The Daily Vroom

Good morning Vroomers,

‘We’ve got an interesting week ahead with plenty of strong cars up for auction’, which is probably the exact same line every platform is using in their own newsletters right now. And honestly, I don’t blame them. Everyone is trying to highlight their own inventory and keep things moving.

That said, some platforms definitely do a better job than others when it comes to how they communicate their listings and engage their audience. The industry as a whole still leans pretty heavily on the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach, but it does feel like there’s room for small, incremental improvements that could make these emails a lot more interesting.

On the newsletter front, we mentioned a few weeks ago that the Cars & Bids roundup was “presented by Hagerty,” and questioned whether that was the start of something bigger. From what we’ve seen since, the answer is kind of both yes and no. Yes, there was clearly a paid relationship there, but no, it doesn’t look like it’s long-term. They’ve already rotated in a new sponsor this week, and it’s not even automotive-related.

Which tells you something.

They’ve figured out a way to bring in a bit of extra revenue without really impacting the user experience. It’s subtle, just a “presented by” tag, nothing intrusive. My guess is it ties back to podcast sponsorships and they’re simply extending that into the newsletter.

Anyway, back to the auctions. Here are a few no reserve listings you might have missed.

The Kind of RUF That Actually Matters

Anything RUF hits the market and I’m on it straight away. I don’t even need to know the details yet, I just know it’s worth stopping for. It’s one of those things where you see it, pause for a second, and then you’re already in it trying to figure out exactly what it is and how legit the story is.

And this one… this is the right kind.

Because this isn’t someone piecing together a RUF-style car years later. This thing was picked up new in Germany and taken straight to RUF, which honestly is all I really need to see. That’s the difference. It’s been part of that world from the start, not trying to recreate it after the fact.

Once you clock that, everything else just feels better about it. The Turbo R engine, the bumpers, the suspension, all of it just makes sense together. It’s not a list of upgrades, it actually feels like one complete package that was thought through properly.

And that’s where these hit differently for me. A 993 Turbo on its own is already such a solid, complete car, but when RUF gets involved and just sharpens everything without overdoing it, you end up with something that feels a level above without trying too hard. It’s not shouting at you, it’s just quietly better in every way that matters.

That’s actually the hard part to get right. Most modified cars go too far or lose what made them good in the first place. This doesn’t feel like that at all.

It just feels right. And that’s why whenever one of these comes up, I always stop and spend a bit more time on it than I probably should.

No Reserve Auctions To Keep An Eye On

This one doesn’t need much explaining. A 1980 Corvette finished in a full American flag livery, stars, stripes, flames, the whole thing, and it knows exactly what it is. No subtlety, no trying to please everyone, just fully leaning into it.

And honestly, there’s something refreshing about that right now.

In a market where so many cars feel spec’d to be safe or broadly appealing, this goes completely the other way. It’s bold, it’s loud, and it’s proud. Whether it’s your taste or not almost doesn’t matter, because you’re reacting to it, and that’s the point.

And there’s also something to be said for that kind of pride. Not forced, not overthought, just straightforward and confident in what it represents. You don’t see that as often anymore, especially in a space where a lot of builds are trying to fit into a certain mold.

Underneath it all, it’s still a proper C3. 350 V8, side pipes, removable glass roof panels. Old-school, simple, and exactly what you want from this era. The kind of car that’s more about the experience than the numbers.

And you can feel that in the auction. The comments, the energy, people are enjoying it. No one’s overanalyzing comps or debating market positioning. It’s just a fun car that’s getting the reaction it was built for.

Sitting at $8K (at the time of writing), it’s not trying to be a serious collector piece. It’s just a car you show up to your cars & coffee in and don’t have to explain.

This is a bit of an unusual one, and not the kind of car you’d typically expect to see on duPont Registry’s auction platform, which is exactly why it stood out.

On the surface, it’s a 1990 Range Rover Classic, two-door, turbodiesel, manual, currently sitting at $11K, a cool, slightly scruffy, enthusiast-spec truck that isn’t trying to be anything it’s not. But once you look a little deeper, the story around this car becomes far more interesting than the car itself.

Because this exact Range Rover was written about on Bring a Trailer back in 2017, not sold there, but featured and linked out to an eBay listing, which is how BaT operated in its early days. At that point, they weren’t running auctions or owning the transaction, they were curating interesting cars and directing traffic to wherever those cars were actually being sold.

Fast forward to today, and this same truck has since gone through Cars & Bids, where it sold in August for $15,000, giving us a clean and relatively recent data point. Now it’s back again, this time on duPont’s auction platform, sitting in a completely different environment, aimed at a different audience, and positioned in a different way.

So in a roundabout way, this one car has now passed through three distinct versions of the online car market.

That’s what makes this one worth paying attention to.

Because it’s not just about whether it does $15K again, although that’s obviously the headline question. It’s about how much of a result is driven by the car itself versus where and how it’s being sold, and what happens when the same car moves across platforms that are still actively evolving.

And that’s the bigger takeaway here. None of these platforms are static. What Bring a Trailer was in 2017 looks nothing like what it is today, and what duPont is doing right now is almost certainly not where it ends up. The way cars are discovered, marketed, and ultimately sold online is still shifting, and this is a small but very real example of that playing out.

As for the car itself, it fits the brief perfectly. European-spec, 2.5 turbodiesel, 5-speed manual, over 200K miles, and full of character. Not a polished collector piece, not trying to chase top-of-market numbers, just something honest that the right buyer will connect with.

I’ve seen plenty of go-karts over the years, even the occasional twin-engine setup where someone’s clearly decided one wasn’t quite enough, but this… this stopped me for a second. Three engines. Sitting there like it’s the most normal thing in the world, and I’m just staring at it thinking what exactly am I looking at and more importantly how quickly can I convince myself I need this.

Because this is one of those dangerous listings where logic doesn’t even get a chance to show up. You’re not thinking about where you’d store it, when you’d use it, or whether it makes any sense at all. You’re immediately jumping to how much would I have to pay, could I actually get away with it, and then the inevitable next thought… how am I explaining this one at home.

And the honest answer is you probably can’t.

“Yeah so it’s a go-kart… but it’s got three engines and runs on alcohol.” That’s not exactly a normal purchase justification. That’s very much in the category of another one of your crazy buys, and you just have to own that.

But that’s also exactly why this works.

There’s something about it that just pulls you straight back to being a kid, where more noise, more speed, more everything automatically meant better. No one was asking if it was practical or usable or sensible, they were just asking what happens if we add another engine. And then someone actually did it.

Three McCulloch motors all working together, alcohol-fed, no real safety net, no layers between you and whatever happens when you put your foot down. It’s completely over the top and yet somehow still feels pure in a way most cars just don’t anymore.

And I think that’s the part that gets me. Because I know I don’t need it, I know I’d barely use it, and I know it makes absolutely no sense… but I also know I’d better stop looking at it before I make a bid!

And if that’s my reaction, I’m pretty confident I’m not the only one.