Episode 232: Best of 2025 Part 2 (Raj Nair, Steve Saleen)

The automobile is one of the most important inventions that revolutionize the modern world.

In America, the rich history of car culture runs deep as technology continues to shape

the future of the industry. Jason Stein is here to share the stories of people passionate about

cars from industry leaders and innovators to car obsessed celebrities. Buckle up as Jason takes

you inside the boardroom onto the track and around the bend on Cars and Culture on SiriusXM

Business Radio. Welcome to Cars and Culture with Jason Stein here on SiriusXM Business

Channel 132. I'm your host Jason Stein. Thanks for listening. It's been an incredible 2025 on the

show. We hit our 200th episode this year, edging closer to 250. What a year, what a collection

of cars and culture as we move toward our fifth year together. If anything, our introduction to

these guests, actors, CEOs, comedians, movie producers, racers has highlighted what we thought

to be true. The car world is filled with fascinating people from all walks of life,

and they all have one thing in common. They care about the automobile. Throughout this journey,

the stories have been rich and the personalities have been dynamic. For the next two weeks,

we'll highlight several key interviews from this past year, pulling together clips from some of the

best. As we close out the year, this Best of Cars and Culture episode explores what happens when

engineering ambition meets entrepreneurial courage. You'll hear from Raj Nair, a world-class

engineer and former global product leader whose fingerprints are on some of the most

consequential vehicles of the modern era. Raj is now its singer and he brings perspective on

leadership, electrification, and how product decisions ripple through culture and brand.

And you'll hear from Steve Selene, racer, manufacturer and founder, whose career is built

on the belief that performance, risk, and individuality still matter in an industry

increasingly shaped by scale and software. Two builders, two distinct paths, one shared belief

that cars are still emotional machines. This is Cars and Culture, the best of,

featuring Raj Nair and Steve Selene. And now my conversation with singer Raj Nair.

I started by asking him about the biggest adjustment in moving to a company like Singer.

Well, I think California is the biggest adjustment.

And the California vibe. And Singer definitely is at the center of California car culture,

which I obviously was exposed to. And at Ford, we had our studio in California, but just being

there and feeling it, it's a real thing. And there's a special and different way the Californians

love their cars. And that is imbibed into Singer. The 911 is so iconic, and without a doubt, it's

so German, right? I mean, Porsche is that iconic German company. And their approach to the iterations

of that vehicle are very Germanic in their attention detail. And applying California car

culture to a 911 and seeing how that happened, and is happening, is, yeah, it's definitely

just because, you know, as you said, I, you know, I really am a Midwest boy at heart. I mean,

I look it, but, you know, born and raised in St. Louis. And then, you know, most of my career

in the Michigan area, although I was lucky with Ford to be, you know, working in Europe twice.

And in Thailand and China, it was always coming back to Dearborn eventually.

Ultimatic is a Canadian company. But, you know, obviously big presence in Canada and Toronto,

but global, big presence in Detroit. Ford, GM, slanders are their biggest customers. There's

still a very Midwestern based approach to the business. And the California approach is a little

bit different. And it's a little bit more artistic. It's a little bit, a little bit more free flow.

And I used to say I went from being, you know, one of the rebels and maybe, you know,

certainly one of the more rebellious executives at Ford to being the most conservative guy at

Ultimatic. And I am definitely the most conservative guy at Singer, even on another scale.

But it's a great, it's a great team. And we really enjoy each other. And to me, I've just been very

lucky, whether it was at Ford or Ultimatic, to be surrounded by great people and just enjoying

going to work and working with them. What's your mission at Singer? What are you trying to do?

So, you know, obviously, we're so focused on reimaginations of 9-Elevens. And on a day-to-day

basis, we just spend all day on how can we do that better? And how can we build it with higher

quality? How can we really knock their socks out with an emotional design reimagination of 9-Eleven?

But I do think that the company is also moving to the brand is really starting to stand for something.

The Singer approach is starting to stand for something. And maybe even going beyond just,

you know, the reimagination of 9-Elevens. So, we recently, you know, announced the partnership

with Willow Springs and Harbor Capital, who's now bought the Willow Springs Raceway. And, you know,

iconic track, you know, the oldest track in the West, but certainly needed some investment. And so,

we obviously have a California reputation. The grassroots, the development of the cars that Rob

and Maz have done have been because of miles and miles spent at Willow Springs. But also, our luxury

brand reputation and be able to bring that to an opportunity at Willow Springs. So,

you know, we have a vision of that being still incredibly accessible for grassroots racing and

grassroots track days and, you know, the whole greater Los Angeles or West Coast California

area being able to continue to use Willow Springs while at the same time creating a club and a true

luxury experience that, you know, eventually residents there could enjoy. And so, that's almost

Singer, right, this ultra luxury reimagination of an icon that still is incredibly accessible and

understandable by any car aficionado. And I think our brand stands for that a little bit. And I think

there's a lot of opportunities beyond just reimagination of Line 11 that could be in our

future with that approach. And I know that the desire is, I've talked to Maz on this program,

I've talked to Rob a few years ago even. I know that the desire is to keep it very bespoke,

very contained, very small, very exclusive. There's a fine line, right? Back to my earlier

comment about how many units that you used to oversee. There is the desire in the auto industry

repeatedly make more and more because the measurement of success is based on volume,

scale, and more. But you've got to fight that while satisfying the public so that the wait

time doesn't get too long, right? And also by not diluting the brand. Like that balance has

got to be in your head at all times. Yeah. And I think even more so in our heads, I think

the end of the rule always is build one less than the demand.

The fraud example. But I think our approach has to be even more restrictive on that and stay

true to that. In some ways, it's more a matter of how many of a specific vehicle are you going to

build. And so I see our volumes. I think our new announcement on a 911 Carrera with a naturally

aspirated engine back in the day Porsche offered that iconic turbo bodywork but with a naturally

aspirated engine. That was the Carrera. And we're reimagining that now. That'll be 100 units.

So our production capability, wanting to ramp that up a little bit to that 200, 250 units a year

eventually is probably going to be a good sweet spot for us. But probably more importantly within

that, the models that we would build, maintaining that we're really talking about lifetime volumes

in the hundreds. Certainly not ever getting to a thousand or anything like that. So that bespoke

aspect, the ultra high luxury aspect, the exclusivity aspect, the pricing discipline aspect.

It's important for us that we obviously sell the vehicles at a fair price, but they're not

going to depreciate as soon as you accept delivery. They're going to maintain or even appreciate on

volumes. And so you probably are not buying a singer for an investment, but if you have to

convince your significant other to buy a singer, a 911 reimagined by singer, you can certainly

say that you're not going to lose money on that on a reimagination by singer.

You've said the word reimagined a number of times. It's more than just branding,

isn't it, Rash? It's kind of a global worldview. What does it mean internally?

So obviously there's an aspect of renovation that's been in the industry for a long time,

just bring the car back to original. There's been a more recent trend to Rustamotting of

taking these classic vehicles, but putting new technology in them where it's a new

crate engine or new suspension. I think what Singer does is the next level of beyond that,

which is why we call it reimagination. It's still a 911. We strip it down to its bare metal,

but then we do to some extent re-imagine that body with entirely new body work,

sometimes carbon fiber body work to reduce the weight. But for example, we're taking a

Type 964 911, which most people will be familiar with as the last swing axle 911,

but as we're re-imagining that, we're actually bringing it closer in shape to the original G body

911, because that was an appearance that Porsche files really loved,

but optimizing the proportions of that. And Rob is the master of this. His eye for optimizing

what's unmistakably a 911, but finessing it and optimizing it so it's even more beautiful than

the original. Underneath the car, we spent a lot of time improving the dynamics of the vehicle.

And not for lap times, we're not out there to set a new lap record anywhere, but we are

there to make a real emotional connection with the driver and a real pure positive emotional

response in driving this vehicle that the best test is, does it bring a smile to your face?

So that we'll never measure on a stopwatch. And so that's why it's certainly much more

than just renovating the car. It's actually much more than restomating a car. That's why we use

that term re-imagination of what a 911 can be. And it's an homage to that iconic car, the 911,

and that iconic company, Porsche. But with our approach and our really low volumes and frankly,

a price point that's significantly higher, it's what could be with that vehicle.

And I imagine that storytelling is just as important as metal and mechanics, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah. Both the story and I would say the journey that we go through with our customers as

well. Obviously, our customers are 911 fans, right? So they know the vehicles. A lot of them,

the one that resonates with them is when they were a certain age, when they were the teenager,

and what poster do they have up on their wall? And so that storytelling of where we want to go

together, re-imagining their particular vehicle, when we take their donor vehicle and start the

path of what should we do? And how can we make this your vehicle and your commission? And many,

many of our owners, our clients, who provide services to tell you that the day that that

two to three year wait in finally getting their vehicle is a fantastic day, but it's also a little

bit bittersweet because it's the end of the journey that they really enjoyed with us so much.

So that's why so many of them come back and say, let's do another journey. Let's do another.

I love my classic. Now let's do that with the turbo. I love my turbo. Now let's do that with

a DLST or let's do that with our newest offering, a 911 Carrera coupe. So it really is the story

that we're telling together and the journey that we go on together with our clients.

And can you take us through that client journey? What does it look like when I raise my hand and

say, okay, I'd like to be part of that journey? And what are the nuances and changes and subtleties

that exist along that path? Yeah, so one of the subtleties is we actually don't sell cars,

we sell services, right? Right. So some of our customers have a 911, a Type 964 911,

that's what we work on. And so we'll take that as what we call the donor car. Some of them don't

have that. So we obviously have a good expertise in finding a good donor car for them. And so we'll

work them to get that donor car. Unfortunately, the next period is a wait. So because we have that

very big order bank and we want to keep our volumes at that right level, we want to have the right

people and the right technicians and the right artist to be working on the car and don't want

to fall into the trap of growing bigger in the car being sacrificed because of the quality

or the workmanship around it. So yeah, there is a wait and we are trying to reduce that,

but it does come with the territory a little bit. Then at point in time, we'll start discussing

the spec of the vehicle. And one of the things about a 911 by Singer is there's literally no two

alike. Right, right. There is a limit to what we can customize, but there's not much of one,

certainly not in colors, not in trim, certain options that we can do. But those aspects become

very personal. That's what we call them commissions. And particularly on, and you'll know this,

Jason, certainly from the exterior, the cars are gorgeous. You open up the door and then look at

the interior and it's another aha moment. And so it's not just artists on the exterior, they're

working on the bodies, but it's artists on the seats and artists on the consoles and artists on

the steering wheels. And I don't say anything goes because we still do want to stay true

to it being a 911. But some of the things that have been done on the interiors of the vehicles

to make it a client's own is pretty special. We can phase that spec process. We can obviously,

you know, we start obviously with the paint color first while we could still be working on the

interior with the client refining that. But at a point in time, we'll freeze that down as well.

While this is all happening, we're disassembling that donor car, stripping it down to bare metal,

bringing it into our fabrication shop, stitch welding the entire vehicle to improve the weld

integrity. In many cases, adding reinforcements improve the torsional capability of the body

and white. Then it moves into our body fabrication shop where, as I said, the panels, many of them

carbon fiber are custom fitted to each individual body. And to a level of detail on flushness and

margins that are level beyond anything you'll see anywhere else in my opinion. Into our paint shop

with custom paints, custom tri-coats, the number of coats is significantly higher than what you'll

see in any other vehicle. We've been known to have some vehicles with up to eight coats or more

of paint to achieve the effects that we want. We then, because of that level, we actually let

that car cure for a longer period of time than most, that adds to the sweet time. And so we're

talking about weeks of curing, whereas other places may wait a day or a week. And then coming

into our general assembly where the real magic is happening on installation of all those improvements

to the powertrain, improvements to the gearbox, as well as all of these custom interiors.

And then a pretty significant quality check process, full drive of the vehicles, full

shakedown of the vehicles, and then eventual delivery to the customer. Depending on what

vehicle we're talking about, just even from beyond the point of committing a vehicle to you,

commission to you, your process where you're actually engaging with us on what the vehicle

wants to be can easily be a two-year process. And so you can imagine the excitement that builds up

during that timeframe until the final delivery of the dream that you had imagined and our privilege

in being able to provide that to you. It's a little different than one vehicle a minute.

It is. It is. But I don't want to discount the passion that those guys

Louisville have for that as well. They have a passion to make that

available to everyone. And so the amount of heart that goes into an F-150

does don't discount. There's a lot of heart that goes into a 911 rematch by Singer, but

there's a lot of heart that goes into an F-150 as well. There's a lot of heart that goes into a

Ford GT and a Mustang GTD and all of that. So between Ford and Multimatic and Singer, I would say

that's one thing that I've been privileged to be around people that had a passion for the business.

But you're in the sweet spot of exactly where you need to be, Rash. I mean, what you just described

to me in the customer journey is an engineer's dream. It is. And like I said, those few moments

that I get to take a step back, I am incredibly lucky that I was trained by the best at Ford

on what high volume and processes look like. I was trained by Peter Chapka at Multimatic,

the founder of Multimatic, of how you run a company that size and how to stay nimble and hungry

and decentralize and have the lowest possible level, making decisions, have them feel accountable

for the business. I was lucky to be with Multimatic while we learned this process of how to build

at one a day, which is different than one a minute, but I was also different than one a year.

And just feel lucky to be able to bring that to Singer with my experience, but also be able to

work with people like Maz and Rob. And I am definitely one of those guys. Some guys will say,

I obviously had the talent and the brains and all of that. I didn't have any of that. I was just

really lucky to be working with a lot of great people and mentors and that taught me a lot,

and I'm now lucky enough to be able to share that knowledge with some great people.

You and I haven't seen each other in a while, and since you are no longer working for a large OEM,

I have to ask you a couple of industry questions if that's okay.

What is going on in the EV world right now? There has been such an enormous push,

and this is not a political question, but it is a product question because you're a product guy.

Do consumers just not appreciate EVs yet? Is the chicken and the egg with infrastructure,

what's your view on it? And if you were sitting in your former role,

would you be scratching your head going, well, I guess we'll switch out to hybrids now?

Well, I mean, as you know, Dishon, I'm a big hybrid fan, and hybrids plug-in hybrids,

NEVs. I don't know if my hindsight is 20-20 on this, but from an engineering point of view,

the first thing I will say, and this isn't from Singer or from Ford or Multimagnus,

it's just Raj, I personally do believe that climate change is a very real threat,

and there's a lot of good scientists at Ford that did a lot of good work and came to the same

conclusion. A lot of good scientists everywhere come back to that conclusion. The need to reduce

greenhouse gases is real. The automotive industry's responsibility within that is real,

but it's a very complex equation on how to get there, and consumer tastes is one aspect,

engineering capabilities is another aspect, and the economics is certainly an aspect.

I always felt like the consumer acceptance of an EV, that challenge was never about how the

vehicles drove, anyone who's been an EV. I've yet to hear someone, first time they've gotten an EV,

that said that was worse than I expected, right? Most are surprised how well they drive,

how fun they are to drive, how quiet they are, so the acceptance of an EV by the consumer,

just on the attributes of what a vehicle needs to do, I think was always overstated.

The range aspect is real, and particularly for those who are not just doing a daily commute,

the range is fine for the daily commutes, and if you have somewhere to charge,

you know, it's no more inconvenient than charging your phone, right? If you don't,

if you're parking on the sidewalk or the street, then it's a different challenge,

but those aspects of range anxiety on long trips and the recharge time is real,

and so that's the aspect of what engineers need to figure out and how to improve,

but the economic aspect is also real in that still, you know, the batteries are still much

cheaper, or are becoming much cheaper than they were, but the economics for the consumer of what

you save on fuel, on gas per week versus the incremental cost of the EV, you know, still

doesn't make sense. Now, do I think consumers are doing that math? Probably not, but do I think,

in a secondary way, they get it, and they've been able to figure out this doesn't quite make

economic sense for me? Yeah, in the end, the economics never goes away.

Episode 232: Best of 2025 Part 2 (Raj Nair, Steve Saleen)

About this episode

Porsche 911

GM

Willow Springs Raceway

Singer

naturally aspirated engine

restomod

Dodge Journey

donor car

spec process

stitch welding

carbon fiber

Ford F150

Ford Gt

Ford Mustang GTD

Multimatic

EVs

hybrid

electric vehicle (EV)

Porsche 356

Porsche Club of America

Carroll Shelby

Shelby Mustang

Shelby Cobras

Ford GT40

Formula One

SVO

Dodge Viper

S7

Audi S7

Detroit Auto Show

SVT

Dodge Challengers

Chevrolet Camaros

Tesla

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