Episode 233: Best of 2025 Part 3 (Stephan Winkelmann, Michael Dunne)

SXM 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. And

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. They all have one thing in common, they care about the automobile.

Throughout this journey, the stories have been rich, the personalities have been dynamic.

This week, we'll finish up our best of series with two interviews from this past year,

pulling together clips from some of the best. We begin with a best of episode that looks squarely

at where the global auto industry is headed and who's shaping that future. First, Stefan Winckelman,

Chairman and CEO of Lamborghini, a leader who has balanced heritage and innovation

while guiding one of the world's most emotionally charged brands through electrification,

growth and reinvention. And then Michael Dunn, one of the sharpest observers of the global auto

landscape, especially China, offering his insight into geopolitics, competition, and how global

power dynamics are reshaping the business of mobility. One voice from inside the luxury

performance world, one from the strategic edge of global automotive transformation. And together,

they frame the challenges and opportunities that will define the year ahead.

This is Cars and Culture, our best of, with Stefan Winckelman and Michael Dunn.

And now, from the 2025 Pebble Beach Concourse, my conversation with Lamborghini's Stefan Winckelman.

What a pleasure to be here in this beautiful setting with you, Stefan. Congratulations on

another Pebble Beach and another Quail. You always save the best news for other Quail.

What is it like for you to be back here enjoying this beautiful time in these beautiful places

and, of course, a big launch, too? I think, for me, it's the 20th year that I'm coming to

Pebble Beach, the Monterrey Car Week, and the Quail Lodge. So for us, not only because the U.S.

is the most important market, but also because this week, especially, is one of the most important

ones in the year in terms of customer relation, press contact, and also environment. And therefore,

at the Quail, in the last years, we always had world premieres, which is something which paid

a lot into the brand. And so far, it was very positive for us. And yesterday, when we were at

the Quail, we had this unveiling. And again, I think we were the talk of the day. Phenomenal, right?

That's the vehicle. Tell me a little bit about the development of this vehicle. And I know you're

only going to do 29 units. $3.1 million. Is that right? $3.5 million. And this falls in the tradition

of many other few-off, so-called few-off vehicles. Tell me how important it is for the brand, what

it means for you. You know, we started with a few-off almost 20 years ago with the Reventon. At that

time, we had two models, now the Gallardo and the Murcielago. And we had a discussion with our

engineers and the designers and also with the marketing guys. They told me, yeah, we need to do

something special because with two cars, we only can show so much, but we have so many ideas.

Let's do something. And then we sat together also with the sales department. At the end of the day,

we decided we do it, but I said we only can do it if we sell them before we start with the project.

And this worked so that Reventon was a huge success. It was the first time we did this,

and it's really paying into the brand. It's design and technical innovation, and this is holding on

until now. And also with the phenomenal, still we have the same approach and we pre-sold all the

cars before presenting. Amazing. What was the reaction yesterday? I was on stage presenting

the car, so I always get a sense, an immediate sense of the feedback, and it was very positive.

So the applause was there. Everybody was there with their phones filming, and then I was really

attacked as soon as the press conference was over. Everybody wanted to see the car,

so it was really good. And I checked constantly. I started yesterday evening and also this morning,

and once in a while I look into and speaking also to our press guys how the feedback is,

and it's very, very positive, also in social media. So I think we did the right thing.

It's kind of the ultimate expression, a design manifesto, as I guess the way that

Lamborghini describes it. Stylistic elements to the extreme. Is that what you wanted to really

show here? Was it unique design, custom aerodynamics, and a V12, which is the most powerful V12 in

Lamborghini's history, which says a lot when you talk about Lamborghini's history.

No, it's two things. One is the design, always to showcase what we can do by doing

every time something unexpected and different, and on the other side it's innovation. So the

combination of the two things, which is part of the DNA of Lamborghini, if you ask, give me a

definition of a Lamborghini car, it's about design, performance, and technical innovation.

And I think this has to be inside those cars, and it's also a bit of an anticipation of what

might come next, at least to some extent. And therefore it's a very important

use case, but also a business case. And we want to continue to do those things

once every three, four years. Wonderful. Lamborghini, when we talk about 20 years of you

being at Pebble Beach and at Quail, and we talk about your own history of 20 years ago

with the brand, how much has the brand changed during that time? I mean, you've grown exponentially,

but what was the vision for Lamborghini when you first took control of it, and maybe

what developed, what changed? When I first joined in 2005, it was clear that we needed to work

on the two most important things, which is the brand and the product. And on the product, for

sure, it was always to get the people to buy something which is exceeding the expectations.

Always, it has to be something which is better than your dreams. And you never buy mobility

when you drive a Lamborghini, but you buy a dream car. And this is one thing. So in all

technical innovation, design, the combination, and also the recognizability of our car.

Immediately, even if you don't know what type of model it is, you have to understand that

it's a Lamborghini by always changing drastically the design. This is one thing. And we worked on

this, including all the derivatization. So having open cars, faster cars, lighter cars,

this was one of the things, together with the few of us, to start to have a history which

is consistent in terms of feedback from the customers, in terms of presence in the media.

And it's one of the most important part. And then, for sure, on the brand, we said we have to

have a very clear and easy message. So the colors, we went away from the yellow. We picked only black

and white. And we said for at least one decade, Lamborghini is uncompromising, extreme, and

Italian. And this should stick. And this was very clear and sharp positioning. And once you have

done this, and once this was going into the mind of the people, we were also, when we started to

work on the third model, the Urus, we wanted to be more open. So we had to change the approach.

So the brand is something which is constantly moving. Now, and today we say, when we speak about

the brand, it's brave, unexpected, and authentic. And this is what also is the history of our

founder. When you want to change things, you have to be courageous. Now you have to be brave.

And then you are unexpected. But being unexpected is not enough. You have to be true to yourself.

So the authenticity. And these are the things where we are today. And this is also reflecting

in our models. Now we have three models. They're all successful. We moved from internal combustion

engines only into hybridization. So it's really something which is on a constant move. It never

stands there. There's always something to do. I want to talk about hybridization in a moment,

but I also want to focus on Urus. And what Urus meant, it was a game changer, really,

for the brand. There were some purists who doubted it, but it became a best seller.

How did that decision come about? What was the pathway to develop a vehicle like that?

And was it a big risk? I start with the end. No, it was not a big risk for me personally.

I was convinced 100% that this was the way to go. We are a super sports car company,

yes. But if you look into the history of Lamborghini, Lamborghini did GT cars,

super cars as we do also today, but we also did cars like the LM002. So back in the 70s,

beginning of the 80s, there was this first SUV, first luxury SUV, which was a very exclusive car,

which was done by Lamborghini. So we showcased already at that time that we could do more than

just the pure super cars. So this was, therefore, in terms of the segment, in terms of the idea of

putting it into a Lamborghini was, for us, set. We analyzed all the segment and the opportunities.

So we were the first ones to get into it, and we created the sub-segment. And to the purists

at that time, also when we moved from one model to two models, when we started with the Gallardo,

there was also the discussion that there will always be. But at the end of the day,

you have to have an approach which is coherent, which has a strategy, a long view,

and for sure, you have to create the critical mass to reinvest into the future of the company.

To die in beauty is something which is not paying off.

The hybridization piece of this. There's been so much talk of electrification in the midst of a

major shift that's going on, and the pendulum that goes back this way, and then the pendulum

comes back this way, especially in this country now, obviously with some of the latest news.

I know electrification is no longer a question of if, but when, and maybe even how. Where do we

sit now, now that you know, now that you're fully hybridized across all of your products,

and we're considering, maybe still considering electrification.

So the most important decision we took is to hybridize all the line-up. At that time,

there were people telling us, you are very late in doing this, you should go electric or not,

but you are late. And we always said, we don't need to be the first ones in doing the things,

these type of things, because this is not about Lamborghini in say, it's about

when are we ready to do a perfect car, which is combining sustainability with more performance,

because the promise we made to our customer was easy. When we go hybrid, we will be more

performing than the generation before. And this is something which immediately gets into the brain,

and it's something which is clear and acceptable. So we did this, and we have all the line-up,

which is very successful, and hybridization is accepted. We are constantly making analysis on

the acceptance of the full electric cars, and we're not speaking only about the United States,

we're speaking worldwide how this is moving, also in terms of regulations, and the acceptance curve

is flattening, generally speaking, and this is even more valid for our type of cars. So we took

the first decision that the follow-up of the Urus is going to be again a plug-in hybrid car.

We are working on the model number four, and here we have not taken a decision so far.

So the model four is still, there are various things under consideration as it relates to

that is basically what you're saying. Yes, we decided on the type of cars, on the body style,

because when we look into the supercars or the luxury cars or the sports car brands,

then everybody has a Gran Turismo or GT car, and this we had in the past, and this is missing

today, so this is the car we are going to add to the model lineup. So we will have two low flat

super sports cars, we will have the SUV, and then we will have the Gran Turismo, the GT,

which is a two door, two plus two seater. Your open topic is the type of engine we are going to

train. Our train, yeah. Design has always been so central to Lamborghini, aggressive, unmistakable,

emotionally charged, you know, to some extent. How do you define where Lamborghini's design

language is today and maybe where it needs to go? But we have a design DNA, but there are two

rules in the design of Lamborghini. One is that every car has to be very different to the generation

before, and this is one of the key elements which we need to continue to work on. The second rule is

that there must be some elements which make the cars recognizable, even if they are different in

terms of design. One is the stance line, which is going from the front of the car until the rear,

and the other one is to have a squared greenhouse, not this bubbly greenhouse, which other brands

have but a square one. And for us, which is a bit difficult to understand, but it's the key element

is that for us, function follows form, and not the other way around, because we think,

like Aristotle has said, that the form is a substance itself. So for us, being made in

Italy, the design is so predominant that it has really an immense rule. There's so much emotional

the emotional connection is so high among owners and the brand, they feel it. How much of that is

engineered and how much of it is intangible? The fact that you have to instill in our clients

the DNA of Lamborghini, which very often they have more than we have as employees or as people

which work in Lamborghini, in the brand and the factory, is that we have to exceed

everything what the imagination is able to do. So we have to continue to work

where the others stop. We have to go the extra mile to fulfill what is necessary.

So it's clear that heritage is what is intangible. No, if you come from the Countach and you see

the Ruelto, you have an idea that it's clear. No, it's the kept forward design, the scissor doors,

the fact that you have this tense line, all these things, they give you an idea of

continuity, but also a clear cut. And this is what we have to tell them. So it's a lot,

I'm not saying storytelling, because storytelling without the substance would be very soon

to be spoiled. So you have to walk the talk. This is, in my opinion, the key element,

better to do less, but to do it right than to try to do everything. And you have to,

the authenticity is something which our customers are appreciating. I don't know if I answered,

but it's very difficult to nail it in a couple of words. For sure. When you think about 20 years

here and you think about the legacy of the last 20 years and maybe the legacy in general for you,

and for Lamborghini, what do you want to be remembered for as a leader at this brand?

Other have to say this, but at the end of the day is that

let's say the torch is passed to somebody that receives something which was better than when I

got the torch myself. So I think that this is important that in this period of time we

prepare the company for more and that it's a lasting heritage. What are some of your proudest

moments as you reflect back? I know I'm very related to human beings. So there are two things which

for me are paramount, which is for sure we have to be focused. We have to be

looking to the brand, being responsible, doing the best we can to make the brand grow,

but it's not something just for making cars. It's also when I look at my employees with their

families, I feel the responsibility that they go home every day and they don't fear that tomorrow

can be all over. And this is for me when I step in front of them and they cheer and they applaud,

it's for me the best thing which can happen. And also for sure when the customers come and say

you or you and your team, you did the best job that I can imagine. And here you're surrounded

by customers who, the ones who I've talked to who have been here are extremely happy with what's

happening with the brand. There must be an enormous sense of pride in knowing that directionally

where the brand is going that you're feeling good about it. Yes, for sure, for sure. But you know

the brand is one thing, the team is what, it's about people, it's about, and this is what,

for me is the most important thing. Lamborghini represents so much more than cars, its lifestyle,

its aspiration, rebellion even to some extent, being a little bit rebellious.

How do you make sure that you keep those elements intact as you go forward?

You know, this is something which is not easy to pursue because you have to be a rebel with

a cause today. You can't be a rebel and that's it. On the other side, with the political incorrect,

it's very difficult to stay sharp and to be different. And for me, this is something which

we have to continue to pursue and really to foster and not to be in a cage of the moment,

of the fashion. We have to be the trendsetters. We have to be able really to be the ones which are

aspirational as a brand also in the future. A couple of final questions. Your favorite Lamborghini

of all time. It's always the first, the last one, sorry, it's always the last one. The one that's

sitting out here. No, the next one which nobody sees because we are always now looking forward.

A car in terms of development needs four years plus eight to nine years of life cycle. So

once we see the car, it's already done. Yeah, yeah. But throughout history, which ones do you

take off as your favorite? For sure, the Countach because it's representing a bit the DNA of the

brand. Everybody had that poster on the wall. And for me personally, for sure the first car

I followed from scratch is the Aventador. Okay. What is it that stirred your soul about the Aventador?

At that time, it was almost a hypercar with the price of a supercar. So it was an incredible car

and it still is. When I see one, I'm really proud of what we made at that time.

Another quick question. Do you prefer the Nurburgring or the Amalfi Coast?

Depends on the season. In summer, the Nurburgring and the Amalfi Coast not the

Sama because you can't move. If you were to collaborate in any way, what would be an idea?

Who's an ideal partner in the development of Lamborghini? Where can Lamborghini learn from

others? There's not one. We have a constant benchmarking of different industries to see

how the mega trends are moving, not only in the car business, but in general. But at the end of the

day, we are aware of the fact that we have to be the ones deciding where to go because otherwise

you will never be a trendsetter. As we look around the world, where are pockets of

growth that you believe could occur for Lamborghini? In general, the big markets are all covered. So

we are covered in North America, we are covered in Europe, Middle East, Asia and then the Pacific

region. There are here and there open spots, which can be larger cities, which we have to

still go into, but there are no big markets or surprises around the globe.

Does the competition in this space getting more severe? It seems to me that between startups

and maybe more traditional OEMs, that there's a chase for this pocket where you're in now,

where maybe before there was white space and now it seems to be rather crowded.

I have to say we have just a couple of real competitors and I don't see a time being,

but never say never. But I don't see a time being anybody who is, let's say, invading this field

because who is looking into it knows high investments, low volumes and being global and

this can only work if you have the right image, the right pricing and you have to have a history,

so you cannot just do it right. Congratulations on everything that you've done here at your 20th

Pebble Beach and your 20th Quail and your unveiling that you had here. Thank you so much for

watching. If you'd like to continue our look back at 2025 on Cars and Culture, to see my

interviews from this year, go to the Cars and Culture YouTube channel. Like and subscribe

to see more than 200 interviews and more than 2000 videos. The automobile is one of the most

important inventions that revolutionized the modern world. In America, the rich history of

car culture runs deep. Technology continues to shape the future of the industry. Jason Stein

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Welcome back to the best of Cars and Culture here on SiriusXM. I'm your host Jason Stein.

Now I'll continue our look back at 2025 on Cars and Culture. To see my interviews from this year,

go to the Cars and Culture YouTube channel. Like and subscribe to see more than 200 interviews

and more than 2000 videos. Back in July, I sat down with China expert Michael Dunn to talk about

the auto industry. Now a portion of my interview with Michael, which begins with a question about

affordable cars being away into the United States and other regions for Chinese brands.

Absolutely. Just to put some numbers to that, I think the average cost of a new car last year in

America was around $48,000. The average cost of a car shipped, exported from China last year,

was $18,000. So that's their sweet spot. They love manufacturing cars in the $20,000 price range,

and that's why they're winning in so many markets globally. If it was an open market economy and

everyone were friends, there's no doubt about it. The Chinese would be the hottest selling cars in

America today. Jason, surprisingly high quality, not just low cost, high quality backed up by

technology. A story that's not well understood in the West is about 10 years ago, Chinese leaders

said, let's bring the Elon Musk's of China's tech industry into the auto industry and infuse it with

all kinds of innovation technology. That's exactly what we're seeing. So companies like Xiaomi, which

has recently been featured in New York Times, Huawei, Neo, X-Pong, the auto, very impressive,

new products, high quality advanced technologies. They're the real deal.

And you have written before in some of your newsletter postings some of the reactions

from the traditional automakers and go back to 2023. And the head of Toyota's EV division,

Kato-san came back to Japan after visiting BYD and said, quote, we're in trouble.

Farley called BYD's products an existential threat to Ford's business. And that's for a number of

reasons, right? Vertical integration, batteries, product range, design, patents, confidence we

could go on and on and on. But how good are these BYD cars as an example? Damn good. I've test driven

many of them, often alongside dealers from Europe, from North America, every one of them I ask, well,

if Hyundai's a 10 out of 10 in terms of value today in the market, where does BYD stack up?

And the numbers come in 99.5 right there. And I say, are you sure? Absolutely sure.

And then some of them say 10. Some of them say the BYD, how do they get there? Jason,

they have a million employees at BYD, 100,000 engineers are filing patents like it's going

out of style. They just, they have vertical integration. They move with speed. And yes,

they do enjoy enormous support from the central government, which is sort of the black box. How

much money are they getting? No one will ever know. You can go to China. I live there. The more

you dig, the less you know. It's just a black box. Like that's China. They have a saying in

Chinese. They say, the more you try to untangle it, the more it gets tangled. So

we won't ever know just how much, but I guarantee you that Chinese government is the hand behind

the success too. Nothing to take away from BYD as a car company that people work very hard and

they're smart, but they also have that extra juice from the government. And any new car company is

going to go through growing pains. And some of these Chinese companies are, whether it's

Quality and a JD Power China 2024 IQS study that you had referenced or labor standards

or over-dealering in some markets. But what I'm hearing, Michael, is I mean, when we know this,

you know, I've talked about it before, it's all about the long-term vision. When Toyota moved

from California to Dallas, they said it was a 100-year vision. I would guess that the Chinese

vision is a thousand years, correct? Yes. The Chinese do play a long game. They're very patient.

And they have this playbook, call it a China playbook that I call State Capitalism,

which is unfamiliar to most Americans, but it's very important to understand. What is State

Capitalism? They will target an industry, they being the leaders in Beijing and say, we want to

totally dominate this industry. The way we're going to do this, we're going to accumulate

massive capacity at home, create a fierce competition at home with price wars, and induce

our manufacturers to go global and win markets worldwide. And we've seen that happen and play

out in solar panels, in steel, in shipbuilding. Hell, when I first went to China, it was buttons.

Whatever the industry of the year is, they target it and they overwhelm it. And the bad news for

global automakers today is China's target is now automotive. They have capacity to supply half

the world's demand. They're shipping cars at a greater rate than any other country.

And their hell bent on absolutely dominating this industry into the future. So this isn't

Japan or Korea from before, where we had some serious competition. This is more like war.

There it is. You've described that State Capitalism arena before, and it comes with securing a

license with the help of a government sponsor. It's getting billion-dollar loans and building

plants with highly engineered technology, get another billion, build another plant, build

plants in different provinces, diversify, and then go after the rest of the world.

It seems like an unfair fight, doesn't it? It really does. People ask, well, how do we compete

with that? And that's one of the reasons why I have been an advisor to the folks in Washington

at high levels in the last several years. And the purpose of the tariffs that are in place right now

is not simply to protect our domestic industry, but more importantly to buy time,

number one, because if the gates are open, the Chinese would be in here big time. And then

more importantly than buying time, or at the same point, we also want to induce manufacturing

inside the United States. And you go, okay, wait a second, does that work? Does that happen?

Can that be successful? And the irony here is this is exactly what China did 25 years ago

when I was living there, Jason. They said, we don't have an auto industry. We're not competitive.

We're not leaders in technology. We don't have the management team. What do we do? Oh, first thing

we do is we're going to erect these massive trade barriers starting with tariffs. They had 100%

tariffs. They said, we don't want any imports. We don't want any. If you want to sell into our

market, you must manufacture inside China. And when you manufacture inside China, by the way,

you must form a joint venture and the Chinese side will have 50%. That was the cost of market access

into China. I see the current efforts out of DC with the tariffs in a similar vein. I think the

Trump administration says, if you want access to the US market, you better manufacture in the US

or Canada for access to those markets. Will it work? Only time will tell. But China's already the

sort of precedent for, yeah, actually, if you look around the world, Jason,

imports as a share of the market in Japan, about 5%. Korea, about 10%. China, 3%.

And people are up in arms saying, why does the United States have such high tariffs? Well,

half of our sales in the US last year were imports, half. So it's almost like we're late to the

party, didn't get the memo. Now we're applying the same principles as saying, oh, tariffs,

maybe tariffs can induce investments in manufacturing inside our country, just like

we've seen them do in Asia. And the collision of economic systems is truly a battle for the

future, isn't it? And right now, one side is moving faster, is thinking bigger, is building smarter.

Absolutely true. And we've got to get that sense of urgency like this. It's on, Jason. It's on.

So I mentioned building smarter as well. You've also said Western leaders and businesses

have to wake up right now. And that requires innovation, agility, investment in next generation

technologies. Is the West capable of doing this and applying the same amount of

resilience and persistence that the Chinese are doing?

We've been here before, Jason. 1941 Pearl Harbor. What was it? 1958 Sputnik moment.

We've been caught by surprise in the past. Chips were down. We were, yeah, we were outsmarted

and out hustled by our enemies, by our adversaries. Here we go again. China definitely enjoys supremacy

across the board, whether you're talking capacity of production or price costs of doing business

subsidies. So we have to first and foremost understand that this is genuinely an existential

moment. Just look at companies like Nissan right now, or even Honda that are finding themselves like,

BYD is bigger than both of those companies. They're finding themselves back on their heels,

reeling from the competition that they're facing and markets all over the world from the Chinese.

And it's from the Chinese perspective, it's a zero-sum game. As the Chinese like to say,

nix, you die, I live. And when they say, let's have a win-win situation, let's have a win-win

agreement here, it means Chinese side wins twice. So all kidding aside, having lived and worked in

China, Jason, for so many years, I want to double underline that the Chinese, when it comes to

business, are all business. There's no fooling around. They're tenacious as hell. They're unrelenting

and they're a force, the likes of which we have not confronted before. And as I lived here in

California, you know, it's relaxed. Hey, enjoy your life, take it easy. No, we look soft and we

look naive to the Chinese. That won't do. We have to up our game. Let's get into a little bit of your

personal history. I'm guessing that it was not your intended path to become an expert on China

when you went to the University of Michigan, you know, took marketing and finance. Although you did

do Chinese and Thai language, if I understand that correctly, right? That's right. I did. Yes.

But you grew up in a car family. That part was given. Certainly not a family focused on Chinese

cars, but a car family. Your dad was an incredible force in terms of documenting culture. Tell the

audience about that a little bit. Jim Dunn, larger-than-life guy, absolutely. So Car Spy,

as a teenager, my first job was to go with him as the getaway car driver, if you will. We'd go out

to places like Milford, Michigan, that GM Proving Ground's there, up to campus, Casing, Canada,

Ontario, out west to Death Valley, all in the pursuit of that next generation camouflaged car.

And he'd have his long lens Nikon camera out the passenger side window, and he'd give directions,

go faster or slower, speed up, go, Jesus, there's something to go. Let's go get that one. So

he was a man of action and always said, wherever the action is, go there. Don't sit in your office

and look at the ceiling and hope it'll come to you. It doesn't work that way. I just want to back

up because for those who are listening, may not understand what spy photography is. And spy

photography, if you look at any, I'm going to go back a little bit, the car and drivers and the

automobile magazine, there would be these camouflaged vehicles that were emerging out of, you know,

testing facilities, like you said, and it was for the automaker to make sure that the car could

run effectively and they would do a bunch of testing on it. That's what he was photographing.

He was photographing future product, right, stuff that nobody ever saw before, which by the way,

when you cracked open a car and driver or, or a road and track, you went, ah, that's what's coming.

Buick has an SUV coming. Okay. They've never done one of those before.

That was a pretty competitive business, wasn't it, Michael? Super competitive. He was the most

competitive person I ever knew. And he was hell bent on getting pictures of that next generation

vehicle before anyone else. He used to tell me, look, I write for popular mechanics. It was a

monthly at the time. How can I compete? Oh, I know how to compete. I'm going to get those photos of

those camouflage vehicles before anyone else. And we'd find ourselves up in trees sometimes.

We'd find ourselves, you know, out in Death Valley when it's 130 degrees and disweltering.

And sure enough, he'd get his, he'd get his target. He paid for the education of

our seven, seven kids in our family, a college education through that, that business of capturing

next generation photos. So the point is, what I learned from it is go to where the action is

and always think what's coming next. And at school at Michigan, the United States and China were

just normalizing relationships. I had a couple of professors there who said, Hey, if you want to

know what the big, big thing is in your life, it's going to be China. And that got my attention.

Who told you that? Who told you that? A couple guys, one is Michael Luxenberg, the other one is

Kenneth Lieberthal, two very high profile professors at the University of Michigan.

This is 1988. Okay. And it was 1990 that I graduated with a joint degree at the MBA and a

degree in Chinese. I knew how to speak Chinese by the time I graduated, went to China right out of

school, handed in my master's thesis, bought an airline ticket, 3000 bucks in an Apple computer,

went to China, landed and went to register my company with the Chinese authorities.

What was my company? I was, I don't know, I was going to bring American cars to China to

sell them into the Chinese market 1990. So when I registered the company, the cadre there said,

okay, everything checks out except for your business plan. You're going to sell American cars here.

There's no car market in China. We only have bikes. Bicycles. There's no income. There's no

private market. We make some cars, but they all go to government officials. So we're not exactly

sure what your intentions are here. And I thought, well, that's a good point. I didn't think it through

that well. But you know how life is, you just sort of hang around until that first opportunity comes.

That's 35 years ago, roughly. And you landed where in Beijing or Shanghai?

In Beijing. And in those days, wow, dusty streets, quiet, everyone in blue and gray,

no makeup, no style, no five star hotels. The airport was tiny, a two-lane road going back

and forth. China was poor, definitely poor, but you can sense they were opening up and had an

ambition. We want to be as wealthy and strong as Japan, as Germany and as the United States. You

could already sense it, even though they had nothing. How could you sense it? How did you know

that? They were hungry for information, hungry, curious, questions. How do we get better? They'd

even say, oh, we're a backward country. How do we get unbackward? How do you guys do it? Show

us how. We want to know. And that's that hunger and the curiosity was palpable

from the time I stepped into the country. So you founded what was then known as automotive

resources, Asia, right? Yes. So when did you get the sense that the tide was changing? You could

that moment where you said, oh, okay, things, the tables have turned.

Probably China did a fantastic job of having Ford and GM compete against each other for the

rights to invest a billion dollars into Shanghai to manufacture a high level, what they called an

executive car, an exclusive car at the time, which turned out to be a Buick. So GM competed

fiercely with Ford, went over three, four years of negotiation. Ultimately, China awarded that

contract to GM. GM started building Buicks that cost 40, $50,000 and private individuals began

to buy them. They thought, oh, the Chinese are getting to have money now. How are they doing

this? They were doing it by manufacturing other products and shipping them abroad.

But they got for the sense for the first time, oh, the Chinese have money and they have an appetite

for cars. It has set out in one of those five-year plans, I'm sure at one point, where they said,

well, we're going to dedicate our time and attention to these. And interestingly, Buick

had been there forever as an executive vehicle, right? The Americans were already in China for a

long time. Yes, last emperor's car back in the 1910s was a Buick. And GM went to China and said,

we won the negotiation against Ford. We're going to bring Chevy's. And the Chinese partner said,

no, no, no, Chevy's, no Chevy's, we don't want Chevy's. Oh, okay, we'll bring the Cadillac.

Oh, no, Cadillac's too ostentatious. No, that's not appropriate. Not Chevy, not Cadillac. Buick,

we want Buick here. So the GM people were like, really? Okay, Buick it is. And it turned out to

be spectacularly successful, Jason. Within the next 10, they started to sell millions and millions

of Buicks at profit there. There was a requirement, though, for Western automakers as they started

to tumble into the country and see the opportunity. And the requirement was you had to be with us,

5050, JV, which set the entire stage for where we are today, right? Absolutely, absolutely. So

global automakers looking at the China, oh, billion potential customers, oh, the greatest growth

market of our time, let's sell into the China market. So the Chinese said, no, you won't be

exporting your cars here. If you want to sell them here, you must manufacture in China. And if you

manufacture in China, you must partner with one of our state enterprises. So in the case of GM,

it was Shanghai Auto Industry Corporation owned by the city of Shanghai. In the case of Beijing,

it was the Beijing Auto Industry Corporation owned by the city of Beijing and so on. So if you think

back about it, the Chinese were so clever. Hey, bring your investments,

we'll own half your business, bring your suppliers, bring some more capital,

bring your technology while you're at it. And yes, you can sell some cars here,

we'll take half the profits and we'll take all of the technology transfer.

That's a quick look back at some of the personalities this year on Cars and Culture.

To see my interviews from this year, go to the Cars and Culture YouTube channel,

like and subscribe to see more than 200 interviews and more than 2000 videos.

Thanks for listening. I'm your host, Jason Stein. We'll see you down the road at the rest of 2026.

Episode 233: Best of 2025 Part 3 (Stephan Winkelmann, Michael Dunne)

About this episode

Pebble Beach

Monterrey Car Week

Quail Lodge

world premieres

few-off vehicles

Lamborghini Reventon

Lamborghini Murcielago

Lamborghini Gallardo

design, performance, and technical innovation

dream car

Lamborghini Urus

Lamborghini LM002

luxury SUV

electrification

hybridization

sustainability

plug-in hybrid

Ford Model Four

design DNA

Lamborghini Countach

Lamborghini Aventador

Toyota

Hyundai

GM Proving Grounds

camouflaged car

spy photography

Buick

Cadillac

manufacturing in China

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