#68 - Lincoln To Make The Luxury Raptor, RAM Airbag Lawsuit, Tracks & Private Equity + Much More

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Nick, I got a phrase for you, all right?

Like and subscribe.

Like and subscribe, please.

I have a phrase for you, Nick, and everybody play along,

but I got a phrase and I want you to tell me

the first thing that comes in mind

when you hear this phrase, okay?

Introducing the 2030 Lincoln Laptor,

the first luxury raptor.

Yeah, I did see this this week.

Really? Okay.

What a no-brainer for a brand that's struggling, right?

So how they pull this off is what we all gotta wonder,

but this has been the no-brainer.

Lincoln is kind of lagging in a lot of areas.

There's no excitement in the brand.

This is exciting.

I also think it's worth saying,

I'm not saying a bunch of people are gonna buy them,

but this is excitement.

You know, let's not forget the Lincoln Blackwood.

Oh yeah.

Okay, a truck that should have never existed.

It definitely should have never come out,

but they did, they created some excitement,

albeit very brief, very brief with that one.

They made like 700 of those,

they made really limited amount of them.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, because nobody wanted them.

I mean, by the way, just a power tonneau cover,

if that goes out, like what you have to deal with.

But go back, there was a car that I loved from Lincoln,

it was called the Lincoln LS.

I don't know if you remember that four-door sedan

back in the day.

I thought it was, and I got to drive those

because obviously I was working in places that would get them.

And I thought it was a fantastic sedan.

You know, even in the moment, I thought it was

a fantastic sedan.

Even when I see him now, which is very rare,

I'm like, it still looks good.

Dude, you're absolutely right.

And what's funny about Lincoln is that we've brought them up.

Now come to think of it, more times than the average car brand.

And it's always with like, we know somebody that has one,

or maybe you've worked on one for a customer.

Yeah, we just took delivery of a brand new navigator.

Oh, a brand new one?

You were also, yeah, what was it?

Was it a Nautilus?

I had a Nautilus in the shop recently.

I'm not as impressed driving the Nautilus.

Sure.

I think that's also what Lincoln struggles with,

but I think it's what a lot of brands

are struggling with right now.

It's sort of like an identity crisis.

Yeah.

You know, the Nautilus doesn't feel

like a traditional Lincoln on the inside.

It doesn't feel quite right.

The power plant is way off, in my opinion, as well

when you drive it around, but still a nice enough vehicle.

I think Lincoln needs some hype.

I mean, so if this gives them some hype around the brand,

I think it's what a lot of consumers miss,

is that some of this stuff just needs

to be done to try to create some noise,

not necessarily.

I think it's going to be the coolest vehicle in the world.

Can you imagine, though, it comes out and everybody

wants one like that would be the best thing?

Because Lincoln's never been like,

we've never talked to them being in trouble.

We're like, hey, they might just go under.

It's never been the case.

Even for as long as I've been around,

we've talked about, you know, our friends' moms have one,

or how nice they are, how nice they drive,

the quality you get for the price.

But it's always just kind of at this quiet hum

where it's like, it's not great, it's not bad,

it's just doing its thing.

Yeah, and I think they need to get out of that.

I think they're really worried about,

you got a lot of stuff happening right now

in the car market.

We haven't talked, I mean, CarMax is in real,

like, could be a freefall situation,

and then they hire a CEO that used to run Holiday Inn Expresses.

You know, as their new CEO, I mean, they are in real,

there's real concern in the car market,

and it's bubbling, right?

And it's really based around credit.

You know, there's this whole credit.

So companies like Lincoln,

you have to assume there's some people behind the scenes

that are going, there is a lot of weakness in the car market.

We need to make sure that we create some buzz,

you know, doesn't matter when this thing comes out.

This is just all about being in the headlines

that maybe pushes somebody to stop at a Lincoln dealership.

If it comes across their fee, they're like,

I haven't thought about Lincoln, and I'm gonna go stop.

I think that's the part we never talk about enough,

is just doing something cool to maybe that one guy,

that one gal, and Austin stops by the Lincoln dealership

because it came across their social media.

Yeah, and there's no indication

that there's gonna be a V8 in this thing, okay?

Well, we gotta talk about it, because this is Clutch Culture.

We're big boys, we drive V8s around every day now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you look, you're a change man.

I'm new to the club.

I'm new to the club, I admit it, but you know, it is.

For all new listeners, I don't own a single vehicle

that isn't a V8.

Rob just got his first one.

In a while, I will say, you know,

I had a truck back in the day, I had a Texas V8.

By the way, if it's over a decade ago, it doesn't count.

All right, it was nine years ago, so it still counts.

So it's just under, it's just under the threshold.

I was a man for a short period of time,

and then it wasn't, and now I'm in the end again, so.

You came in at 156 on the dot instead of 155,

so it still counts.

I have the pound allowance, all right, it's okay.

I don't have to give up my purse for that.

But there's no indication it'll be a V8,

so it's not gonna be like a Raptor R setup,

but maybe it will.

So, you know, we're looking at Raptor body on frame,

kind of setup with the EcoBoost, you know,

Twin Turbo V6 probably, but can you imagine?

Because it also, you know, a lot of these articles

have stated how it's gonna be like a Mercedes competitor,

and we're seeing some of these year old brands like,

all right, we're gonna creep back into the V8s possibly,

we're gonna introduce some of the luxury with V8,

which, I mean, that just makes my heart so happy.

Imagine Lincoln doing the same thing.

We also have to say something.

For all of you that love Bronco,

and I know everybody from every economic class

is, you know, who we deal with,

the people that Lincoln want to come and buy this

are not highly impressed with the Bronco experience.

It's true.

Right, I mean, we were getting them

when nobody could get them for some of our clients,

we were getting them out of Florida,

we were getting them all over the,

and it was coming here and we were retrofitting,

you know, you deal with some businesses

that were getting Broncos when nobody was getting them.

I've shared this story, I mean, I knew the people

that were gonna hate them when they bought them,

and I would tell them, this is going to the beach house.

This is, I mean, I'm telling you right now,

you're not gonna like driving this around Vegas.

I remember this years ago, I remember that.

Yeah, like, you're going to,

this is a good PCH car for you, you know,

but it was true, and I was basically 100% right

because a lot of my clients I've been with

for a very long time, and you could possibly

get them interested in this, because if they feel,

now the question is, how do you pull off an upgraded,

if you're saying this is going after G-Wagon,

but you gotta split the difference

between Bronco and G-Wagon, boy, you gotta get

a lot of things right to split that difference.

And for new listeners also, you gotta remember,

if you haven't heard, Nick loves the Navigator.

Oh, I love it.

Buddy, I drove the new one, it was just delivered,

what, we've only, seven, eight days ago?

So one of the early viral videos as well was,

what was it, Escalade versus Navigator?

Yeah, it's fantastic, the new Navigator's fantastic.

And what is the particular trim?

Is it the black label?

Black label, yeah.

Right, and I mean, that's, that was up there.

It's all class, Rob.

It is all class, it absolutely is all class,

but it's also all class that pisses people off,

because that was up there with the Defender

and all those kind of videos.

But again, it's kind of, it does slide into the radar.

I guess obviously you have to be a certain clientele

who's gonna go and even look at the black label,

but when you do, you sit in it, you drive it,

or just ride in it, you're like, oh, I get it now.

Yeah, and it has its flaws,

but you can say the same thing about Escalade,

there's all these things that all of us overlook.

I think they've done a good job with Navigator.

I don't think it's gotten,

I don't think they've gotten the sales they think

they deserve for what they've built.

And so I think you're gonna see,

hopefully Lincoln start to make some reactions to that.

Where do we need to innovate?

Where do we need to do?

I don't know why anybody would root against a company

like the Lincoln town car.

I mean, it was an all-timer.

I mean, I don't care what you say.

It's an all-timer.

Rob, it might not be your thing.

It's not my thing.

But, I mean, did you ever watch that show, Justified?

I didn't.

I mean, he was a gunslinging sheriff.

He had a Lincoln town car because he was a man of class.

I just got caught off by a Lincoln town car last night.

I will say over the last, you know, 20, 30 years,

the drivers of most Lincoln town cars

have completely dramatically changed

if everybody knows what I'm saying.

Yeah, that's probably accurate.

You can't hold that against Lincoln.

No, I can't.

We're holding it against Nissan.

But they were crazy from the day they bought them.

Dude, the funniest thing I saw this week was,

it was a video of them rolling out the Nissan

off the factory for the first time.

Oh, yeah, I saw that meme.

And the caption was like,

little did they know what they were unleashing onto the world?

I know, it's a true story.

That was a funny meme.

But I, like I said, go back to the Lincoln LS.

You know, I was working for a wholesaler

and working early in my career.

I just always thought that was a cool car.

You know, I just always thought like,

this is a good sedan for a certain price.

And I didn't know I was so young.

I didn't know what anything cost or meant

or any of that kind of stuff.

But I always, I always liked Lincoln.

I always think I believed they just needed

to take some more chances.

If this is a step for them to take some more chances,

I think that's a good thing.

That whole era and genre of cars,

like the Buick, was it Oldsmobile

or even like the Cadillacs of the day,

like those big floaty kind of cruisers,

they were always comfortable.

They lasted forever and they were always cheap.

No matter what your budget was,

you could find one of those.

Yeah, I mean, a Buick Le Sabre or a Park Avenue.

There you go.

You know, I mean, come on.

Yeah, you're on top of the world.

You needed a little hoop thee to get around,

put some mileage on.

I mean, for, this is where we go back and say,

everybody goes, well, you know,

things were cheaper back in the day.

I know a lot of people that are young guys that watch us,

you wouldn't have bought a Buick Le Sabre.

But there were people that were your age

buying a Buick Le Sabre

because they could find it for 2,500 bucks.

And it was just part of,

it was way more part of the culture than it is now.

But those turned into some real hoop thee

that people got around in for sure.

For a long time, and I remember being super young,

probably late teens, I wanna say maybe early 20s,

and having one of those buddies

who was like the friend of a friend,

a little bit older, but still in his 20s as well,

buying one of those.

And it was the first time I heard Opie and Anthony.

I was in this big cruiser, we were going to Guitar Center,

and I'm like, yo, what's this?

And this was like surely after finding podcasts, you know?

And it's just like, that memory's ingrained in me,

but also like that car.

So I don't know, maybe that's why it's kind of like,

it just hits a certain spot.

Yeah, hey, if you got town cars for sale, hit up Rob.

Please do.

Rob at-

Yeah, please, it's a clutch culture podcast at gmo.com.

Well, but here's the thing,

another V8 might bankrupt your fuel.

So Rob's looking for a four cylinder more likely right now.

Yeah, I think I might have to dust off the GTI by the way.

It's super dusty right now.

I know, I know you do.

I can imagine about a month in,

when you start tallying this up,

you're like, I'm gonna drive the Raptor

a little bit more sparingly.

I am going to, but you know what?

I did the math here.

Let me just break this down for everybody.

If you do do the math,

and you know your mileage or whatever,

when you go from even like a GTI four cylinder turbo

to a Raptor, if you really crunch the numbers,

you might be looking at,

within reason, $100 to $200 more a month.

Now I don't wanna sneeze at that,

but for the joy that you're gonna get

for the extra 100 to 200 bucks, honestly, it's so worth it.

I don't have a single vehicle

that's not approaching $100 to fill up.

So I don't really know.

I mean, look at the stone cold dead look on his face.

It's like 450 a gallon out here or something,

maybe right now.

That's another brutal thing too.

Depending on where you live, this might completely,

you might wanna just stomp on me for saying that.

Yeah, so having a lot of V8 trucks

and a lot of V8 SUVs and a V8 sports car,

I'm not really getting a lot of relief here, Rob.

So I've had to just live with this.

It's a gift and a curse.

It is a gift and a curse,

but let's also talk about the way the Nick drives.

It doesn't matter what you're riding in,

you're gonna be pedaled down.

I'm trying to enjoy myself, you know?

I can't have some fun, Rob.

I can't have some run.

Absolutely, please.

You can have some fun.

The gentleman in Vegas should be having fun,

which I'm sure they do.

Let's all be serious there.

Dude, last Sunday, I had to go through the,

for all of you people that have owned an M car,

the whole battery removal experience in the back.

I saw you posted a picture in the stories, I think, right?

Yeah.

If you know, you know.

I'm like, you know, here we are.

What guy are you finally doing?

What guy, because I know it's been sitting there

for a little bit.

I really wanted to drive it.

You know, there's something about the weather breaking.

Oh, yes.

That really, you know, fits my enjoyment of that car.

The funniest thing is it's like the most safe

when it's cold outsides,

because, you know, it controls the heat

a little bit better on your engine.

Nah, man, I wait till it's like 115 out here.

And I'm like, let's just, let's just rev this.

Let it rev.

Yeah, there's just something about it.

But that car is, I'll say it,

like if you find a car somewhere between 400 and 525 horsepower

and it's a manual,

I just don't see why you can't have the time of your life.

Like again, I know we don't want to go down

to horsepower talk, but it's like,

it really is like insanely fast

if you know what the hell you're doing.

Like it, it's an incredible experience.

It just fits that sweet spot for me.

And the NA platforms,

no matter if it's a truck or a car,

I hadn't driven anything that was NA

in, I don't know, almost 15 years.

It's just so fun and rewarding to just step on the gas

and you just go, you know what I mean?

No buildup.

That's why I like it when it gets nice.

I can roll the windows down.

I can hear it.

I can go to the high RPMs.

I can hear something about it.

So that's what kind of made me do it,

but it's just a royal pain in the ass to have to deal with.

Like, you know, that's why it was sitting there

for a couple of weeks with the dead battery.

I was just like, and I made the mistake.

I just forgot to put it on the trickle charger.

Yeah.

A lot of things going on.

You know, that's all I mean, dude.

This is a bit of a dumbass.

What a dumbass.

Well, speaking of, by the way,

I came up with that title for the luxury lapter.

Can you imagine if they do call it that?

Like, it'd be hilarious, but.

And you go, I like it.

I kind of, I would like it to be like,

hey, you definitely listen to clutch culture,

but speaking of Raptors and dirty cars

and cars that have been sitting like the GTI

and the BMW, the M3.

I had the first detail done on the Raptor.

I had it filmed.

So I got, I'm banking a couple of videos to start, you know,

putting together a good little catalog to roll out

on the clutch culture podcast channel.

But I got to ask you, dude, if the car,

because you live in Vegas, I know Marty's in Tulsa.

There's got to be dust there as well.

There's tons of dust here in Central Texas

because so many things are getting built

and it's just part of the area.

How do I keep the thing clean after 24 hours?

Can I use any of the hyper clean chemicals?

Do you suggest air?

Like, what's the best?

Yeah, so I mean, air to blow off your car,

if you, I mean, especially if you have a ceramic coating on it,

you know, it absolutely works.

I mean, that works, you know, gangbusters

for the kind of dust, but, you know,

kind of the way I tell people is, you know,

I have a black car, I have a dark blue car.

Sometimes, you know, you want to use the right detail spray,

like slick in our store, but the dust settling on it,

you're going to have to live with it.

You know, it's not the greatest.

You can always use a waterless or rinse-less wash

if you want to just clean it up real quick.

But, you know, my BMW was incredibly dusty, obviously,

after sitting for a little while.

I brought it to the shop and I gave it a bath, you know,

put the headphones in, enjoyed myself, you know,

and, you know, by the time I drove home,

was there some dust on the car?

Sure, there was some dust on the car.

10 minutes later, son of a bitch.

It's just the way it is.

Like, so I don't let that stuff bother me,

but if it does bother you,

rinse-less and waterless wash is a great option in your garage.

All right, I got to buy more towels, for that case.

The GTI only took like four, this is going to take like 10.

Yeah, this, look, you're stepping into a whole

another league here.

Yeah, but I'm leaning on you to help me, you know,

guide through the big thing.

Yeah, you haven't had to get a stepper

to get to a roof of something for how long.

Oh, shout out to one of our listeners.

I forgot who sent it to me.

He's like, hey, Harbor Freight's got like a 40 inch,

you know, work ladder, go get it right now

because you're going to need it

for the top of the truck.

Yeah, yeah.

And let me say this there,

do not use a brush on your trucks.

Okay, don't use a brush.

You expand on that because people are going to be like,

what are you talking about?

That's what you get at every car wash

and that's the easiest thing to use.

And that's why your car doesn't look good

and your truck especially doesn't look good.

It just don't use a brush.

We have all kinds of videos on hyperclean store YouTube.

We show you the proper way to wash.

It doesn't take that much longer.

There's a reason my cars look the way they do

and it's not because I'm a rocket scientist.

It's just using the right things,

doing it the right way.

All of you can do it.

We're good to go.

So before we get into more stories,

this will drop on Monday

as every podcast has for over a year now.

And on Tuesday, you're dropping a new product altogether.

So what are we sharing with the world on Tuesday?

It's called AWX and it's going to be an acid wheel cleaner,

more leaning towards people with some experience.

You know, acid is how we used to clean every wheel,

but we've manufactured something that's pretty unique.

Go watch, you know, look at the video

on hypercleanstore.com.

You can actually no touch clean your wheels

if you do things properly.

It's exciting for us as a manufacturer

because very, very limited amounts

of manufacturing facilities handle these materials.

So we are going to be one of the few in the United States

that handles these materials,

which is really exciting as a business

because we're sort of running into things

that everybody else has been running out of.

Because there's a lot of liability concerns

and different things like that.

So we've spent the better part of the last year,

Marshall and the team at HQ have solidified us

working with acidic acid on this level

is just not something a lot of people do,

which is pretty cool.

Cool, hypercleanstore.com is where the products are

and the YouTube video will be on

hypercleanstore YouTube channel.

All right, speaking of BMWs, dude, this morning,

as of this morning, I started seeing these articles roll out

about how BMW, this is exactly one of them.

BMW mistakenly publishes the name of all 2027 cars.

And another one was BMW accidentally announces

every 2027 car, including the all-wheel drive M2.

Do you think that the, I mean, are these real leaks?

Are these, because I'm starting to think that

the way that the world has kind of delivered to us

a bunch of crazy chaos already in 2026,

these mistakes are so like incompetent

that it might actually,

because this is like movie level incompetence,

but it might just be real mistakes.

Can we all say that we don't care?

I mean, is that an okay opinion to have?

I agree. Is it okay to just go,

you could have released this at the beginning of the year,

you could have released it last year,

here's the 2027 models,

they think they're giving some kind of buildup.

People that are looking for a BMW

are gonna go to the BMW dealership

and buy whatever they wanna buy.

You know, they may look at two or three vehicles

and make a decision,

but the names of German cars

are not wildly impressive to begin with.

What does it really matter? Am I wrong on that?

No, I mean, considering,

I mean, you're talking about like the M350,

you got the IX350XDR, right?

The IX440.

Hey, the Germans once again showing you

they are just so creative with numbers and letters

to make stupid names.

They did, although you're right,

and they did blur out the new seven series

because they haven't.

Oh, so they gave you the name,

but they blurred out the car with the camera.

Yeah, sounds like a real big leak.

Yeah, no, I work a lot of M7s,

and I think the last M7 model that came out

probably surpassed the S-Class.

I said that on a podcast,

they did such a good job with it,

but boy, does that car feel big.

I mean, it feels big when you're,

that hood feels, I mean, you're just like,

this feels like a lot of hood space.

It doesn't matter sometimes what the dimensions say.

That sitting behind the wheel makes you go,

oh, the front of that looks,

God, what was the front of that?

That one's gonna be one of the IX cars.

Might even be the 350 or the M2 X-Drive, I don't know.

This is an IX Lancer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's,

what was the other Mitsubishi that somebody kept coveting?

The Galant.

It was a Galant for sure,

and then there was another one too, I'm forgetting it.

It started with an M, I think,

but yeah, this looks early Mitsubishi.

I don't know, man, it doesn't matter.

I know we're all looking for content.

You know, let's understand that that's the game,

but them releasing the names, who cares?

I mean, I agree.

So do you have any opinions on the M2

and the AWD and the introduction of that platform?

I kind of like what they've done with the M2.

I have not been behind the wheel of the brand new M2.

I still think, and I gotta pull the dad on this,

so this is my mistake guys,

is that I still think most M2s that people want

are manual, I think it's like an overwhelming amount

of purchases in the manual of M2.

I don't love any of it,

but I mean, the M2 is not really hateable in my opinion.

I mean, they've done an okay job with it,

and it just doesn't speak to me as like,

I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna spend,

what is it now, 125 to $140,000 on an M car.

I just don't think it's really,

and I think that's the price range.

I'm kind of doing off the top of my head.

You know, we never talked about the,

or we haven't really talked about the 1M,

remember the little one?

Oh, I love the one.

I mean, look, the 1M is very desirable now.

I saw one yesterday for the first time

in a long time on the road,

and it just, every time I see one,

it's just again, very rare.

I'm like, damn, is that one of those cars

that's gonna go up significantly,

go up significantly in value

to where you should pick one up?

Yeah, significantly.

I mean, they've already gone up,

and ultra low mileage ones are kind of going,

I think I saw a low mileage,

maybe E46, somebody sent me,

I think it ended up going for 67.

So 1M has definitely had their run up as well.

I think it's one of those cars

when you say go up significantly.

I mean, significant would mean

we're gonna see 1M at 300,000.

Oh, right.

I don't know if we're gonna get there.

I guess we could.

I think there's a lot of,

I talked to a few people this week

that had some interesting opinions.

I think we're gonna see things soften

pretty significantly over the next 24 to 36 months.

That's a guess, obviously.

I'm giving you like an educated opinion.

I don't know where that leaves a car like 1M

because it is a special car

because obviously it's one of those rare moments

where they made a couple year run, I believe, of it.

And I've always liked it,

but you gotta have a specific buyer

and you gotta have somebody specifically into,

if you have an M collection, you want a 1M, right?

And so you're looking for those kind of people

to really drive the price on them.

The first link that popped up

just happened to be an Edmunds link,

so I just clicked on it.

And I mean, 60 to 90 is what you're looking for

for 2010, 20, 11?

I mean, I could see if they keep getting run up

and asset prices stay high.

I mean, those could be in the 120s.

They could be, but any weakness in the market,

I think those are gonna stall out

and create a floor in some kind of way.

But look, man, they're cool cars.

They weren't, amongst my friends,

nobody, everybody always wanted an M3

was sort of the thing everybody grew up on, right?

You're a specific one if I had to say.

Yeah, I mean, E92, E90, those kind of things.

I think when you look at it,

1M kind of flew under the radar at the time.

It's not under the radar now, obviously.

I remember there was a Dynan one

that was passed around the media press.

Those, yeah, man, it was a really, really cool car.

Everybody take a drink for 2010.

That was a great year for a lot of cars.

So we'll say this though.

1M, like so many other cars,

prove that a lot of cars in the moment

that people aren't like super excited about

almost always become something

people get excited about in the sports car market, right?

Like we've seen that with weird spec GT3s.

It's like they couldn't move them off the lot

and now people are paying a premium

because it's a one of one type of spec.

But it was such an ugly spec.

We talked about this a few weeks back.

Yeah, man, 1M was one of those things.

People liked them.

The enthusiasm has definitely grown.

It's like a TV movie,

like a movie that comes on TV

and it gets like a second wind years later.

You know, that's kind of what we've seen from 1M.

But I was there, you were there.

BMW guys always wanted an M3.

And I just think 1M just kind of people liked it,

but they were like, I'm gonna get the M3.

And now you're seeing people really want the 1M.

So I'm jumping around my run through here

because this is a perfect time to bring up.

You and I were talking about earlier this week,

just a quick convo on like a car enthusiast.

What was it?

It was like, it wasn't personality,

it was maturity almost,

I think it was what we were talking about.

But I remember seeing, you know, you have a 2003,

I've got a 14.

We always talk about old cars.

And then as we kind of grew in the podcast,

we kept saying, man,

I'm seeing a lot of people talk about older cars.

And now some of these funny car creators that I'll see

are like, you know what?

When I really hit it, people are gonna know

because I'm gonna be back there on Marketplace

finding the best examples of like your late 90s,

mid 90s, early 2000s.

And I would say that's most of my group chats.

Yeah, no, for sure.

That's most of my group chats over the last five years

have been people sending listings of things

that just five years ago, many of us didn't think about.

That is so accurate.

The five year window is gonna say the exact same thing.

It couldn't have been, you know, definitely not a decade.

It's less than a decade where that's like,

and it's not that we don't like new cars, love new cars.

I think it's great, it's cool, it's innovative.

Maybe sometimes it's luxurious, whatever it is,

but they're not hitting with the audiences

that the cars that we're talking about now hit.

Never have.

Not in the enthusiast realm.

The enthusiasts have really, I think,

started to wake up that their favorite things are never,

the lineage of their favorite things is dead.

It peaked already, yeah, a long time ago.

Well, but it's also the lineage has been broken in a lot.

I mean, we talk about Land Cruiser a lot on this podcast.

The lineage in America of Land Cruiser,

unless they make some drastic change,

it's now forever, not the lineage that you remember.

Doesn't mean good or bad.

I'm not making a comment on that.

But, you know, the same can be said a lot

about a lot of things.

I mean, that's what I think is actually hurting Mustang,

right?

Mustang's lineage is just going on too long

and they're not making enough change

to kind of excite people to go,

okay, that's what C8 Corvette did.

You know, C8 basically said,

hey, we're going in a new direction

and they happen to do something people loved.

I have a really great tentative segment for the show

that includes Porsche and Mustang,

so it's funny you brought that up.

But to stay on this topic,

do you think that we're gonna see more

car enthusiast maturity rapidly get to kind of

where your group tech star and what the car enthusiast

we're having and what our audience likes,

just because of prices and things that people just.

I think it's there.

You think it's there already?

I think it's there.

For most people, 30 and above,

I think their mindset's already,

I gotta go find that thing I want.

Okay, so for the 30 and above mindsets

that we're talking about,

this is actually leading to my next topic.

Are they crying about tracks and track days

and track weekends and.

Boy, this track conversation is obviously hyper specific.

If you're into track,

you've been crying about the track situation

in most places for well over a decade, 15 years.

I don't think it's ever been

what everybody was happy about.

The track's not maintained

or the track hasn't upgraded itself.

And we have some interesting news now of all of this.

We need to save the track from certain media members.

We need to save tracks for the average guy.

Boy, that's playing out much differently in real time, huh?

Yeah, and the famous word I left out of my little rant

there is private equity.

The outcries of private equity

and these markets are also kind of changing tunes

or even suddenly just not being discussed as loudly.

Yeah, I mean, I think the irony of all of this is

there were a lot of content creators, podcasters,

media members, whoever you wanna lump into

the talking heads out there.

We're telling you,

we all need to have an outcry to save tracks.

It was kind of a couple year push.

Yeah.

And then these people get tracks saved,

but they get tracks saved with lots of money

from an equity partner or an equity buyout.

And everybody goes, this is gonna be great.

Then all the building happens,

all the refurbishment happens,

all the new structures go up,

and all of a sudden those same media members

are taking pictures and videos at a private track day

going, hey, look at how great this is.

Look at what they've done at the track,

which by the way, most of the stuff's gonna go private.

Yeah, it has to. Or semi-private.

It has to.

Okay, because these guys that have that level of money

to save these properties, they're in it for one reason.

They're not in it for the love of the track.

It doesn't matter what you hear on an interview

or you hear publicly, it's not for the love of the track

because most of these guys don't even live there.

Yeah.

So they're gonna fly in what?

Let's just say they have lots of money,

they fly in once a quarter because they're a busy guy.

They're saving a track in California

when they live in New York City for what?

So I think you can cut the irony with a knife at this point.

You know, it's so thick that all of these people

that were crying to have,

hey, you guys should support the saving of these tracks

as individuals and we're gonna lead the charge

and we're gonna act like we're for the little guy.

You have some tracks now that the little guy can't get in

since all of this has taken place.

Yeah, I'm hearing a lot about that here in Texas too

with Kota, we were talking about that

and I think it's bound like you said to happen to all of them.

They're all gonna go private or semi-private

and eventually the conversation will just die

because there aren't gonna be any more ears to listen.

Like if you're into it, you've literally got money

so you're into it, you got some skin to the game

or you're just kinda like,

well, I guess I gotta move on to something else.

Well, and I find it funny when the irony

of the media members is you don't know

if they've been given free memberships

and this was all a plan, it doesn't sit right.

We've seen some comment sections on some of these videos

be very, very angry because they have done the pricing,

where a track day used to be a hundred, a couple hundred

bucks, it's already jumped up to $800.

That's when the track is available

and not rented out to members in some way.

So, it's kinda like what we told you guys

is about certain individuals getting very hyped up

about what was going on at car shows and car meets

and I don't understand all this behavior

and we need to calm it down.

Yet the whole run up of them on the internet

was them doing film or photo or producing

or being drivers in these crazy videos on the internet

doing crazy stuff with cars.

This is not the point blame,

but you gotta look at the irony of all this.

Save the tracks and then I'm gonna show you my track day

at this very expensive place

that used to be not very expensive.

So, what did they know?

When did they know it?

You guys can make that call for yourself

but you gotta admit the irony is very thick in here.

Let us know in the comments

when you see this clip right now.

And by the way, they were for the little guy

as they're at a private track day.

You know, that's always about being for the little guy

and then all of a sudden you're not for them

and you're not the little guy anymore

and you've disappeared into just there.

Yeah, and then you wanna have arguments

and go, well, what you don't understand,

it's like, no, man, I priced it out.

It's four X the cost or I gotta buy a membership.

I think you have some interesting information about Coda

where it seems like there's a corporate sponsorship,

a court, basically a medical group

is basically gonna take most of the days,

if not all of them in some way.

I mean, we don't have that information for sure.

Like we are in real time

where everybody that was calling for these tracks

to be saved on behalf of the little guy,

now all of a sudden doesn't have a problem

with all these massive equity people.

And I'm all for it.

I wanna make this clear.

If somebody pays the money and they bought the property,

they can do what they want with it.

Of course.

Make it as private as you want.

Tell me, Nick and Rob can't join, doesn't offend me.

Okay, it's your money, your property,

you can do what you want.

I've never cared about that.

I also wasn't the guy crying

to bring in people to save these tracks

because I kind of knew what was gonna happen.

I think so did everyone else.

The only track I need now is one of my buddy's ranchers

and I'm good, all right?

You can keep track.

Yeah, I mean.

I'll make my own trail.

I don't think any of us wanna see this,

but I think we're all being delusional

that supposed smart media members did not know

that this is the way it was gonna go down.

Well, we'll see how it all unfolds.

I wanna take a left turn here

because we had a video that went pretty crazy here

the last couple of days about Scout

and I think you might have been more

in the exchanges than I was,

but there was somebody that made a comment

to the extent of like,

was it that Vaj would be going out of business

or something?

Before NEOs.

Before NEOs, that's what it was.

Yeah, the Volkswagen Auto Group

was gonna go out of business before NEOs.

I mean, it's,

we have, I love NEOs,

rooting them on.

They've cut production several times already

by all accounts.

If they weren't attached to a major, larger corporation,

they'd probably be damn near producing nothing.

I think people get very,

like hyper specific.

If they happen to see a lot of the cars in the area,

they think that means something's doing well.

NEOs is not doing well in the United States.

They could be doing well,

but they're not doing well enough to not cut production.

I'm gonna, real quick,

I'm gonna pull it out.

How many NEOs do you think sold in the US last year in 2025?

I would say 30,000.

All right, let's see,

let's see, in 2025,

NEOs granted your sales for face changes,

blah, blah, blah.

Not expected to exceed 7,000 for the year.

Yeah, I mean, I'm way, I mean, so.

Geez, I was not thinking that low.

No, me either.

But it's a hyper specific vehicle, right?

I mean, it's really like,

once those ultra rich guys scratch that itch,

you know, that's who was buying them.

That's who they were targeting, by the way.

It's not really a secret.

They were targeting a very specific

private equity up in Aspen house.

There's a reason I never saw those ads.

Let's all be right here.

Yeah, I mean, it's pretty obvious who they were targeting

and that's their prerogative,

but it shows you the disconnect

between what the consumer thinks they know

and what is actually real.

To say that INEOS has any prayer

of outlasting the Volkswagen auto group

who owns how many brands at this point.

And I even said, and I want to say to all of you,

that doesn't mean I agree with the Volkswagen auto group

and everything they're doing across every brand.

I just know how goddamn big they are.

And I understand that they have a global footprint

that INEOS will not have if they stay in business 100 years.

Yeah, no, it's not even close.

It's literally, they're the largest, right?

European automaker?

Yeah, I mean, because of what they own.

Yeah, everything essentially.

I mean, they're a top five automaker globally.

Once you start saying you're a top five automaker globally,

INEOS is not on that level.

And again, your opinion doesn't make it fact.

You're right.

The Volkswagen auto group is a major player.

And by the way, they could sell like four brands off

and cash flow the rest of their business.

So it's just not reality.

And it causes people this kind of cluelessness.

Delusion.

Yeah, delusion causes people to make bad decisions.

Yes, but hey, delusional commenters,

hearts to you for leaving, engagement in our comments.

I love you, honestly, I'm not gonna lie to you.

But speaking of Volkswagen Audi,

I got a question for you.

All right, so I got back in the GTI

after a couple of weeks of not driving it at all.

And I found a new feature I never knew the car had.

Have you ever had a car that you later found a feature

way after you've owned a car?

Oh, yeah.

Please, what's the first one that comes to mind?

Cause you're not gonna believe.

My wife told me, she's like,

put this in your notes right now.

We're at the store, she goes, put it in part,

put this in your notes, you gotta tell Nick what you're doing.

I'd have to think about that.

Okay, think about it.

So we're pulling into a store and you know what it was?

I think this is why I found it

because the Raptor has power folding mirrors, okay?

And I hadn't had anything with power folding mirrors.

Yeah, I think, you know what?

I actually think that's probably like a feature that...

No way.

So check out how dumb this sounds.

We're backing up and it had the same icon

that the Raptor has on it,

but the Raptor, you have to push it down

and it folds the mirror in.

What this was, it was the same icon,

but what it does is when you put it in reverse,

it tilts your passenger side mirror

so you can see the back tire.

I've had the car for three, four years.

I didn't know it did that.

Hey, you just think to yourself like,

what was I doing the whole time?

I was using my like, I'm backing up a trailer.

I know where the tire is, I don't need to see it,

but I really wish I would have been able

to see the tire the whole time.

No, I would really have to think

about one of those moments that I've had.

I couldn't do it off the top of my head

because it's too random, but I'll try to think of one.

Please think of one.

She was like, I cannot believe

what you just discovered randomly.

Yeah, and that's also the good thing

about getting another car is

because when you get back in yours,

you start to see things that look similar

and you're like, you know, I never pressed this before.

Yeah, yeah, also underrated to me

is built-in garage door openers

like the HomeLink system forwards have.

Oh, no question.

It's so great.

No question.

For the last two weeks, I was just backing forth,

you know, with the freaking garage door opener,

I'm like, I just had to set it up.

It doesn't have, oh, you didn't,

oh, I was like, it had to have it.

I just didn't, I didn't set it up yet,

but a shout out to you too.

And I've had some cars where the setup was such a headache.

You had to like get the owner's manual out

and like, you know, follow these proceed.

And I'm like, Jesus Christ,

like what is going on with your, with your link system?

That's how I felt until I found one video,

which in the comments, you're like,

you're the only video that described as well.

And it's crazy.

You'll see dozens and dozens of videos.

And I'm like, how are they all wrong?

And there's only one that did it right.

Yeah, it's, when you find those videos, you're so excited.

I save them.

Yeah, and you realize if you send that to somebody,

they won't be as excited as you are.

I know.

So you just, you're just alone, excited.

Like, oh, hell yeah, look what I found.

That's most of my life, Nick, by the way.

Yeah, same, same, same.

Nobody cares about the same stuff.

All right, so you got to think about that

because I want to hear something that was just shocked you

that you didn't know your car had.

But also speaking of earlier, you talked about Porsche,

we talked about Ford.

I don't know, man, I'm calling this input from the internet

because I feel like our comments,

whether it's comments, emails, DMs,

there's a lot of input, good, bad, indifferent,

doesn't matter, but somebody said, all right,

let me see if I can find the exact comment here.

The next affordable Porsche is a Ford Mustang Dark Horse.

I truly believe that people are going to move to Ford,

amazing driving experience,

and a manual Ford will be the new Porsche.

No, I really appreciate the thought of the comment.

And I think I said that, you know, responding to them

and going, you could be onto something.

The problem that you face is that people that are looking

for the level of experience of a Porsche

are probably 99% never going to buy a Ford.

That's just kind of the reality that we see.

Should they, could you be right technically?

All of that stuff is kind of irrelevant

because you're looking at a certain type of buyer.

Now, where you could be right,

and where this stuff really is an interesting conversation,

is that are people going to be so fed up with pricing

that they're just going to be looking for a cheaper option?

This has kind of been the argument of how expensive

some of these Mustangs have become.

You go, well, at that point,

I might as well buy a used 911.

So how does that equate, right?

So now I got to wait for the Dark Horse

to depreciate by whatever it's going to depreciate by.

And if it's not enough to be significantly under

a used Porsche, and by significant,

I mean 30,000 plus dollars,

and I don't think there's any hopes

of that happening tomorrow,

you're looking at a long runway

for this to take place, in my opinion.

Is there any, have you kept up with that world

just because we take some jabs,

make some jokes or whatever,

but prices of certain things came in GT4

or something where it's actually kind of gone down?

Because I feel like a lot of that,

you've talked about softening of the market.

I feel like a lot of those cars have kind of softened.

Yes, used 911s have softened.

They're not anywhere where most people would be happy,

but it's softened.

GT3 isn't softening, right?

That special ones are not softening.

But yeah, you can find good Porsche products

to have fun with in the sports car realm

for things that don't look as inflated

as they maybe looked 36 months ago,

but they're still inflated.

And so people have a lot of apprehension.

I get text all the time of somebody finding a used Porsche,

a lot of used Ferraris in my chats.

And what's about to happen with Ferrari,

F430 and 458 that are seemingly not even the special ones

are starting to gain steam.

So you're gonna see a lot of movement, I think.

You're gonna see a lot of people.

And so I appreciate the commenter talking about this

because at some point people are going to have to make a move.

They're gonna want some type of experience.

I just think it's hard to say somebody who is on the level

of buying a Porsche is really gonna be looking

and seeing things through the lens of,

let me look at all brands.

That's just not normally how it goes.

And if they were, they'd be looking for a used M car

or something like that, in my opinion.

So I want your thoughts.

The place where I bought the Raptor,

no free shout outs unless we collaborate.

So maybe I'll mention them, shout them out later.

But they have a 17 Macon Turbo

and the Sapphire Blue Metallic that I absolutely love.

What are your thoughts on the Macon?

The only thing I had a problem with Macon on

and we were thinking about it for our family

is it is exceedingly small.

Yeah, a little bit.

It's small.

So I've always liked obviously the numbers show

what they've done with Macon.

It's incredibly successful.

I think it's a hell of a lot of fun to drive.

Yeah.

You know, it's just a matter of what your needs are

and most people are gonna fit into the Cayenne.

Now you're talking about really a different class of money

for the ones you want.

But I don't think you can really say anything negative

about what Porsche has done in their SUV market.

Yeah.

You know, I'm a Panamera fan.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Listener Nicole knows all about that.

You convinced her to buy the Panamera she bought.

So, you know, shout out to you.

Yeah, I mean, I think Panamera's,

people just don't love the look of it,

but it's a hell of an experience.

Yeah, that's crazy.

Sorry, I was just enamored by this blue.

I mean, that's just,

Porsche has some beautiful blues.

I love Mexico blue.

I love, what's the other one?

Mexico blue, there's another one of those bright

kind of really off bluey ones that Porsche makes.

It's just so good.

Yeah, look, man, what they've done with their SUVs

over the years is incredible.

But you're still seeing news out of Porsche Corporation,

so to speak, that they're not doing so hot.

You know, they're in some financial strain.

And it's amazing to all of us listening

that that could happen,

but you got to sell a lot of cars, man.

And they've gotten to, I mean, I've told everybody,

I think I had a Cayenne turbo in the shop

somewhere around six, eight, 12 months ago.

I think the sticker, I mean, that stuff,

that was like 180, 187, you know, something in that realm.

And you go, damn, how many people can you sell this to?

And you need to sell a lot of them.

Yeah, do I sell, there's a channel,

I don't remember the page,

but they make parts or they remanufacture parts,

specifically a lot for Porsche.

And he was talking about how some of the accessory parts

or just exterior parts can be so outrageously priced.

Like there was a plastic piece,

he said that Porsche, for example,

it's just like a small plastic piece

that goes apart of the bumper that sold for like $7,500.

And part of the wing that would sell, you know what I mean?

And so they reproduce them and sell them

for maybe a couple hundred dollars, if that.

And that makes me think like at a certain point,

after all of the upper echelon people

have kind of gone through those cars,

the next buyer, if they need to replace those parts,

they're not spending $10,000

on a plastic piece for your bumper, right?

Yeah, so now you just have something that becomes

like a cancer that spreads to the car.

Yeah, exactly. Right.

Where this piece is missing,

then this next piece starts to be missing.

And, you know, it is a very, very

enticing thing to buy a highly depreciated Porsche.

Yeah.

There's some realities that largely get put under the rug

by Porsche fans that's like, you know,

well, this car doesn't cost that much

and it doesn't run, you know,

it's got a great engine platform

and it'll be kind of reliable for this level of car.

You start looking into those things.

Yeah, man.

I mean, it's what kind of kept me off of Panamera.

You know, Panamera, when things go wrong,

you're stepping into a level of maintenance

that most people don't understand.

Like you said, just a simple plastic piece or this or that.

It doesn't have to scare everybody off,

but I'm like, I think there's just better options for me,

but I still love it.

No, I agree with you.

Speaking of blues and cool colors,

we last spring actually,

we talked about the Toyota WaveMaker color

and it coming out right on all the TRD models.

And I hadn't seen, I don't know when they started

kind of shipping, but I saw one.

I'm going to pull it up just to refresh your memory

and everybody watching on YouTube.

And I saw one on the trailer.

I saw two of them that were on the trailer

and it looked really, really good.

I don't know if this picture does it justice,

but do I remember you liking this color

or not liking it?

Yes, I saw it in person at SEMA two years ago.

Okay, okay.

They had it on a non-production,

like a topless Bronco rival

that I remember bringing up at the time

because SEMA was about a month before we started.

Gotcha.

This podcast and I go,

if they brought this to market,

it'd be game over and nowhere near it.

But it looks awesome.

It looks great.

That's a great color.

Wave maker blue or wave makers, that's what it's called.

But yeah, check that out for you

in the market for a Toyota.

I was surprised by it because when I saw it in the picture,

I'm like, that might be a little too off, off-colory,

but in person, it looks sweet.

All right.

Have you seen the videos of Ram trucks,

airbags going off when they shouldn't?

Somebody sent me something.

So this is now like a widespread thing.

Yes, watch this.

I got it.

I got to play it for you.

You're going to be on the same channel.

So I'm going to say not to blow your eardrums,

but you will not believe this guys.

I mean, you'll say it.

Is this the guy that's all bloody?

Yeah.

Give me a second here to turn you down.

The RHO went off again.

And this time I was on a smooth part of the off-road course.

This is where I test the Ford Raptor,

the Ford Raptor R, the Bronco Raptor.

Those are all OEM vehicles.

I don't do anything to them when I test them.

And the first time the airbags went off,

I let my insurance company handle the lawsuit

against Dodge.

Now I'm going to actually get an attorney

because this is completely unacceptable.

I went to an attorney and he recommended

that I use my insurance policy again

and let them sue Ram on my behalf.

This is known as subrogation.

But where this gets really interesting is

I went to the Ram dealership to drop off the truck

so that they could scan it and report it to the NHTSA.

They came back to me and said that

there was no crash data on the ORC.

And right now there is a recall of over 52,000 trucks

from Ram for faulty software on the ORC.

Now I took my insurance money and I went and field tested this.

I was able to trigger the airbags

through multiple instances

that should not have triggered the airbags.

After I completed testing, I went to trade the truck in

and there is no record of the deployments.

The vehicle history report is clean,

which means if you buy a Ram truck,

you have no idea if it has this defective airbag system in it.

Bro.

This is what Tim Kaniska said they have no problems.

Insert right here when we edit the podcast reminder,

the clips of him saying just that.

This is real dangerous shit.

That's a problem.

I mean, the guy was bleeding.

If you've never seen or had airbags go off,

it's it could be pretty violent.

It looks like it was fairly violent for him.

Yeah, actually got kind of, you know, a lot of people,

you know, will get like abrasions across multiple.

It looks like he kind of escaped, you know, really a lot of it,

but he still didn't escape at all.

You know, manufacturing a truck or a car is not easy.

I think we need to say that first.

But for guys like Tim Kaniskas to go out and talk as if they

didn't have production issues.

Yeah, we said you could build a Hemi.

You guys know how to do that.

The rest of it is very questionable.

I mean, every electrical component, all of this software,

you're not a company to be trusted because you didn't have it figured

out electrically when these weren't so electrically driven systems.

And this kind of proves the point.

And that's why you and I have really put the opinion out there.

These men and women from these car companies talking so much.

It continues to be foot in mouth.

Yeah, foot and mouth, foot and mouth, foot and mouth.

It's never positive.

It's never like things play out the way they say they play out.

And this guy's insurance.

I mean, he's going to get a check.

I mean, there's going to be a real check exchange hands here

within the next couple of years for this guy and others that, you know,

the crazy thing is, is he has it so well documented.

You would almost hope they would say, what's your price to get

him to stop talking about it?

Yeah, well, let's help him out.

Zint Rose, I believe it is.

Zint Graffer, I'll put it.

Well, you'll see the video as you guys are watching.

He is a telemet, telematics hardware engineer.

So this guy is not going to go away.

Obviously, this is what he does.

It's basically what his content is.

Not just obviously dodge, but like he measures everything.

He goes through the nitty gritty of how shit should function.

And this is not the way the shit should function.

So this is a problem.

The question we get a lot of times and there's no way for anybody to know

the answer that's not inside these buildings.

But I would assume they knew this.

And you put you'd said the foot and mouth thing before I could even say,

like you've mentioned it, if they talk to less, this wouldn't be almost

as big of a problem. Obviously, it still is.

But when you're out there saying the complete opposite over and over again

on media, it's not.

Yes, like they almost think they're going to.

It's like if they say Beetlejuice three times, it's going to show up.

They just think if they say stuff, there's like they're going to put

everybody's mind at ease.

It's like, no, bud, airbags are airbags are clocking people in the face.

We forgot the Streisand effect here.

Like he just amplified all these problems even more by going on on

media isn't saying that there's no problem.

Yes. And and I want these people to continue to do media.

You guys need to go to people that are going to ask you real questions and

hold you accountable so you don't look more foolish.

Now they don't care.

Look, everybody's making a ton of money at that level.

Does he really care?

The answer is probably no.

I don't think he wants his airbags going off.

No, no, no, I don't think he wants to build bad electrical systems

and bad software and a bad truck.

I don't think that's what they're aiming for.

But maybe a little less media and a little bit more on the factory

floor, figuring out what the hell's going on might be a good use of time here.

All right.

I got to say, how about we do a little sports corner before we land a plane?

How about that USA Gold Hockey Medal?

Unbelievable.

What a game.

Unbelievable. And then the fallout.

You just can't you can't have anything nice.

You can't have anything nice in the world and have nice things.

No, not in today's world.

You know, I mean, what a what a cool thing, man.

You got to be happy for those guys.

I can only imagine the partying that went on to celebrate.

I would say I would say.

You have to really be disciplined on social media to like enjoy these moments now.

Yes, you know, I just I think people

at every turn and whether somebody somewhere should have said something.

I'm not debating that.

OK, again, foot and mouth.

You talk enough, which we have a politician that does too much talking.

In my opinion, you're going to say some things you shouldn't say.

And you're going to joke in ways you shouldn't joke.

But what the way this is turned, it's kind of sad.

You know, I mean, these these dudes really did something special.

The women obviously winning gold is great.

But, you know, for the drought that they were on to get over the hump,

I think you got to be got to be pumped up about that.

So I have a really good friend who is his Canadian

and he's a he's a very well known documentary filmmaker.

And when the game ended, I just sent him a hockey stick, a US flag and an eagle.

And he's very nice guy.

And he's very good about getting back to me.

And he did. He has red receipts on, too.

You read it and he didn't reply back.

And I'll tell my wife, I was like, damn, I think I finally pissed off at him.

And it wasn't until like an hour later that he's such a nice guy again.

He was like, oh, good for the USA.

You know, whatever, Canada really dropped the ball.

And I was like, OK, I didn't trust the line here.

Yeah, no, man, it was cool to see and.

The Olympics kind of just came and went.

I know, I mean, it's it's when it's when it's certain places in the world,

it just doesn't hit the US quite the same.

Yeah, you can't watch a lot of the stuff live, etc.

But again, shout out to the boys USA team. OK.

Do you see your boy, Ellie Della Cruz?

We're just going to gloss over it.

What I'm trying to keep up a string training.

What happened? Tell me.

Well, I'm a little worried you might get a little tag in his locker

because he somehow gained like 25 pounds in a short off season.

Oh, jeez. No, I haven't.

I don't know, brother.

You know, there's a there's a dude for the Rockies that put on 40 pounds

like overnight. Hey, we're back to the good days.

Are you telling me we're back to the good days?

I mean, like I told you, if I ran baseball, it would be the WWE.

No, nothing, no testing, no, nothing.

We need the guys from the enhanced games to just go to MLB and say, hey,

well, it's it's like the same thing you would say about MMA,

except you're you're playing with people's lives so you can't advocate for it.

But like, you know, Saucy Vitor Belfort was hella entertaining.

Yeah, in worst case, you might find a little too hard of come backers,

you know, from the from the hitter to the picture.

I mean, you don't want you don't want Bob Sapp, you know, punching people anymore.

Right. We realized what kind of damage that can do.

Who was it that broke the bat over the helmet where they just kind of like?

Oh, Bo Jackson. Bo Jackson. Yeah, that's what.

Yeah, but here's the thing, I don't think he needed sauce.

No, I think that dude was just he just came out the womb ready to go.

He was that guy, as I mean, like we I've seen Frank Thomas a lot in town.

Like you stand next to that guy, you go, yeah, that makes sense.

Like, I mean, it's just a large human being.

You know, yeah, I know it's it is what it is.

Dude, the day that I had the raptor detail and then filmed was probably the last

cold day we'll have in Texas, which it was like in the 30s or 40s and then got warm.

So the weather is kind of broken here, which is great.

Got me outside doing a bunch of things with the raptor, other people,

filming content for the podcast, hypercleaning the whole thing.

But it's good. It's a good feeling.

Spring training is back and all these teams are going, you know,

getting their teams all situated and then the ABS system.

The amount of calls that have gotten overturned in spring training already.

I mean, I wish Angel Hernandez was still an umpire in MLB. It's insane.

I'm going to have to play the wait and see game here.

Tell me what you mean by that.

Don't tell me you want your peers that wants only on calls to count.

I think I'm done with instant replay in all sports.

Oh, wait a minute. No instant replay.

I'm just, it just, I mean, there's a lot of times they don't even get it right.

I'm just, it's just wasting my time.

That's true. You know, and I hope it works.

I hope it's as quick as they say it's going to be.

I hope I just hope, you know, because baseball has had a pretty good run here.

I mean, it looks like they're going to go to a major lockout here at the end of the year.

So we'll see how long this, you know, good vibes last.

But I think ultimately I just got to see it play out.

I'm actually glad you said that because there's this company that is going around

and they're showcasing this technology where not only is it instant replay, dude,

but it's like instant replay from all different parts of the stadium.

They give you angles you've never seen before.

Of course, it's all AI driven and it's supposed to again show you different angles,

but also give you better instant replay access.

But sometimes when you see people that already get the calls bad

when you have a good view of it, it's like, what does it matter?

Yeah, I don't know, man.

That's what I'm saying.

I got to see it like the NFL instant replay is abomination.

NBA instant replay is abomination.

Like we need to stop all of this.

I just want to watch the game and move on with my life.

You know what I'm saying?

Don't act like you don't know.

It's like we're going to stop this for this again.

And then there's a 50 50 chance they get it right.

Like that's kind of where we're at with instant replay.

Yeah, I would say post season only, but we saw some really bad calls

in NFL post season this year.

Oh, 100 percent.

They still can't tell you what a catch is.

Was it a bounce?

You know, what's this done?

I mean, it hasn't done anything like positively, in my opinion.

So yeah, that's where I'd fall out.

All right.

Before we fizzle down the plan, I'm going to give you one more internet input.

You know what? No, I don't want to piss you off.

I don't want to go ahead.

All right.

To be honest, why even shop at a dealership unless you have a few money?

Marketplace, we were talking about Facebook marketplace earlier,

will always be superior if you really know vehicles

and are mechanically inclined to find and check what you're looking for.

I think he answered his own question.

Most people are not highly mechanically inclined.

This is I have no problem.

I shop for my cars wherever I can find them.

Somebody's house, marketplace, cars and bids, bring a trailer,

eBay, dealerships, I'm with them.

I'm also very comfortable with the outcomes of these things.

To say you don't understand why people shop at dealerships

and then list all of the reasons people would shop at dealerships.

That's the problem with people.

You're mechanically inclined, so you're thinking everybody else is that way.

And you're thinking everybody else wants to deal with the issues

that may arise from buying something on marketplace.

It is not tough to figure out.

The vast majority of people do not get great deals on cars

because they're scared of the risk of what the great deal is.

Right. I mean, it's very basic.

If you know all you need to know about an S550S class from Mercedes,

you go, I know what that warning light is.

This seller doesn't know I'm going to get a deal

and I'm going to fix that with $300 part and twist it in and it's going to be fixed.

How many people know that?

Also, to be so dramatic about you need a few money to shop at a dealership.

I mean, come on, like, let's relax a little bit on that.

I don't.

This is the other thing we get into far too often in the car market.

Your financial situation is not everybody's financial situation.

There are plenty of people that overspend at a dealership,

and there's plenty of people that have enough money

that the dealership is just an easy way for them to buy a car.

And they never think about the car payment.

They never overspend.

They do have plenty of money coming in from their job or their company or whatever.

Your situation is not everybody's situation.

And that's what we see a lot of people misunderstand in the car market,

which is why getting advice from Billy Bob, your brother-in-law about how to buy a truck

is not really ever good advice because he's doing it from his perspective.

And he may have technical knowledge to fix something that you don't.

So you go buy this vehicle.

This happens all the time, guys.

I deal with customers like this all the time.

Talk to my dad, and he said to buy this.

But my dad does all his own work.

I've never worked on a car.

Well, yeah, man, so your dad didn't really know what it cost

at a mechanic shop to get this truck fixed or this car fixed.

Nothing against your dad, but that's what makes it cancerous to take this advice.

And what you didn't know is your dad's never actually gotten a deal

that the dealership he's been dealing with for 30 years laughs when they see him coming.

So you didn't know the back story here.

You just heard one guy's perspective.

We try to do a really good job of giving a broad perspective.

The dealership puts people's mind at ease.

They see a big building.

It doesn't look like it's going anywhere.

They feel like they can if something happens, I can drive back to it.

What are you going to do with that person that wants that feeling

and tell him to buy it on Marketplace?

My father, they're going to drive back to it.

It might be fine, a couple of dead bodies in the garage.

Like, you don't want to run into issue.

So I mean, so for everybody that re listens or has listened to that comment,

the guy answers his own problem in the comment,

but doesn't realize he's answered his own problem.

One of the interesting things about that, buying a car

and then having somebody on the Internet maybe guide you,

maybe even stuff we've talked about through a buying process.

Our dude, Doug Benzenbo ties was talking to another creator.

Yeah, I saw that Tommy who runs the delivered YouTube channel.

Well, I follow Tommy and I've seen a couple of his videos over the last year.

So and in one recent one, he was buying a Civic Type R for a customer.

And nationwide, like they're not rare, but every every dealership guy was like,

oh, they're rare, the spec, the prices are about a $10,000 markup on them.

He's like, well, $10,000, like every dealership I've called, they've had one

and I've gotten as much as $4,000 off.

Anyway, long story short, in the comments, it's funny that what seems like

average buyers just saying, well, time is just making content.

Like just go to your local dealership and buy the car.

Like, why make content about how you're getting money off of a markup?

And already I'm like, I'm lost.

You don't want to learn how it's easy to get the markup removed.

You're just like the commenter.

You answered your own question.

Yeah, they don't want to learn.

I know.

They are so concerned.

The average person, in my opinion, is so concerned with proving themselves right.

That they don't care that they're doing it wrong and wrong in the sense

of you're getting a worse deal.

Yeah.

And then you're going to complain about the deal you got in 60 days.

It's just a cycle.

It's just an endless cycle.

And I hope some of our content just gets people to take a breath

and do better deals for themselves.

Yeah.

That's all.

I mean, I don't care what you spend on a car.

It's your money.

You want to overpay?

Overpay.

I mean, it doesn't affect me.

I don't think you have to overpay.

But if you're so convinced you're right, I mean, no matter what anybody says,

I mean, you have a finance guy at one of the top selling dealerships

that puts out content he gets argued with constantly.

You have this guy who's buying tons of cars nationwide.

You're going to argue with him.

No, no one is going to say anything that you agree with.

I was waiting for you to be like, you got us who know everything about everything.

I was just kidding.

Yeah, I mean, they're not.

But you know what I'm saying?

Like nobody's going to say anything to change your mind.

So for the people that it helps, it helps.

And for everybody else, they're going to do what they want to do.

Dude, great show.

After you watch this on Monday, Tuesday, go watch the AWX Acid Wheel Cleaning.

Dude, I haven't worked with an acid wheel cleaner since I used to help my dad

clean 18 wheelers, which by the way, I imagine this is nothing like what 18

wheelers used to be cleaned with.

No, no, no, this is this is that stuff was gnarly.

I use that stuff back in the day.

This is this is a whole new age with the same power.

It's it's incredible.

It's used to cough when you would use that stuff.

It would burn your nose airs off and burn your nose and burn your lungs.

Yeah, we've eliminated all of that.

So it's it's a I'm very proud of our team.

Like to be able to build one of these products when everybody else is

struggling to build them, I think it's pretty cool.

All right, everybody, if you want to chime in, send us an email,

clutchculturepodcastatgmail.com, and we'll see you next week.

See you guys.

#68 - Lincoln To Make The Luxury Raptor, RAM Airbag Lawsuit, Tracks & Private Equity + Much More

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