Bring a Trailer and the AI Cadillac

I'm out of practice. How do we do this thing again? You gotta do an intro. You know I was

listening to a podcast this week. My favorite new podcast. Can't remember the name of it.

Front row seat. And the guy interviews business leaders, executives, thought leaders, people

have made a real impact in the world. And one of the guys who deals with like behavior,

studying people's behavior said that he changed, he went to a telemarketing company and he changed

one line of their script to add one sentence at the beginning and it increased their sales

$10 million in the first month. Oh, and the line was, imagine you pick up a phone call,

you don't know who's on the other line and someone goes, Oh crap, I just, my dog just spilled my

coffee on my keyboard. Can you hold on a second? I gotta clean this up. Like we're program, our

brain is program with certain responses to certain situations. And so when you like,

when you cancel the script on a listener, or somebody involved in a conversation, like they

don't have a program script in their brain to respond. So now they're like, Oh, okay, well,

you have my attention. And so it threw them off their game. And so they weren't like treating the

person as a telemarketer anymore. Anyway, so I feel like we need that kind of a line for

starting. So switch cast season six, I'm your host, Doug Tabott here with my cohost Tyler Sanders,

Ethan Huffnagle, our executive producer, and Dan Doucette, our technical advisor is in-house

tonight. We need a legal advisor in-house too.

And none of this is legal advice, Doug, so we don't need anybody to advise us.

You're right, because switch cast is a podcast where we don't know what we're talking about,

despite, no, where we know what we're talking about, despite evidence to the contrary. The

automotive podcast is not just for car people. Coming up with some new lines, testing them out

for season seven, a main course of candor with a side of sarcasm.

Oh, our ander.

Barely know where you're at.

Ah, or from a listener, I like this is was in your

listener report. Yeah, it's excellent description of our podcast, an atypical automotive show

that talks about all things automotive, not just technical details on cars, more like not

even technical details on cars, feels like a fun conversation with old friends and every

episode is fun to listen to.

I wrote that?

No, you put that in our season six report, the sponsor pitch deck. That is a listener

comment.

Oh, a listener, right.

Yeah.

Uh, I think, I think we massage that a little bit. It's a, it's a good description of the

podcast. Plus, if I change it, I don't have to give them credit.

Okay. We said the quiet part out loud.

That's what we do with this. Oh, that's a great description. Switch cast, where we say

the quiet parts out loud.

Oh, boy, we're so off the rails. This is what happens when we don't do this, Ethan, the

cue cards are a little blurry.

Can you fix?

Yeah.

I don't know. The teleprompters are a little, they shut down.

Teleprompter.

If you do enjoy this podcast, like our listener, feel free to write us a review like that.

We might even use it. Hey, we could have a sub, a subtitle contest. There you go. Write

a review of our podcast wherever you listen, and it might show up in a future episode as

the description of our podcast might even show up in text somewhere.

Also, please leave us five star review, share it with your friends. We don't do promotion.

We don't do advertising. So if you heard about this podcast, it's organic.

And so we hope that you will do the same so that your friends can hear about it as well.

That ensures that we will continue to make great quality content.

Let's see. What is fueling this podcast? I'm back on the wagon.

I don't know if the podcast quality will improve or disprove.

I guess we did record a bit while you were abstaining. Disprove?

Yes. De-prove. Is that the right one?

Well, I've been saving some. I've been saving some, Scott.

What's the opposite of M?

That's a fair question.

Reprove?

I'm sorry. Where's the restart button?

Sorry. Sorry. That was my fault. Talking off, Mike.

No, I've got some scotch that I've been wanting to kill, but Doug likes him some scotch.

So I've been waiting for him to be drinking again.

That was...

Wow. This has been sealed for a minute.

This is some Lagovulin Offerman edition, which is 11 years old.

And this is the charred oak cask from like two years ago or something like that.

So let's see if it's better than the rum cask. I like the rum cask, but it was a little sweet.

You want some?

I do. Thank you.

Oh, this glass is quiet.

No, there's no glugging.

Sorry, everybody. You did not get the full experience of that.

Oh, I'm excited to drink this though.

We opened this together at a friend's house when I first got it,

and we killed like half the bottle that night.

The audio listener, this is just don't...

This is just a bottle of Dewar's that they're passing.

I said Ethan.

My God.

Don't get it twisted.

Dan, get him out of here.

Ethan's on fire tonight.

In a pinch, Dewar's is fine.

All right, speaking of drinking...

Dewar.

That was off mic, thankfully.

Bachman collection results.

We covered these cars in advance of the auction.

A lot of bright yellow and red oddball color Ferraris,

not quite as tasteful as Michael Fuchs custom spec cars.

But yeah, these were...

Well, some things are a sight for sore eyes.

These were a sight to make eyes sore, I think,

if you look too much at them without sunglasses.

Anyway, as we kind of expected, they went for crazy money.

They all went for crazy money.

They set records upon records.

They smashed records.

Ferrari Enzo sold for 17 million dollars, right?

Dan, am I right?

There's one that sold for 17, one that sold for 11,

which was still double of the high watermark.

The Green Challenge Stradale went for over a million dollars.

I think I called that.

F40 sold for 6.6 million, the most expensive non-LM F40 ever sold.

As this...

This sold for 12 million, including fees, which is really frustrating for me.

It's the hockey stick of the F50s.

Well, but I mean, what's a non-outlier been selling for like,

mid, like 5, 6 mil?

5 is now the low mark.

A year and a half ago, 5 million was kind of like,

okay, that'll get you a great example.

And then they went up quickly.

There was an 8 million dollar sale last year, and now 12.

Is this...

Do we think that this was just a result of a bunch of people

with ungodly gobs of money in the same room at the same time,

drinking inevitably free martinis and gin and tonics?

I don't know.

I know there's one buyer, it is real.

Well, like, it's sort of the money transacted, but...

One buyer bought 70 million dollars worth of Bachman's cars.

He bought all of the big dollar cars.

And that one buyer is a Canadian collector slash investor

who is the financial backer of Kerrio Motor Cars.

Who is, we've said it before, arguably one of the...

Well, they have probably the worst public reputation

of any high-end dealer in America, maybe in the world.

So, but they have all these crazy cars on their showroom,

and everyone knew, okay, it's this one backer.

They're not actually buying the cars.

They have this collector who's trading cars through there

and putting his cars on the showroom floor.

And he bought 70 million dollars worth of these cars.

But they're still real transactions.

I mean, it happened.

They are real.

That's not...

When I say it's not real, it's like kind of some fantasy land

where it's just like there was a bunch of billionaires in the crowd.

And to them, like, that's not a ton of money.

Whereas maybe they wouldn't have been in the room

or wouldn't have driven up for like a normal-ish Enzo, I guess.

Right.

Let's see.

I think they are over...

Sorry, they are on their website now.

I've been told they were.

Let's see if they're actually up there.

But yeah, they are, I guess, listed for sale again, but I don't know.

Yeah, it's just weird.

But that just felt like an auction where somebody with unbelievable amounts of money

was going to go and pay whatever it took to get these specific cars

because of how storied they were, because of what they represent.

Yeah, the crazy specs.

Like, I've got this one of all that crap.

They are not on their website.

So I'm wrong there.

But maybe they actually were for the guy's private collection.

But either way, yeah, $70 million went to one guy.

And all that money to buy these cars that you won't drive

because they're all practically almost delivery mile cars.

You have that many cars.

You can't drive them anyway.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah.

The other standout example and most of the rest of the transactions were business as usual.

It wasn't like the entire market spiked.

It was Ferrari's led by this Bachman collection and some collectible porches.

But there was a paint to sample.

Was it a pure orange, Dan?

Porsche 918 Visak package.

RS, no, well, yes, yes, RS orange.

And, well, no, it couldn't be.

Yeah, because it would have to be pastel orange or pure orange

because RS orange was discontinued in 2011

because it didn't meet their paint longevity testing.

Pure orange is what the auction page says.

The bill, she says, RS orange.

Okay, well, that's an interesting debate.

But anyway, Dan and I are going to fight.

It's one of three and it sold for $6 million,

which is about double what I'm aware of

as the previous high watermark for 918.

But of course, it was described as one of one

because it was one of three in pure orange,

but one of one that had certain CXX interior stitching.

So in order to sell $6 million car and validate themselves,

they had to go to take a page from the Corvette book of Rare.

Speck flexing, I call it.

They've got the orange piping, Doug.

The orange piping.

The orange piping makes it one of one.

There's a $3 million premium.

If only Corvette guys could get that kind of premium

for their 2LT with red calipers.

Let's see, we've got a submission from Michael Martin

via switchcast.live.

This is another car up for sale on Gov Deals,

a liquidity services marketplace.

2020 Porsche 911 Carrera S Coupe bid to $71,000,

closes in a couple of days, and it has 26,000 miles.

It has a rebuilt title for flood damage.

But of course, their description is 2020 Porsche 911 Coupe

two door mint condition.

Three exclamation points, maybe four.

Anyway, it looks like it was a Hurricane Helene casualty

based on the information I found.

After it was rebuilt, it was financed with Westlake financial,

which is the stereotypical high end subprime lender.

Like you have to have such bad credit

that you can't afford to pay attention.

It also seems like the buyer was underwater as well

as it got repossessed in 2025.

Okay, it was actually a drug repo,

but the joke doesn't work for, you know, a drug repo.

But yeah, it's described as mint condition,

but if you pull up the Epic VIN report,

which if you want to pull up your own report on cars

and get photos of past sales and salvage auction sales

and stuff like that, you can use our affiliate link

in the show notes, the description.

But anyway, the photos from the salvage auction

on this car show the water line at the door handle,

which is not.

I'm reading through the comments because there's a lot of water.

There's like the question and answer thing on GovDeals

and the amount of, yeah, if you scroll down on the page,

there's like people posting questions.

So many are like, Hey, why do you say it's mint condition?

Cause it was in a flood and it gets to one point

where the seller is like, Hi, good morning.

Yes, the vehicle is a rebuild title.

That's why it's 40 K less from the market value.

Thanks.

It's in so many people are giving them crap.

Oh yeah, your price is on the high side for flood vehicle.

Well, it's an auction.

It's not their price.

That's what somebody's willing to pay.

Oh my gosh.

I'm aware of the vehicle is flood damage.

That is the reason for the pricing.

Open comments.

This is 110 to 120 K car.

Vehicle has a true 360 inspection.

It is in perfect running condition.

It was sold by a dealer that specializes in salvage cars.

So that's all they do is buy them and rebuild them.

So anyway, in other news,

date Tommaso still hasn't delivered a P 72.

There seems to be an article every year that says,

this is the year there hasn't been an article yet,

but they have completed four prototypes.

I think last time we brought this up, they had completed one.

And supposedly the next chassis number will be

the first customer delivery, which is DT 005.

So that was on their website as of November of 2025

was their last press release.

Man, talk about hindsight.

I guess if I had bought Carvana stock,

I could have.

We could have bought DTommaso.

Like the company, not just the car.

The company.

If we had put like 50 grand into Carvana,

when we said Carvana is bankrupt, we have four bucks a share,

we could have bought DTommaso when we were saying DTommaso

was bankrupt and just own the whole company.

But listen, I don't want them to fail.

I want Carvana to fail because I think that

it's all shady fudge numbers.

I don't want DTommaso to fail.

I want them to make what I believe is the most beautiful

modern hypercar out there.

I did not just use the term hypercar.

Super car.

I'm sorry.

Doug, you're about to get, you are the weakest link.

Goodbye.

They still haven't delivered a car.

Will 2026 be the year?

Do we take bets?

You should take bets.

Our Patreon topic for those patrons who are with us,

thank you very much.

We do give you special exclusive content.

If you're not with us yet, go to patreon.com slash switch cast.

It is incredibly inexpensive to sign up.

Our topic is if reliability wasn't a concern,

what cars would you own?

So we'll be fully lubricated by that time.

And with what's fueling this podcast,

well, our tanks will be full.

I don't know.

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In today's news, PR disasters for automotive auctions,

the big one being Bring a Trailer in the AI Cadillac.

That's right, a couple of weeks ago.

A Cadillac DeVille made it through

the Bring a Trailer auction approval process

and actually went live with mostly AI doctored photos.

The car was a real car.

They had a VIN number,

the plate number that was shown on the car

in some of the photos,

not the ones that had the European plate on it,

matched the VIN number.

It all checked out.

The mileage matched, the location matched.

Somebody was selling a real car,

but they used AI to fix their photos,

and in doing so,

it created many, many different iterations

of a Cadillac DeVille with some very odd anomalies,

and somehow the approval team did not catch it.

This car actually went live,

and boy, oh boy, did it de-escalate very, very quickly.

It escalated, you said de-escalate.

It went downhill.

Oh, I gotcha, okay.

Yeah, okay, it escalated quickly.

Sorry, my, yeah.

More scotch.

I only had two sips.

I have to imagine Creed Bratton

was in quality assurance that day,

because this is similar to the office

where they get the obscene watermark on the paper.

It is that level of PR disaster,

and I mean, it went incredibly viral.

All the podcasts were talking about it.

Reddit, all the forums, forums still a thing.

Social media, it was not a good look for Bring a Trailer.

And just to prepare for this podcast,

we do actual research to see how big of an overlook this was.

I tested this out with my nine-year-old,

and my wife, who's not a car person.

And I pulled up the Bring a Trailer listing,

and I did not make it past the first photo,

and I didn't give them any hints.

I just like, what do you see?

Within five seconds, my nine-year-old said,

that's totally AI.

There is a softness to this that I can only,

my eyeballs can't describe it other than a softness,

a lack of contrast.

There's a lot of softness in Cadillac de Ville.

Well, it's more than that.

The front plate is also a little screwy,

but there's a softness to it that just doesn't feel right,

and it's like an uncanny valley to my eyeballs.

But I did have to look-

It's also four feet longer than a real de Ville in some of the photos.

Well, and I had to,

but I had to look through a bunch of photos

because at first I didn't really know what was up.

I was like, did somebody use an Instagram filter

for their B.A.T. photos?

Like, what's going on?

This is weird.

And then you get to some of the stuff

that I'm sure you've heard about at this point,

the cobblestone floor mats.

Right.

So I felt it was like,

you look at one side of the car and the other,

and it was, again, back to the office.

It was corporate needs to find the difference

between these two pictures,

but they were glaring.

It was crazy, like different taillights.

One of the photos had a European plate.

One side of the car, the passenger side,

was four feet shorter than the driver's side.

There was three different sets of wheels on the car

based on which picture you looked at.

And then, literally, if you looked at four different photos

in a row, there was three different antennas

on the rear end, different taillights.

Some of them flushed with the body.

Others, the older style.

I mean, it was like, literally,

they were pulling from two different generations of DeVille.

But some of the worst ones were, like you said,

it took the cobblestone driveway,

and it would put it in place of the floor mats

and some of the photos,

and in place of the radiator and another photo.

So you're just, like, looking down at the engine bay

and seeing the ground right through it.

I mean, it's possible the car didn't have a radiator.

But these cobblestone mats are pretty stylish, though.

It is a North Star V8,

so maybe they just didn't need the radiator.

They were just head guests.

It's already screwed.

What does it matter?

But the Lynch mob came out in force,

and I think that's what we want to talk about,

and we won't just talk about this bringing trailer one.

There was a couple other instances with different auctions

throughout the year that we've touched on,

but it was unbelievable the extremities at which people

go reaching to call for firing of the person who approved it,

and apologies from bringing a trailer.

How do we trust you in the future?

All this different stuff,

and one of the craziest comments that was probably the most severe.

It turns out the internet kind of goes a little crazy sometimes.

Right.

It's like being on Reddit.

Sorry, bring a trailer.

I had to flag your comment as not constructive.

Obtaining additional images of this car is not a fix for this Tom Foolery.

You are absolutely getting ripped on X.

At minimum, the listing should be nuked,

and the seller should be banned.

I think I agree with that.

The production specialist should also be terminated.

These are real dollars exchanging hands over real assets on this site.

I don't know what else to tell you,

other than this is your reputation at stake over a 99 Cadillac DeVille.

He has a point there because the real crime of all of this

was that bring a trailer accepted a 99 Cadillac DeVille with 81,000 miles.

I just thought that was a used car.

That is just a used car.

It's a North Star V8 Cadillac DeVille in Old Man Tan.

Like what is that, an $8,000 car on a good day?

We'll never know.

They pulled the listing.

That's the real crime.

This is like the old days of car bros when they snuck the Kit Car Enzo into quail.

A hoity-toity, judged, invite-only event.

And they submitted pictures and applied as a Ferrari Enzo.

And it's probably one of the worst Kit Cars ever.

And they got this into this show.

It's not as bad as that, but it became a way worse PR disaster.

But let's talk about, okay, is a lynch mob right?

Should people be fired?

Should we come out with pitchforks?

Should we burn down the house?

For one thing, the real money exchanging.

Okay, the money doesn't go through bring a trailer.

I think they might have an option now to handle the transaction.

So maybe that's a little bit of a caveat.

But first, a little weird.

But why doesn't everybody just take a chill pill?

Why is everybody so upset about this?

Somebody made a mistake, bring a trailer, did the right thing and pulled the auction.

They didn't let anybody actually try to exchange money.

They probably have some procedures they need to implement or adjust or whatever in the

ever-changing world of AI image and video generation nowadays.

Like, hey, this was learning experience and we can move on.

I don't understand why everybody needs to be fired.

I know bring a trailer commenters don't know how the world works,

but they really showed it in this comment thread.

It's insane.

Yeah, it's a mistake one could make, especially if they have a certain amount of time or a quota

for how many approvals they need to get done a day.

There's 200 photos and they're not looking closely at all of them.

I also think of it kind of like, you know, when I saw the photos, I went,

this looks like AI, but I didn't see anything glaring at first.

And I had to look at the comments to find the specifics because it's like reading

words that are misspelled.

Your brain can read an entire sentence of words that are misspelled

because it fills in the gaps.

And so your brain tells you things that are supposed to be there based on

understanding of what is supposed to be right.

So it's very possible.

Like when you look at kick cars, you can go, well, that seems off,

but you can't identify any specific things in the moment because you go, well,

it's supposed to be a Lamborghini.

And then later on, you go, oh, no, it was an automatic, obviously.

The proportions are weird or something.

Those tail lights aren't right.

Yeah, you question it, but you can't find specifics.

So anyway, calling for one person to be fired over this is a little bit crazy.

Especially probably a lower level employee who is just going through reviewing these

photos and miss something like people freaking make mistakes.

We had an employee, we've had two employees bump a car into, you know,

the garage door at our shop over the years.

Why would we fire them?

I've done worse myself.

Like granted, it's not a PR disaster, but like those things just happen.

People are flawed and human and it's not like there was malice.

It was a mistake and it's easily fixable.

Literally no money changed hands contrary to what this guy said.

And I think the big thing with people's ire was that BAT didn't have a response ready

within like 30 minutes.

Which again, that's not how the world works.

Well, and that was the same thing we ran into with the cars and bids.

Accidental bid where a guy bid like eight grand more than market value on a car.

And we covered this earlier in the year.

And it became a much, much smaller PR disaster for cars and bids.

Pails in comparison to this one.

And you know, people's what cars and bids finally admitted was we should have handled it quicker.

Their outcome wouldn't have been any different.

They said we stand behind the actions we took and the final decision we make.

But we dragged our feet a little bit and that gave people time to just make assumptions,

come up with, you know, just just be angry.

And of course, misery loves company and people love to commiserate and just, you know,

stir the pot and stuff.

And I think that's what happened here with with bring a trailer.

I don't even think it was like two days in this case.

But well, and I this again,

bring a trailer is an organization that has people in it for handling these types of situations.

They need to do their own analysis before they speak out of turn or speak incorrectly or,

you know, rule in favor of the angry mob when actually nothing potentially maybe nothing

was actually wrong.

In this case, obviously something was wrong.

So they did the right thing.

I think the the insane reactionary attitude and need for immediate gratification or follow-up

is just something that is pervasive everywhere.

I even I was watching the Linus Tech Tips YouTube channel that I watch a lot.

They occasionally do like meet the meet the the personalities, the talent, you know,

whatever, and kind of talk through just ask me any things, essentially.

And one of the things that this person I was watching said is that as they came into the

job, they loved connecting with the audience.

But then they learned that they can't just say things because people take things out of context.

They get angry about things that are really just benign and don't mean anything.

They form that parasocial relationship like nobody's forming a parallel

parasocial relationship with bring a trailer.

But it's the same kind of like people act with limited information as if it's everything

that could be known.

And they get very angry or they get very excited or they like their emotions run wild

when you really just need to be like, wow, they're probably that's going to suck for

somebody today.

Probably going to fix it, though, and go on with your life.

Man, mic drop right there.

It's like going on Reddit.

Like nobody knows how anything works on Reddit, but they're all get so angry about it.

I think part of the concern was a people projected their larger concerns over AI onto

this auction going, I want to trust bring a trailer.

I thought this was a, you know, only the best cars, which it's not.

It's a large marketplace of cars.

BAT doesn't vet stuff and make sure that the car, they don't check cars out mechanically.

Like that's kind of why you have a seven day auction and a comment section and stuff like

that is a buyer is ultimately responsible for doing that.

But people want to believe that they can trust BAT.

And so this was one of those kind of like first.

It was the crack.

It was the crack in the glass where they go, oh no, AI can get past a human and potentially

fool somebody into doing a transaction.

And so I think that was maybe the bigger underlying concern that nobody, maybe people

vocalize that, but you know, maybe people didn't even realize that was what they were feeling.

But it's certainly a very, very big concern.

Well, and that's a very real, real feeling for us all.

I will say I just looked at the listing and they're apparently bring a trailer,

address this pretty in depth on a podcast and everybody who has decided to come back

and comment on the listing was pretty enthusiastic about their response.

So I guess bring a trailer was transparent and open and I think I would expect.

There's nothing to not be trans.

I know it's it's it's wild.

Such a harmless thing to happen relative to the blowback that they got.

You know, it's it's it was entertaining.

If anything, it was super entertaining for some of us.

And I love that it was on just a used car.

Just wasn't like it was something that could have gone for like millions of dollars and

like really been a some sort of like crazy scheme.

Like this was just a Cadillac DeVille.

Like we said, that's a real crime.

How did that get approved in the first place?

All right, let's touch briefly on another PR disaster just because it lends context.

And this one was for a dealership close to our heart switch cars.

And similar themes running through this.

So a car had a 996 of all things had an engine failure shortly after sale.

And it was one that was highly maintained.

All the service records were out there.

Video was out there.

You know, it was as much information as one could hope for in buying a car.

And all the preventive maintenance items that might fail on these cars were, you know,

preemptively addressed or inspected or whatever along the lines.

So the buyer chose, I'm going to say rightly or wrongly, they just chose to post about it

on forums, basically asking for advice at the same time that they had contacted

switch cars about this.

And the Lynch mob that came out.

And there's, I mean, there's a lot of very like good responses as well.

Like, hey, you bought a car as is or, oh, that's a common failure for those cars or like, you know.

There was a lot of wildness.

But there was people that were making the most wild accusations.

And again, the Lynch mob going, we literally only have this little tiny bit of information

and making wild assumptions to the point where there's people saying that the dealer

should be criminally charged because it was theft by conversion because they had purposefully

misrepresented or withheld information that was like damaging to the car.

And so that was stealing from the buyer.

And I was like, okay, that's, that's a new take.

To the point that one person said they were dissecting the cold start video as well,

which ironically they didn't do beforehand, but afterwards they're, oh my gosh, you can hear that

noise. They knew it was going to fail. And one person posted to the effect of

because they posted that video, which they said like quote unquote, which everybody has seen,

that proves that they knew that there was an issue with the motor because of that noise that is

audible in the video and tried to cover it up.

Tried to cover it up by posting the video, which they admitted that everybody had seen

posting a video publicly, which everybody has now seen.

In their words, that proves that it was a elaborate cover up.

I'm sorry. The mental gymnastics that you have to like, I don't.

Yeah, it's cars and beds, switch cars, bring a trailer. There's a lynch mob everywhere,

people making assumptions, people just want to be vindicated and just spew ridiculous things online.

It always happens. Obviously, in some cases, there is mistakes made, there's wrong done.

You know, shoot, we look at the the meekum PR disaster from last year where the guy hammered

the car sold. Yeah. And you know, and but then he kept taking bids after he dropped the hammer

and said sold. And that guy, you know, still is is blowing that up. So in that case,

probably they deserve that PR disaster because that was, in my opinion, a very clear, like,

this isn't right. Anyway, but I don't know what the takeaway there is other than people

need to just wait a little bit by forming opinions and posting online. Well, and I think it's also

there. We are in a place as a society where we don't give ourselves the time to

consider any sort of nuance in the situation. And nuance is dead. It's all dead. You know,

positive or negative. That's all you can you can feel. And that's all you can you get really

ramped up. And it's like, there is a nuance to every situation. We're also in an era

where everybody and this has been said about me, right? Oh, just because you have a mic,

you think your opinion valid is. Yes, I somebody put a mic in front of me and I'm talking to air.

But we all have a platform. We all have this social media microphone. And so we think that

whatever we have to say is somehow, you know, equally as valid as somebody else. And

it's not. It's just not. So yeah, which is why we don't take ourselves too seriously. We're just

here to have a good time and we're glad that you are here with us. Yeah. And the size of our

audience doesn't mean that our opinion is equally as valid either. Look at friggin politician,

not politicians, actors who wax eloquent on politics. They got a huge audience. What do

they know about politics? Or why are we trusting them on that? Okay, maybe they know a lot, but

maybe they don't. It's just like nobody ever thinks of that. It's just you have an audience.

Right. Shrew negotiator. This is from Mr. Wood on Instagram speaking of kit cars. We had a

Lamborghini Aventador replica on a Pontiac GTO chassis. This was on worst spec that Instagram

gosh response. It is uglier than an AI Cadillac Deville. Oh, we're Oh, boy. Oh, boy. What is what

is the what is this fake engine? What are these tubes? Yeah, what is the why? Why are the the

sorry, I need it. We're already off to a bad start when somebody puts a mid engine kit car on

a front engine car. That's that's never good. I'll give the Pontiac Mira a pass there though.

That was actually really good. And GM made that kit car. Anyway, the first comment. There's a fake

engine in a fake engine bay. You have a real engine up front and you have this fakey fake thing

behind the seats. It's trying to look like an engine. It takes posing to a whole new level.

It looks like called the Lamborghini Aventador. Oh, okay. All right. The fake engine is a bunch

of blue coolant lines connected to what looks to be like a odd rubber floaty that goes into a pool

or something that like kind of looks like it. Maybe it's a real engine cover, but I don't think it

is a pool of despair. Like there's air filters that are in the firewall for some reason, because

that's where they would be. But I love the first comment that came up for me on Instagram, which

is the craziest part is someone looked at this and told themselves they did a great job.

There's air filters poking out from the firewall surrounding a speaker also in the firewall.

Yeah. Oh my God, they put Aventador on the door. It's more like an Aventador. Oh gosh,

I have seen a lot of ads, especially for kick cars that say this car turns heads everywhere it goes.

Well, that would definitely be true here, but so does a car crash. And sometimes a car doesn't

need to crash to be a wreck. The Sheffield brand was recently revived by Jake Turkbus,

an owner of an original Sheffield All Sport Diver he received from his parents in 1970

when he was just 11, beginning his love of watches. As an adult, Jay used his extensive

expertise in product development and marketing to revive the brand that started it all. He set

out to develop watches with a high level of quality and specification at a value price.

His first effort and a successful one on July of 2023 was the debut of the Sheffield All Sport

Diver One. It had the kind of build and movement that much more expensive watches use, and his

debut price of $108 was equivalent to the $13 his parents paid in 1970. Since that debut,

Sheffield has expanded to a wider range of automatics and chronos, many designed around

vintage Sheffield dials of the 60s. The Sheffield well of clever and unique design remains his

inspiration as well as maintaining the goal of high quality, very affordable range of automatic

and quartz watches. Sheffield watches value on merit, not just price. I love mine,

so get yours at SheffieldWatches.com and be sure to mention you found them on Switchcast.

There's another dealer that's been charged with a crime, but this is not like the ones we've covered

in the past. This one I'm not so sure about in the past. It's mostly been smaller market dealers

or independent dealers who were money laundering or, well, being really bad at money laundering,

they were not paying consignors for vehicles and not delivering titles and eventually ran out of

money and got caught up with by the feds. In this scenario though, it's a major new vehicle franchise

and group in Minnesota and they've been charged in a scheme to evade Minnesota taxes. So they and

one of their employees have been charged with a felony count of motor vehicle tax evasion

for using a Montana LLC. Now, obviously, all of you are aware of the Whistle and Diesel issue,

but he's just a guy. This is a major dealer group. So what in the world happened and what is

our opinion on this? Again, I'm not going to give you my legal opinion, but being in the car business

and having used Montana LLCs and knowing people who have used them and, you know, kind of studying

this topic, I have a different take on it than the media and probably than the authorities

who have charged them in this case. So mnprime.com. Yes,

Whistle and Diesel has been arrested a second time. It looks like for his whole thing.

Whew, there might be something here, but that's another thing.

Okay. So I have, the last video I made about this was Montana LLCs are not a good idea and

not worth the risk. And I got a lot of flack about that. When we talked about Whistle and Diesel,

I said, seems pretty clear cut. They're probably going to charge him because and,

you know, convict him because they would be morons if they went after somebody with that's

that high profile without knowing that they had an open and shut case. Absolute morons because

it would completely backfire for them if he wins because he's going to push it all over the internet

and people go, Oh, see, look at that. He won against the state. We can all do Montana LLCs.

Uh, however, I have a different take on this one. Okay. Mncrime.com.

Walser Automotive charged in Minnesota vehicle tax evasion case. Prosecutors alleged the company

and the broker William Ward participated in a scheme that resulted in more than 350k in

estimated unpaid paid motor vehicle tax payments between March 2020 and August 23.

Walser Automotive Group is a parent company of several new car dealerships across that area,

and it also owns Walser pre-owned sales, which is a licensed used motor vehicle dealer.

Investigators claim that the structure of these businesses was used to move new vehicles through

Montana LLCs in order to bypass Minnesota tax and dealer licensing requirements.

And they have dealer licensing. They have a new car dealer and a used car dealer.

You're wrong. That's not why they did it. Now maybe tax will talk about that. Prosecutors

alleged the operation relied heavily on William Ward of Orono. That guy's been around forever.

He's a friend of mine, you know, legit in the business. He's an experienced automotive broker,

as the article says, and he worked under contract with Walser according to the documents since 2017.

So Ward is charged individually with felony motor vehicle tax evasion and

misdemeanor count of brokering motor vehicles without a license because court records show

that he did not hold a Minnesota motor vehicle dealer or broker license during this period.

Well, no kidding. He worked for a dealer. Yeah. So would you, you don't need one if you worked for a

do you need a license to be a broker? Well, it depends on the state. I just do that. It depends

on the state. Ohio does not allow you to broker vehicles, so they don't issue a broker license.

So that's a whole different thing. We're not going to get into that tonight.

But okay, so the long and short of it is, Ward would locate, I got to call him Billy because

he would find cars at other new car dealers by them for resale. People have been doing it forever.

That's what flippers do. Well, the reason he would put them in a Montana LLC is not to evade

or avoid sales tax. I can tell you that right now. Yes, Montana doesn't have sales tax, but he didn't

need to avoid sales tax because he's working for a new motor vehicle dealer who can buy cars tax

exempt from other new motor vehicle dealers. So this whole thing that, oh, this was a scheme

to defraud the state of sales tax is crap. They are licensed with sales tax exemption. Okay,

the reason he would do that is because of motor vehicle franchise or sorry, new vehicle franchise

agreements with the manufacturers, not laws agreements, right? So the manufacturers regulate

heavily where the franchises can sell cars. They can't sell cars into other dealers' territories.

They can't sell cars to known exporters. They can't sell cars to other dealers because they

want them to sell vehicles that are not to be sold again for resale. They want to prevent

flipping. However, they're terrible at it because people use things like Montana LLCs to title and

register the vehicles as if they are an end user actual retail customer, but without having to pay

the sales tax. So you could say, okay, well, it's sort of a scheme, but it's really just a scheme

to be able to buy these cars because these dealers are not going to sell them to Walser

pre-owned or Walser new vehicle dealer. So the sales tax would not get paid no matter what. So

the fact that they say, well, we've been defrauded of $350,000 in sales tax is like, no,

they were buying them with the intent of resale. They had a vehicle dealer license that they could

have bought them with, but just because of the stupid franchise agreements, which by the way,

arguably can be said to violate federal antitrust laws, but that's again, a different topic for

a different night. Who started this investigation, this thing? How did we get here?

Okay, so it started in Illinois because Illinois is policing dealers who sell to Montana LLCs.

So Illinois is going, well, who are these Montana LLCs? We don't like that because we want Illinois

sales tax. And then they found that the Montana LLC was Walser investments and Billy was on a

bunch of these documents for the purchases. So, right. So what I don't like and you're on a tear,

so you're going to continue here in a second. And I'm very excited to hear what you have to say,

but take a drink. What I don't like, and we have talked about this before, is assuming all of this,

assuming any of this is factual and it seems legit based on what you've said, this article and the

other one have already painted the picture of guilt. And there will be no article or journalistic

follow up on this. So that anybody who reads this and gets an opinion, I don't think anybody listening

to this pot, maybe somebody listening to this podcast was going to go buy a vehicle from

Walser Automotive Group and is not thinking, ooh, those guys are shady, maybe not, but they're not

actually. So like this is just really poorly done investigation by some group that doesn't know

anything. And now it's like purported as like this is what's actually happened and tax evasion is

like an intense thing. This is a very detailed article. I will give them that there is there are

some other articles. This is like all the facts. And it's like facts. It's like it's an interpretation

of it's from the prosecution side. We'll give them that the dealer has not given more than a

cursory response because they're not going to. I think the dealer is going to win this based on my

very limited knowledge of legal procedure and stuff like that. I think the dealer is totally

going to get this either settled or just, you know, they're going to defeat it. But you know,

stuff in here is like, you know, they said investigators said that Walser pre-owned sold

new vehicles without holding a new motor vehicle dealer license because these vehicles, you know,

Minnesota defines a used vehicles, one that is actually like used, but the odometer readings

were the same. It's like so what some collectors buy a new car and sit on them for a year and don't

drive them. Like are you just who are you to say that because you drove it five miles instead of

four that that's used and that's new, like titled titled is the technical definition of this is a

used car. I titled it. It doesn't matter if I drove it or not. It is titled.

Yeah, there was. And they don't need to have to sell new vehicles without holding a new motor

vehicle dealer license because they do hold a new motor vehicle dealer license. Like the

prosecution is trying to separate and go, oh, well, you got to use vehicle dealer over here

that's illegally selling new motor vehicle dealers. And you got this broker over here

that's selling without a license. But it's like, well, the used vehicle dealers owned by the

new vehicle dealer. So they don't need to do this other than to get around the dang franchise

agreements. That's it. That's it because they couldn't buy the cars. Here's my other point.

The $350,000 that Minnesota claims they've been defrauded of

is cars that like physically went through Minnesota and likely were sold to Minnesota

residents. Guess what happens when the dealer sells them to Minnesota residents?

The resident should have to pay sales tax. Right. The dealer collects and then remits sales tax.

Yeah. So if they did it twice, like Minnesota would be getting essentially double taxation.

They're claiming that the dealer should pay tax on something that's bought for the purposes of

resale. And they're saying, wow, you know, that shouldn't be for the purposes of resale because...

This feels like when Reddit does investigation, it's a bunch of 15 year olds that think they're

real smart. Right. You're like, you're so close. Right. Yeah. And the investigation claims that

statements that the dealer made about the fact that they were not doing this scheme in order to

evade sales tax, that internal statements contradicted, I'm like, well, the investigators are

contradicting themselves because they're basically taking this whatever they want while the intent

or this vehicle isn't used and you can't sell a new car is used with a used dealer license. Well,

you have a new vehicle dealer license. So these things don't matter. Yes, they did not pay sales

tax on a car that they purchased, but they didn't need to. The only reason they set up this LLC,

the intent of it was to be able to buy cars that they couldn't otherwise. And in buying those cars,

see, this is where Minnesota is like biting the hand that feeds them. 100%. The government does

this all the time. In buying those cars that were not allocated to the dealer originally,

they increase their sales. They increase their revenue. They increase the number of vehicles

they sold within Minnesota state lines. They increase the amount of sales tax that they

collected for the state of Minnesota. They increase the payroll taxes, the income taxes that they

were paying to Minnesota. Minnesota made more money than they would have otherwise based on

this dealer doing this scheme. Yet Minnesota is trying to put people in jail because they claim

they were defrauded of $350,000 in sale tax, which wasn't theirs to begin with because they have a

freaking dealer license that entitles them to buy and sell cars tax exempt. That said,

this is why I tell people not to use Montana LLCs because they will eventually come free.

I don't care if it's legal. I'm making the argument that what they did was totally

probably legal. But it's not worth it. I mean, maybe it's worth it for them for how many cars

they sold, but for the average collector or person, it is not worth it to potentially have this

happen to you. What this feels like is it feels like somebody sniffed Montana LLC and then went

on a tear. And this is just caught up in the windstorm. And then they put things into Microsoft

Excel and they saw a six-digit number and got like, I got something without actually critically

thinking through the process of what might actually be happening here and that there wasn't

actually any money lost. But Excel told them it's just I don't... Government is king of theoretical

income. They're great at that. I'm just going to leave that right there. Anyway, I'm not saying

this was smart on their part. Probably wasn't. I just don't think it was illegal. I think the

government's barking up the wrong tree on this one. I still think you should not use Montana LLCs

because the juice isn't worth a squeeze for 98% of the time. That's not legal advice. That's just

friendly person advice.

Switchcast home of friendly person advice.

Plate to sample. Plate to sample brought to us literally in origin of the idea and also

supported financially on an ongoing basis by Solan Spine. If you were crooked,

they'll straighten you out. And I'm not talking about Montana LLC tax evasion scheme crooked.

I'm talking about your back. If you got aches and pains, you're thinking about surgery,

but you want to avoid surgery, not evade surgery. I guess you could evade surgery too, but

go see Dr. Hoover at solanspine at solanspine.com. The name of the game. It's plate to sample,

and we read off a vanity plate, and the other person has to try to guess what car it's on.

How well do we know stereotypes? First one for you, Tyler.

Let's go. Oh, I'm just going to be so rusty. Oh my gosh. The cars you're about to send me.

Trying to figure out who sent us this one. It is, it looks, oh, I almost told you what

the car was trying to describe it. Keep going. This is from Jack on Instagram. The plate is road

soda. Road soda? What does road pop? Is that implying that this person drinks and drives?

Um, this is a rusty Dodge Durango. Oh my gosh, you are so close. That's the closest anybody

has ever been on a random plate that gives no clue to the type of car. It is a rusty early 90s

Jeep Cherokee. Oh, that is, yes. I'm going to, I'm good. I don't need to do any other place.

It looks like it reminds me of the car that the undercover FBI agent drove the female one in

Dumb and Dumber at the gas station, you know, when, uh, not Lloyd, the other guy, uh, is talking

to her. Yeah, it looks like that Jeep. Okay. Amazing. You're up. Uh, first one for you,

Doug, from Nathan K. Habibi with a four and two ones. I'll give you a couple of hints. Honda Accord.

No, I'm close though. I, it is a gold mid-level like economy sedan. That part is wrong. Although

I think you might be silver. No, not the color. The color wasn't the only wrong part. Uh, this has

a carbon fiber plate wrap and what looks to be like an after market. Yes. It is a d-bagged

BMW three seer. I think it's a three series with like an after market carbon fiber lip

on the, on the trunk, a carbon fiber license plate, and what looks to be a Maxwell house

company really upset at him for wasting money on such a frivolous car. Cause his dad drives

that silver Honda Accord, but and he negotiated the heck out of it. It's got a BMW M plate frame,

no other badges, but an M plate frame. So you know, it's not an M.

Well, on a similar note, I guess. Honda Accord. Well, no. We're talking cultural stereotypes,

which is where we went with that last one. Rice Rocket. This one from Grant Bailey. Rice Rocket.

Mitsubishi Eclipse. No.

I'm just going to think of tuner cars. That's where my head is at audience. Tuner cars. I know.

This is a 3000 GT. Nope. I'm going to guess one more.

You're not going to get it. It's a Lexus LC 500. Who would want? Why? Exactly. Very elegant.

Rice Rocket. Yeah. All right. His son, in this case, is not proud of him.

It's burgundy over tan. Also, it's a convertible, which I used to think those were the best looking

convertibles on the planet. But now seeing this from this angle with the top up, it gives me

Nissan Murano cross cab vibes. And I think I can never unsee that the Lexus LC 500 is going to be

hideous to me from here on out. What do you mean? The cross cab is gorgeous.

Your turn. Up for you, Doug, from John A. Lil Pony. Mustang V6. Wrong Ford.

Lil Pony. Bronco Sport. Yes, there it is. I actually kind of... It has to be the sport.

Yeah. Lil Pony. I just... That's a good time. Okay. Here's one I spotted on my way down to

Naples for Cars on Fifth Event. Good mom.

Chrysler Town and Country. No. I'm going to walk away while you guess everything,

and you're not going to get it. I'm not going to. Okay, Doug's left. I got to pick up the pen you

threw. This is an escalate. Nope. This is a Mustang. Nope. Okay. What is it? It is a Porsche 993

Targa. Oh. Not just any a 95 because it's got the basket handle, or maybe an early 96.

Yeah. Respect. Great mom. Kids are at home.

Stephen B sent this one in. BLQCAT. Black cat. Jaguar. No.

Puma? No. I think you're going to be angry. I'm going to tell you what this is.

You got one more guess? Okay. Tell me what it is. It is a Cadillac CTSV of some kind,

like the old like two door one that's kind of not super attractive. Cat. I think cat is in

the Cadillac. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. It looks aggressive like a cat. I don't know. Maybe it's a

nickname that I don't know about. All right. Okay. We're going to just go right past that one. Another

one spotted on the highway on my way to Naples. War machine. Dodge Charger. No. Lamborghini

Aventador. No. Oh, is this some like Dodge Dooley? Nope. Porsche GT2 RS. I still am not a fan of that

plate. That's that's fine. Calm down. It's got like 800 horsepower. So I do whatever. But we saw

one does lots of rallies based on the stickers. See, there it is. That's the that's the type of guy.

That's a any spotted by me on the road the other day. DSNY LVR Disney Lover.

That is a Cadillac Escalator Chevy Tahoe Suburban. It is not but good. Sequoia.

Hmm. That is a Subaru Outback. My friend. Okay. They're very they love Disney.

And last one from Jake Dwinnell. BD2 DABN. Bad to the bone. That's a Mustang. It's a black

like a D Tommaso. No. Okay. No, it is a Corvette C five with the chrome license plate. Oh, you

know, chrome tail light cover things as a former C five owner. I'm ashamed that I didn't guess that

at first down to the chrome tail light strings. I'm I'm ashamed. Last one for you, Doug, from David

a M kind of is it like a BMW M Sport 240 I it is but it's like an X three or something like

sure crossover but the M 40 I like that plate. I give that guy props that is way better than

up badging because you're kind of your plane. You know, you bought like an appearance package.

I did. It's it's a good time. It's M ish. Yes. Perfect. That guy wins tonight.

I want to we can cut this if it doesn't play, but I saw one this week and I wanted I wanted to

ask you guys coming in now it's possible that you've because this is local and this thing

stuck out like such a sore thumb to me. So it is possible that you've seen it before.

But if you've seen the vehicle with the license plate, big rig B I G G space R I G got the double

G big rig big. I've never seen that. Really? I just saw it on Sunday for the first time.

What we're going to think it is. It blew my mind. Like I want to guess it's like an escalator,

a suburban or an excursion like a big deal 99 Deville 99 Deville. What do you say?

Yeah, I'll go with excursion. It is a lifted smart car.

That's good. That's good. All right, that guy. Sorry, I'm kind of you gotta run over by a smart car.

Switch cars is the enthusiast dealership where we buy, sell and consign only cars that we like

ourselves. Check out our handpicked inventory online at switchcars.com and mention switch cast

for special pricing. You can find more information online at switchcars.com or come visit our showroom

in a beautiful twinsburg Ohio where you can experience the switch car's difference.

Thank you for joining us for switch cast with Doug Tabott and Tyler Sanders produced by Ethan

Huffnagle. Switch cast is an automotive entertainment and opinion show and nothing we say should be

taken very seriously. We do not give tax, investment, legal, emotional or professional advice and the

only licenses we hold are driver's licenses. The opinions expressed on this show are exclusively

held by the people pontificating at that moment and do not reflect the values of our producers or

sponsors. Our theme music is provided by Emily and Ivory. You can stream their full album on

Spotify or SoundCloud. If you like this show, you can stream it in its entirety on your favorite

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