eBay Just Let Me Drive 4 Badass Cars Around LA Before They Auction Them Off On eBay Live

Earlier this year, eBay enabled me to build an entire WWII Jeep from scratch. The brand isn’t just an Autopian partner, it’s also running a marketplace that has helped millions of car nuts like us keep our vehicles on the road. To add to all that, eBay also just handed me the keys to four amazing vehicles to whip around LA: a Dodge Viper (my childhood dream car), a Corvette C8, a donk’d Chevy Nova, and a manual transmission BMW E30 convertible. Here’s what that was like.

It’s called the eBay Most Wanted Collection, and it’s made up of four vehicles inspired by gaming culture (aka a certain huge game inspired by the grandest thievery of automobiles). The goal with these cars was to build some buzz over eBay’s very first vehicles to be auctioned on eBay Live. That auction will take place this year at SEMA in Las Vegas on November 5th at noon. Hosting the auction will be actor and car-geek Sung Kang, as well as automotive content creator Hertrech “Hert” Eugene Jr.

“Fans can tune into eBay’s livestream shopping experience to bid on each vehicle starting at just $6,” eBay writes in its press release, “with 100% of proceeds benefiting [nonprofit breast cancer organization] Susan G. Komen, giving fans an opportunity to support an important cause while bidding on the collection.”

Ahead of SEMA and the eBay Live vehicle auction, I got to whip the Most Wanted Collection around. It consists of the following cars sourced from eBay, with some modified using parts purchased from eBay:

● The South Beach Supercar – 2022 Chevrolet Corvette C8
● The Street Icon – 2006 Dodge Viper
● The Classic Getaway – 1992 BMW 325i Convertible
● The Hot Pink Hi-riser – 1975 Chevrolet Nova

Here’s a brief description of what that was like.

There’s Just Something About A Donk

Donks are completely underappreciated in car culture. To drive home that point, I’d like to present a Hot Take:

A lifted car that doesn’t go off-road is just a donk.

A criticism of donks is that they’re just cars that have been lifted and had huge wheels thrown on them. Acceleration, fuel economy, and ride are often degraded from stock, all in the name of aesthetics. Does that remind you of anything? Yes, pretty much any lifted vehicle ever.

That’s not to say that I have a problem with folks lifting their trucks/SUVs; on the contrary, my point is that lifted trucks/SUVs are badass, but so are donks. And I could feel that as I was cruising through LA in a fuchsia Chevy Nova on fuchsia rims, 350 V8 humming under the hood, a three-speed column shift at my palm, a bench seat connecting me and my passenger.

The Nova was slow, and its steering was a little wonky, but eBay had installed a new brake system so the thing at least stopped on a dime; none of that matters, though, because the Nova’s value is how it makes you feel behind the wheel. Unlike, say, a lifted 4Runner or Wrangler, this pink Nova on pink wheels is a one-of-one that seemed to turn every head in LA (possibly because a nerdy guy like me was behind the wheel, but let’s move on).

The Nova donk felt right for the setting, and with one hand on top of the wheel and my right foot never too deep into the pedal, I was cruising. Never have I felt more LA in my life. That’s the power of the donk; it’s an emotional appeal, and it’s about style and swagger, things I normally lack. And by “normally,” I mean “always.” Except for those 30 minutes driving through LA in that car.

The drive through town left me feeling more relaxed than ever, which wasn’t good, because I was about to be involved in a competition. And I don’t like losing.

eBay took us to LA’s Arts District, just under the 6th Street Bridge and adjacent to a building with a huge Rihanna mural; here, they’d turned a large parking lot into multiple race courses.

The goal with the donk-Nova was to slalom through some cones, grab a bag of unknown contents, jump back into the Nova, and race back to the start, in reverse. As it was pouring rain, my first attempt to do this involved reversing at 0.0000001 mph. I was never going to win this way.

For my second run, I wiped the rear window and launched into the slalom. Then I drove to the bag that I can only assume had stacks of 100s in it, shoved the Nova into park while trying hard not to be distracted by the beautiful Ri-Ri mural, grabbed the Fat Stacks, jumped back in, shifted into reverse, and hit it.

I’ve spent so much time reversing long distances for reasons I’m not sure I can explain (I was young and it was fun?) that I managed to absolutely crush that reversing maneuver.

I’m not saying I got the fastest time on that event, but I’d be surprised if I didn’t.

You know you crushed an event when the instructor shakes your hand and yells “MONEY!” (Either that or my suspicions about the bag were correct).

I’m glad I performed well on the Nova course because, just beforehand, I had absolutely fallen on my arse trying to autocross the e30.

I Should Have Given Up My Car-Journalist Card After The E30 Autocross

I could sense the frustration in Lea’s voice. “Part of this exercise is, some places it’s better just to be smooth,” she said as I understeered the crap out of that BMW e30, whose gigantic power-assistless steering wheel I was hacking away at, struggling to keep up with the tight curves of the autocross course.

I had two runs in the car, and both times I took the same turn with too much speed and too much steering angle, sending the nose almost off the course.

I liked that Lea was a little frustrated. eBay had hired one of the most badass drivers out there, Lea Croteau, who has driven for TV productions and more importantly who cut her teeth driving Dodge Neons as part of the Pro Racing Series, before going on to race in a variety of other series. When I worked at Chrysler, I knew lots of Neon Challenge drivers, many of whom became the company’s very best vehicle dynamics engineers. It is a racing series seemingly lost to history, but that was absolutely epic in the 1990s, and Lea and I knew a lot of the same folks who sliced up the tracks in Dodge’s front-drive compact car in the 1990s.

This is all to say that Lea knew her stuff, which made the criticisms of my driving actually mean something. When she implied that I stunk up the joint with my driving, she was absolutely right.

Above you can see me explaining how I just couldn’t seem to handle that huge steering wheel without power assist around that tight course. It was not my finest moment.

The Corvette C8 Felt Like A Scalpel

eBay had also hired legendary racing driver (and off-road beast) Shelby Hall to take me through the most technical course of the day, a longer autocross that I’d be navigating with a 2022 Chevrolet Corvette C8.

Shelby took me around the track, showed me what to look out for, and handed over the reins. Knowing I had a chance to somewhat redeem myself in the eyes of another racing driver, I took this seriously.

My focus was on being smooth and not trying to over-drive. The smaller steering wheel and power assist helped, and so did the C8’s amazing chassis and tires. Even in the wet, grip was plentiful, and the way the vehicle rotated to place the nose exactly where I wanted it at exactly when I wanted it there was remarkable. This is the beauty of the mid-engine.

It was my first time behind the wheel of a C8, and it exceeded my expectations.

Shelby seemed to think I did a good job, though at the end of the run she had to break it to me that, despite my fast 27-second time, someone had done it in 26 seconds. (I suspect that someone was Alanis King, who was also in attendance).

Still, I was happy. And maybe, if I factor in my lightning-quick donk-slalom, I could still come out on top?

The Dodge Viper, In The Rain, On A Skid Pad

The Dodge Viper is known throughout the world as being an “Axe Murderer,” as Jeremy Clarkson once famously put it. The formula stayed the same throughout the vehicle’s production run: Huge V10 engine up front, stick shift in the middle, power to the insanely wide rear tires, and very few safety nannies to save you from yourself.

Some people think the Viper’s “raw” nature is a downside; to me, I always found that appealing, which is why it was my favorite car as a kid, adorning lots of real estate on my bedroom walls.

That didn’t mean I wasn’t worried. The screenshot above is me basically declaring: A Dodge Viper doing a skidpad is already scary enough; torrential downpour? Yeah, I probably wasn’t going to be very good at this.

But what surprised me was how great those Pirelli tires were in the rain, and how communicative the Viper was to the driver. Grip was so plentiful, I never got close to losing control, and what’s more, I felt that the car was able to communicate my grip level, which made the whole thing somehow feel safe. I was not expecting that!

Was my time any good? I wasn’t sure, but I had wrangled that snake quite easily, and the laps were smooth. So maybe, just maybe, I could win this thing.

An Excellent Day, Capped Off With Some Hardware

After the four challenges, we drove to an undisclosed warehouse, where the four cars were to be picked up and transported to SEMA to await their auctions on eBay Live.

That night, we all went to dinner [Full Disclosure: eBay paid for dinner and a hotel room], and eBay handed out two trophies: One for each day of the event to level the playing field, since my day had had lots of rain and the previous day was dry. The two winners?

Yup, Alanis and me. We don’t need to get into the fact that many of the other journalists were gaming experts and not auto journalists, what matters is that we took home the Dub for The Autopian.

Top photo: eBay/The Autopian