The Daily Vroom

Morning - plenty to dig into below.

I get asked all the time about jobs in this crazy, wonderful industry. If you’ve been waiting for the right moment, here it is. Cars & Bids is hiring again, great to see the team growing. Details on the new roles are right here.

Whilst I’m on Cars & Bids, they are making baby steps in the offline world. (not sure why they’re not promoting this on the website?)

They are sponsoring the Analog & Grit event on June 29th, which means they’ll have a booth and be handing out who knows what, and no doubt there will be some special cars there. Will Doug be there??

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.

Nearly Sale of the Day

Celebrity doesn’t guarantee value. It can help. Certain names move the needle. They bring attention. Sometimes that attention translates to dollars. But not all fame is created equal. And in this case, Vivian Campbell’s name didn’t add anything measurable to this ‘61 Jaguar XKE. It got the headline, not the bids.

Now let’s talk market. The last time this car sold was late 2021 for $255k. Completely different conditions. Different rates, different energy, different appetite. Anyone still using that number as a benchmark without considering the shift is missing the bigger picture.

Yes, values have moved. That’s not news. Certain makes and models have corrected, others have held, some have surged. It’s the constant push and pull — the yin and yang of this space. But pointing to “the market” as the reason a car doesn’t sell has become a lazy default. It’s easy to say. It requires no research. And it’s almost never the full story.

Every car that crosses the block is its own equation. Spec. Mods. Presentation. Audience. Timing. Platform. Photos. Seller reputation. Color. Comps. Buzz. Momentum. All of it matters. You can’t distill the result into one variable and call it analysis.

I spend every day steeped in this data. Watching every auction. Logging comps. Tracking trends. There are patterns, sure. But there are just as many outliers. And when you’re actually in the weeds, you see how many things shape each outcome.

This Jaguar got to $225k. That’s a serious number for a color-change flat floor with a five-speed. The reserve was just higher. And that’s the story.

It’s not a crash. It’s not a collapse. It’s a single result. In a market that’s still moving.

Auctions To Watch

This is how you do it. One of the best sellers on the platform. A properly presented car. And the kind of listing that makes you stop scrolling. Not because it’s perfect. Because it’s real. The kind of car people actually want to own and drive. And the kind of auction that gives buyers confidence from photo one.

And to be honest, it’s refreshing to see it here. Because for years, older cars like this just weren’t even on the radar. It was clear Doug built the platform around modern metal, accessible, fun, newer stuff. Nothing wrong with that. But a car like this never would’ve made it through the door in the early days. Now the door’s wide open. And this is proof it was the right call.

Slick-top 3.0-liter 930. Japanese market. Metric gauges. Pages of service. Paint redone. Engine resealed. Photos everywhere. And just the right amount of transparency. Paint isn’t perfect. First and third aren’t buttery. No one’s hiding that. Which is exactly why it works. It builds trust.

You’re looking at a real-deal early turbo that’s been properly brought up to spec, not over-restored, not under-loved. Just sorted. And when the seller already has a track record of delivering good cars on this platform, it changes the whole dynamic. You get strong bids because the baseline is already built.

This isn’t just a solid listing. It’s a statement. C&B isn’t just creeping into the classic space, it’s starting to feel like it belongs.

This 1999 Mercedes-Benz SL500 shouldn’t work this well. But it does. And I’m all in on it.

Start with a heavyweight R129, strip 800 pounds of luxury out of it, and what’s left is something fast, loud, and totally unexpected. Tillett seats. Welded-in chromoly cage. AMG brakes. Ground Control up front, Koni and Eibach out back. A legit fuel cell. All the right parts. All the right intent.

This isn’t a cosmetic build. It wasn’t done for attention. It was done for performance. Over 14 years, one owner transformed this thing from a written-off cruiser into a fully sorted, track-ready street weapon. And yes somehow, with all that, it still passes California smog. That alone is worth a standing ovation.

The work here is serious. Corner-balanced. Feature article in The Star. Even the carbon bits were handmade by the seller. No fluff, no shortcuts. You can nitpick the paint or the top or the AC, but that misses the point. This thing was engineered, not assembled.

I love cars that show real commitment. This is one of them. It’s not trying to be something it’s not. It’s not here to impress judges. It’s here to chase down faster cars and make them sweat.

One-off builds like this don’t come up often. And when they do, the smart buyers move quick.

This is peak late 90s flex and almost nobody remembers it.

The Alpina B12 5.7 L was built when BMW still made proper flagships no touchscreen overload no fake exhaust no nonsense just a handbuilt V12 tuned by Alpina in a long wheelbase 7 Series meant to cruise at triple digits all day and do it with style.

Only 59 exist and this one wears Alpina Blue with gold stripes over a black leather interior touched with green and blue accents and real wood the way it should be.

It's not just rare it's sorted recent service history reads like someone getting the car ready to keep forever plugs gaskets suspension seals steering rack AC battery differential you name it someone already did it.

Inside it's full late 90s spec heated seats front and rear factory nav sunblind CD stacker xenon headlights real buttons proper build quality and a Boisen exhaust that finally lets that V12 speak without shouting.

There’s no flash here and no posturing just one of the best sedans ever built turned up by Alpina for the few people who understood what it was even back then.

This isn’t a project it’s a preservation piece a reminder of what flagship used to mean when luxury didn’t need to shout and performance didn’t need validation.

If this doesn’t stop you mid scroll you might be in the wrong hobby!

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