How Rob Dietz sold $25M of Cars on BaT

Summary

---

The Smoking Tire Podcast: "How Rob Dietz sold $25M of Cars on BaT"

Date: November 4, 2025
Host: Matt Farah
Guest: Rob Dietz (“WOB”), top seller on Bring a Trailer (BaT)

---

Episode Overview

Matt Farah welcomes renowned car dealer and top Bring a Trailer (BaT) seller Rob Dietz (“WOB”) to discuss the modern world of auctioning cars online, selling strategies, stories from the trenches, and the evolving enthusiast market. Farah and Dietz dig into how car listings have turned into content, what’s changed in online selling, how to maximize value as a seller, and how to navigate online audiences—including trolls. The conversation is frank, irreverent, and loaded with actionable advice for both buyers and sellers.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Rob Dietz’s Auction Dominance

• Dietz is among BaT’s top three highest-volume sellers, with nearly 2,000 listings and $165–$170 million in sales ([03:28]).
  • “We’re definitely the highest of anyone on BaT... It's so many cars. The worst part is I remember—I could probably refer to 95% of them.” – Rob ([03:42])
• Dietz’s commitment: every comment on his listings is written personally by him.
  • “Every one of those comments is really me.” – Rob ([04:09])
  • Matt points out how this fosters trust and continuity, acting as a public audition for every future listing.

The New Reality: Cars as Interactive Content

• Car listings have shifted from static ads to “content”—subject to the same algorithms and social engagement as any online medium ([05:10]).
  • “The listing isn’t a traditional listing. It’s now a piece of content subject to the same sort of algorithmic trends...” – Matt ([05:18])
• Importance of seller engagement:
  • “It’s important, it’s the most important thing.” – Rob ([05:10])
  • Adding new comments, records, and photos in the comments keeps the listing visible and creates “frenzy” near auction close ([09:10]).
  • “Why give away what you can sell?” – key tip to drip out service records and updates via comments ([08:52], [09:10]).

Strategies for Maximizing Returns in Online Auctions

• Stagger information. Post updates and records during the auction to keep watchers notified and engaged ([09:10]).
• “The intent is to manage the flow of energy over the week so that people are constantly reminded that this thing is... ending on this day and time.” – Matt ([10:17])
• For private sellers: start with a holistic, honest listing; for professionals, metering out content and tone is vital ([11:04]).

Pre-Purchase Inspections (PPIs) and Transparency

• Dietz uses a 172-point checklist resembling a franchise dealer PPI, but always recommends independent PPIs for buyers ([12:39]).
• Sellers often face scrutiny if a PPI reveals something, despite high transparency ([18:30]).

The "Cosmetic Obsession" in Collecting

• Buyers obsess over original paint and minor flaws, sometimes irrationally ([19:11]).
  • “Cosmetic is unbelievably subjective.” – Rob ([19:31])
  • Practical advice: don’t fear a well-done repaint (especially PPF removal on 2000s cars), and understand the overemphasis on 'damage reports' on Carfax ([20:27]-[21:58]).

The Ferrari Market & Future-Proofing Collectibility

• New Ferrari hybrids and digitization: high volume, waning collector interest—buyers now crave analog controls and experiences ([22:31]-[34:14]).
• Porsche stands in contrast, incrementally improving existing models instead of radical changes ([34:24]).

Rob’s Personal Journey & Business Model

• From investment banker to managing collections and dealership (no brick-and-mortar showroom, everything handled through online platforms and a private warehouse) ([36:08]-[41:43]).
• Growth paralleled BaT’s shift from a listing blog to an auction juggernaut.

Nitty-Gritty Dealer Tips & Consumer Guidance

• Repair vs. disclose? “Spend 5,000 to make 10,000, otherwise disclose.” – Rob ([45:23])
• Road-trip after sale? Rarely worth encouraging—ship the car and let the buyer familiarize themselves at home ([46:47]-[47:09]).
• Mods: Factory spec typically sells best for collectibles, but name-brand performance packages can add value ([47:30]-[50:18]).

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the social hierarchy of BaT:
  “Every listing is an audition for your next listing. It’s this votable, socially immobile sort of system.” – Matt ([06:04])
• On managing auction energy:
  “You want it to sort of be like a reality show competition... builds tension to that final 10 minutes of bidding.” – Matt ([08:35])
• On paint and cosmetic obsession:
  “Oh, there’s stone chips. Oh, this is the end of the world... That’s the biggest reason, in my opinion, for PPIs—not even the mechanical end.” – Rob ([19:31])
• On the evolving Ferrari lineup:
  “They’re answering to the shareholder and the powers that be. They have to create volume now at this point. And they’re not Porsche.” – Rob ([32:45])
• On the shift in selling strategies:
  “I just knew it was going to be in the car world because it’s what I grew up doing... I was flipping cars in the driveway.” – Rob ([36:24])
• On private seller advice:
  “If I were a private individual, I’d be metering out my story and my experiences with it... create the story that the next guy gets to regurgitate at cars and coffee.” – Rob ([51:48])
• On difficult car audiences:
  “560 SL. I’d rather pull out my own fingernail... and C2 Corvettes, oh, that Phillips screw was March of ‘63...” – Rob ([62:01])
• On auction timing:
  “Personally, 90-plus percent of our cars, I want ending Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.” – Rob ([59:32])

---

Q&A Highlights and Practical Tips

Photo Count, Listings, and Content ([57:10]–[59:16])

• High photo count is good, but don't post redundant angles—focus on quality, variety, and lighting.
• Use paint meter photos thoughtfully.

When to Sell for Best Results? ([59:16])

• Avoid major holidays, aim for midweek endings.
• Don’t overthink seasonality—the known market is better than waiting for a possibly better future ([61:47]).

Reserve vs. No Reserve ([70:38])

• No reserve often builds emotion and higher final bidding—requires confidence in the car and market visibility.
  • “No reserve sets the emotion much different... People know it’s selling, it tends to keep bidding lower for longer, which is good.” – Rob ([70:55])
• Reserve is safer for new/small sellers; experienced sellers often go no-reserve.

Pain Points After the Sale: No-Shows & Post-Auction Issues ([74:17]–[80:24])

• It happens: sometimes winning bidders don’t pay; next bidder often takes the car, and rare relistings can sometimes do as well or better.
• Vehicles can fail unexpectedly during shipping—document, be honest, help where reasonable, but mechanical issues post-sale are often just bad luck.

Choosing the Right Auction Site ([76:38])

• BaT for true collector, “as-issued” examples and high visibility.
• Cars & Bids (Doug DeMuro) for modified, enthusiast, or quirky vehicles; easier software and younger audience.

Managing Trolls and the “Peanut Gallery” ([62:58])

• Stay diplomatic; ignore trolls and only respond to helpful or legitimate queries.
• “Getting into an argument is going to kill the auction, kill the value, kill everything. So be diplomatic, be patient...” – Rob ([63:15])

---

Fun Behind-the-Scenes & Personal Stories

• Rob’s username “WOB” started as a forum handle—now a business.
• Matt rails about BaT’s social hierarchy and online auction drama.
• Press watches, dealer “whisper networks,” and the weirdest auction stories—including a buyer who canceled because a facility didn’t show up on Google Earth ([75:51]).
• Their shared loathing for dealing with certain “painful” car communities ([62:01]).

---

Key Time Stamps

• 03:28 — Rob’s sales stats and auction dominance
• 05:10–09:10 — Why continuous engagement/commenting matters
• 10:17 — Managing auction momentum & energy weekly
• 12:39–19:31 — Pre-purchase inspections, transparency, and cosmetic obsession
• 22:31–34:14 — What’s gone wrong (and right) with Ferrari, Porsche, and analog/digital collector cycles
• 36:08–41:43 — Rob’s entry into car selling/business evolution
• 45:23 — Repairing vs. disclosing issues before selling
• 47:30–50:18 — Modifications: when to return to stock or leave them on
• 57:10 — How many photos is too many? Best practices
• 59:32 — Auction timing and seasonality advice
• 62:01 — “Most annoying bidders/commenters”
• 70:55 — Reserve vs. no reserve: setting expectations
• 74:17–75:51 — Worst buyer stories and no-shows
• 76:38 — When to use Cars & Bids vs. Bring a Trailer

---

Final Takeaways

• Online auctions have democratized and transformed enthusiast car sales—they require transparency, active engagement, and strategy.
• Sellers need to manage the “content” of their listings as actively as influencers manage their audience.
• Know your car, know your story, stay calm with trolls, and don't try to hide anything—today’s auction world is too transparent to get away with anything less.
• For sellers and buyers: do your homework, get PPIs, and embrace that some drama and randomness are now part of the game.

---

Find Rob’s current listings at wobcars.com
Find the hosts at @thesmokingtire on social media

---

“All press is good press in large part. Unless you have people nefariously trying to grenade an auction... Embracing it is, I think, part of it.” — Rob Dietz ([81:47])

Transcript

[A]

What's up, everybody? Welcome to the Smoking Tire podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by off the Record. And I am gonna need it, probably, because as you're listening to this, I am on the road and track Blue Ridge 500. I'm driving a Porsche 918 Spyder. I'll tell you all about it when I get back. But if I get busted speeding and I'm running countermeasures, I've got my Valentine going, I've got Waze going, I am as covered as I can be. But if I can't resist the 900 horsepower and I get Bustado, I will need off the record, just like you do. If you get busted doing any type of moving violation, go to offtherecord.com TST that's O F f t h e r e c o r d offtherecord.com TST and off the record, we'll set you up with a qualified attorney in a jurisdiction where got that ticket. All you have to do is set it up and then turn your brain off and off the Record will handle it. One of their qualified attorneys will fight that ticket all the way up to the Supreme Court if need be. And of course, offtherecord.com TST is the code you use to get 10% off all legal services through off the Record, of course, if you want to ask questions for the live show, if you want to get the show early, if you want to get the show without ads, if you want to get extra show access to early collabs and merch, et cetera. Patreon.com TheSmokingTirePodcast is where you do it. All right. On this episode of the podcast, Rob Dietz, AKA WOB is in studio. Rob is the biggest or second biggest bring a trailer seller of all time. Going back to the very first week they started offering auctions, and we're talking about strategies for maximizing your return, trends in the market, all kinds of interesting stories with the buying and selling of cars online that are now totally ubiquitous. So this is going to be real interesting. Everyone, be real nice to my new friend Rob Dietz on the Smoking Tire podcast. All right, welcome to the program.

[B]

Thank you so much.

[A]

Making the drive all the way from the valley in the middle of the day. Oh, boy. In that giant.

[B]

It's the best dude.

[A]

Rob rolls up. Is it a 2500 or a 3500 power wagon?

[B]

2500 with like a tent and a tire on top of the tent.

[A]

It's like 12ft tall.

[B]

It's so enormous.

[A]

What? At highway speeds? Is it a whistle?

[B]

It's pretty quiet actually.

[A]

Really?

[B]

It's pretty quiet.

[A]

Man. That's lucky.

[B]

It's a marshmallow. The shock absorbers are non existent. It's just a stack of stay pufts on top of one another. It's great.

[A]

Yeah. Well, for the urban jungle that is the 405 free. Yeah. Well, thanks for coming down, man. I really, I appreciate it. Oh, I did that wrong. Oh no, what have I done? I'm solo today and Zach isn't here and I have to do the. I have to do the. The old producing. There we go. And I got the camera angles wrong. Dude. I was looking up some stats today. Yeah, you are a real heavy bike seller. Are you the all time biggest seller? I believe you are.

[B]

Right, so there's three guys. It's me, Matt Crandall, who's 911R and Anthony Serra, who's 1600 Veloce. I think Veloce's got more volume.

[A]

You have1901 listings on bring a Trailer, which is fucking, I think dollar volume.

[B]

We're definitely the highest of anyone on bat. I think we're at like 165, $170 million worth of cars we put on Bring a Trailer.

[A]

That's a lot.

[B]

It's so many cars. And the worst part is I remember I would say I could probably refer to 95% of them.

[A]

So. Well that. I mean that would be a fairly savant like talent.

[B]

It's useless brain space.

[A]

But you said when I saw you at our mutual friend's birthday party the other day, shout out to Pete that, that you're. You go. Because we were talking about the processes and all this kind of stuff. Because I'm. I'm doing it real small time on behalf of a few of my clients at Westside. And you said some really interesting things. But the first thing that caught me was you said every one of those comments is really me. Yeah. And I was like, that's so many comments. Because we were watching, we actually. You just. You just had a car that ended today. Yeah. A993 Carrera S. Yeah, it was a cool car. Really cool car. Do you know that I have an identical car that we're listing? And that bat said, please wait until Wob's car is done. Sorry, ours, whatever. Who cares? Like six days. It's the same Color Arrow Kit C2S car. So we were waiting, you know, to see what yours did. Yeah, yeah. And I was watching the comments in this one, this was a heavily commented, heavily watched auction for a popular car. And the volume at which you were commenting is pretty extraordinary.

[B]

It's important, it's the most important thing. And you see these sellers where they just don't do anything and there's just no enthusiasm.

[A]

Well, you clearly, I mean the other thing is the new way to look at selling cars, which is very interesting that you pointed out the other night, is sort of cars as content, meaning that the listing isn't a traditional listing. It's now a piece of content subject to the same sort of algorithmic trends of any other piece of content.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Which is a crazy thing to think about.

[B]

It's not just that, it's. You're subjected to the same things that any forum or video or any other piece of content would have of opinions that may be verifiable or completely off base or that's intentionally meant to harm. So it's a little sampling of the.

[A]

World and it's for better or worse, it is like a full on social hierarchy. Like there is like the number of thumbs up you've gotten cumulative lifetime is next to your name. And when you're a person that is representing another person's car, if it's a car you're consigning, if it's a car that's my customer's car that I'm just presenting for them, you can't risk being seen as uncooperative because then it's like now you're. Because every listing is an audition for your next listing. It's in this votable, socially immobile sort of system.

[B]

You hit the nail on the head because you're only as good as the last thing you sold. Right. And especially even the way bring a Trailer structures it, we'll use them as the example. You can only go back so far in a portfolio to see what you've sold. So two weeks ago I could have sold a 300 SLR and set some crazy record on it. And then if the next week I've sold some off the shelf car or whatever. Oh, here's the history, here's the cars. So it's not just the cars, but then the content.

[A]

So what have you sold for me lately?

[B]

Yeah, exactly. And then how did that auction go? And then if you carry in that wrong enthusiasm, I've seen it happen to people. They put a couple cars for sale. One auction goes off the rails a little bit and they go, in the next auction, people go, well, look what happened in his last car.

[A]

Watch out.

[B]

And so there's really a lot of thought that goes into managing it the right way and going back to being the sole voice of content. I know every opinion I've ever written on there because it's been my opinion every single post, every ever on trailer. But I think it's important because then there's no crossover. I can always say, hey, in the past, I used to feel this way about this car, but now I've changed my opinion. Fine, we all do as we get exposed to different cars. But now if I say this car is the worst thing I've ever driven in my entire life, well, guess what? It's still the same, right? It's my voice.

[A]

So for me, when I'm helping other people list their cars, I'm able to be pretty dispassionate about what the car is and isn't. And I find that, that to my customer that's an advantage. And I find that to the buyer that's probably an advantage. But it, but that may be second tier strategy when it comes to the content curation portion of the, of the listing.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Like you want it to sort of be like a reality show competition or like a murder mystery show that sort of like builds tension to that final 10 minutes of bidding where you want to get the frenzy going, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so it's, it's like I found that like one of your, one of your moves, that's like real money is like, why give away what you can sell? Which is my favorite line from the Great White Hype. Why put the service records in the listing when you can put them in the comments?

[B]

We were talking about this last week too.

[A]

That's the move. I mean, that's really the move because that when you put an image in the comments on these auction sites, it sends an alert to all the watchers. And so you can just repeatedly ping these people throughout the week. It's a very proactive thing you have to be doing.

[B]

Yeah, well, I mean, let's look at it like anything else, right? The more timely something is, the more interest level there is. Right. So some of these premium auctions that are almost two weeks long, you put everything out there in two weeks. I don't remember what I did two days ago, let alone two weeks ago. So you forget about cars or, oh, is that still live? So getting people back into an auction takes content, takes people, oh, what did he post? Oh, what's new? What's fresh? And it keeps. You have to keep adding information. You have to keep adding depth and breadth to the car and why you'd want to buy it. Otherwise, it's just a static ad. And it's almost no different than just a car gurus or auto train trader ad, where it's just content that's there and you can digest it at any time.

[A]

Well, and like, to be fair, like, if there's an individual selling a car or a professional selling a car, being honest and upfront and putting all the information in the listing, that's not the worst thing you could do. I mean, that'll probably get you 90 to 95% of the way to your goal. It's just that you. You end up with that flurry of activity on day one, and then you have nothing at all for six days, and then the flurry at the end. And so what the intent is is to manage the flow of energy over the week so that people are constantly reminded that this thing is not only still there, but ending on this day and time.

[B]

And the information's always growing. There's always a little bit more to learn about the car. So for a private seller approaching it to sell their car, I would say probably a little bit better to approach it with a much more holistic listing to begin with. I'd say for people that have been around the block a little bit, metering that out and being able to navigate the enthusiasm, sometimes it's a way to reset the tone on something, Right. Sometimes it's a way to hold back pieces that can be important not only to add content, but maybe to redirect, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Maybe you've got a car that doesn't have a ton of records to it, and people go, oh, where are the records? Where are the records? And then you can introduce the records and be able to start speaking, creating the dialogue going forward. Here's the records we do have, and here's what we've learned about the car and the inspections and so forth. You can redirect tone as it can shift sometimes. Sometimes the tone's just like, oh, this is the best. And there's other times where people are really trying to chisel away. And I love both of them. I think they're both fun for different reasons, but you have to approach them from a different perspective. And if you've already given everyone everything, then they are redirecting tone and you're just kind of having to. But no, no, no, but wait. No, but wait. Hang on. Let me. Let me tell you a little bit more about it. I think there's a way to do it where you can be a little bit more involving and add more depth to the car.

[A]

How much investment are you putting into personally inspecting? Like, are you doing the equivalent of that $500ppi on every single car so that you would never be surprised by someone else's ppi because like, that cuts into your margin quite substantially.

[B]

It does, but what we're doing is we've got a 172 point checklist that for all intent and purposes is a franchise dealer PPI checklist. We have it, we record it for every car. I'm always hesitant to post it because it's a non neutral PPI from a perspective of a buyer. So what we always say in our auctions is, everyone Please schedule your PPIs right? It's the only real do they.

[A]

Folks, we gotta take one quick break from the action because factors coming in hot for fall, it always feels like a reset. Right? Summer's over, back to school, busier routine, shorter days, dark at 5:30. Yikes. Finding time to cook can be super tough. For me, it's not about cooking, it's about lunchtime. Finding a healthy lunch can be tough, but factor is there. There's chef prep dietitian approved meals make it easy to stay on track and enjoy something comforting and delicious no matter how hectic the season gets. There's more variety and more meals now with a bigger selection of weekly meal options including premium seafood choices like salmon and shrimp at no extra cost. They've got more GLP1 friendly meals and Mediterranean diet options. And for the first time, Asian inspired meals with bold flavors influenced by China, Thailand and more. 97% of customers, including me, say that factor helped them live a healthier life. You can feel the difference no matter your routine. I use factor for lunch because when I come off the mountain when I'm filming whatever that morning is so busy, I never make time to prepare and plan a healthy lunch. So by the time I get back to the office, I'm like starving. And I just, I tend to want the closest thing around. Well, if that closest thing is factor, I'm eating healthy, right? When I've got that factor, I know there's four or five healthy meals in the fridge waiting for me that I can eat within two minutes in the microwave right when I get home. You can do it too. You can eat [e-mail] tire50off and use code tire50OFF to get 50% off your first box plus free breakfast for one year. That's code [e-mail] for 50% off your first box plus FREE breakfast for one year. Get delicious ready to eat meals delivered with factor offer only valid for new factor customers with code and qualifying auto renewing subscription purchase. We're also brought to you today, sponsored in fact by Rula. Rula is a new way to do therapy, right? Mental health. That's what I'm talking about. Talk therapy. I have seen therapists for over 20 years. I've seen the same therapist for over 10 years. And that therapist went from in person to virtual during the pandemic and has never gone back. So I know that virtual therapy is honestly the same as in person therapy. But the problems are a finding a new therapist if you don't have one or lose one and B figuring out the insurance because so many good therapists just don't take insurance at all. And taking care of your mental health shouldn't be harder than your physical health. If you pull a muscle, you see a doctor, you got insurance. But when it comes to finding the right therapist, it's frustrating. There's wait list and there's huge costs. So Rula makes therapy simple, affordable and fast. They work with most major insurance plans and the average session copay is just 15 bucks. That's basically the cost of lunch. But instead of a sandwich, you're investing in your own headspace. And with Rula, you're not just matched and left to figure it out. They check in and make sure you're actually making progress. Every therapist on the platform is licensed, vetted and picked for their expertise. So you know you're talking to someone legit, not just whoever happens to be available. It's easy to get started. You answer a few quick questions about what matters to you, and Rula connects you with in network providers who actually fit your needs. You choose the times and could be talking to a therapist as soon as the next day. No weeks of waiting or endless back and forth. So thousands of guys have already used Rula to finally get the care they need. Don't keep putting it off. Go to rula.com tire that's R U L A.com tire to get started today, take the first step, get connected and take control of your mental [e-mail] Tire and now back to the show. I mean, no. No. My answer is no.

[B]

You know, the frustrating part is that there's a lot of people that want to schedule things that are not PPIs, that are very time consuming. I want to look at the car, but they don't know what they're looking at. So they come and they look at it and they kind of walk around and go wow, this is cool. And there's an hour of time spent just kind of circling around the car, not really doing anything. Whereas that time could have been spent better with an actual ppi. And I think some people are resistant to spending a few hundred dollars sometimes. Especially because what bring a trailer in particular brought to the market was this ease an access where you didn't have to be local and you had this different level of exposure and different level.

[A]

Of think about to their credit. Think about what bring a trailer requires versus what it took to throw a car on Craig' back in a must see in 05, you know, eight shitty fucking pictures. And you know, so, so you do have. I feel like you have enough information. It's like, it's like a dunning Kruger. You have just enough information to think you have all the information.

[B]

Yeah, 100%. 100%.

[A]

You know, it's fucking. I'm just going to vent about this one to you. When someone. When you make it easy to do a ppi, you make the car available whenever, come do a ppi. Maybe you even recommend a list of experts locally. Here's four people you, you pick. One of them comes, they find a couple of things wrong with the car. Someone who's been paid to find something wrong with the car. Find something wrong with the car. You're a fucking liar. Now Rob, that is the only time it's like, bro, I've made it so easy for you to learn everything. Like I don't know everything. Obviously the mechanic had to find this. I don't fucking know.

[B]

And cars are subjective too. Here's the thing. There's certain things that are objectively measurable. Right. The brake rotors are in this amount of spec or not. Right. Cosmetic is unbelievably subjective. So our PPI could note minor stone chips on the front of the car. Right. To another guy, that could be like serious things.

[A]

Insta repaint, right?

[B]

Exactly. Oh, there's stone chips. Oh, this is the end of the world. So that's the biggest reason in my opinion for ppi. Not even the mechanical end. The mechanical end is easy to quantify. But now in this world of collectability, we're seeing so much focus on cosmetic, cosmetic, cosmetic paint. Has there ever been paint, God forbid the car ever got scratched. Anything, Anything ever.

[A]

Dude, I hate when a fucking when people just dismiss a car cause it's had the bumper. Do you understand that every car from 2002 to 2010, that came with factory or dealer. PPF needs a front end repaint 100%. You cannot remove this shit.

[B]

It is awful. It is awful.

[A]

I bought my NSX mint, 17,000 miles, factory fucking PPF trying to upgrade it. It peeled a third of the paint off the bumper. What now?

[B]

Talking about conversations that I had to really capitulate on, PPF was one of them. On bring a trail, I go, oh, God, please don't PPF your cars. And now we're obviously in a different spot where new PPF is different.

[A]

Yeah, new PPF is old stuff.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

God help you. You call a reputable shop and you say, I gotta remove factory PPF on a 997 Turbo, they're gonna go jump in a bath of cyanide.

[B]

Well, you know, talking of the gripes that are similar to that would be, you know, kind of our ongoing carfax gripes. And this is a dealer wide thing where, you know, damage reported. We had a funny conversation the other day. We had a Mercedes SLR McLaren edition that we had live, had a damage report on. Now it's a fully restored factory car, right? This car went back to McLaren where they completely made the McLaren edition. I don't care if that car was upside down and on fire before, right? It's a factory.

[A]

It's been gone through by the appropriate people, right?

[B]

But a damage report, okay, Damage reports are a little scratch. Something simple. So in talking to Carfax, we kind of said, we really got to get this off of here. The car was never damaged in any meaningful way. We knew all the history of it. There was never any paint work. There was never anything we knew the history of. Nothing ever happened. And so one of the responses back to the damage report was that a damage report can also mean that the car had some restoration. And we're like, wait, restoration is now damage. So that's the next part of it is this living and breathing off of not only going back to zero.

[A]

Is there like an insurance scam where you can use, you know, a little bit of damage to get this spiraling while you're in there?

[B]

I'm sure. Well, now there's another one. Because of when Ferrari's system went down a year ago or whatever it was, they weren't able to process cars that were in service and cars that had been there a long time. Some people had taken advantage of it and then said, well, the car's been there too long, so now you can have to lemon law my car. And they were getting out Just because their processing system was down.

[A]

Is that where all the SF 90s came from? Oh, God.

[B]

SF 90. The never ending SF 90s. Why is there so many? It's the Volkswagen Beetle of Ferrari.

[A]

There are. I mean, that's one of many proofs that being rich doesn't mean being smart.

[B]

Well, look at how the market's reacted to it. Especially now. Ferrari announced, right, there's 40% going 20, 30. They're gonna do 14 new models, right. 40% are going to be hybrid, 40% are gonna be gas and 20% electric. So 20% out the window. So they're only making 80% of what we care about. And then you have the hybrids. We know that's a little.

[A]

And they're having.

[B]

Markets reacted.

[A]

They don't want them. Nobody wants.

[B]

Did you see Donnie? 16m $830,000. Yeah.

[A]

No, that's a hard pass for me. I've driven one of those. That's a.

[B]

No, but look at where that, you know, 16.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

It's good. Everybody wants the most, you know, limited contemporary classics. Everyone went Ferrari well, and that's where.

[A]

Everybody wants, you know, why is a. Is Koenigsegg making a synthetic manual? Why does Pagani not have screens? And they have. And shit. You know, why does the new Bugatti Tourbillon has a fucking, you know, watch movement for a gauge cluster? I mean, they can't run away from screens and shit fast enough.

[B]

I know. It's incredible. Incredible. Especially in all the touch surfaces and everything. The feel of an analog car, whatever. Even if it's your H Vac controls or your radio controls.

[A]

You ever sit in a. Do you do any of the fancy schmancy shit?

[B]

Yeah, I like it like everybody else, but I don't do a lot of it. Mostly because, you know, we'll run a couple, maybe three, four.

[A]

That's not what I meant. Sorry. Not sell fancy cars. I know you sell some fancy cars. Have you ever been. Have you ever. Like, this is gonna sound. Have you ever sat in a T50 or been around a Gordon?

[B]

I haven't been in a T50.

[A]

So, like, T.50s are special for like 10,000 different reasons, but one of them is just the feel of the fucking knobs for, like, the windshield wipers is the greatest, most saddest. Every switch is a Leica camera shutter in a T50.

[B]

It's one of the most ignored things in cars. And then if we wanna go back to sf, everything is just pressing firm on a flat piece of nothing.

[A]

Yeah, it's not Great.

[B]

And look, it's not a bad car either. It's a fun good, it's a good car, but it's not an exciting car.

[A]

So here's an interesting conundrum then, and I'm about to maybe find this out for myself because I'm about to drive 1,000 miles this week in a 918, Porsche's 918. So I'm doing an interesting thing. I'm driving for five days road tripping a new Panamera Turbo SE Hybrid. And then I give that back and then I do five more days in a 918, a 10 years old Porsche hybrid. So 918s are a perfect example of a car that should be worth less than its msrp, despite its rarity because of what we're just talking about, hybrids and digitization. And yet they seem to be worth not only more than their msrp, but, but they've appreciated on a level above some of their contemporaries, which is wild.

[B]

It's an interesting car. So we just sold two 919s this month and so it's been a topic of conversation, particularly as it pertains to its relationship to the Carrera gt.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And so one of the things that I've noticed the most. Have you driven a 918?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I've driven it briefly and I will have a much more thorough report in two weeks.

[B]

I'd love to hear back because I love the 918. I think it is a very seamless integration of the hybrid system done in a way that doesn't make you feel like you're driving something that's being supplemented too much. It's got one of the best throttle notes with an exhaust that's right behind your ear. And it's a chainsaw. Sometimes it's a growl, sometimes it's a hum, sometimes. And at high RPM it's a GT3. It's got all the right notes to it, especially mid throttle, 4000 RPM. It sounds like four chainsaws all being started behind you. It's lovely with the cgt. Lovely car. There's no argument. I don't think it's a good looking car. That's a personal thing. From a drive perspective, it's fantastic.

[A]

Yeah, I love the CGT so much.

[B]

Visually too.

[A]

It wouldn't make my list of prettiest. I don't hate it aesthetically. Give me a 911 GT1, please. Pour before. But driving it, no notes. Yeah, no notes.

[B]

So cgt, I think, will forever be one of these cars. That is damned similar to any other. The little bastard. Even if it is a wonderful car to drive, you need to start exploring that car higher up to be able to really enjoy it and understand it. There's a lot of guys that drive them. If they drive them and maybe they're 5, 6, 10 and they're always just holding back a little bit. Whether it's the Paul Walker effect, whether it's the journalistic effect of these are hard to drive or whatever the case. But I feel every owner is always holding back on them a little bit. Particularly now when they were newer, it didn't seem that way.

[A]

Yeah, when a car is worth fucking five times its original msrp, it's too valuable to rip on.

[B]

But go Drive A918. And that's where the really big part comes because you can go drive a 918 at, at 8/10 and go, I'm in total control of this car and it's a dance and it's rewarding and I'm not so sitting there on the edge going, ugh, do I need to worry about this car? Is it going to do something that I'm not ready for?

[A]

This is why I always end up voting for the second place finisher and performance car of the year is because I want the psycho car. And most people don't actually want that.

[B]

Right. And the CGT's lovely, but I think 918s particularly, there's, there's nothing that's followed it.

[A]

Right.

[B]

If that trifecta time was P1, the LaFerrari and the 918.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Ferrari's released 75 other cars since. McLaren's released 275,000 cars since. I don't even know what McLaren's offering anymore. And Porsche is still even in their advertisements now on their own site are 918. That's the last thing of the hill.

[A]

It's probably the fucking car I'm driving. It's the blue one that they still have. My car got used for the Delta Shuttle for about six months. It's pretty funny. The cars put in work. Work. It's a real workhorse.

[B]

They're lovely cars. Yeah. And they make sense why they're going, I guess.

[A]

Yeah. Consider that they are. Guys, we gotta take one more break for Smalls. I love reading for Smalls because I love my cats. Smalls love my cats. And my cats love Smalls right back. My cats are. I mean I travel a lot, right. And I have an in home cat sitter. So their routine doesn't get messed up. When I travel that doesn't mean like when I come home they aren't super, super stoked to see us and they just like come running up. They all want treats. They want me to take them outside in the backyard to get some sun. Cuz the cats there doesn't do that. Rightly so. And they want their Smalls treats. They absolutely love these dried fish treats from Smalls. They are so, so good. And man when they get that delicious fresh like real food cat food, man do they love it. The listeners of the show, they know my cat can't live without the Smalls. And now you can get 60% off your first order plus free [e-mail] Tire Smalls Cat Food is protein packed. It's made with preservative free ingredients you'd find in your own fridge and delivered right to your door. That's why cats.com named Smalls their best overall cat food. The best thing about the Smalls is I'm really using specific feeding times. I'm not letting them graze all day. So as such I'm doing more of the canned protein rich food, less of the other brands dry food that I was leaving out all day. And my cats have started to lose a little bit of weight. My two fat girls are a little bit slimmer, but they are, they're all ready to eat their own bowls twice a day. And it is great. My cats love the taste of Smalls and they just crush it when I put it down. So what are you waiting for? Give your cat the food they deserve for a limited time because you are a smoking tire listener. Get 60% off your first order plus free shipping when you head to Smalls.com Tire one last time. 60% off your first order. Make it a big one plus free shipping when you head to smalls.com Tire and now back to the show that there really hasn't been a successor. Whereas both McLaren is now on its second, if not third or fourth really successor ultimate series car. And Ferrari's now on certainly at least two down the road kind of. Yeah, F8 is real ugly. Everything, everything they're making right now is ugly. I'm sorry to say it's.

[B]

I think they're in a tough position and, and this is not a. I don't like, I love Ferrari, but I think they're in a really tough place going forward. And I don't think people realize how bad it is until we're gonna look back and go, God.

[A]

Because actually I don't mean to be so harsh. The 296 is. Is somewhat pretty. 296 is all right.

[B]

296 is pretty.

[A]

It's not a car I'd want, but it's pretty.

[B]

I'm largely agnostic to it. I don't think any of them are. I think the spec drives some of the prettiness a little bit more than others. I think an off the shelf spec may just not be as much pop than a car that dude, I think.

[A]

You know, I think a low spec car in like a subtle color, like a fairly basic 296 in a blue or a gray without too much flash on it is like super pretty.

[B]

I think so too. I think the new 12C, the 12Solyndra is a pretty car too.

[A]

It's big. In the right color.

[B]

In the right color.

[A]

It's gotta be the right color, but it's big. But all this, the special ones, all that weird F40 thing, that weird Testarossa thing. What are we doing over here to follow up the fucking SP3 with that? Like one of the prettiest cars they've ever made. Like, damn.

[B]

It's answering to the shareholder and it's answering to kind of the powers that be. And they have to create volume now at this point. And they're not Porsche. Porsche is being substantiated by Volkswagen. So you could have a macan that lives in three different iterations and you can have these cars where you can spread some of the love around. But Ferrari's stuck.

[A]

Yeah, Ferrari's.

[B]

And they're a public company.

[A]

Yeah. Like no current Ferrari owner will accept them moving down market. Right. Like a 911 owner isn't. Well, I shouldn't say. When the Cayenne came out, people were insulted for a minute. And then they all bought them to drive alongside their 911s. When the Macan came out, people were like, will it be cheap? And then most people ended up being like, you know what? That doesn't actually water the brand down that much. I doubt Ferrari people would be so kind.

[B]

You can't do it. You can't do it. And so that's their never ending problem, is that they're gonna have to answer to shareholders. They're gonna have to keep showing year over year growth. And you can only show that by increasing volume, increasing the amount of models. And there's only so many ways you can put your suit jacket on a suit pants, or put it on and put your pants on as a shirt. So I'm curious, I think they have a tough road ahead of them. I think they need to. To get back to the same roots of where they used to be, which was a much more analog experience. And I think they know this too. But I think it's a tough road.

[A]

Insane. Because you'd think the margins would be there for them to do stick shift cars.

[B]

I know.

[A]

Like you'd think. Well, like you have. You guys made the most legendary shifter in the fucking history of cars and.

[B]

I know. Incredible, right? And then you look at Porsche. Well, now their focus has been power, right? Everything. Thousand horsepower. And you look at Porsche, who's just been middling along with 500 something horsepower. 12 years.

[A]

I know. They've had the same output for 12 years of these cars. Essentially they've added. I'm sorry, if you go, if you go. GT3RS 4.0 2011 to current car they've added. I think it's 42 horsepower.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

42 in that car.

[B]

A couple Briggs and Stratton. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

I mean, having said that, the new. I just drove the new Turbo S hybrid and you know, zillion horsepower. That's cool. See that's.

[B]

I. I start losing it there. I've driven stuff. I've driven everything. That's unbelievably fast. It comes down to experience. It's experiential.

[A]

No, there's no. They're actually. So the. I've said this in last couple shows, but just for you, the reason to buy a Turbo S now is not for that speed because it isn't fucking usable. Versus the next two or three fastest versions, the 400 volt hybrid system, which you can get in the GTS. Also unbelievable body control. Really? Yeah. So if you actually wanted to use one as a car a lot in an area that had not great roads, man, the envelope of talent of that suspension system. It's nice. It's nice. You can get it in the gts. You do not need the Turbo S power. But you know, if you gotta have it, you gotta have it. You know. Let's talk about you for a minute.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So you've been, you know, on the one hand, just a car dealer. On the other hand, you have fucking used car dealer.

[B]

A used car dealer for you, my friend.

[A]

A used car dealer. You know, on the other hand, you've been at this how. When was the first listing on an online auction platform?

[B]

Well, with. Bring a trailer. God, I think we were like auction 60 or something. I always forget what it was, but it was really early on. Like I remember Randy and like Gentry like coming down and us being like, hey, this is cool, like the cars are selling.

[A]

Did you, did you ever have a brick and mortar store? No.

[B]

I wound up really growing my business at the exact right time that Bring a Trailer was growing because I started this, my real quick background was I was in finance, I was invest banker and then I quit. Nothing lined up. My life has always been in cars. Investment banker was just feeding racing addiction and all the other things. Right. So when I started this, I had no clue what I was actually really doing or what I wanted to do. I just knew it was going to be in the car world because it's what I grew up doing. And so I wound up actually starting. I was flipping cars in the driveway. I mean, I had like 40 range rovers at the house, like Range Rover Classics, all in different states of disrepair. And eventually I got the right routes to kind of think, hey, I'd love to manage some car collections. I think that'd be fun. Help guys out who've got a big significant collection. And sure enough, I found a couple people, met a couple people and started doing some of that and that started gaining access to some really special cars. And then we started advertising, even in the ebay days where it's like, who has an NSU Spider for sale? Oh, I have one. Or who has some other obscure car. And so at the time I was able to advertise these in places like ebay or whatever other fastest we had then. So when Bring a Trailer came around, they were just a blog, right?

[A]

Yeah, I started reading it when it was just like shit they found on Craigslist.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. And the funny part, that's actually where the Wob Wob name actually came from. Just a forum name. Because before they were selling cars it was a forum and that was just a screen name I used for everything.

[A]

It's so funny. People who just like get stuck with their usernames, like, you think fucking Shmee would want to be Shmee today? And I like Tim, you know, he's a good guy. But like if you knew that that username when he was like 13.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. That's what this is forever. This was a little girl who couldn't pronounce my name correctly. It's the dumbest thing on earth. Somewhere there's like a 40 year old woman out there who's got a whole business named after and she has got no clue. Oh, hey, you don't know me.

[A]

See, bullying works now.

[B]

So yeah, so we started with them and I was managing a collection. Mike Malamot, you know, Malamut. Yeah. So I was managing his collection, helping him with all his sales, and doing just a bunch of stuff for the collection. And I'm gonna give him credit, even though I'm gonna give him like 50% credit here. But. But no. He was like, hey, bring a trailer. Maybe we should put a car on. I was like, yeah, let's do it. And so put a car on there. And did really well. And lather, rinse, repeat. It was going really well. And I remember there was a week where there was like 14 cars live. And that was at the time, like, wow, 14 cars. And bring a trailer. And we were like seven of them. And it was like, all right, well, hope we're putting the eggs in the right basket. But it was just a continued re up of let's push the envelope a little bit. And usually pushing it first didn't really work. You put a car that was a little outside of the buyer's perspective in there and it wouldn't do well. And then you try it again maybe a little bit later after somebody who was searching for like, oh, wow, they had that pinsgauer. Oh, I was looking for a Pinzgauer. And so it was one of those things where you push the line and know that you're probably not going to be the pioneer. You're going to be the guy who just gets the arrow on his back and kind of.

[A]

That's been me at every level of online video production, by the way.

[B]

Good.

[A]

First got to try something, get your ass kicked. Next guy makes a fortune.

[B]

Yeah, but that's the important part. The important part is that the creativity still is.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. It's all right.

[B]

If it's just about the view or the whatever, then I don't know the importance.

[A]

It's about the money. The money, baby. Someone's gotta fund this habit.

[B]

So we started early on and we grew a lot with bring a trailer. As they grew. And then Covid came around, and while obviously a really challenging thing for a lot of people, Business.

[A]

Somebody got lucky.

[B]

Business wise. It went crazy.

[A]

That's fucking nuts. The level at which online shopping was extended to things that cost $300,000. Right.

[B]

Which paired so well. We talk about the PPIs paired so well with, like, I like it. Bid.

[A]

Bid. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

And you saw these crazy prices and you saw. And people were just like, I can't leave. I can't look at it. Okay.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so it became part of our, I think, reputation and transparency came through a Lot of that, because we knew we were having to cater to a crowd that couldn't really see the cars. So we were growing simultaneously as Bring a Trailer was growing. And I think it's been a really important part of it has been this, like, know that this is a new way of selling cars. And because of that, we never created a real. I'm a brick and mortar. I'm a California retail dealership. But, like, I'm not the glass dealership by the highway. I'm not the Come on in President's day sale. I'm like a windowless warehouse. Like, go away, no one's home. But when you know what you're looking for, this is the right place. Yeah, right. It's not. Oh, I'm trying to decide if I want one of these cars. You know what you're looking for. Like, I've got an Astera in right now. No one on earth is looking for an Astera aside from like one or two people, if you know this is the right place, but you're not coming in. But I think this is the one, honey.

[A]

Well, you gotta get to that. So, I mean, I have a few procedural questions. And then our patrons, through the patreon, of course, patreon.com the smokingtirepodcast have some really good questions today. And I'm gonna hit refresh on that one more time. But okay, so are there cars at this point in your career, you are no longer seeking out cars to sell. They're passively coming to you? Rob, I would like you to sell my car.

[B]

I would say the overwhelming majority are coming to me, but there's definitely still stuff that is out there that you're looking for. The stuff that you know you're never gonna find unless you start cracking some doors.

[A]

But so is it, like, when that's. You talk about a car like that, is it, I'd like to own that car, or like, I'd like to. To consign that for somebody, just to check it off a list. There can't be that much thrill in just consigning some bucket list car for somebody, can there?

[B]

For me, there is. There is. Because you know what? There's a lot of cars that you and I probably know very well that you really want to experience and have a role in that car's history and be able to really speak to it in depth. And there's no planet in which you want to actually own it. Right. Like an XJ220 is a lovely experience to be able to go, God, What a cool thing. And now touch it again.

[A]

I mean, you know what? We, I, I, I care for other people's for a living and so I get that taste that way, right? Yeah, yeah. I know what it's like to maintain this thing and keep it alive and keep it happy and, and you're getting.

[B]

Press cars, and so you get press cars.

[A]

Press cars are the ultimate, right?

[B]

Because you're just, you taste, you taste.

[A]

I got, and I was super spoiled for a while. I got press watches. I mean, you want to talk about.

[B]

It's a press watch. It's exactly what it is.

[A]

It's exactly a press card. Have you ever, have you never fucking read any, like, watch journalism?

[B]

I know about as much about watches as I do about, you know, you.

[A]

Don'T need to, but like, if you go to certain websites, like Hodinkee is the biggest one you've heard of it. Okay. If you want to fucking have your mind completely blown, consider the fact that there are people in this country who could comfortably write 4 to 5,000 words about a watch.

[B]

I mean, look, and I'm not saying.

[A]

I can enjoy consuming that content, but I'm saying that someone can find that much to say about a fucking watch. And to that end, watch, press watches are just like fucking press cars.

[B]

I appreciate the mechanics of it, the machinery of it and the engineering of it. It's beautiful. But holy cow. But maybe a watch guy, from the same perspective, how are you writing 5,000 words about a car? It's got wheels, it's got a steering wheel.

[A]

There are deep nerds in every level of everything. So yeah, press, you know, watches are a thing, like cars. I can't tell you the number of watches that look great. My friend Carl Ruiz, rest in peace, one of the smartest people I've ever met, he told me, right in 2019, 2020, he goes, Matt, a watch, a house, a car, and your building are all the same size on Instagram. And this greatly benefits small things as opposed to big things. It works against big things. And so Sony, who will buy a watch based on what they see on Instagram, but you could fuck with a picture so bad on Instagram, and a watch might look good like this and horrible like this or be like top heavy or whatever.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

So anyway, press watches have saved me tens of thousands of dollars in not buying shit I might have had to buy to learn, you know, Same with cars. Okay? Consumer advice.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

To what degree do you recommend people repair shit on their car before listing it for sale?

[B]

It's a Balance. It's like anything. The simple view of that is spend 5,000 to make 10,000, otherwise disclose. There are some people that go, I don't care. I just want to be able to offer the best product. Generally, that's how we approach things, too. But there's certainly going to be a time where the return not only for it financially, but the return for it visually starts becoming a point where you go, well, we're not going to make the car 50, 100% better because we've done this thing that's going to cost $25,000.

[A]

It's money in, money out.

[B]

Yeah. I think disclosure is important. Make the best possible product you can. But there's also always going to be a point where it's like, hey, there's a chip in the hood or the quarter panel. Let's use a quarter panel. That's always a great one. There's a chip in the quarter panel, but that's going to be respraying. Both quarter panels blending into the trunk, down the door. And is it really worth it? No. I mean, there's a point where you want to embrace what a car is. There's a point in which you really need to make sure the integrity and the originality and all of that's there, and you just close. But I think there's certainly pre servicing and making sure it's ready to go. Making sure there's nothing that's outstanding.

[A]

I think people really do want if it's a modern car, not some like forties thing or whatever. If it's a car from the last 15 years, I think people want to be able to fly in and drive it home, at least have the option.

[B]

People say that and then they don't. Like, one of the few times somebody ever did it, the guy fell asleep at the wheel and I was like, never again is anyone picking up a car ever again.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

So it's something we actually kind of don't encourage. We're like, ship the car. It's cheap. Get to know it on your own property, in your own neighborhood. Don't even know it through the desert in New Mexico or something.

[A]

We've had a very high percentage of people pick up the car seat.

[B]

Really? I. Oh, God.

[A]

Just my own Bentley, my Turbo R, really Picked it up, drove it to Seattle. Oh, God, yeah.

[B]

Oh, God, yeah.

[A]

Okay. Car's got tasteful mods. Cat back, exhaust, wheels, things like that. Return to stock or leave the mods.

[B]

Depends on the car. Most of the time, if you're looking at something that's truly collectible. You're talking about a car that's probably better stock. But if it's a well known. We were talking about demand cars and you know, this is a different category.

[A]

I find that brand name pack packages are okay if It's a point AMS Alpha 9 or a demand motor. Yeah. Or, you know, even if it, you know, Hennessey Venom 1000. If it's a known quantity, you know, then it's probably okay.

[B]

Yeah, it really depends. It depends on the car. It depends what you're looking at. I've got a good conundrum going on right now. I'll give you it really quickly. I've got a challenge360 Stradale in right now. Six speed conversion, gated conversion.

[A]

Awesome.

[B]

Now as a car, I love it. It's just, it's the best. You mini F40, it's fantastic, right. As a collectible piece, it's in this weird area because it's like, well, 360 Stradales have gone through the roof, but this car already was a six speed converted car, which is only.

[A]

It was converted to stradale or converted to manual.

[B]

Converted to manual. So it's like two parts. There's nothing major here. But the car was that. Do you kill value by turning it back to stock?

[A]

No, I just put it like that.

[B]

I know, it's brilliant.

[A]

It's brilliant because here's why. Somebody who knows what that would be like to drive will want it for that 100%.

[B]

100% like me. Come drive it. Come drive it.

[A]

What do you, what do you guess something like that is worth?

[B]

So this is the question, everyone with 360 Stradales, we're all asking ourselves the same question because the last one on bat did like 605 or something.

[A]

So for the record, say fucking hard pass at that.

[B]

Wow, wow, wow, wow. We wow, right? Crazy, crazy, crazy.

[A]

Get a fucking Modena and put a fucking straight pipe on it for $7,000.

[B]

Specialities are going for especially crazy.

[A]

I know, but so because crime is legal and money's fake, well, everyone's looking.

[B]

For the next best stuff, right? It's no different, right? It's, it's the apple oven of.

[A]

Okay, so, so, so are you, are you on the over or the under? I think it's between, it goes between what a great Stradale goes for and a great real manual Modena goes for.

[B]

I'm, I'm, I'm between that bracket. But I would say it's certainly closer to. I don't know. Definitely closer to the Stradale mark than the. Because 360 sticks have gone down softer.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So there was a.

[A]

Well, the availability of manual swaps, you know, it's not the only way to get one anymore. You can get one for cheap if you want. And most of the swaps are like pretty much not discernible from the factory cars.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. So it's. It depends on car. Get back to the question. It really depends on the car and depends on the goal. And some of them you just got to embrace. And some of them you may want to, you know, if you put a set of wheels on. That's the big one. Wheels.

[A]

If it's just wheels, take them off the stock wheels. Because that's this. It's like the stuff in the title photo that's important. Right. So if it looks like it's like on rims.

[B]

Different story, though. Actually, speaking of that 993s that we.

[A]

Had, that one that was on rims.

[B]

They were pretty cool.

[A]

It looked pretty cool, actually. It did look good. I know. Did it come with the stock wheels? I didn't see.

[B]

No, it didn't.

[A]

So ours has the stock wheels on it, but it comes with a set of speed lines.

[B]

Oh, I know.

[A]

Off the car.

[B]

The same color car, isn't it?

[A]

It's the same color.

[B]

I know the car.

[A]

And it has a binder that is like. Like if this guy wasn't taking care of a car, he'd be fucking murdering.

[B]

People with this crazy car. I know the car.

[A]

Beautiful.

[B]

Yeah, I agree.

[A]

It should.

[B]

I think the only reason we. We were talking about it, I think with the owner, but I said, I've got this other one in. And it was like, you're gonna have a wait here.

[A]

Yeah, maybe he just called us. Meanwhile, he had to wait anyway.

[B]

I know.

[A]

Great. Okay. Are there. Well, I want to ask you fun shit, but I also want to ask consumer questions because I know people want. Okay, if it's, if it's, if it's. If it's an individual listing a car. Be an individual for a minute. What do you think is. Do you think they should really try the trickle out the stuff strategy? Or if you're an individual coming out of nowhere, just try the full on honest approach.

[B]

I think an individual has a different route than a dealer. I think the individual becomes a lot more about the story. And the story is what your theme is going to be as you post through. So rather than posting out, metering out service records. If I were a private individual, I'd be metering out my story and my experiences with it. I'd be posting pictures. Here's me with the car at Darien Gap, and here's me and my wife and create the story that the next guy, when he goes to cars and coffee, gets to regurgitate it and go, you know, is it this guy? And he took it to the Gap and blah, blah. That's the private individual theme. I think as a dealer, it's a little bit different. Right. Our job is identifying value and being able to present it transparently and be able to show off off an asset that we believe is a worthwhile asset for people to invest their money in. It can still run in the same theme, private versus dealer, but I think it's different motivational factors. I think there's less people buying story a little bit from dealers. Unless it's a storied car. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Unless that's the whole thing.

[B]

Yeah. Because face it, I mean, I know where most of my cars are coming from. I know most of the stories because we source cars differently. But if we're going to apply an overall dealer method, most dealers out there are buying cars at auction or they're getting them on trades. They don't know about the car. So it's a little bit more of a different storyline that they have to tell.

[A]

Sure. Let's see. I have one more for me. And then we're gonna let the people on our Patreon ask their questions, which are the real consumer questions. If you're running the whole shit over there, I mean, you must have people helping with it. Right. But if you told me to, that we had to do the show at this time because you had four cars closing in a half hour this morning. How many auctions are you capable of running simultaneously by yourself before you start to go a little insane?

[B]

We found that our cap is about 20 a week before something starts losing attention in a way that it shouldn't be. It's tough at 20, at our current kind of way we manage things. But the more challenging part is particularly the timing of them when they end together, when they're all ending. There's also a post, like a timing cap, where you have to wait 10 seconds between a post. So if you got four cars ending, it's like, all right, wait, 1, 2, 3, 4.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Oh, go to the next auction.

[A]

So that's crazy. So they like, literally, that's like when fucking Delta lets you book an unmakeable connection. You gotta. You gotta think. Can you. I Mean, you. You at least must be able to talk to someone at the team and go, hey, guys, listen, if there's going to be this restriction, I'm going to need. I'm going to need a guaranteed spread on this.

[B]

After how many years of doing this, we figured out how to work around it in a large capacity, and you kind of structure it a little bit.

[A]

But can you have like, WOB and WOB2 commenting?

[B]

Like, we thought about doing like a WOB light or WOB projects or like, to try and kind of kind of tear the branding a little bit more to kind of go like, hey, like cars. We're like, hey, this is. Doesn't cut the mustard for what we want to sell.

[A]

The equivalent of the second YouTube channel.

[B]

Yeah, a little bit. A little bit. But then it's. It's a whole another route.

[A]

No, I just meant so you could have someone else logged into a different account. Commenting, it's not a bad idea. It's not trying to take advantage of the system. It's working within.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, like.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. That's a good idea. All right, so. So let's. So 20 a week. Okay, cool.

[B]

That's about the cap.

[A]

And do you keep all M cars on site?

[B]

Yeah. All right. Yeah, yeah. Everything's gotta come to us.

[A]

Yeah. You gotta have it.

[B]

I gotta know. We do, too.

[A]

You gotta have it. We're up to around four or five a month, which I'm very happy with.

[B]

That's great.

[A]

Yeah. We're not a dealer. We just help people sell their cars privately and we charge a flat fee, which is different than other people do. And whether, you know, however you want to do it works for us. And so we have this identity. We got a really nice 993C 2S kit coming. And speaking of stories, this one's a little sad. We have a guy is. We're helping a guy sell his wife's car. She unfortunately has dementia, but she's had this alpha spider for like. It's. I think it's a 90. It's an airbag car. So it's. That's sort of at the very end, but. Wow. Is this fucking thing mint? When I went down to look at it, it's in our other store and I went to look at it, I thought the guys had already detailed it and they're like, we haven't even touched it yet.

[B]

Color? Red.

[A]

Tan. Yeah, but just lovely. Lovely little car. I'm going to do the little character.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The shifter on the dash, it's like rad.

[B]

Racer. So much character for the money. There's a lot of car that, that gets, I think largely ignored in the market for, you know, a lot of different reasons. But I think it's a lot of car. A lot of cars.

[A]

Yeah, they're really cool. So I'm going to do the driving video tomorrow. Oh, fun. Take a little spin.

[B]

Do you do the driving videos?

[A]

I do all the driving.

[B]

That's awesome.

[A]

Yeah, so I think that's like bit.

[B]

A little mini review they get people like that.

[A]

They get a little, some little odd comments from me and trash talk them ever.

[B]

You're like clunk.

[A]

No, but I, I mean, no, but I point. I mean I do. I, you know, we're honest. I, I, I, I, I point stuff out. Yeah, it's. So far I haven't had any, I haven't had any mechanical issues.

[B]

Smells a little like fire in here. But you know, ships are good, synchros are good.

[A]

Very lucky. Let's go to the Patreon and let's see Joe with a great question. We've already kind of answered it. But just to clarify, is there such. There was recently a CRX SI that had 800.

[B]

Holy hell.

[A]

I mean, I think like you said, the move is to use them in the comments to remind people that your car is there. Don't overwhelm them in the listing.

[B]

I think there is a point in which it depends on what the photos are of. Right. 800 photos could be. There could be 400 photos of unbelievable records going back on some car. You know, think about it. Records. You got a binder, people want to scan everything, go, here is everything. But if you got 800 photos of the car, a small car, one of the biggest things that people do is, and you're gonna agree with this because, you know, this is they go take photos of a car and they just go shudder, just. And there's just a regurgitation of whatever they shot. Nothing's edited. Half the stuff's gone.

[A]

I don't need 40, 41, 42, 43, 44 degrees of angle. I don't need a 1 degree spread for a photo. Yeah, exactly.

[B]

What we try and do with our photos is we'll have a high photo count. But what we try and do is present in different light. And I don't necessarily just mean we do outdoor because everyone thinks that outdoor is the only way you can like gauge the car. But studio as you know, the lights will show a speck of dust. It's like hard to shoot in the studio. In the sun, you can hide almost anything. But there's some colors, you really need to see them in the sun. So we show both. But even in the studio, and it's making sure your lights are positioned different places. I want to be able to look down the car. I want to see how straight it is.

[A]

Right.

[B]

I want to see the car lit up top. I want to see. So some of that requires. You can't light the car perfectly from every angle every time. So some of that's just repositioning the car and getting the light right. So somebody who's doing it on their own. As a private seller, you may want to move the car and experiment. If you're outside, experiment with the sun at different angles on the car rather than just walking around it and making sure that you can capture. Like, I want to see Dino. Is there any dings? Is there any dents, any waviness? How's the paint quality? Like, some of that stuff's really important.

[A]

Paint meter photos matter. If you get paint.

[B]

Paint meter photos matter.

[A]

Yeah, if you can get them. They don't always. It doesn't always work, but they do. It does help.

[B]

And it doesn't always tell the right story either. So you have to be thoughtful about it too.

[A]

Jeremy Spokane, Washington State says, how much does seasonality play into results? Are there better or worse times to buy or sell? I've heard, like, time of day or day of week can even matter. Please explain.

[B]

That's a really good question. So, personally, 90 plus percent of our cars I want ending Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Now, this is just my own personal preference. Bring a trailer when they start, because.

[A]

That'S when you want to be there, monitoring the end of it.

[B]

Part of that is true. But bring a trailer. Originally started, their auctions ended Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. That's what they had found or thought would be the best days for it. And then only over time did they add Monday and Friday. And then only over time did they add weekend. I like the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday number one. Mondays can be overwhelming. Some people aren't focused. Some people are just not there or they're dealing with stuff. Fridays, people leaving early, whatever the case. Weekends, 50, 50. Now, it doesn't mean you can't have a great auction that ends any of those days. I try and buy cars. I can't buy stuff any of those days necessarily either. There's times where it makes sense, there's times it doesn't. I like a little bit of it on my own for those days. I don't think there's a Wrong answer. I've seen strong results on weekends. I've seen strong results on weekdays and vice versa. Seasons. There's this idea that in spring, I should wait till spring to sell. Well, you and the other 200 million people think the same thing. Even if there is more buyers in the market because it's spring, there's also a lot more supply. It's because everyone else had the same idea, too. You've just matched supply and demand is all you've done. My suggestion is I like to generally give a little buffer around hot major holidays. Like, I don't really want to end on, like the 24th, 25th or 26th in December or something like that, but I've had good results before Christmas and right after Christmas. But like, a little buffer.

[A]

Get it in time for Christmas isn't the worst thought.

[B]

No, I had some good. I had some world records in December, like a week before Christmas. So I think give a little buffer to the major stuff, but I don't think there's a real seasonality. Even this summer was, like, for us, a lot quieter than our past summers, whereas fall, which typically September, October, a little quieter, were a lot busier. There's a little push and pull to it and you don't really know what you're getting. So I wouldn't hold back. I was an economics major. For me, the market I know is better than the market I don't, which is. I know the market right now. I can speak to it right now. Well, if there's a better market down the road, I won't know. Maybe it's worse. Just.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Embrace what you have.

[A]

John Henness. See you next Tuesday. What cars have the most annoying bidders and commenters?

[B]

Oh, this is the easiest question. Oh, I love this question.

[A]

Ferraris.

[B]

Ferraris aren't so bad.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

560 SL. I'd rather pull out my own fingernail.

[A]

No way.

[B]

Okay, that's C2 Corvettes. They're pretty painful. There's a certain era of BMW that can be a little painful, but. But not terrible.

[A]

Why the 560 SL?

[B]

I have no clue. I don't know if it's the buyers or the passion for them or because they made so many of them. And I loathe selling like Dean Lombach. Shout out to Dean because I love him. He's a very nice person. He sells a lot of Mercedes out in classic Mercedes in New Jersey. And this is what he focuses on. And I'm like, you have the worst job on earth.

[A]

I.

[B]

And I like 560 SL. They're cool cars. Yeah, they're fine man, they're painful. And C2 Corvettes, oh, that Phillips screw was March of 63. The car was made in April of 63. This car is not a good asset.

[A]

Sure. In that vein, Johnny Slasher says, how do you engage with the peanut gallery on bat? Some commenters are helpful and insightful, others not so much. What is the balance between being engaged and helpful as a seller without being drawn in by the trolls?

[B]

That is the biggest thing as a seller. If you're a private seller, do not engage with it. Be diplomatic. Diplomacy is going to get you a lot further and you can also just wind up really squashing something kind of quickly with most people which you can just wind up saying I disagree with you and that's okay. We can both have different opinions about this and I encourage you to come get a ppi, inspect the car. Heck come out, let's get lunch together, let's talk about the car. I encourage you to get a first hand opinion rather than just speculating on what you think you see. If they have a point, then embrace it. Hey, you got a point there. Yeah, I didn't see that scratch there. Getting into an argument is going to kill the auction, kill the value, kill everything. So be diplomatic, be patient and know yes, some people are trying to grenade stuff purposefully. Some people just don't know any better. Some people like give it the old Countach thing where it's the worst driving car on a north. It's no different driving than any other 80s Ferrari. But the journalists at the time made it sound like it's the worst driving thing and you go into a Countach auction and everyone goes, well it's a shame these drives so bad and like it's just the same thing. So some of it's just not, you know, it's just ignorance and some of it's people being intentionally.

[A]

Intentionally dude. My, I mean my experience was admittedly a lot less than yours is if someone is being like a shitty commenter, look at their comment and bidding history before bothering to respond to them. A lot of these people are just shitty commenters. They're not there to buy, they're not serious, they're there to just try and show off how much they know about whatever. And like a non response to that is okay.

[B]

Yeah, sometimes it doesn't require a response. Exactly right. There's no requirement that bring a trailer says that you need to respond to everything that somebody says.

[A]

Well you, you know the fear is to get. I mean, once you're doing it, as long as you have that fear is probably gone. But when you're small or just started or an individual, you don't want to get branded an uncooperative seller because it is a social hierarchy system. So the temptation is, well, if I don't respond, I'm uncooperative. Even if this person is asking in total bad faith.

[B]

Yep. I at one time got an email that arrived an hour prior to somebody making a post saying the seller is a. A seller who's not shown up, he's non responsive and buyer beware. We just got your email an hour ago. Like we get hundreds of emails on a car. A little patience.

[A]

We've had someone comment that with 20 minutes or so to go in the auction saying, requesting paint meter readings. And it's like, man, where have you been for seven days, bro? And it's the kind of thing where like we would do it, like, no problem, paint me. Okay, Paint me. The readings, no problem. But like, can I have like, you know, any time at all to do this for you? Let's see. Gila Monster. Greg, what's the worst personal car you've ever bought at an online auction? Oh, God.

[B]

At an online auction? Oh, man, I don't even know. I've just. I fall into the group of people that I loathe as. I don't say loathe, that's the wrong word. But you know, I buy so blindly I don't ppi anything. I'm like sitting here going, you should ppi everything. I don't ppi anything. So there's all types of stuff, but there's two types of buyers. There's seasoned buyers where you have a pretty darn good idea of what you're buying or you're not buying it, or you're somebody who just doesn't really know any better and you may wind up with something that's not so great. There's not a specific car that necessarily comes to mind that was particularly bad. Oh, there was a pretty bad 911 I bought where I went against my rule. I have a rule. I'd never buy from Florida.

[A]

Yeah, that's a very good rule.

[B]

Oh, and it's like rule number one.

[A]

All cars that go to Florida should stay there until they go to the ocean 100%.

[B]

And I went against a rule. And it came in and I was like, Jesus. Like, just stuff that was pigeon weld together and like, and it was mechanically sound, but the whole car was ho.

[A]

I bought my Ferrari 328 from Augusta, Georgia and it was definitely driven there from Florida.

[B]

Makes sense.

[A]

Street parked says for an individual seller what quality makes a car ideal for an auction sale instead of an asking price sale and vice versa.

[B]

That's a really good question.

[A]

I think it's more the person than the car.

[B]

I think it's person, but I also think it's desirability of the car. And I also think particularly again we're going to go back to something like bring a trailer. It's how easily accessible is this car? Is this a 2025911 Carrera that anyone can just go into any dealer and buy or is it car that's just an off the shelf car you're not going to have really that fight and that's what you want at an auction. And I don't mean that in a negative tone. I want, you want passion, you want people excited about like wow, I really want to buy this car. I bid up a Buick estate wagon, a 1990 Buick State wagon yesterday to $25,000 and I commented to the other guy where I'm like, how far are we going to bid this $10,000 wagon?

[A]

And like why did you on it?

[B]

Because it's awesome. Because it's passion.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And so that's what's great about auction. So off the shelf stuff. There's not gonna be passions can be, oh it's a cool car, but I can find another. But rarity, desirability, hard to find spec. That that's a good reason to send a car to auction.

[A]

Sure. And also like a reason to not is like if you, I mean, I hate to say this but like if you have something to hide. Yeah, if you have something to hide. One person at a time seeing your listing and asking about the car and you only need to justify whatever the fuck they're asking you versus Open forum. Anyone can notice anything in any photo or any service record and bring that to everyone else's attention 100%. So you know, not that I suggest selling a car with dirty laundry, but like if you're fucking jammed up. You know what I mean?

[B]

Well, you know what? One of the things that I think people really appreciate on online auctions is obviously transparency, but project cars do well. Don't be afraid to embrace what you have. This is a project. It needs a whole bunch of stuff done to it. And you know what? People love the dreams. Sure.

[A]

Ted Stryker says, what are some of the more common irrational fears and misconceptions that people have about selling or buying a car from an auction site. And what would you tell them to give them more peace of mind?

[B]

Well, I think people always are concerned about who are they buying from. Right. That's the first one. Especially when you're to starting talking about a private seller who's maybe got no history on there. Well, am I going to send in the money, am I not going to get it back, or am I going to get the car and so forth. I would say bring a trailer. Again, we're going to use them as an example. But I think cars and bids and some of the other ones have put in place basically escrow services for money. And so I think that's a good thing. I would say you can alleviate so much. Again, ppi inspect the car, put eyes on it and not like, oh, my buddy Jim lives close by. He'll come look at it and he's just going to walk around it for an hour and go, yeah, it looks cool. So I think get a mechanic to look at it. Doesn't cost much money, especially if you're serious in the car. Right. I certainly recognize that if you're looking at a cheaper car, $300 or whatever it costs for your PPI could be an expensive guess at the car simultaneously on that cheaper car. If you have $1,000 repair on it, that's a material number.

[A]

Spending a couple hundred bucks to not buy a total shit box is money well spent for sure. Rob D's nuts Expert guidance reserve versus no reserve. And I have my own opinion on this. But you as a dealer, I'm interested in what you have to say.

[B]

Depends on the car. As always, I'd say no reserve sets the emotion much different. Much, much different. People know it's selling it tends to keep bidding lower for longer, which is good. Same thing. We want that return viewership. So you have people going, well, why is this only a 25 grand? This is a $100,000 car. And they revisit and revisit and revisit and they look at the pictures. What am I missing? I must be missing something. Maybe everybody else is missing something and they've sold themselves on that car. So when it gets down to the end, they have this idea, man, this is a car I wanted. I looked at it, I looked through all the pictures, I did all the homework. Why was it so cheap? I think it's right. That emotion's there and it's not like a psychological trick. What you've done is got them invested in a car that now they actually understand where They've looked at it and they feel comfortable with the car in order to bid. That said, no reserve can go the other way too sometimes where you just don't have. Where people kind of go, well, are they just selling it to sell it or whatever the case? I think quality of the car needs to be there and transparent as everything. I like no reserve. I generally sell my own car as no reserve.

[A]

Me too.

[B]

Me too. I think the market is smarter. The aggregated market is smarter than me or you or any individual. They'll tell you what it's worth. Worth. It may be that that day it was worth less and the next day it's worth more, or it may be the other way around. I would say newer sellers should probably think about approaching sales with a reserve as the first or second auction they've ever done. Go into it. Don't go into the big boy arena knowing that you could sell the car for a lot less. Also, don't be afraid to approach no reserve knowing that Brick and share's got like 2 million registered bidders or something. The there's no deal. Like I've sold what I don't know how many cars.

[A]

1901.

[B]

So 1901 cars we've sold on. Bring a trailer. I probably bought 30. And of those 30 I was probably buying for. Half of them are probably for clients and then the other half I was probably buying at full retail. There's not a lot of deals, but what you're getting is transparency. You know what you're buying and that's.

[A]

More important than the deal I like selling. So the way I decide, reserve versus no resources. Reserve my cars. Personally, if I'm selling my car mentally, it's gone. And I know that for better or worse, with my social media reach and the auctions and whatever. Whatever market price is that day, I'll get it. Whatever market price is better under meh. Whatever it is, that's what it's going to be. And I try to tell everyone else that too, because we are capable of putting enough eyeballs on your car that you'll get market price whether or not that's what you think it is. So I tell people, I say, look, if this auction ends and you go through this and you still own the car but you haven't taken a lower number, are you happy that you didn't take this lower number, or are you annoyed that you still have a car that you wanted gone? So if you want the car gone, fucking, let's send it. And you're gonna get what you're gonna get. I'm gonna do my best.

[B]

And your perception of value is immaterial to the buying public.

[A]

Right.

[B]

They could care less what you think it's valued at. They're going to value it.

[A]

Yeah. Super Burrito says, I see a bunch of complaints on Reddit about buyers and sellers not following through with deals at the end of auctions. Have you had this happen and have the auction sites been helpful about it and. Or what do you do?

[B]

So it happens from time to time. Right. This is a business.

[A]

I had this happen once. It was nuts.

[B]

Yeah. And again, almost 2,000 cars. I don't know, maybe we've got. Had a hundred cars out of 2000, 50 cars out of 2000. Generally, you go to the next guy in line, sometimes you put some together there, sometimes you don't. And worst case scenario, you may have to relist the car. Some of those relistings don't do as well. Some of them actually do about the same. Some even may do a little bit better. We had a Ford GT that the guy didn't pay, a carbon gt, and we relisted the car. It actually did better. All right, well, hey, that worked out. So it's just part of it. You can't plan for it. So don't go into it thinking that way. It's a very immaterial percentage of auctions that actually end that way. So I would say don't hold your breath. And just.

[A]

It is weird. I found that a few times someone bids on a car and wins, they don't really seem to understand that they then have to send a fucking wire to somebody to pay for that car. Like, wait, wait, I have to. Who is this? I'm sending it to a stranger. No, you're sending it to the person you just bought the car from. Like, what did you think was gonna happen here? Exactly. And then the only one where they actually refused to pay was real crazy. It was not even an expensive car. It was a Mini. And, you know, auction concludes, okay. And they then came down to send the money and they go, this. I looked you up on Google Earth, and this was when we had just opened our other store.

[B]

You're in a dirt lot.

[A]

Google Earth hadn't caught up yet. Google Earth shows a construction site. I just looked up on Google Earth. You're. You're not even a real business. You're a construct. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is. I'm not sending money through this. This is all crazy. And I sent the emails to bring a trailer. And the next bidder in line, Matt, would you take $200 less?

[B]

Yes, I would. Click.

[A]

You know, game over. And it was fucking crazy though.

[B]

The, the only good side of when a car, when somebody doesn't pay for a car is some of the time it's just a ghost. You never hear from them. But a lot of times you get these unbelievable stories.

[A]

Lunatics.

[B]

They're the best stories ever, ever, ever, ever. Like fairy tale kind of stuff. So at least you get a good story out of it.

[A]

Okay, the big question, Slow mo. In dfw, it was asked a few times. Cars and Bids versus Bring a Trailer. Why would I send a car to 1?

[B]

Versus there's different markets. They both do things very well. I don't know Doug that well. I know him a bit. We've spoken a couple times. He's done really, really, really well. Cars and Bids is a legitimately viable and good platform with a lot of tech that I actually like their software better as a seller.

[A]

It's like a nicer piece of software to use.

[B]

I would agree. And I think Bring a Trailer realize I'm not saying anything that's like, oh, hush, hush, hush. Bring a Trailer has had this massive growth on a website that was effectively a WordPress site that's been having to continually band aid a site that really needs a complete redo.

[A]

Now.

[B]

It's a very good, functional site. But yeah, Cars and Bids was able to come out a little bit later and make it a little bit more functional, but there's definitely different audiences there. And what Cars and Bids did that Bring a Trailer did? And that's the thing that a lot of these copycat sites are missing is, is that they had organic audiences. Right. And Doug brought his organic audience with him, which is a huge part of his success.

[A]

Bring a Trailer Head first mover. Doug had a huge core audience to jumpstart the business. What does anybody else have?

[B]

Right, Exactly. And so what Doug has though is his audience is a little bit different of a sector of audience, right? Different dynamic, different people, different buyers, different cars. So I think modified cars seem to do pretty well on the there kind of more 2000e forward cars seem to do well on there. I think he's geared a lot towards people that aren't necessarily collectors who just want to drive and enjoy their cars and screw around and have a light heart about some of it. Whereas Bring a Trailer certainly has that, but there's certainly a much bigger population of die hard collectors who want everything exactly the way it Left the factory, it can't be any different. So if I had a modified EC E63 or something like that, I'd probably send it to Doug. That's probably the right place for it. But if I had like a really, really tight and right or 918 or something, whatever, it's going to go to bring a trailer, but it doesn't take away from Doug's platform at all. I think he's got a great thing going and I think he'll continue to build it and I'd love to keep giving him business and we do give him business, but I think it's just different collector basis. So it would depend on what car you have and what you're looking to market.

[A]

Two more username says I'm a small independent dealer selling 5 to 35 year old enthusiast cars, some online. And despite doing a full inspection, full service, addressing possible mechanical issues, road testing them myself, I still have vehicles that sell, get shipped across the country and arrive off the truck with random issues that never happened while the car was here. Do you experience similar anomalies and how.

[B]

Do you deal with it? That is the never ending thorn in my side. We always joke that cars know when they're changing hands. It doesn't matter what it is. I had an XKE that I was driving myself for a long time. I drove it everywhere. Perfect, perfect, perfect. This just happened the other day, perfect car. And I told the guy we've done business before and I said, I've driven everywhere. I was actually gonna drive it to Pebble Beach. It's been lovely. Enjoy the car. He made it like 10 miles and broke down.

[A]

Oh God.

[B]

Oh my God. But you can't plan for it. You have to do everything the right way. My suggestion would be like anything is document everything, be transparent and be forthright. Hey, here's everything. Here's our documentation. I tend to really lean into. Hey, let me help you out.

[A]

Keep it posted.

[B]

Like, I can't plan for all this stuff simultaneously. There's a no warranty warranty in my opinion.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You buy the car, something happens, something happens right away.

[A]

Yeah, let me help you out.

[B]

But two weeks down the road, I can't plan for some electrical component failing. We, we can't sit there and test every relay or what you just. It's impossible.

[A]

I'm real. All I need in my whole fucking life is someone to go on fucking Reddit and go on a rant that Matt Farah sold him a piece of shit and wasn't honest about it.

[B]

Yeah, you're in a really tricky position.

[A]

Because I am. So I'm not. I refuse to lend my reputation to anything but my business's honesty. And so I'm really honest about stuff that sometimes maybe my customer wouldn't like, you know. Did you have to tell them that there was a stain on the.

[B]

I've had that conversation.

[A]

Yeah, I did, man. Cuz I'm not fucking dying on this hill for your stained carpet.

[B]

Yep, exactly. My reputation is worth more than making you an extra two grand. Yeah, somebody thinks.

[A]

Yeah. So yeah, for. We have never had a problem where we've sent a car across the country and something happened. But I could totally see it.

[B]

You will eventually and you work through it. But because it's their cars, they're living breathing things, you know.

[A]

And also like man, if you've had it, like the guy, the person you sell it to, they drive different from you. The car responds. They don't 100%. Oh, the car was fine. Well, this guy doesn't know how to fucking heel toe. He blows the clutch, you know. Last one. Matt and Zach Romance Fanfic author Is there such a thing as too much attention for a listing such as bringing too many uninformed eyes to the conversation or is all publicity good publicity?

[B]

I would actually say largely the latter. I think even if the conversation is contentious, even if people are saying you're right, you're wrong and there's a lot of post, as long as you did your due diligence going into it and you know what you have and you embrace it and you do well with it, right? This is what I have, this is what we know and everyone can poke around and suggest whatever they want to do and, and let them have the conversation. Sometimes the post that I just make is I love watching this conversation guys. Keep it going because have your opinions. Here's what we believe and we encourage people to do their independent research and we'll present every bit of fact that we have. But again, they're cars. There's always going to be nuance to them. There's going to be little things. Well, why are your paint meter at 7 or 8 mil? These cars are usually 5 or 6 mil. Well, maybe this color was a little thicker. Have you paint method or this. I love the conversation. It's what makes us enjoyable because if this was just cookie cutter, every sale was the same. It wouldn't be fun. So embracing it is I think part of it. So I think all press is good press in large part. Unless you have people nefariously trying to grenade an auction. I had a car.

[A]

Well, when someone talks shit specifically to drive the price down so they could maybe get it for cheaper. That's mega shitty.

[B]

Yeah, 100%. We had a car that was.

[A]

Bobby.

[B]

Rahal's car, whoever it was, and we bought it from him and somebody went, this wasn't his car and I'm his best friend and he never owned this. With like 30 seconds left in the auction. And we were like, what? We literally like bought it from him. It was on his showroom floor. It was something ridiculous. And I'm kind of piecing it together.

[A]

No, earlier the story about the guy who came to do a PPI and the PPI found something and then the guy called me a liar. That guy then was fucking battling to the end with somebody to buy the car. And that, that car incidentally set, did set a record. It was the highest for a paddle shifted Ferrari 612. And even the other guy who called me a liar as the losing bidder bid more than anyone had ever bid for a Ferrari 612 before.

[B]

It's sometimes it's transferred. But here's the thing too. In all of our curmudgeonly gripes about all this, the fact remains is that we've got this platform and most of the time it doesn't bring a trailer cars bay, whoever it is. But we've got this platform that is completely different than selling cars in the past that is so unbelievably inclusive, both nationally, internationally, whatever you're looking for, it's unbelievable. So to somebody who's trying to think about approaching selling a car online and all these are great. Hey, I'm either putting a foot in the water or I'm trying it, or I'm trying to figure out my way way. I'd say without a shadow of a doubt, it's the way forward. I think brick and mortar dealers are going to slowly become kind of the dinosaurs. I think they're still necessary and they're still guys are gonna do great business. But we see this shift of these guys who are the brick and mortars selling on? Bring a trailer.

[A]

Well, that for sure. Shout out to my boy Doug at Switch Cars in Ohio. But I don't wanna be in a world where, where every new car is being sold like this either. Like that would just be fucking horrible.

[B]

Agreed. And there's no point in that. That's a different story.

[A]

And a couple times you've seen a dealer fucking selling a brand new. When the GT3 first comes out, some Dealer is just going straight to this and you go, guys, even if it only goes to your best clients. Like, come on. I don't like. I don't like where this is going.

[B]

Yeah, we're part of. Part of that problem. But in a way that I think is also important, and I think being able to see these cars as they transact in a public manner is important on a dealer end. We're pitched cars constantly, and people don't realize how many of certain cars are out there particularly. I won't name them specifically because I know people who own these kind of cars.

[A]

They're not.

[B]

Well, you know, you could name that. That's a good one. Because now that it's settled down a little bit.

[A]

But everybody in all their STs were on the same boat. So one week out of nowhere, there was about 35, 9, 11 sts that.

[B]

Fell on Los Angeles and every single one of them. If I pitch something to somebody in the dealer world, I promise you it will go to 900,000 people by the.

[A]

End of the day.

[B]

So much so that a lot of times you get your own cars pitched back to you, and everyone's trying to get involved in it and take their piece.

[A]

Everybody needs the middle man, the world.

[B]

So what I love about putting those cars up is, okay, great, maybe they're over msrp. Maybe it's not a car that, you know, oh, how dare this guy flip this car.

[A]

I'm not. I mean, look, flipping sucks. I'm not talking about flipping. I'm talking about just like new, new, new, new, new. Yep, this fucking. This car's on mso. It's never been titled. It's never been sold.

[B]

I feel differently. I like seeing those get exposed because it allows the market to actually consume what's going on on instead of speculating. Because take a GT3 auction. Especially with the new dot 2s that just came out, everyone, whoa. My friend can get it for this. Well, I know you can get them for this. Well, my dealer will sell them for this. Well, here you go. Guess what? Here's an auction. And now you know what it is.

[A]

What did it go for? Have you done one yet?

[B]

It was 3.2 tourings. I think we're the only one that's put any DOT two tourings on bat. One was R and M. We sold it afterwards. I'm not going to disclose the number, but it was a healthy number. The second one I think we sold for.

[A]

Somebody was reaching. It did. It didn't meet reserve and it stopped at a number you were happy with.

[B]

It stopped at a number that we weren't going to sell it. We sold it afterwards and it did well. There was an excited buyer on the other side. It was the first one publicly available really in any capacity. The second one we sold, I think it did 80 or 100 maybe somewhere in there. I don't remember offhand, 90 over. I think the third one was something similar to maybe afterwards. That market has established itself in a place that's a little bit softer than the one market right now for more desirable specs of DOT one. I think people are looking to see what settles down with tariffs and so forth before they really know. But now here's a concrete example. Whether I like it or not, whether my clients like it or not, the greater market here is. This is the market right now. Here it is. The first car we went was interesting because it was an R and M car, but we had some other stuff in the background and we knew that there was a little bit more meat on it. And you've got to operate in your best financial institutions. You're a business and you're working for your clients in a lot of points. I like those cars being able to be publicly consumed. I think it's important that they are because otherwise it's all speculation. And speculation leads to a really stagnant market because then everyone thinks, well, he bought it for this and I heard this. I do have my qualms about it. I don't like how they are immediately back on market from a buyer from an enthusiast perspective. But from a. Hey, we're part of a greater market here. I think it's a important.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll take that. You got. What do you got four cars up right now?

[B]

I got a quiet week right now.

[A]

You got a quiet. We got it. We got on, on, on. Bring a trailer for WOB. We've got an Aston one, a DB4. We've got a 24,000 mile Bentley GT. We've got some cab chassis.

[B]

Oh, that thing's awesome truck. It's so cool.

[A]

And We've got a 33,000 mile E320 cab in Imperial red over tan. Well, I just got one of these.

[B]

Did you? They're great.

[A]

I got one for free as a project from my wife's uncle. Okay. 60,000 miles. But it's been parked outside in Long island for two years. So it's very scruffy. So we're taking it up the road to CMS Motorsports and we are turning it into the E500 cabriolet that Mercedes never built.

[B]

And you don't want to make that a monoposto slammed on the ground. Just go cold all the way off the db.

[A]

Yeah, we'll make it look like an slr. No, actually, one. One thing we have discussed is doing a rear tono speedster style cover. Like a. Like a 90s saline Mustang with that roll bar in. I think we were. We were both at Radwood and we were like. And he's like, what if we do the fucking styling bar? I was like, that's great until you roll the car. He's like, oh, it'll crush. Like tissue paper.

[B]

Instant.

[A]

That was great, Rob. Thank you for coming down. Yeah. Appreciate your time and your insights. Selfish. A little bit for me because I wanted to pick your brain on. On some strategy stuff, but also, I hope the audience learned something. Thank you to our patrons for such good questions today. We certainly appreciate you. I'm sorry you're not catching it live, but without a Zach, I simply cannot manage that. It is too much for my little monkey brain to handle. I can only do a couple things at once, and managing a live stream while having a good conversation is not one of them. Wobcars.com if you want to see what they've got coming up on the auction sites, and if you'd rather pay cash instead of commission for your listings, we're here for you at Westside Collector Car Storage seven days a week. See you guys next time. Thanks very much. Bye.