Buick Leaves China, Kia K4 Hatchback, A Conversation with Steve Saleen

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This is the Consumer Guide Car Stuff podcast.

All right, this is the Consumer Guide Car Stuff podcast.

I am Tom Appel.

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When you have a chance, check us out at ConsumerGuide.com.

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Our 2026 Best Buy picks are there if you were shopping for a new car.

All sorts of fun stuff, including reviews, classic car stuff.

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You're going to love checking out that ad.

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That laugh was Jill Siminello.

She is a contributing editor here at ConsumerGuide.com, North American Car of the Year juror and

freelancer.

How are you?

I am doing well.

How are you?

I'm good.

I think all of America knows that all of America is under some sort of nightmarish weather

condition right now.

Yeah.

But it is freaking cold.

And yet you hear you are in shorts.

Yeah.

Well, that's part of the deal.

I can't just suddenly wear long pants.

It's funny though, and we'll talk about this later in the showtime permitting, but we've

driven cars that were deeply affected by the weather and handled it to some degree or not.

I had driven the Cadillac Lyric recently, and for most of the week, everything was great.

And then when things started to get cold, the batteries started to shrink a little bit.

But it was at pretty extreme temperatures, not like 15, 20, zero.

Yeah.

It's been cold and snowy and icky.

Yeah.

So we'll get back to that.

And there's a whole lot of the country that had it worse than us.

It seems like whenever they showed how bad the weather was going to be, like Chicago

just sort of peeked its eye out from underneath the ugly zone.

All right.

I haven't done this in a while, so I wouldn't check.

Last episode, we had downloads in Melbourne, England, Bonn, Germany, Nairobi, Kenya, Kathmandu,

Nepal, and Gdansk, Poland.

Okay.

Thank you all you English speakers in non-English speaking nations for checking us out.

Yeah, or there are non-English speakers who are listening us to maybe learn English.

I'm sorry if that's your case.

Yeah, this isn't that place.

So I've got a story here I've been meaning to get to for like three weeks, and I've

talked to you about it offline, but we finally have time today.

Mercedes-Benz has been selling a level three, a true level three hands-free driving system

in the U.S.

Yes.

In like one market, and it was Northern California and parts of Nevada.

Okay.

And it was called DrivePilot.

It's been around since 2001 in Germany, 2023 or 20, you think I would have written this

down, 2023 in the U.S., okay, but it was a hands-off, eyes-off system, and it seemed

to work pretty well, but it had so many limitations, and it was so expensive that it was pointless.

Yeah.

And Mercedes has finally admitted it was pointless.

Okay.

So it was on the new S-Class and the EQS, which is ostensibly the electric S-Class,

that's their big sedan.

It only worked at speeds below 60 miles an hour.

It was $2,500 a year for the subscription, and it didn't work very many places, and

you had to be on major highways, so extremely limited.

That would be a nope.

And it's funny too, if you think about the history of the S-Class, 60 miles an hour

is not the history of the S-Class.

No, and by the way, most speed limits these days are not 60 miles an hour on highways.

In Germany, before things got congested, we used to talk about the Autobahn, and in

the 80s it was just like this dream thing where Americans would want to go there and

rent a Mercedes and go 130 miles an hour or something.

The Autobahn's not really like that anymore, it's just congested and busy, and they limit

the speeds during certain times of the day.

It's not what it was, but the S-Class was always part of this legacy of very fast, very

sleek and efficient big sedans, and going 60 miles an hour, not really in keeping with

the S-Class.

My sound effects.

Yeah, so that system is going away.

They're going to bring back a strong level two system for the next generation of these

vehicles as they work on level four.

Got it.

So goodbye, drive pilot.

We hardly knew you.

Yeah, and I think until this morning, I didn't know that was the name of the system.

Right.

So they never got one to us to test.

Interesting General Motors news, I'm sure you heard this.

About Buick.

Yes.

The Buick Envision is coming home.

For people who don't know, a few vehicles sold in the U.S. were actually built in China.

One of them is the Lincoln Nautilus, and there have been some stray volvos over the years,

and I think there might still be one or two.

But the Buick Envision, extremely popular in China, that's one of Buick's most popular

models there.

It's built in China, and they've been importing that to the U.S. and until this tariff situation,

it was a fine situation for General Motors, but that's obviously not going to work moving

forward.

Right.

So starting sometime soonish, the story gets complicated.

Maybe around 2007 and a half or for the 2028 model year.

So 2027 and a half.

2027 and a half.

I was going to say throwback, what were you doing in 2007?

They will move production of the Envision to the U.S.

Okay.

Now what's interesting about this plant, this is the Fairfax Assembly Plant in Kansas.

This is where they're going to start building, or have started building the Chevrolet Bolt.

Okay.

And we keep hearing that the Bolt is only going to be around for a little while.

This is why.

They're going to use that factory to build the Envision, plus they're going to move

the equinox there, and those vehicles will be very closely related.

Okay.

So basically we're waiting for the Envision to need to be redesigned, it gets moved to

the U.S.

Mm-hmm.

That's that story.

Okay.

Oh yeah.

And then there's some question marks about whether or not the Bolt is actually temporary.

Okay.

I hope not.

Yeah, you know, I mean, I hope not too.

When I drove the Bolt, previous iteration, loved it.

Yeah.

It was one of my favorite electric cars for a long time, and it was so affordable.

Well, and the fact that it was inexpensive, but had all the cool things, like it had supercruise

on it.

What it did not have was fast charging.

Right.

It tapped out at 50 kilowatts, which is technically fast charging.

But not ultra fast.

But it's the slowest of the fast charge options.

But it was a pretty small battery, 65 kilowatts, so it didn't take that long to charge anyway.

But the new one's coming in with faster charging, I think is 100 kilowatts, so twice as fast.

That would be lovely.

I think the only problem there is the price squeeze, though it is a good deal, the cheapest

version of the Equinox EV is not a bunch more money.

So we'll see if there's market confusion there or not.

Okay.

All right.

That's that story.

Wow, I'm running out of stuff here quick.

All right.

I ran this poll on, I do this all the time on X, and I don't know if people usually respond

to my silly polls.

Well, they are silly.

But this one was good.

Which comma culturally is the most American vehicle?

Was it which culturally comma?

No, which is comma culturally, the most American vehicle.

Okay.

Two commas.

Hashtag patriotic, hashtag American.

Okay.

All right.

I think now we've got the full.

Got it.

Punctuation sorted.

Yeah.

Okay.

Which of these do you think was the answer?

The Chevrolet Corvette?

The Ford Mustang or the Jeep Wrangler?

Ooh.

That's a good question.

I'm going to go with Corvette.

It was a three-way tie.

Wow.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

And I could see it.

Corvette goes all the way back to the 50s.

Mustang, of course, the first pony car, sold like crazy first year out, and the Wrangler

won World War II.

Yeah.

So there you go.

Alrighty.

You recently drove, I'm interested in this for a bunch of reasons, but you recently drove

the Kia K4 hatchback.

Correct.

So the K4 is a replacement for the Kia Forte, a civic-sized compact sedan, a very likable

car, but it was redubbed K4 as part of their international naming nomenclature, just to

piss off Americans.

Yes, because we love alphanumeric nomenclature.

So the sedan came out last year, and the hatchback came out this year, and they're clearly anticipating

selling fewer hatchbacks than sedans we know is for a bunch of reasons, like they're limiting

the trim level count and stuff like that.

But still, here it is.

Here it is.

Tell me about it, and is the hatch, does the hatch make it a better vehicle?

Yes.

All right.

I think it does.

Let's go to a break.

Yeah, and we're done.

No.

Yeah, show's over.

No, I really, really liked the sedan.

I thought the sedan was well done.

I thought the materials were great.

You know, the technology, the engines, like I thought everything about that was pretty

well done.

I agree.

Yeah, it's a very nice choice.

So, and I mean, this is coming from a former GTI owner.

You add the hatchback, which creates a little more utility, more space, and to me, it just

makes everything better.

And what I thought was really fascinating about this vehicle is, even though it has

more cargo space, the passenger space stays the same, and the overall footprint of the

vehicle is 11 inches shorter.

It's shorter.

Shorter.

So, they're bob tailing a little bit, because there's no trunk.

Correct.

So, that space all comes from the hatch bubble.

Yes.

Basically, that area that would be above the trunk that is now under the hatch glass.

But, I mean, it is oddly fun to drive, and kind of sporty.

And, we were in the top tier GT line turbo trim, so it's, what, the 1.6 liter engine?

I think it's 190 horsepower.

That sounds right.

And, it was fun and fast and peppy.

My drive partner was Aaron Gold, who works for Motor Trend, and he took the portion of

the drive on Angeles Crest, and managed to handle that vehicle beautifully, such that

I don't know what that is.

It is like a curvy path up a mountain outside of Los Angeles that a lot of people will take

performance cars to test.

It is a favorite of the Buff Books, and so, he's very familiar with it, he lives in LA,

and he was driving and managed to keep up with Camaros.

Well.

I mean, it's all about the cornering and the curves.

Camaros let you keep up.

Yeah, no.

There were like three of them in a row.

Yeah.

And, we had them in our sights the entire time, so to me, that was impressive.

But, I mean, overall, very quiet, very smooth, and the materials, again, really good.

The technology is very good.

The vehicle we were testing was probably about $32,000, and that's all in.

And, it had the blind view monitor.

It had the 30-inch screen that has the 12.3-inch gauge cluster and the 12.3-inch infotainment

screen.

It had, you know, all of the special safety technology, and I don't know, it just, and

I mean, it was kind of this odd yellow color that is exclusive to the hatchback.

I don't know what that color is.

I don't know, either.

It was, and you know, I mean.

Your review of that vehicle is up at ConsumerGuide.com, and I did look up the color.

And so, it is in there.

And I knew it at one point, and I don't have it in my head at the moment.

But, I don't know.

It's an interesting color.

It's a hatchback exclusive.

You know, Kia thinks that the buyer for this vehicle is going to be younger, but more tech-savvy.

Therefore, that is why they did away with the lower trims is because they think that

somebody buying this car is going to start at the X anyway.

So, you know, where the stand starts at about $22,000, this is going to start at about $25,000.

Let me be cynical.

There's also going to be fewer hatch buyers.

You don't care.

So, you have to limit build permutations just so there's space and dealer lots, and so

ordering doesn't get too complicated.

But yeah, I could see that.

I also, I would think someone who's tech-savvy now might be a little bit more practical.

Yeah.

So, they might be drawn to the hatchback.

Yeah.

And I mean, it has the, what the AI assistant and the real-time traffic available and all

of the, you know, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and it just, it has anything

you could possibly want in a car, I think.

It has it.

The vehicle we were in was heated and cooled seats.

Nice.

It had heated steering wheel.

It had dual automatic climate controls.

I often call that a marriage-saving feature.

We are in a really weird place with what has become entry-level cars.

And Compad cars now are the entry-level cars.

So, a Civic, a Corolla, a K4, a Mazda 3.

These are all really nice cars with good powertrains, and these are now the new entry-level.

And for whatever reason, the new entry-level, not for whatever reason, this is what consumers

want, can be loaded up to near-luxury levels of content.

And my daughter bought, I've talked about this, a CX-30 with a bunch of stuff, and I

don't know, retail, we ended up buying a certified Priome, but it would have been 36K for a

Compad car.

So, they're not cheap anymore, but they are the entry-level, but everything's coming

on them.

And it's so funny because I think we're just moving every other car upstream.

Prices are getting higher slightly because we're pushing other cars up market.

Yeah, well, and we're removing the bottom tier.

You don't have a Kia Rio anymore, or whatever, the Chevy Aveo, or those really small, ultra-affordable

cars.

For a little while, Chevy was actually selling in volume the Spark and the Sonic.

Really affordable car.

The Spark was available around 16K not that long ago, and the Sonic was a much more substantial

vehicle.

Actually, it was a nice car.

But that's gone.

I mean, you mentioned the Kia Rio's gone, and the Hyundai Accent is gone.

But a lot of this, when we talk about affordability, a lot of this is still coming out of COVID.

When manufacturers couldn't get chips, couldn't build cars, so they just stopped building

the ones they made the least money on, and they haven't gone back to building them.

Well, because people are buying them, the average transaction price of a new vehicle

in 2026 now is over $50,000.

Yeah.

I did see something about that, and that number is a bit misleading.

Well, because it includes pickup trucks.

It includes pickup trucks.

If you extract pickup trucks, the number's closer to $38,000.

It's still a lot of money.

But for apples to apples, that is the number we used to use.

So 50K is 50K.

It's a bunch of money.

And yeah, people are paying that stuff.

But sales last year, interestingly, and this actually comes up on the quiz, but sales were

up slightly last year, from about 158 to 162, not a bunch up.

And actually, it's interesting that sales were up last year at all because of how confusing

things were with tariffs.

Rebates and tariffs and taxes and yes, oh my.

So, but anyway, back to the Kia K4.

Just ignore my little segue, not segue, a little side trip.

Your side trip.

I'm like, wait, what were we talking about?

Yeah, no, I thoroughly enjoyed the K4 hatchback.

I've got a lot of little micro videos available on my TikTok and YouTube, the shorts.

And I've got a full-length video review as well.

And then, as you mentioned, I've got the written review on Consumer Guide website.

And there was very little that I did not like about it.

There's a panel, like a screen, in the top tier models that controls your HVAC, that

is hidden kind of behind your steering wheel, and that's a little bit awkward.

It's not to the left of the wheel, is it?

To the right.

Okay.

And it's literally, it's blocked by the right side of the steering wheel.

And I mean, the good news is, there are some hard redundant controls.

But if you need to adjust, like, where the airflow is to your feet, to your face, whatever,

like that is the panel that's hidden.

And it's funny because I posted that on TikTok and one of my followers was like, I own a K4

and that's not actually a problem.

And I was like, okay, sorry.

Calling it out doesn't necessarily mean it's a problem, but people should know about

it.

Yeah.

But I mean, that was probably one of the biggest things that I didn't like.

I mean, otherwise, there's just so much to like about this car.

Well, that's good.

Did Kia mention in any way what percentage of buyers they think will go hatchback?

They did not.

At least not in our way, if they did not.

I mean, I'd be interested to know.

It's the kind of thing they don't always share.

Yeah.

But it is available.

So it starts at $2,685, goes up to $2,985.

Is there a package on the GT?

What did you drive?

GT Land Turbo.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so there's like, I want to say it's a technology package and that is what adds the

blind view monitor and some of the other tech features.

And then...

That's another thing we see now with all these vehicles, not Honda, but there's often a top

trim level like over the top luxury package.

Yeah.

And I want to say that...

And it's expensive.

That package is only, quote, unquote, $2,300.

And then they have...

That's a lot relative to the price of this car.

Relative to the price of the vehicle.

And then they have another package.

If you don't get the yellow vehicle in some of the other colors, you can get red seats,

red and black, instead of the white and black.

And that's, I want to say, like $500.

So I mean, you could probably max out at about $33,000 if you did both of those packages.

There you go.

But yeah.

I just...

I think it's a great vehicle.

Like I said, there's very little that I didn't like about it.

It's great for tall and small drivers.

And it is...

It's heading to dealers now.

Cool.

Well, that was my question.

So it's coming to dealers now.

The sedan returns.

Hatchback is new this year.

Yes.

Check them both out.

Yeah.

All right.

We're going to take a break.

When we come back, we talk to industry legend Steve Seline.

That is cool.

Yeah.

Stick around.

Questions or comments?

Drop us a line at carstuff at consumerguide.com.

That's carstuff at consumerguide.com.

Welcome back to the Carstuff Podcast.

And we're back.

This is the Consumer Guide Carstuff Podcast.

I'm Tom.

She is Jill.

Yes.

We're going to be talking performance cars in a moment.

A very favorite topic of mine.

Yeah.

This is very cool.

As you know, Consumer Guide once owned by Publications International Limited, where

we published lots of classic car books and Seline Mustangs heavily featured in most of

the books that we put together.

So talking to Steve today is a big deal.

Real quick, throw me a bone.

Hey, Tom.

Are you on social media?

I am.

Check me out on Twitter, X, and I'm Blue Sky.

I'm CarGuyTom.

Awesome.

All right.

I'm on the phone with us is a driver, an engineer, a builder, and an upfitter.

He's generally an automotive Renaissance man.

Welcome to the Carstuff Podcast, Steve Seline.

Steve, how are you today?

Good.

Can you hear me okay?

We can hear you well.

Thank you.

Thank you for making the time for us today.

Good.

Glad to join you.

Steve, your resume is so detailed and so cool.

I don't know where to begin.

What would you like our audience to know about what you've been doing?

Well, we race cars.

That's a loaded question.

I actually don't know where to begin.

Other than we've been at this for over 40 years, as I heard your promo into it, a lot

of people may not know this fact.

With the exception of the Ford Mustang itself nameplate and the Chevrolet Corvette nameplate,

the Seline Mustang nameplate is the third longest continuing nameplate sold in North

America.

Wow.

I didn't know it was continuous.

So it's been unbroken since the 80s.

Yeah.

So we started the company in 83 and the first was the 1984 Seline Mustang.

It's been the Seline Mustang ever since.

Yeah.

So you're a driver too, but let's talk about this Mustang relationship for just a moment.

You guys, the folks at Seline, your company, you've been modifying Mustangs for a long

time.

How did you decide on the Mustang?

And maybe that's a really obvious question.

But talk about what it is you do the Mustangs and what opportunities you saw there when

you saw a stock Mustang.

Well, I was actually driving racing for Pontiac at the time in the early 80s and we were,

we were, I was racing the Pontiac Trans Am professionally for Pontiac and we were, Ford

Motor Company was just coming out of the hiatus of no racing and they were starting racing

and we were beating Ford on the track and I was helping in addition to racing, I was

helping on the proving grounds and design on special edition Pontiacs and I got to know

the guys so at Ford that were just now getting back into it and they were going to build

a special edition Mustang and I asked them what model and they said it's going to be

a four cylinder turbo and I went, ooh, I think, I think the American public would rather

have a V8 and they said, well, we're committed to the four cylinder turbo called an SVL Mustang.

I remembered well, but we might support you on doing a V8 version if you had interest.

So at the end of the racing season in 1983, I left my position with Pontiac and started

doing the Mustangs and that was really just to do a number of them fairly quickly so that

it would support our racing endeavors, but once I got involved in redesigning, re-engineering

and having to go through the certification to be able to sell the cars, that took us

into a whole different level of business and we've been doing it ever since.

So when you did that first Mustang, did you think, okay, this is just going to be a one-off

thing, it's going to help me win races or were you thinking this is going to be a lifelong

brand and it's going to have some meat to it?

No, it was going to be a short run. I thought, well, I could actually just do a thousand of these

sell them and that would support our racing for quite a while and we would race the cars.

We took though the Celine Mustang and started racing at the end of 1985 and won our first race

in the category in 1986 and then we started winning our championships in 1987 and that has

just escalated all the way through that period of time, really from the mid-80s all the way through

2000 and we were pretty much a dominant sports car racing team, but always doing a good volume

of the Celine Mustangs that were sold through Ford dealerships throughout the country and then

at the turn of the century the opportunity came because of our work. Again, a lot of people don't

realize that our changes on Mustang mean we need to re-certify the car. That was a skill set that

we developed in the 80s and have carried on so that skill set allowed us to actually

build our own ground up car which at the turn of the century we decided that we would endeavor to

do that and that was the Celine S7 Supercar. Which is gorgeous. And we had one race this past weekend

at the Daytona Historic. It's over 25 years now so it's eligible for historic racing,

which is amazing. It is because it's so contemporarily fast. The 0 to 60 times are

about three seconds for that bad boy. Talk about the S7 a little bit because that was only around

for about a model year, two model years? No, no. We came out with it in 2000 and we built the first

batch all the way through 2007. Oh really? Okay. We built just a little bit under 100 and then I

have done a few more that we up the specs. When I came out with the S7,

normally aspirated 550 horsepower, that was the fastest car really on the planet at the time.

But we engineered at the same time to knowing that Ferrari probably would not stand still

to add an extra turbo or two. And then in 2005 when Ferrari came out with the Enzo Ferrari,

all I did was we just added a couple turbos and boost the horsepower up to 750.

That's all you did. And then at the end of the initial run, we were at 1,000. The ones I'm doing

today are 1,500 horsepower on the E85 on the car that only weighs 2,800 pounds.

And its aerodynamics really are still second to none in the way that we designed it.

Its racing pedigree on this is also second to none in that the S7 has won at every major

racetrack in the world with no exception. And I'm going for it. Congrats. That's cool.

Shanghai, China, to Mount Fuji, Japan, Laguna Seca, Daytona, Sebring, Florida, Silverstone,

England, Barcelona, Spain, Imola, Italy, Nürburgring, Germany, Abu Dhabi, Dubai,

Bahrain, and we finally won a number of years ago the 24 hours of Le Mans.

And we actually have more race wins than Ferrari, Lamborghini, and McLaren combined.

I had no idea.

Now Steve, I was checking today auction values on the S7 and I hope you have a few in the closet

because these are now hyper-collectible.

Yes. And I think as we age here, it probably should continue to rise in collectability.

Yeah. And as I mentioned before, the good-looking cars. We'll have to post a picture on our Facebook

page. Definitely. We should talk about what Celine is doing today, if you don't mind.

Go to Celine.com and you guys could see your current lineup of vehicles,

all of which are interesting. Obviously, there's still a Mustang,

but you're also doing stuff with the F-150 and the Bronco. Tell us about that.

Yeah. So as we've moved away, or haven't really moved away, but as we've expanded

on this, we have gone heavily into the pickup trucks. Again, a lot of people don't know that

my racing background is we were the Ford factory race track team back in the 80s, early 90s.

I actually have more race wins than anybody that competed at that time driving the pickup

trucks. So we certainly feel we know our way around that element. And what we're offering now is we

have two versions of our Celine tracks. One is called a sport truck, where it has a lower center

of gravity with our revised total different suspension. It has totally different aerodynamics

and ground effects. Its interior has been revamped and much more performance oriented. And then,

of course, we add a twin-screw supercharger to it, and you can get anywhere from 700 to 775 horsepower

out of your sport truck. And then the off-road version, we raise it a little more of

daily utility type of vehicle or that you can take off-road for rock climbing or what have you.

And horsepower is the same offering. It's just a different application of the F-150.

So I have to talk about something here real quick that's slightly off topic. But the ST,

I'm looking at the website today, short bed, regular cab.

That's literally what I was just going to ask about.

It looks so badass. That is a great looking car, and I love the mods you make to it.

Yeah, we've had a lot of fun, and we've nicknamed it Thunder in the respect that,

when Ford, they're discontinuing now the Lightning F-150, and that was all electric,

so that made no sound. Ours actually makes sound, so that's why we nicknamed it with Thunder.

Let's talk about the Mustang lineup a bit too. I'm surprised by what I would call affordability.

Your 302 series of modified Mustangs, white label, yellow label, and black label,

they don't seem expensive for what they are. Yeah, I need to probably raise our price

for that by a couple hundred thousand dollars on each vehicle. But it is true.

Earlier, guys were talking about the price of car, and the average price, including the trucks,

as you pointed out, was over $50,000. I think over the last month and a half,

I think it's gone from $50,000 to $52,000 and changed to be specific on this, which is incredible.

When you're looking at the Selene Mustang or white label on this at a price of about $71,000,

and you get almost 500 horsepower, a totally different suspension, a different aerodynamic,

and a totally different interior, you realize, well, the value proposition of that is unbeatable.

We've had a number of people now, and some of the other influencers now have realized that

we are, with our white label, it's about $10,000 less expensive than the Ford

Dark Horse Mustang with more horsepower. Wow. And then we have our yellow label,

which we boosted up to $770 horsepower, and then, which again is actually will be

in current price and configuration, there's a lot more content, and it's less expensive than

what Ford just introduced last week with the Dark Horse SC, and we have more horsepower with that,

and then our top of the line black label is $850 horsepower, and everybody panel on that has been

changed in the interior and at $125,000, and that becomes probably the best bargain in the

performance category in today's market. People do want to go to selene.com just because these are

great looking vehicles, and you want to check this out. Also, there's a bunch of history,

selene history there. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how your

relationship with Ford works, like do they just, do you buy like a thousand vehicles and then

modify them, do they work with you on the number of vehicles that you want, like how does that work?

Over the years, it has gone in a lot of different phases on this, is that when I started, I was

really more in a relationship with the dealer ordering the cars for us, and then in 1986,

I talked Ford into actually building the special version for us as the Mustang.

They were willing to actually do a stripped down, put one seat in it, skinny wheels on it,

no rear wing, no pinstriping, a number of other stuff that we were taking off, and I was,

I was very happy with that. The one thing I didn't ask at the time, though, was what kind of a

discount, and when the cars started showing up, I realized, wow, it's only like $100 left in buying

a full, and the parts we take off, I could find wholesale for more, so I realized that probably

wasn't the best way to work within the Ford system, and over the years, we've had everything

what they call from a build-up system into today, it really is kind of a hybrid, we have our own

code in the Ford system, so the dealer orders it, we're able to get as best we can some priority

on the build through that, through the dealer network, and then monitor it as it comes into our

facility where we revamp it and send it back to the ordering dealer. Interesting, so Steve,

how do people go about obtaining a Selene Mustang or a Selene F-150? Do they work with an affiliate

dealer or do they go directly through you guys? They can do it either way, it depends on where

they live, it is more than likely we have a local dealer in the United States that they would have,

we tend not to have a lot of dealers, over the years, I've realized that we actually have

dealers that have bigger territories, for example, we have in the center of the country, we have

Ames Ford, has the whole state of Iowa, and so throughout that element in North Carolina,

we have the Crossroads Ford, has the whole state of North Carolina, and so we tend to

work with fewer dealers, but we give them a much bigger territory, as we said in some cases,

it's the entire state, but they can either go there, or they can actually inquire us in either

through our website or phone call for us, and we will get back to them in a short order, and then

we will help direct them, or we can help assist them in ordering our products. That's very cool,

Steve. Before we go, and we're running out of time here, but you were part of a museum exhibition,

the birth of the American supercar, you curated the show? Yes, I've had the pleasure

working with the LeMay Automotive Museum up in Seattle area, specifically Tacoma,

and it's actually, it's the largest car museum in the US, both in physical size,

and in car number, so a lot of people, I don't think realize how big of a museum it is, and how

well established it has been, but we were asked, I was asked last year to look at curating a new

exhibition, and we came up with what is called the birth of the American supercar. It's the past,

present, and future, and in doing that, we've put together a very unique, never done before,

display, and diorama, so to speak, as a journey that starts in 1900s with the Stutes Bearcat,

and the Mercer Raceabout, and we go from 1900s into the 1920s, the 30s, the 40s, then we get into

the 50s with hot rods, and Chevrolet Corvette kind of tracing the roots of American supercars. We

have the Briggs Cunningham on display, we'll have a Scarab later this year, we cover all of the

Shelby Cobras into the GT40s, and then you get into the 70s with the Panterras and the Vipers,

and the Vector, and all unique American, and then we get into, you go through a portal,

you actually transform from a past into present day, where we have all of the present day supercars.

I have the Ford GT on display, the fact that a lot of people don't know, the 2005, 2006 Ford GT,

we did the engineering and development as well as build and assembly of all of that as

private label for Ford Motor Company, so a lot of people don't probably know that,

we didn't really broadcast that much, but we have one of those in place, we have some prototypes

from Ford and coming in from Chrysler and Chevrolet on this, we have a new GTD

Mustang as well as the latest Corvette in that category, and we had a Zinger,

and later this year we will have a Tennessee as well as the SSC Tatara, and then we move into

the S7, we have our new S1, and that kind of takes you into the present, and then you go

through another portal, and that's where we're taking you into the future, and we have a very

unique display is that we unveiled our latest supercar, the Saline S11, and that is in clay form,

and we're inviting everyone to go online at the LeMain Museum website and vote because

we're letting the American public do the final design as we sculpture it in the clay over this

whole year, and so you guys can go and vote, you want to see this headlight or tail light,

what the interior look like, rear end and all of this, and then we also have coming here from the

Art Center in Pasadena and Creative Art Services out of Detroit, the future designs in the future,

really for anything American in the supercar, this is one stop to see it all

from the beginning all the way into the future, so we're very excited about that.

Steve, how long does the show run? It goes actually all the way through the attendance

has been overwhelming, and they've decided to extend it all the way through March 31st of 2027,

but we have, I will say it's not a static display, there's a lot of new cars and different cars

that are coming in almost on a monthly basis here that are really different, so if you've seen it

once, you may want to go back and see it a second time as well, and very unique American-made

supercars. Well, cool. Steve, I wish we had more time, but we thank you for spending this time with

us. No, I appreciate that, and feel free to call anytime and visit our website, and let's make

sure we keep our foot to the floor. Sounds good. Absolutely. Thank you, Steve. That was Steve

Salim. We're going to take a break and when we come back, quiz time. Questions or comments?

Drop us a line at carstuffatconsumerguide.com. That's carstuffatconsumerguide.com.

The thrilling ride on one of two indoor mountain climbs with either Ford or cheap and decide who

conquers the challenge best. Come experience the latest gas-powered, hybrid, plug-in hybrid,

and electric vehicles all in one place. Take a trip into the national parks and adopt a dog

with Subaru. Dream about a lavish lifestyle at the Supercar Gallery. Visit returning exhibits,

overlanding Chicago, and the Family Zone, where kids can test drive their own vehicles.

Don't miss the new shy town alley that celebrates Chicago car culture and unites car enthusiasts.

Join us for an indoor run, craft beer tasting, auto career day, and so much more.

The Chicago Auto Show has something for everyone. February 7th through the 16th at McCormick Place.

Find out more and buy tickets today at ChicagoAutoShow.com.

Hi, it's Brendan from Sons of Speed. You've heard me and my colleague Paul on the carstuff

podcast whenever Jill's out of town, but now you can hear us every week on the We Are Motor Driven

podcast, along with Jennifer from Auto Exotica and Harvey from Rides and Drives. We talk about

everything from sports cars to trucks to EVs and our favorite, speed. So join us each week by

searching We Are Motor Driven wherever you get your favorite podcast. Welcome back to the Carstuff

podcast. And we're back. This is the Consumer Guide Carstuff podcast. I'm Tom. She is Jill.

We could have talked to Steve Lunger. Yeah, we had time. He was so interesting. Yeah, his career

is fascinating because he was a race car driver, he's an engineer, he's a designer, and that F7

truly is a piece of American history. I didn't know they were working on a new supercar. That's

cool. That is cool. Yeah, we'll see what they do with that. The original one, kind of a fun thing.

It was a seven-liter engine, but it's kind of a historic Ford displacement. It was a 427.

So this huge V8 that they were just pumping a lot of air through. Very cool. I didn't realize it was

so racing competitive. So that's cool. Social media, you got... I got some things. So TikTok,

Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, all the things. But you can find me at Jill Siminello. And I use

the hashtag car-de-jeure, like soup-de-jeure, because I'm always driving different cars.

So it's what I'm driving today. I was pronouncing it car-de-ger, is that wrong? Car-de-ger. Yeah,

that would be incorrect. Car-de-jeure. But yeah, because I drive different cars pretty much every

day. So there you go. It's what I'm driving today. Alrighty. It is quiz time. This is Quiz 311.

Show 311, but quiz something. Today's topic, 2025 sales. Great. The numbers came in. 15.9

million cars in the U.S. last year, 16.2... I'm sorry, a year before last, 2024. 16.3 last year,

up slightly, surprising all things considered, especially because we seem to be hitting this

affordability wall. And we'll talk about that. Actually, that might be a question for Sam,

our good friend, Sam Fiorani, who hasn't been on yet this year. But

there are different things that manufacturers are starting to think about doing,

like bringing back lower trim level products, which I wish they would do.

All right, I'm going to give you two cars. You just have to tell me which one sold better in 2025.

Oh, yeah, because I'm always so good at this. Okay. Super easy. Super easy. You're going to

like the bonus question too. The bonus question always related to the topic of the day. Is it

janitorial deodorizers? I'm not even going to comment on that. Okay, so what's your first

question? The Hyundai Ioniq 5. Hyundai's very likable compact crossover EV or the Kia EV6.

Same description. I'm going to say Ioniq 5. By a lot. 44,400. The EV6, 21,715. I cannot explain

the discrepancy. You would think they would sell about equal. I think the Ioniq 5 just looks cooler.

I guess so. I would probably say yes. I might pick it. Well, and it has, sorry, I'm eating a

sugar donut today. It has... That sounded whiny. Oh, okay. It's a puffy dough-like substance.

I don't know that you're donut grateful. I don't know. I'm being donut grateful today.

But no, plus the EV6 is like a single variant, whereas the Ioniq has the N and then it has the

the XRT version. So it has some different options that the EV6 does not have.

Alrighty, there you go. They're both good vehicles. The Land Rover Defender, available in 90,

110 or 130 variants, or the Toyota Land Cruiser. Kind of same mission vehicles.

I'm going to say Land Cruiser. No, but it's super, super close. Land Rover Defender 29,650.

The I'm drinking Pepsi from a bottle today and it's making me burpy. I'm usually through a straw

and I don't have this issue. Do I need to come pat you on the back? Maybe. Maybe. Toyota Land Cruiser

29,113. They're only off by a few hundred. Kind of similar mission things. I'm impressed by how

much I love the Land Cruiser Defender. It is... The Land Cruiser Defender? Land Rover Defender.

It just... It has that kind of paramilitary look that I don't always love, but it's a really good

vehicle. Yeah. It's roomy. It's refined. The power is good. If you get the six-cylinder engine,

which I recommend, the fuel economy is decent. It's a mild hybrid. Lots of there to like,

did you get that one right or wrong? Wrong. You said Land Cruiser. Okay. Little zero here.

Whatever. I have one point. Yeah. Okay. The Chevrolet. That's very Southern to not pronounce

the R. The Chevrolet Equinox or Subaru Forester. And you're talking about the Equinox gas version.

Just gas. Yes. Just gas. Because Subaru Forester now also has a hybrid. Good one. Yeah. Really good

one. But I just think Subaru is a little bit lower volume. I'm going to say Equinox.

By a lot. 236,604 versus 175,521 for the Subaru. You have two points.

All right. Chrysler Pacifica or Honda Odyssey?

Hmm. Pacifica no longer available in hybrid trim.

As still I just ditches all its plug in hybrids.

Unfortunate. I'm going to say the Honda Odyssey. No, it's the Pacifica by a fair number.

119,389 Pacificas, 80,293 Odyssey. The Odyssey dragging its feet on any sort of serious update.

Okay. So is the Pacifica. They are the two oldest minivans in the segment. Pacifica always gets like

little tweaks. Something. I suppose the Voyager not available anymore. I don't know. I can't even

follow that. For people who don't know, the Voyager is an on again off again fleet version

of the Pacifica specifically for rental fleets and for commercial fleets because

Pacifica got kind of got expensive. Yeah. When we talk about price inflation.

Yep. Okay. You're in a little trouble now.

You've got two questions left to score your last point. All right.

The BMW seven series or the Mercedes Benz S class. Legendary historic large sedans that no

longer sell very well. Correct. Do that. Do either of those numbers include the electric versions

or is it just the gas versions? I believe not. Okay. And there are electric versions of both.

There are. I'm gonna say the BMW. Yes. By Smidge. 10,714 versus 10,049. Wow. That is a Smidge.

You got your win. Interesting thing. And this is just the little note about how poorly large

sedans, large luxury sedans now sell. So those two broke five digits. Next on the list in sales

volume the Lexus LS 2,153. That's a good vehicle. And compared to these others, it's priced right.

The Genesis G90 1,503 and the Audi A8 just 1,628. Wow. Yeah. That's it. I mean,

this whole segment, you combine them all and you have one third the sales of an equinox. Wow.

I mean, they're profitable but dying already. According to Amazon.com today.

This morning. This morning. These are the best selling janitorial deodorizers. Okay. You need

to tell me which one's fake. Okay. Are you ready? Zero odor pro. Okay. Smells be gone.

Dumpster Defender and stink stalker. And all of all except for one are real. Three of these are real.

According to Amazon.com today. These are the best sellers. One of them is fake.

What was the last one? Stink stalker. Not to be confused with the night stalker.

No. It was a great TV show. Read through them one more time. I would love to. Zero odor pro.

Smells be gone. Dumpster Defender and stink stalker.

Okay. So the first one just sounds really boring. Yep. I'm going with that. That's the fake because

it's boring. That one's real. Yeah. That one's real. Smells be gone. Real. Dumpster Defender. Real.

Stink stalker I made up. Stink stalker was going to be my other one. All right. We've only got

about four minutes here but you wanted to talk a little bit about the vehicle you're driving. You

were driving the the Lucid air which you drove through some awful awful weather. Do tell. Yeah.

No. I drove from Indianapolis to Chicago yesterday during the snow again and they

wasn't even paying attention. So there was some serious snow. They got at least a foot of snow

in the Indianapolis area and we left in the heaviest bit of the snow and I want to say the

Lucid air was flipping amazing. Like it felt planted and solid. I did not feel any slipping

or anything and like in one of my stories right now on Instagram and on Facebook I show the roads

we were driving on and it was it was not good and I was so impressed with how it handled and

like how I was able to maneuver the vehicle in the snow. I was very very impressed and I mean

there were a couple of doubters and that cold and snow and you know all of that is going to affect

your range. That's not a shocker. It's not a surprise and then you got you got the 200

miles down easy. Yes. Okay. But the only from Chicago to Indianapolis. Yeah. So go like on the

way back we did stop to take a little bit of a break because it was a bit of a white knuckler

and so we just stopped and charged but we didn't need to and the only thing that is really a problem

on this vehicle in terms of winter weather and cold is the windshield wipers and the fluid is in

the wiper itself and which is a wonderful thing in the summer when it doesn't freeze. Yeah. It's

such a great complete coverage and quick. You actually save fluid because it's so effective

but but it freezes and then the windshield wiper like turn on point is in the screen to the left

of the wheel. So when you're driving in white out conditions the last thing you want to do is take

your eyes off the road but you have to do that in order to turn your windshield wipers on

and that was slightly problematic. I drove the Hyundai Sonata hybrid limited hybrid

during the extreme cold and the cold definitely affected the mileage and it's because the battery

just doesn't want to charge when you're braking. So I saw about 30 miles per gallon. This vehicle

is capable of so much more like 50 something but in the sub zero weather literally below zero weather

really didn't want to warm up. Yeah. And the heated steering wheel took forever to kick in. I mean

these are you know first world problems but the seat heaters did work pretty quickly. Yeah. It's

a fine vehicle but the cold had it took its impact on the hybrid functionality. And I will say I did

have access to the app on the Lucid air and that it made my life so much happier because when we

would get ready to go downstairs before I would unplug the vehicle so we were staying at a hotel

in Fisher's Indiana that has a charger. Yay shout out to the Courtyard Marriott and Fishers.

And so as we were getting ready to go downstairs I would just turn on the climate control for the

car turn on the heated seat turn on the heated steering wheel and like at one point the cabin

itself was zero degrees and by the time we got down there like you know because I started it

five minutes early it was like 60 degrees in the cabin. It was amazing. Next week I want to talk

a little bit about what I'm driving right now. I asked for and got a Corolla. Like I just haven't

driven a Corolla forever but I didn't get any old Corolla. I got a Corolla SE that is hybrid all-wheel

drive. Oh. And it's still under 32 grand. Amazing. It just feels like a lot of stuff. Okay. So I'm

excited to drive this. I only drove it a couple of minutes here so I don't have any impressions

yet. Okay. Except that I fit just fine. Okay that's a good impression. Yeah it is. All right big

thanks to Steve Selene. That was a great conversation. Thank you Jill. Thanks to producer

Randy and the good folks here at Talk Zone. Let's talk more about cars again next week. Next week.

Remember to check us out at ConsumerGuide.com. The Car Stuff podcast is produced by J-Turn

Media. To advertise on the show please drop us a line at Car Stuff at ConsumerGuide.com.

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