CarCast+Edmunds - Live Interviews with Bugatti and Lamborghini from Monterey Car Week

There I was, scrolling my phone, then someone cracked open a Mountain Dew Baja Cabo Citrus.

Next thing I know, I heard a rip.

My friend tried the splits and jeans, but not a drop was spilled.

Have a blast with Mountain Dew Baja Cabo Citrus, a punch of tropical citrus flavor.

Okay, does this happen to anybody else?

You sit down with a juicy QPC, some McNuggets, and those golden fries from McDonald's.

Then you take a long sip of your Sprite, because you can still hear your mama saying,

don't fill up on a drink before you eat your food.

But you're grown now, so you do what you want.

Share and share alike with the 20-piece McNuggets from McDonald's for just $6.

Limited time only, price and participation may vary, cannot be combined with any other offer.

Hello, welcome to the Edmunds car cast podcast. I'm Matt, the moderator,

The Andrew here with Alistair Weaver. How are you?

I'm good, thanks Matt. I'm good. Had a bit of sleep after car week, but still kind of working

through all the backlog of news and everything else. It was such a mega event, and I know we're

going to talk more about it today. More car week stuff. And then this morning,

I just took delivery of a press car, sort of the anti-car week.

They just delivered Ford Ranger Raptor. Oh, I like that truck.

That's a nice, because it's not too big. It's a nice performance truck. It's fun. You'll enjoy it.

I think it's going to be fun. I got to go find some dirt.

I turned up at Lamborghini, not a Lamborghini, I'm going to talk about Lamborghini. I turned

up at the McLaren party in Beverly Hills somewhere that I got to happen to get it,

like an onus party that I happened to lag an invite to, and I turned up in a Ranger Raptor,

and I looked unique. Everybody else had Ferrari's and Lamborghini's and McLaren's,

and I turned up in a Ranger Raptor. I look very cool.

You know, it's interesting. So you mentioned McLaren, but the Lamborghini and Porsche,

right? Porsche. Sorry, doing their off-road versions, like the Dakar.

And what's the Lamborghini version? Oh, God, don't put me on sport. I've driven it as well,

and I can't remember what it's called. It'll come to me. Yeah. Keep talking. I'm googling it.

I forgot what it was called. But we know like Ford has been all in on the off-road stuff with

all the Raptor versions of the cars, of the vehicles. Storato, Hurricane Storato. There you go.

You know, and I remember talking to Jim Farley a year ago going, what are we doing on off-road?

Like he's and he said he's not personally super familiar with racing off-road. He

doesn't do a lot of that. We've seen him at the track a lot. And I said,

This is the CEO of Ford. Yeah. And I said, are we going to get,

because at the time there was a rumor and sketches of like sort of an off-road Mustang,

just like a Porsche Dakar, because he's going, I'm all in on Mustang. I want to develop that out

like the 911 lineup, have different versions, and then have the GTD at the top of the chain.

And I said, what about an off-road version like a Dakar? And he just said, yes.

And then that was it. Like we didn't get into the details. I was like, huh, interesting.

But now in recent interviews, he was saying, he's saying there potentially could be

like an off-road supercar. I don't know if he means like a GTD,

you know, sort of a $300 plus $1,000 version. But

Well, Ford's going back to Dakar and taking that quite seriously. You know, Land Rover is

already going back to Dakar because there's a new class in the Dakar rally as well,

which is more attuned to production cars, which is why Land Rover, you know,

they've now got the Defender Octa, which I drove earlier in the year, and then that will spawn a

rally car. So you are getting into the off-road rally a little bit close to what you get in

Le Mans, where you've got to build a GTD Mustang to race at Le Mans. Now you might have to

end up having to have like a, you know, a road-going supercar to mulligate it for Dakar

as well. Yeah, I just know if you've heard anything about that yet. I'm curious what

they would have in the works if it's something sort of under the Mustang platform or do they

stick with like Bronco or? I remember doing the Dakar with, I think the new regs for Dakar in

this particular class, they have to be fairly close to production. I remember doing the

Dakar when they had the Mini there, and this Mini was bigger than a BMW X5. And I was like,

is there anything Mini genuinely about that? And there was sort of, I don't know,

it was like door handle or like door handle. The logo. The logo. So I think with the new regs,

it's got to get a bit closer, but it would lend itself to like a Bronco Raptor R or something

like that. And, you know, then if it's a space, they have, Ford has a company called Multimatics,

which actually built the Ford GT, built the GTD, and, you know, they would probably be in

line as well for that sort of thing, which is kind of not an official Ford company, but

kind of is. Anyway, that wasn't really what we planned on talking about, but they just dropped

off the Ranger Raptor. And then separately, I've got an invitation to drive a GTD with Ford,

so I got to figure out when we can. Oh, with that the Palm Springs invitation.

I think, yeah, I think, are you going to, are you going to go out to that?

You know, I can't, I can't take all the plum jobs, Matt.

I'll wait till we get one, wait, wait till we get one in, but we'll see.

Because I said, come out to Palm Springs and drive a Mustang GTD. And of course,

it was like awesome. And, and then I called Adam Krohler and I said, I know you're a fan of the

GTD. Do you want to drive it in Palm Springs? And he said, on the track? And I said, no,

I don't think so. He's like, eh, is it not, is it not at thermal? It's not at thermal. So

he's like, what am I going to do at 47 miles an hour in Palm Springs?

Yeah, I didn't realize that. In which case I'm less concerned that I'm not going if it's not on the

track. So that might be a little bit tougher, tougher. You're just going to go and pose.

You're just going to spend a day posing, basically. Yeah, just going to go over there and

just take pictures. In 120 degree heat. But, you know, maybe get behind the wheel a little

bit. All right. So one of the things we talked about last week was in Monterey, you got to

grab a couple of interviews just, you know, at, at manufacturer's booth at the quail.

So you guys are going to hear all the wonderful quail sounds in the background,

champagne and, and, and cash. You hear the background noises of, of bubbles and wealth.

And fancy music going on. Filthy Luca.

But, let's talk a little bit. Actually, the Pugatti Champagne, I was handed a, I know,

I was handed a glass of the Pugatti Champagne at the end of the day. And it was,

I don't know what it was, but it did, it did taste a cut above the, the traditional

automotive fair. Well, so Pugatti would be French and

Well, champagne is French. So they would have to have the better version of the better version.

Yeah. Right. Because people hand out champagne all the time and it's like a prosecco or some sort of

bubbly rosé or whatever they just call it champagne. But I think the, I think the

Pugatti Champagne would have to be from that's champagne and it would have to be a certain

house. Most of these brands actually have partnerships with, I know I was there with,

you know, Cadillac now has a wine partnership and I know that Infinity has the same. I'm sure

that Pugatti, Aston Martin used to have a champagne partnership. I'm sure that Pugatti has a

particular champagne house and they, you know, that they partner with.

Yes. All right. Well, I'm glad to hear that you got some of the actual champagne.

Let's talk about Pugatti. So Pugatti came out.

They love the quail. And I think you'll hear that in the interview, how much they really do

enjoy the quail allows them to connect with their customers. I would say quite a few of their

customers attend that event. And I think they do like a drive and a couple of other things

specific to the customers while they're in town.

It was kind of funny. I was saying that, you know, I think you're invited too. The way it happens,

all these little parties all over Car Week and they're basically for customers and then if your

media like, like, Kersey likes it, you know, we'll kind of let you in and, you know, don't drink

too much. But the Pugatti one, the Lamborghini one and the Bentley one had invites to that.

Pugatti one, not so much. It's like that. That's, that's, you know, none of, you know.

Yeah, we don't need to slamming it in there with everyone buying three and a half million

exactly. But it was nice to sit down with them. And we're going to hear it now, but the Pugatti had

the Brear, which is a a one-off creation named after a horse, which was, I believe, a favorite

of Atari Pugatti. And they'll talk about this in the interview, but they're going to do this

is a new program called Solitaire. And Pugatti is basically going to create two unique creations

a year for its very best customers. So they don't want any, again, he talks about this in the

interview, but they don't want people to flip these cars. So yeah, these are people who already

own several Pugatties, probably some pre-war cars as well as some modern ones. And they'll have six

effectively six in production at any one time because they take three years to realize. So a

year to sit down and draw this thing, a year then presumably to test it and a year then to

get it modulated and ship it. So it's a three-year project, which obviously requires some patience.

And I know a lot of people with a lot of money don't like patience. So that's kind of interesting

in itself. But I think, you know, we're going to hear in a moment what I found particularly

interesting. He said he met 70 or 80 customers and Pugatti only has the sort of modern

Pugatti only has about 800 customers. So he's got more than 10% of his customer base

in one place at one time. And I don't think there's any, you know, anywhere in the world

that you would have that concentration of customers. And while I was there, they had, you know,

one of the US team, I had these Pugatti sunglasses, I think they're 1200 bucks,

and they had a big Pugatti badge above the way your nose sits. And, you know, they were selling

the, I mean, there's just a lot of stuff going on and just a lot. I mean, it's crazy. I think

10% of Pugatti's customer base is on the same, you know, in the same golf course or on the

same golf halt. It's right. Or at whatever house they're renting for their party or, you know, at

the quail. So just think of just sort of the net worth of that 10% of the customers.

Also the insurance bill on that party is crazy. But I think this is part of it as well. It's

not, and this is the whole idea of buying a classic car as you well know or Pugatti is

you get access to a club that you otherwise couldn't. So it's, you know, you've bought this Pugatti,

now you're invited to this house and suddenly you billionaire of X is now in a room with billionaire

of Y. So it becomes this big networking event and suddenly deals are done. And then the,

you know, the $10 million you just paid for your car is kind of written off as a,

you know, as a networking expert. And since it's a, it's like a whole ecosystem

that has only got like a limited touch, you know, so only to a certain extent,

you know, associated with a motor vehicle. It's interesting that you say that. I agree completely.

I think there are relationships that are built and deals that are done

at events like that, that makes sense. And, you know, a guy like Craig Jackson, who I love,

and he's all in on Pugatti, he had a Veyron, he custom built a Charonne, went to France,

did a drive, took delivery of it, and then showed a type 57 at Pebble Beach.

Yeah, I think he wants to develop those relationships. I remember years ago in my

web development days, a client of mine was a big Los Angeles law firm and the partners being

responsible for bringing in new business and, and they had offices in New York and Boston stuff as

well. And I would talk to one of the partners and he was just saying that he would just book

first class tickets to the different offices almost every week. And, and with no real agenda.

It's just because the people he would meet on that plane, he ended up signing like the two

biggest clients that they have, like, don't quote me on it, but like Oracle, like sign like Oracle,

like obviously like a division of it, like they handled, I don't know, all the employment contracts

where they handled like, I'm pretty sure Larry Ellison doesn't fly Delta. Yeah.

Yeah, right. Like the real estate contracts, they sat next to another lawyer who's like the

head of legal of like a certain division, like a real estate, right? And he's like,

yeah, this is all the stuff we own in real estate, we need a firm to power through

this stuff. He's like, great. Now he's had a mill to multi-million-dollar

retainer just by jet back and forth. I remember sitting on a Virgin flight in my youth. I must

have been like 23, 24 and somebody else's diamonds, like Virgin upper class sat at the

front there in the days when they had a bar, they got rid, kind of all got a bit serious now.

But in those days, you had a bar and then we just sit at the bar and get drunk on Virgin

Flames. It was great. And I remember talking to these two new people, two people from

this new startup company called eBay. Yep. And they were like trying to explain the

business model. And I was like, oh, yeah, sounds a bit odd. But anyway, yeah, yeah,

digress. Should we listen to the interview? Okay. So yeah. So who was the interview with?

I don't even want to attempt to pronounce his name. So this was the, this was the interview

with Christophe Piauchon. My wife will hate me for my, my, my, my French accent. But Christophe

Piauchon, who is the president, his LinkedIn says, President chez Bugatti automobile

SES. So he is the, because Bugatti now is owned, was bought out because of Volkswagen Group,

but then it was bought out by RIMAC. So it's now a joint venture between RIMAC,

the, it was affected by the EV manufacturer. And then Porsche has a, has a big stake as well.

Right. And so, you know, this is where the ownership sits. But I think from a public

facing perspective, it looks and sounds no different. And Christophe has been,

been there a, been there a long time, charming guy as you'll, as you'll hear and

yeah, working hard that day. All right. Let's, let's go ahead and jump into that right now.

Christophe Piauchon, thank you for joining us on the Edmunds Carcast podcast.

Exciting day here at Quayle. What's the big appeal of this event for you? Is it,

obviously a chance to meet customers, but how we began to customers turn up to an event

like this? So it's a huge event for us because when you think that there is about

3000 people coming here, I would say we have here, not only American customers, but also

European customers coming to Quayle or Pebble Beach, because that's now one of the rare places

where you can see some new products, high luxury cars and for sure also collectors.

So that's for us a very busy day. We just met, I would say today, at least about

70, 80 customers of Bugatti. And when you look that we have produced since now the early years,

the 20 last years of Bugatti, about 1050, 60 cars, something like that. And it's only going to

about 820 customers. And when you imagine that 10% of them are here today, not bad.

And you get a lot of crossover correlation between people who have the, the old cars

displaying at Pebble Beach tomorrow and Sunday and then coming here on Friday,

maybe specifying a new car. Exactly. We have really

brand ambassadors, which are not only interested in the new car, but discover

the Bugatti brand with the Vero of the Chiron. And then they became addicts to the brand

and started a real collection of Bugatti also with pre-work cars and so on.

And today we're obviously seeing a bespoke car. Is this your direction of travel?

Do you see doing more and more of these one-offs now? I mean, it's extraordinary how the

market is exploded. It's a very small niche, which we want now to go in. And the feedback

we received today was great with our Solitaire program, because the Brouillard is the first

car made out of this Solitaire program, which is really one unique car for a unique customer.

So, and we are trying to connect to our new cars with history. And today is a very good

example. Taking the name Brouillard was named after the favorite horse from Ettore Bugatti,

and it was the ID from the customer. So, we mix that together, work together with our designer

to create a really unique car for him. And how many years has this been in development?

Well, if I came to you today and said, okay, I want a one-off Bugatti, I want to make

it. I would say we will make such a project two times per year. Right. But between the ID

to the delivery, I would say about three years. Okay. So, you have to have some patience?

Because, yeah, you need about one year to work with the team on the car, what it could be,

and so on. And then two years development of the real car available. This one will be

delivered next year. And when we look at the moment today, we see Lamborghini having a

three and a half million dollar, only 29 examples. You have this even anything like a

Roberto now is three quarters of a million dollars. Everything has got more and more

expensive. Do you see a cap on this? Or is there a natural cap on what people will spend?

I don't think so. I don't think so. And this is also the request from them,

because they want uniqueness. They want something which nobody else has. And

this rarity as a price. And that's also what race really is the value of the car

over the years. If there is only one, then for sure, when it appears on the market,

bam, but we are qualifying to make such a project with a very small circle of customers,

very loyal customers since many years, which have mini cars and so on. And

with people where we are sure that it will not be for gambling, you know,

we want that it keeps that in the collection, but is pleased to invest in that because

it will keep the value. Maybe it will be a pedal beach that conquers in 30 years time.

It's a fascinating. In terms of the propulsion, we talked a lot obviously with

Rimac Association and everything else. What's interesting, last came here

two or three years ago, you would have seen a lot of EVs today, almost none.

And this is also a feedback which we receive from our customers when we prepare the

development of the Tourbillon because naturally coming with Rimac together,

it would be natural to have a full electric car. But the direct feedback from our customer was,

please let us the emotion of ICE. And we did that with the W16 in the past, but we wanted to

change to get to the V16, which is naturally aspirated and to have a big acceleration

also with low raves. We use then the electric power, but the electric is there to support

the ICE. And it's not the only way to progress the car. So do you think for this end of the

market we are a long way away from you? I mean obviously you'll be legislated potentially

in Europe, potentially in China, but I would say so long we will be able to homologate the car

with an ICE, at least hybrid, we will do that. And the US maybe forever. Who knows?

That's crazy. What else are customers saying? I mean it's interesting,

me look around, you're not just competing against traditional brands, there's also a lot of the

Resto-Mod market is now in effect also millions of dollars. How do you see the whole picture changing?

I would say that the market is always more explosive, always higher price demanding. And

to the end they always want more uniqueness. And that's exactly the response to the Solitaire

programme. And I see also what keeps the value of the car over the years is also the authenticity.

And how you keep the authenticity is to have a real connection with the history of the brand.

And that was also one of the main purpose of our customers when he decided to go for the

Brouillard because he's now a real ambassador of the brand. He knows very well the way,

huge collection of artefacts from Robert Bugatti, from Carlo Bugatti and also from Bugatti cars.

And he really wanted to interact the past with the future. And I think this is the right decision

because you cannot only put a new shape on the chassis, it needs to have a sense to be

authentic and this is what we match. And this is what differentiates a lot of the western

brands with some of the startups and everything else, that sense of heritage.

And we have won with 16 years of heritage and when you look at how many types of cars

Ettore Bugatti did in the past, we have an endless list of, let's say, inspiration.

Yeah, for sure. Well, it's hugely exciting and thank you, appreciate your time today and

good luck with the weekend. Thank you, thank you very much.

Thanks. Okay, great job. Super fascinating guy. I love it. Definitely on talking about the design

and we didn't get into like vehicle specs because they're bespoke things that they're doing now

based off of some sort of existing chassis platform as he mentioned into it. But

two vehicles per year under the new specialty program and like you said,

takes three years to do, but they're starting to do like two a year. So I don't know that the

how far the engineers are getting into it yet when they're still probably in the design phase

other than the vehicle that they have there. But interesting because we're seeing Gordon Murray

doing something like this as well. I think everybody and we'll turn on to Lamborghini

after the break because we've got another interview to come. But it's just high margin.

You can go in, you can take an existing car. These cars will probably be built,

I believe, on the Tourbillon. It's based on an existing road car and then it's an aesthetic

job really rather than an engineering job. But then of course you've got to homologate

and crash it and there's a lot of like legislative red tape and especially depending

on where in the world it's going to end up. So there's all this stuff to do.

But even when you've done all that, they're still very lucrative and a great marketing tool as well

because part of the deal for this car will be, we're going to take it to Quail, we're going to take

it to Pebble Beach, this car will be shown off and the Brear and away you go. I mean,

it was interesting to say that there basically is no ceiling to how much people are willing

to pay here. It was quite honest because normally they're all like, sometimes you do

these interviews and they're all very kind of like PR trained and it's like, well, customers

are very careful with that money and all the rest of it was like, no, there's no real ceiling.

And exclusivity, that's the thing now. You're buying exclusivity. There's a value on exclusivity

and to be fair, we do see the reward of that at the car auctions. Like the car auctions

this year were phenomenal. I mean, prices were through the roof on so many things,

but that exclusivity is worth, I don't know, the five times extra that you pay for some of these

things. I think that's right. And also it's that club bit again that maybe in 30 years time

that Brear will be on the lawn at the Pebble Beach Concorde because it will now be a

classic car and it will be there as a one of one Bugatti and it will sit alongside the

Atlantique from the 30s and it will be, you know, it will be heralded as this incredible

one-off creation and that's what you're buying into. And it'll be worth 30 million dollars.

And it'll be worth 30 million dollars. And the other thing because they're saying about,

you know, do you want, nobody wants an EV and I think it was Chris, maybe it's not part

of the interview or it's a couple of other people that's talking about Bugatti and,

you know, they were comparing it because of course they're owned by Rimac and as he

points out, like now they're, this Rimac thing, well, everybody assumed then it would just

be an EV. Well, they've had to wake up pretty quickly and say nobody wants one.

As he said, yeah, his customers didn't want it. It's super interesting that they were this,

again, this honest, I thought it was a really good interview because like, no,

and I heard it talked about a lot about this whole watch analogy that,

yes, your Apple watch does a billion things, but it doesn't give you that sense of design

and engineering and craftsmanship that an IWC or a Rolex or a Patek Philippe does. So

I think it's exactly the same in the car thing that just, you know, if everything's an EV then,

you know, it's, and there's the long term longevity of the batteries that we've talked

about a million times on the show. So, yeah, there's a lot of reasons why people want the

gas car. Yeah. Okay. But knowing that, Lamborghini is going in a little bit

different direction. So let's take a quick break and then we'll talk about that.

Hey guys, it's Matt again. I just wanted to give a big shout out to everyone who's been coming out

to our Bravago Hard Seltzer tasting events and ordering online. If you haven't tried it yet,

here's what you're missing. Bravago is lightly carbonated, stevia free and bursting with

flavor. And guess what? It's not just great on its own. It's a perfect mixer to throw in

a splash of gin or vodka and you've got yourself a next level cocktail. Find it online

at drinkbravago.com or at our next event. That's drinkbravago.com.

Nobody does selling better than Shopify. Shopify is the home of the number one checkout on the planet

and the not so secret secret with shop pay that boosts conversions up to 50%,

meaning way less carts go abandoned and way more sales going through. So if you're into

growing your business, your commerce platform better be ready to sell wherever your customers

are scrolling or strolling on the web in your store in their feed and everywhere in between.

Businesses that sell more sell on Shopify. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout

that Skins uses. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period for three months at

shopify.com slash westwood one all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash westwood one to upgrade

your selling today shopify.com slash westwood one.

There I was scrolling my phone then someone cracked open a mountain drew Baja Cabo Citrus.

I grabbed my own and took a sip. Next thing I know I heard a rip. My friend tried the

splits and skinny jeans. The crew couldn't stop laughing. But hey, not a drop of Baja Cabo Citrus

was spilled. Have a blast with Mountain Dew Baja Cabo Citrus. A punch of tropical citrus flavor.

Member week is here for pros and lows. Get up to 40% off hundreds of items from tools and

paint to kitchen and bath and more just in time to stock up for this year's jobs. Plus

earn five times the points on an eligible purchase. Shop member deals in store and

online from January 8th through the 14th. Still not a member? Join for free today.

Lowes, we help, you save. Point boosters subject to exclusions and more terms

apply. Loyalty programs subject to terms and conditions. Visit lowes.com slash terms for

details subject to change. Okay, Lamborghini. So you sat down with was it the head of design?

This is the head of design called Misha Borkat who is ex Porsche. It's funny because now

Lamborghini, of course, is owned by the Volkswagen group. It sits alongside Porsche

in their lineup. Although they don't now, well, they sort of have Bugatti because Porsche is

still involved. But it's kind of interesting because Stefan Binckelmann, who's been his long

serving CEO, he kind of went away and came back. He's sort of German Italian and then

Misha is also German, you know, ex Porsche. And I kind of made that sort of made a complete

hash of the start of the interview because I was started to first, I couldn't remember

how the hell you pronounce the car. And then I sort of asked him how you do an Italian accent,

complete it for getting calls that he's German. But but a super nice guy. I mean,

he's, you know, he's, he's had a really fun career. And I think he just recognizes that

he's got this like amazing job. And he has to just keep reinventing

Lamborghinis. And, you know, that's kind of a nice legacy thing.

I like this interview. I like this guy. I love his, his Riz, as the kids would say,

I think he's a charismatic guy that really does exude passion for what he does. And without

even getting into the specs of the car, just getting into how it's different in design and

colors and how each one is unique. It's, it's pretty good. It's pretty special.

But let's talk about the car for a second, because let's tell us what the car is.

Oh, you're not going to ask me to pronounce it. No, it's the phenomenal. I figured that out.

For not phenomenal, phenomenal. Not the phenomenal. Your brain wants to say

phenomenal. This is the phenomenal. F E N O M E N O. That's why I can pronounce it

first time around. Phenomenon, which is, which of course is a Lamborghini. It was a fighting bull

because every Lamborghini is called named after a fighting bull. So this is

Lamborghini, a bit like the Bugatti thing. So Lamborghini is kind of suddenly cottoned on to

something a few years ago, that if we take our V12 car, we can then turn it into these

kind of like limited edition creation. So on the old Mercer Largo used to have the,

or that as having the Reventon kicked it off 20 2007. Let's look at my nose. That was based on

the Mercer Largo. Then it had the Aventador and we had the 2021 contact based on the Aventador.

Now the Roberto, which is Lamborghini's new sort of flagship production car.

That's now the base of the phenomenal.

So they, so what you basically do is it's a, it's a kid of parts, isn't it? You take the

Roberto, which you've done all the engineering on and then you say, okay, which are the bits that

we can't meddle with? Well, this, this and this. And then they take that and then they redesign

the body and then they tweak it just enough for bragging rights. I think in this instance,

they've got like a about 60 horsepower mole overall, which is probably manufacturing

tolerances when the things got over a thousand ponies. And then you say, right, this is unique.

We're going to build 29 of them and we know exactly who's going to buy them. So they're

all sold by the time they arrive at Quale and they're three and a half million bucks. I mean,

a Roberto, we had one in the office a couple of weeks ago, starts about 600 grand. The car

that we had $750,000. So you've got a multiple, what a five pretty much to then arrive at

this car. And again, what are you paying for? Well, does it perform better?

No, not really. What is it? What are you actually buying? You're buying exclusivity,

29 made, 29 sold. The uniqueness, the exclusivity you heard in the interview,

in the interview, you will hear in the interview. You haven't heard yet because we haven't played

it. But yeah, but talking about the colors and how basically each one will be unique,

I mean, there's 29. So it's not too difficult to make 29 different colors.

Well, he's also going to get sits down and I said part of that is that again,

we're talking about the club bit that, you know, the chief designer of Lamborghini sits down and

says, right, Matt, what do you, you know, what particular shade of blue are you looking for? And

I did sort of try and ask him about, you know, would you, would you say no to stuff if you,

you know, had particularly lurid or horrible combinations? And he sort of

didn't quite answer that one. I also pointed out it was good margin of this stuff. It

didn't like that either. But he didn't like that either. It didn't like that either. But

but yeah, I mean, he had a great response to it though. He had a very tactful response

going like, you know, he was like, I'm on the design side, but I appreciate business.

You know, we're still in a business. Yeah, he's got a good response to it.

Yeah, he was a good character. All right. So why don't, why don't we get into it?

Why don't we just play the interview? Okay. All right. All right. Here we go.

Okay, joined by Misha Borger, head of designer, Lamborghini has a pretty enviable job.

Here at Coel, you're debuting the

kind of how do I pronounce it with an Italian actor? Phenomenal. Phenomenal, which is a

bull, another, another famous Lamborghini fighter. Fighting bull. Yes, of course.

First of all, hi to everyone. Hi, Alistair. So great to be here with you very much.

So this is, this is going to be 29 cars for 29 customers. Are they already sold or is this

I mean, here, our chairman, Stefan Wigelmann, just announced in our press conference. Yes,

of course, all of them are sold. Yes. And it will be my pleasure then later on to do the

specs with all the customers. Oh, so you will individually say, yes, yes. It's our,

it's a promise that we have. We kept it already with the Sian project because,

you know, the Sian of some years ago, we created 19 roadster and 63 coupe in different

colors. So also here with the Phenomenal, I'm expecting really, really nice colors.

The one that we see here is a new yellow. I mean, we always come to the Quay Lodge,

we always come to California. So we always think then also on the launch color,

because here's the sunshine, 11 o'clock is always the sun is coming out. That's right.

You get a nice sunburn. We're walking around the car. But the yellow, it's called

Jalo Crescio and that is a new yellow with a lot of sparkle inside. So it's really,

yeah, it is really enlightening. It's quite close to the Lamborghini green or the Lamborghini green

as I think of it from the past. Like thinking about the Kuntag and things like that from the

70s, it's quite close to that. But you're calling it a yellow, not a green. You know,

we are never standing still also in terms of color. So with every car that we create,

there will always be a new color. We have already 400 different colors in our palette.

So this is one more beautiful color.

And if you have 29 cars, do you sit down with every customer and say, well, actually,

you know, sort of Dirk in Germany has this color and German America has this,

and now you must have something different?

Yeah, it's pretty much like that. So I mean, in the end of the day,

at one point, I will see all the cars together. It was fantastic at the time with the Kuntag,

for example. We had the production and then for one moment, I see most of them together

until like, I don't know, like your child is then leaving, I don't know, going to Japan,

to the US, to Europe, wherever. So in the end of the day, this will be fun too,

because this is the next part of the process to do the 29 cars. We have already, let's say,

a couple of teasing images to where we have created also ourselves,

our, let's say, our dream colors, but it will be for sure fun because for sure,

there will be some customers saying, I want to have my own color. So it will be fun.

Yeah, there's some good margin in that as well. So I mean, as a designer,

I'm for sure looking more into the beauty of the things.

And do you ever sit down and say, you know, somebody comes with a car,

you're just like, this is going to look terrible. Do you have those conversations?

Yeah, I would say I have my own conversations with myself. I mean, in the end of the day,

I'm always, I know that we have always high expectations to fulfill. It's clear when you

create a Lamborghini. It's clear that here, I don't know how many thousand people were watching

this press conference. So everyone has his opinion about how a Lamborghini should look like.

So for sure, there is a lot of pressure. I'm always putting away this pressure because

otherwise I could not live, I could not be creative. So I don't, I wouldn't say I don't care. I care

for sure. But it is something I need to take away like an athlete, you know, when you want to do a

good performance, you take away this pressure. You have to put the blinkers out a little bit.

But I'm for sure very critical about what we do. We are perfectionists for sure because

until not the last millimeter is solved in the best possible way in the timing that you have,

you are not satisfied. I was talking to the head of Corvette design last night. He said the

same thing that designing a Corvette is like a massive privilege, but also like such a pressure

because there is so many opinions, so much controversy, everything that goes with it.

You can imagine. So it's about, it's about, it's about, you know, to unveil and then you

want to have this wow effect. So it's always something unexpected also for us, you know,

because you have your plan, you have your idea. I mean, in the beginning when we start a project

like this, of course we do crazy sketches, we march ahead, but at one point I'm always

taking the team saying, guys, wait a minute. What is our idea for this car? So and for me,

I came up with this idea hyper elegant as a term. And I think this is what the car is expressing,

is the hyper elegant. This is a very elegant design, very muscular shapes, almost like an

athlete coming out of the gym, but of course with the sharp lines of a Lamborghini being

authentic also with our silhouette. Do you think a lot of cars today, particularly in the,

let's say, the luxury market are almost over designed? There's so much design and you

look at some of the older cars here and they're elegant, they're simple and this,

I know there's a lot of arrow work here, but it is a slightly more, I agree with you,

it's a slightly more elegant look. It ties more, more about protecting its longevity.

Look, Lamborghini for me has to work from, it has to be a professor who is recognizable

from far away. So I mean, in the end of the day, Lamborghini is always an iconic

piece of art. The Miura is iconic, the Kuntac is iconic. So I see our cars,

it was my first experience seeing Lamborghini. You see them from far away. You see, I don't,

I remember I came here to the highway number one. I saw a Kuntac arriving and you can see that

car, you can recognize it from a mile away. When I'm working in Italy, when I see our

Lamborghini arriving, when I drive to work every morning, I can see from a mile away,

it has a Lamborghini arriving. So this is my first criteria that we create something that

you can recognize from far away. My criteria is if I'm among all the other super sports cars,

that are all very nice cars, but I want that the people recognize the Lamborghini.

If I have one Lamborghini parked among the other, you can always recognize the Lamborghini.

So this is about the silhouette. It's about the special architecture. It's about the inclination

of the side windows. So this is my number one thing that I'm watching. Because you don't have,

once you've drawn in those touch points, you don't have a lot of creative freedom. Once you

put the windows in, once you put the wedge in, it kind of restricts your freedom a little bit.

It is, yes, but in my opinion, if a company like Lamborghini, if we have this definition,

this is not the boundary, but this is a creative path where you are able to dance.

Let me speak a word. We're all dancing the tango and it's how we do it.

Let me take music as an idea. Look, I see it always like this. Lamborghini, we are now a brand,

we are now a band, we are now an artist that is playing music since 62 years.

And you're the Rolling Stones perhaps. No, no, no, we are much younger.

So we are more, I don't know. I'm a big fan of Depeche Mode. Maybe some of you are

listeners will not know them, but for me, we need to play different rhythms. We need to play

a different beat with every project. So the Temerario that is standing right next to us here

is having a different form language, design language than the Phenomenal. And the Phenomenal

is different. So in the end of the day, we always play some different songs. But because I like

music, when I go to a show, when I see a concert, I want to see the tension. I want to see that

the show is building up. So there will be, I don't know, in the middle of the show,

Peak Point, and then there's another song coming. So I see it a little bit like this

with our cars. So we have to create the Lamborghini, but always something different.

And speaking about music, I know now we're going to be here.

I'm also interested. Last year, when you showed the Temerario, you showed it in quite a dark color.

It was, I believe it was like a matte blue color. I forget the exact name.

This year, you've come with the bright orange. Is that a, I mean, obviously that's deliberate,

but what's the thinking? Yeah, it's the same. It is this holistic approach that we have. So

we always, it's not, it's not just designing a car. And then, I don't know, you go to present.

So for me, there is a story that has to be, that has to be holistic. So last year,

because the Temerario was the new car last year, and we wanted to underline the

the puristic lines of that car. And this matte blue color was really fitting perfectly to the

shape of the Temerario because it made it look really like a piece of design, very consistent and

very, let's say, like a design piece. The phenomenon is the opposite. The phenomenon

is a car, three and a half million. We are also here being in the Quay Lodge. It was clear

at 11 o'clock there will be the sun out and this yellow, that is incredible, beautiful yellow,

is really like switched on. And to this year, we are, by the way, we are celebrating our iconic

color. So we have a new yellow. So this is a new yellow. But then we have also Revuelto and a very

nice livery green, black, carbon fiber, white lines with an Italian flag with the red brake

caliper. And the Temerario, we are showing in the Algerita pack, which is the lightweight package

in orange, that is also fitting very well to the Temerario. We just had the Revuelto, the Edmunds

test truck, and this was actually the fastest non-EV we've ever tested. It's extraordinary.

The phenomenon is a car. I want to add also that we are celebrating 20 years of Centro

Stile. So we are now having the 20 years of design decisions from St. Agata Bolognese.

I can only invite everyone that is having a funny day in Italy, come by, take a look at

St. Agata, visit our museum, visit our factory. I think it's a great place to be.

Sounds like a nice invite. Thank you. Thank you so much, Schueta. I'm really,

really enjoying the car and this is always a great specter. I say we recently had this on

the test truck and it was sensational. So thank you as always. Thanks everyone. Have a good

time and see you in the future. Thank you. Stop saving. Okay, there you go.

Thinking about it more though, the jump from a $700,000 vehicle to getting the unique version

that's three and a half million, how many $700,000 versions do they plan on doing anyway? It's not

like they're going to make 10,000 of those. No, I think I've told my head I haven't got

the figures in front of me. Lamborghini, because the Urus is the biggest selling Lamborghini, the SUV.

And the new one, right? They replaced the Temma Mario.

Yeah, so the Temma Mario, the range now looks, you've got the Temma Mario, which is the new

Huracan. And that'll be their mainstream sports car. Yeah, that will be the main

stream. And that in itself has got more expensive. So they're like 300 grand plus.

So I think of the sports cars, I want to say Lamborghini still makes about

$6,000 a year. I think that's about right. Then it's sort of slightly less than that now.

Anyway, you're going to see slightly more sales of Temma Mario, and then the Rebelta will be less.

So you're talking hundreds a year. And right, if you said you've already got exclusivity.

If you said, hey, we're going to make $5,000 of those cars and then $29

of the three and a half million dollar version, I get it. But if you're going to make

600 of those cars and 29 of the three and a half million dollar version, that's a pretty big jump.

But, you know, as he pointed out, and as the Bugatti guy pointed out, it is that

exclusivity that makes it so much more special for that customer and the value of that car.

While you were just talking, I was looking at like the Aventador, which was the one of the foreigners,

this V12 built between February 2011, September 2022, $11,500 built. Now,

that's too many to have the exclusivity. It's more than you think as it runs for 11 years.

To be honest, that's more than I thought. So they're building basically $1,000 a year

pretty much. Yeah, that's way more than I thought. Which I remember people saying about

the Ferrari F40, they built, I think 1,100 Ferrari F40s. That's too many to be, you know, too many to

be genuinely exclusive and have this kind of crazy value. Now, I think F40s have become so iconic

that the values are going up and up anyway. But it took a while to get there and it's still,

you know, 1,100 is a lot, 11,000 is way too many. And although they do lots of like

iterations, roadsters, coupes, all sorts of like special additions to try and bring

exclusivity. Overall, it's still too many. Whereas if you're saying in this case, well,

we're going to take the, you know, Rebelto of which we are going to build 10,000 over the next decade

here, you know, but we will do 29 of this. Again, you're protecting your investment.

Yeah. Because I don't think your $750,000 Rebelto is going to be worth

$3 million in five years time or 10 years time because it's just too many.

Yeah. Everybody's got one.

Whereas your $3.5 million to Phenomenon, it's going to be worth, you know,

probably north of that. It depends, right? We've seen it. Sometimes you get it wrong. We've seen

things like the McLaren Center. Everybody thought it was going to be worth millions and

millions at the moment. It's not, you know, it's, you know, there's that you can get

it wrong. But generally speaking, you know, a brand like Lamborghini knows what it's doing.

Don't do too many, 29. Spread them around the world. We know exactly the customers that are

going to buy them. So the risk here, though, is unlike the Bugatti,

who's unsure about the longevity of EV and hybrid. Lamborghini is still trying to sell

a high performance car. And right now, performance gets an add-on through hybrid

technology. Well, that's also true of Bugatti. I think in Turbillon, it's going to have,

Turbillon is going to be hybrid. What they're going to, and they both use it in the same way.

They're basically saying, we've got a massive V12 engine, or it's W16, isn't it, in the Bugatti.

And then we're going to, but then, certainly in Bugatti, what is naturally aspirated,

and it's like, okay, well, how do we deal with that low-end torque issue? Well, we have

electric motors. So they are, but they're much, much smaller batteries. They're, you know,

you're not got, you know, 100, 200 kilowatt-hour batteries. These are small batteries that are

used just to support the gas car. So I think, and because, you know, so much of the market

now is hybrid, I think it's much less of a risk than building, you know, a pure EV.

Except there's still some risk in the collectability of it. Because in 30 years ago,

on the lawn on Pebble Beach, is the hybrid system even working? You know,

is it going to just go out under its ice, you know, under the engine power? Like, how is it going to

work? Which I think is one of the things that hurt the value of the Senna. There wasn't necessarily

a good program in place of going, how do we replace batteries? La Ferrari, arguably as well,

where I believe Porsche is already investing in that going. We understand the collectability.

Now we need to make sure anything we do that's hybrid technology has

aftermarket parts available, support available, even if they partner with a third-party company

that's going to supply batteries or certain components, you know, for decades down the road,

what do you do with Lamborghini or Bugatti or McLaren Senna or P1 or like, what's going to

happen to that? I think you've got to believe like 20, 30 years down the road that the

market will sort this out, because also like there's going to be so much more electrification,

everything's going to be hybrid, the expertise and knowledge is going to be better in 30 years

time, so you've got to imagine they'll sort it out. I think it's more of a, for me, it's more

of a challenge with the pure EVs, just because of the scale of the batteries and then how much

they cost. If you're talking about a, you know, a pretty modest little battery in a hybrid

system, it feels less of a concern and, you know, frankly, everybody's doing it now. So,

you know, I think the market will be right.

A good point you mentioned RIMAC and how they're involved on the EV side, and they have this

incredible performance EV supercar, but not selling a lot.

Well, also it was there and I said, you know, where is it? And they said,

yeah, it's here, but we didn't even bother putting it on display. It just seems the market,

I opinion, Farina had the Batista, isn't it, which was based on the RIMAC and nobody's,

I don't know how many they're selling it. It's, people just don't, people just don't want it.

And I think this is the, you know, we've talked about EVs so much on the show that this is the

problem, you know, you've got to, you've got to create a market unless you completely

legislate for it and say, you cannot, you cannot buy something else, which let's face it,

China and Europe to a certain extent are doing, you know, if America is going out on a

different route of saying, we're not going to legislate for this by what you want, then it's

harder. A quick search on, because I remember seeing something on this. So just looking at

the RIMAC, Navara, I think the plan was to make about 150 cars, but I think they've only made

about 50 or delivered 50 to customers. I'm surprised, as far as it means 50. And then the

the Batista, yeah, the pinning Farina Batista, which I drove was spun off the

the river. It uses a lot of the same technology, but it's a bit prettier, you know, from pinning

Farina. So yeah, it's, yeah, maybe, you know, in 50 years time, will that be on Pebble Beach

as the first like, you know, electric hypercar, maybe actually, maybe that and the Batista,

because they were so exclusive and because they were kind of era defining, you can kind of see it.

So yeah, it's going to be a tough one. I think people have invested so much money into those

when they're buying them that they will they will figure out ways to make those things survive.

Yeah, it's good keeping the chemistry though. It's all, I mean, I don't like professor,

I'm no chemist, but I know there's a lot of battery chemistry that, you know, if it just

sits there for 40 years, what do you do? I mean, what do you do? Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Awesome. Thanks for that. I think those interviews were great.

A different perspective from just getting into the details of the cars and the

specs of the cars. We can have plenty of that information. You mentioned the Lamborghini,

you guys got it out onto the test track, not the Phenomenon, not the, not the 29 made version,

but just the three quarter of a million dollars version, which I sure as always love when

we ring them up and say we have a high value vehicle. So that one, you guys got onto the

Edmunds test track. So looking forward to seeing that. And let's just say it's quick.

It's quick. The fastest non-EV we've ever ever tested. So, all right. Yeah. There you go.

All right, guys. Thanks so much for listening. Is there anything else we're missing? What else

is on there? No, I think next week we will, we will probably move on from car. We can start

talking about cars that we can all actually afford. Maybe. We'll come back down to

with. Yeah. All right. Guys, thanks so much for listening. Until then, keep the air in the spare

and the bag in the wheel. There I was scrolling my phone. Then someone cracked open a Mountain Dew

Baja Cabo Citrus. Next thing I know, I heard a rip. My friend tried the splits and jeans,

but not a drop was spilled. Have a blast with Mountain Dew Baja Cabo Citrus. A punch of tropical

citrus flavor.

CarCast+Edmunds - Live Interviews with Bugatti and Lamborghini from Monterey Car Week

Ford Ranger

F-150 Raptor

Porsche 911

Golf Gtd

Ford Gtd Mustang

Ford Bronco

BMW X5

Bronco Raptor

Ford Gt

Bugatti Veyron

Bugatti Type 57

Cadillac V16

Lamborghini Reventon

Lamborghini Aventador

Lamborghini Sian

Chevrolet Corvette

Lamborghini Miura

Revuelto

Lamborghini Urus

Lamborghini Huracan

Ferrari F40

Smart Roadsters Coupes

About this episode

Original notes