If You Were Building a Car-Only Classified Plugin for the U.S. Market, What Would You Prioritize?

I’ve been taking a look at a few niche marketplace tools for the past few months, and one thing keeps coming up: most U.S. car listing sites are still relying on plugins that were designed for every category except cars.
Too many generic filters, too many irrelevant fields, and almost no thought put into how American buyers actually search for vehicles.

So I’m curious to hear from founders, builders, and devs here:

If you had the chance to build a clean, U.S.-focused car attribute plugin from scratch, what features would you consider essential?

Here are a few thought-starters:

·         Would you remove classic keyword search and push users straight into a structured car search flow?

·         Should Make → Model → Generation be standard for the U.S. market in 2025?

·         How important is it to hide empty feature groups so the filter UI doesn't look bloated?

·         Should VIN reveal only after click (privacy is a bigger concern in the U.S.)?

·         Should seller type, transaction type, etc. be replaced by fields tailored for U.S. dealerships and private sellers?

·         What’s the best strategy for dark-mode compatibility on high-traffic classifieds?

·         Should saved searches be rebuilt fully around car-specific filters?

I’m trying to understand how other indie builders here think about this.
Which features feel like true “must-haves” for the U.S. car classifieds market?