In this episode of No Driving Gloves, hosts John Viviani and Brian discuss the changes in buying used cars over the years, from the availability of information to the rise of online marketplaces. They also touch on the evolution of car-related media, from the early days of podcasting to the explosion of car content on YouTube. Plus, they consider bringing back their "This Day in Automotive History" segment in a new format. Tune in for some automotive nostalgia and insights!

[00:01:47] Elite team of car sniffers.

[00:06:13] Day in automotive history.

[00:08:48] Online car auctions.

[00:14:14] Online car buying.

[00:17:07] eBay's growth and history.

[00:20:47] Instant gratification culture.

[00:24:24] Buying used cars on Craigslist.

[00:27:45] Word of mouth car buying.

[00:32:30] Online car auctions and archives.

[00:37:21] Rise of collector car values.

[00:41:41] Collectible Cars Increase in Value.

[00:44:06] Cash for clunkers and collectible cars.

[00:50:18] Expenses Proportionate to Income.

[00:52:16] Reasonable prices for cars.

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Buying Cars Then and Now.mp3

00:00 Gary how buying cars secondhand has changed over the course of our lifetime. The gloves are off. Welcome to the authority in car talk. No driving gloves. From exotics to hot rods, I'll get to it someday. Experience, knowledge and controversy all ride in the same city. Buckle up and hang on for the ride. Now for your host of no driving gloves, John Viviani.

00:41 John How are you doing tonight, Brian? Not too bad. How are you doing?

06:41 John I'm definitely going to show up on social media, but I kind of would like to do it audio. Knock some of these things out, tell you a little story about this day in automotive history. So you had a topic you wanted to bring up tonight, Brian, and I instantly liked it. It goes to No Driving Gloves. As I said in a little introduction episode I did, we're trying to get back to these evergreen topics and discuss things. You want to fill us in and tell, explain to me exactly what your thought process was on it and we'll go from there. Things car related that's nearest to my heart is just window shopping endlessly. As far back as, you know, getting closer to driving age and going on Craigslist, seeing what's around, seeing what I thought my first car would be. I think at the time I wanted a, I think I wanted it like a 90s Jeep Cherokee of some sort. I thought that'd be my first car, but now it ended up being a Saturn. So, you know, take what you get.

08:14 John I can't remember. It was a 97, I believe it was. Great, great little truck. I really enjoyed it. Hated the Wrangler we owned at the time also, but really like that Jeep. Sorry to interrupt you. No, no problem. But yeah, I mean, it's far back as my lifetime goes. It's all been pretty much internet based, I would say. Besides that, you know, looking through maybe a Hemings catalog someone gave me at times, but it's mostly, you know, Craigslist. Facebook Marketplace wasn't until later, but it was Craigslist and at the time eBay auctions. That was the premier car auction, which seems kind of tough to see today. I mean, a lot of cars in there are, you know, five or six pictures, a one paragraph description.

09:05 Bryan And it kind of seems crazy to me that, you know, you'd consider spending a large amount of money on something with so little detail over the internet compared to what we have now, you know, a lot of other online auctions. Bring a trailer or if you don't have 500 pictures, you're not going to get a listing. You know, if there's not, you know, 37 pictures of the undercarriage, someone's going to be like, there's rust in the spot, I know it. And just hamper your entire auction. I find that interesting because you said back before I was driving and I was looking for my first car and you're checking Craigslist and that. Back when you were checking Craigslist, I was in college for a, this was 95-ish. I was in college for my modern automotive technology degree and had a teacher, a professor, John Thorpe drove a 86 Dodge, not Dodge, Chrysler laser in the purple over gray, real cool car at the time. Still a few years old at that point. He said he wanted us to do a paper using the internet because he really felt the internet was something that was going to catch on and become important. You haven't lived a day of your life without the internet, right? Not really. I can tell you. It was probably 14 or 15. I think when I really got into quote shopping for cars. Yep. And for me, it was this thing called the trading post. They were 50 cents. They were, you know, 40 pages long. They came out once a week, either on Tuesday or Wednesday. They, nothing but classified ads printed on newsprint. That's what they used to print newspapers on those really young listening to the show. And there was always a section. The trading post was always the cars and you'd go, you know, model years and you find the model. There was no, I want a Dodge ramp page and, you know, typing it in and they just all appear. Now you had to look through all the 82s and you had to look through all the 83s and you had to look through all the 84s. And then you had to go to the truck section and look for all, see if it was in the trucks. And then if it wasn't in the trucks, then you'd go to, you know, custom vehicles or on classified vehicles. And it definitely was a different world. And you say you go to eBay and there's six pictures in one paragraph. The trading post was one picture and 20 words, anything more than 20 words cost you 10 or 15 cents per word. And one of those words was your phone number, probably seven digits at the time. And you called the phone number and you made an appointment and you go, you know, you go see people kind of like, I guess, Craigslist people do and Facebook Marketplace people do. But you actually went and met the person. It's not like you made the appointment and didn't show up. Yeah. Every now and then you miss an appointment. It wasn't the ramped when I was something on Facebook Marketplace now. I sold a couple of filing cabinets and I gave them away. But the catch was if you wanted them, you had to send me PayPal me $10 to make the appointment and I would give you $10 on the spot when you came back. And believe it or not, I got three or four people to do it. I'm not going to stand them up and keep their 40 bucks. You know, so it helped guarantee that people would show up. Yeah. And of course, the first person bought them, blah, blah, blah. And I refunded everybody else their money. It's definitely changed a little bit. I went from this trade in post thing to 86, 87, I guess. It was that way for me until I bought this thing called the Web TV, which access the Internet and eBay. eBay really wasn't there. I spent a lot of time on the CRX discussion forums and there were cars for sale. And, you know, you go to your discussion forums and these were things that were line after line after line of how do I change the distributor on my CRX? And then 40 different people reply. And then there's another topic. And if you didn't check it every day, you'd lose tons of information. They were horrible on searching and things like that.

21:32 John Yeah, cars are a lot more of a liquid asset now, you know, collector cars probably than they've ever been. But yeah, nothing nothing good really lasts on Craigslist or Facebook for more than a day or so. I think I bought my my ninety nine forerunner I have right now that I saw posted. I think it was posted 30 minutes before I saw it and it was a good price. And I just immediately called up the person who was selling it. It was an older gentleman. And I'm just like, yep, I'm going to come and look at it.

22:01 Bryan He's like, wow, that was that was quick. I'm like, oh, yeah. You can't hesitate. I mean, I think we were talking when we were talking a little bit. And I told you, you know, I had this ninety seven Jeep Cherokee. I bought that on Craigslist and it was one of those things I had been looking for a winter car to drive instead of my lowered S10. And, you know, I just popped it on Craigslist call on it. Oh, get right over there to buy it. I think it cost me eight hundred dollars. I had to put an exhaust on it. I had like thirteen hundred bucks into the whole thing. Austin brakes and thing ran great. Sold it from spring rolled around. Probably should have kept it. Sold it to the woodworker at the restoration shop. I was working at an e-drove it for years. I bought my CR my silver CRX off of Craigslist. And that was another one that CRX is even at that point, whatever that was. Two thousand five, two thousand six. I'm really sitting here thinking, boy, I did end up buying a lot of stuff. I listed when I sold my Europa, I listed it on. Remember, it was Craigslist or eBay, but ended up I was in D.C. and I ended up selling it to northern Pennsylvania. And that guy's done a gorgeous, fabulous restoration to that car. Took him five years to do. But we've obviously stayed in touch. But got my catering. My ex-wife sent me something off of a Lotus Forum. Ironically, it might be the same Lotus Forum that was founded by the guy that we just talked about. Son of a Zenos and his Lotus. But, you know, she sent me this thing with the kind of a joke statement. And I told her a couple of days. I think she told me about it on Monday or Tuesday. And I said, I think Thursday I flew from D.C. to Fort Lauderdale to look at the car. And, you know, you said, it might have been a four or five hour drive, just a little bit out of the, you know, I've always believed that on the Internet, you know, you've got to go look at it. And if you don't have time to go look at it, I for years worked with a national company when I was doing appraisals and that. And I did a lot of pre-purchase inspections for people that didn't have the time to. You're looking at, I don't care if it's a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, three hundred thousand dollar car, or if it's a twenty thousand dollar car. It's worth three hundred bucks for somebody to go look at it. Independent third party to go look at it. Because twenty thousand, the guy spending twenty thousand dollars, that's a lot of money to him. The guy spending two hundred thousand dollars, that's still a lot of money to him. I don't care how much money you have.

29:57 Bryan So, yeah, they when they first started, they had four or five cars for sale. Then they and then everything else was like you said, links from they literally were cars that you needed to bring a trailer for. Now, they're cars that you literally need to bring a trailer for. But they're perfect examples as opposed to the worst examples. Yeah, it's a brand new Corvette. Someone's flipping or something like that. It's amazing to me how that site has exploded. I've sold a few cars through bring a trailer for clients. And that was pre pandemic. I haven't done anything post pandemic, but I've got a scheme going on right now. To me, it was OK. There were 20 cars and they would post, you know, put up 20 cars every other day and 60 cars to keep track of. Now they've got what 300 cars at any given time they're selling. And, you know, I just heard an interview with Randy and they did over a billion dollars in sales last year. They just sold their hundred thousandth car. The 240 bring a trailer on 240 that they sold was 100,000 car listed on bring a trailer. I mean, it's absolutely exploded. It's nothing like it was before. And I really miss the old bring a trailer website. I wish somebody could bring back that. I can't remember. There was another one that they never went the auction route, but I get the daily email and it was those Craigslist posts and things like that. Yeah, there's like a barn finds dot com. I think that's what I was thinking of is barn finds. And of course, Chris Harris has started his auction site over Allah bring a trailer over in Europe. Obviously, we can buy here, but most of his cars are primarily European and Doug Demuro Miro on YouTube. He's got cars and bids that he just took 30 million dollars of VC money. And I just heard an interview with him why he did it and things and it just made it easier for his life to manage the business and things. And now all of a sudden he's popped up that he owns his dream cars, Porsche, CGT. These sites, I mean, the money that people are paying for cars that they don't see and the archive that's being created in, you know, you post your car and then experts on that car comment on that car and previous owners of that car comment on that car. And what's his name? Vin Wickie. Oh, I can't think of his name, even though he's not selling cars. I mean, Vin Wickie, I know is a YouTube channel, but Vin Wickie is actually an app, which is a Wikipedia of VID numbers on exotics. And what can be done with that and comparing it, you know, using it to search cars on bring a trailer or cars and bids or I can't remember what Chris Harris's is called. And, you know, you can go in there and you enter the VIN number and then you can find out, well, it was on bring a trailer here and then it was on eBay here and then it was at this dealer here. And, you know, it's a good this. What's your feeling on it? Is the information that's available to the consumer or the buyer that much better that people are more comfortable spending the money or is the quality of car or have the sites that you're going to buy?

33:46 John Or have the sites become that trustworthy or people just back careless with their money now? What's your thoughts? Yeah, it could be a little bit everything. I remember the name. It's Ed Bolian. That's the that's the guy's name. But yeah, it's definitely a combination of it all. I mean, bring a trailer. It's even besides, you know, the money thing self run there. It's crazy how just useful the resource it is for anyone just looking for a car. I mean, you can go back through their old auctions. They have it plotted out the sale prices and things that didn't hit reserve. And then every car that's on there is still on there. So you can go on there and look through hundreds of pictures, read all the comments. You know, a car gets posted. People are immediately like, oh, this car didn't meet reserve at Mecham Auctions like two months ago or something like that. And particularly with like a lot of it's become a big thing with imported cars like our thirty four, the final generation Skyline GTRs. There's a lot of them that have got posted on there. And then within, you know, I don't know, the first day of auctions, you'll see people come in and be like, this car was like salvaged and every single body panel on it was changed out from this Japan auction sheet. And they post the link to some form page of something and everyone's like, whoa. So I think it is a place to be pretty comfortable knowing there's a week and that, you know, sometimes the comments can get pretty, you know, pretty vicious if in particular situations. So it does seem like a pretty comfortable place to buy a car. But I think people are also careless with their money. There's there's definitely that. I mean, it's I remember one of the big ones that stuck out to me is I don't know if it was like probably twenty twenty one. There was like those eighties Toyota Corolla's they call me, you know, the eighty eighty six. Mm hmm. There was one of those and I think it's still one of the highest selling ones in that site. It sold for forty grand and I had like one hundred fifty thousand miles. It was like visibly rusty. And it's one of those you look at and you're like, why? Someone's like, oh, I'm going to restore it.

42:03 John It's opened up this world of buying cars. I'm going to ask you the question. Got to get you more talkative and comfortable learning how to shut me up. Has it made the world a better place for buying cars? It's made a little tougher in a lot of cases. I think, you know, you'd see one car that has a good result. I think what you're talking, there's like one, the first like low mileage condition, anything to come out of the water work. It'll have some crazy result. And then everyone in the comments like, oh, I'm going to up my policy on my classic car insurance. And then you got everyone thinking that their car that's not nearly in the same condition or not the same rare color trim level or something along that thinks their car is worth way more. So it does. It does make it tougher for cars be affordable in a lot of cases, especially more attainable stuff. But I think in general, it probably makes more cars survive. I think, you know, people see these large results and they're less likely to be like, oh, this car is not worth anything. I'm going to scrap it. I'm going to not care about it.

43:09 Bryan So I think in that aspect, it's made things better. But for affordability, it's it's made things a little tough. Do you think with what you just said, I don't know the answer and I don't know how I would answer this question. So if you say, I don't know if the circumstances were the same economically, if we did cash for clunkers now with this explosion of all this online collector car stuff, as opposed to doing cash for clunkers back in 07 08. When we did it, do you think it would be as well received as it was? Do you think a lot of the cars that were turned into bricks of metal, I mean, turned in turned in as clunkers would have been turned in? I mean, the guy that turned in the Buick GNX as a cash for clunkers car. Do you think it might have prevented that car from being killed?

44:17 John Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think there was a lot of stuff that hadn't quite reached the age of being collectible from like the 80s and 90s that definitely was killed off by that. So I, I think for sure that'd be highly unlikely. Now, I mean, I could see a lot more mundane things, you know, being turned in now. But, you know, I don't think it'd be anything that I would really miss, you know, another 10 years down the line. But for sure, you're saying things would go way different. Kia Rios and Cavaliers, Kia Rio, Nissan Altima, you know, something more regular rental cars. Yes. Yeah. Fleet vehicles, for lack of a better term. I think there's so many more. Yeah, there are so many more like just rare, obscure vehicles in the 80s and 90s, like one year only performance versions of cars like, I don't know, an Azusa Impulse RS Turbo. I don't know if you know what that is. Absolutely. I'm a huge Azusa guy. They made them one year and they probably were all just winter beaters in the Northeast. And by that point, everyone's like, well, I get $3,000 for this. I'll just turn it in. I don't know if it's a problem with the driver. It's too much of a pain.

52:00 John Probably Henry Ford's doing and being able to… That's why he did the $5 a day wage, as he wanted his employees to be able to afford his car. Do you have anything to add to this, since it was your topic and of course dominated? Not really. I have noticed things are settling down on that front a lot, especially when you look at like how to bring a trailer

52:22 Bryan once you start getting to like the cars and bids, Doug DiMiro's site. Things are selling for a more reasonable price, generally speaking. You think they're selling for more reasonable on Doug's site as opposed to bring a trailer just because Doug's site doesn't have the following yet?

52:37 John Yeah, I think there's just a different group of cars people look for on that site. I know his is it's 80s and up, 80s to brand new, but there still is several hundred thousand dollar cars. But at the same time, if you're looking to buy, I don't know, a used like 10 year old Golf GTI, Civic Si, Subaru WX, you know, more common, attainable stuff. What I see prices list for on like marketplace, things like that. I'm like, why do people still want so much money for that? And you see what they actually sell for like, oh, OK, that person just has way too high of an asking price.

53:10 Bryan Well, there's that's something that's always been the same. Yeah, there's the asking price and there's a selling price. Yeah, the the no low ballers. I know what I have. It would be nice. And that's something I think Vin, Vin Wiki does. You're able to track what the car is sold for, not what they asked for, what they actually sold for. And that's something obviously bring a trailer does too, is this is what it sold for. And I think that's why people really like buying their cars at these collector car auctions is because they're selling for just about what they're worth. I always believe a car is worth the second highest bid. Yeah, I think we'll wrap it up there. A great time chatting with you tonight. And I guess I'm out of here.

53:59 Gary Yeah, sure thing, John. Same to you. OK. This show was a part of the No Driving Gloves Network produced and edited by John Viviani, a Magic City podcast with voice work by Gary Conger. So until the next exit. We'll see you then.