Radwood Recap - What To Look Out For When Buying & Selling A Car Sight Unseen
Analog and Grit Podcast
Radwood Recap - What To Look Out For When Buying & Selling A Car Sight Unseen
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Car
Nissan Maxima
The Nissan Maxima is a big car that’s comfortable to drive and has a lot of nice features. People like it because it’s reliable and good for everyday use.
Concept
Radwood
Radwood is a car event that showcases cars from the 1980s and 1990s. It highlights regular cars that people might have owned or seen when they were younger, making it a fun trip down memory lane.
Car
Chevy Lumina
The Chevy Lumina is a family car that was popular in the 1990s. It was known for being roomy and comfortable, making it a common choice for families.
Car
Ford Capri
The Ford Capri is an old sporty car that people remember fondly. It’s known for its stylish look and fun driving experience.
Car
Mercury Capri RS Turbo
The Mercury Capri RS Turbo is a small, sporty car from the 1990s that had a turbo engine and was fun to drive.
Term
Fox Body
The Fox Body is a type of car design used by Ford for models like the Mustang in the 1980s and early 1990s, known for being light and fast.
Term
turbo
A turbo is a part that helps a car's engine get more air, which makes it more powerful and faster.
Term
five speed manual
A five-speed manual means the driver has to change gears by hand, and there are five different gears to choose from.
Car
Mazda Miata
The Mazda Miata is a small, two-seat sports car that is known for being fun to drive. It's popular among people who enjoy driving and is often seen as an affordable option.
Car
Mercury XR4 Ti
The Mercury XR4 Ti is a sporty car made by the Mercury brand in the 1980s. It had a turbo engine and was designed to be fun to drive.
Term
front wheel drive
Front wheel drive means that the car's engine powers the front wheels. This setup can help the car handle better in bad weather and gives more room inside the car.
Car
Ford Mustang
The Ford Mustang is a popular sports car that has been around for a long time. It's known for being fast and stylish, making it a favorite among car enthusiasts.
Car
Mercury Colony Park
The Mercury Colony Park is a large station wagon that was made by the Mercury brand, which is part of Ford. It was popular for being roomy and comfortable, especially for families.
Car
Mitsubishi Starion
The Mitsubishi Starion is a sporty car from the 1980s that many car fans love. It's known for being fast and having a unique look.
Concept
showroom condition
When someone says a car is in 'showroom condition', it means the car looks brand new and is very well taken care of, just like it would look if you saw it in a car dealership.
Car
Eagle Talon
The Eagle Talon is a sporty little car from the 90s that’s known for being fast and fun to drive. It’s similar to another car called the Mitsubishi Eclipse.
Car
Mitsubishi Eclipse Gsx
The Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX is a sporty car that has a turbo engine and all-wheel drive, making it fun to drive and popular among car fans.
Car
GSX
The GSX is a performance car made by Buick in the early 70s. It’s famous for being fast and having a unique look.
Part
timing chain
The timing chain is a part of the engine that helps keep everything working together. It makes sure the engine parts move at the right times.
Car
Mitsubishi Galant
The Mitsubishi Galant is a larger car that was made for families. It had a lot of space inside and was available in different styles, like sedans and wagons, which made it good for road trips.
Car
Alfa Romeo Milano
The Alfa Romeo Milano is a type of car made by Alfa Romeo in the 1980s and early 1990s. It's known for being fun to drive and has a sporty feel.
Car
Lamborghini Diablos
The Lamborghini Diablo is a famous sports car made in the 1990s. It has a powerful engine and a unique look, making it very popular among car enthusiasts.
Car
Lamborghini Countach
The Lamborghini Countach is a classic sports car known for its unique shape and doors that open upwards. It was very popular in the 1980s and 1990s.
Car
Bugatti EB110
The Bugatti EB110 is a fast sports car made in the early 1990s. It has a very powerful engine and was known for its advanced features.
Car
Deloreans
The DeLorean DMC-12 is a unique car that has doors that open up like wings. It’s famous because it was in a popular movie, which makes it really special to many people.
Term
modified cars
Modified cars are cars that have been changed from how they were originally made. People often change things like the engine or wheels to make them look or drive differently.
Car
BMW E39
The BMW 5 Series is a fancy car that’s comfortable and fun to drive. The E39 model is especially liked because it has a good mix of luxury and performance.
Car
Audi 5000
The Audi 5000 is a luxury car from the 80s and 90s that was known for being comfortable and having cool features. It’s remembered for its unique design and technology.
Car
Nissan 300 ZX
The Nissan 300 ZX is a fast sports car that looks really nice and is fun to drive. It’s part of a family of cars known for being sporty and exciting.
Car
Toyota Corolla
The Toyota Corolla is a small car that many people buy because it is dependable and gets good gas mileage. The 1994 version is one of the older models that many still remember fondly.
Car
BMW M5
The BMW M5 is a fast and fancy car that's built for people who love driving. The E39 model is special because it combines comfort with a lot of power, which makes it exciting to drive.
Car
BMW E46
Car
BMW M3
The BMW M3 is a sporty version of the 3 Series that’s designed for people who enjoy driving fast. The E46 model is popular because it’s fun to drive and looks great.
Term
supercharger
A supercharger is a part that helps an engine get more air, which makes it more powerful. It's like giving the engine a boost to make it go faster.
Car
Porsche 911
The Porsche 911 (996) is a version of the famous 911 sports car made between 1999 and 2004. It's often considered the most affordable and easiest to drive among the 911 models.
Car
Honda CRX
The Honda CRX is a small car that’s great on gas and fun to drive. Many people like it because it’s affordable and easy to handle.
Car
Honda Civic
The Honda Civic is a small car that many people like because it's reliable and gets good gas mileage. The 1984 version is one of the earlier models and is known for being simple and easy to drive.
Term
interference engine
An interference engine is one where the parts can hit each other if something goes wrong, like if the timing belt breaks. This can lead to serious damage to the engine.
Car
Jeep Wagoneer
The Jeep Wagoneer is a big SUV that people loved in the 60s to 90s. It’s known for being tough and has a classic look that many find appealing.
Car
Toyota Tacomas
The Toyota Tacoma is a tough little truck that’s great for carrying things and going off-road. Many people like it because it lasts a long time and can handle rough terrain.
Car
Chrysler Voyager
The Chrysler Voyager is a family minivan that has a lot of room for kids and stuff. It’s popular because it’s practical and comfortable for family trips.
Car
Jeep Wrangler
The Jeep Wrangler is a cool, tough car that’s made for driving on rough roads and trails. People love it because it can go almost anywhere and has a fun, open design.
Car
Cadillac Escalade
The Cadillac Escalade is a fancy SUV that has a lot of space and nice features inside. People like it because it’s comfortable and looks really stylish.
Car
Gmc Ck
The GMC C.K. is a big truck that was made in the late 80s to late 90s. People like these trucks because they are strong and last a long time.
Car
Chevrolet C10S
The Chevrolet C10 is an old pickup truck that many people love because it looks cool and works well. Collectors pay a lot of money for these trucks because they are special.
Car
Chevrolet Silverado
The Chevrolet Silverado is a big truck that can carry heavy loads and is great for work or family use. It’s known for being strong and comfortable to drive.
Car
Dodge Ram
The Dodge Ram is a big truck that’s built to carry heavy stuff and do tough jobs. It’s popular because it’s strong and comfortable to drive.
LIVE
You are listening to the Analog and Grit podcast. I'm your host, Victor Troyer.
Who do we have today on our episode?
We got Dylan returning for another episode.
And Ed with Twin Brothers Auto.
What's up, Ed? Welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
Mainstay Dylan, he's a mainstay. That's what I call him.
So you guys been hanging out lately a lot?
Yeah, he's been helping me out with my business.
Awesome.
Okay.
So today's episode, we're going to talk about a few things, mainly Radwood.
We'll start there because we just got back from this weekend.
My first time, Dylan's second time.
And then also about your business, right?
Talk about auctions and how many, let's just say tips and tricks on buying cars.
Sounds good.
Add auctions with a buyer's market at the moment, I would say.
Sounds good.
All right.
So Radwood was this past Saturday.
And I just can say that I'm glad I went and I'm going to be returning hopefully every year.
Hopefully every year.
Kind of like a car week thing.
Definitely.
It's something that I look forward to every year ever since, well, only last year, the
first time I went, couldn't wait to go again.
So why do you love Radwood?
I like that it celebrates ordinary cars.
Like I just kind of like that some of the cars that get the most attention there are
the ones that would have been like the most anonymous looking cars when they were new.
Like I can think of a few examples.
Cars like that Maxima you showed me earlier or like a Pontiac station wagon from the 80s
or like my GEO or, you know, just a number of other cars that were nothing to speak of
when they were new and now they're being celebrated.
And I think that's really cool.
Yeah.
That Maxima was like, I think a mid 90s Maxima that everyone and their mother owned in Staten Island
where I grew up and like to see one in pristine shape like the one that was at Radwood.
It just like, like I laughed at first because I was like, what the hell is this doing here?
Right.
But then it reminded me like, you know what?
This is, this is a car that's perfect for Radwood.
You know, it's, you know, clearly not a car that like people aspire to own one day.
But Radwood kind of celebrates the ordinary cars like you just said.
And I think it was parked next to a Chevy Lumina.
It was also parked, you know, just cars that like you didn't even look twice at growing up.
They were parked in the street.
But then you look at today and you're like, damn, like that's pretty cool.
Like you look at the Lumina and it's a two door, right?
You said you've sold the Lumina before.
Oh, OK.
40,000 miles.
Oh, OK.
And I think the survivor cars with people that are now my age, you know, that remember them,
it's nostalgia and they're willing to pay for nostalgia.
You know, obviously toys and things like that.
Trinkets like you see wrestling toys from Hasbro back in the 90s going up in value down and and cars are the same.
You know, basic ordinary cars like a Chevy Lumina, right?
What else did you see there that really like like you really enjoyed that you felt like was quintessential Radwood?
There was one that really comes to mind right away that caught my attention is it was a Mercury Capri RS,
which was basically the Fox body generation of the Mercury Capri.
This one was the RS Turbo.
So it's a five speed manual.
I think it's like a 1.4 1.8 liter turbo from the 90s.
And that was super cool to see because I never see the Fox body generation Capris like ever.
And then to see like the RS Turbo top of the line.
It was inside, right?
Yeah.
It's like the back, not the back wall, but like middle like left when you're walking, right?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, because it didn't say Capri on it.
I think it just said turbo.
Yeah.
It said on the back, it said Mercury and then it said RS Turbo.
Right.
Yeah.
Because I was wondering, I'm like, it was on the tip of my tongue.
I couldn't figure out that it was a Capri, you know, because the Mercury Capri ended up becoming like the Miata car, right?
What's the car I'm thinking of?
The little small two door car that was like based on a Miata.
You don't remember that?
No, based on the Miata.
You don't, you know what I'm talking about?
I know Mercury had the XR4 Ti.
No, no, that's the Mercer.
That's the Mercer.
Which I think there was a Mercer there too.
There was.
There were a couple.
Nice.
Yeah.
The car I'm thinking of is small.
It's a, and I'm pretty sure it's a Capri.
There's a Mercury, there's a Mercury Capri.
That's this one, the Mercury Capri.
Yeah.
I don't think it's Mazda based though.
That's front wheel drive.
Yeah.
I just felt like maybe it was designed to go up against.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
It definitely was poised to rival the Miata.
Yeah.
This car right here.
I think we talked about this on a podcast.
I don't know if it was with you or Justin.
So the Capri eventually became that?
Yeah.
Because it looks completely different.
Totally.
Yeah.
That's what's confusing about it.
It looked like a Mustang competitor, right?
Yeah.
It looked like a Fox body.
Well, not a competitor.
It was pretty much.
It looked like, yeah.
It looked just like a Fox body, regular one.
Okay.
Anything else stand out?
Let's see here.
A lot of cool old station wagons.
It's like big, bodie, like late 70s station wagons.
Those always stick out to me.
There was like a Mercury Colony Park there that was cool.
So that was one that stood out to me.
There was, my buddy brought his Mitsubishi Starion and they asked him to park it at the
Hagerty booth, which was cool.
Let's see.
What else?
Park near me, there was an FBRX7 that was bone stock and like mint, like showroom floor
ready.
That was another thing.
A lot of the cars that stood out to me there at Radwood were like those old forgettable
cars that were just kept in showroom condition.
So good point.
What stood out to me was the unmodified cars that you always see modified.
So there was a handful of Z32 300ZX's when you first like where you parked on that left
hand side, but inside there was like, I think two Z32's bone stock, an earlier one and a
later one you could tell by the wing, but even more so that I really like couldn't stop
looking at was the Talon TSI.
Oh yeah, the black one.
Yeah.
As soon as you walked in on the right hand side and inside there was an Eclipse GSX.
Yeah.
And like that to me is that because that's like the first gen of that's DSM at its best,
right?
Early DSM cars and you rarely see them unmodified.
Yeah.
So that was like, wow, to me at least, you know, I'm an unmodified guy.
Me too.
Yeah.
Okay.
I was going to ask you and I think I know why you're an unmodified guy.
We'll get to that in a second.
But like, I think the most important thing when you see a car that's stock like that
for Radwood, because it celebrates the ordinary car, but it also celebrates the 80s and 90s.
So as like someone who studied history, I love the C cars in their period correct form,
right?
So when you look at that GSX and, you know, you look at the guy opened the hood and you
can see what is it?
The timing chain, the cover for the, that drives the belt.
It's clear.
Well, no, it's, it protrudes through the hood.
So you need that little bump in the hood to, because it's the cover that is too high in
the engine beds.
It's kind of above the valve cover.
So like, I'm looking at it and I'm like, wow, like just little designs like that that make
that car unique.
Everyone knows when they see the hood of an eclipse or a talent, that's why that bump
is there.
You know?
And then yeah, the wagons at the rear facing seats.
Like I was showing my fiancee, like look at how like families went on road trips back
then.
Like the kids would sit in the back and give the finger to everyone, you know, pulled up
behind them.
You know, and it's just so cool because everyone had the rear facing seats.
And then a lot of times, I don't know if you noticed this, but people would put props in
the trunk of the car.
Oh yeah.
Right.
So like camcorders, cassette players, all the cassettes that like they've owned in
the past, nicely neatly like, you know, stored in the back, Jurassic Park, like VHS, right?
Portable TVs, right?
Like shit that you don't even remember.
Don't people also dress up like the nineties?
I've never been there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I didn't see that many people dressed up.
There were not.
There weren't many people dressed up much further than like a colorful sweater or something.
You know what I mean?
Like just, yeah, but they did have a contest at the end for the best dress.
Oh, OK.
People's choice.
So how many awards did they give out?
I didn't stay till the end.
So quite a few.
Really?
Yeah.
I didn't see the whole awards ceremony, but yeah, they gave out quite a few.
There was like, there was like a kids choice thing, which I thought was kind of cool.
Okay.
They had judges.
They had different categories.
They gave out quite a few awards, but I don't remember which ones.
Okay.
Yeah.
I kind of chickened out with the Alpha Romeo.
I was supposed to bring it in.
Funny story.
You know, Hiram, the guy you introduced me to that owns the Milano.
So who's run rabbit?
That's Henry.
Yeah.
So Henry took, right before Radwood, he took a bunch of photos of cars.
I thought he might end up bringing a Radwood because he mentioned Radwood and like a hashtag.
And I was like, oh, are you going to bring up your Milano?
Because I think he has like a red one or a silver one.
Yeah.
He's got a red one.
Yeah.
And he's like, no, no, but I believe Hiram is going to bring his.
And Hiram, is that his names?
Yeah.
Hiram.
Hiram.
He had his Milano featured on Petrolicious earlier in the year.
Black one.
Put rally wheels on it.
Really cool build.
And I thought he was going to bring his Milano and low key, like I'm the type of person.
I don't know about you, but if like you're at dinner, which are your significant other
and she owns the chicken, she orders the chicken Parmesan.
I can't not order the chicken Parmesan.
I have to order something else.
Even though I went in thinking I'm going to get the chicken Parmesan.
And she knows that because she'll say like, oh, did you want to get that?
And I'm like, no, no, don't worry about it.
I got a plan B. I'm good.
Right.
That way we can kind of pick on each other's food.
We could try a variety.
Like there's no way I'm going to order the same food as her because then we can't.
It's the same.
We're eating the same thing.
Yeah.
So when Hiram told me he was going to bring or when Henry told me Hiram was going to bring
his Milano, I was like, I'm not going to be the only Milano there.
It's not going to be a special.
Right.
I'm like, fuck it.
I'm not even going to bring it.
And then the night before I didn't get good sleep.
Like I literally, I don't know what it was.
I couldn't sleep and I woke up super exhausted.
I was like, am I going to want to drive this thing?
Cause that's the only way I'm going to be able to get it there in time is if I drive it.
Cause the plan was to get it towed with AAA.
Cause I have free towing.
Just send it to, you know, Long Beach or whatever and then drive it from Long Beach to San Pedro.
But that would have taken time called the AAA.
I was exhausted.
I was like, you know what?
Fuck it, man.
I'm going to just take my girl's car and screw it.
So I didn't bring the Milano.
I go to the Radwood show and hear him, uh, apparently it was there.
I didn't see him, but I'm looking around.
I don't see him a lot.
So I won six four, the red one, right?
Towards the back.
Um, I hit him up.
I'm like, Hey man, did you, uh, did you end up bringing the Milano?
And he's like, nah, nah, I brought the Citroen, the white Citroen.
He's like, uh, but I thought you were going to bring yours.
So that's why I didn't bring mine.
So yeah, nobody brought the Milano.
So now, you know, I'm like, fuck, I should have just brought it.
The lesson is drive it next year.
Just drive it.
That is the lesson.
And I went and I got all the belts changed the head of time, gave it a car wash the night before.
Like I did everything considering I was taking it.
It was literally a last second decision.
And honestly, if I got great sleep and I woke up at six a.m.
ready to go, like I probably would have just sent it, you know what I mean?
But whatever, lesson learned.
At least you made it to the show.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And to be honest, like I said, I'm going to be going back.
Radwood, you haven't been there.
Not yet.
If you're an eighties, nineties, you know, enthusiasts, like you said to you earlier,
like it's the epitome of like it was nothing like the one we did at car week.
Mm hmm.
Like car week had some, some really nice upscale cars, like Diablo's and, you know, I don't
think there was any Diablo's there, but there was a Kuntas and there was a, an EB 110 Bugatti,
which I couldn't.
There was one of those at Radwood too.
At, in car week.
Yeah.
San Pedro.
The EB 110.
Yeah.
No, that's what I'm referring to.
Radwood in San Pedro.
In, in car week, we didn't see any Bugatti's.
It was mainly like, you know, cars that fit in Deloreans and things like that.
Sure.
Right.
So this year I was like pretty pleased to see your ordinary cars.
Mm hmm.
That's what I love the most.
And that's why I would go back because like, again, you don't see people geeking out on
ordinary cars that much.
Like Matt Farrow was there geeking out on that.
And there was two M fives like Jace's there.
Oh, really?
That's right.
I remember seeing one of them.
They only made like what?
1500?
Jace always says.
Yeah.
They're pretty low.
You know, so anyway.
Yup.
Lesson learned next year.
We'll do it this time.
I'll, I'll 100% bring them out of drive.
If Hiram brings a Milan or not.
They'll be two.
They'll be two there.
I don't care.
Yeah.
All right.
So moving on to stock or modified.
Right.
So my guess and correct me if I'm wrong is you buy a lot of cars.
You sell a lot of cars, right?
For a living.
Yeah.
You don't like modified cars because most times they don't bring more money.
They actually bring less.
All right.
So let's talk about that.
So yeah, I like the cars I like to focus on our older low mileage stock cars.
That doesn't mean I won't buy a modified car as long as like OEM plus, you know, has
BMW wheels from a different car or like, I don't know.
Nothing like super race car eat stuff like that because it just doesn't sell and people
think they could get more money because they spent money on it, but that's honestly the
opposite.
Just recently I helped a friend sell.
Well, it didn't sell on cars and business E39 and five and he had like a CSL style trunk
and carbon fiber steering wheel and the plan almost painted red.
And I told them, if you bring this to stock, we could hit your reserve.
No problem.
It's a very clean M five and he's like, well, I spent 5000 on audio.
I'm like, you're not going to get that money back, you know, and it didn't hit reserve.
And I told him and all the comments are like, oh, get rid of that trunk and why is the plan
on painting red?
So I told him, if you bring it to stock, so now he's putting the phone call he called
me earlier.
I told him, change the trunk, change the steering wheel, bring it to a stock as you can and
we'll put it on, bring a trailer and see how much better it does.
But if you do it the same way that you did on cars and business, you're going to get
the same results.
Right.
So yeah, I definitely like to stick to stock cars because people, I let the people decide
after they buy it, whatever they want to do with it.
I think what sells best is people getting a clean slate and whether they keep it clean
or not, I don't care what you do after I sell the car, you know, right?
As much as I like for it to stay clean.
It's not always the case.
I've sold cars and super clean E 36 I sold to a kid bought it from the original owner
low miles, like two months later, things like slammed on, you know, cambered wheels and
wow.
Yeah.
And you ruin the car.
It's like my 300 ZX, the Z 32, it was cobalt green, really rare color, only two years they
made it.
And the first thing the guy said when he bought it from bring a trailer is he's gonna paint
it.
Yeah.
Dang.
What?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I didn't tell you that.
That's the dark green, right?
It's a dark green.
Yeah.
I had a twin turbo as well.
Yeah.
So tell the audience how many cars estimate that you've sold on bring a trailer.
Let's just say bring a trailer and cars and beds.
Oh, probably on those two platforms only, maybe close to a hundred, maybe only close
to a hundred.
Okay.
Yeah.
But overall, I've been selling cars since I was, my first car is sold and I was 14 years
old.
Oh geez.
Before I even had a license.
I bought a 1994 Toyota Corolla.
I didn't even run off my buddy for 400 bucks.
Okay.
And I sold the next day for a thousand.
Okay.
So you got it in your blood, man.
You're buying and selling in your blood.
All right.
So at least the audience knows you're, you're a subject matter expert when it comes to buying
and selling cars.
Perfect.
So a hundred percent right, right?
A modified car doesn't usually bring the premium you want unless it's like specific
mods like for example, like I had another gentleman on the show that used to work for
cars and bids, Andrew.
And he mentioned like specific mods that are really well known like brand mods, right?
Brand mods are like, I call it OEM plus.
So like if you had an E39 wagon, he did a S62 swap, M5 swap, an E39 wagon, that's going
to bring all the money.
I sold the E46 wagon with the, Doug did a video on it, M3 swapped E46 wagon, but the
body work and everything was done.
That's over 66 grand.
Yeah.
You know, and an example for that also is that when I'm bringing a trailer, only brought
40.
I told the owner of the car, put stock M3 wheels on it, changed that steering, he had the steering
will wrap the red.
And I'm like, this is not an Audi LMS, you know, this is an E46 M3 wagon, make it look
like as if BMW made this, you know, they have the one in Munich, but like he did the body
work and it was all metal and, and I told him, raise the height, don't put it so low.
And he bought it to like OEM spec, what an E46 M3 wagon would be and Doug did the video
and it brought 66,000, you know, like, so OEM plus stuff, like good swaps, you know,
it sounds like an alarm, like a dyno supercharger on an E36 superchargers.
Don't do well.
Okay.
I know this from experience.
I sold my, I sold my Astero blue X5 that I supercharged.
I got a good deal on the supercharger.
Was it a dyno?
Like that's what I could buy brand name.
Active auto works.
Yeah, it was a solid brand, but people get scared of supercharger because it's forced
induction.
They think it's going to, you know, the motors ruined all of a sudden, but it wasn't meant
to handle that kind of power.
Exactly.
But like, there's certain things like a TRD supercharger on like a four runner, I'd
say.
Yeah.
People would pay for that.
But supercharged BMWs usually don't sell as much as a stock BMW.
I probably would have gone the same exact price I did for my X5 that I did, whether it was
supercharger or not, you know, because it was Astero blue, it was a, you know, rare color
for a non, non IS, it was a 3.0, but yeah, I always tell people, if you are going to
modify a car and you want to sell it to make money, just do stuff that a lot of people
will enjoy and not just what you want.
But if you, I mean, obviously your car, you do what you want with it, but if you're focusing
on trying to sell it and make money, you don't need to, you know, do all kinds of crazy mods
to try to get more money because you're probably not going to get it back.
Yeah.
100%.
You're broadening the desire, like the desirability of that car, right, rather shrinking the market
on it.
Exactly.
Right.
You put even your own wheels on it.
Like people always told me to put on like those Volk wheels on my Z32 and I could have
just done that.
Right.
It's OEM plus.
It's pretty much everything is stock except for the wheels, but it changes the look of
the car.
It's not how that car was designed to look.
And even though like, I think Volk's a pretty popular brand or, you know what, not, and
I saw a bunch of wheels with that similar design at Radwood, it to me, it's not going
to expand the market on that car.
It's going to shrink it.
Like, yeah, there is people that love those wheels.
They're out there.
I get it.
But it's not worth the money.
Right.
Because the other day you're putting money into a car is that you end up, you're planning
on selling.
Yeah.
Right.
So that's going to eat into any, like any profit.
Right.
Obviously.
So now for me, yes, if you want to like, like he put wheels and suspension on his car,
he needed the suspension.
Right.
Oh yeah.
And obviously the wheels.
Yeah.
Like, you're keeping your Geostorm, right?
You're obviously going to enjoy it, you know, do things a little by little.
It's not worth anything anyways.
I've already probably spent more on it than it's worth.
Right.
Right.
But like, that's the thing.
If you bought that car because you wanted to sell it, you would do nothing to it.
You would just get it cleaned and that's it.
Right.
But you're keeping your car.
Yeah.
Now there's certain cars that, like the cars that I love buying are cars that I know are
going to continue to go up in value.
Right.
Like a 996, 911.
Right.
There's no way.
It's got to be at its bottom.
I mean, maybe you could get a good deal still because right now the market is down.
It's that time of year.
But my point is, it's a 996, 911.
It's the easiest, cheapest, 911 you can buy.
Easiest even drive.
I mean, it's so dialed in that six speed.
But anyway, my point is, I feel like if you get cars that are going up in value, you can
enjoy them for years, right?
And at the very least, break even.
That to me is a win.
Sure.
You know?
Because you're not driving it worried.
Like if something breaks, I'm going to end up having to put all this money into it.
Like, yeah, that's a risk, especially on a Porsche, right?
Because it costs for labor and things like that.
But as long as you have a good mechanic or you could do the work yourself, you know?
So that's my take is keep the car as close to stock as possible.
If you're trying to sell it.
If you're trying to sell it.
Yeah.
If you're modifying it for your own taste.
Exactly.
Don't ever think when you modify the car, you're going to get that money back.
Yeah, exactly.
You won't.
It's not.
Yeah, you're selling it to someone else who has different taste in you.
You know what I mean?
So yeah, I've learned that at a pretty young age in my career, you know?
Because I've dealt with many people that have felt like their car is worth more simply because
they've added stuff to it.
You know?
So or like even tile.
It has new tires.
Well, it's supposed to have new tires.
It's supposed to have.
Like those aren't things, you know, you're thinking about, you know what I mean?
Like it should be running and driving.
Like, you know what I mean?
So let's talk about that.
Let's talk about things to look out for.
So you've bought, you said hundreds, we're in the hundreds of cars and sold on cars and
bids and bring a trail.
How many actually cars did Doug DeMure review?
Like on YouTube?
Honestly, I have to count, but at least 15.
15?
Okay.
And have you noticed a premium on those reviewed cars?
A good example is I had a 2000 Chevy Tahoe Z71 that I sold on bring a trailer initially.
I sold it and only went for like seven grand.
The guy called me.
He's like, oh, how much shipping going to be to New York, which is something he should
have figured out beforehand.
And I was still happy with the sale.
I still made a little bit of money and he realized that the shipping was going to cost
too much and backed out of the sale.
The second the auction ended, Doug had texted me and said, oh, I would have done a video
on that car.
And I was like, oh, it's just a Tahoe.
I mean, I know it's a Z71, it was super clean, but I guess that's the kind of cars he likes
anyways.
And he did the video for me when live on cars and business sold for like almost 11, 12 grand
because the guy that bid on it was like, I want Doug's car.
Even it's in the comments, you know, so wait, it didn't meet reserve on bat.
No, it sold on bat.
The guy backed out of the sale because the shipping was too much.
And it was like three grand for him to ship it to New York as a big truck.
And Doug did the video and it did a lot better, but it 99% of the time he does a video.
It does better.
I mean, it just, he has five million subscribers on YouTube and more I see it, but I've sold
cars that he's done videos and the guy that wanted, like, I didn't even see the video.
You know, I was looking for this exact car, you know, so.
Okay.
Yeah.
He reviewed my Montero, the blue one.
Oh, nice.
Back in the day.
And I remember talking to Filippo, who's on his podcast, as he was the one that had me
go to, you know, the cave and he was like, yeah, and Doug's going to review it.
So you're going to get it probably like 20% more.
Yeah.
And I was like, damn, 20%.
I've heard of like nice colors.
Like, you know, Laguna Seca blue might get 20% more on a E46, but, but yeah, I've reviewed
and I was like, okay, I, for me, I'm a big Montero guy, you know, like I remember when
I bought my first Montero, everyone made fun of me.
Like I love that shit.
Like I like when people don't like what I like and I'm able to then like bring it to
the masses and show them like, okay, let me show you what this car is worth one.
And two, I'm going to off-road and show you how capable it is.
So it did 10,000, I think on the website.
It was like nice.
I don't even think the guy even saw the video.
He was buying it for his daughter in New Hampshire.
So it was going to East Coast.
They needed a four-wheel drive car, but at least it went out to the masses.
Right?
What do we have going on back here?
I don't know.
That's one.
They're hammering down something.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, it does, I mean, it doesn't hurt.
It's not going to hurt, right?
Was, was it better than compared, um, comparables?
It was, it was like a little bit better, you know, like, yeah, maybe 20%.
Maybe it would have done like, like eight, you know, and it did 10.
But at the same time, it was the cleanest, it was a 95.
So it was an older one.
Yeah.
And it was blue.
You've never seen him in blue and it was bone stock.
The interior was covered.
It was one of those where, like, when an interior is covered,
it's either going to be like ripped to shreds or clean.
Yeah, we just recently, I bought a Toyota diesel truck
and had seat covers.
We took the covers off, brand new seats.
Oh, really? Yeah.
That's like money.
Yeah, it's like a little, it's like Christmas morning, right?
Like unraveling it.
I actually have a story about that.
I bought a 91 CRX ones for 400 bucks.
This is like 15 years ago.
And I thought I had like prelude seats in it because I had like,
it was like just overstuffed seats.
And I had it for like two months, three months until I realized like,
wait, these are seat covers under here on here.
And I ripped the seat covers off, brand new SI seats.
This thing was covered since the first day, because if you note a 91 CRX
or 88 to 91 SI had like the striped red stripe seats
and usually the red fades because it's been in the sun and whatnot.
But I took the covers off.
I was like, what the heck?
The brand new seats in here.
And that's one I have many cars I regret.
So that's one of them, because my twin was like, oh, sell it.
It's never going to be worth anything.
Now I recently bought another CRX SI.
He's like, no, keep it. Don't sell it.
Yeah. I mean, what about that one I got for 400 bucks?
Wasn't it? I think there was a CRX side Radwood.
Probably. Yeah, most likely.
Those are getting hot.
They're real hot. They're hard to find stock.
Right. Like even the one I have right now, I got a good deal on it,
but it's like lowered and it's not my jam.
JDM cars from the 90s stock.
I mean, it's so hot. It's so hot right now.
If you can find anything, bone stock.
I mean, a lot of them are clapped, right?
Because just like from clear coat failure, you know what I mean?
And whatever, buy it and paint it.
Yeah, I know. It's worth it.
I had bought an 84 Civic hatch.
Doug did a video on it.
I only had 34,000 miles on it.
And bone stock, like, like it was in the old ladies garage
that she hadn't driven in like five years.
She had her license taken away because she's older and I bought it.
It wasn't running. It's carbureted, obviously.
And no one wanted to work on it.
But I found a shop in Fallbrook.
I was able to get it running and rebuild the car and Doug did a video
and it sold for like 10 grand.
Wow. Yeah. 84 Civic base model.
They didn't even have a radio. It just said Honda.
No, no passenger review mirror.
Like just the most stock, basic Civic you could find.
Wow. Yeah.
Those are cars you see at Redwood and you're like, damn, like
they didn't need side view mirrors in 1984.
You know, it was an option.
Yeah, it was an option.
Yeah. Like, oh, I got a side view mirror as an option.
Like cars that didn't deserve to be preserved.
Right. Right.
What that's what I think sells.
You know, I had a 94 Isuzu Amigo with 4,000 miles on it.
And I bought it from Mannheim and I was like, dang, I pay like seven grand.
I was like, dang, I paid too much.
You know, like I know it was low miles, but I was just like,
who the hell wants an Amigo?
It's not for a drive.
I think it was automatic.
And I'm just like, what?
And honestly, Doug didn't do a video by put on cars and bids.
And the guy that bought it, it sold for 17 grand, you know, wow.
And the guy that bought it was looking up on because I always put
like cold start videos and quick driving video or whatnot.
And he just found my video on YouTube of the cold start.
And then I wrote on there for sale on cars and bids.
And that's how he was able to find me.
He's like, yeah, it's the nostalgia.
Like you were talking earlier, oh, I grew up in one of these
and you never find them this clean.
That's why he paid so much for it.
You know, and I was just, of course, because there might not be another comp out there.
That's exactly.
It might be the only one that orange Amigo at Radwood.
It was inside like near the Kuntas.
Should you see that orange one?
Right. It's kind of right where I first saw you.
Yeah, that orange one was like mint.
I mean, I've never seen an orange.
It might have been painted, but it was so clean.
And what I love about the Amigo, like a lot of cars from the early 90s or even
mid 90s had that like soft top rear end.
Yeah, right.
So it's so like California Beach Cruiser, you know, like, but but in a masculine way.
Sure. Right.
You look at some like sidekicks and you're like, all right, that looks a little
feminine to me, and I don't know if I'd be cool, feel cool driving that.
Yeah. But an Amigo, I'd feel cool.
Yeah. Right. A Viacross, I'd feel cool.
Yeah. You know, I mean, he loves the Viacross.
I love the Viacross.
I know. So Dylan, you've been hanging around Ed for a minute now, right?
So tell me what are some tips, things you've learned when it comes to buying cars
at auction?
Well, I mean, Ed likes to buy like low mileage stuff.
So we always look for like low mileage, get the VIN first and look at the history.
Because like even like that van that we just picked up, it's like higher mileage,
but it has really, really shiny, clean history.
So that's like another thing is like the vehicle history.
Vehicles that don't for the sake of reselling, just vehicles that maybe don't
need a respray, like an entire respray, maybe just have like a burn hood or a
burned roof, cars we don't have to repaint, mostly run and drives, right?
Pretty much always by running, driving cars.
One owner, no accident.
Yeah, with some exceptions, of course.
And yeah, mainly like just
kind of knowing to this is where like my knowledge can also come into play as
like knowing what problems those cars are known to have, right?
Like kind of figuring out like looking at what's been done.
Yeah, yeah. Or if we're looking at a car, just kind of
I guess knowing what you're getting into with it, but that's less of a hassle,
I think with run and drives, because they already, you don't have to fix
a car, you don't have to replace an engine, you know.
Yeah, I think that's a really good point because there's some type of, you know,
issue with a lot of whatever car, right?
Like for example, a car with an interference engine is going to require
time and belt change.
And that could that service history alone might be worth a good couple thousand
dollars, right?
So if it doesn't have that service history, it doesn't mean you got to do it.
But just expect to not get a top dollar for your car, right?
You mentioned one owner, no accidents.
I'll even add to that.
What about like Michelin tires on the car, you know, something small like that?
I always when I try to sell a car and he knows how many sets of tires I buy a week.
So many. Yeah.
And I go, I'm true and tried with advantage tires.
They've been great for me and customers don't complain.
It's not like a name brand, but I think it's better than like Lionheart or
Lixani, but I can't put Michelin on every car I sell, you know, right?
I'm talking about buying and if it has Michelin's on it, you know, it was
well cared for. Yeah, exactly.
But some, most of the time, honestly, especially at auction, tires are so old.
So I'm not even safe to drive it.
And that's why you're buying so many tips on buying cars from auction.
I guess may not help the masses, but for other people that buy from auctions.
A lot of times you're getting stuff that you don't know what's going on.
You can't test drive the car, you know, side also, yeah, most of the time
that I don't even go and I try to go as much as I can, but like Manheim
and all those dealer auctions, I don't even check the cards out
because they have a whole condition report and I just go based off that.
But the one we go down here south and we'll try to go on the viewing day
to see the cars that I want to be done.
But about this Aztec today, we didn't even go see it.
But, you know, if you get cheap enough, does it really matter?
Yeah, of course, of course.
Yeah, I mean, if you if you know the market, so another thing
like you're alluding to is understanding like what are these cars worth?
Right? Because you got to know when to stop bidding, obviously,
because you're not going to keep going.
You're not going to really want it.
Yeah, unless you really want it.
You know, I remember looking at the Aztec not too long ago because of breaking bad
and because of like the fact that I thought, you know, oh, like like a stock,
let's say you see a company that you're really interested in
because it's hot, it's trendy right now.
Right. So I watch breaking bad.
I'm like, oh, yeah, Aztec, it's hot and trendy right now.
Like it's going to end up going up in value
because everyone's going to want to, you know, buy the car that
what's his name, Walter White owned.
Like the S.J. Wagoneer that his wife drove.
Those started going up in value like crazy around covid time.
And I was like, oh, it's going to be the same.
It's going to be it's not it's obviously that it's not.
It's just it's a what do you call those cars?
I mean, ugly, yeah.
It's like a it was an experiment by General Motors, right?
Now, look, I remember watching Doug's video with the the tent that it came with.
Oh, yeah, I imagine this one has it in the car.
It'd be crazy if we're going to go pick it up after this.
Check for the 10th, right?
I'm sure you could probably buy it on eBay, sure.
But pictures like if you sell that thing with pictures of the whole tent display,
that will definitely do well.
Yeah, because you need to you need to market it.
You need to have the people in vision.
Like when I have a convertible car, I usually take photos by the water.
Yeah, yeah, because I want people to see like San Diego, Sun, Ocean, right?
If it's an off-roader, I go to Fiesta Island, you know, somewhere, right?
The same thing. Yeah. Right.
So you want to kind of market the car for what its use case is for.
So like an Aztec, like somewhere on a trail with, you know, with the little tent thing.
That would be dope, you know what I mean?
Or maybe even do like a little Met Lab next to it.
That's funny.
You know, so.
But so what else?
I mean, I'm trying to think of other tips and tricks that I've at least, you know, thought of, you know,
the Michelin tires is something I've looked at just simply because, you know,
no one's going to spend an extra couple hundred bucks on tires unless they care for the car, right?
Oh, Toyota's and Lexus, not every not every brand has this,
but you can go on their service history website and put the VIN number in, right?
Make believe it's in it's a car that you owned and you can see every service
record done without buying a car fax from the dealer.
Nice. Right.
And that's something that I've learned because, you know, you don't need to
even car fax doesn't even tell you sometimes it's very vague.
Yeah. Yeah.
It'll tell you what was done at Toyota.
Yeah. Yeah.
Tips and tricks on just people buying cars, whether auction, private party, doesn't matter.
Always check the history car fax, car fax or auto check.
Just something so because there's so many times that people like, you know,
it's unfortunate, but people roll back miles.
They do. It's just a thing.
Yeah. And if you don't check car fax or auto check or even NVIDIA is just a basic
five dollar and you could get car fax on Etsy.
People sell them like two dollars.
You don't have to pay the forty five dollar thing if people have unlimited accounts.
Right. Oh, wow.
And if you go on Etsy, there's accounts that sell car fax or two bucks.
That's a hack right there.
I pay for it monthly, but because I checked, I don't know, 15, 20 cars a day.
So I need to have it, but always some sort of history.
So, you know, the car isn't rolled back, that the car is clean title, you know,
and that there's no major accidents.
Another thing you could check if you don't want to even check car fax,
you could check smog history on the DMV website to see if it's failed or passed.
Right. And how many times it's failed.
That's smart. And the life of its, you know, thing you could check.
If it was a gross polluter at one point.
Yeah, exactly. DMV smog, just Google DMV smog, check history.
It's like one of the first links.
You could check if there's any back fees on the DMV website,
because it was just a sticker that someone stole.
You know, all these things people get, you know, I've heard stories all the time.
We're like, I bought a car and there's this one kid that hit me up on Facebook
and he kept buying car faxes of me because I ran the car fax on the cars he owned.
And both of the cars he recently bought were rolled back miles by like 200,000.
Wow. Jeez.
And I always check out, you know, on the app,
I can even run it through the license plate numbers.
One time I went to go check out a LS, a LX470, the big,
the thing had like stated 60,000 miles, right?
And he was asking like 23 grand, which is still a good deal
for something that has such a little miles because you could sell those 30k plus
if it has such a little mile.
As he's pulling up, he meets me at like fashion rally mall.
As he's pulling up, I had, you know, I ran the plate number
and it had like 430,000 miles like two months ago, right?
And I played it cool with them.
Just like check the car out.
It was really clean, you know, and honestly,
those cars with high miles still sell for good money, like maybe not in the 20s,
but you can still get in the teens with high miles, the LX470.
And then he gave me a car fax written, a printed one.
And he had edited the mileage on the history to say what he said it was.
And then I, that's when I confronted him, you know, man, this car has,
he couldn't get in the car fast enough to leave.
Oh, my God.
And I was like, fake, like I'm recording him, but he got all scared.
And I'm like, dude, and I told him, like, as he's leaving,
I'm like, you could still get good money for this if you just tell the truth.
Right, right. So dumb, man.
I've even seen a lot of history because, look, you got to be careful
and do your due diligence, right?
Clearly, there's people out there scamming.
It's, it's not unlikely.
It's not rare. It's, it's happened all the time.
Now you need to do due diligence, like, for example, yeah,
like the registration backfeast, things like that.
They don't, they're not going to disclose to you. Yeah.
Um, but I feel like some people, what they'll do, like they'll, uh,
and I don't, and correct me if I'm wrong, like they say, oh, they bought it
out of charity. I know that's a thing, right? Oh, I, I get it from a charity
and they're, and they're not registered in the car on their name.
Floating titles. Right. So tell me about that.
What is that? Like, you know, could that be a scam?
Or is that just, well, before I, before, as a dealer, I'm allowed to
float titles. I don't have to register them.
But, you know, before I had a dealership, I did it too.
As long as the paperwork checks out and there's nothing like suspicious
going on, it's not a problem if the person's name is not on the title.
You know, so, you know, and, and I don't know how, well, let's say
the person that you're buying it from, it's not under their name.
Cause they're obviously, it's a floating title.
It's whoever owned it previously. Yeah. Right.
So what are some problems you could got to be careful?
I, um, I, I really don't know because if, if the person is just honest,
like, Hey, I'm just flipping the car. It's not an issue, right?
But when they, when they start making up stories, like it's my uncle's car
and I'm helping them sell it and they're just lying, you know, I, I've bought
cars from private party that the person's floating the town.
I just tell them straight up like, Hey, I know you're probably just selling
us to make money. It's fine, but just be honest about it. It doesn't matter.
I don't see how someone could be scammed by the titles there. Right.
Like, then it should be fine. Yeah.
You know, I think what my worry as a buyer is like, I'm buying a car from,
you know, Ed, but the title says John, where's John?
So what you could do is have, so, so what you could do, and if the seller's
okay with it, how do I know John wants to sell this car? Yeah. You know what I mean?
Well, what you could do is you could sell it from John to whoever you're
buying it from and do a bill of sale from the guy you're buying it from to your
name. Right. Even though the title doesn't say, well, so
he might have not transferred it, right? Which, yeah, legally, it's not allowed.
You're supposed to only sell a car if it's in your name as a private
party and it's supposed to be smogged, you know, unless you're a dealer.
It's, you know, different rules, but if someone's just flipping cars,
which a bunch of people do, you see it all over marketplace, you know,
everywhere, you know, no dealer license and there's, you know, flipping the car.
And if you want to, if you want to feel protected, you could just be like, Hey,
I want paperwork that's from the person's on the title name to your name.
And then from that person, from the person you're buying from to you.
Right. And then, then, you know, it's like a full paper trail of like, OK,
this guy just never registered it. And he's, you know, most likely just buying
it to sell. People make a living flipping cars like, yeah, of course.
Makes sense. But I don't see how it could be an issue unless
it's very rare you find a fake title. I mean, I know it happens,
but usually like newer cars or people are like, you know, it has a loan or
something and right, but it's like hard to, you know, it's just an everyday car.
It's probably, yeah, or go to DMV with them.
Yeah. Walk with them to DMV. Yeah.
OK. You know what I noticed? Another thing real quick is people that
have clean titles, right? And they want to sell it to you.
And then you go on like in Vitas or you just Google the VIN number and you'll
see it at copart at auction. It's another demolished.
Yeah. Like like this car clearly, you know, was salvaged.
And they're able to get this thing somehow not to show salvage.
I know that. Yeah, that's a tough one, because.
I mean, that's a good tip. Put the VIN number in Google, right?
Pops up an IAA copart, just stay away. Right. Clean title, salvage.
I don't buy salvage. I don't need to buy clean.
Let's take a car I really, really want and I don't care about salvage,
but it's very unlikely.
But yeah, googling the VIN to see if it was out of salvage yard or copart.
IAA is a really good tip because I do that normally.
And then also you could check if the car was bought at some public auctions.
Even though the listing won't show up, it'll show that it was at, you know,
live auction world or whatever auction you're at. Yeah.
But if you check car facts or in Vitas, it'll show if it has, you know,
because it won't sell at the salvage auction until it's reported to car facts.
Right. They might just have the old title and want to pull a fast one.
But that's you got to do your due diligence when you're buying a car.
Exactly. Yeah.
Speaking of selling a car on bring a trailer.
So my van again, 89 just sold at a price that, yeah, that you're bummed
that you didn't bid on it.
So here's the here's the thought, right?
Because bring a trailer is great.
I've said this so many times for selling like four by fours that are rust free
California, you know, only to people that are like, wow, I've never seen
a Tacoma first gen that clean or a four run or third gen that clean, right?
Because they had, I guess, steel that wasn't galvanized and they rusted out
and everyone loves them still on the East Coast, but clearly they didn't last.
So to me, four by fours are excellent, right?
Even any any clean car that's free is excellent.
But like specifically ones that appeal to a nationwide audience.
The van again is a car that you will see.
I mean, there was four of them at Radwood.
Yeah, I got three around the block from me in Kensington.
Like these are cars that you see.
You go to OB anywhere by the beach, Point Loma here in San Diego.
They're everywhere.
My point is and for one third gen for others and first gen Tacomas too are everywhere here.
But my point is with the van again, it's an old car that you don't see everywhere, right?
You don't just go to the East Coast and you're going to see vanigans, right?
So this car was perfect for a local sale.
It wasn't like the desire that the demand in New York or Minnesota
is nowhere near as the demand in San Diego.
So this isn't this isn't a car, I don't think for bring a trailer,
especially with two hundred and fifty two thousand miles.
And I learned that obviously afterward, based on the result.
Now, look, I'm not mad, you know, that I don't regret it.
I'm always going to still sell cars on bring a trailer.
But what I think is you need to be mindful of is the market for your car.
Is it a nationwide car or is it a car?
You can ask a price on on a market Facebook marketplace and get more money,
you know, because I could tell you this, I'm bringing up the forerunner for a reason.
I had a third gen forerunner listed for like ten thousand dollars
for like months, three, four months.
Had a bunch of people look at it, a bunch of, you know, tire kickers.
And then I put on bring a trailer and sold it for like, I think fifteen, sixteen.
It was and I was like, why would I ever sell a marketplace again?
Well, I always will post a car marketplace.
If it doesn't sell within two to three days, I take it off.
And if it's a bring a trailer, cars and bits car, like I'll always just try.
Unless it's like something I know for a fact, it's not like that voyager we got.
That's not going to sell a marketplace that has to go on cars and bits.
You know, I mean, like it might sell a marketplace for like cheap.
But forerunner or the van again, I would have at least tried
marketplace for a couple of days.
Don't let it sit for a year or like, you know, right?
Because even a month is too long. Nobody wanted it.
Even a month is too long.
If it doesn't sell within the first three days, it's either
not no one's interested because overpriced for the local market.
Right. Or just not many eyes on it.
You know, obviously posting on the group pages and stuff like that.
But I'll enthusiast cars.
I'll always just try if it doesn't sell within two to three days.
Then, you know, I already have the photos ready.
You know, so I'll put it on bring a trailer and Facebook market
or cars and bits. It's a great idea.
Yeah. The van again, you should have just tried Facebook.
Yeah, exactly. And that's my point is I should have just
because everyone that reached out to me, I had two people DM me,
maybe even three that were local.
The guy that bought it was from Point Loma, right?
So everyone that reached out was local.
Everyone I commented was like, oh, can I come and see it?
Kind of trying to see if I'm like, I'm going to avoid them seeing it,
which is a little annoying because I could tell their trolls.
Yeah. All his comments. Can I come see it? Can I come?
Like I was looking at the user comments.
All he all he does is ask people if he can come see it and then flakes
when the time comes.
It's like he's a Facebook troll on bring a trailer.
But anyway, that should have told me like, damn, like it was already too late.
It's already live, right? So yeah, 100 percent.
That is a marketplace car, local.
In worst case scenario, like you said, if you don't get the amount you were asking for,
I got about like thirty four hundred dollars less than what I would have asked for.
Right. So it's not crazy, you know, low, but at the same time,
it's less than what I wanted.
So the good news is, and this is always the best news when it comes
to bring a trailer, cars and bids, no reserve, you're selling the car.
Yeah. Someone's going to buy it. You're selling it.
You're not dealing with headaches of people coming and flaking on.
Yeah, I've had flakes on both.
Oh, well, yeah, I've had flakes twice on cars and bids twice.
Especially with the lower price cars, it just. Yes.
It's the cheap cars that people flake.
Well, the caravan turbo I recently had for sale on cars and bids
that Doug did a video on the guy, this is a stupid, the dumbest story ever.
Honestly, this guy won the car.
I hit him up.
It was I don't remember the sale price was 10 grand, whatever it was.
And he's all excited about it.
You know, he's like, oh, I'm selling this two thousand two or sixteen hundred,
whatever it was, BMW.
And I asked him, do you need to sell the BMW to pay for this?
No, no, I got it.
Like, you know, and then eventually become I need to sell the BMW to pay
for the caravan and then eventually was like, I can't buy this caravan anymore.
Right. I was like, no problem.
We'll hit up the underbidder.
He sent me like money just for like my troubles.
And I was like, OK, great.
This guy was also the underbidder on a different account.
Like, oh, my God, I was so upset at this guy.
I was like, not only did you win the car, you were also the guy that underbid
that he jumped a bit super high from like, he was like at five to like nine, you know.
Right. And I'm like, what are you like?
What did I do to you?
You know, like, why are you white?
Like, oh, it's a mistake.
I was logged on my computer and on my phone on different accounts.
I'm so sorry, blah, blah, blah.
And I'm like, man, ended up putting on Facebook and it's sold in a day.
Wow. You know, on the void.
And it was a bidder that was on he had bid on it.
But then he saw I posted on Facebook and flew down from Canada and drove it back.
Oh, wow. Yeah.
Are these people that are bidding like just they don't care that their card
is getting charged five percent?
I don't get it.
Why do people bid and not have their finances ready?
I've had it multiple times happened to me.
And I'm just like, it's always the cheaper cars, which is fine,
because like, I know I could just probably put on Facebook and sell it anyways.
But now he got charged the fee and he gave me a couple hundred bucks
to like for my troubles, which I wasn't going to say no, because it was annoying.
Yeah, it's impulsive for them.
I guess. I mean, I don't know.
Yeah, it was a clean car, too.
And from what I heard from people that worked in the auction sites
is a lot of people do what do they call it when they call their bank
and the credit card they can like they say it's an unwanted charge or something.
And a lot of times they get that money back.
So I don't know how true that is.
But regardless, like, yeah, like it happens.
I mean, how severe is the accountability?
Yeah, they get blacklisted on the website.
Yeah, they get the both of his accounts got banned and both of them.
Geez, I've never had that.
I've had situations where the winning bidder didn't want to buy the car anymore
and the underbidder bought it, which was fine.
There's no big deal. I've had that a few times, too.
This guy was the underbidder. Yeah.
If I showed you the pictures, guy, you'd be like, oh, it makes sense.
I sold the Y.J. Jeep Wrangler on bring a trailer
and I had to go down to the third highest bidder. Oh, dang.
Yeah, first highest bidder flaked second highest bidder bought a GX.
And then the third bidder was so excited
and they didn't charge him the 5% fee and the price he he he accounted
for the 5% fee in his bid. It was like a weird bid.
It was like 14,253.
So with the 5%, it would have been like an even 15 or so.
Yeah. And I was going to tell him I give me 15, you know,
but I just sold it to him 14, whatever.
So because he was anticipating paying 15.
Did it go out of state?
Yeah, Seattle, going to like up in Washington.
So but it happens, right?
Be prepared for that.
If you're selling, I'll bring a trailer, cars and bids.
It's not like a, you know, 100% like binded contract that they have to.
No, yeah, no, it's not.
It's all it is is then bridging the gap between you and the buyer.
And that's it. And or you and the seller. Sure.
And that's it. If they decide they don't want to buy it.
I mean, be prepared to take less from the underbidder.
Exactly. Right.
So last thing before we wrap up, I do want to talk about, you know,
you mentioned you've done a lot of YouTube reviews with Doug DeMiro.
And I'm curious to know what your experience has been like
taking it to like the, I guess the Batcave is what they call it.
Is that what they call it?
Oh, it's just like a big Batman.
So I've done reviews with Doug before he was even there.
The first car, I think, was my E30 wagon.
I had messaged him on this.
I had imported a couple of you 30 wagons in like 20, 19, 20, 20
before, like they were just legal to bring in like the last model year.
I think it was a 94 E30 wagon.
And I had messaged him, like, hey, you want to do a video on.
And I've emailed them before on other cars, but I just wasn't interested
in the E30s when I first met.
I think it was the E30 wagon.
He loves wagons. His followers all love wagons.
Yeah, like that's the one car.
And correct me if I'm wrong, that if it is a wagon, that segment.
Yeah, I rather sell it on cars and business.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
And no, it's been great.
Before he would come to me and pick up the car and do the video and drop the car off.
But now, since he's been at this warehouse,
it's great because I get to have a parking spot for a car.
I don't have to worry.
But I have an ML 55 there right now that he did a video on.
And I don't know when.
Oh, you drop it off.
And then whenever he films it, he films it.
Yeah. And you get free.
You get free car storage for a month or two.
Oh, well, right now he's like two, three or four months out for videos.
And I've had cars there for three months, four months at a time.
So the video comes out and I don't think the ML video has come out anytime soon.
But car elevator, right?
Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Pull up, call a car elevator comes down and it's cool.
Yeah, it's cool.
OK, so overall, like you leave it there and then he tells you what it's done.
And if there's anything like I've had times where like the car
like was leaking oil or something, they let me know and I'll go pick it up,
fix it and drop it back on.
So that's the downside because you're you're planning on selling this car, right?
Usually he that's the thing.
Now he only reviews cars that are going on cars and bids for the cars.
Sure. Yeah.
The new cars he'll do obviously when they come out.
But that's the downside is you have to wait for it to get listed to me.
It doesn't matter.
So enough I have enough inventory where like it's especially for a car like that,
like the ML 55, I think it'll do way better with the video than right out
because it's not really worth much anyways.
OK. Or like recently did an Escalade.
2000 Escalade for his agenda that I thought would do better.
But, you know, I still got I still made money on it.
That's all it matters.
OK. Some local guy that I know, but he was actually my Instagram follower, too.
I say that because like, for example, a convertible, let's say, right,
isn't going to do as well in the winter as it is in, let's say, March, right?
Right before, you know, summertime, spring, people start thinking I want to convertible, right?
So like if you're planning on selling a convertible in the summertime
and it now bleeds into the winter, it could hurt.
Yeah, I think for if you time it correctly with him, he could get it.
I've done I've dropped off Carson where the video is out in two weeks, you know,
and I've done most of the time it's because I'm fixing the car.
Something's going on and he's already booked up, you know, but he'll hit me up.
Like, hey, do you have anything that I can review?
And I have time, you know, when he has time, he's able to push him out quicker.
But he also has a schedule to follow.
You can't just bust out videos every day, you know.
OK, well, I appreciate you sharing that.
Of course, I want to leave off with one last question before we wrap up.
And I'll ask you Dylan first.
So you guys have been looking at cars to buy.
Obviously, we've talked about JDM cars from the 90s.
I gravitate towards on like unmodified, you know, period correct cars.
You mentioned earlier low mileage examples, survivor cars, right?
Is there anything that you would gravitate towards to buy today
with the intent like like a segment, the type of car segment that you're looking
at that you feel like could go up in value, even if you drive it for the next,
you know, X amount of years for a segment, like a like a certain type of.
Yeah, like JDM 90s cars like you gravitate towards them
because you just know like those are all going to be worth something more in the future.
I'm going to say like late 80s, early 90s German cars. OK.
I noticed that the one to sixes are kind of going up in value.
Nice one to sixes are getting expensive Mercedes.
Yeah, what would like a platform?
I know that's the platform, but that'd be like that'd be like 300 SD,
three, you know, 300 SEL, five, 60 SEL, those cars.
Gotcha. Yeah, I'm looking at them right now.
So you said late 80s, early 90s.
Yeah, OK. Yeah, I mean, that makes sense,
because that's kind of the cars you've been talking about a lot. Right.
What about you? OBS trucks, OBS trucks, old body style.
I would say like late 80s is probably early.
Yeah, late 80s would be when it would start late 90s.
Like 95 to 99 is what the people because usually people want last model year cars.
And I think like F 250, F 350 turbo diesel, GMC, CK 1500, stuff like that.
The old body style with the 7.3 liter.
Yeah, yeah, well, even the gas ones, it's fine.
Because those are I feel like the trucks,
especially if you find them low mileage, you know, you know, one owner or whatever.
The kids that grew up with those trucks are now starting to drive.
So people are like looking for like, oh, I want to clean GMC 1500, you know.
Yeah. Or like, you know, if you look at older C10s or C20s,
those are worth a ton of money.
So it's like shifted now to the old OBS trucks.
Now you get it. You can't find a clean F 250 for less than 10 grand,
right, for like a 95 96 F 250, because they're all work trucks.
No one preserved them.
Correct. So to find one that's clean, low miles, people pay good money.
I recently saw that two wheel drive, single cab, long bed.
For 460 F 250, nothing special.
It wasn't a crew cab.
It wasn't a diesel.
It's a 7.5 liter big old engine.
Yeah. I sold for 10 grand.
And like an hour.
I probably sold it too cheap because I was asking him, like, oh,
what should I list this for? What should I list this for?
That's one of the cards is like, if I don't sell it on Facebook quickly,
I'll put it on, bring a trailer.
But I asked 10 grand, the guy paid me 10 grand.
You know, that's a really good segment that I feel like we we haven't
talked about that segment enough on this podcast.
Yeah, trucks. I love trucks overlooked it.
And we've talked about it in the past with Justin.
We have a guest who's been on many times.
He called him the GM Guru because he knows everything about
General Motors and he owns a Silverado.
He owned his first car was a Dodge Ram 50,
which apparently won an award at Radwood, right?
The probably the cleanest Ram 50 we've ever seen.
Yes. And it is head turning now.
When you see an old body style truck, right?
From the 80s and 90s.
For me, it's when I see that, like, I know crew cabs usually do better,
like because they're more practical, but like the sport trucks that are
single cab, right?
Because you can like lift those, you know,
put some like a sport bar on it with KC lights
and kind of go with that, you know, back to the future.
You know, turn to pick up look and you're seeing that across all segments.
Like, you know, not just Toyota's and not just American trucks,
either, you know, Japanese trucks, whatever.
It's a clean truck that was meant to be a work truck that's been preserved
because now those 16 year old 17 that have licenses.
Want, you know, my dad had that one.
I was, you know, yeah, it's like that
bell curve, right?
So the cars go down and they go back up once that like nostalgia kicks in
and people that remember them from their childhood.
So yeah, I think that's a really good segment.
Maybe we'll save that for another episode.
Old body style trucks.
Yeah. So appreciate you coming on the show.
Thank you for having sharing your knowledge, your expertise.
You know, we obviously talk about the market a lot on this channel.
Or on this episode.
Well, this podcast.
Yeah, that was the word on this podcast, Dylan.
Appreciate it again for having me and we'll maybe have you on again.
Let us know when you buy something cool that's maybe going on cars and bids or what
not, and we can kind of showcase it and talk about it, build up the height.
So until next week on the analog and grit podcast, see you later.
About this episode
Radwood's recent event sparked a lively discussion about the charm of ordinary cars from the 80s and 90s, with hosts Victor, Dylan, and Ed sharing their favorite finds. They dive into tips for buying and selling cars sight unseen, emphasizing the importance of low mileage and stock condition. The conversation also explores the nuances of auction platforms like Bring a Trailer and Cars & Bids, including the pitfalls of modified cars and the significance of vehicle history. Insights on market trends for classic vehicles, particularly JDM and OBS trucks, round out this informative episode.
five speed manual
Fox body
front wheel drive
interference engine
modified cars
Radwood
showroom condition
supercharger
timing chain
turbo
Alfa Romeo Milano
Audi 5000
BMW 3 Series
BMW 5 Series
BMW M3
BMW M5
Bugatti EB110
Buick Gsx
Cadillac Escalade
Chevrolet C10
Chevrolet Lumina
Chevrolet Silverado
Chrysler Voyager
Delorean DMC-12
Dodge Ram
Eagle Talon
Ford Capri
Ford Mustang
GMC C.K.
Honda Civic
Honda CRX
Jeep Wagoneer
Jeep Wrangler
Lamborghini Countach
Lamborghini Diablo
Mazda MX-5 / Miata
Mercury Capri
Mercury Colony Park
Mitsubishi Eclipse
Mitsubishi Galant
Mitsubishi Starion
Nissan 300 ZX
Nissan Maxima
Porsche 911
Toyota Corolla
Toyota Tacoma
Original notes
Mainstay Dylan @mostlystreetparked and Ed from @Twinbrothersauto join the show to discuss what it’s like buying and selling cars at auctions. What was the coolest car we saw at Radwood SoCal 2025? We discuss how nostalgia plays a factor in vehicle values. Why you should never modify your car if you intend on selling it. Ed shares his experience having his cars reviewed by Doug Demuro before they go live on Cars & Bids. Why did I make a mistake selling the Volkswagen Vanagon?
Analog and Grit Podcast
Victor Troia
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