Breaking News, Extra Episode! Honda Cancels All New US EVs, ZR1X Driven! Warning: We Get VERY Political! | Ep. 328

Hey guys, we've got a special breaking news extra episode this week because there is breaking

news and we've got the perfect person for it.

I am of course talking to Moto Man of Moto Man TV and we are going to be talking about

some cool cars that he's driven including the Lamborghini Temurario, if I said that

right, the ZR1 which I'm excited to hear all about, the Corvette of course, the BMW

M2 CS, the Yang-Wing U2 Extreme and the Neloo 27, isn't that right Moto Man?

Well, hold on a second, don't forget also the ZR1X, probably the most interesting one

out of that entire list.

Over 1200 horsepower, but before we get to that, let's talk about the breaking news because

there's a convergence of a lot of interesting things happening today.

That's why I wanted to get this episode out there as soon as possible and that is, here's

the breaking news drumroll, Honda just announced that they're killing all of their upcoming

electric vehicles and that includes the Zero Series SUV, the Zero Series Saloon, in other

words the sedan and of course the Acura RSX, all dead as of today and they're taking and

get this $15.8 billion right off as in B and the executives because I guess they feel

bad about the fact that they're taking such a huge loss, are taking three months of 30%

less pay.

So, I thought that was interesting on the same day where gas prices have reached now

almost $95 a barrel and I'm wondering and I want to get your opinion when you have the

convergence of EVs dying and yet gas prices rapidly increasing because of what's happening

in the Middle East, whether and when that will actually change people's buying habits.

So, let me know your thoughts.

Well, I'm going to start with the headline, what took so long for now the fourth car manufacturer

to announce a crazy write down with EVs.

The second headline is the two are not related, the cost of a barrel of oil which you and

I just checked before we got on to this has gone from $100 down to $84 back up to $94.92

as we're talking, the two are not related obviously a significant geopolitical issue

impacting that.

So, let's put that out there.

With that, where do you want to dive off into?

Well, let's start with the fact that like you said this is the fourth manufacturer.

So, you're of course referring to Ford which I think took a $20 billion right off.

$19.5.

Yeah, and then who else?

Stellantis.

General Motors and Stellantis all took write downs.

The Volkswagen Group has yet to announce the write down, but I'm thinking their write

down is going to be even higher than all of those.

Yeah, it's potentially true.

We're currently at $65 billion with the B in write downs and really I think the headline

here and this is something you and I, because you and I generally agree on most things.

The pace of EV rollout is where you and I have disagreed.

I love EVs.

I've got a 240 charger in the hanger.

I love that the big value of an EV no one talks about is you don't have to spend any time in

your day looking for energy.

It doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's game changer.

However, forcing it down the throat of people that A, don't have the lifestyle for it and

B, frankly, don't have the income for it, that was the issue.

And what we're seeing now is reality coming home to roost and the car manufacturers are

finally saying, uncle, they're tapping on the table and saying, we give up and they're willing

to admit the wrongdoing here of committing to a strategy that, frankly, wasn't fleshed out in time

before forcing it down the throats of different municipalities as well as for-profit concerns

in Western Europe as well as in the US.

No, I am completely with you on board.

I don't think that people should be forced to buy anything, let alone the most expensive,

second most expensive purchase in their lives.

I think it was wrong and stupid by the politicians to mandate.

I think at best, they were optimistic and worse.

They were unrealistic time schedules when we were going to switch to all EVs.

And I think that created the exact opposite of what they were hoping to, which is,

I think most people, when they're forced to do something, I'm like that.

I'm serious, you're like that.

I'm like, F you, we're going to go the other way.

And you're going to take this heavy out of my cold, dead hands because this is what I grew up with.

This is what I love.

So I'm 100% on board with you.

What I'm not on board with is the fact that EVs have become political.

And it's become like a bad you wear that represents what side of the political spectrum you're on.

And to me, I don't really care.

I love all cars.

Motor man, I do.

I just love and I don't care what powers them, whether it's diesel.

I would go so far as saying, you don't just love cars.

You're a bit of a junkie.

You can't like, you can't turn off that checkbook.

That's a problem for you.

Yeah, no, I know it's my passion and I'm lucky enough to make it my job.

So I really have a hard time where it's gone to because it's gone from like,

no, I don't want this to know you can't have it, right?

Because it's completely flipped the other way.

Now you're seeing an administration that is actively trying to poison the well of electrification.

And I think, oh, I wouldn't.

Okay, this is where you and I are going to do.

This is not an administration saying we're poisoning the well and saying electric cars are bad.

This is the reality setting in.

This is many years.

And I don't want to say it was just the Biden administration or the Obama administration.

This was a combination of Brussels and Washington, a number of progressive legislators

that came in and said, we're going all EV and we're doing it on this collapsed timeline.

Now you and I both know a number of engineers, CEOs, chief designers, chief whatever that went

in private to a number of those legislators and said, look guys,

we can't do it on the timeline you are proposing.

And then ultimately, political pressures, they caved and they went down this route.

Some manufacturers like General Motors looked at us.

Here's an opportunity for governments to kind of pay for my R&D.

It didn't work out that way.

And now we're seeing the unfortunate, we're seeing the end of the rainbow,

which is $65 billion in write downs and for profit concerns.

Let me justify my statement with facts.

Because I love you because you believe in facts, which is nice,

which a lot of people don't seem to believe in.

And facts are facts.

You can have your own opinion, but you can't have your own facts.

So look, I am completely opposed and that was never for subsidies.

I think that was wrong.

I don't think that we should be subsidizing electric cars.

I called it a gift for rich people.

Yeah, but I don't believe we should be subsidizing farmers.

I don't think we should be subsidizing big oil.

I just don't believe in subsidies.

I believe in the free market.

I'm a very much a free market person.

And I think if you work hard and you have a little playing field,

as much as possible in this world, which is not easy,

then let the best company or...

There we agree.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I made the statement.

I said this administration is actively poisoning the well and that is true.

The government came out and they provided subsidies

for the build out of electric stations,

which they did very poorly, by the way, electric charging stations.

And a lot of individuals invested a lot of time and money into that.

And then when Trump came into the office,

he pulled those contracts illegally, by the way.

Not legally.

He didn't pull contracts before they were signed.

He pulled contracts after they were signed

and after money was designated and spent on the part of the people who had those contracts.

So that is actively poisoning the well.

The other way that they're actively poisoning the well,

as you know, Trump loves coal and he keeps saying these things

that are absolutely untrue, that coal is clean.

Coal is not clean and it's fricking dirty.

This is a fact.

He has pulled contracts that have been assigned for wind, offshore wind.

Just anything that has to do with renewables, he hates.

This is not an idea that I'm coming out with out of left field.

This is substantiated by facts.

So yeah, he's gone the opposite way.

And look, I'm the kind of guy who's like,

okay, we went left and now we're going right.

So I can kind of see that.

You know what I mean?

That's the way the world works.

Can I retort to this?

Yeah, go for it.

Okay.

I'm going to retort with half facts and half a theory that I have.

And Nathan and I, I don't know if the audience knows this.

Nathan is my neighbor now.

He's also a member at my cigar lounge.

So Nathan and I see each other practically every night.

And we have discussed this theory I'm going to share with you.

Number one, in responding to your facts, some of this,

I can't really disparage what you're saying.

I can't say you're off base on any of it.

Basically, to the victor go the spoils.

He won an election and we've changed the spending of the government.

Now that cuts both ways.

Four years ago, we lost an election.

They got to determine the spending and the deck was very much stacked against

companies that were building internal combustion engine cars.

It was very much against the idea of building out new refineries.

You realize there hasn't been a refinery, new refinery built

in this country for something like 50 plus years.

The first one just got announced yesterday, a new refinery.

Why is that important?

Because you're going to have more, forget about the price of oil.

You're going to have more throughput, refined finished product,

meaning what goes to your gas pump.

You're going to have more available, more refineries working on it,

which lowers the retail price.

So it's really, as a number of moving parts in terms of the cost of the energy,

it's yes, what we pull out of the ground, then how many different concerns

are actually creating it into a real product.

And then you add in the taxes and the local municipalities, what they put on it.

And that's how you get to the final price.

Like I'll give you another like fact example.

This got so out of hand.

An airline bought their own refinery because the price was so unstable.

They figured, let's control what we can control.

We don't have an oil field, but we can buy a refinery.

And that's exactly what Delta Airlines did.

And I think it's Pennsylvania.

They bought an old Phillips 66 refinery.

And as a result, they control the price of what goes in their jets up and down the eastern seaboard.

And then the stuff that they can't turn to the jet fuel, they sell into the market.

No, I'm not disagreeing with you.

Elections have results and they have ramifications.

But what is especially disconcerting and troubling and sleazy, in my opinion,

is when the government illegally, because a lot of this has been ruled illegal,

both with the wind farms and with the subsidies that were handed out and signed up for with

small businesses to build out the charging infrastructure, were illegally canceled.

And what the government did knowingly was they knew that if they canceled these things,

they were going to get taken to court and they were going to lose in court, which they have.

But by the time they had lost in court, they would have won because the people who were doing

these things didn't have the where for all or the money to actually fight and hold on that long

until the contracts that they were legally, legally granted actually were fulfilled.

And I just think that's the government not fulfilling its promises.

I think that's the government working against its own population.

And yes, yes, if those contracts weren't awarded, hell, yeah, pull them.

That's your prerogative. But if those contracts were signed, if that money was allocated

legally, then you don't have the right to cancel that money. That was done in duster, dude.

And when you still...

This is where let me retort to that. This is where I want to bring up the theory.

So I just gave you facts. Now let's talk about the theory.

The theory is there's always a pendulum. Pendulum swings this way.

Pendulum swings that way. It's not specific to the U.S.

It's not specific just to politics, culture and cars. It works in everything in life.

There are times when you're in favor and there's times you're not in favor.

What we're seeing right now, and this is going to be, I know the comments are going to light up

about this and you're probably going to get torched. But if you look back into the 30s to

the 40s, we saw the world all saw a very, very graphic example of what is too far right.

I think everyone would agree with that. And as...

Talking about the Second World War in Germany, Hitler.

Exactly. That was everyone. No one would disagree with that statement.

Okay?

I don't know. There's a lot of Nazis out there who wouldn't agree with that.

But let's be clear. People that are part of polite conversation, can we agree on that?

Yeah, true that. Okay. Let's say you're not a waving, flag-waving German nationalist.

You and I have always agreed that we should cut off the fringes at each end.

Fair enough.

We're talking about the people and the polite... People like Andre.

Andre is part of the polite conversation.

So you get rid of the Marxist on the left and then the Nazis on the right.

Exactly.

So we saw a very graphic example. Everyone, everybody in the polite conversation would agree

that's too far right. But not since then has anybody agreed what's too far left.

And I would argue that the Biden administration was an example of too far left.

That's what's being undone. The problem is everyone in the polite conversation,

not everybody agrees on that yet. There still isn't a buy-in of this is officially too far left.

That's my controversial statement. Nathan and I have argued about this over cigars.

I'm happy to argue with you about it.

You know what's too far right? I'll tell you what's too far right.

When you sell off our land, and I say ours because it's yours and mine.

Everybody was watching it. And our children's land.

Poor profit. You get rid of all the BLM land so that they can mine it. They can drill it.

They can dig holes and then of course create super funds because companies that do that

are going to go bankrupt eventually and they're not going to fix it when you sell it to private

industry. So that are, I'm going to go here because this is where a lot of the right is at.

A lot of hunters that don't have the ability to go hunt it.

And that's where this administration is at.

This administration is actively trying to sell our children's future.

The stuff that generations of Americans with their...

You really want to make this political today, don't you?

No, but it's true. I mean, you want to see, to me, if you think...

For every example you give me on the right, I could give you 10 examples on the left

of how too far left has ripped apart our culture.

Maybe it's not BLM land. Maybe it's not oil. Maybe it's not coal.

It could be other aspects of culture. But we could have this debate of what about

isms back and forth. The realities of the case may be right now.

I think people are losing sight that energy gives you independence.

That is the reality of the situation. Some energies...

I love me some renewables, my friend. I love it. But it's got to be reliable.

It's got to fit within a matrix of economics.

And frankly, the government doesn't need to be supporting that in the bleeding edge world.

That's what... As you know, I came from the tech world 15 years.

That's what the VC world is for. They take those huge bets.

They bet 100 times and then three of them pay off and become the Amazons and PayPal's

and Tesla's of the world. And that's what's happening in clean energy.

Every one of the... M2CS right there.

BMW is like a VC fund right now, putting a crazy amount of bets in solid state batteries.

Clean energy, renewable energy, and that's BMW. Not so much General Motors.

Anyway, I wanted to bring that point up.

Let me finish by saying that the reason I think you've gone too far right

is when you start doing things that can't be undone, right, you said the pendulum swings.

But once you sell off our land, our land, the people's land, not Trump's land,

not Biden's land, not Congress's land, your land and my land,

the land that I use to go off-roading, the land that a lot of my friends use to go hunting,

that stuff's never coming back. It's not going to come back. It's gone forever.

And I think back in the... You had a historical reference. Let me make a historical reference.

Back in the day when we had the old Garxon America, right, the railroad barons.

Rockers that one.

Yeah, rockers. The steel barons, right?

There was this contract that was made with society.

And that was we would allow you to amass a huge amount of money doing railroads,

doing steel, Carnegie, obviously. But in exchange for that, you had to provide some public good.

And that's why you have Yellowstone, right? Because I think that was Rockefeller was convinced

to buy that property and turn it into a national park.

That's why you have Carnegie doing all these libraries across the country, right?

Selling off the steel company and then building libraries.

And with the tech titans, that contract no longer exists, right?

The tech titans are like, hey, we are the kings of this world.

We will do whatever we want. We will do however we want.

And right now you have a government that is supporting that.

And that's why you're seeing this huge inequity between the...

I'm going to stop you there. I'm going to stop you there.

And so what the audiences know is before we got on this version of recording it,

I asked, did you really want to get political?

Yeah, sure.

And you wanted to get...

So, and again, for the avoidance, and this goes for both Roman and I and Nathan.

Poor Nathan's not here to defend himself.

I like how I throw him right into this.

He's coming, kicking and screaming. He's only like four miles from here right now.

So he's part of this. Anyway, we didn't get...

People will argue, you guys are getting political. Stay on your lane.

We didn't get political. Politics came into our lane.

Yeah, I completely agree.

And that's why all we're doing is taking out the trash.

So with that, I'm going to respond to your comments here.

Again, you like facts, I'm going to give you facts.

There's a great way of looking at this.

You know, you've got...

We talked about the pendulum, right?

How it swung. It was Biden over here and Obama over here.

And you got Trump 1, Trump 45, Trump 47 over here. Okay?

But the reality is, no one looks at how we got here.

Everybody says, oh my God, we got Trump or oh my God, we got Biden.

When in reality, this started, my friend, way back in the counterculture revolution,

which in turn was started by a group of Marxists that came over to this country,

look it up, the Frankfurt School, which effectively took apart our society from inside

by basically tearing apart the culture, starting with the education system.

And that turned out now three, four generations of people.

It was university.

That's where you got the counterculture revolution,

university, then into government, then into corporate.

And that is why we have this back and forth pendulum swing

of screw you, I'm doing this and screw you, I'm doing this.

So you got to go back to where it started.

And ultimately, I agree with you.

We have to get back to that contract with society of, okay,

you could, and this is where I get to be a bit of a religious guy.

You know this about me.

You know, right now I'm going through my 11 year old nephew.

The kid's incredible.

The kid, he started the lemonade stand on his own.

He was the VP of the pricing committee, meaning he came up with his own price.

And the price for a glass of lemonade was 50 cents.

Why?

Because he knew no one had 50 cents and they would give a dollar.

And what person is going to ask for change from a 10 year old?

So the kid made four grand, four grand.

You should know you're a dude.

How old is he?

Solicity came to me and said, Uncle George, I want to invest into ETS.

And I said to him, is that some sort of special Lego thing you want?

I didn't drop like an 11 year old wanted to invest into funds.

So now what I'm doing is I'm explaining to him the very basics of there are only three things

you can do with money.

You can save it, you can spend it, and you can give it away.

And it's that third part that you're focusing on.

I agree there's a portion of it that for a better culture, you do give a port.

And as some people are going to disagree with us, but it's something,

it changes something within you and it changes something to the recipient as well.

And I would argue instead of going back and forth that Trump did this and Biden did that,

what the hell changed in the culture to get us to this point?

Let me bring it back to cars.

And your motor man junior there, who is obviously going to follow in your footsteps.

But the question that I'm asking myself is, and yes, of course,

Honda didn't make this decision based on the war.

They probably made it a long time ago before this ever happened.

But I had this experience with my wife like 20 years ago when gas went through the roof.

I think at that time we had a Volvo wagon.

Oh, that's the yellow R.

Yeah, the yellow R.

Yeah. Cool R.

Exactly. Red R.

She was commuting to Denver and it was costing her a lot.

And so she wanted to cut that expense.

And at that time there was one hybrid and that was a Prius.

And so this was like the second gen, third gen if you count the one that we didn't get.

And so I wasn't looking for a Prius because she was spending all this money on gas

driving to Denver and back. And the only one we could find was like the very top level.

And at that time Priuses were like $23,000. And the one we bought was like 34.

So whether they had like heads up display all this crap we didn't want.

But that's because the dealer knew that everybody wanted a Prius because gas was super expensive.

So the question is, at what point will people start making a different decision

on the kind of car they want?

Because the one thing that is true about EVs is that if you charge them at home at night,

at least now, they're a lot cheaper to run than the equivalent gas power car.

If you go charging publicly, it's going to be about the same.

But at home at night, it's still relatively cheap.

How much is gas in California today? How much has it gone up?

Where are you at? Where are you guys at?

Okay, so that M2CS, I just gave it back.

I had to put gas in it before I gave it back because I ran it dry.

I just paid $519 a gallon for premium.

That's not bad. That's that's still pretty reasonable.

Okay, Costco. Yeah, yeah.

I was at like two weeks ago.

I was at like, for premium, it was $299.

Now it's $399.

So it's gone up.

It's gone off about a dollar.

Yeah, but don't cry for me in Argentina.

Yeah, yeah, and that's that's Sam's Club.

So there, yeah, you'd think I'd be the Costco guy.

You're the big cheese.

Actually, I got to tell the audience this because I think it's so funny.

So Roman and I trade emails and like, you know,

people have different signatures.

Like some people do the Eastern philosophy stuff.

Some people say, like, you know, best regards.

I always do looking forward.

Big cheese.

And I'm like, what?

Big cheese.

So you're talking to the big cheese of TFL over here.

Yeah, for a long time, I put like producer and I put publisher

and I'm like, we don't publish crap.

I mean, we're doing videos.

So what is my title?

I felt CEO was like too haughty.

You know, COO was not right.

And everybody in the office calls me the big cheese.

So I thought it was kind of funny and goofy.

Not, it wasn't trying to be like, you know, haughty about it.

I was just like, this is just silly.

It's what people think of me here.

So that's why I put it in there.

I think you should go with like Chief Lincoln Correspondent.

Lincoln like Mark IV Correspondent.

Okay, there you go.

You're like Mark V, dude, Mark V.

Was it a Mark V?

It was a Mark V, yeah.

Lincoln kind of a Mark V.

You know, I'm going to give a lesson to the youngins

in the idea that people are just starting in business.

One of the things that I did when I was first starting

both my tech business as well as this business,

I never like had a business card that said like owner

or like president or anything like that.

You had big cheese?

No, I put in like, if anything, I put like, you know,

salesman or like analyst or, you know, something that was lower.

Because you want to let people, you don't want people to say

to know that you're the decision maker.

It's kind of like an old trick that you see in like Asian

business culture.

Like if you were to negotiate with like a group of Japanese.

You want to be deferential.

Yeah, the guy who's the boss is in the back.

He's quiet.

You want to be the guy in the front and let them think

that you don't have any power and you have to go to the guy

in the back.

And that's what I did when I first started both of my businesses.

All right.

So let's, let's, let's play a game here.

All right.

Let's play a game.

I want to play a game.

The answer is 9-11.

Yeah.

No, we're going to get to those in a sec.

But I want to take, I want to take like,

you're in mind politics out of it.

But let's, right now, let's, let's take Iran and its word,

right, that they want to see all prices go to $200 a barrel.

I'm just taking it through.

I'm not saying it's going to go there.

I'm not saying next week.

Who wants to see it go to $200 a barrel?

Iran, right?

They want, yeah, yeah, that's what they said publicly,

which translates to about $7 a gallon, give or take.

That's what that would translate to.

Okay.

So let's play a game.

Let's just, let's just take them at their word.

At that point, would people start making different purchasing

decisions based on the fact that fuel is now that expensive?

In other words, right now we're at a moment in time where,

where the common wisdom is that electric vehicles have failed in

America, that they're too expensive, that everybody wants

either, you know, hybrids or Hemmys.

But at what point does that go out the window and people are

like, Hey, maybe that hybrid or maybe that ERAV is not such a

bad idea.

At what point in the fuel pricing, does that happen?

Or does that not happen to people just?

It doesn't happen.

You keep driving that zero one X, no matter what.

Absolutely.

Okay, fair.

Well, I mean, I want to point out you are older than me, but you

aren't, I appreciate that where we, I wanted to be very clear

about that.

Because I like the gift of clarity and less gray motor, man.

This is, let me tell you, this is just because I've been driving

so fast in my zero one X and my Temurari.

Although, you know, if I'm choosing between the two, it's

zero one X for ours.

Then we'll talk about the cars.

So it's not going to change.

And I'm going to tell you why.

All right.

It's not going to change because good, better, and different,

my friend, the public, whether it's over in Europe or here,

everyone has short memories.

People are very emotional in their decisions that they

shouldn't be emotional in.

So how many times have you and I seen gas spike and go up and

down and up and down?

And you would think after gas spikes, people would never make

the choice to get a Tahoe again.

But General Motors prints money on selling Tahoe's.

They might have a temporary pain of putting $7 a gallon into

the Tahoe, but they know that actually, let me take that back.

They don't know they emotionally stick into the Tahoe

because they don't want to amputate the Tahoe.

In reality, the question you should be asking,

what, how is the world set up where it's in the best interest

of more countries in the world to keep oil at a certain price?

And that certain price is somewhere between $70 and $90 a barrel.

The market doesn't collapse.

People still have jobs, but it doesn't go above a certain amount

where people feel pain at $7 a gallon.

So I'd say two things.

First of all, I watched Landman, so I heard that spiel.

Did you watch Landman?

But the answer I just gave you was not based on Landman.

It's based on what I'm going through.

This memory 2008, 2009, people still went and bought Tahoe's.

But basically in Landman, there's a point where on the radio,

he's driving his truck, heavy duty truck down the road,

and on the radio, they make this exact point,

that if gas gets too expensive, it's bad for the oil companies,

it gets too cheap, it's bad.

I get that.

I understand that.

But the other thing they understand, this is maybe because I'm old,

is that spikes in fuel have real consequences in the automotive world.

I'm going to bring it back down to cars.

I remember when the fuel crisis hit in the 70s,

because I was a young little kid,

and I was sitting in the back of the car while my dad was waiting in fuel lines.

And that fuel crisis had a number of huge implications

that went beyond just a temporary spike.

First and foremost, it killed or almost killed the big three,

and it allowed the Japanese to come in.

Because the next car that my dad bought after that Mark V

that we had talked about was a Honda Civic.

And basically what that allowed was Toyota, Honda, Nissan

to come into America and establish themselves with a foothold.

And we're seeing kind of the same thing repeat itself now

with Hyundai and Kia in some ways,

where they're coming in underneath the established brands.

And so yeah, people have short memories,

but the fuel price spikes do have real consequences.

And it changed basically the way that people drove

and the kind of cars that people drove.

Because at that time, my dad before then had an LTD, which was crap.

And then the American car manufacturers

were caught completely unaware and completely in trouble.

You remember the Chevette?

I had a Chevette in drag.

I had an Azuzu Impulse.

Yeah, I mean, these are just, these were horrible cars, right?

Where they tried to do that.

And to me, this moment feels like that.

It feels like Honda's out there saying,

hey, by the way, we're killing all of our EVs.

And the world's saying, oh, guess what?

It's $95 a barrel and it may go higher.

Let me, okay, I need to retort on this because

there's a lot of moving parts that impacted the shift in the 70s from,

you know, General Motors selling 500,000 Grand Prix a year.

Well, I've had one.

Horrible car.

Great car.

No, that was a horrible car.

Who's always in the job.

You know I'm biased.

I own an El Dorado now.

Come on.

Hey, before we get there, I have to tell you a story.

Let me start.

This is my mom.

I have no idea how she did this.

So I'm at home now.

I'm like 16.

I just started driving.

She has a Grand Prix, a dual, dual color.

Was it like an SJ, like a 75, 74?

No, no, this was like, it's supposed to have been in high school.

I would have been an 80s Grand Prix.

So it was, it was.

Okay.

So the mid-sized G body.

Yeah.

And, and, and like the hood was like

dark burgundy and the rest of the car was red.

It was really cool.

It was a cool car, but it was, it was a craft car.

So she comes in and she's like, the car won't start.

And I'm like, okay, let me go see what's wrong with it.

So I go in, I take her key, it cranks, but it won't start.

And what my mom had managed to do, which I couldn't do to this day

was drive it exactly home on the last ounce of fuel

so that it ran out when she turned it off in the garage.

How do you do that?

Your mother was clearly talented.

Exactly.

All right, go ahead.

Get women like the magicians.

Okay.

So I need, I need to respond to this because there's a lot more moving parts

than an oil embargo from the seventies.

So yes, you had the oil embargo.

And, you know, with all the stuff with, with Iran going on right now,

if you look at my, my, my YouTube feed right now, I'm watching all these

like old 60 minutes interviews with you with a shot back in the day

to kind of understand and frame what's going on right now.

Highly suggest you guys watch it.

This is the kind of weirdo crap that I watch.

Anyway, you can, you can see why there are, or, or, or, you know, history

maybe doesn't repeat itself, but there are definite rhymes that are

happening with what happened.

There are rhythms.

There are definitely rhythms.

No doubt about it.

Anyway, so you had the oil embargo.

And you had General Motors, Ford, Chrysler on this side of the oil embargo.

They had these very large, very fuel inefficient cars.

And then for a long time, you had these Asian manufacturers making efficient cars.

Why?

Because they were rebuilding from war.

There weren't a lot of resources.

Energy was hard to get in that part of the world.

So everything had to be more efficient.

So going into the oil embargo, they already had an advantage

in that the product was already ready for a shock to the system.

Then let's get past the oil embargo.

You get into now General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, everyone.

They have to completely keelhaul the system overnight.

They got to make, they got to take the Grand Prix that was this in 77

and make it this size so your mother can drive it on no fun fumes into the garage.

What happens when you do things fast?

You fall on your face and the product isn't as good.

So you had Asian manufacturers, they had this great product.

They had a currency that gave them an advantage.

So they could sell in the US and repatriate more money back to Japan.

Because basically that's kind of what China has been doing with their market right now

in that they keep, they depress their currency.

So they can, at that point, I wouldn't go so far as to saying Japan was dumping

in the US at that point, but the currency that basically the FX worked to their advantage

so they could sell you a car a cheaper and be that was more efficient.

That's why people like your dad went over there.

Now granted, market forces had an impact.

If you remember when your dad bought that Civic, he didn't pay sticker.

He paid over sticker and it wasn't a GT3 because market forces at retail had an impact.

Actually he didn't.

At that time, the Civic was the cheapest car you could buy in America.

It was two and a half thousand.

What year?

80, late 70s, early 80s.

I think it was, first of all, let me correct myself.

It wasn't a Civic, it was a CVCC.

It was the one before the Civic.

And this would, so my dad bought that, he was also smart or stupid, I don't know.

He bought that car like three years before he started driving.

So it must have been in the 70s so that when I started driving, he gave me this piece of crap.

Yeah, it was roll and burst control.

It was a piece of crap.

Yeah, yeah.

I put on these, these like KC lights because I wanted to make it cool.

You're not going to make it cool.

And they drew so much power that when you turned them on, the engine would go.

But if you had that car today and brought it to Radwood, you would be a rock star.

I would.

Because what you said, the metal was just horrible.

It was just all rusted away.

All right, let's talk about the car behind you.

I can give you one more point about this.

I'll give you one more.

Okay, so now fast forward to 2026.

And then this kind of segues what we're talking about.

China, they have a currency advantage.

They have a currency as well as a manufacturing advantage.

So yes, they set up, for example, they do manufacture in, I believe,

BYD manufacturers in Brazil, they manufacture in Hungary.

So what they're doing is they're doing a combination of let's manufacture cars

in the market to get around taxes and let's send over like whole sections of the car

that have already been manufactured in China at a much lower rate.

So the car that is competing with the RAV4 and a RAV4 should cost 30 to 40 grand,

they can sell it to you for 20 grand.

That is effectively dumping.

And that's what Canada is about to get themselves into

because they've opened up their market to the Chinese karma.

Yeah, but I think with Canada, they were importing the Teslas from China

and that's what's going to happen again.

So what happened was when they put the tariff on the Chinese cars,

they started importing the Teslas out of the Fremont factory in San Francisco.

And I think what most people are saying is BYD just asked if they could import cars into Canada,

but most of that is going to return to the Chinese built Teslas.

So a lot of it won't be the traditional Chinese cars,

it'll be Teslas that are built in China that are going to be shipped to Canada.

So they're American cars.

Yes to this, they are looking at putting on, I think there was discussion of it.

I can't say 100% certain would love some Canadians to weigh in in the comments.

There was a whole discussion of putting taxes,

higher taxes on low production internal combustion cars.

Cars like Miata's, cars like Z4s.

I think they only sell the manual now, but cars like Z4s, cars like Corvettes.

So it's not just we're going to have more EVs in the market,

but the tax rate changes.

Kind of goes back to what we were talking about before the pendulum going each way.

And obviously it's still very much over this side in Canada.

All right, tell me about that zero one X, I'm dying to know what's it like?

Does your guy have like a bleep button?

No, it's me, there's no, my guy's left.

There's no cursing?

Yeah, yeah, Cole's not here.

So just bleep yourself please.

Okay, I'll bleep myself.

So it's bleeping incredible.

This is an F and moon shot.

Like no other moon shot you have ever experienced in your life ever.

Okay, I mean, I've driven the Revuelto, so that's a thousand.

This craps on the doorstep of a Revuelto.

Okay, that's a V12 dude.

It's 12 cylinders.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Lamborghini guy,

but I love the Revuelto.

I think it's a beautiful car.

I think the hybrid system is one of the best integrations that uses

the Yasa motors, which is owned by AMG, to great effect.

However, what this car is, this is nothing short than the pinnacle of American ingenuity

at the intersection of a group of deviance inside of a large for-profit company

basically turned the system around to their advantage,

and they were able to get enough budget to create the thing, the widget they want.

And they got enough time.

It's like in life, you own a business, you never get enough time,

you never get enough resources, you never get enough money.

This was a car that they've iterated, I would argue, since the C606.

So it wasn't like, we're going to make a 1,250 horsepower car.

It was, okay, we're going to start here.

Then we're going to put the engine back a little bit and make the C7.

Then we're going to finally get the budget we want.

We're going to put the engine in the middle and make an aluminum tub.

The aluminum tub, we already know we want this crazy hypercar.

We just don't know how to do it yet.

Then they sold 53,000 Corvettes in 2023, obviously started paying the bills.

They went back to the beam counters and said,

you're going to give us the time to go and create this crazy thing we want.

And then they created the ZR1, which was the first or like the kind of second to last step

with this crazy LT7 turbos this size, where they've got the thrust in the back.

Then they played around with the electrification of the e-ray,

where it wasn't just lifting the e-ray motor and putting it just box standard in the ZR1.

They completely changed the software.

So that's almost 30% more power coming out of the battery,

which gives you 16% more power out of the motor.

They changed so much so they changed the housing in the front and the shaves.

But that's all the tech, the amazing part.

It all works and it works incredibly well.

Yeah. So let's just take a quick step back for those of you who are listening.

In 2020, the CA came out as a stingray, which had normally aspirated V8 produced,

I think with the sports exhaust for any five horsepower.

We had that one.

And then they followed up with the flat-plane crank Z06, which up that to 670.

Then about a year ago, the ZR1 came out, which-

Well, don't forget the e-ray.

The e-ray, oh yeah, the e-ray, sorry, I forgot about the e-ray.

The e-ray is a big piece of this.

Yeah. So the e-ray took the straight V8, not the flat-plane crank V8,

and added an electric, two electric motors to it, right?

Two, one for each of the front wheels and a battery.

There's one electric motor in the e-ray.

There is one electric motor in the front.

Okay. So one electric motor, I think the Revuelto has two.

Revuelto has two in the front, one in the back.

Yeah. So anyway, they had an electric motor and they gave it all-wheel drive,

which made it more interesting for people like me who live where it used to snow.

I'm going to say that because we've had no snow forever.

And a little bit of all-electric range.

And then, of course, the Z06 came out, which went the flat-plane crank, 670 horsepower,

and then the turbo charge of that, 1,000 horsepower.

And then they added the electrification to that, which gave us the Z01X, 1200 and some horsepower.

And price-wise, a base Corvette probably starts at, what, like 80-ish, the stingray.

And then you-

Base Corvette starts still at $69.95.

For the stingray, $70,000, and then you start.

So $70,000, and I think you get to like $100,000 for the e-array.

Well, you know better than the Z06, you just got one.

Yeah, $120,000 for the Z06, starting...

If you wanted a 3LT, the sticker on it was $138,000, but we got it a lot cheaper

because everybody was trading theirs because they wanted the Z01.

Z01's like 170-ish, and then you get to like...

Z01's $185,000 for a 1LZ.

Okay, $185,000, then what? You get to like $210,000 or $220,000 for Z01X.

So what you're not seeing in this picture is we also shot a Z01.

That car, the one we had, was $223,000.

Yeah, so that compared to a Ruelto, which starts at about $800,000, is just a freaking bargain.

But let's forget, let's put Lamborghini aside and let's take it home to you

because you are a GT3 man.

So the question I'm dying to ask, and you know what the question is,

if I gave you $300,000, which is what a GT3 costs now,

you could either buy the one behind you, the Z01X, and get like $50,000 back,

or you could spend every penny of that on a GT3.

Which one do you buy? I'm talking about Porsche, of course, 911.

Okay, so here I have to give a disclaimer.

Always buy what you love.

Fair.

Now that I have that out of the way.

Oh wait, always buy what you love, and cars are not a vehicle to make money.

Now that I have the legalese out of the way, I would pick the 911.

Well, you're also an investor. Let's put that out there.

Yeah, to me, I look at it as I'm not trying to make money.

I look at it as I'm managing a fund.

And if I want to have fun with the fund, I got to keep the fund as big as possible.

And I'll be honest, I'm not going to lose money on a GT3.

I don't think I'm going to lose money on a Z01X.

If someone told me I could buy a Z01X tomorrow at Sticker, I would.

Would I keep it as long as I had my GT3?

I don't know. I would keep it and have fun with it.

I wouldn't sell it just to make money on it.

But resale for me plays a big role in terms of just vehicle to vehicle.

Now that I've gotten my GT3 YIYAs out of my system, I probably would want this.

I would probably not probably.

I definitely would want the Z01X over the regular car.

The only thing I would say that this car suffers against a GT3 is the steering.

And the manual. Right, manual.

Well, the manual too.

But when you drive this, you'll see that the personality is not suited to a manual.

I think the Corvette, I think what Corvette's missing right now is the 500 horsepower car

that weighs 500 pounds less, has manual transmission, make only like 750 of them.

I think that would be a rock star.

But the thing this gives up to its competition, and I would say that the 911 GT3 RS

is the competition or really turbo S, the front suspension, it's still a Corvette.

And it doesn't have the precision that the double wishbones in a 911 have.

And in fairness, you pay for that.

The Porsche, as you said, is 50 grand more than this car, which was loaded and was 250.

So, you know, full disclosure, right now TFL owns, at least as of today, three 911s.

You got me beat.

I got you beat, yeah.

Wait, are you all in all Dorados?

Don't you?

We have a G body, we have a 996, the most loved, of course, and the 997.1.

So, I'm kind of familiar with the 911s.

And the one thing that I would be, I would have to point out to you is that all the stuff you

said are these very pretty words, but like the car guy in me is screaming, but motor man, you get like

at a minimum 600 horsepower more, 600 more than you do in any 911.

Okay, so that's crazy.

It is crazy.

You know, in my episode, I point, I compare it to the 992.2 Turbo S and I compare it to the

849 Testerosa in terms of a value and horsepower comparison.

What we're seeing right now, you know, we just talked about politics and war and like energy

prices spiking, but you can laugh at me, we're living in a golden age where we're seeing

something built in Kentucky, built by the amazing engineers and designers in Warren

and Milford, Michigan, they have made something that you don't think about the money.

Like I don't think about the cost of this car.

I just think that it is every bit as good as its competition.

The only areas it lets itself down is in the steering and that is it.

So like if I would rephrase it, you can't have a GT3, you would only compare it to what

its direct comparison is at Porsche and that would really be a 992.2 Turbo S.

I would choose this.

Why?

Because the 992, the non GT cars do not have double wishbone suspension.

So a lot of respect to you because the way I see the world and I love both.

Like I say, I love all the cars, but we own one, no, we own three Corvettes as well.

Three 911s and three Corvettes.

Must be good to be the big cheese, man.

We own a 60A convertible with a 327.

We also own a 91ZR1, the original C4.

I got to come and drive both of those.

Yeah, yeah, you should.

They're fun.

But the thing I would say, and this is why I respect you and like you, is most Porsche 911 guys,

and I'm talking about, you know, the hardcore 911 guys, listen to the Spikes car radio and who are,

you know, deep into the world and myth of 911s, always poo poo the Corvette.

They're always like, you know, to them, the Corvette is something that like a 90-year-old guy

with white shoes and a belt that's around his ankle because he's, you know, fat and old and bald.

Drive.

And the Europeans are the same thing, I might add.

They do the exact same thing.

They give the Corvette no respect.

And finally, and true that, I mean, the problem with the Corvette has been that

it's always been let down by the interior.

It's always had-

Not anymore.

It's always had parts and parts.

It's always been front engine versus mid-engine, which of course is, you know,

the world standard for these types of cars or it has been for hypercars slash supercars.

But now they have not understood and you have that the world has changed

and they still have this like image of what the Corvette driver is.

And they don't understand that this new vehicle is world-class.

Let me retort to you with some facts that involve you, as a matter of fact.

So I'm going to make a statement here and people could disagree with me

or they could agree whatever they want.

I would argue that the car world, including Porsche people, Lamborghini people and Ferrari people,

now very much respect, not just the ZR1X.

They respect the C8.

And I'm going to give you two data points.

Data point number one involves you and you were there for it.

You and I, we do these tours of the car shows.

And remember, we were in your hometown in Chicago.

We were sitting in an e-ray and you and I were debating, is this car cool or not?

And you posited that the car wasn't cool to young kids.

And right as you, the words were just coming out of your mouth.

There were like five cars coming around and Andre's over here.

They're on the left side.

I'm sitting in the driver's seat and people can go back and watch this moment.

They come over and I'm like, I look at you.

I'm like, you know what, let's put it to the test.

So I got out of the car.

I went up to them and I said, guys, is this car cool or not?

Why are we not?

And every one of them said that car is cool.

All right, let me give you a, they were like 20 years old.

Let me give you a data point.

Hold on.

I'll give you one more data.

All right.

No, let's, let's exchange.

Hold on.

Let me give you one.

Okay.

You get a point.

I'll give you a, then I'll give you another.

So we were at the quail as well, you recall.

The big, I'm hanging with the big cheese.

Yes.

You're, you're hanging with the big cheese at the quail and we walked by the Corvette stand.

And I believe if I counted right, there were three Corvettes there.

Is that right?

We're, we're not three was four.

Three or four.

You're forgetting to Steve, you're forgetting the 59 Stingray and Peter Brock was there.

Yes.

Okay.

Four, I'm three in the stand, one on the side, three, four Corvettes.

All right.

And then we walked by the Ferrari stand.

How many F 50s were there?

Moto man, can you even count that high?

How many F 50s were at the quail?

I, I, I don't have enough fingers and toes.

Exactly.

And that's, that's just F 50s.

I'm not talking about F 40s or Testarosa's.

Well, okay.

I love quails.

The quail is not car people.

People are there for a scene, man.

Well, and there are some car people like you and I there.

It's a great, I love the quail.

I love the quail, but it's people like to go there for like to concede and they can have a drink

and the food and it's fancy.

Spikes, Spikes car radio.

That is them.

That is, that is.

No, it's more than Spikes car radio.

It's, it's basically, you know what it is?

It's first class.

It's like you, you know, there's a, okay.

You're a United Flyer.

Now I'm going to sound really bougie.

I'm going to sound really bougie and I'm going to get a lot of crap for this.

Have you ever gone to the Polaris lounge at LAX?

No, never have gone to the, I've only been to the regular one, not the Polaris.

Well, you know that there's a regular United club in, in Denver.

And you know how it's now like above the terminal?

Yeah, yeah.

And you can look down on the regular people in the terminal.

Okay.

That's what quail is.

People like to look down on the other people because you can't get a ticket for quail.

Yeah.

But I don't, by the way, I'm not, I'm not, this is an amazing show.

It's one of the best cars I've ever been to.

I'm not trying to, to take a dump on Spikes car radio.

I, I used to be really good friends with the good cigar man.

So I got to support him.

He is.

I used to be really, I've never met him, but I was really good friends with a sister

before she moved to Europe.

So I love the show.

I enjoy it.

I'm just saying that's the kind of world that, that, that, you know, those people

where they have multiple.

Often can you and I go like poor slobs that you and I are and interact with like what

there was 15 at fifties or something like that.

And that Vulcan that Aston Martin Vulcan we were shooting that sold in the time that we shot it.

We were standing there shooting it and the guy's handing over a check and say, I'll take it.

Hey, dude, we're going to run out of time.

So let me get to some of these other cars.

Tell me about the Marario.

The Temerario is a technological marvel.

I think it is the same equation as the Revuelto.

But it's missing something.

And that's something is the sound.

And when you go and you okay that the car they gave me was like 550 grand.

It's beautiful like matte blue.

It had a tan leather and it was a very mature looking Lamborghini.

But and the technology like you guys got to see my episode where I interviewed the CEO of

Yasa and the car basically these electric motors are what kind of like they're like

this thick.

No exaggeration.

Mercedes bought the company specifically for what they do.

And this was the same motor that's in the Ferraris and the Lamborghini and will coming AMGs.

And the idea is the packaging of the motors is better than the vet.

I'll tell you that.

But what it is a fast car and dynamically it's an amazing car.

I just don't think it's very attractive.

I think it's very functional.

It's look like all the scoops to move the air in certain ways.

I get why they do it.

It's just not attractive.

And the sound it just it's not good.

The sound is not good.

And then when you get into this this it speaks to your primal nature.

The sound.

Yeah.

Hey what other point I want to make on the this is a question I have specifically for you.

So 1200 horsepower it seems like it's too much for the road.

So the reason the reason I don't feel bad about not having a zero one or zero one X.

Yeah.

Besides the fact that they're crazy expensive is the fact that you know with 670 horsepower

in the zero six that's barely street usable.

How do you use 1200 horsepower on that?

I'm glad you brought this up because this is an important point.

And I liken it to something you understand because now I understand you grew up in a Ford household.

There is there's a thing called a GT 500 and there's a thing called a GT 350.

Yeah.

Proper car guy knows the GT 350 is the better car.

Yeah.

500 horsepower in the Mustang platform is perfect.

It's beautifully balanced.

Me not a Ford guy I would totally have a GT 350.

OK.

GT 500 way too much power.

It overpowers the chassis.

It's a waste.

I wouldn't own one of those.

This is different because the ZR1 I know you're going to not believe me.

It puts the even the rear wheel drive car.

It gets the power to the road.

It is 100 percent usable.

And it creates these it creates these.

There's no way to describe it.

It's like giggle moment like this.

You're like a three year old where you're sitting in the car and you drop the hammer.

And the car is so fast.

But not in a way like a Tesla Plaid where it hurts your face or our Taycan Turbo S where

it feels like it's ripping your face apart.

This it feels like an old school muscle car and pushing you back in the seat.

But at a velocity unheard of.

And I'll give you another example.

When we were doing the edit for the episode we do this launch of when I first dropped the

hammer on the car.

I thought my editor sped up the footage and he had to tell me three times he didn't speed

up the footage.

The car is that fast.

That's crazy that especially I like what you said about the problem with the Plaid is

or any electric car is that you do that once and it's cool.

And you do it again and you're like I'm getting sick to my stomach.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And you do it with somebody else in the car and they're like what the hell was that.

You know what I mean because they slam their head.

And it's just it's a party trick that gets old really quick really fast.

And the power is so sudden and so abrupt that it's not pleasant.

It's just it's not even like a roller coaster.

It's just it just is what it is.

This is pleasant.

It's fun.

And even in the rear wheel drive it is crazy usable.

What what size do you remember what size the rear tires are.

How fat are those.

I want to say the 06 is either 315 or 335.

They're pretty wide.

I'd have to pull up.

I don't worry about it.

I'm sure I'm not a huge I bet.

All right let's let's get to the Yang Wang because this is an interesting vehicle.

The Yang Wang U9 Extreme.

Didn't it just set a record at the Nurburgring for fastest lap time?

Yeah.

Last year it set a record for the fastest car like top speeds and like 400 kilometers.

And tell me about this thing.

A crazy number like that.

It's got the doors right.

It's got the the like the not going.

I mean talk about a party trick on four wheels.

This thing is a party trick on four.

If you look at my Nelu episode.

I got some footage from China of the car doing the dance on a hydraulic system.

Yeah.

I mean the car weighs something like 4500 pounds.

It's got to have the extreme is the five of 3000 horsepower car.

I took it around the their proving grounds in China.

And I mean I take my hat off to because they're not going to make any money on it.

They don't need to make a car like that.

That's not what BYD is about.

But they do it because A they can and B they're trying to push themselves.

And it needs work.

Like there's no driving dynamics to speak of.

It can't really handle its power.

It has it has the I'd say structural rigidity of a paper bag when it's going around a corner.

Yeah.

I mean this has always been the rub with a lot of not just Chinese companies but a lot

of startup companies where they could do something like extreme power or extreme zero to 60s.

But the subtle nuances right that the things that make a car so much fun to drive.

Especially like a 9 11 right the road feel the way the car deals with the inputs that

you give it where it becomes almost a part of you where you become a part of the difference

between this and the 9 11 is what 70 years of very small evolutions over 70 years.

The Corvette I would argue is the zero one X is when did the C six zero six come out.

Well two years ago maybe no C six.

Oh C six.

Oh God.

I can't tell you that.

Oh five oh six or something like that.

We had a C six.

It was one of the more disappointing cars.

Let's call it let's call it 20 years.

I would argue this level of performance in a Corvette is an evolution of 20 years.

This thing this U9 is the first brick in what will probably grow and I wouldn't discount them.

All right and let's finish up on the BMW M2 CS.

Of course CS is a competition so it's the top of the line.

It's the top dog.

Magnificent.

Was it manual let's start with that.

No they don't do the manual and their logic is we don't offer you a manual because it makes it 97

pounds lighter and it's like the car weighs 3770 pounds.

Give me the manual I don't really care.

Like I'll tell you what I'll pay an extra like five grand if you do more carbon fiber to balance

the 97 pounds somewhere else because think about it.

Cars rear wheel drive and here's the real kicker of this one.

Unlike other Seagasses that came before it.

This has a real power bump goes from 453 to 523 and a car that weighs 3700 pounds.

That's really good.

An FYI I was at Pebble with BMW when they unveiled that so.

So you saw the clock.

I saw it yeah yeah that's why I'm so curious about it.

They took it's not just 3700 pounds so it's about 100 pounds lighter than a box standard M2

but it's 100 pounds lighter basically in the roof.

So lower center of gravity and then they change out like the body work is a little bit more

organic.

It looks more muscular.

The car is tuned so it's gotten a little bit.

It does the Porsche trick where they give you like it's 10 miles lower in the suspension height.

So the unfortunate reality like you're seeing our shoot day.

The BMW was the camera car for the zero one X and zero one X was the camera car for the BMW.

So going from this to that in the same day made for a very unfortunate day for this car.

But after spending a week with this car you see the beauty of it.

You understand why it's worth it.

And I'm going to make a statement here again.

People didn't laugh at me about a lot of things.

You can get an M2 for high sixties with no options.

Okay and a manual it's the last it's the last manual.

Yeah last M car with a manual last BMW.

Or you could buy this for 111,000 dollars.

If we're me I would buy the 111,000 dollar car not because I'm bougie in a Polaris lounge.

It's because this car in the long run will be cheaper.

You spend 111,000 dollars for this car.

You will be able to sell this car most likely for between 100 and 115 in like five years.

Provided you don't put 100,000 miles on it.

And the reason I say that is the F 87 was $83,000.

Those cars resell every day and bring a trailer for $95,000.

Yeah like I say.

Just as a toy buy the 111,000 dollar car and either don't pay anything to own it or make money.

But drive it.

Don't let it sit and do nothing.

So the car guy in me says you know if you're thinking about how much money you're going to

get out of the car then you're also thinking about how many miles you can put on it because

the more miles you put on it the less it's worth.

And for me that takes away from the pure love of the vehicle.

Because now I'm not thinking about how much fun I'm having.

I'm thinking about how much money I'm losing every time I drive it.

Just be honest man.

I'm being realistic because of these numbers.

250 and 111 grand.

And what is the Bugatti Turbion which one of the most beautiful cars I've ever seen.

$4.6 million.

The way I look at it and I know this sounds terrible.

If I'm pulling 250 out of the bank for this how much is that 250 going to be worth in 10 years

if I just kept it in the bank.

I know that sounds terrible.

So I've got to make sure I'm protecting the fund.

Because I don't want to continue to have fun with the fund.

Yeah yeah I get that.

And this is a relatively recent phenomenon because for a long time when you bought a car

you were guaranteed one thing and that is that it would depreciate.

No matter which unless you got one of the special Ferraris right there were some

that obviously wouldn't do that.

But since COVID especially with the special cars the price is no longer do like down and

up they just either flat line or they go up.

And that has changed the buyers of these cars and has changed the way people approach them.

I see what you're saying.

I don't make these statements based on from 2020.

I make these statements from when I first bought a Pontiac Fiero.

Okay.

I learned the hard lesson of maybe I'm weird about this.

Very possible.

But I learned the very hard depreciation lesson with an Azuzo Impulse Turbo.

I paid 40 grand for the car used and I sold it for six.

That was painful.

Percentage wise that is losing your ass.

And I said to myself I'm never losing money on the car again.

So what I did and this is when I was in like college I bought a Fiero cheap used cash.

Fixed the clutch sold it made money.

Not a lot of money made a thousand bucks.

Then I bought an FCRX7.

I cleaned it up.

There was nothing wrong with that.

Cleaned it up.

Sold it made three grand.

Bought a Supra made another three grand.

Put the money in the bank.

Then what started buying other cars.

And every time I've always looked for opportunities where A. I can afford it.

And B. I own it just long enough where I have a taste of it.

But then I kind of move on and I get the next car.

So I was not losing money on cars way before there was viruses and GT3s.

Yeah, fair.

You know, I always like to say at TFL we buy high and sell low.

That's kind of the thing we do.

But there is something else that there's value there in a different way.

But that's what I love about you guys, man.

I like your son.

He's just as much of an addict as you are.

Let me kind of tell you the way that I approach it.

Right now the most expensive car we own is at Z06.

And even then I get very nervous about having that much money in a car.

And that one we'll probably not appreciate because everybody dumped

their Z06 so they could get the ZR1 and ZR1Xs.

And now of course there is the Grand Sport coming.

So, you know, they're going to keep rolling out new cars,

which is going to make the older cars less valuable.

I get that.

But the problem with that approach in my mind,

and you maybe have worked your way around that,

is most people who do that have to end up with very expensive cars.

Because most cars depreciate.

Most cars, 90 whatever percent of cars depreciate.

The ones that don't appreciate are the ones that are unique.

For a long time, 9-11's appreciated, right?

It wasn't that Magnus is selling his collection.

He bought those cars for nothing because 10 years ago or 15 years ago

you could buy 9-11 for like 10K.

It wasn't until recently that 9-11's have become like Ferraris.

But the problem I have, and the issue I have,

is when you start spending 138 like we did,

we didn't spend it.

We got it cheaper because it was on sale.

But when you start spending that much money in a car,

you're missing out on so many other cars.

And so, yes, I would love to own a ZR1X.

And at 240,000, I'm sure when I drove that thing,

like you said, I would have a huge smile on my face.

But the thing I think about is,

I could have so many more experiences.

Right now we have Andres.

Andres, I'm going to be careful here

because I don't know what's public or not.

But his uncle gave us a car.

Okay.

All right.

And it's a pretty interesting car.

He basically is going to be in Europe for a while.

So I was renting a garage from him,

and I paid him rent for the garage for this year.

And then he wasn't going to return from Europe.

And he said, in lieu of that, I'm going to give you a car.

All right.

And so this car is an Asusa Rodeo first generation

with over 200,000 miles.

I got it for basically the cost of a garage for a year,

which is less than a thousand bucks.

And I got to say, as much as that's a really goofy and silly car,

driving that thing, I have as much fun,

or at least not 100% as much fun as you and that zero one X,

but I'm enjoying myself at least 50, 60% of what that car cost.

And I'm thinking to myself,

I got this car for less than a thousand bucks.

Imagine the kind of experiences I could have

with all these other cool cars that I could never have

if I take all my money and spend it on one car.

And yeah, let's go back.

Let's go back to the point that you made.

Let's go back to what I just made.

Yeah.

The concept of not losing money on cars

is a concept I proved over a 20 year period

on cars that were all below $10,000.

That's what I said.

You may be the exception.

You could still do that today.

Now, I will admit to do what I'm saying you,

what I'm telling that the prescription

of what I'm offering here, A, it's like a second job.

And B, you've got to get in and out quicker.

Like you're not going to, like I got mine 9-11,

I don't have a car for over two years now.

If you want to make money on that, you need to sell it quicker.

Yeah, you should have sold that last year or a year ago.

But now I'm still going to make money on it.

I don't care.

I bought the car because I wanted the car.

I bought it because I love the car.

I didn't buy it to make money.

That's why I still have it.

So like the Cadillac is a great example.

Cadillac was $20,000.

I'm never going to...

Tell them the Cadillac, you know, just tell them,

it's an El Dorado, it's a what?

In 1985, El Dorado commemorative edition.

So the last of the 10th generation.

Yeah, and you told me.

It made only 200 of them in this Commodore blue

with a two-tone white and blue interior.

And it's unique in that it doesn't have the Landau roof,

but it does have the factory Astro roof.

And it's 33,000 original miles.

And here's a car bought for 20 grand.

I've already turned down a lot more people to buy the car.

It's got sentimental attachment.

I'm not sure.

The most interesting thing you said to me,

which I think is also true,

is when you ticket the cars and coffee,

more people come around and ask about that car.

I don't know what works for you.

People don't...

I mean, I go to San Clemente.

This is the one that's in the big one in Southern California here.

I get better parking with the GT3.

I mean, there's no doubt about it.

But more people come up to me for the Cadillac

because everyone, it's like a Volkswagen Beetle.

Everyone's got a story like,

Oh my God, my uncle had one.

Oh my God, my mom used to take me to school in this thing.

Oh my God, my uncle, you know,

he stopped driving and my parents gave me this car

to take to college.

Like my college roommate,

he had a diesel, El Dorado, Beeritz,

like 84 with the sunroof.

And that was his car.

And he used to pick up so many women in that.

Hold on, man.

What the hell is Beeritz?

Is that a designer?

What I never understood.

Beeritz, it was the South of France.

Beeritz, so they put the...

That's the South of France.

That's a place in France.

French reference.

And so what they do is they've got the...

They put the stainless steel roof.

They did it back in the 50s too.

I don't like...

Like I'm completely...

What's a brom?

What the hell's a brom?

I don't even know what a brom is.

Brom, yeah.

What is a brom?

What's a Beeritz?

What are these things?

They tell, you know how the Germans are Anglo files?

I guess we're Franco files.

Yeah, I get the Cartier edition.

I mean, I know what that is.

So that's what I get.

Anyway, I want to thank you for joining me

for this emergency...

This was great, man.

We really debated in this one.

Yeah, and I can't wait to read your comments.

I'm not talking about you.

I'm talking about yours.

That would be interesting.

And forgive us.

I know a lot of times when we go political,

people hate it because they're like,

hey, we come here without wanting to get into politics,

but I don't think...

We didn't go political.

The world went political,

and we're kind of just reacting to it.

I think that's fair.

Yeah.

So this is the big cheese and modal man reacts.

You're never going to let me live that down, are you?

Never.

Okay, well, I'll change it.

When I get off this podcast, I'll go change it.

Oh, I don't want you to change it.

I want you because I love it so much.

No, I'm going to take your advice.

I'm going to change it to little cheese.

You'll see.

Next time, I'll be the little cheese.

Maybe I'll call Nathan's little cheese.

That's what I meant.

Will a Tommy be big cheese or medium cheese?

Well, guys, thanks for watching.

Head on over to Moto Man TV, where he's uploading.

I guess, when will your video of the Zero One X come out?

If all goes correct, it's at 9 a.m. tomorrow.

Oh, there you go.

So perfect timing.

Yeah, if all goes correct.

You know, we're still got some things going on.

We got this one, and then we've got this.

We also have the regular Zero One episode,

but that's going to come in a couple of weeks.

And then we did a cool episode.

You're going to love this.

Cheap 9-11 or expensive Corvette.

It's a comparison episode.

What was the Corvette and what was the 9-11?

What model?

992.2 Carrera T with a manual or a Corvette E-Ray.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah.

And they were just basically the close,

I mean, not the same, but close in price.

Yeah.

What, 150-ish?

How much?

158 for the 9-11 and 139 for the Corvette.

It was a very well-optioned E-Ray.

Beautiful as blue and rip-tied blue.

You remember like four years ago,

you could get a 9-11 for 99 base,

and now the cheapest one is 58,000,

or in other words, 58% more.

It's crazy.

I got another comparison episode where we did

either cheap 9-11 or expensive M4.

That's live now on our old channel.

And that car, that car knew the 9-11.

We got to use them from the dealer that I bought my car from.

That car knew it was 100 grand,

and they sold it the day after I shot it for 120.

Yeah.

Yeah, I know.

It's crazy what's happening.

That should be a whole other episode.

What's going on with 9-11?

We'll cover it.

You should come down here.

We've got all sorts of cool cars for you and Tommy to drive.

Yeah, stay tuned.

That's part of the plan, definitely.

All right, guys.

Well, thank you for joining us.

Thank you, Motor Man.

Head on over to Motor Man TV if you want to check out.

If you want to see actual video and listen to the actual sound

of the ZR1X going through its paces.

And I will see you with regular scheduled programming

at the next week where we're back to 4Runners.

So there you go.

Back to 4Runners.

That's kind of your thing.

Yeah, it's a TRD Pro, though.

So in Waze Maker Blue.

So it's kind of cool.

Did you buy one?

No, no, no.

We just drove it.

I was in your neck of the woods,

and Toyota took me and Tommy on this.

I was on it.

I get this.

I was on an influencer program, content maker program,

where the idea was you could surf and ski in the same day.

So they took us to Mammoth, and they took us to Dana Point.

And so I did the skiing, and Tommy did the surfing.

So thank you, Toyota.

Thanks for coming to say hi.

Yeah, you know how much time I spend away from home

if I don't have to.

All right, thanks, guys.

We'll see you next time.

Ciao.

Breaking News, Extra Episode! Honda Cancels All New US EVs, ZR1X Driven! Warning: We Get VERY Political! | Ep. 328

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