End of 2025 Show, Wild F-150 Pricing, The ID Buzz Gone For 2026, No Cheap Cars Left & More

One last time.

For one last time in 2025, welcome to the number one

automotive-related car podcast on Planet Earth.

We talk about cars, trends, market predictions, but most importantly,

offer you a good hang each and every Monday.

And this is the final Monday of 2025.

How are you feeling about that, Nick?

It's kind of surreal, no?

Yeah, it is.

My wife and I were just talking about how it doesn't feel like Christmas.

It doesn't feel.

It could be that it's 80 degrees right now in Texas, which is kind of a problem.

Hey, we're in rain heaven over here.

That's terrible.

I'd rather have the just heat than rain today.

100%.

So I got to lead off the show.

I don't even know what's planned today.

Just so everybody knows, Rob and I just got off another meeting.

We hopped on.

We hit record.

That's how it goes here.

That's how it goes.

I've seen a lot of conversation.

This is like a driving around thing.

OK.

Everybody's getting mad at people beeping their horn,

honking their horn at somebody who's sitting out of light

and isn't going away too quickly.

You've seen a lot of that content online.

Like, oh, you know what's going on?

I mean, how much of a hurry?

Can we also normalize that when you live in a city whose lights you

know very well?

I'm specifically talking about those lights that have a turn lane.

And you know that the turn lane doesn't go long enough.

You know that it always gets backed up at certain times.

You have the institutional knowledge of those lights.

Yeah.

Any second that that person in front of you

sits, you might not make the light.

And it's a long light?

Yeah.

I think you're well within your right to honk.

I'm going the complete opposite way.

It's like, everybody's compu- well,

what are you in a hurry for?

It's like, guys, I can see that the guy's on his phone.

And I'm going to miss this light that I know takes forever.

I have institutional knowledge of the light.

Am I supposed to not honk?

I was not expecting that turn.

I thought you were going to go the other way with it.

I'm glad, everybody.

Simmer down.

And I'm with you.

I certainly see that point of view.

But if you have the institutional knowledge

of that specific light, I'm sure there's

ones in Houston and Austin.

In Vegas, I have them.

There's some that I remember when

living in Southern California.

When you have the institutional knowledge

that if these idiots don't get a move on,

we're all going to be sitting here for another two or three

light changes, are people supposed to just not help you

out and say, hey, dude, I can see you're looking at your phone.

Here's a little tap.

Brother, everybody listening.

When we say we don't plan the show, we never plan the show.

This just came up spontaneously.

Last night, wife's like, hey, let's go out to dinner tonight.

I'm like, it's Christmas Eve tomorrow.

Wow, rich over there.

Yeah, exactly.

I was like, we're going to be out already twice this week.

But your parents, my parents, family, the whole thing.

Like, let's just stay in.

I feel like going out.

All right, cool.

Go to this little sushi spot she wanted to go to.

Hey, I'm going to sushi today.

Nice.

It's this time of the year thing, too.

I just love the Japanese, Chinese, whatever.

They like to work, so they're always open.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, great people, great people, great people, great, great people.

Yeah.

Listen, I sat at this light five times, five times before those

that aren't in a city like you and I live in, they think you're exaggerating.

No, no, no, no, it's bad.

I mean, the light technology needs to catch up very quickly.

Something.

Can we get, and this is like now we're asking for more surveillance.

Can I get something flying over us that scans every car?

How long the car is?

I think we told the story on this.

You know, there was like a kid that hacked into some city's light system.

We did talk about that.

Fixed it, and they like, he got in trouble for it?

Yes, yes, yes.

I remember that.

It's like, this is all fixable in anybody's city.

I'm not just complaining about my, all of this is fixable.

It's just programming things correctly.

It takes some effort, though.

Let's be real, these people are not putting the effort forward.

Well, unless not, let's remember, they're also probably

putting the level of DMV employees that are guys, you know.

If you work for the DMV, you know what I'm talking about.

Nailed it, and I want to piggyback off of that,

because there's a video, there's this channel.

I think it's like big city, small town, or big small,

something like that.

Put out earlier this week, whenever you're listening to this,

and there's a couple of mega cities or mega regions

happening in the United States right now,

but the number one is the South Austin to San Antonio,

basically central text, like the key little dot

of central Texas.

I think it was 20, 40, don't call me exactly,

and not too far in the distant future.

There's gonna be a population of about 8 million people

in this one little, and that's more than a half a dozen,

or more than a dozen states, I think, population-wise.

So just imagine the infrastructure needs

that are gonna have to develop over the next,

you know, one to two decades.

And by the way, that aren't going to happen.

Of course not.

Why would they, right?

Why would you?

Why would you plan it out?

Just circling the people, like the politicians

that come in and out, like, I have four years,

two years, maybe at the most six years,

depending on what you do, in and out,

like, they're just not planning for this, dude.

They're not planning for it at all.

No, and look, that's what we have in Vegas.

Like, we just don't have any-

Nevada's always on that list, too,

of things that need to be improved that are not improving.

Oh, but it's, I mean, I could go on and on and on,

and I have some buddies that work for these companies,

so I'll stay very neutral on this.

It's very obvious, and all of you living

in a certain city long enough will know.

I see too much of one, two, or three,

either one of three companies' trucks,

I see doing all the construction yet,

nothing's getting better.

Yeah, it's a lot.

And I go, eh, I wonder what's going on here.

Wonder how aboveboard all this is.

Where's Eddie Bravo when he needed him?

Should we be looking into it?

We need to be looking into it.

So in this episode, we're gonna talk politics.

People love the end of the year of that.

I can tell you this, that would be a comment section

I would wanna bow out of quickly.

Immediately.

All right, well, let's segue into some car talk.

I had this video, you know,

we usually don't give out free shout-outs,

but it is the end of the year.

It's Festivus, I'm feeling very festive.

All right, so shout-out to Car Edge.

Did you, by chance, on your desk this week,

or in the last five days or so,

get the video of him and his dad reaching out

to 104 dealerships to get pricing on an F-150?

No, I didn't see it at all.

So they reached out to, through their system, Car Edge,

I'm sure a lot of people have seen the dad and son duo,

they reached out to 100 dealers on the same F-150

at the same MSRP to find out what they could do

to get just the best price for,

this we'll call it the customer, right?

If it would have been a customer deal,

it would have been for the customer.

And dude, what they found out was crazy.

Do you wanna know, just take a guess what the gap was

from the cheapest, the best deal

to the worst deal on the same truck?

Same trim package, right?

Same trim, same MSRP, everything.

I think you probably somewhere

between 10 and $12,000 difference.

There was a total of $17,000 difference

in the identical MSRP and same trim.

I mean, this is pretty crazy

for anybody that doesn't follow us on Instagram

or TikTok or YouTube shorts.

I think I did a video, you and I,

you cut up a video that said shop nationally.

Just recently, too.

Yeah, just recently.

I mean, this week, that's why I bring it up.

And this is why, guys.

I mean, you don't know the situation in Utah

if you don't live there.

You don't know the situation in Texas

if you don't live there.

So there's a lot of people

and people have legitimate concerns about transport.

I understand that if you've never transported something.

Guys, there are reputable companies

that ensure your car and make sure that it gets there.

Yeah, man, things can happen.

Things can go missing.

I'm not saying it doesn't happen.

But a lot of these horror stories,

I won't say all,

a lot of these horror stories

are using back-channel transporters

trying to save a buck, right?

So again, this is one of those things,

pay the more money.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

At a certain point, it makes sense.

Yeah, so like, if somebody's been in business

for 35 years,

it's likely they're not running cars to Mexico, okay?

So, but if, you know,

Juan Martinez transport just popped up today,

I might, but I'm being serious.

Like I saw one of these dealers,

you know, trying to act like a hero and he goes,

you know, we had this transport lined up

and we didn't put it on there

because this guy doesn't check out.

Buddy, you scheduled the pickup.

Can I see your manifest, sir?

Where have you been and where are you going?

By the way, this should have been

on a covered vehicle anyway.

Craziest part is when a car

was supposed to be transported covered

and it comes uncovered.

Well, so we had a situation with a McLaren

that was about an $11,000 windshield damage.

Jesus. Going from Vegas to,

might've been 14 grand,

from Vegas to Los Angeles at the time.

And I can tell you this,

it was a big headache to deal with

and McLaren themselves

are the one that put it uncovered.

And so then it was like, well, we know,

we didn't do anything wrong.

And the transport company,

it's like the transport company's not gonna

replace a 10 K plus windshield.

That's crazy.

That's complete neglect.

Isn't it from them?

I mean, it's on their truck.

It didn't fall off the truck.

Yeah, of course.

You know what I mean?

So yeah, guys, I mean, I understand,

but this shows you,

I mean, I don't know the car edge guys,

but this shows you kind of

what we've talked about for a year,

which is number one,

there's a lot of you

that have gotten very disenfranchised,

which you should have with car prices

and you're acting like they're not coming down.

You may still see a high MSRP guys,

but the incentives are back.

They're back and there's a lot of wiggle room.

So don't let that MSRP,

now somebody's gonna write in and go,

I'm looking at this really special car

and it's above MSRP.

You know, on F one fifties,

you might see MSRP on the website.

You go in and do a deal.

You might get it for 10 K less.

You might get it for, like you said, $17,000 less.

So the prices have not only stabilized

on a lot of things,

there's a lot of hidden savings

that's not being promoted the way it once was.

So shout out to the people that sent it to me.

I had a couple of people send it to me

and I actually followed the guy,

so I had seen it before anybody had sent it.

I actually watched,

they put it together a full video on this,

so YouTube video on the breakdown.

I wanna go through a couple more of the slides here

to give, because some of the comments too,

and it wasn't even just on theirs.

Other people who had reposted the story

as far as like the video,

like a screenshot of it,

and then had their own kind of blurb about it.

They reached out to 100 people.

Imagine those,

and some people made the same exact great point.

Imagine people that are just reaching out to three or five

locally going back to the video you said,

like if you're reaching out to three to five,

because watch, check these stats out.

100 dealers, 39 responded with the price.

21 ignored them entirely.

50% refused to give them a price unless they came in.

You know, that alone are common tactics

we've all experienced.

They're not giving you a price

over the phone or an email.

That one's the most annoying of them all.

Well, there is a sales process to do that.

So for anybody that's never really been in sales

or been around it,

the idea is if I get you in the building,

I can get a deal for you, right?

It's very logical if you're just kind of sharing

the common sense stuff here.

But yeah, I think the days of that are probably gone.

There's probably creative ways to give prices

and still incentivize people to come in.

I'm not in that world.

So I couldn't tell you what those are.

But there comes a time where I think,

you know, prices are now so ubiquitous

and guys are so used to getting them.

You know, whether that's an auction site

or whatever's changed the mindset,

I think you're in a pretty tough spot

to not give prices these days.

Yeah, exactly.

And they kind of alluded that towards the end of these slides.

But that $17,008 difference was from,

these are outdoor prices,

53-4 was the best deal, 74 was the worst deal.

Oh, man.

Bro, we're talking about.

And that, by the way, that's real money, man.

That's real money.

You're talking about,

remember the theory I kind of shared,

I think probably one of our first episodes we ever did.

Guys, when you're sub $100,000,

really think about every $10,000 and what that means.

I know it's, you're like, Nick, obviously.

But this proves to you,

somebody's walking in there paying $70,000 plus,

not thinking about every 10 grand

in the sub $100,000 car market

is like most likely just negative equity you're gonna eat.

So if you buy at 74 and this guy buys at 53,

you know, let's think about it this way.

You got $20,000 in negative equity, automatically.

Off the rip, yep.

And by the way, that's not depreciation negative equity.

That's buying negative equity.

So when I said that back in the day,

I remember, or back a year ago,

I remember people giving me and being like,

wasn't that obvious?

This proves to you it's not obvious.

So we got to repeat this kind of stuff

because every 10 grand under,

when you're in that 50, 60, 70, 80,000 dollar car,

boy, that's a lot of money.

And I know it's obvious,

but this proves to you somebody's paying 74.

So in those 100 dealers,

they all had five common tactics.

Maybe if you have any two cents on this.

So we can't give pricing over the email,

which you already kind of gave fake discounts,

hiding the massive fees, mandatory add-on packages,

which God is that common,

applying rebates that they don't qualify for

and ghosting file followups.

It was amazing how many people just completely ghosted them

and didn't get back to them.

Yeah, you would.

And again, here's where we talk about AI.

You would assume that this would all be pretty easy

to handle with some type of AI chatbot type of thing.

It's just not happening widespread.

I don't know, I think I'm just gonna still stand by this.

I think 2026 we're going to see

what we've kind of seen the last half of 25,

which is I think it's just gonna become more

normalized back to pre-2020.

It's gotta.

I'm not assuming prices of 2019.

I don't want people to get confused about that.

But the stabilization seems to be here on a large scale.

And once we get back to stable,

we can all complain about prices still being elevated,

but this kind of proves,

I don't know how elevated they are.

And I can't say this enough

because I'm in the world of accessories

and cosmetic stuff for cars.

Do not ever buy any of that stuff at a dealership.

Like you have no idea the crappy PPF that they use.

You have no idea of the crappy tint that they use.

You have no idea they don't even use real ceramic coatings.

They don't have any kind of wheel coating

that would even help you.

Like just don't do it.

Like there is no other piece of advice.

And then the Sun's Act did say to be fair,

there were a small amount, shockingly small amount

of people that were honest, clear pricing,

no games, no pressure.

So they do exist, but this is a good point too.

The traditional car search websites

don't traditionally advertise those dealerships.

They rather advertise the ones that give you

the best deal tags on the advertised price

and they're nowhere actually near the outdoor price.

Which is, we all know that.

Yeah, but if they, if you push some of these dealers

that are quote unquote, not doing things above board,

you might actually get that price they advertise.

Cause they advertise that for a reason,

which means they think if somebody comes in

and you got the money, you got the credit,

whatever it is you wanna say,

you can get a lot of things wiped away.

Look, I've had people, you know,

try to do amendments to deals

and we're gonna put tint and PPF and said,

bud, this is going directly to my shop.

Like I've known you long enough that that's coming off.

We're not gonna do that.

Cool.

I walked out the door

before I drove back to my shop

that was six miles down the road.

Hey, we wiped it off.

So don't think you can't have that stuff wiped off.

Did you say you better add the $7

that I just spent on gas

to get these three tires down here?

Yeah, well, you look,

LX, go through some gas.

Just wait till you get these cars in though.

Just wait till you get these cars in.

Hey, it's better on gas.

It is actually better on gas, probably.

Yep, I'll be all right, Rob.

I believe you.

I got a car that'll swipe.

Speaking of, you know, one more,

no free shout-outs, no free shout-out.

Listeners always get shout-outs.

Shout-out, Missouri Adventures,

who's gonna do the reporting for us in 2026

to go do the hand gesture order

for the Costco Bull Tube

and report back what happens.

So please in 2026, let me know what happens.

He sent the large Costco Mayo to the DM, I think.

I didn't see that.

It was hilarious.

So yeah, we're having a lot.

Guys, I have a Costco membership.

Let's all relax.

Okay, let's all relax.

I'm one of you.

We buy stuff there as well.

One of us.

You don't have to get all bent out of shape.

I mean, when I say I got like a brand new Costco

within the rocks distance of my house,

I mean, I got a brand new Costco.

Like I've only been open a few months.

Listen, you really can't be one of us

unless I see a video of you going like this

at the meat counter, all right?

I'm gonna say that now.

I'll still say this.

If you get samples there,

you should be taken out of society.

Every time I walk around, I agree with you.

I'm not even agreeing with you.

But every time that I am there and I do see people,

I'm just like, in my mind,

I just can see Nick's face of like disgust.

I'm just going, what are we doing here?

Yeah.

What are we doing?

And it's usually, go ahead.

What a brilliant move by companies like Costco.

They just know, and they're like,

I mean, you can imagine how many bags of shit they sell

just based off people grabbing a sample.

Like it's ingenious, but it's like,

what are we doing here?

Yeah, you know, sometimes I will feel so bad

in the sense that like, it's an older lady,

she's very nice and I won't try the thing,

but I will go buy the thing even though I didn't try it.

Hey, that's not good price though.

I'm telling, and then my wife's like,

you didn't even try that.

You're like, I know, but look, she's so nice.

I agree.

They always are the nicest people.

I just go, let's be better.

Let's be better.

I always ponder on the kids.

The kids will love this.

You know, the kids will love it.

She's like, no they won't.

I'm like, well, we'll see.

We'll see.

Sorry.

She was very nice.

I just can't make eye contact with him.

That's the thing.

I just got to, like, I rather just ignore him almost

just so I don't feel that urge to just grab the thing.

I can't believe we're what, 18, 19 minutes in now.

We're going to say nothing about Jake Paul

and Anthony Joshua.

I mean, I was waiting for sports corner

later on in the show, but please, yeah.

I mean, give me your two cents.

Everybody hates the guy.

Obviously, we're talking about the Pauls here, but um.

You and I will say this to the day we die.

Him getting in there with a guy

that had to cut to $2.45 to make weight.

I don't care what anybody said.

As a guy who has had a broken jaw.

Yeah.

You have no idea.

I forget all of the, you know,

our guy Brandon Schaub, who we both like,

made some crazy comment that, you know,

he wasn't really fighting about, come on, Brandon.

What did he say?

It's not honorable or it's not brave or something like that.

The way he did it, but he got his jaw broken.

Yeah.

Although he made a good point.

He said, I would smash my dick in that car door

over there for a hundred million dollars.

I was like, God, geez, a little intense.

I just look, man, think what you want about him.

To take shots from Anthony Joshua.

Who's, I mean, what's he walking around?

270 every bit of every bit of it.

I mean, probably 280 if he wants.

I just don't think people realize taking a shot like that

and taking it repeatedly.

And it looks like he has multiple fractures.

I saw him in the hot, I mean, dude,

there's a lot to be said that this isn't boxing,

but I'll tell you what it was, the results of boxing.

It was.

So whether you think it's real boxing or not,

he's paying the price.

And this was gentlemen's boxing.

I don't know if you agree with me on this

because I've seen the breakdown.

He could have been ended in the first round,

second round, you know what I mean?

We call it carrying.

He carried the fight, you know,

sort of like Mayweather did late in his career

with some opponents.

Yeah, man, he carried the fight.

He gave the fans what they want.

But I got news for you.

If you've never had a broken jaw,

you'd feel a lot different of calling this fake

or real or whatever.

Like, I mean, it's like calling WWE fake

and like half these guys can't walk around.

It's like, yeah, man, I get it's fake,

but I mean, these guys have like broken backs

and they break their neck and I mean, so shit happens.

Yeah.

But yeah, man, I mean, whether you,

I just thought Shob, who I do like listen to his fight stuff.

I thought he was just off base.

It's like, dude, he broke his jaw.

Yeah.

I get it, man, was it the prettiest fight?

No.

Was he running around?

Yes.

I thought something many people don't,

I thought Jake Paul looked fat.

He did look a little out of shape,

which a lot of the comments were

if he was in shape, if you had trained for full year

for this fight or whatever, which maybe,

but he'd have been smaller.

I was under the impression that's all he does.

You would think, right?

I mean, you got to have a treadmill on that joint.

So he's making a hundred million up clip.

Yeah.

I'm pretty sure he bought an assault,

assault treadmill during the Black Friday sale.

You know, I mean, I got to think

you can get a jog in my guy.

Like I was surprised because he usually

he's not like that.

So I don't know if something happened health wise.

We're once I saw him come out,

obviously coming out Hulkamania style, you know.

I mean, he's got to love the theatrics.

You got to love the theatrics,

but I just looked at it.

And I go, oh, he's kind of what happened at the camp.

Like you just thought we're just going to put weight on.

Didn't he make double what Joshua made?

No, I heard it.

Look, the numbers are all over the place.

I don't really know what everybody made.

I heard it was five to 10 million difference.

I mean, there's guys I could call and find out.

I just don't care enough.

Sure.

But yeah, the numbers are so I heard 48 million.

I heard 92.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't know how it got this way.

But again, if somebody gets their jaw broken,

let's just maybe say, okay.

Yeah, bravo, sir.

Yeah, because I can tell you this.

None of you signing up to get your jaw broken

by a guy rocking 245, you know, in the ring.

Both people won.

He got his money, he got paid.

And honestly, the people that are haters

won't hear from him for a while.

So it's kind of like that.

I had somebody say like,

you think he's going to come back?

I said, well, he's going to be out for a little bit.

I mean, there's going to be some heel time here.

Yeah.

And then once he's healed, he'll probably still be away

while he, you know, it gets back together

I just can't believe Joshua had to cut the 45.

That's just mind boggling.

People have no idea how big that is.

Yeah, every time Derek was just coming to my old business,

he had to cut, of course, to make 265.

So.

Well, the most iconic ever is Brock Lesnar

had to cut the 265.

I think Carwin as well had to cut down.

Yeah, I mean, you just go, you guys have no,

like that is like three humans on top of you.

Yeah, it's wild.

Human, I mean, we're not,

I don't care what people say,

we're not all equal.

We're very different as a matter of fact.

Some people got hit with the wand a few times.

Hit wand with a few times.

Man, oh, was there anything else on the car

cause I didn't watch the, any event prior to that,

like any other matches?

Well, you know, Anderson Silva got a TKO.

Yeah, Woodley.

And I used to be a huge time Woodley fan.

Yeah.

And here's the kind of crazy thing for me.

I saw live Anderson Silva beat up on Rich Franklin.

Oh wow.

I'm still fighting.

I'm like, oof, man.

Yeah.

That's a long time, bud.

What's the next evolution of,

yeah, what's the next evolution of the spider?

Like should we be calling up something else these days?

Is he still the spider?

I don't know, anybody that's ever knows

about that shoot to box a crew, I believe anything.

They could just tell me anything.

Like these guys are like on the moon fighting.

I'd believe anything.

I mean, that's just a wild crew for back in the day.

Yeah, where I grew up.

It's like the Hammer House crew.

I just believe anything.

Yeah, where I grew up, there was a hub

of shoot to box people,

goal team, like Makako and Olivera,

like that group of people were

Just a whole different crowd.

Right there in the Southwest side of Houston.

I mean, those guys are knocking each other out

in practice.

Yeah, this is 15 years ago.

Like they're fights, like full blown fights.

Yeah, like fights, fights.

Yeah, like two heavyweight champs just at practice.

I mean, it was just kind of a wild time.

Oh, and then we'll move on.

Did you see Orlovsky get into it with some kids

or something, some streamers?

I just had this conversation with somebody

and we'll kind of move on from this.

These people, I don't care if you're a streamer,

a kid at a restaurant, the Rampage Jackson situation,

these two kids are mean mugging them.

But these guys are real people.

Like this, you know, what's Kevin Hart saying?

They're walking around, like they are in the midst.

Like you better understand that if the fuse goes off,

everyone's going to sleep.

And it isn't the guy you're making fun of

or trying to take a picture of.

Like I just don't think people have any grasp

of this fooling around is gonna have a price.

Yeah, my wife went to a Hendo Gracie seminar

sometime last year.

There was a bunch of friends from her school or whatever

and Orlovsky was there and she had never seen him

in person and she was like, this guy,

and honestly, when you compare him to other heavyweights,

doesn't seem like the biggest guy

compared to the Lesners and such,

but then you see him in person and you're like,

oh my God.

Yeah, it's not real.

And by the way, if he grabbed,

what's the, he is gonna twist your neck off your body.

Speaking of the shop, yeah.

Shop, like this is not, people just have no concept.

And I always tell people who are fans of this stuff,

I was sitting three rows off the ring

when Crawford dropped a guy with a body shot.

I've been close in fights.

I've been to big fights.

Get as close as you can

and see how tough you think you are.

Because it's one thing to sit up in a mezzanine

and go, oh, go down there and listen to it

and then tell me how tough you really think you are.

You're just like looking up at these guys.

Yeah, no, it's a different thing, man.

All right, all right, we'll shift back

to some car talks here.

I had this sent to me a couple of times

and I'm sure you probably did too,

but we're not gonna see the ID buzz in 2026.

It's a shame.

But only in 2026, did you know that?

Yeah, I saw this news and I think,

I feel like a lot of people feel,

I thought it was cool, man.

Yeah, I think it's cool.

I thought it was cool they did it.

Let's get out of the EV versus gas

and what they should have done.

I think this is kind of a shame,

but this is exactly what we've watched.

When the price is wrong,

Ford Lightning, ID buzz,

a million more expensive ones from Porsche

and all of these companies, it's not going to sell.

Now, this becomes compelling.

I was talking to somebody who sent us a message.

I think one just hammered on an auction site

used with not very many miles for like 42.

We're not real far from these hitting the 30s

in the used market.

I mean, you start saying that if this gets to 28 grand,

a lot of people are gonna be taking a look.

And I know we've talked about,

it's gotta be the dual motor or whatever,

but at what point does just the rear drive

become compelling?

I think if you live in a place like you and I live,

I don't see any reason why you wouldn't just enjoy that.

Because Austin dealers, I mean, you got 2025s,

whether it's a first edition or I'm looking at

just their S-wheel drive, 44, 2025.

Like I said, you start to get the 28.

That's $20,000 off by the way, guys.

That's $20,000 off MSRP.

Yeah, I mean, they were trying to really sell

these things upwards of $68,000 at one point.

That was never gonna happen.

And I think that's my biggest gripe

that you guys have heard me say is that

when it doesn't pass the price smell test,

we kind of all know it's not gonna work.

And this is one that I wanted to work

because even when I see them,

I'm like, man, that thing looks pretty good.

It does, yeah, I mean, look at that.

It's a cool van, man.

I mean, it's a cool thing.

I'm glad they did this, you know,

but you can't get the price this wrong.

And I know everybody's out there saying,

Nick, you can't keep harping on that.

But I gotta ask, like, if I know the price is wrong,

the day that you launch it,

if everyone has the same gut feeling,

aren't we in the position to know

that it's just not gonna work?

And I just don't know why you're doing it.

I mean, it just doesn't make sense.

I know they gotta recoup their money,

but they were already losing on all of this anyway.

So, and then it goes on to say at the end, you know,

it's not the, Viltron is not the only one.

So obviously we talked about

the lightning being canceled.

Nissan canceled the Aria,

which we only talked about once, I think,

sometime this year.

I forgot about that until just this moment.

And by the way, that was one too many times.

You're absolutely right.

The ZDX, we did a big, you know,

couple of videos on that

because that was so pranced around

as like the next thing for Honda Acura.

It's gonna be interesting, 2026.

For those that love the Ice vs. EV conversation,

I think we can see what's happening now

in the interim, but you've always said

if the yo-yo comes back around three years from now,

it's gonna be even more interesting

when people try to revert back to-

Yeah, and we get all kinds of really cool messages.

I really want you guys to keep sending these in

from people around the world.

We got a gentleman, I forget the user name

or the person's name, I apologize.

So if you're listening, they sent a cool DM.

He's like, look, man, I'm in the Middle East,

the Chinese EVs are everywhere.

Oh really?

He's like, they're just everywhere.

I didn't see that one.

And again, this is where we have to talk

to our crowd and go,

the reason that we shouldn't punt on EVs

is because globally this is the fight

for the American manufacturer.

You may not love them, I may not love them.

You may love them or you may hate them,

but the global battle is the cheap EV.

And that's going to dictate

a lot of manufacturing capacity for a lot of companies.

You're German companies, U.S. companies.

So we all see the writing on the wall

that at some level, this is the future.

We all can debate what level that is,

but if you're going around other countries,

and those countries have already started

to import Chinese EVs, they've taken over pretty quick.

Did you by chance see Jerry Seinfeld's rant

about car design?

Yeah, yeah.

You know what?

I didn't see it.

I had somebody send me a text.

Oh yeah.

And because they knew I wouldn't watch the video.

He's like, I know you won't watch this,

but here's what he said.

It was something about taking chances or something.

So the gist of the main clip

that I saw tossed around a ton was,

I'm paraphrasing, but it kind of is what he said.

They should take kerosene and douse these vehicles

like new BMWs, Pagani's, all these cars that are,

one was like BMW and like how atrocious

all those cars are.

And then the quote unquote exotics,

you think you're exotic, but it's not.

It's essentially like a disgusting work of art

kind of thing.

Yeah, I would say he's right on modern car design,

but this is also a guy that's like a Porsche person.

Well, do you want to guess what modern car

is like top notch still designed?

The GT3 or the 911 or whatever.

The ST, he's like the ST, the ST's.

Yeah, okay, man.

That's not hard to say.

It's not wrong.

I don't want anybody to get it twisted.

I'm not arguing with this.

No, not at all.

But you always got to look at it

through the lens of he is loyal to really one brand.

I guess he had a moment where he was loyal to the Acura

because he was sponsored by that.

That quickly faded away.

And I have a weird relationship with Jerry Seinfeld

because I think Larry David's the genius

and Jerry was just a guy that was there.

Sure.

And I think Curb your enthusiasm kind of shows that,

but that's a little Seinfeld's

get for you guys there.

But yeah, he's not wrong, man.

I mean, modern design is a lot of lookalike culture.

You know, we've talked so much about

people looking at the 488 and 458 platforms

and designing so many of their new modern cars,

sports cars and that light.

I don't know where all of this goes.

And I think that'd be interesting thing to talk

with guys like Jerry about like,

hey man, you guys have been alive longer than us.

You've been, you know, collecting cars at a level

we don't collect cars.

What do you guys see?

I do think it's an interesting conversation.

And I do agree with a lot of that.

It's like, there's some of this stuff

that just doesn't look very good.

It's only cool because the price tag

and there's an engine or the price tag in the tech,

but you know, he's probably right.

I mean, the ST is probably something

that stayed true to his roots, true to its roots.

And that does make it cool.

You know, it's kind of what we've said about BMW.

Like there's no connection to its roots.

That's not a good thing.

Last week we talked about this like thesis, right?

That you and I were talking about

the differences in car culture from,

we'll say 2005, about 15 or so, 20 years ago

when you two first started versus car culture now.

And got a couple of replies to that specifically,

but kind of what rang true with most people

was this like summed up.

I didn't think that when I was, you know,

however old 15 years ago, I would grow older

and it would be so expensive to partake in this hobby

that I enjoy that I actually feel it's irresponsible

to continue down the road of this hobby.

That's a very common thing.

And I don't think you can blame people

for that opinion.

Yeah.

It's expensive.

I mean, we have to say that,

but there are people in different tax brackets at all times.

Yeah, yeah.

And there are some people that this affects,

some people that doesn't.

I get a lot of questions about this guys.

And I think it's really important for me to say this,

all the time, there's still cool shit you can buy

for a price that fits you.

So yeah, man, can you buy the latest and greatest?

Maybe, you know, you just haven't gotten to that level

to buy exactly what you want.

That's okay.

But I have a lot of buddies my age, 40 to 50,

that aren't partaking in the hobby the way they want to

because they're so caught up with what they can't afford.

Instead of being like, hey, what'd you love back then

that's still really cool?

Go buy that thing.

It's at a steep discount, you know?

And we've become so risk adverse.

Yes.

It's one of the things that I see right now.

Guys, it's always a risk.

I mean, we had a Maybach with 400 miles on it

that had to be returned to the dealer.

Oh yeah, I remember that.

That was recent too.

205,000 dollars.

300 miles was in the shop four times,

shut down its infotainment multiple times,

had to be returned to the dealer to never be seen again.

This is one of those things

where there's always a risk buying a car.

Don't sit it out, man.

I wanna see you guys own stuff,

own stuff that you would find interesting.

And yeah, man, I wish we all could own a Porsche ST, right?

But if that's not your case, man,

go find you a 996 at a steep discount with some mileage

and have some fun.

Yeah, because like you said,

and actually here recently too,

there was a couple of clips that we had put out

where you were talking about just that.

Oh, going back to the get in where you fit in.

You had somebody on YouTube, I think, commenting like,

I think it might've been on the LX or the Lexus stuff.

It's just like, I can't do this hobby.

It's just too much.

It doesn't make sense, something like that.

But it's the same sentiment.

Like you just said, get in where you fit in.

When you can't.

Yeah, and that's the way it's gonna be.

And that's the way it's always been.

We just have to stop this negative car hobby talk.

And I don't mean like we can't have conversations

about the pricing issues,

but that doesn't mean there's not stuff available to you.

Like we're sitting here talking about constantly

Gen 1 Raptor and the old 7.3 Excursion.

We're talking about older BMWs.

We're talking about 2001 Porsches.

Like guys, we're not the guys sitting here

telling you and all we talk about is,

oh, you know, we test drove with our press car.

I got the new Porsche and it's really handles well.

Like that's not the show you're listening to.

And the fact is, if you listen to those shows,

I just got to wonder your brain wattage.

I mean, most of the stuff is obvious.

Most new cars are fast.

Thanks for the, you know, thanks for the info, bud.

Hey, Rivian's doing this at their launch.

Here's the press release on my Instagram.

Cool.

If those are the people you're into,

then you're not really in the car hobby, in my opinion.

Speaking of wattage, you're just what?

Go ahead, go ahead.

So speaking of wattage, you got two things.

One, I got a, my wife is so bad about waiting

for the day of a holiday to give me a gift.

She's like, open it now, open it now.

So I opened up, I have a, it's a 74 Turbo S.

A Porsche, yeah, Turbo S or 911 Turbo

from the Forza Horizon video game.

When the game came out a couple years back,

I think 2019, 2020, they make runs of Legos

for the games and it was like a limited edition.

So super cool.

So I got an old school,

so then I went to go look at the prices.

I was like, oh, it's $180,000 for a 70s.

Okay, all right, I'll just stick with the Lego for now.

Yeah, I'm probably just gonna put the Lego together.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, you know, I'm keeping the box.

I'm gonna go ahead and keep it in the box.

Yeah, but here's what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna open a tab

and I'm just gonna keep my eye on these prices.

Maybe something happens, something happens.

Speaking of wattage, so now speaking of wattage,

last week I told you the cheapest Taycan in the country

was $39,000.

We have a new winner, by the way.

Oh, you got the, look, you are a sicko.

What?

You've kept the tab open, like you're gonna buy one.

Well, you don't know

because now we got two winners actually.

From $39,000 last week, $34,000

and then we have one for $23,000.

How many miles is on that thing?

The one for $23,000 has no miles listed,

but the one for $34,000 has $103,000.

Yeah, that'd be a tough buy.

That'd be a tough buy, $100,000.

But it's a pretty blue, but it's a pretty,

it's like my hat, it's like the color.

Yeah, yeah, I hear you.

That might be a tough,

that might be one I'd say, stay away.

Can you imagine going and being like, hmm, $20,000?

All right, Taycan, $103,000,

it's only $34,000, you know, $35,000.

You think it's a good buy?

Like, how do you ask somebody that?

I don't know.

I actually don't, I'll be very fair with everybody.

I don't know how to gauge high mileage EVs.

Or I guess especially these EVs, right?

I just have no way of gauging them.

I don't, you know, could it be reliable

another 100,000 miles?

Could it be reliable another 2,000 miles?

Like, I just have no way, I have no gauge for it.

Okay, well, never mind.

The $23,000 one is salvaged, one accident, two owners.

Yeah, that's been pimped out.

That's definitely been pimped out.

Pimped out and pimped in, you know what I'm saying?

I just leave that one there.

But I thought that was interesting.

The other one's a clean title, but 34,

I mean, I just had to bring it up

because I didn't expect the 39,000 from last year

or last week and then 34, dude, crazy.

Craziness, craziness.

I don't wanna, obviously we still got some time,

so I don't wanna end on this subject,

but I gotta bring it up just in case you have some thoughts.

Call of duty, co-creator, co-founder,

died in a car accident on Angela's crest.

Did you see it?

I did see the video, yes.

It was an SF-90, I believe, right?

How quickly you turn it off?

I mean, once he starts breaking,

and you're like, you can't fucking swipe fast enough

and then you see him hit, and I was like, oh, God damn it.

Yeah, I think we gotta talk about the sickos

that like watch the whole thing

because I'm not a watch the whole tragedy kind of guy.

It's like, like you said,

once I kind of heard the breaks,

I'm like, whoop, I know where this was going.

I think people are starting to have a real conversation.

We love to rail on takeover culture.

There are really powerful cars

that people have no training in driving

and they're driving on these windy,

because this happened at Angela's crest

or whatever it's called in LA.

Look, man, I know a lot of pro-level drivers

that drive those types of roads that are talking privately.

Maybe some of them would come out publicly.

I don't listen to a bunch of those kinds of podcasts

that it's becoming a real danger

to be on these kinds of roads.

And I think it all stems from,

we can talk about the skill level,

but if you don't have a skill level

and your car is 350 horsepower

or it's 1,350 horsepower,

I think the skill level becomes that much more amplified.

And I just don't think we're talking about it.

Yeah, it's true.

And that sounds like, oh, we're being,

what are we, old fuddy-duddies.

Yeah, no, no, but it's just a horsepower issue.

I mean, it's, you probably don't know any of us.

You guys probably can't name two people

you've actually spent time with

that you said that guy's skilled enough

on a winding road to drive 1,000 horsepower car.

No.

And some of you may know professional drivers

that will tell you,

I'm not driving 1,000 horsepower car on that road.

That's not even fun.

I'd lose control.

They're pros.

Like, or approaching pro level type of drivers.

I just don't think,

I mean, this is kind of the conversation around Hellcat.

You know, when Hellcat kind of hit the scene

and these powerful cars started just being down the street

from you at the dealership, you go,

they just sell that?

Dude, it's so funny you said Hellcat.

Many years ago, I got gifted in like a track experience

and it was one of those where you just kind of

pick from a half dozen cars or so

and you go on the track with a driver

and then you drive and the whole thing.

And when I saw that the Hellcat was on the list,

I mean, you're talking about, you know,

Hurricane, it was a GT3 was what I got, I chose.

And then other good handling,

what you would think off the top of your head,

good handling, nice nibble cars.

And then there was a Hellcat on there.

And I'm like, in my mind,

I'm like, please tell me the guy that chose the Hellcat,

like actually knows how to handle a Hellcat around a track.

You know what I mean?

To do three, four, five laps.

Yeah, I mean, what a tragedy for anybody to kind of,

it caught fire.

Is that, is that what happened?

Yeah.

Pretty, pretty quickly.

I will say this again and again and again.

This is becoming increasingly more dangerous on these roads,

not simply from the skill level.

Yeah.

It was him and a buddy, I believe too, right?

Yeah, yeah, that's what I heard.

And guys, like you said,

it could sound like old man, get off my lawn.

I just don't know that many people

that are that good at handling 500 plus horsepower.

You know, you get over 550 horsepower

with a lot of these cars

and you're talking about some of them being 800, 900,

1100 horsepower.

Boy, it's creating some dangerous situations, man.

It really is.

Yeah, RIP Vince Zampella, co-creator of Call of Duty.

I will be playing some Call of Duty

throughout the holidays instead of Fortnite.

I'm still, me and my kids love Fortnite,

but we're gonna switch it up.

We're gonna play Call of Duty.

Show some respect.

Just remembrance.

Yes, yes, that remembrance.

Okay, shifting back in the car, talk.

Did you see what Mr. Tim Caniscus confirmed

for Dodge next year?

In their new-

Is it the Hellcat Pacifica that I saw?

Cause that'd be sweet.

Dude, I wish.

Actually, this is gonna be tough to say

if I rather have that or this,

but I'll give you one more guess.

It is in the truck world.

They're revitalizing a name that we've talked about many times.

Dakota?

Let's go.

The new Dakota.

Dun, dun, dun.

Why does that look like an old 1500?

Because it is.

What is going on?

Because every new Dodge Ram's the size of the old MegaCabs

and now the Dakota's the size of the old 1500s.

Oh my God.

So in all fairness, it says that, you know,

while showing us some embargoed Rams,

Tim Caniscus confirms the, you know,

the name plates coming back of the Dakota.

Do we have any price point?

Um, I mean, they alluded to 40 somewhere in here.

So the ones you want are gonna be 53.

Um, I can't confirm nor deny this.

I would love to, if Tim, if you're listening to this,

any big time executive from these car and truck companies,

especially the truck companies,

what is making them run away

from building a smaller truck?

Well, it says that we, Tim connected the dots for us.

We don't have a volume trim $40,000 truck.

The only way to ever get back to a $40,000 price point

again with a mid-sized truck.

You, we've all heard it announced it.

Okay, maybe it didn't.

Investing 13 billion to the U.S.

Yeah, I like all that.

I just don't know why everything's so goddamn big.

Like, can we please answer the question, Tim?

They never answered that question.

Well, the only way to get back,

I tell you this, if you use less metal,

that'd be one way.

I mean, I'm just, you know, I'm just kind of spitballing.

You know, I didn't think a Dodge 1500 was gonna be $40,000.

That's what you're building.

And huge fans of Tim Kaniscus here.

Like we said, he's a guy that gets the brand

he's involved in.

I just ask, where is the smaller truck?

A Dakota was a small truck, my guy.

That's the hook.

Why is it so damn big?

It just goes in the clip.

I mean, why is it so damn big?

We just never get the answers, man.

And I get it, maybe we don't know something that they know.

But can you guys at least answer the question

on everyone's mind?

Everybody who was around remembers the Dodge Dakota.

It was smaller than a Ram 1500.

This is now the size of a Ram 1500.

Yeah, it's kind of a-

And I have a real basic thing that I'll say,

I've said it probably on multiple occasions this year.

I'll repeat it.

They don't have anything else to sell you

as except that we made a bigger truck.

That's true.

That's like the new selling point.

It's bigger.

There's more space.

It's bigger.

They don't have another selling point.

That's why they would do it.

I mean, and I would have no problem

saying that to an executive.

Hey, bud, you can admit it right here.

You guys have run out of ideas.

So our sales team is like,

well, just make it bigger, we can sell that.

What's the other argument here?

It works though, if we're being honest,

I guess it's still working.

I mean, yeah, look, I mean,

look how big Tacoma's gotten.

I mean-

It's a tank.

It's a tank, and people buy it.

I'm not saying I'm right on this.

I do, I would love the answer to the question,

because now this means

you should have a three truck solution inside a Ram.

That's true.

You should have the 1500, the Dakota,

and now you gotta put out something on par with the Maverick.

So is that what you guys are setting up for?

Imagine the opportunity here.

This could have been it.

The Dakota should have been what the Maverick

was supposed to be.

Oh, no question.

That's what I would have thought.

Okay, but in all fairness, you know what's left?

We gotta wait for that S10 to come back.

It's gonna be like a Slate and S10, right?

You either want the Slate or you want the S10.

I'd love that.

As mind-boggling as Chevy sitting out

the Raptor style market for all these years,

not having the S10 is just as head scratching.

Yeah, or you know what?

Fuckin' bring back the X-Runner.

Bring back the, that little Toyota was awesome too.

I don't care.

Bring back any, we're just having them bring,

we don't even care about costs.

We're just like, bring this back, we're like Oprah,

bring this back, look at this, you get a free truck.

You get an X-Runner and you get a whatever else.

I just, I think most of you

probably feel the way that we do.

Cool man, this now means you gotta have

three trucks inside a ram.

And if that's not the plan here,

this is a head scratcher.

You're gonna sell some, but I don't think you solve

getting into the small truck market

by having something that's on par

with the 1500 sitting in my shop.

Yeah, and I said this last week about this void of like,

there's nothing new coming out, the prices, all that stuff.

This might be the direction that gets more people

interested in buying from these manufacturers.

It's just introducing, again,

having a three tiered system of things that you can buy

that like forcefully lowers the prices

of the entry point.

And then if you end up buying something more expensive,

that's on you, but we're offering you this like,

haven't seen in 15 year price truck, get in.

Let's get in.

I think all of us have to hope that we go back

or develop this small, big, bigger type of way

in the truck world.

I don't know that we're gonna do that,

but I guess that's what we all have to hope for

because then it fits more of you.

I know a lot of you want a truck.

A lot of you just don't want trucks on the size they are

and that doesn't mean everybody wants

the smaller truck either.

Well, the company prices that match

the standard ladder you just described as well.

Yeah, this is kind of what we said

when we gave Nissan the free advice

on turning that thing around.

Hey, man, just go to a three tiered system.

Good, better, best.

I mean, it's not that hard.

Speaking of good, better, best,

I gotta bring this one up

because this was one of the only other top contenders

that the wife and I actually liked

when we, before we bought the CX-5

and Honda's introducing the new pilot.

It's got a face lifted pilot here,

which I think the old one looks better,

but I feel like we always say that

or I always say that.

It's gonna be 2000.

That front plastic's ugly, huh?

This thing is terrible.

I mean, the current one is so good.

The new pilot that's out now is so good.

It's $2,000 more.

So, hey, there you go.

It's gonna be, I don't know,

50-something, I think, for starters.

Imagine paying 50-something and having that bumper.

Yeah.

That bumper's terrible.

Lights are terrible.

It's just not.

God damn it.

I feel like you were like,

what did you say about BMW?

I am so bad at BMW and so mad.

Yeah, this isn't good.

I mean, it's not good from a design.

I don't think any of it from Honda

has been great in a long time.

I think things have been more passable

and more okay to get on board with,

but that's a lot of goofy plastic on the front.

Yeah, here we go.

43 for just the regular front-wheel drive sport,

up to 56 for the black condition.

The Trail Sport was the one that we were considering.

It's gonna be 51.

I mean...

I want people because you're not,

if you're not watching on YouTube,

in true what seems to be true Japanese car manufacturer,

you know, belief system now,

that is 10 trim models.

That is 10 trim models, yes.

10 trim models on a Honda frickin' pilot.

I mean, just say it out loud, it doesn't sound.

I mean, you'd be sitting in the executive meeting like 10,

but we're not doing 10.

Can we do five?

Can we do half that?

I mean, can we just cut this in half

and we'll get down to...

That's why I always tell people,

stop telling me your thing is fully loaded.

Because fully loaded means it's something a lot different now.

That's actually coming out today, I think.

We have so many holiday clips going up

just because most people are at home

and they're gonna be consuming Nick's face

and my voice from now until New Year's.

Yeah, no, it's 10 trim models on a Honda pilot.

That is unbelievable.

If you're sitting in that boardroom

that you just talked about, wouldn't you just say,

look, let's get our base front-wheel drive,

we'll get a mid-tier with all-wheel drive,

and then you're fully loaded all-wheel drive.

Good, better, best is always work.

I mean...

It's always work, it's always easy to understand

and boy, 10 trim models is, that is rough.

On a Honda pilot.

On a Honda pilot, yeah, exactly.

You're not talking about 10 trim models on your Bentley.

You're talking about 10 trim models on a Honda pilot,

on a Tacoma, on a 4Runner, on an expedition.

Like, where does this all, do you need 10 trim models?

No, we just, good, better, best.

10 trim models, and their whole goal is,

we don't do a whole lot to either any of them,

we just hope somebody buys the Black Edition,

just because it has two extra stickers on the interior

or whatever the Black Edition means.

So, you know, when you talked about that,

I don't think you specified what to Nick was,

the idea of a good, fully loaded 10, 15 plus years ago.

In your mind, if you were to describe it to the listeners,

what was...

People won't believe it.

Tell me.

Leather used to, leather used to be the thing

that would be the dividing line of fully loaded.

This is true.

I remember my parents having this discussion.

Then, fully loaded would mean,

sunroof, leather, CD player.

Of course, a CD player.

What about, was it, dischanger and CD player?

Dischanger too, then it changed and you would have,

but fully loaded meant, back then,

it didn't mean a whole bunch of options usually.

You know, in some cars it could, more luxury brands,

but fully loaded just usually meant like, I got leather.

Maybe I got some gold emblems instead of the silver emblems.

You know, I got a sunroof.

I got a CD player or a dischanger.

I mean, that was kind of what fully loaded meant.

Not to say we got to go back to those days.

I mean, we have more technology

and things we can add to cars,

but a 10 package system to get to fully loaded

on a Honda pilot seems like maybe we're headed

in the wrong direction.

All right, well, we got to pour one out for another car

as we wrap up the year that will be no more

ending the run here in December

and that is the Nissan Versa.

Officially the cheapest car, new car in America, is gone.

Wonder why.

I think we talked about this back in the spring.

They were going to double down

on bringing back Centra, I think, remember?

I mean, what's this car cost?

20 something?

It's got to be, it's got to be sub 20.

No, it's not sub 20.

Oh no, Keith asked that to Keith.

No, no, no.

I'm going to find it.

I think it's sub 20.

If I'm not mistaken, this was like 18, but.

Okay, I mean, for 18, that looks good for 18 for 20.

I don't think you need to bring the Centra back.

You probably need to tell people how cheap this is.

It's too late.

It's doing some commercials.

Too late, it's gone.

Transitioning into, I know Reddit in here somewhere.

Yeah, I look at this and I go,

for those of you trying to get a start in life,

you just want to get around town,

this fits a need.

If it's a need, we think a lot of people have,

but maybe Nissan knows more than us

and people just don't buy it in the numbers they should.

Because there's a lot of people

that should be buying a new car

if it's available at 18 to 23.

And this is the whole argument.

A lot of manufacturers would make to many of us

who talk about getting into,

having some of these cheaper options

is that people just don't buy them.

You know, they don't have enough features.

They're not nice enough.

True, 1617 is about where you start with those for 2025.

Why don't we see more of them?

I know, it's, well, in all fairness,

I do see quite a few Nissan Centras.

Not new ones, but like Centras in general.

But that's crazy.

I knew they were around 18, but 16 is, that's crazy.

That's so, no more of that, no more 2025 and beyond.

I wonder if they just make no money on them.

I was gonna say it's gotta be a profit thing.

It has to be.

It has to be, because there's no reason not to keep it

if you guys are doing well with it.

Yeah, even at base level, creature comforts for 16,

like imagine, you're at a high school,

going into college, community college, whatever,

you got a new, like your parents help you get a new

$16,000, 20, 25 Nissan Centra.

What are you, 10 grand above that to get a Corolla?

Oh.

Now you're probably gonna get 20, right?

Yeah, 25.

23 to 26.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, yeah, it's quite a bit of savings.

I mean, it's quite a bit of savings,

but the problem is you're probably wondering,

is this thing gonna last?

Yeah, exactly.

Can I make it through my two year associates here

with this car?

Exactly, right.

My two year associates, sorry.

All right, if you were to tell the listeners

what some of your plans are,

because people ask like, hey, I know Nick's got stuff

going on with the LX, does he have a list

of hierarchy of what he would like to tackle

inside, outside performance, comfort, the whole thing?

Well, we have a video done.

Yeah.

Something's already been done to the LX.

It's an incredible project we completed.

We got the stereo figured out.

That's been completed.

Yeah, I'm real big on suspension and bumpers.

I'd say that'd be hierarchy right now.

I'd like to find roof rack that I like.

Yeah, I mean, some very upgrade the ride, upgrade.

I'm still making a decision on wheels.

You and I have talked through a couple things to do on wheels.

I'm leaning towards just having the factory powder coated.

I like that idea a lot.

I like it because it still keeps a little bit

of the look that I like.

Yeah, but the hierarchy is probably suspension and bumpers

and there are some good companies out there

that I like their stuff.

Not sure that we wanna work with them at times

and other times there's some things where like,

yeah, that looks like a company we wanna work with.

Part of what's holding me up on the project guys

is I do wanna work with companies that we can showcase

good companies with good people that wanna tell a story

and it's important to us, but we may have to pun on that.

Maybe there's gonna be some things

that maybe we can't find good partners

to work with and tell their story.

It's just not what they're interested in.

So that's my hierarchy.

Bumpers, front and back, front and rear

and suspension would be my top tier right now.

Actually, I'm deep down the rabbit hole

of upgrading the headlights.

Oh, you haven't mentioned that one.

I like that.

Front grill, because it's got a crack in it.

Do I wanna go OE or do I wanna do like a TRD type

front grill?

So those are like simple projects,

but the headlights, I've been really looking

at upgrading all the interior lights.

It's more of a modern LED, but I gotta tell you,

but some of these make your car feel like a surgical center.

They get so bright.

So I-

How do you feel about interior lighting?

What's the phrase for it?

Daytime, not daytime, but you know what I mean.

Mood lighting?

Sure, mood lighting, whatever.

Like, do you a fan of it in general?

There's some cool stuff on modern cars

that I think are, I would say,

hey man, that does offer a cool experience

like Mercedes and BMW and some of the higher end stuff.

Some of you might own a car that's not in that

and you go, hey, they did it well.

I just, these are the cars I'm around.

Interior lighting is tough because

when you make the change to all LED,

you're gonna get a vastly different experience

than I have currently where I get in there

and it feels very 2003.

You're not blinded when you turn the light on.

Ambient lighting is the word I was looking for.

How to look it up is driving me crazy.

Yeah, that's the right term.

Somebody was yelling into their car stereo,

they're like, ambient, you idiot, ambient,

you idiot.

You fools.

So lighting is very top of the list right now

especially, I don't wanna do,

so you can do a lot of things

that really start to run your pricing up

where you send off the lights and they,

do all these things and put these very elaborate.

I think those are cool

but I also really value just being able

to turn something in myself

and not having this big elaborate project

on things that don't matter all that much to me.

I know people say, well your headlights should matter.

I get you and I do matter

but part of this is I just wanna be able

to kinda do it myself and have it done,

live with it because right now

I gotta refinish the headlights.

The headlights are oxidized

so I gotta sand those down and do all that.

We'll share that if you guys wanna learn

how to do it if you don't know

but I kinda wanna keep that project simple

but I'm really,

yesterday I got the tabs still up right now

as we're recording,

diving into interior lights

and boy it scares me to start changing those out

and I just look up and I'm like, damn this is too bright.

Dude, the CX-5 has this thing in it.

That's the only thing I don't like about it.

There's no ambient lighting

even in the turbo signature

or the turbo like upper trims

they have one little sliver of,

it's like the tip of a fuckin' screwdriver here

right above where the sunroof button is

but it illuminates most of the center console

and we had a friend in the car with us

and they were like, looking around,

they were like, they were touching it

and was like, where's this light coming from?

Cause it shines like a lot of light

and you can't turn it off.

Like it's just always on.

You can't?

You can't.

I gotta believe it's in the owner's manual.

You can't turn it off.

I'm gonna put this on you.

I think it's a lie.

I'm calling a lie.

You've said this before.

I'm gonna look it up.

If I go pull your owner's manual

and I find it in two seconds,

I'm gonna put it all over the internet

and say look,

Rob didn't even read his owner's manual.

All right, hey, blue band, cut that out, please.

Cut that out, please.

Don't let that stay in there.

Jamie, can you pull that up?

You're right.

Actually, I should read your owner's manual.

I actually like it.

I don't mind it, but I'm a little bit younger

so it doesn't bother my eyes yet.

So maybe in a couple of years

and I want to turn.

It's a weird thing.

Lighting is really individual.

It is a lot more individual

than I even give it credit for at times

cause I get in cars and I'm like,

what's going on in here?

I don't like this at all.

Then I get in other cars and I'm like,

man, this thing is bad at.

Well, the GTI looks like I'm in a rave.

It's just like red lighting everywhere.

All floors.

Yeah, which I like it, I don't mind it.

People love it.

I think that the footwell stuff,

like I love a good footwell lit up,

the doors, the sills, it's got red everywhere.

Which is cool.

Does it have the GTI on the ground when you open your door?

Which I actually don't like that,

the puddle lights or whatever.

Yeah, I'm kind of with you.

The only, I think the coolest puddle lights right now,

and they may not have them on every model,

is when you open up a Range Rover

and it just has like the stenciled Range Rover.

I do like that.

I'm like, okay, that's something different.

I mean, I'm kind of in the middle of the road on it.

If it has it, whatever.

I mean, I see people adding it to their car.

I think that's kind of strange, but do your thing.

Yeah.

But yeah, I kind of like goofy features like that.

You just go, they kind of did it their way.

But if it just shoots Range Rover on the ground.

The name?

I don't like that, but we have a Range Rover,

one of my customers where it shoots,

and they may all do this.

I don't have everybody's Range Rover, obviously.

But on an autobiography,

it just shoots the little stenciled version of it.

It looks really cool.

I like that.

I like Audis.

They have the animation where it's like,

if it's an RS3, RS, whatever,

it'll like do it on the headlights.

Yeah, that's true.

Those are really cool.

That works too.

Yeah.

This is just now,

you're getting down to such personal preference.

I can't, it's such a stupid thing

to say like, there's just things I'll like

and you'd be like, no, I hate it.

I had it.

I don't like it.

It's just one of those features on cars, lighting.

And I know a lot of people are talking about this.

I think I saw Camisa talking about this.

Are we gonna have a conversation

about how unbearable headlights,

oncoming traffic have become?

Like when's this gonna get into a lawsuit?

Some kind of class action thing's gonna happen

and this is gonna get fixed.

I get flashed every day that I drive my wife's car.

So you're one of those,

look, I drive a 2003 every day.

So I don't get the, I'm not a dick.

I drive like this, ready to go.

Just ready to flash.

I'm like, they're not the high beams.

They're not the high beams.

So we know Rob is one of those

headlight dicks right now.

But there's deer everywhere.

So I'm glad because, you know.

No, that's a good call.

Yeah.

That's a good call.

Sorry.

It just seems like this can't continue.

Yeah, I agree with you.

By the way, some of this aftermarket shit,

what they can sell you and how many, like,

what is it?

Kelvins and Lumen.

I'm like, Jesus Christ.

I'm gonna be able to see

the other driver's thoughts at some point.

I love the add-ons of these lights

where there's built-in fans because they get so hot.

So when you put it into your housing,

it's got the fan in there to keep it cool or whatever.

And I'm like, what do you like?

Like, are you lighting a field?

Like, are you just driving on the road?

Yeah, it's, I'd love to hear everybody's,

if you guys leave comments,

if you're really, really like down this road

and you've messed with them.

And then what about the people you can tell

put aftermarket in, then they pointed them in correctly?

So they're like literally right in everybody's face?

Well, most people don't know how to adjust them.

So I just leave them the way that they are

when they put them on.

They're just looking up in the sky.

It's like, are you trying to see the nearest Taco Bell sign?

Like, why is it so high?

Look, and I'm gonna, I'll leave it at this

for my fellow Texans or anybody else.

The light bars, we gotta settle down with the light bars.

Please don't run them during the day.

Yeah, I don't think people,

if you're going on a hog hunt,

that's a good time to use your light bar.

All right, yeah.

Yeah, that's what they're for.

2 p.m. with the sun also in our eyes, we don't need that.

The ones that crack me up out here.

So we have, I've lived here a long time.

I've never seen an ounce of fog,

but guys put those fog light bars

and they're running all the time

because they don't know how to turn them off

in through their auxiliary

or they didn't wire up an auxiliary plug.

And you go, bud, you got Las Vegas license plates.

Like there's no fog here.

Like, this is never going to come up.

Now, if you off-road it,

and you go, that's why I have them,

I go, well, why are you running it Wednesday at 11 a.m.

in Las Vegas?

I gotta ask you this, this is so funny.

I was growing up, I used to love running fog lights

only, nothing else,

because I thought it looked cool depending on the car.

What are your thoughts on fog lights only

and or just at all with your daytime running lights?

I mean, daytime running lights for one of those things,

I largely don't really understand

because I live in a sunny place

and you can't really see people's lights.

I guess if you lived in a place that was cloudy all the time,

you'd be like, hey, we need daytime running lights.

I don't think it's very useful for me or you.

I don't have a problem with it

if it's integrated properly,

but when somebody's driving a Raptor

that they put a shitty light bar in the middle

of their bumper and they're running fog lights,

I'm like, I don't think this is what you think it is.

Like, I think most of us probably have the,

when things are being used,

it's your car, do what you want.

I know I can hear the comments now,

but when something's not being used for the intended purpose

as something as simple as lights, I gotta wonder.

I mean, I guess if I saw a Raptor like that,

that was for sale.

I'd be like, how often did you run these fog lights?

Never, they're brand new.

It's actually not even connected.

And they go, oh, it's, we don't have an,

we didn't hook it up to the auxiliary switch.

So it just runs with my lights.

I'd be like, swipe.

You're just not gonna even look at it.

I can just tell you screwed that truck.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, that's the point.

I don't, we have it in spades out here.

I'm sure you do in Texas, man.

These guys have light bars.

And I think some of them look really cool.

They're definitely functional.

If you're going out to hunt hogs in Texas,

I don't know why we're doing it,

you know, 1130 on a Thursday,

but it's, it's out there.

It's, it's a strange phenomenon all of a sudden.

So funny.

All right.

It is, we were recording this on Christmas Eve

to get it out for everybody.

Cause we didn't take, no, no days off, no weeks off.

No days off.

You know, for the podcast since we started,

I just need your blurb input on two stories.

Cause I already had them up and I just, you know,

they're, they're in the news this week, you know,

Jaguar and then, and then a fourth thing,

Jaguar gave their final farewell to their last combustion

vehicle. It was a F paste. Did you see this?

I saw that they, did they actually fire the guy

and then they said they didn't fire them.

Oh, that I don't know.

Or something like that.

So here's the, the final F pace.

It's according to the report, you know,

built a 567 horsepower F pace SVR powered

by the legendary supercharged V8.

Yeah. And it's gone.

And it's over.

I still am a little bit sad about all this.

I agree. I agree.

This was a brand.

Again, it's all age dependent, probably where, you know,

what you were around growing up.

If you've never got to see Jaguars or you did,

I don't know.

It was just one of those luxury brands.

You go, man, that Jag looks good.

Man, that Jag looks cool.

You didn't really want to own them

cause they always were reliability issues,

but I was always kind of glad they existed

and appreciated the, the big cat on the front, you know,

when they had the old emblem.

It's, this is probably gone forever.

I mean, I don't know the Jag recovers.

I just don't.

And I don't care whether you like a brand or not.

I don't think it's a positive when things go away.

Cue the Tiger King.

I will never financially recover from this.

That's Jaguar. Sorry.

Yeah. I just don't know if they'll ever recover

because this is, this has been bungled for five years now.

Yeah. I mean, from, from struggling with sales,

not thinking about how to turn it around

then closing down production,

then the atrocious release of, of whatever,

that EV commercial and design and all that kind of stuff

to now I just, I don't know how it's recoverable.

All right. We're going to end on a high note

cause I think this is cool.

I mean, we love these variants of Ford,

but did you see that there is talks of more raptor models

being back on the table?

Yeah, buddy. Yeah, buddy.

So if we get the off-road SVT or whatever raptor Mustang

or Expedition or Explorer even,

would that be in contention of a future?

Can we get an off-road Mustang Raptor?

That's what I'm saying. Yeah.

That's like number one on the list

because it was on the table about a year or two ago.

Now it's back.

Yeah. No question.

That's, that's a no brainer.

Now nobody's buying Mustangs at a high level anymore.

They're losing sales.

We're just asking them to build shit

for no real financial gain to them, probably.

I mean, honestly, everybody that had a Mustang

probably moved into a Raptor,

but now they move back to a Mustang

if it's a Raptor Mustang.

Hey, my kids are out of the house.

Let me get that new Mustang. Exactly.

See, the wife's not...

I'm a big fan of a company.

Raptor's been done well.

Ford has capitalized on it.

They were way ahead of the curb on it.

Slap it on everything at this.

I mean, you made a Mustang EV.

Slap it on everything. Slap it on everything.

Do like what they've done at Mercedes with AMG

and what BMW's done with them.

Just slap it on everything.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Yeah, I like it.

I mean, you've already lost a heritage.

Let's just go ahead and slap it on everything.

Oh, dude.

I gotta say, the people that were like,

we put out the lightning, I think the EV lightning stuff

and people were like, oh, heritage.

Oh, you know, something about, you know,

ICE versus EVs.

Yeah, lightning was a heritage thing.

Yeah, relax.

Weird nose.

Yeah, like a lot of people play pretend car guy.

Nose.

That's what 2025 has proven to me.

If you're a car person,

I don't care what brand you like

and what brand you're loyal to.

I'm not loyal to any brand.

I like the cars.

I like everybody's cars.

If they built something cool, it's cool.

The lightning was a cool thing.

There's a heritage to it.

It wasn't decades and decades long,

but it was something special in the Ford brand.

This was what was so upsetting to a lot of people

about super and not being taken seriously inside a Toyota.

And you can go, the list can go on.

What we're seeing come out from M3,

all of these things that have any kind of history

that is loved by people to mess it up

seems really silly when you can just name it something else.

It's just a goddamn name.

You can just name the shit something else.

The best reply, I think I saw one of them

and you were like, not a car guy, huh?

I thought you got to say.

Yeah, guys, this is kind of what we're supposed to be about.

Hey, you built something cool.

Perfect example is Bronco.

They did it right.

Yeah, it was great.

We're all celebrated.

If that doesn't prove you should have an Explorer Raptor

and an Expedition Raptor, I don't know what it is.

Yeah, just do it.

Yeah.

Just slap it on, dude.

Slap it on.

I mean, people are buying Cadillac Vs.

So is the price cresting $200,000?

Look, like Frank's Red Hot, put that shit on everything.

Yeah, I mean, just roll it out.

You don't give a shit about names,

you put lightning on an EV, let's roll.

That should be the campaign.

Hey, we're just giving you what you want.

You want the name, we're gonna slap it on everything.

Yeah, put Raptor on a Corolla, sell that tag.

I mean, we are putting Roush on these tons these days,

so I guess it doesn't matter.

Hey, we got a message.

Guy got a great deal on one.

On a Roush Nissan?

I think maybe it was a YouTube comment.

If you're out there, we really want the updates.

I would love to hear about this.

We want the updates.

Yes.

I told you in the comments, we want to see how it goes.

Rootin' it on.

Hell yeah, okay, love it.

Yes, if you're listening to this, please, I wanna know.

I don't think I've ever seen a Pro 4x Roush anything.

No, I don't think either, me either.

So we really wanna know.

Like all you guys that are right in

because you bought something, keep us up to date.

Yeah, for sure.

That is at clutchculturepodcast at gmail.com.

Nick's at hypercleanstore and at hypercleannick,

if you wanna bother him on his personal account

that he never uses, but he probably should in 2026.

And we will see everybody at this point in the new year.

All right, guys.

See ya.

End of 2025 Show, Wild F-150 Pricing, The ID Buzz Gone For 2026, No Cheap Cars Left & More

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