Is Magnus Walker Moving On From Porsche? The Signs Are Hard to Ignore

I know you sort of have to like I have to go left hand coffee cup.

I'm like my thing's on the left side, but I have to come all because my right hand has got to be on the mouse.

So I can and I want you to know this is for you right here and this is for you.

And this is this new mic stand has got this microphone right up next to my mouth.

Speaking of Anna speaking of Anna our editor.

She also told me that we're terrible at starting all of our podcasts with a hook, right?

So a hook is basically something that's going to get somebody listening or watching

to want to just stay listening and watching so you don't lose them initially.

And so we just had a really good hook for today's podcast.

So Paul, what is today's really good hook?

Dave and I beat up on Tim for his false accusations about Porsche being a poser brand.

Okay, we'll go with that.

And David, you got a careful talking over, dude.

Don't talk over Paul.

You guys thought all the time.

All right.

So, hey, by the way, this is full throttle talk.

We've already hit the record button.

So there's our hook.

So the hook is why these two grumpy old man decided to beat up on their superior younger

co-host.

That's the real question.

Younger, you may look younger.

I don't think you're actually younger.

I only look younger because of good lighting.

And I am younger than you by a year, aren't I?

Wait, how old are you?

I'm 56.

Let's go into this gentleman.

Let's move on.

Let's go.

Exactly, David.

No, wait, we already know.

Don't worry, Dave.

I'm 56 in March this year.

I'm 55.

Okay.

I'll be 57 in April.

Oh, it's pretty close.

Pretty close.

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Well, so we did have an interesting debate in the newsletter and I really was loving it

because I had an opportunity, as someone correctly said, to rant about something

that's been pissing me off a long time about Porsche.

And I was, um, these two guys were absolutely, uh, you know, I would say upset with me

for having published the article, but the reality of it is a lot of you got it.

You understood what my point was.

And so what we're going to do is we're going to, we're going to follow our format.

We're going to talk about automotive news.

We're going to talk about the great debate from the newsletter.

We're going to talk about the medium, make them auction results,

especially the Ferrari auction results, which I think personally are,

you know, absolutely bonkers, some of the things that happen,

but we now know why we have the backstory.

And we're also going to talk about is Magnus Walker selling out of his collection.

Paul's got some personal insights because they're, they're great friends.

And so we're going to be talking a lot about Magnus because guess what?

He looks like he's putting a majority of his 9-11 collection at RM auctions.

And he's going to be selling all of it.

And then we're going to get some of your questions and some of your comments.

So guys, let's ease in today's podcast with some automotive news.

And I've got some humdingers ready for Paul.

So I'll save that for last.

David, so we're not, so we're not, hold on a second.

We're not going to talk about what we did this weekend.

Does that matter?

No, we'll talk about it.

We got too many other things to go through.

And, and I've got, we've got, we've got to get back to life.

These two hour podcasts are, you know, it's a lie.

Wearing me out.

Exactly. David.

So what about automotive news?

Well, I'm sorry that I'm having to go first because I don't have a great picture.

But the automotive news that I had, which was just a giant disappointment to me,

because I think I teased this a couple of episodes ago, was the Ford sports car that

they were going to roll out as a brand new sports car.

And I think everybody focused on it being maybe, you know, another Ford GT or something

that was really unique.

And in the end, it just turned out to be another damn Mustang.

So it is now the 2026 Ford Mustang Dark Horse.

And again, if I, if I didn't realize I was going to go quite so quick,

or I'd have a picture of it, maybe Paul can pull it up here while I'm talking,

because he's really quick at that sort of stuff.

But I mean, it's, it's designed as kind of slot in between this, the GTD and, you know,

some, some of the other stuff that's a little further down the line.

It's just another loud freaking Ford to me.

So another Mustang.

So I'm not really, you know, wasn't too excited about that was disappointed.

I felt like Ford let me down.

And so, oh, well, I got to stay with Porsche.

I put up my triggering picture for Paul.

Added curiosity, guys, the GTD.

So really a badass car.

But at the end of the day, seems like a little bit slow in its reflexes and probably too heavy

ultimately.

But if Porsche were to make a car like that, really even Ferrari were to make a car

that's engineered to that degree.

Can you imagine how much they'd be able to sell it for?

Well, also, if you look at the GTD, I think Jim Farley had a different goal in mind,

which was build a platform to go racing with and then homologate it.

So I think the problem is the compromise you have to make for a street car

is what really hinders the car from being that better.

But then when you look at the tests, the Jason Camisa test and the Nürburgring test,

the GTD was, I would say, for a first go at a GT product street car pretty close to the GT3,

which is sort of the king of the hill.

And like we said before, the ZR1 didn't count that.

That should have been a Z06 in that competition.

You keep saying that because you keep saying that because it's based on horsepower,

but we'll go back to that.

And you're not necessarily wrong with that.

But the reality of it is, is that if the GTD had some sort of like they made it all out

of carbon fiber and it was all these exotic materials and these incredible dampers and the

whole thing, would you be saying, well, it's because they were able to evolve their car

to Formula 1 tech that it should no longer be in that segment?

So just because Corvette jumped the shark with regards to horsepower

doesn't necessarily mean that they should go to a different category.

It just means that they're superior in the product that they made to their competitors

in that particular category.

But we'll go back to that.

How about that?

Unless you want to?

OK.

No, no, I'm waiting to talk about the road and track performance car of the year.

Yeah, I know.

I read that.

Honestly, I just laughed the whole time thinking how much you hated to see that.

Honestly, Paul, real, real reaction when you saw that.

What did you think?

It was no big deal.

It was expected.

Is it a great car?

Absolutely.

But if you look back, road and track has featured a Mustang, a Corvette,

and a Porsche.

Every time there's a major model change.

So my question is, given a choice, would you rather have a 2013 Chevy Corvette Stingray?

I don't know.

What is that?

C-13?

C-7, yeah.

C-7 or a 2009 1.1 GT3?

Well, this is 2026.

You lost 13 years.

I know, but which would you rather have?

2013 Stingray.

Well, for sure the Porsche, yeah.

So my point is, and then you go to the next one, which is the 991, the 99,

the ZR1 is the next Corvette because that's the C-7.

Sort of the end of the thing.

And then you go to the 992 GT3 because that's really the first major change.

My point being is, yes, they make a great car, but I kind of,

do you remember that chewing gum, fruit stripe gum when you were a kid,

you know, or any of those sugar gums, bubble licious?

You would put them in your mouth and they were like amazing explosion of flavor.

And then after like 10 seconds, you couldn't wait to spit that crap out of your mouth.

And that's what I equate Corvettes to.

They're really flashy.

They're really great.

They have huge performance numbers.

I'm not discrediting how good they are as a car.

Out of the box, talk about a track car ready to go democratizing sports cars for everyone.

But they age so poorly.

I mean, I'm already tired of the CA.

And the point being is that the C-7 is my argument.

So you go 10 years out.

Who wants a C-7?

You'd rather have a GT3.

Dude, the C-7 ZR1s, the manuals, they're selling for over 300 grand.

So a lot of people want those.

No, because they made so few of them.

By the way, not me, just for the record.

No.

And the reason why they're, and I remember Matt Farah talked about it,

he's absolutely right.

The reason why the ZR1s are going to be collectibles,

the take rate was so few.

And those cars are literally undriveable.

I mean, every automotive journalist talks about the scariest shit they drive.

And by the way, people want cars that they think might kill them.

That is the appeal of some of these collector-grade cars.

So here is, and I don't want to jump to the rant part of this,

or the debate we had in the newsletter.

By the way, you guys, if you're not subscribing to the newsletter,

that's truly where the fun is.

Make sure you subscribe to fullthrottletalk.com.

The point I was trying to make, and I think I made it at an incredibly high level,

and the Pulitzer people have sent me an application,

and they want me to, you know, obviously apply.

But the point I was making is the gap is no longer existing,

and Corvette has surpassed even our beloved GT3 RS in all measurable ways.

Measurable ways.

Where Porsche dominates still is what I want to talk about with you guys when we get to that segment,

because there are areas that they dominate that I'm not going to agree with you

that it's about engineering.

And I'm certainly not going to agree with you it's about track performance.

But we can get to that.

It provided that Dave doesn't start to cry,

because I notice he's being super quiet because it's got him mad too.

Then I already chastised for talking over somebody,

so I have to be on my best behavior here.

I'm the school marm.

Well, I mean, what are you thinking?

Okay, marm.

And by the way, Dave's rebuttal.

I had the initial rebuttal letter.

I basically pulled the pin on the grenade.

But in my opinion, Dave's newsletter was the tossing of the grenade, and he nailed it.

Yeah, I agree.

His article.

Well, I love both of your guys' perspectives.

You know, if you're going to have an argument or a debate about anything,

unless you can argue your foes side of it at the same level that they can,

then you haven't really thought through your stance.

I mean, at the end of the day, that's pretty much the way it works.

But who was automotive news?

That was Dave's automotive news.

So Dave, when you saw that that Mustang was just another dark horse,

you were anticipating it being something of more sporty nature, basically.

Something may be completely different, not just another body-kitted Mustang.

That was just disappointing to me.

I mean, there's just enough Mustang.

There's enough variance.

I mean, I get it.

And I'm sure that you could argue the same on Porsche in terms of the various models

that they come out within that line.

But this, the way this got hyped, I just thought it was going to be something a bit more.

I'm sure there'll be plenty of buyers for it.

I'm sure Ford will do well with it.

I have no idea if they'll make money on each of those cars or not.

But, you know, it's an attractive package.

It looks pretty good.

And, you know, we'll see.

But I just wanted something bigger.

They really hyped it big time.

And I just thought there was going to be something a bit more.

Do you remember the price?

Like what the suggested prices?

I don't.

I don't remember the price.

I'm sure it's under grand.

Oh, shit.

Better be, right?

Better be.

Yeah, it's better be.

A lot less.

But, well, so, yeah.

I was just going to say, by the way, Dave, not just Ford did.

Do you remember we were talking last week about Toyota

and maybe this would be the launch of the MR2?

We all got excited.

Did you see what their big news was, their actual launch was?

It was an MR2.

It was a K car that might come to America.

A little roadster.

It was such a it was such a it was literally what I call

an automotive lap dance.

Total tease.

Like here, MR2, we're all getting excited.

We know the Supra is going away.

This might be the better replacement.

And boom, it's another K car that which we may or may not get.

A K car is as a micro car.

You know, I wouldn't surprise me if those things flood the market

now that Trump has eased the DOT restrictions on those types of things.

You know, but we'll see.

We talked about that a couple of podcasts ago.

I'm kind of on the side of you guys believing that it won't be very many Americans

are going to buy those things unless they're city dwellers, honestly.

So as far as the automotive news that I had, it was we've already covered all of it.

I'm hearing from the Porsche community that the GT3 Cabriolet, not the Speedster,

is supposedly the next big rollout for and I know Paul's going to get one for the next

big rollout the Porsche is going to announce.

And this is what do you guys, I mean, what do you think the take rate is on that?

And I'm leading you guys down the Primrose path.

You should know that and Primrose is have thorns.

I mean, it's going to be the normal take road, the new flavor.

There's going to be people who are going to have allocations have to get it, etc.

But the end of the day, my only problem with it, the Speedster was cool.

Actually, I really, the 991.2 Speedster was the first Speedster I ever really like

because they put a real engine in it.

But the problem I have, it's just the naming.

I mean, what, why wouldn't they use Speedster and what is Speedster being reserved for?

Is there something else I can't imagine?

Well, I mean, let's do imagine, right?

That's what we do on full, full thrall talk.

So maybe the Speedster is a convertible version of the ST.

Wouldn't you do that if you were Porsche and really, really make something special?

That's probably what they're going to do.

So would it be a wide body?

Yeah, it would be an ST with no top because look at the 991.2 Speedster.

That car had the newer RS motor in it from the 992, the new GT3 motor in it from 992.

Add 911R parts on it, carbon fiber front, then there's a whole bunch of other little

parts bend things from the best cars they possibly make.

Why wouldn't Porsche, now that they're coming out with a 911 convertible, which pretty much,

our GT3 convertible, which everyone's pretty much accepted.

Why, which everyone thought they weren't going to do.

Why wouldn't they come out with an ST version and call it a Speedster?

David, you were shaking your head.

Well, I, you know, I don't know.

I mean, I just don't think that they certainly could.

They could do anything, you know, and would they sell all of them probably.

But assuming it was done well as a Speedster, maybe they get away with it, right?

It just doesn't, it doesn't feel like a car somebody's screaming for.

But if you're only going to make a thousand of them or something like that, then okay,

you know, maybe they would do that type.

I don't know if I have an opinion on that.

Dave, Paul, sorry.

I mean, just going back to Porsche following Ferrari's footsteps that we talked about,

we'll lead into, you know, so Ferrari, I don't know enough about it, but Aperta is their open

version of their best model, right?

And is this, are they trying to create a Porsche Aperta Aperta?

And if so, why not name it, you know, Roadster or a name that GT3s were basically, I mean,

that's the name of a racing class.

They don't race open convertibles in racing series.

So I just, I really just have a problem with the name.

I don't mind the idea.

They're going to cut the pie a little thinner, which Porsche does.

So they'll have two versions of sporty open cars.

This Speedster, which like you said, might be the ST.

And then they're going to have a more performance oriented one, which Ferrari and Lamborghini do,

right?

They take their top line and they make an open version, McLaren does it as well.

So I can understand them doing that, but GT3 I think is just, I think it's lazy.

And I would name it something, like I said, Roadster.

Back in the day, Roadster was really, you know, kind of a variation of Speedster.

Yeah, going all the way back to 356.

I like what you're saying.

That makes perfect sense to me.

And I agree.

The GT3 is a race class and they, and you know, race cars, generally speaking, unless they're,

you know, open wheel cars have tops.

So I get what you're saying.

Yeah.

All right.

So guys, let's bounce off to the Meekum auction.

Did any of you guys watch that?

You want to talk about my news?

Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

Because Dave and I were talking about this offline and for those of you who haven't seen,

talk about a PR nightmare and I don't think Bring a Trailer has a huge PR team.

Their PR team is probably nested inside of Hearst, which owns Bring a Trailer.

But Tim, did you see anything about this?

I only picked it up from you to be honest with you.

I wasn't paying attention to it.

So a no reserve auction on the 17th.

I was like a few days ago, listed a 1999 Cadillac DeVille, no reserve.

Within 24 hours, Bring a Trailer withdrew the listing because they were AI photos.

Now the big question, and by the way, this thing now has over 60,000 views, almost 150 comments.

It is a dumpster fire.

So this Cadillac DeVille, it looks like it's sitting, it's in California, Beverly Hills.

So you look at the picture like, okay, cool.

He's got a cool setting.

But then, I don't know if you noticed, there's cobblestones.

It's like an old person Palm Springs gold, four-door Cadillac DeVille, nothing special.

Sitting in a modern, a new take on a mid-century modern.

So you see it sitting on cobblestone.

But then you look at the photos underneath with the cobwebs and if you look,

you see there's some crappy car to the right, some grass.

I mean, it just doesn't look great.

You're like, huh, so then this is one of my favorite photos.

This is an interior shot from the passenger side looking at steering wheel.

Look closely at the column.

What do you see on the steering column?

I can't tell.

A couple of extra levers.

Two shifters.

You know their column shift to put it in drive?

It's got two of them.

You're like, huh, well, that's kind of weird.

Then you look at the engine shot.

Do you notice something about the engine shot?

If you guys aren't on, if you guys are just listening to us,

then you're not watching, you're showing us all these pictures.

We're trying to focus in on Zoom as we are.

So here's a picture of the engine of the North Star 32-valve engine.

You notice that the core support for the radiator is gone.

You can literally see the cobblestones where there should be part of the engine.

You're like big cobblestones, right?

Big cobblestones.

So then if you look at this picture, here's the door with the cobblestones,

right?

And then you just sort of zoom in to the interior.

Well, holy cow, the cobblestones go right into the floor mats.

It's actually a Flintstone mobile, right?

Those are the cobblestones underneath and the car is powered by it.

And then look at this shot.

Everyone has cobblestones.

But if you look at some of the other shots, the next shot,

like there it shows, if you look at the front passenger seat,

cobblestone floor mats, but there it's the regular carpet.

So bottom line with this fiasco, it was an AI-driven photo set.

So the big debate is, was this nefarious activity

where someone threw a no reserve car in there, the car doesn't exist,

and are they planning on trying to sell it to bring a trailer,

get some credibility and basically steal money, deposit, whatever?

Or is this someone who took photos of their car in a crappy location

and they decided to use AI slop to clean it up

and make it look like it's in Beverly Hills?

Because by the way, the license plate also keeps changing.

The license plate frame keeps changing.

But if you have a chance, the best part about it is the comments.

Some of them are just basically flambéing bring a trailer.

I mean, they're just getting, bring a trailer is getting roasted.

Or is some of the comments are funny.

Like someone said, oh man, and I was so in

just because I wanted to set a cobblestone floor.

Why didn't they pull the auction?

I don't get it.

They did.

They did pull the auction after.

Here's the funny thing with bring a trailer.

They made it with, they withdrew the auction.

You could see the highest bid about to 800 bucks.

I mean, it was within 24 hours, but they left all the comments

and the comments are searing.

I mean, they are, they are so angry at bring a trailer.

And I almost felt a little sad for them because they did post,

they had a generic post at first and then they went in and someone said,

hey, look, and the guy who commented his name is bring a trailer,

the representative of bring a trailer, his name is David Duke,

which didn't sit well with a lot of people.

And it was just sort of this ongoing beating.

I mean, talk about when someone's down and just kicking the living crap out of them.

I think what it's going to do, you know, this wasn't like a seven figure car.

This was a generic car, which is probably clever.

I'd love to get to the bottom line of was this a nefarious deal?

Was this an act of laziness?

Let me take this forward.

The picture that David has behind him, I guarantee you that Mustang was a picture

that a professional photographer really took and then definitely cleaned up by AI.

And if you poke around it, I'm sure we could find inconsistencies.

My point being, yes, that's ridiculous and they shouldn't have let it happen.

That's just a shitty business.

But that aside, is there anything really wrong with, I mean, why do you assume

that any pictures you're looking at anywhere anymore aren't AI enhanced?

Like Paul, you might have filters, you know, that you're running through right now.

I might as well.

And when you look at real estate listings all the time, they do virtual staging.

And I can't look at a virtual staged house and know the difference.

And it's so funny.

And some of the agents, they'll show pictures what it really looks like.

You know, it looks like a murder scene.

And then boom, virtual stage.

Here's like an outline of a person next shot.

Well, I feel badly.

I feel badly for the person, the intake person on the bring a trailer side.

They basically are probably getting flooded.

It's probably not a big group.

I've certainly submitted picture packs before.

And basically you're uploading every photo you have.

And normally you're certainly north of a hundred photos that you're uploading.

And to think that you're going to go through every one of those photos and check it.

And if you look at the numbers, Paul, I mean, there were certainly photos out of that pack

that didn't look like they were altered or didn't look like there were a problem.

But then obviously the AI came in and put the cobblestone floor mats in and took the,

you know, the door frame off around the outside of the door and so on,

just so that it looked like a beautiful outdoor setting.

My gut is that it wasn't nefarious because what are we talking about a seven,

eight thousand dollar car, maybe that it was likely somebody had a crappy background.

Right.

And so they thought they were going to do themselves a solid and upgrade it and make

it look nice.

And then they submit that whole package to, you know, to bring a trailer.

And some poor kids got to go there and look at every single photo and try to pick it up.

And, you know, just inconsistent.

Well, you can, there's software that picks up AI anything.

You can use software to pick up AI writing, AI photography.

I don't know.

I'm not going to say nefarious.

I'm bringing a trailer's part to, I agree with you.

But, you know, anyway, interesting.

But do you think maybe bring a trailer for these low entry ones that are just no reserve?

It's going to be under $10,000.

Do you think they have AI processing it?

Maybe there isn't this entry level guy.

Maybe it's AI processing.

That's a really good point.

I bet you you're right.

But the AI would have easily caught the AI, you know, pictures.

But here's, take this to the next level.

How do I say this delicately?

What makes you think they're not filtering the pictures that people submit just to keep

the quality of the photography at a certain level or if they're not starting to do that?

Because you could, you could hypothetically put a system in place that your pictures

automatically get cleaned up when you load them in, removing watermarks,

looking for to see if they're anywhere else on the internet.

For sure they're going to do that.

Look to see if you're basically stealing somebody's copyrighted picture.

But Tim, I mean, that, that gets to the whole trust factor in these auctions to begin with.

If you cannot trust that the picture, because that's why they want a hundred plus pictures.

And if you can't trust those pictures, then this whole thing just falls apart because,

you know, now we're into buying cars nationally without even going to look at them.

And we're buying them off of 200 pictures.

And then somebody writes the check and sends and the car shows up.

And if suddenly some giant paint defect in the left fender is been edited out in AI,

then that's misrepresenting the car.

So I see no way that they would ever do that.

And I, me as auto kennel, I mean, I'm excited.

I don't use the bring a trailer platform.

But for me, it's going to be, and we already see clients coming to us because

they don't trust all the things I'm bringing a trailer.

They're going to go with a trusted seller.

They're going to go directly.

They're going to know that there's going to be a certain level of quality,

which is why it's hard when I have to turn away cars.

So, yeah, I'm excited that maybe there's going to be some insecurity about the online

auctions and maybe it'll come directly to me.

Well, that's what the world is all about.

How can we help Paul?

So I want to take a little second here and I want to acknowledge our friend Dave

for this incredible job of the interior on Albert.

And I know he's loading these pictures.

I meant to actually, I meant to actually show love and respect last week.

But unfortunately, I forgot to and I know he's got the pictures loaded.

So when he finds them, just let me know.

He's looking for them.

But Albert is our, Albert is our long term, longest term project RSR.

And the final touches were finished by Dave when we finally got the interior to where

we'd always hoped it would be in the first place.

You'll find them.

Don't worry.

We can, I will, I will.

We'll come back to you.

I'm sorry.

All right.

So, so if you guys are ready, can we bounce off and talk about this make them auction?

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Okay.

So I'll set it up and I know.

Oh, thank you.

I'm so glad you loaded pictures, Paul.

I forgot to do that yesterday.

Yep.

So I got plenty.

So it's Bachman, right?

Isn't that the name of the gentleman who passed away?

Okay.

So the Bachman collection was absolutely rocked the fur world because the furries were

selling and he had some really amazing cars.

We're going to set aside the aesthetic of the cars and the choices and all the rest of that.

Maybe you don't like how we expect the cars and I just prefer not to talk about that for

the sake of this, you know, right now we can bounce to it in a second.

But these were really spectacular cars.

Some of the rarest, coolest, um, you know,

furries you could ever possibly want.

Modern cars, he wasn't really into the vintage.

It wouldn't seem unless you think something from the late 80s, like an F40 or there's a

288 GTO if you guys are watching on YouTube.

So yeah, that's about as old as this collection got.

He didn't have any 250 series.

That's a different one.

That wasn't part of the Bachman collection.

That was David Lee's that he bought.

But the moral of the story here is what I'm trying to get to is these cars were selling

for in some cases two to three X of what they normally should have sold for.

And the question I have, and now why, and, and this was widely misreported that we thought,

oh my gosh, what the hell is happening to the world?

I thought it when I was watching, because I didn't realize they were charity cars.

All of those cars were charity cars.

And so what does that mean?

Let's say you're, and I'm going to make up numbers, but let's say your market value

of a Ferrari F40, forgive me, I don't have it off the top of my head.

I'm guessing Paul's going to pull it up on classiccars.com,

but I'm guessing let's say two and a half million.

And so the, the greed upon a market value is two and a half million and a charity auction,

anything that sells for over whatever the market value is, is going to be tax deductible,

you know, talk to your accountant because we're not, you know, tax experts here,

but that's the way it worked.

So virtually all of these Bachman cars were essentially charity cars from a bis, from a

consigner's perspective.

That's very fascinating to me.

And I want you guys to think about what I'm about to say and tell me if I'm wrong,

which you guys have no problem doing, if I'm going to be putting a collection for sale,

it seems like the charity cars pull all the money and then some,

which would hypothetically bring up what my otherwise price would have been had it not

been a charity car.

That's my first thought for all of you guys.

So it seems like maybe if you have a collection selling it as a charity,

you know, we're, you know, you guys know how it works.

It seems like that might be a great way to maximize your returns,

not to mention the fact that I bet you meet him on those was contributing a little bit

on the seller's big.

And guys, in case you don't know at some auctions, you guys will know maybe more about

this than I do, but in Monterey, you know, car week, it's 10% buyer big.

And typically the seller big is negotiable.

It starts out at like seven to 10% depending on the sale price,

but you can usually negotiate that down.

And if you have something really special, you can get it down tremendously.

Or frankly, you can even get the auction house to wave the field together.

It's all negotiable.

My friend who sold the white collection, he told me about the deal he struck with RM

when he did it.

But anyway, so these cars were setting world record prices, but you got to take out

whatever the auction or whatever the charity value bonus was.

What do you guys think?

Yeah, I mean, I think that's always been the case.

It depends.

I mean, I think there was a couple of things that happened.

The quantity of cars that went through, Ferraris, certainly when you have a large

supply, you're going to draw on more people because there'll be other options versus just,

you know, like if they just had the 250 GTO and then like three cars, that would be different.

So selection was huge.

I think we're living in a day and age where people don't want something that's tasteful.

They want something that's one of one unique.

It's almost like Corvette buyers got a big payday and they went hog wild because truly,

as you mentioned, these cars were all like almost delivery mile cars.

I mean, they were all three digit cars.

So they were low miles, crazy options, weird colors, and they were unique.

So I think all of these things, like I always tell people values aren't like one anchor that

makes a value the value.

It's the synergy of four or five things that add to it.

So I think, yes, the color, the options, the selection, the number of cars, timing,

like we are right on the heels of Scottsdale.

It's going up on this weekend.

There's already beginning of the year, just sort of this fervor.

And then you have the fact that you're going to ride off a good chunk of it.

And the guys who can afford seven, eight figure cars are always looking for ride-offs.

And I think all of that was the perfect timing.

And I think I look at this as Dana Meekham.

It was finally kind of broken.

The shackles of being kind of a hick hot rod, sort of like you couldn't go to Barrett Shacks

and you went to Meekham.

They were like a second tier.

And now they're looking to compete with RM and Gooding, which with these kind of cars you are.

Also, the other thing I kind of see is, we used to be, Amelia Island was like a big auction

center, like four or five auctions.

And then you had Scottsdale, which was a bunch of auctions in Monterey.

And look at that.

They're starting to break up.

Gooding doesn't go to Scottsdale.

Amelia Island now is RM.

What is it, Moda?

And then there's the Gooding.

Moda is in Miami.

So if you're talking about Amelia Island, so now owned by Hagerty, so it's Broad Arrow.

So Broad Arrow, so they're starting, I'm wondering, is Monterey next?

I mean, Monterey, to me, is the last auction where all the auction houses are there.

All of them are there.

Scottsdale, there's already, I think Gooding's gone and a few others are gone.

So it's sort of changing back to what Scottsdale used to be, which was just a Barrett Jackson thing.

So I think these sort of stand up, like, Kiss Me, is it Kiss Me?

Kiss Me, Lord, that's where this was, yeah.

Yeah, it's sort of like that's going to become like, okay, if you want to go buy

Ferraris, weird Ferraris.

Help me with market timing, okay, because this is the part I didn't understand.

Well, first of all, I'm going to throw this out there because I haven't heard anybody repeating

this. A lot of those cars that were for sale were the last of the production run, which to your

point, Paul, was one of the reasons that there were extra valuable. And a lot of people were saying,

Greg Stanley, you know, he was saying, for example, that this is going to somehow open

the floodgates and people choosing audacious specs just because they think it's going to,

you know, jack their prices up and you even made that comment about the Corvette guy.

But the reality of it is when it comes to the Ferrari world, you really can't because Ferrari

will literally tell you to go pound it if you show up and you want to.

I've had friends that have wanted to do things that Ferrari just straight up said,

and they're willing to pay whatever the price was.

You go to Altil, how do you say it?

I always screwed up.

It's French, Altillier, Altier, whatever it is.

You can't say it either.

It's too fancy for us. See, Paul, we're not going.

All right. Or you go to TaylorMade or whatever and you grow in there.

I want to do this, this, this.

And they're going to say, nope, nope, nope.

Okay. This guy got away with it.

So kind of makes those a special car.

He was, he was choosing really, I mean, there was a, I forget which one it was,

but he had a Cavalino, the horsey on the back of the car that was freaking green.

And to get it, to get a Ferrari to do black for a long time was almost impossible,

but he got Ferrari from the factory to paint their brand green.

I had never seen that before.

I'm sure maybe I obviously don't know everything about these sort of,

you know, unique cars, but that seemed to me something special.

Yeah, but full circle.

Why didn't, so I want your guys' ideas on this.

Why didn't this owner wait, maybe make him just give him a great deal?

Wait until car week.

Wouldn't car week have brought out even bigger numbers?

I don't, I think, I think this, going back to my point where I think some of these owners

want to feel really special in this auction was all about this owner.

If you went to Monterey car week, he would just be,

That's a really good point.

That's the, that's the answer to the question.

You, there's no better answer.

That's it.

Yep.

You have to have, somebody have to set up the whole charity side of that as well.

I mean, I'm sure a lot of effort went into securing this particular lot of cars.

There's no question.

And when you have that big, a lot,

I had way more people covering that auction in my friend group

who had either been down there or watching it very closely

than I would normally ever on amicom auction.

Oh, they say guys that were going down there.

David, what were they saying?

Basically that, that everything that was going off down there was going off at big numbers.

And I do think it, it absolutely has to do with, you know,

the sentiment of going into the year this year.

I think for whatever the reasons economically, the forecasts and whatnot that

people feel are feeling good right now.

And so they're spending money.

So hover there, hover there.

And now Paul's getting nervous.

I'm going to make this about politics and I'm not, which means I probably am.

So, so David, you're what you're observing because I was observing this too.

And if you go to the meekum auction results page, I hopefully they've updated it,

but I was just, you know, I watched it for like three hours straight.

I kind of like went into a trance, you know, but you're right.

Stuff was selling in all kinds of things.

And the way that meekum had the cars teed up was really great.

10 million dollars, 15 million dollars.

And the next thing was a gussied up Jeep that would sell for 300 grand,

but it was all selling.

And now there was definitely chandelier bidding going on.

You could kind of see it, you know, yeah.

Brass era cars seem to be dead as they've always been.

Not a lot of Porsches, which I was really kind of depressed by to be honest with you.

Yeah, but you're right.

The market seems to be really on fire.

And Kramer, you were just saying something very similar.

It's the start of the show.

You can't keep cars in inventory.

No, it's and people keep going on the side like where the car is.

I go, we're as soon as we get them, they're selling faster than I can process them.

It takes it takes me anywhere between seven and 10 days to properly present a car,

which is fast in our industry.

And but they're selling within 36 hours of getting on the website.

So they keep going to the website going, where are all the cars?

I'm like, I'm trying to get them and then getting them from the owners.

I looked at a car yesterday and it has, you know, five or six major things

that need to get done by the seller or me, which is going to take a couple of weeks.

So it's hard to keep the shelves stocked.

And I think by the way, this time of year has always been this sort of fervor.

I've mentioned it before, like our busy time in this collector world is around the holidays,

you know, December, January.

I'm going to stop you there, Paul, because last year when we started the show, I mean,

you know, it was January this time of year.

And I remember our first show, you and I were talking about doubting what the market was going

to do because everyone was sort of like not knowing what the hell was going to happen

with the presidency.

I mean, there were a lot of people who were nervous.

And you were echoing that, that you were hearing it from your customers.

I just heard from David the exact opposite is true now.

So kind of incredible turnaround.

You guys are going to have massive years.

And I know Dave, you're already basically 50 projects deep at your shop.

I thought I saw you say that in WhatsApp.

So not only people, but not only people buying cars, but they're spending money on them.

I mean, it's pretty incredible how much things have changed in a year.

It is definitely another cycle for sure.

We have had a lot of activity.

I've sold every car and what I do, Paul, sometimes as well, and because I have a shop

that fixes them, I'll have cars that are here in reefer, right?

That I'm doing all the work on that we're putting brakes on or painting or doing whatever.

And I'll have somebody come in and the car will get bought before it's even done.

Like, and they'll make the deal.

And, you know, okay, because apparently I feel like inventory is a little low out there too.

I'm having a hard time finding additional cars at the moment for sure.

But we did get our project in right here.

So this particular car was just shipped into us from Washington, as you can see on that

license plate there for us to do a full interior re-spray and some mechanic work on this car.

It's a 77 Targa that's in yellow.

So different car from the other one that we had, the other Talbot yellow car.

But just thought it was interesting that we've got people shipping stuff in from Washington

and all it's probably all because they can't find other shops or quality shops that'll do

some of this work right now.

And so they're just trying to move their projects along.

Have you guys seen the Doty auto sales?

I know Paul and Monterey, have you ever been there, David?

Yeah.

Have you guys, oh yeah, you guys follow him on Insta by chance?

The Sun?

I will see parts of it.

And then I just get so nauseated because it's it's like so used car salesy.

Yeah.

But dude, the lengths that he will go to buy a freaking car and the distances he'll go

are extraordinary.

He works his ass off just to go pick up a car.

And what are the margins he's making on these things that can't be there?

1,500 bucks.

I mean, it's incredible.

Not much.

I look at it.

I don't know why you would do that.

I just don't get it.

I mean, you cannot, volume is one thing, but do volume in these sort of cars, you really

are cutting a lot of the rehab corners for sure.

You're not doing it.

I've had a customer who just bought a car from me who had flown to Monterey.

And it's no ding on them.

I commend this guy because they have got, they are dialed in in California and around

finding cars.

But the stuff that he has looks good in some of the videos, but I guess when you start

peeling up the onion or peeling back the onion, it is some of the quality isn't as good.

Where's he getting these leads?

Obviously instead, but where is he getting these leads?

Have you guys ever seen him running ads?

I've seen some ads.

I've seen some ads and I'm not sure.

Well, how many, how many of these guys are out in your, I find there's this entire group

of what I kind of call gypsy finders.

And they're these guys that are, you know, they basically never take possession of the car.

They don't really own it.

There's a group of them out there and I'm not dialed into it or connected to it.

All they're doing is scouring every place with marketplace.

They're jumping title basically.

That's all they're doing.

No, no, no, what I call, what I mean by that are these are, they're just finders.

They never buy the car.

All they do is find the car and then have a list of five or six dealers like Paul and

myself or somebody else, some other somebody that wants to flip.

And so then they'll tell the customer that they're dealing with the seller on the other

end that, oh, I'm your guy.

I'm going to buy, I'll wire the money right now, all this other stuff to get that car tied

up.

They don't even have the deal.

They don't have the money.

They're basically just looking for their $500 to $1,000 big for finding the car.

More than that, more than that, like $5,000.

The frustrating thing about me is California is really strict.

If you want to sell cars, you have to be a dealer, wholesale retail.

There's no in between.

And I'll see guys on Bring a Trailer that one week they're listing a car as private

seller.

One week they're listing it as a dealer.

There's like in California, you choose your hat and that is your hat.

And if you're doing private sales, you better not do more than five cars a year.

And we go through insane amount of work and energy and money to be a California dealer

with insurance and everything else to do things right.

And then we'll see these guys that will come into town, take pictures of a guy's car,

maybe, or just get pictures sent to them.

They'll list it because I'll get clients calling me going,

hey, what do you know about this car and the seller?

I go, I'll guarantee you that seller probably has never even seen the car.

He probably, I for sure doesn't have possession of the car.

And so you're just going to basically, he's just sending you stuff.

So in my opinion, you need to find out who actually is selling that car,

who physically has the car and deal with them directly because it's a crapshoot.

And that's my challenge with those sellers.

And I think what's happening as individual private party sellers,

they're looking for ways to do things cheaper, cut corners,

like bring a trailer.

We just saw a perfect example of that where they're going to use AI to do the pictures

because they don't want to spend the $500 or whatever to have bring a trailer photo.

So we're in this weird point where the volume is there.

The sellers are getting, I think a little greedy and lazy at the same time.

And well, the whole, I mean, let's just call it as it is, right?

I mean, I'm, I don't want to sell my own cars.

That's the reason I use you guys.

I mean, I don't want to deal with it.

I don't want to deal with the buyers.

But yeah, in real estate, it's a wholesaler.

That's what that little segment's called.

People that will literally run ads saying cash for your house.

And then what they try to do is they'll, they'll, you know,

they'll put a contract on it.

I'm going to buy it.

And then they try to essentially assign the contract to somebody else.

You're, you're describing the same thing.

It's just market dynamics is all it is.

But in California, that's illegal.

To wholesale houses or cars?

Cars, unless you have a whole slice.

You said you can do five per year, right?

You could do five per year if you are on title and own the car.

Oh, no shit.

So you have to take title.

Yeah, you can't, you, you have to be, you have to be the title in California.

Oh, I didn't know that.

That's incredible.

That's supposed to anywhere really, right?

Not really supposed to anywhere.

Yeah.

You're allowed to sell a vibe.

It's hard.

I mean, so, so for instance, back in the early days of eBay, like in the early 2000s,

California reached out to eBay and eBay basically reached out.

I remember this is how we sort of got started.

They reached out and said, Hey, you've sold on eBay X number of cars.

You need to have a bring, you need to show us that you have a dealer's license.

And that's really what started us going into having our own dealer.

So I keep wondering when is, especially California, who's, you know,

bring a trailer as a California company and they're looking for tax revenue,

when are they going to wait?

And this is always tax generated.

This, this argument's always been tax generated.

When are they going to start reaching out to bring a trailer and say, Hey,

for anyone that's on your car site that sold more than five cars,

they need to provide a dealer's license that you need to submit to us.

I mean, remember when they went after Amazon for collecting sales tax on interstate commerce?

I just picture this happening.

I mean, it makes sense.

I mean, they're trying to charge that in California, they're trying to charge that,

you know, us, if you have a net worth of over a billion dollars,

you're trying to charge a wealth tax.

Did you know about this, David?

Yeah, I've heard about it yet.

Supposedly it's all the, you know, the talk is that it's going to pass.

And then they're just going to drive the net worth down.

So now it's going to be, if you have a net worth of 50 million, then 10 million,

then 300,000, and they're going to have your app to pay an annual fee of what

they assess your stuff to be same idea tax grab.

Yeah, I get it.

Since I'm a little off the, since I'm, since I'm a little off the billion dollar tag,

I'm not too worried about it.

You know, I, well, but that's what everybody's 900,000, 900 million, but you know,

just, just to shift things a little quick and go back to the MECOM auction.

I want to make a point though, just David said something funny.

You guys remember during COVID, there were all those talk apps that came of the oral

where you could listen to basically like listening to live talk radio and people

are just jumping into little groups.

You guys remember all those?

They're like the thing.

And everybody's, everybody's profile said billionaire, right?

I wonder how many of those people right now are going,

dammit, because they're in California.

And they think probably the state's going to say, oh, you did say you were a billionaire

during 2021.

And you know, I think it was a billion HAIR.

Anyway, people are funny, you know, anyway.

So yeah, so are you about to say, you want to talk about your GTO?

Yeah, just with the MECOM auction.

I mean, when you get away from the Bachman part of it, which were these,

in my opinion, the perfect storm, the reason they did so well was they kind of,

I keep telling people, like the cars that do really well that are outliers,

like for instance, long hoods, you know, why does are the average long hoods a hundred grand

or under, but then you get to a special one and it goes for 200.

I said, because it checks all the boxes, color, engine, miles, whatever it is.

And the Bachman was truly everything timing.

But I mean, they could not have nailed it better.

But then you get to something like the GTO, the white GTO that David Lee got.

He's local here in Southern California.

Tim, you know David Lee.

I've met him a few times.

He's I've talked to him.

I don't know him.

I'm not like, yeah, I know him through.

I'm good friends with his nephews or cousins.

I can't remember.

One day I'll get an invitation to go see his garage.

It's in here in Southern California.

I've seen him drive his F-50 to cars and coffee.

It would be great to see this go to cars and coffee, his white GTO.

But like everyone goes, oh, 38 million or whatever it was.

And when you really slice down to it, it was a perfect example of it didn't sell well

in comparison to other GTOs.

And I started drilling down.

I'm like, and I know why David Lee bought it.

It was the Holy Grail.

There's only what 36 or 37 GTOs.

Like your chances of buying one, even if you're willing to spend 70 million,

which they've sold for publicly and more privately.

If you tomorrow say, I want to spend $100 million in GTO,

you're not going to necessarily get a GTO.

And I wonder if he really wanted white.

It's the only white one.

When you looked at the race history, it was driven by Graham Hill several times,

but not well.

It had a second place finish.

It didn't race in the big premier races.

It did some of the sub tier races.

It was not the original engine.

It was an, in fact, many engines later.

I think it was a good restored car.

It had a documented history, but in terms of the GTOs available,

it was subpar in the guy who's going to spend eight figures on a GTO.

He'll spend double.

And by the way, going back to the weird Ferrari thing,

if it was red, which was the most common color,

it probably would have sold for more.

I'm not sure about that in the GTO world.

Everything else I grew with you about a hundred percent.

Do you have the comps to the most recent GTO sales?

Because there was one, I think it was a, it wasn't the classic GTO shape

that sold at RM maybe five years ago.

And if I remember correctly, that car sold in the fifties.

I actually think that car was very well bought.

So you said it right.

If you wanted to buy a GTO today, finding one for sale is almost impossible

because a lot of these, like who is a one of the wall,

Walton family members owns two.

What the hell?

Why not own two?

And so just getting access to these cars,

but a lot of people buy those cars because when you own a GTO, obviously,

it's a golden ticket to any sort of really automotive event,

let alone Ferrari event that Ferrari will ever do.

And furthermore, Ferrari is going to treat you like, you know,

essentially their best customers ever when you have cars like this.

And in order to get access to the types of cars that David's getting access to,

the one David Lee, the ones where you buy, you know, you buy your whatever it is,

your Mons, if you're $3 million and it's worth $6 million,

the second you take delivery of it.

There's a lot of boxes inside the Porsche or inside the Ferrari world that you have to check.

And, you know, owning these really rare classic cars, owning a Formula One car,

owning every one of the modern generations of cars, not just a,

you know, aroma of an aroma spider or not just a, you know, port of, you know,

all the things you have to have all of those things.

And then you have to participate in Ferrari events.

And then you have to maybe do the racing things.

It's not like every one of these things.

It's a combination of things.

And then you have to be somebody that they want to have represent their brand.

Like David does an unbelievable job of working in the community and on social.

And he's such a freaking gentleman, you know, everywhere he goes, people love him.

And so that was, he was, he's closing in on a perfect Ferrari collection.

So, I mean, yeah, that's the whole, that's the whole GTO world.

Did you find any comps out of curiosity?

Because I think that car sold like 30%.

Oh, yeah, I think so.

And I do, I do think the white really hurt the color from what I read just in the forums

and feedback and just sort of, you know, banter.

If you've got like white in that level car you want.

It's because you're thinking myopic vision because you're a Porsche guy

and all you can think is PTS.

No, no, actually, and I've learned before every time I'm sold a Ferrari.

I'm just trying to poke you.

Yeah, I can't for whatever reason.

He didn't like the spec, David.

Yeah, well, I would, I would say that when you, when there's so few of these out there

that my gut tells me the color doesn't matter.

And the fact that there was only one in white certainly suggests that there's a,

there's value there, but the, the Ferrari money was all gutted out of the room

by the time this car probably got up too, wasn't it?

But I, I do think when I saw some of the videos and some of the stuff

that David posted up on Instagram after that auction, he was quite grateful

and thankful and he was going to have that car no matter what.

I think that, that he had worked with a buying group that was helping him there

on site to get that car.

Do you think it's possible there could have been all the money pulled out of

the room considering like if you're spending like, you know,

$5 million on a car that if it wasn't an auction car, you could have bought

for probably a million.

Do you really think that guy's carrying two craps about, you know,

I don't think so either.

I don't think there is running all the money out of a room like that.

There is.

And when you talk to David Lee, I mean, you saw the video, it was months and

months ago, you know, maybe even eight months ago that he knew this GTO was

coming for sale.

Yeah.

And he was already kind of on his eye.

And I think the reason why is one, go pick another, you know, like when are

these available?

And two, I think he knew he's a savvy buyer, he wants a GTO and this one's

going to be affordable for all the reasons I listed.

And you know what will happen is he gets one, he's in the club, and then he'll

get another one.

And this one will come up for sale.

I promise you the other one will be read.

So here's the funny thing, looking at Classic.com, I finally found it.

You know, it shows like the average.

The average is down, I'm sure, because of this car.

The average is $41.8 million for GTO sales.

Obviously, this is $38.5 million.

RM Sotheby's in $23 million was the last one at $51.7 million read.

But it wasn't the same.

That was an LM, right?

Didn't have the notch back.

It wasn't the classic shape.

I know I'm right.

No, no, it's classic shape.

Not the LM.

The LM one you're thinking about, by Skagletty, that one sold in $18 for $48.4 million.

The last one to be down at this level was in 2014 at Bonham, sold for $38 million.

So over a decade ago, and it was a read, that was like the beginning of like,

holy crap, these things are going crazy.

But it doesn't highlight the ones that you hear about like the Weathertech guy paying.

Exactly.

Because by the way, we're private, private sales.

Exactly, private sales, because if you're buying something that's in that price range,

you don't necessarily want to advertise that you're buying something in that price range.

But we all know.

Well, we took, because we're car nerds.

But it is literally, if you are on record, David is on record now for spending $40 million

on a car.

He has to be omnipresent about silly security issues pretty much any time he flies out of

the United States, because he's going to be a target.

And I don't want to talk about that.

But the long story short is a lot of people want to keep their especially super wealth

like that quiet.

And that totally makes sense to me.

I mean, David knows what I'm talking about.

He does that too.

He doesn't talk about his, you know, Arabian horse collection that he keeps in, you know,

North Carolina.

Oh, you're talking about this, David?

Yeah.

Oh, but Dave, what are you showing in your, what are you showing in your background back

there?

It looks like a very cool.

That's actually a car.

I mean, we kind of skipped over the what we were going to do and what we do in cars this

week a little bit because we were moving on to some of these other things.

But these are two, this is a car that we are scrambling to finish.

We're in the home stretch here on this killer car.

Save it for next week.

Okay, fine.

Okay, save it for next week.

Okay, then Paul's going to talk about his and I'll have to talk about mine.

Then we're going to run a three hour podcast.

And I'll tell you what I've got.

I've got a play date with one of another one of my neighbors who bought a new Ferrari and

I'm not making this up.

He doesn't know how to use the freaking car.

I told you guys I helped another guy before, but this other guy told one told the other

that I come over and I'll nerd out with him and show him how to actually use all the haptics

on that crap.

And so I literally have a hard stop.

So I can go over and help my neighbor.

Isn't that ridiculous?

I think it's ridiculous.

All right.

So let's talk, let's talk about the great debate.

And I think you guys should start out by saying you're sorry.

All right.

So let's talk, let's talk about a defining silence.

Well, let's talk about this.

So if you guys aren't in the newsletter, you need to be in the newsletter, you need to

subscribe.

Just fullthreataltalk.com.

All right.

So I wrote an article and this is how it and I didn't, we don't generally speaking,

we just send them into Joshua who does a great job of the newsletter and he then will

publish them for us and we don't check out with the other guys.

And, and I didn't, and I sent it in and it got published and these guys both flamed me

because they didn't agree with my stance.

And here was my only stance and I'll, and I want you guys to feel free to, you know,

put up your shallow arguments as to why I'm wrong.

So here it is.

I think Porsche has gotten lazy.

I think they've gotten sloppy.

I think they're relying too heavily on expensive options.

David, I like the way you spec your RS.

Frankly, that's the way I spec all of my cars.

And that is going to cause them to be complacent.

And the old Porsche that all of us love is going to be lost to the, the, the, you know,

the passages of time as they start, because it's a publicly traded company that is seeing,

and I showed this to you and what's that Paul, I don't remember the difference,

but I think Porsche had a, I know this is not what people want to hear on a car top,

but just wrap your mind around this.

So Ferrari, who makes what?

10% of the cars that Porsche makes has a market cap of $60 billion.

And Porsche has a market cap of less than $20 billion.

And so we all know that Porsche is making basically no money on their cars right now.

They're saying their margins are less than 2%.

Ferrari has these big fat ass margins on all their cars.

Why?

It's because people are spending crazy money on all of these doodads.

And that's sort of like, you know, doodads and chachkies and special stitching.

And I mean, everything that you can possibly imagine when you go to sit down with a Ferrari,

and it's fun, you know, it is, it's an experience, but you can spend so much money.

And I would venture a guess, I'm guessing, but I bet you the average Ferrari on top of MSRP

and the dealers don't mark cars up like Porsche does.

So, you know, go Ferrari.

Ferrari won't let the Ferrari dealers mark cars up like Porsche dealers can

or Corvette dealers, that matter.

But any of that, you sit down, I bet you the average person now is spending at least $100,000

on top of, you know, whatever the car costs.

Now, from Ferrari's perspective, that is going, that has caused them, in my opinion,

to become somewhat complacent about things that they used to really care about.

And that's the reason you're seeing all these new, they're coming out with new designs all the time.

So it's less about engineering, less about, look at the new Ferrari 296 Speciale.

The drive, all the reviewers that have driven it said the Speciale is not special enough,

right?

So what's that all about?

Because they're, they're pulling back on the reins of what made the car special

and Porsche is doing the exact same thing because the shareholders are being rewarded

by all the extras, the doodads, the PTS is the different tones for your lug nuts and all the

different shades of carbon fiber.

These new Porsche buyers are going crazy, you know, amping up the prices.

Porsche board is looking back and seeing their stock price, seeing their margins,

saying we can make fat margins off essentially just allowing people to pimp their cars.

We're not going to spend billions of dollars reengineering the next great thing.

That's the reason the four leaders have been around forever with virtually no updates,

in my opinion.

We're going to pull back on that.

It's not EV, it's not EU regulations and all the stuff that I know that people think it is,

is because they're not putting the money because they don't have the money right now,

because of their margins, that all that.

So my only, my whole point of my article wasn't to shit on Porsche because I love the brand,

clearly.

My whole point was, is they are becoming Ferrari and they are not, they're just getting started

a year from now, the new Ferrari buyer and the new Porsche buyer, synonymous, same guy.

There we go.

And you guys hated the fact that I said that.

Yeah, I think, I think you got it wrong, but Dave, go ahead.

I mean, I, I think circumstances shift in all of these organizations.

And if you want to take a snapshot of 2025 for Porsche, it was a shit year.

So obviously they're both their market cap, both their, you know, their earnings, everything

based on certain, you know, market forces.

But having said that, this is a brand that still is, and whether they did this year or

they have it over the last few years, they're, they're an engineering company by, you know,

in their DNA, they're, they're not a, you know, just make it pretty, slap some lipstick on it

and send it out.

I mean, there's some of that that's happening and that's driven by the, you know, the buyers

themselves, but I just, I just don't see Porsche turning into Ferrari.

I think they're still selling 300,000 cars a year total.

That's not a big manufacturer at all.

And over half those are SUVs, but the cars that they are bringing in the GT cars, the sports

cars, they are still the most aspirational cars for, and I'm going to say I'll call it the masses,

because I don't know, one of the, one of the arguments that, that you were making Tim was

that it's, they're missing because they don't have entry level cars.

And my point is they've, nothing's changed.

The price of one of these cars has certainly gone up and, you know, you're a Boxster or

something like that is now going to be an $80,000 buy when it, you know, used to be a $30,000 buy.

We don't think that's any different.

I think that's just adjusted for inflation at this point in the cost to make these cars.

And personally, it was never about the, you know, buying new cars.

Some 25, 30 year old person, unless they're trying to be an Instagram influencer, isn't

going to go out and drop, you know, $80,000 in a car because they can't afford it.

They got to buy their GTI or their, you know, the exact opposite of what's happening respectfully.

And, and, and I agree they're primarily an engineering company, but so is Ferrari.

And they're going to chase the money.

They're always going to chase the money.

I mean, David, if they,

That's capitalism.

Yeah, of course they will.

That's what they're going to do.

And, and right now, because like Porsche got sucked into the green new deal.

And I know Paul's going to roll his eyes.

I promise you, I'm not going to go down that road, but they did.

They got sucked into it.

And then they went into this direction of making electric cars.

Nobody really wants electric cars.

They just don't.

And now they're coming out the seven 18 electric car.

I hope that's brilliant, but I won't buy one.

I'm just not interested in it.

And the point of it that I'm only trying to make is that if you and I, David,

we're running this company and you and I were trying to maximize shareholder value,

which is our legal obligation, you're going to do whatever it takes to accomplish that goal.

You get rich or as a result of that too.

And if people want really kind of jaggedy looking options and all these other specialized

things that you make that margin on, that's what you're going to do.

And over time, which is the point I was trying to make,

you're going to become complacent because you're not going to be rewarded for spending

billions of dollars of making the new latest, greatest thing engineering wise,

because you're being rewarded for basically putting lipstick on a pig, which one of you guys said.

So Dave mentioned it in his article, which was Porsche's always had this ability to make

whatever you want, like Ferrari and any of these other boutique sports car manufacturers,

which Porsche still is, even though they're publicly traded, they're really, they're still

late. When I was in Germany, it was very clear what a small company Porsche is compared to who

else is in the marketplace. And I think the only difference is when Sunderwunsch got remarketed,

you know, remember it was originally Sunderwunsch, then it was changed to special wishes or then it

was changed to exclusive. And now we're back to it because it's kind of a fun, far-fetched,

German, crazy name, cool name that's rememberable. But like, I remember how many people thought this

was a new thing. Not as good as Sunderwunsch though, just for what it's worth. No, Sunderwunsch at

least can pronounce it. We can pronounce it. We can pronounce it. So that was the whole idea guys.

So the point being is to what Dave said in his newsletter, the article was this has always

existed. And Porsche has done that because they want people to kind of nest and make it their own

and do their own thing. Are we talking about the same thing? Yes, we're talking about the same thing

why Porsche hasn't really changed. There's still an engineering company. I think what's happened and

this is what I focused on was they have seen an opportunity, yes, to generate more revenue because

the point is they've gotten clobbered in the market. There's a fervor for it. So they're just

making it more public. Rensport was really the first big, like the last Rensport, they had a

whole display. They're really leaning into it. And that's where I got all these comments from

my clients going, Hey, when did this exist? I'm like it always existed. They just never did a good

job of marketing it. But now social media sort of forced them into this. And like I said, when you

go to Germany, you're making my point. No, no, no, I'm not making your point. I'm just saying the

point is that that they haven't stopped becoming an engineering company. Your point was, Oh,

they're going to shift and they're just going to be a fluff factory of options and things like that

when the colors. No, they can't because then the market would pass them by, right? They'd become

Jaguar. But what they are going to do is they're not being rewarded for doing all the badass. You

guys remember the four liter came out? How incredible that was? Okay, when the all these

things, but they're the market's not necessarily requiring demanding that they produce those types

of products anymore, because the market's rewarding them for doing the fluffy stuff. And so they're

going to follow the money. That was my freaking point. And no, there was the nine 14, there was

the nine 24, there were cheap entry level, you know, introduction porches and $80,000.

That's not the best $80,000 car out there to David's point. I think the Japanese cars are the

best cheaper entry level sports cars now. Sorry. But when you look at actually what 924 is coming,

look at the 944 944 in the 80s, you started at $40,000. That was really they were still expensive

cars. And by the way, just to give you a hint, the average buyer 25 years ago, age wise for a

new Porsche was mid 50s. Now it's actually come down. It's actually mid 40s. They are reaching

a younger buying audience. And in every time I listen to old car, I always if I have the MSRP,

I compare it to what it costs today, like my dad's 996 turbo. It was a big expense. It was $135,000

MSRP new. You're like, that's a bargain. It's not a turbo s regular turbo. You convert that to

today's cost. That was a $250,000 car, which by the way, lo and behold, it's kind of what a new

MSRP turbo not turbo s cost is 250,000. So I think the buyers are definitely actually going younger.

I think if this is what appeals to them is doing these crazy options, great. But I do think that

the dealers are part of the problem and social media is part of the problem. And it's not really

Porsche's problem. Porsche's in it to make money. And if they see an opportunity to make money, but

they haven't compromised engineering, but they're going to look. I don't even see that either,

because I think the buyer, I mean, how many of these premier sports car manufacturers are making

a manual transmission car? Ferrari? No, Lamborghini? No. I mean, who's making a major transition

driver's car? But to your point, the younger people, you know, ultimately, guys, what our

problem is is that our hearts are still like in the, you know, 20 years ago, we're even 30 years

ago when Porsche really there was what were the cool brands? Porsche for our eight, maybe some

others, right? But beyond that, and we grew up loving these cars, it's so hard to see something

that you love change going a possible direction you don't want to. So to your point, the younger

people can't drive manual transmissions. The younger people don't really give a rat's ass about the

history of anything, let alone a brand, they don't have brand loyalty like we do. They just don't.

It's true. I saw, I saw this when I really started getting into these cars in the late 90s.

Research. I saw the same conversation from the people who were driving 356s. This conversation

keeps going around, but the reality is, yes, people are aging out of the older cars,

but I don't think the enthusiasm for the brand and the sports cars is aging out. I just think

it's just shifting. I think the manual, I think the manual transmission uptake is going to still be,

I mean, look at, look at GT4s. I mean, how many new GT4s were ordered with a manual

when they offered a PDK? If they've ordered enough manuals that it hasn't changed,

it hasn't made the manuals more expensive. The price differences. How do we give Porsche the

motivation to actually go back to the drawing board and create something that's truly spectacular

like they have in the past? Dude, the four cam motor in the 1950s, what the hell? And all these

other things that they've done since, the only way is we have to stop feeding the easy money button

that they're now obviously becoming addicted to for all the Chachkes. You know, your big display

you're talking about. Go ahead. It's a long time in between those things, right? We didn't, you know,

we don't know necessarily what's going on in the secret factory or, you know, in the mad

scientist lab, but yeah, if you're, if you're looking at that brand and saying, okay, well,

sure, they had the 914 and they had a Boxter and all that sort of stuff, that certainly didn't happen

overnight. I do think they hosed it up and they spent a lot of money wasted money on converting

things like 718 to electric. And they're going to have to quickly unwind that and get an ice power

version of it on the market to have something that's still competitive because they're gonna,

they'll die on the vine trying to sell. So your point, 718s. Yeah, I agree. 100% agree. You just

made a really good point. Time. So how long ago was it before Ferrari was, how long ago in the past

was it when Ferrari was making these cars? So we're sort of seen in the same vein by enthusiasts

as RS Porsches are. When was that? I haven't, I have an opinion on that. When did it, when did it

change? It changed after the 48 Pista. It really was like, if you go back to the 458, the speciale

and all the rest of those cars, that's back when Ferrari under Luca was making these really

special cars. And Luca basically got fired from the board is now working for McLaren.

Because he essentially said, as soon as we take this thing public, we're gonna have to feed the

desires of the shareholders more than our customers. And that's exactly what's happened.

And so to your timeframe, David, and I think we're right in the midst of it, is if you go back,

like I think your car, I'll just say what I actually believe, I think your car,

that car right there is going to be is the last special, really incredible Porsche that they're

gonna engineer. That's essentially not design, not some super ridiculously expensive thing.

I think the active aerodynamics, all the cool ass technology that went into that thing.

You're going to see the cars that come after that are going to be more

pomp and circumstance. That's in my opinion, what you're going to see.

And we're talking about two RS is going to be an amazing car. And I don't know if it's going to

cost a million dollars or not. Let's assume it's cost us half a million dollars, right? I mean,

because that's still, I mean, the base price on a three RS base price is $250,000, right?

It's only after you start talking on the options and none of these options are really,

you know, not a lot of it other than the $400 vinyl sticker on the wing.

It is something the Porsche. No, no, even worse, the word that says

Wysock on the side, both sides of the of the spoiler cost $450 for two stickers.

We are so margin there. Okay, but I'm going to give that to Porsche. They got to make it up

somewhere because you're for $250,000 to get the base car. So now let's say that the two RS comes

out and it's what, how much can they jack it up by putting some turbos? And I mean, the car will

look probably somewhat similar to this. It's not a brand new chassis. So what could it be? 400, 500?

What if the new three RS doesn't beat the zero one? What if it's not as fast as a zero one? Paul,

you can't do that. Sorry, the two RS. What if the new two RS does not beat the zero one? What then?

It will. Well, it will. Hey, Dave's not wrong and be even if, even if he is wrong,

it won't matter. It will always be a more aspirational thing, maybe further reach than the

zero one for a lot of people globally. I think the zero one appeals to the Midwest and some of

those buyers, you know, maybe that's the aspirational good for them. But I think in the end, I think

if you given a choice, someone would rather even if the zero one was, you know, faster in all respect,

the buyer is going to want the GT two RS. Paul, can you think of a coveted brand from our childhood

that's note that went from being coveted to becoming an also ran to becoming out of business?

Can you think? How many brands like that can you think of? I can think of like a thousand.

If we hit S chat GPT, it would come up with 2000. So it's not unusual in this day and age where

things go so f-ing fast. It doesn't feel like that. It's crazy except for this podcast. We take two

RS. But I mean, the reality of it is, is that the there's tons of brands that come and go because

they make a few missteps and I am crestfallen thinking that's what we're starting to see.

And I'm glad that you guys were offended by it. I'm glad some of our users are our listeners

and pod air and newsletter readers were triggered by it because we all need to be aware of it

because it can happen because it happens all the fricking time. Big, beautiful, stoic brands die

because they make some stupid missteps because they start listening to morons, Jaguar, for example.

Okay. So that's what I'm thinking. You guys have anything else you want to say to that?

You want to talk about Magnus?

The last point is we sit here and yes, we live in a microcosm. Yes, the US market is

one of the largest markets. But when you look at Europe and their affinity for Porsche and you go

to the track, like I was amazed when I was there and I still amazed my clients who are from there

who as a whole use these as tools for going to the track and doing fun driving and they're not

about PPF. And this is like all of the EU far more than the North America. Maybe that's social

media. Maybe that's the deal. Like I was saying in the article, maybe that's the dealer network

proliferating. Oh, this is a coveted thing and trying to act more like Ferrari because they

can generate more revenue, more on the dealer side. I just found it much more refreshing that

the people they love, when I was at the Nürburgring, there actually, there were plenty of,

not just because it's in Germany, there's only Porsches. There was plenty of Mustangs and

lotuses, a lot of lotuses. I didn't see one Ferrari on the track, new, old, anything.

David, let's do the update on John's car and to replace the fifth segment,

unless you guys have questions and comments. All right, let's move on, guys. So are we all

friends again? Do you guys forgive me for publishing something you didn't like? I don't,

I think David. Absolutely. Absolutely. David, you are mad. I was loving this,

the pissing vinegar I was getting over WhatsApp. I mean, dude, you called me an asshole like five

times. I don't think so. Under your breath. Well, under my breath, Tim, that's a whole

another story, please. All right, so I found this, again, I think Magnus in the car world,

I love what he represents. I love when he came on the scene. Paul actually introduced me.

I love the fact that Magnus has this great story. I love the fact that he pissed so many people off

when he became Porsche famous back in the day, especially the old fart longhood people. They

hated him because they didn't understand. I heard people saying, but you know what,

it's because Magnus was representing a segment without even him knowing this, I think, a segment

of aspirational old Porsche buyers who are just like wanting to have that experience where they

can feel like they're free. And Magnus, I think personified that and he hit the market perfectly.

So we now are learning that Magnus, if you guys don't know who Magnus Walker is,

make sure you follow him. Great, great, hilarious guy. Anyway, I can say nice things about him

forever, but he's selling off some of his cars and Paul had an inside scoop by sitting down with

him on a log or something and talking to him about it. So tell us what's going on.

Yeah, I think like a lot of us, he's our contemporary, our age, and you get to a point,

which this is why we're in business. We get a lot of clients like this who realize they've

gone and got a bunch of things. And then they're beginning to evaluate, what are their things really

bring them joy? And do they have duplicates? And if you look at Magnus's collection, he went on this

rampage of collecting one of every year, like every literally every year air cooled Porsche 64 on up,

and then he realized, what am I going to do with all these cars? Then he had a bunch of 930s,

which he does, he's like me, we both love 930s. But the end of the day, between his active life,

traveling with his wife, she works for Bloomberg, they're going to Europe, they're doing all of

these different things. And when I see him on the mountain, you get to a point where you're

either driving a customer car or something special that you're, it's part of work.

Press car or something.

Press car, or you're really driving what you love to drive. And it's kind of funny. I start to see a

pattern of the keys he grabs. And he realizes, you know, he is typecasted to this role, this

urban outlaw, which is a Porsche role. I think to some degree, he wants to break free of that,

because he doesn't look how many British cars he has Jaguars, several Rolls Royces,

he's done the Lotus thing. He just he's getting back into clothing again. I mean,

that was his roots was clothing. He's getting back into clothing. He wants to do more of that.

I just think he gets a point where it gets boring doing the same thing, driving the same cars,

being the same person. So I think to some degree, he wants to reinvent himself. I forget who hired

him, but it maybe it was RM, but he was involved promoting the Rudy auction, the Rudy Klein auction

here in LA, which was kind of like a Porsche junkyard auction.

It was Hagerty. Hagerty had him do videos. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think to him, and you know, Magnus has been one of the greatest self-promoters,

which pisses a lot of people off, but because he does it really well, he doesn't on it.

I mean, talk about a frugal budget like I've been on a film shoot with him, he finds a way to skin

the cat as cheap as possible and it works. And I think he looked at this and going, you know,

that worked for Rudy. I think I have enough volume and he's going to have 150 things being

auctioned, which he doesn't have 150 cars. I don't know. He has 40 cars. And I know,

I know some of the cars that are going to be sold. I can't say anything yet,

but he's not selling everything. People think, oh, he's just having a dumpster fight. He absolutely

not. He is doing what we all do is he's looking at his question and goes, what brings me joy?

And what is a duplicate? What's the Magnus premium? He does have a lot of cool old,

like sports seats and wheels and crazy stuff. What's the Magnus premium worth, David?

What do you think? What have we seen in the marketplace?

Well, I think if he is smart and he's obviously a smart guy, but he's probably also recognizing that

he is in terms of his trajectory as a brand ambassador for Porsche and how long he's been at

this, that he's probably, you know, maybe even over slightly over the peak right now in terms of

where he falls in, you know, Porsche land. So I think there'll be some premium. I think maybe

25% something like that, you know, but I'm just curious. I'm really interested in this as a branding

exercise more than anything else because he has cultivated a very specific brand that is extremely

tied to Porsche right now. And I've watched him and he obviously has a lot of other interests as

well. And I certainly watched the work he did. He was promoting or was doing something with a

Jaguar XJS for somebody over in Britain that, you know, somebody was building kind of a Resto

Mod XJS. I don't know where he plugs in. Where does he plug in next? And Paul might know more.

David, David, you're doing that mostly for Porsche interiors too. I've seen people talking

about Sunderworks interior. It's becoming a brand name that's attached to interiors. And you've done

that in a ridiculously short period of time, by the way. So yeah. I mean, I think Magnus is a

creative person. He loves to create. And so when he gets the opportunity, whether it's the Nike

shoes, whether it's working with the Jaguar and the guys in the UK, whether it's Hot Wheels,

he's doing something with Pininfarina, you know, he had a whole display model inside his

showroom in his, you know, arts district lounge. I think he loves to do design and creativity.

He's sitting there with tape, always doing art cars. And that I think is more of his passion than

just like people don't realize he's not a car builder. He likes, I think if he could go back,

I think he'd love to be an automotive or industrial designer. I think that's where his passion lies.

And I think he wants to sort of unshackle the burden of having all these things that are maybe

tight casting him and continue to branch out further. It's not, I don't think about the money.

It's about having a really cool garage sale and sort of a baptism refresh start over. I mean,

I look at it all the time, I've got the same cars and part of it's because I'm lazy. And man,

if an auction house came in and said, Hey, we're going to help you clean this up, do all the heavy

lifting, you'll have money and then you can start another direction and buy some other things and

whatever. I think it'd be damn appealing. And so kudos to him. I am very, I only know a few of the

cars coming. Some of them I've been involved with in the past. That's all I'm going to say.

But what's really curious is to see once he announces what he's selling, and maybe I can

have a conversation we'll have here on the podcast, which is why he chose what he chose.

Because that's going to be an insight to what what a lot of us are already thinking

is why do we sell what we sell when we sell it, right?

That's that'd be a killer podcast. I think he's smart doing it the way that he's going to do

it here, though, is a big block of cars versus like this over time, obviously, some of his cars

have popped out on the market and sold. For him to bring them all out together, I think it'll have a

very bubbling effect on the, you know, the overall market trying to figure out what's what. And there

will be some premium. And Paul, do you agree? What do you think is is my number in the range of what

you think? Yeah, we talked about this when that 996 of his popped up, which was an Aero kit 996.

And I think, you know, we did see the Magnus effect. Great photography, great presentation,

all that. And it was about a 25%. I do think you're right there. I think the key is the the

cars are the loss leader. Like that, that's just to get people in the door. It's his paraphernalia

and all the collectible stuff and some really rare parts. Paul, do you really think he thinks

like that? Do you really think he sits around has business thoughts like that?

I think he does in a sense not like, Oh, this is so much money I'm sitting out.

But I don't have to win Z twosies on Pelican parts and these other forums.

Someone's gonna come in and just clean them all out.

My your interactions with him are totally at a different level than mine were. But my observations

for him is he just basically follows his passions. He'll go in whatever direction based on how he

feels and walk. But he's got this crazy. I hate to say it because it sounds so nerdy,

but he definitely has a cool factor. And I'm not a fanboy. I'm objective. I bought a car from him,

you know, the whole thing. But the moral of the story is that he does and this is the reason

when you introduced me to him and we went up to LA and Julie and I were looking for something to buy

from him. I was walking from one of his warehouses to the other and walking across this alley and

they're like, you know, homeless people in the alley, but that's a different conversation.

And we went to the other side and I remember telling him that he was like, he told me what

I'm going to do some stuff on Instagram. He was kind of cagey with his thoughts were,

but I remember specifically saying to him, or maybe I didn't say this to him, but maybe I said

to Julie, you're this guy's going to be super famous because he was he's such a freaking

personality. So does he have shelf life after the Porsche world for freaking sure? Are these things

inaccurate to him from him moving on with his life for freaking sure? This goes back to my

original point. The reason I love him, he has got go hones to walk away from that brand. He's already

well established and he could have spun off in a million different drinks. Why didn't he come out

with a limited run of, you know, 20 long hood nine, 11's that are Magnus Walker cars and gives

them all names to like miniature version of singer. He could have done a bunch of different

things, but he didn't. He's willing to wash his hands and move on. And that takes balls,

especially when you're in your fifties. Seriously, I think it's bad ass. And I agree. Hey, David,

you did the same thing. David, you did the same thing when you started Sunderworks.

I mean, that takes guts. And I think that should be inspirational at least a couple

people out there are listening. So go Magnus ass. And if you can get them on the podcast,

like they think that would be great. Yeah, and I think I think once he launches,

announces what the cars are, I got to figure out a way would be great for us to sit up at

Newcombe's Ranch on the log. And I don't know how we cannot get bombarded by people, but just to

I really want to know why because the I know what the picture is behind Dave. That's his nine

six four, which he rarely drives. And I can tell you more about that later. Why? But that, I think

is I don't think that car is coming for sale. That's my gut feel. That's my favorite one of all

pass. The funny thing is, I think to him from a driving standpoint, it's least interesting to drive.

But I think what that represents is him having carte blanche to do what he loves, which is design

to create. And he and there's people out there. Yes, he loves to drive. But I think he actually

loves to create, create design, create businesses, create opportunities. And that is where his

passion lies. And I think sometimes you just have to kind of start over. And I think he's,

there's a person that's good at starting over boy, he's he's think about it. He was at the top of

his game in the clothing industry for the rock world. I mean, he would like people thought he

was ludicrous. And I think he's just like ready to rebirth again. And I think he's going to do it

several times in his lifetime. What was the story that was in the mall in the 80s that the sort of

rocker types used to go to? You guys remember that? Topics? Hot Topics? Not Spencer's? Was it

Spencer's? It was, it was that same. That's where he sold his clothes. I don't remember. It was,

it wasn't either one of those, but something very similar to that. His clothing line was called

Serious. I remember that. Yeah, it was. And you know, and he's getting back into doing something

textile clothing, you know, fabric oriented, because he loves doing that. So it's awesome.

Kudos to him. I'm excited to see where it goes. I think he'll do well. And I think more importantly,

it's just going to be a cleansing for him. I think that's what it really represents,

more than money. Yeah. So David, let's get an update about John in his 9 11, his project that

so the, yes, let me pull that back up here. So this is the ongoing budget back date build

for John H. You might want to cover your listeners cameras. Sorry. Thank you. Thank you.

So this will just roll around a little bit, but this is us. My guy Hugo out in the metal area

here. And we've, you know, it's a very specific process that you do is you're, you know, putting

all this stuff together. So the car is basically left intact with certain mounts. And that's kind

of what Hugo is showing me right there now. And we're welding in the new nose to the, the tub

that has the correct receiver for the long hood latch and so on. So that's coming off and he's

already welded it in. And what he's doing there in this image, if I'm sorry that I'm describing it

here for those not on YouTube is he's grinding the welds now so that those are flat and don't

look ridiculous. But it's kind of all these cars were put together with sort of a spot welding process

and so that's what we're really reproducing here. So the car is coming along. There's some other

stuff. Let me see if I've got another image here that I can pull up. I'm sure the answer is no,

but I'll ask you guys anyway, were those, were they sealed or was it just, was it just spot welded

and then no sealer put over the seam? No, there's always like a seam sealer that's there for sure.

It doesn't look rough or even back in the sixties. Even back in the sixties. Yeah. Yeah. It was,

it was never rough like that. I mean, and whether it was real seam sealer or whether or not it was,

you know, paint or not really body filler, but more of seam sealer. And I thought I had another

image here because this is obviously getting a rear tail on the car too. And that is a bigger

issue and I'll have more pictures of that next week. We bought some aftermarket parts for this car

to obviously back date it. And in this case, a new front bumper, fenders and so on, and a rear

duct tail. So we're always in that mode of making the choice between,

do we do with kind of a race focused fiberglass part or do we really go on and spend money?

That's what I was going to ask you about just so that in case someone's listening to us for the

first time, because when you're building a project like this, it's always about the give

and the take, right? So, and I'm just getting a clear focus on what you want the end product to be

like is frustrating in itself. But you guys started with the end in mind, which was all in,

including the donor car, 150 grand, then you did it backwards, correct? Correct. So from that point,

we're just kind of figuring out the time and then, but it's not about skimping on the parts because

we have plenty of money for the various body parts on this thing. It's really just kind of

what's ready, what's not, who has product available based on schedule and so on. That's a major issue.

And without naming names, I really went down two paths to fit this deck lid and I wish I had this

picture. I'm sorry I don't. But this duct tail deck lid, we kind of made the choice. We bought it

from some a bit more race focused supplier of these parts and the fit isn't great. We're going to

fit correctly. The shut lines are right. It closes horizontally and beautifully on the car

and we've bought a few of these and we know what we have to do.

Let me ask a question about that. So you're going to put a lot of very expensive labor

into fixing an inferior product that it's probably, you know, you wish in retrospect you wouldn't have

bought. Why wouldn't you just return that son of a bitch and get something that you already know

and spend the extra money and get something that you know will fit or do you just not have the

confidence in any of these parts? Well, a lot of them you don't, but at the same time it's who's

got what available when I got it. All this stuff is bespoke when it's made. It's not like there's

a guy with 50 of these duct tails. I mean, to some extent, yes, there are. But, you know, people,

there's some really good providers of these products when it comes to the fiberglass repop

stuff. Getty designs out in Los Angeles is recognized as, you know, one of the better folks

when it comes to making some of these parts in terms of fit and finish. And that is important.

And we have this debate every time. And the debate is, is it going to take more in labor

to fix this or do I buy the better part? And, you know, the customer is paying the same either way.

But where's the up in the flow? Where's the, like, so is he doing any, obviously your

Sunday work, so he's going to do a kick ass interior. He doesn't have a choice. So what about

suspension? What about brakes? What about engine? Paul, what are you thinking as you go through this?

Because I know you deal with these types of conversations every day.

Yeah, you know, it's, I wish some of my clients would call me to consult when they're building it

because I know I'll have to consult when it's too late when they go to sell it. And literally,

I had this conversation with a client yesterday who brought me a 73T and he built it five years ago

and he did a great job, but he made so many wrong choices. Well, talk about that. I'm genuinely

curious about it. So what's the bad decision for resale? Okay, so he buys a 73T from Henry Schmidt,

SuperTac, well-known guy. He buys it in 2008. It was just, it wasn't worth much. And he bought

a car that was just okay. In 2008, you could have bought a car that was much better for less money

going back to what Dave said, which is, do you spend the money on the fixing it or do you just

get a better thing to begin with, whether it's a part or a donor car? He ends up spending a lot

of money doing metal work, getting that car really nice. The car is a 73, I'm guessing, CIST

in green metallic, great color. Gets the body done, the body is beautiful. He repaints it.

Well, what color does he repaint it? What color would you repaint it? Original color green metallic.

What color would you repaint it? Green metallic. Yeah, hell yeah. Original color and it's a hot

color. He paints it light ivory. Sorry. Here was this. He does the paint and body with, he started,

so first of all, and you can relate this to him, he started the build. He bought this car and it was

kind of this sort of beater runner for like seven years. He starts the build in 2015. When guess what?

The market's hot and everyone thinks they can make money. Of course, it takes longer. And he

decides for whatever reason, an older gentleman that light ivory is what he always wanted, which,

okay, mistake number one. The motor for the car is from another builder that he uses who has a

three liter S, by the way, it had like a, didn't have the original motor, had a two seven CIS motor.

So he buys this sort of mystery three liter SC Euro motor from an engine, a mechanic that got the

car from Europe, gives them the order. It's a mystery motor. I mean, it makes great power. We

don't know it. We have to do some work on it, like compression leak down, see what's really going on

with the motor. The motor doesn't match. The outside and the interior are beautiful, but the motor looks

like it was just pulled out of car, a weird color painted fan. And it was like, Oh, you spent all

this money. Why didn't you make the engine prettier? Now going back to your car, and this is the

mistakes I see people make. Outside of the deck tail being fiberglass, I would stick to as much

steel as possible. You know, I prefer a touring look because it's just, I think the thing fiberglass

fits and you know, Dave, fiberglass fits like shit, it's so hard to get to fit right. So when I see

someone who does a back date, where they just do the whole fiberglass front end kit with a stupid

latch for especially from a short nose to a long nose, kudos to you to doing it right. And I know

it's hard because that front piece is what holds the whole car together. If you don't get it right,

the car is sort of screwed up. So it's on jakes and so on. So it doesn't move. And you're not

cutting pieces of the car out before something else is in its place to, you know, keep the car

in its position. So on. But here's the recommendations from a seller of these cars. Front bumper, I would

do a non S steel bumper, like ST style bumper, not the one that comes out, the one that curves under,

it just looks better. The problem with the S bumpers, and he's probably going with an S bumper,

is there's so many of them with a touring bumper. He wants that. He wants the

awesome. But is he doing like the little lip like an S bumper lip? What's it's going to have?

Again, we're all of this stuff, including what Paul, what you're suggesting in terms of metal

versus fiberglass parts, the stuff that needs to be then worked and the time this if we're going to

do this for $150,000, including the cost of the car, we do have to make some choices. And in some

cases, those choices are going to need to be fiberglass, as opposed to what would be metal

on some of these cars. What I hope people are getting from this is the perspectives from someone

who sells the cars versus someone that builds the cars, because both of them are working within

constraints. But your point was, is if you're going to do it, try to do the ally ports. David's

point is, we can't make this car make sense financially, let alone get the parts if we're

doing alloy decklids and spoilers. So the one compromise I would never make is

always use steel fenders. If you use fiberglass fenders, that I think is going to hurt the buyers.

So if you have to use a fiberglass front and rear bumper and decklid, that's fine. Given my choice,

I would do steel. The other thing I see that affects the value is interiors. I mean, it doesn't

take a lot to do a not shitty looking cheap seat and do a good looking seat with a cool insert,

you know, Pepita. I tell people all day long, you just can't go wrong with real Pepita, not the crap,

but real Pepita. It's a little more expensive. You spend a few hundred dollars more real S carpet,

none of the lightweight stuff, use the right Hargan carpet. And it's weird, these little things

make a big difference. And the other thing in the engine is what makes a hot rod value go up is

you have two choices. You either do a really crazy whammy motor with a name attached to it,

like a Wilhoit or a Gam Roth or something like that. That's like what, 80 hundred grand. What's

a real gas motor? Right, which isn't realistic for some of these budget builds. Or if you're

going to use an SC motor, make it look great. You know, don't buy the REN line off the shelf,

CIS, carbon fiber, ugly, you know, box. Don't paint the fan, some goofy color. Just if you're

going to do it, make it look as clean and correct as possible. That looks great. You do something

with the intakes, you do some cool stuff. Getting that, see that engine right there though. So,

so that isn't going to be part of this bill. Hold on. So that's 50,000 and that's not a larger

displacement motor. What are we looking at? Oh, no, that is that's a 3.9 liter. That's the motor

going into that 964 bill that we'll talk about next week and under what we did in cars. For the

NASCAR guy. But yes, but I do, I absolutely believe Paul's point, which is if you're not going to do

something crazy. Now this is an 86, so we're starting with a 3.2. So A, it's a better looking

motor to start with. So we can take some stuff off that motor, clean it up, still use the stock

intake. But my biggest, I have a giant pet peeve about anybody that freaking paints the damn

fan. Exactly. Some other wacko color. Like, I mean, the number of red fans that I get into

this shop just makes my head explode. I want to just take them and tuck them here. Now we strip,

we take all that stuff off, we seracote these fans. They don't have to be powder. You know,

we can seracote it in a cold seracoting process and get it back to looking more like, like this,

which is, it looks great in these, this kind of color combination with maybe where the shroud

itself on the fan is a slightly darker color than the fan itself, but it's all looks metal.

It doesn't look like, that's awesome. It is a gold that isn't painted some stupid color. Don't

do it. I mean, it's a 3.1 that we built. He wanted that damn fan magenta, and I gave him a bunch

of shit about that. I was like, God, no, don't do it. If getting the bright work right, you know,

having that stuff re-plated, you can make it look great without even necessarily putting new pistons

and cylinders on it so that you increase displacement or change the stroke or any of that.

How did you get, did you dyno that motor? It hasn't been, no, because it's only barely started and

running. I mean, so it's great. It's a 3.9, a 3.2, and I know you outsource that.

3.6. It's based on a 3.6 because it came with the original 964.

Oh, 964. Okay, so that is correct. Then you put to make it to rebuild the whole thing and basically

hot rod it and increase the displacement. It was 50 grand. That's about 50 grand. There's a lot of

Kinsler stuff on it. There's lightweight rods in the motor, obviously, pistons and cylinders

that had to move up. That doesn't include the engine management, of course, you know,

so you've got a whole electronic engine management system typically for me there.

In this case, it's a link system. I find that we find that they're easier to tune,

that their interface for their for their engine management tuning setup is a little easier to

work with more of a WYSIWYG kind of, you know, for those of you that even know what I mean when I

say that, the interface is a little bit easier. It's not like coding in DOS, you know what I mean.

But what I'm hearing you guys say when I'm hearing both of you say, and I'm hearing this and Paul

saying this with regards to like, I'm sure he's thinking about if I have to consign a car, like

what Chachki's I wanted to have and not have, you guys are talking about the appearance items,

which makes sense, right? You're talking about the you didn't say this, but it's a trendy LA word,

stance. You're talking about the look, the feel. You didn't really any neither one of you until

now just talking about the motors. We weren't talking about suspension and big brakes and

webo shifters and expensive motors. So you're saying that if you're going to be building a car,

let's focus on how it looks because the factory stuff, especially when you lightweight the original

car is still what do you got? Where am I? No, I think I think you're right. If

suspension, I think most people overdo it, they put on crazy suspension. And for the most part,

like an elephant racing street suspension, just new bushings and Bilstein HDs are amazing in an

in an air cooled car. They work really well, just doing rubber bushings, all new fresh parts.

Brakes to your point, Paul, to your point. I mean, just the sport suspension from Bilstein

is perfect for everybody. I mean, you're not you're not taking this thing to the track. And

this is another scenario where you also have to understand the customer and what the customer

wants to do with this. I can absolutely tell John H is not the track guy. You know, great guy will

enjoy the heck out of this car. But the way this car looks and presents and feels, even if it feels

stock, will make him extremely happy. I mean, it's not about your foot into it and pin in your

head back in the seat. That's going to be fun. But like we talk about so many times, driving the

slow car fast can be just as equally fun as driving some ripper. In some cases, more fun, you know,

puts this car to the limit of its existing. Cheaper to get parts for you can find, you know,

where if the car ends up and you know, wherever there's going to be a Porsche guy that's not going

to be intimidated by it, he doesn't need the user manual to get the fuel injection working,

right? So yeah, I agree with you. That seems like a perfect hot rod.

To your point, Tim, suspension brakes, I think all of that doesn't necessarily generate more

the cost of it doesn't really equal more value on the sale. And the one mechanical part that

does is the engine. And this is where it gets really tricky, because you start doing the engine,

then you might have to increase brakes and things like that. I think everyone for whatever

reason thinks they need to have 300 horsepower in an air cooled, you know, torsion bar car,

which I think if they really drove to me, 220 wheel horsepower in a 2,500 pound

Porsche air cooled torsion bar car is kind of perfect. And you can do that. I would say EFI is

the biggest thing that is going to sort of blow everyone away like PMO carburetors were years

ago. And if I were going to build a car today, I would start with a three liter aluminum case,

and you build a three two with EFI. But yes, then you're getting to 50 grand. And the key is make

that money. And you know, let's say you can't like, like the build you're dealing with right now,

if I were telling him, look, you can't spend the money on the motor now, you can always do it later,

right, make it cool looking, do the fan right, I would put a if you have the motor out, put an

amber shroud on it. Those look so cool. You know, maybe do like a black crinkle coat on the manifold

if you're taking that apart. Otherwise, just clean the hell out of it, make the air box look less

dorky, and really get all the anodized and zinc plated and CAD plated parts perfect. And that car

will look like a jewelry box, put a good sound pad in. It's amazing how many times I see these

builds and like, Oh, we'll just paint the back of the firewall. No, it looks better with a sound pad.

So and then down the road, if he loves the car and he wants more power,

then go build something a little more bespoke. But that the engine is probably the one mechanical

thing that heavily impacts the value of these cars. And that but the thing about that, you can screw

it. And what I mean by that is, you talk about the 300 horsepower, whatever, to get 300 horsepower

out of the motor in that car. It will make that car very hard to drive. It won't make it anywhere

near as fun to drive. That car will be have a lumpy cam. It's going to be just not comfortable.

It might have to have a lightweight flywheel, which makes it just difficult to shit. There's

just so much stuff where if people get the horsepower you want. But I think I totally agree

with Paul 200, 250 on one of these cars is plenty of fun. It's super fun. Don't horsepower on 9 11

is expensive to chase super expensive to chase. What's the what's the wet weight on something

like that? I don't even really know. It's less than 2000 pounds. No, it's more than that. Like

what 22 to 22 to 2500 probably what's just hilarious because it's still like what 1500

pounds less what is it wet weight on a modern GT three I think is in like 3,000 3,600 pounds.

By the way, no, the new GT three is still shockingly 3,200 pounds. What is the one manufacturer

that does dry weight versus what weight when they're advertising their weights?

Oh, I stopped. Right. No, you're right. It is right. Okay. They also sent they also

are generous on the horsepower where Porsche's sandbags a bit. Okay, I thought that and I wrote

an article. So we're going to round the bend here. So if you guys I wrote an article for our full

throttle talk newsletter, which hasn't come out yet, but I was really curious about what Paul just

said because I thought like some manufacturers that so the, you know, ZR one came out and I

watched this Hennessy video and this guy was talking about the fact that the, you know, the

wheel horsepower is, you know, 1200, which means the flywheel horsepower must really be 1400.

And I thought that doesn't sound right. So I did some research on this with crank horsepower versus

wheel horsepower. I what could one of you nerdballs explain that for the people that don't know what

I'm talking about crank horsepower. Yeah, well, mostly companies building engines, they're not

necessarily putting them in the car and they're running them on a dyno where they just plug the

engine into this machine and it's telling you out of the engine, here's the horsepower right dyno

one, which I think Matt fairs doing a whole article on this. And it is where you get also

lots more variables is you're literally putting the wheels on something that rolls

or some of the really fancy ones as they bolt in the axles, they take the tires off and they just

bolt it right on the axles. So they're actually going how much actual power is getting to the

ground. And historically, American manufacturers domestic have been the most egregious outside

of the sixties when they were trying to deal with insurance, but really the most egregious you look

at a Ford Mustang on what it is reported at crank and what it actually puts out as you lose the

drivetrain loss is 12 to 15% from the flywheel horsepower, the crank horsepower to the rear wheels,

it depends. But that's basically more than that, I think typically, I mean, we normally use 20,

20% or so is our kind of go to number, right, terms of the loss. I think with the Porsche,

it's less because you don't have a big drivetrain, you don't have a driveshaft going the length of

the car. But even historically, I think Porsches BMW even BMWs, and those manufacturers, I think

have been far more conservative, the the actual, you know, wheel to crank is probably for Porsches,

I'll bet 10%. Whereas like a Ford GT 350 is probably closer to what you said, Dave, 20%.

That has to be right, honestly, just has to be right. But so here's the thing I thought was

fascinating is all manufacturers are advertising crank horsepower, none of them now are advertising

wheel horsepower, research it yourself, if you don't believe it. Well, yeah, why would they be

makes it crank horsepower is always going to be a larger number, that's better for marketing,

why would they even I say that wrong? Let me know I said that right. So all of them are using crank

horsepower, which means the actual horsepower, right, adjusts accordingly with drivetrain loss.

But just the point of it is, is that when you're hearing this great debate about whether or not,

you know, when manufacturers sort of sandbagging versus the other nowadays, they're all and you're

right back in the 70s and 80s, I think that the American manufacturers were playing around

whether it was crank or wheel, but the muscle car era for sure was that that was a joke because

they would say oh, it's 400 horsepower. And but they were building drag cars. So they were really

like, you know, like, like club racers, you think about it, we always talk about when you're a cars

and coffee guy, who I have this much horsepower and the irony is when you talk to club racers,

we always like way Oh, my Carly has 170 horsepower. We just play it down. And I think

because the muscle car industry in the late 60s was so focused on drag racing,

they way underplayed it. And it was historically hilarious. Like, we're talking 100 horsepower

Delta between crank horsepower with the wheel horsepower being more than the reported crank,

which should be the opposite, the crank horsepower will always be the most because that's the

power coming directly out of the motor. And then it starts to have loss as it gets down the

drive train. Yeah, losses. So it gets to the wheels. And that was the only time in American

history where it was flip flop because they want to go drag racing bracket racing.

I just think it's fascinating from a nerd's perspective, because that's so I didn't clearly

understand it. You guys obviously did. But I was confused about it. I'm sure some of our listeners

were as well. Well, guys, I think we just put another show in the bag. So I really hope you guys

enjoyed it. And I was hoping we'd have more of a debate. Paul and I were anticipating, Dave,

that you were going to need some tissues because you were crying because you were so mad at me,

but it didn't happen. We'll have to do better next time. I don't cry. I don't cry to him when I get

mad. You just get even. Anger. If you have it, bubbles over. If you want to see a restraint

and refined anger from Dave, read the latest newsletter. Yeah, that's great. That's coming

out today, right? Yeah, yeah. Coming out on Wednesday. Yeah. What is today?

Tomorrow. It's coming out tomorrow along with the podcast, by the way, we're recording this

day in advance. You just gave away one of our production secrets. But yeah, so there it is.

Make sure you subscribe to the newsletter. Just go to fullthrattletalk.com and subscribe. Look,

guys, the bottom line is we're doing this podcast for you. We spend a lot of time on it every week.

We have a lot of debates trying to make the content always better. We love, love, love the

feedback, which we didn't get to, but we read all that you guys give us feedback in the newsletter.

You're giving us feedback on Instagram. You are helping us to gear our direction of our

conversations. And I'll tell you what I'm using it for. Frankly, your feedback is to try a balloon

different topics. We are all wrestling with our propensity to stay madly in love with what was,

but we do realize at the same time that the world is moving on, we need to be a part of that too.

So on behalf of Julie, or I'm sorry, I just had a screen set. I'm going in different podcast mode.

So listen, guys, thanks for joining us for Full Throttle Talk. And again, we appreciate your continued

support. Paul David, you guys have a great week. You too. See you guys. Bye.

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