The other day I went on a little rant about garage apps, which you can read here.

Well, yesterday the algorithm clearly decided I needed something new to complain about, because suddenly I was being bombarded with ads for car auction platforms.

And I do not mean the platforms we talk about here. Yes, I have seen the BaT video ads and the SOMO ads etc.. These were completely new names I had never heard of, all telling me they were the new trusted place to buy and sell cars, usually over some very polished, very AI-looking video of their new app.

Firstly, I am not downloading another app. I already have far too many on my phone that I never use.

Secondly, and I genuinely mean this, I wish them all the best. Everyone has to start somewhere, and the more good platforms we have bringing interesting cars to market, the better it is for all of us.

But I also think people seriously underestimate just how difficult this business is.

Building the site is not the hard part. You can build a decent-looking auction platform fairly quickly now. The hard part is convincing somebody to trust you with their car when you have no buyers, then convincing buyers to spend real money when you have very few cars.

Sellers want bidders. Bidders want good cars. Neither side wants to arrive first.

Unless you have something genuinely different, a lot of money, a big existing audience, a major name behind you, or most likely all of those things together, the odds are not great. Even then, getting that first proper car listed and actually sold is an enormous hustle.

That is why we do not judge these platforms by how nice the app looks or how loudly they announce that they are “trusted.” We watch the cars they bring, the bidders who turn up and, most importantly, whether anything actually sells.

Speaking of technology not doing what it promised, some of you tried putting a VIN into GoAskSam yesterday and watched the whole thing fall over.

That was real. It crashed, yikes!! We found what broke, went through it properly and fixed it. It should now cope with modern VINs, older chassis numbers, strange formats and cars that have sold more than once.

I have spent the last two days trying to break it again with everything I could think of, and so far I have not managed to.

So if it let you down yesterday, give it another go today, by clicking here. It should know your car this time, and know it properly.

And what comes next fits perfectly into the ecosystem we are building around GoAskSam, giving you better tools and better information when you need them. I am going to leave it there for now, but we are getting close….

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

I do not cover too many of the traditional auction houses here, mainly because there are only so many times I can tell you that another very expensive Ferrari is about to be sold.

But every now and then a collection comes along that is just too good not to share, and this one is being auctioned online by RM Sotheby’s right now.

It belonged to Belgian businessman Willy Michiels, who clearly never believed in doing anything on a small scale. Alongside a wine collection of more than 29,000 bottles, he managed to put together 95 cars and seven motorcycles.

There are some seriously important cars here. A matching-numbers 1962 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster is estimated at up to €1.2 million, while an SLR McLaren Roadster, an SLS AMG and a Mercedes-Maybach G 650 Landaulet should also bring plenty of attention.

But those are not really why I am sharing it. It is everything else.

Michiels owned 42 Mercedes-Benz models, including a six-door 600 Pullman. Only 42 six-door versions were built, and apparently just 11 had both the sunroof and air conditioning fitted to this one.

Then there is a 2009 Audi Q7 with a V12 diesel engine and 738 pound-feet of torque. It is the only production SUV ever fitted with a V12 diesel, because there was once a time when Audi could decide that a normal diesel SUV was not quite ridiculous enough.

The estimate is only €5,000 to €8,000, which feels like an awful lot of engine for the money.

Keep scrolling and you will find an 8,000-mile Hummer H2, a 1977 Cadillac Fleetwood with the sort of red crushed-velour interior that probably deserves its own room, a rare Peugeot 203 Découvrable and even a little first-generation Toyota RAV4 Commercial with no rear seats.

That one is estimated at just €2,000 to €3,000.

This is what I like about the collection. It does not look as though someone sat down and decided to buy only the cars that other collectors would approve of. There are million-euro cars next to cars most people have probably never searched for, and somehow it all makes sense.

You can tell Michiels simply bought things he found interesting.

The collection is being offered online through September 15, with the cars selling without reserve. I went in for the 300 SL and ended up spending far more time looking at a V12 diesel Audi and a commercial RAV4.

Have a look and tell me which one you would take. And if one of them does follow you home from Belgium, our Import Calculator will show you what it should actually cost to get it into the US.

View the full Willy Michiels Collection