The Pontiac Firebird is a sporty car that was made in the same era as the Camaro. It's known for its speed and cool design, and many people enjoy collecting them.
Hot Wheels are small toy cars made by a company called Mattel. They started making them in 1968, and the 'Sweet 16' was the first set of 16 cars they sold, including the Custom Camaro.
Red line tires are special tires that have a red stripe on the side. They are usually found on sporty cars and make the car look more stylish and performance-oriented.
Automotive News is a magazine that shares news and information about cars and the car industry. It's helpful for people who work with cars or are interested in what's happening in that world.
A credit union is like a bank, but it's owned by its members. They often offer better loan rates because they are not trying to make a profit like regular banks do.
Vehicle sensor data is information gathered from different parts of your car that helps track how well it's running. It can tell you things like how fast you're going or if there's a problem with the engine.
These are smart technologies in cars that help drivers by making driving easier and safer. They can help keep the car in its lane, adjust speed automatically, and even brake if needed.
This is a smart cruise control that can change your car's speed automatically based on how fast the car in front of you is going. It helps you keep a safe distance without having to adjust the speed yourself.
This is a type of technology that helps computers and systems learn from their experiences. In cars, it helps them get better at driving by learning from different situations they encounter.
This is a feature from Ford that lets you drive your car without using your hands on the wheel in certain situations. It helps make long drives easier and more comfortable.
Cameras in cars help drivers see what’s around them and can assist with parking or keeping the car in its lane. They are part of safety features in modern vehicles.
Warning bells in cars are sounds that alert you when something might be wrong or if you need to pay attention, like if you’re falling asleep while driving.
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Hey folks, Lenny Lawson here, the CarGuru, and today this is going to be exciting.
This is something you did not anticipate one bit.
No way you could have, because it is the result of an argument that I had this morning with
my wife.
Lenny, why do you use that AI stuff so much?
Because it works.
How do you trust it?
Well, I don't 100%, but how do you trust anything these days?
So I set out to prove it, and so I got to the dealership this morning, and I don't know,
I don't open this drawer, I'm at my desk right now, sitting beside my computer, and
I don't open this middle drawer very often.
But for some reason or other, I did this morning, and I saw two Hot Wheels cars.
One is a 1967 Custom Camaro in iridescent green with a black top, and the other is a Firebird
of the same series.
So I was just going to test AI and see what it would provide to me, so I took a picture
of it.
And I subscribe, yes, I actually pay money for AI, to ChatGPT, version five.
I'm not sure what that means, but it's better than the free one.
It cost me $19.95 a month.
So I took a picture of this little Hot Wheel, and I said, is this valuable?
And within about two seconds, it said this, and I'm reading it off my phone.
That's a great piece.
What you've got there looks like an early Hot Wheels Custom Camaro from 1968.
One of the original Sweet 16 cars Mattel launched when the brand debuted.
That's the voice of AI right there.
I'm trying to mimic it.
Here are some key details to help you confirm and estimate its value.
So it gave me the color, the year that it first came out.
It was one of the first of the series of Hot Wheels.
I remember my brother and I got a Hot Wheels track for Christmas one year, and
this was one of the cars that we got.
No, I didn't buy this somewhere.
I didn't go to a yard sale or something and
see this in a pile of old Hot Wheels cars.
No, this actually came from St.
Albans, West Virginia, and I was, what, 11 years old, and I still have it.
So that's pretty cool.
Anyway, value.
Value estimate as of 2025, of course, it depends heavily on condition and base origin.
So base of origin means, did it come from Hong Kong or did it come from the US?
Well, mine came from Hong Kong.
Do you think that makes it more valuable or less valuable?
It makes it more valuable.
Normally that's not the case.
So if it's mint, no chips, and a working suspension, which this is not mint,
it would be worth approximately $800.
That's right, sitting in my drawer here at Gateway Ford.
If it's in good condition, moderate playware like yours.
See, it even recognized that.
It's worth approximately $300.
If it's ugly, it has a lot of, it's rough.
In other words, it has paint loss, corrosion, missing parts.
It's still worth from $50 to $100.
So it talks about different tips to verify authenticity and a little bit of the history of it.
And it talked about the red line tires and all the different features.
That's just amazing.
That's what AI can do.
Well, that's one of many things it can do.
So I was reading automotive news just a little while ago.
And it's talking about this company that has developed an AI tool for car dealers like me.
In order to reduce operating costs in our dealership.
And it made a list of all the different things that it can do for a car dealer.
Everything from answering your phones, scheduling appointments.
Actually, it can go into your computer system.
Of course, we have a pretty sophisticated system in a car dealership.
Very expensive, doggone it.
But yeah, it can actually go in and scan your appointment schedule
and analyze the request that the customer is making and just slide it right in.
Where a technician has time available.
I mean, I can see it handling all of our scheduling at some point.
And not just for me, but for other dealers all over this country.
Not just dealers, not car dealers, but any business.
But you know, my concern on this radio program is what does it do for car buyers and car owners?
So I asked it.
I said, chat GPT.
Tell me how AI is going to benefit car buyers and just car owners in general.
You know what it said?
I'll tell you in just a minute.
Okay, so I asked chat GPT.
I said, how will AI help car buyers and owners?
Again, it gave me a very nice compliment.
It said, excellent question, Lenny.
And one that knows my name now.
That's disturbing.
And one that's changing fast.
AI is already transforming how people shop for, buy, finance, maintain and even drive their cars.
Here's a clear look at how AI will help car buyers and car owners,
both right now and in the future.
So let's look at this list.
Number one, personalized shopping.
So what this article was saying is that if you have a, let's say a car buyer and they want to,
they just don't want to deal with car dealers.
They don't want to do anything online.
So they go into this app.
They tell the AI bot or whatever you want to call it, what they want, all of the specs.
They download the specs of the vehicle they want.
And then they just say, find me the best deal on this vehicle within a 250 mile radius
and negotiate the transaction to the point where I'm able to arrange the purchase,
the financing and actually pay for the car.
Don't want to have to do anything, period.
You know what?
The AI bot does exactly that.
It will reach out to all the dealers by either text messaging or email.
Millions of transactions are analyzed across the country,
what people are paying for these particular vehicles.
It bases offers on that.
Of course, I'm sure you can set your budget.
There's probably a questionnaire that you have to fill out.
But once it knows all the parameters that you're looking for, it goes shopping for you.
And let's say there are 10 dealers that sell the brand that you're interested in,
the vehicle that you're interested in.
It is located and found the exact spec that you're looking for, color and everything.
And then it starts communicating with the Business Development Center
in those 10 dealerships all simultaneously, finding out who offers the best deal,
who's going to meet the price.
And then it'll send you to the one that's the closest.
All you have to do is go in and sign the paperwork.
That sounds pretty cool from a buyer's standpoint.
I guess the only question is when can you actually feel confident
that what you're seeing, reading, the answers that it's providing are accurate.
It's still going to have to be checked against something.
And I'm sure it's going to provide detailed information on a used car.
Probably dive into a vehicle history report or two.
It'll find out where the vehicle came from and come up with an acceptable price.
And then it'll go shopping for that used vehicle.
So this is what's going to be available to you.
I mean, it's not too distant.
It's available now in many cases.
But people don't trust it yet.
People don't know about it.
That's why I'm here to make you aware of it.
I talk about the four targets.
I talk about if you hit the four targets and you do a good job based on information
that you have either learned from me or learned online.
You've found out what the best selling price is for a vehicle that you're interested in.
You know what your trade-in's worth.
You know what the credit terms are going to be.
And then you have analyzed what the aftermarket items, if any, that you want to buy.
I mean, that's four different totally separate things that you need to be able to do.
I don't know if AI is going to be able to do all of that for you.
But it will be able to analyze just about anything.
I mean, I took a snapshot of page one of my financial statement, which is pretty complex.
I mean, I'm talking about the balance sheet.
And it shows the assets, liabilities, net worth, and so forth.
It shows receivables and, you know, just a summary of certain things.
And I just said analyze this.
And then a few seconds later, there it was.
Multiple pages of analysis.
Most of it good.
A few little things that I really hadn't paid attention to.
A couple inventory items.
Receivables were a little high in certain category.
So I went and talked to my parts manager.
And I said, you know, do we need to look at this?
Who's not paying?
And he said, well, we're having a little bit of a problem with this such-and-such body shop that's paying really slow.
See, I don't even know that I would have noticed that if I hadn't used the AI bought.
I called the AI bought BOT because I don't really know what I should call it.
It's just AI, artificial intelligence.
And it's an app.
Okay, let's just call it an AI app because bought is kind of short for robot.
And we don't want to talk about something like the Terminator coming down and negotiating car deals for us.
Of course, that could be effective.
Okay, so anyway, it will negotiate the price, get it down to a point.
We also provide car dealers with pricing tools so that they can be more competitive and turn their inventories faster.
So that's a good thing.
It talks about virtual test drives and digital assistance.
I don't know.
I don't think you can virtually test drive a car.
It's just like, let's go virtually swimming.
I don't think it's going to be a great experience.
Sorry, I can't get the feel of a car on a computer nor can I get the feel of water, you know, on my skin as I swim virtually.
That makes no sense to me.
Okay, finance and credit optimization.
That's another benefit.
AI can compare thousands of lender programs in seconds to find the best rate and structure for each buyer's credit profile.
So I guess it's going to pull your credit.
It's going to analyze it.
It may lecture you a little bit, who knows.
But it can suggest the most cost-effective term worn against overfinancing can streamline approvals.
So the problem with that is that most dealers have their own group of lenders.
Like for example, let's say that you go to dealership A or dealership B.
And dealership A, they both sell the same brands, but they don't use all the same lenders.
Like one of them might be credit union heavy.
In other words, they use a lot more credit unions than the other dealer and the other one may use more banks, bigger banks and so forth.
So, you know, that's why you have to look at rates and really understand what your credit profile looks like.
Maybe AI can help with that.
I think for car owners, one of the things it's going to do is it will analyze a vehicle sensor data on your vehicle,
miles driven, how you drive, you know, the quality of your oil, even breakware.
And it will predict issues before they happen.
So you might get a message on your screen that says,
your transmission fluid shows heat patterns that suggest service in 1200 miles.
I think that would be handy.
I get warnings on my vehicle.
You probably do too if your oil change needs to be done.
A little wrench comes up, or maybe your check engine light comes on.
Wouldn't it be nice to say, hey, Bob, let's say that's the name of your AI.
And you say, hey, Bob, why is the check engine light on my car?
And it tells you, you know, that can't be far behind.
And that would be great, wouldn't it?
Hey, Bob, before I head to Florida, would you please check my car over and make sure everything's good?
Wouldn't it be wonderful?
And then you don't have to drive to somebody like me to do a bumper to bumper inspection.
There's still things, though, like I say, you're going to have to look at.
You're going to have to have somebody with eyes, ears, nose to check out.
And AI can't turn wrenches yet.
You know, I took a picture of a set of tires on this night,
or I sold a 1957 Chevy truck and they had the weirdest looking tires on it.
I took a picture of the tire and where you could see, you know, the name, brand, everything.
Never heard of it.
I took the picture, put it in chat GPT and it told me not only where I could find them,
but what new ones would cost.
And then it asked me, do you want me to tell you how old the tires are?
If so, take a picture of the back of the tire where the DOT code is.
I mean, that folks, is that not just incredible?
You can take a picture of anything.
You can take a picture of a tree or a leaf or a particular kind of dog,
and you can put it in chat GPT and it'll tell you exactly what it is.
Now, is this going to dumb us down?
Absolutely.
I mean, people aren't going to have to think.
They're just going to be prompted to do things.
And that's kind of scary and sad.
I think it will hurt education institutions.
I mean, how are they going to know that some chat bot didn't write that term paper?
I mean, there are telltale signs that you can tell when chat GPT has written something
because it uses some weird punctuation and I've gotten pretty good at identifying it.
I was reading an article, it was online, and it was in one of the major news sources.
I think it was maybe NBC.com or something.
I don't remember. It was something like that.
And I recognized that whoever wrote the article used chat GPT because it had those telltale signs.
Okay, let's see what else.
Smarter service experience, it'll automatically schedule service appointments,
order parts, even chat with you about recall notices or warranty status.
Cameras and AI diagnostics will speed up multi-point inspections,
catching things like warrantiers or cracked lenses automatically.
I don't see anything wrong with that.
Lower ownership cost is another possible advantage.
It can continuously analyze insurance, fuel, and maintenance patterns to recommend ways to save.
Imagine it knows what your current insurance company is, what the costs are.
You can either prompt it to go out and search for a better deal
or it will just do it on its own if you program it to do that
or if you ask it to do that on a regular basis.
You know, I think we're going to be able to set up calendars
and it will automatically check things for us and remind us to do things.
Like, well, if it could just remind me to take the garbage out
and to empty the dishwasher, then that would improve our 47-year relationship.
Oh yeah, and pick up my underwear.
Okay, let's see.
Driver assistance and safety.
AI is the brain behind the advanced driver assistance systems that are on cars now.
So lane keeping, adaptive cruise, automatic braking, blind stop, monitoring.
They all rely on what they call machine learning.
So you're going down the road and you've got the Ford Blue Cruise on.
You don't have your hands on the steering wheel.
The car is basically driving itself.
At the same time, it's learning.
Every action that it has to avoid or something that it has to change lanes or whatever,
it's learning from that.
If you grab the steering wheel because you think it's too close to the truck
that you're passing in the lane right beside you, it's learning from that as well.
And don't you know that there are engineers that are up in Detroit
or maybe Dearborn Michigan in Ford's instance
that can dial into your car at any time and see what your vehicle is doing
from the outside, just what it sees through the cameras.
It's not looking inside.
Well, I guess it could because there are cameras that are pointing at you
to make sure that you're paying attention.
You know, if you decide to take a snooze, it's going to set off all kinds of warning bells,
might even vibrate your seat, say, wake up.
Come on.
You're supposed to be a participant here.
But yeah, if you do a slow blink, I said, do you need some coffee?
Something like that.
I remember I was taking a long swig of tea.
You start to think something else, didn't you?
No, it's a swig of my big pal's tea and I was looking over at my wife for too long
and it said something like focus on the road.
Lenny, come on.
So this is what's happening.
So sometime in the next 5, 10 years, it'll let you buy a vehicle completely online
from negotiation to financing to delivery, you know,
and then you won't even have to drive it when it shows up.
It will enable your car to diagnose itself and update software autonomously
and it could make the ownership experience more predictive, personalized and frictionless.
Kind of like Amazon does, you know, or Facebook.
They serve up the kind of ads that you kind of linger on.
TikTok does the same thing.
So all of this learning, they're learning about us.
What's the end of that?
What is the end result?
It's kind of scary, it's science fiction stuff, but, you know, that's not what this show is about.
I just want to know how it's going to affect car life
and hopeful that it will make it better.
Okay, I'll be back in just one minute.
Okay, so you have a decision to make
and a lot of you already have, I'm sure.
My wife has, my nephew has, who's worked here.
I'm not using that, that's what they say.
I'm not using that, I'm not going to help it learn anything.
And that's fine, if that's the way you feel.
I don't, you know, I'm kind of an adopter of technology.
Sometimes I wish I weren't that way
because it leads me to spend too much money at the Apple store.
But I've got cracks in my iPhone screen right now
and I'm not replacing it, I'm going to wait a while.
But still, I see AI as a tool.
Now, is it Satan?
You know, is it going to bring humanity down?
Maybe.
I don't know.
I don't think it is tomorrow.
And in the meantime, it's going to be used by me
and it's going to be crammed down our throats by everybody else.
And there are people making boo-coos of money right now
on AI companies as far as their stock portfolios are concerned.
They say that you think the tech boom was big for the stock market.
Wait till you see the AI boom.
And now's the time to get in it.
I've got a phone call into my broker
and I'm just wanting him to, you know,
not take a whole bunch of money but take some money
and tell me where to go to chase after this AI boom
because I think it's worth looking at.
If you have any suggestions, text me.
I'd like to know your opinions or your successes or failures.
I talked to a guy the other day said in the last year
he's turned $200,000 into $800,000 in Bitcoin.
And I said, well, I've heard of Bitcoin
but I still don't know what it is.
I don't know how it's created.
Apparently you don't have to know what it is to make money doing it.
So this kind of information is out there.
These technologies are upon us.
And while I will stick my head in the sand on the news
and I still haven't downloaded any of my apps that I deleted,
Fox News, CNN, none of them.
I don't want to know what's going on in the world.
It's too stressful and I can't do anything about it.
So I'm just going to focus on my world and your world
when it comes to your cars.
Well, thanks for listening to this edition of My Car Guru.
Don't forget to send me your email address
to 423-552-2020.
I'll send you a copy of the My Car Guru guidebook.
It's not been replaced yet by AI.
You still need it.
Plus the price is phenomenal.
It's free and I'll shoot it right to you.
Thanks for listening again and I'll see you next time.
About this episode
Lenny Lawson dives into how artificial intelligence is reshaping the car buying and ownership experience. He shares a personal story about using AI to evaluate the value of Hot Wheels cars, illustrating AI's potential in assessing vehicle worth. The discussion expands to AI's role in personalized shopping, financing, and predictive maintenance for car owners. Lenny highlights both the benefits and concerns of relying on AI, emphasizing its transformative impact on dealerships and the future of car ownership, while also addressing the skepticism many have towards this technology.
