Looking for that special has never been easier and more daunting than ever before. The internet puts the world at your fingertips, but it also means your dream car could be hiding in the dusty crevices of a website with poor search engine optimization or on page 72 of heavily-trafficked enthusiast forum. There are plenty of mainstream websites for car sellers to find a car buyer, but there’s one place these sites don’t touch – forums. It seems like every year, make, and model has a dedicated following online with a forum for enthusiasts to talk shop, trade ideas, sell parts, and sell cars. And it’s here where good cars can go overlooked. However, HiddenRides.com looks to change that.

HiddenRides.com aggregates the cars for sale on forums in one location. Looking for a Mustang. You no longer have to search several different forums separately just to see what each is selling. Instead, HiddenRides.com puts them all in one handy list with a thumbnail, price, location, mileage, a posting date. You don’t have to click through to get the necessary information, making the search for your new car even easier.

There’s a lot that goes into making the website work. According to Brian Park, one of the site’s founders, there’s a lot of backend processing such as ElasticSearch, image processing, and computer vision, which helps detect cars in images. Right now, HiddenRides.com searches hundreds of forums twice a day, updating with newly posted listings. The system can also identify spam posts that don’t have photos or lack other basic information needed to sell a car. Park added the number of aggregated forums is growing every day.

There are some hidden gems on the site, and those should on grow as the site adds more forums to its search. I’m still looking for that pristine 1985 Toyota Tercel SR5; however, those looking for anything more mainstream like a Porsche 911, Mazda MX-5 Miata, or Chevy Corvette can have a field day looking through the listings. I’m sure as the site’s reach grows into more forums, I may find that hidden Tercel SR5.

Source: HiddenRides.com