The Daily Vroom

Good morning Vroomers,

I get a steady stream of emails asking about specific auctions, sellers, where to buy, where to sell, and whether something is actually worth chasing. I always try to respond, and if you’ve emailed me before you know I eventually do.

Going forward, I want to do this more deliberately. So let’s try something simple. Wednesdays will now be “question day.” If you have a specific auction, listing, or market question, just reply to this email on a Wednesday and I’ll get back to you with how I’m thinking about it.

This isn’t about speed. It’s about context and giving answers I’d actually stand behind.

If you have more general market questions that aren’t tied to a specific listing, feel free to email me anytime.

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.

Sale of the Week

A 1995 Acura NSX-T with more than 320,000 miles showing just sold on Cars & Bids for $80,567, which is the kind of number you normally associate with low-mile, collector-grade examples, not something that’s been driven the equivalent of a trip to the moon and halfway back.

But the more you look at the car and the story around it, the more the price starts to make sense.

This wasn’t some tired, high-mile survivor limping across the auction block. It was a one-owner, Formula Red, five-speed, completely unmodified NSX that had simply been used exactly the way Honda intended. The original owner drove it consistently for nearly three decades, racking up miles the honest way: commuting, road trips, real life. No long storage naps. No “garage queen” years. Just steady use.

And that kind of consistency usually tells you more about a car’s health than a low odometer ever could.

Right before the auction, more than $21,000 was spent going through the mechanicals in depth. Timing belt service, seals, cooling system, gaskets, hydraulics, all the preventative stuff you tackle when you want the next owner to get in and drive without worrying about what’s about to break. Add a clean history, stacks of documentation, and a car that still presented remarkably well inside and out, and the whole thing started to feel less like “risky high miles” and more like “fully sorted veteran.”

Which, if you think about it, is exactly what the first-gen NSX has always been.

It’s technically a supercar, but it behaves like a Honda. Ferrari-adjacent performance with Accord logic. The kind of car you can take to work all week and then hammer through canyons on Sunday without drama. Seeing one crest 320,000 miles almost feels like proof that the original promise was real.

So before bidding even got serious, this NSX already had something most listings never manage to create. It had a story. And not a forced one. A real one. Then Coinbase stepped in and made things even more interesting.

Instead of treating this like a typical dealer flip, they treated it like a moment. Spike Feresten talked about the car on his podcast with Jerry Seinfeld sitting right there, which immediately pushed the exposure beyond the usual online auction crowd. Cars & Bids layered in clean video and social clips. Doug gave it the cinematic night-drive treatment. The listing started circulating not just as “another car for sale,” but as something people wanted to follow.

It never felt like an ad, even though it absolutely was one. It felt like culture.

By the time the auction closed, the NSX had pulled more than 177,000 views and hundreds of comments debating everything from whether mileage stops mattering after 200k to whether paying in USDC was brilliant or ridiculous. Love it or hate it, people were paying attention, and attention is the one thing every marketplace fights for.

From a brand standpoint, it was a win across the board. Coinbase got exposure in front of enthusiasts without running a traditional campaign. Cars & Bids got a headline sale that made the whole platform feel alive. And now the result itself becomes content that will keep circulating for months.

But here’s the part that’s easy to miss when one auction gets this loud.

Moments like this don’t magically lift everything else happening that day.

While this NSX was soaking up views and comments, a bunch of other listings ended quietly, with 32% of cars not selling that day. It’s just the reality of how auctions actually work.

There isn’t one big “market.” There are hundreds of tiny ones happening at the same time.

The buyer chasing a 320,000-mile NSX with lore, documentation, and internet fame isn’t the same buyer shopping for a silver Cayman or a clean late-model sedan. Every car needs its own buyer, its own story, and its own moment. When those line up, you get fireworks. When they don’t, even perfectly good cars stall out.

That’s not drama. That’s just supply meeting the wrong demand.

This NSX simply had everything aligned.

The right car.
The right history.
The right prep.
The right presentation.
And the right spotlight.

At that point, you’re not bidding on “a 1995 NSX with 320k miles.” You’re bidding on the 320k-mile NSX everyone has been talking about all week. The one from the podcast. The one from the night drive. The one with the service stack and the legend backstory.

That difference is intangible, but it’s real, and it shows up in the final number.

In a funny way, it’s also the most fitting outcome possible. The NSX was never meant to be preserved behind glass. It was engineered to be driven hard, maintained properly, and enjoyed for decades. Watching one live a full life and still command center stage thirty years later feels like the best advertisement Honda could’ve ever asked for.

And maybe that’s the real takeaway.

Not every auction becomes an event. Not every car gets the spotlight. But when the right story meets the right buyer, the market has a way of rewarding it.

This one just happened to have 320,000 miles proving it.

Auctions To Keep An Eye On

Every once in a while, a listing reminds you that scale is not the only way to build trust in the online auction world.

This 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air restomod on GuysWithRides is a good example of what smaller platforms can do differently and in some cases better.

GuysWithRides is leaning hard into what I would call a concierge-style auction. Nearly 500 photos. Multiple videos. A third-party LemonSquad pre-purchase inspection included by default. And most notably, a seller interview video conducted by the platform’s founder Rudy. That last part matters. You are not just seeing the car. You are meeting the person behind it. Very little is left to interpretation, and even small discrepancies are acknowledged and followed up with additional proof.

This is the kind of white-glove treatment that is simply harder to execute at scale. For sellers, it is close to royalty treatment. For buyers, it removes a lot of the usual guesswork and anxiety that comes with heavily modified cars like this Bel Air, which has clearly been built to be driven and enjoyed rather than preserved as a factory-correct time capsule.

And make no mistake, this is a serious restomod. A 383ci small-block Chevy paired with a 700R4 automatic. Ford 9-inch rear. Four-wheel disc brakes. Air conditioning. Modern gauges. Chip Foose wheels. Extensive documentation backing up the build. On paper and on camera, the car presents extremely well.

But here is the trade-off, and it is an important one. Smaller platforms live and die by attention density. You can do everything right on presentation and still struggle if the bidding audience is not deep enough at the exact moment the auction closes. Transparency builds confidence, but confidence alone does not always translate into competitive bidding. The big question hovering over listings like this is not quality. It is reach.

That is where the risk comes in. A car like this would likely generate aggressive late-stage action on a larger venue simply due to volume of eyeballs. On a boutique platform, the hope is that the right buyers show up at the right time, and that is never guaranteed, no matter how well the car is documented.

What I do love is that GuysWithRides is not pretending to be something it is not. This is a mom-and-pop style operation, and that is exactly the appeal. It is a sharp contrast even to mid-size platforms like AutoHunter, despite AutoHunter’s backing from Barrett-Jackson. Scale brings efficiency. Boutique brings intimacy. Each comes with its own pros and cons for both buyers and sellers.

If this Bel Air finds the right audience, it will be a win not just for the seller, but for the platform’s model itself. If it does not, it will not be because anything was hidden or overlooked. It will simply be a reminder of how much timing and visibility still matter in online auctions.

This listing reinforces a simple truth as mentioned above in the NSX article, there is no one collector car market. There are hundreds of micro-markets unfolding in parallel. Smaller, concierge-style platforms can succeed when the right buyers are paying attention. When they are not, even the best presentation in the world can struggle to convert interest into bidding.

This modified 2006 Porsche 997 Carrera S currently on PCarMarket is a good reminder that not all modified cars struggle to tell a clean story. Some actually benefit from leaning fully into what they are.

At first glance, this isn’t trying to pass as anything it’s not. The Hartech 4.1 liter engine rebuild is front and center, not buried. The transmission was rebuilt at the same time. The clutch is new. That alone changes the conversation. You’re not speculating about future work or deferred maintenance. You’re evaluating execution.

What stands out is how cohesive the build feels. The RS inspired visuals, the ducktail, the Fuchs style wheels, the interior choices, even the roof rack and matching bicycles all point in the same direction. This isn’t a parts catalog car. Someone had a clear vision and followed it through over several years.

There’s also an honesty here that helps. 80k+ miles is not hidden or spun. Neither are the modifications. This car isn’t asking to be judged against low mile, stock examples. It’s asking to be judged on how well the work was done and how it drives now.

That matters because modified 911s only work when buyers trust the build. Hartech carries weight. A fresh drivetrain reduces fear. A seller who stays active in the comments builds confidence. Put those together and you get momentum that makes sense.

This one won’t appeal to everyone. It doesn’t need to. It’s not trying to win an originality argument. It’s trying to attract someone who wants a fast, distinctive, well sorted 997 that feels special every time it’s driven.

This 1989 Mercedes-Benz 300E 3.2 AMG is interesting for one simple reason. It’s a real, documented pre-merger AMG that hasn’t been messed with or “recreated” later in life.

This was ordered new in Japan and modified by AMG Japan when new, not built backwards years later. The body kit, wheels, suspension, interior wood, steering wheel, and 300 km/h gauges are all period AMG pieces, and the paperwork backs it up. TÜV docs. AMG certification. No guessing.

The engine is the other big point. The 3.2-liter M103 was a Japan-only AMG upgrade, bored and stroked with higher compression and AMG cams. It’s rare enough on its own, and in this case it’s also been rebuilt properly, top and bottom, with photos. That removes a lot of the usual fear around obscure AMG variants.

Condition helps. Refinished Aero I wheels. New tires. Brakes done. Clean underbody. Interior wood still looks right, which is never a given on a W124. The miles are honest and the story makes sense.

The current bid doesn’t reflect the car yet, and that’s not surprising. These sit in a narrow lane. They’re not Hammers, and they don’t shout. You either know what this is or you scroll past it.

For the right buyer, that’s exactly the appeal.

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