Site MapMeet Doug DeMuro: How Cars & Bids Came to Be
… and why it’s fast becoming THE place to find modern classics.
Despite not being the largest company — its LinkedIn page lists their employee count as 10 and under — Cars and Bids does have something like 200,000 users shopping for modern classics. We are obsessed with this. We love Doug and the whole idea behind Cars & Bids. So, we wanted to take a closer look at where he came from and how the company ended up where it’s at today.
While casually scrolling through the Cars and Bids YouTube channel, you may be forgiven for thinking that it’s merely a channel belonging to a hobbyist with an outlet. It’s actually essential, though, to what it is because DeMuro has spent years building up a YouTube channel that has garnered millions of followers. His videos routinely receive hundreds of thousands of views. Pretty impressive for a channel devoted to shopping for second- or third-hand modern classic cars.
DeMuro began his career as a car allocation manager at Porsche, as well as a freelance journalist for Autotrader.com, writing reviews of cars and the occasional write up of deals. Eventually he edited a section on Autotrader called Oversteer, while continuing to work in car sales. During all that he was also running his YouTube channel and amassing a collection of 26 cars! Unless you’re an enthusiast, it might be difficult to understand this kind of 24/7 devotion to cars.
In 2019 he left car sales and Autotrader to start Cars and Bids with co-founder and business designer Blake Machado. In the beginning, it was no joyride. We found a video of a podcast recording the founders did last year where they began by begging listeners to spread the word. It’s both inspirational and heart-wrenching, because you can hear the love DeMuro has for cars and his passion for bringing Cars and Bids to the enthusiast shopper.
Simply on the strength of DeMuro's intense fervor — watching his videos is like hanging out with an obsessed childhood friend — the site has grown to the heights that it now has now reached. He has spreadsheets filled to the brim with data on cars and car prices. He knows all of it by heart because he’s the one putting it all together — and this really can’t be overstated. He loves the cars he looks at.
It really is a joy to be a part of, and with Cars and Bids, getting your car up for auction in only a week, as opposed to months with other bigger houses — and no seller’s fees! — DeMuro’s obsession has quickly become a mainstay in the enthusiast collector’s toolkit.
