AAH #779 - Is Racing a Waste of Time and Money or a Benefit to Automakers?

Speaker 1: We want to thank Alex Partners, our sponsor for this program, and we want to introduce Greg Migliore, who's here with us today from Vertical Scope. That's me and Henry Payne,

the auto critic and editorial cartoonist for the Detroit News and on the editorial board.

Speaker 2: Do write no, not on the board anymore?

Speaker 1: Oh you're not?

Speaker 2: Okay? Yeah, I do. I do.

Speaker 3: He's the guy, he's their car.

Speaker 2: Do some radio for none ten am? So I stay busy?

Speaker 3: Yeah. Of course most of our people probably don't know

where nine ten is.

Speaker 1: So yeah, And and of course you got me and Gary.

How you doing Gary?

Speaker 3: I'm doing great?

Speaker 1: Good? So, uh, what you're driving this week?

Speaker 3: John? I am driving the same vehicle that you were

driving last week, which was the Mazda c X seventy with the Inline six. And as I said last week,

you know, we we're talking about of vehicles and I just don't get that sense when I'm driving something.

Speaker 2: Putting that big yeah.

Speaker 3: Yeah, you're I'm with you.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I love I love the Masda brand, I mean mas C X five, which I'm really excited about getting into with a new uh with the new digital displays.

But yeah, you get it. Then Mas of c X

five to me is the best handling suv the side of a BMW X three. But then it gets small,

that's right, But then you get bigger than that, and yeah, it's it's it's hard to translate to mas the m X five dynamics to a.

Speaker 3: Three row Yeah, I mean suv. It's you know, it's

well this this is the two row because he has the c X ninety, which is the three row right.

Speaker 1: Well, but I haven't driven that yet. It just dropped

it off today, so I've been driving. Uh, the Lexus

NX four fifty h plus. The plus means it's a

plug in and uh, nice for your coal. But I'm

not a fan of hybrids.

Speaker 3: I just charge on you hate hybrids.

Speaker 1: Well, I wouldn't say that I hate them. I'm talking

hybrids that have been designed for fuel economy, you know, as opposed to like the Corvette hybrid, which is more about performance than it is about fuel economy. Interestingly, so

the NX four fifty h plus, that's a mouthful to say, is rated at eighty four miles per gallon you know MPGe.

But if if you just strip out the plugin part, it's rated at thirty six combined. I was getting thirty

three combined. Decent vehicle. But again, and I've run into

this problem with another Toyota. The roof rack that they

put on it creates wind noise that I find noticeable and irritating. So you know, I know these companies all

put their cars in wind tunnels. I'll bet a million

bucks they don't put them into the wind tunnel with the.

Speaker 2: Roof rack on. Yeah that's interesting because I was just

in a subrew trail Seeker, which was their top line EV.

But being a Subaru, they went the full roof rack on this thing, and it was really nice and quiet inside, as you would expect from an EV. But yeah, sometimes

you get into EV's like a like a Hummer EV with with the you know, it's very vertical of the severe a pillars and it's pretty noisy. But this trail

Seeker was nice even with the roof rail.

Speaker 4: Interesting just crab walking the Hummer, right, and yeah, that's right the efficiency there, right?

Speaker 1: So Greg, what are you driving or what have you driven lately? That's what we're talking about.

Speaker 4: I just got out of the Maverick Lobo, which I enjoyed immensely I think it's a lot of fun. I

think it's a nice kind of take on that segment brings the Maverick to a different audience.

Speaker 2: You got aut across it against John's Ford FSST.

Speaker 4: I mean I could right. It's got that kind of

trick all wheel drive system. So I really liked it.

I think Ford's done a nice job with that, and the whole family liked it too.

Speaker 3: Surprise you doesn't scream street truck more than it does.

Speaker 4: I think it sort of speaks street truck. It doesn't

show it just kind of like, you know, you want to show it. I think it's tasteful. You get the

like the wheels.

Speaker 2: The wheels scream street truck wheels are cool, but they're optional.

But I would I would definitely get the turban wheels.

Speaker 4: But yeah, me too.

Speaker 3: I mean, isn't the thing like more and more electric vehicles have cool wheels, and it just sort of says, okay, this is aerodynamic, right, you know, you get a you know, we talked last week about the Bubble ex thirty. I mean,

look on the wheels of those things look every bit as cool as those on the Lobo, And I just thought the Lobo would beat a little bit more.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm with you, you know a little more accents.

Speaker 3: So amazing, Henry and greeting with me on everything. We

start talking about racing.

Speaker 1: I started talking about racing then because that was one of the things that we left off on last week.

Uh is motor racing a waste of time for automakers, which I think Gary is going to.

Speaker 3: I'm not going to go that far. Okay, so let

me let me go back into the past here to begin with, Let's go back to the halcyon days of October tenth, nineteen oh one, when Henry Ford was at the Detroit Driving Club in gross Point on a one mile dirt truck. Maybe it's one of those tracks that

on his wandering and and he raised a guy named Alexander Wynton, and Ford's car purpose built the sweepstakes versus the Winton Bullet and it was it was thought that Winton would just wipe the course with with Henry.

Speaker 2: Was one of the premier drivers of the time.

Speaker 3: He was and lo and behold, Henry won the race. Now,

as a consequence of Henry winning the race, there was a guy who was a coal magnet Cole's coming back by the way.

Speaker 2: Yeah, it's good West Virginia and so.

Speaker 3: Cole magnate by the name of Alexander Malcolmson, and he was so impressed with what Henry did. He invested in

Henry and those two guys basically started the company that became Ford Motor Company because.

Speaker 2: In nineteen o one his first company or second company failed, had failed.

Speaker 3: But then it transitioned and then it became the company that I know. So if we go, if we go back,

then like here's Henry. He's fighting for his life, he's

fighting for his business. He gets the money, he gets

the business. Since then, I would say that race car

racing is fantastic entertainment, full stop. Now you guys prove

to me why I'm wrong.

Speaker 2: Well, I would say that racing is really integrated into this industry and and it was. It was brought home

to me in my father raced in the nineteen sixties and he and his buddies raced a Pontiac tempest. In

nineteen sixty three, General Motors banned racing internally. There you know,

there's all these politics in this industry, and the politics at the time was that racing was killing a lot of people.

Speaker 1: After the Lilones Act.

Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, this had all sort of been building

since nineteen fifty five with the Terrible Year and fifty five both at Indiana at Lamar, and so by nineteen sixty three, GM says we're not going to race anymore.

My father is going to racetracks in the Pontiac Tempest and GM is showing up to these races with these big blank semi trucks coming in. Everybody knows that's GM.

They offload these pristine Pontiac Tempests. They're all run by

GM engineers and top drivers. And the reason is is

because GM has to keep racing. That's how that's how

they learn the limits of their technology. And so my

dad was very cynical about GM at the time that it was publicly saying, you know, we're so.

Speaker 3: You did it as a privateer. He was a privateer,

that's right.

Speaker 2: And all these privateers are out there like they're not they're not stopping racing. But that, to me, that shows

how important racing was even at that level, you know, racing pontiacts that they they even though the corporation had said, you know, we're gonna we're going to put on a public face for Congress and not race at the engineering level.

They had to be there racing, right.

Speaker 1: A lot of that stuff went off the back door, and uh, there was a big effort I know for a fact that because this has been written about it, Chevrolet Engineering, uh make sure top management does not find out a about this, so that there could be plausible deniability on the part of the board and senior management.

Whereas there was a pretty good amount of racing effort going on at the time.

Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, the very famous race from that era,

from nineteen sixty three was the Chevrolet Corvette Grand Am glorious car. It's a one thousand pounds lighter then it's Cobra competition.

Shelby was racing Cobras, and GM was determined to prove out this technology, and the corporation is banned racing. So

in sixty three they take a bunch of Grand Ams and they go down to Nassau and race them, and they beat the Cobras. You know, Roger Penske was racing,

Jim Hall was racing, all these top drivers. It wasn't

an official GM right effort, but they but they had technology that they needed to prove out in those Corvettes.

Speaker 3: So your argument is that you need racing for technology, well, or or it enhances the company's technology.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean yeah. The nature of racing, particularly endurance racing,

is it you stress components to a degree that you can't possibly do in any other form, and so endurance racing in particular is hugely beneficial these companies. But I

mean there's there's the there's the marketing piece. You know,

as you said, the Ford Motor Company gets started with with UH based on racing success portion and Ferrari as brands don't exist without racing. Their brands are synonymous with racing.

Speaker 1: In fact, just to add in with Ferrari, Ferrari started building cars to pay for its racing. Yeah, so it's

a company that's always put racing first in production. Second

high Well, what do you think, greg racing or no race?

Speaker 3: Well, I think it's oh, come on, I didn't say no racing, Okay.

Speaker 4: I think some racing is you know, totally important. I mean,

especially if you look at cars like the Corvette, the od R eight, you know, different Porsches, you can really see what their top levels could do, and then that gets like you're like your every day enthusiasts might want to buy just a Corvette coop. Maybe they don't need

the Z six or something, but they're like, hey, this is what this is what gets me into the brand.

And I mean you go all the way back, like I think GM and Corvette is a really good example when you look at like, you know, in the fifties, to Corvette was more of kind of like almost like a Grand Tour, although they did race it early sixties, some of those races where you see that Gen one then Gen two Corvette really start to prove itself and it's like, hey, this is this is a legit car that could compete with the Europeans.

Speaker 3: Greig, you were even alive then, I like history car.

But all right, so so basically so technology, Yeah what else? Marketing? Carketing, right, marketing? Okay,

technical marketing.

Speaker 1: Look, development of your technical people is a critical part of that. They always had people going through its Formula

one efforts and then going back into regular engineering. General

Motors is doing the same thing right now, All right, let's let's let's let's let's take that.

Speaker 4: Let's take the development of the people to get the.

Speaker 3: Top notch engineers.

Speaker 2: Right.

Speaker 3: So I was thinking about that.

Speaker 2: Now.

Speaker 3: Cadillac, as we know, is going into Formula one. Formula

one has a cap for teams two hundred and fifteen million dollars a year. Okay. That's not counting the development

the powertrain, it's not counting paying for the drivers, it's not coming for marketing. Two hundred and fifteen million per year.

Speaker 1: I thought it was less than that.

Speaker 3: No, I checked. Oh, you checked it, okay, several several times.

So all right. So I looked at it at a

website called collegefactual dot com. And I'm going to quote

from college factual dot com. The median early career salary

of electual engineering students who receive their doctor's degrees okay PhDs from Stanford is one hundred and thirty nine thousand, one hundred dollars per year. Okay. So then I figured, okay,

so GM would want these people to develop its vehicles, to develop its Cadillacs, right, electrical engineers, this is this is the thing. Right, So obviously if Cadillac hires you,

or General Waters hires you one hundred and thirty nine thousand dollars, it's you got Benny's on top of.

Speaker 2: That, right.

Speaker 3: So I looked and I calculated that it's fifty five thousand, six hundred and forty dollars in benefits. So this brings

the total that General Motors pays for one PhD from Stanford, Okay, would be one hundred ninety four thousand, seven hundred and forty dollars a year.

Speaker 1: Call it two hundred thousand.

Speaker 3: Oh hell's see. But I so I.

Speaker 1: Wondered how many PhDs from.

Speaker 3: Stanford could it get for two hundred and fifteen million dollars.

That would be one thousand, one hundred and four PhD electrical engineering grads from Stanford.

Speaker 2: So instead instead of throwing it away on racing, you're saying.

Speaker 3: Exactly, okay. Now you know, if they decided that they

wanted to get a PhD in computer or electrical engineering from Purdue, which wonderful school, it's even cheaper. It's it's

only you know, it's like it only costs one hundred and forty one thousand dollars a year for one of these guys if they can get them, because I know there aren't that many.

Speaker 1: I mean, no, no, no, it's not even that. You know,

if you go back, you know, half a century ago, the best and brightest coming out of business school and engineering schools wanted to go into the auto industry. Not anymore.

I mean, they want to go into the tech industry.

I understand that. So one of the ways of being

able to recruit people is saying, you know what, we're gonna put on the Formula one team.

Speaker 3: It's one way looking at it.

Speaker 1: That's one way.

Speaker 3: But I mean, I'm just I'm just saying, if you could get like a thousand of these guys so they can't get them all.

Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but you know, here, here's a thousand.

Speaker 3: And then and then even if if like if like ninety percent duds, you're still ahead of the game.

Speaker 4: But I also think to fifteen two hundred million it's a lot of money, but it's also kind of pocket change for automakers of the size of GM. I mean,

three to fifteen million dollars is about what the Tigers are going to play or pay thirteam this year. It's

less than the Dodgers are going to pay their team.

So I'm just saying, if you look at this like a sport, maybe it's not a bad one.

Speaker 3: You must have a what is it seven billion dollars right off?

Speaker 1: Well, remember the other thing too, is what do you do with your team? You run out and you get

a bunch of sponsors. So you're, as an automaker, not

shelling out two hundred million dollars. Your sponsors are putting

that money up for you. And I would say the

other thing that's an advantage of having people in a race team is you better have the grid, the car on the grid ready to go on Sunday. You know,

there's no excuses, there's no like, oh, we you know, we need more personnel, we need more budget, we need you know, the the tooling guy, guy guys or a week. No,

you got to put the car on the grid on Sunday.

Speaker 3: Okay.

Speaker 1: And so that dry.

Speaker 3: So that's going to make a better car. That's going

to make a better car.

Speaker 1: That's going to end up when you rot take those people back into the company, they're going to bring that mindset with them.

Speaker 3: All right. So so, so Henry, you're talking about IM before,

So Cadillac when the I in twenty seventeen, same year that lexis Winday, Okay, so they're both racing, right, they're different, different, but they're both they're both in that series. Okay, So

this gets everybody gets to have these these engineers and they get to have sponsors and stuff like that. So

so then the question becomes of like, Okay, isn't isn't the whole goal of all of this stuff to make better cars that people will buy? I mean, isn't that

the goal?

Speaker 1: It's one of the goals.

Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's also you know the old the old saw went on Sunday, sol on Monday.

Speaker 3: Glad you said that Harry MIT's a cocktail peering and market right into.

Speaker 2: My your weather.

Speaker 3: So basically we walked right into the trap. So basically

we have Cadillac and Lexus and they both are selling.

You know, we can go down the street over here and there's a Lexus dealer and there's they're selling against each other, right, So it's all about product. It's all

about selling, and they're all they're both in IMSA, and it terms out that that Cadillac is kicking Lexus's ASCID.

We look at total number of wins in IMSA, it's thirty three to seventeen since they've been in the series. Okay,

So then I looked at sales numbers of Lexus and Cadillac since twenty seventeen and there is only one year, twenty twenty two, that Lexus didn't out sell Cadillac by more than ninety percent. This year is only the outsold

them by eighty two percent. But for example, in twenty

twenty five, based on them, Lexiell sold Cadillac by one hundred and thirteen percent. Yeah, so my question you guys,

is isn't it all about selling vehicles? And if that's

the case, we can see from IMSA that it isn't working out so well.

Speaker 1: Well.

Speaker 4: Remember IMSA is more of a series where the cars are much more like road going in many cases, So I think that's a series where you get more like of a tech transfers they like to say in the industry, like hey we learned this from the hybrid, we learned this from the aerodynamics or something different series like NASCAR Formula one. That's where maybe it doesn't matter as much

if you win on Saturday or Sunday and sell on Monday, because you're getting the bigger marketing kind of bite. So

I think each series isn't created equal for what it does, Like, I don't think you have to rack it up a bunch of wins like I think Maserati has the second or third most or fourth most like world championships of all time. Who knows that, right, So I think you

kind of spread it out. It's like economics. Every little

thing kind of you know, goes into the recipe.

Speaker 2: But but but Lexus is there, right, Lexus is racing.

Toyota's racing. Toyota is actually you know, beat to Cadillac

to the grid in Lamar hypercar. So at an international level,

Toyota was putting far more money into prototype racing than Cadillac was in order to win Lama. What they've they've

won three or four times at that top level. So

I think all these companies are involved in motorsport to the you know, to the best of their engineering and marketing ability that suits their own. But they're all there,

they're all competing.

Speaker 4: Well, if you look at Mazda, like, I mean, I don't know, they're what the back of their baseball card looks like. They've won their fair share of different races.

But I mean, what brand is more closely associated with racing than Masa? And they actually even look more I

think to like the grassroots level, you know, like the SECA stuff.

Speaker 2: Yeah, what's the most race most race car in the world is the most race car in the world.

Speaker 1: So and I think that's a good point. They're all

in it, and they've been in it for years. And

my guesstimate is GM's Formula one commitment is probably a billion dollar commitment.

Speaker 3: Well, it is the first year, because you have to pay four hundred and fifty million dollars to get in.

Speaker 1: To get in, Okay, irrespective of that, you know in tight dilution fee, building up the facilities that they're building, developing an engine that they're doing, this is huge expense.

So you've got to go to the board and you've got to be able to convince the board that, hey, we need a billion dollars to go racing. They got

to bless something like that. And uh, like I said,

all these car companies are in it and they're spending a fortune, and they've got to see it. It's there's

corporate ego in there, to be sure, But that isn't enough to convince the CFO give you the money to go racing. There's got to be much more of an

ROI to it.

Speaker 3: It's hard for me to tell looking at all the numbers.

I mean, so for example, you know you mentioned you mentioned NASCAR, and so what does Chevy drive or what is their vehicles?

Speaker 2: Camaro?

Speaker 3: It used to it it is the Camaro is ZR one.

Now it's just the z R one.

Speaker 2: Right.

Speaker 3: So somebody, you know, it's Bob Pasco, who is a Ford dealer, who said in the sixties that was where the line came from. Win on Sunday, sell on Monday. Okay,

well it was the nineteen sixties. That's a long time ago.

Things have changed. But so so somebody goes into the

Chevy dealer and like, I want to buy one of those Camaro You can't buy one, right, And I mean, and what car does Chevy have on offer?

Speaker 2: One car?

Speaker 3: The Corvette? Right, So you know the person who's going

in there and thinking they're going to be able to spend you know, fifty thousand dollars on a Camaro, right.

Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it's a I find that comical that Chevy is still racing the Camaro. But you go to the

five hundred, or you go to uh To, to the Daytona twenty four hour, and that's where that's where you know, we go. We all lament. The Detroit Auto Show is

shrunk uh to to just a shadow its former self.

Go to those races, and these manufacturers have these huge activations at the racetrack. And so you go to the

five hundred, and those fans are all coming in there and they're looking at their next truck because they got a whole activation there of the latest Chevy trucks. Because

that's where you know, that's that's what Chevy's selling these days.

Speaker 1: Right, and it's the brand that wins in the eyes of most of those fans. All right, no, full well,

it's a car, all right, So let's let's.

Speaker 3: Let's go to the trucks, Henry. So, So in the

truck series, just like in the car series, you've got Chevy, Ford and Toyota. Yeah, okay, So Chevy and Forward started

in nineteen ninety five with the series, okay, and and Toyota didn't get until into two thousand and four. Right,

So in this period of time, Toyota has won fourteen truck championships and Chevy came in second, winning ten championships. Okay,

during this period of time. Now, if you look at

it statistically, this basically means that Toyda's is sixty six percent and Chevy's at thirty three percent, we won't say that so anyway. So then, but here's the thing. So

Chevy in twenty twenty five sold three hundred and sixty nine hundred and nine light duty Silverados. Okay, basically the

truck that they're racing, right, So Toyota victorious just crushing it in the NASCAR Truck Series, only sold one hundred and forty seven six hundred and ten. They're nothing compared

to Chevrolet, to say nothing of Ford. Right, So how's

that working out? Yeah, so apparently this this whole marketing

thing doesn't exist.

Speaker 1: Again. I think you got to look at the brand

and those those people who are watching those races on it's their their Toyota fans, their Chevy fans, their Ford fans.

Doesn't matter what vehicle is out there, whatever badge is on that vehicle, that's who they're for.

Speaker 3: So it's entertainment, it is, especially when it's like me being in the Lions fan, right, you.

Speaker 2: Know, it's also marketing. I mean I interviewed Tim. Tim

Caniskus recently has come in and taken over the Ram brand.

The Ram brand was suffering, you know, when they got rid of their V eight and so one of the first things Caniscus has done is he's come back in with stillanis is he's restored the V eight to the fifteen hundred truck, and he's brought Ram back into NASCAR truck racing for the first time time since twenty twelve.

And I asked him about that. I said, you know,

why are you coming into NASCAR racing? Is an engineering

you know? Or you know, do you need that time

with the V eight? He said, this is all marketing.

He said, this is a marketing spend because we want to let Ram Nation know that the V eight is back, and you know, so, I mean it's a cocktail. Racing

is a cocktail and for Ram right now, marketing is a huge wait.

Speaker 1: But it also depends on the series, right, So, I mean, NASCAR racing is not bleeding edge technology. There's really good

stuff there. I'm not trying to disparage the series at all.

And the engineers who are in that are cracker jack engineers, right.

But compared to say like a Formula one or an INSA racing, those are far more technology driven than what's going on in NASCAR.

Speaker 3: Okay, so how how does General Motors say what success is for spending eight billion dollars this year.

Speaker 4: Ultimately they have to win a world title, but maybe not this year, maybe a twenty.

Speaker 3: What does a world title get you, Well, it.

Speaker 4: Gets you a ticker tape parade down the Avenue of the Americas. It gets you like almost like this immortal feel.

It means everybody, like in the United States maybe is getting into Formula one and they're behind the Cadillac team.

For them to spend that, to me, that's almost like miracle on ice kind of money.

Speaker 3: To use the Olympic metaphor, but any more cars.

Speaker 4: It might put Cadillac on an entirely different plateau at that point. At that point, suddenly, like when we all say, well,

it's the Cadillac of coffee mugs or something. Right now,

it's maybe a bit of an empty platitude, but if they have that kind of racing chops, suddenly they're backing up what they're saying.

Speaker 3: So, who's the engine coming from for Cadillac's team.

Speaker 2: I think that's that's that's an important point, is trying to get back to the world standard. Cadillac was once,

you know, kind of lived up to that mantra the world stand and they've clearly dropped off, and I think this is a calculated spend on GM's part to get back to a to a global prominence in luxury. And

where where I where I've really seen it is going over to France, going over to Lamal and you go into their Paris showroom. They got a showroom right in

the middle of Paris, across from the Opera, just down the street from the Apple Store, and in which they they are showcasing not V eights but electrics. I mean,

they're their only cars are coming into in Europe are the Lyric and the and the and this the optic they have on the showroom. And then there's a race

car there, there's a there's a Last year it was the the hypercar that they're competing with in Lamar. This year,

I'm sure it's going to be the Formula one car that's right there in the middle of the showroom. And

that's because whatever they're selling, electric or V eights, they want to be in the same conversation as Mercedes and Aldi that are also racing in Formula One.

Speaker 1: So years ago, sitting in the chair that Greg is sitting in, we had Bob Lutz here and he said, here's the problem that Cadillac faces. When you drive up

into your country club in your Cadillac, people go, oh, that's interesting, why did you buy that car? He said,

if you pull up in the Mercedes or BMW, nobody asks why you bought it. And he said, we got

to change that mindset. And I think I've also heard

that Mark Royce personally promised Mary Bara that he was going to bring Cadillac back to being the standard of the world, and that Formula one was going to be part of that process.

Speaker 3: Good luck.

Speaker 2: It's a big bet. It's a big bet, right, but.

Speaker 3: See again, But I think it's a big bet that at this point in time they can't afford Oh they.

Speaker 1: Can afford it.

Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I would agree. GM has At this point

they have a fair amount of money. And it's also

a very i think crystal clear strategy, whereas like if you're like, hey, let's play around the edges, let's do the best compact crossover. We're gonna win all these JD

Power Awards. Well that's well and good, But does that

really change your fortunes? Maybe not so much, but that

one title does.

Speaker 1: Here's the world question.

Speaker 3: Wait, you're talking about you're driving your Lexus n X the other day, and so who would you rather be?

Would you rather be Lexus or Cadillac in twenty twenty three, not that long ago, when Lexus outsold Cadillac by two hundred and two hundred and three point nine percent. Isn't

that what it comes down to selling vehicles?

Speaker 2: Yeah, they've done that the job and lex and and you go down to UH Daytona twenty four hour last month and Lexus was right there on the GT grid see this, right next to Cat, right next to Corvette, right next to BMW. So you know, everybody approaches this

from a different perspective, but I you know, to John's point, I think Cadillac feels that it needs to make this statement.

And the other thing that's really important because Cadillac has tried this before. I mean they went to Lamar in

two thousand and two, two thousand and three. You need commitment,

you need long term commitment. I mean Ford won Lama

in nineteen sixty six and that changed the international assessment of that brand. But that company has stuck with racing,

whether it's Mustangs or going back to Lama and winning in twenty sixteen with a four GT going back to Lamar in twenty twenty seven with a hypercar. I mean,

I think it takes a long term commitment and that's going to be a big question for catalag.

Speaker 1: Yeah, totally agree. That's it. You got to stick to it.

And well, well, I'll just leave it that you got to stick to it.

Speaker 4: You can't pay that much of a cover charge if you're going to leave the party after one drink. You

got to stick around if you're going to spend billions, and I think they.

Speaker 3: Will, I really do. So somebody's can go to Cadillac

dealer and say, you know what, I like that escalade because you have one.

Speaker 1: Yeah, how your solution for selling more catallasts instead of doing racing?

Speaker 3: Boy, now I'm getting four on one. I've got the

fact with me my friends. So that's so I would, well,

I would see your ideac. Well, we could go back

to Jolo Wanis and we were talking about you really enjoyed watching Ted Lasso. Let's say about it's about soccer. Yeah, okay,

So if we go back to twenty twelve, Jolo Wanik, head of Marketing, General Motors, fifty nine point for five hundred and fifty nine million dollars seven year deal got on the juries of Manchester United. Okay, people like to

watch Ted Lasso right now, people like to watch the Netflix show about F one more so I will. I

will admit that. But so I looked into the Premier

League alone has ten to eleven billion cumulative views per season compared to Formula ones one point five billion.

Speaker 2: Hm.

Speaker 3: It seems like Joel hit it, right.

Speaker 1: Yeah, no, well he he sort of did, and then a year later or so GM pulled out of Europe entirely, right and but uh yeah, Look, there's lots of different ways to spend your marketing money and in the case of motor racing, your R and D money. And I

think that's a key difference with GM and Ford at this go into F one and up to now, GM and Ford have always paid for racing out of the marketing budget. Came out of the marketing budget. Now it's

out of our R and D budget, which is exactly the way that Han has always done it. Mercedes has

always done it, and the like, So I.

Speaker 3: You want to entertain well so so so, so Sean is saying off the thing, I guys can hear it since we're doing it but so I was suggesting that one of the ways, if they really want to get on the world stage, that you'd be better off. You know,

you could buy every Super Bowl ad and have bad Bunny drive off and and escalade.

Speaker 2: Let me but let me, let me join Team Gary here for a minute. Uh no, just to just to

just to have some fun here. So you know, we're

we're at potentially an inflection point here, particularly with luxury brands, which a lot of luxury brands are looking at electrification as their future. Uh some are sticking to it, like Cadillac,

Others not so much, like Alfa Romeo. But the premiere

electric brand in the world is Tesla. Tesla got there

this zero racing budget right there there's Tesla has never been interested in racing. So if Cadillac wants to be

the premiere electric brand in the world, why doesn't it follow the Tesla model as opposed to the racing model that they're currently following.

Speaker 3: So, in other words, so Tesla developed product, Tesla developed technology, and every automaker in the world has been chasing them since.

Speaker 2: And Tesla never went to the race track.

Speaker 3: They never went to the racetrack.

Speaker 2: They knocking a bunch of people off from the dragstrip, you know, out at Pomona. Right.

Speaker 3: No, but it wasn't But it wasn't them, right, I mean, it was just not the company, right. And so the

private owners the company has done a magnificent job that every single one of these companies we've mentioned here today have not caught up to right.

Speaker 1: Correct.

Speaker 3: So they just hired a bunch of guys from Stanford, save yourself a lot of money, make yourself a better product.

Then the people come to your door again.

Speaker 2: But if it again to the question of brand, I'm interested in what you guys say, and do you think it's necessary for Cadillac to do the traditional racing wrapped in that brand or could they compete against Tesla.

Speaker 1: Doing a Tesla's out of this discussion on racing almost completely, even though I think Gary makes a really good point here.

But the thing is that I come back to what Bob Let's say. You know, you drive up to the

country club and people want to know why did you buy a Cadillac. Explain it to me because I can't

understand it. Whereas if I believe if Formula one racing,

if Cadillac in Formula one racing starts to become successful, not in year one, not.

Speaker 3: In year two, maybe year three.

Speaker 1: Uh, it starts to build that credibility where it comes out with something nice and maybe if Mercedes owners goes, you know what, I'm going to try that, whereas right now they wouldn't consider it at all because the brand is not becoming of.

Speaker 3: Okay, but isn't for the first three years that the Cadillac is going to use a Ferrari engine.

Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't really think that hurts though. I think

actually Ferrari is so cool that I think if somebody's like, hey, there's Ferrari's running, I think that actually helps marketing. I

don't really think that's a terrible thing. It's not ideal narrative.

Speaker 3: If you guys are thinking that the argument that this proves Cadillac's chops. Okay, but what wins a race? Is

it the aerodynamics or is it the power? Henry, you're

a racer, Yeah, no, and all that goes into.

Speaker 2: Electric car as well. You have to have good aerodynamics

as well as good battery. But I but I think

more fundamentally, which is why I asked the Tesla question is where is the brand most comfortable competing, and Cadillac has decided not to compete with Tesla on that. You know,

Tesla is a computer on wheels, right, I mean the company's actually it's it's it's clearly it's it's uh, it's it's.

Speaker 3: You're a Tesla owner, so this yeah, yeah, but it's more credibility.

Speaker 2: But it's yeah, and I can tell you, I mean, you take a Tesla on track with a Cadillac c T four. The CT four is a better uh piece

of engineering as as a as a as a handling car.

But but Tesla's market cap is in robotics and then turning these cars into robots. And you know GM is

played with that with with Cruise, the Cruise autonomous driving, but they've never seen comfortable committing to this this sort of uh robot future that that Tesla is doing. They

seem more comfortable competing in the traditional Cadillac space, which means you go racing, you know, you go against BMW and Mercedes and those in those fields. That's that's that

appears to be where they're more comfortable.

Speaker 4: Well, I think you could argue it's easier to actually literally win in Formula one than it is to do what Tesla has done, which has developed a once in a century paradi changing technology.

Speaker 2: Great point.

Speaker 4: So I mean, yeah, and.

Speaker 3: Shouldn't that be your goal though?

Speaker 1: To beat them?

Speaker 3: So if you drove up to your country club in a Tesla, would anybody question that? Probably?

Speaker 2: Not?

Speaker 1: No, they were not right right, But here's the thing.

I mean they ten fifteen years ago they might have questioned it. They don't question They didn't know what it

was right. But you know, look, GM and Ford and

all the legacies are working on trying to catch up to Tesla or even leap prog it and maybe we can talk about for it's you know, universal even platform in that regard. But they got to bring all this

legacy stuff along. And you know, Tesla's got a software

defined car, it's got you know, centralizonal compute all this stuff to turn your ice, your legacy ice vehicles over for that that takes years and none of them have been able to do it. Yet they're working on it.

They're getting there. You got to you got to scrap

everything that you've done to that point. And that's where Tesla,

not having to scrap anything, just came in and did it.

So you'll see the legacies get there, and I think Ford with this universal EV is going to go beyond Tesla because why who's running the program A Tesla guy?

Who does he report to an ex Tesla guy? And

they brought in all these smart people.

Speaker 3: And Tesla just has all that's right, all Tesla guys. Yeah,

not x Tesla guys, Tesla guys.

Speaker 1: But you know, there's a lot of people who have quit that company. A lot of company people have quit

that company because they got fed up with it.

Speaker 2: But again, it's to me, Tesla is a different company.

I mean they just canceled the model asked for God's sake.

I mean that that's like Porscha canceling the Porsche nine to eleven or Ford canceling Mustang. I mean that was

their halo car, the first production car, and of course kept changing the nine to eleven then. But all I'm

saying is that that Tesla clearly sees this business not as a car business, right, And you know, here's here's the Tesla play at the first production car under under sixty miles an hour and zero to sixty in less than two seconds. We're ditching after fifteen years in the market.

I mean they're they're their goals are different than auto companies and so, you know, I think that's just a different culture. And whereas the companies we're talking about, Mercedes, BMW, Cadillac,

you know, racing is is it matters to their customers.

Speaker 3: Great and so so we recently had Mark Wakefield sitting in that chair and Mark Wakefield basically told us that the Chinese are able to bring a vehicle to market with more technology in half the time that the traditional automakers.

Exactly right. So almost racing is byd done.

Speaker 1: They probably haven't done anything. I wouldn't be see them

get into it. No, no, but see but they you

know you're talking about that, these legacy companies.

Speaker 3: Need to change what they're doing. Okay, these legacy companies

have a finite amount of money, like we all do, right, And all I'm saying, and again, I love watching car racing.

I love the entertainment of it. I've written many stories

over my life about how it improves the engineering. All

I'm saying is that, as you said, Harry, this is an inflection point. We're at a different point in time now.

These companies need to change their approach in the approachable app we'll go into car racing. That'll prove we're great. No,

proving you're great is having great product because at the end of the day, that keeps the lights on in your business. And so all I'm saying is that I

would be happier if these companies for their good not for mind won't make any difference. Is if they focus

on making it so they change the culture of their companies to be faster, to be better, and to create products like the ones in a Generational Tesla.

Speaker 1: Well, they're working on it. It's not like they're sitting

on their hands here. They're absolutely working on You.

Speaker 3: Want to be you want to be focused completely, one hundred percent focused. Oh we're gonna We're gonna have a

race team.

Speaker 1: Is cool?

Speaker 3: I like going to Monico in June.

Speaker 1: Well, look, the guys from the Ford Skunkworks who I first heard talking about that they ought to get involved with the Formula one people because that's where the epitome of engineering is. That's where you've got to come to

solutions far, far faster. And they thought there was going

to be a great cross uh functional and uh cross breeding uh improvement if were to get involved with Formula one and I think they're the ones who drove the thinking the Skunkworks people.

Speaker 3: They like Monico too well.

Speaker 4: Forwards, I think approach is very measured, though I don't think the ceilings as high as like ticker tape parades or anything, but as far as like you know, getting that like technology transfer, getting the different development fitting in with what they do, but maybe not spending as much money, it's definitely more measured approach. Like I can see that,

you know. I think, you know again, Cadillac has that

huge you know, you know, potentially like trophy ceremony in New York someday. But I mean Ford as far as

getting a lot of like juice for the squeeze, I mean they're like their approach has merit too.

Speaker 1: It's a lot cheaper than GM, see right, Their commitment to Red Bull Racing is thirty million a year, you know, versus whatever GM is.

Speaker 3: Spending, so kind of that's lessen Qualcomm's paying to have its snap Dragon logo on the front of Man United shirts.

Speaker 4: It's not a bad investment though. Thirty million for Formula

one and for how Ford has like sort of like probably some of you guys went to the Formula one event a month ago at the train station. But for

stopping DOMINICALI I mean sure they made it sound like it was the Ford team, not the Red Bull team.

So they're getting every ounce of like ink, as we used to say, out of it.

Speaker 2: I think there's something else going on here too, garyas as you know, you look over the century that automakers have been making cars, and they were they were parochial.

Uh for the most part, the world has really consolidated, UH under brands under these few companies now and they tend to be global. I mean portion Ferrari became global

even as very small brands through racing. I mean that

is that is how they sell cars, not only in Italy and Germany, but in North America for decades. And

I think you know there's this sport is a universal language.

Look at the Olympics that we're all following this week, and so you've seen Ford and Cadillac have become much more global companies. Uh In in recent years, Cadillac wants

to sell globally. Mustang has sold one hundred and thirty

countries around the world. So I think I think they

want to speak this universal language. And the way way

you do that is through motorsport.

Speaker 4: And it's the front porch of like your industry in some ways. I mean, look at college football. Why do

universities pay millions billions of dollars to play football? What

does that have to do with sociology? But hey, if

your football team wins, admissions go up. But suddenly your

school is more selective to get into. You can charge

more for tuition, you get more Nobel Prize winners.

Speaker 3: Like.

Speaker 4: I think it is a long term play, you know, for marketing for.

Speaker 2: Some of the like, and that's the thing. Yeah, it's

got to be a long term commitment.

Speaker 4: The Cadillac is not going to pass Lexus next year or probably next decade.

Speaker 1: But you know, the Cadillac knows its only growth is not going to come in the US market, and it's largely a US Middle East brand, right, Cadillac knows that it's only hope for real growth is on a global stage and that and they see EVS as the way to go with it. It's not going to be their

ice products that they that they really push, and Formula one is going to be their way of taking the brand, which honestly isn't well known or respected outside in North America in the Middle East, it just isn't. And so

that's going to be their way of trying to get the brand to being relevant again. It's fine, yeah, Gary,

you make really good points, but.

Speaker 3: You know, so it's funny you're you're talking about how they're doing. So. So, Cadillac sold an estimated one hundred

thousand vehicles in China last year, and China is the number number one market for Formula one. What a price

a lot of people are, That's exactly the thing. So

I was looking at the figures from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association for twenty twenty five sales. Damn it. I

could not find Cadillac on that list. I could not

find General.

Speaker 1: Motors on that list. Well, you didn't look hard enough

because they so two cars there you go, two cars.

Speaker 3: So so basically what it came down to it was like Mitsubishi was at zero point four percent, which represented in the European market. And this is the larger European market,

not just the EU, but the UK and in Norway and Lichtenstein and Iceland, all of which which you know are big, big buyers of vehicles. So so last year

Mitsubishi sold forty six thousand, six hundred and fifty five cars in Europe, that zero point four percent. So if

Cadillac saws four hundred and sixty five forty and sixty five vehicles, will that be success? Sure? Will that be

worth a billion dollars?

Speaker 4: It may not be worth a billion dollars next year, but if cadillacans a foothold in Europe and suddenly people look at the cars maybe the way they used to in the post war years. And you got to start somewhere.

So if you get you know, your brand and a positives call founded, I mean team eleven somewhere in there.

Speaker 2: So just started.

Speaker 1: No, it was before that, Cadillac goes back to I want to say, nineteen o five something like that. They won.

Speaker 3: They were before you were born. Yes, Cadillac existed.

Speaker 4: I think that's fair to say. Okay, so if they

I mean, I think though, if they get over there, and hey, I'm not saying of selling that Tubishi is necessarily the bar they want to set, but they do want to like, you know, you're in front of you know, this European audience, you're putting your brand in a positive light.

I think that could be an opportunity worth taking, and I think it's a better strategy for them with a precise like, hey, we're gonna try to win with Cadillac in Europe versus how GM did in the past of like opal Vauxhall trying to sell some Chevies. I think

this to me would be more like a tactical, precise approach.

Speaker 3: So but where's the core. I mean, we've seen no

correlation between winning on Sunday andying on Monday.

Speaker 2: Oh well, show we have. I mean we just discussed

that Porsche Ferrari. I mean, these brands are built on racing,

but racing that's a.

Speaker 3: Culturally different thing. We're talking about a mass market brand here,

so it is tag lack a mass market brand anymore.

Speaker 2: Though.

Speaker 3: Only because they're not selling very many.

Speaker 4: Well they involuntarily they are, but I think that's where they have this luxury of having some sort of a reduced footprint somewhat with sales. But also like their strategy

has been like European sports sedans, in electric cars and of course the escalade, and they're starting to bring in these electrics and crossovers, so they're not this like sort of segment defining luxury brand anymore. So I think they're

trying to use niche tactics to try to expand the brand.

And I think it makes sense because this is the time they could do it, Like they couldn't do something like this in the sixties when they had, you know, fifty percent of the market. The company did GM. So

I think they're trying to, you know, act like a startup, and I think that's a good thing. One hundred and

twenty five year old startup, why not?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the other you know, again, it can compare brands. I mean, these brands are all different. I

think Cadillac sees itself presumably its cross shop is with the Germans, because you know, Lexus is essentially a rebadge Toyota, right, So if you know, you point to the success of Lexus, which is real, but it's it's a different platform. It's

a different brand in that regard. In a lot of ways,

it's been a it's been a copycat brand if you if you go back forty years to its founding. I

think it'll be interesting to see how Lexis evolves here in the next decades and whether it sees the need to do more racing in order to keep up with these luxury brands.

Speaker 1: This is exactly why it is racing. This is why

Lexus has gotten into racing because It's cars were viewed as bulletproof but bland and boring, and they wanted to inject personality and excitement into it. And that's why they

got into it. And you know, the win on Sunday

sell on Monday. You know, it's a phrase that everybody's

been using since whenever you dug up when the guy did it. But I asked Chevrolet about this a number

of years ago and they said, Nah, it's not like we win the Daytona five hundred people rushed to the showrooms on Monday. That doesn't happen. But they said, what

we can do is we track. Now, this was applied

to NASCAR strictly marketing. If you look at championships and

take that over a couple of decades and look at our market share in NASCAR friendly markets, we can correlate championship wins over time to market share.

Speaker 4: Well, look at the truck series that we talked about at the top of the show, Like, so Toyota's doing it well, and you know that it's a pretty niche NASCAR series as well, even if it's not exactly a to be their own selling Chevy and Ford. Can you

imagine if they weren't there, like people would be like, this isn't the real truck, no matter how good the Tacoma and the Thunder are. Just by being there it

gives them that credibility.

Speaker 1: The other thing, well, look, the other reason why Toyota No, I'll tell you why Toyota got into NASCAR more than anything is they want to be viewed in the United States as an American brand. They want to imbue themselves

into American culture. And you know, for you know, the

old NASCAR crowd that grew up with you know, Dodge and Chevy and Ford, that was like sinful for a Japanese automaker to get into it. But they've been in

there so long You've got a whole an entire generation of people who have now grown up in NASCAR kind of markets. Toyota's always been there. Toyota's part of the scene.

Toyota is absolutely part of America to them.

Speaker 3: To say nothing of the fact that many of the Toyota production facilities are in NASCAR friendly market right so people can help live there. That help Hey, you know,

Sally's got a job at Toyota.

Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. And again you look across the landscape and

every every brand uses racing in a different way. Honda,

again is a is a company synonymous with racing. I mean,

began as an engine company essentially making really great bikes and moving up now you know, now it competes against Lexus and Toyota, but it's you know, its culture is is power train engineering and h and sharpened on the racetrack.

The newest brand in luxury is Genesis. What is Genesis doing.

It's going into It's it's racing at Lamar this year.

The entry list for this June's Lama Lamal just came out.

Genesis is racing at the hypercar class right there at the tip of the spear with Cadillac and being w So you know, I think it depends on what kind of brand you're you want to be and and uh, you know, the only brand we can really come up with it doesn't raise is Tesla, And you know, good luck finding Elon Musk to run your company. And that's

just such a such a special company and not really even an automotive company, just becoming a robot company, humanoids, yeah.

Speaker 1: AI, all that, that's right. I think Elon's given up

on the auto industry, uh, the automotive part of Tesla, because he recognizes there's no way the automotive part of the company can support the one trillion plus market valuation the company's got. But if he talks about humanoids, AI

and cyber cabs, then yeah, then investors can say, yeah that there's a bright future there. We support this trillion dollars.

Speaker 4: I think he may needs to make just enough products to like keep Tesla's sort of a car compan but and then he could do all these other things the ideas that he has, and you know it'll be probably better for like his stock price than if you just focused on the next generation model S or something.

Speaker 1: Right. Well, you know, look, he's using cars to fund

all this other stuff.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the but that market cap has clearly always been at the autonomous car. That's where it is. I mean,

the market is if this guy's going to figure it out before anybody else. And we're seeing that play out

right now between waime O and U and Tesla robotaxis on the on the street. And I interviewed a number

of models owners last week when Tesla decided to kill the models. And these are individuals that not only bought

bought Model asses, but they bought the Tesla vision. I

mean they were passionate about Tesla. They bought the stock.

These are people made a lot of money on Tesla stock.

But they got in because of the automotive passion. And

I asked him, I said, uh, does your passion for Tesla is it more? Is it diminished now that they're

not going to be making this car, this model s that that you that you guys have loved. And they said, uh,

you know, we we believe in this guy. I mean,

this guy has has a vision and if he can bring if he can invent a.

Speaker 3: Robot, keep making us money.

Speaker 2: Yeah. But not only that, but if he can make

a robot that can come into my house and you know, and in my old age, give me my pills, clean up my house, pick up my newspaper, I'm going to be pretty I'm going to be as fond of that robot as I am of my Model s. So yeah,

it's a it's a it's a really it's a really special company. Yeah, no, it is.

Speaker 1: I I hate seeing the es go away. H the

s is the car that changed the industry, absolutely changed it, I mean, and in so many shapes and you know, design, engineering, manufacturing, electronic, it just goes on and on, and so I hate seeing them give up on that car. I still think

it's a beautiful piece of machinerate.

Speaker 2: Right.

Speaker 4: I think, for good or bad, the company like solely rides on you know, the skills, the italient, the brilliance, the controversy of Elon Musk, and right now, I don't think he cares as much about making cars because I mean, can you imagine the next generation Model X models. We'd

all be like salivating to drive them. We'd be like,

this is great, look at what they did. These are

beautiful cars. They're at this point in luxury products. People

would love that. But that's not who he is. He's

not like a you know, like a Henry Ford. He's

more like a Alexander Graham Bell or somebody, or Thomas Edison, who like wants to do all these different things. And

I know it'll be interesting to see how Tesla evolves as a car company with limited product.

Speaker 2: Well, you know that's an interesting question too, though, I mean you go back to what began this discussion Henry Forge nineteen oh one sweepstakes, and at that time, the automobile was a rich person's toy. I mean they were

all coach built. And Henry Ford had this vision that

you could make cars for the masses, and that was incomprehensible at the time. I mean, the idea of producing

a million Model Teas a year by nineteen fifteen, in nineteen oh one, I mean, that was like over the horizon.

And here's this guy. Musk is still producing cars, the

Model West, Model Y and the Model and the Model three.

But he's like, these cars in ten years are going to be just driving everybody around without steering wheels. So yeah,

I mean, there's.

Speaker 3: What will happened to racing then.

Speaker 1: Henry, there's the Indie Autonomous Racing League.

Speaker 3: All right, So I want to end this with something amusing, Okay, that relates to what we've been talking about here. Okay,

So I'm going to I'm going to quote to you.

This happened on February fifteenth this year, so it's new and so on. And we mentioned Red Bull earlier working

with working with Ford. Okay, so this is this is

from the release when Red Bull athlete Dario Costa, touchdown on top of a moving cargo train traveling at one hundred and twenty kilometers per hour, became the first pilot in aviation history to land a plane and take off from a moving train. Behind that world first feet was

months of meticulous preparation and at the heart of it Rimax nava Are and Navara Hypercars as a training tool.

The Nava Are the fastest fastest accelerating car ever built in the Navara Hypercar were used as high precision moving reference platforms, giving Costa a real world moving surface against which to rehearse the cognitive and physical demands of landing almost completely blind on a moving target. Costa is a pilot.

It in the Aero GPI series or GP one series, the world Champion the Air Race. So here we have

cars being used as the reference platform so you can do something like landing on a.

Speaker 2: Moving train for an air raser.

Speaker 3: Seems sort of silly, doesn't it.

Speaker 1: That's a great story, Yeah it is, And with that we will wrap up today's show. Oh, two quick things,

Sean sand I want to thank everybody that showed up for the show.

Speaker 3: We had over one hundred and eighty seven plus people that came in despite all this.

Speaker 1: So if you want to say that, yeah, yeah, I want to thank everybody who who tuned in despite all the technical difficulties that we've had, starting the show over a half hour late, just having one camera and all that.

Thank you for being here and we'll have all these things.

Oh there's another question. Wait, wait one that the poll?

Oh the poll. Do we have the results and all that?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I got them, I got.

Speaker 1: Okay, you just want to what the question was. So

the question on the poll that we said we discussed on the show was the Trump administration has gotten rid of the Endangerment ruling, you know, which says that CO two is harmful. So what we did is ask you viewers,

what would you advise the car companies don't back off on your fuel economy or CO two reduction or number two take advantage of this and let the market determine what you build, or should you have a balance between those two approaches? What would you advise the car companies?

And the results were what we.

Speaker 3: Have about.

Speaker 1: Okay, sixty five percent said don't back off. So sixty

five percent of you said do not back off at all.

Speaker 3: It looks like about twelve percent they take.

Speaker 1: Advantage of it, twelve percent said take advantage of it and run.

Speaker 2: And just over twenty percent balance two.

Speaker 1: And twenty percent said balance the two so very interesting.

There's where you get some of the thinking of the online audience.

Speaker 4: Twelve percent our Dodge listeners, it sounds like to just go wild with me.

Speaker 3: It's yeah, that's right, and when I kept pushing that button.

Speaker 1: Greg miglior, thanks so much for coming on the show today.