The best apps for car enthusiasts, by category
One good app for each kind of car person, from buying and diagnostics to motorsport and driving for fun. OVERDRIVE is ours; the rest are not, and we say what each one is for.
By OVERDRIVE · Published October 16, 2026 · Facts checked October 16, 2026
Short answer: for buying, Bring a Trailer and Cars & Bids; for news and reviews, MotorTrend; for diagnostics, Car Scanner ELM OBD2 (it needs an OBD2 adapter); for planning drives, Roadtrippers, or Scenic and REVER on a motorcycle; for motorsport, F1 TV. For making the driving itself the hobby, OVERDRIVE (iPhone, made by us) lights up every road you drive on your own map, with zones, achievements and crews, and never ranks speed.
Get OVERDRIVE on the App Store
iPhone only · Free download, first two drives free · Speed is never scored
Who wrote this: we make OVERDRIVE, one of the apps below. No other app here paid to be included, and we did not test them: their descriptions come from their App Store listings, and the rating counts are US App Store figures from 15 October 2026. Ratings change, so treat them as a rough guide to how widely used each app is, not a score.
Buying and auctions
- Bring a Trailer Auctions (7,667 ratings): curated auctions of classic, collector and enthusiast vehicles, vetted in the comments by a community the listing puts at more than 900,000 users. The listing gives the buyer's fee as 5% of the final bid, with a minimum of $250 and a maximum of $7,500, and says bids at the very end extend the clock by two minutes.
- Cars & Bids Auctions (5,629 ratings): auctions of modern enthusiast cars from automotive reviewer Doug DeMuro, with watch lists for the makes, models and keywords you follow and model-specific community pages.
News, reviews and buyer's guides
- MotorTrend (56,215 ratings): automotive news, reviews, an interactive Buyer's Guide and, according to the listing, more than 70 years of MotorTrend and HOT ROD magazine archives. The listing says it may work with third-party advertising companies.
Diagnostics
- Car Scanner ELM OBD2 (32,902 ratings): live sensor data, custom dashboards, reading and resetting fault codes, and emissions-readiness checks. It needs a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth LE OBD2 (ELM327-compatible) adapter plugged into the car, and the listing says it works with most cars built after 2000 that use the OBD2 standard.
Planning drives
- Roadtrippers - Trip Planner (61,523 ratings): road-trip planning with places along the way, up to three stops free or up to 150 per trip with Premium, plus offline maps and CarPlay.
- Scenic Motorcycle Navigation (7,476 ratings): for riders, it looks for curvy and scenic routes, with turn-by-turn navigation, CarPlay and offline maps.
- REVER - Motorcycle GPS & Rides (16,533 ratings): route planning for motorcycles and off-road vehicles, ride recording with distance, duration and elevation, and community challenges.
Motorsport
- F1 TV (133,189 ratings): Formula 1 sessions live and on demand, onboard cameras and team radio on the Pro tier, and live timing and telemetry on the Access tier.
Meets and community
Car-meet apps exist, but on the US App Store they are small: AutoLNK had 231 ratings, ParkUpFront 148 and Ryvve: Car Meets & Events 35 on 15 October 2026. Meets are local, so ask a club near you which app, group chat or forum its members actually use before you download one.
Driving for fun, and a map of your own roads
- OVERDRIVE: Road Tracker & Map (iPhone; no ratings yet): turns the driving itself into the hobby. Your city starts dark, and every road you drive lights up on a 3D clay model of it, anywhere on earth. There are 2,206 curated zones in 230 cities, 58 achievements, daily challenges, crews that pool their distance, and Convoy, which shows friends and crew-mates on your map while you drive (off by default). Each drive gets a flow score for smoothness. Speed is never scored or ranked, and there is no lap timer or drift score.
If you would rather have every drive logged automatically, read OVERDRIVE vs Open Road, a fair comparison with an app that starts recording on its own.
What OVERDRIVE is not: not navigation (keep Google Maps, Apple Maps or Waze for directions), not an OBD diagnostics tool, not a public car-meet finder, and not on Android or CarPlay.
The list at a glance
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
| App | Category | What you pay for | Extra hardware | US ratings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bring a Trailer Auctions | Buying and auctions | Buyer's fee on a won auction | None | 7,667 |
| Cars & Bids Auctions | Buying and auctions | Free download; fees are not described in the listing | None | 5,629 |
| MotorTrend | News and reviews | Free; listing mentions third-party advertising | None | 56,215 |
| Car Scanner ELM OBD2 | Diagnostics | Free core features | OBD2 adapter (Wi-Fi or Bluetooth LE) | 32,902 |
| Roadtrippers | Planning drives | Premium for more stops | None | 61,523 |
| Scenic Motorcycle Navigation | Planning rides | Optional yearly Premium subscription | None | 7,476 |
| REVER | Planning and recording rides | REVER PRO membership | None | 16,533 |
| F1 TV | Motorsport | F1 TV subscription tiers | None | 133,189 |
| OVERDRIVE | Driving for fun, mapping your roads | OVERDRIVE Pro after the first two free drives (subscription or Lifetime) | None | None yet |
What we left out, and why
We left out speed, lap-time and drift trackers, and apps built around timing yourself on public roads. They answer a different question, and we don't think a phone should turn a public road into a timed course. We also left out car-buying marketplaces that are mainly classified listings.
OVERDRIVE is free to download and your first two drives are free. After that, OVERDRIVE Pro costs $3.99 a week, $9.99 a month or $34.99 a year in the US (prices vary by country), or a one-time Lifetime purchase ($29.99 until 31 October 2026, then $49.99). The annual and monthly plans include a 3-day free trial for eligible new subscribers; the weekly plan has none. The price and any trial are shown in the app before you pay.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best apps for car guys?
It depends on what you like doing with cars. For buying, Bring a Trailer and Cars & Bids; for news and reviews, MotorTrend; for diagnostics, Car Scanner ELM OBD2 with an OBD2 adapter; for planning drives, Roadtrippers, or Scenic and REVER on a motorcycle; for racing on TV, F1 TV; and for making the driving itself the hobby, OVERDRIVE.
Is there an app for car enthusiasts to drive together?
OVERDRIVE has friends, crews and Convoy, which shows accepted friends and crew-mates on your map while you drive; it is off until you switch it on. See An app to drive with friends. For motorcycle groups, REVER lists community challenges and shared routes.
Is there a Forza-style app for real roads?
OVERDRIVE applies the road-discovery idea from open-world driving games to real roads: every road you drive lights up on your own map. Unlike the game, it never scores speed. See Is there a Forza Horizon-style app for real roads?
Do car diagnostics apps need extra hardware?
Yes. Car Scanner ELM OBD2 needs a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth LE OBD2 adapter (ELM327-compatible) plugged into the car's diagnostics socket.
Which of these apps are free?
All of them are free to download. Bring a Trailer charges a buyer's fee on auctions you win, Roadtrippers, Scenic, REVER and F1 TV have paid tiers, and OVERDRIVE needs OVERDRIVE Pro after the first two free drives.
How much does OVERDRIVE cost?
OVERDRIVE is free to download and your first two drives are free. After that, OVERDRIVE Pro costs $3.99 a week, $9.99 a month or $34.99 a year in the US (prices vary by country), or a one-time Lifetime purchase ($29.99 until 31 October 2026, then $49.99). The annual and monthly plans include a 3-day free trial for eligible new subscribers; the weekly plan has none. The price and any trial are shown in the app before you pay.
Sources
Checked October 15 and 16, 2026. Other apps' features come from their App Store listings; OVERDRIVE facts come from the App Store listing and the app itself (version 2.0.0).
- Bring a Trailer Auctions, App Store listing: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6447379882
- Cars & Bids Auctions, App Store listing: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1589512351
- MotorTrend, App Store listing: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1039264027
- Car Scanner ELM OBD2, App Store listing: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1259933623
- Roadtrippers - Trip Planner, App Store listing: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id944060491
- Scenic Motorcycle Navigation, App Store listing: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1089668246
- REVER - Motorcycle GPS & Rides, App Store listing: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id975571447
- F1 TV, App Store listing: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1315007279
- AutoLNK, App Store listing: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6478376890
- ParkUpFront, App Store listing: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1207072194
- Ryvve: Car Meets & Events, App Store listing: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6502211884
- App Store data for the apps above (ratings, prices): https://itunes.apple.com/lookup?id=6447379882,1589512351,1039264027,1259933623,944060491,1089668246,975571447,1315007279,6478376890,1207072194,6502211884&country=us
- OVERDRIVE fact sheet: https://overdriveapps.com/facts/
- OVERDRIVE on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6790023849