Ep. 299: Build These Cars And We Will Buy Them!

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Hey guys, welcome to TFL Car Chat.

It's me and…

It's Tommy and we've got a great episode for you today because there are some massively

obvious big sellers that these car companies are just totally missing out on that we think

could kind of blow up the market.

So we're going to talk about some of those, some of our predictions about what

might happen with some of the car companies.

But first, before we get to all of that, you have just been on something pretty cool.

Yeah, I just came back from Pebble Beach, the Concorde de Aragones, and whoa, I feel poor

Tommy.

I feel so poor.

I have never seen so much money located in one little tiny area.

You know, when you see Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Huayras street parked, just, you know,

on the side of the street, you know you're in for some serious heavy hitters.

So was it like every car you would pass where they all like hundreds of thousands of dollars

and millions of dollars, or were there some like normal cars mixed in there as well?

There's this hotel there called Spanish, in, at Spanish Bay.

Okay.

And you know how they park cars in the front, in the valet and usually you'll get

like some, you know, some Mercedes, maybe some Cadillacs.

This was all like, like the cheapest car I saw, except for one, I'll tell you

in a second, the cheapest car I saw was the Porsche GT3 RS, and then it went up from there.

So we're looking, you know, you're looking at the coolest car there, I'll tell you what

was there.

Obviously, there were all kinds of Ferraris, Lamborghinis, even the newest one, the Rivuelto

was there.

And then you're starting to get into these like crazy ass one-off supercars like,

you know, Huayras and Aston Martin Valhalla's, you know, stuff like that.

And then the craziest car was, it was a, what are those cars called?

A concept car that they built the Batmobile on.

So I forget what the original Batmobile was built on, but it was built on this concept

car.

And they had, because I look at it, I'm like, that's the Batmobile.

And then I was there with Motor Man, he's like, no, no, that's a car that they built

the Batmobile on.

Wow.

And then if there was a lonely Sonata.

But these were all like cars that were just on the street.

No, these were just like parked in front of the hotel.

They were just like valet and then one Sonata.

I mean, like, I don't know what the Sonata was doing there, but I had an embarrassing moment

Tommy.

So I was at the quail and the quail is, I think, $1500 to get in.

It's like, imagine a car show that's outside, but all the food is free, all the drinks

are free.

And I think there were scalping tickets to it for like $4,000.

It's crazy, right?

So if you want to buy, you know, a Koenigsegg, you can go buy one from Mr. Koenigsegg

himself.

They're there.

I was there with the chief designer for Lamborghini.

They built this special Rivuelto, which was kind of bumblebee color and they're only building

30 of them.

Wow.

And they sold one off for charity and sold for $25 million.

Geez.

RJ was there from Rivian.

They built the special.

The theme of this whole week was one of one.

Everybody wants one of one.

In other words, if you're super rich, you got to have something that no one

else can have.

And that really was the thing.

So Cadillac had a stand set up with the concept car and the, is it Vistik or Vistik?

Yep.

I think you got it.

You know, the big electric car.

Vistik, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But nobody was there.

Okay.

It was, that was like the ghetto of, that was only $300,000, right?

Shmi didn't even pay attention to it.

He was running around profiling all these.

Oh, you're thinking of the Celestic.

The Celestic, yeah, sorry, not the Vistik, the Celestic.

So Shmi was running around profiling all these.

There were 15 F-50s.

Wow.

I don't know how many F-40s.

Now I'm talking Ferraris, right?

They didn't build that many, but there were probably, you know, there were 10 of those.

Just crazy stuff.

Anyway, it was kind of sunny and there was shade there, and I really had to use a bathroom.

And even though there were restaurants everywhere, I didn't know where the bathroom was.

So there's this like shorter gentleman there talking to somebody else.

And it was across from the Pagani stand.

And it was in the shade.

And they were talking and I'm like, these guys look official.

Let me ask him where the bathroom is.

So I walked up to him and I was like, hey, guys, do you know where the bathroom is?

And the shorter gentleman with kind of the frosted hair looks at me, goes, I don't know.

And the other guy was like, no, no clue.

And then I realized after he said that, that it was probably Horatio Pagani that I asked.

I think he was hiding away from the stand because he's kind of a big star.

And he went to the Cadillac stand because there's no one there to have a private

meeting.

That's him where the bathroom was.

What's funny about that is so Pagani is quite known for being like a big figure in

the car community.

But usually when people try to talk to him, he doesn't speak English.

Like, that's his big thing.

No, he knew how to say no.

I don't know.

Yeah.

But from what I've heard, he definitely doesn't know how to speak English.

He just doesn't want to talk to people.

But you congrats.

You talked to Horatio.

I did.

I did talk to Horatio.

And it wasn't about buying a hoira.

So it was crazy, Tommy.

It was crazy.

But let's skip that for now because we're past the quail and the pebble

beach.

Oh, I'll give you a couple other things.

Ask me what was my favorite car there?

What was your favorite car?

So at Pebble Beach, of course, very different show.

So like the quail is more or less new money.

So it's all these tech bros, right?

It's all the super cars, all the hyper cars.

And then you go, of course, to Pebble Beach where it's old money and old

cars, like historic cars.

They do have what they call the concept lawn, which is kind of in front of the

lodge, the clubhouse of the golf course.

And they had a whole bunch of cool cars set up there, including some of the ones

that were unveiled at Pebble Beach.

So like, for instance, Lucid showed up with a new version of the

gravity called the Gravity X, which is their off-roader.

Of course, there has to be an off-road gravity, right?

Of course, there does competing with the R1S, a three-row if you

want it to be.

But the coolest car there, I think, was the Aston Martin Valhalla, which is

they're only building 999 of them.

It's kind of a plug-in hybrid, competes directly with the Revuelto.

And I like the Revuelto, but they're probably going to build a lot more

Revuelto's, but they're only doing 1,000 of these Valhallas.

And it is quite a striking car.

It's got, of course, the scissor doors that open up.

And the most interesting thing, if you can show the back of it,

it's got active arrow.

So there's spoilers that deploy in the front, and then there's spoilers

that deploy in the back.

So do you see the exhaust coming out the top there?

I do.

Yeah, it's very cool.

All right.

What do you think will happen when that air brake lifts

and you've got that big old twin-turbo V8?

I think combined, it puts up like 1,000 horsepower,

putting out all that heat into that wing.

What do you think is going to happen to the wing?

I'm probably OK.

It's going to melt.

I know that, because they told me.

Yeah, so in this picture, you can't see it,

but there's a second set of exhaust under the license plate

bracket.

Wow.

And so when the active arrow comes up,

the exhaust gets routed not through the top, but through

the bottom, so you don't melt the active arrow wing.

Why don't they just use the bottom exhaust all the time?

Because the top one looks cool.

Oh, man.

I think you couldn't use all four if you wanted to,

but they showed me the other second set of exhaust.

Yeah, I see them, yeah.

Interesting.

So you saw some really, really expensive cars

that very few people will be able to afford.

Yeah, maybe for this audience, the most interesting one.

And we know this because we own one of these.

As you know, when the Bronco first came out,

I believe it was 66, am I right?

It was just 64, 66.

There were three versions of it.

So the one everybody knows is the station wagon,

that's what they called it.

We had the half cab, which is, of course, the pickup.

And then the one that's the rarest, they only built them

for two years, is the Roadster.

And Ford unveiled a Roadster concept.

So the Roadster, unlike a regular Bronco,

has no doors and has no roof.

They're not removable, it just doesn't have any.

It's the most open air, the most beach buggy of the lot.

And what they wanted to do is pay homage, homage,

to the original Roadster.

And they had one out there on the concept line.

It was kind of white.

It was very beachy.

It was cool.

I mean, like I said, no doors, no roof.

I don't think they're going to build it.

I wish they would, but I just don't think.

You can probably find a code to show them.

Yeah, so I think that this is an interesting concept.

So you mentioned that back in the day, and they were all,

I think it was you, 13, 14, and 15 were the codes.

Yeah, very good.

But you had the traditional wagon body style,

which everybody knows.

SUV.

And that's all Ford's been building now,

has been conventional SUVs on the Bronco.

Now we've seen a Roadster concept,

which was the open top skateboard version.

So does that mean that we're going

to get a half cab coming, which is like a little baby Bronco

pickup truck?

That would be pretty crazy.

Yeah, I think that's more likely than actually seeing

the Roadster because, obviously, with no doors,

there's side impact questions.

Right back in the 60s, you could probably

get away with doing a car with no doors.

Well, it's not the doors.

I mean, you can.

Well, there's a lot of issues, too, right?

Structural rigidity.

I mean, the problem is not that it's

so like you can take the door left for normal Bronco,

right?

The bigger problem it has is no roll bar.

Well, it's only a two door, too.

Sure.

And then it had these really cool kind of steely wheels.

Yeah, I mean, I think it looks really cool.

And I think what they've done, too,

is if you look at the body side profile,

they've changed the quarter panel as well.

I think they've messed with maybe the wheel base

or the overhangs a little bit.

Well, you notice it's not a real production car

because it doesn't have headrests.

Yeah, that's a good point.

And it doesn't have any roll over protection.

And the other cool thing, and show the back there,

the other cool thing is it's got that license plate

bracket that folds out when you close the tailgate

so you can see the license plate.

Also, that rear bumper is from the original Bronco.

That's the original Bronco bumper.

And so is the front one that they kind of molded

around the vehicle.

But if you look at the way that this is designed,

this is already a half cab.

Do you see that?

So like in the back here, you've

got this old school Bronco tailgate, which folds down

and then the license plate extends.

Don't also stand this for a second, Cole.

So you see that forward lettering?

Does that look familiar to you?

Yeah, it's not the original one.

It's exactly the original.

And it's reversed on the other side, because it's stamped.

So that is exactly that forward in the tailgate

is exactly the same lettering that was in the original one.

I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if the tailgate itself

is very similar, because we owned a Bronco half cab

and it looked very close to how that works.

Yeah, that mechanism to move the license plate,

the designer was telling me they just bought that off

of old Ford parts.

So that is an exact copy of.

Now, this Bronco roadster does not

have any of the features that the regular Bronco has.

So no lockers, no turn assist, those little buttons on the edge.

Doesn't have any of them.

Doesn't have any of them, none of that.

It's just a basic four by four.

So that is a half cab.

So basically, they've done it.

It's pretty close to what a half cab would be.

Except the half cab would have a roof.

Yeah, it would have a little top to it.

But very cool concept.

I mean, I'm glad.

So Jeep's been doing these concepts for a long time now

at the Easter Jeep Safari, where they do crazy stuff

like this, and then Ford's been sort of kind of playing with it.

But theirs have been pretty mild.

So it's great to see them actually committing.

Oh, manual transmission as well.

Yeah, it had a four cylinder.

So it was a very base, base version.

You can see up top there above the screen, no buttons.

This is also very nerdy.

But this is not a 2025 Bronco.

It's an older one.

Because it still has the gauge on the gauge cluster,

and it's got the small infotainment screen.

So they must have started with like a 24 Bronco.

Yeah, chances maybe they started two years ago working

on this.

Chances of them building this are probably pretty slim.

Probably zero.

I think that you'd probably want something that would prevent

you from being squished in any kind of rollover.

Now, if you guys are listening to this podcast or watching it,

we want to thank our Patreon members.

They get it first.

Well, they get it live, actually.

Actually, yeah.

So Dan right now is in the Patreon chat.

He just said, hey, hey, Dan, how's it going?

So if you guys want to be part of the community,

check out patreon.com.tfl car.

And people like Dan make this podcast possible.

And we're in a really weird time in YouTube right now.

It's actually a really bad time for a lot of car creators.

Like I go on these press trips, and I've

been talking to a lot of content creators.

Most content creators now are down 40% to 50%

of revenue year over year.

I mean, the views are still strong,

but it's just people aren't advertising on YouTube

like they once were.

And I've heard a lot of different theories behind it.

But Patreon is what makes this podcast especially happen.

So a big thank you to people like Dan for keeping us going.

So if you want to join the community,

where do they go?

Patreon.com.tfl car.

Also happy to answer any questions live on the show,

if those do end up coming in.

So yeah, this episode 299, we're almost at 300.

Cool, and also we've been now publishing

exclusive content.

So for instance, there were, I think,

I think I profiled five concept cars.

There was a really cool.

So the guy who started Alpina,

the family who started Alpina,

basically sold the brand of BMW.

Kind of like AMG sold the Mercedes.

Sure.

And so now they started a secondary company

that is like Alpina, customizing BMW.

So I did a video on that.

And you can go see that video at Al-TFL.

I also profiled, obviously, this Bronco.

I profiled the Gravity.

I profiled the Valhalla.

But there was another super car there

that I also profiled.

If you want to see a walk around that,

you're going to have to become a Patreon.

Yeah, so they're getting bonus episodes basically, right?

We're still keeping the normal TFL videos.

Well, I think Grant said it best,

who's our kind of sales guy.

I think what's happening with the YouTube platform

is it's turning into a more traditional TV business model.

In other words, the platform doesn't pay you.

The platform just holds and basically stores

and then displays your videos.

And then you have to find advertisers

to pay for those videos.

So if you don't want to see a lot of ads,

then becoming a Patreon is a great way of doing that

because they also get all this stuff ad-free.

So let's go on to our headline topic of the day.

So we were thinking about it at breakfast

and there's a lot of obvious low-hanging fruit.

Not that we're the smartest in the world

and we know everything.

But it does seem like there's some very basic products

or versions of products in the car space

that these car companies are not making

that it seems to us would be massively popular.

Yeah, and I think a lot of it has to do with

used to have to do with fuel economy standards,

cafe standards.

Because a lot of these vehicles are big engine,

they use a lot of gas.

And in the past, because you had to meet a corporate

standard, you couldn't necessarily do these things.

But now with the latest rules

from the Trump administration,

apparently clean air is no longer a thing.

So now we could put big gas engines in things.

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Dear winter, Toyota can't get enough of you

because Toyota's got 25 vehicles

with available all-wheel drive and four-wheel drive.

And that's more than any other auto brand.

From the versatile RAV4 to the Svelte Crown,

the sleek Camry all-wheel drive,

the Corolla Hybrid all-wheel drive,

the Rugged Tacoma, the Tenacious Tundra,

and the spacious Grand Highlander

with all-wheel drive to keep you and your safe.

Hey, you bring the action.

We'll bring the traction.

Toyota, let's go places.

Based on manufacturers' websites as of 10, 2025.

So the first vehicle that I think,

and I'm quite,

I'm not sure it's officially announced,

but everybody knows it's gonna happen,

is the V8 powered Dodge Charger.

Yes, we know that.

So like Dodge released a new charger, electric only.

I was just on the launch of the new six-pack version,

which is a twin-turbo 550 horsepower.

It's a really cool car actually.

It sounds kind of like a BMW, but it's not a V8.

And that community wants the sound,

the character of V8.

Now under the previous CEO administration,

they got rid of all the V8s with Insulantis.

But now with Tim Kaniscus in charge of North America,

Filosa in charge of the global company,

I really do think we're gonna see more V8s.

We've already seen it back in the RAM,

and you know they're working hard on it on the Charger.

Well, we're gonna get all kinds of V8s.

I mean, we're gonna get 392 Gladiator.

That's already in the works.

So if you loved your 392 Wrangler,

now there's a 392 Gladiator.

I'm sure TRX is coming back.

I think they've already announced that.

TRX is definitely coming back.

So that's another one.

So these are obvious things that they're bringing back.

I'm a little concerned, Tommy.

We had this conversation, so I won't beat a dead horse,

but we owned a TRX.

I wouldn't buy TRX just because I've been there done that.

So I hope they up the horsepower or do something unique

as opposed to just like taking off the shelf engines

and throwing them into everything

and kind of going like this.

Okay, our work is done

because I think that's not that exciting.

The new Charger of course will be exciting

because now you'll have a new body style

with a Hellcat engine,

but still I kind of feel like I've been there done that.

I want to see something else.

The thing about the TRX though is

we only really got the standard output version

of that Hellcat engine.

So if you look at like the Challenger,

there was the 700 horsepower version, right?

But then there was also the Red Eye,

which was 780 or 750,

and then there was a Demon which was 800,

50 or something.

Which by ultra car standards, isn't that much.

Yeah, but electric cars are kind of done I think that for now.

They're not done.

But my point is-

The power from Dunn, tell me.

Why don't they put that 800 horsepower V8 in the new TRX?

Okay, I'll tell you why I don't think they're done.

Okay, that was a bold statement.

I'm not saying they're done.

This is the part I don't understand.

Maybe you can explain it to me.

Are we having the debate again?

No, no, we're not.

I'm not going out of the soapbox.

I just don't understand this.

If you're into, let's say drag racing, right?

Then why would you not?

If that's something that you're serious

and you're serious about not just drag but racing,

then why wouldn't you want the fastest vehicle

and the newest and the greatest technology?

So what I'm hearing people saying is,

I'd rather have something that's slower

if it's internal combustion

as opposed to faster if it's electric.

And to me, somebody who loves all sorts of motorsports,

that doesn't seem like the kind of thing

that is what moves a needle in motorsports.

What's moved technology is that racing

has always been about creating new and interesting tech

that eventually works its way down

to the regular cars that we're driving.

And so right now, electric cars,

I mean, look at the latest Rivian, right?

The latest Rivian quad motor is something

like 1200 horsepower.

That's a truck that will blow the doors off

of most Hellcats.

And yet, people are like,

oh, I don't want that because I know it's quick,

but it doesn't have that sound.

And that's the part that's a little disconnected for me.

I have an answer to that.

Yeah, I'm serious.

That's the fact of the matter.

And they're easy, right?

It's easy to make any Tesla go fast.

There's no skill there.

These all seem good things for a race car.

They're reliable, they're quick, and they win.

So you'd rather have the slower, less winning car

because it's harder to engineer

than the faster, easier car that's gonna win.

That's what you're saying.

Hell yeah, brother.

Because it's boring.

All you do is it's a switch.

It's like a microwave.

Whoop, there it goes.

Zoom.

All right, there's no drama, right?

And that's why-

There's no theater, I agree.

That's why Formula E doesn't work, right?

It is, in a lot of ways, right?

It's better technology, but it's boring, right?

There's a reason that dragsters aren't electric still either.

On the top fuel stuff, by the way,

the gas stuff is still faster, which is interesting.

I thought the electric stuff would have caught up by now.

But like, when you go to these drag strips,

yeah, there's Teslas, but people don't care about them.

They're fast, they win,

but the gas stuff is more exciting.

I don't know, I've been seeing a lot more videos.

The problem with that,

I agree with you 100%.

There's no theater, there's no sense of occasion.

There's no chance of a piston coming through the hood

and a giant fireball.

None of that is really gonna happen with an electric car.

And yet, some of the most popular,

like if you go to drag times, videos,

are where a plaid is racing, pick your latest Mustang.

And those videos are popular, and more often than not,

you're kind of rooting for the internal combustion engine

car, but the plaid is the vehicle that wins.

And so, once again, is racing about theater

or is it about winning?

And if it's about winning,

which usually racing is about at the end of the day,

sure, it's about a lot of other things,

then the better technology and the faster technology

is the better technology.

But I mean, if you look at like Formula One,

there's been cases in Formula One

where the better technology, the faster technology,

gets banned, right?

Sure.

So like back in the day,

traction control and ABS started to make their way

into Formula One cars.

Right, and it was better technology.

But racing isn't always about what's the fastest way

to get around a track, right?

Well, it's about winning.

Well, then why did they ban it?

Well, because they were too fast, they were boring, right?

Well, the issue with a lot of this stuff

is these were driver aids that took the driver out of it.

I don't think that making a car electric

takes the driver out of it.

It still has to do with the guy's skill or gal skill.

But if you're now talking about using launch control,

then all of a sudden it's not about the driver,

it's just about the computer program.

But I agree with you.

It's much more exciting to watch internal combustion.

The other thing that-

Sorry, one last question on that.

Why hasn't Formula E worked?

I mean, it has worked.

It just hasn't caught up to Formula One.

I'm not saying it's still around.

People are still doing it.

They're still racing.

It takes a long time.

It took Formula One over 100 years

to become the dominant motorsport in the world.

And so you can't have Formula E in a matter of,

let's call it 10 years, become as popular.

Formula One has been the dominant motorsport

since the 50s.

No, pre-war.

It started pre-war.

So that actually happened pretty fast

because it was just,

I just think that especially with race cars, Dad,

you're right, it's just,

EVs are too fast or too easy.

I mean, there's just no buzz around them.

It's like same thing.

Why is there no interest in EV hypercars, right?

When you went to the show,

there were EV hypercars.

Yeah, so this is my point.

You actually bring a good point.

So what the hypercar world has settled upon

isn't internal combustion,

isn't rear-wheel drive.

What it has settled on,

and I saw it at the quail and I saw it at the concept lawn

is this hybrid combination

of electric power and internal combustion.

So what you have is kind of the best of both worlds.

You have the sound and the fury in the theater of a V8,

but then you also have the instant torque

of an electric motor.

And so even with the Valhalla,

you're seeing the same with the Rivalto.

Same thing with a lot of the hypercars or supercars,

whatever you want to call them,

where you have the I8,

where you have electric motors in the front.

You're seeing it with the Corvette ZR1X.

And then you have a big engine in the back.

And so it kind of gives you the best of both worlds.

And I think that's where we're heading.

And to kind of connect the dots,

I think that's where Dodge has to go

if they actually want to sell cars that are interesting.

If you want to get my money,

you got to take that charger,

get rid of the second set of doors, don't eat it,

call it a Challenger again,

and make it a plug-in hybrid with all-wheel drive,

with front electrified,

and then the rear internally combustion engine powered.

That would get my attention.

Just taking it off the shelf,

Hellcat powertrain and throwing it in there.

I mean, there's a reason they stopped selling those.

Obviously one of the reasons was because of CAFE standards.

But the other reason was,

if you go to Johnson's where we buy all of our stuff,

Johnson Auto Plaza,

they still had like 2023s sitting on the lot

for a long time.

They just couldn't sell them.

It was like people were bored of them.

People had been there, done that.

They were also 15 years old.

2023s.

Yeah, but the car was 15 years old by 2023.

I mean, the car came out in 08.

Okay, but I'm saying-

Oh, you're telling me so much, you get-

They hadn't done anything to it.

And they were sitting there,

and these aren't,

I'm not talking about the V6s,

I'm talking about like jail breaks and the cool stuff,

right?

I mean, I think that also,

they were selling for a while there,

even with the EVs,

they were selling more of the discontinued gas ones

than the electric ones.

That's how few people wanted the electric ones.

I don't know.

That was our memory.

I'm not arguing that people don't want electric.

I think the market has spoken,

but going back to, you know-

No, I think you're right.

They need to do something a little different.

It's like old choosers come to what they stink.

But keep in mind,

they are doing things that are different, right?

Like the new gas ones,

standard all-wheel drive, right?

You could never get an all-wheel drive,

charger or Challenger with the big V8.

Yeah, with the six pack.

Well-

Those are all-wheel drive, the six pack?

Yeah, they're standard all-wheel drive.

Yeah, so they are pushing the bounds a little bit, but-

Good job.

So moving beyond that, speaking of V8s,

so I was at the announcement where the CEO of Jeep

went ahead and said that

all the news articles is that he confirmed the Gladiator

just to be pedantic about it.

I grilled him on that.

He didn't officially confirm a V8 Gladiator, right?

Right.

The official statement from Jeep

is that the V8 392 engine will continue in the Wrangler

and will expand to other products.

The internet has confirmed it.

The internet has decided.

And I think that you're right,

I'm being a little twat here,

but the product that I just can't help think

would be such a big seller, right?

Is Jeep's putting all this emphasis on the 392

and I get that they can charge huge money for it.

But I really strongly believe

if they put the standard 5.7 Hemi into the Wrangler

and then priced it at 55 grand, maybe 60,

but ideally 50 to 55, that would be such a big seller.

Because people don't necessarily care

about that 470 horsepower.

I think they just want the sound and the experience

that a V8 gives you.

Yeah, I mean, it doesn't give you anything, right?

You might as well have a two liter.

For off-roading.

I mean, it accelerates quickly.

Don't get me wrong.

That's very cool.

But for off-roading, it's actually worse off-road

because it's heavier.

Yeah.

So you'd be better off with that little turbo

if you really wanted to maximize your off-road performance,

but you don't have that cool V8 verbal, which, you know,

probably you can't hear anyway with all the side-by-sides

because they have that interesting four-cylinder.

I'm gonna say flatulence.

Weasel.

Yeah, weasel.

Yeah, because they're super loud

and they're not in a great way.

So I do think that a 5.7 Wrangler,

massively popular if they priced it correctly.

And not that I know a lot about this world,

but I would imagine it wouldn't be that expensive

to develop because if they've already gone

through the certification of getting a 6.4,

getting that to fit,

I'm pretty sure the 5.7 is a very similar-sized engine block.

I don't understand why that couldn't also fit

underneath that engine bay.

And it's less heat, it's less power,

it's less strain on the drivetrain.

I mean, and here's the other problem with the strategy.

So everybody wants a Hemi, right?

Hemi, Hemi, Hemi, Hemi this, Hemi that.

But the problem is the Hemi is less fuel efficient,

less powerful, less, I think in some ways even reliable

than the very modern straight six

that they're putting into a lot of their cars and trucks.

So our customers who, you know,

you can take that Hemi off my cold dead hands

are actually gonna put down their harder money

to buy a powertrain that is worse

than the one that they can buy that's sitting next to them.

Well, you can't get the inline six in the Wrangler.

I'm talking about like in the Ram 1500.

I mean, I don't know if,

I don't think the word's not out yet about reliability.

That engine's too new.

That the hurricane just came out.

But it's definitely less powerful.

It's definitely more less fuel efficient.

Yeah, but like it's like the Ford thing, right?

You can make every argument you want

about the EcoBoost versus the Coyote.

Coyote doesn't sell that much.

The EcoBoost outsells it by like three,

it's like 25%, I think last time I checked

or less than 25%.

So the EcoBoost outsells it three to four to one.

Is that because people don't want the Coyote?

Or is that because they can't build enough of them

and they wouldn't?

No, they can build enough.

I think it's because the dealers order the EcoBoost.

But with CAFE has been Ford been pushing the Eco,

I mean, there's a lot of pieces that goes into it, right?

But, you know, it's only 25% of their sales at Coyote.

And I think you can't discount the fact that it's,

you know, we were just driving our F-150 Coyote

and it is thirstier.

It is less powerful than the EcoBoost.

So why wouldn't you go with a more fuel efficient,

more powerful EcoBoost?

It's an emotional purchase.

I get that, but emotional purchases are great

when you're online, when you're-

Keep going, I'm getting a call from Mary.

All right, go for it.

Make sure the car's okay.

Emotional purchases are great when you're,

you know, leaving comments below and you're online

and you're talking about, you know,

how much you hate modern technology

because gosh darn it, my grandfather had a V8

so I want a V8.

But then when you actually go to the dealer

and you're faced with the choice

of giving your harder money to them for an engine

that is not as powerful, not as fuel efficient,

I don't know which of those wins.

I'm sure in some cases emotional wins, Tommy,

but I think in a lot of cases, practicality wins.

Are they okay?

Yeah, so sorry, we've got,

Jen and Mary are taking a road trip today

in our 68 Mustang.

We're gonna have a preview of a video to come.

And when you get a call from them midway through the day,

that makes you definitely believe-

Yeah, do we have to fire up the trailer?

No, no, the car's fine.

They had a question about the non-existent door locks, so.

Oh, okay.

We're good to go there.

All right, good, so they made it.

So should we go to the next car?

Yeah, what's the next one?

So-

Can I do one?

You do one.

Yeah, for sure.

All right, mine's not a car, it's a truck.

Okay.

But I'm gonna steal some of Andre's thunder.

I think that Alexis branded Tundra would sell really well.

And I know everybody's out there screaming about Blackwood

and how it didn't sell and how Lincoln tried it.

I'm not talking about like snazzying up

and luxuriifying, is that a word?

Making a Tundra more luxurious.

I'm just talking about branding a Tundra as Alexis,

and then giving it the flavor that Alexis brings

without doing silly stuff like putting wood in the bed,

but making it a little bit more luxurious,

a little bit more expensive,

maybe a little bit more stylish in some ways.

And I think what would happen is all those guys

whose wives drive RXs, which this is a very,

I'm not trying to be stereotypical here,

but this is a popular car that a lot of women drive.

My wife drove one for a long time.

When they would go to the dealership

and they would go take that RX or service

and right there, there would be whatever

Alexis decides to call it, a pickup truck.

That would be like the next thing that would set them apart

in the parking lot with their neighbors

because now they would have a Lexus branded truck.

And I think they would sell those like hotcakes,

but I don't think that they're gonna do it

because I think Japan doesn't understand our graduation

with very big, very, very big from their point of view.

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So Doug and his team on this car pod

talked about this a little bit.

And their argument, and I see both sides of it,

their argument with that is that truck buyers

are viciously loyal to their brands.

I disagree with that.

I heard that podcast.

That is such a stereotypical thing

that was true maybe 20 years ago.

I think today your generation doesn't give a hoot

whether it's a Ram or a Ford.

It's this thing that old guys like me are into.

My grandfather drove a Chevy,

so I'm gonna drive a Chevy.

But I think the younger generation

isn't that brand low.

Not so much like with what your parents drove.

Not in that way.

They wanna drive a brand that says I'm tough,

and I wanna be seen as someone that does work, right?

Which is, that's a Ram truck, right?

A Ram, that's a tough brand.

GMC.

Lexus is a soft brand.

That's a soft L, Lexus.

All right, let me ask you this question.

Versus the Toyota.

Let me ask you this question.

Why are there two versions in both Ford and Chevy

of the upper end of their trucks?

They both have not one, but two luxury versions

of the F-150 and of the Silverado.

So if all these guys wanna drive the tough work truck,

right, which in the comments,

you should review a work truck.

And we did that, and Cricket's knowing.

They don't wanna drive a work truck.

They wanna drive the tough brand.

Ford is a tough brand.

But why are they buying the plastic?

Because they want the luxury version

of the tough truck.

And why are they buying the high country?

They want the luxury version of the tough truck.

No, I think, I don't think,

I'm not sure that they want the tough version.

I think they want something that they can show off.

If you're the boss at the, let's say,

at the oil field, you wanna roll in there,

let people know you're the boss.

But you said it yourself.

Lexus is kind of a girl's truck.

No, I said the R-X's.

I know, but Lexus is a brand.

It's just a soft brand, right?

That's a squishy premium experience.

You want tough.

There's nothing tough about Lexus.

I know a ton of guys who want the GX.

They can't build enough of them.

That is not a soft-looking vehicle.

The GX is probably Lexus' biggest

runaway hit vehicle right now.

Oh, that's true.

And that is as square jawed as it gets.

So I'm saying if Lexus were to actually build

a Tundra pickup truck,

they couldn't keep it on the lot.

Now, the Blackwood was a weird thing.

It was very weird.

Lincoln did do it with Mark L.T.

That was an F-150 that was nicer, right?

And then Cadillac did that as well,

if you remember, with the Avalanche.

They had a Cadillac version of the Avalanche.

The HMS did it himself,

let alone the Cadillac version of the Avalanche.

The Avalanche was a big seller.

People don't remember how many Avalanches.

Avalanches are everywhere.

I mean, in the truck world, it wasn't a big seller.

In car world, it was a big seller.

So I do think that I disagree with you and the Lexus

because I think it's a soft brand.

But weirdly, I do agree with one other version

that I think would be really popular.

I think a Mercedes G-Wagon truck would be popular.

Yeah, they exist.

I mean, there were three of them.

There were three six by sixes running around Pebble Beach.

They all had Dubai plates on them.

And I don't know why that one feels better to me

because Mercedes isn't like a tough brand,

but when you go to that crazy ultra premium segment,

then things feel like, okay,

maybe people would pay $253,000.

Let's stand the truck for one more while we're here.

I'll give you one that would become instantly,

and I will put money on this, Tommy.

Instantly the best seller for that brand,

if they brought it, what am I talking about?

What do you got?

I'm talking about if they brought the Amrock.

If Volkswagen actually got past the silliness

of the chicken tax and figured out a way

to actually either build or import an Amrock,

it would become the best selling Volkswagen overnight.

Well, good news is you can buy an Amrock.

No, you can't.

Yeah, you can.

Where?

The Ford Ranger.

The new Amrock is just a Ford Ranger.

That's right.

But not the current one.

The current one is.

The old was long dead now.

That's the current one.

No, no, no, the Ford Ranger is a Ford Ranger.

They're gonna build the next generation.

They're gonna build together.

The current one is not an Amrock.

No, it's the next generation.

I'm 100% sure.

No, the Amrock and the Ranger do not share components,

but Ford and Volkswagen have said

that they will work on the pickup truck in the next.

I think that's a Ranger, the current one.

I'm pretty sure.

I don't think so.

Why don't you Google it then?

Call my Google it, he's gonna find out.

It's the next generation.

They announced it, not the current one.

Is the 2025 Amrock a Ranger?

Let's get to the bottom of this.

Yes, the 2025 Amrock is built on the same platform

as a Ranger.

They share the same underpinnings

and have distinct designs.

All right, that was wrong.

So I think that is the current one.

They revealed it last year, if I remember right.

So why doesn't Volkswagen bring in the Amrock?

Because it's not built here.

Volkswagen is selling 400,000 cars annually,

something like that.

I think last time I checked.

Chicken tax is why they don't bring it in.

Ranger sells like 120,000 units, something like that.

So if you can extrapolate from that,

then imagine how well an Amrock truck would do

with the Volkswagen badge on it.

They'd have to build it here, right?

They could build it here.

So remember this story, remember the old Sprinter?

Yeah.

So I've told this story before,

but I'll tell it again.

The old Sprinter, to avoid the chicken tax,

was built in Germany, the Sprinter van,

and then they paid a company to take it apart,

put it into containers, and then they shipped it to Charlotte,

and then what they would do is they would build it

in America, but basically they would reassemble it

in America, and that's how they got by the chicken tax.

It was actually cheaper to take the van apart

and put it back together than to pay the chicken tax.

And eventually that Charlotte factory started building it,

not just reassembling it.

And so if they can do that with the Sprinter,

Volkswagen could do that at their factory in Chattanooga

with, they already have a factory,

I was there when they launched it,

they have tons of real estate around it.

They can utilize that factory instead of,

I think I was reading somewhere that they were gonna

utilize it to build something else

to get around the current tariffs,

but they could do that and build the pickup truck.

That's what they should be focused on.

Yeah, I think you're probably right.

This is pickup truck.

America is pickup trucks, Tommy, it just is.

So the next vehicle, which I think would be

a runaway smash hit, would be a convertible version

of the 4Runner.

They don't sell convertibles.

Well, tell us the Bronco and Wrangler.

Okay, so you mean like a removable top?

Like a removable top.

Yeah, not like a cross cabriolet for it.

I was thinking of like the Evo convertible

or the Morano convertible, not like that.

The problem we were talking about earlier is the,

other than some pricing things,

but realistically, most foreigners you see

are gonna be tiered off-roads, limited, right?

The 4Runner and the Land Cruiser are too similar right now.

And I was really hoping that to differentiate them,

Toyota would have done what they had done in the 80s

where they offered the 4Runner

with the removable section of top.

Yeah, I don't know why Toyota doesn't do that

and the two biggest competitors do that.

It's got to have probably something to do

with their reliability.

Yeah, maybe their safety requirements.

I think they can probably get by the safety,

but anytime you take the top off,

the chassis becomes less rigid

and it may hurt with Toyota reliability is everything.

So I'm guessing if, I think it's an educated guess,

if you were to ask me why that is,

it's probably has to do with something to do with

like the safety of the vehicle.

Yeah, maybe, I could see that.

I don't know if it was, look,

I think Toyota people are Toyota people

and I don't think that a Toyota person is like,

hey, I'm not going to buy a 4Runner

because with a Wrangler or a Bronco,

I can pull the top off, I can take the doors off.

I don't think that that's part

of their decision-making process.

I think if you want a 4Runner,

you're going to get a 4Runner

no matter whether the top comes off or not.

That's my guess, but I kind of feel like that.

Yeah, maybe you're right.

I can I give you another one?

Yeah, go for it.

All right, Toyota or Jeep or a Ford I guess,

because Ford already kind of does it in the Bronco Sport,

but one of those companies needs to build

or should, I shouldn't say should, that sounds like,

would do well to build an off-roader that is small

and kind of competes with the Jimny abroad.

So a small body on frame, it's got to be,

or at least for this unit body,

it's got to be seriously an off-roader.

So it's got to be an off-roader first,

like a Wrangler, like a Bronco, like even a 4Runner.

And then the problem with the Ford,

Broncos Ford is what they're trying to do

is they're trying to make traditional crossover

more off-road worthy and they've done a great job with it.

But as a true off-roader and as somebody

who's been part of that off-road community,

it just doesn't fill me with desire

because at the end of the day,

I know that's just a crossover

that's got a lot of off-roading bits added onto it.

They need to go the other way, right?

Start as an off-roader and then eventually make it.

And there'd be compromises, right?

You're always gonna have compromises,

so you probably have to compromise tires and ride.

And maybe even fuel economy,

but I think that's the vehicle I want.

I mean, I think that's the vehicle I want.

I'm just not sure anyone would buy it.

Okay, I mean, the last version of that was the Samurai.

And that was a runaway hit, but those were different times.

Yeah, but that was a runaway hit up to a point.

Well, the problem was it was too small.

Yeah, but the vehicle was unsafe

because it didn't have the latest safety tech

and it was very small in the world of big vehicles.

And the wheelbase was too short

making for a really crappy right off-road.

I just think that Americans really struggle

with the very small.

It's something that people claim they want,

but then when you go to your significant other

and say, hey, I wanna go buy a teeny tiny

two-door body-on-frame thing.

It's not gonna be a first car.

It's gonna be a play thing, like a regular.

Sure, but I mean, I love that idea.

I'm just not sure.

The baby FJ.

Yeah, right.

I understand where you're going with that.

I mean, I think that,

I think that the vehicle that would sell

that's a clear obvious missed opportunity

is an off-road Blazer, right?

So, so Ford and Jeep and now Toyota, right?

They're selling hundreds of thousands

of these dedicated four-wheel drive

body-on-frame vehicles.

And then Chevrolet is the Blazer,

which is actually sold pretty well

for being just kind of a normal mid-sized crossover.

But I mean, it would have been so cool

if they'd just taken the Colorado platform,

put an open-top removal body on it.

There's a lot of Blazer fans out there.

I still think that that's a name

people remember and recognize,

and it's such a missed opportunity.

Yeah, I think everybody who remembers the old Blazer,

which was, you know, talking about big, right?

That was, remember when the Bronco II was out?

Yeah.

And yet the Blazer was this big body-on-frame.

Well, you're forgetting that they also had

the tiny Blazer.

I know.

The S10 Blazer.

Yeah.

I'm not forgetting, because we recently had one.

Yeah, right.

So I think that either big V8,

but it had to be genuine off-road,

and it probably should have had a removable top.

That could have been a really popular market.

I don't think it's too late.

No, I think it's fine.

But once again, GM has these,

in some ways, GM is like a way ahead of everybody else.

I can think of a couple of cars,

like the Volt, which was ahead of first real plug-in

hybrid that was useful.

They're like way ahead of the curve,

and then sometimes they completely missed a curve.

Another one of those examples would be

they don't have a Raptor or a TRX competitor.

Now that the TRX coming back,

it's gonna leave GM flat-footed

because they have no truck to beat it.

I guess you could say the Hummer EV,

but I don't think that people think of that

in the same sentence as they do a Raptor R or a TRX.

Well, they also don't have a compact truck

like Ford does.

There's no Maverick competitor.

I mean, there's some big obvious holes

in their product portfolio.

Now there were spy shots,

this is kind of on the side,

but there were spy shots of Bronco Sport Raptors

running around, I believe.

Yeah, but then Ford said that was not really a thing.

But it should be a thing.

I don't think it should be a thing.

You don't think so?

It kind of waters down the Raptor.

A Bronco Sport Raptor?

Kind of waters down the Raptor.

They've already got four Raptors,

what's another one?

Yeah, but they're all serious, right?

They're all pretty hardcore, right?

The Bronco F-150 Ranger, the Bronco Sport,

it would be really hard to Raptorize.

All right, what about a few years ago,

the big news was that Corvette was gonna make,

become a sub-brand,

that Chevy was gonna create a sub-brand out of Corvette.

You can kind of do that.

I think that's another thing you could do.

You could, in fact, the GT line in Porsche

is its own sub-brand and the Corvette line in Chevy

could be its own sub-brand.

It's so powerful.

So you could do other versions of Corvettes

and I think they'd all have to be sporty.

Well, they were talking,

I think they scrapped this idea,

but the news a couple of years ago

is they were working on an electric Corvette SUV.

Yeah, so it shouldn't be an SUV.

I think that's the biggest problem with the Mach-E

is that they call it a Mustang.

I don't think you wanna use that brand

and water it down into something that isn't,

and this is, I think this is Jeep's problem, right?

They have watered down the DNA of the Wrangler so much

with all these, the Patriot, the Compass.

They just have watered it down so much.

Thank God they didn't call it the Wrangler.

Yes.

I mean, they've watered down the Jeep brand,

but not the Wrangler brand.

I mean, Wrangler is still its own thing.

So what I think Chevrolet, I was saying about Corvette

because Corvette has been a very big success

in the C generation, right?

It's kind of that American $70,000

Ferrari supercar experience, mid-engine, right?

Very, very cool.

Then they followed it up with the Z06,

which has been hugely popular.

Now the ZR1, which is breaking records all over.

E-Ray was kind of a flop, but ZR1X

seems like it's gonna be a big thing.

But I think what would be really cool,

I don't think they would sell a lot of them,

but you'd have a group of people

that would be very interested.

It's kind of like the, so Porsche does a 911

called the 911 T, which is like the enthusiast version

that's not a GT3, right?

So it's not top of the spectrum,

but it does have a manual transmission.

It's got like the sport suspension.

I think Corvette would be really cool

if they also offered that,

like a manual transmission mid-engine Corvette

would be really, really cool.

Kind of like a stripped-down enthusiast version.

So Chevrolet kind of tried this in the early 2000s,

late 90s with the, they had a C5 Corvette called the FRC,

which was a fixed roof coupe,

which was kind of like a Z06 without the engine.

Something like that, not that that was a huge success,

but something like that with the standard C8

with the stick would be really cool.

I just think that any manufacturer out there

who's building sports cars

should really think hard about putting a manual back

into their sports cars.

With everybody like manual swapping classic Ferraris

that were better or would have been better

and Lamborghinis that didn't have them

would have been better with manuals.

I think at some point this is a wake-up call

for the manufacturers to actually stick sticks

back into their sports cars.

I think next generation of Corvette should have one.

Especially when you look at,

well, why not this generation?

We're still not through a C8.

It's only been out for five years.

We're seeing a refresh.

Yeah, how long do you think it'll last?

10 years like the previous one?

How long do you think they'll keep building the C8?

Well, the previous one was six years.

Was it only six?

It was 2014 through 2020, I think.

I thought it was longer.

No, but that was just kind of a stop gap.

You sure?

Yeah, yeah.

C7 was only six years?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, C6 was longer.

C6 was 2005 through 2014, so that was about 10 years.

Okay, so what cars could we stick a stick in?

That would do well.

I think Corvette would be really, really popular.

I mean, we're seeing it on the hypercars,

like the Gordon Murray T50, that kind of category of cars.

Those are getting manual transmissions.

I think any kind of sporty enthusiast car,

like it's a shame that Golf R is automatic only.

I think Supra would have put a stick shift

into the car, it became much more popular.

Yes, they should have launched with that.

In fact, those are selling over sticker.

And speaking of cool cars,

I have two other ones that I think

that they would do well.

What's it a, it was a Celica, all turbo.

Celica turbo.

All track?

All track.

I think Toyota would do well if they brought that back

or a version of that.

What's kind of the Giro Corolla?

That's a hot hatch.

I know they did an all track version for SEMA,

where they basically took the,

but I want it to be a sports car, not a hot hatch.

So I want it to be a true.

Like an 86?

You want an all wheel drive 86?

Yeah, exactly.

Okay.

A little bit more.

I think that would be cool.

The other thing that I think that Land Rover should do,

and I don't know what I would call this,

but I'm sorry.

I know you just went and drove the Octa,

which is the ultimate G-Wagon competitor.

One could say it's the ultimate Defender off-roader.

Defender just doesn't say off-roader to me.

It says, this is a very much an on-road showing off

to your friends in the parking lot.

But I think Defender needs to create,

and I would have said they had the whole world

to themselves until the Grenadier came along,

but now they need to create any else Grenadier competitor.

Like they need to create what the Defender used to be,

which is a dedicated off-roader.

I think they would do really well with that,

and not a Defender, and not a Defender Octa.

Because I think with the Octa,

they're going after the G-Wagon.

And G-Wagon needs to create a baby G-Wagon.

The problem is, like I was talking to their,

They might want to.

The head of Defender brand.

Yeah.

And I just, like, what the data is showing them is,

like, people say they want an old school Defender, right?

And then they drive one, and they don't want one.

Because there's a lot of compromises that come

with that basic off-road focused suspension architecture

that someone who's spending 60,000, 70,000,

even 50,000 dollars on a car

doesn't want to deal with, right?

So I think that, like, it's a good idea in theory,

but would anyone actually buy one?

Well, people do it in the G-Wagon,

and that thing is full of compromises.

Have you tried to close the door without slamming it?

I mean, it just, I was just sitting at a restaurant,

and this woman came up in a G-Wagon,

and like, three of her kids rolled out of it,

and two of the kids closed the back door,

and both back doors weren't closed.

They just went, boop, you got to really just,

you know what I mean, you got to,

and so that's already a compromise.

The straight-up windshield is a compromise.

The lack of space is a compromise.

The whole thing's just a giant compromise,

and yet people are, you know,

falling over themselves to throw money at Mercedes

to get a G-Wagon.

Well, that's why they went with the Octa, right?

But that's not, that's not, because the Octa...

The Octa goes right up against the G-Wagon.

It's all about performance.

It's not, the core, I believe,

and the value in the G-Wagon is it's kind of deep

rootingness, rootedness, it's deep DNA to off-roading,

and the Octa doesn't have that.

The Octa is just a fancy defender,

and the defender is just, you know,

a very fancy on-roader that's styled to look like

an off-roader, in my mind at least.

Well, but that Octa is incredible off-road.

Okay.

So it's got 35 inch tall tires.

It's got like 12 inches of the ground clearance.

And a V8.

It's got, yeah, but even V8 aside,

it's got locking center and rear differential, right?

I mean, it's got everything,

it's a frickin' awesome off-road.

Does it ever lock in front?

It doesn't need a locking front.

With that four-wheel-drive system.

The G-Wagon doesn't need it, but it has it.

Yeah, but I would argue that you would go anywhere

in an Octa, you could go in a G-Wagon.

Here's what I keep seeing over and over and over again,

and I think this is a good illustration of that.

I see engineers and marketing people and product managers

making the same argument that you're making, right?

This vehicle doesn't need this

because 99% of our customers don't know what it is,

or won't use it, or don't care about it.

And yet, and yet, what people care about

is the image of the vehicle.

And every time you take something from that vehicle

that makes it whatever the DNA of that thing is,

you're making it less of the thing

that makes it attractive for people to buy.

And if you can distill the thing that makes it so cool

and keep it, then that thing becomes desirable.

If you start pulling stuff out of it,

no matter how much more stuff you put into it,

it's not gonna be as desirable.

And I would be willing to bet, Tommy,

that the Octa is not gonna sell nearly as well

as the G-Wagon.

No, it won't, you're right.

But it is better off-road.

Than a G-Wagon?

Yeah.

If you take a stock G-Wagon.

Hey, I'll put it out there, Land Rover, Mercedes, please.

Give us a G-Wagon, the off-roading one,

give us an Octa, and we'll find out.

So biggest tire you can get on a G-Wagon.

Yes.

It's like a 32.

Yes.

Octa's 35s from the factory with an off-road tire.

Try finding an off-road tire on a Mercedes.

They do it, don't they do it?

That professional you had, sort of an all terrain,

that Octa has KO3s, right?

That's a proper off-road tire.

It's got more ground clearance.

It's got more suspension articulation.

It has, doesn't have a front locker,

but it does have a center and a rear locker.

It's got more water forwarding than a Bronco Everglades.

Like that thing can go off-road.

There's no doubt, will anyone take it off-road?

No, absolutely not, but it has what it needs.

And I think-

I'm not arguing about how well the defender has done.

I think they made the right move by toning it down,

by taking what was a tractor

or making it into a much more usable,

much more refined, much more large band with car.

But I think because they did that,

then allow Ineos with the Grenadier

to come in and take that defender space,

and now Land Rover has nothing in that space.

And I don't think the Octa is in that space

because how much does it cost?

150,000 dollars.

Right, so you're not in that space?

Or 170,000.

A Grenadier, ours is 82,000.

Yeah, but-

It's half the price.

I would love to know if those Grenadiers

are still selling.

I heard they're not selling as much.

Yeah, I think that they're-

I heard the first, kind of everybody who wanted one

has gotten one, and now you can go to the auctions

and I've heard, and this is, I haven't done any research,

I just heard that you could buy one at an auction

for like 60K, so they're down like 30K

from when we bought it a year and a half ago.

Which is doing better than I thought,

compared to a lot of Land Rovers,

it's actually pretty good residuals.

But G-Wagons don't depreciate that much.

They don't depreciate.

So I wanna go to the chat right now on Patreon

so we've got some people tuned in,

giving us questions.

Jonathan asks, hey guys, do you think sedans,

coupes, and wagons will ever come back?

Like getting seriously popular again,

or are we stuck in this crossover SUV purgatory forever?

No, I don't think they're ever coming back.

The reality of it is unless you're an enthusiast,

and this is gonna sound sacrilegious,

but unless you're an enthusiast,

I strongly believe an SUV is just a better shape

for most people.

It's easier to get it out of, you sit taller,

you've got more ground clearance

for running over pebbles and curbs and snow and ice.

They usually have all-wheel drive.

They are typically bigger at holding things in sedans.

I mean, I know there's an argument

that a wagon's better to drive, for sure.

But for a typical person,

someone like my mom or my wife, right,

who isn't in the car,

so they just want a vehicle to drive around,

an SUV's just a better form factor.

Yeah, I would never say never

because every generation wants its own thing.

Like you're not on Facebook, right?

You're on whatever Snapchat.

And so the crossover is gonna be identified

with the older generation,

so the younger generation's gonna be like,

I don't want my mom drove,

I don't want my dad drove,

I want something different.

Will that be a sedan?

I don't know, but I think we've seen peak SUV crossover.

I'm guessing we're probably ready for something else

because I am certainly bored of crossovers,

especially mid-sized crossovers.

Oh my gosh, they're all the same.

Sometimes like, you know, this is my job.

Sometimes, not at night, but even in the daytime,

I see like a typical crossover,

mid-sized crossover from the back,

and I don't know what the hell it is

because it looks like every other one.

Well, yeah, I'm not for SUVs for the record

unless they're off-roading.

I think that they are less fun to drive,

they can be less fuel efficient,

there's problems associated with SUVs on a percent.

But I just think of like-

Great question, by the way.

Yeah, great question.

I just think of like the typical normal person, right?

It's just better, right?

They're big, they hold stuff,

they feel safer, they can go through the snow,

they can get to the cool campsites.

I think one of the reasons

that like Rolandover has done so well is,

I was just driving a Disco 5, they have big cars.

Sure.

These are big cars, right?

These are maybe not as big as Tau or Suburban,

but they are big and roomy.

And I think that we may be seeing more of that

coming up in the crossover slash Suburban world.

I kind of feel like with the electric vehicles,

these cars have gotten smaller because of efficiency,

but I think like Rivian would have done better

had they gotten, you know, made that R1S

like two sizes bigger than that they did.

I think, yeah, a pretty big car,

I think of the R1S.

You don't think it's big enough?

Yeah, I think the Defender is much bigger, the 130.

I think if you were to park a 130 next to an R1S,

the 130 would war for an R1S.

Anyway, what's your next question?

That 130 is ugly.

It's very big butted.

Jonathan also says on the chat,

big agree on more manual and sports cars,

don't care if it's slower,

it's all about the physical engagement with the machine.

Yeah, yeah, you want to become part of the machine

and we have now lived through a time

where because of Tesla mainly,

everything has become screen oriented.

You know, these are, what do they call that?

Oh, God, the software defined vehicle?

I am so tired of the software defined vehicle.

I was thinking about this,

the latest Bugatti has this incredible analog speedometer.

I think like BMW, especially because I was with BMW

on their Pebble Beach program.

I think they would do well if they could actually build,

like remember when they had the 502,

oh, it's a little sports car, a little convertible.

The Z8?

No, no, going back like in the 50s.

Oh, like 504?

Yeah, they're 504, 405, 504.

Yeah, something of that size,

but with all analog controls

and maybe one tiny screen somewhere.

I think a manufacturer would do really well

if they got back into the button world.

What was that thing called?

I think you're right,

because what we're seeing is-

Sliders.

507.

507, okay.

Now that everything has screens in it,

like it used to be like 15 years ago,

the premium manufacturers would put screens in cars,

to make them feel more premium and nicer

than the standard cars that were all mechanical.

But now that everything,

every single Hyundai and Kia and Ford

and Chevy have screens in it,

now they gotta go do something else,

which is the opposite of that,

which is almost watch-like mechanics.

Yeah, because buttons are more expensive.

Oh, for sure, yeah, buttons are a lot more expensive.

So I think people in here understand

that buttons are more expensive,

though they're more premium.

But I think back then,

like I think the first car I ever saw

that had a digital instrument cluster was a Range Rover,

the L322.

I remember that, yeah.

It blew my mind, it was so cool.

And back in those days, the screens-

I still had real buttons.

Yeah, but the screen was expensive and exciting, right?

That was like, ooh, it was the iPad era, right?

But now that, like I said,

that screens are so cheap,

they're cheaper than physical controls

and buttons and dials and knobs.

Yeah, I really hope that we start to see,

especially in the premium segment,

a reversal back to kind of this analog experience.

Yeah, so whatever auto manufacturer comes back with,

it could be a premium analog car.

It will do really well.

The problem is, people probably are thinking,

is that you can go buy those cars, right?

Those are classic cars.

If you want a premium basic sports car,

go get yourself a Porsche 944.

Those things are $10,000 to $15,000 all day long.

The problem with doing that

is that they're also 30, 40 years old

and people really want the security of a warranty

and of a new car.

And so while you may crave the analog features

of an older car,

the problem with the older cars is they're not as safe,

they're certainly not as reliable

and they certainly don't have that new car smell.

And so if you could take that kind of old school

and bring it into a modern car,

at least it doesn't have to be a recreation

of what I used to drive,

but at least interpret that in a modern car.

I think you would do really well.

Nah, I think you're right.

Yeah, 100%.

All right, everybody.

Well, that was an hour of podcasting already.

I want to thank our Patreons.

Yeah, next time we'll give you more heads up

so you can tune in for sure.

But we're always running around,

I mean doing videos,

so it's kind of hard because we have

eight channels we need to feed

and so it's kind of hard to plan this

so maybe we just need to get better at it, Tommy.

Yeah, I think we just got to get the planning down.

Can I throw in some thank yous just very quickly?

Sure, what you got?

I want to thank BMW for taking us,

taking me to Pebble Beach.

Nice. I've been doing this for what, 15 years now

and that was my first invite I got.

So it meant a lot to me.

The team was incredible.

They put us up in an incredible hotel

and I've got to check something off of my bucket list

so I'm very grateful for that.

There's some more questions pouring in, by the way.

Jonathan just agrees with you

that crossovers are just so samezy.

Good but boring.

Let's hope Roman is right

and some other platforms will catch on in the future.

Yeah, I would love that

because I am also getting bored

of reviewing the same old bubbles.

Yeah, in fact, I don't think people

are actually watching those reviews anymore.

We look at our reviews and we look at our numbers

and I don't know if it's because of what's happening

on YouTube or because of what's happening

with people's taste

but those reviews just aren't doing very well.

Yeah, that's right.

All right, as always,

Tommy, where should they go

if they want to watch all of our videos?

Yeah, alltfl.com is the place to be.

Big thank you to everyone on Patreon.

We tuned in live.

And did you want to help support us?

Patreon.com slash TFL car.

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Ep. 299: Build These Cars And We Will Buy Them!

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