How Bring a Trailer revolutionised the market, with Randy Nonnenberg and James Turner #306
The Intercooler
How Bring a Trailer revolutionised the market, with Randy Nonnenberg and James Turner #306
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Company
Bring A Trailer
Bring A Trailer is a website where car enthusiasts bid on cars online. It’s known for having lots of detailed listings and a big community behind it.
Concept
online car auction
An online car auction is like bidding on a car through a website. People place bids, and the highest bid wins when the auction ends.
Car
Porsche 911
The Porsche 911 is a famous sports car made by Porsche. It’s known for having the engine in the back and for being a model that has been made for many decades. People talk about older 911s because they can be rare and collectible.
Company
Reddit is a website/app where people join topic-based communities. They’re saying the podcast has a place there so listeners can talk and share ideas.
Concept
classifieds
Classifieds are ads where someone lists a car for sale and you reach out to them. In the early days, the listings were often vague and hard to judge from the photos alone.
Concept
online auction
Online auctions let buyers bid remotely on vehicles listed on the internet, often with photos, descriptions, and time-limited bidding windows. The segment contrasts early, fragmented listings with how modern platforms improved visibility and listing quality.
Concept
eBay
eBay is a big website where people buy and sell cars online. The point is that before Bring a Trailer, cars were often buried there instead of being curated for enthusiasts.
Concept
Craigslist
Craigslist is a website where people post ads for cars. The speaker’s point is that listings could get lost, and Bring a Trailer helped bring them to the right buyers.
Concept
online classified listing
A classified listing is just an online ad for a car. The point here is that once a car got featured, lots more people noticed it and started contacting the seller.
Concept
auction ideally would be the most efficient way to set price
They’re saying auctions can figure out a fair price faster because several buyers are competing. Instead of guessing what it’s worth, the bids show what people are willing to pay.
Company
Pebble Beach tent auctions
Pebble Beach is a famous car event, and its auctions are known for rare, high-value collector cars. The hosts mention it to compare traditional auction culture with their online model.
Car
BMW E30 M3
The BMW E30 M3 is an older BMW M3 that car fans love. They’re saying this particular car “went crazy,” meaning it drew a lot of bids.
Term
credit card payments
“Credit card payments” refers to enabling card-based transactions, which can dramatically increase participation by lowering payment friction. The speakers emphasize that they previously had no credit-card capability, making early growth harder.
Concept
red flag
A “red flag” is something that makes you pause and question what you’re hearing. In this case, claiming “no rust” on an old steel car can be suspicious, so BaT flags it for review.
Company
AutoTrader
AutoTrader is a website where people list cars for sale. The conversation is contrasting it with auction-style selling.
Concept
permanent online
“Permanent online” refers to the lasting, searchable record of what was posted and when—photos, descriptions, and claims. The speaker argues this permanence discourages manipulation because the evidence can’t easily disappear after the sale.
Concept
price discovery
Price discovery means figuring out the real market price by watching what people bid. Instead of guessing, the price comes from what buyers compete over.
Brand
Aston Martin racing
Aston Martin Racing is Aston Martin’s racing team/program. Working there usually means you’re involved with high-level performance and competition.
Company
Peter Auto
Peter Auto is the company behind organizing these kinds of racing events. They’re involved in running the series they’re talking about.
Concept
two-liter cup
The “two-liter cup” is a race class based on engine size. It helps keep cars more evenly matched so drivers can compete fairly.
Term
sub three minute lap
A “sub three minute lap” means the car completes a full lap in less than three minutes. It’s a sign of very fast driving for that track.
Term
on-board shot
An on-board shot is video filmed from inside the race car. It lets you see what the driver is doing while they’re driving.
Part
multi-point cage
A roll cage is a metal frame inside the car that helps protect you in a crash. “Multi-point” means it’s attached in more places for extra strength.
Concept
lays rubber
It means the tires are spinning or scrubbing hard enough to leave marks or smoke. It’s a sign the car is being driven very aggressively.
Concept
Le Mans Classic
Le Mans Classic is a big event where older race cars go back on track. It’s one of the best places to see historic cars being driven hard.
Company
Gordon Murray cars
This refers to a modern car company tied to Gordon Murray, the same person behind major Formula 1 design work. They make special, lightweight performance cars.
Concept
ABS and aircon and Bluetooth
They’re saying people want classic cars, but they also want modern features like safer braking, air conditioning, and phone connectivity. That’s why certain newer classics sell better.
Concept
VAT
VAT is a tax added to purchases in the UK and many other countries. They’re saying their checkout and fees are set up so UK sellers and buyers don’t have to figure it out themselves.
Term
0% APR for 60 months
APR is the interest rate on a car loan. “0% APR for 60 months” means you pay no interest for five years, which can make the deal much cheaper.
LIVE
Welcome back to The In School of Podcast, everybody, the podcast powered by car finance
specialist JBR Capital. We're joined Andrew today by a couple of guests, Randy Nonenberg
and James Turner, Randy being founder of Bring A Trailer, the enormous online car auction
platform. And we want to hear all about the history of it. And you guys, you have some
big news as well that you'll share in a moment. James Turner, founder of Sports Purpose. If
you've been to Bist Emotion and you've seen a beautiful old 9-11 in a showroom or driving
through the site, it's probably because of Sports Purpose. And we'll explain why, what
your involvement here is. Before we do that, just a couple of things that I want to mention
briefly. The intercooler now has a Reddit page. It's the intercooler. The idea is that
it's a place where people can gather to discuss everything that we do, whether that's our
magazine or this podcast or maybe the videos or events or whatever. So if you are a Redditor,
you'll find the intercooler on there, post away and we'll be in there as well, responding
to you and contributing. But the plan is that it's just a place for our audience to gather.
Like-minded individuals to indulge in mutual passion.
Gentlemen, thank you for coming in. Welcome to the intercooler podcast. Randy, in doing my
research for this episode, I learned about the origins of Bring A Trailer and I didn't
realise that actually it started as a blog.
It did, absolutely. January 7th, 2007. We decided to finally put our crazy thoughts and
searching around for cars into one place on the internet so that people could find them instead
of sending people links randomly. I mean, 2007, first of all, is ancient history. So what were
we all doing then? Looking for cars? We were scattered across the internet. There were still
some print places that people were looking at cars for sale. There was no iPhone yet. We launched
a couple months before the iPhone launched. I mean, social media, the way it's done today,
looked differently. What were you doing prior to that? Where did you come from? What is your
sort of car history? Absolutely. Well, cars ever since, you know, a little kid, I was the only son,
I had two sisters, so my father kind of took me under his wing and the way to keep me out of
trouble was working on cars in the garage. But I always had a, for whatever reason, an insatiable
desire to comb classifies. So pre-internet. Yeah, when I was a little kid, there were certain
periodicals. There was a local newspaper. I grew up in the Bay Area in California,
which was a great place for cars to survive for a long time as they still do. And anyway,
I was always looking, I didn't have any money, but I was looking at speedsters for sale and the
local classifies. And it turns out once we put that in one place on Bring a Trailer, the beginnings
of Bring a Trailer, that resonated. You guys are nodding your heads. People, a lot of crazy people
did that looking for cars, whether they were going to buy them or not. And that ended up being the
audience. Yeah, it's a, we all love to daydream, don't we? And even now it's fun trawling through
auction results and cars that are up for sale. And you just start fantasizing about which one
you're going to put a bid in on. And so I guess the point is you produce this blog,
highlighting all these interesting cars for sale. And the key bit is that a community builds up
around that, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. So the, the part of it, you know, this sounds like, you
know, it's very simple now and everybody expects it, but nobody was really aggregating the best of
the best back then. It was a very fragmented, the internet was fragmented. It was the Wild West.
Advertisements were generally terrible, you know, a couple blurry photos and two lies. And you post
it on the internet and see what happens. And some of that is still true today. But thankfully, the
way Bring A Trailer has evolved and, and online auction has evolved and even classifieds, I would
say, have gotten better because the expectation now is your camera is a lot better, your listing
details matter more, it's more visible to more people. And so that has all elevated. But back in
the day, it was really terrible. But if you found, you know, Stepno's Alfa Romeo, you know,
two towns over for $3,000 or whatever, that was amazing. And it was a treasure hunting sort of
experience. And people were doing that. And if you could put all that in one place, you actually
created quite a bit of energy. Who came up with the name? So I think it's a brilliant name. But
to me, it's not, it's not an obvious name. If I were trying to think of something, I wouldn't,
I wouldn't have the, I guess, the intellectual elasticity to think of something like that.
Was it was it your idea? It was. Well, you gave me credit as being founder. I'm actually co founder,
a good friend of mine from university and I are the ones who started it. And we have a really,
we've maintained it. We have this funny thread that went back and forth of what, what do you call
it? If you, if you put all of Randy's searches online for cars, what do you, what do you call it?
And we had goofy different ideas. And I don't know if they do this in the UK, but in America,
right in a listing, if it was a race car, or if it was a, you know, bucket of bullets and a problem,
people would say bring a trailer. So I actually searched back in the day, a search term was
bring a trailer because it would surface very interesting things. And so we said, we said a
bunch of goofy stuff and then said, bring a trailer. And my, my buddy, Gentry was like,
let's try it. And so we looked at the URL cost us, I think $7 because there wasn't a lot of
competition for it. And yeah, we've had jokes ever since like, do you sell trailers and what
do you do it? You know, it's been kind of a, a funny thing. But those folks that were looking
at listings as obsessively as I did all kind of nod knowingly, like, oh, that's, that's like in the,
in the know. So how does a blog evolve into a big business that's been
mimicked over and over again? There's a key point, isn't there? A key inflection point in the story
of bring a trailer where it stops being just a blog. Well, the crazy part is it wasn't a bit,
everybody says, what was your business plan? And it was on the side, I had a day job, my buddy that
I started it with had a day job, we really just did it as an excuse to hang out together. Like
with friends, sometimes you'll kind of drift. If you don't have some activity, you go skiing
together or you wrench on cars together, you do whatever we decided, Hey, every Wednesday,
let's eat lunch and like work on this funny little project. So we turn on a blog and started like
refining it and playing with it. There was no business model. Thankfully, we would have starved
for the first few years. There was no revenue. There was no anything. It was therapy for me
to like put what I searched through the hours of the night looking for cars on to, you know,
this funny little website and learn how to do that. And yeah, so so it how that went. So you
weren't holding auctions then? No, there were no auctions at the beginning. There were no even
of our own captive sales. This was steering people to interesting cars for sale online. That
could have been all third party stuff. All third party stuff for us in the States. eBay was big
and something called Craigslist was a free marketplace. And these were the places where
stuff was buried. And then I would look internationally because I was very exotic,
right? I'd look I'd look over here at classic car sites or look at, you know, mobile.de and find,
you know, BMWs that are buried in Germany somewhere. And I'd pick kind of the favorite car of the day.
I tried to do one a day every day. And nobody it was I kind of call it like talking into a
microphone that's not on like I would I would talk and I would put it out there and there would be
zero come there's I don't know if anybody even read it, you know, and then I'd forward the link
to some buddies and then I'd keep doing it and doing it and doing it and eventually some people
kind of caught on and somebody would subscribe and I'd get an alert. It was very humble at the
beginning. And then it took I'd say six months, eight months till we got some conversation. And
then it took about a year until it really started to roll. And then the really big inflection point
that you're alluding to is we'd feature a car once it got some critical mass and that seller
would have their car posted in a classified listing online for a week and it was quiet. Nothing would
happen. And then it would get listed on and all of a sudden he'd get 20 calls and 20 offers
because I tended to feature things that were either undervalued or were really interesting.
You know, there's a Lotus Elan, you know, series one type car, which is unusual to find and it's
in some guy's garage in Southern California. And nobody knew until it was on and they were
watching and then they would find it and it would go crazy. So then that person, his next
Lotus or his next whatever, he'd be like, Hey, can you pretty please feature my car?
And that's when the light went off for us. We're like, Oh, these people want us to feature them.
Maybe we can come up with some model where we do that. And it turned into it wasn't auctions yet.
It was what we called BAT exclusives. If you sent your car to us. And it sold, we'd ask you to mail
us a paper check for $200. And the mailbox at my home started to fill up with $200 checks when
something was working. And my wife is like, What's going on? Who are these weirdos sending us money?
And and yeah, it started to it started to get a little bit of momentum. And
but yeah, we can talk more about it, but there started to be people fighting over the price.
And there started to be 50 losers and one winner kind of like winning the lottery if you got the
BAT car and you got the first contact. So we knew that auction ideally would be the most
efficient way to set price and make it fair for everybody. Was there anybody in that space at
the time doing online car auctions in the US? Really only eBay was the main was the main competition.
Okay, but there was nothing specifically dedicated to cars? No, no, not like you were the first
people in that space. Yeah. Yeah. And we basically I remember the day on a whiteboard, I mean, we
took eBay's on the left. And the big, you know, pebble beach tent auctions are on the right.
And what's good and what's bad about both of them? And how can we be the space in the middle
that takes all the good and tries to shed all the bad. And that's basically how we ideated
around the idea. That's very interesting. And then was it 2014 that it turned into an auction
platform? So yeah, we built it ourselves through 2013. And then we turned it on in July of 2014.
And the response was the response was why did you do an auction? The response was the world
doesn't need another auction. The response. Yeah, I mean, it was mixed. There were some people that
were like, Hey, good for you. And but the vast majority were like, What's going on? Like, wow.
And and some I mean, people generally don't like it when you change things without like
bringing everybody, you know, along totally for the ride. And we had to be a little bit
secretive about what we were doing because we it was going to be this new release. But yeah,
we turned it on. And people say, Well, I really like the exclusives. Why'd you get rid of the
exclusives? Right? Anyway, it's yeah, change is tough. But it's really funny. You look at those
comments now about people say, you know, this will never work. Right. And obviously now,
like we're hindsight is 2020. But now it obviously struck a chord with people.
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Yeah. And I suppose importantly, it was dedicated not just to cars, but enthusiast cars.
And you had this community already built up around bring a trailer. And so it's very clearly
distinguished from eBay, isn't it? Which is excuse me, that in my head, it's perhaps this is
wrong, actually. But I would imagine that a lot of eBay cars are sort of junk. And, you know,
not the sort of loved cared for cars that most of us will be looking for. And was that the key
distinct differentiated? Yeah, absolutely. We curated the site, right? We didn't just take
everything, right? eBay is an automated marketplace. Anything you decide to throw up there, you can do.
And also the presentation isn't curated at all. So one thing we decided, and actually the 10
auctions do that really well. I think everybody would agree, right? I can put a catalog together.
They take pictures of the shiny side. They make it very dreamy. There's a lot of language around
that. And they pick the sort of run order intentionally, those sort of things. Nobody was
doing that online at all, certainly not in 2014. And so there was there was room to bring that to
a broader audience, that sort of curation. But the flip side of curation is you can also sort of
monitor for the truth. A lot of what we do is like making us if a seller can just say whatever they
want. Unfortunately, they tend to veer pretty far from reality. There's a lot of bias built in,
right? And so a self served marketplace like that was the problem with the internet and still is to
some degree, where there's no oversight is it just, you know, they'll claim this is the best,
you know, Mustang ever built, right? And it's like there's a there's too much bias built in. So
so BT adds a layer of that. And that that was really different that curated and and internet
with oversight was was nowhere to be found. So that was that was great that we could add that.
And did it work as a platform auction platform right away? Good traction right away?
I love that question, because we didn't think anybody was going to believe us, right? Like,
why would they listen to these couple of folks that started an auction? Like, I wouldn't believe
that, right? So we bought 10 cars, and we did our own cars at the beginning to experiment,
because taking your BMW 2002 James taking your awesome, you know, blue Porsche and having you
be the guinea pig is kind of like, of course, you shouldn't do that, right? So, so we're like,
that would be unfair. So we collected a number of interesting cars, a wide variety, and we decided
to try it with our own and just like risk it ourselves and see what happened. And it was
clunky at the beginning, right? The first car got one bid, and we're like, Oh, no, this is a
disaster. I sold a boss 302 for 45,000. And one guy bid on it. And we're like, Okay, iffy, right?
But then we sold three cars on that first day. The other was an E 30 m three, that kind of went
crazy. And there was a blue step nose alpha that had a lot of coverage on beauty. So we tried for
a lot of variety. And then we did, it was only Wednesdays, we did on a Wednesday, and the next
auctions weren't till the next Wednesday, which is hilarious now, because beauty is now seven days a
week is 100 cars a day, right? But we waited, we started on Wednesdays, then we expanded to Tuesday,
and then, you know, it's funny to make it bid, presumably, you already have to be registered
with the site. So we built that and registration then required payment, we had never had credit
card payments, we had never had anything. And we really in 2013, we really made it much more
sophisticated. Yeah. Wow. That's so interesting. And over those first couple of years, does it just
grow and grow? So yeah, so actually, I mean, the first year of auctions, I mean, we kind of moved
along with this Wednesday thing. And then I think we got 10 cars. So we got excited and decided to
extend a Tuesday, Wednesday, like a few more. But it was interesting, once it went to other
people's cars, obviously that dynamic shifted and sellers had opinions, and we had to work out how
that worked. And but we had a pretty good formula on how you describe, which is sort of just the
facts, right? Like that's BAT sort of mantra, there's no puffery, there's no, there's no this
fantastic TVR sort of talk, right? It's like this. So do you have moderators
getting rid of all that stuff that people write in? Or do you create all your own content? Do
you just describe the car? Yeah, the descriptions come from our system, we basically help people
through the process, right? People, you know, describe their whole car, but typically not in
pros. Typically, they give a bunch of bullet points and a bunch of different things. And we
have systems that help put that into the BAT style of pros. And yeah, there's oversight on all that,
because we won't let somebody say, you know, this car has no rust, because that's like immediate
red flag like problem, right? The car was made out of steel 75 years ago. So anyhow, big blanket
claims we guard against different things that we see that are wrong, right? They say these wheels
are made out of this. And we anyway, so there's yeah, our whole team has a lot of expertise built
up for that. And what sort of scope are we talking about in terms of the kind of, is there like a
core center ground of the kind of cars that you feature? Or is it some really affordable cars
going out to super exotic cars, racing cars? Do you do all sorts of things? Where is the
whole thing pitched? So that has evolved a lot over the years. There's been this debate about
what is a BAT car, right? What's allowed and what's not. And we have like to, you know,
push the envelope on that because surprise and delight is sort of one of our mantras that,
oh, wow, I didn't think I'd see that today, right? So but there is quite a breath, right? Now,
this sounds crazy talking about the origin story. But I mean, our most expensive car sold on the
site is a La Ferrari for over $5 million. And we sold a Saab Sonnet project last week for $650.
So it's like everything in between that the real filter is it is it interesting? It's
cool, is it? Yeah. But it's interesting, we get some pushback on that because also
it's now that was in the early days. Now people want to use it for everything because it's
trustworthy and reliable. And they think it's like they've sold a Porsche Carrera,
but they're like, Hey, now I have a my BMW X5. Like, can I list that because I it went so well
with my Porsche. Why can't I list this normal car? So we actually wrestle with that a lot. We're
Yeah, cause they're far more X5s out there than there are. Yeah. And there's business to chase.
So you want to guard against that and you just don't want to dilute the fact that it's such a
cool mix by just putting a bunch of minivans on it, right? It's never been intended for that.
But it's interesting that you want to balance that a little bit. So I mean, well, it depends on
the seller, it depends on a bunch of different things. But in general, the filter is cool stuff
that will be engaging and interesting for people. And you do competition cars as well as race cars?
Absolutely. Our race car category. James and I look at that a fair amount,
because he's a crazy racer and I'm an aspiring crazy racer. And yeah, anyway, competition cars,
you know, all sorts of from modern, right? I mean, and by a, you know, relatively new
Porsche Cup car, you know, back to pre-war race cars, you know, crazy stuff.
I'm interested to know why, from your point of view, an online auction is the right place to
sell a car and the right place to buy a car. Why would I do that rather than list it on
in the UK? We have AutoTrader. Yeah, absolutely. And we have equivalence to that in the US as well.
I think certainly when you're selling, I think, I mean, you could argue that the best way to sell
a car is a, you know, a handshake in your driveway and a duffel bag of cash. Those have some good
qualities, but also some bad qualities, right? The interesting thing about BET is if the buyer knows
what they're getting through the right presentation and the right communication and on BET, the magic
of BET is the commenting community. It's kind of like going to look at a car for sale with
your 10 buddies who are all experts. And that's very different than how, you know, when you,
when you, if you walk into a 10 auction by yourself, like when I do that, I feel very like
vulnerable. I'm like, okay, this whole system is set up that I'm going to, it feels like a Vegas
casino to me, right? It's like they're going to take me. And that's very, we tried to like combat
that and be like, how do you give somebody confidence to actually want to do this? And so the
commenting component and having that, you know, even an open microphone there for anybody to ask
anything they want anytime that puts the seller in a very different posture. Yeah. And sorry,
roundabout way to answer your question, but the reliability and trustworthiness thing
is really critical because online is scary. Yeah. But also, you know, auctions have always
been scary because certainly in the automotive world, there's always been that suspicion that
people send cars to auction because they don't want that much scrutiny. And if the car was
absolutely as good as you said it was going to be, well, you do a private sale because you
wouldn't have anything to hide. So you've got to kind of get your head around that,
haven't you? Absolutely. And it's interesting that you say that I think that's elevated even
more in the UK than in the US. I think US buyers are a little more ready to embrace it or be a
little crazy like that. I think I give I give Brits credit for inventing auctions. I don't
know if that's true or not. Maybe it was invented long before long before the Brits were doing it.
But maybe that's just because the sophisticated auctioneers always seem like they're
doing right like like Charlie Gooding. I mean, they're great. But at the same time,
I think that reputational component is there auctions are are a lot of the attributes of
auction is fraught with the ability to manipulate and cause problems and have it be not truthful.
And so we tried to shine lights on those areas on the BAT auction in a way that's like uncomfortable
even like some like it's permanent online what you do, right? Like that's very different than
auction where it a Jag goes excuse me a Jag goes across in two minutes and then it's out the door
and nobody knows what happened and who bought it and where it went and if the claims were real or
if they were not like permanence is a is a really great sort of disinfectant for people trying to
play games. And anyway, there's a lot of different things that we did to make it so that now people
are comfortable. And so they feel like it's a good place to list because of how it compares to a
automated site like an eBay or a 10 auction or even other online auctions.
Sorry, the fundamental thing about an auction is that the lot should find its right value,
shouldn't it? Well, yeah, from both. So the negative of auction is the fact that there can be
all these games being played. The positive of auction is for price discovery, an auction
starting at $0 with no reserve is the most with honest bidding is the most pure way to find what
any product is worth. Forget cars, art, these books, this building, anything. I mean, that's
actually how you find what the, you know, my dad always told me it's worth what somebody's willing
to pay, right? So everybody will show up and say, my car is worth this. And it's like, maybe, but
here's what it's actually worth, right? And granted, some dynamics of that bidding and
no reserve and how it starts and different things, a bunch of people online approach differently.
But we've tried to engineer it in a way that it gets to legitimate price discovery. So it's
a real and reliable. And as the buyer, you know, someone was prepared to pay just a little bit
less. So you know, you haven't overpaid is one of the core. Yeah, I think, I mean, do you know
that some people go nuts and do overpay, frankly, because emotions can get into it or or they have
to have that car. I mean, that's that can be an expensive emotion to try to try to pay for. But
it makes it very fair. Everybody's got a shot the way the clock extends, all the things we tried
to engineer in a way that's fair. Yeah. And what and what happens if, and I guess it must happen,
because it happens in all businesses, and particularly the following is that despite all
your best efforts, you get an unhappy customer, someone has bought something and it's not what
they were expecting it to be. Maybe it's their fault that they should have thought it was something
else or whatever. Is any of that on you? Or is it just purely you just facilitate the
transaction between the vendor and the buyer? So it is a peer to peer marketplace, right? So it's
a buyer and so we don't hold the money and we don't hold the title or hold the vehicle at our
facility, right? We facilitate a price setting. And then the buyer and seller can make the deal
happen with a few exceptions and I can describe those. But it's a little bit different. 40%
of sellers on BET are dealer and 60% are private party. So it's a little bit different depending
on if you're handling it with a business, obviously, that gets resolved in a different way. But we do
get involved. We have what's called a post auction team. And first of all, both parties pay a little
bit on BET very little for the seller and then a percentage for the buyer. And that motivates them
if something goes wrong, we'll hear about it. It's very unusual where it's like there's some
problem and BET doesn't hear about it. So we'll hear about it and they'll say, hey, what's that guy
doing or hey, what's that what's that buyer doing? And we have a team that gets involved and kind of
takes a look at the facts and what's going on because obviously it's a marketplace where we
don't want bad behavior. So people will be run away from the site and sent back to the other sites
or such if there's bad behavior. But we do get involved and need to monitor how people are behaving
and but we're very careful about what we say again. So carelessness in description,
I think puts a lot of auctions, dealers, even private party sellers sort of in it on their
back foot because they say stupid things they shouldn't have said to describe the car and
they're setting themselves up for failure. But so we're cautious if you look at the description
descriptions about how we do that. But we do engage and stand behind how the transaction goes.
James, we'll pull you in a minute and hear a little bit about sports purpose and we'll explain
why you two are working together now. But Randy, I'm interested to, can you give us a sense of the
scale of Bring a Trailer now? And as I understand it through COVID as well, when we were all stuck
at home wondering how to fill our time, I think growth for Bring a Trailer was huge then, wasn't
it? Yeah, absolutely. And I'm excited to talk about the sports purpose connection here. But
we turned on auctions in 2014. We started very slowly, three a week, five a week, 10 a week,
but we did 30,000 auctions in a 2019, so over five years. So it started super slow and it
started to ramp. And then now that has ramped even quite a bit crazier and now we did almost 50,000.
We did over 49,000 auctions last year in 2005, which is wild. So we're going to cross a milestone
here and we tend to do an interesting car at that milestone lot numbers. We're very obsessive
about lot numbers, sequential and legitimate all the way because you can kind of count back,
you know, which lot number were you sort of stuff. What do you want? I think it's about
245,000, 242,000, but we're going to hit 250. Yeah, you're going to hit 250. So we're like,
oh, 250 Ferrari? We may need a 250 Ferrari for this or what do we need? Who knows? So
probably not a 250 D Mercedes. I hope it's a Ferrari. So anyway, so we'll see what we do. But
yeah, anyway, so that's sort of the size and scope. Yeah, last year, the value of the cars
that went through and sold, we'd say at 1.7 billion. I mean, it's totally crazy. The whole
thing's a total crazy Cinderella story. And how many people are you now employing? We have 175
employees. Yeah. Yeah. And they're scattered across the US. They're all in the US and we're
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apply. Wow, we'll talk about that in a second. James, I'm so pleased to have you here because
I've long admired the sports purpose of this emotion. And I just want to what's the story of
this emotion? What's your background as well? As funny as kind of like Randy, it's a bit of a
passion project and I always wanted to have a garage and I always wanted to sell cars in the
way that I wanted to sell cars, people could come in and buy cars in the way that I would want to
go and buy a car. And so I served my time in Formula One, worked for Aston Martin racing,
managed young drivers and and I did a couple of car trades sold Adrian Newie. We'll come
over to the latent house from March, but it was an 881. Found a car for Darren Turner,
similar another Formula One car. So I'd kind of done trades. I sold all the DBR9 GT1 Aston's,
but I was always a Porsche guy. That's what my dad saved up for. That's what we bought
when I was 15, opened the garage and there was his first 911, which he didn't like because he
didn't think it was quick enough, so pure enough. So we bought a Nizix 4 RS, which we still have.
So yeah, I fell in love with Bista. I thought that's a great location. It's near my house,
but there's a romance to the whole place. You know that. We were lucky in the first year.
We brought Lufka Kult from America with Patrick Long and Jeff Svart.
We did a stripy car with Paul Smith for various background reasons from a sponsorship deal that
I'd taken to him. And we created a race series. We created the two-liter cup with Peter Auto.
So we're now in our ninth season of a One Make series for early 911s.
It is the most competitive, is it still the most competitive historic
One Make series out there? There was a moment of great excitement at the
Spa a couple of years ago because we wondered whether someone would do a sub three minute lap,
which as you know, in a two-liter 911 is phenomenal. And so Ollie Bryan did it first
and then Andrew Jordan went faster. And I'll tell you what, that was some driving by both of them.
That's impressed. We had Dario Francketti came and raced in it and said everyone should be doing
this series. I mean, he did win because he's quite good. But yeah, it's a wonderful series.
And I think those cars are great. They're very usable. They're very pure to drive.
But there's racing at all levels. It doesn't matter if you're Dario or if you're 10 seconds
off, there's racing for everyone. We're very lucky to be in business with Peter Auto and we
race at lovely Grand Prix circuits in Europe. So Barcelona in two weeks time. Excellent.
There is some footage, isn't there? I think it is one of your cars going up through O'Rouche.
And it's an on-board shot looking through the screen. And I don't know who's driving.
But it's all opposite lock all the way through. And it's just majestic. That was an early dual car
which was somewhat optimized. It didn't never race in the series that car. I had a multi-point
cage and some other good bits on it. But yeah, it actually lays rubber as it goes into the left
hander. It's so sideways. So yeah, but if you look on YouTube, look for historicals,
footage, Nigel Greensall's Tart Hills. There's masses of on-board footage. And one of the things
that's weird as you're driving around, everyone's on a slightly different line. You're just grinning
from here to here as you go around. It's good fun. Have you had a go in one of those?
Yeah, I raced one. Not one of those at the Le Mans Classic. In, god, 2010, I think.
Really good things. Short wheelbase 911s to keep your foot in. You wouldn't believe what they can do.
They do look great. So what does sports purpose do now these days? Well, we bought a workshop and
raised team two years ago. So Tim Sanway's business, which was first team to win Guildwood
with a Ferrari 330 LMB. So we now have Peter Hardman. Yeah, Peter, absolutely. Spoke to him last week.
So yeah, Sam Hancock, we've had some, Emanuele, we've had some fantastic drivers and run some
amazing cars. So I now have the ability to kind of deliver that end of it. We're still at Bista.
We're still selling cars, you know, consigned to fantastic Guildwoods 356 this morning. We've
done some business with Gordon Murray cars as well, which has been pretty satisfying and
interesting to work with them because I believe in those cars very much. I think the market has
changed a great deal. You know, we've all seen those 50s cars come off a bit. And I think the
60s and 70s cars are as well. They're all these exceptions. Yeah, I think two 70s RS is still an
exception. And I think it's an interesting thing to talk about in this auction context. But
everybody now wants a 997 because it's got ABS and aircon and Bluetooth and all the things.
We've heard that a lot, haven't we? Yeah, absolutely. A lot of people think they want
an air-cored classic. They'll drive one and they think it feels old and then they'll be
directed towards a 997 and aha, there it is. I still want an air-cored classic.
Yeah, no, we've got a we've got a beautiful 2.2 s, which is one of the best early 70s 911s. And
you know, that's just not ticking boxes for people as much as it would have done
even five years ago, I think, but it's it to drive. It's just sublime.
So, Randy, how are you now working with James? Yeah, well, James and I
met because he discovered BAT somewhere. Where'd you find BAT, James?
Well, we were we were just looking at, in fact, a collector client sent me a C6R,
Preston Miller, Le Mans Corvette, which speaks to what you were asking about as
diesel racing cars, which we had listed the one on BAT. That's right. And we did a deal for him
to buy some some very big cars from Bentley. And we were just looking at other cars. So
we're always aware of bringing a trailer. And I think a lot of people, you know,
keep an eye on it. I think I stalked you when you were on the tug of floria with your dad,
and you put up this lovely story about traveling. And then and then we listed the 964 RS.
That was the kind of the beginning of a more substantial conversation.
Yeah, we've been talking for a little bit in terms of how to gain more credibility,
how to move into the UK market and appeal to people here. It's really funny. I was telling
James on the way here, whenever I'm in the UK, people kind of say, when are you coming? When
are you coming? Like, oh, trailer, that's why you're on the podcast is you are launching in the UK.
Absolutely. Sorry, I should be more direct. We are absolutely coming here. We've now optimized
the website. And we're optimizing the app soon. And and we're adding James as what we call local
partner in America. We have 100 local partners across the coast. It's kind of I call it my
favorite business model ever is the independent party that helps people list on bring a trailer.
And it gives them you hear James talk about his history and his experience with cars and selling
and and F1 and such and looking for credibility on the ground. What I think is more important than,
you know, the Randy show and me coming and telling you how great bring a trailer is,
is highlighting people who believe in it genuinely that are here already. And if you go by Bister,
not because I'm telling him to say it, but James will tell you his two cents on the good and the
bad of BAT and what makes what cars make sense there and how he can help list people's cars on
BAT. So we're aiming for a future here. And just in April, you'll see cars that that are being
listed by James under the sports purpose username. He's already sold a few of his own. But now
he's going to be a stepping stone for us in terms of having local representation here.
And again, we've optimized and there's a lot of compliance necessary to do business in the UK.
That's actually a lot of work. We had to decide whether we were going to take the leap and do
all of that. So yeah, it all works in in pound sterling now and all the VATs and different
sort of stipulations that are required are all there built in. So for UK users, it's ready to
rock. And that can be, you know, self service, you can just go straight to the site and, you know,
list for 79 pounds, or you can go to a local partner. And we're also launching the new feature of
we offer professional photos in the US anywhere in the US. And we're launching that for UK users
as well end of April. So we're excited about just enhancing what it can do for UK sellers.
Is the UK your first overseas market that you've gone into or are you launched elsewhere as well?
So people have been allowed to use VAT anywhere they are, but it hasn't been optimized for them.
So it felt very American for a while, right? Everything was in dollars and the time zones
were weird and the language, nothing was optimized for localities. So we did some for Europe.
And now we've built out UK. And but UK car culture is so important to us and me personally.
Like I love being over here, you know, and being involved and listen to your guys podcast and,
you know, reading everybody in America, you guys probably know this and you guys are our
journals are all say it. But like we all like lusted over like UK magazines when we were a kid,
because they were they had all the stuff we couldn't get right all the Ford RS product and
all this cool exotic stuff. So the Americans, I think have sort of a reverence for UK car culture
and what happens here and and things like Goodwood and and the different events that you
guys have here have certainly helped with that. But yeah, I love that stuff as a kid. So there's
always been this sort of halo around doing more in the UK. And it always pained me, frankly,
when people were like, When are you coming? I was like, Well, you can use it right now.
But they're like, But can you? And so now, thankfully, it's sort of official. It's like,
okay, it's it's it's somewhat of a launch. But it's also somewhat of just making people aware
that and welcoming them. And as a brand value, we don't like, like, tout our own,
you know, volumes and all these crazy things. So so it's taken, it's taken this time to set up
the website rightly, and get the right credibility and partners locally. And the way we've done in
the US is this local partner dynamic has spread like wildfire. And we're interested in doing that.
James is going to be, you know, the key player, but we're actually going to, you know, have more of
all around the UK so that people can have a local advocate, or they can do it.
And you don't have to be a local partner to list, you can just be a dealer. So friends in the
Porsche or Aston Martin Ferrari world, we want everybody to list. That's the whole point. I'm
just here to help if you've got a specific one to work with with someone handling it,
then we'll be the lead local partner. But absolutely, it's open to everyone. And we very
much hope that it'll become used by as many people as possible. And is there going to be
a UK specific website, or is it going to be part of your main website?
So we think it's important that everybody sees all the cars. For auction, you want to have as
many people in the tent as you can. So peeling off like, oh, your right hand drive car in the UK
only gets seen by UK people is not super ideal for the outcome. But you also want to be careful
about that and make sure you craft it properly and take care of that customer in a UK specific way.
So bringatrailer.com slash UK is going to be kind of the ground zero for you enter there.
It will get to where if you search bring a trailer on on Google in the UK, you'll land there,
that'll be sort of UK centric place to start. I presume people will bookmark that or whatever
if they're in this geography. But then it'll feed you, you can you can bid on cars in the US,
you can bid on cars in Europe, you can bid on these but signing up and and having a sort of UK
feel again, I think is what people want to feel like it's not a foreign marketplace,
it's actually intended for people here. So I agree. That's what I've always wanted to do is
bring the BAT dynamic of our ethos of truthfulness and transparency and permanence and all these
sort of things, which are so rare in the car business. I think I can say that out loud. I mean,
it's kind of a sad state of affairs. Yeah, I know you're a car dealer man and I love you.
But I mean, the industry, I mean, you tell, you know, you tell folks,
and I joke often, if you just tell the truth, you're like 80% of the way better than the market,
right? And so we try to do that day in and day out and day in and day out. And it I think that
is what has made people so loyal to BAT and why these people when I come to the UK, they say,
please bring it. And there's a lot of other options and a lot of them are doing really cool
things. Can I ask about that? Yeah, imitation is your view that imitation is the sincerest form
of flattery? Or do you look at there are several other auction sites that have come along doing
much the same thing, some of them with big personalities attached. Do you welcome it?
I was very nervous in the early days, I was like, Oh, these people are going to come steal our lunch.
And early days, meaning, and again, nobody believed us from 2014 to 2017 or 18, there was no
competition. I was kind of amazed. I was like, wow, they're kind of like giving this to us. This
is crazy. And then come 2018, 19. In the US, we got some competition, obviously collecting cars
launched here. And some others. And then I started to keep a spreadsheet of my paranoia. I'm like,
Oh, all these people are coming. And no joke, it got up to like 40 something lines. I mean,
there's like a ton of these in every niche in every corner, they tried to kind of peel off
different things. And I wish I could say I'm such a, you know, honorable guy that it was just, Oh,
that's just flat. Isn't that lovely? So lovely. But no, we had some, Oh man, there's another one
starting. What are we going to do? There was pressure and there was nerves and there was
different different dynamics to that. But the way it has shaken out, honestly, a bunch of those,
it's really hard to do. There was a reason there were so many that that cloned what we did is a
lot of them thought, Oh man, they're making a bunch of money. Look at that. The funny other
dynamic of auction and online auction is I always joked that you could do our balance sheet on a
bar napkin, right? I mean, use the cars times the fee times the money. Okay, there's what BT made
last year, right? It's a little more complex than that. But that made it made it very appealing for
people to try to do it. And at the end of the day, a bunch of them tried and kind of ran out of
effort and went away or a bunch of them, you can look, I mean, they some of them thrive and some
of them don't for a number of reasons. But overall, I'm actually glad that a few of these others have
been doing it in the UK. Because now when I come to the UK, people are like, Oh, yeah, I've I've
I've looked at cars online on auctions and they're like used to it, whereas it legitimizes the method.
Yeah, eight years ago, I'd come here and they'd be like, what's bring a trailer and like, nobody
does auctions like that. What are you talking about? Yeah, or you're foolish. That's never
going to work or whatever, right? And it's kind of like, actually, it works. And a bunch of people
are doing it in different ways. And here's how we do it, which is a little bit different. So
we're sort of experiencing something similar on a smaller level at the moment, Andrew. So it's
interesting to get someone's perspective on. Yeah, I mean, certainly, all you're saying,
what you say about when you started up and people are going, Oh, that'll never work and nobody's
that's all very familiar to us. Oh, yeah. We know, we know all about that at TI. And we're
still here. Yeah, I love what you guys do and innovate. I remember when you guys launched and
it always makes people a little nervous, right? And it probably makes you guys nervous as
innovators in that space. But it turns out, you know, the effort to show up every day and have
a quality product, which I think you guys do and we try to aspire to. It turns out not everybody
can do that, right? It turns out you can separate yourself from the competition if you're just
consistent and truthful and you just kind of lean into your strengths. So it all comes down to the
product. It doesn't actually really matter whether you're selling a car, riding about cars or building
a car. You can get so far with massive marketing budgets and everything else and cheap offers
and that sort of thing. But actually, if fundamentally the thing you're offering
isn't up to scratch, then sooner or later people will wise up and get somewhere else.
Yeah. So we're running out of time, but I'm interested to know what's next for you guys.
Where can people come and find you? Where might people see you soon? Absolutely. So something
exciting. We're going to be at the Bister Scramble that's coming up. I love Bister. James introduced
me to it and his shop is there and I came to see Sports Purpose originally because as you know,
my obsession was looking at cars for sale every place I can find them and James's website was
amazing for that. So and then that brought us to Bister together and anyhow. So their scrambles
that they do are exciting. The one next month in April, I'm excited that I'm going to be there.
There's going to be some cars live on BAT then and we're going to have some conversations with
folks at that event. But also James, I think you would say people can come to Sports Purpose or
reach out to Sports Purpose. Yeah, anytime. And we'll be telling the story and we're very keen
to consign cars for the site. Yeah. So yeah, those are great. And then again, that landing page,
bringitrailer.com slash UK. People will be able to go there and then we're excited to do more
events in the UK and be on the ground. I think it's important for us and our team to be over here
shaking hands and just telling people who we are and what we're about because the BAT story is crazy
and some people kind of shake their heads and are like, how'd that ever work?
But the product and the output and the positive transaction stories that come out of it,
I'd really love to see more of those in the UK. James, maybe this is more of a question for you.
Do you think that BAT actually already has pretty good visibility over here or do you think there
is work to be done? A lot of work to be done. That's a really good question. I think within my
network it's got extremely high visibility. But what you're talking about is taking it
two steps beyond that and that's why being at things like BISTA are going to change it. I think
I always look at a two seven RS is a really interesting proof point because that's a difficult
car to sell at auction and you see a lot of cars, you know, oversell or undersell because
it's a car that you have to really validate. If you look at the car, the Conrad Schein,
who's the guy who literally wrote the book on the Carrera RS, sold on bringitrailer,
that got a fantastic price, $850,000. It was one of the three Ravenna green cars,
but there was a real buzz online when everyone went, oh, shit, it's Georg's car.
I think that's very positive. That's the endorsement of why bringitrailer is different.
And so I think whether you're someone who's looked at it for a long time or someone who's
new to it, I feel it's a very, very strong way to buy or sell a car now.
Great to know you'll be at BISTA Scramble. We'll be there. We always are. So we'll see you there.
I'm sure we'll stay in touch. Thank you both for coming in. Really appreciate it.
Good luck with the launch. Yeah, best of luck. Thank you so much. I'm glad you guys are interested.
I mean, my first question was going to be like, if you guys have ever gotten on BAT or have you
heard of BAT, but you guys don't know the drill. Yeah, yeah. So that's good. We're like you. We're
just guys who love trawling through classifieds then and auction sites now and just seeing what's
out there. Yeah. And I'm always amazed because sometimes, I mean, you'll talk to a group of
five car folks and two of them will be like, I'm on BAT every five minutes and two of them will be
like, let's bring a trailer, right? So there's still this opportunity to grow, but there's also
this deeply entrenched sort of habit. So anyhow, we're just excited to bring it to more folks and
see what they can do with it. Yeah. Great stuff. Well, thank you again, Jens. To everyone watching,
if you're watching on YouTube, just subscribe to the channel. It really helps us. If you're
listening to this, just as an audio podcast, follow us on whichever podcast app you use,
and in return, we'll be back next week. And we will see you then.
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About this episode
Randy Nonnenberg and James Turner trace Bring a Trailer’s path from a 2007 car-search blog into a curated online auction platform that’s now run by 175 employees and has hosted tens of thousands of sales. They explain the key inflection points: featuring cars to build demand, “BAT exclusives,” and the shift to auctions in 2014 with a focus on truth, oversight, and permanent records. James also shares Sports Purpose’s racing/consignment world and how it’s partnering with BAT to expand credibility in the UK.
Original notes
Dan Prosser and Andrew Frankel are joined by Randy Nonnenberg and James Turner, founders of Bring a Trailer and Sports Purpose respectively. How did BaT revolutionise the classic and enthusiast car market in the US, and why does it offer something completely different to other online auctions in the UK?
Use coupon code pod20 at checkout to get 20% off an annual subscription to The Intercooler's online car magazine for the first year! Listen to this podcast ad-free, and enjoy a subscriber-only midweek podcast too. With a 30-day free trial, you can try it risk-free – https://www.the-intercooler.com/subscribe/
Find out more about JBR Capital here – https://www.jbrcapital.com
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The Intercooler
Dan Prosser and Andrew Frankel
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46:26