Enthusiast car paradise is going through some trouble right now. This week, popular Doug DeMuro-founded auction site Cars & Bids laid off a substantial chunk of its workforce, with moderators, business development team members, accountants, and human resources all affected.
While a litany of online car auction sites have launched over the past few years, Cars & Bids is one of the few that seemed to break through the noise, gain real traction, and attract some semblance of stability. So what’s going on? While the true situation and reasoning will remain sealed behind boardroom doors, a deeper look into things paints a picture of an injection of cash, an enthusiast car market returning to Earth, and the possibility of reduced revenue.
This comedown arc seems to start in January 2023, when private equity firm The Chernin Group invested $37 million in Cars & Bids. Seeking investment can be a double-edged sword because, on the one hand, founders want to be rewarded for their work, but on the other, outside influence may not want to take things slow and steady, and may be looking for quick returns. At this point, the collector car market was starting the decline towards some semblance of normalcy following the bull market of 2021 and 2022, but it still had a way to fall.
At the time, Cars & Bids was averaging around 25 auctions closing each day, and while auction fees from that sort of churn can easily support a small crew if vehicle valuations are high enough, that number was going to have to increase in order to grow the business. Roughly 14 months later, Cars & Bids managed to increase daily auctions by a few units, not quite breaching the 30 auctions per day mark in early March. At the same time, the industry saw a shift in more vehicles failing to meet their reserves, and since Cars & Bids relies on buyer’s fees for revenue, it seems that some restructuring ended up taking place.
In March of 2024, Cars & Bids alumnus and Autopian contributor Alanis King replied to an Instagram comment, stating that “Unfortunately, Cars & Bids gutted its content team with no warning. I appreciate that you enjoyed my work there.” Along with King and several other team members, last year’s restructuring extended all the way up to CEO Rogelio Choy, who also parted ways with the auction site in March.
Flash forward to Feburary 2025, and daily closings on Cars & Bids seem to have slightly declined over the past two years, with many days in February falling short of 25 auctions coming to a close. What’s more, we aren’t seeing the same sort of craziness we saw in early 2023 when the capital injection happened. The days of flipping brand-new Rivians on the second-hand market are firmly over as people who bought at the top of the market don’t want to sell and lose money, and people who like what they have are more likely to hold onto it.
DeMuro elaborated on this during a recent episode of the Iced Coffee Hour podcast, stating:
End of ’21 was the absolute peak of the craziness, which is when all those COVID shutdowns had really stopped production of new cars, or heavily diminished production of new cars, and so used cars had gotten incredibly valuable, and at the same time, money was cheap. And so used cars were becoming more valuable, new cars were not available, people were getting incredibly low-interest loans, it was Thunderdome. We couldn’t put reserves on cars high enough. People would come in, ask for crazy reserves, we’d give it a shot, it would sell every single time, it was just crazy.
Things are different now. The supply and demand in the market has certainly caught up for most automakers, I would say. Some automakers are still in an undersupply situation that’s carried over from COVID and they’ve never dug out of it, but a lot of the automakers have caught back up. So new cars are cheaper now, capital is more expensive — getting loans is harder, more expensive to finance cars — and so that has made new cars cheaper, which in turn has pushed used car prices back down, and the market is considerably different now. We still have people clinging to values [from] two years ago when they’re submitting their cars, and it’s like uhh, there was a time, but it ain’t now.
As a result of the market swinging back towards normal, we’re seeing a lot of reasonably priced cars transact on Cars & Bids. While this is good for buyers, it means a whole bunch of cars aren’t even coming close to the 4.5 percent buyer’s fee cap of $4,500, and that likely has an impact on revenue.
For instance, Cars & Bids moved around $380,625 worth of sheetmetal on Feb. 11, bringing in what I estimate to be roughly $17,128.13 in buyer’s fees. Flash back to Feb. 10, 2023, and Cars & Bids moved roughly $627,742 worth of cars, good for around $28,248.39 in buyer’s fees. While the cyclical nature of the market makes it hard to directly compare dates, that’s a big swing in a relatively slow part of the selling season, and an overall market decline could be a key reason for the latest round of layoffs. While growth mentality might play a role here, there’s also a possibility that Cars & Bids may also be dealing with lower revenue.
When word of these layoffs hit, we reached out to Doug DeMuro for comment, and here’s his official response:
Cars & Bids is making changes to our organization to better support our buyers and sellers. Sometimes those are difficult decisions, and they never come easy — but we’re confident that the best is yet to come from Cars & Bids.
At this point, we’ll have to wait and see what the future holds. If the enthusiast car market continues to depreciate and Cars & Bids can’t compensate for that with significant additional volume, the online car auction landscape might look a bit different.
Right now, my thoughts are with the employees who were downsized, as working alongside enthusiast cars often requires passion, and having a steady gig involving something you’re passionate about disappear is gut-wrenching.
(Lead photo credit: Cars & Bids)
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Private equity strikes again. Something similar recently happened to a friend of mine. One day he was simply invited along with everyone else in the company to a very special meeting with some “investor types”. They basically said “Sorry folks – doors are a closn’, we’re not payn’ anymore bills. And uh…oh yeah, don’t look for any more paychecks to land in your accounts because we can’t afford those last couple of weeks either. Have a nice weekend and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out”.
Shocking, just shocking a PE firm was involved…
BAT got them. BAT clearly lowered their standards and started taking a lot more modern cars from chosen few dealers.
I’ve noticed that too. They’ve been listing cars that a few years ago they probably would have rejected.
Someone I know had their B7 Alpine rejected as it didn’t fit their “curation process”..
“bring a trailer” wouldn’t accept a car because it wasn’t, what, cool enough, exclusive enough?
Wasn’t one of those special dealers that get to list unlimited normal cars so rich dudes can over pay.
I just this the phrase “curation process” seems out of step with bringing a trailer..
I got an “email” from the new CEO. Sounds like they are moving to the “I don’t give a shit about you” model. I can’t see them staying in business much longer.
A $37 million investment needs to make $10-15k a day IN PROFIT to justify itself.
I can’t believe they paid that much for a site selling 20-30 cars per day. Very poor due diligence.
They thought that their golden touch would increase that to 60-90 cars per day.
Came here to say this. They were idiots to pay $37 million, and Doug sold out. Running the company prior to that, he knew it wasn’t worth anywhere near that.
Honestly, nothing wrong with that. If someone gives you a boatload of cash for something you built, most people take that cash and move on to the next thing. Mission accomplished. However, it really does suck for everyone that isn’t a founder/Doug. This is the reality of “start ups”. If you’re not a founder, you will almost always get fucked.
And that’s why everything gets worse with time. People start interesting passion projects, sell out, and the buyers just want to maximize their investment.
Thanks for the insight!
If you add up the fees, they make around 15 to 18k a day then you have to subtract the salaries, cost, insurance, AWS so yeah. I think this is the end.
Why did they even NEED $37M in private equity? It’s a damn auction site with some youtube content. That’s not exactly an expensive endeavor.
Engineers aren’t cheap! I assume a quality dev is going to cost ~$170-200k before you get to benefits and the like, so even a few folks gets pricey. There’s enough money flowing this platform that the system needs to be bulletproof, which also adds to expenses. Custom web development and especially *platform* development aint cheap!
source: a software engineer who builds teams of software engineers in small and giant orgs.
You make some very valid points, but realistically, did they really need $37 million? That still seems like a lot of money, particularly if $250k in salary and benefits will buy you a good software engineer.
Can’t say the 37mil was needed but there’s a lot of cost involved in running a high traffic site of that nature. That 250k is just one software dev and you’ll need at least a few. You also need people to run the infrastructure and they are similarly paid. The actual compute (cloud, probably) is not cheap, either, for something that needs good availability and performance to handle the bidding. IT crap ain’t cheap if you need it done right.
Of course they still need to pay all the front end talent to create and manage the content and so on. That money is going to be burned up fast when they aren’t selling much.
Source: A few decades as an infra engineer for med/large orgs.
Interesting. Thanks for the reply. I could see where costs would add up if you need all that. $37 million still seems like a ridiculous amount of money, but maybe not?
They paid that much based on what they thought the future earnings would be, like buying a stock. Markets are always forward looking. Bad bet from the PE geniuses.
5 Devs at $200k a year is $1M. Add benefits, let’s bump it another 50%. $1.5M. That covers 24 years assuming they never turn a profit for that 24 years.
Just spitballing.
What ongoing dev did they really need though? This is the kind of site you can contract out for the initial dev, then contract for care and feeding for break-fix and security bumps. Nothing here that requires multiple FTEs.
I mean you can certainly run a team like that, but you’re going to lose institutional knowledge and kneecap yourself in the long run. A company with that mindset is one i’d mark as “extreme red flags” and walk away from. Very very risky way to run a business like this, you always need to be looking ahead and working on the next iteration. Cars and Bids is never going to be “done” unless they want someone to eat their lunch.
Kinda crazy, but that $200k will get you a solid developer, but not an architect, principal engineer, marketing techology specialist, etc. That’s just a baseline “generalist.” I’ve got friends making $300k cash and another $500k in stock, folks making close to $400k + $1m in stock. What it really comes down to is scale and specialization, and those two get expensive fast. And you can pay it upfront or you can pay it in ongoing maintenance, outages (which effect the brand and lower the company value), etc. Paying a lot upfront can save a ton of headaches and end up saving money down the line.
5 Devs at $200k a year is $1M. Add benefits, let’s bump it another 50%. $1.5M. That covers 24 years assuming they never turn a profit for that 24 years.
I’m just spitballing here. I have no idea the details. It just seems like an excessive amount to sell your soul to the devil.
Was it an injection of capital, or was it a purchase of Doug Demuro’s ownership interest in the company?
After the transaction, Doug basically said that he celebrated by using some of the money to purchase his Carrera GT and Lamborghini Countach. That’s about $1.5 million in cars right off the bat.
So I don’t think this was just an injection of money into the business. I think some (maybe all) of that money went to Doug to purchase part (or all) of his ownership interest. He had implied that he still has some ownership interest in the company but who knows.
I’m guessing the PE guys control it and as part of the deal Doug is contracted to stay on.
Yeah, I have no idea. The article just said:
Demuro has repeatedly stated he had no interest or skill in being the CEO of this or any company. The PE cash has allowed him to take a step back and start a family. And also buy his dream cars.
So what is essentially a tech startup had to fire staff because their market fell apart. That’s not exactly uncommon.
It sucks for the employees but it’s not like the business can run unprofitably for long and keep the lights on. And with the paltry income they aren’t going to make payroll for long. It shouldn’t really be much of a surprise entering into something that risky.
Who said it was unprofitable? It’s just not making a high enough profit margin for the new owners.
Have they considered pivoting to video?
Fantastic pull. And hire Erlich Bachmann
Private equity screws everything it touches
End stage capitalism at its finest
Private equity buys things to sell them for a profit, until eventually someone overpays.
Wait….where have I seen this before….(glances at C8 flippers currently fucked in their Vettes)
At least the CT flippers have a bed to get, ah, screwed in.
Mmmm…this comment hits just right. Like a bowl of soup on a cold day.
Where is the blame for the owners that entered into the Faustian deal for the PE cash?
Everyone knows that PE/VC are essentially loan sharks that just want their vig and will liquidate the company to get it if they have to. There’s a bunch of less risky although more difficult ways to get cash infusions but they are going to need a good business case to get it.
I’m guessing that if Doug took the less risky route and retained ownership, he would have received far less cash, then he wouldn’t have a Carrera GT in his garage.
This was Doug’s deal to cash out, and he found some seemingly dumb PE guys who thought that they could one day compete with BaT.
I highly doubt Doug sells the CGT and uses the proceeds to help the fired employees. He knows that C&B won’t be around in 5 years, but the CGT will still be in his garage.
Sounds about right.
P.S. Don’t give the guys that run this site the same idea.
This site has a blue collar feel to it, and I see no Doug types here.
But Doug doesn’t pass a simple test.
Would go out for a beer with any of the Autopian writers? Of course.
Would I go out for a beer with Doug? No way.
Tried to imagine Torch in a Carrera GT, got stuck on a Guards red whale-tail Beetle on Fuchs wheels.
That insight feels on-point
(and I need to renew my membership this evening because it’s on-point)
Doug seems like a decent guy. I remember him from the Miata forums back when he was either planning or during his cross country tour in the Elise. Seemed like a nice kid. He had an idea what he wanted to do and did it on his terms.
It would be nicer, of course, if he could have taken the slow route and build up C&B with a good core group of people. I don’t think I’d be able to say no to an eight figure cash injection.
I know he had a content department, but that seems like a volatile position anyway considering he can get more eyes on a video than anyone he could afford to hire. I think he was on the receiving end of that at one point from a car sales website.
It seems like what he has he earned through persistence. I have a hard time faulting him for that.
I agree that Doug worked hard and would not fault him for what he has achieved.
I just think his online persona is a character he plays, and while I realize that’s what helped him make his millions, I much prefer the genuine nature of the Autopian writers, who come across like real people that aren’t playing a part.
The more of your comments I read, the more I like you.
I too, can’t imagine getting a beer with Doug.
Thanks, the “beer test” works. I’ve never come across any Autopian writers I wouldn’t have a beer with. Come to think of it, everyone I click on online would pass the beer test.
Now I don’t dislike Doug, nor would I criticize his business success, and I’m not envious of his cars or net worth. Good for him. To be fair, he probably wouldn’t want to have a beer with me. That’s cool.
I bet he doesn’t even drink beer…
😉
It has one wierd thing, you can in theory buy cars there. Doug can discover glass and tires next week
I mean… is anyone really surprised? Everyone with common sense knew that the car market bubble was unsustainable. It definitely sucks and I feel for anyone who’s been laid off. But if the number of listings is down and they’re bringing in less commission, what do you expect to happen? You need to lower expenses. A lot of people here are pointing to Doug DeMuro’s expensive car collection and implying he’s a dirtbag for laying people off because of that, which seems sort of unreasonable. Is he supposed to just operate a business unprofitably, not making any adjustments to expenses or laying anyone off until he’s completely broke? I’m aware that now that private equity is involved things can be ruthless, but startups have to grow up someday and become sustainable businesses. Seems like it’s the result of an unfortunate but completely predictable downturn of the business cycle.
As much as I find Doug annoying, I do wonder if you’re right. If these were just the hires they needed to handle the market bubble, it does stand to reason that they would downsize back to a manageable staff size when it collapses. I have no idea if poor executive decision/indecision had any part in it, but it’s a business that’s highly subject to market whims and it seems like they are probably just deflating according to that.
Doug also sold a lot of his ownership in C&B to that private equity company, so it’s not entirely him calling the shots anymore.
Sorry to hear a group of people lost their positions. At a annual income of around $7 million, it will be hard to have a staff that is very large, particularly with a San Diego income level. I wonder if they will place people outside California to reduce salary costs.
I do wonder if the videos are a Cars & Bids income stream, or a Doug only income stream?
I suspect the Doug Demuro channel is still his own thing, versus the Cars & Bids channel which is directly linked to it.
Nop, he said early that he also sold part of his own channel.
I don’t have any beef with Doug. We have some mutual friends and I’ve spoken with him before. He seems like a genuinely decent guy and just kind of comes across as one of us weirdos who happened to make it big. I used to be more fond of his YouTube content than I am now, but I don’t think it’s his main priority anymore so some of his stuff feels a little by the numbers. But some of his earlier videos were great and if you view him as an entertainer rather than an expert his content is more enjoyable.
With all that out of the way, I have mixed emotions about this. Firing a bunch of employees is never a good look, especially when you have a 7 figure car collection. Cozying up to private equity ghouls is definitely is firmly in the category of “fuck around and find out” to me as well, except Doug isn’t finding out. A bunch of mid level employees are, and that’s lame.
I also think this site and BAT have done more harm to car enthusiasm than good. They’ve inflated the price of literally everything. The hobby has become demonstrably more expensive as a result and countless amazing cars that were attainable 5-10 years ago are now exclusively toys for the 1%. Maybe I was too young/am looking back with rose colored glasses but I still remember looking at listings when I was a teenager and seeing all sorts of fascinating/exotic stuff that I could realistically own one day if I played my cards right.
That’s not really a thing anymore. Anyway, I’ve ranted enough. This is a bummer and while I generally like Doug I don’t think this is a good look for his company.
Yep, he took private equity money and now it’s “Fuck you, pay me!” from the investors.
I don’t know if those kinds of sites are solely to blame, but definitely a part of it and I agree. Now that I have the money to buy the decent low end weirdos, they’ve all gotten to a price point exceeding their cool factor and it’s not simply a case of failure to recognize inflation. Even a lot of prices for pretty common, mediocre stuff is head-shakingly high and it started before COVID.
These sites are just markets, but you’re correct that because they increase and centralize information, they could move the market in some cases simply because there’s more eyeballs on the car than would be via other sales channels.
Inflation is a huge factor in car prices today, but because there’s nostalgia for cool cars we all missed out on, and seemingly less cool cars on the market, the prices have gone up on a car that might have been normally priced a few years ago.
But here’s an example of inflation. I paid $10k for a brand new Mark II GTI in 1986. I bought a used low mileage near mint 10 year old Mercedes wagon on BaT for the same amount I paid for that GTI, after I adjust for inflation. The GTI was a wonderful car, but it was a low quality shit box. The Mercedes is one of the nicest cars I’ve ever owned, has fantastic build quality, 300 hp, and it only cost me what I paid for 100 hp economy car years ago.
Oof, I had a long response with hand picked examples that I’ll save you from. To sum up: I think the biggest issue is that these auction sites pushed the idea of cars as an investment, attracting people who were thinking of them as part of a portfolio rather than a car to enjoy, not only bringing in more people to the market, but inflating the prices like a bubble as people get carried away, like what happens with so many other stocks. There are always speculators, but they tend to stick to certain ones and this bubble seemed to engulf just about everything, even the stuff with a traditionally very selective audience rather than the normal vehicles of nostalgia (these are the cars I look for and they’re largely older than the current nostalgia decades). Then there’s the appeal to certain people of winning an auction, at beating another guy and attaining something rare—it’s more about the fleeting victory than the car itself. Maybe some of these guys had come in from another bubble collectible market that burst looking to get in and out before a pop (probably not Beanie babies, but who knows!). I think the greater visibility of the popular online auction made winning a bidding battle even more appealing as more eyes were watching. I think it really started to take off with the TV coverage of Barrett Jackson auctions in the ’00s where guys could show off how much they could afford to spend on mass produced cars that had been worth 1/10th or less not 10 years earlier. The BATs and C&Bs are just a more modern extension of that model for a younger crowd.
Agreed, there’s a lot of truth that the cars as an investment thing took off during the pandemic when people with money were sitting home with nothing to do. I think that’s mostly over, and BaT is now seeing many Reserve Not Met results, which is very interesting once you know that BaT works with the sellers on setting the reserve. So this isn’t only the unrealistic sellers causing these no-sale auctions. But like all markets, this one is just self-correcting after the bubble.
BaT is still a great place to find niche vehicles like my MB wagon. Wagons are really hard to find via other channels, but BaT regularly sells them, and usually at a fair price. Because they sell so many, it’s easy to see the current market price to guide your bidding. I did not intend to buy the wagon I ended up winning, I just bid at the very end of the auction because it was undervalued, and unexpectedly won. The car turned out to be way nicer than its description and as it appeared on the 200+ auction photos, so I definitely was lucky.
Nice score!
Thanks! I will admit that I had a “what did I just do?” moment right afterwards. But it turned out OK once I saw it and drove it a few weeks later.
I can identify with those kind of moments! I hear the build quality was back up by then, though I’m not familiar. The older stuff I’m familiar with was always so impressively solid with the feel of precision manufacture, like a battleship built by watchmakers.
The build quality is much better than my BMW E91 wagon, the MB is just a more substantial car.
The other great thing about W212 MB’s is that they really don’t have many mechanical problems. The rear subframes do rust but the car I bought is a west coast car. Also the rear airbags will go out, but I view that as a maintenance item.
W212’s are really undervalued in my opinion.
As long as it’s not rusted now, it’s pretty easy to keep that from happening. I kept a mk1 Legacy very well in New England for 15 years and 270k miles with severe use year round by cleaning the undercarriage every spring and hitting it with Fluid Film or similar. Parked it in the garage to restore it only for it to be invaded by vermin and rust out while the house kept stealing the money I saved, but it was in great shape when it went in.
Nah I agree-just ticked over 40 and it really feels like used enthusiast cars are less attainable than they used to be. Whether it’s not depreciating the way they used to, maybe fewer choices driving up competition on what there is, and of course it’s hard not to feel that BaT and others have helped drive prices up. And to add to that I swear it’s gotten harder to look at cool old cars and not think about the resale on them which ultimately takes away some of the joy.
A few examples, I remember back in college in the early ’00s me and a buddy eyeing an e30 M3 for $10K and thinking semi-seriously if we should go halvsies on it. Now a 15 year old M3 that isn’t a total pile is at least $25K. And to your point I remember looking at old ferraris and lotuses on ebay back in the day and thinking that given a decent career some of that stuff seemed attainable, same with old 911s. Admittedly similarly old 911s have fallen fairly low, but they’re still not as low (idk though maybe adjusted for inflation…) as the early ’80s cars were in the aughts, but also, an old 996 has a potential for wallet ruining problems and maintenance that I don’t think the old cars were quite as known for.
I remember Top Gear did an episode where they all bought cheap supercars. I forget what the price limit was, I think 20 or 25 grand. All of the cars were miserable…but shit, I don’t care if a cool $25,000 exotic is miserable, it’s still a cheap exotic and those no longer exist.
Right! I genuinely remember getting excited as a college age enthusiast looking on eBay at Ferrari 308s for $30K and Mondials for $25K. Not going to find a 355 or 360 even close to that now even accounting for inflation.
Yep – the limit was 10,000 of their English pounds.
Here is part 1 (of 4): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuCff8nCxBU
Agreed. There were a bunch of cars I could have reasonably obtained that, despite making $15 an hour more now than I did then (albeit with more bills, because life) that are unobtainable these days. It’s why I decided to go weird and combine my loves of rotaries and kei cars, because I can do that swap within my budget and have something uniquely mine.
I don’t think the car auction sites are necessarily responsible for inflating sale prices. It just kind of happens that some elder Millennials who lusted after Skylines and the like when they were kids now have the money to buy them, so prices go up because demand outstrips supply. The same exact thing happened with Boomers and muscle cars, and it will end up happening again for the cars of today. If these cars were transacting in private sales it wouldn’t make a difference.
I don’t want one, but aren’t the Boomer favorites going to start dropping in price soon? How much does a Tri-Five with a time-out doll go for nowadays?
“I also think this site and BAT have done more harm to car enthusiasm than good. They’ve inflated the price of literally everything. “
That’s like blaming Real Estate Agents for the high cost of housing.
Nobody is holding a gun to anyone on BAT, Mecum, Sotheby’s, etc to make them outbid one another for unique, rare and unusual items.
Is Doug DeMuro related to Rich DeMuro, the guy who does those 3 minute hype vids of tech products on Fox locals?
I’m surprised to see they cap the buyer’s fee at $4,500. If BaT caps the fee at $7,500, it seems like they should be able to raise their maximum fee without scaring away too many buyers. I doubt buyers of six figure cars are going to be too upset about having to pay an extra one or two thousand in buyers fees.
IIRC they have them capped very close to what BaT has them at? If they go too much above that no one’s going to sell there.
But they are not selling cars of the value that would hit the cap even if it was $3k
Doug Deturdo is the Elon Musk of the automotive Youtube world. Which is to say that to his acolyte’s he is something special even though he is not.
For me, it is more along the lines of I will not support anything he has his hands in.
Same! I cannot stand his personality, I am in the minority, evidently. ┐(‘～`)┌
We are dozens!
PD: I also can’t stand the guy
While I don’t like everything he does, I can’t help but root for a car nerd with aspie tendencies who hyper-focuses on quirks, because that describes me too.
I just think he is a little smug and at times condescending. And I too have Aspie tendencies! Welcome to the club! 🙂
Can’t disagree there.
You can’t disagree that I have Aspie tendencies? 😉 (LOL)
Me, neither. Doug‘s done nothing to me or anyone I know, but I think my eye twitches every time I so much as see a thumbnail of him. His personality is nails-on-a-chalkboard.
That’s how I feel too. I’ve tried 6 different times to watch his YouTube vids and I just can’t!
I enjoyed his early writing on the Old Site, but noped out of his PT Cruiser video and haven’t looked back. Don’t have any pithy analysis of why I didn’t care for his on-screen presence because I didn’t care to watch long enough.
I have never enjoyed his vids, but as I said, I am in the minority
I know nothing and have no opinion about him or his businesses, but I find his videos do not interest me. I have seen a total of perhaps three and they were not my vibe.
OMG. I thought I was the only one!
He is the first guy I go to for video car reviews. His voice is harsh on the ears and he doesn’t seem to into production value. He doesn’t seem to realize that a concrete cave surrounded by hard flat surfaces is not the best place to record sound.
I’ve seen his reviews for a long time so I know what to listen to and what to disregard (I don’t care that I can’t have the song title displayed on the speedo, Doug!). I’ll also watch Matt Farrah and that Canadian couple. A lot of other reviewers just seem to read bullet points from the manufacturers.
I’m still a fan of his reviews too. But the secret I’ve learned is to play his videos back at 1.5 to 1.75 speed.
His regular voice is like molasses. Speeding up the videos makes them exponentially more tolerable (and much shorter to boot!).
And the funny thing, I’ve tried the speed up trick with other YouTubers. They typically end up sounding like chipmunks. So I really do think it’s a thing that’s unique to Doug.
Maybe he’s just a GenXer at heart and speaks at a conversational pace rather than “Like and Subscribe” pace.
Try doing that with the Project Farm guy, who already sounds like he’s been doing rails and edited every pause out of his video. Great content, terrible sound.
I wonder if he speeds up his videos in the edit. From how he presents information, I don’t see it outside the realm of possibility.
Todd’s editing skills are about as on point as his varied evaluation methods. Project Farm is a diamond in a vast ocean of rough detritus.
1.5-2X speed is a blessing, whether it be Doug, TFL, or whoever. It annoys me to no end that my YT app on my Roku Ultra can’t do speed adjustments, and that it won’t let me cast from my phone to the Roku if playing YT content. Come the heck on, google.
Lots of YT creators deliberately slow themselves down and/or add filler to increase the video times. 10-15 minutes used to be a prime target – and fairly “digestible”, too, as one could consume it during a rest break or meal break – but now 25-45 minutes (!) seems the norm. Which is too much. I guess they’re trying to compete with streaming/TV episodes for length?
I’ve been doing videos for about a year and a half and it seems like 30 minutes is my sweet spot—it’s only been rarely that I go over that. Typically I’m taking about two weeks of work and condensing it into one video, and I try to keep things moving without sounding like I’m on a meth bender. I wonder if shorter would be better.
It’s Doug, not scotty kilmer or “the car wizard”.
I suspect that you’re overreacting a bit.
I would rather watch the wizard. Doug is terrible.
Makes sense, I don’t know how you get more volume out of this niche, but when you think about it making 25-ish sales a day off of the enthusiast niche isn’t bad at all, especially when a large chunk of car buyers aren’t comfortable with auctions and prefer normal sales avenues. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have nearly tapped the entire available market and need to pivot to somehow making auctions less scary to people who normally just trade in cars for other cars.
agree. it has to be a very special unique car to even be worth all the hassle. if it’s just one of 50,000 mustang GTs you are much better off buying local.
You get more volume by slimming down the number of sites doing it. Bring a Trailer, Cars and Bids, and PCarmarket are the three big names, which I’d bet will probably end up being two names at some point.
This is the real problem with Cars & Bids. There just isn’t room for this many players in the space, so one of these sites has to go. Overall, I think BaT is a better product than C&B (I’m not familiar with PCarmarket so I don’t know how that compares). BaT has more interesting vehicles. BaT has also done a better job at being an entertainment site in addition to an auction site. Like a lot of people on BaT, I follow auctions for fun; I presume watchers like myself often become buyers eventually.
People can point to private equity and other problems with C&B, but the real problem is that they aren’t as good as their competition and the market isn’t big enough for an inferior product.
C&B has also kind of positioned itself as a “discount” BAT. Lower fees, lower priced cars (hell I looked into selling my XJ on there but they wanted to do it as no reserve and I wasn’t comfortable with the risk). Thats ok when the market is hot, but end of the day these auction sites are generally selling luxury/enthusiast products- wants not needs. Positioning yourself as the value play there isn’t the way to grow a brand unfortunately.
They’re Burger King. Or maybe Arby’s.
BaT always seemed a have a bit less of an attitude. Ask questions or point out a problem on BaT and you get dogpiled with “are you even bidding?” and other gatekeeping bullshit.
You said BaT twice. Was the first time meant to be C&B?
WTH. Yeah, I meant to say C&B in the first instance.
I don’t see that happening at the normal enthusiast car level.
I’ve purchased cars over long distance, but I’ve always actually seen and driven the car before money changes hands. Unless I’m in a situation where any possible repair to a car I don’t really need is not a thing I need to worry about at specialty shop rates, I’m not likely to buy an imported honda from the 90s sight unseen on an auction site.
I dislike the industry standard term of “Layoffs hit” layoffs are a force of nature, theyre a decision made by people. “Cars and bids fires staff” is much more fitting.
Yep! I’m sure DeMuro isn’t hurting like his now ex employees are!! 🙁
I mean his collection includes a Carrera GT, Ford GT, and Countach. I’d say he’s doing just fine.
Of course he is because he will ensure that he keeps his wealth by implementing “Layoffs” 🙁
Sure, but he did create the site and was the face of it, and wisely (?) purchased when he was financially able to do so. Can you say you’d do differently in his shoes?
I can. I don’t have any interest in 7 figure supercars and I feel that owning a bunch of nice stuff that you barely use is kind of wasteful. You could give me infinite money and I still don’t think I’d own more than 2 or 3 cars (but to be fair I’d get my wife whatever she wanted lol). I’m the same way with my other interests too, I’m an avid guitarist but I only own 4. If I wind up with an instrument I don’t play I sell it, usually to someone I know at a discount.
It feels wasteful to have an instrument that isn’t making music and I feel similarly about cars. If they’re not getting driven frequently what’s the point? I’m also in a director role professionally and I go out of my way to make sure my team is taken care of in more ways than one. I certainly wouldn’t sell out to private equity for a quick buck and make my employees pick up the tab down the road while keeping many millions of dollars. I’ve spent a ton of time fighting with HR to get the people who work under me as much money as possible, and one of the people I hired came from another department because they were open with me about how appalling their salary was and I said “how does another 20 grand sound?”
To clarify, I don’t think Doug is a bad guy. I’ve followed him for years and have spoken to him/we have a handful of mutual friends. As far as I know I don’t have any reason to believe he did anything nefarious, and there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism. Once sizable chunks of money are involved it affects everyone. In the grand scheme of things Doug seems like a pretty good guy given his level of fortune and fame. But I do think he got a little greedy and has harmed people as a result.
agree! Something good happens it’s always the Genius CEO or the company that takes credit. Something bad happens and “well the company was forced to.” ” we didn’t have a choice!” “it’s the economy’s fault”
And then the next step is “We know things are tough and we aren’t doing well, but don’t worry, the people that got us into this mess will get us out of it.”
Absolutely. It’s a choice. It’s probably a justifiable business decision, but it wasn’t an earthquake or wild fire.
There’s not a Wheel of Layoffs they spin at an illuminati ice cream social and the losing company has to start handing out pink slips.
Thanks Anoos, you’ve just inspired the next dystopian reality TV show.
Show? They’re already playing this for real at Doge.
Sad to hear…I still think there’s some kind of market for “volume sales” of lower-cost vehicles. It’s what buyers need most right now: A way to connect with semi-local people for peer-to-peer sales with lower expectations. Basic transportation. Nothing over $15k allowed, no dealers.
Unfortunately, CL is a completely failure in most places, FBMP is super sketchy, and hardly anyone sells their old cars in grocery store parking lots anymore.
I just can’t figure out a business model here, since most buyers/sellers probably aren’t willing to pay more than $100 or $200 to get this done — even if it’s in their best interest.
Asking sellers to pay $5 for this completely torpedoed car sales on Craigslist.
That $5 fee also removed many of the flaky sellers who were trying to scam or just gauge interest in their cars. When I listed a car in 2020 (right before used car values shot up), I only had a few competing vehicles. I got one inquiry and that person ended up buying it. I cross listed on Facebook. Lots of junk to compete with and dozens of people who couldn’t read the ad or look at the pictures.
Overall, I find Craigslist a better place with the $5 fee.
Interesting take. I’ve basically stopped looking at cars on CL because the pool is so small now, but I can see that potentially working to your advantage as a seller.
Same, CL’s selection around here typically sucks.
As someone who used to spend way to much time on Craigslist, I agree with the sentiment about the flaky sellers removal. It was getting so bad. I remember trying to keep up flagging the obvious scam ads on our local page. Impossible, and even worse I had a few friends almost fall for some of the crap (Friend: “Hey, do you think it’s alright to wire some money two towns over to pay for this way-too-cheap Honda Element? They said their son just left for Iraq, but he signed the title before leaving and…” Me: “STOP!!!”).
The $5 fee instantly cleaned up most of that and for a while I was surprised that the Craigslist pages around my area still had a pretty decent selection. Over time though, FB Marketplace has taken over and while it has lead me to some pretty awesome deals, it sucks as a platform. I still have yet to actually list anything there, but that has more to do with me just keeping what I buy and buying less over the last several years than my dislike for Zuch’s maybe-you’ll-find-it-maybe-you-won’t algorithm.
I do still check Craigslist though – the search by map and “miles from zipcode” was a nice addition and I have occasionally spotted some pretty sweet deals there. The $5 fee does have an incredibly inflationary effect on some folks’ prices though. I lost track of how many times I’ve seen the same car cross-posted on both sites with the Craigs-cost being significantly higher. Example – FB:1979 Spitfire, needs work: $3500obo. Craigslist: 1979 Spitfire, needs work: $4750obo. The fee was only five bucks, no need to try and make an extra grand to make up for it.
I have switched to FBMP bc that’s where the buyers and sellers mostly are-sadly. Marketplace is such a piece of garbage software. Among other irritations it stupidly works way better on mobile than desktop which makes no sense, for any serious purchase I’m going to look at it on the big screen. Not to mention the ubiquitous and hated “is this available”
Agreed, but sadly for reasons I don’t entirely understand outside of maybe CL waiting too long to implement the fee everyone seems to have migrated to Facebook Marketplace. Which I theoretically appreciate that you can maybe screen out possible weirdos and scammers but that’s also the irony as imo the reason people moved to FB in the first place, it was supposed to be safer?
I sold my camper on FB and Craigslist last August.
With every major item I’ve sold, I list it on both. $5 seems cheap when I want to maximize my sales price; I want to get the most eyeballs looking. I also have seen people selling items on FB that already sold, but they are no longer updating the ad…
I still look at both. Craigslist basic search is MUCH better than the algorithm approach that FB uses. Additionally, when buying something and seeing it listed in both places, it acts as a check to verify that item is truly trying for sale.
The problem is that any marketplace that is cheap enough to handle this kind of sale is also both going to make the economics of scamming work (because listings are cheap so scams are cheap) and reduces the amount of overhead the site has to fight scams.
Doug has gone on record saying that cars under about $5k usually lose them money du to low fees, buyers flaking wasted effort etc etc it’s probably just not worth it for most places except those like FBMP where they just want to keep you in their ecosystem
I’m one of those guys that gets value out of C&B or BaT because they are not local or “semi-local”. Of the last 10 cars I’ve purchased, 2 have been within 300 miles of my home(semi-local). The issue is that 75% of the older cars worth buying are in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. To me, it’s worth $2,000 in airfare, fuel, lodging, etc. to drive a car home that does not need $15,000 in bodywork,] over the local car that has “surface rust”. Does that inflate the value of valuable cars? Sure. But is frankly is no different the eBay where there is a niche market for people selling WestBend AirPoppery IIs for stupid money because they are useful for roasting coffee beans.
It hurts the people who live in the states with nicely preserved cars (unless you are the owner of one), but it exposes the market of these used cars to the entire country. C&B does some of the screening, making for a more secure offer. This security means I’m willing to bid more.
I think their model is good, but there is just to much uncertainty in the market right now, so completed auctions are down.
It’s really no different than autotrader or cars.com . I’ve purchased cars well outside of my local area on those websites by putting in rust free zip codes if it’s a common vehicle or by doing a nationwide search and just focusing on the ones in rust-free areas if it’s a less common vehicle.
“when private equity firm…”
Nope,.don’t need to take it further. Already know what happened
Chernin Group? More like Churning group amirite?!
Cheesy jokes aside, I wish all the C&B staff the best. it’s a tough market out there right now
I would have gone with Charmin Group.
Yep! A bunch of a** wipes for sure! 🙂
That’s too nice of a TP. PE firms are squarely in the massive roll of skinny 1-ply territory
When making a profit isn’t good enough and there is a constant push to squeeze every last penny out. That cycle burns me out.
C&B and BAT is guilty of this, there may be cars that would list on these sites, but the sellers don’t want to deal with the comment section. I window shop C&B and BAT during my free time and always see comments from people who have zero intent on bidding on the car, but ask some nit picky question about the car. It feels they are asking to prove a point and sound smart.
Commenters are a double edged sword. While there are plenty of know-it-alls who nitpick with no intention to buy, those comments sometimes find or call out things that the seller didn’t disclose.
A friend of mine restores Vespas, and he showed me a listing for one on either C&B or BAT (can’t remember) where the commenters pointed out that it was cheaply restored in Vietnam and rightly ripped the seller to shreds with all kinds of details that were otherwise not disclosed, and those comments very likely prevented someone from overspending on a cheaply restored scooter.
When I sold my car on C&B I was a completely open book in my responses to commenters, and that seemed to work well for me.
I agree, I don’t have a solution for it. Here I am commenting, but I try to avoid the comments on most sites. The comment sections of a site draws me or turns me off a site, a majority of them are too toxic. This place here has some level headed conversations and comments
I have to admit, I’m kind of one of those. The difference is, I am a VERY tenured mechanic with a LOT of experience with a lot of cars. So, as a general community thing, I offer my input on things I see, or remember about that model, or whatever.
No, I don’t bid…..because I’m poor.
I’ve seen commenters catch fake 23(?) (I can’t remember how many windows those things have) window VW buses.
Apparently it’s not uncommon for shops in Brazil to weld in extra windows and send the vans to the US because USA loves to pay by the window for old vans.
In the past month, someone had posted a replica Ford GT40 that had obviously been repaired.
Within a few posts, someone had the pictures of the car after it was stuffed into a jersey barrier leaving a cars and coffee.
To a point yes-but I will also say I will sometimes comment as someone who has had quite a bit of experience with owning and wrenching on older BMWs they sometimes have stuff posted that’s either flat out wrong or at least accidentally misleading and I’ll comment (probably futilely) hoping they’ll get better about their listings.
As I once told a dealer selling on BaT who was trying to gloss over obvious collision repair, if you can’t deal with the comments, you can always sell on eBay.
The comments section was always very valuable when BaT was about found cars and not about high-fiving each other for spending a bunch of money, as it helped those who weren’t intimately familiar with a vehicle learn. Then it shifted to an attitude that you needed to be a bidder to dare speak about a vehicle.
The key with commenting on BaT is to not get into it with other commenters, and to simply ignore them if they start coming after you. As long as you’re not outright wasting the seller’s time by just posting drivel, you’re fine. Simply ask your question and get out. You can also message the seller directly and not even worry about the comments, which a lot of people seem to forget about.
All true, but the value of commenting is to help others learn and keep people from being screwed over. BaT changed from such a cooperative environment to an echo chamber.
So, the used car business model applies to organizations like this too. No one should be surprised.
Damn, sad to hear that. As a car enthusiast in San Diego who has run into Doug at car events several times, I’ve thought that C&B would be a very cool place to work for.
I also sold my own 2008 Mazdaspeed 3 on their site in August ’23. It was already clear at that time that the COVID value bubble was bursting. I think I caught the end of it, because every similar car that has sold since then was at a lower price.
Sounds like a good time to offer Alanis a full-time staff position here.
Second
Third
Fourth. Seriously, this needs to happen.
No joke. She got laid off from her next position as well. Her videos are great, though, and she’s gotten some pretty good sponsors on board (though I wonder what Magna gets out of it; who cares as long as Alanis is making money, though!).
Yep! I was a big fan of her content and wished Doug would feature her more. Instead he’s doing podcasts with Kennan (who he insists will grow on us, he’s done the opposite).
Kennan is as charismatic as a wet blanket and a solid 3/4s of his takes are “buy an E39 M5”. I get that he’s Doug’s friend and whatnot but he really isn’t cut out for being in front of the camera.
Scrolled down just to make sure this was posted somewhere.
I would love to see Alanis on this site. Certain people are made for social media and/or YouTube. TFL just hired a videographer who knows nothing about cars, but she seems to have a presence that the audience loves
One vote against Alanis. I do not know her and this is entirely my opinion formed from reading her work elsewhere (and shilling for C&B here). I think she’s an operator. She does not strike me as having the pure innocent heart that is the essence of the Autopian brand.
In my opinion, her C&B vids were not her best work. There was way too much of Doug’s influence in her style. I mostly like Doug’s videos and really appreciate his love of showing off the quirky aspects of cars (watch his Lamborghini Espada video for an example), but one Doug in this world is enough.
I really liked her Rich Energy F1 series on the gelatinous outdoor meal site as well as the blog/video where she takes her mother to a Hyundai(?) track day. More of her genuine personality shows through in that video than in the scripted C&B vids.
You know this site is owned by the largest car dealership in Southern California, right?
True, but he seems to genuinely be an enthusiast. And, the powers that be here are apparently interested in providing decent benefits and employment environment over extraction of every last dollar.
-they still have yet to purchase an RV: the PE way would be to spend a million on one—then layoffs a year or two later
The fact that David and Jason consider Beau a friend says a hell of a lot about Beau. Plus in every video and podcast I’ve seen with Beau, he comes across as a genuine car nut. How many wealthy car dealers would show up at a black tie event at Goodwood in David’s 40 y.o. diesel Chrysler minivan?
I wouldn’t mind seeing Alanis, Kristen (especially Fancy Kristen), and Stef all get at least part-time or whatever gigs here. Guest editorials/reviews, I guess?
Crypto stunts, over the top aggressive dealers screaming insults in the comments digging for the last dollar. The death spiral continues.
If you have any links to comment sections gone wrong at C&B, feel free to share, since internet chaos is funny.
Just watch the Renault R5 that hit a few days ago. I’m guessing he won’t disappoint.
Well that sucks, I like Doug’s videos and such and hope C&B sticks around for a while. Please tell me Noodles is still on the payroll, I believe he’s in the legal dept.