The Daily Vroom

YESTERDAY’S TOP 5 SALES

Want to dive deeper into any of these listings? Just click on the car to take you directly to the listing.

Cars & Bids Feedback

After yesterday’s article on what’s next for C&B, we asked you If Doug stopped actively promoting Cars & Bids tomorrow, what happens? And boy did we get a lot of replies, one of our most popular polls. You can see below that the slight majority of you believe there would be a material slowdown.

Below are just a small selection of your comments, apologies to those not featured.

If we put Doug to the side, as I suggested yesterday, selling more cars and/or selling cars at a higher price can make a significant difference to the bottom line. So let’s look at what actually happened yesterday instead of talking in abstractions.

Cars & Bids sold 25 cars for a combined $668k. That works out to an average sale price of roughly $26,700, and even that figure was supported by two six-figure sales. Remove those and the rest of the day averaged closer to $18,400, which tells you where the core of the marketplace really sits. (certainly for yesterday)

Yesterday generated just over $31,000 in revenue.

Now assume nothing else changes. Same 25 cars. Same infrastructure. Same cost base.

If the average sale price increases 10%, daily revenue moves to roughly $34,000. Over a year, that’s about $12.4 million instead of $11.4 million. Push the average toward $40,000 and annual revenue approaches $18 million. That is real lift without selling a single additional car.

In a founder-owned business, that kind of steady improvement would be strong execution. Raise pricing power, grow revenue, build from there.I

But this is not a founder-owned business anymore.

Once private equity writes a $37 million check, the benchmark changes. Stability becomes the floor. The expectation is sustained growth that compounds over multiple years. Higher prices help, but pricing alone rarely satisfies institutional capital. The mandate becomes more cars sold and higher average prices, not one or the other. Volume and mix need to move up together.

And there is another reality that sits quietly underneath all of this: time.

This is year three of ownership. There has already been an executive transition. At this stage, the base should exist. The conversation shifts from “does the model work” to “is the model expanding fast enough.”

Because eventually there needs to be an exit.

Private equity firms don’t just manage companies. They manage fund timelines. Capital has to be returned. A next buyer has to be found. And buyers pay for trajectory.

Who buys Cars & Bids in its current form? Another PE firm will look for acceleration. A strategic buyer will look for dominance or differentiation. Profitability alone rarely commands a premium if growth has flattened. The risk here isn’t that the business breaks. It’s that it plateaus.

And that’s where the pressure sits.

Doug operates at the top of the funnel, rightly so, having already secured his liquidity event. The executive team, meanwhile, carries the burden of delivering a growth curve that fits inside a sponsor-backed structure. If this were their privately owned business, 25 cars per day with steady revenue would be more than respectable. Inside private equity ownership, it’s simply the starting point.

None of this diminishes what has been built. Twenty-five cars per day is real throughput. It is a functioning marketplace with disciplined operations and meaningful revenue.

But once institutional capital enters the picture, “healthy” is not the objective. Compounding is.

And that is the price of getting into bed with PE.

No Reserve Auctions To Keep An Eye On

This is what people mean when they say they want an honest Highboy.

A 6,000 mile 1973 Ford F 250 Custom 4×4 that started life as a rural Montana brush fire truck and somehow avoided the fate most of these trucks suffered. Candyapple Red. Four speed manual. 360 V8. Divorced transfer case. Manual hubs. No reserve.

The story is real. Purchased new for fire duty in Philipsburg, Montana, lightly used along the Skalkaho Highway, then parked. The seller bought it from the original owner last year. The tank was already removed. The pump came off. The bones stayed intact. The miles are said to be actual and the condition supports it.

The underside presents the way collectors want these to present. The black vinyl interior is simple and correct. The siren and auxiliary switches remain. The hood vent was added when new for stationary pumping duty and will either be embraced as history or replaced by the next caretaker. Either way it is not pretending to be something it is not.

What matters here is originality and restraint. The canopy is period correct Montana built aluminum. The winch fits the personality. Nothing feels over restored or overly polished.

Clean Highboys have quietly become blue chip vintage truck plays. Where this lands is less interesting than why it is getting attention. This is a time capsule 4×4 with real provenance and low miles in a segment where most survivors were used up, modified beyond recognition, or restored past authenticity.on to where unmolested 1970s Ford 4×4 values have gone.

The Avanti was Studebaker’s last swing for relevance. Designed in 40 days under Raymond Loewy, fiberglass body, front disc brakes, aircraft style switches overhead, and a 289 V8 under the hood. It looked like the future in 1963 even as the company itself was running out of time.

That backstory is well known. What stands out here is continuity.

This Avanti R1 has been in the same hands since 1982. 44 years with an owner deeply embedded in the Studebaker world. Not a casual collector. Not a short term flipper. Someone who has lived inside this ecosystem for decades. That kind of ownership changes how you look at a car.

Finished in Avanti White over black, powered by the 240 horsepower 289 with Powershift automatic and Twin Traction, this is a driver that has been maintained rather than reinvented. Factory air works. The hog troughs, the structural pressure point on every Avanti conversation, are documented and reportedly solid. The modifications are thoughtful and reversible, and the original low back seats are included.

Avantis have never followed the traditional collector curve. They live in a narrower lane, sustained by enthusiasts who understand what they represent. When one emerges after four decades of single ownership inside that community, it feels less like a rediscovery and more like a passing of responsibility.

The Avanti was always a bit of an outsider. This one still carries that spirit.

A few months ago this 2013 Bentley Continental Flying Spur Speed changed hands for just over $30k. Same 600 horsepower twin turbo W12. Same all wheel drive. Same unapologetically overbuilt era of Bentley when Volkswagen money met British excess and decided subtlety was optional.

Now it is back on the market. No reserve.

Not because someone got bored. Not because it did not live up to expectations. The current owner received a serious medical diagnosis and made the decision to move the car rather than let it become something his family would have to deal with later. He has handled it with honesty and restraint. No theatrics. Just life happening.

This is the Speed version. The one with the full 600 horsepower tune. Massaging seats front and rear. Rear entertainment. The kind of sedan that can flatten a highway onramp while feeling like a leather lined private club. These cars represent one of the most dramatic depreciation curves in modern luxury, which is why they are so fascinating right now.

But this listing feels bigger than depreciation math. It feels like a genuine enthusiast who got a brief taste of ownership and now has to step away for reasons none of us would choose.

If a 600 horsepower W12 Bentley sedan has ever crossed your mind, take a few minutes and actually look at this one. Read the description. Watch the videos. Do your homework. And if it fits your world, raise your hand.

Sometimes the market decides value. Sometimes the community does.

I hope this one gets the attention it deserves.

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