Lionel
Site concept built with Claude that values your car, learns what you want to keep or change, then recommends three alternatives, earning a referral fee if you buy one.
Most car searches start with filters. Lionel starts with the car you already own.
It estimates what your current car is worth, asks what you would keep, what you would change and what matters most to you, then recommends three cars that actually fit.
If one catches your eye, Lionel connects you to matching listings on Auto Trader, Carwow, MOTORS, CarGurus, Motorway and others. If you buy a car, Lionel earns a referral fee.
The idea was heavily influenced by my mother-in-law, who knew what she liked about her Audi Q7 but not what cars could replace it without hours of research. Testing the flow with her helped shift Lionel from a generic questionnaire towards a conversation grounded in a car she already understood.
This is the most amazing thing ever. I wish someone had built it when I was looking for my car. Can you come over and fix my Wifi now?
- Mother-in-law
Claude helped me turn an idea into a working prototype in a day, supporting research, product logic, design, development and image production. It accelerated the process, but there was still plenty of critiquing, amending, fixing and refining along the way.
It also let me quickly explore an advertising idea. Lionel was intended to feel like a friendly adviser - “Have you tried asking Lionel?” - with a nod to Lionel Richie. In the ad, a woman spots a car outside a café and stands up to sing a rendition of Hello, changing its iconic line to: “Hello, is this the car I’m looking for?”
Lionel is still very much a prototype. There’s plenty to validate - from valuations and live inventory to whether the model can adapt its questions intelligently. But the experiment has been fascinating: in a day, I turned an idea into something tangible enough to use, question and test.
