, a real estate rehabber. He and Helen are suing for the money, arguing that he bought the car "as is." Says their lawyer Paul Katz: "If this was Judge Judy, she'd have given them the money by the first commercial."

Despite the government's claim, it has never been proved that the cash is drug money. After Missouri Highway Patrol officers stopped the car's Mexican driver for speeding in 1996, they found $24,000—but no drugs—in the car's battery and released the man, who disappeared minus the car.

Apart from the cash bonus, the VW was hardly the bargain the Chappells had imagined. First they had to put in a new battery just to drive it off the lot in Kansas City. Then they spent $600 for electrical wiring and $600 for a fuel pump. What with all the hassle and frustration that has followed, Chappell says he'll never buy at a government auction again. But still, he allows, "it's not a bad little car."