As one of the biggest online car retailers in the US, Vroom hasn’t had much need of a showroom before. That is until now.
The company has this month launched a virtual car showroom for the HTC Vive, which it’s showing at its facilities in Dallas and Houston, as well as at a pop-up location in the Phoenix area. Developed with the help of Dallas-based creative agency 900lbs of Creative, it allows users to explore 3D models of cars and bring up information about them. It’s also possible to go on test drives, watching 360 degree footage shot from inside of the given vehicle. For the real petrolheads out there, you can even listen to the sounds specific motors make.
https://youtu.be/XbLb4EA2bmA
At first, the showroom will include 15 different cars that are featured in the ‘Affordable Performance’ category, ranging between $25,000 and $60,000 in price. In the future, Vroom will add cars from another seven categories, spanning about 300 different makes and 1,600 individual cars ranging from ultra sports cars to even pickup trucks.
If you see something you like you can access Vroom’s online inventory from within the headset too. Buying a car through the service will also net you the usual bonuses, including free delivery, a seven-day money back guarantee and a 90-day warranty.
Vroom will be rolling out the app to other locations and across other headsets later down the line. It will have some catching up to do to become the top VR showroom, though, as just last month we reported that Gear VR app RelayCars had passed from 500,000 downloads. That said, that app doesn’t let you actually buy cars, making Vroom’s offering one of the first of its kind outside of the impressive ZeroLight app that we saw earlier this year.
Pretty soon we could all genuinely be buying cars in VR. The trip to the showroom could be a thing of the past.
