Wyper Wants You to Find Your Next Car the Same Way You Would a One-Night Stand

Automotive search startup AU.TO is getting into the mobile game, and it wants you to find your next car in the same way you judge members of the opposite (or same) sex — at the swipe of a thumb.

AU.TO’s newest initiative is called Wyper (rhymes with “swiper”), and the company bills the app as “Tinder for Cars.”

I found this interesting, so I asked a few questions.

The rise of mobile usage has tech startups aflutter. We have our digital devices either in hand or constantly nearby throughout the day. Many of us — some studies say up to 75 percent — even take their phones to the commode, resulting in apps that let you anonymously chat with other people who are indisposed.

Anyway, back to cars.

The Wyper app uses the swipe gesture, similar to Tinder, to “like” and “dislike” available cars in AU.TO’s database. It’ll supposedly learn from those swipes and offer up vehicles more befitting a user’s taste in the future.

“Our goal is to simplify the car buying process and put the power back into the hands of the consumer,” said Wyper Founder Aaron Rosenthal in a statement. “With personalized results and unparalleled design, Wyper is modernizing the way consumers buy and sell cars online.”

However, to understand Wyper a little further, you must also understand its limitations.

Only vehicles listed by a group of 24,000 dealer websites in the United States are included in the app’s vehicle inventory. Wyper will not search Craigslist or Autotrader, so you’ll still have to use those sites as part of any methodical vehicle search, but it will pull listings from Cars.com, AutoNation, Carmax, and “buy it now” listings from eBay Motors. Users can also submit their own ads for private sales.

Also, the app’s creator doesn’t make money from driving sales, per se, but from clicks and leads to those dealer sites. Other big players in the market make money through similar arrangements, so this is nothing new. Wyper simply attempts to change the way in which we find, or are matched to, those vehicles in the first place.

“We did not reinvent the wheel; we just made it more efficient. With our network we will have the largest selection of used cars in one place on the internet,” said Adam Jansen, VP of Business Development for AU.TO.

I gave it a shot, using this author’s favorite go-to model to search: the 1992-1996 Ford Bronco.

Inventory for the Bronco was fairly limited with less than 20 matches. Those looking for vehicles more likely sold through private sales may have better luck on Craigslist or eBay Motors. But the app is incredibly strong in finding late-model used vehicles.

In the future, AU.TO looks to expand into another market.

“We will also be adding new cars to the mix fairly quickly, adding even greater value,” said Jansen.

Wyper is now available for download on iOS and Android devices.

Update: An earlier version of this article stated Wyper pulls ads from 32,000 dealer websites. A representative from the company stated the app actually pulls from 24,000 dealer websites, and does use eBay Motors as a source.