TCG Stories

You may have noticed that sites like Bring A Trailer have incorporated a feature whereby bidders have the chance to work directly with the seller when a car doesn't sell. There's obvious reasons for this - and I'm sure it works reasonably well. Apparently, scams have materialized whereby an individual of nefarious means is able to infiltrate the seller/buyer channel and portray themselves as being able to sell the car to the runner-up bidder. 

Well, that's not good. And sadly, sellers of pricey exotic and collector cars are getting damn near close to falling for it. 

Running parallel to this is another phenomenon of second chances: sellers who then re-list their cars on multiple auction sites. The second chance in this instance is a rival auction platform, usually one with a smaller following but that still has plenty of traction online, meaning the world sees your car no sale-ing multiple times, typically with a lower final bid price.

It's a downside to the pressure sellers inevitably feel when their car doesn't sell at auction. Let's face it - if you've decided to auction your car, you probably have some urgency behind the decision to part ways. However, instead of running to the next auction platform, sellers should take a deep breath and at least attempt to make improvements before the next sale attempt, or otherwise demonstrate you don't hate the thing so much that you'll push it on three different websites inside of a month. 

If you use The Common Gear to store your records and create a "base camp," if you will, for your sales efforts, buyers will be less likely to speculate why you're selling your car. It's like interviewing a job candidate who has worked for three different employers 3.5 years: eventually, people start to wonder why. Even if you choose to roll the dice on different platforms, your profile on The Common Gear - which is shareable across all auction sites with one beautiful, consistent, URL - helps avoid the resale stench that permeates second chance offers and re-list dynamics. 

Create your Common Gear account, today, for free, and begin uploading your records, receipts, and improvements to your enthusiast vehicles. 

I hate to say this, but sometimes - in this hobby - it makes sense to spend more. Now, mind you, I don't say this from the perspective of whole cars, as I'm not in the position to just write a blank check. My approach is routinely driven by finding special vehicles in the sort of condition that allows them to be purchased as projects with a reasonable maintenance budget. 

Sure, I'd love to buy a pristine 964 chassis 911 Turbo. Maybe someday? Who knows. I need to stop staring at the Ryan Friedman website of all their current inventory. It just makes me sad. 

However, as a hobbyist like many of you, I try to navigate these channels the best way I can. Case in point: I wanted to buy some new wheels for my 1990 911 Carrera 4, to go along with the hardtop I purchased at the end of 2024. This car is likely to be the most valuable in my fleet now and into the future, so it made sense to invest in it further, which is why I held my breath and bought the hardtop. While a cabriolet will never be as desirable as a hardtop model, the gulf between the two is so significant that selling the cabrio for a  coupe doesn't close the gap enough to be sensible. The hardtop, however, helps the math make more sense, especially as it relates to increasing its desirability should it ever go up for sale. 

Now, I was pondering a set of "sewer cover" wheels from the 928, as these were the "winter fitment" option when the 964 was new. However, I had also been eyeing the 5-spoke wheels that Speedline manufactured on behalf of in-house Porsche tuner RUF back in the day. Ultimately, a set of these RUF wheels needing basic cosmetic refurbishment came up for sale from my preferred Porsche dismantler, Autobahn Dismantling, and I paid roughly $300 over a set of 928 rollers needing to be sandblasted and painted due to most of them being polished from the factory.

Did I want to blow the money right now? Not at all. Does the 964 need new wheels and tires? Nope, the D90s currently on it are in great shape and the tires near-new. However, there will be a day when you cannot buy a set of RUF Speedlines for the price I paid, just like the company in France that makes the hardtop will someday cease to exist. This is basic math at this point that for cars worthy of the investment, it just makes sense to pay more while you can afford it (which is why I was so enraged when the body shop I'd been patronizing seemingly lost valuable parts of my 190E 2.3-16 Cosworth's body kit). 

As a friend of mine who is building a garage would say, "The cheapest day to start building is today - the price will never go any lower." That is the universe we live in, and while I always recommend being financially prudent, in some cases, the prudent approach is to buy the rarest and cleanest parts you can until a time when you can buy the whole car.

Most people would say the restoration I took on with my junkyard find 1986 Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16 Cosworth was incredibly risky. It was; I banked most of my gamble on restoring a highly rusty, poorly repaired Cosworth on the knowledge that there was a small body shop that did proper metal repair for a pittance of professional shop costs. When the owner of that humble enterprise called me and said it was my turn to bring the Cosworth in, I was overjoyed. It meant my gamble paid off - I would be able to restore my high school dream car for far less than it should cost to literally cut out half of its rusty carcass and weld in new metal. 

At the end of the day, the car was more or less completed. The hard work was done. The only work not done was repainting the door jams, and I'm just going to live with that for now (they match, but there's a visible masking line.) However, the gentleman who did the work - let's call him Bob - worked for the guy who owned the space (let's call him Bill). Bill, sadly, passed away last year and was a gem of a human being. Bob, it turns out, was really only motivated to work by Bill, and without Bill, Bob seems content to let the whole operation collapse. In the same vein, he will complain that he never has any money, which is tied directly to his ability to start and complete projects in a timely fashion. Bill made sure he kept on task, but on his own, Bob is fairly useless.  

Because Bob is perpetually hard up for money, it's hard to not begin to wonder about his ethics when a valuable part goes missing. For instance: one of the best moves I made when I first bought the Cosworth was track down an entire spare body kit. If you know much about these limited-production Mercedes, you may know that the body kit is worth about $4,000 in terms of street value. I paid no where near that - this was 2018, I believe I paid $800 - and so, I happily left the replacement body kit with Bob because it was in much better shape than the one on the car.

However, I told Bob: under no uncertain terms, do not destroy the old body kit. I want it. It will be a useful set of spare parts. Except, I moved to Maryland in August '23. Bob was more or less working with no supervision, as Bill fell ill and stopped coming to the shop. When I recently asked Bob where my front air dam and side skirts were, he pointed his finger back at me, indicating I must have taken them. 

Plot twist: I didn't, and Bob knows this. Sadly, I think Bob either stupidly threw them away or sold them on Marketplace for a quick grand. While I couldn't have predicted that I would relocate 7 hours away during the course of this multi-year restoration, I am still disappointed that someone I trusted could be so irresponsible. I'm also mad at myself for not being more engaged and ensuring all of my physical property was accounted for, but up to that point, I had no reason to believe they wouldn't be. The shop had been fairly astute about keeping my old parts and putting them in the car when they were no longer needed.  

We've searched every place they could have been left; I'm pretty confident they're gone for good. Lesson learned: don't let your eyes off of your restoration or other long-term project no matter the trust level, and if you can't physically check into the shop on a regular basis, find a proxy to do so on your behalf. It may seem crazy, but if helps keep everyone honest, it's worth every penny to hire your buddy for beer and scratch-off tickets to monitor progress when you can't physically do it yourself. Now, I'm off to eBay to search for some overpriced Cosworth parts to have on the shelf for a rainy day. 

Here at TCG, we consider ourselves fortunate to be in a unique position with a solution for digital record keeping that has historically been challenging to solve. One of the bigger issues we see is that even so-called leaders and influencers in the enthusiast/hobby car world is a lack of understanding about the importance of digitized records and how they should serve the interests of owners, present and future.

Recently, Doug Tabbutt of Switch Cars talked about how a 911 GT3 his dealership has had the privilege of selling more than once came with omissions in the service record file. He knows this because Doug has built, to his credit, an encyclopedic-knowledge base of all 996/997 GT cars in his GTvault database. So, Doug believes that because the dealer that sold the car after him omitted some records that you can't rely on service records to tell a car's story - and that he could "fix" this thanks to holding the records in his hand.

Two problems: one, he only possesses this knowledge for a very small group of limited-production cars that rarely come up for sale. And two, when the records are held by the dealer or a broker like Doug, this problem WILL continue to occur. When the records are digitized and held by a third-party - like the car's actual owner - transparency is maintained. This is what The Common Gear provides, as the records are in the hands of the private owners and fully transferable from caretaker to caretaker.

The issue of records "deletion" will never be solved. Even if you still hand a bunch of 3-ring binders over to the next caretaker, you can strip out any paper records that could prove problematic. But leaving the records entirely in the hands of dealers (and let's be clear - Doug IS a dealer), you will forever be exposing private owners to the perils of records manipulation. 

The recent - and ongoing - California wildfires are absolutely devastating. There's no other way to describe it. The losses are staggering, and while human life has largely been spared, we ache for those that have perished. 

Photos have been trickling in of property losses, and among them, the destruction of specialty and vintage vehicles. If you wade into any number of Facebook groups, these photos are often met with reactions like, "They're only metal, people have lost their lives," or "Who cares? It's just a car." Sure, fair enough. But those cars are often owned for one, if not two,reasons: they hold some sentimental value for its owners, or they were purchased for their long-term value potential. Either reason is valid. And many caretakers of vintage cars have continued to own them after nostalgia combined with surprising price increases that justified their continued presence in the garage. 

Now, for a tough question: how many of those owners backed up vital records, certificate of authenticity, service invoices, in a digital format? Or, were most lost in the fire, just like the cars themselves? I know a gentleman from Hollywood who owns north of $2 million in collector-grade air-cooled VWs and Porsches, and when I asked him how his records were backed up, he pointed to a file cabinet. Obviously, many of us save things this way, but how sobering is it to think that the hundreds of thousands of dollars in restoration receipts could suddenly be gone?

As we increasingly see in high-risk areas like Florida, insurance carriers are simply pulling out of risky markets. I do wonder how the wildfires will affect how even collector policy writers look at insuring cars in high-risk states, especially when well-heeled collectors could simply store their collection elsewhere. 

But what about the folks outside of the 1 percent who still own special vehicles, cars and trucks with significant time and money behind them? Where's the evidence of your work? The Common Gear is a platform that allows you to securely upload your records so the digital footprint of that car or truck is never lost, and you're equipped with ample evidence to show your insurance carrier of the investment you've made that justifies your pay-out. Being made whole and all that, as empty as this promise seems after you lose everything. At the end of the day, however, if it's between you and the guy who doesn't have any paperwork behind his valuation claim, which one do you think the insurance company is going to pay the agreed amount to? We all want to believe the likes of Hagerty will do right by us in times of need, but the simple truth is you just don't know until you're in the unfortunate position of having to find out. 

We are truly sorry for the heartbreak many in California are experiencing right now. There are no words. At The Common Gear, we stand ready to digitize your records and preserve your car's legacy. Create a free account today. 

We try not to beat our own chest here at The Common Gear, but in reviewing a recent Bring A Trailer listing for a car that previously belonged to yours truly, we see our value proposition in vibrant, living color. 

The car in question was my 1995 Audi S6 Avant. I didn't realize the gentleman who bought it promptly sold it three weeks later, but I'm not surprised. He was hot to trot when I posted it for sale and barely haggled. I figured he had plans for the car, but didn't realize it included attempting a quick flip. He wasn't successful, ultimately, with the S6 selling for $500 less than he paid me. But what's significant is the comments in the BaT listing wherein a commenter (oh, those dreaded commenters!) posted a link to the digital portfolio I had created for the S6 over the years I owned it. 

First, a quick tutorial: when you enter a vehicle into the TCG portal, and then begin to post updates (repairs, upgrades, general anecdotes), all of that data is catalogued "behind" that VIN number. Then, when you decide to sell the car, you can create a for sale listing that pulls all of that data into one convenient URL - and when I go to sell a car, I always drop that link into my craigslist, Marketplace, and any forum ads that I post. Well, that link was shared for my S6 in the auction comments section, with the original poster and a potential bidder commenting that the URL was a wealth of information for anyone considering buying the car from afar. 

Really, folks, this is exactly the point of TCG. We wanted to create an extension of your auction listing, or simply offer a robust way to sell a car on your own, knowing what it lacks in professional photos (though you can absolutely add those) or the concierge-grade experience of an auction service (though for a fee, we'll give you the white-glove treatment and build your car's portfolio from start to finish), you get back in total control over providing an exploded view of the value you've added to a car over the months or years of your ownership.

For all my railing against BAT, it is encouraging to see listings like these that demonstrate the incredible value TCG provides as a means of extending the value of an auction, or any for sale listing - so create a free account today and begin tracking your vehicle's progress and history. 

Today, I commenced the purchase of a 1992 Mercedes-Benz 500E. This is a car I've had on my radar for a while but hadn't taken seriously; a chance web search that led to me registering for the predominant 500E enthusiast forum, 500eboard.co. Within about 5 minutes of registering, I spotted the (amazingly) perfect candidate: a driver-quality 500E with some straightforward issues, and basic cosmetic flaws. On top of that, the price was reasonable and on the low end of the current trajectory for the model. 

It occured to me that with the exception of the cars I pulled out of junkyards and my daily driver, all of my other cars were discovered on message boards. The Z3 M Coupe, the '87 325is, the E55, the 964 Cabriolet, and now the 500E, all procured for very reasonable prices and all snagged outside of the watchful eye of Bring A Trailer. A few things stand out about this phenomenon: 

Forums are native spaces for older enthusiasts: I registered for my first web forum when I was 16 on the VWVortex. I am now 42 and message boards are imprinted on my brain as the place to go "meet" other enthusiasts, monitor projects, and log my own updates. Most importantly, it's a place where I frequently spot cars without much competition given an entire demographic has never even registered for a message board. My E30 and M Coupe were spotted on Bimmerforums; the 964 on Rennlist; the E55 on BenzForums; and now, the 500E on a dedicated message board I discovered this week. 

You get to know the owner: The real advantage to the forums is the exposure it provides to the seller. Within a few minutes, you have a phone number and a chance to hear the seller's voice. In addition, they're not skittish about "spooking" a potential bidder, or rushing you off the phone because they perceive six bidders to be six other suitors. Basically, you get quality one-on-one time with the guy you're hoping is as coherent as he sounds in his listing. 

The negotiations are kept private: One of the most frustrating things about Facebook groups or online auctions tends to be the nature of the comments. I've gone on at length about the damage armchair quarterbacks cause to auctions they'll never bid on, or the ruthless commentary in Facebook groups where 9 times out of 9.5, the first comment is a gripe about the price which only serves to dissuade others from making an offer. With a message board, there's a posted price and then there's what you pay when discussed in private. There's a gentleman's agreement (likely owing to the predominantly older/mature user base) that says if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything. For my 500E, I saved about $4,000 off the posted price, and the seller got 1:1 interaction with someone who was committed to buying his car and provided a clear plan for doing so. 

Like so many things in life, too many of us choose the path of least resistance. A Bring A Trailer auction is very easy to find, and you can even pretend to buy a car by bidding on something you'll never own. Forums expect you do a little homework on your own, from finding the best website for your chosen marque or model to registering and sharing some insights that then serve to elevate your privileges so you can do things like contact sellers of cars you're interested in. After that, it's up to you to handle negotiations and put on your big boy pants to maybe speak with someone on the phone. In a nutshell, you have to put in some work to find these opportunities. You can't just log on and hang out. You have to earn the privilege of status in the forum, something BaT used to do a pretty good job of before they let any noodnink with an internet connection weigh in on cars they'll never buy. 

BaT evangelists will tell you that's too much work and that the experience buying there is far simpler, and made more enjoyable due to the comments section; that's fine with me, as I'll gladly use the traditional message board to snag cars right out from under their noses. There's a reason some forums continue to endure despite the damage done by Facebook and online auctions, and it's because people like me and thousands of others keep them alive with good commentary and transparent intentions. 

I've written a few times lately about how damaging the comments gallery is on Bring A Trailer, but a car that sold recently shows the other side of the same coin: it's also largely ineffective when the vehicle in question is above reproach. In other words, the BaT comments apparatus has been shown to hurt good sellers of good cars, and be largely ineffective against mediocre sellers of great cars.

Related: Over the summer, I sold a handful vehicles to declutter my mind and garage. One was a 1999 911; another was my 1995 Audi S6 Avant. Both were drivers, and very well maintained. The 911 I stuck with a fairly firm price of around $20K while the S6 I priced somewhat aggressively due to its mediocre paint quality. The S6 sold in about a day, because of its rarity and turnkey condition; the 911 took closer to 2 months, owing to the fact I wasn't giving it away and there's a dozen 996s like mine that wasn't a particularly amazing spec. It proved to me that, once again, it's about the car. 

As a 964 owner, I watch the market fairly closely for this era of 911, and took a keen interest in the listing for this 32K-mile 1989 Carrera 4. This was a special car for a few reasons beyond the mileage; namely, it was determined to be a "Venture Tour" car which was a Porsche-sanctioned driving event across Europe for the first batch of 964s. They were all Guards Red and limited by VIN. This was one of those cars, not that the seller cared: he took average photos, barely engaged in the comments, and didn't upload a single cold-start video. It still sold for $96,000. 

What I love about this result is it shows you how cars that aren't particularly hard to find, or that otherwise don't stand out in a significant way, can easily be impacted by the comment section of an auction. You know, the ones that belong to folks with a decent income but not mega millionaires - the people who really want to see every dollar back out of their investment. The individuals with the landmark vehicles really don't need to sweat the comments, or give into the demands of a virtual lynch mob. The seller of the above-referenced 911 was berated multiple times for not taking professional photos (which he addressed by noting that the BaT staff took too long to find him a photographer - the guy lives in the Chicago suburbs, not exactly a remote location), for some non-existent issue regarding the bumper mesh, and for not answering every sniveling, dumb-ass question that non-buyers on BaT love to ask. My favorite comment is this:

Say what you will about the seller and the photos, a low mileage aircooled 911 is still going to bring the money. It seemed to only bother the non-bidders.

BINGO! The seller of this 964 is like a presidential candidate who won't debate: why subject myself to the ridicule of an audience that isn't voting for me, anyway? Why even engage, and give them the chance to pick my answer apart on a massive forum? The same logic applies here. I'm sure a buyer not interested in flexing his internet muscles reached out to the seller, found a time to either inspect the car in person or run it through a PPI, and bid accordingly, given this looked like an excellent specimen of a 964. 

No matter where you choose to sell, if the car is a home run, it will sell like one. If it raises doubts in the mind of a buyer - whether virtual or standing in front of you - it won't. Kudos to this seller for not bending to the whims of the internet comment army, which would have only led to his auction suffering as a result.

By the way, you can store your records and build a pretty nice portfolio for your car on The Common Gear, and use it to either sell your car privately or drop a link in the comments section of your auction to create a simple, secure path to all your records and maintenance for potential buyers to view virtually. Check it out! 

A few days ago, I laid bare some of the issues with the Bring A Trailer commenting system (you can read that diatribe here), with the crux of the issue being that rogue commenters can derail an auction, even when they have no intention of bidding. 

After posting this article to Substack and Instagram, a follower on IG reached out to tell me that I should dig a little deeper into the BaT user at the heart of the issues with the Lotus Elise auction, BiffNotZeem, as he was the user that flagged a non-existent title issue as reason for proceeding with caution. While not scientific in theory, it stands to reason that he spooked at least a few bidders, and the Lotus sold for a paltry $29,000. 

The IG user encouraged me to look at a car BiffNotZeem sold to none other than Magnus Walker, the well-known Porsche collector. The BaT auction was for a Lotus Esprit, and you can view the auction here. Like most BaT listings, the post-sale comments get far less attention than when the auction is live, and most users probably didn't check back to see how unhappy Magnus was with the car when it showed up. It had all sorts of issues, from the clutch fluid leaking out of the car to the carbs being plugged up, not to mention the driver's door not opening. BiffNotZeem would reference this in another auction for an Aston Martin V8 Vantage, one of a myriad of listings where he logs a handful of bids with no shot of ever buying the car, essentially advising sellers not to park their cars while a listing is in progress, because in his case, he "....would have caught the issue and corrected it before the sale." 

OK, first of all: parking your car that is currently being auctioned is the one piece of advice I give anyone considering driving the car while it's being bid on. It's terrible advice to recommend using a car while it's effectively being sold. Additionally, there is no way he didn't know about the variety of issues present with the Lotus that Magnus purchased, and you can hear more about his experience with the car post-purchase on a 2018 episode of The Smoking Tire Podcast with Matt Farah. 

So, the irony here is pretty thick that the guy who regularly never bids high enough to buy a car on BaT and who firebombed another seller's listing is accused of the exact same sort of bad behavior that led to one of the more prolific car collectors of our day having a fairly negative experience on BaT. Combine this with other automotive personalities like Tyler Hoover also getting screwed over on a BaT purchase by virtue of a seller who never once had to answer for his actions with the BaT leadership team and you really have to wonder why they continue to enjoy the reputation that they do. 

In the end, it's slightly bananas to me that a so-called Lotus expert from Washington State can both disparage sellers while also selling a car with notable issues and consistently place numerous no-impact bids with no repercussions. He whines about being threatened with lawsuits, and how he will no longer share his insights on BaT because of it. Look at one of his last comments: "Even though I have deep experience with particular cars, I don’t comment on vehicles here anymore. Threat of litigation after I said only positive things but had some paperwork questions that wouldn’t deter me from bidding let me know that things have changed since I sold my most recent Esprit here."

If they can fool Magnus Walker with a dog of a car, they can certainly fool you - all while so-called experts continue to rule the day via an unchecked comments section. That's why you should consider selling your car yourself on The Common Gear. 

There's been a recurring theme among numerous disappointed sellers on Bring A Trailer that seems to be a uniquely BaT problem - and one they clearly have no desire of fixing. This issue, and the thousands of dollars it costs good, honest sellers, is one of the more disturbing aspects of online auctions, and it's high time sellers stop accepting it. 

A thread popped up on the popular message board Lotus Talk ("My Bring A Trailer Nightmare"), wherein the now-former owner of a 1998 Lotus Elise S1 shared what amounted to a travesty of an auction. The thread is a year old at this point, but it warrants bringing up to the surface because the seller's experience is not unique. The abridged version is this: two commenters were allowed to question the car's legal, titled status (as it was a British-market import), which almost certainly introduced enough doubt to scare anyone off who had never dealt with such a car before. The commenters in question had no intention of buying or bidding on the car, and instead simply created a distraction about a non-existent issue. While BaT did strike some of the comments, the one that started the snowball effect - by a poster named "BiffNotZeem" - was allowed to stand, the gist of which was, "This one time, at band camp, the U.S. title provided with the vehicle wasn't the right one and the car was seized by the Feds and destroyed. The family dog was also killed in the process." 

It was an utterly useless comment that I'm certain caused more than one bidder who have never dealt with an imported car to stop participating. One thing I've learned over the years is that I, personally, have a strong stomach for buying cars with no paper trails and figuring out how to get them legally registered. 98 percent of the car-buying population does not, and I have seen more than one car sold for scrap because of perceived title issues. Put simply, it's a big deal to most people, and one that will absolutely cause an auction to flatline. 

To add insult to injury, the seller was unaware that BaT does you the "favor" of closing the gap between your (forced and low) reserve price to make the sale. When the car stalled out just shy of his reserve - a number he begrudgingly accepted because the BaT auction specialist told him it was sail past that number - he thought he would be able to keep his car and sell it privately. Instead, to his shock, he saw the car sold for a tick over the reserve. Car sold, and he left easily about $10,000 on the table. 

To be fair, I have been surprised time and again to see the sale prices of some no reserve cars go far higher than expected. I will not sit here and say you can't create some legitimate buzz with a NR sale. However, when you combine forcing either NR or a very low reserve on sellers and then fail to stop commenters with no intention of bidding on your car from striking fear in the hearts of potential bidders, it's an absolute disaster for sellers. Had I been in a place to contact the seller of the above-referenced Lotus, I would have told him to keep his car and never engage with the high bidder, because a rash of no sales driven by sellers whose auctions were unfairly (and likely, illegally) damaged by bad actors in the comments section is the only way to force BaT to change. 

I have seen more than one person defend the comments section on BaT as some sort of bastion of car auction free press, letting the market inform buyers and ridicule sellers about what they don't know. It's not: I guarantee you someone at BaT has figured out there's money to be made on auctions where the engagement spikes because of what's unfolding beneath the pretty pictures and boilerplate car details, and they have zero interest in helping clamp down the insurrection as it unfolds (if anything, they have likely figured out how to fan the flames to their benefit - an old newsroom saying, "If it bleeds, it leads", comes to mind). The intake team will roll out the red carpet for the 1 percenters and firebomb anyone who interferes with the auctions belonging to sellers of six-figure supercars, but for the rest of you, stop: take a moment to consider selling your car yourself, privately. Your bank account - and your soul - will thank you.