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Welcome to Full Throttle Talk, the podcast where force power meets conversation.
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From supercars to classic legends, high-revving tech to motorsport mayhem, we cover it all.
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Straight from the driver's seat, whether you're a gearhead or racer, or just love the thrill
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of the open road, you're in the right place.
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Buckle up, hit the gas, and let's go full throttle into today's episode.
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Chris Harris, and this is, of course, your favorite weekly automotive podcast, Full Throttle
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Talk, and joining me this week are Paul and Dave, and we're going to be focused on a lot
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of fun topics today.
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It's not going to be a super long show, though I do appreciate all of you who do like our
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super long shows, but today we're going to be focusing a lot on Monterey Car Week,
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but I think we're going to be bringing some observations about Monterey Car Week that
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maybe you've not heard anywhere else, and we're also going to be talking about
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what you did in cars this week.
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I just listened to a very interesting podcast from Chris Harrison, friends talking about
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the European automotive industry, which I'm hoping to bring up and have these guys yammer
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a bit about, and a lot of other fun things, whatever, frankly, comes to mind.
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So without any further delay, guys, welcome to this week's podcast.
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Hey, I'm so excited.
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I'm so excited, Tim.
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I'm excited to hear about Monterey Car Week, because all of my total influx or
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injection of Monterey Car Week has been just watching all my friends, you know,
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So I've not talked to anyone who's had feet on the ground.
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Well, I'll give you a little, a little insight.
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The Monterey Car Week was dominated by everybody and their brother who thought
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that they were an influencer and who had hashtags on every damn thing you can
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possibly imagine leading them back to their Insta handles.
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And the number of people, there are more people walking around with many film
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crews than there were attendees at some of the events we went to.
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That's what it was like.
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So it was honestly, at some time, at some moments, it was actually kind of hilarious.
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And I'm not criticizing.
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I appreciate the amplitude of the enthusiasm for the automotive space, but it was obvious.
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But before we get to that, so what did you do in cars this week?
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And I know that you had to make, you had some exciting upholstery things.
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I'm very interested in know what you've been working on.
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Cause as you guys may or may not know, Dave is the king of Sunderworks in North
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Carolina, arguably one of the, I think most recognized upholstery shops for the
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Porsche space in certainly this part of the world.
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And in addition to that, he does a lot of Porsche restoration.
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So Dave, without any further delay.
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Yeah, no worries, Tim.
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Hello, hello, hello.
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It's been a busy week here at Sunderworks.
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We, the car that I'm showing you behind me here, this lovely orange
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SC that's been previously wide-bodied and flared.
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I don't know. You guys, Paul, you probably are aware of this.
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You're familiar with the Porsche restoration challenge that the
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dealers do around the country.
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Okay. For the last few years, we've worked with probably four different
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dealers that send their stuff down to us.
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We've done soft window Targas.
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We've done all kinds of upholstery.
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We did a job last year for the fine folks up at Porsche of Charlottesville.
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And they actually won their particular class, which was this kind of this.
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There's three different classes for this restoration challenge.
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And the upside for this is probably, I don't know, 30, 40, 50 of the
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dealers that participate nationwide.
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If they win, they get an additional allocation of a high end car.
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So it's important for them because they want to get these cars
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and that's why they continue to enter.
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This car behind me is the Porsche of Charlottesville.
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Hold on a second, Dave.
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I always wondered why they throw so much money.
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And I've even asked some of them before, like, okay, this is really cool.
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Brands your dealership as being a car person's dealer, Porsche dealership.
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But I always felt that there was more into it.
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And I mean, we don't have Casey here to talk about it, but
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an extra allocation of a GT through RS or an ST, that's got to be,
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do you think that that extra allocation, the revenue from that outweighs
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the cost to do the build?
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But here's what I think.
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Well, the reason is because almost every one of these builds is for a customer
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who's actually paying for the work.
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I didn't know that.
04:30
Oh, I didn't know that either.
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The cars are either going to get sold off after the event,
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or like this particular car is for a customer.
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So I would say there's one exception to that.
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That's Bob Ackman with Santa Clarita Porsche.
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That's very possible.
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I don't think he ever wants to sell anything.
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But you know, to Dave's point, though, we were at Renworks.
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I always go, no, RenSport reunion, I think.
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Two years ago, probably.
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So we went there and I looked at, and I took pictures.
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I'll put them on Instagram of all those restoration challenge cars.
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And there were enormous, I don't even remember the total number,
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but there were at least a dozen.
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But get this, somebody did a full restoration,
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one of the dealerships did a full restoration on a 928.
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That is a ballsy move.
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They talk about an expensive restoration.
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But the other cars, we looked at all them,
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they're really beautiful.
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Honestly, it's spectacular.
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I mean, they do a great job.
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And there's an individualization class,
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which is what this car is.
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So this is a 79, I think it's a 79 SC.
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And we have gotten probably a little deeper in this
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And now we're coming to crunch time
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because the first judging for these cars
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is coming up early next month.
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And for the Southeast region, it's in Indianapolis,
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So we've been working with the fine folks up there
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in Charlottesville.
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And this is a safari build that they're doing.
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So yeah, the car started life.
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And you can see there we are putting on a roof rack
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and a light bar on the top of the car.
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We're about to fit wheels on it.
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We also sprayed rhino lining on the inside
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of the bottom of this.
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So you can see that there if I get my fat head out of the way.
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In an odd color, and I think we've ultimately chosen
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to move on beyond this,
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we're going to put some square weave carpeting in this.
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I think the owner and the person specking the build
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decided he wanted a rough and ready sort of car.
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But there's this rough and ready
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and then there's a car that can actually win one of these things.
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So rough and ready might be very functional,
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might be lightweight,
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might be taking as much weight out of the car as possible.
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But it's got to look and present well.
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And so we've decided we're going to do a really tight
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German square weave carpeting in this.
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And then we're putting in some what I call Sunder CS seats,
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which are very similar in appearance to a Recaro Sportster CS.
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But one that we're sourcing ourselves.
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I don't have a picture of that right now,
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but I will maybe for next time around.
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But we're jamming on this thing to get it done.
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It has been a very, very busy week.
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This is getting a full interior.
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And it should be a pretty cool build.
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I think they've worked a little bit with Lee Keen on this too,
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in terms of specking out the suspension
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that's being installed underneath it.
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By the time I think everyone's kind of set up with it
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and it goes back up to them for the finishing touches,
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it's going to be a neat little car.
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So we'll see how it does in the event.
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Well, that's been my week.
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Yeah, post more pictures on your Instagram
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as you finish that, because that looks...
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What orange is that?
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Yeah, it looks like continental orange to me.
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You know, it's funny with...
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And Tim, like 993's convertibles
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and all my other weird fetish hates I have,
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I have a weird thing about orange.
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Tangerine is so overdone,
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which drives me nuts,
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because Porsche has amazing oranges.
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And when someone says I'm painting my car,
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tangerine, my back date,
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it just says one thing to me.
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I'm lazy and I have not a creative bone in my soul.
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And continental orange is really bitching.
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It doesn't just say to you that they like orange?
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No, it says that I'm lazy
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and someone told me tangerine orange is the color to do
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because everyone's done it.
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And it's just lemmings jumping off a cliff.
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But when you look at the palette of oranges Porsche has,
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they have some amazing oranges.
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Like, first of all, SCs,
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there's some great colors with SCs that always get overlooked.
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Arrow blue, one of my favorite colors.
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Continental orange, another great color.
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Talbot yellow, another great color.
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And for whatever reason, everyone just goes,
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And there's some great ones that no one ever ordered
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that I'm like, why don't you paint at that?
08:50
Another really cool trick,
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and I wish I had the photo ready,
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we did one of our back date.
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nine right around when I met you, Tim,
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it was a back date, 9-11 SC,
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where we wanted to do a Yegrameister livery.
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We didn't want to do brown.
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We were going to do blue.
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We wanted to do a different orange.
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And by the way, Yegrameister orange is really good,
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a good paint color to use.
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So we use 997 GT3 RS orange,
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which is just called orange.
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And it's a really good orange.
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Like, so anyway, off my high horse,
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that looks like Continental orange to me,
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which I think is a great color
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because if it was tangerine with our cameras right now,
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you would swear that car was almost red.
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Hey, Paul, I thought you were supposed to be drugged up
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a little bit dopey.
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That did not sound dopey or drugged up whatsoever.
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Your brain is working, I think, 100%.
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No, actually, in all seriousness,
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I have personally been cutting down the pain meds
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and dealing with more pain because I want to think.
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In case you guys don't know
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that Paul is actually in the hospital,
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well, actually, he's not in the hospital.
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He's NPT recovering.
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Look at his glamorous background.
10:03
Okay, recovering from a major operation
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that worked out as, I think, honestly, Paul,
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as good as it possibly could have.
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Oh, you haven't seen the scar yet.
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Oh, well, you know, I was thinking about that.
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When it comes to that scar,
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and somebody asked you about it,
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and you know, and you feel tempted
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to show off this gnarly scar,
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are you going to tell them it was from a procedure
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and get into some long diatribe
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about all the proper names for the procedure,
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or are you going to just make up something fun
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like it was a shark bite?
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Oh, I would make up something fun.
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It wouldn't be a shark bite.
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It would be like I was in a pro-am golf tournament
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with Yoko Moss and he shoved the golf club into my hip
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because I said him that Jackie X was a better driver
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Okay, there you go.
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See what I'm saying?
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No IQ downtime for Mr. Kramer.
10:54
Okay, well, so as far as now that you're off
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your orange soap box, what have you done in the past week
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that you would like to talk about,
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given the fact you've been in the hospital?
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I haven't done a lot outside of here.
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Literally, I'm in the hospital.
11:10
I am coordinating a couple new cars coming in,
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The background one's a 68912 in aga blue
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with a red interior and a Benton built motor,
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about a 225 horsepower at the wheels,
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horsepower of 912 motor.
11:26
Older paint job, color change, not numbers matching,
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but a really very, very fun, tidy hot rod.
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And this is one of the things that I know
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it's good for my business and I get frustrated.
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I don't know why I shouldn't be frustrated.
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But I sell these cars.
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The list of people I post on Instagram,
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It got shipped from my client in Northern Nevada.
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And everyone's like, ooh, I want that.
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Tell me more about it.
11:54
I put a deposit on it.
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And in the case when I sold this a few years ago,
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that's exactly what happened with that owner.
12:01
I shipped the car to him.
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He's a wonderful guy.
12:03
I've known him for 20 years.
12:05
The Silver 73RS story I post on Instagram was,
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I sold to him and he kept it for 16 years.
12:12
He's had this car for three years.
12:13
He's put 700 miles on it and he's over it.
12:18
I get, I'm grateful.
12:19
I get the car back.
12:20
I get to sell it, pay for,
12:23
keep the roof over our head and keep
12:26
But there's a part of me that gets bitter,
12:27
like why didn't he like it?
12:29
Why didn't he drive it more?
12:31
Why didn't he find his moment with the car?
12:33
And by the way, this isn't like this unique example.
12:40
And I would say in the last five years,
12:43
And it's not just me.
12:45
I was reading a bring a trailer ad for a 996 GT3
12:48
that sold yesterday.
12:49
I don't know if you saw that red one.
12:50
The guy bought it like three years ago
12:53
on bring a trailer, put a lot of money,
12:56
bought it, it hammered for 110,
12:58
put from what I can calculate, 20 grand into it,
13:02
drove 500 miles and it just sold yesterday for 115.
13:07
Oh, do you find that more,
13:08
do you find that more with, with the air cooled cars
13:11
or with newer stuff?
13:13
Just across the board.
13:15
Anything that's not a daily driver.
13:16
Anything that's a fun toy.
13:17
And I don't know if it's coming-
13:19
But you're, you've talked about this before, Paul,
13:21
and it, you're getting into a little bit of a philosophical thing
13:24
and it's kind of fascinating for me to think about
13:26
why you're maybe more motivated to talk about this now,
13:28
given your recent, you know, challenges health-wise.
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But seriously, it's an interesting perspective.
13:33
And Dave asked you a question with regards
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to why you think that is,
13:36
and I let's actually drill down and leverage
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the fact that you're on pain meds
13:40
so you can be extra truthy with your actual opinion.
13:45
So why do you think people buy these things
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and don't drive them?
13:49
Part of it is, I think,
13:51
because this epidemic to me is more than the last five years
13:54
and I think it's the predominance of social media
13:57
that like television ads saying, you know,
13:59
you'll be cool if you smoke these cigarettes
14:02
and so you, you know, you should or you'll get the women
14:05
if you drive this car.
14:07
You're describing what we saw in Monterey
14:09
to a freaking tea right now
14:10
and that's where you're, this is perfect.
14:12
I'm glad I asked that question
14:13
because that is what was going on in Monterey.
14:16
Yeah, so I think it's just the social aspect of
14:20
your life will be better, you should experience this
14:23
and the number of times
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I have to really walk my clients through
14:29
because they'll say, you know,
14:29
they're coming from a 992 Carrera S PDK
14:33
and they buy their first G body.
14:35
They've never owned anything 10 years old,
14:38
let alone 30, 40 years old.
14:40
And their question to me is,
14:42
how is this to maintain?
14:44
And I'm like, compared to that new thing,
14:48
It's, you know, we all know, like owning a vintage car takes,
14:56
if you can enjoy or at least deal with the maintenance
15:01
part of it and understand it,
15:02
it's just not for you.
15:04
I mean, it's hard to explain it.
15:07
This isn't a CPO buying experience.
15:09
This isn't, this isn't just, you know,
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hey, I throw oil at it when a light comes on.
15:15
This is, you drive it, you take notes,
15:18
things are different.
15:19
Every time you drive it, it does something different,
15:22
You make notes of the bad stuff
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and then you determine how bad that bad is.
15:26
Is that bad enough to go see the mechanic now?
15:28
Or can I wait till I need, I have more bad stuff,
15:32
And then you fix it and you repeat it.
15:35
It was what Jerry said.
15:36
It's what Seinfeld says.
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I mean, that's part of the ownership experience.
15:39
And if you can't really, if you don't,
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if you don't enjoy getting to know people
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like Paul and Dave, you know, if you don't enjoy
15:46
having an expanded friend group, not,
15:49
and maybe some cases involuntary, the tow guy,
15:51
then it's probably a bad idea
15:53
for you to pursue these things.
15:54
You have to, you know, but it is,
15:56
there is a certain, there is a bifurcation
15:58
that's happening and a big noticeable one.
16:00
Again, this TNSM for the Monterey conversation
16:03
amongst the guys that are migrating
16:06
towards these cars as I don't even know what this,
16:08
there's all these dumb words,
16:09
but like status symbol, flex, whatever, whatever,
16:13
to versus where it was 10 or 15 years ago
16:17
when it was dominated by, you know,
16:19
the traditional car enthusiast guys.
16:22
And those two would never meet.
16:24
There was no newer generation Instagram influencer types
16:29
at the, at Pebble in particular,
16:31
but certainly Monterey on a whole,
16:33
maybe not even 10 years ago.
16:35
But now I have to say it's definitely dominated.
16:38
And I don't think anyone could even say
16:40
that that wasn't true,
16:41
especially given some of the hijinks that were happening
16:43
amongst the younger generation, frankly, sorry.
16:47
No, no, let me, let me chime in.
16:49
I'm just going to chime in just on my experience
16:52
because I've had three clients,
16:53
very similar situations, Paul, over the last few months,
16:57
including one that just finished
16:59
with an absolutely gorgeous car
17:01
that we spent the better part of two years building.
17:04
And he has now had it in his possession for maybe 90 days.
17:09
Six, you know, not even probably after we finished it.
17:13
He came into my office today and he's like,
17:15
you know what, I think I want to sell this thing.
17:18
And I'm like, are you kidding me?
17:19
This car is absolutely gorgeous.
17:22
My take on it is, is these guys,
17:25
they, there's this aura of air cool
17:29
and they are coming from modern Porsches, you know,
17:34
all these clients, the same thing.
17:35
They all have modern Porsches,
17:37
but then they get told they should have an air cooled.
17:40
They get into that air cooled
17:41
and it's not the experience they thought.
17:44
It's not the luxury.
17:45
It's not the stability.
17:46
It's not the confidence that you would normally have
17:50
in driving a modern car.
17:52
They have their fun with it for a short period of time
17:55
and then it's, boom, then they want to be out
17:57
and move on to the next thing
17:58
and maybe it's buying another modern car.
18:01
But I've had three customers,
18:03
identical situation over the last
18:05
and the profile is probably that 45 to 55 year old guy
18:11
Well, also there's a romanticism with buying old cars
18:14
and if your wife doesn't like it
18:16
and your kids don't want to rock and roll in it
18:18
because it doesn't have Wi-Fi built into it,
18:20
then you're sitting there looking at it as a, you know,
18:22
but I'll say this is kind of fascinating.
18:25
Porsche, can you guys think of another manufacturer
18:29
that has so dutifully paid homage to homage?
18:34
Am I saying it wrong?
18:36
Okay, I got it right.
18:37
Sorry to their back catalog is Porsche.
18:41
You can still get into a modern Porsche
18:43
and I don't know what percent of the experience
18:46
is similar to driving a vintage one,
18:48
but it's pretty damn, it's not that different,
18:51
especially if you're willing to spend the beans
18:53
and get a GT product.
18:55
You know, again, that was something that I thought
18:58
I thought, well, what is it about the old cars
19:01
that I personally like because I've got a lot of them
19:03
and versus, you know, some of these newer ones
19:06
and it is the connection to the car.
19:08
And then I got to thinking,
19:09
what other modern cars are there
19:11
where you actually feel that level of connectiveness?
19:13
And it's the list is really freaking short.
19:16
It's the modern manual shift GT products
19:18
and, you know, some of the Porsche products.
19:21
Amiata, frankly, and beyond that,
19:24
I really couldn't figure out anything.
19:25
So if you have a connection to the older,
19:28
you know, the older feel of those older cars
19:33
for whatever reason,
19:34
and you go and jump in a newer car, a newer Porsche,
19:37
you can that there's a connection there
19:39
that you can actually feel.
19:40
But I don't I don't get that.
19:42
Like if you jump into an 80s BMW
19:44
and jump into a new BMW, they don't feel the same.
19:46
You know, same goes with all these products.
19:48
They're just completely different.
19:50
But that's the one thing I think.
19:52
Again, another observation we'll talk about
19:54
when we get to Monterey.
19:55
The Porsche is doing better than anybody else.
19:57
And I personally, what I was observing
20:00
is Porsche is about to go to a more than I ever
20:02
would have imagined.
20:03
Porsche is about to go to a different level
20:06
with all aspects of not just marketing,
20:10
but their clientele.
20:11
And maybe this I'll just I'll share this.
20:14
The my thing in car week
20:16
or my thing I did in cars
20:17
is I bought a 54 Triumph TR2 off bring a trailer.
20:23
And if you guys want to see it, unfortunately.
20:25
And so in my drug period,
20:29
I saw you guys discussing this.
20:31
I thought it was a ruse.
20:32
I had no idea you actually bought it.
20:35
Yeah. Well, I mean, you would think that
20:36
because it's not a 9-11.
20:38
And you're very well.
20:38
What was the trigger though, Tim?
20:39
Didn't wasn't it something
20:41
harkening back to your your problem or something like that?
20:44
Your problem. Yeah.
20:45
No, it's more than that.
20:46
So when I was growing up,
20:48
my dad always seemed to have
20:51
some cool little British sports car
20:52
and the triumphs are the ones that kept on,
20:54
you know, showing up in our lives.
20:56
And my dad didn't never really had enough money
20:59
to buy a really nice one.
21:00
He eventually bought a really nice TR3B.
21:02
So we always got to restoring them.
21:04
And so he and I restored, you know,
21:06
one or two of these, I think maybe three.
21:08
And you'd think that experience alone
21:10
to make me hate triumphs.
21:11
But finally, he ended up with a really nice TR3B.
21:14
And that was the one that Julie and I went
21:16
to all of our homecomings and proms then.
21:18
But going back even before that,
21:20
I had this picture of my dad
21:22
in the 19, my mom thinks it was late 50s or early 60s,
21:27
where he was fresh out of the army
21:29
and he was working for one of the aerospace companies
21:34
and actually was a designer back before they had CAD
21:37
that they, when they do 3D renderings,
21:39
they did them all by drawing them.
21:40
I don't know if you guys have ever seen anything like that,
21:42
but that's what he did.
21:44
So he got hired by,
21:46
I forget what aerospace industry it was.
21:48
And he was living in what company it was.
21:50
He was living in Indianapolis.
21:51
So he had to drive his BRG TR2 all the way out to California
21:56
to work for, I think it was Northwood Grumman or something.
22:00
And yeah, so I had this picture of him in this TR
22:05
wearing this green flight jacket from the army.
22:08
And you could barely tell it's BRG, but I know it was.
22:11
And with these palm trees,
22:12
this after he driven it all the way out west.
22:14
And I showed my mom,
22:15
my mom, to her, that's a very,
22:18
that's a card that he drove when they met
22:20
and the whole thing.
22:20
He taught her to drive on the car.
22:22
And so there was this really beautiful video
22:25
that the guy who was selling the car
22:28
on behalf of the seller put on BRG a trailer.
22:30
I thought it was beautiful.
22:31
So I started to show it to my mom
22:32
and she started to cry and all the things.
22:34
And I had to tell her three times,
22:36
mom, we just bought that car.
22:37
And she was, she wasn't listening.
22:38
She was watching the video.
22:40
She's 85, you know,
22:41
she was watching the video so intensely
22:43
remembering these experiences with my dad.
22:44
And he passed away, you know, 19 years ago.
22:50
I had to finally say, mom,
22:51
we just bought that car.
22:53
And then she literally started to cheer.
22:56
But, and, and talking about going back
22:58
to what we were talking about,
22:59
the nostalgia part,
23:00
like that cars is in all measures
23:02
a wretched car compared to today's cars.
23:06
It's so, it's, it's,
23:09
it makes a 356 seem like the luxury.
23:17
But where's the picture?
23:18
You said you were going to show us a picture, Tim.
23:20
I didn't load them, unfortunately,
23:22
because we did this kind of lap.
23:23
If you go to bring a trailer,
23:25
and you'd be doing it.
23:25
I'll see if I can pull it up.
23:27
Go to bring a trailer.
23:31
I mean, the car looks nicely restored.
23:34
It will, and not only that,
23:38
the owner of this car, Mike,
23:40
has, I think it was 27 different
23:43
first places and second places,
23:45
different concours.
23:46
So the car has been fully vetted
23:47
as being really, you know,
23:49
but yes, Paul, your point is,
23:51
that's the reason that some people buy cars
23:52
because they have this emotional,
23:54
I mean, how many, how many miles
23:55
will I put in that thing?
23:56
And the time we went,
23:57
it'll be measured in three digits,
24:03
you're going to have an experience.
24:04
You're going to relive an experience.
24:06
I think, I don't know if it's possible,
24:08
but maybe your mom will somehow
24:10
in some way get to it.
24:12
I might take her on a drive
24:13
in the fall leaves in North Carolina
24:14
and the whole thing.
24:16
Please put cameras in the car.
24:20
And not even, not something to share,
24:22
but, you know, there'll come a point
24:23
where our parents are gone
24:24
and those videos of our parents having,
24:28
there's less things that supremely
24:32
That was one of them for my mom.
24:34
You know, honestly,
24:35
I don't want to talk about it anymore.
24:36
I'm getting emotional.
24:36
But I do have, I am.
24:39
But I have, and I know exactly where it is,
24:41
that same flight jacket my dad was wearing
24:44
and he had a blue triumph patch
24:46
that he had sewn on it
24:48
and I still have it.
24:49
So it's, it's, you know,
24:52
but it's not incredible though,
24:53
the whole thing, the whole arc, you know.
24:55
And that's, and that is why,
24:58
one of the several reasons
25:00
you should buy a car.
25:01
And when you think,
25:03
oh, it doesn't fit my lifestyle.
25:06
Just keep it one more year
25:09
Like, like and do one more drive.
25:10
Like do one more before you think
25:13
because you're, you're not using enough,
25:15
Do one more thing with your car
25:17
because I think that might extend
25:19
the runway a little bit longer.
25:20
And I, and I, I appreciate the,
25:22
the revolving door business,
25:24
but I kind of want my clients to,
25:27
I see them get these cars
25:28
and they never have that experience.
25:30
Whether it's taking your mom in the car or.
25:37
Or they go on a rally
25:38
or they just do an afternoon drive
25:40
or they take their kid out for like,
25:41
like I just feel they're robbing themselves.
25:44
All they do is call me and complain that,
25:45
oh, the oil light came on
25:47
or the window isn't working quite right.
25:49
Or I can't find the owner's manual
25:52
and they just never freaking have an experience.
25:55
And I wish they would do that.
25:58
And it's, you know,
26:00
there's something about cars
26:03
and not driving an LA.
26:05
If I never drive an LA again,
26:07
How do you people put up with that crap?
26:11
It is freaking bonkers.
26:15
It's so strategic how I do it.
26:16
Like this morning's Friday,
26:18
I would normally be going to Good Vibes Breakfast Club.
26:20
But, you know, I live two miles from my shop.
26:22
I would be leaving at 6am, no traffic,
26:25
have a mountain drive.
26:26
I leave there at 11
26:27
and I have an hour and a half of light traffic
26:31
and it's like this such a narrow window I got to hit
26:34
just to make me not want to kill myself.
26:36
But yeah, you're right.
26:40
And it's not just, I don't know what I did.
26:42
I'm not a complainer by nature,
26:43
but fortunately when we were in for car week,
26:47
we did a thanks for your tip, Paul,
26:49
rent a 992 Cabriolet
26:52
and this thing had almost 80,000 miles on it.
26:56
And I have to say that was a freaking,
26:59
despite the red on red on red on red on red combination,
27:02
that car was phenomenal.
27:05
It just was with 80,000 miles.
27:07
All the stuff worked.
27:10
Had one little creak that was somewhere.
27:12
I didn't even care.
27:13
But I truly thought for 80,000 miles,
27:16
that car was, if it had been thoroughly detailed,
27:18
that car was felt like had less than 20 on it.
27:21
What a phenomenal car.
27:23
Yeah, despite the color.
27:25
And so Dave has found it.
27:26
So if you're watching us on YouTube,
27:28
there's pictures of it.
27:28
But if you skip through it,
27:30
the car was a hot rod TR
27:33
if you can even think of that.
27:37
I think in the early 60s,
27:38
Triumph raced a series of cars in Le Mans
27:41
and won their class.
27:42
And that's what that car reminded me of.
27:44
that's what I did in cars this week,
27:46
besides trying to make it back from car week,
27:48
which ended up taking two days.
27:50
All right, so let's pivot.
27:52
Let's talk about car week.
27:53
And I know you guys were watching a lot of things
27:55
on YouTube and watching a lot of,
27:58
you know, different videos and listening to pods.
28:01
And I'll start out by saying this.
28:03
Julie and I were trying to add it up how many times.
28:05
So let's just leave it at probably 12 or 15 times.
28:08
And we've always tried to have different experiences.
28:11
It's easy to get into the same pattern of things.
28:13
You're going to go to this event on this day,
28:15
this event on this day.
28:17
we kind of did a Kramer style
28:18
where we were a little bit more casual.
28:21
We are trying to avoid a little bit more
28:22
of the pomp and circumstance type things.
28:25
The pomp and circumstance found us
28:28
there was a discernible,
28:30
I'll call it vibe shift
28:34
that was going on that I'd feel,
28:37
I felt building over the last few years,
28:39
but this year it was obvious.
28:41
And I'll give you the,
28:45
it's dominated by younger people for sure,
28:50
None of these are criticism complaints.
28:52
And the official uniform was a black hoodie crocs
28:56
and what looked like pajama bottoms,
28:58
walking around with some kind of influencer type camera,
29:02
That was what I should have worn
29:04
because then I would have fit in perfectly.
29:06
There were just mountains and mountains of people
29:10
driving around and really nice,
29:13
Again, I thought it was great.
29:14
It's expansion of the car hobby
29:16
that were Instagram,
29:19
Instagram hashtags,
29:20
a lot of people doing a lot of just different videoing.
29:23
We had gone to a preview at several of the auctions
29:27
and there were more people there
29:29
that were doing influencer type things.
29:32
And there were people like Julie and I
29:34
were there just to preview cars.
29:36
So it was pretty incredible.
29:37
That's, again, I'm not criticizing.
29:39
I'm just saying that's what I noticed.
29:40
I'll say from the auction side of things,
29:43
we went to pretty much all the auctions
29:47
and RM was way down on merch.
29:49
They didn't have the second floor like they normally do.
29:52
They're the nature of the auction.
29:57
I'm not sure if that's because a lot of their former employees
30:05
didn't have the second floor.
30:10
Yeah, you said the second floor was they didn't have
30:14
and then something about the employees
30:16
and then it cut off, Tim.
30:20
Give me a two seconds.
30:24
So that was what I was noticing
30:26
is that a lot of the auctions themselves,
30:27
broad arrow had a lot of good inventory,
30:29
but I was hearing different people say
30:31
that a lot of the broad arrow stuff wasn't selling.
30:33
Though I thought broad arrows or reserves
30:35
were probably really good.
30:36
Overall, the best auction in terms of merchandise,
30:39
in terms of experience, was Gooding.
30:42
And Gooding had just stellar,
30:43
did you guys see that old Vanagon that they had?
30:45
It was like a, that thing had mold on it.
30:48
I mean, I wasn't quite getting why that was there,
30:51
but it was a, you know,
30:52
it wasn't like a really nice Vanagon.
30:55
What the hell was it doing there?
30:57
But I have an old Vanagon too,
30:58
so I'm all for Vanagans being on a Gooding auction.
31:01
And, you know, it's so funny to think about
31:03
because it's so hard to get a car with Gooding for car week.
31:06
And here was some crusty old Vanagon
31:09
that was sitting there on display with a ton of miles too.
31:12
Is there anything special about it?
31:15
No, I'm telling you, it needed completely restored.
31:18
It had faded like three shades of paint.
31:21
There was mold in the pop-up thing.
31:23
The guy who was trying to wipe it down,
31:25
he and I just sort of laughed at each other.
31:27
It's like, what the hell are you dusting this thing for?
31:29
Kind of thing and anything.
31:32
You're disrupting the patina of the whole car.
31:34
Exactly, you're not going to paint off, son.
31:37
Those are expensive rust bubbles that you're, you know,
31:41
the older stuff wasn't selling or wasn't selling.
31:44
It was selling for far less.
31:46
Again, if you, we went to the auctions
31:47
and I was watching some of these, you know,
31:50
older Ferraris and whatnot, Jaguars and things like that.
31:53
I had an interesting conversation with Cam Ingram about,
31:56
you know, 350, like I was thinking about,
31:59
you know, a 356 GS, a four cam.
32:02
And I'd watch this, I've watched those cars
32:04
for more than a dozen years.
32:05
And those went from what, a million dollars.
32:07
And now Cam was telling me,
32:08
you can get a really nice one for like 400 grand.
32:11
You know, so the market for the older stuff
32:13
has dropped like a rock is what I know.
32:15
I haven't heard anyone else saying it as directly as I am,
32:17
but those are my observations.
32:20
You know, a lot of that.
32:21
Did Cam, you made some comment in our chat here
32:24
about your conversation with Cam.
32:26
Did he feel like his business has really been hurt
32:28
by all that, that drop?
32:29
I mean, no, he was actually, I met,
32:31
met with him at Pebble Beach.
32:32
He was standing next.
32:33
He was displaying a gorgeous four cam speedster,
32:37
the last one made next to a friend of ours that was also,
32:40
you know, they're showing a D type.
32:43
They're both competing a D type
32:44
that was raced by Carol Shelby in period.
32:47
We'll have Jeremy on the podcast.
32:49
He's got an amazing story to tell.
32:51
But yeah, I got to talk with Cam
32:53
and I heard him telling other people
32:54
that he's just been crazy busy.
32:56
But I think it's a lot of different things.
32:58
It's like Paul's business.
32:59
Frankly, in your business, you get to the point
33:01
where you have so many clients
33:03
that they just come back to you
33:04
for more projects and updates and just the rest of it.
33:06
That's the, I think the part, that's where Cam is.
33:09
He's just so busy servicing some of his customers
33:11
that it's, you know, it's probably,
33:13
his business has grown.
33:14
His reputation is certainly stellar,
33:16
you know, especially for that old stuff.
33:18
Yeah, but I don't think he would have,
33:20
I don't think he would have necessarily told me if,
33:22
in any way he was, if there was any sort of,
33:24
you know, downward momentum in his business
33:28
from the resellability of some of those cars.
33:30
I don't think that would have been a conversation
33:33
But do you guys have an opinion on that?
33:34
I mean, Paul or Dave, do you guys?
33:36
I certainly see it.
33:39
I mean, I see it in the 356 market for sure.
33:41
I've got one on consignment right now
33:43
that's a very nice restoration.
33:45
And I think I felt we've priced it fairly
33:48
and we just haven't gotten any bites on it
33:50
in the least, you know.
33:52
And the guy I think is going to pull it back
33:54
from me now at this point
33:55
because he just wants the money.
33:57
And, you know, rightly so.
33:58
But I think the market is off definitely a little bit.
34:01
But let me, Paul, before you,
34:02
let me just share this one last thing or with this down
34:04
is that you could predict pretty much
34:07
if you were watching the markets what,
34:10
like everyone is saying 90s cars are going to be hot
34:12
because the millennials are going to want to buy the cars
34:14
they went in when they were kids.
34:15
And you could go back to generation X
34:17
with the 80s cars and on back and on back and on back.
34:20
If you were to try to predict what generation of cars
34:22
are going to be even bigger than big,
34:25
And that's what I was seeing a lot of there
34:26
that were the 90s cars.
34:28
And the drop off and the things that aren't in that,
34:32
I think that age rage of cars is obvious.
34:35
So it's a great time to be buying, for example,
34:37
a really nice 73 RS or something like that.
34:40
That was, I guess, in conclusion, what I was observing.
34:43
No, what you saw and what Dave's experienced,
34:47
I've experienced a little bit of that too.
34:50
356 is, if it's a hot rod, if it's,
34:53
obviously there's the Emory, which is its own thing,
34:55
but if it's a coupe with a Wilhoit motor,
34:59
it'll blow the socks off because that appeals to a millennial.
35:03
If it is a 61B coupe in ivory with a 20-year-old restoration,
35:11
it's a good driver, no one cares.
35:14
And that is a great car.
35:15
And that is a, granted, that car, if it's decent,
35:19
it's going to be $70,000, $80,000.
35:21
That should be the price and it shouldn't be less,
35:25
but there's just fewer buyers in the room,
35:28
where there would have been maybe 20 buyers,
35:31
now there's four buyers.
35:32
So probably a $60,000 car now.
35:36
The other thing is that the Ferrari stuff,
35:38
you guys know I pay attention.
35:39
I'm the only, you guys never care when I talk about Ferraris.
35:44
But the older, there were a lot of epic, you know, collections,
35:48
Ralph Lauren level collections of classic Ferraris
35:51
that are being liquidated.
35:52
And they were being liquidated slowly.
35:54
And now they're being liquidated quicker
35:56
because I think people are,
35:57
some of these sellers are worried about catching a falling knife
35:59
with regards to some of those values.
36:01
So that's the other thing I was able to eavesdrop on
36:03
and have direct conversations.
36:04
A lot of these 250 series Ferraris,
36:06
which were going for just enormous amounts of money.
36:09
And we should mention chandelier bidding too.
36:12
The amount of chandelier bidding I saw
36:14
was just like nothing I've ever seen before.
36:18
And you could pretty much tell
36:20
and what chandelier bidding is,
36:21
we talked about this in the podcast a long time ago,
36:24
is where the auctioneer is like,
36:26
we'll act like he's getting bids.
36:28
He'll say, you know, say the car is $50,000,
36:31
starting at $50,000, I have $50,000, I have $75,000,
36:35
There weren't real bids there.
36:36
He's just trying to bid it up to the seller's low number
36:40
until he gets a reasonably acceptable bid
36:42
and then he's going to accept it.
36:44
And obviously then they'll sell on the low end of the reserve,
36:47
unless it's a new reserve.
36:48
But there was a lot of that going on.
36:50
And a lot of people still don't know
36:52
chandelier bidding is legal, which is incredible.
36:56
Yeah, which on like, you know, that's like
36:58
shill bidding on an online auction.
37:03
You know, just a side note on that,
37:07
sitting in a hospital bed,
37:08
looking at everything through Instagram and podcasts,
37:11
one of the things I found interesting
37:13
is all the social media content was the glitzy stuff,
37:17
from the street burnouts to the crashes,
37:21
lease shit to the quail to gooding.
37:25
It was all the stuff that was just very glammy.
37:29
And the only feed, the only content I got on the track,
37:34
the Laguna Seca track, which to me was the,
37:37
has always been one of the highlights for me,
37:40
was my nerdiest of nerd car friends.
37:42
You know, Magnus was there and posting stuff,
37:45
and all my other car dorks that I do rallies with,
37:48
were at the track at least one day and posting content.
37:51
And car, you know, whatever, they had a beautiful,
37:55
you know, obviously vintage F1 cars running.
37:57
They had all of the Can-Am cars
37:59
from all kinds of series running,
38:01
that then drove over to the quail.
38:03
So I kind of saw the shift where no one outside of my friends
38:08
gave two squats about the track,
38:10
which is these beautiful special cars actually moving at speed.
38:16
And just quick note, my favorite YouTuber, social media,
38:22
whatever the content clip,
38:26
these guys get pulled over by a cop
38:28
because they're doing the influencer filming
38:30
from like a minivan.
38:32
Did you see that clip?
38:35
So the guy, the cop is, these two guys are sitting in the backseat,
38:38
and the cops, by the way,
38:39
if you were in a van or a vehicle, not properly secured by legal,
38:45
you had to have like whatever the vehicle legally came with
38:48
And if you didn't have like,
38:50
like rear-facing seat with seat belts,
38:53
like an old Mercedes wagon, you had some other harness.
38:55
No matter how legal that was,
38:57
you had to have a permit that you're allowed to use in that situation.
39:00
So he pulls over these guys.
39:01
I don't know what minivan they were in.
39:02
They never really showed.
39:03
It was some car minivan.
39:05
Cop was so anxious because he sees these two guys
39:07
squirming around the back with the tailgate open taking photos.
39:10
He's like, I nailed these guys.
39:12
And these guys figured out the newest car that was minivan-like
39:16
that had rear-facing seats with three-point belts,
39:19
and it blew the cop's mind.
39:21
The cop was like, dude, you got me.
39:23
I'll find the clip and send it.
39:28
It wasn't like Chrysler C.
39:31
What's got rear-facing seats now?
39:33
But it was a modern car with rear-facing.
39:35
It was a rear-facing seat with three-point belts,
39:39
and they would move around in them, which you can do,
39:42
but they never hung out.
39:43
And apparently having the lift open
39:47
is so long as you have a red flag hanging on it,
39:50
showing this is the limit of the car is kind of legal.
39:54
But Paul, you're touching on this as the other thing
39:56
I'm trying to express without sounding like I'm complaining,
39:59
is the cops were so overbearing
40:02
and pulling everyone over for anything.
40:05
We are staying at Cremal by the Sea,
40:06
and we're staying at this little hotel
40:09
at the very top of Cremal by the Sea,
40:10
and we're watching the cops literally
40:13
will chase down anybody for anything,
40:16
and they're just camped out right at that little four-way,
40:18
and they're chasing people down their little e-bikes,
40:20
going left, right, and center,
40:22
and causing even more commotion of all these people
40:24
and the traffic just stopping for miles.
40:28
The hotels, now I'm bitching,
40:30
the hotel that we normally stay at.
40:32
Wait, wait, when does complaining become bitching?
40:35
I'm learning from you.
40:38
When you talk about 993s, okay, so, okay,
40:41
so I'm complaining bitching.
40:43
All right, so this hotel we stay at,
40:44
which we will not stay at again,
40:46
you morons for doing this, we show up,
40:48
and it's not a very big hotel.
40:50
They have rented out almost all their parking spots
40:55
to one of these electric car companies,
40:58
and so they had these stupid green cones
41:00
that took up like 90% of the parking spots,
41:03
and you should have heard the guests
41:05
that were paying users' rates to stay there
41:08
because it was car week screaming at the people
41:11
when they go to check in and say,
41:12
you can't park here because all the parking is for VIPs.
41:15
That's what they were saying.
41:19
So anyway, that's car week.
41:22
I mean, there is a part of me that truly, truly missed
41:25
car week and a lot of aspects of it
41:28
and really, really wanted to go,
41:30
and then when I hear that, the one thing,
41:32
and I wish I would have had more stuff to share with it,
41:36
the one thing, and I don't know if you guys picked,
41:38
I don't know if Tim, you saw it there.
41:39
Did you see anything with overcrest
41:42
and sports car vacation land?
41:43
Did that ring a bell at all while you were there?
41:45
I mean, they had probably just all blended
41:46
because there was so much going on constantly.
41:49
So, and I think this is the glimmering hope.
41:53
Overcrest guys, they have a podcast.
41:56
I've done them with them before.
41:57
They're based out of Minnesota.
41:59
Really, really cool guys.
42:02
They're younger than us by a generation.
42:05
Their ethos is everything we talk about,
42:08
which is take a drive, enjoy the car, sports car.
42:13
And so they kind of came into car week
42:16
and it feels like for the first time
42:18
they've reinvented car week.
42:19
They found some cool mysterious lot of property on a vineyard
42:24
and built this whole, the best way to describe it
42:28
is like Burning Man meets Laguna Arts Festival meets
42:34
some kind of car get together, like, you know, snap your finger.
42:40
They had art exhibits going on.
42:41
A guy hung his 911, famous artist Felix, hung his 911,
42:46
was painting it hanging upside down or vertical.
42:50
They had set up hail bales, Petrolicious,
42:53
the new version of Petrolicious had movies,
42:56
really cool movies they were showing.
42:57
People were camping there.
42:59
And it was this whole kind of cool vibe that was,
43:02
in my opinion, what this car,
43:05
it's like they took car week back to the days
43:07
when they raced in Pebble Beach.
43:08
But Paul, that's what it was like.
43:10
That's what it was like 10 or 12 years ago.
43:13
Now it's red ropes.
43:16
Everyone's having to pay a ridiculous amount of money.
43:18
We have even talked about the quail yet.
43:21
And I put this picture up there
43:22
when you're ready to talk about the quail
43:24
because I have some interesting thoughts on that.
43:26
Well, I mean, and Matt Farah talked about this
43:29
And Matt's, you know, he's a professional automotive journalist.
43:31
So he's, I think, a little bit more tethered to
43:34
trying to say things that are maybe going to be received
43:36
a little bit more warmly by the automotive industry
43:39
than say, for example, I am.
43:41
But at quail, well, I want to,
43:43
the automotive industry needs to be critical
43:45
because there's a shift that's happening.
43:47
And if they want to leave all of us
43:49
true bledded enthusiasts along the side of the road
43:52
and they want to catch the glitz and glam crowd
43:54
and they want to chase that money, go for it.
43:56
But I'm just saying they're going to open up the door
43:58
for old classic cars.
43:59
And that's going to be an industry
44:00
that is going to take off like never before.
44:02
Dave, you're going to have more upholstery jobs
44:04
and you know what to do with.
44:05
But at quail, okay, so what did you guys think
44:08
about the new, all the never ending launches
44:12
of hyper million dollar plus cars?
44:14
I don't even know how many there were like the new entry level
44:17
just to have anything you can take.
44:20
Someone needs to come up with a hot rod,
44:22
resto mod, reimagine freaking you go.
44:24
You guys remember you goes?
44:26
I mean, I promise you, if someone did that
44:29
and they did all this fancy ass craft
44:30
and they took to the quail
44:32
and they're going to make a limited run of 25,
44:34
I guarantee you they'd sell 25 for a million dollars.
44:37
This would be so much fun.
44:38
Imagine if full throttle talk came up
44:41
with this way to get into the quail
44:43
and it was all, it was all fake.
44:45
But we came off as so real.
44:47
We took a you go or a lot or something
44:50
that just an absolute or a Renault Fuego
44:54
and we're going to make and we can just do something.
44:56
You know, Dave, we're going to need you a little bit
44:58
to not spend too much time,
44:59
but just enough time to make it just look good.
45:02
Will velvet rope the thing like 30 feet out?
45:04
You can't even get near this thing.
45:06
One to protect ourselves,
45:07
one to add a little bit of elevation.
45:09
For they can't, so they can't smell it.
45:10
They can't smell it.
45:11
They can't smell the paint drying.
45:12
They can't really look inside.
45:14
We'll take some really cool seats.
45:16
We'll set it outside.
45:17
All the options you could do.
45:19
And we can come across as this new brand
45:21
that we're reinventing the Renault Fuego
45:23
that never got the love it deserved.
45:25
And you know, we'll call it new,
45:26
like, you know, Mui Fuego or something.
45:28
But they would buy it.
45:30
And it will say like 350,000 all in.
45:34
You could do whatever you want.
45:35
No, son, you won't sell for 350 grand.
45:40
We'd be like 999,999.
45:43
No, no, you're missing it here.
45:44
It's got to be 1.35 million to start.
45:49
You've got it weighed in line.
45:50
And we built, we're building 20.
45:52
We've already got spots for 25.
45:54
You're going to go on the wait list.
45:56
And maybe if somebody drops off,
45:58
that's how they were selling everything.
45:59
There's a part of me that I don't know
46:01
how I could do this,
46:02
but it would be kind of fun, wouldn't it?
46:03
Wouldn't that be fun?
46:06
Just to debunk quail,
46:08
have all these influencers propelling this whole thing,
46:11
have responsible journalists going,
46:14
hey, I don't like it, but if shit sells.
46:16
They wouldn't, though.
46:17
They wouldn't say I don't like it.
46:19
You tell me, okay, we're really going to get,
46:21
okay, hopefully you guys aren't disliking
46:23
the direction I'm going here.
46:24
Because when I was talking to journalists,
46:26
and I'm not going to mention any names,
46:28
and I know quite a few of them now,
46:29
when I was talking to these professional journalists,
46:31
the shit talking they were doing
46:33
about the fucking cars, especially, you know,
46:36
all these fancy ones,
46:37
the things that they were saying about the market,
46:40
the cars, the whole nine yards,
46:42
and then what they would say when they're on camera
46:44
and they're writing our articles,
46:46
completely different things.
46:47
And I don't know why they're, I know why,
46:50
because if you are getting invited to Ferreri's VIP,
46:53
exactly, Paul Money,
46:54
when you're getting flown to Maranello,
46:56
and they're just doing the whole rollout thing,
46:59
and you love that experience,
47:00
and you're getting your butt kissed,
47:02
and you feel like a special blah, blah, blah, blah,
47:04
you're not going to say anything that's going to burn a bridge
47:06
that doesn't get you invited back again.
47:08
And that, so there's a little bit of a,
47:10
I don't know what you want to call it,
47:12
but from a Carnard perspective.
47:15
It's, well, it's, it's almost like they're being,
47:17
I don't want to say it because they'll be,
47:19
I'll be pissed at me,
47:20
but you guys can draw your own conclusions.
47:22
If you're being paid to have a,
47:24
you know, you're not,
47:24
it's not a direct, you know,
47:26
say this and we'll give you this type of deal,
47:28
but it's not that far away from it.
47:30
Well, but Ferrari, Ferrari noted has,
47:33
has very, very notably, you know,
47:35
blacklisted journalists who've said with their mind
47:38
and it took years for them.
47:39
They're all doing it now, Paul.
47:40
That, that's the, that's what I'm hearing.
47:42
And, and these guys weren't, they're not,
47:45
I, I, again, I don't want to sound like.
47:46
So just to change that,
47:47
so you went to the quail, right, Tim?
47:50
Did you see this car?
47:57
What did you think of the paint scheme?
47:58
What did you think of them bringing this car there?
48:00
Honestly, roof is the only hold out in my heart
48:02
for a true manufacturer.
48:04
And it's because they're the only ones that I have
48:07
any real lasting passion for at this point
48:10
of monks, the guys who build cars like this.
48:12
That's what I thought.
48:13
So here's the cool thing about that.
48:15
In June, when my dad and I did our trip to Germany,
48:22
They wrapped that up quick.
48:23
That was, that was middle of June.
48:26
So we go into the paint shop.
48:28
And by the way, Dave,
48:29
roof, big manufacturer.
48:31
This is the entirety of the paint shop.
48:33
If you, if you went to my left to, to this side,
48:37
there is a paint booth big enough for a car
48:42
and then to hang all the parts like the doors and stuff.
48:46
So you can picture like a one and a half car depth garage.
48:50
It's not 27 feet, something like that.
48:53
So similar to what I have.
48:54
So the head, I'm talking to the head painter
48:56
who's like Scottish, super nice guy.
48:58
And I said, you know, what is that?
49:00
He's like, that's going to be a Monterey in August.
49:02
And I'm like, you got to finish it, put it together,
49:08
Like I was sort of befuddled.
49:10
And so we're talking about, I go, what is it?
49:12
And he's like, it's the new roof rodeo.
49:14
I go, well, we've seen it already.
49:16
He goes, no, no, no, this is the first customer car.
49:19
And I said, tell me you're painting at roof green.
49:22
You know, roof has their own green.
49:24
Like to me, that should be it.
49:26
He's like, no, we're painting it black with white wheels,
49:31
white accents, white door thresholds.
49:34
You could tell he was visibly kind of bummed.
49:38
And he's like, this is a special car.
49:42
This is a, we've been pushing this rodeo for three years.
49:48
It's been at Quail twice.
49:50
Same car prototype, just painted two different colors.
49:54
They've been pushing it for so long.
49:55
And now the first car that's actually production done, tested,
49:59
going to a customer, in my opinion, and certainly the head painter,
50:04
the boring is color.
50:06
And I'm like, well, why did you do that?
50:08
Why not just tell him, no?
50:09
He's like, you know, the roof family, they're so sweet.
50:14
And they truly embody the customer as always, right?
50:18
Even though they're fricking roof, and they can just
50:20
imagine roof says, hey, the first customer car
50:23
is going to be roof green.
50:24
And if you want to have it, get in line.
50:26
And how many people would raise their hand?
50:28
But for whatever reason, and I don't know anymore
50:30
about the relationship with who the first owner is,
50:32
the first owner wanted this, no one at roof
50:34
wanted to paint it that color.
50:36
But because the customer's always right,
50:37
and he's the first one, he gets it black.
50:40
And tell me that's not the car they wanted sitting at the quail,
50:43
getting photographed for everything.
50:44
Black does not photograph where shit won't look good.
50:48
And the car is truly an amazing car.
50:50
It's really, it's hard to build a safari car
50:53
that is your own ethos, your own voice,
50:58
and not just another me too, like every other safari car.
51:02
Check the interior out on that car though.
51:05
That interior on that car is stellar.
51:08
Yeah, Mexican blanket vibe.
51:11
Oh, that looks like the interior.
51:13
Those look like the inserts you put on that hippie car.
51:16
Yeah, the boho car that we do.
51:18
And I sold that car, by the way,
51:20
and that car is down in Florida now.
51:21
But that, I just think, is the coolest.
51:25
It really, it's inspired me.
51:26
That interior, I've got two black.
51:29
And I'm going to actually think I'm going to do one.
51:30
I'm going to do a Targa.
51:32
And I'm going to do kind of a safari Targa
51:34
with that sort of interior.
51:36
Some kind of American Indian blanket sort of inserts
51:41
and things like that.
51:41
I just think that looked just fantastic.
51:44
I mean, obviously not in the same league as Roof,
51:46
but that is a pretty stellar interior.
51:49
Whoever did that interior.
51:51
Did they do that in-house, Paul?
51:52
They did all of it in-house.
51:54
And that's gorgeous.
51:56
I really think it's beautiful.
51:57
And this is just hearsay, not truth,
52:01
because I can't actually verify.
52:04
But when we were there at the factory,
52:07
the last few of their current edition they sell,
52:10
the normally aspirated or the turbo one,
52:13
the seat, I forget all the names,
52:14
there was like two or three in the final assembly.
52:17
There was a black old yellowbird in another shop next to it,
52:22
which is where they do their final upholstery.
52:25
And they've got four guys scrambling
52:27
to get the upholstery done.
52:29
And I asked the guy who's given us a tour,
52:32
what's the deal with that car?
52:33
He says, well, that was an old,
52:35
it's funny, they don't call yellow,
52:37
they won't refer to their yellowbirds as yellowbirds.
52:40
That was an old CTR.
52:41
Did you see the one that sold for $5 million
52:43
or $4.5 million at Gooding?
52:45
That car was awesome.
52:47
But that wasn't one of the original 19, was it?
52:49
That was a different thing.
52:52
No, you guys can look it up really quick,
52:54
but I'm pretty sure it was a yellowbird, just not yellow.
52:57
But what I was going to say is it was painted black.
53:00
It was originally Irish green.
53:03
Guy sent it to get restored to roof.
53:06
It got fully restored, beautiful.
53:08
While it's there, the guy in Japan sells it to someone else.
53:12
All he has to do is just pick it up.
53:14
It's paid for, done restored.
53:16
The new guy doesn't like the color scheme.
53:18
Decides to paint it black and do a whole different interior,
53:21
going back to what we said.
53:23
And I look at Alois Shroof and I'm like,
53:26
like, why would you do that?
53:28
And once again, it's his kindness.
53:29
It's the customer's always right.
53:31
And I kind of wonder,
53:34
because they were scrambling to get that car done.
53:37
They gave us full access to everything.
53:40
I looked in that room and I could see being in a shop
53:44
before what frantic, busy looks like.
53:46
There was no way I was going to go in that room.
53:48
They say, yeah, I can go in there.
53:50
You could see four guys intense on what they were doing
53:54
because that car was needed to be done.
53:55
Eleventh hour, they were scrambling to finish the interior.
53:58
And I kind of wonder, was that the car that fell off the trailer?
54:03
Oh, I looked at those pictures.
54:07
I fortunately, I didn't take any pictures.
54:08
I don't think so, Paul, because that car is long.
54:10
Oh, yeah, it could be.
54:12
I know what you're saying now.
54:14
So let me share with you guys another interesting observation.
54:17
So Singer and a couple of these,
54:20
I think there's one or two other these high-end
54:21
resto brand mod companies are now owned.
54:24
A majority of them are owned by a single hedge fund.
54:26
Did you guys know that?
54:28
Investor hedge fund, whatever you want to call it.
54:30
Okay, some general partners.
54:31
I knew that was Singer,
54:33
which is how the whole Willow Springs thing is also happening.
54:36
And when you asked someone from Singer,
54:37
which I did, their PR gal,
54:39
and they'll say to you, they'll say,
54:40
well, we're still privately owned.
54:42
But you're still privately owned by an investor company.
54:44
And I'm not criticizing investor companies.
54:47
But here's where I was noticing.
54:51
If you want to talk about macro trends
54:53
in the car enthusiast world,
54:55
there's definitely a trend.
54:57
And Dave, this is going to serve you perfectly.
54:59
You should raise your prices after you return my car.
55:03
So this is a suggestion, not for me,
55:05
for your next brand customer.
55:08
So at Quail, and if you look at Koenigsegg,
55:13
and if you look at Pagani,
55:15
and if you look at some of the stuff that Ferrari's selling,
55:17
the market for these bespoke, high-end, highly personalized cars
55:22
is probably not been seen.
55:24
Matt Farrow is making this on the smoke,
55:25
this point in the smoking tire, and it's really true.
55:28
You haven't seen anything like this since the 1920s, right?
55:31
But now you have all these people
55:33
that I don't know if they've just,
55:35
I've had the other thing.
55:36
Now I want to this.
55:37
Or whether or not people are just migrating towards,
55:41
there was like a million to Ferrari 550.
55:45
And there was a guy last year
55:46
that had this a million dollar, of course, Ferrari 355.
55:50
And I'm looking at some of these cars,
55:51
and the work that you put into these is just spectacular.
55:54
But I'm thinking to myself,
55:55
what the hell's wrong with the 550?
55:57
I mean, 550 manual versus why would I want one of these versus that?
56:02
So there's a lot of people that are willing to spend money
56:05
to have these personalized experiences.
56:07
And these manufacturers are being really smart.
56:10
Singer, again, they're doing these little private events for them.
56:13
I know Roof does the same thing.
56:14
So you're not just buying this, again, this is a macro trend.
56:17
You're not just buying into a luxury product.
56:21
You're buying into a lifestyle and a group of friends.
56:24
At least this is how it's being sold to you.
56:26
And you can ship your car to this place, this place,
56:28
this place, and that's what's actually happening.
56:30
It's kind of a fascinating thing.
56:31
I mean, the Ferrari cliente program,
56:33
wasn't that kind of what it was?
56:35
The cliente program was basically for race cars,
56:37
but this is something completely different.
56:39
These guys are catering their user experience,
56:41
their buyer experience on lifestyle,
56:43
which is, again, a macro trend that we have seen,
56:46
maybe like PCA would be an example of that,
56:49
but now it's being done by the manufacturers,
56:51
which leads me to my next observation that I made,
56:53
and then I'm out of observations is Porsche
56:56
is definitely going to be selling more limited run.
57:00
I'll just say it as I think at marketing focused cars,
57:03
more stripes, more numbered things,
57:05
more different colored this, more this, that, and the other.
57:07
And that's where they're going to absolutely migrate towards.
57:10
So there's going to be an influx of all of these.
57:13
Oh, I understand you have it here.
57:15
Dave, this is for you, that you have one coming.
57:17
You might have a GT3RS, but do you have the GT3RS?
57:23
That's what you're going to start seeing.
57:24
Well, the Manti, the Manti edition.
57:27
Well, but even more than that,
57:28
because Ferrari is, I'm sorry,
57:31
well, Ferrari has led the way showing the outer reaches
57:35
in which customers are willing to suffer financially
57:37
in time and aggravation wise to get a really special car.
57:41
Porsche is going to copy them,
57:42
especially considering that Porsche is hard.
57:44
You know, if you, if you believe the headlines,
57:46
they're hard up for money right now.
57:48
So what do you guys think of that?
57:51
Well, here's, here's my contribution
57:53
to that lifestyle play here behind me.
57:55
I'm way ahead of the trend here, Tim,
57:58
because I am, I am opening.
58:00
This is what else I did in cars this week,
58:03
which is build what we are affectionately calling
58:08
And that is the fabulous event space
58:11
that we have here on our property
58:14
that's underneath our new awning.
58:16
So we will be able to host clients and events
58:19
and all that sort of stuff.
58:20
Not probably quite as fancy as the Ferrari people,
58:23
but this is the, you know, it's the Sundeworks version.
58:26
So yes, I, I completely agree with that,
58:28
that it's all about the experience.
58:30
I've been kind of disappointed to be frank
58:32
about the way Porsche has handled my purchase.
58:35
I haven't heard a peep.
58:37
Cars supposed to be built, being built as we speak.
58:39
And I'm not gotten any little teasers, trinkets,
58:43
anything that suggests.
58:45
You'll get, I mean, Ferrari does that.
58:46
All Italian brands do that the best.
58:48
They, they're loved to give, they love to give gifts.
58:51
And they're really nice gifts too.
58:53
And Dave, do you feel,
58:55
I heard on one podcast that,
58:56
I think it might have been Matt Ferris,
58:58
the GT3RS is now the Porsche version
59:00
of the Lamborghini Huracan.
59:02
A hundred percent true statement.
59:03
And I told you guys, when we went to Moda Miami
59:06
in January or whatever it was,
59:07
into the RM auction, the guys that were get the,
59:11
you know, droves of GT3RS is being driven by guys who
59:16
will, who should have been driving Lamborghinis,
59:18
you know, the whole, when I'm saying a completely
59:21
That's the flagship.
59:23
No, it can't be the Lambrou car. No.
59:26
No, it is the, sorry.
59:27
Please, no, no, I'm not getting mine.
59:29
You're going to have to get your, you know,
59:31
all the things you're going to have to start.
59:32
Got to get my gold chains and my tight fitting t-shirt
59:35
and the whole nine yards.
59:36
But it, but the gym.
59:38
But what Matt said, what Matt said was my
59:41
observation too, the GT3RS, which is,
59:44
I don't even know what the hell those guys
59:45
are thinking, thinking that's a flash car,
59:47
but it's definitely the new, I'm going to use the word.
59:51
I'll say it in its original French.
59:53
Pauze car that is being attracted to this,
59:57
this sort of, you know, the throngs of influencer types
00:00
are really gravitating towards, which is bizarre to me
00:02
because that's about as, you know, that thing's crazy
00:06
looking, but anyway,
00:08
It's not as crazy as some of the other stuff.
00:09
What about, do you see a lot of STs being driven around?
00:13
There were a lot of STs, but most of them were on display.
00:16
Not, not driven street driven, like the GT3RS.
00:19
Probably one or two.
00:21
And, you know, which this aspect I loved about them,
00:25
nobody looked at them, you know, and the,
00:27
but the GT3RS guys were doing the McLaren thing
00:30
from a couple of years ago.
00:31
I don't know if you went when the McLaren guys
00:33
were the ones causing all the accidents and the, you know,
00:36
and now it was, and then it before it was the Lambo guys
00:39
and then the Lambo Ferrari guys or the lamb,
00:41
it was never Ferrari guys.
00:43
And now it's the Porsche guys.
00:44
The Porsche guys, you could hear them
00:45
because we're in Carmel by the sea
00:47
and you could hear these guys revving their, you know,
00:49
it was fast and furious at Neiman Marcus.
00:52
It's a two-guard style.
00:54
Well, you know, it's, hopefully next year,
00:57
I still want to go again because I have,
01:01
I went every year from 98 to 2019.
01:05
So over 20 years and then pandemic
01:08
and then I went again in 22 and 21 and 22,
01:13
did not go 23, 24 and obviously 25.
01:17
You know, 23 was a friend's wedding.
01:21
And yet last year I just, I just didn't have the,
01:24
I don't know, wasn't motivated this year,
01:26
not just because I'm in the hospital,
01:27
but I was motivated because I saw things
01:29
like the overcrest and some of the things
01:31
that my driving law awesome buddies were doing
01:33
and the Radwood guys.
01:34
And I've always come up with a way to do Monterey
01:38
on a budget in a sense that also I want to be
01:41
not around people, avoid the crowds.
01:43
It gets hard, but I think there's a way to do it.
01:46
So hopefully next year I can go and we can even have
01:50
a pre Monterey show of like, you know,
01:53
sort of like the fodder's guide, like, you know,
01:55
Monterey on $20 a day kind of thing.
01:58
But yeah, well, there were more people there.
02:01
There were more events going on,
02:03
ones that were on what's up Monterey,
02:04
you know, the ones that everyone knows about
02:06
and more private events.
02:07
There were more VIP things,
02:08
more and more and more and more.
02:10
That's what it was everywhere you went.
02:13
Like I said, there was a discernible shift
02:15
away from even last year where it felt way more car nerdy.
02:20
And now there are more conversations about just,
02:23
I don't know what to say it other than fashion trend.
02:25
I mean, look at Ferrari's done with Lewis Hamilton.
02:27
And he's, you know, they, why did they hire him?
02:30
Why did they pay him $100 million a year?
02:32
Because he brings, he's arguably the most influential,
02:35
one of the most influential people,
02:36
especially in Europe, you know, in the world.
02:38
And they wanted to ride that wave.
02:40
A lot of that is what I felt at Monterey.
02:42
And I hopefully I'm not sounding negative
02:44
because we don't pull up the year.
02:45
I mean, funny thing with Ferrari, that's pretty smart
02:47
because Lewis Hamilton always has kind of a style edge.
02:51
And Ferrari makes what is it most of their money
02:53
from apparel and branding items than they do?
02:56
Well, I, I mean, they make the most.
02:58
You know, Tim saw some good Ferrari outfits there
03:01
in Monterey for sure.
03:02
I know, I was putting those on Instagram,
03:04
but I didn't want, I mean, I was worried
03:05
about offending somebody,
03:06
but some of them were just too funny.
03:08
The number I reposted your thing with the guy
03:10
who obviously owned the car you were looking at.
03:13
The car, the comments were gold.
03:16
So many people enjoyed that one post.
03:18
And I was like, come on, Tim, this is what I need from you.
03:22
Oh, I had a lot like that.
03:24
But honestly, I haven't posted them, but I will post them.
03:27
Because I, the, the, I didn't, I'm not a negative person,
03:30
but just the, the, the sights and sounds
03:32
were just kind of foreign to me this year.
03:34
They're just strange.
03:35
I'm a negative person.
03:37
I'll send them to you.
03:39
I'll put them in a Dropbox and send you like,
03:42
Because until we haven't heard.
03:44
Well, but I'm sorry, I apologize.
03:48
I just want to, I figured this was going to be
03:50
your lead subject here.
03:51
This, this Corvette, this, this Corvette's CXR.
03:55
Well, I'm going to do, I want to talk about that
03:57
just to piss Paul off.
03:58
But we were, Julie and I got to the point
04:00
where I love the Porsche events.
04:02
I love the, uh, historic.
04:04
I love the, the Pebble Beach was the best ever.
04:07
Pebble Beach, the event.
04:08
I thought Pebble Beach was so nice.
04:10
Um, even though they too are trying to cash in,
04:14
when you bought your ridiculously expensive ticket
04:16
in the past, they gave you a poster
04:18
and now the poster was 50 bucks.
04:19
So that was a little bit, I don't know what that's all about.
04:22
Um, but yeah, other than that, it's worth going to.
04:24
But what I'm trying to explain to you guys
04:26
is that when you go there, expect what I'm saying.
04:30
And there's, there's so much less of what we have come to expect
04:33
from the big, you know, Monterey car week
04:35
and so much more of this new thing.
04:37
So if you're not in alignment with the new thing,
04:38
you're going to feel like a fish out of water.
04:40
So, but what we ended up doing is going around
04:42
taking videos and pictures of all the things
04:44
that made us laugh, uh, that were, you know,
04:46
with a sarcastic bent.
04:47
So I'll share all those with you.
04:50
Let's go back to and talk about the quail.
04:55
You team me up perfectly, Dave.
04:57
Uh, I was listening to your floor.
05:00
I was listening to Chris Harris's podcast this morning.
05:04
I thought you were talking about Corvettes.
05:08
Well, no, I, I was listening and they had,
05:10
and they had an interesting, I'm going to loop this.
05:12
You guys will like this.
05:13
So they were talking about whether the European car
05:17
Is it a dead industry?
05:18
Because that, you know, essentially what's happened
05:20
with the EV mandates, even though some of those
05:22
are being rolled back, these manufacturers are now
05:24
suffering from tariff problems.
05:27
You know, Porsche's biggest market for, uh,
05:29
what, two or three years was China and now
05:30
sales there are off.
05:32
And so Chris was saying, is it possible that the
05:34
European car market is dead?
05:36
And, um, you know, I was thinking a lot about that.
05:38
And it is entirely possible, but here's leading to Dave's,
05:42
you know, observation about Corvette.
05:43
If you look at where, who the winners are going
05:46
to be because of the change in the, uh,
05:48
with tariffs and whatnot, it could very well be
05:51
that we're going to see a resurgence of domestic,
05:54
us domestic manufacturers, like we've never seen before,
05:57
because some of these other manufacturers are
05:59
frankly not able to be competitive.
06:02
And so Corvette is a perfect example.
06:05
The cars that they made that they're making now
06:08
with a new ZR one and zero one X had every right
06:12
to be on the show field at the quail.
06:15
And those cars were arguably, even though the people
06:19
with their noses up in the air were trying
06:20
to walk right past them, those cars stood tall,
06:23
especially the two, let's call them show cars
06:26
that they had, those cars were as cool as
06:29
anything that was coming from Pagani for $4 million.
06:32
And I was honestly, I felt some nationalistic pride
06:35
when I walked past and I looked at the products
06:37
that they're making and those guys are going
06:39
to produce something and they're going to be able
06:41
to sell them for less price than everybody else.
06:43
And let's discuss Paul, you first.
06:53
I don't really want to talk about the Corvette.
06:55
And I just, I really don't know much about them.
06:56
And it's nothing to do with the product.
06:58
They've always made a good product that was,
07:02
like they've said, democratized sports car ownership.
07:06
I would say I'm more impressed with, I would say Mustang,
07:10
the GTD product because I think for me,
07:14
I just like visually the looks of it.
07:16
I like the ethos of it a bit better.
07:20
I don't know with Corvette.
07:22
On paper it does all the things, right?
07:24
I'm sure it drives great.
07:25
It's got the mag right.
07:26
It does everything.
07:28
I just hate the looks.
07:29
That's my only problem.
07:32
You're more biased by the legacy of the brand.
07:35
You're more biased by the brand.
07:36
No, that's undeniable.
07:37
I can't get the legacy of the brand out.
07:41
Plus I can't, don't forget my wife hates Corvette so passionately
07:46
that I hear her on the other shoulder.
07:48
You get one of those.
07:52
You can have your whole hip replace,
07:53
your pelvis replace,
07:54
but you're not coming home in a Corvette.
07:57
The car behind me, though, was just, just stunning.
08:01
I mean, I was blown away by that car when I saw the pictures.
08:05
I mean, I grabbed the bad picture of this car,
08:08
but I thought that car was a showstopper.
08:10
I really was like, wow, that's,
08:12
it'll never make production like that, of course.
08:15
The other one will, though.
08:16
Did you see the other one that didn't have the pop-up canopy?
08:17
Is it still the one?
08:19
I'm kind of looking at some of those pictures right now,
08:21
but I just thought that was just, it wasn't overdone.
08:25
Like the, this particular orange car that I've got,
08:29
the picture of where that whole clamshell lifts up
08:33
It just didn't feel overdone to me
08:35
like some of the current Corvettes.
08:37
It didn't have as much crazy, you know,
08:40
arrows bolted onto the side and stuff.
08:42
And what was there just looked really purposeful.
08:46
But that was a gorgeous car.
08:47
I didn't have as much time looking at the silver one
08:49
with the red interior, but this one I was really blown away by.
08:55
So the younger generation, Paul,
08:57
and I know you won't care about this,
08:58
because they're, you know, not your,
09:00
you're an old fart, basically.
09:02
I'm putting up, this is, this is what was at the quail, right?
09:06
The younger generation, when I was talking with them,
09:09
and I'll say younger being less than, say, 35,
09:14
they do not have any of the bias that we do about,
09:17
and I have it too, about Corvettes at all,
09:21
Those guys were not,
09:23
they had none of the brand legacy of the hairy chested gold chain
09:27
wearing, you know, whatever, whatever.
09:29
That's not part of their rural.
09:32
you're talking about New Balance,
09:33
George Denham shorts.
09:36
But, but going forward.
09:38
But going forward, I, again, my observation is,
09:42
I think that Corvette is going to find a ready audience,
09:45
especially as these imported prestige brand sports car,
09:49
lifestyle things become really ridiculously expensive.
09:53
I think Corvette's going to have an explosive amount of growth,
09:57
especially if they make that silver car.
09:59
What about just being a devil's advocate?
10:02
Because those products are going to become so expensive
10:04
through tariffs, etc.
10:06
And no one's going to,
10:07
only a few are going to buy them.
10:09
Will it, will it thwart competition in terms of them making a,
10:13
they don't have to make a product that's that competitive,
10:16
because they've got a ready-made audience just due to price disparity?
10:20
That's a really interesting question.
10:21
And I really don't know.
10:25
But I'll, I'll go as far as to say this.
10:27
You guys know that Corvette's back,
10:28
or I'm sorry, Cadillac's back in formula one, right?
10:31
And this is basically in your backyard.
10:33
No, no, they're, they're out of a Speedway Indianapolis,
10:36
Is that where they're starting their team?
10:40
And we know the formula, we know that formula one is
10:42
owned by basically American conglomerate.
10:44
So I'll suggest that what we're going to see
10:46
is we're going to see a resurgence of,
10:48
and I'm not an American car guy.
10:51
We're going to see a resurgence of specifically Cadillac and Corvette,
10:56
and it's going to ride on the coattails of what they're going to start doing,
10:59
not just in the sports car series racing,
11:01
but also in formula one.
11:03
That's what, that's what I'm picking up.
11:04
That's going to actually happen.
11:06
The Cadillac, they had a huge tent and everything at Pebble Beach.
11:12
Guys, have you heard about that new, what is that Blackwing,
11:14
CTS V five or whatever it is?
11:17
Julie and I poked over one of those cars.
11:20
There's no way that you could tell me anything from that.
11:27
Paul, the paint on the thing, the panel fit on that thing,
11:31
all the just different touch points in the car,
11:33
everywhere you put your hands, everything was spectacular.
11:37
And then you get into the mechanics of it.
11:39
Yeah, no, you don't understand.
11:41
It's not that I don't like domestic cars.
11:42
I just don't like Corvettes.
11:44
And I'm looking, you know,
11:45
so I'm looking at this picture at the quail,
11:46
the one he's standing by, that is a really cool car.
11:49
Yeah, it won't be in production.
11:50
That what whatever end why wouldn't it be?
11:54
I just don't think it'll end up,
11:55
I think from production costs, DOT, NH, NH, TISA, NHTSA, all the different things involved.
12:03
I just don't think it could be that cool.
12:06
If it is awesome, you know, I'll Daniel Ricardo and drink for my shoe.
12:12
But I don't think that's the case.
12:15
Now, I can't really see a good picture of the car on the left.
12:20
Is that which one is that ZR one?
12:21
That's a ZR one X, which then that is the quail edition that had Matt Silver paint
12:28
and a beautiful car again.
12:30
And those cars, I think were like a quarter million dollars.
12:33
And for what I was told, they were all sold.
12:36
The all the quail edition ones were sold at the event
12:38
and probably sold before the event.
12:40
And so there you go.
12:42
That's what that was.
12:43
Oh, by the way, I know you're going to say you don't care,
12:45
but I know you secretly do.
12:46
That car has 1250 horsepower and was a quarter million bucks.
12:51
And the build quality was again, for my observation,
12:54
and I am a finicky son of a bitch when it comes to this stuff,
12:57
was just as good as anything from Europe.
13:02
But that being said, I just found the picture.
13:05
The picture I pulled up for you for our last conversation of it
13:09
was the first picture I removed from my catalog.
13:12
But I'll put it back up again.
13:16
And this is why there's different cars from different people.
13:20
That does nothing for me.
13:23
That is so busy with so many flutes and flares and fins
13:28
and relief lines and hard edges.
13:33
If this had a Porsche badge on it, I still wouldn't like it.
13:37
Do you realize the irony of someone who drives a 1960s 911,
13:42
a green rally 911 that looks like it should be driven by Oscar
13:46
the Grouch, being overly critical of it?
13:52
Do you realize the irony of you in particular being so overly
13:56
critical of a modern car design?
13:58
I never said I wasn't ironic.
14:01
I just like what I like.
14:03
And my green rally car, which by the way,
14:05
that was a decade ago, it looks fantastic.
14:08
It is so beat to hell now.
14:09
Plus I haven't washed it since 2019.
14:13
OK, maybe if you took and put a roof rack on that Corvette
14:16
and drove it 350,000 miles, maybe I'd like it.
14:20
Maybe I would like the fact that it was beat to shit.
14:23
Dave, balance out this conversation.
14:24
Help me prove that Paul's completely wrong.
14:26
He's just becoming an old buddy, Daddy.
14:28
I couldn't agree more in terms of all the hard angles
14:32
and the different color bits and bobs and the stuff
14:36
that probably has purpose, but it fits much more
14:39
into the McLaren, Lambo.
14:42
Well, that's their buyer that you guys are making my point.
14:49
You know, I mean, I think we maybe, like ours,
14:51
a little more subtle, a little more rounded.
14:53
These hard edges and stuff just don't appeal.
14:56
It appeals to a certain type of US buyer for sure.
15:00
No, I think that that car is going to appeal
15:02
to a global buyer and you said it correctly,
15:04
in my opinion, the McLaren, the Lambo guy.
15:07
I mean, did you guys like the designs
15:09
of the new Lamborghinis?
15:10
If you do, you're probably only two people on planet Earth.
15:12
I'm going to get so much shit for saying that,
15:15
Everyone like everyone in person bashes those things
15:18
and when you read about it in magazines
15:19
or hear about it on YouTube, everyone thinks
15:21
they're the greatest thing ever.
15:24
So that car is going to appeal to those buyers,
15:27
but a younger set and it's in the conversations
15:30
I was having where people were younger guys
15:33
who did not grow up on European aristocracy
15:36
type cars like all three of us did
15:38
are now looking at these vets and they're saying,
15:41
And that I think is pretty awesome.
15:44
Yeah, I don't disagree.
15:45
Hey, I'm all for American company making a great product
15:48
that does really well.
15:49
And hopefully we'll have, I mean, the sad thing is,
15:52
there's not a lot of American companies left standing.
15:54
They're going to build competitive products.
15:56
So you're going to have this and the Ford GTD.
15:58
I mean, like those are the only,
16:00
and then the Cadillac Blackwing,
16:01
which is kind of tied into the Corvette,
16:05
I do love the Blackwing.
16:06
And if in five years, they're half the price they are now,
16:11
that would be something I would consider
16:13
as a daily driver that I don't need.
16:16
Have you priced one of those things
16:17
before those Blackwings?
16:18
I have either one of you, Dave.
16:19
Have you done that?
16:21
I've looked at them just used.
16:22
Pop over and look and go to GM site.
16:25
A whole dood it up one with all the doodads is $130,000.
16:29
I was going to say $120,000.
16:31
You can get a manual transmission,
16:32
and I think those things have 700 horsepower.
16:35
Starts at 97.6 is what it says here on the website.
16:38
But compared to the 97.6.
16:40
The M5, the competitive product, the M5,
16:42
which is a bunch of testing.
16:44
Great videos and tons of stuff on that.
16:46
The M5 is 20 grand more, I think, 25 grand more, whatever.
16:51
No, I think in my opinion,
16:53
the Blackwing is a great product.
16:58
I feel sad because I don't think
16:59
Cadillac is going to draw enough buyers
17:01
to keep that product alive for very long.
17:04
And it will do well like the CTS-V station manual wagon.
17:09
That car will have legs in the used market.
17:12
It'll be like sell at MSRP or within 20% of MSRP forever,
17:17
which makes me sad because I do like that car.
17:20
I think the Corvette will do what all the other Corvettes do.
17:23
And I always equate Corvettes to kind of fruit stripe chewing gum.
17:27
You've ever had the fruit stripe chewing gum or Wrigley's?
17:31
Yeah, it's good for sugar.
17:34
It's just jolt of sugar and it's like, wow, this is great.
17:36
And then next, you know, it just becomes this thing you're chewing on.
17:39
Okay, so stop there.
17:41
So will you tell me in modern supercar, sports car, hyper blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
17:46
where the sensation is not the same?
17:47
And then you cannot say.
17:49
Oh, no, Lamborghini.
17:49
Lamborghini for sure.
17:51
Lamborghini McLaren.
17:53
How many times can you get into those things?
17:55
Make yourself as a driver if you're like you're
17:57
going to barf until you've had the whole experience.
17:59
Have you guys driven like a Tesla model, a Plaid,
18:02
a Plaid version of a Tesla?
18:04
Have you ever driven one of those?
18:05
No, I've been in one.
18:09
And I've been in the fanciest Taycan at Pecla for a lap.
18:14
And yeah, it's a one-trick pony.
18:17
It's a puke inducer as a driver.
18:19
I mean, that was the funny thing.
18:20
When people were driving those ZR1s at Coda,
18:24
the drivers were getting out wanting to barf.
18:28
So going back to the Corvette, I'm glad it exists.
18:31
And they will sell them.
18:32
And they will do well.
18:33
And they will always have an audience.
18:36
Ironically, I think this car, like you said,
18:39
would do really well in Europe.
18:40
Because I think the Europeans will sell these things.
18:43
But I don't think it will.
18:44
I think it will get taxed to hell.
18:45
And it'll make it really hard to have this car in Europe.
18:47
OK, so if I mentioned the word tariffs,
18:49
then people are going to accuse me of being political.
18:51
But the reality of it was is that a lot of new tariff
18:53
agreements, especially with the EU,
18:55
outside of some of the Hanger Honor countries,
18:57
is going to make it so those cars are going to sell there.
18:59
And the reason that American cars
19:00
haven't been selling in Europe,
19:02
do your own homework on this before you send me any hate
19:04
comments, is because the EU companies or EU countries
19:08
have been tariffing the crap out of American products.
19:10
And that's the reason you don't see them there.
19:12
And I'll suggest to you that when,
19:14
because of this new tariff regime, you're going to see,
19:18
Yeah, I just thought someone was coming in,
19:19
which they're welcome to.
19:20
You're going to see American cars all over Europe.
19:24
And I don't see why that wouldn't happen, especially
19:26
because they'll be able to be sold for less money.
19:29
And there is amongst like when we were in Italy,
19:32
you saw chargers and things like that that were rolling around
19:35
that Italians loved.
19:44
Hey, Dave, what are you thinking?
19:45
Time for the catheter change.
19:46
No, she came in for drugs.
19:50
And so she brought in Tylenol.
19:51
And I'm like, you can come back for that.
19:53
I was checking to see which drugs were coming.
19:56
Paul wants to talk about a citrone.
19:58
What are the production numbers on the ZR1X?
20:03
Oh, I'm sure it's going to be as many as they can sell.
20:06
But that's part of the reason, right?
20:07
I mean, that's part of the reason that the car,
20:09
there's not an exclusivity to them that you do find
20:12
with the rest of these.
20:15
But what I'm trying to understand, and Dave helped me
20:17
with this, OK, is that how much are these luxury
20:20
products anymore being sold off what you just said?
20:24
Oh, we're only going to make so many of these things.
20:28
But the product itself is the same, if not inferior
20:32
to something that's mass produced.
20:33
And so that means that me as a buyer, I'm just sort of a dope
20:38
that's buying into this idea that something that somebody
20:41
else can't get is somehow more special.
20:43
That makes me dumb.
20:45
That's life in general.
20:47
I mean, that is exactly how we all roll.
20:50
This is an economic theory that's existed for centuries
20:53
called the law of scarcity.
20:55
And we are rats running through the mill, and we will do
21:00
the things that we are so predictably will do.
21:04
And if a car manufacturer decides that's what they want
21:06
to do to take advantage of it, I think with Corvette,
21:10
Even if they wanted to, they can't.
21:11
The economies of scale is what makes that product
21:14
that would be maybe, you know.
21:17
They'll do it on their runs.
21:19
Like they did the Quail Edition.
21:20
That's what they're going to do.
21:21
And the Bowling Green Edition.
21:23
Well, I mean, all those things, I mean, they're going to do
21:25
the different tennis shoe versions, and they're going
21:27
to do the one where you get your jean shorts.
21:29
I mean, you know, all of it.
21:30
They're going to do all of it.
21:32
I would love to see them in an edition like the Gremlin
21:37
Just just lean into it.
21:39
So let me balance the format.
21:41
Let me pivot this to really get under people's skin.
21:44
How much are European cars overpriced?
21:46
How much are we just being sold based off brand
21:49
versus the actual quality of the product?
21:56
So we're just all being sold off the idea that by buying
22:00
this particular product, you're going to be part
22:02
of the special club and you're going to be seen
22:04
in this special way.
22:06
And, you know, I mean, there it is.
22:08
That's what really what branding has done.
22:10
And I think in a lot of ways is diminish
22:12
the quality of the products because the manufacturers
22:14
can lean into their marketing team.
22:17
I'll really throw myself in the deep end.
22:19
I looked intensely at a Ferrari speciale versus a 296.
22:26
I really love the car.
22:27
I had a spot for a speciale.
22:29
I decided not to take the spot.
22:31
I went to a pebble, a Cassidy Ferrari,
22:34
looked at the speciale, and I'm glad I passed on it.
22:38
Because I'm, frankly, I thought the design was funky looking
22:43
and I started realizing that that car is again
22:46
using the famous French word, it's a poser car.
22:48
It's not like the Porsche GT3 RS, where the part numbers
22:52
are the same from the street car to the car
22:54
that's sold for motorsports use.
22:55
Those cars, the parts are literally transferable.
22:58
Ferrari's not doing that.
23:00
They're making gussied up marketing versions
23:02
of their street cars and selling them
23:04
for extraordinary amounts of money.
23:07
And I just think it's kind of amazing.
23:10
That's basically all I have to say about that.
23:13
I don't think you're not wrong.
23:15
You're definitely not wrong.
23:16
And I have not been in the position
23:19
to order something like that.
23:21
If I was in the position to, I don't know.
23:24
I mean, it's never, it's never something
23:25
that's interesting to me.
23:26
I mean, the newest thing I drive is a 2004.
23:29
Like, and it's not because I don't like anything newer.
23:33
And I'm starting to warm up it.
23:34
I just, I find that the newer stuff to me is,
23:40
the way you'd use it where I would live has,
23:43
you could be a name your luxury thing.
23:45
And then moments you get to a place
23:47
where you can use it the way it's supposed to be.
23:49
It's way too frickin' fast and competent.
23:52
And I've been in those cars.
23:53
I've taken them to McLaren up to good vibes on Friday.
23:56
And the entire time, I wish I was in my old 911.
24:00
Well, let me, let me ask Dave about this.
24:02
Because Dave Lives is literally his, you know,
24:04
Sunderworks is old, gorgeous 911s.
24:09
And, you know, everywhere you look.
24:11
I mean, you have got to go to his shop, Paul.
24:12
You will be blown away.
24:14
I look forward to it.
24:14
It's extraordinary.
24:16
So he wants a GT through RS.
24:17
That's what he's getting.
24:19
So you help us understand that bridge,
24:21
which I personally understand and appreciate.
24:23
But I want you to explain that.
24:24
So you live and breathe old 911s,
24:27
and yet you want a new one.
24:30
Different experience, right?
24:32
I love the old ones.
24:33
I mean, that's my preference.
24:35
I mean, I've had newer Porsches, you know, 991s.
24:38
And, you know, to me, I'm a loyalist to this brand.
24:44
And the heritage of the car and the latest and greatest tech.
24:52
And, you know, the fact that that styling still carries through
24:56
and that it is still time.
24:57
Have you driven one?
24:58
I have not driven one yet.
25:00
I've driven a 992.1.
25:05
I've driven the 991.2 GT3 RS.
25:10
I mean, I wasn't driving it in anger.
25:12
I wasn't driving it hard.
25:13
I mean, I was really probably just kind of tooling around in it.
25:17
But I look forward to me.
25:18
It's like it's an expedition.
25:20
It's an experience.
25:21
It's a checkbox item for someone of a certain age
25:26
that happens to have the means to be able to pull the trigger.
25:29
And because it's a car that I don't feel like is going
25:32
to lose 30% of its value the minute I buy it,
25:36
it felt like a low risk opportunity.
25:38
If it's presented, you can't get it.
25:41
It's presented to me.
25:42
I wanted to have it.
25:43
You know, that's really what the boils down to.
25:45
I don't anticipate that I'm going to fall in love with this car
25:49
as anything even remotely resembling a daily driver
25:52
or something that I would cool around in all the time.
25:55
It's going to get driven to events
25:57
and cars and coffees and things like that.
25:59
But I'm not going to.
26:00
It's not going to be a high driving car.
26:01
It'll be all over your Instagram hand.
26:03
You'll have the friggin.
26:04
You'll be wearing the car.
26:06
I guarantee I will not have the QR code on my side windows.
26:09
I can absolutely guarantee that.
26:11
Hey, Paul, I'll bet you $100.
26:13
He has that before he protects delivery.
26:15
The window is still on the car.
26:17
Yeah, yeah, he will.
26:21
I might have to do some reconnaissance.
26:22
Find someone that works.
26:23
So I'll have it printed off.
26:25
I'll send it to them.
26:26
And they'll just put it on there for him.
26:28
And then he'll go, one of my, it was a joke.
26:31
They put it on there, but it'll stay.
26:34
It's going to only link though
26:36
to some compromising picture of you, Paul.
26:38
The minute that they hit it,
26:39
it's going to link to some compromising picture of you.
26:42
Not that this is going to sadden you guys,
26:44
but Mike, I, in a wheelchair, can't reach my charge cord.
26:49
And I've got like 14% left on computer battery.
26:55
We got to be wrapping up here pretty soon.
26:57
Anyway, I would imagine, right?
26:59
Well, I mean, I enjoyed this conversation today.
27:01
Hopefully you guys are,
27:03
hopefully we don't get any too many arrows
27:05
thrown away for our over, over truthiness.
27:08
And I'm glad you guys rolled with it too,
27:10
and weren't trying to be politically correct
27:12
and trying not to, you know,
27:13
worry about ruffling feathers.
27:15
And I'll just say, in conclusion,
27:17
with regards to Monterey Car Week,
27:19
it's definitely something you have to do at least once.
27:22
And if it wasn't for the fact
27:23
that Julie and I started out with a,
27:26
you know, it's almost our anniversary month
27:28
and that's a big part of the reason that we go,
27:30
frankly, I probably wouldn't go again.
27:31
If it wasn't for that, we'd love to go to Big Sur
27:33
and it's just so gorgeous there,
27:34
especially before the tourists arrive.
27:37
But other than that,
27:38
it's definitely something you want to experience
27:40
I'm really looking forward to my first
27:44
how do you pronounce it?
27:49
Which I guess Julie looked it up
27:51
and means Erikauld in German.
27:54
But I bet you that's the vibe
27:57
that used to be in during Car Week
27:59
that now all those thousands,
28:01
oh, I didn't tell you guys.
28:04
eavesdropping on conversations
28:05
I probably shouldn't have been eavesdropping on.
28:08
They had sold 4,000 tickets
28:11
to the one in your town, Dave,
28:16
Now, I don't know if it's attendees
28:18
or if it's attendees with cars,
28:19
but it's going to be extraordinary.
28:21
Kind of all the same, right?
28:22
I mean, you got to buy the ticket
28:23
before you get your car gets picked.
28:25
So basically you buy a ticket,
28:27
not an expensive ticket at all.
28:28
It's like 35, 45 bucks.
28:30
Yours is only 35, 40 bucks.
28:32
Yeah, that's all it was.
28:33
Oh, they complain because Universal Studio
28:35
was, I want to say, 150.
28:39
How many people were there?
28:46
Now, see, that's where the port,
28:47
that's the difference between Porsche
28:48
and every other brand, right?
28:50
I mean, that is the only,
28:51
and they would have sold more,
28:52
but that was as much as they were allowed.
28:56
I was with a friend who worked in that industry
28:59
and they had to close,
29:01
they used maybe about a third of the back lot.
29:03
They had to basically close the entire back lot.
29:08
So they could use Universal Studio's back lot
29:10
that people flew in from Omaha to go see
29:13
on that Saturday and the Friday
29:15
and the Thursday for the entire thing.
29:16
It would have been,
29:18
it had to have been millions of dollars
29:19
to secure that back.
29:21
if I were placing bets
29:22
based on my overall experience
29:24
here's what I would bet.
29:25
I bet you Porsche as a brand
29:27
goes to a level that we can't even imagine
29:29
and just think about what these guys,
29:30
10,000 Porsche enthusiasts,
29:33
and I think all the other brands
29:34
because there's an oversaturation
29:36
with all these hypercar,
29:38
supercar, carbon fiber,
29:41
there's an oversaturation of that.
29:43
And I think that the Koenigsegg
29:46
and all these other small manufacturers,
29:49
there, there's too many of them.
29:55
Get off the iPad grandma.
30:02
But no, the rant you're going on
30:04
was exactly what I expressed too.
30:07
and I was trying to think about,
30:08
there's only one other brand
30:10
that has such a die-hard bleed,
30:13
do everything for you,
30:15
that people will literally tattoo
30:20
And that's Harley-Davidson.
30:22
Used to be Harley-Davidson.
30:24
I don't think it's that way anymore.
30:25
I think a lot of the Harley-Davidson people
30:27
were the baby boomers
30:28
it's not like it was.
30:29
Yeah, you're right.
30:30
But that's a good example.
30:31
I think Porsche has done something
30:33
that's truly spectacular,
30:35
making their old cars
30:36
appeal to younger people.
30:41
that's my observation.
30:42
And I'm really looking forward
30:43
to seeing Dave and Charlotte in,
30:47
And hopefully our little blue car
30:49
I'm sure it will be.
30:50
Be ready for it, Tim.
30:51
It's going to be great.
30:52
I'm not worried at all.
30:56
And we look forward to seeing you
31:02
Extra strength, Tylenol.