Beyond the Quirks and Features: Cars and Bids Breaks Onto the Scene

In an effort to build upon his fame on YouTube, Doug Demuro ventured out into the world of online car auction with his new website Cars and Bids. The site has a simple and straightforward layout, similar to his car review videos, and features daily car auctions. The focus of the sight is on modern enthusiast cars made anytime from the 1980s to the present.

I like many others was quite surprised to hear about this when the announcement came out on June 8th, however the website is clearly a success. Doug, with the help of his team, created a website that instantly established itself as reputable and popular place to buy and sell interesting cars. One may wonder what motivates a popular YouTuber to stretch out into a new industry. Doug explained how despite his success making videos, revenue from YouTube varies as their algorithm can greatly affect how many views a video gets. In an effort to protect his income regardless of what happens with YouTube, Doug created Cars and Bids.

One may think there’s a large risk in listing a car on such a new site, but this hasn’t been the case. For one, you can choose to set a reserve to ensure you get a certain return if the car is bid up to that. But frankly, that doesn’t seem to be necessary. No-reserve auctions have time and time again brought the most interest and most money to cars on Cars and Bids. There is certainly a risk-reward situation here, but in most cases, it appears that the reward is well worth the risk. Given most listings get dozens of bids and thousands of views, the chance of a car selling for pennies of what it’s worth seem to be near zero. Of course, Cars and Bids doesn’t just accept any car to list. Their focus is on modern enthusiast cars, which generally entails nice versions of interesting cars or cars that are rare and infrequently transacted.

As for whether or not I would buy or sell a car on Cars and Bids, the answer is absolutely. From a buyer’s perspective they have a great variety of unique cars that are hard to find anywhere else. Given their success I also wouldn’t hesitate to list an interesting car of my own (if I had one of course).

Despite being the new kid on the block versus large contenders like Bring a Trailer and Autotrader, I often find myself looking for cool cars on Cars and Bids more than anywhere else. Is it the place to get a great ‘deal’ on a car? No, but their wide selection of cars difficult to find anywhere else make it a worthwhile place to look the next time you go car shopping.