The Daily Vroom

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.

After Dozens of Near Misses, CarDream Finally Gets His Dream 993

We all love a good ending, especially when it’s earned. The BaT user CarDream’s story has been building for a while, the kind of slow-burn subplot regular BaT watchers start to recognize. Every week he’d show up for another heavyweight auction, throw down strong money, and somehow end up just short of the finish line.

He’s been chasing this level of car for months, the kind that live in the sweet spot between collectible and drivable. A 2010 GT3 he ran up to $229,000. A Fashion Grey 2018 GT3 at $222,000. Even an ’87 Ferrari 328 GTS that slipped away at $151,000. (you can see his previous bids here) Each time he got close enough to taste it. Each time someone else took the win.

Then came this one. A 16,000-mile 1997 Porsche 911 Carrera 4S. Guards Red over Cashmere, Aerokit, low miles, and presented by Mohr Imports as part of their Pacific Porsche Collection. The kind of car that lights up the comment section and draws every serious bidder out of hiding.

CarDream wasn’t holding back. He went toe to toe through a 45-minute bidding war that climbed to $217,500 before the reserve stopped the clock. Another near miss. Another screen gone gray. You could almost hear the collective sigh from everyone watching.

But this time the story didn’t end there. Instead of disappearing until the next auction, CarDream took one more swing through BaT’s Offers program. A few messages later, the deal was done at $225,000. No drama, no discounts, just the real price for a pristine 993 C4S. (IMO a win for the seller and the buyer)

After dozens of close calls, the guy whose handle always hinted at unfinished business finally got his dream car. And for anyone who’s ever come up one bid short, it’s nice to see the good ending play out once in a while.

No Reserve Auctions To Keep An Eye On

This 1983 Ford Escort RS1600i is one of those cars that lives between eras. Built to homologate Ford’s Group A ambitions, tuned by Ford Motorsport in Germany, and dressed in Sunburst Red with black striping, it’s the kind of car that used to fill rally stages and teenage bedrooms alike. But this one’s life took a quieter turn.

It had its moment in the spotlight back in 2018, when the engine was reportedly rebuilt and the body resprayed. Then, instead of being thrashed around or flipped for profit, it disappeared into storage. For seven years, it sat. No shows, no miles, just a piece of Ford’s rally-bred history waiting for someone to wake it back up.

Now it’s back in the open, and that gap in its story gives it a kind of intrigue that fresh restorations rarely have. The mileage is low on paper but believed to be just over 100,000 km, which makes sense for a driver that’s lived a few lives. The rebuilt engine means it’s ready to go, but the years in storage mean it’s more of a “bring it back to life” opportunity than a turn-key show car.

That’s what makes this particular RS1600i interesting. It’s not another over-restored museum piece. It’s a real homologation Ford with honest miles, a proper mechanical rebuild, and a backstory that includes both hard use and long dormancy.I You can almost picture it idling in a garage somewhere in Portugal, dust settling on the bonnet while the world moved on to newer toys.

For collectors, this is the sweet spot: a genuine RS1600i with its edge intact, still wearing the same purpose-built spirit it had when Ford Motorsport signed off on it. The next owner gets to decide what comes next, preserve it as a time capsule, or finally let that rebuilt 1.6 breathe again on the road it’s been waiting for since 2018.

Every now and then, a car shows up that makes you rethink what high mileage means. This 2004 Pontiac GTO isn’t a garage queen or a Craigslist burnout. It’s something better, proof that when you actually use a car, it develops character instead of scars.

This GTO has lived. Two owners, both adults, both the kind of people who saw it as a real car, not a collector’s prop. The first one bought it new, drove it daily from Issaquah to Seattle for twenty years, and somehow kept it looking like it had a tenth of its 227,000 miles. The second owner runs a small business, knows cars, and loved it enough to ceramic coat it, replace worn interior pieces with NOS parts, and keep it genuinely road-ready.

It’s the definition of a survivor. The LS1 still fires up with the same lazy thunder it had in 2004. The six-speed still rows cleanly, even if the synchros are getting tired. The interior is mint, impossibly mint, like it was borrowed from a car with a tenth the mileage. It wears its Barbados Blue paint proudly, one of the rarest shades offered that year, and carries just a single real modification: a carbon fiber driveshaft that feels like an Easter egg for the next owner to brag about.

Most GTOs of this era have been wrapped around light poles, wrecked at track days, or parked for investment. This one just kept doing its job. It’s seen 227k miles of real use, and somehow it’s still standing tall with a clean title, a clean Carfax, and a spirit that feels more Australian Holden than American Pontiac.

The seller even admits the mileage makes him love it more, and it’s hard not to agree. You look at this car and think, this is how a proper machine should age. Honest, cared-for, and used exactly as intended.

If there’s a better symbol of what the early 2000s GTO was meant to be, a working-class Corvette in subtle clothes, it’s this one. The kind of car you’d buy, drive cross-country without a second thought, and then brag that it’s just getting started.

Sometimes miles don’t scare you off. They pull you in.

Some cars fade quietly after one sale. Others keep coming back, building a legend one auction at a time. This 1988 Audi 5000CS Turbo Quattro Avant has now made four appearances on Bring a Trailer, and it has become something of a recurring character.

It first sold in 2017 for about $8,000, then again in 2019 for circa $12,000, and one more time in 2020 for just shy of $15k. Each owner added their own small chapter, some service work here, a cross-country trip there, but the car never strayed far from its roots. It is still Zermatt Silver, still turbocharged, still manual, and still one of the coolest wagons Audi ever built.

Now it is back again, sitting at seven grand with plenty of time left. And the best part is there are people who have been waiting for this. One bidder even wrote in the comments that he has been watching for five years hoping it would come back. That says something about this car’s pull.

The 5000CS Turbo Quattro Avant is not fast by modern standards, but it has that unmistakable 1980s Audi feel. Boxy, overengineered, and built for bad weather. The power locks might not work, the air conditioning might be tired, but it still drives like an Audi should. Smooth, confident, and indestructible in spirit if not in wiring.

You can almost picture that long roof cutting through snow on some late-night highway, the turbo five humming and the dash glowing orange. Every time it reappears on BaT, a few more people remember why they love these cars, and one of them, maybe this time, finally gets to bring it home.

Some cars earn their legend on the road. This one earned it on the auction block.

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