Clutch Culture Podcast Jan 5, 2026

2026 Kickoff Show, Perfect Condition Trades, New TRX, VW vs Scout, So Long Volvo V60 & more

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Car

Toyota Cars Toyota

The Toyota Camry is a popular car that is known for being dependable and good on gas. It's comfortable to drive and is a great choice for everyday use.

Brand

Kia

Kia is a car brand from South Korea that makes many different kinds of cars. They are popular because they offer good features for the price and have a long warranty.

Term

reconditioning fees

Reconditioning fees are extra charges that car dealerships might add when selling a used car. They cover the costs of fixing up the car and making it look nice before selling it.

Car

The Hyundai Palisade is a large family-friendly SUV that has lots of space for passengers and cargo. It's known for being safe and having cool technology features, which makes it a good choice for families.

Term

engine

The engine is what makes the car go. It uses fuel to create power that moves the car.

Term

transmission

The transmission helps the car change speeds and makes it easier to drive, connecting the engine to the wheels.

Term

recall

A recall happens when a car company asks car owners to bring their cars back for repairs because of a problem that could be dangerous or affect how the car works.

Brand

Mercedes

Mercedes is a well-known car brand from Germany that makes luxury cars and is famous for their quality and technology.

Brand

Ferrari

Ferrari is a famous car brand from Italy that makes very fast and expensive sports cars.

Term

used car

A used car is one that someone else has owned before you. They usually cost less than new cars but might need some repairs or maintenance.

Term

PDR

PDR is a way to fix small dents on a car without having to repaint it. It's a quick and less expensive method to make your car look better again.

Term

tires

Tires are the round rubber parts that help your car move on the road. They can be expensive, and the price can add up quickly depending on what kind you need.

Term

trade-in

A trade-in is when you give your old car to a dealership to help pay for a new one. The dealership will look at your old car and decide how much it's worth.

Term

dealership lot

A dealership lot is where you see cars for sale at a dealership. It's the parking area where they keep the cars that are ready to be sold.

Part

blower

A blower is a part that helps an engine get more air, which can make the car go faster. It pushes air into the engine to create more power.

Term

rust belt

The rust belt is an area in the U.S. known for factories and heavy industry. Cars in this region can rust quickly because of the salt used on roads in winter.

Term

corrosive

Corrosive means something can eat away at materials, like metal. Salt on roads can damage cars by causing them to rust.

Car

Mercedes-Benz S63 AMG

The Mercedes-Benz S63 AMG is a fancy and fast luxury car that offers a lot of comfort and high-tech features. It's designed for people who want both performance and luxury in their vehicle.

Term

MSRP

MSRP is the price that the car maker suggests you pay for a new car. It's like a starting price that you can negotiate with the dealership.

Term

depreciation

Depreciation is how much a car loses value over time. Most cars, especially expensive ones, drop in price quickly after you buy them.

Term

rock chip

A rock chip is a small damage on your car's windshield or paint caused by a rock hitting it. If you don't fix it, it might get worse over time.

Term

PPF

PPF means Paint Protection Film, which is a clear layer put on a car to protect its paint from scratches and chips. It's especially used on the front part of the car.

Brand

Bentley

Bentley is known for making luxury cars that are powerful and very comfortable, often used by rich people.

Brand

Rolls Royce

Rolls Royce makes very expensive and luxurious cars that are often custom-made for wealthy customers.

Car

Honda Civic

The Honda Civic is a small car that many people drive because it's dependable and saves on gas. It's a common choice for new drivers and those looking for an affordable vehicle.

Car

Toyota Tacoma

The Toyota Tacoma is a sturdy pickup truck that many people use for work or outdoor activities. It's known for being tough and reliable.

Brand

Porsche

Porsche is a car brand from Germany that makes fast and luxury cars. They are well-known for their sports cars, especially the 911 model.

Brand

Lamborghini

Lamborghini is a luxury car brand from Italy that makes very fast and expensive sports cars. They are famous for their flashy designs and powerful engines.

Car

Bugatti Chiron

The Bugatti Chiron is a very expensive and powerful car that can go really fast. It's designed for people who want the best in speed and luxury.

Car

Mazda Cx5

The Mazda CX-5 is a smaller SUV that is fun to drive and has a nice interior. It's a good option if you want a vehicle that looks good and is easy to handle.

Car

Dodge Ram

The Dodge Ram is a big pickup truck that is great for carrying heavy loads and towing trailers. It's also comfortable to drive, making it a popular choice for both work and everyday use.

Car

Jeep Cherokee

The Jeep Cherokee is a smaller SUV that can handle rough roads and off-road adventures. It's popular because it looks tough and can take you places other cars can't go.

Car

Toyota Grand Highlander

The Toyota Grand Highlander is a bigger SUV that can fit more people and their stuff. It's known for being reliable and safe, which is great for families.

Car

Acura MDX

The Acura MDX is a fancy SUV that has a lot of room and nice features. It's a good choice if you want something comfortable and stylish for your family.

LIVE

Nick, welcome to 2026.

Everybody, if this is your first time tuning in to the Clutch Culture Podcast,

this is your number one car culture-related podcast on planet Earth.

This is the beginning of season two, AKA year two.

Talk about car predictions, trends, all kinds of everything in between,

but more importantly, give you a good, not good important, but a good hang every single Monday.

I'm still feeling New Year's Eve clearly, as you can tell.

Oh, yeah, too many Bud Lights.

Too many, yeah, too many Nunes, is Nick.

By the way, the Tequila Nunes, those are new around here.

I don't know if you've tried them.

Yeah, yeah, those are good too.

So good.

Yeah, no, I'm in, but you gotta make a decision when you start the year.

Yeah.

What's your what's your Resolute New Year, New You?

Yeah, yeah.

You know, what's your resolution?

What are you going to give up some Nunes?

Are you going to give up some bad food?

I mean, it all starts out great for everybody.

It does. When does it start to derail, you think, for most people?

Week two.

He didn't even go month two, he said week two.

No, as you know, you've been big in the gym culture.

I may have had an investment in a gym or two in my life and

January 31st, it's pretty sparse.

Yeah.

So I would say it's a good couple of weeks.

I mean, about the 15th is about when things fall off.

You're not wrong, dude.

But I mean, before we get into car talk, I will say,

that is one of the things, maybe you and I,

I know we align on this.

It like, every year trying to get a little better,

whether it's down the, you know, whatever compounding

pharmacies are developing these days where you're like,

I can, can I see better?

Can I move better?

Can my bones and joints not hurt as much?

Like, let me just dabble in these things.

Like that's what I want to do every year more and more,

you know, as things come out, as you, you know,

you may be acquired a little bit of wealth,

to where you're like, I'm going to,

I'm not going to go LeBron James, right?

Where I'm doing a million dollars on my health,

but it's got to be at the top importance.

Yeah, you got to, and look,

we got this whole peptides talk that's gotten pretty heated.

I think there's something with all this stuff.

Obviously, you know, look, if you,

if you've been around enough people

that have major injuries from sports,

they're using a lot of peptides.

So I'm kind of with you.

It's like, what do you dabble in?

That's maybe like a better question.

Like, Hey, what do I try this year?

Yes.

You know, and you can just always

run a whole bunch of tests and just get jacked.

Yeah, I mean, that's kind of what I'm leaning.

Like we have a CRISPR drawer

that doesn't get really used in the fridge.

How far can I fill this thing?

Yeah.

How about I get my neck up to my ears?

Dude, I want Brock Leser traps

or Vitor Belford traps to back in the day.

I'll give you the all time.

Bill Goldberg.

Oh, I love me some Bill Goldberg,

but that guy gets more trash online

because of how good of a wrestler he wasn't,

if we're all being honest.

You remember those traps though?

Boy, last night,

it looks like he was deep in the shrug game.

Oh, before, yes, the shrug game.

He was injecting those shrugs, as I was saying.

You ain't lying.

Last night, I saw the one where he,

Jack Hammers, the big show,

or at the time, the giant.

And I forgot, I was like, this guy,

I mean, the big show had like this long,

luscious mane of hair

and then he just goes straight up

and he's like eight foot tall.

And I was like, what a crazy time.

And that rings tiny too

that WCW ring was so small.

100% dude, it was wild.

Good times.

All right, everybody,

if you've been keeping up with the socials

over the last week or two,

I would say since Christmas Eve,

the Christmas Eve miracle continued

for a second year in a row.

And it wasn't just on a video.

It was on a slew of videos

and to which we're actually still replying back to people

because we like to engage with the people.

We're men of the people, as I like to say.

Yep.

And I just wanted to get your feedback on

or your thoughts on it, dude.

Like it was not just a Toyota video,

like a lot of them have been.

It wasn't just like a Defender video.

It was across all kinds of stuff.

Kia, Hyundai, affordable cars, Toyota engines,

trucks, old trucks, new trucks,

truck pricing, a ton of engagement

across a ton of viral videos

from Christmas Eve to today.

And we could start the year on a better note.

I think, I mean, one of the reasons

we talk so much about comments on the internet,

meaning on this show,

is not to talk about it negatively, right?

Which I think that's the way

a lot of people think we're talking about it

because if somebody disagrees with you,

you just assume you're going to talk negatively.

I think it's been a window.

You know, it's been a window.

We've gotten, I know I've gotten texts

and calls from people in the car industry

that go, hey man, watching your content,

it's really illuminating what people are saying

on things that everybody in the industry

actually knows already.

And it's like settled science almost amongst us of like,

look at the Hyundai Kia thing.

There's settled science the way people, mechanics,

even dealer owners, aftermarket shops,

detail shops, people that work on them.

There's a lot of settled beliefs of what you see

around those types of vehicles from care perspective,

from falling apart perspective, from engine perspective.

It's almost settled science.

And then you find out that's just not what the public sees

because they don't have the level of experience

of owning a dealership or running a dealership

or being in the finance arm of things

or being in a mechanic shop.

And so I think I want everybody,

as we start 2026 to understand

where we're coming from on comments is,

hey man, there's some things to have a laugh about,

but some of this, a lot of it,

has been illuminating to a lot of people,

including ourselves to go, whoa,

people just don't know how this stuff works.

Yeah, and one of the most illuminating ones

was actually in that Kia video,

where in my notes I say,

it seems like a lot of people have a lot of perfect cars.

Oh, buddy.

A lot of people have perfect conditioned cars.

This is probably something I've been around

because I'm in the aftermarket care of cars.

I have never had anybody call me

and tell me their vehicle is trashed.

Yet I've had a ton of vehicles

that I've pulled up to that are trashed.

My car's not that bad.

Then you get in there and there's like a six-week-old

pedometer and jelly in the seat

and gum in the carpet and that paint is destroyed

and the wheels are destroyed.

It's amazing how the average car owner

has really never been educated.

And I don't want to blame them

because we don't talk about this as a car industry.

They don't realize that their cars are not even,

sometimes even in average shape

and they think it's in great shape.

And that really goes to other...

I have other notes here,

but I want to hang on that for a little bit

just because that ties into,

okay, what does the market look like on the you side

if so many perfect cars are going into being traded, right?

What does the prices look like?

What are these reconditioning fees

that people are always talking about?

Are they real?

Am I absorbing just boo-boo kind of charges?

So that whole sliver could take a whole podcast, right?

Because I don't know of too many people

and I know you probably legitimately do have great cars

if you were to trade it in,

what's the phrase whenever you trade it in

and it goes right to the front row or right on the line?

Yeah, front row ready.

Front row ready, right?

Basically.

I would probably be a half step behind you

where they might have to put a little bit into it,

but not like most people.

And as someone who delivered a lot of aftermarket parts

to OEM warehouses and dealers

and I saw a lot of the cars coming in,

I never really was like,

wow, that car looks perfect.

Wow, it was always like,

damn, the thing's trash.

Like how much money are they going to have to put into this

that they can actually get out of it?

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

This is an excellent conversation.

So the most profitable parts of a dealership

are used cars, service and parts.

Notice I said nothing about a new car.

None of that stuff relates to a new car, period.

All of the money in dealerships,

used cars, service and parts.

That's the biggest profit center.

Now they may sell more new cars,

but whether people want to believe this or not,

most dealerships don't make all of that,

all of their money on the new car sales.

Even though we've watched prices get out of control,

that's why I've said over and over

for the last year and a half,

year and a couple months, guys,

the manufacturers are the ones

that are setting these prices for the most part.

I get there's markups,

I get we went through a wild time,

but most of the time,

like you have things like Nissan dealerships,

even Hyundai Kia dealerships and places like that,

those dealers don't make that much money on new cars.

Certainly not to build the buildings that they have

and cover the bills that they have.

So the biggest misunderstanding in used car trade-in

is what we see in the comments of a Hyundai Kia,

you know, I've went 150,000 miles,

my exterior is perfect, my interior is perfect,

I haven't had to replace one thing.

Again, guys,

if we all agree on a premise here,

I think the conversation will make more sense.

If you believe that dealers

are always trying to get over on you,

then why would they want to put money

into a used car they just purchased?

Right?

Every dollar they put into a used car

is less money that they make.

It's very reasonable to take.

Yeah, yet,

depending on the type of car,

every dealership automatically has a recon fee,

reconditioning fee,

that they have internally for every car

that you guys trade in.

It's somewhere between $1,503,000,

that they automatically budget to fix up your car

that's supposedly to you in perfect shape.

So why would they automatically be willing to spend

and have a line item on their budget of that car

that when we buy Rob's car,

we are going to throw somewhere between $1,503,000

of our money into that car to get it

to a level where we can sell it on our dealership lot.

And that's where you start the conversation.

Do you think people,

like how likely is it for,

let's just say the average Joe to go get his car,

pray, he's thinking about trading it in on a,

we'll just keep on the conversation,

a new Palisade or something.

And to him, it's in really good condition.

So he goes and gets it appraised

and they give him a number.

He's like, I'll think about it.

And then he goes and does what we would might consider

being $1,500 to $3,000 worth of reconning himself.

Not obviously not going to cost him that much.

And then he goes back, are there,

are there odds that he'll get a good bump in trading value?

Yeah, I mean, we've done,

so in my business, we used to do case studies

when we were trying to land big clients.

And you can see a huge bump

if you actually turn in a car

that's considered to be in excellent shape.

Now, let me tell you the percentages of that.

For most dealerships,

they're lucky to see 1% of cars on trade-in in excellent shape.

Kelly Blue Book says roughly about 3% of cars

on the road are in excellent shape.

That's just the margin of error.

They use 3% because that's the margin of error

if you have like voting tolls, polls and things like that.

People got to realize something.

In my line of work, 3% would be a high number.

Yes.

I mean, it's one out of 100,

mechanically in excellent shape,

exterior in excellent shape,

interior in excellent shape, that's one out of 100.

And every car that my customers trade in

that have been working with me for a long time,

they get a huge benefit because we handle

getting every recall or engine or transmission thing

handled from Ferrari to Mercedes to whatever car

we are dealing with.

But there's a huge delta, let's say,

between what the consumer thinks is excellent

and what is actually excellent

when you run a car-based business.

That delta has been massive

for the 25 years I've been around it.

And no place is clearer than going to an auto auction.

And you go, oh, man, but remember,

every car at that auto auction,

basically unless a dealer is running new cars through there

is a used car.

And it's a rough place to look at cars.

You have to be able to visually see what you have to do.

You have to know numbers in your head,

what's the cost to get panels repainted.

Like there's really simple things

that almost every used car has.

Door dings, they're going to have to get

PDR, paintless net repair.

They're going to most likely have to have one,

if not all, four wheels refinished.

Most used cars are going to have to have tires replaced.

Most used cars are going to have to have the interior

at the very least gone through and heavily detailed.

That's the best case scenario on most interiors.

Could be leather seat repair.

Could be steering wheel repair.

Could be, you know, headliner repair.

Could be leather.

I mean, all of these things are very normal

for dealerships to have to deal with.

I mean, holes in the carpet and different things that,

but those people will come onto a post

and say, my car with 150,000 miles

from a not so quality car builder is in perfect shape.

These are just the facts.

These really aren't Nick or Rob's opinion.

Why would a dealership that all of you say

are looking to get over on everybody

want to put 2,500 out?

By the way, we haven't talked about engines, transmissions,

warning lights, you know, check engine lights,

haven't had an oil change,

need the transmission fluid change,

need this, need that.

We just talked about the aesthetics.

Think about how much tires cost these days.

Oh, we know.

We all know, right?

I mean, you know, we all know.

I mean, you can piss away $1,200 pretty quick

on some tires, right?

$1,500 is just not that much money now.

And so when you look at this,

this is where people continue their process

of losing in the car business as a consumer.

If you don't know how the game works,

then you go to the dealership

and you go, well, they low-balled me on my trade-in.

Well, they looked at your trade-in

and it needs $3,200 worth of work

to get this to be able to be on the dealership lot.

They didn't low-ball you.

They have the budget in there,

in their line item,

that your car has to be refurbished.

And it's called recon, the recon department.

When we look at all of this,

the reason I say this is that

for the people that follow us

and so many of you ask us questions

about how to buy something,

where to buy something, how to...

Guys, it all starts with your car

being in truly excellent shape.

But I have news for you.

Most people don't know what that means.

That's where the problem really lies.

Yeah. And you know what?

We ended the year talking a lot about

maintaining your stuff.

Actually, all of last year,

that was a big message

if we had one in 2025,

which was take the advice of your shop mechanic

or go-to guy that you trust.

Do the maintenance as they suggest it,

if not sooner.

All that kind of stuff, right?

Just care for the car.

Can you imagine if there was a push?

And maybe there is.

Maybe tell me if you have heard this

in your line of work,

where the way that we go get a check-up every year,

like a yearly check-ups, right?

There's two ladies that listen to the show,

but let's just say most dudes

are not good about going

to get their yearly check-up, right?

They're just like, I'll do it later.

Next thing you know has been five years

before they've seen the doctor

or had a blood panel done.

So this is a lot of guys being dudes

in the garages right now being like,

I don't have time for that.

I got to put this new blower on this car

and I don't have time to go to the doctor, whatever.

But imagine if every January or so

at the beginning of the year,

you're like, I'm going to have my car gone through.

Either you do it

because you're just that well inclined

or you have to go to shop

and you just have it checked over.

I know so many people

that never go get their car

until something catastrophic happens.

The idea of getting your car checked on

is just like, it doesn't exist.

Yeah, 100%.

I'll tell you a weird thing.

I grew up in what you would call the rust belt,

the salt belt.

I see cars there.

There are people that just go the whole wintertime

without getting salt off their car.

And then they'll tell you

their car's an excellent shit.

And then they want to sell it to you for a premium.

I know what I have.

And we act like salt is this corrosive thing.

Yes, it is.

When you leave it on the car.

Right.

If it doesn't stay on the car,

it has no chance to be corrosive.

But I mean, there are people.

I grew up with them.

They were my friends, my family.

It's like, well, I'm not going to have my car

washed in the winter.

It's just going to get dirty again.

It's like, well, if the salt stays on there

all winter, but that's a negative.

That's a negative.

I remember growing up

and I had uncles.

I think even my dad would do this.

This is obviously in the mid 90s or so.

I can remember as a kid,

they wouldn't want to go to the beach

or they'd hate it because of the salt.

They'd be like, oh, it's going to get salt

all over the car.

Or like, if I was five or six

and I'd have known this, I'd be like,

well, we're going to wash it right after.

Like I know we're going to wash it.

100%.

Everybody should enjoy the hell out of their car,

their truck, whatever.

But you got to take care of it.

And look, that takes effort or it takes money.

There's only two ways that this works.

Either you're going to put the elbow grease in

or you're going to pay someone else

for their elbow grease.

That's all that it is here.

But we have, like a lot of things in life,

we've told consumers 25% or 50% of the story.

We haven't told them the entire story.

So if you look at, we did a case study

on an S63 AMG Benz,

as an example with a client we were trying to land.

They had a two year ownership window

because that's all they kept their cars.

And roughly, we basically said,

if you keep your car in excellent shape our way,

we promise you you'll not only recoup the money

you spend with us, but you'll recoup above that.

So when people traded that car in on average,

because we worked with the dealership on the case study,

they gave us the number.

Every S63 averaged about an $80,000 trade-in value

after two years.

And I forget what the MSRP was.

Maybe at that time it was 135 or 145,000, 150,000, whatever.

So it's a big loss in a two year period,

but it's a luxury sedan.

Those consumers don't really care about that.

They just want to drive big body Benz.

So we land this huge customer and I say,

do everything we tell you to do.

We'll handle everything.

Keep your car in perfect shape, literally in perfect shape.

And I guarantee you you'll recoup the money.

They spent about $10,000 with us

over the two year period.

They got $110,000 on their trade-in

when everybody else was averaging 80.

That's the impressive.

And also it tells you how well Nick knows his stuff.

Yes.

So I'll never forget this woman's still an excellent client

of ours today, has a lot of wealth,

cares for her cars on a level very few in the whole world do.

And she just goes, you were right.

We're going to do it your way from now on.

I will go six, seven, sometimes an entire year.

We won't even speak.

We can just go pick a car at whatever needs done.

Somebody accidentally door dings that we have PDR show up.

Some but some we see she got a rock chip.

We have it fixed.

We PPF the front end of her cars.

No questions asked.

Only time is I send her an email and say,

hey, we need to take your car.

We found a scratch.

We're bringing it to the shop.

Hey, a recall has happened.

We're taking it to the dealership.

Hey, we saw an oil leak, something weird could be happening.

Recently on a new car she has,

there was an electronic issue showing up.

We took it to the dealership.

We had it handled.

We still never talked.

I just sent her an email and said,

hey, we're taking your car to the dealership.

The thing that people have to understand,

what excellent means is way different

than what you've been told.

And again, this isn't to say you have to do any of these things.

But the more delusional you are

about the shape of your used car,

the more you're going to get taken advantage of on your trade-in.

And you think you're being taken advantage of

because they want to take advantage of you.

No, they're lowering the price

because they have to put that money back into the car.

I'm not saying it's a perfect system.

I'm just saying that's how the system works.

Interesting.

So in that time, I don't know how many of these you've done,

but do you have an example by chance of like,

that sounds like probably one of the best case studies.

Was there a worst or even a model around

what you thought may have?

Or even if you didn't work on it personally,

that you know that despite having taken care of it really well,

it did not return a higher or much higher.

There's some cars that that can happen to

that just become really undesirable

and that dealership doesn't care about what shape it is

because they know they probably can't sell it for a long time.

That can happen.

We see this a lot in the car collection world,

which is the world I spend a lot of my day,

that if people don't know,

I see a lot of people lose ungodly amounts of money

because their car collection is in disrepair.

And I know that people that have never been in this world

don't understand how do you have the money

to have all these cars

and how do they get into this repair?

I mean, I've had car manufacturers

that gave very famous people cars

that people would know

that the car company, Rolls Royce, Bentley, Ferrari,

call us in and go,

that person can't be seen driving around that car

we gave them in that shape.

Like that's actual stories we have.

And if I told people these people's names,

you'd be like, they have plenty of money.

I'm like, I don't know what to tell you.

They just don't take care of their stuff.

So we see this from Honda Civic

all the way up to Ferraris

where people just don't take care of their stuff.

And I know everybody thinks it's a wealth thing.

But if I've seen ultra-wealthy be in this situation

and I've seen people that are driving a 1995 Honda Civic

or I've seen it everywhere.

I've seen it from the top end to the bottom end

to everybody in between.

I mean, we had a guy stopped by last year

who had a three-year-old Tacoma.

The whole truck had to be repainted

because he never put any protection on it

and the car stayed outside 100% of the time.

And so three years, the whole thing was needed to be repainted.

All he had to do was protect the car.

You know who I can guarantee you?

I can see having a perfect 1% car.

John Cena, his Honda Civic.

I guess we wouldn't be able to see him technically.

All right, but you know what, if we see the car,

we wouldn't see him.

We couldn't see him, but we'd see the car.

That guy, I can tell, is just one of those

because he's just a meticulous, kind of well-spoken.

He's the way he dresses and the way he talks about his type R.

Like, apparently he just loves Honda Civics

and those driver's kind of cars.

But yeah, man, that's fascinating stuff.

And I didn't even take into account

that if the car just ends up being not desirable

through the ownership,

it doesn't matter what you're going to do to it,

which is a bummer.

No, I think about if you bought a Pontiac Aztec.

There were psychos like you around.

Oh, hold on.

They've gotten a resurgence of appreciation now.

They have actually.

By the way, in the time,

there were banks that wouldn't finance them new.

Well, those are smart banks.

Yeah, those are smart banks.

Those are smart banks.

Okay, so let's just say you owned it.

You kept it meticulous back in the day.

We're not talking about today,

but when you bought it new,

for three years you drove it around,

you're like, I love this thing.

I kept it looking perfect.

When you went to trade that thing in,

they'd be like, we'll give you like 12 bucks

and maybe a cup of coffee.

More like, are you going to pay us

to take this off your hands?

Yeah, I mean, so there are just cars

that people buy that are just so undesirable.

I think at times this is what you see.

I'm not saying this exclusively,

but the depreciation curve of EVs

kind of shows you that dealerships

don't know what to do with them, right?

So there would be a situation

where you would look around and go,

I'm not saying they're a bad car.

Dealers are just unsure

how to get them back into the market

and sell them in a quick manner.

So yeah, that will obviously

cause you to have big problems

if you have just a car that everyone doesn't like.

But if you take care of your car,

the money you put into your car,

you'll get back in some way, shape, or form

over what other people trading that car in are getting.

You know, I didn't even have this on my notes,

but I want to bring it up

because you mentioned,

you spend a lot of your time in the collectors' world

and over the holiday,

over the Christmas holiday,

we saw a significant amount of videos

and chatter about some of these

bigger known YouTube personalities

that might have their own collections

that don't feel like they might be

in the best position financially

going into the new year.

How do you think those situations tend to fair out?

Well, I mean, the numbers

that have been released

on some people's collection,

they've taken a huge hit.

I mean, they're taking a huge hit now.

I mean, that exotic market historically

has been volatile to the downside.

It's very rarely volatile to the upside.

We have a point in time now

where that's happening.

You see that with Porsches

or certain Lamborghinis

or certain Ferrari sure,

but if somebody buys a new hypercar, supercar,

they've oftentimes lost a lot more money

than people have really ever

been able to put into words

because it just wasn't as public.

Now you're seeing a lot of liquidation amongst

a lot of YouTubers.

Yeah.

And I think some of it has gone under the radar.

Some of it, those people,

those YouTubers have shared as content

and said, hey, I lost 200 grand here.

I lost 280,000 here.

But I think largely,

you're going to see liquidations go up.

I think it's inevitable.

I think the YouTube car bubble of supercars,

hypercars is kind of deflating.

I won't say it's bursting.

Yeah.

Because everybody's in a different financial position,

but it's already happened.

I mean, if you guys don't follow that stuff,

there's been a lot of liquidation already.

Yeah, it's pretty interesting.

What do you think it does, in your opinion too,

because we've been talking about this for a while,

as well, the interest has just started to shift

and maybe it's in our corner of the internet

because that's just the audience that we've developed.

It's what we talk about.

You made a really good comment

or reply to somebody where it was like,

nobody talks about some $40,000 cars

more on the internet than we do,

which is true.

So maybe we've garnered that attention.

But I think overall,

two outside of our corner of the internet,

more people do care about the LX kind of cars

or hatchbacks and more affordable, friendly cars,

maybe not because they can't themselves afford it,

but because they just don't find the interest

or the desire to go and spend the extra money

on the premium.

When you talk about the last 10 years,

all being basically how expensive of a car

can I show on my YouTube channel,

at some point, that becomes boring.

I mean, it just does.

It's still going to get views, right,

because it's still an exotic car.

But it doesn't build a loyal audience the way it once did.

It doesn't impress people the way it once did.

They've become numb to it.

You know, I've said this before,

when you used to see a Ferrari

or a Lamborghini driving,

you'd be like, oh, and I mean,

it would catch your eye.

Driving Houston now for a week

and you'll be numb to it in about 10 seconds, right?

Driving Vegas, you're numb to it.

Drive, you know, in Austin, you're numb to it.

And that comes from, we see them all over the Internet

as we've stated.

And so it's just become another car to talk about.

It hasn't become, the specialness

of all of this stuff has just kind of waned.

You know, we're talking about the super car exotic world.

There's a gentleman, I don't know who it is

or what the story is behind it,

but I just started seeing some guy

that picked up a Bugatti who's 3D printing it, right?

And Bugatti- Oh, I haven't seen this.

No? Oh, dude, I don't know who it is.

Just real quick, just because I mentioned it,

I brought it up.

There was a guy that picked up a Rex Chiron

and I don't know who it is,

so I'll look at it throughout the episode

to see if I can find it.

But essentially, I think Bugatti offered

to have the car flown back to their place.

Oh, I'm sure they did.

Yeah, right.

I'm sure they did make that offer pretty quick.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And because they don't want him doing this, obviously.

And the guy basically made a video saying,

I'm going to use the word exposed

because I feel like it gets overused,

but he's going to expose what it takes

to rebuild these cars cosmetically.

I don't know exactly how much mechanically

he's going to redo, but it's just a really interesting play

on the supercar world right now.

If you go in the Bugatti world,

I mean, there's a lot of VW parts.

I mean, this is what it is, right?

So I think it'd be fun to watch.

One of the things I'm watching really heavily right now,

just because I think it's interesting,

is I'm a big fan of the M539 restoration channel.

I hope you guys do give that guy support.

I think it's just interesting how he tears down cars.

He just bought a Bentley that he got for like 12,000 dollars

or 12,000 pounds or whatever.

But he's just finding all kinds of issues.

He took it on its first test drive

and started to overheat.

And that's like, I don't know what it is.

Like that's just more interesting.

Yeah.

But the idea that Bugatti cares about him

doing this to a Bugatti.

No, they want his money.

I mean, let's talk about what it is.

I mean, they want his money.

He talked about, okay, so the channel,

I believe, is FX Alex G.

I haven't seen that channel.

I can check it out.

Me neither.

But I bought a broken $6 million Bugatti

and tried to repair it.

So I've been seeing this guy pop up.

Again, there's a lot of car YouTubers out there.

So the fact that I haven't seen the channel

that's got nearly a million subs,

at this point isn't even surprising

because there's just so many people doing different stuff.

100%.

And when it pops, it pops.

It's like this channel, it's upwards of,

I think, reaching 4,000 subscribers.

If people that never have started a creative endeavor

to get to your 4,000,

which is kind of where the milestone is

for monetization, I think, for a lot of channels,

I know they change it all the time.

But usually this takes people years to do.

And we did it in almost 12, 11, 13 months.

People like this, if something pops,

I mean, he could have had 20,000 followers

and then bought this Bugatti

and came out of the undergrounds

of whatever he does

and got a million overnight, essentially.

So I'm going to keep up with this

because I find it interesting.

And he also said,

they just want me to send my car there.

They're going to keep it for a year.

They're going to charge me all this money.

And that's kind of the name of the game,

which you just described that perfectly.

Yeah, and one of the things is,

that's what they're supposed to do.

We're getting a lot of these comments of,

I took my car into a dealership

and they gave me an offer on my car.

Yeah, guys, they make money on that.

If you got a car they know they can sell,

they're going to give you an offer.

And people are very shocked by that.

But that's what good dealers do,

is get used car inventory.

I've seen a lot of,

I saw a dealership owner on a video

say something very interesting,

that they have basically stopped going

to the auto auctions

and started to buy used cars locally.

And the problem is,

it's like blown up in his face.

He's like,

yeah, I mean, we thought this would work,

but we're a year in

and we don't have enough,

like the name of the used car game is inventory.

Right.

Like it's a worthwhile endeavor

to do what he did

and say,

hey, we're going to try to get out

of the auto auction world

because there's some,

you have to be very good at it.

You have to understand what you're doing.

You have to allocate money

and all this kind of stuff.

Guys, the reason you're getting offers

on your used cars,

the reason Bugatti is talking to this guy

is because that's where they make their money.

Send it back to us,

get it into our dealership.

It doesn't matter what car you drive.

If they know that they can sell it

or make money repairing it,

that's what they want to do.

Dude, it's a fascinating world.

And when you don't live in it,

I can understand where we have

these bitter listeners,

or just people on the internet

that are just commenting on stuff.

But if you kind of learn the game,

and Nick and I talked about this on the phone,

it becomes more enjoyable

to just participate in.

There's no other way to phrase it.

You just got to put the work in.

Like the story that we covered last week

about the 104 dealers and the guys

found the best and worst price

or even the example I've given

with the CX-5,

you know, I hit it up.

I think it was like 19 to 20,

we'll just say dealerships.

And I didn't go nationwide.

I probably could have gotten

an even better deal.

But at 20,

most people I know will not reach out

to more than two or three

if they're within like a 10,

15 mile radius of their home.

Well, we have to say this.

So we put out a video about pricing.

And you know, there's dealerships

that publish pricing

and then there's dealerships

that don't publish pricing

and they want you to come

into the dealership.

And a guy goes,

I was trying to think of

where you're going.

And a guy goes,

if they don't give me the price

over the phone,

I'm not going in.

And I'm like,

okay, I mean,

I get if it's in Washington

D.C. and you live in Vegas,

you're like, I can't just stop

by the dealership.

But we know you're talking

about the dealers in your area.

What is the big deal

of stopping by a dealership

to get a price?

I don't know.

You tell me.

I don't know.

Or do you think the logic

was behind that comment?

Because I said you didn't want

to get one over on them, I guess.

I think people just get offended

by things that aren't offensive.

It's like, guys,

it's just a strategy that they use.

But if I really want a car

and they have it

and I drive by the dealership

or I'm within 20 minutes

of the dealership,

which most of you are,

I'll just stop by and say,

hey, what do you want on that vehicle?

It's just not that big

of a deal to me.

I think Nick told me on the phone

he was like, can you imagine

I'm living in a smaller town

where there's not a lot

of dealerships,

like by Houston or Austin

or Vegas,

and they got something

that I like and I'm just

driving by like, I'm not

going to go in there

because they won't tell me

the price of it.

I mean, it's like,

it's like, that's where

you're going to draw the line.

It just, but you see

that people put themselves

behind the eight ball

as consumers over things

that just aren't that big

of a deal.

Like guys,

don't put a car

on an auction site

with door dings on it.

Just call a PDR company

and have them handled

and then take the photos.

Like it's just not

that big of a deal.

If you've got curved wheels,

just have a wheel repair

company come out to your house.

Most of them are mobile now

and go ahead

and have the wheels

repaired before you

put it on an auction site.

Like this isn't rocket science.

That was just so funny too

because it was the next voice

that he does it on the podcast.

He's like, well, I'm not going to stop by this deal.

I'm not stopping.

No, you didn't give me the price,

brother.

I'm not stopping it.

You ain't getting over on me.

I'm not falling for your little games.

It's like, what's the game?

Let's ask him for the price.

Keep the car that I like.

That's all you want.

I love this car.

I'm not going to stop

because you wouldn't give me

a price over the phone.

Oh, that's so funny.

Oh, God.

All right.

We talked about earlier,

dealerships not making money.

Right.

We talked about that.

And I have a video pulled up

this is the start of the year for me right here.

I got three monitors.

I just lost one that has

all of my notes on it.

So I'm not even going to try

to restart this monitor.

I'm moving over to another one

because I had some backup notes.

Have you heard that Volkswagen

apparently has not made any money

at their dealerships

in like the last two or three months?

Like new dealerships

apparently have not made any money.

And then that gets to the

conversation that's gotten pretty heated,

which is the scout stuff coming up.

Did you know?

Okay.

That's exactly what I was going to bring up.

So there is a gentleman,

fourth generation dealership owner in Colorado.

He's also the chairman for

like the dealer,

some sort of dealer automotive group,

chairman of Volkswagen National

Dealer Council.

Okay.

So what that means is like,

that's just like a dealer association

of people that sell Volkswagen products.

In that region or national?

It could be national.

It could be both.

I mean, it could be.

Oh, did say national.

Yeah.

So you have dealer associations by state.

They're basically lobbying arms

for the dealers in the state.

Okay.

You have, you know, group,

you know, big group,

you know,

Volkswagen being a group of dealers,

right?

Let's say they have 500,

a thousand, 10,000,

whatever the number is,

then you'll have somebody that

they make like an association.

A lot of this stuff is redundant.

And they'll talk like they have some kind

of connection with the corporate world

of Volkswagen.

And we're going to,

on behalf of the dealers,

we're going to talk to Volkswagen auto group.

It's like, yeah, I don't think they care,

but okay, it makes people feel good.

And actually now,

I think the panic,

and I'm just giving an opinion here,

the panic amongst the Volkswagen dealer

group says,

you guys don't have any power.

Yeah.

If we want to,

if we want to go,

if we want to go direct,

we'll just build Scout and we'll go direct.

And I got to imagine it's pretty bad

internally between all of these parties

right now.

Let me,

I got to take an extra step

since I lost one of the monitors,

but I got to play this for you.

What happened to Jamie?

Well, I got the parts already.

I just need to, you know,

put them on this,

this set up this desk.

All right, here we go.

Oh, he's a VW dealer right now.

The VW collective dealer body

in the U.S. is struggling.

Actually in November,

collectively they lost money as a whole.

Okay.

Their return on sales was,

was a negative number.

You take October and November combined,

they haven't made any money.

And it just boils the blood

of all the dealers to speed

the investment that they're putting

towards Scout to see our former,

you know, CEO of Volkswagen America,

Scott Keough on TV talking about

how the dealer model is,

is not the model and that's not the

route we're going.

And just to continue to push and push

and add investment into Scout,

there was even a Monday night

football game for Scout,

which will not launch for at least

two years.

I'll tell you who said,

who said that before?

I wonder who.

Hey, this guy's name is Fred.

Yeah, Fred.

Fred, I was warning people

from the beginning of this.

But secondly,

I told everybody on an episode,

I heard a Scout commercial on a podcast.

I said that on this show.

He did.

Fred, you're behind, bud.

Let me, let me make something clear.

You and your boys are behind.

This, this stuff was a mess

from the beginning.

Now you see they don't come out of

their hole until things get bad.

Right.

Why weren't you talking about this

at the beginning?

I was just about to ask that.

Why weren't you,

why weren't you throwing up the

flags then?

Because you guys didn't pay

attention.

You were, you were doing quote,

unquote, okay.

As sales got tougher,

as profit got tougher,

now you guys want to make an

argument.

Okay.

You have an argument.

Volkswagen auto group shouldn't

have done the Scout thing.

In my opinion, if you're going to

continue to have dealers.

I said that at the time,

I'll say it now.

It doesn't make sense to do it that

way.

I understand why they're doing it

that way,

but that's not being a good partner

to people that you've been doing

business with for 10, 20, 30, 40

years.

Right.

So when we look at this now,

I don't think Volkswagen auto

group really cares about any of

this.

And you got to remember,

they, they are invested in Rivian

as a, as a shareholder.

They're seeing probably

Rivian's numbers behind the scenes

and also publicly of,

of what they,

they are able to accomplish.

They now want a piece of the pie.

We said from the beginning,

like many of you that saw the reveal

of Scout,

that looks very Rivian-esque.

As a vehicle,

not saying it's cool or not cool.

I think the design's cool.

I think they got to bring some

type of engine

into that lineup of Scout to really

drive it forward,

you know,

for a long period of time.

It doesn't mean they can't have EV

options,

but I think it'd be kind of silly

not to have some type of

hybrid solution

or,

you know,

engine only solution.

But I look at this the same way

everybody with common sense looks

at it.

This is going to cause a war.

And,

you know,

there's an old Italian saying,

nobody's making money during war.

You know,

during the mob,

you know,

mob days,

right?

Yep.

So I don't know what's going to happen.

Volkswagen Auto Group,

I think,

has a lot of question marks.

Obviously,

it's a huge automaker.

I'm not saying they're in any kind of

trouble.

And so please don't go in the comments

and say they're going to go bankrupt.

Relax.

But,

Rob,

we have to talk about it.

I mean,

this is going to cause a war.

If this keeps going this way,

this product hasn't even launched yet.

And it's already causing a strife,

which by the way,

should have happened a year ago.

It's caused a strife

when profits dry up,

when money's not being made,

the strife gets bigger,

and there's no money being made

during wartime,

so to speak,

you know,

when war like this happens.

You know,

and we've never seen something

like this unfold,

this kind of conversation.

Forever,

we've heard people say,

I should go direct to consumer.

And,

you know,

obviously you got Tesla,

but in the big automotive groups,

we've never seen this.

Do you have any kind of like,

dare I say,

predictions of how you think this

goes for the bigger dealerships

that maybe decide to test these waters out?

So smart dealership groups,

and I don't know,

you know,

how many we're talking about here,

you'd have to get this number,

which would probably be pretty hard to do.

There's a reason why most dealership

auto groups own damn near every brand,

right?

That they're like,

okay, we got a,

we got a Honda dealership,

now we're going to get a Hyundai dealership,

and a Kia dealership,

and we're going to have this,

and we're going to have that,

because when one's doing bad,

one can float the rest of the whole group, right?

The question that would be

pretty interesting to think about

is what if a dealership group just says

we're out to Volkswagen auto group

and says,

okay, this is what you're going to do.

We're just relinquishing our rights

to your dealers and we're out.

If they do that en masse,

and that would be the bargaining chip.

The bargaining chip of this dealer association,

you know, the Volkswagen dealer association

in America would be,

we get all the dealerships groups together

and say, we'll close the doors tomorrow.

You can come pick up your inventory.

That's really last hope

of getting Volkswagen auto group

to even come to the table.

All these little threats and legal threats

and all of this kind of stuff,

you're going to have to get,

it'll show how good their lobbying is

in each individual state,

as well as nationally,

you know, through Washington, D.C.

If they can get the scout thing shut down or not,

you know, and say you've got to go through

the dealer network,

because there are states

that are very, very strict

that it's, they're very, very, very leery

of letting these old school,

you know, auto groups like VW

or BMW or anybody to go direct.

This stuff has been tried before.

It's been shut down.

There's been arguments in courts

in different states.

I don't really know what's going to come of it,

but I can tell you,

there's only one way to make

Volkswagen auto group come to the table

and say, we're all going to drop our dealer.

You know, we're all going to just

shut our dealerships.

They're not going to do that.

There's too much money to be lost.

But that's the only gun they have.

And it's the only bullet they have in the gun.

Dude, that's crazy.

And funny enough,

when I was reading about this one in Colorado,

they are one of those states

where it's not as, as you described,

like, you know, hard knows about it.

And that's why this is kind of coming to light,

because they're almost trying to obfuscate

some of the written law

and legal, you know,

wordings of how this stuff operates.

So that's where it's going to be,

I guess, the example of how good

can they penetrate the verbiage

of what they can and can't do

or are not allowed to do.

State legislature,

national legislature.

This is where you spend all that lobbying money.

So one thing guys will get real pissed off about,

especially rich dealer guys.

I've put all my money into this lobbying.

Right.

You know, I've chipped in my millions of dollars

over the years

and you guys couldn't stop this.

That'll be another war that happens.

They'll be like, where's my money?

Right.

Why am I paying all this?

Yeah, why did I pay all these years?

Why did I give all these years?

There's a lot of cash in a lot of places

that have flowed to a lot of things

that when those things start to break down,

war happens.

Hey, let's be real.

They don't give a damn about your foundation.

All right.

They don't give a damn about your foundation.

They don't care.

You know, that's the old charity scam

that people fall for all the time.

Like, oh, they're helping this?

No, they aren't.

Shout out to Nick for,

he recommended,

I had already, in all fairness,

I had heard Landman was great

and then Nick was like, you're fucking up.

You need to watch this already.

Have you gotten to season two?

I just, episode one of season two

is where I'm at right now.

Season one might be the peak.

Really?

I'm, for all you out there that are watching it,

I'm going to tell you,

real disappointing season two.

Lot of not getting oil out of the ground.

I'll tell you that.

Son of a bee.

I know.

Do I need to drive up the road?

Taylor Sheridan just, you know,

worried too much about a steakhouse

here in Vegas to write a good script

for season two.

I don't know.

Damn it.

I got to figure it out.

Great.

You know how bad I feel when I start,

when a season one's great?

Me too.

And then the rest of it,

I'm like, I just don't know what to do.

I don't.

Meet, buddy.

Let me explain when I'm watching it,

the last few episodes.

I'm like, what are we doing here?

I do a lot of like,

you know, yelling at my TV.

Of course, yeah.

95 years old.

Yeah, I can see that totally.

I'm like, what is going on here?

Can we pull some oil out of the ground?

You're trying to plug the holes.

Like, why didn't you,

why didn't you do this?

I just want to see some guys working on the rigs,

dude.

I just want to see how the shit works.

If I don't see at least two or three more

explosions in season two,

I'm going to be really pissed.

Well, here to tell you.

It's over.

I'm going to be here.

As soon as my wife says,

I'm like, no, Nick said it's terrible.

She's going to be like, what the fuck are you talking about?

No, you need to watch it

so we can talk about it.

All right.

It can't be any worse than Stranger Things.

I haven't kept up since season one.

Apparently we got, you know.

I didn't know what it is.

I don't know.

Everyone's kissing everybody.

They're kissing Demi Gorgas.

It's like New Year's Eve all over again, apparently.

I don't know, man.

I don't know what's happening.

That's funny.

Did you watch the end of that old Miss game last night?

No.

No, I saw the Miami game.

That was a great game.

Yeah.

Come on, man.

Don't bring that up.

Don't be that guy.

I did legitimately,

but my oldest brother is a huge Miami.

Like all since I was growing up,

the you is all I ever heard.

His wife, my sister-in-law got him a game ball.

Like that was like some special game ball.

I don't know a whole lot about it.

Especially old college ball.

And he's rambling off all these awesome players.

Like I know some of it.

I get it.

But Miami or I don't know, man,

but whatever that's your thing.

But I knew to bring it up

because I'm sure you enjoyed it as well.

Yeah, that wasn't a good day, was it?

Last night, Ole Miss wins the game,

but the last 10 seconds of the game took forever

and they brought the stage and the trophies out

and the refs made them take it all off

with one second left

and something that didn't even matter.

It was like the most bizarre thing.

And they just kept going

and then they had another stoppage.

And then, and I'm just going,

this is my thing with football right now.

The penalties, the refereeing, the nonsense,

it's got to stop.

Like it's got to stop.

What's worse, college or NFL?

Oh, the NFL is unwatchable.

It's so bad.

I mean, if you weren't able to gamble on the games,

I can't imagine why you would watch it.

The only one that I saw this year

that I was like, that was a memorable game,

was 49ers, Bears the other day?

Yeah, that was a good game.

Fantastic game.

Yeah, no, I'm real big on letting people play

and let's stop with all this.

I just want to see guys play.

They're obviously, you know,

the reason we're all here.

We're not there to watch the refs.

But boy, it's, look, baseball's gotten like this.

Don't forget, they've gotten an umpire problem

and who wants to be a star and who wants to be seen?

I mean, they had to fire a guy like midseason last year.

Well, now we're going to have the automatic balls and strikes

are going to be implemented this season.

Yeah, you know, the funny thing is that's been happening

because we got a brand new AAA stadium here.

They've been doing that there.

Yeah.

Way more enjoyable.

Oh yeah, that's where they tested it.

The testing grounds were all on the minor league teams.

Yeah, that's great.

Yeah, way more enjoyable.

And then, so finally, forever, right,

they said they're going to do this or implementing it.

Now they're going to test out in the minor league stadiums,

the check swing automatic system.

Because so many umps just, they don't call strikes one thing.

You know what I mean?

Like they want to be the show that the comments are always

funny. It's like, oh, it's another ump show.

It's another ref show.

Like these guys just don't let it play out.

Yeah.

If you've ever talked to referees or umpires and been around them,

it makes sense why they act the way they do.

They just think that they're part of it.

And I've always said, if the refs or the umps

aren't going to go be questioned after the game,

they shouldn't be part of the game.

That would have fixed the ref problem in every sport 50 years ago.

If you made these guys go talk to the media about why they did

what they did during the game, that would have stopped

because they would have been held accountable.

Wholeheartedly.

And as the UFC came to an end, there was a couple of fights,

especially in one card.

I can't remember which one.

I probably try to remove it from my brain

that there were so many early stoppages.

Yeah, there's another example.

I mean, athletic commissions.

If all these people had to answer for bad judging,

bad stoppages, and again, by the way, everyone's human.

I'm kind of cool.

If the guy comes to the podium and goes,

yeah, we missed the call.

What do you want to say?

I mean, we're human.

You'd be like, okay.

Yeah, but then you start mentioning the patterns.

Like I understand that, sir, but the pattern here

is showing that you're a little beyond just human.

Hey, the stoppage thing gets people.

You want to talk about the internet going crazy.

Let a bad stoppage happen and people.

First thing I do is go to X.

Yeah, but just so you and I know

for people that have never,

an early stoppage is better than a late stoppage.

Let's be clear.

I agree with you.

Listen, all right, but listen.

If we're closing out the year, we're making this bang.

Oh, thanks to our ESPN partners,

and it's a great this, that, and the other.

And then three other cards and I'm like, all right.

Okay, see what we're doing.

Well, the best part was when people complain

and they don't realize that the UFC

and they don't hire the refs,

that it's all an athletic commission.

Total casuals that are getting mad at the ownership.

They're like, oh, they fixed the fight.

It's like, bud, that guy is the athletic commission.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, the judges aren't paid by the UFC

or by boxing, they're paid by the athletic commission.

Like it's just a crazy, crazy world.

But I really think last night was the dumbest thing

I've watched in a very long.

I was texting buddies that I know

were asleep on the East Coast.

I was like, you got to go watch the last 10 seconds of it.

I mean, it was pandemonium over nothing.

So the game was just clearly over, you're saying?

It was over.

It was completely over.

And, and guy threw the ball backwards

trying to run back a kickoff,

you know, just like a last Hail Mary.

The ball goes out of bounds with quote unquote,

one second left.

That one second took like another 20 minutes.

It was, it was brutal.

Absolutely brutal.

Horrible.

I will say, before we move on from Sports Corner,

Arch Manning doing work over here in Texas.

Slow down.

That dude, that dude was, that dude was hyped up.

The second, the second one was a 60 yard, I think run.

I mean, they just completely fell apart there, Michigan.

That dude's, his hype train did not live up

in this season, if we're all being honest.

It did not.

But that's everybody's second chance.

Yes, they do.

Hey, he's a young kid.

See what happens.

Maybe he gets it together.

I'm good.

You know, put the chair at the mouth of the lion

and see where they fit the ball, you know, as they say.

That's priceless.

Okay.

Look, I was going to start the show with this,

but there was so much other stuff to talk about.

Oh, wait, real quick.

What happened to Anthony Joshua?

I'm late to this party.

Oh, his two buddies died or something?

Yeah.

And in some car accident, I know I'm bringing it back

to Sports Corner.

I just didn't know about this.

Yeah.

I don't, I don't want to talk about it.

And he got out of the car and he was like shirtless

or something.

Yeah.

Yes.

I thought, I thought he had his hands on too.

My thing is, if you're that jacked and that big,

do you just like never wear a shirt?

You don't need a tan though.

I was like, I know where you are.

It's a lot of sun, but.

Buddy, I don't know.

I don't know.

I, I, you feel for it, man.

Yeah.

Like, uh, we all get news.

I got some news on a family friend today,

35 year old, um, who passed away.

I don't know, man.

He lost two friends.

It was again, I'll ask, I don't know what the hell

they were doing.

I mean, I don't, I don't know.

I don't want to speculate.

I mean, I'm glad to eat, but I think it was his trainer.

Right.

Yes.

I believe it was his long time trainer and friend.

Bizarre.

That's bizarre.

Yeah.

Let's not vacation around there though.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

I'll just go somewhere else.

Like you said, let's go to the beach.

We got plenty of them.

Okay.

All right.

Back to cars real quick.

So Volvo dude, they're the v 60s gone.

No more wagon.

This is what we all kind of say.

If you've never been around them or owned them,

great family vehicle just doesn't look like they could keep the sales where they

need it to be.

It's understandable.

Everybody's transferred over to SUVs.

It ran for a long time, man.

I mean, it's just, it's run is over and you hate to see this kind of stuff.

I know many of you are probably not into this brand,

but it's a brand that's, you know,

talk about quality interiors, quality stuff that

I don't know what to say.

I think they've kind of lost the plot.

You know, I think the XC 90 should be a lot bigger than it is.

Love that thing looks, looks great as good trim packages, but

are they in a cost problem?

You know, that's what you have to ask about a company like Volvo.

Have they, have they kind of lost the plot at times or like

we've seen Acura here recently, Infinity, those types of brands.

I still think and I've owned Volvos in my life.

I would say they all did well.

They were all great to own.

The thing that you really look at now is

how do they kind of get some footing?

You know, and it's kind of in the United States, it's kind of regional,

much bigger in the Northeast than they are in the Southwest.

As an example, much bigger in the Northeast than they probably are in Texas.

So I think it's just a little too regional.

And I don't know if they put enough,

you know, marketing and understanding behind their brand in today's world.

That's, that's pretty hard to overcome.

Yeah, dude, it's a bummer.

I like seeing those things around.

There's a guy that he took like an older one and got a custom body kit of some sort

and did a bunch of like nice OEM plus things to it.

Hey, when they, when they look good, they look, when somebody, you know,

you lower them a little bit, you get the stance right,

things start to look pretty awesome.

Yeah.

And it makes you wonder and I know it's all costs.

We can always say it goes back to how much it could cost to put into it,

how much can they sell it for and how many units they sell.

But you got to think that with all of the marketing power behind some of these

bigger companies, you can make people like the thing you make to sell more.

Yeah.

But I guess that's the point I was getting at is like,

I don't know that they've done enough to tell everybody about the safety of the cars,

you know, I mean, about how nice everything is, about how much they put into the fit

and finish, which basically is probably unrivaled at that price point.

For sure.

You know, for the longest period of time.

Not that that matters to all of you or everybody,

but if you're spending the kind of money people are spending now,

I think there's a way to tell the Volvo story that Volvo is just kind of unwilling to do.

Yeah, it's a bummer.

On a better note though, hey, we're starting the year out with a

assured TRX coming back that we, you know, obviously the SRT badge is coming back.

So my favorite, we get to see more of these SRT badges all over the vehicles.

I cannot wait to see that shiny chrome SRT badge or if you black it out, whatever.

Whatever.

I just would like to see 23 of them.

I want to see it.

Look at that graphics package.

I mean, it looks kind of sick.

Needs a little bit of blue in there.

Red, white, and blue.

You would not have that on your truck.

A thousand percent I would.

What are you talking about?

Oh, wow.

But I need to put some blue in there.

We get the Star Spangled Banner kind of like sparkly stars or something in the back too.

I'd be all for it.

And we need an SRT badge on every door.

So it'll be one, two, three, four, five.

That thing looks pretty mean.

We need about six badges, if I'm being honest.

Yeah, let me see.

We've got all these doors.

I'm dead serious.

Six SRT.

Oh, look at that green back there in the background too.

Yeah, that looks good.

That looks really good.

Talk about a truck that was done right.

Yeah, it looks good.

Now you have the ultimate question about a Stellantis product.

How's this thing going to fare with 10,000 miles on it?

Earlier when you were talking about, you know, these motor groups that have these big brands,

when one brand is not doing well, another one carries it in my mind.

I'm like, who's carrying this motor group?

Yeah, it's a pretty tough scene at the Stellantis offices these days.

Yeah, it looks awesome.

Who comes out a winner if we're all being honest here with all these brands?

We're just going to keep leaning on Ram and Dodge.

All of Stellantis?

Well, Chrysler's all but finished.

It's a fan.

Feels like it was.

Their brand is defined by a minivan.

Yeah, it's probably not going to end well for that.

I mean, it'll be around, but if they sell it or whatever.

The Ram Dodge, I've said this before, I think Durango has to get better.

I mean, that'd be the first thing that I would kind of go after if I was in the Stellantis.

And I'd say, you know, let's make the Durango something.

Just like I would kind of say about Jeep, you know, you got to make the Cherokee great again.

Yeah, buddy.

You have to.

I mean, I was just watching a video.

Everybody knows I like watching Hoovey.

I watched it because of you.

That Jeep he gave his friend.

That thing is sick.

I remember that that thing mattered, right?

I mean, at that time and that place.

I mean, remember, he even they even shared the article.

He's like, I remember the first time I saw it.

And it was this article cover of some magazine.

Yeah.

And and there's just things like they do have products that they can revitalize here.

Jeep Cherokee is obvious.

The most obvious thing with that is they are so out of line price wise.

I mean, it's not even close to where it's not even close.

So I mean, it'd be the same thing we'd say about Acura, right?

Like Acura's got to go back to the drawing board of how to get people interested in that brand.

And we know they make quality stuff, but you got to get people interested.

You know, like the MDX should be bigger than it is.

You know, you should absolutely be able to capture market share.

But as your pricing where it needs to be to capture,

infinity is going through the same thing.

You can't charge $125,000 for an infinity vehicle right now.

Can you work up to that?

After you restore the brand?

Sure.

I'm sure that can come.

But you can't be asking people for $120,000 for a QX.

You know, when your brand is as low as it's ever been.

You know, it's funny you brought up Acura.

There was a comment on one of the two videos recently.

The comment just read Acura sucks.

And I was like, nobody talked about Honda or Acura here.

What are you talking about?

Yeah, just there are some of these things.

But in the Stellantis world,

I mean, if you made Cherokee, Durango, if you made Ram,

what it should be looks like they're going back to all the basics at Ram.

So that should be probably a pretty quick five year turnaround.

You know, in the car world, that's pretty quick.

You know, they can get a lot of traction over the next five years

if they're doing things other people are unwilling to do.

But we did show the Dakota that's like the size of an old 1500.

Yeah.

So I don't know exactly what they're doing.

Like, hey, man, why don't you get something in that $35,000 range?

That might be a little bit more intelligent for your brand right now.

But it looks like they're moving in the right direction,

which we said once, once Caniscus came back,

that they were going to move in the right direction pretty quickly.

They still have quality questions throughout anything Stellantis owns.

So that's going to be the question for Ram.

Number one is you guys are doing all the right things

headed in these directions.

You know, you can get interest.

But what you can't have is massive problems out of the gate

with these bringing back these big engines.

I hope you have it quality figured out right now.

Like they don't have the Honda, the Toyota,

the they don't have that brand equity

that people are just going to trust you

because it's been a rough, rough go of it.

All right.

So as we start, you know, as we land the plane

for this first episode of the year,

I got to ask you and people will want to know

if you were to say some sort of predictions on the used car market,

the enthusiasts that held out last year

because they, you know, we talked about prices coming down,

things starting to normalize and stabilize.

Would you have any words of wisdom or advice for people that,

you know, they're stashing away cash

and they're going to have, you know, 10, 20 beyond K

to go drop on something when to,

when to maybe kind of continue to hold any assumptions?

Well, look, you get there's a lot of good deals

in the wintertime, you know, as soon as you hit spring,

you could see the prices elevate just a touch

because everybody's kind of coming out of the hibernation.

And, you know, I want to, I want to go smell the flowers

and get out in the sun top down, you know, hair blowing,

like it gets a little hairy right out of the gate.

Midsummer's another good time.

You'll see a law in the Midsummer.

Always great to buy a car used or new

that December 20th through December 31st.

Great time.

If you guys missed it, good time to buy.

People are trying to unload inventory.

I think it just depends on what you're looking at.

You know, a lot of people, the Porsche market

looks as hot as ever, you know, especially on the use side.

Guys, then if you're mad about how hot that is,

don't expect that to slow down by 50%.

That's not going to happen.

Right?

That, that, that isn't expecting wanting that to happen

or expecting it to happen.

The reason I say it that way is guys, you have to

understand, I mean, there's people like sitting around

waiting for Porsche to come down a significant amount.

It doesn't look like that's on the horizon.

Now, if you have some kind of crazy economic event happen,

that none of us can predict sitting here, you know,

at the beginning of January, 2026.

Yeah, man, anything can happen.

I just wouldn't be expecting it.

That's, that's a little foolish and, and, and go again,

probably a thing that we said at the end of the year

that I want to reiterate, get in where you fit in.

There's good stuff at every price point.

Yes, some of it's going to be more mileage

than maybe you really quote unquote wanted.

But I think you're going to see prices not only

stabilize, you'll have 5% here, 10% there,

you know, on certain vehicles, you may see a bigger drop

amongst other vehicles that the inventory on the

used side starts to go up on.

I wouldn't expect to get a big deal on a bunch of

Toyotas, you know, they're still crazy low supply

on new Toyotas across the entire brand.

So you got to understand what you're looking at.

And not every segment of the market is going to

react like the other segment.

So a grand Highlander might keep its price elevated,

but you can get a deal on an MDX, right?

It's essentially the same marketplace, same customer,

but those two brands are in wildly different places.

And Toyota doesn't have to discount their stuff,

not with the supply being what it is now,

not how quickly they sell everything.

So you can't just bitch because you want to buy

something, right?

I want to buy this car and that price isn't

coming down. It would come down if the supply

and demand made sense for it to come down.

So you can't, I don't think you can keep waiting

on that stuff when the supply, and by the way,

you guys can look that up, days of supply on the lot

is available data at chat GPT, Google, whatever.

It's very easy to understand that when there's

not huge days of supply, don't expect the prices

to come down.

Hey, look, I got to say one more time,

when are we going to make next buying guide

so people can buy it themselves and take all of your advice?

They're going to have it in a little bit,

in a pamphlet in the back of the pocket,

like a pocket constitution, where they're going to read

all of Nick's notes on how to buy a car.

A pocket constitution, that's wild. That's wild.

No, that's American is what it is.

No way you know somebody that carries one of those.

I used to carry one.

Oh my God.

I'm just kidding. I thought about that.

I thought about that.

It's really kind of cool.

So when you get pulled over, you go, officer,

look at this.

I didn't know what I would do when I go for my license.

Oh, sorry, I dropped my pocket constitution.

And then I'd pick it.

That's exactly how I do it.

That's exactly why I wanted to do it.

It's funny that you say that.

Somebody come get your boy, Rob.

That's wild.

Did I tell you real quick that I got pulled over

right before the end of the year?

No, what was that like?

Oh my God, I forgot.

I was meant to tell you last week,

it was in one of these trips

coming back and forth from Houston.

Long story short, I got pulled over.

I hadn't been pulled over in years, dude.

And I was just in the zone, right?

End of the year, jazzed up.

Things are going great.

I'm just jamming out.

And I see the lights all of a sudden.

I'm like, damn, was I speed?

I didn't even pay attention.

I didn't even know.

And I just picked up a coffee legitimately.

And this was the fastest ticket I've ever gotten in my life.

And the guy comes up and is like, you know how fast you're going?

I was like, I really don't, officer.

I just picked up this coffee.

I missed that Bucky's and I'm trying

to make it to the next one.

And he just chuckled, went back to his car, no lie,

60 seconds, wrote it up,

call him in a couple of weeks,

and then left.

And I was like, all right, it's a double-edged sword

because I wasn't sitting here for 20 minutes

like I usually have to.

But I got a ticket.

So last time I got pulled over.

Cop was taking a long time.

Always do.

Like, here's the thing, was taking a long time at my door.

Like, let's just call it preaching.

You know, doing the preach.

And I did give him one of these.

Hey, man, sounds like you're going to give me a ticket.

Can you just go write that up?

And the ticket got bigger.

Maybe.

But I was like, I do, if you're going to give me a ticket,

man, stop with the preamble

like you write for the school newspaper

and let's just go ahead and get this done.

Okay?

You know what I'm saying?

Like, stop with the preamble here.

See, I got it.

I shouldn't have been doing this.

I shouldn't have been speeding.

I should have got the tail light fixed, whatever.

Just write the freaking thing up.

If you're going to let me off,

then give me the speech.

Right?

I'm cool with the speech if you're letting me off.

Don't get me on both ends of this.

Yeah, don't do both sides of it here.

See, this is how listeners know

the differences in our personality.

That's how Nick would handle it.

I would handle it by dropping my pocket constitution.

Saying thank you for your service.

No, that is the craziest.

That's the craziest thing I've heard.

That is not the craziest thing you've ever heard.

And by the way, I did kind of believe you had one.

So I was like, if you actually carried that around,

that would be crazy.

Well, you'll never know now.

I'll never affirm whether I do or don't.

No, that's funny.

Listen, if you guys want to be a part of the show,

send in your comments, questions, anything that you want

to be read about, talk about on the show,

ClutchCulturePodcast at gmail.com,

follow Nick at HyperCleanStore and HyperCleanNick.

The ClutchCulturePod is all across the board

of socials for the podcast.

Do us a favor.

Go comment on any of the last seven or 10 videos.

They're already going viral as it is.

Drop a comment.

Good, bad, and different.

The guy that said accurate sucks on Toyota video,

whatever you want to do.

Just keep the fire going.

Do you.

We'll see everybody next week.

See you guys.

About this episode

Kicking off 2026, the hosts dive into car culture predictions, trends, and personal anecdotes. They discuss the state of the automotive market, focusing on the misconceptions around vehicle conditions during trade-ins. The conversation touches on the new TRX, the decline of the Volvo V60, and the competition between VW and Scout. Listeners gain insights into the used car market, dealership dynamics, and the importance of vehicle maintenance. The episode blends humor with valuable advice, making it a lively start to the new season.

Bentley blower corrosive dealership lot depreciation engine Ferrari Kia Lamborghini Mercedes

Acura MDX Bugatti Chiron Dodge Ram Honda Civic Hyundai Palisade Jeep Cherokee Mazda CX-5 Toyota Camry Toyota Grand Highlander Toyota Tacoma

Original notes

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