DirtHammer Wants To Be Bring A Trailer For Side By Sides

Side by sides are perhaps the most entertaining way to grievously wound yourself offroad, but it seems buyers of the little four-by-fours are tired of losing an arm and a leg in their purchase — long before they ever get a chance to do the same out in the dunes. That's why friends of Jalopnik Zach Bowman and Sam Smith teamed up with Hearst's Colin Comer to create DirtHammer, an auction site exclusively for side-by-sides that promises to make purchasing a land boat simpler for both buyers and sellers. 

We've maligned Bring A Trailer's unparalleled ability to part fools from their copious money in the past, but it's clear there are some things the site does right. Its listings are well laid-out and intelligible, the cars are (or at least were) held to a certain standard of quality, and the site weeds out all the Facebook Marketplace-style "Is this available?" tire kickers from a seller's inbox. DirtHammer wants to bring that same smooth experience to the world of side-by-side buying. 

DirtHammer claims that UTV owners trade in for a new model every two years on average, which aligns with the perception of side-by-side owners as McMansion-dwelling Ricky Bobby types who own "toy haulers" and always want the latest shiny thing. But that means there's money in being the middleman in those transactions, and DirtHammer wants to get in on that sweet sweet cash before the next financial crisis turns UTVs from fun little toys into the daily drivers of our Mad Max hellscape. Even in that post-apocalypse, though, it would probably be nice not to have to deal with endless Craigslist emails.

DirtHammer is a marketplace for enthusiasts by enthusiasts, the way Bring A Trailer was before it became an art auction that the ultra-wealthy use to trade around their enormously inflated assets. Here's hoping it stays that way, and that it helps more people get to jump dunes and tear through whoops behind the wheel of a long-travel side-by-side. With any luck, all arms and legs will remain intact.