#70 - Rivian R2 Launch, $300K Land Cruiser LC79, Car CEO Shake Ups, Listener Questions & MORE!
Clutch Culture Podcast
#70 - Rivian R2 Launch, $300K Land Cruiser LC79, Car CEO Shake Ups, Listener Questions & MORE!
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68:35
Car
F-150 Raptor
Car
Rivian R2
Term
rear wheel drive
Rear wheel drive means the car's engine powers the back wheels to make it move. This can help the car handle better, especially when driving fast or carrying heavy loads.
Term
$7,500 EV tax credit
The $7,500 EV tax credit is money the government gives you back when you buy an electric car, making it cheaper. If this credit goes away, electric cars can seem more expensive.
Term
horsepower
Horsepower tells you how strong a car's engine or motor is. More horsepower means the car can go faster and accelerate quicker.
Concept
electric vehicle (EV)
An electric vehicle is a car that runs on electricity instead of gas. It uses batteries to power the motor and doesn't produce smoke or pollution from the tailpipe.
Concept
legacy car companies
Legacy car companies are old, traditional car makers that have been around a long time. They usually make gas-powered cars and can be slower to change or try new ideas compared to new electric car companies.
Car
Tesla Model Y
The Tesla Model Y is a well-known electric SUV that many people like because it can go far on a charge and drives well.
Term
six-figure experience
When someone says 'six-figure experience,' they mean the car costs over $100,000, which is very expensive and usually means it's a fancy or special vehicle.
Brand
Rivian
Rivian makes electric trucks and SUVs that are good for outdoor adventures. They focus on making cars that run on electricity instead of gas.
Brand
Chrysler
Chrysler is a well-known American car company that makes cars and vans. It is now part of a bigger company called Stellantis.
Brand
Stellantis
Stellantis is a big car company that owns many different car brands like Chrysler and Dodge. It was made when two big car companies joined together.
Brand
Dodge
Dodge is a car company from America that makes fast and powerful cars, like muscle cars and SUVs.
Car
Chrysler Pacifica
The Chrysler Pacifica is a type of family van made by Chrysler. It's popular because it has lots of space and useful features for families.
Term
C-suite
'C-suite' means the top bosses in a company, like the CEO who runs everything. They make the big decisions.
Concept
private equity
Private equity means groups of investors who buy companies to try to make them better and then sell them for a profit. In car business, they might buy car dealerships or factories to help them grow.
Concept
private credit
Private credit means money lent to companies by private groups instead of banks. Car companies and dealerships sometimes use this kind of loan to keep running or grow.
Concept
bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is when a company can't pay its bills and asks the court for help to fix or close the business. Some car brands have had to do this to survive.
Concept
shadow banking system
Shadow banking means there are places that lend money or do financial business but aren't regular banks you know about.
Company
Cox Automotive
Cox Automotive is a big company that helps sell and manage cars by owning lots of services like car auctions and websites where people buy cars.
Company
Mannheim
Mannheim is a place where car dealers buy and sell used cars to each other, not usually to regular people.
Term
CRM
CRM is a type of computer program that helps car dealers keep track of customers and sales.
Company
AutoTrader
AutoTrader is a website where people can look for cars to buy or sell their cars.
Company
Kelley Blue Book
Kelley Blue Book is a company that tells you how much a car is worth when you want to buy or sell it.
Company
Carvana
Carvana is a company where you can buy used cars online and have them delivered to your home without going to a dealership.
Company
CarMax
CarMax is a big company that sells used cars with fixed prices so you don't have to bargain, and they have many cars to choose from.
Car
Porsche 911 (997)
The Porsche 911 (997) is a popular sports car made between 2004 and 2012. It looks like older 911s but has newer features and is fun to drive.
Car
Toyota Mark IV Supra
The Toyota Mark IV Supra is a popular sports car from the 1990s that people often change parts on to make it faster or better.
Term
turbocharged
Turbocharging is a way to make an engine more powerful by pushing extra air into it using a small fan powered by the engine's exhaust.
Brand
Pagani
Pagani is a company that makes very expensive and special sports cars. They build only a few cars, and each one is made just for the person who buys it.
Car
Ford F-150 Raptor
The Ford Raptor is a tough truck made for driving fast on rough dirt roads and trails. It has a strong engine and special parts to help it handle bumpy places.
LIVE
Alright, we've got a little tag at the top. We've never done this before, but as you'll hear in
the episode, we're starting a community outside of all the social overlords that control the
algorithms and what everybody sees. And the best way to get an invite to the Discord community,
if you're not familiar with Discord, you will quickly become familiar with it. I promise you,
and I'll help you through it even if you need assistance. But if you go to our Instagram bio,
there's going to be a link in there. It's a link tree with all our other social links,
but you'll see a community link there for the Discord server and what we're calling the
insider garage or insider's garage, which is kind of like a newsletter or just a way to keep up
to date with all the exclusives, bonus content, exclusives across the board, content, collaborators,
anything that we're doing. And I just wanted to bring Nick here on the top after I showed him
how the whole walkthrough and flow is to give me some thoughts and let everybody know that he's
going to be in there as well. Yeah, I think one of the things that's going to be interesting about
Discord is, you know, it's very interactive. It's a place where you can just go and talk to
like-minded people, but also ask questions, get input from people. You're working on a car,
you know, I need some help. What are you guys like here? I mean, one of the things I'll put into
the Toyota Lexus Discord is going to be I'm really looking for advice on lights and different parts
and things like that. So I think it's just a place where if you're not familiar with it,
it's very easy to understand once you take a couple minutes to understand it. So,
but it's just a place where you basically can go in there and talk to everybody and, you know,
ask questions or just give an opinion or say something about an episode or whatever you want
to do. Yeah, and then also build community amongst each other. I like the fact that a lot of people
that send us emails or DMs or whatever kind of message, they, you know, could have a good
conversation with each other. And now you have a place to actually do that on our Discord
Clutch Culture Collective is what we're calling it. It might even change the name if, you know,
everybody collaboratively says this is a better name and we just decide and kind of vote on it.
But that is the tag at the top. Nick, I got nothing else. Everybody enjoy the show. So am I
going to have to sell the Raptor and buy a Rivian? Yeah, I don't think that's coming. But you saw
the I'm guessing anybody that's been following Rivian or ever entered your email into Rivian,
they released the pricing. And once again, it seems like we are completely off base from the
announcement over two years ago or 18 months ago or whatever it was, correct? So tell me what you,
because you've been probably more up to date with it than I have as far as like even getting emails
from HQ. Like what was the expectation when you first started following these announcements were
going to be coming? And then it was, it was going to be a Model Y type of, of moment, you know,
that it was going to be, you know, 45 to, you know, 60 grand, depending on the options. And
the email that I got, and I can't go off, I didn't, I didn't really follow up much,
but I sent you the screenshot of the email I got as the starting prices, you know,
basically $58,000, 57 and some change. Yeah. So I told Nick, I mean, we're way, we're way beyond,
you know, anything that I thought was the purpose of this R2. So I told Nick,
because South by Southwest kicked off for yesterday from the time we're recording this,
and I was like, I'll go just take the Raptor and rock rock claw over there and see what's
going on. Ask some questions, jokingly, obviously. And then some articles started to come out.
So whether it's car and driver, car skus, motor one, whatever, I'm going to read you
off some of the things that they reported. So the launch spec performance model goes on sale
this spring, starting at 59, which was a little bit higher even than the email that you sent,
right? It was 57. Yeah, the email I got was 57 and change. So that's for the 450 horsepower premium.
And then next year in 28, the R2 would add a rear wheel drive variant, two batteries for 46.
So I'll ask everybody this question. If R2 is to make a splash, and I'm sure there's supply chain
reasons or some reason they would give corporately, why isn't it reverse? Right.
We keep running into this conversation with car companies. That's not to pick on Rivian. I think
top to bottom, they are probably operating the most intelligently in the electric space,
meaning like staying in their lane. This is who we're trying to sell to, taking control of all
of the things they can take control of, which by the way, isn't really everything. But they are
talking about the future and what needs to be done internally. They were one of the first
companies to talk about getting really heavily involved in the used car market of their cars
internally. Did they make it happen? Not necessarily, but they were talking about it very early on
about basically making it where they became a used car dealer and cut out people trading their
cars in other places and things like that. So I do think they're forward thinking,
but this just seems to be a blind spot in the automotive business. Just like we say,
the two year, three year outlook, look what's happened to Scout. All of a sudden now it's like,
well, the administration isn't friendly. So we're going to postpone it to 2028,
see who gets elected. Oh, wait a minute. It's a, it's a technical issue at the manufacturer.
Come on. It's, it's the $7,500 went away. You guys don't see it as an EV friendly environment
and the markets that you care about. So you're just backing away. But instead of saying that,
because you put Scout so far in the future, you became susceptible to political environments,
right? You became a problem. And this is where I say with Rivian, this is another backwards
way of doing things. The way to drive people to Rivian is to show the $46,000 one, get it on
the market, stop fooling around. I would just continue to say to our followers and our fans,
these CEOs need to talk to people like us to talk to people like you and explain why this
stuff continues to happen. That's my two cents. You talked about it last, maybe a week or two ago
about Scout. And then to see this from Rivian, who we hold as like, for whatever reason, maybe
because obviously they've been doing stuff longer and Scout's still kind of like an idea.
But this is another example of that really seems like lazy thought out rollout. Like if you're
going to do this at South by, you're going to do this through your emails that people have been
following for a long time. I just don't get it. We know these people are smart. We know that they've
been in the business, you know, whether it's an EV, smart investors, smart, smart executives,
they've gotten the design right from the beginning, you know, they give you that elevated experience
and everything that they do, you know, they have even their truck had all these little
secret compartments that you go, Hey, somebody's thinking about stuff, which is by the way,
not what we can say about every car company out there. Like they are thinking about things.
So you pat them on the back for all these years. And
now it's time for them to become more consumer friendly. That's the promotion over the last 18
to 24 months. And here we are again, that we're another year, we're another 18 months away from
the consumer friendly thing happening, which is going to equal about four years of everybody
waiting around. But I think they, I think they've taken a plan that's pretty easy to see is that
they've gone the influencer route. And they go, we're just going to, you know, give all of these
YouTubers, by the way, who some of these guys are just tech guys, telling you what cars to buy.
It's like, sorry, I'm not listening to that guy. If you guys listen to those people, that's, that's
to you. But they are seemingly being really intelligent in the modern era by getting influencers
to buy into them and not talk about the negatives of something like what just happened is essentially
we're going to be somewhere between three and four and a half years from what they promised.
If you were to read this headline or fewer to rewrite this headline, how would you rewrite
2027 Rivian R2 will launch with 656 horsepower and cost under $60,000.
I would write we're two years away, it looks like, or, or, you know, a year another year away from
what was promised, that would be my headline. The R2 seems like something that EV fans and
people that are just interested like, Hey, I might dip my toe into an EV. I think Rivian's a great
choice. We're right back into the same thing, though, is that for some reason, Rivian, who has
done a lot of things differently in their way is still following the trends of legacy car companies
in this fashion of taking forever to get to the goddamn point. I don't really understand that.
You guys are a forward thinking company, but you guys are still doing things like legacy auto
brands where you're four years out on the things that people really care about, which is a more
affordable Rivian. Yeah. And I like having the sub headline they even say here, you know, offers
value that threatens the Tesla Model Y and performance that challenges the segment elite.
I don't know about that. Also, the front there, you really like the way it looks. The back looks
so good to me. And when I see the front, I just kind of like false flat for me. Well,
it's theirs. The only thing you can say is they did something their way.
Everyone's going to look at any vehicle and say, I like it. I don't like. I mean,
people like the pig nose on BMW. So everyone's going to be different. The only thing I've ever
said about Rivian is they have done things their way. They've thought through what they wanted to
be probably better than anyone else. Right. And they've stayed consistent to it. We are now in a
position where they look like every other automaker and not delivering on a promise they made two
or so years ago. I just, I don't understand that from a company that seems to be so well thought
out. Yeah, we're just gonna have to keep following this because I'm sure you'll start seeing articles
and reddits. If you like to go down the redder rabbit holes of what people are feeling about
this, where they do it, where they let down. Overall, I mean, if you can really rival something
that's really inexpensive, because you forever said, even at the, well, especially at the beginning,
that these experiences were, what did you call it? It was like a $70,000 experience for
Yeah, I know. I mean, Rivian's early trucks were going for $75,000. You got into their trucks and
you go, how are they making money? Yeah, it was like a six-figure experience. This is a six-figure
experience. And I told everybody that was in, that was interested in EVs and my customer base
said, Hey, it's going to be hard to beat Rivian at their price point. Now very quickly, they
understood that they were extremely underwater and started to raise the price. But there was,
there was a time you could get those original Rivians that were six-figure type experiences for
$75,000. And it was a true quote unquote deal for such an expensive EV at that time,
where you get into a Silverado EV that's 80 grand and it feels like a $42,000 truck. I mean,
it, it was one of the rare ones that felt like they had underpriced it.
Well, that's the way to kick off the show with Rivian, kind of giving it to them. See, a lot
of people think we just kind of talk them up, whereas everyone else gets the, gets the jabs.
They're getting the jabs today. This was not rolled out very well. I'm going to have to go
to South by after this and just see if there's what's left or people bummed or they're just
going to be drunk and be like, I don't care. I didn't, you know, they disappoint.
Well, I think South by Southwest, that's kind of, I mean, they're preaching to the choir there,
no? Yeah. I was choked on that drink. Everyone you would want to be a Rivian owner is definitely
at this event. Yeah. I mean, it's, they can do no wrong there. Yeah. They, they could tell them
it's 500 grand and they tell you how great it is. You know, I mean, it's, that's their crowd. It's
no, I mean, it's not, that's not a jab at anybody. I mean, that's their crowd. That's their, no,
it is. That is their neck of the woods, man. I mean, they're not going to, you know,
that's their hunting camp right there. Like that's, that's, they're not going to have any
problems. And so I don't know that that's, I just think it really stuns me that a company that's
operated this intelligently for this long to do something this misguided. I couldn't agree more.
I want to cleanse the palate because you sent me this video where I should have followed up
what was going on here. This was straight out of GTA. And this is the kind of nonsense that
Nick loves to enjoy on the internet. If you're watching on YouTube, you just saw a car fly
through the air like it's Grand Theft Auto into this two story house. What on God's green earth
causes any vehicle? There's no cold. I don't see like a roundabout. There was no ramp unless you
just lit. Look at this. I mean, I would ask all of our listeners this. Obviously, we all know
the trouble of these ring cameras and the spying and the whatnot, but without them, we're missing
all of the best, all of the best content on the internet. So much. So are we giving up privacy
to have a laugh, you know, when we wind down? No question. No question. No, not only no question,
but I'll sign up for extra. Can I get other people's ring as soon as you see a funny video?
Can it just be sent to me? We're going to have a ring feed of just funny videos. Yeah. The other
question out and I'm in probably the epicenter of wild things happening with cars without question.
Okay. Why are so many cars flying through the air into homes? That's a great question.
Now, I don't know if this was going on in my childhood and because we didn't have these cameras,
nobody ever saw it, but it seems like we are now at an exponential level
of just insane things happening in neighborhoods. You know what I'm saying? The worst thing that
would happen when I was growing up, I grew up in a place where it snowed. A car would spin out,
maybe go up on a neighbor's lawn because somebody lost control. It didn't hit the house,
maybe took out some bushes, things like that. I'm sure you guys have stories of wherever you
grew up, just something, kids being kids. There's a lot of like 52 year olds getting out of cars,
being in someone's living room. The craziest one I've seen, it's kind of old at this point,
but there was a box truck that hits like a ditch and somehow was going so fast that it whipped it
around in the back of the box truck, landed on the roof of a house. If I hadn't seen it on a
camera, I'm like, that is impossible. This bitch had how many turbos would be going that fast?
It looked like Tony Hawk was doing like a kick slot. Boom, back wheels on the roof of a home on
a box truck. And so I have to ask, I mean, we have all different age groups in our audience.
Yeah. Did we just, you know, if you're 50 plus, did we just get spared all of this because there
wasn't a camera or have we just gone to a place of insanity where seemingly on just a normal,
everyday street, middle class America, somebody loses control of a car, you have no idea how
you have no idea. You can't, you can't even replay it in your mind how it happened. And
all of a sudden they're in Louise's living room. And you're like, how did this happen?
Well, the crazier one of the things that happens here, we have this in spades
at traffic lights that are crowded. They'll just be cars flipped over. And I'm like,
how is a car flipped over? Nothing was happening at speed here in the middle of the day. Like
everything was going slowly. How did this car get on the roof of the car? How did you get on the
roof? How did this happen? That is pretty crazy. If you're just out of stoplight and then all of a
sudden you see something on their roof. And I'm going, what could have happened? I mean,
it'll be in the right turn lane. Sometimes when that happens, I'm like, did I, you know when you
blank out sometimes and you like arrive somewhere and you're like, oh my God, how did I get here?
That's how you end up in someone's living room. 100%. What's even worse is when you see cars going
through restaurant, I know you've seen these, a famous one in Houston. There was a couple,
you know, videoing their breakfast and the car just rams into the booth that they were in.
Yeah. So we were, I was an investor in a place that was in a very, like a class A retail,
like, you know, big grocery store, TJ max, whatever. They had those big, huge, like parking
stops. You know what I'm talking about? The big concrete ones that rip off the front of
everyone's car. The really tall ones, you mean? Oh God. Yeah. Next to our place was like a physical
therapist facility. The one thing that became apparent is how many older people were driving
their cars on pills because to get over those things, you'd have to do something absolutely
insane in a normal mid-sized SUV or a car, buddy, they would go up and get stuck on them. It would
happen all the time. And like, you know, if you're sitting in the office of the business that I owned
or that I was an investor in, you thought if they keep going, it's coming in to our facility,
but they would have had to go over those huge concrete parking structures. And I'm just going,
and we would have it on camera because we had cameras. And finally, the guy who was the general
manager there goes, he goes, you know what, man, these people walk in here, they think we're the
physical therapy place. Nothing could be further from the truth of the business. And he was like,
they are so hopped up on pills because again, they have an injury. They're at physical therapy.
There's pain management, quote unquote, in between there. And they're just hopped up on pills and
they're, you know, 68, 72 years old, just going over these parking barriers. And you're going,
how did, how did you not feel the resistance of the parking barrier? So I wonder how much of this
that we see on the internet is, you know, people talk about things like drunk driving and weed
and all that kind of stuff. How much of this is a 55 year old off an injury just piled up?
And just they have no idea what they're doing. It's very generous of you to say that, you know,
injured all piled up. I just think most people are piled up in general.
We're just on that Pfizer drip. 100%. They're on something. They're on something. I think you're
100% right, because I'll see people just in the grocery store speaking of, they'll get out of a
nice car or sometimes not a nice car. And they're moving in the same kind of like,
I'm in days and confused, essentially, like after, you know, class, right, when I skip class,
and I'm like, there's no way you're making it somewhere without hitting something like it just
Yeah. No, no, I agree with you. I think, you know, we had a situation with my family in a parking
lot of a very busy shopping center where a guy basically gets cuffed at the scene hitting our
car. And we have to battle they know he's under the influence of something. Now it becomes all
the testing and was it handled right? And all the, you have to go through all of this stuff and
you just keep thinking to yourself, we are in a crazy time when everybody at the scene knows
this guy's hopped up on something. But if everything's not handled right, he's not really going to
get charged. Yeah. Right. And let's be fair to our brothers in blue. We've said on this podcast
before, big supporters also, but a lot of balls get dropped. Okay. A lot of balls get dropped.
And there may been some threats for me. Let's be clear when I found some things may have mishandled.
I said, I got, I have badge numbers. I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure things were said. Here's
an idea that I'm almost going to, I'm afraid to say out loud, but as we're seeing automatic balls
and strikes being called in spring training that's going to go into the MLB, we kind of need, and
this is where it gets messed up because it's kind of like we have enough tech already. There should
be an automatic balls and strikes for situations like that. If the AI can see it through the body
cam, like, Hey guys, it's pretty cut and dry. Dude's on something. Dude doesn't have insurance.
Dude needs to be locked up in cuffs. It'll take five minutes max. I'm, I'm with you. So I think
we are in this weird stage where we're all finding joy in these insane videos. We're laughing. I'm
sending them the Rob. I'm like, wow, this is unbelievable. I'm sure you guys have that with
some of your friends. And then you step back and you go, how the hell does this keep happening?
And then it happens to you. Yeah. Then you feel differently. Then you feel differently. Yeah.
Then, then there's, there's real problems in your world. Then I stopped getting those
videos from Nick for a little while. He's like, I got to look up some cool law. I'm back. I'm back.
I'm back. My, my, uh, algorithm is locked into really? Oh yeah. My algorithm is locked. Mine
is all over the place right now. You don't even want to know why because it'll turn into a whole
different show, but it is crazy. This totally sounds like dad get off my lawn just because,
at least for me, you're seeing a slew of things. All right. Not just the slew, but a slew of other
things. And it's just like, I don't know what to think these days. Yeah. I think by, by the way,
I wonder all of you out there, this AI do stuff. That's just throwing a whole nother wrench to me.
I don't even know. I don't even know what's AI. What's not AI. You know, I don't know how Google
and YouTube and Instagram is going to fight all of this because we're just at the very tippy top
of the iceberg. I mean, I saw a video caption like this Joe Rogan Keanu Reeves fight is insane.
And I knew it was AI. I was like, I'm not even going to click on it. I just can't do it.
I'm not even going to mess my algorithm up. I'm not going to do it. Yeah. No, it's, you know,
you see, like they got all these animal videos where an animal is dragging another animal and
then you find out it's AI. You're like, we got to screw with nature now. Like the nature videos
were this last place that we could just, you know, go, oh man, look at that. That's pretty crazy.
Now it's like, that's all AI. I don't know, man. I'm, I just know we're all going to get duped
a lot more than we think. There's apparently a big push by YouTube. Hey, YouTube, you know,
I know we're on YouTube. We like YouTube. All right. It's got its ups and downs, but it's
supposedly on a big crusade to demonetize a bunch of this AI slop channel stuff, which I think is
great because you and I have talked about off the podcast. If you, one of the fun parts of
YouTube and any content search engine is that you want to find something related to the thing
you're either wanting to learn about or just whatever, watch, you can't even find good decent
human reviews. You can't watch any kind of explainers, how-to's, and that's kind of what
they're after. Like you pick a fucking thing, man. Like any item you go on there and it's just like
the AI voice with AI, you know, B-roll trying to explain something. I'm like, oh God, I can. There's
nothing. It's, it's, and this is where you ask, this is why it's so important, you know, to get
back to the car world for these car companies to be on point. Yeah. Because it's also important of
who they're aligning with in this quote unquote influencer world. Are they being pushed to be
better? Are they just looking at a bunch of yes men? You know, are they just looking, and I think
this has kind of happened with the Rivian thing we talked about is like, they talk to plenty of
people. You know, they're not a shut off company. Ford and Chevy, they're a little bit more shut
off, right? They just kind of have their media teams handle things and their PR teams and,
you know, nobody's really attached to anything. It's just somebody's job.
And you keep saying to yourself, like we're getting to a point where this stuff is getting so low
value. And a lot of the low value is not coming from AI. It's because companies have made it low
value. Like having people drive your car around town for a day is becoming even more low value
because you've continued to do the same thing. So Rivian has this big launch. They got these people
out in the desert or in the mountain area. I even said at the time on his podcast, it's strange
to people they picked. You know, I said that at the time before any of this announcement.
But this is where AI slop meets sloppy corporation, which means,
like you said, sloppy creators. And you go now AI is devaluing things, but it's making us lose
sight that you guys are devaluing the real part too. And the crazy part of going the tech influencer
bro kind of route. And here's the thing too, we've talked about how people who are already in the
automotive space and have been for over a decade, maybe two decades plus are or have become a little
more untrustworthy to people on the internet. Just because, all right, you're not very, I can
tell you're not being honest about how this whole situation kind of came to be. And now you throw
in the AI tech guys into the mix about cars. You think they're really, their interest is in your
best interest of what the car is like, no, they're all they're in their gamer chairs or they're
fucking reclining, you know, desk chairs all day. They don't care how the driver drives.
I mean, the same day they're talking about the 699, you know, MacBook or whatever that just got
released, they're out in MacBook Neo. Yeah, then they're out in a Rivian. Yeah. And you go,
well, this doesn't add up, you know, and again, I'm not, if those people are making money off
this, more power to them. I'm not, I'm not mad about any of that. I'm just saying for you,
the consumer, we are getting so focused on AI slot, but we don't realize that the slop has
already kind of been created in the real system as well. So now you got two sloppy systems,
just just going head to head and you go, there's the frustration of the viewer, me as a viewer,
I'm not even trying to speak for everyone else. It's like, it already wasn't a great system.
It was an outdated system. It's been an outdated system. And it's been a little bit of a pay for
play system, you know, that people have caught on to in different ways. And so you kind of look
at all of this and you go, this guy's is why these car companies are so sloppy, because they're
allowed to be, you know, you're going to be as sloppy as they allow you to be. Oh yeah. Right.
I mean, that's just, that's this human nature and humans are running these companies, obviously.
And so everyone's just going to be sloppy. It's like we've said about Caniscus and Jim Farley
and Mary Barra, like they are just sloppy because they're allowed to be. You know what I mean? They
can just say things and nobody goes, huh? You know, like that doesn't add up, man. Can you expand
on that? Like we don't even get that in the real world. Now you throw the AI slop on top of it.
You have, I think you have a real, real question of what the future of all this is.
So speaking of these CEOs and C suites and executives and whatnot. So Chrysler and Alpha,
North America CEO, abruptly exits Stalantis as Dodge boss takes over both. So this young lady
who's been with Chrysler since 2021, Chris, I forgot her last name, fuel, fuel, she exits Stalantis
and essentially they put in a guy that's been at Dodge for a long time. He was running Dodge.
What's his choice? Well, he's running both now, right? He is running both now. Yeah. That should
go well because it's easy to run 52 different car companies. Well, Chrysler Dodge and Fiat was it?
Alpha. Sorry, Alpha. Alpha. Yeah. And you know, you hate to shit on it, but like in the article,
he was at the helm of like the the newest muscle car launch. That went really well.
So it's like that was thought out. Yeah, guys, I don't know. I always feels like we're just
trying to say that we know better, but I think the audience can tell you that they know better,
which lets us feel like what we're talking about sounds better than what these CEOs are.
Well, and I think it's always a very big warning sign. It may come out, you know, anybody can have
a health issue, which forces them out or something private's going on. I haven't seen any of that.
So then your mind goes to she knows how big of a shit show this is internally and she doesn't
want her name attached to it. And so she's going to leave abruptly. Not a good look because you
get to a certain level and you've met somebody in my family who has a very big global position.
And I say this very respectfully to wind down and get somebody to take over those big positions.
It's not five minutes. I mean, sometimes it's a year. It's two years. They already agreed that she
was going to leave two years ago and they bring somebody along and then she finds doesn't seem
like that happened here. It seems like she was like, I'm out now. Fairness is this could be
something as simple as she has a health issue. She has a family situation. All of that can be true.
They usually get pretty specific about that and go, I haven't read that doesn't mean it
hasn't been said. I don't read everything. But if this is just an abrupt I'm out of the building,
that's very rare at the C-suite level like this. And all the comments were ruthless because they
were like, she had one job, one vehicle. It was the Chrysler Pacifico. And it was, yeah,
you can just guess what the rest of them kind of went for for Ms. Chris here.
Yeah. And unfortunately, she's a woman and you know how people get and I would say this.
Chrysler has been one of those places that has not been invested in. That's obvious.
They don't invest in that brand. The Pacifica, it seems like is their last hope of keeping
anything really going. And the Voyager. Don't forget the Voyager.
Yeah. I just look at this and I go, I just don't know how this survives with this much
turmoil. But you know, it's not going away. I mean, it'd be really hard to shutter a car
company that's operational. It's just not something that happens because they can always
find liquidity somewhere. They can always get people bought into this major manufacturer. And
as you go to things like we, one of the things we have to say about the automotive system in America,
the reason that a lot of these manufacturing facilities don't close and manufacturing companies
don't close is for things like we see happening in the Middle East now. You know, the capability of
switching these manufacturing plants over to something in a quote unquote war time setting
becomes very important. And it's something that's not talked about in America,
manufacturing conversations really at all. You know, I thought Chrysler was a hundred
years old and it is actually it's a hundred. It'll be 101 years old. If you can take it from
that to 101 and a lot of that time, you're just kicking the can down the road. What makes you
think you can't kick the can down the road another hundred years? You can do it.
Yeah. Yeah. His resources, especially it can be done. They can do it. Yeah. If people are
building $10 million car washes in the private equity market, you can find, you can find money.
This is not the silver private equity, although we talk about it, but I hope because I know,
Nick's if I'm if I'm addicted to any type of content or or subject matter, I know that Nick
has some sort of sweet spot in his heart for for finance, private equity money, the way the whole
system works. Such a shit show now. Private credit. I know it's a whole other topic, but
it does involve cars at a certain point. I didn't have it on the show notes, but I know we're going
to start talking about it. Yeah, look, I mean, the way we can say it's intersected. Look at the
what was it called first brands look at their bankruptcy. That's all private credit related.
You have a situation where, uh, you know, a lot of the infrastructure, you know, big dealerships
groups that were purchased, you know, uh, tri color, which went through, uh, is going through
a lot of fraud charges and whatever, a lot of private credit, you know, through private
institutions. And when I say private institutions, JP Morgan Chase has private credit. I was just
about to say you had, there's, there's a line there that people might not click. Like we're not
talking about JP Morgan. We're talking about who JP Morgan actually, or, and you know who the biggest,
the biggest holder of private credit is, which one of the institutions, it surprised me, but
maybe not. It's Wells Fargo. They have double, double basically of what all the other institutions
have. Well, and that's why J, J, Jamie Dimon came out and said people are being irresponsible
because he thought Wells Fargo private credit should have drawn back long ago. Uh, I believe
a letter went out, uh, to private credit clients that I think JP Morgan might have cut off private
credit this week and they're going to write down 30% of their private credit balance for everybody.
So you don't get lost. This is heavily in the automotive world. Yeah. You know, you have a lot
of, uh, big financing that you don't know exists. So take something like Mannheim, the auction,
they're locked into the private credit market. It's not like they're self-sustaining.
They're always access, accessing money and credit lines and private credit lines and all these
different things to kind of make this lubrication work. It's the same in the housing market. It's
same everywhere. There's just a lot of these pieces that people don't think about, but all of this
gobbling up by private equity companies, you know, you have 50% of Yale's endowment, I believe is
wrapped up in the private credit market. Um, I mean, you, you have pension funds and state pension
funds that are heavily invested. If this goes kaboom, well investors are seeing a 16 year low on
returns. Like there's not only that money, did you see some of these private equity companies
halted redemption? Yeah. They said you're not allowed to get your money out, which,
which by the way is going to end the people that always win when you hear, uh, somebody's
done something wrong. Just think lawyers are about to make a lot of money. All the money. I mean,
all the money, all the money. So, but we need to understand for our car customers and the people
listen to us, this affects a lot of things. You know, you have, you have a lot of people floated
through these credit arms that you don't get to see as a consumer because they're not,
they're not forward facing. Yeah. Right. You don't know, uh, you know, uh, let's just take a group.
Let's say a group owns a hundred dealerships. They're not floating their own money. That's
a definition. They're getting all of this, this like, you know, it's not shady. No, it's just
the private credit market. It's just a credit market that you don't deal with as a consumer.
Yeah. It's a shadow banking system that most people aren't aware of. Yeah. So, I mean,
first brands was sort of the one that got everybody like step back and go, what's going on here.
You could have a lot of those very quickly. Well, you know what, since we're on this
and I'm glad I kind of brought it up because I knew you, I knew you'd go off on that because
I know you're, you always keep up with it and you read about it. Uh, the Cox Automotive family,
that right, like that, they own everything. Yeah, they own everything. Right. So there's a,
there's a, there's a page they get sent to me every once in a while, uh, selling car,
spitting bars. I think it is something like that. But yeah, I mean, he went over the Cox
Automotive. Okay. So you saw that one too. That they own Mannheim. They own all the CRMs. They own
all the credit, you know, they own Kelly blue book. They own auto trader. Those are customer
facing, but their real power is in the behind the scenes. Right. They essentially run the dealer
market. They run the market. Period. Yeah. The market, meaning like how the, how the business
operates, you know, the CRM they use and the credit checks that you, I mean, they run everything.
You look at this and you go, these are the kinds of institutions that nobody knows about
because you don't need to know about it. You're just buying a car or you're trying to learn what
the next car you want to buy. I mean, that's most of us, but you have a lot of these things that
it's going to be an interesting 90 days. I mean, there's about a 90 day window here,
just like there was sort of like a 90 day window in 2008 that if things break the wrong way and
a couple of banks make the wrong decisions, you could see the war in the Middle East will not
be a thought for most Americans. It'll be holy shit. There's this thing as it has imploded.
Dude, it's crazy. There's so much more that goes on in every market, but like the automobile
market, there's so many arms to it. There's a lot of players in it, expensive cars,
cheap cars, everybody in the middle services, EVs, all that. It's just such an interesting
industry and you don't really hear a whole bunch of people who are, we can call them big players
talking about this stuff on a regular basis. Like it's just, yeah, like I don't think most people
realize like Mannheim is the lubrication of the used car market. Like if you just look at it
statistically, the amount of cars they move in every state all of the time, like you go to the
one up here and you know, up by the speedway that's kind of out far away from anything here in
Vegas. If people just saw the parking lot. There's Cox on that too. Oh yeah, they own Mannheim.
Okay. Oh yeah. Yeah, they own Mannheim. What's the other one? Is it a Dessa? A Dessa. Yeah,
that's, that's the- Is it the Carvana or family or whoever? Okay, yeah, yeah, that, which by the way,
that Carvana situation could be, yeah, allegedly, always allegedly, you know, allegedly you could
see some real shaky things come out. Could it be on purpose? Could it be? I think they're doing a lot
of transferring between multiple companies and I think they're keeping things off balance sheets
and they're playing a bit of a shadow game right now. But when, if that start, look, we all have
to say this. I mean, CarMax is in serious trouble. I mean, you know, when you see CarMax, which is
an institution that's really been pretty good in the marketplace for a long time now, they're,
they're in real trouble. I mean, they basically are just sitting on loads and gobs of inventory.
And the reason they're not lowering the price any more than they have is because the replacement
costs, they can't go out and buy the cars. So if they lower the price, they can't go replace that
car to then sell another car. Right. If they go any lower than where they're at now. So you kind
of need this thing to come to a head. And that's why we've always told people, if you keep your car
in good shape, you're happy with your car, sooner or later, the bubble's going to burst. Nobody
knows when that's going to be. Anybody telling you, you know, that's going to be, but I can tell you
this in the last 12 to 16 months, we've just steadily seen things going down little by little.
And you can see it in real time, but you're not seeing this dramatic thing everybody thinks,
but you are seeing it trend lower and lower in the used market.
So interesting. So good little segue here, because stuff like this that we talk about on
the show, and then obviously throughout the week, Nick and I, we're going to bring to a
community platform that we're probably going to talk about after this episode's finished.
And then if I can convince Nick to, you know, check off on everything, come back and do like a
tag at the top to invite you guys to this platform and kind of fill you in. So you're going to have
the episode and then maybe like a little five minute powwow back at the front, tag it up there
after the show's done. But I want to put that there because it actually brings me to, usually I'll
send Nick emails in advance. Usually that's the only thing. We don't prep for anything else. I
pull up the stories, Nick riffs, Nick off the top of the dome knows how to do it, but I have a couple
of reoccurring themes that had come up to me in the last week or so. Would it be okay if I
brought them up to you to get you to, to expand on them? Okay. So Jose writes, and this is kind of
like, all of these things are usually on subject with what we've talked about springs right around
the corner. And although I've even planned for a fun car purchase, nothing feels worth buying
right now. It can't just be me feeling that. No question. No question. It also depends on what
you're looking at. I think that's what we have to take this with a grain of salt, right? If you're
looking in a specific market, you know, we've talked a lot about the 9 11 market. Okay. That market
for people trying to get in, can oftentimes be kind of depressing because of you go, I've driven
that car, I don't want to pay $96,000 for that car. Yeah, because it doesn't feel like a $96,000
used car to me. But it does feel like a $72,000 car that I would be very happy to pay between $72
and $76,000 for. So I think it's market specific, right? We have to always say
that part of the thing that I keep running into when we get questions like this, or we get statements
like this, which I believe I absolutely agree with, is also people haven't narrowed down their search.
And then you can't really have a conversation because you go, Okay, man, you got like 25 cars
on this list. Yeah, it's all going to feel overwhelming, right? It's all going to feel
like it's out of whack. Yeah, imagine having a list that big, and then you're watching all
these YouTubers driving those cars too. But here's the thing, like, you and I can say that's
what people show us. They're like, I'm deciding between these 12 cars. It's like, yeah, that's not
really, that's not really something I can help. Yeah, how are you going to cross shop that many
cars at once? Yeah, so I think for everyone out there, there are certain segments in the market
that can feel like I just don't agree with the pricing. There's definitely those markets.
I think from there, once you identify you don't want to be in that market at that price, it's
what you're shifting to that becomes important. Because just going from, let's just say I want to
get, you know, a 997 Porsche, and it feels overpriced to me, which I agree it is. But then I go down
and I go, well, then I want to get an E92M3. Well, bud, that's an elevated marketplace too.
So you're going from elevated to elevated, and you're not really giving yourself
something to sink your teeth into and say, well, I really enjoy doing this.
So there's got to be, if all you're doing is looking in the elevated markets, I could see why
people would be like, I don't want to pull the trigger. And you just said something for whatever
reason made me think of this, and not exactly advice Jose, but still like, if you can't find
something in the fun area that you had planned to buy for already this spring, maybe look at
another segment in your household, maybe the wife's car can use an upgrade, maybe your daily could
use an upgrade. And then you kind of save, because the fun thing is probably going to cost more than
the family hauler or even your daily. So kind of scratches the itch, but also leaves you probably
some money in reserves for the fun car to later come. Yeah, like I just had a conversation with
the customer mine where, you know, F430 prices from Ferrari have gone kind of a little nutty.
And, you know, that gated manual, it costs, you want to get into it now and it's going to cost
you. It's going to, you know, yesterday's price is not today's price. My favorite quote. I don't
know why it's one of my favorite quotes ever. Yeah, this is what it is, right? So
he's frustrated and I go, do you want the car? Is the car still in something you can afford? If
the answer is no, you got to move on. Don't just sit there and keep looking at it and getting mad.
Like that is what I hear so many people, by the way, I've been guilty of it. You got to move on.
You got to just say, I mean, like I said to him, you know, move into the 360 market, you know,
you can manual swap those pretty easy. You can do things. You can do what you want to do.
Or you got to pull the trigger on AF4. But just continuing to look at it
is not, that's not, because you're not going to like use the force to make that price go in half.
It's bad for your mental health. If anything's bad for your mental health, it's that.
And so that's what I would say to Jose or any of you out there. Like sometimes you just got to
move on. I mean, when I was looking at my LX, Land Cruiser 100 series were just too expensive.
And the LX was the better value. I would have liked to have just a traditional 100 series,
but those prices just didn't make sense to me. It wasn't that I couldn't afford it, but I just go,
that's not the experience. You know, I can pay 21 for this one or get something similar and it's 34.
Well, I'm not doing that. You know, I'm not on this kind of car, right? Now, there's certain cars
in the upper end of the market that you go, this one's 200, this one's 227. Well, you get,
you get the thing you want for 227 because that's, that's pennies in that part of the market.
But it's not, there are a lot of people are looking sub 100,000. That's the majority of the
market that moves cars. You know, look, man, if it's $10,000 high, which by the way,
Gen Raptors were $10,000 high at one point a year ago, you know, you and you and I
had every intention a year ago, I was going to pull the trigger on a Gen one Raptor.
And I kept telling you, I'm like, these are just too high. You waited it out. And then you go,
I found a good deal. Right. So there's just this thing that we have in the marketplace right now
is that I think people are looking in these very hot markets because they're being told
their hot markets and then they're pissed off at the price of the hot market. Guys, when you get
the invite to this community platform that we're going to build, I want you to remember this Gen
one Raptor remark that Nick just made because I actually put an Easter egg in there for you guys.
So please remember that. All right. Jose, hope that helps out. Let us know what you ended up
buying. Tom, I enjoy the OEM plus versus heavy mod chat. I can easily say that I'm leaning OEM
plus these days, 39 family money to spend, but I don't have the urge. Have I outgrown the car
culture or do I need to buy a racing simulator? Personally, I think our boy here is trying to
get the okay to buy a racing simulator, if I had to guess, which by the way, we sign off.
That's a no brain. No more discussion. Yeah, go ahead. Let me ask you this question. Yeah,
we got a lot of comments, both on both sides where people were very understanding saying,
hey, I'm leaning that way. And then we had the hard O's of the week that were like, oh,
I don't know. What I find is that modification today seems to be more related to the level
of car you start with. So I think the people that lean OEM plus, like this guy that emailed,
he's probably looking in a class of vehicle that out of the box is already pretty good.
Hard to argue that. Okay. You go buy a Mark IV Supra. They weren't that great out of the box.
There's a build list already by the time you buy it. Yeah, I mean, to get what you want,
what you've seen on the internet, you're modifying the hell out of that car,
because Mark IV out of the box was not not the experience people think it was, especially for
those that have never been M1. Great car, good cruiser, chilling. Is it anywhere near what you
can get today at 450 horsepower out of the box with some things? No, it's not. So it's a modified
car. It's I'm buying this to modify it. You'd say mostly in the Miata market, guys that are deep
in the Miata market, Miata racing, whatever, they know they're going into modification. I think
we're seeing a divide that maybe we should have talked about last week. The people that seem to
favor OEM plus are buying a better out of the box car that they don't have to get to
you know, that a respectable horsepower number, so to speak, it just kind of comes that way.
Yeah, I can't believe we didn't mention that. You're absolutely right. Like that is such a good,
it seems like now, obviously in retrospect, an obvious observation, if you're going to buy
an S5, for instance, or BMW, whatever, for the most part, you're pretty good out the box for a
while. Yeah. And you know, your OEM plus is I'll put some coil overs on, maybe I'll get a set of
wheels that I like, maybe I'll do some some dining upgrades on the pulley system or intake or whatever
I do. But you're not really trying to fool with something that was that good out of the box.
Now, there's other BMW stuff that you do need to modify and you go, this just wasn't that good
out of the box. Right. So just a normal three series. You know what I mean? You go, I want to,
I want to add some stuff to this. But if you buy a good M3 from whatever good year that you like,
E46, E90, E92, those types of things, you go, I don't really need to go bonkers with this thing.
Like this is pretty good the way it came. I'm not trying to shoot shots at a boy marshal over a
hypercline HQ, but what is going on over there? Oh, buddy, let's not get started. Okay, okay.
Okay. All right. Let's not let's not. I had a very long conversation with
with my business partner, Marshall. He bought a 2003 series, which is in fantastic shape. Yeah,
it is. We've had some mistakes along the way. Yeah, couple. We're getting him. We're getting him
right, which by the way, that's sort of the fun of it. Right. Somebody getting into their first,
you know, you know, sort of touching into the BMW world. You got to be,
got to be kind of told what to do. You know, you got to find out the mistakes. I got it, dude.
I got to find what Nick replied something that I was laughing. This might need to go on a
clutch culture shirt in the future. God, what was it? Something about my eyes.
Yeah. Yeah, your mods are an assault on my eyes. That's what it was, dude. Listen,
if that's not a shirt, listen to me right now. That is might be the first shirt of 2026 for
clutch culture. That is so funny. Yeah, no, it's
everyone out there knows what I'm talking about. There's just certain things on my eyes is so good.
But I mean, that's where I think this OEM plus, you know, heavy modification really starts, right?
One of the crazy things to me that we didn't talk about, and it was our mistake is like,
it just matters what you're buying from stock start. Yeah. You know, it really does. And it
seems like we had a real divide between people that were buying a little bit more of an expensive
car versus people that were buying a little bit more of a cheaper car. Neither one is right.
You know, you're just buying what you can buy or buying what you like. But that's the divide.
The divide is how good is the car? Like truthfully, how good was the car from the manufacturer?
The title of the show is just going to be your mods are an assault on my eyes.
I'm going to have that shirt. When I go to car shows, I'm just going to point to it. I'm not
going to say anything so that just look at them. They'll know that I'm looking at their car and
they're looking at my shirt. Dude, I saw I had saw a heavily modified geo tracker and like mint
condition. Boy, was that thing awesome. I go, I cannot believe somebody did this. Yeah. Why is
the question? Who cares? I was just like, I can't believe somebody did it right. I wouldn't even
have dreamed up what he did. What was doing it right? I'm curious. I don't know. I couldn't
even explain it. I just go pick some good wheels. Has it lowered properly? You know, it's all
shined up. I don't know, man. Looks kind of sick. When I was young, I had a guy that I worked with.
This is, I mean, I was probably like 1920 worked at a retail store. We'll call it. He had one of
those and the guy looked exactly like Louis Anderson. So it was just like, you couldn't,
you couldn't put a better image together of him getting in this little car. It was modified. He
kind of knew cars too. And I'm like, this is a crazy thing ever since. So for you to say that
is like, wow, those memories right there. It's geo tracker. What a random thing to come across
my time. You know what looks kind of nice. Not mad at it. Jake here says, if you sold your favorite
car today and you were replacing it tomorrow, what would it be? You also got top dollar for the car
you sold? I would probably get into an E 63 wagon. Oh, okay. Probably be if I got the right number
for my BMW, I'd be probably in the E 63 wagon. I just want the experience, not necessarily that
like I need it for any reason. I just kind of want to check it off. It's like one of those things.
I just want to go. Yeah, that's what the whole hypothetical is for. Yeah, I own that. I got that.
You know, I enjoyed that. So would you daily that or just have it in the stall?
It probably it would be driven probably quite a bit. I'd probably drive it quite a bit like
pretty useful. Honestly, I might I might park the LX more if I had a wagon, just especially a
you know, a high, you know, a high performance wagon. Yeah, I still think
if I could get into a manual CTV wagon, if I could get into that world for the right price,
that would be another thing. I think I would probably if I sold the BMW for the right price,
I'd be looking in in the wagon world to see, can I just check the experience off?
So that you said BMW, right? So that's the one you would tell that's your favorite car right now.
Yeah, I mean, that's my that'd be the car. My LX is just my daily, right? Like it's just something
I enjoy dailying. It doesn't, you know, value right now, you know, with some of the things that
I've done, we could be at 25 to $28,000. But yeah, man, if I sold my BMW, I'd want to have
the wagon experience. I think that's that's the next thing to check off my list. And by the way,
one thing I am enjoying following was Nick from Doug Show, who I think is hilarious. He's like,
I don't know how he's not a permanent staple. Love that guy. Don't know him. I just like great
personality, great personality. Yeah. He's manual swapping an E 55 AMG wagon. Oh, yeah,
on his YouTube. Yeah, yeah. So I want to I'm invested. I'm like, they did a walk around and
I'm like, you know, you ever see those videos where like, you're turning your head trying to
see on the screen. I'm like, Oh, what's that? So I just think it's an itch. I would want to scratch
pretty quickly if I sold what I have. Nice. I got to make a note of that so I can follow that as
well. That's awesome. I just got the Raptor, but that's probably the one if I got top dollar for
that, I'd probably sell that. And I still like the idea of a functional car. So it would have to
be a four door. But if we're going off the walls, I will say this, a Ferrari F F like the Oh, that's
for whatever reason, that car, every time I see one, I'm like, I must experience one of these.
Well, what if what if you went Viper? You know, you and the Viper, you keep putting the Viper.
I just want to I just want you to have the Viper. I understand. So Brendan shop now who lives in
Austin was just he was in a Calvo, you know, whole Viper experience thing did a video of it.
They're insane. I love those cars, man. It's one of my favorite cars. Yeah, me too. I just I just
something about the look. I don't know what it is. It's just like it was like a generational thing
for me. Like hit me at the right time, the right age when that thing was like when you saw him in
person, it felt like an exotic. It did. I mean, because again, we kind of talk about this.
You know, even though I was around exotic cars at that time, you didn't see him driving. No,
like that not where I grew up. Like that wasn't happening. And I say most cities it wasn't as
popular as it is now. Exotics were just a lower production thing. See, my mind went four door
functional and it went to a fucking two door death trap, which I love, which I love. Let's go.
What's the quintessential color combo for a Viper? If it was yours,
I got to go blue red, blue and white stripes, but I know you hate stripes. So if I could get
that blue with no stripes, boy, that would be that's how you know, Nick and I are similar,
but still very different. That would be, that would be real mint. That blue with no stripes would
be really a special look. Just Eagles. Every time you step on the accelerator, 100% Eagles.
It'd be like the White House TikTok account in your car. Boy, is that entertaining to watch these
days. Oh man. That's, that's, that's a wild scene over there. Yeah. It's a wild time. Jake,
hope that answers your question. Always fun to answer those last one before we get maybe to
another story before we land the plane. Danny says, this feels like it's beat to death, but I
can't decide whether I should lease a new car or invest or just pay cash and be out 70 to 80K
thinking a C eight or Cadillac CT four slash five V Blackwing. Well, very different cars.
No, no argument for me on the CT five V with the manual that I'd take that over a C eight all day
long. By the way, C eight's a great car. I'm not, not saying anything. I just think
CT five V with the manual would be my vote. I don't think necessary the questions being asked
properly because I don't think lease and paying cash or your only two options here.
I would certainly say you don't, if you're trying to avoid a car payment because you think,
I mean, that's all that a lease is, is a car payment. You're just financing the depreciation
of the vehicle. That's that's what a lease is. There's nothing wrong with a lease. Look, if you
have business, you know, write off potential leases work great for businesses. So I don't know your
exact situation. I wouldn't say you need to be out 70 or 80 grand either. I don't see anything wrong
if you can get financing in order and you're okay with it and you can put that money into
you know, an SMP fund or whatever. I think you're giving two opposite ends of the spectrum
leaving out the middle option. I'd probably tell you if you buy a CT five V manual,
I think that's going to hold its value incredibly well. Now, if the economy gets rocky and you
see it drop, that doesn't mean sell it. That means wait this thing out. Good store value.
Yeah, let this just kind of hang out. That to me would be a long term vehicle. I'm going to keep
this. So that's why the payments wouldn't really bother me. But I don't, I think you provided two
opposite ends of the spectrum without talking about the middle. I was going to say, and that's kind
of an example of the internet. Maybe it's just the world right now is that everything has to be
an extreme one way or extremely other. We're forgetting about the nuance in the middle.
Yes, it's a perfect way to put it. Like that's how I feel. I'm not telling anybody to do with
their money. This is a question. I just think if you go C eight, then I think you need to be a
little bit more cautious because eventually those are going to fall like a rock because they're
going to the next generation is always better. So remember that about Corvette. The reason Corvettes
don't, aside from COVID, the reason that these things don't hold value is because they make so
many of them. Even though on the placards at your local car show, they try to tell you it's
one of one. It's one of about 10 billion of them. And it is going to fall in price. Doesn't mean
C eight's a bad purchase for a weekend. Let's have some fun kind of car. I just think the CT5V
with everything being canceled, if you get the manual, it's going to be a nice piece to have
to just hold on to long term. It's kind of what I told you about your genuine Raptor. Right. I mean,
to me, it feels like that's a forever car. Now, what forever means to everybody to me,
it means you're going to keep it a very long time, not necessarily nothing is forever,
but a forever car to me is I could see me having this in my collection for 10 years.
You know, that would be considered a very long time in the car market almost like forever.
But yeah, I would I would buy and hold that car. Enjoy it. Put the mileage on it. I'm not saying
let it sit in your garage. We had some guy comment on YouTube because well, it's pollen season. So
I don't drive it. I'm like, well, you can wash pollen off. I mean, it's not that great. We have
great products. It takes you 30 minutes to do it. I mean, come on, man. But your car, do what you
want. I'm not no judgment here. But yeah, I would I would be in the CT5V Blackwing. I'd be in the
manuals only. And I don't think you have to outlay all the cash. I think you kind of provided both
ends of the spectrum there. I'd go ahead and have a payment on it and invest the rest of the money.
What a good sensible answer. You know, if it makes anything sensible on the show outside of the show,
could be a different conversation. Wild. Wild. You just don't know what kind of curveball he's
going to he's going to throw at you. We're not allowed to say this on television. Oh,
anywhere or anywhere on online platform. Man, what was the last thing be like Steve will do it
just getting banned from the two. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, just blacklisted off of everything.
It was one last thing you said to Dan here at the end that I can't remember what it was. I was going
to make a point on Oh, uh, nope. You know, in the middle of the S&P, spending money however you want.
I can't remember it comes back to me. I'll bring it up. But I will say I got a here. That was all
our questions for today. Hey, again, if they end up in a DM and an email and they're interesting,
we will talk about it on the show. Clutch culture podcast. Clutch culture pod.
No, what is it, dude? Damn it. I'm sorry. By the way, you screwed up the Gmail. This time, this time,
this time. Clutch culture. It should have been this. It should have been the same as everything.
Somehow you wrote podcast. It wasn't available, believe it or not. Well, that's a you problem.
It wasn't me problem, but I can only do so much. Clutch culture podcast podcast at gmail.com.
All these socials are pod for whatever reason. It wasn't available. And you know what's even
worse is when you look for a name that you go find isn't being used. It's just they're vacant.
That's what we have with our situation. Really? I think with clutch culture, right?
Yeah, that too. That's why I had to use pod regardless. It'll make it to the show. So thanks
for sending stuff in. I got a random one here for you that I think is really cool. Maybe it just
tugs at my heart a little differently because that's me. Look at this potential concept for a new
GM square body. That looks really good. It does. I'm not playing audio because he's talking a
little loud, but that looks awesome. If you're watching on YouTube, look at the interior.
It's like modern, but you still got like these old classic kind of gauges. Yeah,
it's great looking, man. That's really well done. I mean, I sent you something on that Toyota.
Yeah, I got it pulled up. You want to talk about it real quick? Yeah, let's pull that up.
Fantastic. Boy, what a sticker shock that was for people. Oh my God. It wasn't until you actually
brought it to my attention that I realized just how much of a sticker shock. Check this out.
Located in America, we're building these Toyotas. Boy, are they expensive.
We've heard it. Now let's jump into what this actually is. This is an LC 79. This is a globally
sourced vehicle. Son of a B. Hold on. What is going on here? I don't know. The writing wouldn't go away.
You've seen it. You've heard it. Now let's jump into what this actually is.
This is an LC 79. This is a globally sourced vehicle and built in our Aiken
software line location, which means it's legal in 49 states. Sorry, California.
This is our prototype. Let's dive into what you can do for yours. You're going to get to pick your
wheel and tire combo. It's going to be a 35 inch tire and everything's going to be sitting on
Dovenson 4 inch suspension. For options, you can pick your rear bumper. You can do a slim line,
a swing arm or the factory bumper. Standard, you're going to get a 40 gallon long range fuel tank.
You got three options. You'll have evap codes coming out. You can do a full bull bar or you can
do a minimalized front bumper to help you get in this truck. You can either have the factory
running boards, automatic drop down or rock sliders for those that really want to push it.
Jump in our prototype interior. Biggest thing, five speed manual transmission,
short throw shifter. In your production one, you're going to have two front bucket seats.
In the rear, bench seat. All right. For everybody that loves the snorkel,
do have an option for a safari style metal snorkel and that is because of the beast under the hood.
Saving the best for last. Under the hood is a turbocharged built 1fz engine making 500 horsepower
to the rear wheels. It will have you grinning from ear to ear. If this truck is for you, head over
to carcaveusa.com and jump online to our configurator to build yours today. So let's talk about this is
the coolest thing in the world. They've done a fantastic job. We're all on board.
I haven't been deep on the configurator, but we're seeing prices at roughly 250 to $300,000.
I mean, that's that's a little tough to take. I mean, this is where we get into
sort of the grenadier conversation at times and all of these things like there's only so
many rich dudes that want to own these cars, man. Like, and once they buy it, they're not going to
come back and buy it again. That's not how this thing works. I really wish none of this is going
to be cheap, right? Doing all the kind of work and putting this all together and sourcing all this
stuff. That's just not cheap. 250 to 300 seems like I don't know who you guys are selling to,
but maybe, you know, 100 rich people and they got to be the right 100. I mean, like Elon Musk
isn't buying this. Like he's not a car guy like that. There you go. It's based off this. Yeah.
185 to start. If you would just want a 200 horsepower NA and then you got all the way up here to
300 grand, the one the one you'd want, the only one you would want. Yeah, the only one you want.
Yeah. Now it's it's a 15 step process to if you want to customize this whole thing.
Yeah. And every customization is going to cost you a pretty penny. I mean, that's
so again, you can see the 185 and you think to yourself, okay, I mean, and then everything
you want. And all of a sudden you get out and it's 273 and you go, well, I think I could use
money a different way. Like, you know, go get 100 series Land Cruiser, low mileage, go get,
you know, a Bentley GT to drive around. I mean, you could have a three car solution
that would still accomplish what you wanted with this vehicle. Depending where you are,
you're going to have three cars and three houses, you know, depending where you are.
If you're like downtown Detroit, you could have like, you know, three houses and three sweet cars.
Here's another interesting thing. I saw Laura Senko, great UFC commentator, very easy on the
eyes of course, obviously she was in Italy and she, her and her husband and her son were getting
a tour of the Pagani factory. And what was interesting was seeing how many Pagani's were
getting made at once. And in my mind goes back to the conversations we have,
how many people are out there buying brand new custom Pagani's?
Well, enough, enough, right? There you go. That's always the answer. It's enough.
Right. Don't worry about it. You can't afford it. Don't ask the questions.
Yep. I'm enough. I mean, that's, that's what we're seeing is that
got a lot of money around the world and they're not beholden to just the rich people in America,
right? Where this car company that was doing the Toyota rebuild here,
they're beholden to the, to the American market. So, so you're shrinking all of these people that
Pagani gets to talk to, right? That these other car companies get to talk to. So it's going to
be interesting following this, this company that you showed the clip of. I want to cheer them on.
Yeah. I'd also love to talk to them and go,
how many people can you really sell this to? Because the people interested in this,
maybe you can put this on some hunting reserves and there ain't that many of those that are going
to be paying $300,000 for a get around the hunting reserve. They'll just buy a raptor.
Yeah. They'll just buy, or buy three, four raptors, five raptors.
You know, so I'm just kind of wondering, because we don't know, you know, I don't know what they
see in their business model. I don't know who they're, what they see in their research, but they
didn't do this out of the blue. I don't want to say anybody just does it out of the blue. I would
like to know how many people they think they're really, and how many they have to sell. Hell,
if they sell 10 a year, they're like, we got a good company. It's true. I mean, that could be the case
too. And I don't think they're going to leave this out in the hunting field. Imagine like the guy
that I ran into or that I talked to that had the F-150 where rodents ate all of his shit. Imagine
paying $300,000 and then it's just useless in a week. Oh my God. It could happen. It could happen.
Yeah. You don't do that. Hey, extra, extra great episode, a little long. Love it. Again,
hopefully we come back at the top of the show with a couple of instructions on how to join
the community that we're building. We're trying to keep the good hang going outside of the podcast
just because there's a lot to talk about, a lot to dissect and a lot to distribute out into the
world that doesn't get talked about a lot. So without further ado, that's all I got. I didn't
mean, at the end of the show, I know. Oh my God. That's only happened a few times where like you're
done and then you say without further ado, you're like, no, don't mean like you're done.
Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, it's, uh, well, guys, take this for what it is. Maybe,
maybe Rob just needs a break. Take a nap. I don't know. Getting older. Whatever. See you next week.
All right, guys.
About this episode
The hosts dive into Rivian's recent R2 launch, expressing surprise and frustration over the delayed and higher-than-expected pricing compared to initial promises. They discuss Rivian's smart but slow approach to market rollout, influencer marketing strategies, and how the company mirrors legacy automakers in delays despite being forward-thinking. The episode also highlights the launch of a $300K Land Cruiser LC79, CEO shake-ups in the automotive world, and the creation of a new Clutch Culture Discord community for fans to connect and share insights. The conversation blends critique with appreciation for Rivian's innovation and design.
Original notes
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Robert Garza & Nick Walters
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