The Ford Thunderbird is a famous car that Ford made starting in the 1950s. The 1956 version is known for its cool design and was one of the first luxury cars made for personal use.
The Volkswagen Derby is a small car made in the late 1970s and early 1980s that many people liked for being practical and good on gas. It's talked about today because it's a classic and has a unique look.
Car
An Amazing 2025 Finish, and Excitement for 2026!
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In a body off restoration, the outer part of the car is taken off so that the frame underneath can be fixed or improved. It's a detailed way to restore a car to its best condition.
BaT stands for Bring a Trailer, which is a website where people can buy and sell classic cars through auctions. It's known for showing a lot of details about the cars being sold.
Transparent pricing means that all the costs involved in buying a car are shown clearly, so you know exactly what you're paying for without any surprises. It's like knowing the full price of something before you buy it.
The Ford Pinto is a small, inexpensive car that was made in the 1970s. It's often talked about because it had some safety problems that made people think more about car safety.
Car
Acura
Acura is a brand of cars made by Honda that focuses on luxury and performance. They offer a range of vehicles that are often seen as more upscale than regular Honda models.
The 2023 Acura MDX Type S is a fancy SUV that has a sportier look and feel than the regular MDX. It has a stronger engine and special features that make it more fun to drive.
The Ferrari 308 GTB is a classic sports car from the 1970s and 1980s. It's famous for its sleek looks and powerful engine, making it a favorite among car enthusiasts.
Carburetors are parts in older cars that mix air and fuel to make the engine run. They are less common now because newer cars use more advanced fuel injection systems.
Lamborghini is a famous car brand from Italy that makes very fast and expensive sports cars. They're known for their flashy designs and powerful engines.
Car
No Reserve: IROC RSR-Style 1973 Porsche 911T Coupe 3.2L
Featured on Bring a Trailer: No Reserve: IROC RSR-Style 1973 Porsche 911T Coupe 3.2L 5-Speed
The BMW E28 535is is a special version of the BMW 5 Series from the 1980s, known for being fun to drive and having a stylish look. It has a powerful engine and is popular with car lovers.
The BMW 5 Series is a comfortable and fancy car that many people enjoy because it drives well and has a lot of nice features. It's popular among those who want a mix of luxury and performance.
Car
1987 BMW 535is
Featured on Bring a Trailer: 1987 BMW 535is 5-Speed
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Northwest BMW Purchase Adventure: Part 1
Featured on Bring a Trailer: Northwest BMW Purchase Adventure: Part 1
A Euro bumper is a type of car bumper that is designed for European models. It usually looks different from the bumpers found on cars sold in North America and can be lighter and more stylish.
The Lancia Delta Integrale is a sporty car that was very successful in racing. It has a powerful engine and can drive all four wheels, which helps it handle well on different types of roads.
The DeLorean DMC-12 is a special car from the 1980s known for its shiny metal body and doors that open up like wings. It's well-known because it was featured in the 'Back to the Future' movies.
The Land Cruiser is a tough SUV made by Toyota that can handle rough terrains and is often used for off-roading. It's known for being reliable and long-lasting.
Bumpers are the parts of a car at the front and back that help protect it in case of a crash. They are designed to absorb some of the impact to keep the car safe.
The BMW 7 Series is a big, luxurious car that has a lot of high-tech features and a very comfortable interior. It's known for being one of the best cars BMW makes.
The Hummer H1 is a tough, military-style vehicle that people can buy for personal use. It's very big and can go off-road easily, making it popular among adventure seekers.
The GT3 is a special version of the Porsche 911 that is built for speed and performance. It's made to be really fun to drive, especially on racetracks.
Car
It's Time for the 2025 BaT Awards-Make Your Nominations Now!
Featured on Bring a Trailer: It's Time for the 2025 BaT Awards—Make Your Nominations Now!
Car
BaT People's Choice: Best Feature of 2009
Featured on Bring a Trailer: BaT People's Choice: Best Feature of 2009
Car
BaT People's Choice: Best Feature of 2010
Featured on Bring a Trailer: BaT People's Choice: Best Feature of 2010
Car
BaT People's Choice: Best Feature of 2011
Featured on Bring a Trailer: BaT People’s Choice: Best Feature of 2011
Car
Volkswagen
Volkswagen is a car company from Germany that makes many popular cars, like the Beetle and Golf.
Car
BaT People's Choice: Best Feature of 2012
Featured on Bring a Trailer: BaT People’s Choice: Best Feature of 2012
Car
BaT People's Choice: Best Feature of 2014
Featured on Bring a Trailer: BaT People’s Choice: Best Feature of 2014
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BaT People's Choice: Best Feature of 2017
Featured on Bring a Trailer: BaT People's Choice: Best Feature of 2017
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BaT Auction Success Story: Coming Full-Circle With a Celica GT
Featured on Bring a Trailer: BaT Auction Success Story: Coming Full-Circle With a Celica GT
The Toyota Celica is a small car that Toyota made for many years. The 1976 version is one of the earlier models and is known for looking sporty and being fun to drive.
Car
BaT People's Choice: Best Feature of 2016
Featured on Bring a Trailer: BaT People's Choice: Best Feature of 2016
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The Winner: BaT People's Choice Best Feature of 2018
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Austin Healey is a brand of sports cars that were made in the UK. They are known for being fun to drive and have a classic look that many car lovers appreciate.
The Honda S600 is a tiny sports car from the 1960s that people love for how light it is and how well it drives. It's talked about because it helped Honda become known for making fun cars.
Car
Mercedes-Benz S600
The Mercedes-Benz S600 is a fancy car that offers a lot of comfort and power. It's known for having many high-tech features and a very nice interior.
The Ferrari 458 Speciale is a special version of the Ferrari 458, designed for better performance and handling. It's lighter and faster, making it a favorite among car enthusiasts.
The Honda Civic is a small car that many people like because it's dependable and doesn't use too much gas. It's been around for a long time and is often talked about because it's a good choice for everyday driving.
The Nissan Skyline R34 is a popular sports car that many car fans admire. It's known for being fast and can be customized in many ways, which makes it a favorite among car enthusiasts.
The Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 is a famous sports car that many car enthusiasts love. It's known for being fast and powerful, and it has appeared in popular movies and video games.
The Ford Mustang is a classic American sports car that people love for its speed and cool looks. It's been around for a long time and is often mentioned because it's a symbol of fun driving.
The Ford Cortina is a small car that many people in the UK liked from the 1960s to the 1980s because it was cheap and useful. It's often talked about today because it reminds people of the past.
Car
1995 Reynard-Ford Cosworth 95I
Featured on Bring a Trailer: Ex–Jacques Villeneuve 1995 Reynard-Ford Cosworth 95I
Car
1978 Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9
Featured on Bring a Trailer: 1978 Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9
Car
LS3-Powered 1994 Toyota Land Cruiser FZJ80
Featured on Bring a Trailer: LS3-Powered 1994 Toyota Land Cruiser FZJ80
Car
No Reserve: 1985 Lada Niva 3-Door Hatchback 4x4
Featured on Bring a Trailer: No Reserve: 1985 Lada Niva 3-Door Hatchback 4x4
Car
Lada
Featured on Bring a Trailer: Lada
Car
Euro 1994 Ferrari 512 TR
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The Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR is a very rare and fast car made for racing. It's special because it looks amazing and is one of the best cars made in the late 1990s.
The BMW 3 Series is a small luxury car that many people enjoy because it drives really well and feels nice inside. It's popular among those who want a mix of comfort and sportiness in their car.
Car
E30 3-Series Touring
Featured on Bring a Trailer: E30 3-Series Touring
Car
No Reserve: 1998 BMW 323ti 5-Speed Individual
Featured on Bring a Trailer: No Reserve: 1998 BMW 323ti 5-Speed Individual
The Honda S2000 is a small sports car that people love for its powerful engine and how well it handles. It's a fun car to drive and is often mentioned because it's exciting and stylish.
Car
No Reserve: 40k-Mile 2003 Honda S2000
Featured on Bring a Trailer: No Reserve: 40k-Mile 2003 Honda S2000
Car
1969 DeTomaso Mangusta
Featured on Bring a Trailer: 1969 DeTomaso Mangusta
The Ford GT40 is a famous race car from the 1960s that won a big race called the 24 Hours of Le Mans. It's known for being fast and stylish, making it a popular topic among car fans.
Car
No Reserve: 1983 Sbarro Super Five
Featured on Bring a Trailer: No Reserve: 1983 Sbarro Super Five
The Ferrari 308 GTS is a stylish sports car from the late 1970s to early 1980s that people admire for how it looks and drives. It's a classic Ferrari that many car lovers dream of owning.
Car
No Reserve: 1989 Hägglunds M973A1 SUSV
Featured on Bring a Trailer: No Reserve: 1989 Hägglunds M973A1 SUSV
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Car
No Reserve: 1979 Ferrari 308 GTB
Featured on Bring a Trailer: No Reserve: 1979 Ferrari 308 GTB
The Datsun 240Z is a classic sports car from the early 1970s that people love because it's fast and looks great. It's popular among car fans because it was a good deal for a sports car back then.
The Acura NSX is a fast sports car that was made to be both exciting to drive and practical enough for daily use. It's famous for its sleek design and is often talked about because of its impressive performance.
The Porsche Cayman is a sporty car that people love for how well it handles on the road. It's designed to be fun to drive and is often mentioned because of its great performance.
The Porsche Cayenne is a fancy SUV that drives like a sports car. It's popular because it offers a lot of space and comfort while still being fun to drive.
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2014 Porsche Cayenne GTS
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One Make, One Decade with Maurice Merrick of Horsepower Heritage
Featured on Bring a Trailer: One Make, One Decade with Maurice Merrick of Horsepower Heritage
The Shelby Cobra is a classic sports car from the 1960s that is famous for being very fast and powerful. It's a favorite among car fans because of its racing history and cool design.
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1956 Ford Thunderbird "Crash Wagon"
Featured on Bring a Trailer: Ex–Alamo Airways & Hughes Tool Company 1956 Ford Thunderbird "Crash Wagon"
The Chrysler Voyager is a family minivan that people have liked since the 1980s because it has a lot of space inside. It's often mentioned because it's very practical for families who need room for kids and stuff.
LIVE
Hello, and welcome back to the Bring a Trailer podcast. My name is Alex Porter. I am the director of
operations for BAT. Today, I am joined by Randy Nonenberg, our president and co-founder,
and also by Zach Beatty, our director of strategy. We chat about 2025 and review,
2026 and what we're excited about, some upcoming events. And at the end of the episode, a very
cool 1956 Ford Thunderbird that's live right now that has aviation and Howard Hughes history to
it. Really cool listing, one of the most exciting listings of 2026 so far. Stick around for that and
hope you enjoy the episode. Bring a trailer podcast. Man, I made a huge mistake not getting this for
my son and buying it. I bought him a four-wheel drive like thing. Like a G. Yeah, it has like
rubber tires. It's really cool. But man, I wish he had Gravedigger instead. The one you bought
is more true to Gravedigger colors. I totally is. Off monster energy. It's not correct Gravedigger
colors. Good call, Zach. Interesting. My Sacramento roots really showing. Is Gravedigger from SAC?
Just a lot of Central Valley. A little Stockton with Monster Truck rallies. Yeah, a little Monster
Truck. Go down to Stockton to check them out. There's Gravedigger fans there. A lot of Gravedigger.
Yeah, you didn't grow up with Gravedigger t-shirts around. Ridgecrest was a little more
demo derby than Monster Truck. Did your players not smoke while you were in the car with them?
No, Ridgecrest was a little more like 1978 LTD backing into other cars on the like rodeo grounds.
Okay, you guys were a bigfoot city. I get it. Oh, man. Have you ever gone to Monster Truck?
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. Arco Arena. Oh, inside. Sick. I don't think I've talked to you about
this. We went to the Railroad Museum in SAC over Christmas break and I didn't realize the
Kings play downtown now. They have a new stadium. We stayed right adjacent to it.
So, is Arco torn down or are they using it for something else? I don't know what they call the
new, oh, maybe it's Golden One or something. Yeah, that's the one downtown. Yeah. Also,
shout out to my credit union. Really. You paved, you laid the bricks. I'm getting
shaken down here right now. I don't know what became Arco. I think it's maybe just
to go see Sabrina Carpenter and whoever else is in town. Amazing. Did you ever go there?
No. Howard and I went to a Kings game at Golden One though. Oh, was it nice? It looks really nice.
It was nice. Yeah. We stayed at the hotel adjacent to it, but I saw white chocolate play
at Arco Arena. I don't even know who white chocolate. Jason Williams, you don't remember
him. Sorry. Listen to this name. Those are fighting words where I grew up.
All right, our hero and savior, Jason Williams. Yeah, the Lottie Divock era.
Yes, totally. Asia's Coyaca Big. Vlad who just chains Bob Siggs right there.
He also got hit a three, which was Brad. You love a center that can hit a three.
That's like normal now, but that was weird in the 1990s. I got hit with a Jason Williams
highlight reel on Instagram the other day. I mean, the no-look passes and stuff,
he was like bringing, you know, like crazy cool like stunt basketball to the NBA. It was fun.
Hey, Dave, the Sacramento Kings. Absolutely. Was that the pinnacle? That's the peak.
Oh yeah. The whole ref scandal. Okay. That's another podcast. That is a separate podcast.
Let's start this podcast. Let's talk about 2025 at BAT. How about, let's start there.
Randy, number one thing I would say is our post talking about our results in 2025.
My favorite thing about it is not the gigantic numbers. It's the Gullwing factory.
Yes. Photo. Did you see that? Yeah, I'm looking at it right now.
We posted that on the site and I don't know who selected that,
but it's a mind bender, isn't it? Totally. It's a good one.
You didn't dig that up? I assume that was you. I didn't dig that up. No, I didn't dig that up.
I had some help putting that together and that photo is what are we going to call?
I mean, we dissect that photo. It's a pretty cool one.
Something about the way the bodies look when they're kind of bare and coming.
I don't know. It's my favorite car, so it makes sense. It's such a beautiful car.
The body's being married to the tube chassis. True body off.
That is an actual body off. We've also been joking that how many of the Arizona auctions are talking
about frame off and body off restorations of unibody cars, which is one of my favorite things in
the entire car world is when people are like, we're going to go ahead and frame off this baby
right now. I would love to buy a 356 frame. Where can I replace? There's so much creativity
auction descriptions. I did tell you guys, I think that would be a great podcast to stand on its own
of auction absurdities. The one that really bothers me is not even the ridiculous flowery BS
language, although all that stuff bothers me too. It's 2,000 words about the manufacturer
of the car and then about four sentences about the actual car for sale at the end.
It's like, what did I just read? This helps me not at all. The Wikipedia page doesn't get you high.
Totally. Well, I can go read about Austin Healey on their Wikipedia page. I don't need it in my
audience. And how they raced at Sebring. Totally. And then this is like a clapped out 106 that
like has nothing to do with anything. Totally. And you're just like, okay, well, that's great.
I'm super pumped that they raced a factory team, which has nothing to do with this car.
Totally. Good times in car sales. Yep. Here we go. So we're thankful for
everything that happened in 2025. I know you guys recap that on the previous post,
but we did tally up the fact that 49,486 listings rolled through the site,
doing some quick math here, dividing by 12, you know, carry the one, blah, blah, blah.
That's a lot every day. Carry the one. And it's, I'm tired.
So anyway, pretty astonishing. We wanted to put those numbers out. We chased more than numbers
here at BAT, right? The sort of ethos of BAT. And, you know, we laugh about descriptions
and that sort of stuff. But the clarity of presentation, the depth of presentation,
the open microphone for people to say whatever they want. Those sort of things are
what get me out of bed in the morning, what get all of us out of bed in the morning,
a little bit for the differentiation. But it's the result of that. And $1.713 billion in merchandise
going through BAT is wild. And I mean, it brings up good questions like, where did that come from?
Were those people going to just like sell quietly to their neighbors? Or did that come from
online auction sites that, you know, didn't exist otherwise? Or did that come from tent
auctions? Or did that come from car dealers? Or where is that coming from? I mean, it's
fascinating to watch this market. And it's so public. The funny thing about auctions for me is
it's so public to see results, sales, no sales, where the car goes if it doesn't sell some place
and then it ends up here or it doesn't sell in BAT. And then it ends up somewhere like
everything is very public. So it's a fascinating business to be a part of. But we're just
psyched to be able to offer it to more and more people. The goal for 2026 for me, and I think for
us is just to be able to offer transparent, trustworthy, visible sales like that to as
many people as possible because selling modern cars is a bummer and selling classic cars is a bummer.
And like most ways to do this is not great. And you either feel taken or you feel like
you're betting against the house or whatever's happening. So I feel like we've turned a lot
of the tide on that. Yeah, I feel 1.7B, you see that number and you almost not believe it if all
the results weren't transparent in there. You can go back and count every single one.
Yeah, totally. Totally. You can tally it with a pencil. The whole thing. If you had a lot of
time on your hands and we got some commenters that try to do that, which we appreciate.
But yeah, no, you're right. You wouldn't believe it. I wouldn't believe it.
Same. Yeah, in fact, I've been counting a little bit this morning just to triple check.
It's crazy. It's crazy. Yeah, I did some back at the napkin math when we talked about this
before the end of the year. And I was like, I think we're going to get real close to 50,000
listings just under. And then there we are. We have 49.5. I don't know if you listened to the
episode ready, but we talked, it took until mid 2021 to get to a lot. 50,000. So it took seven
years for us to do what we did in one calendar year last year, which is crazy.
Okay. And that's one place to give credit to our staff for doing, I mean,
that takes a lot of people to do that. And it takes a lot of people aligned with the ethos that
you're talking about. And that's no small task in and of itself is getting all those people on board
and getting them aligned with being transparent and being a little bit outside of the norm in
terms of car sales, at least mentality wise. For all those people, it takes years of experience
too, which is incredible to be in this position to have people that can train people up quickly,
efficiently. The pipeline we built over the years, it's all just incredible.
Stoked to be a part of it. And the pace of it, you know, people, you guys know this,
but maybe people out there in podcast land don't know, but they kind of walk into the
BET office and they're like, they're kind of blown away by the velocity of things moving
through the pipes, right? I mean, you guys think it's normal. I kind of think it's
normal. It's really not normal. So anyhow, we appreciate it. And it's really fun to be
a part of it. And honestly, we love spreading it. And given the opportunity to sell in this way
to as many people as possible, that's been sort of ethos. So anyway, 2026, here we go.
It's so interesting. You talked philosophically, Randy, about how we want to
make the experience of buying through BET because of the trust you have and the
transparency that we approach everything with. People want that experience in more
places than just collector cars. As recently as yesterday, another person was like,
love BET, love collector cars. But also how can I buy my daily driver using this process
and not use auto trader or whatever to find my car? It'd be fascinating if somebody could pull
it off. It's obviously more difficult to do it in a way of cars where there's 81 of them on the
market at once. And auction isn't as great for that. But there are people that are trying.
I mean, we were looking at Mannheim's sort of like throughput of auctions,
and they sell $80 billion of vehicles. I mean, they're all stuff that we don't really want.
It's like a liquidation process, very different ethos. But when we look at this number, some people
look at this number and they're like, oh my gosh, you must have gobbled up the entire market of
vehicles or whatever. And there's a ton that are out there, but there's still a particular
type of vehicle that makes sense to an enthusiast audience as opposed to a liquidation audience.
It's like an estate sale that's selling Elvis's guitar versus an estate sale that's
like liquidating the closet of junk. So we just need to make sure that it stays special like that,
which is also our challenge and why there's still a curation team and why we're selective about
that stuff. But I still think it's interesting to let in... We were talking about maybe talking
about 2026 cars, like brand new cars. You searched 2026 and there's brand new cars going through
BAT. And I think that's interesting. As long as BAT never gets overrun in any one direction,
right? You don't want it all to be Pintos and you don't want it all to be modern and vanilla
and you don't want it all to be 65 Shelby's or whatever because people can't afford those,
right? So you want this balance of all the different stuff. But I think you guys are
doing a killer job of that and we're trying to keep the boat going forward, you know.
We'll have to ask my wife not to listen to this one. You made fun of our Acura that we
just bought a little bit. But that car, interestingly... What did you say?
I just said all our 26s are boring, right? I mean, whatever. He had thoughts on a lot of things.
We had a vascular discussion downstairs, but I... Sorry, I missed it.
You are sorry you missed it. But hold on a way. I have a serious point to make, which is
that car that we bought is a 2023 Acura MDX Type S. It's kind of weird. It's in a weird
color, Adlo Miles. It's like not a collector car, but it's collector adjacent and people
interested in cars might want a car like that. And honestly, if I could have not bought that from
Henderson Acura, it was the horrible dealer process. Let me talk to my manager.
I got hustled by the GM. He came downstairs and told me that,
do you want clear code? I'm like, isn't there clear code already on it? I mean,
like all that crap happened to me a month ago. And it's still happening every day.
And they got to determine the price. There was no haggling, right? It's the only one
with 9,000 miles in the country. So they... I mean, I would have much rather have
bought that on BAT and listened to people talk about why it doesn't belong on BAT and all that
stuff. I think that would have been amazing. And then send your success story next to your
White 308 GTB. Hell yes, brother. I think the solution is just to commute in the yellow
on yellow Yalpa we have live right now. Oh, dude, I saw that coming.
Yellow wheels. With injection on it. Did you see that? Somebody added fuel injection.
Are they adding it? Yeah. What is it? Maybe it would have been injected stock,
but it is a... It's not like Morelle or something. It's like a...
It's like a... I'm sure it's an EFI or something.
That's scrolling it right now. Throttle world motors.
Fuel injections. Sure. Here's the question that none of us can... Oh, so it did have
Webbers, I was going to say. And it's a... It's a late one, isn't it? Like late 80s?
Can you imagine the disappointment your children's
faces when you said we're going somewhere for vacation and they say Disney World and then you
say rottled? They would ask to be separated from me.
Sorry, what was your question, Alex? It's late 80s, isn't it?
Yeah, it's an 88. Okay, so that's amazing. Those still had carburetors in 88.
It's a Euro car. It's a US car. They couldn't have carburetors in 88, right? It must have
been injected. I love whoever added these Lamborghini shields also. It's a lot of
yellow. Shields are Zach's favorite topic. Oh, yeah. But that car with this like
fakie RSR, what if those two cars were going down the road together?
I actually love that. Talking trash to each other.
Yes, like on the I-5 doing polls. That would be amazing.
It would. It's a little bit like the Central Valley version of what was the Midnight Club.
What were the fast hot-rotted cars in Japan? Oh, no, Randy, there she is.
There she is. The car, my name is going to be dragged through this listing.
All over the place. Do the mud. You want to get out there proactively?
I do. No, that's a great, I would tell you, that is a great car.
You want to share with the audience the Nannenburg alumni car?
The Nannenburg alumni is out there, BMW E28 535IS 5-speed that I sold here locally
to a buddy, and now he put it on VAT instead of me putting it on VAT,
which is great. Anyway, 161,000 miles, baby. That thing has
covered some miles, but is a beautiful car.
A couple road trip stories on the website about that car.
I remember when you bought it with M-parallels, right?
It was, oh my gosh, the guy had the darkest limo tint of all time on that car.
There's a Craigslist find. You remember this? I do.
Craigslist. It was Washington or Oregon or something.
Yeah, where was it? Maybe Portland? Oh my gosh, it was crazy.
What year was that, like 18s?
We have a screen grab of Craigslist, which makes me so happy,
but it had replica 17-inch M-parallels with like too much of a machined finish on them,
and super dark tint that was like purple-y a little bit when I peeled it off.
Cellar was like BMW CCA guy, wasn't he?
It was like Mr. BMW kind of.
Yeah. Anyway, 148,000. So anyway, I had it almost 10,000, then the new owner added a couple.
Great car. I think those cars are so cool when they're set up.
I'm watching this auction on your watch.
I can't wait for the radio.
I can't wait for the president co-founder comment.
You should know, gosh, here we go.
Anyway, yeah, I did Euro bumper swap of that in my garage.
I went to this warehouse in Costa Mesa and bought the wheels and all the bumper parts
from this dude that had like a huge storage unit full of Euro BMW parts that I found on Craigslist.
Wow, amazing.
It's so sketchy.
What's that guy up to now?
I don't know. He was super cool. He had great parts,
and I ended up being like, yeah, I'll take the wheels too.
You put a bunch of them in my carry-on bag from John Wayne to SFO.
I had like all sorts of like bumper trim and stuff in my bag,
but then he must have shipped the wheels home because obviously I didn't carry the wheels home.
There's no way you added the stereo.
I did not. That stereo was there.
Oh, man. I don't know if I drove this car.
I took that car to the first Radwood.
Radwood. I was going to say yes.
Yes. One thing that didn't make it into Radwood 1.
But Radwood 1 was a thing.
Because that was when everybody kind of looked at each other and was like, this is cool.
Yes. You were both there.
You were in costume, Zach, but you came later.
Costume. What were you wearing?
You were wearing a members only jacket or something?
Yeah, I had a mullet. What else?
Julia was in costume too, weren't you?
MCM or pants.
You guys were both in...
We showed up in theme a little bit.
The Integrale was there too.
The Integrale. We brought the Integrale in the...
Patrick and I drove the Integrale and the White 535.
Because what was going on? I was showing up late.
I like to sense you guys in the cars.
You and your son came later.
Yeah, and daughter.
They all came because they sat in it back to the future DeLorean.
Yep.
So anyway, all of that stuff was there.
Oh, we handed out the...
They let us hand out the best of show prize,
which they were very angry about later because we gave it to a Viper and I...
What happened to those wheels?
Actually, they didn't make it back to California.
Up there, on a separate Craigslist posting, I sourced 15-inch E34 mesh
BBS sort of sport package wheels and swapped those onto the car because I couldn't handle it.
Yeah.
I couldn't handle these wheels on that car.
Yeah. You put a lot of effort into a lot of your cars,
but you maybe did more work on this than anything over the last five or six years.
That and that.
Anything that Alpha...
Man, I worked on that Alpha.
Well, and the Cruiser and a bunch of stuff.
But anyway, this one was...
I mean, recently, this was your biggest project.
Because the Alpha was before this one.
The main project was the bumpers, right? Getting the bumpers right,
which is not easy on the E28.
But that car looked better rolling out of here than when I bought it.
It sure did.
Wow.
We posted the text thread of purchasing that car.
I mean, dude, you say we. You wrote that.
You must have written that, right?
I wrote it, but look at the picture with the wheels so shiny at night.
Look at it. That cannot handle that.
You were like, don't bring it back here with those.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. Speaking of ex-Tupac cars for sale.
Oh, totally. Tupac loved and parallels, I bet.
Which I'm okay with on an E38.
We're referring to Tupac's alleged H1.
Number six.
Yeah, right at the end.
The last car you ever...
I was coming up for sale. Where is it?
You said it was at...
It's at Bonham's in Arizona.
It's at Bonham's in Arizona.
Yeah, we were perusing some catalogs.
May need to go bid on it.
Would you roll an H1, Zach?
I would roll that H1.
It had interesting ownership history, but I don't know if I'm a truck guy.
Zach's never going to be a truck guy.
What do you mean this I don't know doubt?
Like, you don't want a truck at all.
I don't know, maybe I could be old and grow a beard and...
Maybe you could be old?
I hope you'll be old someday.
That's the nicest thing.
Not if you keep buying GT3s and driving them fast.
Well, there are old guys driving those.
Hate to break it.
Oh, yeah, that's true. No, I'm aware of that.
Anyway, E28's on the site.
Love those old posts. They're amazing.
It was a cool car.
It was a cool car. Still is.
And somebody can bid on it.
Yeah, and somebody can bid on it.
I love those old posts.
And another thing that's happening right now that is in a similar vein
that you've been doing for a long time are the annual BET Awards.
Oh, yeah.
Those are coming up.
People can nominate the best commenter for 2025, best photo gallery,
best video, a number of other things.
What's the origin of those, Randy?
I don't know if you've ever told that story.
Oh, my gosh. Let's talk about that.
I want to go look, because the cool part is we link to all the previous winners.
That's my favorite part.
Bellcord the first.
So Bellcord was the first.
Nobody here was around for Bellcord, I don't think,
but he was the funniest, most interesting Dosecky's man commenter
that was out of nowhere.
And he died.
He passed away not that long after BET got started.
I think I'd have to review some of that.
I think it's 2012 is the first year of this stuff, I think.
Well, that was the awards.
Yes.
His action on the site was earlier, early days.
No, nobody commented on the site of No7.
They didn't start commenting.
Oh, wait.
They're like, oh, yeah.
But anyway, so we named it after him.
And then we were like, wait, like Car of the Year is cool, right?
Like, what's our favorite Car of the Year on BET?
And then it expanded now that everybody's such a pro selling on BET.
I mean, like people got really fired up when we launched an award for photo gallery
because people were like striving to win that with their insane photo gallery.
And as you know, some drive videos and people go into full like Hollywood mode
on some of their videos about the backstory of the car and different stuff like that.
So that sort of spawned its own.
But yeah, I think you're right.
I think the oldest one of all of them is Car of the Year for sure.
It was Car.
We called it Best Listing, right?
And it was Commenter.
And I mean, you can, oh, this is awesome.
Yeah.
The belly tank Lake story in 2009.
So there was nothing for 08.
There was nothing for 07 because we hadn't thought of this.
And I don't know who knows what was being featured back then.
I still think about that West Lake V8-powered Healy.
That was the 2010 West Car of the Year.
I tell the story all the time of the 2011 Best of the Year,
which was the guy who already had the key on the Volkswagen.
I've told that story many, many times.
The guy bought his old car back and he still had the key in his desk drawer.
Amazing.
Mr. Vespa was 2012.
Cannonball Run winning Jag was 2013,
which has like Richard Rawlings threads going through it.
The young guy that had the Jensen in 2014,
I recently ran into that guy and he's like,
not a young kid anymore.
He's like in his 20s.
Pretty cool.
Oh, Ms. Melders, that we had a bunch of super, super cool Best of the Year.
That 76 Toyota Celica lift back showed up at our Arizona last year.
That's right.
Oh man.
And I think the weird, didn't the guy,
the guy brought the weirdo custom postal Jeep thing too.
To where last year?
No, I think that was at Indy when we had the Indy event.
Didn't he show up in that?
That was weird.
I was actually sad for that one.
I was like, guys, don't vote for an $800 vehicle.
I think that was at Burning Man.
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
He took a left at Burning Man and made it to our event,
but it was cool and people loved it.
And I was like, okay, I've been outvoted.
530 comments, dude.
Yeah, I got taken out of your cat.
One year was the go-kart too,
the first twin engine go-kart.
Zach Winston led to a flood.
Do we have a twin engine rough go-kart every week now, basically?
Yeah.
The first will win and maybe the last will be the listing of the year.
And just seeing all the winners lined up,
like I wonder where that Healy is now.
If anybody knows.
Man, that car is sick.
Please email me.
I want that engine.
Oh my gosh.
Who puts a gurney Westlake power in a Healy?
Mr. Vespas, before I worked here,
I followed that story very closely.
That was maybe the longest series of stories.
There was probably more stories even than your split window.
Totally.
The Mr. Vespas story was unbelievable.
Talking to that guy and the rolled sprint speciale
that got all built back and then sold on BAT.
I think about all the time, because as I recall,
he had incredibly hard time finding that beautiful curved windshield.
And so every time I'm thinking about an S600
or some car that I want to buy where the parts are unobtainium,
I think about this sprint speciale story
where it's like good luck finding another one of those windshields.
Yeah, absolutely.
And you can't drive it around without the windshield.
But then he figured out how to do it.
So anyway, BAT awards are super fun.
Get in there.
There's a nomination process now,
because it got so unwieldy of people just like,
you know, 300 people will vote for 298 different cars.
And the win will be two votes to one.
Like it was weird.
So we changed it up and now there's a nomination process.
And then we do a vote between what is it?
Three different listings.
Yeah, we narrow it down and then there's a second round.
Yeah.
People should jump on that.
It's a fun one to review the house and the Ys
and dig up some stories that you might have forgotten about.
100%. I love them.
Excited about all those.
Zach, we talked about 2025 and review already,
but anything in 2026 that you're excited about
or want to orient your teams towards?
I mean, I'm really excited about our event calendar.
Honestly, I don't know how much we can share there.
But I think we can share Palm Springs
because that's definitely happening.
Share more than Palm Springs.
What else are we doing?
I mean, we're hanging in Arizona.
They're threatening to do something in a racetrack, I think.
Yes, yes.
What would you guys do out in podcast land
if there was a BAT track event?
Alex needs that racing twinkle in his eyes.
I do.
He's getting it back for sure.
He needs to drive something around a track for time.
I do.
I need actually what I need is like seat time.
I need to sit in a car without a guy yelling at me
or whatever and just get some laps under my belt.
I haven't done it in so long.
20, 30 laps where you get back into the rhythm.
I've forgotten what that's like.
We should go out in your Civic just to…
I know you keep saying that.
I'm so scared.
Rip the tires off of the Civic around a racetrack.
He's going to overdo it and cook the brakes and stuff,
don't you think?
Just do like two sessions.
Yeah.
If I do a full do my program where I show up,
always miss the first session of the day
so I don't have to wake up at the crack of dawn.
And then I'll usually skip the last one.
Skip the driver's meeting.
Yes.
And then we'll just have a nice dinner and Monterey.
Actually, that sounds pretty appealing.
You do a virtual driver meeting now.
Amazing.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Things have changed so much in 15 years.
16 years now.
People didn't pay attention at all to virtual driver meeting,
do they?
No.
They didn't pay attention to the in-person ones 10 years ago.
Yeah, but you can see if they could actually stand up straight.
Where's the STI?
Number 10?
Where's number 10?
Blue STI.
Half of the driver meeting is talking about the lunch schedule.
Totally.
Right?
And then blue number 10 STI is not there
because he's like ran somebody off track
so he doesn't show up.
All that matters is you signed your waiver
so the forklift can plow into your red R34 skyline.
No, dude.
People see that online.
I hope they do.
Brutal.
That was sad.
I don't know.
What is that?
Oh, did you not see?
No.
Some Laguna Seca drama.
The track was red flagged at an open track day
so everyone stopped.
And this poor guy who just built is red,
which is a rare color.
Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen a red R34.
He had a fully built motor, strip interior cage,
like one of his first days out.
The forklift is driving on track and it's red flagged
so he stopped pretty close to the entrance
and the forklift just slams into his car
and said, oh, I didn't see you at all.
I don't understand the logistics of it,
but I did see the video.
A lot of people saw that video.
Yeah, I know.
Brutal.
Missed that one.
Oh, man.
Poor guy.
I hope he figures it out.
Is it like a total situation?
It's not good.
I mean, that's also where you're going
to get all the parts for that car.
Man, that's rough.
Well, let's hope that doesn't happen.
So let's talk about other parts of track days.
Yeah, yeah, totally.
So step one is Arizona, where Zach buys two-box Hummer.
Step two is Palm Springs, which I'm really excited about,
which is a former golf course turned into Nature Preserve,
which is going to be really bad.
Oh, really? That's cool.
Yeah, it's a really cool venue.
We have access to the old clubhouse
and it's going to be really cool.
That's just Jan or Feb.
That's going to be Feb 21.
I hope listeners out there and other community members
will make a weekend out of it,
either from LA or Vegas or San Diego or wherever
and come hang out.
It's the end of, is it fashion week?
What's it called?
No, modernism.
Modernism week, which is not a thing.
I love Palm Springs.
Is there a Palm Springs fashion week?
Would that be like a straw hat?
But like, what would that be?
What's the Venn diagram overlap
between fashion week golf course car event
and modernism?
We're very flamboyant.
Is our event modern?
Everybody has an Andy Warhol print t-shirt on.
There you go.
Are we going to lean into modernism
and all drive cars like your new Acura MDX?
Oh gosh, is that what I'm talking about?
I thought you were going to say,
are we going to drive an SM?
I think modernism is more like an SM
or possibly a 1978 Ferrari
because I hope that car is ready.
It's very close to Palm Springs,
so I hope I can bring that.
That would be a nice little debut.
It would be a debut, a debut.
Looking forward to that.
And then track day still undetermined,
but almost certainly going to happen.
Cool.
We're picking tracks, right?
Been in the wheel and picking which track it's going to be.
And every option on the wheel is Sonoma Raceway.
I'm actually really excited about it.
I'm really, really looking forward to that.
Yeah, we're narrowing down the number of tracks.
It's harder to get track people to talk to you
than you would think.
It's maybe not the most reliable group of people,
people who operate race tracks.
Some better than others.
Have you driven every major track in California, Zach?
No, I haven't done any track
in Southern California.
Oh, interesting.
You've never done Chuck Wallo or Button Willow or Willow?
Me neither.
In California.
You've never driven any of those either?
Never.
I thought you'd been to Willow.
You were saying that the other night?
No, that's why I want to do it there.
Gosh, it's so interesting.
I've never driven the Northern ones.
I've been to all of them,
but I've never been on Sonoma, never been.
I've never been to Thunder Hill.
I've never even been on the property there.
I think Willow Springs could be really cool.
I think it could be fun.
Willow is sick.
It's out in the middle of nowhere.
Not in the middle of nowhere,
but it's, you know,
you got to stay in Lancaster or Mojave.
When we would race there,
half the time we'd stay in Mojave.
If we were feeling really poor
and if you were feeling rich,
you could do the days in for $99 a night.
You camp at...
They don't want to do that.
No.
Rumors are they're going to build some spa hotel, right?
I mean, they're going to do something big
so that people don't have to have this conversation.
Totally.
When they roll in there in their singer DLS
and camp next to it.
Those guys are not going to sleep
on the floor of their transporter,
but I think you can do that at any...
I mean, when we would go to Button Willow,
we would sleep in the bed of the truck
or in the enclosed trailer back in the day.
And like a lot of people do that,
but most people have an RV.
I would already know.
I wasn't actually going to camp.
You're not, Zach.
Shocking.
I don't think Zach's going to stay in Mojave either.
I'll figure it out.
I'll miss the first track session and...
Totally.
Drive up from LA that morning
where there's better hotel options.
But I would love...
I mean, it's just a dream,
but think of the race car category on BET.
You had like a race car run group
that was the race car category on BET.
All the wacky stuff that we've sold.
Oh, so cool.
And then you had the street car category on BET,
and it was like alumni,
but just street track day cars.
And then you had every track day,
which is GT3RS only.
It's like a spec series.
Parsing them out by decade would be pretty cool.
Yeah.
If you had enough.
And then you could do a fast group and a slow car.
Yeah.
You don't want the split window vet guy
running with the GT3RS guy.
The car...
I tried to do that with my Mustang.
The car that I think about every time is this.
Like, this is what I mean.
Something like this.
Like, that would be very cool.
You're saying this.
Tell the world what you're looking at.
It's just a Datsun 510 race car,
but it's like nicely prepped.
It looks kind of like period.
It was listed by 9-11-R earlier this year.
Which that sell for and when did it sell?
Bid to 23 grand.
Didn't sell.
There's one on...
I think I had a rebel mode.
That's been floating around the broader internet
that allegedly has history in NorCal,
and it's like for 48 grand.
I think it's too much.
That's why it's been sitting for sale forever.
This is F production, SCCAF production.
It's not a period race car, which I don't need.
I just want something.
I mean, my dream, as you and I have talked about
with that Cortina, is something with a plate on it
that you could drive to the track and actually race,
but that's like an almost non-existent category of car.
Yeah.
Well, figure out what car.
We'll figure out the date.
We'll let people know the date.
One other thing to parse out on air
so I can tie you to it later, Randy,
is the Amboy or no Amboy.
Like, do we want to go out to the middle of the desert?
Well, are we teasing?
We can tease it.
Route 66, activities?
We're definitely going to do something with Route 66.
That's like a definite thing.
That's just going to be the only way
that I get my Chrysler running
is if there's a Route 66 activity.
Timo's ready.
I know he is.
He's ready.
We're in discussion, or you and I are,
and then that's going to bring him in.
But yeah, I have a 56 car that needs to drive.
Some portion of 66.
And what is this year?
It's 100th anniversary of Route 66.
Does that do anything for you, Zach?
Are you excited about that?
I have a great time with you on it.
And a car from 1963 and a half.
That's a good break, 200 miles an hour on it
in a modernist sports car.
Zach didn't actually like driving
super fast out there in those cars.
I don't like being a passenger when you drive.
Neither do I.
Yeah, fair enough.
Also, once you drive that car
and you know what the brakes are capable of,
it makes you more nervous
when someone's driving it really fast.
Yeah, that's a fair point.
So anyway, would you call the place?
Amboy.
That's a town or that's an establishment?
It is a ghost town, essentially.
I think it was a railroad town.
Have you driven the 40 from Barstow?
I've never driven the 40.
My dad drove the 40 coast to coast
or whatever like a big stretch.
40 is like close to Route 66.
Like it's roughly the thing.
It's the second up from the bottom
in terms of the east-west interstates.
It goes from Barstow east by southeast to Needles.
And Amboy is like off that stretch of it
about 10 miles south.
You had me at Needles.
You had me at Needles, California.
It's California, right?
Not Nevada.
California's on the border.
It's like the...
It's Needles, California though, right?
Yes, it is.
But it's on the Colorado River.
It's like in that like
Kingman is when you get onto the other side of the border
in Arizona, which is also a Route 66 town.
Is that 29 Palms adjacent?
My grandfather did tank training in 29 Palms.
That's right.
Probably shot at something.
Absolutely.
I think that's where Patton trained
the Third Army to North Africa, I think.
Anyway, 29 Palms.
Okay, so we're excited about the middle of the desert for that.
Okay.
Yes.
Zach, what else are you looking forward to?
Howard, putting pressure on you to drive his cup car?
Are you going to resist that?
I feel like there's some weird insurance scheme or something.
I don't know what's in the rectic.
It's like uncomfortable how much he's like,
drive my cup car.
He's not ready for that.
It's going to be sad.
You're totally ready for that.
No, no.
And the worst thing is then
he'll just benchmark my time against his.
And there's on paper a mathematical equation
of how much slower.
You don't want that?
You want to avoid that?
Call and stick that day.
So there's no comparisons.
Zach was like, can I drive the only five cylinder GT3?
That's great.
It's great.
Do you have anything interesting on the site right now
that you're excited about, Randy?
I mean, I'm watching.
Your own car.
You're watching your own.
I'm watching all sorts of stuff, I'll be honest.
Let me pull up the BET app because that's where I keep,
I do most of my watching.
We can talk about the Jacques Villeneuve car.
That's a super cool car.
Or it's an Indie car, not a car.
A lot of people were getting pretty fired up
on that one, weren't they?
Yes.
I've been watching 450 SEL 6.9L.
Oh, that's us lately.
We've had one in Europe.
Yes.
So the one in Europe happened then,
but there was a US-based one before that
that I was watching pretty closely.
You're going to have to do another
bumper swap program.
I know.
No more bumper swap programs.
I don't really want to do that.
Oh, the US one in the teal color?
That's really good.
I like that.
Anyway, I've been watching those.
I'd kind of like to buy an old Benz of some sort.
Man, this one's nice.
I mean, my watch list is Schizophrenic,
as you would expect.
LS3 swapped, FJ80, the Tatra that's in Slovakia.
I was very pleased to see our website
puts a little flag up for what country you're from
and I had no idea what the Slovakia flag was,
but it is there.
We've listed a 1984 Lada Niva,
which is very unusual.
I don't know if you guys care at all about that,
but I do like that.
We do have a Lada make page, which I appreciate.
That's fascinating.
How many Ladas do you think we've listed?
17.
9.
9.
There's a 512TR ending tomorrow, Zach.
Yeah, I can see you in one of those.
Those Fernando Alonso cruising around in cars are solid.
Fernando Alonso in a 512TR.
Yeah.
Wow.
I love that.
It made me want one even more.
Has he had it for a long time?
He has some cars.
I saw him.
Was he in a CLK GTR?
He was in something the other day
and they're like, oh, he's under forever.
He's like, maybe he wanted a CLK GTR?
Oh, yeah.
Wasn't he a Formula One driver in the 90s?
So he may have had it when it was almost new.
I don't know when his career started.
Yeah, probably in the late 90s, early 2000s,
something like that.
We've had a steady string of E30 Tourings
go through this site, which I've been monitoring.
Oh, yeah, you have.
Because I'm a psychopath.
And then there's, you would like this.
Did you see the 323TI individual in like a root beer color?
You know how I like TI's.
Yeah, those are weird.
I'm watching the ATC's.
I mean, I'm everywhere.
I love all this watch list stuff.
It's so fun.
You eyeing anything, Alex?
I mean, I was very thirsty to buy an S2000,
as I told you, that was on the site.
No reserve.
The exact color combo of my old S2000
was even lower miles than when I bought mine in 2009.
And I really, really wanted it and went for a ton of money
as I thought it would.
But that was something I was watching.
This 323 is actually really solid.
Another car for the Montana LLC program,
because it's another car I'm never going to get smogged
in California, which is frustrating.
But man, this car is good.
Did you guys see the Mengusta we sold a little bit ago?
Sold for 270.
Orange car.
That was really.
I actually think that's kind of good value in that price.
I mean, it was in the range.
It's not a crazy price.
And the story on that car was super cool.
One of the prettiest cars of all time,
and I'm so terrified of them, but they're gorgeous.
I think they're cool.
There was some very cool chatter in that one
about handling dynamics and some different things.
You were talking about the Mark III GT40
and how it never looks better than when it's stationary
from a certain angle.
Mengusta is the same thing with one.
Elevate that even higher.
Yes, correct.
Even higher.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Did you guys catch the Sabaro Super 5?
I didn't see how it finished.
I saw it when it launched.
And that seemed like a buy to me.
13 grand.
Oh my gosh.
It's based on R5, isn't it?
Well, it wants to be an R5, right?
It's a luxury R5.
Did you see the interior?
But what are they just?
It's unreal.
They just wrap everything in white leather?
White leather, wood.
The center stack is unique.
These crazy power seats.
Okay, and it was 13 Gs?
13 grand.
That's a front engine car?
Yes.
I love that I have to ask.
Like, where's the engine in that car?
It's like the one that we saw at RetroMobile.
And what I'd forgotten about them looking at the,
when it popped up,
it's like your car, it's a north-south engine,
even though, you know, it's like an Audi.
It's front-wheel drive, but with a north-south, yes.
Uh-huh.
Is that how R5s work?
Well, you're...
They must have been.
Yes, they are.
And that's how your car is in the back.
I always assumed, until I saw your car,
that an R5 turbo had the motor sideways,
but it's north-south.
Yeah, it's a Mangusta.
It is a Mangusta-esque.
It's like a Ferrari 348.
Did you guys see the, am I saying this right?
Haglunds, S-U-S-V?
The tracked vehicle.
They cut it.
It was Mercedes adjacent.
The massive three-point star.
Oh yeah.
It was Mercedes powers.
Huge.
What was the view count?
This could be killer of the year for me.
I mean, look at that shot and look at that.
Well, it floats.
It's a tank, but it floats.
Isn't that what that vehicle is?
Or does it sink?
Trailer passenger compartment floats also.
Could you imagine showing them an overlanding event
and that thing?
Game over.
That got a tremendous amount of people.
Did it really?
People were pumped on it.
I saw it was popular.
Yeah, 250 comments, 99,000 views.
That's one of our most popular lists of the year.
Over 1,000, I bet.
Yeah.
I'm watching.
I'm still watching like a psychopath 308s,
and there was a Black 308s act that you may remember,
GTB that was a California blue plate car
with 20,000 miles that we had on the site a long time ago.
It tells you how long I've been looking for you.
I think 2020 or 2021.
And now Sarah has it, and he's selling it at No Reserve.
And I'm like, oh, man, have I made a horrible mistake.
It's back.
It's white.
Black.
White's unbeatable.
I know white's unbeatable, but Black Black is really good.
It was a California blue plate car.
Axl Rose History.
Come on.
What are you getting down about?
I know, I know, I know.
Stay focused.
Stay on target.
Stay on target.
There's a great Healy that sold.
I totally haven't been following 104 Healys again.
No, you didn't.
We sold one for $31,000.
And I heard, actually just heard,
that 75th anniversary of Healy is in 2027,
and they're going to have like a big gathering in Lake Tahoe.
And I was like, it'd be kind of rad.
Hey, to just go up and see that.
Yes.
Especially like hundreds of Healys.
See all of them struggling to get up the hill.
Tell them the wheezing through SUs or whatever they do.
Yeah.
These are all descriptors for the owners as well.
Oh gosh, come on.
Does your dad still have his blue six?
No, he sold it.
Okay.
He sold it.
But I like Healy's.
And I think it'd be rad to rip up there and go to that event.
So anyway, I'm kind of lightly sniffing around the Healy market.
This is the white one that Mark Murray had,
that you were looking at the other day.
This is a good looking car.
Yes.
I like that car a lot.
It wasn't a like done up car.
It was just sort of drive or car, I think.
But the four cylinders are the only ones for me really.
Really?
I like a lot of different Healy's,
but some about the sliding down windshield.
It's simple.
The real simple ones is what I like.
But I was like, would I be insane enough
to drive from here to Tahoe in a bug eye?
Like with my dad.
That's like terrifying.
But I love bug eyes.
I've come around on bug eyes.
I actually really like that.
Bug eyes are fantastic.
Still one of the best experiences I had in a car
in the last 10 years was that one that we had in Monterey.
That was so fun, right?
It's so fun to drive that car.
They're so tiny.
Shout out to Mike Hayworth.
Shout out to Mike, 1275 dual SUs and a T5.
And all of that I think is vital for the funness.
A T5 transmission.
Isn't that what he had?
I think he just had the stock little four.
That was a five speed.
It was some kind of five speed.
Here, we can pull it up.
That car was on the site.
I think that car had a four speed, dude.
No.
Let's look it up.
Would you ever get it going fast enough to get into fifth?
Yeah.
Why do you even care?
It was kind of fast.
I had real short gearing, as I recall.
That car didn't have a five speed.
You can't fit a T5 in a bug.
Maybe it wasn't a T5.
I'm almost positive it was a five speed.
T5 is a pretty long transmission.
What year was that?
21.
A while ago.
That was the first BAT Laguna alumni gathering.
You search for that car.
I'll find it.
You guys talk amongst yourselves.
I do like that car.
So anyway, great variety of stuff on the site.
It's kind of back up as people have seen the team
takes a little breather right over the holidays.
But now, Zach, last couple of days of submissions,
people are rolling back in.
Yeah.
We've got a no reserve 599 GTO coming through.
Wow.
Some heat right there.
That is amazing.
One of that.
Okay.
Yeah.
For our buddies, OTS here in the East Bay.
OTS has it.
Cool.
I like those guys.
Oh, they're great.
Yeah.
I like their photos.
They're taken on like a railroad tracks
or like a rail yard or something.
They've got their photo shoot style.
Yeah.
The cars I bring to you are interesting, unique.
Mm-hmm.
Not all of them are crazy.
I mean, that's a pretty high end car, right?
Yeah, they've got some heat for sure though.
Okay.
Killer.
What else is coming through the pipelines?
Okay.
So that's the car.
Five speed.
Dude, I'm totally wrong.
You probably like edited it like knew the title of that.
I just changed it.
I changed it just now.
It actually has a four speed,
but he put five speed in the title.
He did a trim and submission swap
at the time this conversation ended.
It's a Dotson 5-speed of Rivergate Dotson.
I've never even heard of that word before.
Rivergate Dotson.
Okay.
I'm okay with that.
Even though the 240Z chewed through Dotson 5-speed,
this is slightly less HP.
When somebody says Dotson 5-speed,
I cringe because I think we had to put three of them in the 240.
Slightly less HP in this car.
Yeah, we had some Rebello.
We had some Rebello HP.
Man, with the hubcap, this car was what a delight that car was.
I think I have some crazy older photos of that car
that I'm going to dig for right now and show to you.
What are we going to do with your 308 this year, Alex?
That's the question.
What, how many miles are you going to put on it?
A lot.
What's the odometer at in your 308?
80.
So it was at 76 when I picked it up and it's at 80k km now.
That's pretty well.
The kilometers, we're clicking kilometers.
We're clicking km's.
They click over a lot faster.
They do, which is cool.
It's gratifying.
I was driving 85 miles an hour on the way over
and the 10th part of the odometer
is just constantly rotating.
There's no ticking.
It's just moving.
I love that.
I think the goal is to add as many as possible.
I know these like low mile cars or whatever.
Like the goal in the 308 is to add as many km's
as you can.
Correct.
So the question is, what can we get to by New Year's next year?
I've got to come up with things to do.
80?
85?
I think 90's doable for sure.
With the NSX and the GT3,
which were the last two cars I bought,
I put about 17,000 miles on the NSX
and about 14,000 on the GT3.
And I did almost all of that in both cars
in the first year.
Because that's when you're the most,
do you find this too?
That's when you're the most excited to drive a new car.
Yeah.
Yeah, I go through phases.
I've driven something a lot.
I'm not good at the rotation.
I can stick one for a few weeks.
Yeah, you tend to do the same thing.
You get a new car and you drive it a lot at first
and then it leaks oil in the office after that.
Permanently, I rotate them around a little bit.
Yeah, I need to add some more.
I'm not one of those that keeps track
or gets a cumulative thing.
And I spread it around over, again,
a schizophrenic mix of cars.
So I don't think I can put 10,000 miles on any car this year
because that means I would be neglecting a couple others.
That's right.
Well, I don't know if you guys are on my program,
but you drive something up to the point
where an expensive service might occur
and then you just park it
until you're mentally ready to pay for it.
That's called the Swing Family Program.
I think a lot of people do that.
Yeah.
I don't think you're alone, dude.
No.
I mean, the green car has been sitting down seriously forever.
I got to fire it up today
to take it over to Motoring Club tomorrow.
So I've got to figure that out.
That's next step.
Oh, it's on display?
Yeah, you want to hype that?
When I park my car in a coffee shop,
I think my kids thought that was cooler
than anything else I've ever done with cars.
They're like, oh, wow, it's famous.
It's on display.
Next in line for the free parking spot over there.
It's only because they want a green car
for an activation they're doing.
Oh, yeah.
Do you have a green car right now, Zach?
No.
No.
You actually hate green cars.
No, I love green cars.
What's the last green car you had?
The Lude.
What's the Lude?
No, the Cayman, the tree Cayman.
Oh, that's a crazy green.
It was a crazy green.
Was that green?
What was that called?
The Pralude was a decade of my life with a green car.
That was green.
Yeah.
I thought we were reaching all the way back for that.
But I miss having it.
What was the name of the color?
I love that color on Cayman.
What was it called?
Paradox.
If you're an uncultured, illiterate person like me.
But Parado, if you can actually announce things.
Wait, is that your buddy Thomas
who texted us this morning,
is that that same color?
He bought this on BAT.
It's a similar.
It's the same color.
Oh, is it really?
Yeah.
You could get in a Cayenne GTS.
He bought that on BAT.
He did.
That's alumni.
I believe it's a Cayenne GTS.
I think that's exactly what it is.
He has two crazy green Porsche SUVs.
But I think both from BAT.
He's a maniac.
Love that. Love Tom.
Yeah, he's great.
He was texting to say he's going to miss out on RetroMobile.
So that's a bummer.
Too bad.
So, Motoring Club, though, dude, had the parking spot.
This is arranged by Randy.
He says, that's how you do it.
Don't blame me, dude.
Don't blame me.
Like, own this.
I teed it up, but I said you don't have to.
Well, they needed a green car for an activation.
They're doing.
And this is the story.
You tell me whether this is the true story or not.
This is what he told me.
I call him up and he's like,
so it's for some company that's not car related.
I can't remember who it is.
They're doing an activation at the Motoring Club coffee shop.
And of course, who do you call
when you're in service?
You need a green call.
Randy, get Randy on the phone.
And Randy set a picture of the Cortina.
And he's like, this has a green stripe.
And they're like, what's that car in the background?
And then Randy introduced me to the guys via text.
You're glossing over the six text.
You're like, ah, don't worry about that car.
You don't want that in there.
Well, the Cortina.
He's glossing over the me saying,
please take the Cortina.
Please take the Cortina.
And he's like, we don't want the Cortina.
No, because the Cortina's nice.
So then they're asking me about my car.
And I'm like, I don't know if you, like,
want this piece of Chuck sitting in your coffee shop.
Everyone does, dude.
What color is your Porsche?
It was told to us that it's called Shamrock green.
And then...
I don't know about that.
Right.
And so then I looked up the colors on Renbo,
which is one of our favorite resources here.
And then they learned it's Grand Prix White.
Totally.
So on Renbo, they call it either Speedway or Ascot.
And then...
What?
Yeah.
So it has three...
I thought it was Vipe.
It's not.
It's a different...
There's like six of these greens that Porsche made in the 70s.
What's the C?
When it starts with a C?
Conda.
Yeah.
There's a bunch.
So it's either Ascot or Speedway,
although I've heard it referred to also as Shamrock in official places.
But then I sent away for a Porsche Production Specifications Certificate
and they told me it was Grand Prix White.
But the car is Grand Prix White,
which is the same paint goat as mine.
I just think they got it wrong.
Oh, you think they're incorrect.
It's definitely the...
I mean, you can...
The paint's fading through.
You can see it's the original paint on it.
We've owned it for more than half of its life.
We bought it when it was only 23 years old.
Controversy.
Anyway.
Are you with the Porsche documentation or are you against it?
I love if Alex submitted his car to the site just melting down.
Totally.
It's definitely original paint.
Totally.
Porsche was wrong.
Well, I wouldn't say...
Yeah, I agree.
I wouldn't say it's original paint, but they are wrong.
But we've also seen that before, unfortunately.
It was better when you could get the Kardex
because the Kardex shows the original thing,
but now it's like many rungs away.
Our podcast is the same as every modern car podcast
because we eventually start...
It all converges to Porsche colors.
Yes.
Correct.
Okay.
Anyway, but coffee...
Coffee.
So it's going to be the...
Union Street, San Francisco.
Yes.
And apparently the company...
Motor club coffee or motoring coffee or...
Motoring coffee, I think it's called...
I call it motoring club.
But anyway, they are over on Union Street in San Francisco.
Not only can you see Alex's Grand Prix White Slash Green car,
Shamrock Green.
You can also...
Have a cup of coffee.
Have a little coffee.
He told me he's like,
yeah, we need to switch them out Thursday
to take the GT3 RS out.
I'm like, oh, great.
Oh, Zach's never getting a parking space
because they already did it.
They already checked the box.
I've got silvers and whites.
Nothing good.
It's a big downgrade.
Okay, cool.
We've got too many red cars.
They ever need a red one.
Those guys are rad.
Go over there and support them.
We like those guys.
That'll be an interesting deal.
We'll see if my kids care at all.
Yeah, we'll see.
We shall see.
Anything else, guys?
We're rocking into 26.
I'm excited to be back on the pod.
What are some upcoming pod topics?
Are we going to do 2026?
We were thinking about it.
Your combination 2026, I don't know.
Answers are a little thin for me,
but I'll show up.
I don't know if I can do every category.
I may pick the same car for every category.
Yeah.
But that would be a fine one.
I'm trying to do that, actually.
I was like, could I have one car
for every category?
You could.
That's a one-year garage thing I've thought about.
Like, I tried it one time with our buddy,
Maurice from Horse Car Heritage.
We did a little version of the one-year garage
when he was on this pod,
but we did it Chevy's only from the 1960s.
You had to pick a garage.
I love that.
It was really fun.
So we could try some variations like that.
I may need to expand to GM only,
but Chevy only.
I mean, you could do it.
Well, like, we tried to make it as narrow
as we could.
Wagon, car, convertible.
Yep.
So we could do some things like that.
The big winner are the movies.
So we got to try to do a movie pod every day.
Winner, how?
Those are very popular.
Very popular.
Really?
Yes.
So I think that's cool.
Over Christmas break and New Year's,
I scouted Days of Thunder,
so I hadn't rewatched that in forever.
Freaking 11 out of 10.
It's so good.
Ford versus Ferrari,
which I hadn't seen in quite a while,
which is great and is a must-do.
You have to be on that one
because there's so many nits to pick
that we have to complain about.
Your dad mentioned the big wheels
on the Cobra Coops.
Yes.
And we all went to see it in the theater
as a company,
and I didn't notice it then,
and now it's just like,
burn the movie.
Can't handle.
Can't handle.
But it's so good.
Tracy Letts as the deuce is so good.
The performance is so good.
And I watched something else too,
but those two are just off the charts.
So we got to do those.
So Days of Thunder is next, I think.
And Zack really wants to do American Graffiti,
and that's very on the short list.
I will watch that.
I'm ready.
That's also...
56 White T-Bird.
You were having this conversation yesterday.
Dude, how did you not mention the T-Bird
that's on the website right now?
Okay, wait, Zack, I want to ask Zack.
Have you flown into Vegas enough times?
Have you walked through...
All right, it's Harry Reid Airport.
Now it used to be McCarron,
but have you walked through the baggage claim
and noticed the Cessna that they have hanging there?
Oh, yeah.
The Hacienda Cessna says Hacienda Hotel down the side
or whatever.
Okay.
So that was an airplane that stayed aloft
for like two months straight.
It couldn't have been that long.
It was.
It was December...
It stayed aloft like it never landed.
Correct.
And they refueled via a car.
They would come real low and slow,
and a car would come up,
and they'd pass a fuel line up.
And like the military...
Not a fuel line.
They'd pass a tank.
Maybe it was tanks.
It was like this.
Yeah, a Jerry can.
They'd like put on a hook,
and the guys would reel it in
and refuel the plane.
Terrible.
So the guys were up there like eating,
and going to the bathroom,
everything in a little Cessna,
in a four-seat Cessna.
And the guys never got down.
Yes, for two months.
It's like worse than like the abandoned space mission.
And then...
How would you...
You know what I mean?
Just rest easy.
Yeah, I mean,
I think I presume what they did is
they just had the pilot seat,
and then you could lay next, you know...
And you know how miserable and exhausted you are,
and then you just trust the other guy.
And then you just do...
Yeah, and by the way,
do that for 45 more days.
And you're also...
There's a bathroom in there,
you know, like a can,
I presume is all it is,
and you're eating all your meals in there.
And...
Imagine the arguments on day 38.
You're just so sick of that guy.
Oh my gosh.
You're like,
can we just land, please?
Is there a parachute?
So it was for a promotion
for the Hacienda Hotel,
hence the thing.
It's hanging in...
It's a record that stands today.
No one's gonna stay aloft
that long ever again.
Totally not.
So there was a 56 T-bird
that was one of the support vehicles for it,
and that is live on the site right now.
And it's amazing.
And there's pictures of them
handing the gas can up
from this said T-bird
up to the plane
with it at like 20 feet elevation.
Last...
It's really low.
So they really low.
Must have used it
because they needed a convertible then?
Needed a convertible.
They used trucks also,
but like...
And it was like 1960 or something.
So it needed to be able to go flying speed.
How fast...
Oh, I believe it's in early 172.
They stall at like 45 knots,
so which is like 50 miles.
Okay, so he could go 60
and you're not even at stall speed.
Yeah.
Anyway, it's actually a pretty beautiful looking car now,
but the photos of the...
Look at it with the cans.
Right now.
Oh, wait, wait, wait.
Oh, they had trucks too.
Yes.
Speaking of your GM Gras,
but go to the ones with the T-bird.
Like go left or right.
They're so low with the T-bird.
This is all squatted now.
I think things like this,
actually, you know how like favorite gallery
kind of goes towards like
who has the most beautiful lighting
on the Cayman or whatever?
There's the can.
That, dude.
I mean, that is a dramatic photograph.
And everybody ought to go look at that.
Search for 56 Thunderbird.
Even if you're not into Thunderbirds,
like you should look at this.
Here's a photo of one of the pilots
trying to jump out.
Trying to enslave.
Yeah, a sly 11 sanity.
I can't take this anymore.
Totally, totally.
And yeah, publicity turns sour.
I mean, there's amazing stories
about when the Voyager in 1984
flew around the world nonstop
first time that was done
without refueling the Bert Rutan plane,
took off and landed in Mojave,
or 1986 I think that was.
That's hanging in the front lobby
of the Smithsonian, the big long wings.
That was Bert Rutan's brother, Dick Rutan,
and he flew it with Jenna Yeager.
And like they lived in a little,
it was the size of this desk.
They lived in that for a week nonstop
to fly around the world.
And there's crazy stories about how that
relationship was flying that airplane.
Wow.
Around the world nonstop.
I don't know anything about that stuff.
But this one, like I would vote for that
for Gallery of the Year next year,
speaking of our awards.
But just because like,
what's the craziest photo on BAT?
That sort of mining of BAT is really fun to me.
And I mean, I like sit back in my seat
and I'm like, you got to be kidding me.
Like somebody's going to perish,
like right out of frame on this.
It's crazy.
A good period, black and white,
that you can add into the inline part
of the listing is my favorite thing on BAT.
Yeah, I agree.
And remember, I think,
I don't know if a one video of the year,
remember the guy lapping in the Lola
or whatever at Road America?
Like just some dramatic stuff that's on BAT
and it just, you know,
it's a seven day auction
and then it's gone
and then nobody ever looks at these photos again.
But I would like print out that photo
and put it on the wall.
Like it's incredible.
It is incredible.
And there's a Howard Hughes connection.
He may have owned the Hacienda Hotel.
So that's like another cool piece of it.
How did they just trip across that story?
Why didn't we tell that?
I hope this podcast is edited
and we tell that story first
because that story is incredible.
It's so good.
This is going live tomorrow.
Okay, well,
maybe Chris can slice and dice.
Maybe Chris can put the Hacienda Cessna
in the lead for this.
No, no, no.
We went movie talk
and then we went American Graffiti.
Then we went 56 Bird
and then we went Hacienda Hotel.
That's right.
I mean, the thread is strong there.
That's why people love all this stuff.
I mean, I don't think you're alone, Randy,
in that this kind of stuff
is what gets other people excited.
This is like wrapped right into the BAT brand.
And there's so many,
I guess, sorry,
we just go back to like Arizona rage.
But like, they're like,
oh yeah, this car ran in the Alpine rallies
in 1948 and 49.
And you scroll the gallery
and there's like five current
outside photos of the car
in an exterior category.
And then you're like, dude,
you got you got nothing.
I know.
Like there's not even,
there's not a trophy.
There's not a document.
There's not a freaking picture.
There's not anything.
And I'm just like, why?
Like, why would I sell in this way?
Like, look at this gallery on this T-bird.
How many photos are in the gallery, Zach?
272.
272.
I like that.
Why block?
Why block?
But no, that's 292.
292.
It's 292.
Oh, yeah.
It's close though.
I like that.
I don't know if you've noticed
our writers.
I'm adding 20 photos.
Yeah, yeah.
Let's go put 20 more photos.
Somewhat at my kind of push
because you and I care about this so much.
We try to put those interesting things.
And if you look at this,
the second photo in line
is like a big compilation
of all the things this car has done.
Like that's often the most important stuff.
It's so important.
It's like all that matters.
You know, I mean,
it's like the story.
There's so many 56 birds.
But this one, the emotion of that photo
of like it being terrifying,
it's unbelievable.
I wish they'd restored it
with the can strapped to the back.
Yeah, I think.
I mean, nobody wants that.
Nobody wants that.
That would limit the buyers for sure.
Honestly, where is it for sale?
It's in Zona.
No, it's our guy MS Classic.
It's Mark Skrillow.
It's like one of our top sellers.
I want to picture that car
back in Vegas.
Drive it into the baggage claim area.
Get it right back up.
Where's that hotel that that hotel's been?
Oh, that's D.
D. Mall.
That's the one demo.
Ocean's 11.
Ocean's 11 is that they take to the ground.
The sickest to be off the plane
collecting it in the airport.
Like it's shot.
Well, that that is there.
And it's a replica.
Oh, really?
They had a replica of the car
that we're selling.
Yes.
So we have the real and the rep is in.
Is in is in the air port.
Yes.
Harry Reid International.
OK.
Anyway, we've gone long on that.
But everybody should look at that listing.
That's my nomination for listing of the year so far.
Thus far.
But we're only how many days into the year?
Seven.
Anyway, I also want a 56 bird.
Well, there's that.
There's a there's a double there.
Anyway, killer times.
Awesome.
Thank you, gents.
And thanks to everyone for listening.
As always, we appreciate you
and we will catch you next time.
About this episode
A lively discussion about Bring a Trailer's 2025 highlights and 2026 expectations, featuring insights from BAT's leadership team. The episode dives into impressive auction statistics, including nearly 50,000 listings and over $1.7 billion in sales. The hosts share their excitement for upcoming events, including a unique 1956 Ford Thunderbird with aviation history currently listed. They also touch on the BAT Awards, upcoming car events, and the challenges of modern car sales, all while weaving in personal anecdotes and humorous exchanges.
Alex is joined by Randy and Zac to discuss monster trucks of yore; 1990s Sacramento basketball; "frame off" restorations of unibody cars; newly published BaT stats and Randy's thoughts on 2025 from the president's perspective; the least popular theme park for kids; an ex-Nonnenberg car live on the site; the first Radwood; and whether Zac can ever be a truck guy.
Moving on we talk about the annual BaT Awards, which we all look forward to every year; tease an upcoming Meet-Up in Palm Springs, BaT's first track event, and Route 66 activities to come; highlight current watchlist picks; give some Healey love; park a (probably broken) 912 inside a coffee shop; arrive at a stereotypical convergence on Porsche colors; and marvel at a very special Thunderbird whose history we are all fascinated with.
