Well, that was entertaining.

After weeks of slick Instagram reels, plenty of social media promotion and text messages building up to the big day, FinalLap finally held its first auction on Thursday. And having been intrigued by the whole concept since we first wrote about it, I made sure I was watching.

Ten cars, one after another, each getting a two-minute window to find a buyer, with short extensions if the bidding continued. It's a very different approach from the week-long auctions we've all become accustomed to, and I was genuinely curious whether it would work.

The result? Two cars sold out of ten, a 20% sell-through rate.

Both successful lots were Mercedes-AMG G63s, a 2023 example that sold for $129,000 and a 2025 model that brought $192,700. That's $321,700 in winning bids on day one, so hats off to Marshall and the team for getting those transactions across the line.

And while the results weren't exactly what they would have hoped for, I actually thought there was plenty to like.

For starters, the website worked remarkably well. The interface looked good, bidding was fast, and there were roughly 600 people watching at various points. For a completely new platform entering an already crowded market, that's a pretty respectable turnout.

And people were clearly enjoying themselves. The comments were flying, viewers were congratulating the team, and several were already saying they'd be back next Thursday.

I particularly liked the Best & Final feature, which gives the remaining bidders one last sealed-bid opportunity after the permitted extensions. It's different, adds a little suspense and certainly got people excited.

But there was also a rather large elephant in the room.

Those reserves.

The first eight cars failed to sell, and you could sense the frustration building with each unsuccessful auction. Some viewers wanted no-reserve sales, others thought sellers needed to be more realistic, and a few questioned whether starting with so many expensive cars was the right move.

Now, I can see both sides. When you're watching a fast-paced auction that's supposed to be exciting, repeatedly seeing "Reserve not met" rather takes the wind out of it. But persuading somebody to offer a $200,000 or $800,000 car without a reserve on a platform that's never held an auction before isn't exactly an easy conversation either.

Perhaps the sellers should have run their cars through GoAskSam first to see what comparable examples have actually sold for!

Joking aside, I couldn't resist doing precisely that with the 2025 G63 that sold for $192,700.

And I think the buyer might have done rather well.

GoAskSam initially showed a typical completed-sales range of $180,000 to $228,000, but that included G63s from 2024 through 2026 because there weren't enough 2025 sales to produce a meaningful range on their own.

That's an important distinction, because Mercedes updated the G63 quite substantially for 2025.

So I went through the individual results, and here's what caught my attention.

A 2025 G63 with 10,000 miles sold on BaT last month for $222,000, while another 2025 example with just 800 miles brought $225,000 on Cars & Bids in July.

The FinalLap car had 12,521 miles and sold for $192,700.

Now, they're not identical cars, and specification, condition and options can make a considerable difference, but that puts the FinalLap result almost $30,000 below the 10,000-mile example that sold just a month earlier.

That looks like a pretty good buy to me.

And perhaps that's something FinalLap can take some encouragement from. They've demonstrated that buyers can find attractive deals on the platform. The challenge is getting more sellers comfortable with the prices bidders are prepared to pay.

There was actually a moment during the auction when FinalLap acknowledged they hadn't been able to adjust a reserve quickly enough on one of the cars. They suggested a deal might still be possible afterwards, which is encouraging, but clearly something they'll want to improve.

I also think there's another important lesson, and it's one that has nothing to do with reserves.

The sellers need to be ready for the questions.

I went back through some of the individual listing comments, and people were asking perfectly reasonable things. Were paint-meter readings available? What additional documentation came with the car? Was an imported vehicle properly titled and ready to register?

FinalLap did answer some questions. But when you're asking people to spend serious money on a car they've never inspected, those questions need quick, thorough answers. And I'd argue that's even more important for a new platform.

Other platforms have spent years building a community where buyers know what to expect. FinalLap doesn't have that history yet, so every listing is an opportunity to build confidence.

I'd make sure sellers are fully engaged throughout the week, have their documentation ready and respond promptly to questions. The two-minute auction might be the exciting part, but the work that convinces somebody to bid happens long before the clock starts.

The other recurring suggestion was to make the whole thing more of a show.

People wanted a live auctioneer, some commentary about the cars, perhaps a short introduction before each lot. Several also wanted the bidding activity separated from the general chat, which was moving so quickly that it became difficult to follow everything.

I think there's something in that. If you're going to turn car auctions into a scheduled Thursday event, why not embrace the entertainment side of it? Give people a reason to tune in even when they have absolutely no intention of buying anything.

Interestingly, not everyone agreed about making the auctions longer. Some thought two minutes was too short, particularly for expensive cars, while others felt the speed was precisely what made it exciting.

I'm inclined to agree with the latter. Buyers have the week to study the cars, so I'd be reluctant to lose one of the things that makes FinalLap different.

A little more commentary, clearer signals when reserves are met, better-organized chat and perhaps a broader selection of cars at more accessible prices would be higher on my list.

And to the team's credit, they were actively engaging with viewers, acknowledging feedback and making it clear they were taking notes.

Of course, a 20% sell-through rate isn't going to sustain an auction business indefinitely, and they'll need to find a way of getting buyers and sellers closer together on price.

But this was their first Thursday, not their 50th.

They built something genuinely different, attracted hundreds of people to watch simultaneously, generated some serious bidding and sold two cars. That's considerably more than simply launching another auction website and hoping somebody notices.

And if I were the person who bought that 2025 G63 for $192,700, I'd probably be feeling rather pleased with myself.

I'll certainly be watching again next Thursday, and judging by the comments, I won't be alone.

Congratulations to the FinalLap team. Two cars sold, plenty of excitement, a few headaches and a mountain of useful feedback.

Not a bad place to start. Now let's see what they do with everything they've learned.

There's a 2003 Ferrari 360 Spider currently on Bring a Trailer with just 5,400 miles, a six-speed manual gearbox and bidding already at $150,000. And there are still five days to go.

So I put it into GoAskSam to see what other 360 Spiders have actually sold for.

The answer - $80,500 to $133,000.

That's the typical range from 11 completed sales since January 2025, which puts the current bid $17,000 above the top of it.

Now, I think most people would look at that range, compare it with the $150,000 bid and conclude that somebody's already paying too much.

But they'd be missing the most interesting part.

Because while everyone likes a big number or a price range, I've always found that the real story is in the individual sales behind it. Which cars sold, how many miles they had, where they sold and, most importantly, why one buyer was prepared to pay considerably more than another.

And when I started going through the 11 sales Sam found, the current bidding began to make a lot more sense.

A 10,000-mile example sold for $175,000 in January 2025, while another with 18,000 miles brought $125,000 just a few weeks ago. Then there's a 24,000-mile car that sold for $140,000 last August.

Meanwhile, a 37,000-mile example brought $76,000, another with 38,000 miles sold for $96,000, and a car showing 62,000 miles managed $85,000.

Same model, but some very different results.

And then there's the outlier. In May, a 360 Spider showing just 9,000 miles sold for an astonishing $270,000.

Now, that car had an F1 gearbox rather than the six-speed manual we're looking at here, so it's not a direct comparison. And I'd certainly want to understand what else made somebody pay that much before treating it as any sort of benchmark.

But that's precisely the sort of thing that makes looking at the actual sales worthwhile. Sometimes a result raises more questions than it answers.

Which brings us back to the Ferrari currently on BaT.

Just 5,400 miles. That's considerably fewer than the other low-mileage examples in the sales we've been looking at, and it has the six-speed manual gearbox that so many collectors want.

So perhaps that $150,000 bid isn't quite as surprising as it first appeared.

Of course, mileage isn't everything. A car that's spent most of its life sitting around isn't necessarily better than one that's been regularly driven and properly maintained. Service history, condition, specification and originality all matter, particularly when we're talking about cars at this price level.

But assuming everything checks out, I can certainly understand why bidders are interested.

And this is something I think gets overlooked when people talk about car prices.

We all want to know what a particular car is worth. We look for a number, perhaps a range, and then decide whether something is cheap or expensive.

But the range is really just the starting point.

What I find much more interesting is looking at the sales themselves. Seeing that one car brought $175,000 while another sold for $76,000, then trying to understand what made the difference. Sometimes it's mileage, sometimes it's the specification or history, and occasionally it's simply two bidders who both decided they weren't going home without that particular car.

That's the part of the market I enjoy following, and it's also why we built GoAskSam to show the actual completed sales rather than just hand you a number.

You can see the range, of course, but you can also open the individual transactions and look at the evidence for yourself.

And in the case of this Ferrari, I think that's considerably more useful than simply announcing that bidding has exceeded the typical range.

There's also quite a lot going on in the Ferrari market right now. Just look at what's been happening with 458 prices. Some of those results deserve a proper discussion, but that's a story for another day.

For now, the interesting thing about this 360 Spider is that $150,000 isn't the final price. It's where bidding has already reached with five days still to go.

We've seen a 10,000-mile example bring $175,000, and this one has just 5,400 miles. So I suspect there's still plenty of bidding left in this auction, particularly if a couple of collectors decide they really want it.

Where does it finish? We'll find out on November 11.

In the meantime, have a look at the completed sales on GoAskSam. Don't just look at the range. Open the actual sales, compare the cars and see what people paid.

Because that's where the interesting stuff is. Not just what somebody paid, but what they were buying and why they were prepared to pay it.

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