One man’s trash, it has been said, is another’s treasure.

Take mud, for example.

Most folks spend many hours as well as many dollars removing it from their machines to keep them sparkling clean.

But in Britain, you can spend about $14.50 for a quart bottle of mud to apply to your vehicles to give them the always popular grunge look.

And the product, Sprayonmud, doesn’t cater to just any vehicle. According to the company’s Web site (www.sprayonmud.com), the target buyers are owners of sport-utility vehicles.

Why?

“To give your friends, family and neighbors the impression you’ve just come back from a day’s shooting or fishing, anything but driving around town all day.”

So, rather than let friends and neighbors think you’ve been wasting $2 plus-a-gallon gasoline wandering aimlessly along the highways showing off your $50,000 behemoth, you can waste $14.50 for a bottle of liquid mud to spray on bumpers, fenders and doors to fool folks into thinking you’ve consumed all that gas on a noble cause – hunting down Bambi.

Just one bottle of Sprayonmud tells friends and neighbors you are an off-road aficionado, using your machine to commune with Mother Nature – rather than the owner of a gas-guzzling monster robbing the planet of liquid energy.

The liquid mud comes with a “secret agent” to ensure it quickly dries on the sheet metal rather than dripping down the body panels and onto the pavement, where it would fool neither friends or neighbors.

As you’d expect, Spray-On Mud Ltd., creator and distributor of the goo, says it makes an ideal gift.

For sale by owner – vanity plates

What will they think of next … besides spray-on mud?

How about buying or selling vanity license plates on the Internet?

After 20 years as a commodities broker in New York, Richard Barnett has founded the Great Plate Exchange.

For $14.95 you can list your vanity plate for sale for one year at www.greatplateexchange.com. You also pay a sales commission that varies by the transaction amount and ranges from 5.25 percent for $150 or less to 1.15 percent for $41,000 and more.

But the site has been in operation for just six weeks and there are only 18 or so plates to choose from, Barnett said when reached by phone.

“It’s a new concept and a lot of people are nervous,” he said. Once the parties agree to the sale, they are then put in contact with the Department of Motor Vehicles in that state to do the plate transfer.

Plates are arranged by state because buying a vanity plate in New York does a motorist in Illinois little good. So far there’s only one listed for Illinois: GETRDNE (get ‘er done).

Lending a hand with low prices?

A few weeks ago Toyota Chairman Hiroshi Okuda suggested Japanese automakers raise their prices to help ailing U.S. automakers.

Takeo Fukui, CEO of Honda in Japan, said he has a better idea. Rather than raise prices of Hondas sold in the United States, he suggests raising production of Hondas sold here.

You might ask how that would help U.S. automakers losing market share to the Japanese.

If you come up with an answer, please pass it along to General Motors and Ford. They’d like to know, too.

Write to Jim Mateja, Chicago Tribune, 616 Atrium Drive, Vernon Hills, IL 60061-1523, or send e-mail, including name and hometown, to jmatejatribune.com.