The Daily Vroom

Good morning Vroomers,

Yesterday was a big one — $9.5 million in sales, including two $1M+ deals, both on BaT.

The Singer originally stalled at $925K, but BaT’s Make an Offer feature got it over the line for $1.05M. The buyer had been on the platform for eight years, quietly watching, rarely bidding — until now.

The Carrera GT went to someone whose only other purchase was a $10K Mustang.

There’s no formula for who buys these cars. They appear out of nowhere and go big.

What you can predict is this: the money is still strong, the listings are sharp, and the best sellers know exactly how to close.

The leaderboard is full of action today. Scroll down for the highlights, the results from yesterday’s poll on post-auction deals, and my final two cents.

Let’s get into it.

MARKET LEADERBOARD

💰 The figures shared below don’t count any other sales such as car seats, memorabilia etc… All online auction sites are analyzed to put this leaderboard together.

I only include websites that have sold 5+ vehicles in the chart below.

YESTERDAY’S TOP 5 SALES

Want to dive deeper into any of these listings? Just click on the car to take you directly to the listing.

Sale of the Day

This one didn’t hammer — but it did sell.
BaT listed it as “Reserve not met” at $56,500, and then quietly, post-auction… it moved. Final sale price? $65K via Make an Offer.

And honestly it still feels like a deal.

Manual Cayman R.
Only 7,000 miles.
Carbon buckets. Limited slip. Lightweight everything.
This is peak analog Porsche — right before they started filtering the feedback out of everything. It's basically a stripped-back GT car with just enough civility for real-world driving.

Yes, it had a 2015 accident noted on Carfax, but quality repairs and clean paint meter readings made it a non-issue for most. And given how clean and low-mile this thing is, the value’s still there — big time.

Someone got smart. Didn't let the auction end be the end. Worked a deal and walked away with one of the best driver-focused 987s ever built.

Your Feedback

Yesterday, I asked: “Should platforms publicly disclose when they help close a deal post-auction?”

Turns out, 65% of you want to know what really goes down to get the deal done.

Below is a mix of your takes — plus my two cents.

A bunch of you flagged that Cars & Bids is now showing final sale prices for post-auction deals — and not just going forward. They’ve retroactively updated past listings too, since those prices were already logged in their admin system. That means we finally have a complete dataset of “sold after” deals, right from the start. Big move for transparency.

Bring a Trailer has been doing something similar with their “Make Offer” system — displaying the final price when a buyer steps in post-auction and successfully closes the deal.

So now, both platforms show the final sale price when a post-auction deal gets done. The mechanics differ — C&B leans into hands-on negotiation, while BaT relies more on automation — but the outcome is the same: we see the number the seller accepted and the buyer agreed to.

What’s especially interesting on the C&B side is their automated internal system that can trigger a sale even if the reserve isn’t met — as long as the bid is close enough. The system knows the economics: if the buyer fee covers the shortfall, it quietly flags the car as “paid up” and allocates part of the platform’s margin to make the deal happen. No manual hustle required.

I assume BaT has something similar running behind the scenes. At their scale, it would make sense — an internal logic that helps them close near-miss auctions without needing constant human involvement.

But here’s the catch: in both cases, if the platform adds a sweetener to bridge the gap, that part is never disclosed.

If the top bid is $100K and the seller wants $102K, and the platform quietly adds $2K to make the deal happen, the public listing will still say “Sold for $100K.” There’s no mention that the platform contributed — even though the seller walked away with more.

And I get it. Disclosing sweeteners muddies the headline, and platforms need to protect their margins. But even a simple note — “Platform assisted in closing this deal” — would go a long way. Especially when the difference is usually within 5%, the size of the buyer fee and the platform’s built-in cushion.

So yes — we now see the final price whether a car sells at auction or afterward. But if the platform quietly helped close the gap? That part still happens behind the curtain.

Auctions To Keep An Eye On

This one’s sneaky cool. Final year of the old-school CLK, but with just 17k miles and a designo spec that actually means something — Mocha Black over Light Brown Nappa, full leather everywhere, proper wood trim, the works. Total time capsule.

What makes it rad? In 2003 you could’ve bought the new-gen CLK… but someone walked into a dealership and ordered this instead — and paid nearly $60K to do it. That’s commitment. Respect.

It still wears its original window sticker, it’s been babied indoors its whole life, and the vibe is pure early-2000s Mercedes elegance. Not flashy. Just cool.

If you want a classic convertible that no one else at cars & coffee will have — but everyone will quietly admire — this is it.

I haven’t seen one of these in forever. Not in this condition. Not with 4,300 original miles. And definitely not with all the Dale Earnhardt Signature Edition bits still intact.

This isn’t just a sticker pack. It’s got the full package — pewter interior, special graphics, embroidered headrests, ground effects, wheels, the whole deal. Plus: one owner, California-kept, clean Carfax, and zero mods.

And yeah, it's quirky. Front-wheel drive, 3.8L V6, automatic. But that’s exactly the charm. It’s a time capsule from the early 2000s, built to celebrate The Intimidator, and somehow... it survived untouched.

Even better, it’s No reserve.

If you’re even slightly nostalgic for NASCAR glory days or just love a weirdly perfect piece of automotive Americana, this is your moment.