The Swinging Aughts
By Mike Kovac · May 4, 2026 · The Auto Snob
The Swinging AughtsBy Mike Kovac / The Auto SnobLet me set the stage.It was the early 2000s and as clear as the starboard view from your perfectly positioned vessel, the horizon promised a dazzling array of interesting but not really collectible cars. These were uncharted waters, so to speak, that only a self afflicted car enthusiast could be bothered to navigate and assume the risk of total catastrophe.Before Facebook Marketplace, before Bring a Trailer and Cars & Bids or any other online car auctioning platform, and most certainly before online speculators artificially drove up prices and demand for anything that was worth declaring personal bankruptcy to own, there existed but THREE ways to buy and sell cars:1. Craigslist which, if you’re not using the app, still looks roughly the same as it did 20 years ago2. Online forums… and no, I’m not talking about Reddit.3. Auto Shopper in PRINTED form to which you immediately skipped passed the dealer posted ads and went straight to the private sellers. Or if you were a baller, you had a subscription to the Robb Report or Hemmings delivered to your door. If you were a pretend baller like me, you went right to Barnes & Nobles, stood unashamedly in the aisle with no intention to purchase said magazine and scoured the listings anyway.My personal preference was Craigslist, especially if the posting contained no pictures and used phrases like “original owner” and “full service records”. It weeded out 99% of the car buying population - because no pictures - and guaranteed that the seller had probably undervalued their prized chariot. Again, these were just “old” cars to most folks.For me though, it provided endless opportunities to buy, sell and experience different cars. Sometimes I lost my shirt and sometimes I made a few bucks which I put right back into my car slush fund. In the timespan of 2002-ish through 2015, I bought and sold more cars than I care to remember. There were countless BMWs, Audis, Mercedes and othe…