The Daily Vroom

Good morning Vroomers,

(updated - of all the day’s for half a newsletter to go out wrong it had to be April 1!!)

We’ve been talking a lot recently about how the platforms are starting to look beyond the usual playbook. For years it’s been the same formula, spend on Meta, drive traffic, rinse, repeat. Now you can feel the shift. Last week it was Cars & Bids rolling out a dedicated YouTube push with their new channel “Key”, trying to build something more native instead of just buying eyeballs. And today it’s Hemmings taking a different swing with the launch of their new podcast, Between Two Pumps.

On paper, it makes a lot of sense. They’ve got real depth, real voices, and a vantage point most platforms would kill for. This isn’t influencers guessing where the market is going, it’s people who’ve been in it for decades, sitting in a restored gas station talking about what actually drives values, what’s real versus manufactured hype, and how the market is evolving in real time. That sounds interesting, we shall see if it will be…

But here’s the part that actually matters, and it’s the same question I had with Cars & Bids last week. Launching a channel is easy. Anyone can do that. Building an audience that actually shows up consistently, trusts it, and comes back for more is a completely different game. That’s where most of these efforts either stick or quietly disappear.

So I’m genuinely curious to see how Hemmings plays this. Not just the content, but how they get it in front of people in a way that cuts through everything else. Because if they get that part right, this isn’t just content, it becomes leverage. And that’s where things get interesting.

YESTERDAY’S TOP 3 SALES

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

This Ferrari Just Made $30K Sitting Still

This same Ferrari 360 Spider 6-Speed sold back in October for $154k, and now it’s just traded again for $182k. Same car, basically no miles added, and nearly thirty grand difference for doing nothing.

That’s the part everyone locks onto straight away, but it’s not really the point. Yes, the last seller probably looks at this and thinks he could’ve held on a bit longer and done better, and he’s probably right. At the same time, you never really know why someone sells a car like this in the first place, and it’s rarely as simple as trying to squeeze the last dollar out of it. Life gets in the way, something else comes up, or they just move on. He sold well at the time and got a strong number, so it’s hard to call that anything other than a good outcome.

What this sale actually does is confirm where the market is for these now, and more importantly, which ones it cares about. Because this isn’t just “a 360,” it’s a low-mile, clean, factory gated manual car with the right spec and no stories. That combination is doing all the work here.

You could see it in the way this one was received. There wasn’t much debate about whether it was a good car or not, that part felt settled early. The conversation was more about how high it would go and where the market is heading, not whether it deserved to be there in the first place. That’s usually the signal that something has shifted.

And it makes sense when you step back for a second. These aren’t being bought for numbers or performance anymore. Everyone who actually owns one says the same thing in different ways, it’s about the way it feels to drive, the sound, the interaction, the fact that you’re actually part of what the car is doing instead of just managing it. That’s what people are paying for now, and there’s nothing coming after this that really gives you the same thing.

On top of that, there just aren’t many of these left that tick every box. Plenty of 360s out there, but far fewer like this. Low miles, right spec, properly sorted, and still clean. Those are the ones that have separated, and once that happens they stop trading with the rest of the market and start doing their own thing.

So is it a good buy at $182k? I think it is. You’re buying one of the right cars in a market that’s clearly moving in one direction for examples like this. Could it have been bought cheaper a couple of years ago? Of course, but that’s not really how you approach this end of the market anymore.

Did the previous seller leave money on the table? Probably, but that doesn’t mean he got it wrong. He sold well at the time, and the market moved after he was out. That’s just how it works.

And could this be worth more a year from now? I’d say most likely, but it’s not guaranteed. We’re not in that environment anymore where everything just lifts regardless. The direction feels clear, but timing is never bulletproof.

What this result really shows is that the market has figured these out. Not in theory, not in forums, but in actual money. And when that happens, the good cars tend to get harder to buy, not easier.

Cars & Bids Kills Doug’s Take

Some of you may have probably noticed this already, but Doug’s Take has quietly disappeared from the new Cars & Bids listings.

And if I’m being honest, it was heading that way for a while. At the start, it worked. Doug actually wrote them, you could feel it. There was personality, a bit of context, sometimes even a take that made you stop and think. It made the listings feel a little more curated instead of just… listings. Doug was personalizing each car for sellers, and they all loved it as did buyers.

But over time, that changed. The tone got flatter, everything started sounding the same, and it became pretty obvious he wasn’t writing most of them anymore. Whether that was scaled internally or assisted in some way by AI doesn’t really matter, the end result did. It lost the thing that made it interesting in the first place.

And once that happens, there’s no point forcing it. Better to just move on, which is exactly what they’ve done. What’s replaced it is actually more telling about where the platform is going.

You’ve got this big “Heads up” section basically saying do your own due diligence before you bid. That’s always been the case, but now they’re putting it front and center so no one can pretend they didn’t see it. And that makes sense. As platforms get bigger, you get more people bidding who probably shouldn’t be, or who don’t fully understand what they’re getting into. This is them tightening that up.

Then underneath, they’ve grouped everything transactional into one place. Shipping, financing, insurance, SafePay, all in one block. They’ve had most of this before, but now it’s actually organized in a way that makes sense. You don’t have to go digging around anymore, it’s just there.

The bigger point here is the shift. Early on, Cars & Bids leaned into personality. That’s how you break through. Now they’re leaning into structure. Clear expectations, cleaner layout, fewer excuses after the fact.

And honestly, that’s what happens when a platform grows up. Doug’s Take was great when it felt real. Once it didn’t, it just became noise.

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