Do Car Enthusiasts Drive Volvo’s? We Ask A Subject Matter Expert

You are listening to the analog and grit podcast.

I'm your host, Victor Troyer, and I'm Dylan, returning guest, and I am William Shoemaker, first-time

guest.

What's up, William?

Welcome to the podcast for the first time.

Thank you.

Yeah.

So we got, I like to say, mainstay Dylan.

I don't know if you've noticed in the descriptions.

Oh, no, I haven't.

Yeah.

That's accurate.

Yeah, because we had a co-host for a long time.

His name is Justin, the one that had the Cadillac, and he would obviously be on pretty much every

single podcast.

And then he went on a little bit of a hiatus, and so he now calls himself the what, the

sometimes co-host or whatever he wants to say.

But honestly, in the last, I don't know, three months, Dylan's been on it way more

than him.

So mainstay Dylan.

So William Shoemaker.

So what makes you a car enthusiast?

Oh, jeez, I get this question far more often than I'd expect.

So I grew up a lot around cars.

Both of my parents are like car people.

I'd say I've gotten way deeper into it than they have, but like my dad growing up had

a Lotus Europa and Fiat, see, like his first car was a Fiat 124 Sport Coupe, which is

apparently impossible to find these days.

My mom, like in college, had a Mark I Ravage GTI.

So like they've always been into cool cars.

And when I was growing up, they were given the choice of, they could either buy a brand

new Chrysler Town & Country minivan, or for the same price, through a client of my dad's,

my dad's a real estate broker, they were able to get a three-year-old Jaguar XJ6.

So they just like, we're going to go with the XJ.

And so I grew up in the backseat of one of those.

And I've always kind of fallen in love with cars from there and kind of really started

leaning into it like in middle school.

And at the time, my parents had a Volvo V70, which I still have.

And I got into cars like through all the forums of how to modify Volvos and all the

things people were doing with them back then.

Even though I wouldn't say it's necessarily my favorite brand currently, even though

I do work for them at the moment, it was kind of like the gateway that opened

that or the gateway that opened into that world.

Right.

Okay.

So I do want to talk about Volvos in this episode because we never do.

Right.

I know like, well, here's the thing though, because Volvos are like for the longest

time, a brand that's kind of associated with safety, families, right?

Like they have wagons, right?

Kind of like how Subaru's have wagons soon to be had past tense.

Yeah.

Just we're not the market for wagons, right?

We're the market, US market for crossovers, but they do make some, what kind of

enthusiast spec cars, Volvos, right?

I know they have the R design, which is kind of designed to be sporty.

Actually, in the past, in the past, yeah.

You know, and they've made manuals, hatchbacks, right?

I remember we were at car week this past week and we were driving or walking

along downtown Monterey and we saw a C30 hatchback.

The Polestar one?

It wasn't the Polestar one.

The blue.

But you didn't notice a Polestar Volvo.

We did spot another one that was blue.

Yeah, I saw that.

I think I saw that car on East Carmel Valley Road too last week.

So you were at Monterey?

I was.

Yeah, I've been going every year for the past four years.

Cool.

Yeah.

This was our first time as a group.

My personally, it was my third time, second, like actual time, but it was

nice to go with the whole group.

And, you know, for them, it was their first time.

So seeing them geek out over the amount of Xotics or hypercars, I mean, got to

the point where like, you know, Coen and Ziggs were just like, whatever.

Oh, yeah, it's insane every year.

It's like there's always the first moment of the week where you're

like, that's insane.

And it was there's a parking garage in downtown Monterey.

And my one this year was like in the parking garage in downtown.

And I pulled into the parking garage, we were going into the Portola Hotel

and I walked around the corner and there was an SP3 just parked

between a Jeep Patriot and a Camry, just like in a public parking garage.

And it's like nowhere, nowhere else on earth does that happen.

Yeah, no, exactly.

I mean, it was everything and everyone was there that was in the car industry.

Oh, yeah.

I believe on Xotics on Broadway, that event where I think we were at

lemons, so we didn't go to it.

But Christian von Koenigsegg was driving his car down the street.

Like in the way it was a kind of like a parade style.

You know, everyone was lined up.

And yeah, I mean, you don't know who's going to show up.

Obviously, all the influencers were there.

Oh, yeah, I saw Harry Metcalfe in the Portola.

And I was like, it was the most starstruck I've ever been in my life.

Yeah, we were where were we some kind of restaurant

and Jason Kamise is eating in the back.

Oh, I had lunch with him my first car week.

Oh, yeah, super sweet guy.

Yeah, yeah.

Anyway, so it was just cool to be be there, right?

It's something that I feel like we're going to probably do every year.

Right? How could you not as a car enthusiast?

You know, so especially when you live here,

like if it's just a five hour drive up the road, why not?

More like seven. Oh, yeah, I mean, nine if I'm in my van again.

So. But yeah, I do want to talk Volvos

because would you say you're a Volvo subject matter expert?

Um, ashamedly, yes, I can confirm.

It's it's to the point where it's sad.

It's like, I can point out, I can point out colors

and know the name of the colors and like it started to gotten the point

even with the new ones where I'm like that gray was available only in 2023 and 2024.

It's it's awful.

I'm ashamed of it in many aspects.

But yes, I am a subject matter expert.

Cool, perfect. So good.

So now our audience knows we're talking to the guy, right?

So not only do you work for the company,

but you own one, right?

So two, two at the moment.

Yes, OK, I have five.

Let's talk about it.

Yeah, so my first one and it's actually it was our family's first Volvo.

It's a 2002 V 70 cross country, objectively,

kind of a boring car in the grand scheme of things.

But I've always really liked them and it's I have five cylinder station wagon,

all wheel drive, turbo, pretty fun.

And like I'm currently like or I've been in the process

for years of building it into like what middle school me wanted to build it into.

It's like my mom's like ultimate hot wagon.

And I've got HREs on it now, coil overs.

Oh, gosh, like basically every handling mod of P2 platform Volvo can get.

It's got racing buckets.

What? Yeah, a bred Vios three and the driver for the driver's side.

I think I want to pull positions next,

but just really stupid stuff for a car that's like worth maybe fifteen

hundred dollars.

And this is the C 70 of the V 70 wagon.

The wagon. Gotcha.

So my parents are actually some very close friends of ours,

bought that new and we went out to dinner with them the night they took delivery of it.

So like I remember that car like 20, oh, gosh, 23 years ago.

It's so insane to me that car is that old.

But we bought I remember it when they bought it new

and then my parents bought it at two years old and we've had it ever since.

OK. And then there's a C 70.

Yes, the C 70 is I bought that intention.

I intended to flip it very quickly and it's been about over a year now, Jesus.

But some life circumstances have come into the way.

But yeah, I have a 98 C 70 high pressure turbo manual

coupe in the brochure spec Saffron.

Nice. So they made a manual coupe C 70

in pretty much this like goldish orange

brown because Saffron to me, I think of like, you know, like the food,

like Saffron, it's kind of yellowy, but this kind of has like a copper.

Yeah, copper looks like your sunglasses.

Oh, yeah, I should have driven it today.

Well, not your sunglasses, maybe your eyeglasses.

Yeah, my frames.

So tell us about it like, obviously, it's a manual coupe.

So that right off the bat is, you know, to an enthusiast, going to be cool.

Oh, yeah. Right.

So I actually actually my history at the C 70 goes back to the son

of the people who owned my V 70 had one.

He bought one new at the same dealer that my wagon came from.

Volvo Escondido for all your local SD peeps.

And he or what is it?

He used to work as he's a close friend of my dad's.

And he used to work as a mechanic for Honda's formula

at Formula Atlantic team way back in the late 90s.

And he needed a daily since he was doing a lot of miles and he bought a Volvo C 70

high pressure turbo coup automatic triple black, a pretty cool car.

But like and he took good care of it.

But cosmetically, it was kind of beat and I ended up buying it in high school

for 500 bucks and I like put a new radiator in it.

And I thought I was hot shit.

And even though like clearly it was just some old broken Volvo.

But they're a really cool car.

I love how they look like Peter Horbury designed did the design on it.

Really, it's like quite gorgeous lines and like compared to the convertibles,

they're a lot less common and the coups are a lot more structurally rigid.

So they drive a lot nicer.

But yeah, I've always I sold that car like back when I started college

and I said if I ever bought another one, it had to be like a brochure spec orange one.

And there was this one color called Saffron where it was like what they did

on all of the press cars, the press release. Yeah.

Yeah. So there's like there's an old top care video with Quentin Wilson.

He reviewed it like in period.

But it was actually they did the press release in Santa Barbara.

I have a photo of like a 747 arriving in LAX with the nose opening

and it's just filled with orange Volvo coupes.

It's ridiculous.

But like that was the press color and it's super, super rare.

Like of the they only according to the historian of Volvo

when we like reached out to them, it's somewhere around 145 or so

painted Saffron.

They're not really great at the record keeping, but they reckon

that's about what was delivered to the North American market.

And this particular one, I was, oh, yeah, about a year ago,

I was working for a different company and I was flying back from a business trip.

And I was flying from out of country and I landed in San Diego.

And I turned on my phone.

The first thing I got was a text from Dan Goulson, editor at Plopnik.

And he had a link to a Craigslist ad and he just said, you need to buy this.

And I opened the Craigslist ad.

And it sounds like the text Dylan sends me at 11 30 at night.

That's exactly always the text of a great friend.

Honestly, that's that's that's the support we did in our lives.

But we I opened it and I'm like,

it said it was a C 98 C 70 coupes Saffron.

And the ad, it didn't show any pictures of the interior.

It was only like two or three pictures.

And the readout was like the specs you would find on Kelly Blue Book.

And they just said 50,000 miles manual, 7000 or $7,900.

And we were like, or maybe I shouldn't have claimed how much I paid for it.

Can we redact that?

It's all good, man.

No, no one's going to hold it to you on the auction site.

Actually, it's I will claim it.

It has needed some work.

But but yeah, I ended up buying this car and had 50.

We went, we responded to it or responded to the ad.

And I or I looked at the ad and I noticed there was a VIN number on it.

And so I ran the VIN and I realized he had been using the same

the same Volvo specialist we've been going to in Escondido for the past 20 years.

And it turns out I had seen the car in person like about a decade prior.

And I was like, no way, it's that's the exact same car.

And we showed up and I was an old retired doctor.

The Vanity Plates MD JD one since he was doctor and a lawyer.

And but yeah, it was so beautiful.

And I was like, we have to save it and move it on to its next life.

And so we struck a deal and brought it home and we've had we've had some fun with it.

That's awesome, man. That's a cool story.

So it sounds like, you know, you had a friend tell you about this car.

Yeah, you went out, obviously couldn't wait to get it

because you knew already that saffron color was rare.

Yeah. Right.

And I'd already seen the car like I knew it was nice.

Like the decade prior, I'd seen it.

And then it was like, ooh, like knowing that my mechanic worked on it.

I was like, I feel very safe going into this transaction.

Makes sense.

I might my I only trust I usually work on my own cars,

but the only two people I trust have a BMW guy up in San Jose

and then my Volvo guy in Escondido.

And that's it. I don't trust anybody else to work on my stuff.

OK, so you mentioned earlier that Volvo is kind of a brand

that you're a little bit of shame to say you're the subject matter expert in.

Right. And maybe not ashamed, but you're embarrassed.

I don't know. It seemed that way. Right.

So let's let's do this.

Why don't you expand on the brand itself, you know, from an enthusiast

like, because I feel like most people don't maybe associate

Volvos with enthusiasts, right?

Yeah, like they consider them, like I mentioned earlier, family oriented, safe.

No one no one's thinking about safety when it comes to enthusiasts by cars.

So go ahead and just elaborate on the brand and talk about, you know,

maybe where do you see Volvo in the future?

Oh, yeah. Oh, that's actually those are two very interesting questions.

But like elaborating at least on an enthusiast perspective is I think

actually Volvo has been a much more enthusiast brand for far longer than we imagine.

I've a there's actually a co-worker of mine at the dealership.

I work at his father.

He's from he's actually Kenyan by descent and he grew up in East Africa.

And his father was a race car driver

and actually drove four Volvo in the great East African rally.

And I think they were PV five four fours,

like one of the very early production cars Volvo did.

And so both of us had like quite a quite a quite a good rally history for years.

And they've gotten they've they just they've gotten got more and more

more and more into sport, like especially in the early 90s,

like the in the British Touring Car Championship, they race the eight fifty.

Oh, yeah.

And yeah, actually, I think they've competed in like the Australian V eight

supercar championship.

I know something something in Australia,

but they have they've competed in far more race series than you imagine.

So they they have created like kind of enthusiast cars.

So even though that they're safe,

Volvo recognizes that or at least I and I still believe this even in their

product today, they recognize that it's

it is important to make the car good enough to drive to avoid an accident

where it's it's pleasant enough on the road and handles well,

like to the to the average consumer who isn't going down the corkscrew

Laguna, they handle well and they're like they're really good cars.

And then but like for those old there's previous sportier ones

like my C seventy even or actually the C seventy for example is a great

is a great example.

It's based on the same platform as the eight fifty are so turbocharged

five cylinder and they had and Volvo

partnered with Tom Walkinshaw Racing, TWR, the do all the chassis development,

the redevelop the eight fifty platform for the coup.

And then they went in together to build a to build a plant

and they formed a company called Auto Nova to do like all the R&D work

behind the the handling in the C seventy.

So it's Volvo is like they have a lot of motor sports backing in places

you wouldn't imagine. OK.

What do you think, Dylan?

Yeah, I mean, I think that's something that a lot of people don't realize.

And I think if you talk to somebody who's like so disconnected

from cars who just gets in their car and drives to work

and doesn't think about any of the traffic around them,

they'd kind of be like if you ask them, they'd be like, oh, Volvo.

Yeah, I forgot about that company, you know, like average people

who aren't really enthusiasts and then guys like us, of course,

think of like the turbocharged wagons and stuff like that.

But I think there probably is a lot of Volvo history,

enthusiast history that's overlooked.

So it's cool that that Williams shed a little bit of light on that.

And unfortunately, I think it's kind of dying, at least in their current product.

Which yeah, there you go.

Segway into the future of Volvo, because, you know,

they're obviously heavily invested in the SUVs, right?

Now you have XC 40, XC 60, XC eight, 90.

EX 90, we have all electric offerings now too.

Right. So do you see that brand, you know,

creating like maybe a halo car, something that like could get people

into the showroom specifically, you know, to bring prestige to the brand?

I think they've tried and this is I guess maybe I should preface

this prefaces with these thoughts reflect my thoughts personally

and not of Volvo cars, North America or Volvo cars, Carlsbad.

You can come and get a greatly steel on an EX 90.

But Volvo has kind of tried to do that with our EX 90.

It's our flagship three row electric SUV.

And it was meant to as we were as the world was meant to go more electric

to be the to what is it to take over for the XC 90

in the three row electric space in Volvo's lineup.

And it's become very clear that the world isn't going all electric

as fast as we think it is.

And on top of that, Volvo worked really hard to rush the EX 90 out.

Volvo kind of has a legacy of this, unfortunately,

like especially when a new platform is coming out.

Very first couple of model years are a little

in terms of like reliability and quality.

And at the moment, every EX 90 I've driven on a test drive

as I until actually yesterday or two days ago has failed in some sort of way.

It's thrown like air lights and it's had to go to the service department

get something fixed.

They've just been like nothing but problem children.

But so at least in that perspective of the brand,

it can be a little bit doom and gloomy.

And then also on top of that, on the doom and gloom side,

where they've gotten rid of our Polestar engineered products.

I had a client very like a couple of months back

who wanted a allocation for a V 60 Polestar

and we reached out to Volvo corporate and they went, nope,

no more V 60 Polestar's or XC 60 Polestar's.

And so they're like, they're just abandoning the.

So like our very minor toe hold, we had the compete

against like BMW or Audi and like the performance base

is kind of gone.

But on the other side, like the general product line,

like XC 60 and XC 90, especially are actually

they're great cars.

They're late in their production cycle, so everything works.

And like XC 60, actually, a couple of weeks ago,

took over the Volvo 240 is the most produced

nameplate in Volvo's history.

They've produced more XC 60s since I think like 2010

when the first gen XC 60 came out, then they produced

all of Volvo 240 production.

So the XC 60 is a good product.

The 90 is our plug in hybrid product is so much better

than everybody else's.

Like when you I wrote in a CX 90 during car week

and I was like, wow, this is a nice interior, good car.

And then as soon as you felt the drivetrain, you're like,

this is this doesn't feel good.

But like Volvo's plug in hybrids are really way ahead of the game.

And I think are actually good value.

Even even after the seventy five hundred dollar tax credit goes away.

What was Volvo's most recent like flagship car,

the electric one, the whole story.

It was the Polestar.

It was like Polestar one.

That was Polestar two.

Polestar one, so the Polestar one.

We've actually been watching the.

So our entire staff, if you ever wanted to buy a Volvo

and you want to buy it from an enthusiast,

come to Volvo Carlsbad.

We're all we've been watching the values of Polestar once for a while.

And I think they're in like the low seventies.

But it's interesting that that was just as like Volvo.

Volvo tried to split Polestar off into a separate brand

for their all electric thing.

And frankly, at least internally,

we don't think it's working particularly well.

But that Polestar one is very cool.

That would have been like cars.

That would have been like their car

to try to bring people in the showroom, though, right?

Like when it came out, that was the car

they were kind of trying to show off to launch the brand.

It would have been the halo.

And I think the unfortunate thing that they did there was

there wasn't a dealer network that that anybody knew about.

And it was quite expensive too, right?

It was it was on six figures or above.

And it was really interesting.

I remember seeing them Hertz stock them in the dream collection

at the San Diego airport, so you could just like rent one.

Wasn't there a Polestar dealer at the UTC mall?

I think so.

Or they had like a they operated.

Yeah, they operated more

on like the Tesla variety of where there was a front.

And yeah, but clearly it isn't working particularly well.

Unfortunately.

OK, so as far as enthusiast spec volvos,

would you say like the eight fifty are right?

Like what would be like the best enthusiast

spec car for that brand?

That's a great question

because they did make like a V 70 turbo, right?

Yeah, with ours turbo.

Are you saying that's currently available brand?

No, no, no, just of all time, we don't care about new cars.

OK, we're talking like in the past,

what would be the coolest Volvo you can buy

that was an enthusiast spec model?

I think they're actually like kind of a few cool ones.

We're mainly well like the second gen V 70 are.

I personally don't like the P two V 70 ours

because of the four C suspension, but like they are cool.

They're six speed all wheel drive turbo five cylinder

like electro magneto shock absorbers,

like really advanced pieces of tech for the mid two thousands.

They come with orange interiors.

Actually, we saw a flash green Atacama one in traffic at Car Week.

And I was like, only crap, I've never seen one in that spec.

So those are cool. So V 70 are V 70 are as well.

Anything with the Yamaha V eight, actually, like even the XC 90

was like those are really neat since they the V eights

in those cars were developed or developed and built by Yamaha.

Oh, cool. And they sound like if you ever hear

there's a guy who's an Escondido who drives around with an exhaust on one

on just like a basic XC 90 and it sounds absolutely incredible.

It shouldn't sound that good.

I'm looking up Polestar one values sixty seven five.

Oh, it's going down in the past. Yeah, it's going down.

So yeah, we were we were looking at we were looking at these

like not too long ago and they were like in the low to mid seventies.

So how V 70 are eight.

You said eight fifty eight fifty.

I think S 60 are two.

Yeah, those are catch peoples.

Any time I'm out with friends who are car guys

and we drive past one, they always take notice.

Oh, how on a S 60 are my neck on a V 60 Polestar at Car Week.

Like I was coming out of the parking garage and yeah.

So our could mean like it's not naturally aspirated, right?

Is it usually like a five cylinder that's forced induction?

Depends on model gear.

Oh, gosh, Volvo's nomenclature is garbage.

And it's actually a very funny story that brings an Audi.

So I get this question from customers all the time.

They're like, what are the numbers on the back meat?

And I'm like, really? Not anything.

But like Volvo, when the when they built the first generation S 40,

they launched it at the Geneva Motor Show in 1995, I believe.

And they they didn't badge it as the S 40.

They badged it as the F or the S four.

And they badged the wagon as the F four.

And every and Volvo is like, this is our new car.

And they printed all the brochures.

They had the model or the show cars there with the badges on the back

that said S four and Audi was like,

we own that nameplate like we have a car called the S four.

You can't do that.

And then Volvo was like, oh, shit.

Let's make it the S 40 and the F 40.

And then I presume Ferrari was like, you can't call that either.

And then they called it the V 40.

And then that's how Volvo's

ain't Volvo's entire nomenclature is based on the stake.

I say so. But like I'm sorry, that was a little bit of a digress.

But in terms of no worries, in terms of the numbers on the back of the car,

it used to mean that like the T was the high pressure turbo,

even though the R's also had the high pressure.

This is not going to make any sense, right?

Because it's T five, T six.

Yeah, T five.

So like if we're looking back in the early 2000s,

the T five was the high pressure turbo five cylinder

and the T six was the turbo six cylinder.

And but now Volvo or like

and when the four cylinder S S P a platform came out like 2016,

T five, T six and T eight were all the same two liter four cylinder

and just depended if they had a turbo, if they had a turbo

and a supercharger, if they had a turbo and a supercharger

and a hybrid system.

Oh, fascinating.

Though the early T eights are really fucking strange.

Any of the like the twin charge cars are a little odd sounding,

but kind of fun. They're they're a little unique.

Definitely unique.

Yeah, maintenance nightmares, but very unique.

So the eight fifty came in both wagon and sedan and sedan.

Yeah. So what would the is the wagon like a different denomination?

Would it be like the eight fifty?

Because usually when I think Volvo wagon, I think the V. Oh,

so it's not like a V eight fifty.

That was before they changed the nomenclature.

No, Volvo's nomenclature for a while, starting with the one forty or no,

the one to two, actually, they had like three numbers

where there was like the one hundred series, two hundred series,

which was like the two forty and then the eight hundred series,

which was the eight fifty.

And so even though both were called the eight fifty, the wagon and sedan,

the wagons technically called an eight five four and the wagon or no,

I'm sorry, the sedan is called an eight five four and the wagon is called

an eight five five for the number of doors.

Same with like two forties, a two four two is a coupe,

a two four four is a sedan and so forth.

But people will just call them all like Volvo two forty.

They're badged as a two forty, so just call it a two forty.

I say like, honestly, I don't care.

Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at the wagon version of the eight fifty.

They're cool. And they I mean, when they're slammed,

like most of these are I don't know if they come lower like that

from the factory, but they have a pretty low appearance.

I wouldn't say stock.

The ours were really low stock and they had a front air dam, too.

And when the eight fifty wagon came out, I can't remember.

It's always some group of judges nobody's ever heard of.

But apparently they brought it to some design event in Italy.

And it won like World's prettiest station wagon or estate car, rather.

But like in period, it was like it was quite a stunning wagon,

even though today it kind of looks like a brick.

But it is like it is a really neat design.

I love him. So was it just ninety five?

They would meet the US only for the T five are so the first performance

like sub brand car from Volvo was the T five are.

And then yeah, those were ninety five's only half of them were black,

half of them were yellow.

Well, there was a small spattering of all of green ones.

But yeah, half of them black, half of them yellow.

And then in ninety six, they introduced the eight fifty are,

which was tuned a little bit, tuned up a little bit compared to the T five are.

I got you. I mean, there's we won't go into the specifics.

But yeah, T five are so the wagon manuals on a classic are twenty eight thousand.

That's on the right.

Well, I guess if they're original spec, the US spec cars were never manual,

but they're pretty easy to manual swap.

I see. But you can get US.

Yeah, US spec ones.

And actually, I'm sound, but I think that sounds about right.

That's actually very much what I want to get for my C seventies.

So if anybody out there is looking for one, let me know.

But yeah, that sounds about right for like a low mileage, nice C seventy

or V seven or eight fifty, I'm sorry.

Yeah, I'm looking up eight fifty are.

So that was ninety six to ninety seven.

It doesn't specify manual automatic for this one.

But average price about thirteen thousand.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

I'd say because a lot of them had miles put on them since like

Volvos in general, like my first C seventy had one hundred and seventy

thousand miles on it when I bought it.

And I was a decade ago and my V seventy has like two hundred and thirty.

So finding like really nicely preserved low mileage ones is highly uncommon.

Yeah, there was like an eight fifty turbo that's all done.

Bring a trailer a couple years back, like twenty five thousand miles.

It was ridiculous.

So yeah, so since nice ones are hard to find, I would imagine

the price differential between one that's like one of the nicest examples

and a high mileage model is like huge.

Like you're probably paying double for one with very ultra low miles

and there was cared for.

Yeah.

And I would say the kind of the exception to that though are the yellow

T five hours, like a color color and spec have a huge bearing value

in the Volvo world because they all just sort of get driven anyway.

Right.

So like out of common feet, seventy yards can still bring silly bunny

despite having like six figures on the dash.

But there was a there was a really nice yellow T five are on cars

and bids wagon recently and it had very high.

I think it was thinking had more than two and fifty thousand miles.

It was quite high mileage and it's still sold for like.

I think it was like seventeen or eighteen. Wow.

Which is I think very strong money for one of those.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm looking like the thirteen thousand, I guess,

because it's incorporating, you know, some that's going to bother me.

If I don't look it up, I want to hate giving inaccurate facts.

Yeah, it's showing like a few that are not like it says total mileage

unknown. So, you know, there's there's different data points

that bring the values down.

But I'm looking like they are known for broken odometers.

Oh, there you go.

Yeah. So this one hundred one hundred and two thousand miles.

Right.

So ninety six decent miles.

Automatic quite low mileage and sixteen seven fifty

and it's black stock on bring a trail.

And this was back on June 1st.

Damn. So I think that's good.

Yeah. I mean, it looks like it was like the stock wheels.

Yeah, those are the stock of Voleans.

They all have all of the wheels have a name.

Oh, yeah. They like, you know,

how like BMW does like style five and style or like how Ikea has a name

for every single item in there. Exactly.

So Volvo, they name all of their wheels after a constellation

or celestial body.

So like the on the S 60 hours and V 70 hours, those five spokes are called

that's the cool shit.

We need a subject matter expert here for, you know, no one's going to know that.

Well, what's funny is like I didn't I couldn't read that anywhere.

I just eventually found it out and like searching for wheels or buying

those buying them. I was like, wait a minute, every single one of these

is named after a celestial body.

This makes no sense.

So these are cool.

Actually, they're like when it comes to wagons,

I feel like only enthusiasts like wagons like, you know, in the U.S.

Oh, very popular, obviously in Europe.

But like when it comes to wagons that are performance

versions, you know, like I think CTS V wagon, you know, we saw one at 17

mile drive and it's just so cool because for one, it's weird to see one.

Oh, yeah.

There's very little of them.

And then, you know, in this case, a Volvo version that's sporty

sucks that the manual wasn't brought to the U.S. though.

Yeah, it did.

It did suck a little bit, but it just is it's one of those.

Volvo is such a boutique brand.

And the more I work for them today, the more I realize that, oh,

my God, they are still very much a boutique brand in the United States

compared to like Mercedes Benz, BMW and Audi.

But it was just like the market demand wasn't there for the buyer,

the buyer segment at the time, unfortunately.

Yeah, that makes sense, because like even Alfa Romeo, right?

I'd say that's another European boutique brand in the U.S.

They don't offer anything in a stick here, even though they offer it in Europe.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So you can get a Julia Quadrifoglio manual in Europe.

But, yeah, I mean, that's interesting, a boutique brand, right?

Like it's not something that your average like not everyone's cross shopping

Volvos, right?

So what are you?

What are you doing to, you know, really attract the buyer?

I have a question for you.

Oh, yes, for you answer that, actually.

Would you say that a lot of the people that come in to buy a Volvo,

they already have their mindset on buying a Volvo like they have a history

of buying Volvos and sticking to them.

Those do exist.

Well, actually, there are quite a few, but it's actually an interesting

sect of buyers.

I'd say the type of people that Volvo attracts are

we like to say, and hopefully this doesn't sound offensive,

but we like to say that they are very intelligent about a very narrow subject

matter and then like sort of completely oblivious to like life outside of that.

But like generally, like really nice, very intelligent people, college

professors, I was just going to say, like, architects, like history professors.

Oh, yeah.

I sold I sold a C 40 to the guy who designed the new terminal one

at the San Diego Airport.

So like it's some really interesting people, but.

But oh, sorry, geez, crap.

Where's I go? What was your question again?

I went off and I was just saying, like, do you think that a lot of the people

who come in there, I guess, more than other brands are like,

they already know they kind of want a Volvo and go to the dealership?

I'd say there are a few.

I don't see that as often as I'd expect with how sort of boutique of a brand we are.

I'd say a lot of other.

I'd say that's probably about half of our customer set because there are people

who are like, I've been in one very horrible accident

and I will never be in anything but a Volvo ever again.

And that and I totally understand and respect that.

But there are some interesting other

we get some interesting subsets, like they're the people who are there,

obviously, just like to confirm that they do want to get another Lexus.

They're like, they come in in a Lexus and they're like,

well, we're cross shopping since our lease is up.

And then they see the price of a Volvo and like the lease

that leases are nowhere near as good.

And they don't.

And so like if they just use our quote to convince

themselves that, yeah, Lexus was the right choice.

So you see an interesting like variety of people.

Are like, and then people also doing everything from

that we see everything from us on the XC 90, like base trim levels.

People are cross shopping like the Toyota Grand Highlander,

whereas on the top trim level, we have people trading in Range Rovers

and they're buying them for the house managers and outpairs

and Rancho Santa Fe to drive the kids around.

So you see a really wide selection of of types.

I was going to mention the V 50.

So two thousand and six.

Well, I forget what the range was,

but I was really close to buying a V 50 like this close.

And then a van again came into my life

and I switched gears and bought the eighty nine van again.

Wise choice. Yeah.

So the I believe it was an O six V 50 was a T five automatic.

Oh, OK. So it was an all wheel drive or just front wheel drive?

No, it was front wheel drive.

So I did my research because what I do is

if I see a car, that's a good deal, right?

I'll jump on it knowing that obviously it's a good deal.

But it's got to have some kind of cool factor, right?

So it's like, you know, this car looks cool.

It's clean, like let me go ahead and take a look at it.

You know, I get in it, you know, it has that like crayon smell

that like volvos have. They all do, you know.

And you know, I'm looking at it.

I'm like, OK, it's kind of cool how they have the controls here.

And I'm like, you know, I never really thought about owning a Volvo, right?

This will be actually cool because then I can because that's my goal right now

is like brought broadening my horizons when it comes to automobiles

because, you know, for so long, I was focused on Italian cars

and, you know, I come to analogue and grit and as people in BMWs

and Mercedes and Audi's and Jaguars and obviously a bunch of JDM cars.

So it's good to kind of have a nice broad, you know, I guess a pallet pallet.

Yeah, there you go.

So anyway, so I'm looking at the Volvo values

and I noticed that our design manuals that are four wheel drive

are the most valuable, very rare, right?

And then there's the, you know, I could have had an art design

all wheel drive that's not a manual or an automatic,

but this one was just a T five auto.

So I passed on it simply because I saw that it was valuable,

but at 50,000 miles, oh, six, it was really good shape, one owner.

I was really heavily considering it,

but I couldn't find anything on that five cylinder engine

on like when it comes to reliability.

Oh, they're pretty great.

The only thing is like, if you really turn up the boost in them,

you can start cracking cylinder walls.

But if you don't do that, they're generally fine.

Really?

It was actually the same motor that Ford Europe used in the Focus RS.

So like if you open the hood of a Focus RS in Europe,

it just looks like a Volvo S40.

That's kind of funny.

And they use it in the Volvo C 30 as well.

Yeah. So same platform.

I noticed that. So they took a wagon.

They made a wagon, a sedan and a C 30 coupe.

Yeah. Or the hatchback, rather.

My mom had one of those.

So super fun little with the little slanted back.

It's not even like a hatch. It's it's like, yeah, it's a glass hatchback.

It's kind of a narrow hatch, but it's interesting.

I have always loved the way those cars look.

Compared to like a golf or something like that,

I think it's much more unique.

C 30s or V 50s?

C 30 and you can build the C 30.

Actually, this would be the answer to the question

before if Volvo built this car would be

the ultimate enthusiast one would be an all wheel drive six speed C 30

because their friend of mine pioneered the swap.

He was a technician at Volvo West Houston

and they underneath all the mounting points for the all wheel drive system

that's in the S 40 and the V 50 are already in the C 30

and the wheelbase is the same.

So you can just put it all in and then you can end up

with a all wheel drive turbo five cylinder

manual hatchback that looks fucking sick.

But from the factory, they never made the seat 30 all wheel drive.

Never did. They did they did a they did a Polestar concept

in like 2012, I think with it,

but it never made it to production.

There was just no demand for it.

Yeah, it makes sense because it's it wasn't built like a hot hatch.

Right. If they did, then it would have made it all wheel drive.

But the V 50 and the sedan probably figured people are buying this

in places that have inclement weather.

So we need to offer an all wheel drive the hatchback.

Yeah, I'm surprised that they didn't offer an all wheel drive

because think about some of the cars it could have competed with.

Yeah, like the car and the Focus RS. Yeah.

Well, I don't think they were even thinking that.

I think they were just thinking we offer a smaller version.

You know, but yeah, I mean, if they did,

maybe then people would have actually bought the seat 30

because another competitor to those other all wheel drive hot hatches.

You never see them.

And it's wild because like my mom at the time, she was cross shopping.

I think it was the Mark Six Golf GTI.

And the it was slower than a seat 30.

And we were like, I mean, obviously the seat 30 is not

was it dynamically perfect, but like it felt solid and it's nice.

It was comfortable.

It my mom used it to commute.

Hers was an automatic, but it was still like shockingly quick.

But great little cars. They're they're fun.

I want to switch gears to Mr. Dillon here, who just recently

guy comes back from Monterey Car Week and like literally

in less than four hours, he buys a new car had the itch. Yeah, you know.

So tell us about the latest purchase

and then how did it lower your insurance premium?

OK, yeah, this will be fun.

So I guess I'll go back to the beginning.

I was driving. I was an Escondido driving back from an appointment for work

in the it was like at the end of April, I want to say if I remember correctly.

And I saw I was driving down

Grand Avenue, Escondido, and I saw this

bright green geostorm, 1993 geostorm

parked on the street there.

So I like immediately broke my it broke my neck immediately.

I like did a big gasp and like jerk the wheel over to pull over.

And I just wanted to see it and get some pictures.

And I ended up leaving a note on it with my phone number.

And so a couple days ago,

I guess a day or two after we got back from car week,

I got a call from a number I didn't recognize.

And I rarely, unless I'm expecting a call from somebody,

I don't usually answer because I get a lot of spam calls,

even ones that aren't that don't say they're scam calls.

And so I didn't am likely.

Yeah, scam likely. Yeah.

So no voicemail, but maybe a few minutes later, I got a text message.

And the guy said he saw my note that I left on the car.

He's moving. He's ready to sell it.

So I texted him back and said, OK, let me call you in a few minutes.

So I called him.

He answered.

We just chatted about it.

I asked if I could come see it that day in Escondido.

I was here when I called him with Rome.

And basically he was like, yeah, everything works on it.

I've had it for six years.

He spoke broken English, but he was very kind and he got his point across.

And I was like, OK, cool, you know, how much do you want for it?

He gave me his number.

And then I was like, OK, you know, that sounded good to me.

I was willing to pay.

Of course, I always never buy a car without trying to negotiate.

But I was willing to pay based on what I had seen,

what he was asking for the car, even if he didn't want to really want to budge.

And so we went there.

We go look at it.

It's actually better than I expected.

The seats were covered, which means one of two things.

You're either going to reveal like brand new, flawless, perfect seats

or they're going to be just like torn to shit under the covers.

Exactly.

So luckily for me, I peel the covers back.

The seats are really nice.

He has the factory floor mats with rubber,

weather tech mats on top of them.

Oh, wow. Nice.

The windows are tinted.

So long story short, after I cleaned it up,

the interior was like almost aside from the crack dash,

like I would say almost immaculate.

The door panels are in good shape, except for the top.

The seats are in great shape.

The center console doesn't have any cracks in it.

There's not wear on the buttons in the interior.

It's got some cosmetic stuff on the outside,

just like dense on the fenders and paint fade, clear coat failure.

But yeah, I ended up picking it up for pretty cheap.

And it's just one of those weird cars that I just I had to have.

I saw one for the first time, maybe like three years ago.

I always liked the Geo brand because I thought it was just cool

that it was like just such a cheap, like basic car.

And and since I saw my first storm, I hadn't seen another one since.

So I figured I had to leave a note.

This is the second car I've bought from a note where I've left a note

and the person has called me back six months to a year later.

So for our listeners, if you ever see a car you'd like to own,

don't hesitate to leave a note because that person might want to keep it.

If they think they're going to sell their car down the road,

they know that if they keep that note, they might have somebody lined up

just to buy it might make everything easier.

So people hold on to notes.

So if you see a car you'd like to own, don't hesitate to drop.

So let me ask you a question.

Yeah, why a Geo storm?

I think I like the way it looks.

People have said a lot of different things about the styling.

Some people say Catfish Camaro.

Some people say early nineties, Pontiac Grandin.

Like the headlights or I'm sorry, not Grandin, Grand Prix with the headlights.

Nissan NX 2000.

And it's rare and there are actually people who modify them.

And you can get you can get the impulse

and an all wheel drive variant outside of the US.

So some people try to turn their Geo storms

into like a little mini like sleeper car.

So the idea of doing that is always there, too.

And I don't know, it just seems like the kind of car

that I can just hop in and drive, save money on gas

when I need to replace something that's not going to be too expensive.

And it's unique. It's very unique.

I've been surprised just in the last few days how many necks it breaks

because I think people just like don't know what it is.

Or it was the last time they saw.

Right, exactly.

So another funny thing about it.

And this is what I think.

I think when people see me in it, they either get it

and they think it's like a cool, unique car

or they think I'm just down on my luck and it's all like an accord.

There's no. There's no. Yeah, there's only two options.

Right, right.

So I always thought that that was kind of funny about it.

But it's one of those kind of things like if you see it

and you know what it is, like, I feel like seeing it on the road

will kind of like make your day.

Honestly, man, like when you posted it and I, you know,

it I'm glad it cleaned up nice, right?

But obviously the clear code and all that other stuff on the on the outside

needs work, too.

But if you get that cleaned up, it's a great Radwood car.

Oh, yeah, you're a TJ paint job away from it being perfection.

I was thinking about that because I don't want to spend much money on this car.

But if I can make it look nice, I'll do it, you know.

Oh, yeah, there will be a better paint job than it probably had from the factory.

Yeah, honestly.

So explain to me the specs.

So Geostorm, is it based on another Chevrolet product?

It is based on a second generation Suzu impulse.

OK, but not the one that was here with the rims.

Not the one that was here.

That was early 80s, first gen.

Yeah. So the second generation, it's based on the second generation impulse,

but like very stripped down.

It's very much meant to just be like an economy car

with two doors and maybe a little bit of a sporty feel

because it came in a four cylinder instead of a three like a lot of the Geos.

I see. OK.

So it's a four cylinder manual.

They I imagine made automatics as well.

Yeah, I'm sure they did.

I figure most were probably manuals, but I don't know off the top.

What are the horsepower specs?

Oh, are you ready?

Ninety five ninety five horsepower.

Oh, I was going to say one hundred and twenty foot

OK, pounds of torque, but don't quote me on that.

It's low, but it feels peppy like compared to my other daily driver,

my seventy nine N.A. diesel Mercedes.

It feels quick. Yeah.

It's very rev happy.

I expected the car to be more of like a shitty feeling,

like rattly tin canny economy car, but it very much doesn't feel that way.

And I'm pleasantly surprised.

Going down the freeway, it's smooth, relatively quiet.

And, you know, it steers easily.

It doesn't make too much not too much road noise,

not too much interior rattles.

I frankly, I expected it to be a lot worse, and it's really not that bad.

You could get it with an automatic.

Yeah, I think both a three speed and a four speed automatic.

You have a five speed.

Yeah, the five speed manual, the superior choice.

Yeah, of course, definitely, especially for that car.

Seats I saw were definitely kind of rad wood vibe.

Like they're not just no, they don't really have like

they don't really have like a nineties design on them.

There is that what you're kind of well, the pattern.

The answer. Isn't there a different color insert?

There's a different color insert. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it's blue or gray on the outside.

And then just kind of like, yeah, I I sit in lighter gray on the inside.

I sit in brand new cars every day.

It's a very redwood interior.

Well, it definitely has that nineties cockpit feel.

The headlight switches and the wipers.

They're like similar to the first generation impulse

that I'm sure a lot more people remember.

It's almost like a cassette deck.

Like you you press the headlight button and the off button clicks out.

Right. Press the off button and they pop out.

It's it's it's kind of cool.

It's got a really cool feel.

So Geo back in the early nineties, right?

It's a 93. You said mine's a 93.

Final year of the storm.

OK, so Geo, the brand, right?

Had a little globe right on the logo was pretty much what general motors

is like entry level kind of fun because they had the Metro, which is fun,

right, which was what Suzuki?

Yeah, Suzuki Swift.

So they kind of like were rebranding Japanese, you know, entry level cars.

That's exactly what they were doing.

They're like, if we can't beat them, we might as well try to be them.

So they just borrowed cars like mine, like I said, is the Azuzu impulse.

Yeah, there's the the Suzuki Swift, which is the Geo Metro.

And then there's the Geo Tracker, the Tracker and the Prism.

Yeah, and the Prism, which was the Corolla, which was the Corolla,

but with the worst transmission, the Corolla, you got a four speed.

The Prism, I think, was a three speed.

Yeah, OK, which is crazy because, like, they took the economy car of Toyota.

They took an economy car with the storm.

What's a zoo zoo?

Because the storm was a zoo zoo or zoo zoo.

Yeah, right. OK, am I bad?

And then the Swift Suzuki, right?

Which was like what?

They're all basically all different brands that I never realized.

Well, they had the Tracker was also Suzuki, right?

Suzuki, a sidekick, sidekick, yeah.

And then eventually became a Chevy Tracker.

Yeah, so they took some, they partnered.

Yeah, that's so it's kind of interesting, the sequence of how things

went like in the when those cars started rolling out,

there were a lot more like Suzuki badged ones on the road.

And then all of those cars kind of like then went into Geo and then

like towards the end of their line, they were just like Chevy badged.

Like the second generation Metro is just badged as a Chevy Metro.

So like, I think towards the end, they kind of like

they phased in these economy cars under the Geo brand.

I think they did OK.

Like I know they sold, even though there's not a lot on the road,

they the sales of the storm were pretty good.

Metro, obviously, big one economy car.

I make the joke that it's kind of a car for substitute teachers.

There you go. He has that.

He has the like the, you know, of all those are, you know, history professors.

He has a car that is only bought by T-Mobile managers.

Oh, yeah, the Toyota TRD Camry TRD.

Actually, yeah, that's a very very specific, very specific.

Oh, gosh, that's why I can't sell Toyota's.

So what did you go back to it?

I know the prison was a Corolla powertrain, right?

Was the Metro also a Suzuki powertrain?

Like I'm wondering if they just borrowed the powertrain

and then just had the bodies because they knew like,

we're not going to make a bespoke engine.

They borrowed both.

OK, on all of those cars.

Like if you had a Suzuki Swift and a Gio Metro right next to each other

and neither of them had badges, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Yeah, yeah, it's it's they're that similar.

Yeah, and I think they were all priced around the same.

Yeah, which means like maybe dealers were sort of competing with each other.

Yeah, the prison was less than a Corolla,

but it was only because it had a worse transmission.

Like it's like, OK, sorry about that.

But it's like, yeah, why would you want a Corolla with worse fuel economy?

Yeah, yeah.

But it's actually a sleeper because like I'll see Gio

prisms for like a couple thousand bucks, like two thousand bucks

with like 100,000 miles of the right prism.

You can buy a prism right now that you could drive across the country

and without hesitating for like two grand.

Right in like decent shape.

And that's a Toyota Corolla four cylinder engine in there.

It's true, yeah, because you're not paying the Corolla tax.

Right, as long as you're not doing highway driving, just by the Gio.

It's like it's like a sleeper pick.

You said it came with a three speed automatic.

The prism did. I see.

That's so sad that I know this.

Yeah, well, I guess.

Thanks to regular cars.

I wouldn't pay a premium for a Corolla.

Just get that extra speed, you know, in the transmission.

But I mean, the body looks OK.

Kind of looks like a Corolla.

It looks like all the badges off and put Toyota badges

if you're really feeling down and don't want people to make you feel

like you're down on your luck. Yeah.

But I was looking up values of trackers and they're getting up there.

People are really starting to love the two door four wheel drive,

you know, like SUV, if you want to call it that.

There's a little bit of like an enthusiast outcropping there.

There is. And there is four door sidekicks they make,

which they kind of look weird.

They don't like look right as a four door.

But yeah, and then eventually Suzuki did the Grand Vitara.

They kind of kept the small SUV trend going,

but then left the United States, I feel like, at the wrong time.

The X 90. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

That was the turning point.

He calls it a stretched cappuccino.

Yeah, it looks like if you took a picture of a cappuccino and just like

stressed it, you pinched it.

Yeah, my my funniest X 90 story is we had a friend of ours in college

who wasn't very much like a car person.

And but he like came over one night and he was like, guys,

I saw this like coupe SUV thing.

And we're like, is it an X six?

Is it a Mercedes GLE?

We're like, what are all the coupe SUVs?

And then we and then he finally showed us a picture where like, oh, it's an X 90.

We're like, actually that like coupe SUV, like that's I would have never guessed that.

We were all thinking everything but the X 90.

And then we're like, oh, it's the I guess that applies.

Speaking of two door odd SUVs, I watched the video today.

I was going to send it to you, but I think it was on Facebook.

And it was a guy driving around Monterey Car Week in his cross cabriolet, Murano.

Oh, the guys at the Autopia.

Yeah, those are the Autopia guys.

They brought a they brought a they brought a Mustang GTD and a Murano

cross cab. Absolutely polar opposites.

Every year they do this.

They do like a high low pick like like last year or was it two years ago?

They had a they had a Lincoln Continental coach door, like super

enthusiastic pick and then a a Pontiac Aztec.

So they always bring like a shitty car and a nice car.

And I'm like, I like that.

It's kind of like a fun, fun way to do car week.

The coach doors are the suicide doors.

It's suicide door, but I'm a new one.

Right. Yeah, the one the one that didn't sell.

Yeah. Bob Bachman owns the first one, like the number one one.

OK, so before we wrap up, I do want to talk analog and grit events.

So coming up, we have Sunday grit, right?

That's going to be this upcoming Sunday.

Following Sunday. Well, upcoming when this airs.

So that'll be the end of the very last Sunday of the month of August,

which happens to be the last day of the month. Right.

Oh, well, I will unfortunately be at work.

Grill and chill yesterday. Were you there with the tacos?

We did the grill and chill yesterday and it was so nice.

We had family tacos come.

They were awesome. The food was great.

Everybody was friendly.

And the best part was we didn't have to clean up.

Oh, yeah, that was nice. OK.

So, yeah, they showed up.

They took good care of us here at at AG and

and yeah, we had a really good grill and chill yesterday.

Good turnout, lots of just fun cars.

It's just so so much fun hanging out on the sidewalk

or stepping inside in plain pool and just listening to music.

And it's it's kind of like a good once weekly thing.

Yeah, definitely.

I feel like it's growing and growing every week.

And we tried to pick we tried to pick Wednesday nights

because we talked to a lot of people and that seemed like the time

that like most people were available or was like their best day of the week

to like go out in the evening, you know. Right.

So that's why we chose Wednesday.

And yeah, it's been I would say growing ever since.

But, you know, any time you do and I've learned this

from doing my cars and coffee, any time you do a weekly event

or a monthly event, it just varies naturally, right?

Especially like the time of the year,

like around the holidays and stuff like that.

But right now we're in the middle of summer

and lots of people are showing up to cars and coffees.

Lots of people are showing up to our weekly grill and chill.

Nice. So yeah.

One last question for you, Dylan.

How did the geostorm lower your insurance?

Oh, yeah. That's right.

I forgot to address that. OK.

Please enlighten us. I'll tell you exactly how.

So I have to I have my Z and my Mercedes

on a collector's car policy.

So that's separate from my other car, my one Tahoe

that I just have on a regular triple A.

I just have on on the on the Tahoe.

I started with just liability.

And then I raised it because I've been driving some nice cars.

And God forbid I crashed somebody else's car.

You know, I have insurance coverage, so I upped my coverage.

And then I got the storm.

And so that gave me a multi car discount.

And I said that I was going to be driving the storm

more often than the Tahoe, but substantially more than the Tahoe.

And so since it's a car that's pretty much worthless on paper, like

it costs nothing to insure.

Yeah, it costs nothing.

Yeah, exactly. It costs nothing to insure.

So with that listed as my primary car,

it's cheaper than my Tahoe to insure.

So that they were going to be giving me

four hundred and ninety dollars back on my premium

or that's going to be used as a credit towards my towards my premium.

So money just buy a shit box.

Yeah. And and the registration, you know, how much the registration was

like like a what, one hundred and six dollars, eighty nine dollars.

Well, OK, I yeah, because I have the same thing.

All my other cars are in a collector policy, but I have like my one daily.

So I need to literally.

Should we both have geostorms?

People are our listeners.

No, I need a Saturn.

Yeah, that's another GM product that is discontinued.

Right. So for our listeners, if you only have one car on your policy,

your daily driver, pick up a worthless vehicle.

Yeah. And register it and insure it.

And in three years, you'll have saved enough money to pay for it.

Yeah, actually, that's honestly the elites don't want you to know this.

But yeah, it's a hack for sure.

Yeah, I got one last question for you, Mr. William.

Yes. So you went to Monterey Car Week.

I did. Right.

Tell me, what was the one car that you would say,

well, for one that you loved or you geeked out over

that you might consider buying as an investment?

Oh, well, there was one that I really geeked out over.

Or like as like a future investment, like a car you'd like love to buy

because you feel like not only is it cool, but it's going to go up in value.

It doesn't matter how much it is.

Is that regardless of value?

Let's say something that is somewhat attainable.

OK, because the one the one thing I freaked out for.

So maybe a quarter, maybe a quarter million.

Can we say that? Well, both of our cars were about a quarter million.

Right. I said a Diablo and you said a spiker C8.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, C8.

Spiker is actually.

Wow, that. Yeah, that would actually be a really good one.

Well, no, at the end, you changed it.

You didn't think you went with something different.

Those were like the exotic cars you wanted.

But then like the sub 50,000 dollar car at the end of the podcast.

I pretty much think you said something.

Mirza Mercedes. Yeah.

I don't recall exactly.

Think you might have said Mercedes V8, naturally aspirated V8.

Oh, yeah. Like a C63.

I think. Yeah.

Or like or was it the Black Edition C63?

I did. I said C63.

Black Edition Coupe.

And then we started talking about the R 50 or the R 63.

Oh, yeah.

The R50 and two of those in the US or something.

I listen to you.

Even though you like grab the microphone.

You're the only people talking about the R 63 at car.

Actually, I I'll still say it

because I'm not sure how much this car transacted for.

But there was a car that it was my first car week seeing it.

But I've been trying to see it

since my first car week I went to back in 2022.

But it's the Ferrari 456 Venice GT

that was built for the Sultan of Brunei.

There's this guy who or the Sultan of Brunei ordered.

I think it was like six or seven.

Just a single digit number of wagon conversion for our sixes.

And he didn't take delivery of all of them.

He took delivery of all but one.

Wait a second. I said somewhat attainable.

Yeah. Well, like when the guy is a one of one car.

Yeah. But the guy who bought it, it was like an automatic

when he bought it and it was silver.

It got painted silver with him, but it put a tan.

I bet it was about two fifty ish, I don't know.

Maybe. OK.

All right, let me give you like a reference.

OK, like for me, it was immediately go for the weird.

It was at Radwood.

I saw a second gen

MR2 turbo in Turquoise. Oh, right.

Manual. Those are cool.

Twenty seven thousand miles.

He bought it on Bring a trailer.

Like you saw me talk to him

good amount of time. What would I buy?

Yeah, something like that.

You know, that car is probably creeping up to like 40.

He probably I don't know what he paid, but he's probably he was probably

it was probably up there like 30 to 40.

I'd say because it's MR2's turbos are going up.

So something like that.

What do you think I should probably know better at this?

Something you saw there that you were like, wow,

I would love to own one of those one day.

No, maybe I'm buying cars the wrong way.

I'm just looking at I'm actually a Volvo guy.

He doesn't think about investments.

Well, I'm looking at the opposite direction at the moment.

I'm thinking like, what can I buy that's becoming not worth it?

No, like really, ever since I told him about the insurance thing.

Yeah, well, or while on the opposite end of the spectrum,

but for the same reasons, actually, I buy a Jaguar E type.

They're honestly not a good financial investment.

I mean, Jaguar, you're talking about like the like 60s,

like the early 60s, the one Ferrari ends up for our team,

the most beautiful car in the world.

Precisely. I'd want a series one.

They're not they're getting worth less and less.

But like, I thought, are we thinking of the same car?

I thought that that was one of the cars in the Hagerty market bull list.

It is. Oh, well, well,

I've been seeing lower transaction prices for them lately.

Like they like series ones used to be worth like,

oh, that's a really early one.

Oh, I took a picture of this exact same car.

Yeah, this is a green one.

Yeah, that's you know, that's a really early series one

because it's got the external bonnet latches and it's a flat floor.

Extremely early 3.8.

So maybe they like popped and now they're kind of correcting those values and value.

They've definitely they were worth like six figures not long ago.

Yeah. But what year? Last year, right?

2025, it was on it.

If anything, it would be that exact E type

because if it was a really, really early 3.8 flat for flat floor,

external bonnet latch car, like that's still very much an investment grade car.

And I think I think that'd be a good place to just park money,

maybe not as like a good investment.

But yeah, because they're definitely attainable.

They're definitely finicky.

Oh, yeah, it's not going to be like, you know, plug in like just, you know,

it's going to be pay to play. Yeah, it's a pay to play car.

Right. Well, yeah, it's British, but at the same time, the age and all that.

But definitely one of the most beautiful cars ever made.

I agree with that long hood, the design of the the headlights,

like everything about it and the wire wheels.

Those wire wheels are just like money.

And people don't realize it was so advanced for its era.

Like the DB4 did not have like nearly as good suspension and brakes.

And it was faster than everything else.

And it was a bargain by comparison.

So I do I really do want one of those.

Yeah, that's a good one. That's a good one.

Not a good investment, but I think an upcoming good value,

especially as the boomers begin. No, I think it is a good investment.

I mean, obviously it's on the how the Hagerty bull market lives.

Yeah. Right. So when you think about an investment,

it's something that Hagerty says it's an investment and it must be.

They they collect like insurance data and they, you know,

comprise all that, you know, premiums and they look at like even like generations,

like who's buying these cars. Yeah. So if they see like,

like boomers were buying them and now Gen X isn't,

then they're going to like, obviously say it's not going to continue

to go up in value.

But if they see like, like millennials are buying E types now, right?

Then they're going to be like, well,

if millennials start to like see there must be a reason that these are still worth

something. Right. Exactly.

Because you have that theory, like where there's certain cars where like,

you know, especially in the Lays era, where they're dying off because

the current generation doesn't really like muscle cars.

I was saying muscle cars. Muscle. Muscle cars from the 60s.

Yeah. Muscle cars. Exactly.

I had this conversation last year at Good Guys.

I was with my dad and his 69 Corvette and we bumped into somebody else

who also had a 69 Corvette and this was a car he was building

like with his son, who was like still not even old enough to drive.

And we thought it was so cool that he was into like a 69 Corvette

because most young people I would think that wouldn't really be like

their primary like dream car.

And that prompted a conversation about like, are the young people,

are they going to buy these 60s muscle cars?

Are they just going to completely overlook them and start buying

like a Chrysler Conquest or like other like Radwood type of cars instead?

For for two reasons, they're cheaper and they're newer.

So they can be easier to own in some ways.

The only way they're going to or at least in my opinion,

the only way that you're going to attract that younger set is if

the price point is low enough.

And then as you it's it's like anything it's with any generation

of cars as like the primary group of people that appreciated it

when they were new and period dies off, the values die off.

So unless it's something that's obviously very special and exceptional

like the Hispano Suiza that won on Sunday.

Yeah. But but yeah, in general,

I think we're going to see much lower values from cars from like the 50s and 60s.

Yeah. Well, C3 Corvette.

I could tell you this, Radwood era, 80s and 90s,

like seeing someone like Dylan, who's, you know, Gen Z buying a geostorm,

you know, like, like people are gravitating towards 80s and 90s again.

Like it's not dying because we're nostalgic about it now.

Like there's nothing nostalgic about geostorm.

I mean, 1993, you weren't even born yet.

You know what I mean?

So like what nostalgia is like, oh, I was in high school

like when that car came out, you know what I mean?

Like that's nostalgia.

But clearly, like we were talking about this in the podcast.

We were even like relating music, you know, because like I feel like

music from the 90s doesn't nothing compares to that music.

And I was like, maybe I'm biased, right?

Because I'm, you know, born in that era, but clearly the younger generation

even are admitting it, you know, especially hip hop and rap and R&B

and that kind of music.

But yeah, the geostorm, like when you bought that thing, I was like,

damn, like, like I'm curious to know what attracted him to that car

because clearly it wasn't around when he was in high school, you know,

but it's just an obscure car that everyone forgot about

because the brand doesn't even exist anymore.

You know, and like, like you said, it's either a head turner

or you're down on your luck.

Yeah. And right. And that's cool.

It's kind of cool to like have that kind of mind fuck with your car.

Yeah. Yeah, totally.

You know, so with that being said, guys, William,

appreciate you joining the podcast for the first time, right?

You're obviously a member here at Analog and Grit.

I am. So we'll be seeing you around.

Yeah. And make sure those volvos, you know, keep going strong, man.

Yeah. Well, as long as like Volvo keeps building them,

I'll be selling them for the time being.

So. All right.

And Dylan, the mainstay.

Thanks again for having me.

Of course, until next week on the Analog and Grit podcast.

Do Car Enthusiasts Drive Volvo’s? We Ask A Subject Matter Expert

About this episode

Request an Explanation

Want to learn more?

Help improve this episode

More from Analog and Grit Podcast