The Daily Vroom

Good morning Vroomers,

Mondays are usually the quietest day of the week. Not yesterday. We saw $9.4 million in sales across the board, with Cars & Bids leading the charge likely helped by skipping Friday closings. They ran 50 auctions, the most I can remember, and pulled in over $1.5 million including one standout result I’ve highlighted below.

Even SBX managed to move a six-figure car. They’ve actually been landing a few sales lately. But with so few listings on the site, it’s still hard to understand how that turns into a viable business long-term. Also great to see Hemmings feature in our leaderboard.

Anyway, here’s what moved the market yesterday.

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.

The Sale That Changes Everything?

For years, a certain segment of Cars & Bids’ user base has been pushing for more classic listings. So have folks inside the company and their private equity partners. Today they all got their mic-drop moment.

A 1973 BMW 3.0 CSL Batmobile, one of the most iconic homologation specials of all time just sold on C&B for $381,000. Nearly 100,000 views. Over 300 comments. And the kind of auction drama that had the entire platform glued to their screens.

Let’s be clear. This is not just about the car, though the car absolutely delivers. A proper lightweight non–City Package CSL, complete with its 3.2-liter M30, plexi windows, and every aero flourish that made these cars legends in period. This one came from the McKenna Collection, presented exactly as it should be, with a known ownership chain and the right kind of documentation. It deserved the attention. It deserved the money.

But it also reveals the missed opportunity.

This could have happened years ago. Not with every collector car, sure, but with the right ones. The platform has the traffic. It has the audience. It has the energy. What it didn’t always have was a willingness to step outside its lane and welcome cars like this. That hesitation likely cost them more than a few record-setting sales. Many of those cars ended up on other platforms instead fueling their growth and establishing habits that may take time to reverse.

And it’s not just about individual listings.

Many serious collectors own across eras. Asking them to list their modern metal on one platform and their classics on another has always been a barrier. Today’s result lowers that wall. It makes it easier for Cars & Bids to bring those sellers fully into the fold. And it could have happened a lot sooner.

But what matters now is momentum.

This sale proves the audience is ready. It shows what a well-presented, special older car can do when given the right visibility and the right setting. And it should kick off a new wave of similar listings. Other platforms have led in this space for a while. This is C&B’s chance to close the gap and claim their share of that market.

They can’t go back. But they can move forward fast.

This sale should be the accelerant. Not the outlier.

Your Feedback

We asked yesterday ‘If you're selling your car online, how would you list it?’

Not surprising that many of you have strong views on this which resulted in one of our largest poll results (which as you can see from above was very close) and a huge number of comments.

Apologies for not featuring every comment, it would have taken up the whole newsletter!

Auctions To Keep An Eye On

Bit of a twist with this one.

The current high bidder has locked his card and says he won’t follow through, claiming the listing was inaccurate when he placed his bid. The accident history was on the Carfax, but not clearly stated in the write-up. That’s now been updated, and the seller has added a ton of detail about paint readings and panel condition, but the damage may already be done. Unless another bid comes in, this no reserve auction won’t actually result in a sale.

Which is a shame because this is a good one. For those who know me, I’m always partial to a clean wagon and this one ticks a lot of the right boxes.

One owner. California from new. Unmodified. 66,000 miles. Self-leveling suspension. Third-row seat. Multi-contour front seats. And that classic W210 profile in Desert Silver over Java. It’s not perfect. There’s a broken cupholder, aging PPF, and a few paint imperfections, but it’s honest. The kind of wagon you can actually use.

And that’s the real appeal here. This isn’t a car to hide away. Someone should be daily driving this thing, loading up the kids, the dog, the skis, whatever. It’s a practical, durable, well-built piece of the golden era of Mercedes wagons.

Now it just needs a buyer who sees it the same way.

It’s not every day you see a RUF RCT Evo come to market. It’s even rarer when it’s offered with no reserve.

This 1990 911 Carrera 2 has been fully transformed by RUF Canada into something far more serious. Turbocharged. 442 horsepower. Baltic Blue over custom Oyster leather. RUF pedals, KW coilovers, sunroof delete, drip rail delete, the works. The kind of car that looks familiar at first glance but feels like something entirely new the second you take the wheel.

Right now it sits at $285,000. Some people in the comments are baffled. But anyone who knows how these auctions work isn’t surprised. A no reserve auction on a car like this builds tension. It invites speculation. And then it explodes. The real action is coming.

And if you need a benchmark, look no further than the Linden Green RUF RCT Evo-spec 964 that sold on BaT in March for $661,500. That car was also converted by RUF Canada. It had four-wheel drive, a full repaint, some prior damage history, and still broke well past the $600K mark.

This one is cleaner. No accident history. Narrow-body purity. Manual. Rear-drive. Lighter. Simpler. Arguably better.

So yes the current number looks low. But this is no ordinary restomod. This is a RUF. And with no reserve someone is going to own a very real piece of Porsche history. It just depends how high they’re willing to go.

If you’re looking for a vintage Benz that’s been brought back properly this Fintail is worth a serious look. It’s a 1962 Mercedes 220 that’s had nearly $50,000 in mechanical work done in the last couple years with receipts from two of the most trusted names in the business Pierre Hedary and Jamie Kopchinski. Not patchwork. Not fluff. Just real restoration work aimed at making it drive like it should.

The color combo sets it apart Moss Green over Creme Beige finished with care and still showing well. The interior’s honest warm and complete with period-correct details like FrigiKing air conditioning CocoMats and a beautiful walnut dash. Even the window sticker is still with the car. This wasn’t just cleaned up for auction It’s been preserved documented and maintained every step of the way.

You also get a proper four-speed on the column full records from new spare parts and factory books. The work is already done. The miles are low. And someone’s going to get a car that delivers real charm and real usability with none of the usual unknowns.

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