Cars are fun, and fun cars are even more fun, but trying to buy a new car can be the exact opposite of an enjoyable experience. From not offering test drives without a completed credit application to slapping absurd markups on new models, certain dealer tactics leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth, and here’s what feels like a new one. A dealer has listed a brand new Audi RS6 Avant GT for auction on Bring A Trailer, and it could set a precedent that’s not great for people looking to get into a desirable new car.
The Audi RS6 Avant Performance is already one of the most potent wagons in the world, a 621-horsepower all-wheel-drive cruise missile with space for your family, luggage, and dog. Remove your four-legged friend before flight, and this ultrawagon will burst from zero-to-60 mph in 3.3 seconds on its way to a date with the local constabulary, yet for some people, that isn’t enough.
That’s why Audi took an RS6 Performance, fiddled with the rear differential, stiffened up the suspension, optimized the cooling, stripped out some weight, added carbon ceramic brakes, and created the delightfully unsubtle RS6 Avant GT. Only 660 of these stickered-up sharpened machines will ever be made, with a mere 85 making it to America. It’s one of those cars that seems like a collector’s item from day one, which might explain why an Audi dealer is selling a brand-new example on Bring A Trailer.
Yes, a brand new Audi RS6 Avant GT went live for auction on Bring A Trailer earlier this week, and it’s being listed by Audi Calabasas. Not a private flipper, not a second-hand dealer who managed to order one and is reselling it with delivery mileage, an actual brand-new car that hasn’t even been registered yet.
Make no mistake, this is as sell-to-the-high-bidder as it gets, a way of potentially fetching as far of a price above MSRP as possible. In theory, manufacturers set suggested prices to level the playing field, hoping that customers all over will pay the same price for identical examples of a car. Unfortunately, practice indicates that if dealerships think they can fetch more than the automaker’s figure, they’ll try to juice the market for all it’s worth. As such, listing a brand-new car on Bring A Trailer is in bad taste, moving the concept of a market adjustment from a private shame to a public competition, and could embolden other dealers to do the same.
[Ed Note: I’m just chiming in a bit late here after this went up. I think this — and other new cars sold by dealerships on Bring a Trailer — is mostly fine? I get that it’s weird to see new cars like this on a website that has been about cool old collectibles, but the usual “market adjustments” are no better than an auction like this in my view. I will admit that, it’s true that such a public auction could have an impact on markups nationwide, which is an interesting concept. -DT].Â
At the same time, this strategy could backfire, or at least be anticlimactic. This Audi RS6 Avant GT carries a sticker price of $201,495, including freight fees and gas guzzler tax, and while the current high bid stands at $193,995 with five days to go on the auction, that’s been the only bid anywhere near sticker price so far. If this special RS6 doesn’t attract more interested bidders, it might not meet reserve, and then the whole strategy will fall apart.
Whatever happens, this auction is important because it sets the bar for what a new Audi RS6 Avant GT is actually worth, meaning what real people are willing to pay for it in the current climate. Those last words are key, as other dealer markups may play a role if the final hammer price if it goes for over MSRP. Regardless, I’m sure we’re all thinking the same thing: can’t a dealer actually sell a special car at MSRP for once?
Top graphic image: Bring A Trailer
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.
Way to go Audi. You’ve turned an Audi problem into an everyone problem!
Dealers have been using bring a trailer for a long time. And if the dealer gets the price he wants good for him. At 200k the average person can’t afford it and the people that can want it bad enough will pay for it.
Who on earth would pay that kind of price for that thing?!
This gives me “finance your burrito” vibes. Like, they won’t stop being predatory towards customers until someone actually comes in to regulate the market. But given how this current admin. is all about the dear leader, I doubt we’ll see any progress there.
I think this is more honest than “selling” it to an insider (friend, family, etc ) to flip or only making it available to people who own at least three other high priced Audis or even forcing buyers to sign an agreement not to resell for a few years.
I’m not in a position to buy this (nor am I interested), but this way is infinitely preferable to playing the dealer game of trying to find an allocation and doing whatever ridiculous favors are needed to be *allowed* to buy something special.
Pure, old-fashioned cold hard cash. You got the money, you can have it, whoever you are.
I no longer recommend BAT for several reasons. The last time I made a post on here about BAT, they banned my account on BAT. The whole concept has jumped the shark.
Yeah from pretty wholesome roots it is heading towards peak scam.
And I despise the idea that the BUYER not the SELLER has to pay the premium.
The buyer paying has been adopted by other auction houses as well. Its a way to assure you get desirable cars in your auction.
Why not? It’s the fairest possible way to sell a car.
MSRP is nothing more than a suggestion, and people need to get over this.
Something, something, that S in MSRP stands for something, I just can’t remember what…
Indeed.
As I have said here MANY times before – anyone who bitches about markups but has cheerfully taken a discount on a car is a God-damned hypocrite and needs to *STFU*. If you don’t like the price, don’t buy the car.
Selling at auction is more democratic than Ferrari’s sales strategy. When I was more active in the car run / show scene in the area I ran into more than a few guys standing next to recent Ferrari that they purchased just to be able to place an order for the next Ferrari.
No interest at all in the supercar they were currently standing next to, it was just a pre-admission ticket to the next status symbol. Now that I think about it, Viva Ferrari!
“…while the current high bid stands at $193,995 with five days to go on the auction…”
Everyone knows (or should) that the real bidding in any auction happens at the end – not the beginning.
Yeah things don’t even really get started until time until closing is measured in minutes not days.
Yep. Serious buyers don’t prematurely drive up the price. That simply risks the final price being higher for them in the end.
You sit, wait, and pounce in the final two minutes. You know your limit, and know whether you can walk into a cute minimum-increment back-and-forth and start slamming in larger bids to spook everyone else out of competing with you.
At least they do not use the Ebay model were you put in a high price and the computer does all the work. BaT still makes you have to follow the auction and increase your own bids.
BAT also extends the auction by 2 mins for each bid in the last moments of an auction so bidders won’t get sniped.
This is no different than all the dealers who have sold cars for over MSRP. Or the Broncos and Siennas I saw being sold as “used” with 5 miles on them for way more than MSRP. Instead of picking an arbitrary number, they are just putting up for auction.
I’d rather see it happen with a $200k car than a $25k Ford Maverick that was meant to be affordable.
These are far more interesting when done in an individual color IMO. A friend has the last get one that he ordered in olive green, and its phenomenal.
This isn’t the first dealer to list on BAT. I’ve seen several new dealers listing new in-demand cars on there. I’m pretty sure I saw C8 Corvettes on there and Broncos when they first came out.
As for this Audi, so what? A well equipped new Civic is out of reach of most buyers right now without ridiculous financing. If rich guys want to have a pissing contest over a ridiculous new wagon in clown makeup they can have at it.
Checking through auctions, maybe I was confused about new dealers putting cars up for auction. I swear I’ve seen it, but could definitely be wrong.
No you’re right, sometimes it’s a dealer transfer or something and the original dealer isn’t the one listing, but untitled new cars have 100% been sold before. C8Zs are the ones I know specifically, because I’ve followed those auctions.
Thanks for making me feel less crazy, because I swear I had seen it on those cars since I was also watching (as a pure spectator).
“what real people are willing to pay”
I have to slightly disagree with this statement — BaT auctions, especially high-profile ones, might as well be Barrett Jackson or Sotheby’s. It’s a singular transaction, not a trend.
Or to put it another way, if they sell more than exactly ONE of these, at anywhere near this price, I’ll be shocked.
I had a buddy who did antiques, in a ferocious way. (RIP Dale). Book, schmook, it is worth what someone is willing to pay, but don’t think the next one is. You have the right buyer in the right auction at the right time right now. I agree with @Ash 78
I agree as well, but the Internet makes it a lot easier to bring those factors together.
If I may respectfully offer a counterpoint regarding pricing:
Everyone derides a dealership for maximizing profit on limited-edition vehicles, yet if a private owner lists something on BaT or CaB and it yields a selling price higher than what they originally paid, that’s okay? Capitalism is for everyone, even if it’s sometimes a lumbering idiot.
I ask this as a dealership employee, but not a dealership apologist. I’ve sold vehicles for over MSRP but it never made a damn bit of difference to my commission, so I really didn’t give a shit. All that extra money went into the owner’s pocket.
That’s a roundabout way of saying I still hope bidding stalls at MSRP.
Anywho, one of my cousins dailies an RS6. Although it’s not a GT, it certainly looks better than this over-stickered and over-priced model. I like the white wheels, though.
I was having similar thoughts. I don’t like dealerships any more than the next person, but this dealer has an extremely low-volume model, and chose to advertise and sell on a platform that reaches a wider buying audience than just their local reach. How is this a bad thing? They might make more money this way? News flash, that’s the entire point of the business.
And this means it is easier for someone who doesn’t have an Audi dealer near them let alone a dealer that actually has one of these cars.
Auctioning a limited-edition almost supercar in a wagon suit will not hurt someone looking for a plain-jane Elantra.
Haha, so Audi is finally being brutally honest about their need for trailers.
Ugh, next stage of capitalism is going to be bidding to buy bananas on eBay from your local grocer. Actions like this make it really hard to justify the laws that mandate dealerships.
I got to have a shot
For what you got is, oh, so sweet
You got to make it hot
Like a boomerang, I need a repeat
Gimme all your money
All your coins and crypto too
Gimme all your money
Don’t let up until we’re through
*With apologies to ZZ Top
Makes me wonder how Audi of America looks or will look at this practice – I can’t recall ever seeing a brand new car offered for sale on BaT by a new car dealer. I wonder if this is in violation of some sort of dealer agreement??
Good question….I started getting wary when most of my CL listings became dealers, something that Autotrader had already done for years — and I wasn’t happy about. These days I mostly use CarGurus, which is only dealers (and only participating dealers, as far I can tell).
Seems like the only way people sell cars to each other is FBMP or local FB groups. “Why don’t you just join FB and shop?” you migh ask.
Well, I’m kind of old school in that I’d like my car shopping to not be cross-pollenated with everyone I’ve ever met wondering why we don’t like each others pics in equal proportion on why I don’t want to share all my vacation photos with everyone. I just want a car. Not everyone’s life story.
Internet 1.0 forever!
That’s what I thought first too. Feels like it’s an “ask forgiveness, not permission” kind of thing at the moment but even Audi USA may be wondering the same thing right now.
I’m glad badass wagons still exist, but those stickers are a bit much for me. And I know manuals are going the way of the dinosaurs, but Tiptronic only feels like another tiny piece of gearheaddom has been lost
Me too, and I also love badass wagons. I have a hard time understanding the price on this car too, as you can walk into a Porsche showroom and get a Panamera 4S or GTS and still have $30k in your pocket for a rainy day.
Once you take out all the shill bids by the dealership group(s) it would be interesting to see.
Yeah I don’t think they would let this go below MSRP. Otherwise people would treat this as the market trend and no one will pay MSRP or more on that car.
Try looking up the bidders activity.
The person who bid $150K is a real person – He bought a DB5 last year for $373K, and a 560SEC in 2019 for $6750
The one who bid $193,995 – that one is a new bidder without any history at all.
So who knows if he’s a valid bidder?
If the auction allows one to skip the whole “dealer experience”-equivalent to a wide-awake and non-local-anesthesia’ed colonoscopy, count me slightly interested, though I would get outbid, cuz cheap.
Will need to convert this to manual first, though. Then it would be nearly perfect.
Counterpoint: The Market will have decided what the car is worth, and that Audi learned a valuable lesson.
I mean, my price for this, WITH the manual conversion? $100k. It is an Audi, after all, and I do not buy cars for the purpose of using them up for three years and then selling them. It might make the ten-year mark without too many major issues, but no one knows.
Hmmm, maybe the perfect strategy is “Allow dealers, but dealers may not set a reserve price like private sellers. The car sells for the highest bid.”
They can play our game, but don’t get all of our protection.
I like your angle
Feels like a bad thing for car buyers? Bring a Trailer is a bad thing for car buyers!
The dealership group I worked at prided themselves on never marking up beyond MRSP, even during the crazy COVID times. Got them a lot of business and helped dispel the idea of ‘sleazy car sales’ tactics. This goes 100% the opposite direction. The only real rationale behind it is greed.
The dealership I bought my ’22 CX-30 from at the tail end of 2022 was the same way, while the competing dealership group in town was more than happy to overcharge for every single vehicle on the lot. Granted, the competitor didn’t have a Mazda dealer and I wanted my very specific CX-30 Turbo, but I have very different opinions of the two groups for that reason alone. I know the local Mazda and associated dealers are at most charging sticker, versus the competition sneaking in thousands at the very last minute because they can.
I just bought a new RS6 (non-GT) and it was already eye-wateringly expensive. I can’t fathom spending the premium on this thing.
I have a hard time understanding the allure of a dealer selling the car this way. I can see a half a dozen or more RS6 GT in this spec across the country with no ADM (or none advertised). The buyer on BaT is going to be on the hook for $7500 buyers fee assuming they actually clear reserve on this, but man I’d much rather have a “regular” RS6 or RS6 Competition for $50k less anyway.
I am sure other dealers are looking at this for ADM, but doesn’t mean it will happen