Just being perfectly honest, the "Sister buying it at auction" idea is not very sound, there is no telling when or where that car will end up.
This is true. The car could sell anywhere in the nation. The best I can do if we were serious about heading down that path is set search parameters for the vehicle and hope we find it prior to selling. There are plenty of good cars that sell at auction for under 2-3k... that's what I recommend for killstatic.