Episode 87: Even Sillier Season

So I ended up calling an electrician and having somebody come out and he was like, I think I

can make this work with this non-stock motor, whatever.

The clearance is really tight.

I'm going to stretch the metal.

I think I can make this work, which will just cost you a couple hundred dollars or whatever.

If we need to replace the whole unit, it's like $2,000.

Holy shit.

Wait, what?

$2,000.

Super cool.

Like for a fucking, and the thing is, and I, you know, I was just incredulous and I looked

it up and it's like, yeah, no, that's what it costs.

It's like $1,800 for like an installed new lamp bathroom fan combo unit thing.

So anyway, so he reinstalled, he gets it in there.

It's working.

It's quiet.

And then of course, you know, we're stoked, you know, I pay him, he bails, and then I go

to take a shower later and it's like, it's quiet for the first like three minutes and

then whatever he did, you know, the tolerance just kind of stretched back or whatever.

And now she's like, so I need to fucking like take the whole thing apart, like cut

down this, the shaft, like for the fan, so, you know, file it down or something

just to try and get like, and just hope that I can get it to go back in in the way that

I couldn't do before.

That's so stupid.

I fucking hate having a house.

It sucks.

Speaking, hang on, one of my neighbors is mowing during, exactly during recording time again.

One second.

Rory, carry on.

I'll be back.

Two-stroke solution, baby.

Last night, we were up prepping Jimmy's rally car until like after midnight and then we, I

went in, got cleaned up and got to bed by like 1.30 and then forgot that I left the trash,

forgot to take the trash out, so I went down in my boxer briefs to the end of the

driveway at 2 in the morning or 1, whatever 1.30 in the morning with both trash cans.

And then finally got back into bed and fell asleep and the fire alarm went off at 2.30

and then the, you know, everybody started freaking out, like everybody's screaming.

Fire alarm in your house.

Yeah.

Just like smoke alarm.

Smoke detector.

Yeah.

Which sets all of them off because they're all daisy chained now.

Yeah, we've talked about this.

I mean, this is like a callback to like a year ago.

Peter explodes a fire alarm.mp3.

One of my favorites.

Yeah.

I walked outside the front door and I just fucking smashed it and threw it onto the

walkway as hard as I could and it just, what, it just exploded and I come back in

the house and my daughter looks at me and she says, what'd you do?

I said, I smashed it and she just kind of goes, oh, okay, I'm so satisfied.

So I, you know, when it gets out, the girls are screaming and I'm like, there's, you

guys, everything's fine.

Go back to bed.

There's no fire.

And it's like, I don't know that.

You know, like that's not, that's the information that I have.

There's no reason.

It's not a fire drill.

But it's like, obviously there's not a fire.

So put everybody back to bed and then turn the alarm off and then it just

proceeds to do that every two hours for the rest of the night.

No explanation.

Oh my God.

The particle, dude, you gotta get the particle.

It's in there.

You know, I feel like they didn't used to do that, the particle.

They weren't as sensitive to particles.

No, no, they are.

So I gotta figure that out.

I love that they're networked so that, so that they all go off.

So you can't tell which one.

So you fuck up.

Yeah, right.

It's, yeah.

No problem.

Really, really great job, everyone.

Yeah.

But it was, I did reflect afterwards on the fact that I just assumed that there

was not a fire in the house and it was like, good job evacuating everybody, but

get back in your beds.

We're good.

There's no way there's a fire.

Nice fire drill.

Good job.

Let's smell it.

I mean, you would know.

I feel like I would know.

Even though.

Where there's fire, there's smoke.

Yeah.

Isn't that the expression?

Even though I sleep with headphones on and really would have no indication whatsoever

that there was a fire, I just feel like I would know.

In my head I would know.

In your bones.

Yeah.

Your manly intuition.

That's right.

So I have two.

Do you want to hear a shady car repair thing?

Or do you want to hear some news about the hill climb?

Or do you want to introduce the pod?

Well, let's introduce the pod just to get out of the way.

The pod is tired.

The car podcast for people who understand that cars are bad.

With your friends, Rory Carroll, Maddie Riley, me, Peter Hughes.

And yeah, maybe let's go in reverse order.

What was the second one?

Hill climb.

Hill climb or a car.

Hill climb.

Yeah.

So we went out on Jimmy's Donzie the other day, which incredible machine.

Fancy boat?

It's like a 60s speedboat.

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

Yeah.

So it's a big fiberglass.

It's actually only 16 feet, but it's a V8 rear engine, like super modern hull for

the time.

And this is like an 80s version of the Donzie.

We took it out and it haul, it'll go 60, 65 miles an hour, which is pretty fast for a

boat.

Yeah.

But it'll also, it's like, but also like modern pontoon boats will go 65 miles an

hour.

So it's like, you know, everything's kind of fucked up, but the slow boat fast.

Yeah.

It will, Jimmy driving it, he can, he will pitch it like turn super hard and

literally like get it 90 degrees on the water so that when you look to your left

or right, like you're looking down into the bay, which is terrifying and so fun.

And like, because it feels for all the world like it's going over.

And it is, it is like the entire hull of the boat is out of the water.

Wow.

Very fun.

But after that, got him to have some beers at dinner.

And I was like, you want to drive the Lada in the hill climb?

And he's like, yeah, sure why not?

So Jimmy, the Lada is going to run the hill climb.

Yeah.

With an actual good driver behind the wheel.

So pretty excited about it.

Yeah.

I think now I have to prep the Lada in nine days to go, but it's actually in six

days because I'm going to be gone.

That's so exciting.

Thank you, Jimmy, for picking up the cause.

It should be, should be pretty cool.

And then Jimmy.

Yeah.

The, the funny, oh it's the car repair thing.

Over the weekend, I had my father-in-law's lawn tractor and the Rivian both got these

like pinhole flats, like pinhole holes in the tire.

And I couldn't figure out like there's no nail or there's nothing left in it.

Just like a little tiny baby pinhole.

So I took them.

Usually my tire place of choice is junior tires, which has like a kind of

Rory approved approach to safety and safety and protocol.

Yeah.

We've talked about juniors.

We've talked about them.

Yeah.

But they're closed for Labor Day.

So I took it to Blaine's farm and fleet, who I would say have a somewhat

more by the book approach to tire repair.

Charge me 50 bucks to do the, to do the lawn tractor tire, which is unheard of

at juniors.

You could, I think you could, you would buy into juniors for 50 bucks.

Yeah.

I mean, what, I mean, just to buy a new tire for,

Would have been less than 50 bucks.

For what?

For a lawn mower?

Lawn tractor.

Yeah.

Like a lawn mower, riding lawn mower.

That's economy.

Yeah.

How much could a new tire cost?

Only $8 for the inner tube.

And I think $15 or something, $20 to install it or something like that.

And then tax was 50 bucks.

Yeah.

Not good.

And then they refused to patch the tire, the Rivian tire because it's too

close to the sidewall, which is like, I've heard that one before.

And also like, I think to me, if there's like a huge gash in the

close to the sidewall, it's like, yeah, I understand.

Like that's a safety issue.

Like that's the structure of the tire.

But it's like a pinhole leak is not, you know, that's not going to like

suddenly deflate at 90 miles an hour on the freeway.

Like it's, it's just not how a tire is built.

So I was like, can you try to patch it just like to get me home?

Wink, wink.

And he was like, no, you know, it's against our protocol or whatever.

He's like, we can sell you a new set of tires.

It's going to be too grand.

We can have him in here by next week.

And I was like, no, I was like, I'm going to take it to engineers.

But then I was sitting in the driveway that same day.

And I was like, I wonder if you take some tire repair, like rubber cement,

put it in a syringe, like an injection syringe and then turn the tire.

So it's facing down like the hole is facing down and then stick the syringe

in a little tiny hole and empty the entire tube of rubber cement into the little tiny hole.

Wait, can you visually see the hole?

Yeah.

I mean, as you can hear the air is coming out of it and there's a little tiny pin.

So I just dumped the entire tube of rubber cement via a syringe,

which I have a bunch of syringes in the garage for just such an occasion.

Sure.

And it completely worked.

It's been holding air for I think six days now.

It's totally fine.

But it's like, I'm not a real.

It didn't like upset the balance of the wheel at all.

No, I mean, it's probably a dime size, you know,

thing of glue that stayed in there.

And like some of it came shooting out the hole.

But the rest of it just kind of settled in there.

But I think, you know, I'm usually pretty like,

if there's one thing I'll spend money on its tires because they're so important.

But A, this is Elise and I'm giving these tires back.

They're not my tires.

And B, these tires suck.

They're like the Pirelli, Verde, whatever.

And they're awful at literally everything.

They ride terrible.

They're bad off-road.

They're bad on-road.

And they're noisy and they're uncomfortable.

I mean, it's EV.

EV tires basically are just like the only consideration is like low rolling resistance.

Yeah.

They're awful.

And like even friends who work at Rivian are like, yeah, those are terrible.

Right.

But I'm reticent to spend two grand on a new set of them that I'm then going to give back

to Rivian at the end of the lease.

Yeah.

So we are rolling with the glue tire and it seems fine.

It's like I said, it's been like five, six days and we're good, I think.

But yeah, I think that's a new tire repair technique that I've not heard before.

Did you guys see that Daniel Ricardo is joining Ford Racing Team as a global ambassador?

Focusing much of his time in the off-road space, in particular around Raptor Global

Nameplate, which he is already a very happy customer.

He's had a Raptor for a long time.

When I met him, when he was with Fred Bull, he had a Raptor.

And when he was, he had a place in LA.

Oh, he's selling his Aston Martin.

What's the thing?

The big thing?

The Aston, barely driven Aston Martin Valkyrie.

That's the crazy one.

That's the prototype that's in IMSA.

And it's the hypercar.

Yeah.

Well, this is, yeah, it's the road car version of it.

We got a dichroic dawn finished, nicknamed Badger Blue,

and tribute to Ricardo's famous honey badger moniker.

Magnesium performance wheels expose satin carbon hardware,

gloss lacquer carbon panels, and bespoke Alcantara trimmed bucket seats.

In total, Ricardo specified $190,000 in options,

ensuring his Valkyrie is one of the most strikingly detailed builds

of the limited production run.

They built 150 of them.

They're selling it via broad-arrow auctions.

And, well, he had eight wins in Formula One.

I didn't know that.

That's more than I would have guessed.

Good for him.

Let's see.

Let me see where.

Let's see.

How many miles?

It has.

Does it have Bluetooth?

Can I do?

Does it have wireless car play?

It does.

99 miles.

Okay.

How old are the tires?

Am I going to have to replace the tires?

Yep.

They are probably original to the car,

which this car came out a couple of years ago.

I mean, 98 miles, there's not going to be a lot of tread wear.

So those should probably be good, although,

I guess, they'll probably be coming close to...

Oh!

Listen, recently received Aston Martin's comprehensive 24-month service

and comes with an extended warranty package valid through August 2027.

So you're good on that.

No problem.

So it's like, what do they call it?

What do they call it when they do the pre-owned certified,

whatever kind of thing?

Program includes additional scheduled support extended through 2029,

a rare benefit for potential buyers of such an exclusive machine.

Yeah, going to Broad Arrow with Hagerty being sold

at the Zoot Concord auction in Deutschland 2025.

So get your readers, get your bid registrations ready to go.

Could be your chance to own a Valkyrie.

They're cool.

I got to say, it's, again, not anyone's thing,

not any of our things, probably, but it is a really neat car

and it is like a super crazy looking on the road.

There's very little to it, there's very little structure to it.

It's very, like, Formula 1-y.

Kind of looks like, remember that they did that,

I want to say T27, super car a few years ago

that was like just bare, it was like an open-wheel car

with just enough body work on it.

Who did this?

This is like a very obscure kind of, kind of forget this one.

This is like my forgotten super car, hold on.

I have to do some googling to figure this one out, we can move on.

Yeah, I'd be curious, I'm so used to seeing the race car version now.

I'd be curious to see the road car and race car kind of side by side

and see how they, it just reads as race car to me now.

And I mean, it's an incredible looking race car.

Yeah, the road car is way more delicate looking and has like,

like I said, a lot less kind of body work.

And when you see it in person, it's just like all these little cutouts

and kind of like, yeah, it's a cool color too.

Yeah, well, I mean, I think the way that they just, they, they,

I mean, I think a big part of that is just the way they use black

to kind of paint negative space.

That's all, I mean, there's so much of that, you know,

it reminds me a little bit of Sajiv's kind of DLO fail,

daylight opening fail kind of thing, you know,

where the phrase that he invented to kind of describe the

super common practice of just making cars greenhouses,

the windows appear to be bigger than the openings actually are.

So it's like the window looks like it's a certain shape

and size and then you get up close to it and you realize,

oh, no, that's just, half of that is just painted black

so that it tricks your eye into perceiving it as a window.

And now it's pretty common practice in race cars too.

I mean, if you look at like the Ferrari hypercar, the 499P,

like the rear end of that car like in profile from the side,

like it looks like a really kind of truncated overhang at the back.

So it kind of mimics like an old, you know,

like a 330P4 or something from the 60s.

But actually, it's just like, there's a big part of that car

that goes further back but they just leave black so it doesn't,

you don't notice it, you know?

Yeah, this one, there are like a lot of places

where you can actually see through the car.

Like you're seeing, yeah.

But yeah, it is a lot of black paint tricking your eye.

Not tricking your eye though.

You clocked it right away.

But yeah, I mean like from the rear, you see it especially

because the way that the, yeah, there's so much daylight

between the front wheels and the actual body of the car,

you can kind of see straight through to where like the kind

of control arms and things go through.

And also just like those gigantic venturi tunnels

at the back, that enormous diffuser.

Which I mean, that's all like, that's what the race car is too.

Yeah.

Yeah, pretty cool to see in road going form for sure.

Good car for the pirate pod boys.

Oh, Caparo T1.

You remember this car?

Caparo?

How do you spell it?

Kate?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

There it is.

Oh, no, I don't.

Oh, no, I vaguely do.

Yeah.

It's super like kind of skinny.

Is it just a single-seater or is that tandem?

Is it like front and back?

No, it really is like a formula car.

There might be, I think there's a configuration where there's

an offset seat to the right.

Yeah, where you kind of put one slightly behind,

which is very goofy.

It would be really fun to do like a sterilized podcast

of like obscure hypercar fail like companies that like came

and went.

New segment, let's go.

Yeah.

Oh, so many.

Let's see.

Yeah, this had like, okay, Caparo Vehicle Technologies

founded by Ben Scott Gettis.

Engineering director, Graham Halstead,

engineers formerly involved with the development of the McLaren F1

and Sean Butcher, marketing director and FNNCA.

The T1 was inspired by Formula One Design

and was intended as a relatively affordable road legal racing car.

T1 was scheduled for production in mid-2007

for a price of $235,000,

approximately 25 cars a year built.

See, that is like, this is my thing that I'm on lately.

Coming back from Purple Beach is like,

okay, so they wanted to build 25 of these a year

at 235,000 pounds.

So how much revenue is that?

Let's see.

235,000 times 25.

So that's revenue of under $6,000.

In 2007.

Still, $6 million.

Or pounds.

Yeah, six million pounds.

So we'll call it seven today.

How is that a company?

How do you make cars and pay the people

who work at the car company with $7 million?

It drives me crazy.

I really want, this is like an alloy stream

trying to get done for week one,

is like, I want to talk to,

I think I talked about this before,

but talk to it like a U of M, like manufacturing.

It's like, how the fuck are these,

what is this?

What is the plan here?

Is there a scheme here?

What's the business model?

How does this work?

How does this make sense?

Is there a loophole we don't know about?

Yes, please lay it out.

It is very frustrating to me.

There's an element of jealousy too

because I'm trying to raise money for alloy.

And it's like, I have a spreadsheet

where alloy is making money in a year.

And I've also talked to a bunch of manufacturers

who are down to participate with alloy.

And it's like, it's not hard to raise money,

but it's like, it's a lot of explaining.

And it's like, I'm not going to you

saying we're going to make 25 supercars a year

and sell them for $235,000.

See, that's an easier thing to explain though.

Maybe that's the appeal is just the pitch

is so just kind of just easy to wrap your head around.

You just go, oh, wow, looks cool.

But you don't do this if it wasn't going to work, right?

Here's your money.

But if I was an investor though,

I would want to know if I'm getting my money back.

And the answer with almost all these companies

is you are not.

And like actually...

Yeah, well, if you go down to the bottom

of that wiki page, there's a section called sales.

Didn't, does not.

15 cars.

The entire paragraph just reads,

Caparo planned to sell around 25 cars per year.

However, however, in the production run,

they sold just 15 cars before the company fell

into administration in 2015 with the completed cars

and owners locations unknown.

A small number of T1s have appeared for sale

following the company's collapse,

one in Japan in 2019 and a further two

that have been on sale in the United Kingdom

since 2021.

So, I mean, I don't...

Yeah, there's citations for that 15 cars sold claim.

But I would guess that the actual number

is closer to the number of cars

that have actually been physically...

Seen.

Yeah.

Physically verified.

Yeah.

It's crazy to me because it's like,

at that price and even like some of these

like $4 million, $3 million supercar things,

it's like, what is the...

Like, I know roughly how much it costs to make a car

and it's like...

In all carbon fiber, totally bespoke hand-built car

is like a big expense.

And it's like, what is the margin?

Again, and it's like, what is like...

You know what I mean?

It's like, oh, yeah, we're building replica Delta

Integrale with 600 horsepower

in all carbon body, et cetera.

And it's like, okay, like that's probably

a pretty healthy margin on that.

But like, what is the conceivable market for that?

And then like, what is the plan to scale that?

You know what I mean?

Like, what is the plan to get that to like a business?

And like...

Right.

It's inconceivable to me.

And it's like...

And it's easy.

It's the kind of thing that's easy to imagine

like any given person

kind of seducing themselves

into the idea that it's like, I can do this.

I can make this happen.

I'm gonna, you know, I have a vision.

I'm gonna sell these.

I'm gonna make these fucking rad things.

I'm gonna sell them to billionaires.

I'm gonna like line up some investors.

I've got some rich friends.

I'm gonna like get some money in place

to make this happen.

It's harder to imagine as many individual people

falling prey to that delusion

as there are, as there have been manufacturers,

you know, like startups

trying to accomplish that, you know what I mean?

I can't do either part of it.

It's like I would be more apt to purchase one of the cars

if I had the money

than I would be to get into the business part of it

because like, it is just like...

Well, yeah, I mean, as a buyer...

Yeah, it's fun.

Yeah, it's...

You get this car that like is either gonna be, you know,

like the first example of something that will, you know...

Or just like it's a cool car, like it's a cool...

Yeah, like 2% chance, like turns into something.

Or it's just gonna end up being like this,

this kind of weird one-off curiosity

that might, you know, appreciate in value

just because it's so just unique and special

and desirable.

So it's kind of win-win from, you know,

rich guy consumer perspective, right?

Yeah, I...

It's the other people involved

who have everything to lose.

So I had this like long conversation

with Porsche this week

for a story that I'm supposed to be writing

for Panorama about how you make

heavy cars feel light.

There's like a sensation now that's very common

that's like, you'll read car reviews

and it's like, oh, I drove this car,

I was 6,000 pounds or whatever,

but it feels light driving it.

Like I had that experience driving the Blackwing.

And it's like, okay, how is that illusion crafted?

What are the like...

What are the kind of inputs

or like sensory experiences

that we're trying to...

Whatever, obfuscate or whatever,

like how do you give that sensation of the car feels light?

Anyway, so I had this like...

I mean, they're basically like using electronics

to kind of synthesize responsiveness, right?

Well, there's...

That's always been my assumption.

It is like, it is monstrously complex.

So like the short answer is like

they're in Porsches, the heaviest Porsches,

they're adjusting the camber of the car

in real time to maintain contact patch.

They're making the car lean in real time

to maintain a contact patch.

And then they're also like adjusting

damping behavior to control roll.

Lean in real time meaning like lean into a turn?

Yeah, like a motorcycle, yeah.

Right, so lean in the opposite direction

that it would naturally be.

They're calling it...

They call it like Skyhook

and that's an engineering tremors on Porsches term

but it's like Skyhook is...

Imagine the car hanging from a helicopter

and you're adjusting the attitude of the car

up and down, left and right to reduce the body roll.

So like the sensation in the car

that you feel from a heavy car

is the sensation of roll or pitch or dive

and like they're eliminating those.

But they were like, you know, he was like,

there are circumstances in like a Panamera

if you're on the track where you will notice that it feels...

Like he's like, if you're an experienced track driver

it will feel weird and artificial to you.

He's like, normal customers don't ever have that experience

but he's like, it'll feel like it's like the degree

to which it's doing the work is like extreme

and it's like noticeable.

But he also said too, like the stuff in the take-hand

is it takes their test drivers

when their test drivers go to set a Nurburgring lap

with those cars, like they have to adjust themselves

to those sensations

and the behavior of the suspension

because it's so different from a conventional suspension

and he's like, they end up being faster

but like at first they're like, oh god, this is fucking weird.

Like this is a weird experience.

But anyway, all that to say,

this is a two-hour conversation with, you know,

20, 30 pages of diagrams and like explanations of it

and like, you know, Porsche, these cars,

they're all starting at under $200,000

and some of them are starting closer to $100,000

but I have no, and this is like

across the board in the car business.

I have no, like I know how cars are put together.

I understand them.

I think they're a very complete way

from an engineering standpoint.

I understand how cars are marketed.

I understand like the development process,

all this stuff.

I cannot point to a single car

instead of maybe like F-150

where I understand how they're fucking making money

on these things, like at all.

Like it's like the Porsche thing, it's like,

it's not, like the hardware obviously is monstrously complex.

There's all kinds of stuff being made

and built by like highly skilled workers

and installed by highly skilled workers

like by people who are union German workers

who get paid a lot of money.

Like that is the manufacturing cost

is one thing I understand that

but it's like the thousands of man hours

in design and testing and validation

and like prototyping

and like, I understand that you're dealing

with a fairly long time scale

with a lot of these technologies.

Some of these suspension technologies

will run for a whole generation

or two generations of car

so you have like a bunch of time

to kind of amortize the cost of doing it

but it's like that's Porsche

and that's like Porsche at Porsche scale

at Porsche margin.

It's like how do you do that at 25 cars a year?

Like how do you do that at 50 cars a year?

That is insane to me.

You know what I mean?

It's like I don't,

like I assume Porsche has

an army of accountants

who get paid $150, $250,000 a year

figuring out how to amortize these costs

over a very long period of time

and like eventually they make your money back.

I mean I would think that one of the ways you do it

is just by starting with not having

a 6,000 pound sports car

so that you don't have to develop

that kind of suspension.

But I'm talking about just the nuts and bolts

of like building a car

and making money on it.

Like it's like it's so hard

for me to understand how that's done

and it like...

But you know,

there are plenty of the companies

where it's like okay these guys are dreamers

they have a bunch of money

they don't really care.

Ineos is like this for me.

He's a fossil fuel billionaire

he owns Manchester United.

Like he's got money.

He's just like I want this truck

I'm gonna build them.

We're gonna make this a company.

Fine.

But it's like the guys who are like

engineers like cobbling together

investors

to do this.

Like what is the pitch

to the investor where it's like

you're going to make...

If you invest this money

you're gonna make your money back

and more.

It's like...

And okay

like even if you have the business case

all laid out in a PowerPoint or whatever

it's like

there's 30 years

from Mosler to Vector

to Zezetta to like

everyone trying this

and it not working.

It's like it does not work.

Like it's like

like name name

what was the last supercar company

that made it like Pagani?

I mean Pagani did not exist

when I was a kid.

Pagani has been a pretty...

Kinnigsegg.

Kinnigsegg same deal.

I mean those are companies

that kind of started in

in the 90s

and have become just

seemingly

stable.

Yeah they exist.

You know over

over you know

several decades

just at a very small scale

just boutique car makers

that you know it's not

it's not vapor where those cars are real.

There are hundreds of them that have come and gone.

Oh absolutely.

I mean many many many more.

I mean I remember seeing the Vector

you know when I mean

that car like in Southern California

that guy Jerry Weigert

or whatever his name was

I mean he would he would always

you know there would be like every

every couple of years he would roll out

like a new version and it would be

on the cover of all the car magazines

and the Vector

if people who don't remember

who weren't weren't around at the time

was just this car this insane

looking car looked like kind of like

an American version of the Lamborghini

it's just like

like imagine like a Knight Rider version

of a Lamborghini Cuntas

you know and

and it was just

I don't remember what the dude's deal was

I think he maybe had a background in aviation

or something and this was his

his bid to like make an American Supercar

and I think it had like some kind of crazy

like twin turbocharged

like big block 454

or something in the back

and I mean it was just outrageous

I remember seeing that car like at the LA

car show I remember seeing it

at in the parking lot

at the at the Chino air show

like it you know and you know

the Chino airport you know they'd have like the big

warbirds you know the planes of fan I mean

that's a whole other conversation

but

I remember just seeing it in the parking

lot there and just being like whoa it's

it's a Vector

Vector yeah exactly

and then like realizing years later

it's like no no that was

the Vector that was the guy

he was at the air show

he drove the car out

he never made another one

and the thing is each subsequent one

he just changed the bodywork

a little bit there was no he wasn't like

building new ones

like that was just that was the car

there was like oh it's a different one now

it's now it's red before it was black

you know it's like no they had a

pretty recently

they auctioned like their old

office space

in SoCal and Ron went

Ron Baugh went to the auction

and said it was fucking wild

it was like all this VHS

it was like pretty cool I wish I would have gone

but he said it was all

like it was all there like the whole company was there

in the office space still and they like

amazing

I wonder how many people Vector employed

at its

can't be 20

I would

I have a hard time imagining it

it's even like a dozen

do you remember including

like the custodian

for the office or whatever

do you remember the

the Mosler

Consulier GTP

Maddie do you know this car

no I don't this is one of my favorite

this is just like an 80's

like a very awkward looking

80's

I mean it

interesting it looked

kind of like an 80's

Imsa car like a GTP car

it's like a big fish

group C car but

yeah it just it looked

it looked funky

and everybody

I remember everybody that drove them

just raved

about just how incredible

they were to drive

but yeah

I mean there's no way that you can make something

that looks that kind of

fucked up

be appealing

it just doesn't look right

it's a very interesting car

and it's one of my favorite of these

like failed supercar projects

because like it's

philosophically correct

right it's

like it's it weighs 2,200 pounds

and it's powered by a Chrysler

2.2 turbo

so like the same

motor that was in like the

Shelby

Dodge Omni

GLHs

and like the fast minivans

Shelby Charger

Omni my beloved

they had a had campaign with

did they race them

did they actually race them

and it was

I guess this was 90's

I wasn't paying attention on the 90's

and in 1991

they were really fast

but

it was the MT900

so it's not the

it's not the

well it's a version of the Consulier I guess

but

really weird guy

they had a lesson

Nielsen was in the print ad campaign

forum they had like these really cool

like

super 80's

like fluorescent

what do you call them

brochures that I had a

brochure poster thing that I got at one point

let me see

they

had a really yeah okay

really funny

campaign or not campaign

bet

with current driver that's right okay so

Warren Mosler

was the guy who built this car

and it is a very goofy looking car

a couple years ago

they could get them pretty cheap and I always

kind of wanted one just because they had

so much like car magazine lore

yeah I feel like I've seen

one here actually at

the little

speed shop the place

in town that hosts

the big cars and coffee and they

run a thing down

that they like they do race car prep

like yeah yeah I wouldn't

be surprised they they

wouldn't be surprised and these guys they did stick around

for a long time like Mosler was a car company

into the 90's

right like they actually how many of these cars

did they manufacture

Consuliers it says

between 60 and 100 were built

pretty good

they ended up going

using like a

I think Chevy

V8 motors

later

used a Chrysler minivan steering wheel

which is awesome

had a bunch of problems

but the current driver thing is really funny so they

basically bet

Warren Mosler put up a

$25,000 bounty and I think

like Mark Vaughn has a really funny story

about this that I can't remember

I can't remember Vaughn's

he got like some kind of a personal conflict

with this guy but

with Mosler yeah so he offered

let me see if I can find that real quick before I tell

that

yeah please this sounds good

in 93 they

updated it and reintroduced it

as the Mosler intruder

yeah

which seems like a

there's more in a certain time

that's kind of a creepy name

fascinating

the intruder

Mosler was like

I think he was an economist right

like he was

yeah very strange okay let's see

hedge fund executive and entrepreneur

co-founder of the center for full employment

and price stability at the University of Missouri

Kansas

let's see

Perponent research financier of modern

monetary theory

he's a fucking MNT guy

how funny

we should have him on

the US version islands in

2018

what is going on

what

fourth mic

we need to get Mosler on the pod

so

so confident in the performance of the GTP

that he offered a $25,000 bounty

to anyone who could pilot a street legal production car

around any US racetrack faster than his car

car and driver took up the challenge

racing a GTP

Series 1

sport against a stock 91 Corvette

around the crisis of proving grounds

in Chelsea Michigan

Arthur St. Antoine

and Chaba

took three laps

each in the Corvette and the GTP

they were able to obtain a best lap

of 121.01 in the Corvette

versus the GTP's best of 122.56

reviewer St. Antoine

opined that the

GTP was difficult to handle with anemic brakes

car and driver confronted Mosler with these results

prior to publication

Mosler noted that the test car was

three years old and worn out due to heavy use

the GTP obtained by a current driver was barred

from a track time driver's school

had worn tires and brake pads, no interior trim

three cigarette lighters

which were especially installed so track time could plug in their computer

and portable radio equipment

Mosler offered to pay to re-run the test

using his company test driver after

installing new brake pads in the GTP

and agreed to pay $25,000

if the GTP still didn't lap fashion the Corvette

current driver refused saying it might be faster

because of their driver Mosler responded that

they could use any driver they wanted

have them drive the GTP and get paid

if it lost due to

a conflict of interest

current driver was subsequently published

the Consulier GTP road

test article in a negative and sarcastic

light where they ridiculed the borrowed car's lack of

interior fit and finish three lighter plugs

failing to mention these were modifications by

the driving school compared the overall

fit and finish negatively with the new

300ZX

they also claimed that Mosler defaulted on his promise

supporting Mosler's position

the GTP should

have won was the

1991 auto race in Lamrock Park

with the Series 2 Consulier

GTP this car defeated

Hurley Haywood's factory

Porsche 911 Turbo, Bora Seds

Callaway Twin-Turbo Corvette

and Jim Minnaker's factory ZR1 Corvette

the race would be the GTP's

last before it was banned from the

market

to further back up its

statements Mosler raised the challenge to $100,000

so however no production car was able to

best the Series 2 Consulier

GTP it has been claimed that

Chet Philip

bested the anyway in a roof

turbo with racing selects anyway

very interesting but there's a very funny

Vaughn story with this guy

I gotta say like I

kinda come down with Mosler

sounds like a fucking whips dude

yeah I really

like Maddie if there's a

hypercar for Maddie

I think this is like Maddie-sized

and I think weird enough that

like this could be your

your track day monster

the Consulier it looks like a

you know how a video game from like the 90's

would have like a big metal fish that would chase

you around it looks like

a big metal fish and I would chase people around

with it yeah

it's cool I'm kinda like

yeah I think it's kinda neat

I like

that the green house has

kinda like cool square

stuff going on but it has the

front is all swoopy like a

a real race car it's extremely awkward looking

and it also like looks

like a car that is made of parts of

many other cars which is great

it's super strange

it's like assembled from

not quite the right

arrangement of parts you guys

I'm sorry I'm off in the weeds

in the

on the Warren Mosler

Wiki page

his academic

work

bearing in mind

this is a guy I mean

what are we talking about

we're talking about like

short run ultra

you know

low production

you know

car companies

and what is

their business model what's the economic

framework for making this work

Mosler met

economist Arthur Laffer

of the curve the very Laffer

through a referral

from Donald Rumsfeld

at a meeting

of social policy and NYC

William Vickrey suggested

Mosler to seek out post-Kinsey

and economist L

Randall Ray, Bill Mitchell, and Stephanie Kelton

to discuss his ideas

these post-Kinsey economists had been familiar

with chartilism

and agreed with Mosler's analysis

Laffer's staff

economist Mark McNary provided

editorial

and research assistant in Mosler's

self-published monograph

soft currency economics

he's known for his writings

on MMT

go down

go down visiting professor

at the University of Bergamo

starting in

2014

but further down

he's attributed with creating

Mosler's law

dealing with fiscal policy of a nation

during a recession specifically Mosler's law

states that no financial crisis

is so deep

they sufficiently large fiscal adjustment

cannot deal with it

so maybe that's just

the answer to your question Rory

that

as long as you have more people willing

to throw more money

away

he's dichotomous

if anyone knows how the books are going to work

I mean that does seem

to be the case as we've discussed many times

on the pod that like the

lesson since

the financial crisis

of 2008-2009

has been like just don't let that happen again

and it's like

whatever

part of the economy

looks like it's going to make that happen

just give them a bunch of money

we seem to be continuing to ride that

which is fine

seems fine

well the mechanism that allows that to happen

is that

I mean

and the thing that MMT

completely like

depends upon the thing that's axiomatic to that

is that

money's not real

yeah

I mean

when people

the common conception

of the economy

why we have to eliminate

the debt

and

all the national debt is out of control

and

the reason that

that's far-school

is that

it's not a household

you're not running

the economy

of the nation like you don't have to balance

your budget the way you do

when you have a certain amount of income

and a corresponding

amount of

obligations

of payments that you have to make

because

you have the thing that

prints the money

you control the thing that prints the money

and when you are the US

you are the reserve currency of the world

and so

you

exactly

so

this is

the conditions that allow for

MMT to

to work

I feel like we're

coming up against

possibly the limitations of them

well we'll see

we'll find out

and

I mean it's funny you're talking about

Porsche or Rory

I mean

stuff that I've been meaning to

get on here

trans rights

sorry I saw the paint

I got really excited

that's the most

trans rights

I need to drive that

everyday for the rest of my life

put me in this right now

that's for me

put me in there

oh my god

I feel like a little Barbie doll

are you kidding me

crushing the

track record at every local

put me out there

a big metal fish

look at that

look at that front end

that actually does look really good

good colors baby

these colors don't run

that's like a Roadster version

so they kind of like fix the

greenhouse

that solves a lot of the problems

and it's like

that livery

it's almost like a

trans speed racer

do you totally

put me in there

oh my god look at it

I know that guy

do you know that guy David Wallins

Rory

from SWIT

baby was pointing at the outfield

look at that

put me in the trans rights

Barbie car

oh wow it's got fans at the back

is that like a

interesting look at the picture

with a bunch of other ones in the background

and then a second gen

Volkswagen Scirocco

okay this is great sorry

we're just doing a used car pod today but

Lutz's

Lutz's purple Plymouth prowlers

for sale on bring a trailer

legendary

car executive

Bob Lutz

one of the most interesting

characters to ever been involved

in the car business I have to say

have you seen did we talk about

his paper car thing

paper car

tell me everything

so Lutz is

he was like

very close to being CEO of

several car companies over his

career

and was like a product guy

his big

his book was car guys

versus bean counters and it was all about like how

making great product

solve all the problems at car companies

and you shouldn't listen to the accountants

just make the good stuff

and make fun stuff he did a lot of weird

shit

and he's kind of like this

swash

buckling character who like

kind of famous marine helicopter pilot

like flies

this fucking helicopter to places

he used to commute to the office

at the tech center

and he would land it in Warren

and land there's a

it's this like Eero Saranen

super modern building and there's like a

there's a reflecting pool

in the middle of the property and he

there's like a helipad that's submerged

but it's only like under like an inch

of water so he would land it

on the helipad and walk across

the water to his office on

at the design center

insane guy

really a wild man

and

was very very like

apt to get himself in trouble

with the press

but he

still around I just

like I haven't I didn't click through but

I saw like a story like an interview

with him just just today

earlier when I was I have friends who have

have lunch with them every week

and I guess

one of my buddies is like goes

to this lunch and he's like have you seen lots of paper

cars and I was like

I don't want to see some fucking old man's

like paper car like folding up paper car

thing like that's stupid and also like

weird that he's

doing this and he's like no you got to

see me got to see me got to see him and I

kind of blew it off and like I should have

listened to you like this is a good friend

who's like would not would not be impressed

by something dumb

but I saw him at Pastiners

Auto Zone which is like a car

hobby shop in suburban Detroit

and they're incredible

like they're they are these all

paper models

of um

60s and 70s like race

cars and road cars

that are like they look like

cast like die casts

they look like

you can't tell that they're paper at all

yeah no I'm I just pulled up

like a hemming story about it and

they look incredible yeah I

I was like um

yeah dude

yeah I when I saw them I was like

oh okay like

totally different deal

um than I was expecting

but they look

yeah they look like real

die cast cars

um are you seeing this Maddie

insane

yeah whole

um I love

insane like extremely

completely like psycho level

shit this whips

alright so he

uh Lutz famously

was behind a lot of like

uh the Viper stuff at

at Dodge and then the uh

Plymouth Prowler he was like a big

proponent of those he's a purple Plymouth Prowler

say that three times

fast uh same

same spec is Prince actually

um

has it's on wait did Prince

have a have a Prowler a purple one

of course yeah

Prince's purple Prowler

so

this is this is a just a note from

the um from

the bring a trailer description on this

Prowler which actually looks really nice

would and also would be a very funny

fun car to have um okay

most assuredly

uh the seller's grandfather in law

traded Lutz

and if

Chanko jet engine for the car

in 1998 and it now has

14,000 miles

following history in Michigan, Alabama

and Washington state um

yeah he also is a jet

pilot I guess he doesn't know how to fly

a jet maybe owns a old

trainer or something like that um

but yeah it looks sounds right

I think it does he have like a T33 or something

that sounds right to me yeah um

really nice looking car

would be fun to have lots of old car

what's that a Prowler yeah be funny

but like it'd be really funny for you it would be funny

for you to have for me to have

I think I don't

I don't think I could do it I do remember

I remember Davey

telling the story about about having

a Prowler press car and just

saying how just completely hilarious

it was just to be driving around in that

yeah they're very funny as like a young

as like a

person in your 20s not a 65

year old

like the ultimate fucking boomer

car man

the interior is very

um like

wasn't wasn't enough like that's not

boomer enough for you you gotta go you gotta go

full full Prowler man

that's that's just nice color

a lot of a lot of

synergy going on here we have the intruder

the Prowler

Prowler I know fellas

you can't you just can't make uh

you can't make um

those types of car names today

um because they're terrifying yeah

you can't make any fun car

names now like everything's all

the cx5 or

something or like the new ti3

my my proposal for

the for the new uh

Pontiac family annihilator

I didn't know anything about

Prince's car collection

yeah he's got some so he had a Prowler

that's surprising yes

I mean that that purple was kind of the

signature color of that car

and it was introduced you know that was the

the kind of the launch color so I mean

that um

I mean it just kind of stands to reason that

of course Prince would have a

purple one who we had a

uh an

86 series BMW

a 93 Thunderbird

other cars in

Prince's possession at the time of his death

93 Cherokee

Cadillac XLR

was that the um was that the Corvette

one

that's cool a lot of American

stuff 2010 Mercedes bands

model unknown

2011 Lincoln MKT

2006

Bentley model unknown

85 Caddy limousine 96

Z3 Roadster

I mean these these actually aren't that

that interesting no pretty

pretty um restrained for a guy

like Prince

he he would definitely strike me as more of someone

who understood that he had to

have some cars than someone who's really interested

in some cars

sure

yeah

I mean basically what I yeah

my understanding of him is that he basically

was just like all he did was just

live in the studio and just record

just crank shit out hundreds of thousands of

signs notably

notably a man who when asked where he lived

in

the greatest article of all time

uh was uh Matt Damon

making small talk with him and going so you

uh live in Minneapolis

in Prince replying I live inside

my own heart Matt Damon that's true

RIP

RIP Matt Damon after that

destroyed and oh

space laser got his ass

um all right what else we want to cover today

boys it's silly season there's

silly stuff going on oh yeah

what's oh we got okay so let me

from

my memory I will try to run down

the things the personnel

news we've got

uh Checo Perez

and um

what's his name

um this is already

going so well um

the uh

the guy who is with Mercedes

um then he was with Williams

and then he was with

um

alpha and then

where is he last

a couple old

guys yeah couple old fellas

couple old old f1

f1 hands

I think journeyman journeyman yeah you say

um

we got uh Valtteri Bottas is the guy

uh kind of a fan favorite

a couple real fan favorite guys I guess

um are going

to be actually driving the cars

um

and then Colton Hertha

driving what cars the Cadillac

uh formula formula one car

Cadillac Formula One cars

um arrive in

2020

next year

yeah inaugural 2026 season so

this is kind of an old

I'm making a rise

smile here formula where you

pick a couple of kind of

experienced drivers who have been with big teams

know what they're doing aren't going to

fuck up your whole thing and can help develop

the car and the program so

yeah um you're a new team

the expectations are low you just

just you just need

somebody to not crash

while you kind of get your feet under you

as as a brand new

out of the box yeah

this is like uh

Mercedes hiring

the Schumacher um to develop their car

when they came back to F1 and whatever

year that was 1990 whatever

um

but um should be pretty cool those guys

like I said are fun to good personalities

uh

Votas I'm immediately a fan

after his his uh flags done

yeah we've seen Votas in the nude

um previously and then

check out um wonderful

wonderful personality

um should be fun and then

Colton Hertha

we called it we called it

Indycar Phenom yeah and

um

kind of former F1 hopeful

um to uh to

be a test

driver there it'll be interesting you know

we were talking yesterday and I think

Peter said so you know

is the plan to get uh

Votas and Perez to kind of develop

the car and then you know

when it's time move them aside

in favor of Colton Hertha and I think like

that would be ideal but I think

Hertha will be kind of

old um

by then he's in his mid 20s now

um he's 26 now

yeah so he'll be he'll be kind of

aging out of formula one

uh in the next couple years

um so that'll be kind of interesting to see

how quickly that can progress or if it progresses

um

to come into F1 as as

a as a

rookie for sure yeah the um

the

but what's what's the deal with with

with formula one and the new

there's like a new

formula coming

right like a new powertrain

thing or just an entirely new

car package package yeah

and that's

that's coming in what

2028 I think 2026

I want to say um

I thought they pushed the the end

oh you're right they did yeah

thing back it was supposed to be 2026 and now

it's 2728

um and and Cadillac

which is entering as

as a new team as an American

car but but they're using

they're borrowing a powertrain from

who I don't think it's Ferrari

um yeah it's Ferrari

there but but while

while they develop their own

powertrain and proprietary

powertrain which will be Cadillac

branded um and that's

in in two years I

think like at my understanding is

that that coincides with the new

regulations coming in

I mean that's

that's the thing is like like at that point

I feel like it would make sense to

be like well here's our

our all-American package

with our

you know corn fed American driver

all all all American

uh beautiful boy yeah

or at least one one American driver

it'll be interesting I you know I think

that the American driver in formula one

has been a dream for a

very long time I think like

pre prior to

um drive to survive

the American driver was

kind of seen as like the key to

bringing formula one

to the US

getting getting anybody here interested in

it remotely but I would say it's

somewhat less urgent now

I mean it's very popular in the

US has been very popular in the US

um so I think

um you know we

will kind of see what the level of

urgency about getting a 28 year old

or 27 year old Colton

in the car um

but certainly if you

know if he's fast and they think that

they can be competitive with him then I

would imagine there's no reason not to give him a shot

yeah well

and also at that point those two guys that

are that they're going to be starting off with

I mean those guys are both like in their late 30s

now so yeah they could be dead

um I mean

really like of old age yeah really

both of those guys were kind of natural

causes were out of formula one

effectively

um you know prior to this so

um yeah so

Colton her to

is going to be test driving

which means his seat

in Indy car

is

vacant briefly was

right yeah because he's

he's as a test driver

he also is doing

like formula two because

as part of his thing to

get like a license

F1 license which is

very funny because he's kind of old

for that too so yeah it takes

him out of

Indy car like

you can't do both yeah notably a funny tweet

he made that Brad Pitt got a super license

for him

nah um

wait is that true

did Brad Pitt get it

but Colton's very funny

he was also very like

controversially like her does

inability to get a

F1 like a super license was

kind of bullshit like it was

um

it was very

given the experience that he's had

in Indy car and

elsewhere it was kind of insane

that he didn't have one already so

um it sounded like there was some

kind of like covid related

bullshit yeah

like kind of like

like politics but also kind

of like using covid as a like

yeah just a look excuse or something to keep

him well you know he he refused

to get the vaccine and they don't want pure blood

no I'm just joking that's not sure

sorry Colton

the um

so his seat was

that would be so funny

yeah well you know

it's it's a shame he genuinely

is he's so funny

and likes it to good personality and

like pour one out for the Indy car girlies

that he will be so missed

in the in the in

funny Indy car world toiling away

in formula two as the

oldest man in formula two by

by a long shot

right it's gonna be like the guy

that like goes to that

enlist you know that like goes to

to is like in boot camp

you know as like a as

a 30 year old like with a bunch of fucking

teenagers that call him grandpa

or whatever back to it's uh

it's very my um a friend of mine

hey fellow kids

Roger Gager filled back to school Colton

my friend Spencer

went to

University of Michigan and we all went to

Michigan State and

Spencer was like always

in high school

and got into U of M and then took a

like a psychology

program which is like one of the only programs

where there's like no clear

profession attached

to it like like in that field

psychologist yeah no it was like

there's one that you there was one

path that you take to become an actual

psychologist or psychiatrist and there was

one that like there's no path there's just

like a and like uh that's the

one that Spencer took you can just go to community college

for that twice yeah then

then it's like being an English major which

was so Spencer and I or so

everybody made fun of Spencer for years

uh because of his career

decisions and because like obviously U of

M was like a better school and he

was the only one of us who like didn't do anything

with his career

um but then he went back to school to be

a mechanical engineer

at like 30 I think 32

so he did he went

took undergrad mechanical engineering

at uh U of M

in his 30s

in that exact same position so he's like you know

salt and pepper beard like he's

he's like visibly older

than everybody else right freshman

college he said it was

fucking miserable like it was so awkward

you know it's like you know doing group projects with

these kids or whatever obviously it's fine

now man

that's that's kind of a weak spirit

I went to community college and all my group partners were like

50 year old going back to school

moms guys who just got out of

prison it whipped it was awesome

that's better it's good for those undergrads

to have to like work with people who aren't

21 to 25 or whatever I agree

and I think yeah totally it has

benefited so Spencer is now

a mechanical engineer at Nissan and it has benefited

him career-wise

um being a little bit older

um but um

I don't think young people

should be allowed to go to college

no right away no you should have to you should have to live

for a while it was a waste of time

for me yeah

it was a waste of time

I went back again and it was still a waste of time

you see me

working with plants no see me working

with political science see me working

with anything

working at all um

well your songwritings maybe like

a little bit kinda but

I barely speak English man

music

but uh yeah exciting shake up because

with Colton moving out of

his spot yeah so Will

Power who kind of

was rumored to be on the outs at team

Penske

has jumped over

to Andretti to take

over for Colton Herda

great fit great spot for him

Will allow him to

maintain a competitive

seat being at a good car with a good

team and continue his

career I think you know

Penske overall was having kind of a shitty

year

not a shitty year but like a

historical shitty year for Penske

yeah prayers up Scott McLaughlin

uh hanging in there baby girl

I bet I promise it has to

yeah so that's good what else do we have

going on in the uh

off season

uh my

special little guy our special little guy

got officially

promoted to cup for next year

he's gonna be out of Xfinity up into

cup that's exciting yeah

I was at Connor

Connor baby so

after and so he's

gonna crush it probably in the playoffs

just tear it up uh

wrecking ball through that in his first season

kicks ass gonna go up there

uh Shane is Shane

is still in playoffs uh he's at the bottom

of the cutoff right now though so I think

uh

goodbye good job uh but he did great I mean

he got he got in basically just from

crushing all the road courses in cup all year

he's keeps talking

about like they just can't get the car

and he's just still not still figuring out how to

the cup car is so much heavier than he would

in supercars so that's been a lot of learning

curve but I mean you let him turn

right and he wins uh it's just a

lot of turning left that's hard and turning

like cup is hard yeah

people do not appreciate how hard cup is

but next year uh

we're gonna have a really good time

because Connor's gonna be out there and Connor's good

at an oval and he'll be learning how to

uh get out there in the in the

slightly different mechanics with cup and out

there in the field with the big dogs uh

they did they both did pretty good

at uh

Atlanta Connor got 11th

and Shane I think 23rd 24th

so Connor getting out there in cup

next year is gonna be fun because uh

he'll be competition for Shane on the road courses

and also he kicks

ass on the ovals so I am

really psyched for NASCAR cup

2046 that's gonna be fun that's

must-see TV

get our Corvette boys out there

man

getting me pumped

I don't even I've been researching

for no

particular reason don't ask

I'm plotting and scheming

and and and does

Connor's Illich have have a driver's license

just like a normal

driver's license yet or is he

he just turned 19

oh okay oh yeah

he's big boy now

um yeah good good

good time for our

our boys

a little bit um

a little bit under the radar but did you guys

see

that Brian

Hertha Autosport

father of uh

of Colton

announced that they are

going to be competing in LMP2

in IMSA

next year

um why is that

I mean Hertha

Brian Hertha who

since like 2019

has just been competing in

IMSA just in the kind of

uh

lower level

pilot challenge

with the TCR Hyundai's

running the Hyundai program

that has pretty much dominated

that uh

that category of racing for the last

six years

and there were always question marks

I mean when

that that program

in 2019

and Rory you sent me down there

to do a story about that

uh to Daytona

um

I mean there were whispers even then

is like is this does this portend

a

Hyundai like top class

like yeah exactly there's no way

they're just doing this right and

and um you know

if you know if if Hyundai

is intending to

to you know at some point run

a top class

prototype car

um would Hertha

um be in line

to

to run that as a partner

um so this is something

that has been kind of

talked about

for years

uh but

but so them moving

into LMP2 is is a pretty

common way for

for teams

who have been competing in other classes

to kind of lay the groundwork

um LMP2 being the

the kind of spec

class of

of prototype racing where it's

it's uh combination of pro

and amateur drivers and um

uh

so it's kind of like the the pro

am kind of sub class

of of the top tier prototype

racing in IMSA

and so so the LMP2

thing is just like a way for teams

to essentially

prepare themselves to compete in the top

class um

and and with

Genesis developing their

their new uh which is

you know Hyundai's premium brand

they've got their hypercar

uh LMDH car

in development right now they've been

hitting the track and

and uh doing their

kind of reveals and and

shakedowns and stuff the last

over the last few months um

that car's gonna start competing

in WEC next year I think

and then scheduled to

to come to IMSA the the year after

this year the the team that's

gonna be operating the

um

the Genesis cars in WEC

um

sport I think is the name of the team

they've been running an LMP2 program this year

like pretty successfully

um

uh with that woman Jamie Chadwick

uh is one of the drivers who's been

uh been very competitive

um and so so

so her to kind of

moving up to to LMP2

next year um

I feel like it's it's

all but a lock that they would be

um

having that uh that Genesis

uh prototype

when when that comes in

2027 so that's

that's kind of exciting it's

it's it's I mean the thing that's that's fun is just to think

about like like a lot of those

guys who who have been

driving those those Hyundai's

um

since since that program was launched

and and I mean those those guys who

who I met and who were kids you know

who were like

or you know very early 20s

um

that guy that that uh that we

talked to uh at Daytona

last year Rory on the the tram

when we got lost going to the trying to

find your car

um uh

Mason Philippi um yeah

super nice kid and um

it's just it's just fun to think

about like those guys

getting a crack

you know who have been very very diligently

um racing

in in this

you know like front

drive kind of low tier

yeah but but ultra competitive

series uh very

exciting to to just imagine them getting

a crack at the big show

yeah uh

I want to go and stay tired

do you do you need to do you need to

to bail Rory or can I can I talk about

just one one last thing oh what do we got

oh yeah go ahead this is this is not

racing related it's just it's more kind

of just economic stuff

but um please

I just thought this this story was was funny

and kind of provides a uh an opportunity

to to to play one of my

favorite things um

but this is a story about

uh

Lamborghini

um

that ran in

where did this run

oh cm cnbc

just uh a week or two ago

uh Lamborghini CEO says

tariffs are causing even the wealthiest

buyers to pause

and this has been kind of a question mark

you know it's like that seems like most

of the the real luxury

car purveyors um

you know like rich people don't give a

shit about tariffs um

but I don't know

we'll see uncertainty around tariffs has caused

even the wealthiest buyers of Lamborghini

supercars to hold off on their purchases

CEO Steven Winkleman

told cnbc

um

while the white house recently announced

an agreement with Europe on a 15

percent tariff rate that rate hasn't yet

taken effect for cars Lamborghini and other

European automakers are still paying the

tariff rate of 27.5

percent on exports to the U.S.

with the price of a Lamborghini starting

at $400,000 many buyers are choosing

to wait for more stable tariff rates

before buying Winkleman said

some are waiting because they want to be

sure this is the final number that is going

to be in place others are fine with it

or we will have negotiations

like the idea of just negotiations

yeah we'll just

we'll just hammer out a deal

on what tariffs we feel like paying

um

the

uh

it kind of talks about about how

Lamborghini is like in fairly

fairly rude health

um

uh

last week at Monterey car week Lamborghini

unveiled a new limited production

supercar called the Phenomenon

the fastest and most powerful Lambo yet

boasting 1080 horsepower

blah blah blah they will make

only 29 of these cars which

are part of what Winkleman calls the

few-offs strategy of super rare

hyper performance versions of its

current lineup for top clients

also helping the company a surge

of wealth around the world that's becoming

younger and more diverse

Lamborghini owners have an average

of five cars in their garage

and owners of the higher priced

Lambo's have an average of

10 cars the average age

of the Lamborghini buyer now is

under 45 and in Asia

it's under 30 he said

um and

this just makes me think of

um

Maddie I have to think that you have seen

this clip hurry I'm not sure

if you have but I'm gonna drop this

in the chat it's just the thing that

floats around on tumblr

and gets reblogged

is this gonna is this the guy talking about

the youtube poop style Lamborghini

his his Lamborghini's yeah

oh I've seen this guy before

I mean it's it's an edit

the classic but yeah you should

Lamborghini's in my Lamborghini account

yeah you'll see

I'm gonna drop the

an excerpt in there

it's

it's also it's also the thing that

um anytime I'm at

I'm at an IMSA race

where they're doing the the Lamborghini

Super Trafeo

and it's just which is just all

you know it's just a Lamborghini race

and and the

you know the guys over the PA will be

you know the number 27 Lamborghini

is passed by the such and such

you know 13 Lamborghini

and it's like all I can hear

is that guy talking about his

Lamborghini's Lamborghini account

and I bumped into a Lamborghini

and another Lamborghini

a few more Lamborghini's I found five

Lamborghini's I don't call it money anymore

I call it fuel units you must have enough

fuel units you must have enough

Lamborghini's

it's just uh funny

the classic

that was one thing everything really talked about

from uh Monterey it's like the

maybe we did talk about it but the percentage

of the top sales

that were all auction sales

that were all like modern hypercars

yeah no we did we did we did talk about that

yeah hey I was curious though

um you before

before you left um

you said that you were maybe going to get a chance

to drive some of those

those Resto Mod cars

did that not happen that's why I'm mad about it

just joking uh no I just

didn't come together and I was probably

going to be too busy to do it anyway but

did you get to drive anything or were you just

getting chauffeured around the whole time no I

drove a Cadillac Vistik

for about an hour

the Vistik huge nice that's

that's the big electric

it's a small it's a small small SUV

electric SUV yeah a little bit size I guess

yeah nice car um

God I see so many lyrics

around Lyricu Lyricu's

uh for an EV

yeah it's a good uh value proposition

they look cool too they look like kind of like a

little Celestic not as

dramatic but like um

yeah it's an interesting looking car

people like them I wonder

how many of those are actually getting sold

versus leased

yeah I mean EVs I

have to assume most of them are getting leased

um but still

sounds the same yeah

um

alright

okay yeah

alright perfect wonderful

alright stay tired

stay tired

here in my garage

I just bought this uh New Lamborghini here

fun to drive up here in the Hollywood

Hills but you know what I like

a lot more than knowledge

this uh New Lamborghini here

but you know what I like a lot more than the New Lamborghini here

my TEDx talk where I talk about this

New Lamborghini here

in fact

I'm a lot more proud of these 7

New Hollywood Hills that I had to get

installed to hold 2,000 New Lamborghinis

Episode 87: Even Sillier Season

Lotus Elise

F-150 Raptor

Aston Martin Valkyrie

Ferrari 499P

Mclaren F1

Porsche Panamera

Ford F150

Lamborghini Cuntas

Dodge Omni

Dodge Charger

Chevrolet Corvette

Nissan 300Zx

Volkswagen Bora

Porsche 911

Volkswagen Scirocco

Plymouth Prowler

Dodge Viper

Mazda Cx5

BMW Series Bmw

Jeep Cherokee

Cadillac Xlr

Lincoln Mkt

Volkswagen Caddy

BMW Z3

Hyundai Genesis

About this episode

Original notes