Honda/Acura Have Some Explaining To Do, Bad Credit? Ford Says No Problem! & More

Dude, I got to start this week by saying, you're a sports fan.

Of all the sports, and we're going to get into cars obviously,

but I got to know, what is your favorite?

Is it football these days?

No, I don't.

Obviously, I went to Ohio State, so I do follow Ohio State,

but I don't follow.

I never really loved pro football.

I think the flags are egregious.

MMA and boxing would be the two

that I watch most consistently.

I mean, this weekend, you guys will

be listening to this on Monday, the Ryder Cup,

that excites me, little USA versus Europe.

I just started off well here Friday morning.

But those kind of things, yeah, man.

I mean, whatever I can catch, I got two really young kids.

It's now whatever I can catch, Rob, whatever I can catch.

Hey, man, I understand.

Ryder Cup would have not been on my list, honestly,

at all of your interests, but that's interesting.

And the reason I bring it up, and it'll tie to cars

probably later in the show, but I just

wanted to set the landscape a bit,

where there was a story that I kept seeing

that you may have saw, where Tom Brady potentially

was going to be getting paid like $75 million

to play a flag football game.

Did you see that story?

Let's say the quiet part out loud.

The Saudi money does not run out.

And they are definitely buying and investing

in a lot of things in the sports and entertainment world.

Obviously, they got the Riyadh Comedy Festival,

which you have some of those comedians that

have gotten pretty social and social issues

that I think is pretty weird that they're

going to try to stand on anything after this.

A guy like Bill Burr comes to mind.

Yeah, that's one.

I think you're kind of, I don't think

I want to hear your social commentary after this,

because by the way, and all of us

can also say the amount of money being thrown at people,

if you're lying to yourself, if you're saying,

you wouldn't take it.

Right, right.

So I'm an adult, and I know how the world works.

And if Tom Brady was offered $75 million,

which by the way, he just said isn't true,

but didn't give a number.

Correct, correct.

Which I think says that it's probably

pretty close to accurate.

And I've been having this conversation,

not to get off topic, but everybody's into sports.

If you're the greatest of all time at something,

I shouldn't see you in a tostitos commercial.

Whoa, whoa, we're being a little unfair here.

Here's the thing.

I think he's damaging his legacy

because it's become pretty clear.

He's chasing every dollar that gets offered to him.

I think for the greatest of all time at a sport, bad move.

I think this has all been a bad move.

Doesn't the greatest of all time

just kind of want to keep up with his ex-wife a bit, though?

Yeah, I mean, I hear you.

But you know, I mean, Tom's in a weird position

because he can't even talk trash to the new guy

because that dude would just choke him out.

He'd chop him up, yeah, chop him up.

You're in a tough spot.

What's the Shane Gillis thing when he says,

my ex-girlfriend was with a Navy SEAL?

Navy SEALs aren't that tough.

You know what I mean?

Tom Brady's in a weird position.

But yeah, man, it's a crazy time.

And for all of you that want to make this political,

that's not me.

I just think it's, you guys got to realize,

the minute that these guys in the Middle East

decided they wanted to spend money,

that money doesn't run out.

That's their reality.

It's a very good reality, very good point of the reality.

Here's another question then.

Is it fair to say that it almost

seems like for car manufacturers, most of them,

money doesn't seem to run out,

they just keep making more and more money

despite their bad decisions?

No question, I mean, and by the way,

this has been generations.

We oftentimes think it's been the last five years.

I mean, they've just printed money

for as long as they've been around,

even though it's been a difficult business

to show lots of profit,

the amount of cash that they get

on a daily, monthly, yearly basis

allows them a lot of flexibility to do a lot of things.

I mean, we talked about the Ford campus as an example.

Like they're just gonna throw up a couple million square feet

and it's not really all that big a news.

Like they're just like, yeah,

we're just gonna build new headquarters.

It's like a damn, two million square feet seems like a lot.

So I want to get into the Ford thing,

but I wanted to start with the Acura story,

which you actually brought to my attention

earlier in the week.

And I had brought this car up,

probably I want to say in the spring,

Honda and Acura were doing like shows,

like showing off the, you know,

Sunicom Acura ZDX, right, the EV.

And you let me know that they're canceling it.

I was like, huh, that's news to me.

And then you found another nugget of knowledge

inside of that article you were reading as well

that I did not know either.

We didn't bring it up back in the spring,

is that it wasn't being built by Honda Acura.

I think this is, again, we've harped on the Supra thing.

And now you see that Honda,

basically partners with General Motors,

to build the Acura ZDX.

And what is it, the prologue or prelogue,

whatever that other Honda,

the Honda-labeled one, SUV is, I think,

is being built in the assembly plant in Tennessee, I think.

I just think that people have to come to grips with,

this is a bad look.

Number one, like you said,

they went on this parade about ZDX.

They went on this car show after car show,

after show, after show, this is our thing.

And then you don't even assemble the thing.

Why?

I don't know if for many people listen to this.

That's all car manufacturers do, is assemble their cars.

It's not like they make the steel,

it's not like they make the seat modules, mostly.

I mean, maybe they make some door latches

in some little parts around.

But like, all you are is an assembly company.

I mean, basically when you look at it

from the way cars have been manufactured for 20 or 30 years,

I realize they make some tiny parts.

But at this point in time, you're an assembly plant.

So Honda and Acura are like,

yeah, we don't need to assemble our own car.

We've been bashing the American manufacturers

for 40 or 50 years saying we do it better.

But let's just go ahead and outsource this

to our competition,

who we say we do everything better than.

And I want everyone to ask yourselves a question.

Let's say your mom, your sister,

your brother-in-law, they're not into cars.

They roll up to Acura, they buy a ZDX.

Were they ever informed that Honda Acura

doesn't have that much to do with the car?

No, odds are no.

Outs are no.

I just think it's not the way business needs to be done

when you're valued at 60 frickin' billion dollars

as a company, okay?

We're not talking about an upstart like NEOs.

We're not talking about somebody

trying to get DeLorean off the ground.

We're talking about Honda,

who's thinking about taking tons of cash and buying Nissan,

but we can't be bothered to assemble our own vehicle.

Now, the argument that educated people

listening to us are gonna say is,

well, there's always been these types of partnerships.

Agreed.

You know what?

It's never been the case.

These companies being worth $60 billion.

That's true.

These companies are now worth so much money,

there is no reason to do this, in my opinion.

And that kind of leads into the next point,

because we had the same conversation

or the same topic on the same call about Acura Honda

and then Ford, because we talked about the Ford Campus

recently and what they're trying to achieve

with by having everything inside of this new

glass house that they call.

And it's like insert office space scene right here,

like what is it that you do, right?

Are they trying to be a tech company?

Are they trying to be a car man?

What are they trying to do?

Being race series only, what is it that you do?

And I honestly don't, EVs, this big shift,

the email news conference thing.

We've made a lot of jokes about it,

but I don't know, dude, that is weird.

And you made a good point about it.

If you were to get into tech, which it seems like

they're having a big push, whether it's EV

or just in general, like the Ford software of sorts,

is it gonna be in Dearborn?

Is that where you're gonna want

your elite talent to go?

Yeah, I mean, when we talk about Ford,

there's no doubt that I think this campus

is being built to basically mimic

what they see in Silicon Valley, right?

From the Googles and the companies like that.

So you mean Austin, Texas?

That's what you mean, Austin, Texas?

There you go, Austin, Texas.

Jokes, jokes.

By the way, Austin, Texas has been taking

a lot of strays from the comedians out there.

I thought you were gonna say from the community.

Yeah, all the communities.

Yeah, yeah, Austin's taking a lot of,

but so they get back to Ford.

And again, this relays into Honda's decision.

Okay, Ford, you're obviously building something

that resembles tech and what they've been doing

because you're gonna see yourself

as this futuristic company.

No tech person I know wants to live in Dearborn.

Right.

So are you really going into this new era

of getting elite level tech talent,

which it seems like what you're trying to do,

you wouldn't build it in Dearborn.

So again, it's like doing things halfway.

We really believe in the ZDX.

We believe so much, we're not gonna even build the thing.

But trust us, we really believe in it.

And it's like the customer in 2025

of any kind of product seems to be going through a shift.

And the shift is you and I speak about this a lot.

Founder-led companies are way more popular,

way more powerful today than they've ever been, right?

Especially 10 years ago, it really wasn't a big thing.

Now it's a big thing.

People wanna know more and more

where their food comes from.

They wanna know who's making the product

and who's standing behind it.

And Acura, who's part of Honda,

who's worth again, we need to keep repeating this,

$60 billion is like,

nah, we can't assemble the skateboard.

We can't just plop the body on

and screw a couple things in and wire a few things.

Nah, it's too big for it.

By the way, have a huge footprint of places

they could have put a couple extra lines of running cars.

Like let's not act like they don't have the space

somewhere in the United States

and their multitude of places.

And they just go, not gonna mess with it.

But trust us, Rob, we believe in it.

That'd be like Apple saying,

we got nothing to do with building our phone.

We don't even oversee anything.

Just trust us, it'll work.

You'd be like, dude, I get it.

You don't have to build everything.

But if you never go to the factory at Foxconn and go,

hey, can you kind of do things to ours?

It'd be kind of weird.

Like I just don't understand why this stuff is happening.

I get why the partnerships happen,

like Scout partnering with Rivian

to kind of launch this new age thing they're trying to do.

And I get that partnerships are a good thing

in some instances in the car business.

Full assembly seems like when you're worth $60 billion,

come on, man, you're not doing the customer any justice.

And again, if you want people to believe in your product,

you should believe in your product

and make the investment and build behind it

and actually do it for real.

This is another instance of this EV culture

inside the car business,

where it seems like they slap it together

and they're just making it work

to meet some mandate or whatever,

but none of them believe in it.

So you brought up Rivian and the partnerships,

but I want to remind everybody,

we're talking about Ford right now

because I have the next story queued up about Ford.

So we're going to go back to still talking about Ford.

But in the comments of the Rivian videos here recently,

a lot of people were talking about the partnerships

of how, going back to GM actually,

there was talks and I didn't know about this necessarily.

I don't know if you do,

they might partner up with GM or GM might acquire.

Like there's talks of this in the future

that being some sort of acquisition.

Well, Volkswagen auto group would have the lead

on that now, I think.

I mean, they're a shareholder.

Anything can happen, right?

Somebody comes in and strikes a check.

Yeah, again.

Any company can buy any company.

Yeah, what's the price?

So could General Motors do this?

Absolutely.

I mean, could Ford do it?

Could everybody do it?

Yeah, I mean, look,

I think one of the things that surprised a lot of people

is there was a lot of chatter

of what was gonna go down with Apple's investment

and all of this

and that somebody was gonna come in and buy

Apple's basically, you know, car tech and whatever.

Maybe that happened on some level,

but it didn't happen the way everybody thought.

A check is really,

once somebody strokes the check, man,

they're gonna buy it, right?

But Volkswagen auto group would have to be,

to me and the driver's seat

because of their share and their partnerships with them

and the different things that they partnered up on.

But yeah, I mean, could General Motors do it?

Absolutely.

You know, here's a bunch of billions of dollars.

I mean, that's what really matters at the end of the day.

Hey, dude, I don't know if it was you and I

talking on the phone,

were you and I talking about how bad the iOS is

as far as answering questions?

Was that you and I talking about that?

Oh, it's horrible.

Oh my God, I hadn't, dude, I hadn't experienced it

just yesterday.

My wife got the newest phone, right?

Which is great.

I still have an old one, it works great.

But she asked a question

because her and I were having a discussion

and it was like, I couldn't find anything.

Would you like me to use ChadGBT?

I was like, wait a minute.

I just asked you to figure out the question.

Yeah, yeah, how about you do it?

Dude, it blew my mind.

So again, that goes back to, yeah,

we were talking about it on here

because I brought it up like,

have you guys used the new Siri?

Oh, I guess we did.

So BMW's got it figured out.

Oh, that's right.

Yes.

So again, this is where we get into

the limiting value of tech.

Yeah.

Right?

There is a break-even point when you go,

going further makes things worse.

Yeah, you know, it.

And I think we're on the cusp of that in the car world.

If not, to me, the entire thing in my life

is always about, it's the button conversation.

Right, dude?

I was just about to say that.

You know, it's, there's a law of diminishing returns here.

And again, if you look at Ford and ZDX

and General Motors and all this other stuff,

they are so invested.

I think because of the echo chamber from media

that are super into tech,

that are pushing these guys saying what a great idea

and they never ever say it's a bad idea,

as well as the people inside the building going,

well, wouldn't it be cool if we were a tech company?

Yeah, man, I hear you.

But at some point, some of this stuff just works.

Okay?

Don't overthink the room.

And it's going to be interesting

as you see more and more cancellations

around these highly tech cars, you know,

which is mainly in the EV world.

Although all ICE cars have a lot of tech in them.

I understand that.

But the real sales point of EV is tech.

Tech, tech, tech, tech, tech.

Where's the breakeven point for the user?

And they keep canceling these things,

largely because they haven't invested properly

as Honda has proven with the Acura ZDX.

A lot of these failures, I think come down to

not just people not wanting an EV,

but everything else surrounding it.

I think a lot of people just go,

what the hell is all this?

Yeah.

What is all this?

The first thing I thought too is just like,

you saying like, sometimes going too far

has diminishing returns.

And that's the way I feel like I will die on this hill.

Of the interiors of modern cars.

Like we were talking about, you know,

funny enough people said your CarGurus videos

was like prime A content itself.

Like they could just listen to you

go through CarGurus links.

I was like, wait a minute, did we just strike gold

with a new idea of you just going through CarGurus things?

Hey, CarGurus episode number 988.

Well, there's always stuff going up there.

So honestly, it'd be like doing the news,

but it's just like the UFC and just number everything.

Oh, dude, that's a great idea.

CarGurus 103.

Dude, exactly.

Just every week, right?

So by week 52, like most listeners

will have bought a car off of CarGurus

because if you, by the way, CarGurus.

Come on, no free shout outs,

but if you want to keep talking about it.

Everybody that's asking me, that's not like my preferred.

It was just the thing we pulled up.

Easy example.

Yeah.

A couple of us guys, it was just what we used.

Well, anyway, so the interiors, you know,

we brought up Corvettes and you and I

were talking on the phone about the prices

of like C7, Z06s are going for like 10 over MSRP,

five, six, seven, eight years later, which is crazy.

But those interiors were like the folding,

or rather the screens that slide and that whole setup

was like, again, 16, 17, 18, 19 peak interiors.

And then you tried doing too much into the eyes.

Aesthetically, I think some of them in modern days

obviously look good, but functionality,

the tactile feeling, like all that stuff is off.

And if we'd not try to go too far,

we would have been just fine,

just slow incremental changes from 15 to 25.

Not these drastic changes.

I think you and I, and probably most of our listeners

feel this way about all of this,

which is all of these huge leaps don't really go well.

No.

Right?

Like it's sort of like going from ICE to EV

when everybody goes, well, the next stepping stone

was highly efficient hybrids.

Right, right.

Right?

So why did this big leap fail?

Because most big leaps in 100 year old

manufacturing facilities is not necessary.

Yeah.

Cars have been around a long time, okay?

You've gotten them to a great place.

Most modern cars, again, are pretty damn well built,

meaning like compared to what you would get

in the 80s and 90s where you get rusted out

bodies of trucks and stuff like that.

Dude, I mean, you just said it, right?

So big leaps usually fail.

What did Neil Armstrong say?

One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind?

We haven't been.

Don't butcher this.

People will get real pissed.

We haven't been to the moon since.

That was a giant leap that may or may not have been a failure.

I don't know.

Hey, and we may not have been?

I mean, they had these figurines.

Dude, to quote my boy Eddie Bravo,

to quote my boy Eddie Bravo, I'm just asking questions, okay?

Best, one of the best human beings on planet Earth.

Dude, people are gonna be so mad like,

hey, whoa, whoa, let's talk about Corvettes again,

please, not landing on the moon.

But to go back to Ford, here's an interesting article

because I think you'll have a lot more insight

to this particular subject, but brace yourself, Nick.

This is from, this is a Ford article.

Bad credit, no problem.

Ford offers lower F-150 interest rates to high-risk borrowers.

So they're getting into the sub-prime game.

So they see what Toyota's doing,

and they're like, well, Toyota will lend money to anybody.

Maybe we should do that.

Dude.

Oh, that's the secret of Toyota, right?

People are gonna be like, that's not true.

It's a hundred percent true.

Nobody talks about it.

Nobody talks about it, right?

So I'm gonna pull up,

I just wanna read you the best line of this.

Well, I lost it talking about landing on the moon,

but essentially, oh, there it is.

Wall Street Journal reports Ford's finance arm

could give sub-prime borrowers the same rate

as those with top-tier credit scores

or around 5% currently.

Come on, man.

This all ends one place, right?

So the bubble's bursting on car sales.

And we've been probably talking about this for a year.

I mean, it'll be a year in December.

This is the thing bubbling underneath the surface

and it has been for last year to two years

is a lot of people are buying things

that they simply just can't afford.

Repossessions are, I believe at,

getting towards all-time highs

if not already surpassed all-time highs.

Delinquency rates are enormous.

This looks like a credit bubble

for anybody that watched 2008 happen.

This feels like a credit bubble.

Who's paying 750, 1,250 bucks for a Tahoe,

for a RAV4, for whatever?

So this all has a breaking point.

So the one thing you can say about Ford doing this

is Ford is just saying, hey, if this all bursts,

at least we got some trucks out,

at least we got some cars out,

at least we got some SUVs out of our hands

and we'll now let the lenders deal with it.

We'll let the financing arm deal with it.

And I feel like that's what we are watching.

I think that's what we've been watching from Toyota

for the better part of five years,

is they just said, come get them.

You know what I mean?

Like, you know, and for people that don't know really

how it works with Toyota,

essentially if you've never really been late paying Toyota,

it doesn't matter your credit score.

Like as long as you haven't gotten over on them,

they'll essentially lend you money.

Now interest rates vary, of course.

But, you know, that's the deep dark secret

of the Toyota brand is like,

you can get everyone financed pretty much.

So it doesn't surprise me.

This is kind of what happens at the end of bubbles

is you just see people lending, lending more money

and, you know, going down with the ship

and not really identifying,

but that's kind of what finance arms are meant to do.

You know, this is kind of why all of these companies

in all different industries have got into lending money

because it's like, that's paper.

Well, we'll sort the debris, the rubble when it happens.

And I think that's what this is.

I mean, and it's very, very obvious

that a company like Ford or GM or anybody would do this.

Yeah, I mean, shout out to Toyota

just paving the way in all kinds of directions, right?

Like everyone's following through this.

You're gonna get people so pissed off

because you're like, not my Toyota.

It's like, no, it's pretty much an open secret

at this point. Absolutely.

And you know what, I always applaud it

because, hey, it's business

and they're conducting business in a way

that apparently people are drooling over

and following no matter what.

So I mean, it is what it is.

And when I run into it,

I'm not gonna pull this up on camera

but it's no free shout outs to dealerships.

But regardless, there's a 22 TRD Pro

that was just in this listing

of all the cars I was looking at.

And it's 55 grand, it's a 22 TRD Pro.

And I'm just like, yeah, it's got 7,400 miles on it

but it's got four owners, right?

And it's just like, well, just cause it's a TRD Pro.

Four owners. Four owners in 7,400 miles.

That's not good.

No, and it's 55 grand.

Like, man, this is just weird.

But yeah, it'll all, we've been saying it for a year.

I wanna keep saying it.

Something will happen.

Some bubble will go burst, you know,

and things will, they're not gonna reset themselves

to 2017 guys.

I don't think that's gonna happen.

But we've already seen, you know,

it's very, very hard on normal cars

for them to get the prices they want now.

You're seeing incentives come back.

Lease deals are at an all time insanity now

of what you can lease cars for,

which is usually a sign things aren't going well

because there's some companies that are buoyed by lease deals

and they have been for a better part of 20 years.

And when their deals start to really pop up

and get crazy, you can kinda see that

there's weakness in the market.

So you and I are kinda advocates of

get in where you fit in.

So guys, I think there is stuff out there to be had.

I mean, I do think there are deals out there.

That doesn't mean they're 2015 deals.

So we gotta always, for whatever reason,

tell people it's not gonna rewind the clock

to some time that doesn't exist anymore.

Random question, curveball out of left field.

Are you a Vander Hall fan?

Have you ever, what, why are you looking at me like that?

No?

No, what do you mean, what's Vander Hall?

Show me what you mean.

Okay, okay, okay, I'm gonna bring you up.

I wasn't sure, too familiar,

because we've never talked about these kind of vehicles,

but it's like the three wheeler,

kind of like the Polaris, you know what I'm talking about?

I haven't heard about these in a while.

A couple of years ago,

I had a couple of acquaintances that had these,

they were like in this little group of,

this is like one of the more popular ones.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

This one's just, I've seen this.

Yeah, like you don't really see.

I never really got into these.

Me neither, but when I see them, I'm like,

that's really cool, right?

So they have like the Venice,

I think there's a, there's a couple of them

that were really popular like four or five years ago,

and I just kinda stopped hearing about them,

but I'll bring it up here shortly.

There's one of the news,

just because it's kind of like a way different change from,

cause those were, I think they were like 1.5 liter GM,

you know, motors in there.

Pretty cool.

I think there were manuals,

some had options for manuals,

and now this is where they are in 2025,

which just is what it is.

The Brawley GTS is a 404 horsepower electric off-roader

that looks very much like a Jeep.

Like exactly like a Jeep.

Basically like a side-by-side Jeep.

It is exactly what it is.

Yeah, it's a Van der Haals electric side-by-side

tax quad motors with the price starting around 50 grand.

I don't know if it comes looking like that for 50 grand,

that would be worth it.

It's pretty cool, right?

I'm guessing that has a lot of options

that run the price to $87,000.

Well, let's scroll down here

and see if it actually shows a higher price,

but I mean, you got a lot of bits here that they're showing.

You'd expect a machine that costs about $50,000,

a four-speaker stereo.

Hey, how about a three-tone car?

White top, actually four tones.

Yeah, white.

Black colors, red line.

Gray.

And they got some vinyl on the side, it looks like.

Grayish, blackish.

Man, that's five colors.

And it looks chrome-ish down here at the very bottom.

Look, really chrome at the bottom.

That is not my style.

I'm not in, like you know now black roof is becoming,

it's coming back.

I don't understand.

I think it looks so dumb, but man, nothing yet.

So now that you pointed it out,

I don't know why I didn't notice

it had five different colors on it.

I also don't really appreciate that,

but like when you see cars that have like,

who made it popular?

I think it might have been Nissan for like a consumer car

where it might have been the kick actually,

where it was like a white or a black roof

and then the car was like a different color.

Honda did it too, I think with the HRV.

Horrible.

And I always get people that say

that I should black out my roof

so that it follows the sunroof

because I got the panoramic roof

and it's kind of black with the glass.

And then you should just do the rest black.

I'm like, I don't like that.

I don't think it looks good.

I don't like it either.

I never, two-tone, I'm not saying it can't work.

It's just very rare when it looks really good.

Yeah, again.

It's one of those things when you go,

you see this like in the C10 world

where guys will have like that Tiffany blue color

and then they have that white,

but you gotta remember that the roof on a two-door C10

isn't very big, so that's why it looks good.

The bigger your roof gets,

I think it looks a little worse.

And look, there's some carbon fiber roofs,

obviously that I think look good.

You can replicate that now with high-grade PPF.

It looks okay.

But I don't like the two-tone.

It's just something you like or don't.

Right, that's as simple as,

it's like if you like white walls,

you just like white walls.

Or, that's a very 90s thing, right?

So, speaking of two-tone,

you had like the, and this is such a Mexican thing

so I could say it, I guess,

the two-tone color where it's not like two solid colors,

it's like it blends, right?

You have the gradient on the cars.

Yeah, I'm gonna have to stay out of this

because the token white guy on this show,

I'm not sure I'm allowed.

It's so funny where that's just like a cultural thing

that everybody's like, yeah, not totally.

Well, it's just like if you look at the Houston market,

they're big on the camo wraps.

That's very true.

Like, dude, they're camo wrapping Tesla Model Ys.

You think that everybody's like showcasing a new car

that hasn't come out yet,

that's how much camo you see around you.

Like, who do you work for?

What car is this?

What manufacturer?

They love the hand-laid camo wraps

where the rapper is like, you know,

the wrap guy is laying all these different pieces

and they're like, man, nobody's ever,

it's like, no, we've done that, man.

Like, your Model Y doesn't need a camo.

I just saw one, one of my buddies text me, I go,

damn, they're just going down with the ship.

They've been doing that for the better part

of like five, seven years now.

Yeah, actually longer.

I remember going to, so I'm sure everybody

had these all around the country,

but when Paul Walker died,

there was like the huge, you know, Paul Walker Memorial

kind of like car show thing.

And I went to this huge one in downtown Houston,

it was on this big parking garage.

It was like a dozen stories of just like cars.

And there was a ton of those.

This was, I mean, think about it.

I don't know when he's escaping me,

but it's gotta be at least 10 plus years at this point,

right?

And even then I was like, I don't get this camo thing.

I just never really got the look of it.

Yeah.

Hey, people love it.

Sorry guys.

By the way, they're still doing it.

I know, I know.

They're still doing like TikToks of,

hey, watch me wrap this camo Model Y.

I'm like, I don't know, man.

I think this is probably running its course,

but only in Houston, man.

I see the craziest stuff on TikTok or Reels

has gotta be Houston.

Wow.

I mean, I just don't think it's close at this point.

When it comes to car customization,

it's the wildest place in the world.

That is.

Used to be Miami.

Yeah, I was gonna say, I was gonna say.

I still see a lot of Florida stuff around like,

only in Miami.

Yeah, well, Florida.

Only in Florida.

I know you never listened to the Stern Show,

but he used to do this segment, Florida or Germany.

I don't know.

I've seen a clip of it, but I've never,

I'm not familiar with the whole segment.

So they would just read the craziest stuff

and they'd go Florida or Germany

and they'd go around and everybody would answer.

There was somebody that was like a documentarian guy.

Billy, was it Billy Corbin?

Billy Corbin, Corbin.

Not the Smashing Pumpkins singer, but the other guy.

Yeah.

And he, I used to follow him on the early days

of Twitter, man.

He would just post the craziest stories

and it was like a running joke for like a decade.

He's like, only in Florida, only in Florida.

Florida, man.

Yeah, exactly.

Craziest stories.

All right, he got a bit of a palate cleanser here.

So I'm sure you're familiar with Jay Leno's.

I think it's a 94, F1, his McLaren.

Yeah.

Right, that thing is awesome, right?

There was a clip that's going around

and I don't know if it's from this year.

It looks like it's pretty new.

Is this the one he took to McDonald's?

It's the one he says that he took to McDonald's.

Yes.

What a baller move.

Dude, I know, right?

You take your F1 to McDonald's,

you deserve straight to heaven.

Now you're just like,

hey, I'm driving this thing around.

Straight to heaven.

That's the fast food joint

that lets you know you're one of the regulars

is like, I took it to McDonald's.

Hey, and then if you're the CEO of McDonald's,

you just go on TV and complain

how the customer's not buying your cheap products anymore.

They're like, I don't know what's happening.

It's the economy.

It's like, I don't know, man.

Have you seen an in and out line?

Like, for those of you that don't live near an in and out,

buddy, the economy for burgers is doing just fine

at the in and out.

Hey, here, I want to play this for you

and I'm going to try not to blow your eardrums.

Let's make sure that it plays correct.

Oh, perfect.

If I gave you $1.5 million for this car right now,

I'm pretty sure the check would clear.

Would you?

Well, that would be a, what?

I guess a 3% deposit.

The last offer I got for this car was 20 million.

Oh, I think they're worth quite a bit more now.

One just sold for 24 million.

I mean, you know, it gets a little ridiculous.

And in some ways I don't like it

because I don't sell my cars.

But when I got this, I used it as a car.

I went to McDonald's and parked in the parking lot

and got something.

You know, I could use it.

Now it's so valuable.

Anything you do is a house.

You know what I find interesting now is,

like the Kuntas 50th anniversary, $3 million,

the new Bugatti, $4 million,

like the price of cars has become crazy.

Right, well.

But I think people probably said

that when they were 100,000.

Pretty cool, right?

I think Jay Leno is the ultimate car guy.

He really is.

I think he's proven it.

I think he's interested in everything.

I think this is how more people should be.

You know, not meaning like what you can buy.

But you know, we see it in our comments.

Other creators will tell you the same thing.

Guys are so territorial over what they like.

You know, I'm a Ford guy.

I'm a Chevy guy on it.

It's like, guys, watch Jay Leno.

Yeah.

Okay, Jay Leno is the guy.

Forget what he can buy

because he would still be talking about cars this way

if he couldn't buy them.

Okay, that's what I want people to realize

is like the least interesting you can be

is what we see out of our Toyota content.

You know, where everybody just wants to say

it's the best car ever built.

It's like, guys, it's not this serious.

Like you're allowed to like other stuff.

You're allowed to say that something might be

a little overpriced in the moment.

We all understand they're dependable.

You know, Ford truck guys that say Chevy's are crap.

Come on, man.

What does Jay Leno,

what would Jay Leno do?

Well, I'm gonna get a bracelet that says

what would Jay Leno do?

Yeah, because isn't it just more interesting?

Yeah.

Isn't it just more interesting to be like,

hey, I got this steam engine car.

This is cool.

I got this, you know, McLaren.

I got this Ford GTD.

I got, he has paved the way,

I think for people like myself

and you and a lot of listeners

would just go, hey, guys,

this is the thing in this whole thing.

And by the way, it's way more fun.

It's way more fun just to be like, yeah, man,

that's a cool car.

Like, yeah, man, I'm not into it.

I've always told people this.

And I think I've said this podcast.

One of the best car shows I ever used to go to

was a lowrider show.

I'm not into lowriders.

But I can tell you this,

it was a hell of a lot of fun

to go through and listen to all the work

these guys put in.

But how many people wouldn't go to a show like that today?

Like they just wouldn't go.

It's like, well, I'm not into that.

It's like, well, that isn't really,

to me, being a car guy.

It's like, I'm not into vintage trucks or muscle cars,

but I've been around a shit ton of those shows

and I can still respect the things that go on.

You don't have to be your favorite thing.

And you don't have to be some like,

you know, pompous guy about something you like.

It's just not that big a deal.

And I see this in all kinds of content.

You go, dude, what a boring way to be in the car.

Cause then you go the opposite side of the spectrum, right?

You have the Toyota fanboys

and people that are really fanatical about it or Chevy GM.

And then you go like, we did the clip on the Aston Martin,

you know, and people are like, oh,

you're polishing up a pile of shit or whatever it was.

It's like, dude, you read that and I'm like,

I kind of feel bad for trolls like that.

Like you're probably having fun doing this,

but I feel bad for people like that.

Yeah, because it's still an unbelievable car.

And the thing that those people don't realize is

there's a lot of Ford crossover parts

to that specific vehicle.

Not as much to maintain as you think.

Now, I'm not saying it's reasonable, okay?

Which we said in the clip,

we know this would be a big risk,

but I had a guy be like, well, you know,

I would just buy a Type R.

It's like, well, buddy, if I'm buying an Aston Martin,

I'm not looking at Type R.

Not really cross shop in those two.

That's not cross shop.

You know, it's like when people go,

well, instead of overpaying for that Porsche,

you should just get a Fiesta ST.

It's like, well, buddy, those aren't the same shopper.

Well, well, then again,

it depends maybe I might cross shop those.

Yeah, but here's the funny part.

You respect both cars.

Yeah, for sure.

Right, where it's like, everybody has this.

If I'm into JDM, I think every Euro car sucks.

Or if I'm into Euro cars, I think JD,

it's like, guys, I just think that's boring.

It's like, why can't we just shoot the shit

about the car?

And I think that's really the basis of clutch culture.

Yes.

It's like, that's what we believe.

It's like, that's why you look at a guy like Jay Leno

and you go, here's a guy with all the money in the world

to do what the ultimate car guy should do.

And then you have people that have the money like Jay Leno

and all they buy is Ferrari.

All they buy is Porsche.

Yeah.

It's their money, right?

But I go, wouldn't you rather be Jay Leno?

Yeah, dude.

And honestly, right next, right under him,

I mean, you can put Seinfeld in there,

but again, that's probably like a whole other level.

I was gonna say Jason Camisa,

just because of the way he talks about cars

and he's either talking about his old BMW

or is like Gen 1, you know, GTI

or whatever it is, his hatchback.

And he talks with it with so much knowledge,

so much enthusiasm.

He does stuff to him, he drives them

and he has an appreciation for all cars.

And it's funny how these huge, you know,

almost to some people larger than life personalities

can have that perspective.

And yet you're just gonna shit on it anyway

because I guess it's just more fun to them.

I don't know, it's wild.

Yeah.

And I think the cool part to me,

it seems like as Jay Leno's gotten older,

which by the way, having dealt with collectors,

they can get very strange and like very closed off

with their collection.

This dude's like, bring camera crews, come in.

It's cool.

Come have a day, come be a part of this.

Like, I think we all can learn a lot from this dude.

And I don't think everybody has, right?

I think everybody admires his car collection,

but misses the point that I think is the greater point,

which is this dude owns everything.

He is not, I think his Ferrari take

is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

And by the way, I would say this to him

over a drink, I'd be like, you buy Porsches,

but you're mad about the allocation process of Ferrari.

I've stated that before.

Oh yeah.

It's a completely unbalanced opinion.

He's allowed to have it

and you're allowed to bust his balls about it.

But you're also able to go, dude, this guy owns

so much cool stuff that by the way,

some people, it doesn't have a ton of value.

He's not buying everything for value.

He's like, I'm just a car guy.

Here's what I'm interested in.

You know who else is kind of like this,

but he got kind of into the Paul Newman stuff was,

is that a Corolla?

Yeah.

Yeah, Corolla is kind of a car guy.

I mean, he's kind of gone into specific,

but he's another guy that just kind of,

you could shoot the shit with about cars.

And I think a lot of our crowd,

if we could pass on anything,

because we have been talking about this

so long in our life,

one of the things I want to get across is

you become really boring to hang out with

if it's everything sucks, except for what I like.

I just don't think that's fun to hang out with.

No.

And by the way, that is more and more

how the car culture has become.

Yeah, which is why I'm considering

how much access you have to other perspectives

and other cars and other type of car content,

especially on YouTube.

I actually wanted to bring this up

somewhere in passing on the show

where I've seen some of the creators

that have been on for 10, 15 years

openly talk about how they've had to change

their content strategy because the platform's

just different, the attention spans are just different.

So when you used to get really good,

like there was a formula to early YouTubers

and a lot of people listen to this will know,

like you'll have a really good cinematic intro

to a video with the shots of the driving

of just kind of panning around the whole thing

with good music, good cuts,

and it would lead into them driving it

and then them talking about it.

And then kind of like, I guess Savage Geese

kind of still does it that way,

but they haven't been around for 15 years.

So these other OGs, even though they might be young,

like in my case, they're in their 30s, some of them,

and they're just like,

look, attention spans aren't there.

It's not worth the money.

It's not paying what it used to.

If I want to keep doing this, talking about the cars,

you know, driving some of them,

showing you guys impressions and opinions about it,

I have to adapt to the time.

And what's funny about this podcast is that

we've done it slowly and consistently

and in a way that is just authentic to our interest

and we haven't gone all out in one direction.

Like we're just gonna do really good cinematic,

you know, build projects

because take it from the people doing it 15 years,

it ain't worth it.

Like you got to do it slow methodical

in order to entertain and bring value.

Otherwise you just can't do it.

Yeah. And I think also slow methodical

is actually authentic.

Yeah.

Because it's how a regular person would do it.

Yeah. That's how you guys would be.

That's how any of us are.

Nobody just jumps in and has 25 different parts delivered

out of the blue and starts wrenching on a car.

And again, some of this stuff, you know,

to kind of give people inside baseball of our opinion,

also people not being authentic about being paid,

I think has started to make a lot of people uncomfortable.

Yeah.

Like, hey man, you should let people know.

And I think some creators are doing a great job

of saying, hey, this was donated by so-and-so

and whatever, but there's other creators

that have basically for 10 years kind of acted

like that wasn't happening.

And now it's hard to reverse course, right?

And I've always used the example.

None of us cared that Michael Jordan

was being paid by Nike.

Might as well just tell people.

People really don't care.

You know, they just want to see stuff.

You know, Steph Curry wears under armor

because they pay him.

I'm shocked.

I mean, I know athletes sponsored by people

by huge companies like Nike and Adidas

that go, the stuff they send me is horrendous

and I hate it, but they still wear it

because they're getting a check.

Hell yeah.

And at the end of the day, I think some of this stuff,

and I'd love to hear from our people about this

is through email or whatever,

I just think now we're in this different world

where you go, the reason Jay Leno worked

because that's who Jay Leno was, right?

And to see that I think is cool

because a lot of these people are playing characters

and I don't think you guys are driving

with that much anymore.

No, that's a very good point.

And Leno's character, literally it just works out

that it's him, whether it's on The Tonight Show

or whether it's on YouTube, like that is that guy.

It's really cool to see.

Yeah, and the crazy part is like all this stuff he owns,

he's like, I've never spent Tonight Show money.

That is such a crazy fact about that guy.

If it's true, I mean, this guy's gotta have more money

than anyone's ever gonna know.

Like no one's ever gonna really know.

Speaking of who can buy Rivian,

Jay step up to the plate, stroke the check.

That's true, but I think he's trying to go the other way

with like Leno's all it's like, look, let me keep my,

first give me my internal combustion

and then I'll go over here and buy this Rivian company.

Hey, I'm just saying things we can buy.

That's true.

Okay, I'm just saying, like let's buy some stuff.

Okay, all right, let's go, that's buy some stuff actually.

If you were to buy an EV company today,

who would it be?

Not just because of who they are today,

but who you think you might be able to turn them

into, who's doing it right?

Rivian, okay.

Just because I think Rivian's consistent.

It's not that they necessarily are the best

at everything, they have a mission,

they've stayed true to it.

I think their CEO really, again, restored cars.

That was like a thing in his life.

It doesn't, again, for all of us,

would I buy an EV company if I could buy a car company?

Of course, none of us would pick that

as the first thing to buy, okay?

Don't get it twisted.

I don't want you guys losing your mind, okay?

But yeah, EV company, they're doing it really well, man.

I mean, their stuff's nice.

They seem to be on a path that at least

you can see some light at the end of the tunnel.

I get it.

They're not hugely profitable or anything like that,

but I tend to have respect for companies,

which I think we talk about all the time,

that just stay true to themselves,

which is what makes a BMW or what you see

coming out of your favorite manufacturer.

Sometimes you go, God, that's just nothing

like what anybody likes.

You know what I mean?

I love the people that were in the comments

talking about how there's no such thing

as range anxiety anymore,

like nobody really gets range anxiety anymore.

I was like, damn, dog, you got some big brass balls

to be saying that.

Well,

one of the things is if that's what the manufacturers know

is what's holding them back

because they've done a billion surveys

of their dealership groups, of the actual end consumer.

I mean, just assuming you know more than the data

is the craziest thing in the world.

I love how matter of fact,

people can be in our comments too, like, no, wrong.

I love when people start with that's wrong

and then go into some fucking weird take about it.

I will say this, like, there's no doubt,

I think we're gonna get to a point

where range anxiety really shouldn't be a thing.

And it really shouldn't be a thing

driving around town at this point

if you can charge it home, which is what we've said.

But everyone has to understand

that just like in the political realm

and most things now,

the opposite ends of the spectrum

are screwing up the conversation.

Yes.

The far left of the EV conversation

and the far right of the EV conversation

is completely screwing up the conversation.

It's a complete disappointment.

It's the craziest thing I've seen in my career

of how much everyone's muddied the water

when there's always just been

a common sense approach to EVs.

Hey, man, if you're in downtown Los Angeles,

if you have to commute Los Angeles,

EV, pretty nice because that is crap.

I mean, Houston, you know this.

If you have to drive Houston at rush hour both ways,

an EV, probably pretty good investment for you.

Doesn't mean you have to do that,

but I just, I think it's such a,

it is the craziest thing I've seen in my time.

And I think both ends of the spectrum

of this conversation have screwed up

the conversation for everyone else

that it's not even enjoyable.

Yeah, can we just go back to the days

where like people were saying,

like if you bought a convertible, you're gay,

that kind of stuff.

Like those are way more fun conversations.

We do not accept Cabrio-Lay slander on this podcast.

We are fans of the craziest Cabrio-Lays

that have ever been built.

So how dare you Rob?

I dare, I dare, I dare.

The Nissan Murano Cabrio-Lay, the Evoke Cabrio-Lay.

Which by the way, there's this guy,

some company is like modifying G-Wagons

and they're turning them into Cabrio-Lays

and they're trying to sound like,

oh, you've never seen anything like this.

Yeah, but they built them.

Yeah, what are you talking about?

I've never seen things like this.

They actually built them.

They felt like they were like of revolutionaries

of some sort.

Oh dude, their promo video on TikTok, I go,

did they not research that they'd already done this?

That's so funny.

Actually, Mercedes did this.

This wasn't a shop.

Mercedes built this, my guy.

They already did it.

They just have an example in the corner

that you never see that's like,

that's what their inspiration is being brought from

is this car.

They're like taking the top down and go,

you've never seen anything like this.

It's like, no, we have, from Mercedes.

Dude, that's so funny.

Let's get in some listener questions

before you wrap up with another story or two.

Luke writes in and says,

hey guys, I was detailing my wife's car this weekend

and I grabbed the key fob to move it.

Notice it was gunked up from normal use.

Do you recommend a key fob cleaning every once in a while?

What hyper clean product would you recommend?

If so, thanks, love the pod.

Always, always clean up.

Those things get funky.

They do.

They get funky, hyper clean revive.

It's just a simple, nice interior cleaner.

It has some power, no danger to any buttons

or anything like that.

It doesn't have any harsh chemicals,

hyper clean revive, clean that thing up.

The most forgotten thing is the key fob.

Dude, I was looking to see if I had my pocket, Luke.

I honestly have never thought about cleaning it

with a cleaning product and I have some.

I guess you just dirt my gird over there.

Dude, dude, dude, you don't want to know

what this thing looks like.

It's gonna be like this.

I don't know why I get sick.

It's like, I don't know, man.

Why don't you look at that key fob?

I don't want to say anything

because last time I said I don't X, Y, Z.

I got X, Y, Z, so I'm just gonna be like,

yeah, I guess I'm a dirty guy

that might get sick from this fucking key fob.

I need to clean it.

The craziest part to me,

so the GTD stuff has been going around.

People have been reviewing it, which I think is cool.

It's a car not a lot of us are gonna drive

or see or whatever.

So I kind of like when they do these little press tours

and people review them.

The wildest thing is, they just used an F-150 key.

Oh no.

They showed the key fob, I'm like, all class, Ford.

Oh man.

You can get this key fob on your Expedition,

on your F-150, on your Raptor.

Pay 400 grand for this car with all the options.

Check out the key fob.

And I'm sure they have upgraded key fobs, but in-

They probably don't.

Let's be real.

I was like, what?

I don't know why.

Dude, I don't know why I thought it was gonna be

like at least a Porsche level

or even like a Pagani, something cool

and special looking.

Yeah, by the way, it might be when it,

I don't know, the one that they have on the press tour.

If you look at the key fob, I'm like,

so is that open your Raptor door?

But why would you give the press the crappy one?

The press needs the cool one.

That is bizarre.

Ford, what are you doing?

My ass up.

And by the way, what a psycho you have to be

to like keep rewinding the video.

Like I was like, tell me that's like a Ford Raptor key fob.

You're just scrubbing it back and forth on the short.

It's so hard to scrub sometimes too.

Like you're trying to drag it.

Five or six times and like you gotta be kidding me.

All right, Will writes in,

this one was a bit of a long one,

but I'm just gonna sum it up.

Disagreeing on the average person's ability

to go into an FNI office, aka the box

and actually negotiate to a level

where they're not gonna get screwed over.

Because you're, because as Will said,

not everybody's Nick, you've spent the better part

of your working life in this world.

Most people cannot handle the pressures

of an FNI office.

I think he has a point.

I do wanna hear that point,

but I also think people had not heard

the common sense approach enough.

Now you can make an offer over email.

You can make an offer over text message.

You can make an offer over the phone.

You can do a variety of things

that keep you out of that FNI office for very long.

Again, you're gonna have to go probably

for most people sign the paperwork.

You can also sign the paperwork over email, right?

So if you are that nervous about the FNI office,

I think there are ways to get around that,

but he's right.

People get in the FNI office and their problems get sweaty

and they listen to what Jim Bob,

the finance manager's telling them.

And I understand that, but also we've given the tools of,

hey guys, this is what I want out the door.

Take it or leave it.

And to say people aren't capable of doing that,

I understand that, but at some point,

if you're 35 years old,

should you be able to look at another person and go,

this is what I'm willing to pay.

I'm not gonna add anything on.

I think we also, what I wanna do is

I wanna hold all parties accountable, right?

Because just holding the dealership

or the manufacturing accountable

has not worked well for the consumer, okay?

Because you're not gonna hold them accountable all the time.

We can talk about that.

I don't agree with dealership tactics.

I don't agree with the things that went on

during COVID or whatever.

I can say that or we can empower ourselves to go,

hey, let's also understand the consumer

signs the documents, right?

And how do we get ourselves into a better position?

But he's right.

I know that people are very nervous in those FNI offices.

And everyone's right to say,

these people are good at what they do, right?

They know how to get money out of your pocket.

I understand that.

But also if you stop engaging,

they're not going to keep pushing.

They're just not.

Like especially new age guys,

they don't have that sales dog

in every dealership that they used to have.

That's true.

Trust me when I say this.

They don't have those.

Those aren't just running around anymore.

They're some of them.

Yeah, they don't have Jordan Belfort's

everywhere in every office.

You know, they don't have the Wolf of Wall Street

everywhere.

Those days are gone.

Those people are selling medical devices now.

Yeah, exactly.

They're selling pharmaceuticals.

They're making way more money

than they would have made at the dealership.

Well, I think that was a really good answer by Nick

and I want you to appreciate the fact

that when I heard a palm just sweaty,

I didn't immediately go mom spaghetti

because I really wanted to interrupt you

just to say that.

You had to just hold yourself back.

The brain sometimes just wants to take over.

He did follow up by say, OK, rant over.

Separate question, please.

For the love of God, explain the takeover culture

and why these kids are willing to get hit by cars

and get spinal injuries.

And worse, I've seen some crazier things.

I've gotten to the point where I'm like, bro,

you got to stop sending me this many of these videos

because I'm seeing things in these videos

that I haven't seen in horror movies.

Yeah, I agree with you.

And explain it, I think, is a good word

because a good couple of words, I don't know.

I have no idea.

I think it's the cornea.

But again, it is for the Graham.

Yeah.

Everyone thinks.

And I kind of feel I'm more compassionate about this

for the younger crowd because I think everybody thinks

they're going to make a ton of money on the internet

and on social media.

And they think if I have a viral moment,

this is going to set me off.

And I think they've been raised a lot of people

that are now 15 to under 30, 28, 29,

they've been raised in these viral moments.

Our viral moments used to be Vine.

Remember Vine back in the day?

Oh, yeah.

Like Vine was huge, right?

But it was snippets.

It was you had to do something quickly.

Like seven seconds, yeah.

Now these guys can run something for two, three minutes,

minute and a half.

They think they're going to get their face out there.

They think that's going to lead to some type of brand deal.

I don't know why they think that,

that they're getting hit by a car,

like that Michelin's going to call them and go,

hey, we saw you on this video.

But I'm telling you, I think that's the basis of it,

don't you?

I do.

I kind of compare it to just like every chick

on Instagram thinking that only fans are going to be like,

hey, we'll pay you for that butthole

if you just keep showing it online.

You know, like, why is that?

We are definitely going to get banned by the people.

No, no, that's only in the first five minutes.

We're good after that.

After five minutes we're fine.

So I will say, I think it's so corny.

I think of what most of you listening think of it.

It's dangerous for no reason.

At least you know why Travis Pastrana is jumping a car

or jumping his bike because he's like,

I'm going to make a lot of money off this

because I'm going to be a stuntman.

I don't know what these people think.

What a legend.

You're not going to be famous

getting hit by cars at takeovers.

No, that's going to be your last takeover car event ever.

It's for most of them, unfortunately.

It's such a good question.

And it's like anything else, this will die down.

At some point, this will just become something

we talk about, I mean, shutting down big,

major streets for racing was this massive thing

for the better part of five, seven, eight years

in the fast and furious days.

Streets closed, pizza boy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and here's the deal.

I realize that that still happens.

Okay, I'm not saying it doesn't,

but that was like what people were doing.

There was all kinds of arrests.

This is just one of those things

that's hung on longer than we all thought.

For sure.

But it'll fizzle out, but it's super corny.

Yeah, it's unfortunate because we used to have,

like you said, the best car show was just like a low key,

low rider show, go have some, have a coffee

or a drink or whatever and see some cool cars.

Everyone's chill, usually a family event.

And now you got this going on,

like what happened in 10, 15 years?

Yeah, dude, it's the downfall society.

It's the downfall society.

We're in a civil war.

I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what,

you're telling me that at the age of 35.

The last couple of weeks have been wild.

They have, and again, this is for an after hour show

that's gonna be created in year two maybe

where Nick and I just go off the rails

talking about, you're telling me that in 2026,

the world's gonna end.

You're doing all these voices of all the different people

we make fun of.

A thousand percent.

And just so we're clear, we're equal opportunity here.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

I make fun of everyone.

Also, I talk like that because I grew up

with those people.

Those are still my best friends.

It's the same five guys that I grew up with

and they all talk like that.

That's how I grew up.

Here's the thing.

That's a Mexican that is trying to tell us

why you should be racist against white people

and do that voice.

I'm not gonna buy it.

That's okay.

As a token white guy, I'm putting a stop.

Well, in today's world,

That's offensive to me.

In today's world, I have more leverage in the world.

So what I say goes, I don't know if you know this.

Yeah.

Yeah, you're telling me for 40 freaking years

or whatever that guy says.

That guy's great.

I love that guy.

Have you learned anything like that

from people on the internet where it's like an interesting

or a fun fact about like a household good

or a car thing that you like never knew existed?

Dude, I see that stuff all the time.

And then when I come to do that thing,

I never remember it.

Oh.

And then after I complete this task

that's like way hard to do that is there's an easier way.

I'm like, oh, dude, that dude did a video on it.

Why did I just struggle?

You're going to your like history.

Because here's the funny thing.

I got to put a new kid's bed together this weekend

already dreaded.

You already know everybody out there,

it could be a bed for yourself.

It could be a bed for your kid, whatever.

Everybody knows the dread looking at that box all week.

Sir, sir, sir.

Guys listening and the one gal listening.

I'm on my operation desk here where everything's set up.

Behind me has been my second desk for three, four months,

going on four months.

It's open.

I have not taken a single thing

out of this box for my next desk.

I just, I can't do it.

It's a dread that there's no reason

to have this much dread about.

You are absolutely right.

Absolutely right.

Where you just go, God damn it, I don't want to do this.

You know, you're so right.

One of my favorite quotes to tell my wife or anybody is like,

look, there's no sense in being unreasonable.

I'm being unreasonable, but I put in his desk together.

I just can't help it.

It's unreasonable.

Just to complete, by the way,

the amount of minutes spent dreading it

is like exponentially more than it would have just

to do it.

Yeah, dude.

There's no reason to get all worked up.

But you look at that box,

I was, it was in the front part of my house

and I walked by and I said, oh, I mean, just out loud.

I was like, oh, God.

You walk in and the first thing you do is, uh-huh.

Dude, so stupid.

I have no reason to dread it this much.

It's like, it's gonna be an hour, you know, hour and a half.

At least.

If it's a bad experience, which we've had,

maybe you get to a couple hours of, you know,

obscenities in your kid's room, right?

All by yourself.

But I spent more time looking at that box this week

than it is gonna take to put the freaking thing together.

That is so funny, dude.

All right, we have to end on something

that we've talked about a few times

and I think most people appreciate this vehicle.

And that is the 2025 Ford Maverick, all right?

So more of a good thing essentially is what Ford's saying,

or at least car and driver's saying,

the 25 Ford Maverick gives you more of a good thing.

The updated Maverick keeps the momentum going

with an additional hybrid AWD and a lowered Lobo,

which we talked about the Lobo Street Truck all about.

Oh, that's all you.

Yeah, I don't like the way it looks.

I know what you're trying to do there

and I don't appreciate it

just because it's called the Lobo.

Okay, I don't like the Lobo.

I don't think it looks good, not my taste.

But I do like the blue though.

That blue and that Lobo truck was pretty dope.

I still don't know why we don't have

a cheaper version of this truck, man.

I know we've talked about it at Nauseam,

but this is the perfect car to like set

the whole car industry into a whole new direction.

I mean, Ford brought to you by Mexico.

That would be the number one reason why.

Yeah.

I think this is probably one of those things.

And I don't know that I'm right on this

because we'll have to see the sales numbers

at the end of this year

and the sales numbers for next year.

I think this thing kind of missed its pricing window

where it could have just dominated the market.

And I think that's somewhere between 22 and 28,000 bucks

for the top end packages, 28, bare bones, 22

in today's world.

And it's just kind of unfortunate.

I think for the people that are buying them

and still that's in your price range,

I don't think you can go wrong with that little truck

to get around town, I'm not saying that.

But it feels like they had a moment

and they couldn't produce when that moment hit, right?

And so now it just becomes another truck,

another option to buy.

And again, if you can buy a slightly used F-150

for around the same price,

I think people always end up bumping up

the size of the truck.

I think that's just the American buyer.

So the average XL back when these first came out,

I know they were advertised at like,

I think maybe 21, 22, something like that.

But they had 20, I mean, they had a flat $20,000 price tag

that I think lasted all of about seven minutes.

I was gonna say, yeah, because what it ended up selling

for more on the average was 25.

And that was still for like the bare bones ones.

And now here it's gonna start at 30

and it's gonna work its way up to 37.9.

Which means you're gonna end up in that 34 to $36,000

I don't wanna bang on them because they're doing something

that I don't think enough companies are investing in.

But all of the traction this could have gained

and they couldn't produce when they needed it

at high levels.

Again, this is why I always say

outsourcing looks good on the balance sheet, okay?

But I think without sourcing this to Mexico,

that caused them to lose their opportunity

to go gobble up a lot of the market

because they couldn't ramp up production

the way they probably could if this was in Detroit

or this was in Ohio or this was in Tennessee.

I just don't think they had the capacity

and that's where the balance sheet

of moving something to Mexico doesn't always pan out.

And I've talked to a lot of people much smarter

than me in manufacturing that always talk about that

that companies never know how to put that risk factor

and then the risk factor for Maverick actually

it actually happened, right?

And what happened was they couldn't produce.

At the time I think they could have just,

I think you could have seen a Maverick everywhere.

I mean, I think there was a time people

were looking for that cheap truck in the middle of COVID

if they could have ramped up production

and it was $25,000, there's no telling

how many units I think they could have sold at that time.

So because we talked about Maverick,

I gotta bring this one up as well.

Will the tiny slate truck become the next big thing?

So we haven't talked about Slate in a while

and as we land the plane officially here,

do you have any new revised thoughts on Slate,

that project, that vehicle?

Well, Slate, just like everybody said at the time,

I think even us, it was all based

on the $7,500 tax credit.

That's going away, I think in what, four days?

Yep, at the end of September.

That's done in four days.

I think Slate has a lot more questions than answers.

And again, to remind everybody what I said,

we have to see it get to production.

That was always the biggest hurdle.

It seems like they've kind of stalled out

with the fervor around the brand.

I heard a scout commercial, I tell you this.

No.

I was listening to a podcast

and they paid for a scout commercial.

I'm like, is that right around my coin?

I thought that was like 27 or into 26 or something.

I think we said into 26 last time we brought it up.

I mean, that's kind of a random read to hear

as an advertisement on a sports podcast

I was listening to.

But I wanna see Slate push the other manufacturers

that's still my point of contention,

is that we all should root on Slate just so

maybe Toyota makes a move, Ford gets more aggressive

with Maverick, the Dakota comes back,

all this kind of stuff.

You know, one truck that's getting lost in all this

is Ranger.

Well, because it's the size of an F-150

and costs us as much.

Yeah, I think Ranger's in an interesting perspective

because they kind of released Maverick

what the Ranger should have been.

Yeah, yeah.

They were gonna revive that name.

And I do see some Rangers around,

but this is kind of what Chevy's had

with the Colorado problem.

You know what I mean?

It's like, it just kind of exists, but it's too expensive.

So I think it's gonna be interesting

to see those type of things

and what happens as people want a smaller truck,

what happens to the Ranger and the Colorado

and that kind of thing.

Well, funny enough, I try to convince my wife

to get a Ranger.

I drove them, we drove them.

I really liked it.

It suited all the needs, like the outdoorsy stuff

that we do out here in Central Texas

and the traveling from time to time

and just having a bed that you don't have to go rent a truck

or we don't have anybody to ask.

And she just wasn't into it at the end of the day.

So we got the, obviously the Mazda,

but from time to time, she does say,

Nick's mentioned that Raptor before.

What if we get a Raptor?

It's like, how the fuck you don't want a Ranger?

We wanna go get a Raptor instead.

Now you're just bumping, see?

That's how it happens.

I know.

Hey, this Maverick is sensible.

Let's get a Gen 1 Raptor.

There you go.

Exactly.

You can't make sense of it,

but I'm not gonna say no.

So if we find the right one,

we will let everybody know where

and if I don't get it, you can get it.

All right, ClutchCulturePodcast.com is the email.

Thank you to those that emailed this week.

We're gonna try to obviously make a segment.

We get to them all the time when we get them on occasion.

There's so much news that we don't get to them,

but ClutchCulturePodcast.com.

Nick is at HyperClean.

Nick, there's gonna be some really good,

really good content coming with that LX

in the near future.

We're working on one, two projects already,

and then there's a third one,

possibly even a fourth one already in the mix

for this fall slash winter.

So we're doing it steady Eddie style,

like most of you would,

and gonna have some cool conversations

to go along with the projects

because we're not just here's some parts

and we're gonna put on a vehicle.

There's a much more methodical process

to what we're trying to do.

And unless you wanna add anything to that,

Nick, I think that's all we got for them.

Yeah, we'll talk to you guys next week.

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