Bring-A-Trailer ?

Is Bring-A Trailer mostly an auction site now? They used to get a really neat array of interesting, rare and unusual rides taken from Craigslist, Ebay, and some of the enthusiast's forums "For Sale" sections, now it seems like two out of every three cars featured are from their auctions and pretty Plain Jane at that. The level of weird and wonderful has fallen off dramatically. Some still there for sure, but nothing like it used to be.

Same question. I just noticed the same thing.

Sure seems that way and I still love it. I browse it just to see what interesting/weird stuff is out there.

The site wasn't live for long before it became a cross between the cool cars section of the DuPont registry and Barrett-Jackson.

I check out dailyturismo.com every now and then. It seems like it is closer to what BAT used to be.

BarnFinds.com is on my rounds of car sites to check out daily. Seems to be more in my price range. BaT is big $$$ usually

In reply to 2002maniac:

Agree that dailyturismo seems to have captured the "cool/weird/affordable" segment that BAT used to dominate. Where it falls short of the old BAT is in the comments...people used to add interesting info/personal anecdotes about listed cars, now not so much, I guess because money is involved.

These days BAT is roughly 50/50 split between auctions and links to interesting cars being sold somewhere else.

There is usually a few links to cars at the bottom of the daily email.

Did they stop the insanity with aircooled 911's yet?

Yes they really did post one with this picture.

The admins posting every single air cooled 911 in the country no matter the condition was becoming tiresome.

I check in from time to time just to see if there was anything cool posted though you're right about the intersection of Hemmings and Heavy Hitters.

I also feel the site has degraded since the auctions started. I used to check everyday for the wierd/unusual/never seen one of those before. Now I'm lucky to go once every couple weeks or so. I'll have to check out dailyturismo.

Yep. I stopped going there completely, and I used to check in daily. Barnfinds and Daily Turismo.

Where to sell now that BaT has jumped the shark? I have a wicked cool car I need to offload.

Javelin wrote: Where to sell now that BaT has jumped the shark? I have a wicked cool car I need to offload.

I don't think it has jumped the shark if you are selling something. I've had a couple of friends sell vintage racing cars through it and I think they ended up with fair prices with legitimate buyers (as opposed to all the crap you have to go through with eBay and Craigslist, etc., etc.).

I think maybe it has jumped the shark for those of us that were looking for some entertainment and daydreaming.

OK, so, say I had something unusual that I wanted to sell auction style (old scooter content) that can't really do well on CL or ebay because it needs an enthusiast sort of audience and some exposure because no one knows they need it until they see it... where is that these days?

Basil Exposition wrote:

Javelin wrote: Where to sell now that BaT has jumped the shark? I have a wicked cool car I need to offload.

I don't think it has jumped the shark if you are selling something. I've had a couple of friends sell vintage racing cars through it and I think they ended up with fair prices with legitimate buyers (as opposed to all the crap you have to go through with eBay and Craigslist, etc., etc.). I think maybe it has jumped the shark for those of us that were looking for some entertainment and daydreaming.

They won't accept my latest car as "meeting their standards", so I need to find a different place to sell it.

Huckleberry wrote: OK, so, say I had something unusual that I wanted to sell auction style (old scooter content) that can't really do well on CL or ebay because it needs an enthusiast sort of audience and some exposure because no one knows they need it until they see it... where is that these days?

I sold an old scooter on eBay about two years ago and shipped it to California. I was pretty happy with the whole deal.

Huckleberry wrote: OK, so, say I had something unusual that I wanted to sell auction style (old scooter content) that can't really do well on CL or ebay because it needs an enthusiast sort of audience and some exposure because no one knows they need it until they see it... where is that these days?

IMO, that sounds like the perfect type of thing for BaT assuming it has some value. Old Honda minibikes, scooters, etc are sold quite frequently. Keep in mind the minimum buyers fee is currently $250, so it tends to limit how inexpensive of an item you can realistically put on the site.

That said, for everyone who wants to see a Citroen Mehari there's a dozen who want to see a 911 or Ferrari or BMW. Those are also what tend to sell since there's a bigger market.

Disclaimer, I work for BaT. We're a small outfit (employee wise) - much, much smaller than most people realize. Every one of us is a gearhead...I've owned 16+ cars personally, most of which have cost less than $5k. I read the GRM forums every day and have been a subscriber for years. Personally, I'm just happy to see the growth that all of the car sites mentioned have seen over the years - it certainly is a boon to our hobby.

I'm probably rambling...point is, I love GRM and BaT, it's not an either/or. And no, I'm not saying that because I was told to!

In reply to BTD:

Can you tell me where the sudden pretentiousness came from at BaT??? They/you were very accommodating to my bastard SBC-swapped XJS last fall, and now you won't touch my super original Rambler American convertible.

BAT has done exactly what you would expect it to do if one gave the owner the plausible option of turning it into a profitable auction site where commissions naturally were proportional to sale prices. I still think it's wonderful and check it almost every single day.

Javelin wrote: In reply to BTD: Can you tell me where the sudden pretentiousness came from at BaT??? They/you were very accommodating to my bastard SBC-swapped XJS last fall, and now you won't touch my super original Rambler American convertible.

I certainly don't think there's any pretentiousness, intentional or not. We choose not to list more cars than we chose to list, and there's a million different reasons why a car might not make it to auction. I don't work on that side of things so I can't really comment on how they get narrowed down, sorry.

In reply to BTD:

They won't list the car because it has a hood mural.

Javelin wrote: In reply to BTD: They won't list the car because it has a hood mural.

Again, I don't work in that area, sorry we won't list your car.

But can I see the hood mural? Sounds awesome!

Too bad. I used to go there all of the time when I had an early VW bus, liked to look for the odd VW vehicle. A shortened VW Bus turned up once, but nothing was ever within realistic towing distance.

Then, almost over night, it seemed to mostly have more normal or expensive cars, stuff that could be bought on most of the other sites really, rather than the odd lots that the once had. As I'm no longer looking for a driver or project I no longer frequent the site so it doesn't matter much to me. Guess that it's just as well after reading through these posts.

Where do you go to find the fun, quirky, interesting, unusual, or cool stuff these days, just in case I finish my current project and end up in search of another?

Is the mural some sort of '70 van like mural with Thor, the hammer of the gods overlooking a scantily clad maiden with lions at his side?

Or, is it a Latino interpretation of Mother Mary with clouds and an aura around her?

Enquiring minds want to know...