Hammer Time: Confessions Of An Auto Auctioneer

Steven Lang
by Steven Lang

A little over 12 years ago I got married. It was a bargain basement wedding that overlooked a beautiful lake on one side, and my mother-in-law’s house on the other. At that time I was all of three months into the free market free-for-all that is the auto auction business.

No bid calling at that point. No buying of vehicles on the side. Not even some grandiose plan to turn my auction and automotive interests into an enduring career. I just went for auctioneering tryouts at the sales and, with enough recommendations from friends in the business, hoped for the best.

My first job was to be the ringman. The guy who says, “Yep!” while pointing to a professional car buyer at the auctions. For two to three hours I took my two degrees at Emory and put them towards their most relevant use at the sales… “Yep!!!”

My daily performances may not have been Hamlet on Broadway at that time. But it was a living and a surprisingly lucrative one that has now spanned nearly 2,000 auctions and over 100,000 vehicles.

Now my life has come full circle. I have been a bid caller. A remarketing manager. A car dealer, and even a partner of an auto auction. I have been on top of the world. Down and out. Back in the game. Even built lifelong friendships and been stabbed in the back along the way. Heck, sometimes the handshakes and backstabs were from the same source on the same day.

Through it all I have learned an awful lot about human nature and the way folks react to the auction process. The 140 decibel chant. The excitement. The enthusiasm. Even the deception and the games that are played to create the urgency to buy.

It’s very hard to impart all the information folks should know when visiting an auto auction. Especially since these operations survive solely on the power of persuasion. Do I recommend that everyday folks buy a car from a public auction ? No!

But if you are among the mechanically gifted and rightly skeptical, there is a road map now. I wrote this article recently and hopefully it will add some perspective to a business that is as chaotic and freedom oriented as any you can ever imagine.

Enjoy… and keep your hands in your pockets!

Steven Lang
Steven Lang

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  • DavidB DavidB on Mar 09, 2012

    My experience at estate auctions is that something will sell for .10¢ on the dollar or double retail, and there's no way to know which until after the bidding begins...

  • TheHammer TheHammer on Mar 10, 2012

    First auction I ever attended I was confident i would be able to keep cool and make some smart purchases. I left the sale bewildered. I didn't understand a single word from the auctioneer and I certainly couldn't keep up with the frantic pace. Add to that the high decibel level and the exhaust smell too. Luckily, I was accompanied by an experienced buyer and by my third attempt I was good to go.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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