Happy Labor Day!

Since we launched GoAskSam, one ask has shown up in my inbox more than anything else. Can I just put in my VIN?

I get why. Typing out a car by hand feels like homework, and half the time you're not sure how specific to be. A VIN is sitting right there on your title, your registration, the door jamb, it's the one number that already knows exactly what your car is. So for the last two weeks, that's what we worked on. Today, it's live.

Paste your VIN into the same box you'd normally type your car into, nothing new to learn, and Sam decodes it, confirms what he's looking at, and asks you less, because the VIN already answered half the questions he'd otherwise have to ask.

But here's the part I actually got excited about while we were building it.

Understanding the car you want to sell is one thing. But what happens if that exact car has already been sold before? Not a car like yours. Your actual car, the one with that VIN.

So to start, if your car has ever sold at online auction, Sam will tell you. Where it sold, what it went for, and you can click straight through to see the original listing for yourself.

Live auction houses like RM Sotheby's and Gooding Christie’s are coming very soon too, but we wanted to get the online side out the door first rather than make you wait for all of it.

As you can imagine, this is hugely beneficial, because now, before you even get to Sam's recommendation on where to sell, you might already be looking at your own car's history. A real sale, a real price, a real date, sitting right there before you've typed anything else in. It's the difference between a tool that talks about cars like yours and one that might actually recognize yours.

Not every car will have a match, plenty haven't sold anywhere we track yet, and that's fine, you'll just get the faster, more precise version either way. But when it does match, it's one of my favorite things we've ever shipped.

Try it with your own VIN: (click below)

This 1994 Porsche 993 Carrera 2 caught my attention for two reasons. Firstly, Riviera Blue has to be one of the best colors Porsche has ever put on a 911. Secondly, it's showing around 108,000 miles and has already been bid to $160,000 with several days still to go.

And it's the mileage that makes this one interesting.

It's a European-market Carrera 2 with the six-speed manual and shorter-ratio G50-21 gearbox, something the Porsche people in the comments clearly seem to love. It's been repainted in its original Riviera Blue and, importantly with this sort of mileage, had some pretty extensive engine work in Germany last year.

We get so obsessed with mileage on collector cars that sometimes it becomes the first thing we look at and everything else comes afterwards. Yet here's a 993 with more than 100,000 miles and bidders have already taken it to $160,000.

Maybe this is a good example of why mileage shouldn't define a car. The right color, specification, condition and maintenance history can clearly matter an awful lot too, particularly when you're talking about something as desirable as a manual 993.

Of course, mileage still matters. I'm not suddenly suggesting a 108,000-mile car is worth the same as an identical one with 20,000 miles. But I do like seeing the market look beyond the number on the odometer.

Cars are meant to be driven, and somebody has certainly driven this one.

How could I not feature this one? Doug DeMuro is selling his own 1999 Mercedes-Benz G500 Cabriolet on Cars & Bids, it's no reserve, and with a few days still to go the bidding has already reached $209k.

Doug bought the car in 2019 for $133k and has since put around 25k miles on it. He's actually used it, which is always nice to see with cars like this, but he's also spent plenty along the way. In the comments Doug says he's put just over $52,000 into maintenance, including more than $21k during one fairly substantial round of servicing and rust remediation.

It's also far from perfect. It's now showing more than 101,000 miles, there's some corrosion, curb rash, worn interior bits, the cruise control doesn't work and there are various other imperfections that Doug has been pretty open about.

None of that seems to be putting people off. The comments have already started debating whether we're seeing a "Doug price," which got me wondering the same thing. How much is a G500 Cabriolet like this worth, and how much more, if anything, is Doug DeMuro's G500 Cabriolet worth?

We actually have a pretty good recent comparison. In May, another 1999 G500 Cabriolet sold on BaT for $235,000. That car had 73k miles, almost 30k fewer than Doug's, and had undergone a cosmetic refurbishment in Germany that included a repaint and retrimmed interior. On paper at least, you'd expect that to be the more valuable car.

Now, Doug's car is at $209k and there are still a few days left, so comparing the two prices today doesn't tell us very much. The interesting part comes when the hammer falls.

If it ends somewhere below that $235k sale, perhaps there isn't a Doug premium at all. But if a 101,000-mile example with plenty of honest imperfections ends up matching or beating a much fresher 73,000-mile car that sold only a few months ago, then I think we can start asking how much having Doug's name and history attached to it actually added.

And this isn't the usual celebrity provenance where someone famous owned a car for five minutes twenty years ago. Doug has owned this for years, driven it, documented it extensively and made it recognizable to exactly the audience now bidding on it, on the platform he founded.

So I'm watching this one for more than just the car. We'll know what a G500 Cabriolet with 101k miles is worth in a few days. We might also find out what the Doug premium is.

You know I have a weakness for a good wagon, so of course this caught my attention. It's a 1998 Mercedes-Benz E430 Avantgarde wagon, Japanese-market, showing just 59,000 kilometers, with a 4.3-liter V8 up front and, best of all, it's selling at no reserve.

There is just something about these old Mercedes wagons that I love. This one has the Monoblock-style wheels, black leather, the rear-facing third-row seat and 275 horsepower going to the rear wheels. It's not an AMG, it's not trying to be some crazy performance car, it's just a really cool old V8 Mercedes wagon.

There is one question I'd want answered before getting too excited. Someone in the comments translated the Japanese auction sheet and believes it shows 70,851 km back in 2006, despite the car currently showing around 59,000 km. The seller has responded, but I'm not sure that discrepancy has been completely explained yet.

It's currently at $4,500 with a few days left, which we all know means very little at this stage. But no reserve means somebody is taking it home, and I'm really interested to see what the market decides this is worth.

One owner of an almost identical car described these in the comments as “luxury tanks on the road.” I can't think of a much better description.