Alex Porter from Bring-a-Trailer discusses their $1.7 billion in sales last year, how to list on BaT and what era of cars is popping next.
CarCast
Alex Porter from Bring-a-Trailer discusses their $1.7 billion in sales last year, how to list on BaT and what era of cars is popping next.
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Company
Bring a Trailer
Bring a Trailer is a website where people can buy and sell cars through online auctions. It's known for featuring interesting and unique vehicles, especially classic cars.
Company
Barrett-Jackson
Barrett-Jackson is a company that holds car auctions where people can buy and sell collectible cars. It's famous for featuring rare and valuable vehicles.
Term
engine stampings
Engine stampings are numbers and codes found on the engine that help identify it. They are important for knowing if a car is original or has been changed, which can affect its value.
Term
real SS
A 'real SS' means that a car is an authentic Super Sport model, which is a special performance version of certain cars. Collectors want to know if a car is truly an SS because it can be worth more.
Car
Ford Mustang
The Ford Mustang is a famous sports car that many people love for its speed and design. It has been around for a long time and has many different versions.
Car
Ferrari 360
Car
Ferrari 360 Modena
The Ferrari 360 Modena is a high-performance sports car made by Ferrari. It's known for being very fast and having a beautiful design.
Term
posi
'Posi' is short for a special type of car part called a limited-slip differential. It helps both back wheels get power from the engine, making the car grip better when driving fast or turning.
Term
four speed
A four-speed transmission is a type of car gearbox that lets you choose from four different speeds while driving. It helps the car perform better and gives you more control.
Term
six figures
Six figures means a number that has six digits, which usually refers to prices that are at least $100,000. It's often used to describe very expensive cars.
Concept
air-cooled Porsche
Air-cooled Porsches are older models that don't use water to cool their engines. Instead, they rely on air, which gives them a special sound and feel.
Car
Ford F-250
The Ford F-250 is a strong pickup truck that can carry heavy loads and is often used for work or towing. It's larger and more powerful than regular trucks.
Car
Ford Mustang GT500
The 1967 Mustang GT500 is a special version of the Ford Mustang that is famous for its speed and style. Many people love it and collect it because it's a classic car.
Car
Dodge Challenger
The 1970 Challenger is a classic car that many people love for its powerful engines and cool looks. It's often used in racing and is a favorite among collectors.
Term
open trailer
An open trailer is a flatbed trailer where cars are loaded and transported without any cover. This means the car is exposed to rain, dirt, and other things on the road.
Term
enclosed trailer
An enclosed trailer is a type of trailer that completely covers the car while it's being transported. This keeps the car safe from rain, dirt, and other hazards on the road.
Car
Porsche 911
The Porsche 911 is a famous sports car that has been around since 1964. It's known for its unique shape and powerful performance, making it a favorite among car lovers.
Car
Porsche 92 Porsche
The Porsche 924 is a sporty car made by the German company Porsche, built between 1976 and 1988. It was designed to be more affordable than other Porsche models, making it a popular choice for those wanting a sporty car without breaking the bank.
Part
aftermarket intercooler
An aftermarket intercooler is a part that helps cool the air going into the engine, which can make the engine run better and produce more power. It's often added to cars to improve their performance.
Car
Porsche
Porsche is a famous car brand from Germany that makes high-performance sports cars. They are well-known for their quality and speed.
Term
VIN number
A VIN number is a special code that helps identify a specific car. It's like a fingerprint for vehicles, showing details about where and when it was made.
Car
Porsche 930 Turbo
The Porsche 930 Turbo is a special version of the Porsche 911 that has a turbocharger, making it faster and more powerful. Many owners like to modify these cars to make them even better.
Part
K27 turbo
A K27 turbo is a type of device that helps an engine produce more power by forcing more air into it. It's often used in sports cars to make them faster.
Concept
RWB car
RWB cars are special modified Porsches that have wide body kits and unique designs. They're known for their flashy looks and performance upgrades, making them quite different from regular Porsches.
Concept
old muscle car
Old muscle cars are classic American cars from the 1960s and 70s that are known for being fast and powerful. They often have big engines and a sporty look, making them popular among car enthusiasts.
Concept
modified car
A modified car is one that has been changed from how it was originally built. People often modify cars to make them faster, look better, or work differently than they did when new.
Car
Lamborghini Miras
The Lamborghini Miura is a famous sports car made from 1966 to 1973, often called the first supercar because of its powerful engine and beautiful design. It's very popular among collectors today.
Car
Honda S2000
The Honda S2000 is a small two-seat sports car made from 1999 to 2009. It's known for being fun to drive because of its powerful engine and great handling.
Car
Chevrolet Camaro
The Chevrolet Camaro is a classic American sports car that started being made in 1966 to compete with the Ford Mustang. It's known for its strong engines and sporty look, making it a favorite for people who love fast cars.
Car
Acura Nsxs
The Acura NSX is a high-performance sports car that first came out in 1990. It was special because it offered supercar performance while still being practical enough for everyday driving.
Car
Porsche 911 GT3
The Porsche 911 GT3 is a super sporty version of the regular 911, made for people who love to drive fast and enjoy racing. It has a powerful engine and is built to be lightweight, making it very fun to drive.
Car
Ferrari LaFerrari
The Ferrari LaFerrari is a super-fast sports car made by Ferrari between 2013 and 2015. It's special because it uses both a gas engine and an electric motor to go really fast while being more efficient.
Car
Bmw 2002S
The BMW 2002 is a small car made by BMW from 1968 to 1976. It's known for being fun to drive and is considered a classic among car fans.
Car
Datsun 240Zs
The Datsun 240Z is a stylish sports car made by Nissan from 1969 to 1978. It's known for being fun to drive and affordable, helping to make Japanese sports cars popular in America.
Car
Toyota Corollas
The Toyota Corolla is a very popular car that has been around since 1966. It's known for being reliable and affordable, making it a great choice for people looking for a practical vehicle.
Car
Dodge Viper
The Dodge Viper is a super-fast sports car made in America from 1992 to 2017. It's known for its powerful engine and unique look, making it a favorite among people who love speed.
Car
Tesla Cybertruck
The Tesla Cybertruck is an electric pickup truck that looks very different from regular trucks. It was announced in 2019 and is designed to be strong and high-tech, appealing to those who want a modern vehicle.
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Hello, welcome to CarCast. I'm Matt, the Motorator, D'Andre here with Bill Goldberg. How are you?
Bride-eyed and booksy-tailed for the first show of 2026.
Well, our first show, my second show, Alistair was on. He flew back from his world-wind trip in the UK, right?
Because his wife is from France, so he has to go to the UK, and then France, and then a bit of back and forth.
He was up at 2 a.m. when his son decided to wake up for the time change and the jet lag, and he's like,
it's amazing what you can get done between 2 a.m. and 8 a.m. when nobody's bothering you in emails,
and your phone's not ringing, and none of that.
I know that part of parenting quite well.
Yeah, I know. I know you do.
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Welcome to the show, Alex Porter. Alex is from Bring a Trailer.
He's, let's say, one of the operations guys, one of the bosses over at Bring a Trailer.
And I think, so we had Howard on a while back, and we were, we just thought it was kind of fun to kind of go through
and reflect on the year of what was happening at Bring a Trailer, crunch some numbers.
And I'll tell you, like, I looked at some of the specs, you know, some of the data,
and there's no slowing down, Bring a Trailer is crushing it. People just love what's going on over there,
even though several other things have started to pop up, and there's, you know, let's just say, there's competitors.
But for us, as enthusiasts like Bill and I, we can pop on all these sites and just see what's fun and what's new
and what cars are going for and what are being sold.
But Bring a Trailer sort of paved the way for that, for online auctions.
Tell us a little bit about what you do at Bring a Trailer, and then we'll get into how the year was.
You know, Alex, before you do that, give us a definition of what Bring a Trailer is, right?
So I'm an auction guy. The only auction I go to is Barrett. I've done it through, you know, 20, 25 years.
It's an allegiance that I have for him.
And so for a person in the muscle car market who just does live auctions and they are being introduced to what Bring a Trailer is,
can you please, in a very short synopsis, tell us what it is?
I absolutely can. First off, thanks for having me, guys. I really appreciate it. I know that painful part of parenting as well.
I have three kids and boy am I glad they're back at school.
Yeah, sure. I'm happy to talk a little bit about the year and review map, but Bill, to your point first,
Bring a Trailer has a lot of similarities to what we often call tentpole auctions like Barrett Jackson.
I went to Barrett Jackson last year in Arizona and had a hoot. I'm going to be back there this year.
It's really fun. We can't exactly replicate that because we're entirely online.
But there are a couple big advantages to having an online auction.
I would say the biggest of which is you have a week to look at the car and to look at hundreds of photos and videos and really to pour over the car.
And maybe the biggest thing that is different is our community of a million plus people and the comments that happen on every auction,
which you're probably familiar with, Matt. I know you are for sure. You've been through the ringer on those.
They're kind of a catch 22. A lot of sellers.
I appreciate the comments. A lot of them find them irritating, but there's a lot of Mark experts in there.
And there's people asking a lot of questions about the car and the seller has an opportunity to engage with potential buyers, right?
To really go back and forth with them, answer questions about the car.
And, you know, as you know very well, Bill, you're buying the seller a lot of times, not just the car, right?
And so an opportunity to get to know that person is a real advantage.
Thank you.
Yeah. What I found was, first of all, the comments section, it sort of self-irregulated itself from the beginning to become a valuable piece.
Instead of being, you know, not to dig on YouTube, this isn't YouTube comments, right?
Where everything just seems to be trying to poke the bear.
Where the bring a trailer comments have always been, you know, for the most part, you'll always find information there that is really helpful.
Someone may even post a car and not know a ton about that making model of car or something about it, right?
And you will get these experts popping in going, have you checked this? Have you checked that?
You know, we know a bit about these cars, you know, this is what we really like about them.
And, you know, just and even the playing field, some may go, you know, it's not as rare as it seems because, you know, because of this and this and this, right?
Like, you know, maybe some options are sort of overvalued.
Yeah, totally.
And I would say for muscle car options in particular, Bill, you'll know this better than anybody.
Muscle car people are very particular about, you know, engine stampings and broach marks on those engine stampings.
And, you know, we've had to become experts on all that stuff ourselves here.
And so the comments get really lively.
Is that a real SS? Is that not a real SS? All that kind of stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
Comments and it's really important, I think, for those things to be out in the air and for everyone who's thinking about bidding on the car to know exactly what it is and what it isn't.
Goldberg is a guy that's restored and had restored several muscle cars.
And you're right.
In that in that particular genre, it is kind of interesting having dealt with a bunch of European cars, old Lamborghinis, old Ferraris.
Think about the lawman mustang.
Think about the stuff that warms worked on you for you, Bill, is like, it's down to like the pen mark, you know, like, there's like, the factory has this pen mark, you know, you know, on the rear end.
And it was this shade of yellow.
And it's just like and all it is is just like somebody at the factory, you know, kind of marking something off like it was done.
You know, what did that mean?
Right.
And and the one thing I saw over the years of Barrett Jackson is you'll see a car come up there and be like, you know, you know, Ferrari 360 Modena, you know, gated shifter manual transmission.
You know, here's the spec.
It's yellow tan interior.
Good to go.
And then a muscle car comes again and goes, this is the only one with the four speed with the 327 rear end of the posi.
It was like, it's the only one with that combination.
But with the houndstooth interior, people go, what what's going on?
Like wires are so it's more about the build sheet than it is just the VIN spec.
You know, like it there's there's a lot of that going on.
So I kind of like that that chatter on on bring a trailer and getting into that information.
And for a buyer and a seller, it's it's a huge plus.
Yes.
Let's be perfectly honest.
I'm going to be listing my 9 11 sometime soon, hopefully on bring a trailer and I'm going to do my due diligence.
As I said, I'm an auction guy.
I'm a Barrett Jackson guy.
So I really didn't know what you guys had to offer from the outside looking in.
You're going to think it's an auto trader on on on the internet.
Yeah.
But it's so much more than that.
And I am one of the people that passed judgment before he really knew.
And I'm a car guy.
And so I can see how other people probably did the same thing.
But after years of following you guys and what you do, I cannot thank you enough from both a buyer and a seller's perspective for what you guys do.
I mean, it's really informative.
It truly is.
And I mean, I got this 9 11.
It's got 48,000 miles on it.
929 11 turbo beautiful car.
I'm a muscle car guy.
I don't know 100% of everything about this car.
I have learned a plethora of information through just watching past auctions.
The different listings, the way sellers list their vehicle, it's the same kind of thing.
And you just have to understand what people are doing.
And it's it's out in the open.
It's it's right in your face.
And it's it's a it's a perfect option for guys like me.
So thank you guys greatly for doing what you're doing.
Oh my gosh, that's those are that's strong praise and I'll I'll take it.
I am.
I'm glad you're showing pictures here, Matt of the car.
Yeah.
Bill all about it.
I was looking Bill right before we jumped on.
I was looking to see if you'd already submitted it because I wanted to move your listing through.
I'm excited to help once we actually get it in the system.
So 48,000.
It's a 964 turbo.
Those have been having a real moment.
I don't know if you've noticed that we've been well.
Yes, 100.
You're you're you've got perfect timing here.
It's been three sixes that we've been selling recently.
But man, I mean, we had a couple go for over 800 grand.
We had a black one just like that the bad boys car sell for 600.
I think on the on the last day of the year.
So perfect timing.
How long do you have the car?
Good God, I've probably had it for almost 20 years.
Oh, good for you.
You're ahead of the curve.
Oh, exciting.
I'm very lucky because the car is too small for me.
So I haven't put my probably put 500 miles on it since I've owned the car.
No kidding.
Is it does it have sports seats?
What's the what's the spec?
Yes, sir.
Oh, man, that's the good stuff.
That's the good stuff.
Oh, that's good.
People are going to be excited about that.
Now, here's a question for you that comes with celebrity ownership.
Are you comfortable with us saying it's like your car and your name and
everything and kind of promoting the car as your vehicle?
100 100 percent.
I mean, we've been here doing it on a podcast for a month.
Obviously, that's that's part of the cell.
You know, I mean, what I do also like about your site is that the car drives
the interest, not the fact of the previous owner, right?
Yeah.
Now, I can add to it, but I don't want it to be front and center because
it's all about the car.
Yeah.
I just happen to own it and I'm lucky enough to have to have jumped in the,
you know, the air cool Porsche kind of frenzy.
And, you know, I'm a muscle car guy.
I don't know a lot about this car.
What what started as a 2005 twin turbo that I had and and sold to Jesse
James, I had to replace it.
And I wanted an analog car and that was the car for me.
Unfortunately, I didn't test fit myself in the vehicle and therefore it became
my wife's car and my wife likes to drive her her F 250 a lot more than she likes
to drive a beautiful Porsche.
So it's just it's been sitting here and truth be told.
And as as Matt will tell you, over the past two years, I've completely
reevaluated my collection and I don't believe I had a 68 Yanko RSS one of
I don't know six grotto blues and it sat in my garage and I'm really into
these cars and I put my life into them and I put my heart and soul into them.
And if I've got something that's sitting, there's another human being on the
planet that may look at that car and it could be the pinnacle of their
collection.
It might be the one that they've been looking for their entire lives.
And I think someone else would be better suited to have this vehicle right now
than myself because it's off to the side.
So I don't know if I'm getting old.
Yes, I'm sentimental.
I'm I'm sharing I'm sharing my wealth with the with the with the basses,
you know, I guess at the end of the day.
If this was the one of one car that I was searching for and my entire life
attaining that vehicle was my goal, I'd be greatly appreciative that somebody
would pull it out of their collection and put it up for sale so that someone
else can, you know, it can provide memories for somebody else and maybe
make a dream come true.
So it's just another way of getting out there.
And yes, I have absolutely no problem saying that it's my vehicle.
But at the end of the day, the vehicle sells itself.
You'd be surprised that such like well-known people don't necessarily
want their name associated with cars.
So that's why that's why I ask you're right, Matt.
We're here promoting it.
So maybe it doesn't matter.
Do you find, Bill, you miss those cars when you let them go as you reevaluate?
Like, do you miss the Yanco?
A thousand percent.
Yes.
No question.
67 GT 500, Moss Green.
I mean, there are some cars.
I had a 70 Challenger drag car that was a national record holder.
There are some cars that, yes, I'm very upset that I got rid of.
But again, at the end of the day, I know whoever got them values them more
in their collection than I was at the time.
So again, it's about sharing the wealth.
It's what car guys do.
One of the things that I was kind of joked around with Adam Kroll about was he was going,
you know, he would also look at maybe one of the cars in the collection,
go, this isn't a car I'm going to drive.
I love this car.
You know, whatever.
It's a vintage Lamborghini.
It's gorgeous.
I love it.
I always wanted one.
But now I've had it and I've had it for a few years.
And I don't really drive it much.
He's like, I took it to Jay Leno's garage or something,
or we took it to the Rodeo Drive, you know, Bruce Meyers Rodeo Drive event,
his Father's Day event.
And he's like, maybe we should sell it.
And I would say, OK, but then what else do you want to get?
I said, don't sell it and then like go on vacation.
I go, that's not, let's not shift the money there.
You know what I'm saying?
Like if you have to, like if you have to sell it and you got to pay taxes or
something that I get it, sell it, pay taxes.
I go, but can we get the collection to the point of going, OK, let's sell a car
because there's a different car you want to get in the, in the collection.
It was kind of a fun thing.
And yes, it sort of evolved into that way and how he's got the Paul Newman
collection and stuff as well.
Like we've replaced street cars with racing cars, which he does take to the track
and race, right?
So, but Bill, also to your point is, yes, like the blue and white, you know,
sack car behind me, I never had a car in the collection that I felt like
you couldn't drive because it was so few miles.
And then after owning that car for a couple of years, it became more frustrating
than it was enjoyable.
And I love that car.
I always wanted one of those cars, but I shouldn't buy one with 3,000 miles on it.
I should buy one with 30,000 miles on it, you know, and and and be able to take it
out and drive it because the few times those are the stages we go through as
collect.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I know now for sure I'm not a collector for the sake of collecting.
I would be a collector for the sake of being able to drive them.
I'm not saying it needs 10,000 miles a year, but for me to get in and go,
do I want to take it to, you know, the open house event at the Peter Center?
I was like, yeah, you know, what's the round trip?
What's the miles?
What's it going to do?
I just don't want to do that math in my head because it takes all the fun out of
it.
Right.
Your life.
Yes.
All right.
So bring a trailer back to bring a trailer.
But yes, thank you.
That's a little tangent of ours that Bill and I have been talking about for a while.
The cars and the collection, how it should should evolve.
I don't know if it was Randy who was on or Howard that was on that when we spoke about
bring a trailer had grown to an amazing number, 1.2 billion in sales.
But I just went through the notes and looked at the recap.
You guys crush that.
Yeah.
1.7 1.71 billion this year.
That which is stuck out in my mind where the were the top, the top grossing vehicles.
Yeah, we had huge like record record sales this year, a borderline record.
We sold two Chiron's, which was crazy.
I mean, these are cars, you know, that a lot of times traditionally would have only gone
to a tentpole type auction, right?
So to sell those kinds of cars, the only can't remember the color of it right now, but the
only blue La Ferrari.
So like really, really interesting cars.
I will admit those aren't exactly my cup of tea.
I prefer older cars myself, but but it's cool to list those and it's cool to have them on
the site.
I will also say, Bill, you're asking, I don't I hate to sound like I'm promoting bring a
trailer like a like a salesperson, but well, it's your job.
The guy who stole the Ferrari, he paid $99 to sell that car.
That was the whole I was his entire fee, right?
So and the buyer paid $7,500 and that's the entire amount of money it costs to sell that car,
at least in terms of fees to us.
So and that's true for the Chiron's and for all those things.
So advertise that exponentially because at the end of the day, that's that's a tidbit
of information that is extremely valuable because once you do the percentages, you know,
I mean, you're you feel as though you kind of had a bad date.
But I mean, you can sell a five K car or a five million dollar car and bring a trailer
and it costs the seller 99 bucks.
That's unbelievable.
It's unbelievable.
And I think I think the comments are really what drives your site.
100% 100% you know, some some things that I think that I like seeing that sort of evolved
over the years was oftentimes there's some complications on getting a car listed and that you're
like, oh, you know, the cars sell when they have a lot of photos, detailed photos underneath
the car all around the car.
If you get a video of the car firing up the car.
By the way, I personally think if if if if it is a notable car, celebrity car or something
like that that's owned, then I think the video is even more important to go.
You know, by the way, you know, I'm Bill Goldberg.
This is my car.
100% tell you the story.
This is why I bought it.
You know, this is why I love it.
I'm selling it because I don't fit in it.
You know, whatever whatever the case may be.
I mean, we put that right in the listing.
I totally agree that that's the most important part, right?
But the evolution of it is is you guys over the years started offering additional services.
There's premium services.
Someone you will find a photographer, a local photographer that you've worked with before
that will come out and shoot the car.
Maybe a videographer at this point.
Shipping.
Transportation.
That was another issue is is there is it was always about how do I how do I get this car to me
or when can I get this car to me?
And if you've never done that before, you know, who do you call?
How do you know you're getting a good price?
You know, you can you can go online and get any sort of transportation quote and it could be ridiculous
or it could be, by the way, you may not know the difference between like open trailer and enclosed trailer.
I mean, physically you do, but I'll tell you, if you're doing open trailer to save a few bucks,
don't do it in the winter, right?
Right. Like that's a that's a massive issue because your car will come back with just not just, you know,
potentially snow and ice, but salt from the roads and just all it caked underneath just like all of that.
I've made that mistake once before.
Well, let's just take into consideration that we're in a day and age when people want things right now, right?
And they want ease.
And so if you can provide people with the service services that they're going to have to individually acquire after purchasing the vehicle,
then it makes it so much easier and and I'm a potential seller.
So looking at what you have to offer, if I don't have to reinvent the wheel because as a potential seller,
I'm looking at that various ads listings and one's got 100 photos, one's got 400 photos, one's got this, one's got that.
At the end of the day, you know, what is the best way for me to prepare this?
And if you guys have a package that can make it easier for the seller so that not only he doesn't have he or she doesn't have to go out
and spend the time to formulate this team to put together what we really don't know what, you know, is going to work.
But if we have the the help of somebody who's done it before, my God, it's a one stop shop.
Alex, can you walk us through the process of getting a car listed or selling a car and buying a car?
What are the options? What are the services you guys offer?
100 percent.
I said, so to Bill's point, making it as easy as possible is our goal.
And Matt, you said we keep adding services and that's again, to make it easier and easier.
Now, all that said, and the low fees, all that said, selling a car online,
at least the way we think you should sell it is freaking hard because you need to.
And I listened to your guys last episode of last year, all the stuff you're doing, Bill, that's what you have to do.
You have to prep the car.
You have to I mean, if you want top dollar, if you want to maximize your result, you need to clean the car, detail it.
You need all your records.
You need to get taken.
Amazing photo gallery.
You need multiple videos.
That's like real work.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we can provide all that.
We.
And I wish I would have known that because I wouldn't have spent 400 hours the last month underneath this vehicle trying to clean.
No, but.
Yeah, I think you would.
Very anal.
And I, if it represents me, then, you know, it has to be as perfect as I can get it.
Right.
That's a big part of it.
Like a lot of sellers enjoy that.
And again, you're buying sellers, so it won't be lost on people that you did all that work and it's documented here on your podcast.
One of the services we provide that's been, we've really grown this year is our local partner service where professional sellers who've kind of made a brand on bring a trailer will take your car.
And you can just, and by the way, this is how I sell my cars on VAT now.
I don't hide that they're mine, but I hand my key over to a pro seller.
We use 911 R or I used him. His name is Matt Crandall.
He runs a operation called Avant Guard up in Portland and also down in, in Phoenix.
And he lists like 60 cars a month and he has his own brand on VAT.
He gets top dollar for him.
And I slid my key over to him for my most recent one.
We have a guy down in LA, Rob Dietz, who you may know.
Rob is his username on VAT.
He sold a tremendous number of cars on VAT.
He's one of our top sellers.
Again, same kind of thing.
You can just hand your car over to him and a lot of sellers would like that.
They'll also handle the comments and the submission and all the kind of complicated stuff.
Yeah.
And I've done that myself.
I've done that for, I don't know, a dozen cars.
Totally.
For friends, for friends and stuff as well.
But to your point, and I'm sitting here as a seller going, oh, shit, I could have done that.
I should have done that.
But as a buyer, I'm appreciative and extremely impressed that the person that had it prior to myself spent so much time on it themselves.
100%.
It's like, it's the, those are our favorite kinds of listings.
Super rich in information, super rich in photography detail, in video detail.
And the reason I asked about putting your name in the listing, like just put it, my philosophy is put it all out there.
Don't hide anything.
There's a scratch here.
Talk about it.
This person owned it 15 years ago.
Talk about that.
You've got 800 records.
Let me see them all.
Show me what you've done to the car.
Don't say it's the most perfect example.
Don't say it's had a nut and bolt restoration.
Show me, right?
Like consumers are smart online.
They want the facts.
Give people the facts.
Don't editorialize.
Don't say it's perfect.
Don't do anything.
And show me, show me the, show me that that's the case, right?
See, that's the problem with my vehicles.
I don't have a lot of records on it because I bought it from Bob Johnson.
Matt, you remember Bob, right?
Yeah.
So I bought it from Bob and, you know, the person that had it before Bob unfortunately has Alzheimer's and he doesn't even remember owning the vehicle.
Yeah.
So it's tough.
It is.
But it's important.
So that's what I'm doing right now.
I'm trying to set it up to where I've got everything that I can possibly get my hands on to throw out so everyone can make their own decision.
You know, that's, that's all a person can do.
And one of the mistakes I see people make is they try to hide those kinds of things like, like, oh, no, I do have record.
Just be truthful.
Like Matt, you mentioned earlier, sometimes people list who don't know that much about a car.
That's fine.
People inherit cars.
People can like cars with experts on them.
That's fine.
Just be truthful about what you know and what you don't know because you're trying to get somebody to have confidence in you who's never met you and never seen the car in person, right?
So the key is total transparency.
Okay.
Here's a specific question for you that people can apply to maybe what they're doing in the future.
92911 turbo 48,000 miles.
As a muscle car guy, I know that certain alterations of the vehicle from original might add or subtract from the value of the vehicle and the people that know that car are the ones who set that bar.
Yep.
I can't do that because I'm a muscle car.
I'm an American muscle car guy.
Therefore, the 92 Porsche 911 turbo that I have has an aftermarket intercooler on it, right, which is a positive in a lot of ways performance wise.
But what, what does the 911, you know, community think about that?
Is it something, you know, and I did my due diligence.
I found an original.
But is it worth paying 4500 bucks for an original or whatever it is.
And because what does it mean to that market, as opposed to what does it mean to the market of the people that I'm familiar with in that car.
So I don't really know to be perfectly honest.
And Matt will tell you, I've gone back and forth and back and forth and what's the positive and what's the negative.
And the shop that did it is out of business.
They're out there from Scottsdale.
And so I can't tell you exactly what it is and what exactly was done because the previous owner has Alzheimer's and the, and the company's out of business.
So in that situation, you know, I'm kind of stuck.
I've made my decision.
I'm sticking with the with the aftermarket intercooler.
I'm not wasting the money because truthfully, whoever buys the car, if they want to do that, they have the option to go out and do it.
But that's a huge issue and it's been, I've gone back and forth on it.
So what's your advice on something like that?
Yeah, so that's interesting.
I mean, being honest about it and the way you are is the best thing you can do.
Porsche's are interesting.
So muscle car people are lunatics.
Also lunatics in a different way.
I would say C2 Corvettes are maybe the most.
We talk about that a lot.
That has maybe the craziest group of lunatics who want to talk about them.
But Porsche's are, Porsche people are crazy too.
But they as they should be, right?
Every minute you should be because it's totally, totally.
They just, they know a lot.
I mean, I had, I'm the host of our podcast and I had Magnus Walker on one time and he's, you know, rattling off individual vin numbers of Porsche's he's owned and why that one's different than the vin number before.
I mean, that's a level of insanity that I can never, I can never achieve.
Porsche people, I will say are on the whole very tolerant of modifications because Porsche's have a long history of racing and being modified.
And in particular, 930 turbos, the predecessor to your car are almost all modified.
I used to work on them when I was a young mechanic and all of them had K27 turbos and big intercoolers.
Like it was done to a lot of now those cars have shot up.
They were cheap cars.
They've shot up in value.
And so a lot of people have returned them to stock to say that it's an all original car.
But man, that car was modified 15 years ago.
They all were.
Yeah.
So, you know, don't try to pretend that your 930 was stock in 1994.
It wasn't.
They were all modified.
So, yeah, I think I don't think that makes that much of a difference.
Now, if it's an RWB car and the fenders have been cut off and it's got big over flares on it, that's a different thing.
Now you buy the car beyond the point where it costs the value of the car to return it to stock.
That's not the case with them.
Yeah.
And I look at it like an old muscle car.
I mean, what would I do if I wanted it 100% stock and what would it take me to get it there?
And is it, first and foremost, is it possible with the current vehicle condition?
And I can say 1000%.
You could take this thing back to completely stock in, I don't know, just depends on how long it takes you to replace the intercooler.
But other than that, I mean, there's really no modifications of the car.
It's as original as possible.
Almost every car is modified or has been modified.
One of the things, one of the phrases that drives me nuts is, we know where the car was every day of its life or we know everything that happened to it every day.
And I'm like, man, if the car is 50 years old, that's just a lie.
Like nobody knows what happened to a car every day of its life.
So being honest about things.
And yeah, I think you're exactly right, Bill.
Let the next guy decide what he wants to do.
Yeah.
Let's take a quick break.
I spent some sleepless nights.
Yeah.
Don't lose sleep over it, man.
Don't lose sleep over it.
Well, I mean, truthfully, again, if the owner, if the potential owner of this car is listening to this, I would appreciate the fact that I'm so anal about this car.
Because not only does it, first and foremost, it's an extension of my personality and it's an extension of my brand, right?
So it represents everything I represent.
But, but secondly, I mean, it's, I don't know, man, it's a, this car thing is very real.
I mean, for me, extremely real.
So I want to be as honest as humanly possible.
I would never steer anyone in the wrong direction intentionally by any means.
And that's why it's, it's, I'm learning about this Porsche and about the crowd and about what they like and what they don't like.
And, you know, I want to set myself up as positively as possible so that when this thing hits, I've got all my, my ducks in a row.
So, yeah, I would appreciate that if I was somebody buying it.
No question, because I would, I would die to have a car that I purchased prepped by an owner like me.
I have lived in this garage for the past two months, just trying to get this car as perfect as humanly possible for the next guy.
There are a lot of reasons, but at the end of the day, I'm a car guy and I want the next person to have, you know, the most wonderful experience that they can have.
Yeah. All right, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back.
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Okay, Alex, so you're walking through the process of getting a car listed and some of the services that are available now.
Tell us about that.
Yeah, I didn't walk you through it at all. I don't feel like I've answered any of your guys' questions.
I interrupt so much.
No, it's great. And Bill, we need to know when we can get you back in another portion.
But we can talk about that later. One that you'll fit in.
Right afterwards.
The place I always recommend people start is go to the website and take a look at previous listings of a car similar to yours.
We've listed almost 230,000 vehicles at this point, and every single one of those results and all of their comment sections and all of it are fully available.
No hiding of anything. You can see every car that sold didn't sell on the website, right?
So I have the 964 Turbo model page up right now in front of me on my screen.
We have listed 172 of them.
Most recently they've all been 3-6s, but in beginning of December we had a 3-3 and 91 with low miles that sold for 270 grand.
So you can see all this, right?
So the first thing you want to do is take a look at this and figure out what you think you've got.
Because once you submit the car, you're going to talk to our curation team and you're going to probably argue about reserves.
You're going to talk about reserves. That's like the main thing, right?
A lot of people want cars to, they want more for their car than it might be worth.
And while we want to list as many cars as we can, we also want them to sell.
We had about an 81, almost an 82% sale rate last year.
I don't think I'm revealing any secret information by saying $99 does not cover what it costs for us to put a listing up on the website.
So buyer's fees are what we rely on to kind of run our business.
And so that is why it is important for us to have a high sale rate.
And it's also why it's so important for us to have cars represented as honestly and transparently as possible because we want to keep buyers happy.
We do not want cars showing up with buyers that they're surprised by.
So first off, take a look at the model pages. See what you think your car is worth.
Next step is to go right to the top of our website, hit submit a vehicle and submit the car.
It's free to submit it. You don't have to pay any money.
And you will fill out our submission form.
You don't necessarily need a full gallery and everything for that.
You don't need to have done all the prep work for that.
And that'll get you in touch with our curation team.
Howard, who's kind of employee number one after Randy, he runs that team.
And they're the people with their finger on the pulse of the market.
We take 50% or even less of the cars that are submitted to us.
And one of the big friction points is reserve, right?
If somebody, you know, if Bill showed up and was like, I need $1.2 million for my 3.3 turbo, we'd be like, well, appreciate you.
We value you, but it's probably not going to bid to that amount.
So we want to have a realistic reserve.
If the car has an amazing presentation, by the way, and an owner is as diligent as Bill has been and they have a little bit on the higher end,
we'll usually roll with it because there's always a chance that there can be auction magic that happens with special cars like Bill's car.
But for the most part, we wanted to have a realistic reserve and a lot of sellers, as you can imagine, don't necessarily have a realistic number in their mind.
That's the old, you know, the old fixed price model that we all grew up with, right, where you let your car sit for 18 months or six months or however long with some crazy number
and you argue with everyone who calls you until you finally get it sold.
That is not, our website is for people who want to get their car sold in seven days.
That's the point. It's for people who are ready to go.
So then once reserve numbers agreed on, you pay your gigantic $99 listing fee and then you are put into our production process.
Matt, you alluded to the fact that years ago it took forever to get a listing live and that is true.
We were growing so fast between, call it 2018 and 2023 that we couldn't hire fast enough.
We couldn't put people in seats fast enough to help our sellers.
It was like the restaurant with the line wrapped around the block, right?
That's like the hot ticket, which is a good problem to have, but it was a problem.
People were irritated. It took a really long time.
So we've spent quite a few years now scaling the company and getting all the resources in place.
And now you can have your, if you have everything that's needed when you submit your car,
we can often have your listing live within 24 hours of you submitting it.
But a lot of times people submit a car and we want the listing to be thorough.
So we ask a bunch of questions after they submit it like, hey, do you have records?
How long have you owned it?
You said it's titled in California, but you sent us a picture of a Texas title.
What's going on there?
Like we want all that stuff ironed out and as clear as possible more putting the listing together.
One other thing I'll say is there is always a real live human assigned to a listing at all times.
There's always an actual human representative.
There's a human putting your listing together.
It's not a robot or an algorithm.
The curation people you're talking to are real humans.
When the listings live, you've got somebody who you can complain to commenters about commenters to at all times.
And then we have a team that's purely there to help people after the auction closes if there's any kind of problem or weirdness there.
So getting all those people in place and getting them trained up took quite a few years,
but we're in a great spot now and we're able to push listings through really quickly.
We did almost 50,000 listings in 2025, which is crazy because we didn't have auction lot number 50,000 till 2021.
So it took us seven years to do our first 50,000 auctions and we did that many in one calendar year last year,
which I was a stay-at-home dad when I got this job and was training to be a schoolteacher.
I thought I'd come work at VAT, my favorite website for a couple of years, and then go back to being a schoolteacher.
Never thought I'd be talking to you guys on a podcast.
Congrats. Hard work. You guys have done a great job and you're sitting pretty right now for sure.
And when we hang up, have your guy call me. I'm ready.
Absolutely. I mean, Bill, you tell us what you need and we'll help you out no matter what.
You guys have my email address now so you can reach out to me and I can help with whatever.
I was about to shout it out on the podcast.
Yeah, you don't need to do that. It's okay.
So the car, once it gets listed and your $99 fee has been paid, then it's an active listing.
There's a couple of versions of listings. There's premium listings. There's normal listings.
Some are longer than a week, depending on what you're opting in for.
And then the after auction services like we were talking about, delivery, verification stuff.
There's a number of things that you can do.
And then the auction itself, participating in the comments.
I would say one of the worst things you can do aside from having not enough photos or videos
would be not participating in the comment section as the seller.
Or have somebody on your behalf, like you said, sometimes you don't know enough about the car.
You want to have someone or don't have time.
You have sort of an authorized person who's working that listing for you that, you know,
even if the answers are, I don't know, you know, if the answers to the questions are, I don't know.
I don't have that information.
But as long as somebody is responding, that's more frustrating having no response than anything else.
So that is a reply to everything.
Even when somebody's annoying, kill them with kindness.
Like that is the big advice.
So best practices on commenting, I'd say are once the car goes live, put a big intro comment out there.
Bill say like, hey, this is Bill.
I'm here to answer your questions.
Here's the car.
If there's anything that you forgot to add into the description that you want to add, add it right there.
And then, you know, check the comments once or twice a day, respond to everyone that you can.
Even the trolls, even the peanut gallery, you can sometimes if they're not saying anything of value,
you can just ignore them.
But if they have a legitimate question, always, always answer it because oftentimes you'll see buyers,
especially of big cars, they never comment.
But I promise you, they're reading all the comments from the peanut gallery people who've never placed a bid.
So when sellers tell us, oh, you shouldn't watch it out.
Right.
We have sellers tell us you shouldn't be able to comment unless you've placed a bid.
And that's not right.
Right.
Because a lot of people who've never placed a bid are actually experts about the cars or worked on them or whatever.
And the people who are bidding are reading their comments.
And Matt, to your point, they're watching whether the seller responds to them or whether the seller can control their temper.
You can be an active seller and be a dick.
That's not good either, right?
I might have to have a representative.
Yeah, I'll help you out, Bill.
I'll help you out, Bill.
You know, one of the other things I'll say about commenting, and this is just from my own experience, is oftentimes you'll get a lot of comments about a vehicle or the history of that.
Like, again, like the sack Mustang that I put up, it's a fantastic story, but not a well-known story, believe it or not.
Right.
And people like, I know Celine Mustangs, I know Roush, I didn't know the sack cars.
I didn't know the Shelby Club cars.
So you'll get a lot of comments and even questions about that.
And for me, I was like, I don't have to answer that question that quickly.
It's not specific to the car that I'm selling.
The community will work it out.
And you will get somebody who's probably more knowledgeable than me and you and most of the others to come in and go, you know, this is what, you know, this is some information about how sack cars were made or somebody go, you know, you got to talk to Bob.
He posted a YouTube video.
He worked on these cars back in the day.
Here's the link to the.
So a lot of times the community works out the questions and answers in the conversation.
But when you get into specific and they, you know, they're like, when did you acquire that car or, you know, doesn't have this particular thing on it?
You know, you know, I'll I'll go in and I've done listings and many times during that week of listings.
I go back to the car and look at it to verify something that somebody's asking me.
Right.
They'll go, by the way, does, you know, did you find a tag number or serial number, you know, on the hood?
You know, you know, for example, we saw Lamborghini Miras and the it's not a VIN number.
It's just more of a serial number.
But on that particular car, it's stamped in certain areas on the front, on the rear clamshell in the door jam behind the door, you know, like, and when those cars back in the day, if they got damaged,
someone would replace the clamshell because it's a big giant aluminum piece.
And they go, does the clamshell VIN number match the rest of the car or does it match the engine?
And I go, oh, I don't know.
Let me go check, you know, and then answer comments that way.
That's in my experience.
All 10 VIN numbers on an S2000.
Yeah, like we and like you sometimes you got to be prepped for that stuff.
Bill, I wouldn't be surprised if somebody starts asking you about that intercooler.
Go take a picture of the serial number.
You might find somebody who knows exactly what it is or who put it on.
I mean, or like, sometimes like the people, the guy who built it might show up.
I mean, like we have that happen, you know what I mean?
Like on that, on a car like your SAC Mustang, Matt, like the previous owner might show up and talk about it, right?
Like, which is a while, right?
Like you get the actual previous owner of the car on there.
So I just want to talk about what's going up on bring and chill.
So when we talked to Howard a while ago, 90s cars were having their moment, right?
They were certainly starting to catch on.
It took a few years.
And, you know, we've seen this before is the more expensive car.
The big brother brings up the little brother.
You often see that, right?
We've said this a thousand times on the show, you know, Mercedes going, you know,
that can often bring up, you know, the 190, right?
Yes.
So, you know, when when 60s muscle cars get very expensive, we start looking at 70s, 80s, 90s, right?
And then even now, Bill, you weren't at SEMA this year, but walking around and looking at like,
what's the new Roadster shop chassis last year was the Fox body chassis this year.
It's the Camaro chassis and 80s and 90s Camaro chassis, right?
Because that people who grew up with those cars are now have the means potentially, you know,
they have the means to get one and modify one or have one built by a builder.
And it means a lot to them.
And so the 90s cars were really starting to take off on bring a trailer.
You mentioned the 964 sort of the last of the analog Porsches.
2000s cars are starting to have a moment when you look at the date on bring a trailer.
2000s cars and now we're really talking about an era of the last of the analog cars.
Yep.
So 2000s, the decade of the 2000s, the aughts, whatever you want to call it, is our most popular decade by far.
We have 107 live right now from the 2000s.
From the 2010s, we have 90 live and from the 90s, we only have 65 live.
So I would actually like the 2000s and the 2010s are where it's at.
That's like what people are excited about.
I'm 42 years old.
I grew up around 90s and 2000s cars.
Most of my colleagues, this is a young company, are in their 20s and 30s and they're interested in cars that I don't know if three of us would even consider collector cars, right?
So there's a lot of action there.
Now, 90s, I think, is to your point, Matt, it's seeing, it's seeing it's, it's kind of in the sun right now, right?
Like nine, six, four turbos, these crazy wheels, the NSXs went crazy.
NSXs, yeah.
I sold my NSXs this year and now I regret it, kind of like Bill.
And now I might need to buy another one and I shouldn't have sold that one because it's going to be a lot more expensive to buy another one.
But 2000s also, to your point, last analog car.
I also just sold my 2005 GT3, which, you know, no traction control, no, it's, you know, it's the first GT3 that was sold here, no screen on the dash, right?
So that's an interesting era of car, right?
That's the replacement.
Oh, man.
I wish I had a chance to.
He just had one. Alex just had one.
They're an amazing car.
Mine was Speed Yellow and a weird one because it was an 05, not an 04.
Most of them are 04s here.
But that's, you know, it's the end of gated manuals for Ferraris.
It's the end of manual transmissions in a lot of cars, to be totally honest.
So that's where the action is right now, for sure.
Definitely.
Is Porsche the most popular brand on bring and trailer?
I mean, it's the most popular brand everywhere.
Everywhere.
So I, Randy posted an article on a recap of the year, right?
He wrote this article on the bring and trailer.
I guess it's on the bring and trailer blog.
And I wanted to bring it up because let me just share the screen here.
So I'm bringing this up.
He wants you some of the statistics.
As you mentioned, 49,486 listings this year, 40,465 are sold.
It's 81.8% sell through rate, which is fantastic.
1.713 billion in sales, total sales.
These are amazing numbers.
You mentioned about the blue LaFerrari.
But when I scroll down and some fantastic comments, but I don't know if this is somebody
who works with you guys, but I'm not.
It's not.
So, but I'm looking at these numbers and these are interesting numbers.
He's saying, you know, top make is Porsche.
I don't know what these numbers are.
Are these auction numbers?
Because when you, if they're the amount of listings, these numbers don't, don't make
sense.
How do you have 76,000 German cars when you only had 46,000 auctions?
Yeah.
So that's, that's total numbers of Porsches listed period.
So like overall ever in, this is going to be our 12th year.
Oh, I see.
So he's going total number from, from the existence.
Yeah.
Starting from 2014.
So we've listed 20 whatever it was that is that number is right.
I'm looking at 28,760 Porsche results.
And we've done, like I said, we're getting, we're getting real close to a lot.
230,000.
So that's over 10% of our total listings ever have.
Yeah.
So there you go.
But I think.
So this is what I thought was interesting too, though, was top errors.
And like, they're almost literally in, in order, right?
It's just like 2000s to the 90s.
That would make Randy, that would make Randy sad.
I love 50 stars.
I even own a car in the, from the 30s.
We love old cars.
I heard you're a cord collector.
You know about cords.
I do.
I have two cords.
Yeah, I do.
That's psychopathic.
Yes.
We, I get out to, to Pebble Beach pretty much every year.
And it's, it's even just walking the lawn.
If you're interested in cars, you walk the lawn and it's sort of a master class in,
in things you've never known about cars.
You will find makes models, not like a one off race car.
You will find stuff out there that you've never even heard of before.
You will probably find something God forbid could stump, you know,
the best of the best out there.
And yes, you start to walk through and go, oh, I've never seen that before.
What is that?
Now cord, we do know cord.
By the way, I did want to ask this.
You said you're, I don't know, 42, right?
Your average is thoughts on the younger generation like yourself falling for pre war cars.
It's because we always kind of thought about, you know, the car statistically on bring a trailer.
It's good numbers.
We were just showing is you, you love the ones that you grew up with.
You love the muscle cars you grew up with you, you know, the posters you had on your walls,
the ones you drove in high school, right?
But unless you drove a cord in high school, my friend, I'm not sure what this love affair is,
is getting the younger generation to keep that aspect of the car community alive.
Yeah, it's, it's tough.
I worry about it a little bit.
The high end stuff will always be fine, right?
Like Duesenberg's, which the cord company owned, they built 400 something of them.
They're all still around all of them.
And those cars will always be valuable and somebody will always keep those cars running.
Right.
They made about 3000 cords and like, by the way, when I had mine worked on pretty hard
to find somebody who will do that, right?
And do it well.
There's like a couple of people in the country that can do that.
So that part of it is tough.
A lot of cars from the thirties and even post war are pretty simple.
So, you know, a competent mechanic can figure a lot of them out.
The problem with a cord is it's front wheel drive and it has this weird pre selector transmission.
It's got bizarre.
It's got very bizarre technology on it that is hard to make work, right?
They weren't very good cars when they were new.
They were advanced, but they weren't very good.
So my colleague, I can speak for my colleagues.
So broadly, you see think pieces.
I've even think I've seen them in the New York Times where people say like, oh, young people don't care about cars.
I call BS on that.
I don't think that's true at all.
I think young people do care about cars.
I think cars are expensive.
And so it's hard for young people to, you know, have a collection or even keep one old car going,
which, you know, even a relatively modestly priced collector car can be really expensive to keep going.
So I think that's one of the issues.
People in their 20s getting them excited about cars that were built before they were born.
I don't think that's that hard.
A lot of my colleagues here have BMW 2002s or Amazon Volvos, right?
Cars that were built 20 years before they were born.
So they're excited about cars like that, 240Zs, things like that.
Getting them excited about 30s cars is tough.
Getting them to even know about 30s cars is tough.
One area where I see, where I have a lot of optimism is hot rods.
You go to a hot rod show or do a nostalgia drag race.
And there's a lot of tattooed dudes with flat brim hats in their 30s, like driving 30s cars.
So all that stuff comes back around.
I think if it's cool and it's exciting to be a part of the culture surrounding a car,
I think all that stuff will stay alive.
It's going to get more and more niche for some of the really old stuff.
But I'm optimistic in general about young people, about young people being interested in old cars.
I mean, what do you guys think?
And it's all about us older guys teaching them.
Right.
We have a responsibility.
And whether it's teaching them or just exposing them to these type of vehicles,
I mean, it has to be done.
Yeah.
What do you do on that front build?
Are your kids into cars?
Well, I have one boy.
Yes, sir.
And he is definitely into cars.
He's not into muscle cars as much as I would like, but he's most definitely into, you know,
high horsepower, new vehicles that can pretty much blow everything that I have off the road.
But it's the generation.
You know, they like glitz and glamour.
They like in your face, they're, you know, social media people.
Yeah, they like Tik Tok cars.
That's a thing, right?
100%.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But, you know, that's fine.
That's where the generation is.
That's what they're finding their niche with.
Yeah.
And that's when you hook up with the local high school and the shop class and you invite
them out and you have them come look at your collection and then you spur conversation and
you hope that you spur a little interest.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
What was it about chords specifically?
What triggered you for that?
Well, I mean, like Bill was saying, it's my dad.
My dad.
Your dad.
Yeah.
So, and he never had, well, he did have one when I was a teenager, but didn't have, didn't
have one for a long time.
And then I kind of had this, my dad's 86 years old and I kind of had this thing.
I'm like, man, I, this would be a fun father, son thing to do because they have this big
Auburn's were chords were owned by the Auburn company, the Auburn Botel Speedster.
And Auburn is a city in Indiana and every year, you know, the factories there, the
museums there, it's an interesting company because the old factory and the old main showroom
is now the museum for Auburn chords and Duesenberg's.
So you get to go into this cool 30s art deco building.
There's the factory where they built them.
And then this little town Auburn, all the people are like the great grandchildren of
people who worked at the factory in the 30s.
It's a kind of the museum, the club and the cars are all together.
And I was like, man, I want to restore one of these cars and take it back with my dad
and drive it around Indiana.
And that's what we did this year.
It was amazing.
I think that's, I think that's important to even if your kids aren't interested to just
try.
Bill and I talked, you know, a couple of years ago, I think before COVID, we were giving
out tickets to racing events going, you know, dad's, you know, grandpa's like, bring, you
know, we're handing out tickets to Bristol, go to NASCAR, go to IndyCar, go to NHRA.
If you get an opportunity to go to, you know, something like Amelia Island or Pebble Beach,
you know, Adam Crowley's son, Sonny, who's, he's, he's great.
I love him.
But he's, he has gone, I think, 10 years in a row with us to Pebble Beach.
And I know he appreciates cars.
And I don't know if he, you know, he's a teenager, he's 19, there's other things going
on in his life.
I don't know if he's quite there yet, that his goal is cars.
But, you know, since he was 10 years old, he will be able to go to, even if he takes
a break and goes when he's an adult and he goes to, you know, back to Monterey, you
know, when he's 28 years old, you know, he's going to walk around with somebody and go,
oh, when I was a kid, I came here and I shook hands with Horatio Pagani and I shook hands
with Christian Bonkona's egg and, and, you know, and, oh yeah, I know, you know, you
know, Mr. Connors, you know, who's a multiple Pebble Beach winner and, you know, and he's
had this car and had this car, you know, like, I think that'll make an impression on him.
I think it's very important, you know, and if he never becomes a car guy, he's going
to have that, he's going to have that, that memory.
And I think about that too, like cars you work down with your kids or even just road
trips and experiences and things like going to a race, you know, you, they may go to a
race and never go again, but I thought it was kind of fun to go to, you know, interesting
of little fun fact here, Bill Alastair Weaver, our, our, our other host on the car cast,
he's the editor-in-chief of Edmunds, he's a British guy, he's been out here for eight
years now, never been to an NHRA drag race event.
So I told them, there's, there's no getting out of this, my friend.
We are going to the, to the, to the, we're going to Pomona and I think it's April now,
we're going to go, we're going to go to the drag race and you're going to experience
something you've never experienced in your life.
Everything he's, everything he's ever done, every car he's driven, documentaries he's
done, traveled all around the world, been off the grid to car, everything he's done.
I was like, it's not an NHRA.
It's, it's not when 10,000 horsepower is going down the drag strip and you feel it
through your entire body and you feel like your eyes are going to pop out.
Don't prep him at the starting line.
Don't prep him at the starting line and get his reaction.
Let him experience it.
That's for, it's, it's so interesting you say that because one of the things that I
always think about trying to expose our younger staff to is that exact same thing.
So many of them are not familiar with drag racing.
I'm like, that's as raw.
I mean, you feel it in your, in your bones.
You know what I mean?
It's unbelievable if you've never experienced it.
Interestingly, my NSX was the Edmunds long-term NSX and it was on the Corolla's podcast.
Then Edmunds brought it on.
Oh yeah.
I remember.
Silver car.
Yeah.
That was my car that I just sold this year.
Yeah.
I love Dan and I love the NSX and listen, speaking of our good friend, Dave Merrick from Honda.
He just, he just like almost his entire career, 40 years at Honda.
He just retired, you know, and he has been designing, if you, this has been sort of
his side gig is he designs most of the NHRA cars.
He does Ron Kapps's car, all the Napa cars.
He, he designs and does the graphics on, on a bunch of those cars as well.
So there you go.
All right.
So what are we looking forward to for 2026 and bring a trailer?
Are you guys going to beat 1.7 billion?
I don't want to like knock wood.
I don't want to jinx anything.
We've grown every year.
It gets tougher and tougher every year because we've got so much of the, of the market.
But we, I mean, I would say our number one goal is, like I said earlier, is to just keep
making things easier, adding features, adding services, providing the best service we can
to customers.
And for me, what I'm passionate about is making, creating the best listings we can,
the most honest, transparent and thorough, rich in detail.
That's like, it's hard.
It's actually hard to pry information out of sellers sometimes.
So continuing to make the listings as good as we can, continuing to serve our customers
as best we can.
And yes, growth is always, we want more people to be able to access the marketplace.
I, again, I sound like a, a shill puppet for the company, but I truly believe that this
is the best way to sell your collector car.
And so making sure that as many people as possible can get access to the platform is
really, really important for us.
Yeah.
I, I, you know, I echo Bill when I say, you know, I love what you guys are doing.
Thanks for doing it.
It's an amazing site.
As much as I enjoy going to all various auctions, there's just something unique and
special about bringing a trailer that I, I enjoy, enjoy.
And it's different than the other experiences.
But yeah, thanks so much.
I appreciate it.
Any final thoughts, Bill?
No, I'm a plethora of information.
Wheels are turning.
I can see it as a, as a car guy, as, as a, you know, buyer and a seller and just a car
guy in general, I'm greatly appreciative of, of the marketplace that you guys have put
forth, put forth.
It's really cool.
I see why it's so popular.
It's driven by the people and the people are the ones that are most knowledgeable.
And at the end of the day, if that's the representative of, of the product that you
put out, Bravo.
People power.
Uh, that's a good, that's a good, uh, it's a good motto, Bill, a hundred percent
agree.
Thank you guys so much for having me on.
I appreciate it.
Would love to have you on our podcast sometime.
I think it would be fun.
We could, uh, we could go deep on your guys's backgrounds and stories.
I, I didn't get to grill you mad about your very interesting VAT account and all
the cars you've listed and, and Bill, so much more about your car, car background
and history.
So maybe there's a little bit of a story there.
It just happened organically, but it's, it's, you know, friends like Bill,
friends like Adam Cruller, other people that I know that were like, I need, you
know, I need some help.
I need, you know, get a car listed and, and, you know, I, I, I enjoy helping.
There's no business model there or anything like that.
And that will be helping me on my list.
And you look at the weird list of cars, GT three, Pantera racing cars, like Viper,
like this, we did the first Cybertruck.
I remember.
I remember that the man, the first Cybertruck goes back to the early days.
I remembered it was so exciting when we would list those Corolla race cars in
the early days.
So yeah, yeah.
Well, we might have more for you.
We'll see what we can come up with.
But Alex, thanks so much and everybody.
Thanks so much for listening and we'll catch you next week.
Until then, keep the air in the spare and the bag in the wheel.
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About this episode
Alex Porter from Bring-a-Trailer shares insights on the platform's impressive $1.7 billion sales in 2025 and discusses the unique advantages of online car auctions. He explains how the community-driven comments enhance buyer-seller interactions and the importance of thorough listings. The conversation also touches on the evolving trends in car collecting, particularly the rising interest in 2000s vehicles, and the challenges of engaging younger generations in classic car culture. Bill Goldberg shares his personal experiences with car ownership and selling, emphasizing the emotional connections car enthusiasts have with their vehicles.
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