GET
Auction Search
/api/carsandbids/search
Search live, closed and upcoming auctions with filters and pagination
Cars & Bids API
Cars & Bids API for Enthusiast Car Auction Search, Auction Details, and Live Bidding State
Scrappa's Cars & Bids API returns structured JSON from Cars & Bids, the US online auction site for enthusiast cars. Search live, closed and upcoming auctions with make, model, year, transmission and body style filters, open any auction for its specification, seller notes, bidding summary and photos, and poll the current bid, status and counters of a running auction. Scrappa is an independent service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Cars & Bids.
500 free credits
No card needed
From $0.20 / 1k
Pay as you go
Structured JSON
Ready for apps
API key access
Test in minutes
3
Endpoints
42,000+
Closed auctions
$0.20
Per 1k requests
Try it now
Make one request. Inspect structured JSON.
Use the first endpoint in this API family with a Scrappa API key. Every account includes 500 free monthly credits, so you can validate the response shape before buying credits.
Request preview
Request
curl -X GET "https://scrappa.co/api/carsandbids/search?status=live&limit=2" \
-H "Accept: application/json" \
-H "X-API-KEY: YOUR_API_KEY"
JSON response
{
"success": true,
"data": {
"total": 267,
"count": 2,
"has_more": true,
"next_offset": 2,
"auctions": [
{
"id": "36Y8275B",
"url": "https://carsandbids.com/auctions/36Y8275B",
"title": "2002 BMW Z8",
"subtitle": "6-Speed Manual, S62 V8 Power, Sport Red Interior",
"location": "Twinsburg, OH 44087",
"transmission": "Manual",
"mileage": 41700,
"no_reserve": false,
"seller": "switchcars",
"status": "live",
"current_bid": 122500,
"auction_end": "2026-10-15T17:30:00Z"
}
]
},
"meta": { "endpoint_family": "auction_search", "billable": true }
}What you can build
Structured data for real applications. Here are some ideas.
Collector Car Price Research
Read final sale amounts and reserve outcomes of closed auctions by make, model and year to track enthusiast market values.
Auction Tracking
Poll the auction state endpoint for the current bid, high bidder, bid count and time left of any running auction.
Sourcing Alerts
Search live and upcoming auctions by make, model, transmission and body style to find the next manual sports car as soon as it lists.
Listing Intelligence
Open an auction for the VIN, mileage, engine, seller notes, known flaws and service history behind a sale price.
Cross-Platform Comparison
Combine Cars & Bids with Cars.com and Autotrader data to compare enthusiast auction prices against dealer asking prices.
Cars & Bids scraper API
Cars & Bids API for enthusiast car auctions, final prices, and live bids
The Cars & Bids API is built for collector car price research, auction tracking and sourcing tools. Each search result includes the id, title, subtitle, url, photo, location, transmission, mileage, reserve flag, seller, status, current bid or sale amount in USD and the end time as ISO 8601 UTC. Detail responses add the VIN, engine, body style, drive train, colors, title status, highlights, seller notes, service history, bidding summary and every photo. Empty fields are left out instead of returned as null.
Search live, closed and upcoming auctions with free text, make, model, year, transmission and body style filters.
Sort by ending soon, newest, lowest mileage, lowest price or highest price and page with limit and offset.
Read the seller notes, known flaws and service history of an auction as plain text.
Poll the auction state for the current bid, high bidder, bids, comments and watchers.
Unknown auction ids answer a non-billed 404 and are never charged.
Choose the right Cars & Bids API endpoint
Use Auction Search for market coverage
Filter closed auctions by make, model and year to collect sale outcomes, final bids and reserve results, or list live auctions sorted by ending soon.
Open Cars & Bids Search API docsUse Auction Detail for full records
Open an auction by id to get the VIN, specification, seller notes, bidding summary with bids and watchers, and the full photo gallery with categories.
Open Cars & Bids Auction API docsUse Auction State to follow a running auction
Poll the small state response for the current bid and status until the auction ends. Closed auctions return their final state.
Open Cars & Bids Auction State API docsAvailable endpoints
Everything you need in one API.
GET
Auction Detail
/api/carsandbids/auction
Get one auction with specs, seller notes, bidding summary and photos
GET
Auction State
/api/carsandbids/auction-state
Poll the current bid, status and counters of one auction
Scrappa vs ScrapingBee / ScraperAPI
See how Scrappa compares to the official API.
| Feature | Scrappa | ScrapingBee / ScraperAPI |
|---|---|---|
| Cars & Bids auction data as JSON | Build your own parser | |
| Signed site API handled for you | Reverse engineer it yourself | |
| Live auction state endpoint | ||
| Price per 1k requests | From $0.20 | Varies by credits per request |
| Unified API key | Yes (80+ APIs) | Scraping only |
| Free tier | 500 credits/month | Trial credits |
Cars & Bids auction data as JSON
Scrappa:
ScrapingBee / ScraperAPI:
Build your own parser
Signed site API handled for you
Scrappa:
ScrapingBee / ScraperAPI:
Reverse engineer it yourself
Live auction state endpoint
Scrappa:
ScrapingBee / ScraperAPI:
Price per 1k requests
Scrappa:
From $0.20
ScrapingBee / ScraperAPI:
Varies by credits per request
Unified API key
Scrappa:
Yes (80+ APIs)
ScrapingBee / ScraperAPI:
Scraping only
Free tier
Scrappa:
500 credits/month
ScrapingBee / ScraperAPI:
Trial credits
Key features
Live, closed and upcoming auction search with make, model, year, transmission and body style filters
Current bid, sale amount and reserve outcome in USD with end times as ISO 8601 UTC
Full auction details with VIN, specification, seller notes, service history and bidding summary
Photo gallery with exterior, interior, mechanical and document categories and image sizes
Small auction state endpoint for polling the current bid, high bidder and counters
Failed requests and unknown auction ids are never charged
Frequently asked questions
No. Scrappa is an independent service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Cars & Bids. The Cars & Bids API returns structured JSON from public auction pages through a Scrappa API key.
Every Scrappa account includes 500 free credits each month. After that, each request costs one credit, which works out to $0.20 to $0.30 per 1,000 requests depending on the credit pack or plan. Failed requests are never charged.
Use limit (1 to 100) and offset. The response returns total, count and has_more, and next_offset while more auctions exist. A valid search without results is a successful empty response.
The detail and state endpoints return the number of bids, comments, questions and watchers, the current bid and the high bidder. The individual comment and bid feed is not part of this API yet.