Clutch Culture Podcast Apr 13, 2026

#074 - The Camaro is BACK! New GM Sedans & Jimmy, Porsche Sales Drop, Chinese EVs & More

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72:51

Car

GM

GM is General Motors, the company that makes Chevrolet and other car brands. They’re the ones being discussed as bringing the Camaro back.

Concept

power plant

“Power plant” just means what makes the car move—like the engine, or for newer cars, the electric or hybrid system. They’re saying GM hasn’t revealed what kind of setup the new car will have.

Car

General Motors

General Motors is the big company that owns brands like Chevrolet. The point here is that GM’s decisions about the Camaro haven’t been consistent, which can hurt sales.

Car

Honda Accord

The Accord is Honda’s popular sedan. The speaker is saying it keeps selling well, so it’s not automatically a “dying” segment.

Car

30% interest

They’re pointing out that some financing deals can have very high interest. That means you end up paying a lot more for the car overall, even if the monthly payment seems manageable.

Concept

Chinese EV

A “Chinese EV” is an electric car made by a company in China. More of them are showing up in other countries, and that can change pricing and competition for everyone else.

Concept

EVs

EVs are cars that run on electricity from a battery instead of gas. The point being made is that, in the U.S., EVs didn’t catch on as fast as automakers hoped.

Concept

Semiconductors are electronic components used throughout modern vehicles, from engine control units to infotainment and driver-assistance systems. Shortages can constrain production and force automakers to change sourcing or trim features.

Concept

reboot of a modern neon

They mean making a brand-new version of the old Neon for today’s market. The hope is it would attract buyers who want something practical and affordable.

Concept

market share

Market share means how much of the car-buying “pie” a company gets. If a company gains market share, it’s selling more than competitors.

Brand

Jim Farley

Jim Farley is Ford’s CEO (at the time of the referenced discussion). Mentioning him signals that the episode is drawing on leadership-level commentary about Ford’s strategy and operational realities.

Car

Toyota Corolla

The Toyota Corolla is a very common, everyday Toyota. The point here is that Toyota can make money on cars like this because they’re efficient at building them.

Term

rear turn signal

Your rear turn signal is the blinking light on the back that tells people you’re turning. If it doesn’t work properly, other drivers may not realize what you’re doing.

Concept

dealership

A dealership is where you go to get your car serviced or repaired under warranty. If they don’t have the right fix available yet, you may feel like you’re getting bounced around.

Concept

removable tops

A removable top is a roof section you can take off to make the vehicle feel more open to the air. The host is basically saying it’s a fun feature and they wish more cars offered it.

Concept

leaked design data

They’re talking about a controversy where design information got leaked. The debate is whether that means someone stole ideas, or whether modern design is always influenced by what already exists.

Concept

auction

An auction is like a bidding event for cars. People compete to buy the car, and the final price is what the winning bidder pays.

Term

eight cylinder

“Eight cylinder” means the car has a V8 or inline-8 engine, depending on the design. More cylinders generally indicate smoother operation and often stronger performance, but they also tend to come with higher fuel consumption and maintenance costs.

Concept

buying something because you like it (no practical sense)

They’re describing a situation where someone buys a car just because they love it. Even if it’s expensive or doesn’t “make sense,” the excitement is the point.

Concept

SEMA

SEMA is a big car show in the U.S. that’s mostly about aftermarket upgrades—like parts, accessories, and custom builds. They’re saying the show needs to change so it’s more relevant to what people actually want.

Concept

car show or auto show

An auto show is where car companies bring cars to display and promote them. Some people make money just by showing up, promoting, or working the event scene rather than building or selling cars.

Term

lifted

“Lifted” means the car sits higher off the ground. That can help it handle rough roads and gives it a more rugged look.

Term

white wheels

“White wheels” refers to wheel finishes painted or coated in white, which can look striking but are also more prone to visible grime, brake dust staining, and discoloration. The segment notes that the white finish has turned brown, changing the look negatively.

LIVE

I got to start the episode with a little warm,

heartwarming, short, quick email that we just got.

Joel, who's in the Discord, said,

just wanted to let you guys know

that our son loves to take a nap to your show.

It came on-

That's not good.

Listen, listen, it came on to our YouTube feed

randomly one day and my wife noticed

just how soothing Nick's voice was.

Plus, he loves his structure in his cars

looking forward to the Discord.

Thanks Joel.

And then he sent a picture,

which I don't want to share on the podcast,

adorable little baby boy with his talk of trucks there,

just hanging a nap.

And I'm like, this is one of the coolest, funniest things.

Like, what do you say to that?

Well, thank you.

I guess that's, you obviously have a cool kid.

Yeah.

So you've won at life, but it is,

I think you can always say humbling, right?

I'm glad you guys found the show.

And anything we can do to help your kid maybe fall asleep,

I've been there.

That's kind of a bonus there for you.

100%.

The strangest thing of it all is when you see somebody,

if they send you a DM or whatever,

and they have it pulled up on their TV,

that's still the thing for me that is the coolest,

but in a strange way.

Well, I had somebody, we have,

I would say probably like once or twice a month,

somebody we have to block from social media.

Oh God.

So we have a guy.

Tell me.

We were one of the clips on Instagram,

and this guy goes, you know, we're not the same, bro.

I do this on television.

Oh.

And I go.

I hope he screenshotted it.

So what, you are worried about the 65 and over crowd?

You know.

You were about the Mark Levin audience.

Yeah, he proceeded to get more and more,

I wouldn't say racist, but we were, you know,

we were in the ballpark of, you know,

this is harassment.

And just think about how big of a loser you have to be,

to have to be blocked from a car podcast,

Instagram, YouTube account.

We allow people to say a lot of things.

People disagree and agree and everything in between.

We're interactive.

We make sure we care about that stuff.

But I want all of our supporters to think about,

if your brother-in-law was this guy,

if this was one of your friends,

and you found out he was a loser that had to be blocked.

Yeah, he goes, you know, I do this on television.

Then he started bragging about some like muscle cars he owns.

And I go, man, you're really into that 60 and over crowd.

Like, I mean, you just can't put into words

all the cool things like this email

and all the great commenters and the people

that have asked real questions

or questioned things we've said and say,

hey, I see it this way.

You know, we've had people from Ford and GM

and Toyota and Nissan, you know,

DM us or comment on videos and say,

hey, I work in the building.

Let's, you know, I see it this way.

This is what you guys don't understand.

So I don't want everybody to agree with us.

I want everybody to give value in comment sections.

Imagine being so low value,

you have to be blocked on a social media platform.

I'll reach out to HR about this later

and make sure that they find who this person is.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I got harassed

and you just don't care, Rob.

You're over there with your stories

and you know, your Gen 1 Raptor that wasn't your idea.

I mean, you're just living in Fantasyland.

I'm over here taking traps.

Taking the shots.

Yeah, I was in my Fantasyland Raptor having some,

what is it?

It's not even two bears ice cream.

The whole time I went into Sprouts and I asked him,

hey, do you guys have two bears ice cream?

The lady was like, hold on.

Hey, do we have two bears ice cream?

She was like, two bears ice cream?

No.

And then like they walked me over there

and it was, I forgot what it's called.

It's like ice cream for bears is what it's called actually.

Yeah, yeah, something like that.

Something like that.

So yes, I was in Fantasyland.

So then I felt like a real man getting my Raptor

leaving Sprouts of all places with ice cream for bears.

Like I said, that's where most Raptors are.

Do you know why?

That's where most Raptors are.

They were three.

Of course there are.

They were all newer ones too.

You don't see the first Gen.

They were all newer ones.

So you felt bigger in batter.

You're like, well, these guys,

these aren't connoisseurs of the Raptors.

I mean, in this head, I feel bigger in batter

a lot of times.

Yeah, so you got the ice cream?

I did.

They didn't have just, it was like honey, honey.

There was a barista coffee one and the cookie dough one.

I didn't like the cookie dough one much.

That's the one I got.

And it was a little disappointing,

but when I've got the pure honey, honey one,

that one was better.

Yes, the honey one's off the hook.

So we talked about it in the Discord.

By the way, if you guys want to join,

it's clutch.club.

If you want to join in our chats in the Discord.

Okay, I mean, it's made out of honey.

It's like yogurt-ish.

It was soft.

So it was, it was pretty good.

Yeah, it's good.

I got a couple in my freezer as we speak.

I've had to be like real disciplined

to not take down a pint a night.

Oh yeah.

Because that's a full-blown 7,800 calorie pint.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you got to just know yourself, Rob.

Sure.

And for me, that pint, that honey pint,

that could be gone one sitting.

Well, especially when you say you'll get your own

because you're not going to share with the kids.

Yeah, yeah.

No, my kids, look, I'm one of those people that I go,

whatever I got, if you want two of them,

I'll get you two of them.

With the third one.

I'll have one, you guys can have two, okay?

I'll get you even more than I get.

But, you know, and I think it's a good plan.

Yes.

Because every dad or mom out there,

when you have something you like

and then your kids eat three quarters of it,

don't act like you're not disappointed.

We're all disappointed.

So I'm more of, I'll buy one for me

and two for you that I won't touch and you're good.

So yeah, I don't deprive my kids.

I just, I give them more than I get.

I just, they just have their own ones.

Boundaries, boundaries.

Yeah, you know, I mean, that's how I say it in my head.

For sure.

Boy, our heads are crazy places these days.

I will say before we move on to car talk,

have you ever had protein pints?

I meant to mention it last week to you.

No, somebody actually texts me is pretty good too.

Very good.

Select stores, I don't know if it's like,

you know, big grocers, but it's like,

don't call me but 10, 20, 30, 40 grams of protein

in the pint and it's like, it's like a halo top,

like 300 calories.

It's not gonna taste.

I'll ask a question.

Yeah.

Have we gone a little overboard with the protein

and everything?

Well, let me get protein, pop tart, you got,

yeah, 100% we've gone overboard.

Like, you know, for people that don't know,

I'm six, one, two, 10.

I don't think I need protein and everything.

Yeah, I think we just need less honestly.

Yeah, I think we're good with the protein.

There's like protein checks mix, you know.

I don't know, man.

If I have checks mix, I just want the checks mix.

Yeah, just have the real stuff, right?

Yeah, it's like, I've already made the bad call.

This doesn't make me feel that much better.

And by the way, it's probably not gonna settle very well

because I don't think protein was meant to be in checks mix.

So I think we've just gone a little overboard.

I'm all for it.

I'm all for the silliness and we're going,

oh, this is protein pop tart.

I'll have this now.

But sometimes I go, I don't know, man.

I think we've gone, like, do you like the Kodiak

like pancake mix?

I have tried it and I do like it.

And I think I've desensitized myself to like,

because the sugary stuff that we all enjoy,

you try to wean yourself off over the years

and you're like, oh, you find the good alternative.

And then now you're like, that alternative.

And then you're like, I don't know if this is really better.

I've just tricked myself that it's better.

Yeah.

And now I'm like, man, why is my stomach all torn?

Well, it's because there's a lot.

There's Chinese protein powder.

Exactly, plastics and all these other things

that are in our...

That's like the funniest thing for anybody

that's never dug into the supplement industry.

You have no idea what boats this stuff comes over on.

And people are just like dumping protein

into their Greek yogurt.

So I'm like, you're taking this Greek yogurt

and you are just putting all kinds of things.

You have no clue what they are into this Greek yogurt.

We are so bored with what we need to make macro-friendly

that now you got Greek yogurt, you mix it with a monster.

You just whip it up and you drink it.

And I'm like, okay, it doesn't sound like a bad idea,

but do we really need to do that?

Yeah, do we have to go down that road?

I mean, yeah, so this is for...

I guess we're now food culture, clutch culture, raptor jokes.

We have kids were soothing to sleep with the microphone.

I mean, we've really hit a lot of things here

in the first eight minutes of the podcast.

You gotta be able to hit all the audiences, right?

You come here for the hang.

How many times have we had to say this?

We've said this for 19 months, 20, whatever it is,

you come for the hang.

Usually you get car news,

but yeah, I wanted to kick it off with that

because I thought it was heartwarming.

And our kids are growing up really fast

and we missed those days where they're taking naps

with fucking diapers and time trucks.

I'm out of naps now.

Out of naps?

Yeah, it's home to the world then.

That's tough.

It's tough.

Yeah, mine'll be 12 this year, so it's really crazy.

Three and five.

Yeah, that's still kind of cool.

Five at five, I will say that was the coolest,

the start of the coolest things.

Yeah, I think five to nine is gonna be a nice run.

Yeah, cool conversations.

They're actually like, you're their friend, you know,

which luckily that's still happening,

but like that five to nine, you're absolutely right.

Five to 10, you are their main person hanging out.

You can make fun of mom sometimes,

behind her back, go crack jokes or do that kind of thing.

Absolutely.

So cool.

All right, well, let's take a shift in the cars.

I don't know how excited you're gonna be about this,

but you know, and it's not Corvette talk,

well, that's gonna be for later,

but GM is bringing back the Camaro, did you know this?

Big news this week.

I guess they didn't say the power plant.

They did not.

The things that I saw, I think it's,

you know, we have heard from a lot of people

in these buildings, which is so awesome.

If you guys work for these companies,

like reaching out to us and giving your perspective

or the things you, I love that stuff,

but we had a guy reach out,

not from GM, from another company,

and he really defended a lot of decisions,

calling it portfolio management.

Oh yeah, I did say that one.

Right, and I'm not sure anything's been as mismanaged

as just like randomly getting away from things like Camaro.

You already had the ability to produce them.

I understand sales were falling on sedans,

but it was an entry point into your brand

for a lot of people.

This can be said about charger and challenger

going the route that they did

and now kind of having to back out of it.

The going in and out of Camaro over the years,

I think has just been a terrible play by General Motors.

I think if they had just stuck with it all these decades

and never had any of these like,

hey, it's just not around anymore moments,

do I think sales would be millions of units?

No, but it goes back to my whole story

that we say about Toyota and Honda.

Corolla, Camry, Accord, they all sell well.

So even in some of the articles that I read

and people sent to me,

the author of the article seems to be like,

well, this is kind of a diminishing segment,

but they never referenced that.

And I get the Camaro is not Corolla

and it's not Camry and it's not Accord,

but I think you could have made a four door Camaro

into something that people bought

if it was a reliable platform.

Obviously we know what it would have ended in,

a lot of rental fleets and all those types of things.

I don't think it was smart to have this thing

go away, come back, go away, come back.

I just don't think this has ever been a good management

of the Camaro name.

Yeah, because we know how much nostalgia always affects

one as they grow up.

I think the Camaro, the Mustang,

those two primarily examples,

Charger, Challenger also could have had

maybe not the exact same impactful run

that the Classics did that were now kind of roasting

and also getting roasted for roasting,

but you could have it in a household

and you could get your kids enthusiastic

about that particular car.

Like you said, it's not a Camry or an Accord,

but usually the families that have the Camrys in an Accord

aren't gonna have a Charger and a Camaro.

So those families that have the Camaro's

and the pony cars is people hate that we call them

muscle car, that I call them muscle cars,

whatever, the pony car.

You could keep the history, essentially,

of buying generation over generation.

And you could have evolved it.

Right.

An evolution would have made more sense

than going in and out of the platform.

Yeah, what is this like?

Just from 2000, from that F-body,

is it a third, fourth time that it's coming,

going, coming, going?

It's pretty close.

I mean, I'm not the foremost expert on Camaro

and what they do.

It's not a platform that interests me.

It's never interested me,

but I don't think it needed to go in and out.

They have a plant, a factory,

that is already set up to do all of the things

on the same platform as multiple vehicles that they build.

So I don't think Camaro was ever this heavy lift.

Now, if you said we had to have a dedicated Camaro plant,

you can look around and go,

well, they don't sell enough to do that.

But I think they share some Buick platforms,

they share other-

The ATE, the Cadillac models.

Yeah, and I believe what?

The Equinox or something is also-

Yeah, they're all on the, I think,

Alpha platforms that they call it.

So why did it have to go away?

Heavy lift is something you understand when they bail out,

right?

So EVs for GM was a heavy lift.

And that's what I read,

was that that's what took the place

of what the Camaro was being built on was.

Meaning, in the production cycles?

Yes.

And in the plant, like the Michigan plant,

where this one's gonna be produced,

if I'm not mistaken,

they're just swapping back out.

Now there are no more EVs,

now they're gonna make the Camaro instead.

Agreed.

So when people inside these buildings

tell me portfolio management,

but how you manage the portfolio was terrible,

that's not a defense anymore.

And you just talked about this last week,

how funny, right?

Yeah, yeah, it's not an argument.

And we have to realize that there are certain books

and certain philosophies in these buildings

that have been in there for decades.

And so they repeat things like,

well, it's capital allocation

and it's return on investment.

It's like, well, you guys don't do any of that well.

How is that a defense in your building?

Is it too soon to use the clips

of the toilet paper factory going up in flames

and you saying, you like the buildings?

What a wild story.

You like billions of dollars car manufacturers,

but use the clips of the...

And the crazy thing is,

did you notice like the arm didn't match up with the name?

No.

And the voice didn't match up with the name?

He's got like, he's got some name.

And I'm like, well, this guy didn't sound like that was it.

That story yesterday.

And that's when I saw it.

So if it happened before yet,

I think it was yesterday.

It happened day before yesterday.

Okay.

I saw it yesterday.

I'm like, this is wild.

Yeah.

Also, I don't think the sprinkler system

was probably up to where it needed to be

when you have paper products.

Seemed very low pressure.

I mean, I get that it's supposed to be suppressant

for getting people out of the building.

Might want to beef that up on the rebuild.

Yeah, yeah, on the rebuild.

Might want to contract,

get a second or third opinion on a contract.

You might need to triple the spray heads

that you had in that building

because it went up pretty quick

and it was pretty fast and furious.

That was probably one of the wildest stories.

Unbelievable.

I mean, that'll rank as one of the wildest stories

of 2026 of just random things that happened.

And it's only April.

Oh yeah, 2026 is on, I mean, literally on fire.

It's gonna be on fire.

Pure world ending fire and domination

by whatever is controlling this planet.

So let me, I would like everybody to comment on this.

I'm not overly excited about Camaro.

It's just not my lane.

I think it's really weird

that stuff starts leaking out of the building

and they can't tell you the power plant,

but supposedly this is going into production next year,

which is awfully fast for a manufacturer

to leak out of the building.

And within one year,

this thing's gonna be in production.

That's already faster than what most people do.

But they couldn't go on record

and say this was the power plant

that we're gonna put in there.

I found that kind of strange

just because of the timeline that they're telling people

that there are gonna be 2028 models

pushed out of the factory at the end of 27, correct?

From what I read, fall of 27 to be a 28 model.

Right, so I mean, you're talking about 14, 15, 16 months.

My theory is here is that,

we had just talked about all the Corvette stuff last week.

I think they're gonna take the new small block

that's coming out and whatever Sherman could show,

manual-wise, and they're gonna pump it into the Camaro.

And that's how they're gonna drum up all of the spice

and attention that the Corvette didn't get.

There's nothing wrong with that.

There's nothing wrong with having this car.

Let's say this to all the Camaro people.

It's not gonna be a big seller.

If they just come out with a two-door traditional Camaro,

I know it's blasphemy to a lot of you guys to say

it should be a four-door sedan.

I don't know that they have a choice

if they want this to stick around

because we've already seen falling sales

in North America on the Mustang.

All two-door models are basically not all,

but M3 is kind of bucking that trend.

They had, I think, the best year in 2025.

But for the most part,

this is a segment for American manufacturers

that is not on the upswing.

So let's invest in the platform.

I hope they're not doing this.

And five years from now, it's canceled again.

I don't see the need to do that,

but I fear that's probably what we're gonna see out of this.

Yeah, and when they call it their most valuable asset

than that nameplate,

we've talked about how important nameplates are.

Can we just stick with it, right?

Even if you kind of pull it back and you produce less

and there's less trims, which are probably a good thing

you don't need a dozen trims,

just make two or three of them, that's it.

Yeah, good, better, best has always worked.

That's it, that's it.

Maybe relax on also Z28, also ZL1 or ZR.

Let's just take it easy, SS, four-cylinder,

maybe a fucking four-door or something.

I think that knocks it out of the park.

And all the pictures I've seen are four-door too,

so I assume maybe they know something

that is gonna lead to more four-door.

And that's, guys, for those of you that are purest

and the enthusiast, it's not what everybody wants to see,

but if they build a reliable car,

they will have profitable sales.

And it starts with this segment of cars

that we know everybody's going into mid-sized SUVs

and all that, and the numbers say that people want SUVs.

Corolla, Camry, and Accord prove one thing.

If your sedan is reliable, people will buy it.

So if you're inside the GM building

and you're looking at the sedan market

or the two-door market or whatever,

I think this all comes down to if Ford does it,

if GM does it, if Dodge does it,

if it's reliable at a good price point,

I think you guys will sell enough to be profitable,

but you gotta stick with this.

This in and out of Camaro is wild.

Yeah, and you kind of already covered it all there,

but a current driver reported what most of the other ones

didn't, which would be that it would also have

a CT5 Cadillac variant and a Buick on the same platform,

which is great.

Also, Dan's all modern updated cars.

I think that's a big win for GM overall.

I think people want something that they can go,

shop around, drive, test, and put in the pool

of potential buying vehicles,

because they don't have a lot of options right now.

And now this all comes down to price point.

Yeah, that was what I was gonna ask you.

If they nail the price point,

this will have an impact positively on GM.

I wanna say this, not gonna be their biggest seller.

That's not gonna happen.

But you need these little niches to,

and I wonder how much of this has been fast-tracked

because they're seeing the reality of what we talk about

of that 50 to $85,000 market is getting more and more

and more crowded.

You either need to put more options in that 50 to 85,000

to attract buyers, or you need to have things start

at 42 to 45, and you need to get out of the rat race

that everybody else is in.

There is no doubt the car business is under pressure.

I know a lot of you guys talk

about how expensive everything is.

We get those all the time.

We hear you, but there's a lot of dealers,

which is a distribution network of these companies

under massive pressure.

You have massive loans.

You have repossessions going to an all-time high again.

Potential repossessions.

All of the, I didn't read exactly the CarMax report,

but something like close to 20% of their portfolio

under financing is now really questionable.

And then over 30 days past due,

you start to look at this stuff.

Everybody's looking for this big black swan moment

where everything just goes haywire in the car market.

A lot of bubbles that burst, burst very slowly.

It's not just one big bang, right?

So you're going to start seeing pressure build

and I feel it now.

I'm getting more marketing emails.

I'm getting more calls from,

hey, did you have a customer looking for this?

Do you have a customer looking for that?

That doesn't mean that the bubble's going to explode

and you guys are going to go to a dealership

and everything's going to be 50% off.

But these manufacturers have data that most of us don't have.

They have to see the pressure starting to build

in a major way.

And that's the only way I could see that you're saying

when normally the shortest timeline we see

to introducing a platform is two to three years,

this is now a platform that's basically

still not really beneficially acknowledged.

Chevy and GM are not really going on the record

when they're asked questions by people from magazines, etc.

And yet the news is 2027,

this is going to be ready to come out in the fall of 2027

and have 28 models.

That very, very sped up timeline tells you

that there's something going on here.

Yeah, it's really interesting.

Well, let's shift into another part of the world

that you probably have some insight into

and I thought this was interesting,

but one of everybody's favorite brands,

Porsche struggles continue 50% drop globally,

10% in the US, 21 in China over the last,

or over the first three months of 2026.

I'm sure you've heard something I'm sure

from people in your circle as to maybe why,

or is it just interest, is it cost of everything,

having to go to and fro, what do you think?

Repeat that again?

Do you think that the decline in all the sales everywhere

is just strictly priced,

what it's costing them to get things in and out

of where they're being shipped from or shipped to,

is it strictly economical,

or is it also interest in the brand right now?

I think it's probably a mixture of all the above,

but if you kind of read between the lines

from people in the finance market,

you know, banks and those men and women

speaking out consistently,

I think a lot of it is, man,

you have consumers around the globe

that are kind of tapped out,

you know, and that doesn't mean

that they can't get credit if they want it,

it's a matter of do they want credit, right?

So we can almost finance anybody for a car, right?

You can go to buy here, pay here a lot,

and pay 30% interest on a car.

So anybody can get financing for a car

in some way, shape, or fashion.

When people start the process of not asking for credit

is what we're seeing,

is people are just going like,

hey, gas is expensive,

we got this thing in the Middle East,

my job is not on steady ground,

I have people getting laid off,

those types of things.

I think you get into this place

that so many people are thinking

that it's something manufacturer,

dealership related,

but you got to work backwards and go,

well, what if less people just ask for credit?

If they don't walk in there

and fill out a credit app,

that's sort of the ground zero, is it not?

Yeah, that's a great way to reverse engineer

basically everything,

are people opening their wallets?

That's what it comes down to.

Yeah, and in this case,

they don't really have to open their wallet,

they just have to ask for the credit.

Yeah.

If you have 100 people walk into a dealership in 2022,

all those people are asking for credit.

Well, now you may have 50 people walking in,

25 people walk out,

and 25 people ask for credit.

Well, now you've lost 75% of your customer base,

not because you necessarily

or somebody did something wrong,

but consumers are asking for less credit.

And so that is kind of the interesting thing

and that's the reverse engineer of

when credit markets go haywire,

they go haywire for multiple two to reasons,

but past due debt,

plus not getting any more good debt

on your balance sheet,

that's the recipe to have something explode.

Dude, it's only three months into the year

and it is an interesting time to be...

We have some things that if some things

don't get straightened out around the world

and we own a manufacturing business,

so we have access to some information.

There's about four weeks left.

If things don't start to get fixed in the next four weeks,

I think people are in for root awakening

on what can happen globally.

Speaking of globally, I saw one of my first...

I saw the first Chinese EV on the road here in Central Texas

and I'm going to pull up...

It wasn't this one,

but it's the one that was in the article

that we're going to talk about.

And they call it the Timu Range Rover,

which is funny because we kind of came up

with that name for something else.

The Jakku 7 Compact SUV,

named Timu Range Rover,

outsold the Ford Puma and the Nissan,

I think it's Koshke in March,

becoming the UK's best-selling vehicle.

Do you have any personal experience

with some of these Chinese EVs or SUVs?

I don't.

I've seen a couple of them close up.

I haven't driven them.

I mean, it's...

We have to start saying that they're serving a market

largely that's cheaper than anything you can buy.

For anybody that wants to debate,

I'm not going to debate how that happens

if you're not smart enough to understand

how they're able to offer things at such a low price,

then there's really no point in having to...

We've learned that in the past.

No point in having the conversation with them.

You don't understand how they're actually doing this.

I think the world has to really worry.

This is also the thing everybody needs to understand.

As Americans, we've rejected EVs.

I mean, largely across the board,

it's just not been something that's very popular adoption.

People buy them, don't get me wrong,

but it's not the widespread adoption everybody wanted

when GM and Ford and all these companies

invested billions of dollars.

They thought people were going to adopt them.

The problem is this was the reason for the government stepping in.

The $7,500 credit was not enough

when you have another country whose government is subsidizing,

going and taking over the auto business globally.

So this is sort of the problem with having a short-term mindset

about EV investment from the US companies,

is that now that means Ford's going to sell less,

which is going to impact the decisions they make in the US

because they're going to have less capital,

they're going to have less global demand.

There is a cascading effect here of bowing out of EVs

the way these car companies have been forced to do

because of their American sales.

This is a government along with companies

going after the global market and they're going to capture it.

They're at a price point.

By all accounts, Mexico has flooded with them.

Canada's opening up the floodgates a little bit

by allowing 60,000 of these vehicles to come in.

That'll be millions very quickly as they see demand skyrocket.

The Canadian government's not going to keep them out,

not under the relationship they have with the US now.

That would be my take.

But this is what people need to understand.

We all rejected them here.

There's a global implication of that rejection

and the lack of investment by these US companies

and they're going to lose major market share overseas.

And that's going to affect you here,

whether you believe it or not, as a consumer.

What do you think it does for,

do you think that we go towards

less people just owning cars altogether,

like each household, for instance, just owning less cars?

It's a good question because every car company

has gone to a more expensive, higher margin on their side.

I can tell you, man, I live in a pretty nice neighborhood

and the new car plates aren't what they used to be.

Yeah, that's a really good observation, yeah.

It's not a, we're trading in.

Matter of fact, when I'm outside and somebody walks up,

I mean, it is conversation of like,

yeah, we should get rid of it, but we're not.

And there's a real interesting conversation

to what the next five years

in the auto buying market from the consumer side looks like,

because if everybody's tapped out, they're tapped out, right?

You can't just, you can't overstate that.

You're always going to have people that buy cars.

And so when you say the word tapped out,

they go, well, they're still going to sell millions of units.

Yeah, but they probably need to sell double that.

So what happens when that, when that starts to have an effect?

Do you think the, now this is just me and Nick talking shop

and people are just listening like on the calls that we have during the week.

Do you think that people or rather the manufacturers

will scale down the size of the operation?

So we've always talked about and heard about how people say,

go direct to consumer.

Let's take that out of the equation,

just say that the manufacturers or rather the dealerships reduce the processes.

I've been reading about how AI in the finance department is taking over a lot,

how obviously AI in the sales process is taking over a lot.

If a dealership can still kind of operate the way it operates,

but remove some of the headcount and remove some of the other moving parts,

could they then lower the price maybe of the car

or make it more appealing and affordable for people to get in the vehicles?

I think it's really tough to ask everybody to go backwards.

Yeah.

And, and, and I think that's what people don't understand about bubbles bursting

is that you're going to ask the Ford board and shareholders to,

to kind of be okay with, we're selling an F-150 for $64,000.

We now need to sell it for $48,000 or $52,000.

So I don't largely see that happening.

And also the global pressure on raw materials is just not going to let that happen.

One of the things with, with the Middle East right now that people don't think about is

there are things like that go into plastics

that have just been taken offline.

Well, what's in most people's car?

Plastics.

Right.

So now that's under global pressure.

You don't hear about it on the news and they don't put it into,

even if they do talk about it, they don't put it into how it affects you.

But you have a lot of things that are essentially offline,

some of them offline for the next five years,

that's going to impact just the plastics market.

Right.

And so we think of semiconductors and we think of this and we think of that.

We think of chips.

We think, yeah, but what happens when the metal market gets out of whack?

What happens when the transportation of stuff, i.e. gas prices, get this out of whack?

So we have this real thing right now that all of these pressures are building

and I don't know what it really looks like.

I think anybody telling you what these companies are going to do,

but I do think we are at a, not a breaking point or anything like that,

but we're at a moment that I don't really know what everything's going to do,

because I'm telling you the Chinese manufacturers are taking global

demand.

I mean, they're providing cheap EVs.

Again, if you're too dense to understand how they're producing such cheap EVs,

there's no use of having a conversation with people like that.

It's very obvious how they're doing it.

People hate the term reset, you know, it has a lot of bad connotations

in the last couple of years, especially here in America,

but there is an opportunity, I think, for some of these bigger players to reset,

not just the market, but reset and restructure the way that they do business

with the American people.

If we're just talking about America outside of the U.S.,

it could be an opportunity.

I mean, this is very wishful thinking, like you just said.

You don't see a lot of these people going backwards,

selling things for tens of thousands less.

Obviously, some things won't even let them do that,

but maybe if we're being optimistic,

it could reset some of the markets depending on what is they're selling.

Well, I think there's no question

that when you look at something like Corolla,

I'm not sure how everybody stays out of that market long term

because there's going to be more and more demand for something like that

to get a young family, a young kid, somebody starting their life

more into platforms like that because they have two choices right now.

It seems like if they don't get Corolla or something like that,

they don't really have a bunch of reliable platforms

to go to from other brands that they go, we really believe in that.

So essentially, they're kind of pushed into something like Corolla.

Well, Ford needs to have an answer to that.

Chevy needs to have an answer to that.

Dodge needs to have an answer to that.

And the Hornet is not an answer.

That's not an answer, as we saw.

Bring back the neon.

But would it be the worst idea for them to have a reboot of a modern neon?

It wouldn't be the worst idea.

Nobody's saying that's going to be their huge moneymaker.

We've said this on this podcast before.

The problem is, are they efficient enough and well run enough

to be in a lower margin business anymore?

That's the real question that especially American automakers have to wrestle with.

And the answer probably is no.

You're probably right.

And also the fact that you have to have one foot in,

one foot out of this whole EV race chase kind of thing.

How do you, like, for instance, if you just go back 2000 to 2010

and you look at all the makers, have a caliber, a neon, a magnum, a chart,

all these different choices that the consumer had for the Taurus,

all these smaller things, right?

I think they could do it, but it would require almost a complete abandonment of the EV race.

Here's the problem, though.

I don't think they're operationally good enough.

Yeah, that's yes.

Well, especially on the both.

They're not operationally good enough.

I mean, you can look at what Ford publicly said about how great of a job Jim Farley did

on all these metrics and the metrics they said all led back to the most recalls in the world.

They don't know what operational excellence looks like.

The reason Toyota was able to take so much market share was operational excellence, right?

Ford doesn't have that Chevy and GM and GMC and their whole brand.

They don't have that.

They don't have CEOs at the helm that really are that, you know,

involved operationally with really getting to that excellence.

They're more shareholder based, you know, creating.

It's just what the American market has become.

Can I give back to my shareholders as the way these CEOs are told to do things?

Name me one company that talks anything about their operational excellence and there's any truth to it.

I mean, Jim Farley can't talk about operational excellence.

Mary Barra can't talk about it.

You guys just took billions in write downs because of operational nonsense and stupid decision making.

That is what's putting them out of these lower margin businesses.

In my opinion, like I just don't see how they go back into them.

They have to go back into them, but you're asking Maverick is a perfect example.

Maverick should have taken, should be selling millions of units.

And my opinion been completely mismanaged.

First of all, was put over the border for all of these reasons that make operations more difficult.

And expensive.

Instead of going into a factory you already had and finding a way to put this on the line

and doing it in-house in America where you already had the institutional knowledge of how to run a factory.

Instead, you go over to a place that doesn't, is really hard to kind of have your culture

and what immediately do they have delivery problems?

They immediately had delivery problems.

It wasn't just chip shortage.

They had delivery problems.

It wasn't just on the chips.

The chip stuff had already cleared itself.

And still today, I am shocked at how few Mavericks I see driving around.

I know.

They need way more of those to really make a viable future business for the small market.

But they will say internally, well, we're not invested in lower margin business.

Well, I know because you moved it across the border.

You didn't need to move it across the border.

You just needed to streamline your operation in a factory you already had in Michigan or Tennessee

or wherever you have one.

But you don't look at getting better operationally.

You look at how can I get into a higher margin business and call it portfolio management

while writing down billions of dollars.

Those things don't jive just from a common sense perspective.

And Nick's really nice about saying, always caveatting, look,

we're not saying that we're smarter than these manufacturers and they do have data that we don't

have.

But also it does seem like sometimes when we just kind of walk all this through and pull the yarn

that they don't try to connect all the dots.

They just like connect one, kick the can to the next dot.

Don't even worry about completing the full diagram.

Let's just get to the next dot and then somewhere in there,

they end up finding a hiccup that they can't complete the whole thing.

Yeah, like if you look at Jim Farley, who's a guy we like to hear from.

I like to hear the guy talk.

He seems like a very smart person.

I'm not saying I'm smarter than Jim Farley.

He knows what's going on in Ford.

But when you take billions of write down for a product,

when you put the lightning out that he admits he knew was not a good product.

Yeah, yeah.

But you're at the helm.

I need you to kind of cancel that.

I think who showed that, you know?

Yeah, yeah, it's not a good product.

You knew it wasn't a good product.

Yes, you can make the argument.

We were stretching our legs.

We were trying to dive into this.

We were trying to learn.

So we had to take the risk.

All good.

But you were driving a Chinese EV that you already knew was better than the EV you were going to put out.

Driving for a while too.

Yeah, yeah, six months, I think.

Six months or a year.

Yeah, a couple of months, yeah.

Yeah, so I do sympathize with these people because running a company of this size,

anybody that thinks that's easy, I don't ever want to tell people that that's easy because it's not.

No.

But you get to this place where you go, they're chasing higher margin because you can be more sloppy.

When you have all of this built-in profit, you can have a ton of recalls.

Right?

It's a really good point here.

The recalls really don't affect you.

Yeah, it's a good opportunity here.

Right?

Because you have all this built-in margin.

The reason Toyota, I think, has largely stayed more efficient and better at building things

is that they build lower margin things and they do those things efficiently.

We were just talking about this on a separate point.

Maybe listeners will find this fascinating.

It's not all about, as we've talked about for other things, it's not all about just the margin

and the profit, right?

Because the profit is your margin times velocity.

How many units are you moving to these fucking cars?

Right now, not a whole lot.

Yeah, and their argument internally, because we know people that have contacted us,

well, the higher margin business is better.

Well, yeah, that's a common sense thing.

It's just math, the math, math.

Yeah, we get it.

But here's the truth.

It's also made you more sloppy.

We can look at the recall numbers.

You've gotten more sloppy.

So then internally, you say, the lower margin stuff's not worth it.

It's not worth it to you because you don't know how to do it.

If you knew how to do it.

By the way, if you were, I think Toyota made $26 billion last year,

if you look at their efficiency, that's what allows them to make $26 billion.

Then when they sell the higher margin forerunner, Tacoma, Tundra, whatever,

they make even more money than you do because they're more efficient than you are.

They're just in that too, blowing up dollar bills, just catching it everywhere.

There's just dollars everywhere.

But you know what I'm saying?

It's like, it's the chicken and the egg thing.

They want to make an argument, especially American manufacturers,

want to make an argument that we need to be into higher margin stuff.

You know how you make higher margin, even higher margin?

You have efficient manufacturing.

Where do you get efficient manufacturing?

From the lower price, lower margin sector,

which then leaks into your whole organization of how to run things more efficiently.

Yeah, it's a big difference being effective versus clever.

And I think a lot of times our manufacturers in America think that they're more clever

than some of the other more efficient people.

Like, I will make the money somewhere else down the line because we're-

Yes, and I want people to understand.

I'm not in the car business, but I am involved in an owner in a manufacturing business.

So I know how important efficiency is to actually extract the profit

you need to extract manufacturing a good.

And can see the operations.

Yes, if you are more efficient on your lower margin stuff,

you're more profitable than you should be.

Toyota's, Corolla and Camry, they're more profitable than they should be on those cars

because of their efficiency.

But then when they build Tundra and they build Forerunner and they build Tacoma,

they're also making more margin than you.

Because they have this, the global efficiency of how to build a car.

Yeah, and you tackle all the other things.

And so as they've abandoned, as Ford, as GM, as they've abandoned lower cost,

they've gotten less efficient, they've gotten more sloppy,

they're not making as high a margin as they could be on the higher margin stuff.

And it all gets erased away with this idea of, well, we're going to sell higher margin cars.

Okay, but it's made you worse as an operator.

And Maverick proves that Maverick should be everywhere.

That platform should be everywhere in America.

I guarantee most of you will see more raptors than you will see Ford Mavericks,

which should be impossible.

And it's not because the consumer doesn't want to buy them.

It's because, remember, there's always been a choke on supply

because they weren't really invested in getting millions upon millions upon millions of units pushed out.

I'm telling you, just in the Texas triangle that I frequent,

which is from San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, Austin, the whole area,

you'll see five raptors to one Maverick.

And it should be impossible.

I know, it's pretty crazy.

And now we'll have people say, well, that makes common sense.

They make more on the Raptor.

But if they sold 10 Mavericks, there's things internally you're not taking into account.

That has made them a more efficient manufacturer.

So at the Raptor plant, they're now making more money on the Raptor

because they've learned all of these highly efficient things out of the Maverick.

It's all translatable.

But as they've only done F-150, they've gotten less and less efficient,

more and more recalls, less and less quality control,

because nothing in their organization is pushing them

to be a highly efficient manufacturer.

Spit that chakyo shit, boy.

Chakyo shit.

Do you want to turn this off?

You're like, what's this guy talking about?

People have turned it off.

Never.

The kids, maybe they're taking naps, but the adults are hanging on every word.

Well, you know what?

I was going to bring up a separate story, but let me switch around my tabs.

Speaking of Chevy Corvette's rear turn signal issue now covers nearly 33 C8s, Corvette.

33,000?

33,000 C8s creating a stop sale is a larger than expected.

What happened?

So let me see.

Covering nearly all recent C8 models due to the subtle software issue tied to safety systems.

So it's not even a hardware issue?

No.

No, it's your tail light.

You give a lot of modern cars.

I'll remember when you just be like, hey, there's a frayed wire in the door.

We just need to come.

You need to come into the dealership and we'll get it replaced in seven minutes.

That's just out the window.

Out the window.

It's like, yeah, we don't actually know how to fix this because our software team doesn't know what to do.

I mean, it's a wild time to think of how far we've come in 20 years where it's like, yeah,

if your back turn signal didn't work, you just had like a little wiring harness that you had to fix and,

you know, something happening in the manufacturing of the harness.

Now it's like, yeah, we got this software issue.

Yeah, we don't know how to fix it.

So a few days back, GM hit pause on Corvette C8 sales because of a rear turn signal issue,

one so subtle that most owners would never spot it unless it happened to them.

I would share.

So was it just not coming on?

It just says a faulty software update prevents the car from warning drivers when a rear signal fails.

So you're turning your turn signal on, but it's not going to the tail light.

Right.

Well, I got to tell you, you don't want the government on your safety features.

Oh, it says the fix is a simple software update.

Newer models are unaffected.

Okay, but you sold a lot of C8s already.

So is it they do have a fix?

You just got to go into the dealership?

It doesn't sound like they have a fix.

It sounds like newer models aren't affected.

So the older ones don't seem to have a fix the way that this is worded, which is what

Imagine stopping in the dealership.

They're like, yeah, dog, we don't we don't have anything for you.

I mean, you could buy it, but you really shouldn't and maybe imagine just get imagine

getting a ticket and trying to call GM be like, Hey, man, I got a I got a turn signal ticket.

I had my turn signal on.

Where'd you buy it?

I went straight to the manufacturer.

Oh, good luck getting that fixed.

Good stuff.

I mean, you got to love modern technology, right?

Let's take a turn down to actually a historic name.

What's another historic name, Nick, that GM, particular GMC made that you were like,

Oh, that's a cool unit as I find this tab.

Well, I would say Blazer, but that's been botched.

Very close.

It's actually in that family.

I mean, I'd like to see S 10 come back.

But I don't think we're I don't think we're down that road.

Are we?

We're not.

It's also in that family.

This fucking internet.

Is it my internet or yours?

I'm just going to go ahead and I'm going to spoil it for you.

The Jimmy.

Oh, that's cool.

GMC.

They're going to bring you back.

Yeah, I saw it's super cool.

If I can get this back up, I'll show you.

But that was one of the ones growing up too.

That's all a lot of people had.

You know, GMC, Jimmy's and those little SUVs were everywhere.

If it has modern looks, it's going to look sweet, obviously.

But then we're just going to go right back to what we were just talking about.

Can you rely on the Jimmy to operate?

Yes.

That's that's the whole stance here.

I mean, you know it.

I know it.

Everybody listening knows it.

I think the Jimmy would have a place.

You know, just like I thought if Blazer was done to a higher level,

I believe Blazer would be a very big seller.

You just I just don't think they did it right.

That looks awesome.

I mean, forerunner, basically.

Right.

So a new body on-frame Jimmy is back in development with GM shifting gears to bring back Jimmy

after plans to relaunch the nameplate were originally shelfed.

So that's cool.

I mean, you know, at least they're they talk about it and then they take it away.

They talk about a takeaway.

But then to actually say, all right, it's in development.

It's kind of a cool thing for.

So I'm going to give all the GM listeners.

If you work at the factory, go ahead and do what the forerunner should have done.

Make a removable top off the back window.

You know what I'm saying?

Like just go ahead and do what what Toyota should have done.

Make an option.

Not not all of them.

You don't not all of them have to have a top.

But I know you're going to do 107 trim models anyway.

You might as well make one that has a removable back top.

I think that'd be a no-brainer.

How do you feel about windshields that go up and down?

Either from like a truck perspective in the back or or a forerunner like like the forerunner back

window, the forerunner back window or the tundra back window?

Yeah, I think it's great.

I think it's a feature that should exist and largely Toyota has stuck with it.

You know, you have switches go out.

You have weird things happen with those.

Would I want Dodge to do one?

No, but there's companies that should be doing it.

I will say this about removable tops.

I love to give shout outs to things that interest me and we give creators.

Nick from cars and bids or and dugs.

Did you see he got a convertible Range Rover buddy?

No, I got this guy is like your spirit animal right up my alley of like crazy things.

So he's got a Range Rover with a special removable top.

I mean, it's everything you think it should be.

It is unbelievable.

And so I think if the Jimmy and let's say it because now that we said this about the recent

Hyundai body on frame, the Jimmy looks just like they went to the forerunner lab

and and said, let me go ahead and just get all your design files and do a GMC forerunner.

They had a leak.

Somebody leaked the data.

That made people kind of mad.

They're like, well, you know, there's no such thing as original design anymore.

It's like, yeah, that was kind of the point.

Yeah.

Of what we said.

So there was one on the exterior and one on the interior and both of them kind of had some

conflicting comments where I don't know.

I like we know this by now.

There's no pleasing people either with commentary or actual results like

you just I don't know.

I got to throw up your hand sometimes.

I'm like, really, I thought you'd agree with our take on this is a better approach to big screens.

All right.

I guess you don't like it.

The outside.

Yeah.

I guess you want 17 iPads linked together in your car.

But this is what Blazer should have been.

Yeah.

Right.

It wasn't.

This is a good move to your point.

We have it floated out there.

We have a rendering out there.

Are they going to actually execute would be sort of the final thing.

Is this even get to market?

Do they actually execute it if it gets to market?

That's that's the name of the game.

I'm trying to.

So I went to how do you pronounce Nick's last name is it?

I think it's Roshan.

Roshan, right?

Yeah.

It's a dude.

What a vehicle.

Okay.

So you're going to have to walk me through what the listeners are.

You're going to have to walk the listeners through what we're looking at here.

If I can get this to pull up.

Man, that Vegas has some real long but it's not on my side.

It's not on my side.

I'm getting I'm I'm 100% uploaded over here.

We actually have some serious weather coming down from here all the way up to Oklahoma.

This whole tornado alley area is supposed to be getting hit with huge storms, but it's starting

out here and we know you guys don't have a grid that can handle it.

So don't don't be putting everything on me.

You know, it's gotten better from what I heard.

All right, look at look at that side profile.

Okay.

So this is a side profile for those of you watching on YouTube.

And now okay, I got the got the inside.

Actually, let's go back another post and then we're going to look at that thing.

Look at that thing brother.

Look at that thing.

Why don't you have one of these?

Let's be real.

Hey, he bought this from Mannheim.

Why don't you have one of these?

I watched the auction for this particular one.

Yes, he has it on he had it on his YouTube.

So Nick Roshan.

Look man, don't know the guy.

I give shout out to the things that that that need a shout out.

This needed a shout out.

Look at this thing.

Holy shit.

Good for you, my guy.

That is unbelievable.

This is it's a power top too.

Oh, it is a power top.

Yeah.

Eight cylinder 38,000 miles.

Yeah, I think it went for like 49.

Wow.

49 grand.

Look at that thing.

The Sultan of Brunei has several convertible that have sold for six figures.

Older, older models for anybody that's this kind of a car nerd.

The Sultan of Brunei collection is a very, very, very interesting and things that if

you're a real car guy, you're totally into all the one off stuff he has.

But dude, this is you live in SoCal.

I know exactly where this guy lives because I didn't live far from where he lives when I was there.

This is the ultimate beach cruise.

It even says that loaded truck like no other.

Queen Elizabeth custom convertible.

Unbelievable.

It is unbelievable.

Supercharged VA.

If you live in Carlsbad.

Is it super rare?

Can this be super rare?

Can this be called super rare?

It says one of two produced.

Is it?

Okay.

I don't know.

Nick, does this have your stamp of approval to be called?

Yes.

I will always put the stamp of approval on a convertible that shouldn't exist being rare.

This is unbelievable.

That was your question right there.

I will say this across the board.

I am such a fan of shit that shouldn't.

So he was looking at and bidding on this LMO2, which by the way, all-time SUV.

And it just got too pricey.

He couldn't buy it.

For those listening, this is Lamborghini LMO2 and I shifted over.

So the craziest thing to me is this thing pops up and he's just bidding on it.

I'm like, that's what I'm talking about.

With no regard is like I want it and I want it.

Yeah, it's so good.

And I will say that this is why I celebrate stuff and guys like him.

Because that is truly, you're buying something because you like it and it makes no sense.

Right?

You just go, this is something I want.

This to me is true enthusiast behavior.

Yeah.

Because you are into something that you don't even care why you're into it.

If anyone else is into it and only true nerds would be like, I can't believe this exists.

You have to be almost a Range Rover nerd to even be like into this.

I love seeing stuff like that.

And that's kind of what we're moving to like as a whole car enthusiast wise.

Like because I think less and less people actually care about the cars that they drive

day to day and for the most part might not have like a fun car at home.

You're really buying shit like this for those that really like when they see it at the gas station

or a Costco or wherever, they're going to be like, holy shit.

Like one in 10, one in 20, you're going to walk up to be like, dude, I can't.

Congratulations for buying this, right?

The rare breed that's out there.

Well, so let's talk about, you know, things that don't, I don't find interesting.

Like, I mean, this is kind of what I don't love about what's gone on with Porsche.

Okay, bud, you got this, you got a GT3, great car.

Why do you have it?

And then you talk to the person, you realize they have it because somebody else told them

that was cool.

When a guy buys something like this, he bought it because he thought it was cool.

Yeah.

And a very tiny percentage of people are ever going to understand why you thought it was cool.

Sit in the pocket.

But if you buy a GT3 and I start talking to you and you start telling me about your stitching,

I'm like, oh yeah, because this is what they told you was cool.

So let's sit in the pocket actually of this subject because I think you're right.

And I think growing up, we quickly maybe more than others have got out of the who thought

something was cool versus what I thought was cool and why I bought it or I have it.

And I think kids, like a lot of people who listen have kids, it might be taking naps,

it might be a little bit older, who are in this world where they're inundated with

stuff on social media and the internet all day, to where it's taking them longer to get out of

that. Does somebody think it's cool and should I buy it because someone else told me and someone

else's influence or whatever, there's got to be a way to bottle that up to what he just said.

Like, you got to understand that if you like the shit, buy the shit.

That's it.

That's all it comes down to.

And if somebody talks to you that doesn't know you and you can't explain to me why

it's cool, that means you didn't buy it because you think it's cool.

Yeah.

Can you imagine thinking about it like, huh?

If you walk up to somebody and they have just some like this obscure Range Rover with a soft

tire, I guarantee you he would talk for 10 minutes straight if you didn't interrupt them.

Yep.

You go to a cars and coffee and you talk to somebody, you know, let's talk at GT3 and

we're not trying to pick on that.

They can talk for a whole minute and a half.

And what you realize is you bought it because you could, which is fine, perfectly good reason

to buy something, but you didn't buy it because you were actually enthusiastic about it.

You just bought it because the internet told you it was cool.

Like that's what, that's a lot of things like I had somebody, I forget who it was.

So I apologize.

They were talking to me about something related to why I wouldn't buy a certain car.

Okay.

Cause somebody bought some BMW and overpaid for it.

And I go, that platform is just not cool to me.

Like it's a cool platform, but it's not something I want.

And they really didn't understand that.

They're like, well, I mean, it'd be a platform to own and maybe it goes up and I said, but

if it starts with, I don't, I'm not really that into it.

I'm out of it as an ownership thing.

I can talk about it.

We could shoot the shit about it, but I'm out of it as an owner.

I own the things I own because I think they're cool.

Do I think I drive down in my LX down the street and everybody's like, whoa, there's an LX.

No, no, I bought it because I like it.

I bought it because it's for me.

I think that's when I see people create a video or they're out and I talk to them.

That's what excites me.

Meaning like, oh, damn, this dude's brilliant.

Like I'm not a VW guy, but if I went to a VW show and all these guys had older ones and new ones

and they did this and they did that, I would be interested in that because I'm like, oh,

this guy bought, did this to his car because he thought it was interesting.

Yeah.

That's what I think I want everybody to understand is like, the reason I can crack jokes on

everybody's cars is because I assume everybody is operating that you bought what you liked.

Right.

So if you crack on my car, I go, okay, I bought it because I like it.

You know, it's funny though, most people do not operate that way.

We have found that out over tens of tens of millions of views and comments and everything

else where it's like, wow, you are in a weird, weird vacuum of just like,

we talk shit and bust balls on the show and in the discord or whatever because it's like a fun

thing to do and we all, everyone gets it.

Most of the people that are commenting on the reactions or the hot takes that we talk about

on the show, they don't seem to get it.

They still seem to think like there's a, there's like flash, there's like lights,

there's like a beam of light and attention and you have to say the right thing about

this certain car or maker or manufacturer or whatever.

Otherwise people are going to roast you for it.

Yes.

It's, it's like, if you say something about Toyota, you get all of those fanboys to not

understand the moment of, but if you bought it cause you like it, what I say should have

zero effect on you.

It should make you laugh.

As a matter of fact, if it's funny, it should make you laugh.

Yeah.

The problem is did I or you or, or a commentator make you think that what you thought about

that platform isn't actually true and now you bought that car because somebody on the

internet or your friend told you it was cool and now you go, well, now that pisses me off.

Nothing anybody says about any car I've ever owned.

I mean, I owned a Corvette.

I would have people crack jokes and I'm like, yeah, man, I paid no money for it.

I'm actually going to make money on this Corvette, which I had to be one of four people

globally that ever made money on that Corvette.

I had fun driving it.

Make all the new balance jokes you want.

It was a cool car.

Red, red, red guts, green pockets because I got that cash in that pocket.

Yeah.

So I'm like, I'm good, man.

Like it didn't, it didn't, and by the way, the jokes were funny.

I laughed.

I made more jokes,

but I bought the car because I go, I'd like to have this experience.

It's a great deal.

I'm going to go ahead and have the experience.

I didn't buy it because somebody told me that Corvette is awesome.

Welcome to the Clutch Culture Couch, our therapy session for this evening has ended.

Let's run through before we land the plane officially.

We did talk about a couple of these cars from the New York auto show,

which by the way, before we talked about some of them, obviously the Boulder,

the expedition, but these auto shows, I mean, I'm personally hearing less and less about

these auto shows.

Are they still a thing, Nick, in your opinion?

And if so, for what?

Because it's not for the consumer, really, it's for journalists.

They're still a thing.

How do I want to say this?

Take your time.

They're still a thing because sometimes corny things just have longer life than they should.

I don't see any value as a consumer of cars that you have an auto show with quote unquote

journalists that aren't really journalists that are just going to give the press release

that you could have put out yourself anyway.

I think everybody would probably agree that that's incredibly low value.

But I would say the game behind the game is that's where a lot of benefits change hands

and plans are made to get the narrative out that you want, right?

We get back to I've never been paid off.

Well, the auto show and the trinkets and the trips and the dinners and things like that,

that is a level of payoff.

So I think a lot of this is about narrative control, which it's been about for decades.

That's not a 2026 thing.

I think it's honestly just very corny at this point because it's been misused.

It hasn't modernized.

They haven't held anything to account when cars are said this is going to go into production

and they go into production and they look 180 degrees differently.

Who holds them accountable?

Certainly not the people in that room because, again, you want to go on the trips.

You want to go on the dinners.

You want to get the trinkets.

You want to get the race suit.

You want to get the helmet that you didn't pay for.

All that kind of stuff is why this stuff still exists in my view.

I think there's an incredible mismanagement of all this that it could be cool.

But I think that's the same thing about SEMA.

I think SEMA needs to reinvent itself.

It's 2026.

You need to reinvent yourself.

You need to do things a little different.

They're not going to do that because the people at the helm of these things,

there's all of these ancillary benefits of the people around these auto shows and different

things that you're not aware of as the consumer and that's why they exist.

I thought for a little while that with AI and maybe even augmented reality,

what these auto shows should do is just create the AI augmented reality version of the show.

What made me think of it was before baseball practice the other day,

my boy and I were watching one of the Spiderman's and it's one like Tony Stark.

I think Jake Gyllenhaal's in that one.

He's doing all these hologram effects.

Imagine you just let the new Atlas or whatever, the new expedition was out

and you could see it would deliver to your email through AI on a computer

or if you had like spectacles or whatever you would see, everything you would see

essentially through like a rendering of really cool.

I mean, somebody connected us.

I mean, my business partner Marshall has been on this for five, six, seven years.

He has thought that this is what should be happening.

But the thing I always say is we haven't gotten wide adoption of the headsets

and homes and things like that.

A lot of those programs have gone away and been diminished inside of tech companies.

But I think it's a great point.

I just think that things need to be reinvented.

But we also, again, reverse engineering it, understanding why they're not being reinvented

because there's a lot of things going on behind the scenes and a lot of benefits being given

and a lot of access being granted and a lot of gifts exchanging hands

that people magically think that's not money exchanging hands

and dinners that are being paid for, that that's largely you not being paid off

for covering something a certain way.

There's no doubt in my mind it should change.

It's not going to because there's all these behind the scenes things that are going on.

Dude, this is totally off subject, but this reminded me because you were talking about

the ancillary of things that go around and who makes money outside of those shows.

It reminded me of this John Daly story I just heard yesterday.

Do you hear how much money he makes during the Masters?

Oh, it's unbelievable.

And the Hooters close and now he's going somewhere else?

Dude, how funny is that?

It's kind of an example.

So imagine being at a car show or auto show and you have these people that can pop up somewhere

set up and make money off the car business because they don't make money in the car business.

This was just funny because he makes like a million plus off of merch, appearances,

signing things obviously, because he just commands that presence.

And there's people like that in the auto world too that really don't have much to do other than

just kind of be there and make some money off being there.

And like I said, race suits that get paid for that are very expensive that you didn't hear about.

I've seen some very expensive race helmets that magically pop into people's videos and you go,

well, he was just on this trip and that looks a little suspicious.

And then a year later, it kind of slips out of their mouth.

Like, yeah, I went on this Bentley launch and I got this helmet and they're like,

I haven't been paid off.

But the one thing that he's speaking about Bentley,

Bentayga is going to have an off-roader.

Really?

They're going to do the Bentley Bentayga off-roader.

That's supposedly...

I don't have that pulled up, but I got it.

Hey, if you go to your lodge and quail hunt, you know, pheasant hunt,

you know, you're going to be able to rock your Bentayga.

Where did you see it?

Did you see it online?

Oh, wait a minute.

Let me make sure to not say let's go out of excitement that might upset some older people.

Hey, people get real upset with that.

They're like, don't say let's go.

That's so stupid.

I'm like, all right.

Okay.

I'll just say, yay.

Okay.

This is what I'm looking at right here.

Lifted Bentley Bentayga could preview production model.

If it shares, dude, it is coming down outside.

Oh, yeah.

That's really cool, actually.

Hell yeah, it is.

Wow.

Hell yeah, it is.

Wow.

That looks pretty.

If you're ever going to take a trip in your Bentayga across the Arctic, here's your photo.

I'm a huge fan of white wheels, by the way.

When it looks good, it looks good.

And those are well done.

Those are very well done.

But the tires, the whole thing.

The white wheels that are now brown on your Civic hatchback, not good.

Wow.

Civic taking strays for no reason.

Hey, sorry, I got to say it.

You guys know what I'm talking about, the brown white wheels.

Come on.

But that looks sick.

That looks really cool.

I mean, you can basically take anything at this point that's like

high priced and safari it.

And you're like, yeah, it looks good.

That's true.

I mean, it's unbelievable.

Who's the prime customer of this thing?

I think you were just describing them all.

The guy that's going across the Arctic.

That's true.

So the two people.

No, I mean, rich ranches, guys that have hunting lodges.

I don't think people realize if you've never actually been, and I think you could say this,

I've been lucky enough to be invited to some places.

Customers, mine, whatever.

There are people that just have these places they go to one or twice a year.

And you go, there's how many Ferraris here?

There's how many safari, bentegas.

It could be for any reason.

I think when they do it, this is a great use of press to a guy like me as an enthusiast.

You go, I don't care if you sell any of them.

Thanks for the article.

Thanks for putting it together.

I don't care how many you sell.

I know I'm not going to own one and I'm not going to be around them,

but I'm glad I got to look at it.

I like to see the picture.

I was going to say, I'd like to see the.

Yeah.

So this is kind of what I said about C8 Corvette.

I don't care how many manuals you're going to sell.

I just want to see that it exists.

All right, fair.

Instead of spending money on the LA car show,

how about you just make the C8 manual that we know you're not going to sell a ton of,

but it looks cool on the internet and you get some press out of it.

That is a better use.

That's, that's innovating right there.

That's innovation.

But you see my point.

If you didn't like money on fire at the New York auto show,

I would be like, oh, you guys are fiscally responsible.

That's why you're not doing certain things.

No, you just, you just blow money everywhere.

That's a good point.

You want to go out to steak dinners that don't matter at all.

And I had somebody ask me this or actually it was in a comment.

It's like, well, I need to see the Hyundai in the, in a car and driver review.

And I just put a thousand laughing about it.

And I'm like, you know, some people really, really like wholeheartedly will not buy it

unless one of these big publications have made.

It's like, I'm here to tell you something guys, that car could blow up while they're driving it.

Give it 10 out of 10.

You're never going to be able to hear that.

They give it 10 out of 10.

True.

That cars have caught fire at press events.

And not a bad thing was said.

And not a bad thing was said about the car.

This is not opinion.

Okay.

This is not Nick's opinion.

Rob's opinion.

This has happened.

So when I read that, but that's what I think is cool about doing this bentega.

Cool, man.

I don't care how many you're going to sell.

Who cares who it fits?

Who cares?

If there, if I know there are a hundred floating around the world, I'm good.

That would be pretty cool, right?

Like, I'm good.

It's something to talk about, something cool to look at.

I don't care if you sell a thousand of them, a hundred of them, two of them.

It's just some of this stuff needs to be done out of interest, because how many of you

thought about Bentley bentega on a random Friday?

Not unless I'm listening to Tim Dillon.

That's it.

He does talk about Bentley's a lot.

It's so weird.

It's so funny.

He's like, I had one, I'm never own one again.

I'm actually never going to drive again.

I'm always going to be driven around.

All right.

As we land the plane, I can tell Nick's brain's firing on all synapses here.

I'm going to pull up the list of the cars from the show.

And I just want you to say the first thing that comes to mind.

Just got it.

Okay.

We'll have listeners just feel what you've got to say about everything.

All right.

Here we go.

The 27 Pacifica, which we did show last week.

Bad redesign.

The expedition.

Fixed the tailgate.

The Genesis GV70 prestige.

Too expensive.

So expensive.

The wing back.

10 out of 10.

Dude, it's so good.

I hope this actually makes it somewhere.

And by the way, same brand.

He didn't say Genesis.

So everybody out there thinks I'm hating on Genesis.

Genesis wing back.

This looks awesome.

The Boulder, Hyundai Boulder concept.

Looks good.

Fair.

We did talk about the Infinity QX65, which could be a callback to the FX.

Not, didn't go far enough.

Yeah, kind of ruined it.

The Kia EV3.

Pointless.

So pointless.

The Kia PV5 EV van.

They might have something if it wasn't EV.

I think Volkswagen.

They could learn from Volkswagen there.

Yes, I would like that if it wasn't EV.

Kia Seltos.

Who cares?

Subaru Forester Wilderness Hybrid.

How many more trim models are we going to do of these?

Subaru getaway.

It's an electric SUV.

It's you already have SUVs in this plate.

OK.

At a loss for word.

So don't need a third, a three row electric SUV for Subaru.

No, no.

And the Volkswagen Atlas, 27 Atlas.

Front needs a redesign.

Yeah, they try to blend too much Audi with it.

Too much lighting up front with too much paint below it.

It doesn't look right.

And that was it.

That was our New York auto show.

Yep, it definitely needed to exist, folks.

We gave you the highlights you could have just gotten an email.

Yeah, it could have been just an email.

Wow.

Well, gotta love the world that we're living in.

If you guys want to join the Discord, go to clutch.club.

If you haven't yet, we have some, oh, shout out to the Spotify listeners.

I got to figure out how I can go in to the Spotify side of our distribution

and reply to some of your comments there.

I went back to the beginning of just this year.

Had a couple of cool comments.

Appreciate you guys listening on Spotify.

Most people listen on Apple.

Do you listen on Apple or Spotify?

What do you use your podcast?

Really?

Spotify.

Yeah, Apple Podcast, I think, is worse.

It's a worse experience.

I have them both, but I just don't like the experience on Apple.

They've been updating it a lot here recently,

and they're actually incorporating video soon, I believe, in the summer.

Well, Spotify already has that.

I know, but I don't even know why.

Honestly, nobody really watches video from what I've read.

Well, dude, Netflix went all in on it.

Oh, yeah, well, that's another thing, too.

We're going to see big publications buying podcasts, I feel like,

to try to control more of the flow of information.

So everybody knows we're for sale.

Hey, how big of a check and you're right.

I told you, I've never said anything negative about the Saudis.

So again, my email, you know, if you guys want to buy a podcast,

we have a deal for you.

Oh, boy, if you just saw the metrics, you'd be like,

are you guys rolling in it?

You would think, you would think.

We do this out of the goodness of our hearts.

Yeah, for you, for the people, and for Joel's baby,

for Joel's babies, and it's nap time.

ClutchCulture Podcast at gmail.com.

Clutch.club is where you find the invite to the Discord.

I hope you enjoyed the episode.

We'll see you guys next week.

See you guys.

0:00

72:51

#074 - The Camaro is BACK! New GM Sedans & Jimmy, Porsche Sales Drop, Chinese EVs & More

F-150 Raptor

Chevrolet Corvette

Chevrolet Camaro

GM

power plant

Dodge Charger

Dodge Challenger

General Motors

Honda Accord

Toyota Camry

Ford Mustang

30% interest

Chinese EV

EVs

semiconductors

reboot of a modern neon

market share

Jim Farley

Toyota Corolla

rear turn signal

dealership

removable tops

leaked design data

auction

eight cylinder

buying something because you like it (no practical sense)

SEMA

car show or auto show

lifted

white wheels

About this episode

Original notes