The Daily Vroom

Good morning Vroomers!

Yesterday brought $7.7 million in online vehicle sales across the market, with a mix of modern icons and vintage surprises driving the action. The top 10 models accounted for just 32% of all cars sold, showing how broad the market spread was yesterday. And as you’ll see in the market leaderboard below, something else stood out, only four platforms made our leaderboard.

Not long ago, that was the norm. Lately, it’s been more of a crowded field, but yesterday felt like a throwback to when the biggest players carried most of the weight.

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.

Weekend Read

This isn’t something I normally do here in TDV, but after finishing this book over the weekend I couldn’t keep it to myself.

People often ask what I get up to on weekends. It really depends what country I am in, but it usually means finding a local car event, walking the rows, chatting with owners, and soaking up that mix of engines, stories, and coffee. But when I’m not out there, I’m reading.

And this past weekend it was Wayne Carini’s Steering Through Life. If you know Wayne, you already know he’s the real deal. The guy behind Chasing Classic Cars, lifelong restorer, collector, and storyteller with a deep love for the machines that connect us all. If you don’t, this book is your perfect introduction.

It’s a gorgeous 175-page glossy hardback, the kind of coffee table book that makes you stop flipping and just stare. Wayne walks you through his story, from chasing car parts as a kid to learning how to wrench and drive, to that first big TV break that changed everything. He also shares what really goes on behind the scenes at the big automotive events we’ve all been to, plus a look at some truly unforgettable cars.

And for the record, this isn’t a paid plug. I just like sharing things I think fellow car people will actually enjoy and this one’s special.

If you want to check it out, here’s the link (not an affiliate link):
👉 Wayne Carini - Steering Through Life

Three Cars That Make You Look Twice

Every now and then something hits the auction world that makes you stop and stare. Joey Ruiter’s Consumer Car is one of those listings. Officially titled “Consumer Car,” it’s part art project, part concept, and part pure provocation, a minimalist futuristic sculpture built on the bones of a 1993 Ford Festiva.

Ruiter’s known for his design experiments that question what a car should even be. Here he’s taken that idea to the extreme. The car looks like something you’d see in a sci-fi movie or maybe parked inside a modern art museum, which in fact it has been. It was displayed at the Petersen Automotive Museum’s Disruptors exhibit where it fit right in among pieces that challenge convention.

Strip away everything a car normally is, gauges, screens, comfort, and what’s left is Consumer Car. A black trapezoid on wheels, raw and industrial, built to make you think instead of drive. It’s an idea more than a machine.

Still, as thought-provoking as it is, this one’s not for me. The design reminds me of a black monolith crossed with a phone charger, and while I respect the creativity, it’s more of a conversation piece than a driver’s car. Clearly I’m not the only one who feels that way. Despite thousands of eyes on it, the auction has only attracted three bids so far.

So yes, it’s interesting. Bold, even. But maybe too much of both for most people’s garages.

If Joey Ruiter’s Consumer Car was weird by design, the 1970 Rover 2000 TC is weird by accident. This was Britain’s idea of futuristic luxury in the 1970s, and it shows in all the right and wrong ways.

The P6, as Rover called it, was a masterpiece of overengineering. It had inboard rear disc brakes, a De Dion suspension, a unibody structure, and enough quirky details to fill a Haynes manual. The dashboard looked like it belonged in a science lab. The speedometer swept horizontally. The trunk was too shallow for a spare, so they mounted it upright. It was all very Rover, brilliant ideas wrapped in a shape that only an engineer could love.

This particular one is a North American–spec 2000 TC finished in white with black leather, powered by a 2.0-liter four with twin SU carbs and a four-speed manual. It’s a proper driver’s car in that classic British sense - eager, involving, and just unreliable enough to make you feel brave.

On paper, it shouldn’t be collectible. But that’s exactly what makes it interesting. It’s the kind of car that rewards curiosity. You can see why people in the comments are reminiscing about the one their dad drove or the trip they took across Canada in one. It may not be beautiful, but it’s full of character.

With a current bid just north of six grand, it’s clearly not everyone’s cup of tea. But for the right kind of enthusiast, the one who finds charm in mechanical oddities and forgotten marques, the Rover 2000 TC is a time capsule worth opening.

This is the quieter kind of weird. The sort that makes you smile instead of stare.

Some cars are weird because they challenge convention. Others are weird because they completely surrender to it. The El Camino was already halfway there, part muscle car and part pickup, but the Choo Choo SS edition took that identity crisis and doubled down.

Built under Chevrolet’s blessing by a Tennessee outfit called Choo Choo Customs, this “Designer Series” got Monte Carlo SS styling cues, a NASCAR-inspired nose, and graphics loud enough to wake a small town. The result looked fast even when parked at a Dairy Queen.

This one has barely 25k miles, all paperwork from new, and looks like it’s been preserved in a time capsule. It’s equal parts nostalgia and novelty, a perfect snapshot of 1980s America when everything had to look sporty, even if it wasn’t.

If the Rover was charmingly British and the Consumer Car was conceptually strange, the Choo Choo SS is pure American excess-loud, confident, and completely unapologetic about what it is. A mullet on wheels.

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