A bidder with the username Halfelven on Cars and Bids snapped up dozens of similar Fords and brought a trailer
December 21, 2024 13:40
- Over the past few years, a single bidder has spent nearly $5 million on car auction sites to purchase two very special models.
- The bidder, nicknamed Halfelven, has won nearly 50 Ford Mustangs and F-150 Lightnings, among other vehicles.
- Some Reddit users suggested the seller purchased the vehicle and shipped it overseas, but his identity remains a mystery.
Scanning products on Bring a Trailer, Cars and Bid auction sites is a daily ritual for many of us. Some of you might even make a bid or two. But one bidder’s activities go far beyond that. He won dozens of auctions on both sites between 2021 and 2023, spending nearly $5 million, mostly on Broncos and F-150 Lightnings.
The campaign first came to light after Cars and Bids founder Doug DeMuro mentioned on one of his podcasts that a specific bidder was “buying all the Broncos,” which inspired Reddit user Taxz to do some digging.
RELATED: Ford slows Bronco production as sales lag far behind Jeep Wrangler
He found that people using the name Halfelven on the two sites won 62 Ford auctions, including 37 Ford Mustangs, 15 F-150 Lightnings and 10 other Ford vehicles, including a Mustang Mach-E , a Focus RS and a Ford Mustang. Ranger. Total spending: $4.8 million.
A bit like being caught with a pound of coke, you can’t possibly claim it’s all for personal consumption. Looking through comments left by a bidder on some auctions he didn’t win, he mentioned being a third-generation car dealer, and a profile of someone with the same username on Hagerty’s Market listed Henry, Nevada. Dessen location.
We’ve reached out to the person we believe to be the buyer of the Mustang collection through Hagerty to learn more about him and his business, but have yet to hear back. Apparently, car dealers are constantly buying vehicles to keep in stock, so it’s not unusual to buy nearly 40 Mustangs in three years. But we’re curious to know why he thinks an auction site like Bring a Trailer is a good place to buy a car, given its reputation for achieving high sales prices, which can cut into dealers’ profit margins. Mustang prices were really crazy for a while a few years ago, and they must have been crazy enough for the math to work.
One interesting detail Reddit Taxz noticed when compiling our reposted tables is that the last two digits of Halfelven’s winning bid are always the same year as the car being auctioned, such as a 2022 Bronco that sold for $57,022. So if you find yourself in a bidding war with him (and judging by his recent activity, it’s probably an older Porsche), remember to go one digit higher than the model year.
Some of the comments below the original Reddit post on /Cars indicate that the buyer is selling the vehicles overseas, so even if he buys them at a high price, he can still make a nice profit. Others claim (without evidence) that this may be money laundering. Several people believe he was just an employee at the Ford dealership and selling it as a regular used car. What do you think happened?
winning auction
H/t to Reddit/u Taxz!
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