I'd love to see this succeed. The automotive space is the reason why I entered the market three years ago.
At the time, auto parts and eventually vehicles, would sell on the site but the biggest hurdle to overcome was aggregating demand for generalist products. This looks like the same case here. If you look a auto forums in particular, which are designated by car manufacturer, I'd bet they have the highest chance of pulling something like this off. Forums generally have sections for their members to group purchase, so this isn't that far of a stretch. In this case, through forum's audience is plugged in to following the manufacturer and therefore is a very engaged community that can facilitate commerce.
If they can get those existing communities to use 123cars as a platform, though, they could have the best of both worlds.
I think the key difference is that the more ad-hoc forum based group buys have to be local to one dealer, or maybe on particular dealer franchise. These guys can arrange a group buy for people anywhere in the country.
At the time, auto parts and eventually vehicles, would sell on the site but the biggest hurdle to overcome was aggregating demand for generalist products. This looks like the same case here. If you look a auto forums in particular, which are designated by car manufacturer, I'd bet they have the highest chance of pulling something like this off. Forums generally have sections for their members to group purchase, so this isn't that far of a stretch. In this case, through forum's audience is plugged in to following the manufacturer and therefore is a very engaged community that can facilitate commerce.