The Daily Vroom

Good Morning Vroomers,

There’s a funny thing that’s happened over the last couple of years. As the online auction market has exploded, the cars have changed, the platforms have multiplied, and the dollar amounts have climbed, the questions I get in my inbox haven’t.

They’re remarkably consistent although a lot more nowadays.

Sometimes it’s a buyer staring at a listing late at night, wondering if they’re about to overpay. Sometimes it’s a seller sitting on a great car, unsure which decision actually matters most. The uncertainty might be about price, timing, platform, or even who should be handling the sale itself. Different cars. Different budgets. Same underlying hesitation.

It usually sounds like some version of this:

Is this a good buy at this number?
Where should I sell this car and who should I sell it with?
What’s this really worth right now?

The problem is not a lack of data. We have more data than ever. Past sales. Comment counts. Bid histories. Market charts. What we don’t have is clarity. Context. A neutral way to connect all the dots.

Buyers anchor to the wrong comps. Sellers fixate on outliers. Platforms are incentivized to tell their own version of the story. And somewhere in the middle is a market that feels harder to read than it should.

I sit in a slightly strange position in all of this. I don’t sell cars. I don’t represent buyers. I watch everything, every day, across every major platform. That vantage point makes certain patterns obvious, especially where people hesitate or second guess themselves.

Rather than guess where the real friction is for you, I figured I’d ask.

Auctions To Keep An Eye On

Here is why this one makes sense.

Start with the basics. This is a 2005 NSX T with just over 20,000 miles. Late NA2 cars are already thin on the ground and most either carry more mileage or more stories. This one does not.

Then look underneath. The underside is genuinely clean. Not prepped for photos. Properly preserved. That tells you how the car has lived far better than any description ever will.

The ownership history matters too. This NSX has moved between careful enthusiasts who treated it as a reference level car. Documented. Consistent. The kind of car that wins best of show and then goes straight back into a garage.

Now the current owner. Matt Farah. For those unfamiliar, he is not just a YouTube personality. He has driven thousands of cars and is obsessive about condition. His cars are serviced early not late. Driven properly not abused. That reputation is earned.

Is there a premium because it is his car. Yes. But it is not hype. It is trust.

With a week still to go, this one could easily run hard if two serious NSX buyers decide it is the reference example. Or it could sit quietly through the holidays and surprise people at the end. Either way, this is exactly the kind of NSX worth keeping an eye on.

This one is interesting for a very specific reason and it has nothing to do with the spec.

Yes, it’s a 2009 997.2 Targa 4S. Yes, Macadamia Metallic is a great color. Yes, the .2 matters. But that’s not why this listing works.

What works here is the seller.

I know this sounds obvious to anyone who spends time on the big auction platforms, but trust me, once you step outside them this level of engagement is not normal. Questions get ignored. Awkward details get glossed over. Sellers go quiet and the momentum just leaks out of the auction.

Here, the opposite is happening. Every question is met properly. Why something was done. Why something appears twice in the service history. What a non standard detail is actually there for. If something is not perfect, it is acknowledged and explained rather than danced around. When clarity is requested, it is provided.

That matters even more on a Targa. Glass roof. Moving parts. Extra complexity. This is exactly the kind of 911 where unanswered questions scare people off.

At $30k with a week to go, this could still land anywhere. But this is a textbook example of how sellers should be handling cars on platforms like this. Not because it guarantees a big number, but because silence almost guarantees the opposite.

This auction is hovering in that dangerous zone where a car stops being judged like a car.

The Toyota 2000GT has crossed that line.

At this point, the mechanical story almost doesn’t matter. Yes, the Yamaha head is special. Yes, the triple carbs sound right. Yes, it was hand built and ahead of its time. All true. But those are table stakes now. The reason this is pushing toward seven figures is because the market has quietly decided this is design canon, not just Japanese history.

What stands out most to me is how consistently the same realities come up once you get past the surface. In person, these cars are tiny. Almost shockingly so. They look like long nose GT cars in photos, but in the metal they are closer to a jewel than a grand tourer. That scale is part of why they feel so special. They don’t feel mass produced. They feel deliberate. Like someone obsessed over every millimeter.

Then there’s the Rahal factor. Bobby Rahal ownership alone doesn’t justify a premium. What justifies it is what happened under that ownership. Class win at Amelia. That’s the difference. It turns celebrity provenance into institutional validation. The car wasn’t just owned correctly. It was judged correctly.

The provenance also matters more than usual here. This car didn’t live a sheltered single country life. Mozambique. South Africa. Costa Rica. The UK. Multiple serious restorations and refreshes before landing with Rahal. That kind of global paper trail is rare, and it gives the car a sense of having existed in the world rather than being locked away waiting for value to show up.

There is also a subtle but important shift in who is paying attention. This is not just a Japanese car conversation anymore. When collectors who normally anchor themselves to E Types, Miuras, and early 911s start treating this as an equal or even preferable alternative, the ceiling moves. That is how cars escape their original category.

Do I think every Toyota 2000GT is a million dollar car? No. Condition, documentation, and presentation matter enormously at this level. But this example checks the boxes that actually move the needle. Correct. Known. Awarded. And now very publicly validated by the market.

With the auction ending just after Christmas, timing could either mute the finish or make it explosive. But either way, the takeaway is already clear.

This is no longer about proving the Toyota 2000GT deserves a seat at the table.

That argument is over.