Monterey Car Week—From Concours to Carbon Fiber Chaos

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Welcome back.

Chris Harris, and this is, of course, your favorite weekly automotive podcast, Full Throttle

Talk, and joining me this week are Paul and Dave, and we're going to be focused on a lot

of fun topics today.

It's not going to be a super long show, though I do appreciate all of you who do like our

super long shows, but today we're going to be focusing a lot on Monterey Car Week,

but I think we're going to be bringing some observations about Monterey Car Week that

maybe you've not heard anywhere else, and we're also going to be talking about

what you did in cars this week.

I just listened to a very interesting podcast from Chris Harrison, friends talking about

the European automotive industry, which I'm hoping to bring up and have these guys yammer

a bit about, and a lot of other fun things, whatever, frankly, comes to mind.

So without any further delay, guys, welcome to this week's podcast.

Hey, I'm so excited.

How are you?

I'm so excited, Tim.

Yes, me too.

I'm excited to hear about Monterey Car Week, because all of my total influx or

injection of Monterey Car Week has been just watching all my friends, you know,

Instagram feeds.

So I've not talked to anyone who's had feet on the ground.

Well, I'll give you a little, a little insight.

The Monterey Car Week was dominated by everybody and their brother who thought

that they were an influencer and who had hashtags on every damn thing you can

possibly imagine leading them back to their Insta handles.

And the number of people, there are more people walking around with many film

crews than there were attendees at some of the events we went to.

That's what it was like.

So it was honestly, at some time, at some moments, it was actually kind of hilarious.

And I'm not criticizing.

I appreciate the amplitude of the enthusiasm for the automotive space, but it was obvious.

But before we get to that, so what did you do in cars this week?

Dave, you first.

And I know that you had to make, you had some exciting upholstery things.

I'm very interested in know what you've been working on.

Cause as you guys may or may not know, Dave is the king of Sunderworks in North

Carolina, arguably one of the, I think most recognized upholstery shops for the

Porsche space in certainly this part of the world.

And in addition to that, he does a lot of Porsche restoration.

So Dave, without any further delay.

Yeah, no worries, Tim.

Hey, everybody.

Hello, hello, hello.

It's been a busy week here at Sunderworks.

We, the car that I'm showing you behind me here, this lovely orange

SC that's been previously wide-bodied and flared.

I don't know. You guys, Paul, you probably are aware of this.

You're familiar with the Porsche restoration challenge that the

dealers do around the country.

Okay. For the last few years, we've worked with probably four different

dealers that send their stuff down to us.

We've done soft window Targas.

We've done turbos.

We've done all kinds of upholstery.

We did a job last year for the fine folks up at Porsche of Charlottesville.

And they actually won their particular class, which was this kind of this.

There's three different classes for this restoration challenge.

And the upside for this is probably, I don't know, 30, 40, 50 of the

dealers that participate nationwide.

If they win, they get an additional allocation of a high end car.

So it's important for them because they want to get these cars

and that's why they continue to enter.

This car behind me is the Porsche of Charlottesville.

Hold on a second, Dave.

I always wondered why they throw so much money.

And I've even asked some of them before, like, okay, this is really cool.

Brands your dealership as being a car person's dealer, Porsche dealership.

But I always felt that there was more into it.

And I mean, we don't have Casey here to talk about it, but

an extra allocation of a GT through RS or an ST, that's got to be,

do you think that that extra allocation, the revenue from that outweighs

the cost to do the build?

No, I do.

But here's what I think.

Well, the reason is because almost every one of these builds is for a customer

who's actually paying for the work.

I didn't know that.

Oh, I didn't know that either.

The cars are either going to get sold off after the event,

or like this particular car is for a customer.

So I would say there's one exception to that.

That's Bob Ackman with Santa Clarita Porsche.

That's very possible.

I don't think he ever wants to sell anything.

But you know, to Dave's point, though, we were at Renworks.

I always go, no, RenSport reunion, I think.

Thank you.

Two years ago, probably.

Okay.

RenSport reunion.

So we went there and I looked at, and I took pictures.

I'll put them on Instagram of all those restoration challenge cars.

And there were enormous, I don't even remember the total number,

but there were at least a dozen.

But get this, somebody did a full restoration,

one of the dealerships did a full restoration on a 928.

I'm not 28.

I saw that.

That is a ballsy move.

They talk about an expensive restoration.

But the other cars, we looked at all them,

they're really beautiful.

Honestly, it's spectacular.

I mean, they do a great job.

And there's an individualization class,

which is what this car is.

So this is a 79, I think it's a 79 SC.

And we have gotten probably a little deeper in this

than I thought.

And now we're coming to crunch time

because the first judging for these cars

is coming up early next month.

And for the Southeast region, it's in Indianapolis,

I believe.

So we've been working with the fine folks up there

in Charlottesville.

And this is a safari build that they're doing.

So yeah, the car started life.

And you can see there we are putting on a roof rack

and a light bar on the top of the car.

We're about to fit wheels on it.

We also sprayed rhino lining on the inside

of the bottom of this.

So you can see that there if I get my fat head out of the way.

In an odd color, and I think we've ultimately chosen

to move on beyond this,

we're going to put some square weave carpeting in this.

I think the owner and the person specking the build

decided he wanted a rough and ready sort of car.

But there's this rough and ready

and then there's a car that can actually win one of these things.

So rough and ready might be very functional,

might be lightweight,

might be taking as much weight out of the car as possible.

But it's got to look and present well.

And so we've decided we're going to do a really tight

German square weave carpeting in this.

And then we're putting in some what I call Sunder CS seats,

which are very similar in appearance to a Recaro Sportster CS.

But one that we're sourcing ourselves.

I don't have a picture of that right now,

but I will maybe for next time around.

But we're jamming on this thing to get it done.

It has been a very, very busy week.

This is getting a full interior.

And it should be a pretty cool build.

I think they've worked a little bit with Lee Keen on this too,

in terms of specking out the suspension

that's being installed underneath it.

Full orange color.

By the time I think everyone's kind of set up with it

and it goes back up to them for the finishing touches,

it's going to be a neat little car.

So we'll see how it does in the event.

Well, that's been my week.

Yeah, post more pictures on your Instagram

as you finish that, because that looks...

What orange is that?

Yeah, it looks like continental orange to me.

You know, it's funny with...

And I have a...

And Tim, like 993's convertibles

and all my other weird fetish hates I have,

I have a weird thing about orange.

Tangerine is so overdone,

which drives me nuts,

because Porsche has amazing oranges.

And when someone says I'm painting my car,

tangerine, my back date,

it just says one thing to me.

I'm lazy and I have not a creative bone in my soul.

And continental orange is really bitching.

Hold on, hold on.

It doesn't just say to you that they like orange?

No, it says that I'm lazy

and someone told me tangerine orange is the color to do

because everyone's done it.

And it's just lemmings jumping off a cliff.

But when you look at the palette of oranges Porsche has,

they have some amazing oranges.

Like, first of all, SCs,

there's some great colors with SCs that always get overlooked.

Arrow blue, one of my favorite colors.

Continental orange, another great color.

Talbot yellow, another great color.

And for whatever reason, everyone just goes,

oh, SC colors.

And there's some great ones that no one ever ordered

that I'm like, why don't you paint at that?

Another really cool trick,

and I wish I had the photo ready,

we did one of our back date.

This is in 2008,

nine right around when I met you, Tim,

it was a back date, 9-11 SC,

where we wanted to do a Yegrameister livery.

We didn't want to do brown.

We were going to do blue.

We wanted to do a different orange.

And by the way, Yegrameister orange is really good,

a good paint color to use.

So we use 997 GT3 RS orange,

which is just called orange.

And it's a really good orange.

Like, so anyway, off my high horse,

that looks like Continental orange to me,

which I think is a great color

because if it was tangerine with our cameras right now,

you would swear that car was almost red.

Hey, Paul, I thought you were supposed to be drugged up

a little bit dopey.

That did not sound dopey or drugged up whatsoever.

Your brain is working, I think, 100%.

No, actually, in all seriousness,

I have personally been cutting down the pain meds

and dealing with more pain because I want to think.

Yeah.

In case you guys don't know

that Paul is actually in the hospital,

well, actually, he's not in the hospital.

He's NPT recovering.

There you go.

Look at his glamorous background.

Okay, recovering from a major operation

that worked out as, I think, honestly, Paul,

as good as it possibly could have.

Oh, you haven't seen the scar yet.

Oh, well, you know, I was thinking about that.

When it comes to that scar,

and somebody asked you about it,

and you know, and you feel tempted

to show off this gnarly scar,

are you going to tell them it was from a procedure

and get into some long diatribe

about all the proper names for the procedure,

or are you going to just make up something fun

like it was a shark bite?

Oh, I would make up something fun.

It wouldn't be a shark bite.

It would be like I was in a pro-am golf tournament

with Yoko Moss and he shoved the golf club into my hip

because I said him that Jackie X was a better driver

or something.

Okay, there you go.

See what I'm saying?

No IQ downtime for Mr. Kramer.

Okay, well, so as far as now that you're off

your orange soap box, what have you done in the past week

that you would like to talk about,

given the fact you've been in the hospital?

I haven't done a lot outside of here.

Literally, I'm in the hospital.

There's a patio.

I go downstairs.

I am coordinating a couple new cars coming in,

which I'm excited.

The background one's a 68912 in aga blue

with a red interior and a Benton built motor,

about a 225 horsepower at the wheels,

horsepower of 912 motor.

Older paint job, color change, not numbers matching,

but a really very, very fun, tidy hot rod.

And this is one of the things that I know

it's good for my business and I get frustrated.

I don't know why I shouldn't be frustrated.

But I sell these cars.

The list of people I post on Instagram,

this is coming.

It got shipped from my client in Northern Nevada.

And everyone's like, ooh, I want that.

Tell me more about it.

I put a deposit on it.

And in the case when I sold this a few years ago,

that's exactly what happened with that owner.

I shipped the car to him.

He's a wonderful guy.

I've known him for 20 years.

The Silver 73RS story I post on Instagram was,

I sold to him and he kept it for 16 years.

He's had this car for three years.

He's put 700 miles on it and he's over it.

And I'm great.

I get, I'm grateful.

I get the car back.

I get to sell it, pay for,

keep the roof over our head and keep

auto kennel going.

But there's a part of me that gets bitter,

like why didn't he like it?

Why didn't he drive it more?

Why didn't he find his moment with the car?

And by the way, this isn't like this unique example.

This is epidemic.

And I would say in the last five years,

far more epidemic.

And it's not just me.

I was reading a bring a trailer ad for a 996 GT3

that sold yesterday.

I don't know if you saw that red one.

The guy bought it like three years ago

on bring a trailer, put a lot of money,

bought it, it hammered for 110,

put from what I can calculate, 20 grand into it,

drove 500 miles and it just sold yesterday for 115.

And it's like-

Oh, do you find that more,

do you find that more with, with the air cooled cars

or with newer stuff?

Everything.

Just across the board.

Anything that's not a daily driver.

Anything that's a fun toy.

And I don't know if it's coming-

But you're, you've talked about this before, Paul,

and it, you're getting into a little bit of a philosophical thing

and it's kind of fascinating for me to think about

why you're maybe more motivated to talk about this now,

given your recent, you know, challenges health-wise.

But seriously, it's an interesting perspective.

And Dave asked you a question with regards

to why you think that is,

and I let's actually drill down and leverage

the fact that you're on pain meds

so you can be extra truthy with your actual opinion.

Why, right?

So why do you think people buy these things

and don't drive them?

Part of it is, I think,

because this epidemic to me is more than the last five years

and I think it's the predominance of social media

that like television ads saying, you know,

you'll be cool if you smoke these cigarettes

and so you, you know, you should or you'll get the women

if you drive this car.

So I think-

You're describing what we saw in Monterey

to a freaking tea right now

and that's where you're, this is perfect.

I'm glad I asked that question

because that is what was going on in Monterey.

Continue, sorry.

Yeah, so I think it's just the social aspect of

your life will be better, you should experience this

and the number of times

I have to really walk my clients through

because they'll say, you know,

they're coming from a 992 Carrera S PDK

and they buy their first G body.

They've never owned anything 10 years old,

let alone 30, 40 years old.

And their question to me is,

how is this to maintain?

And I'm like, compared to that new thing,

it's a lot.

It's, you know, we all know, like owning a vintage car takes,

if you can enjoy or at least deal with the maintenance

part of it and understand it,

it's just not for you.

I mean, it's hard to explain it.

This isn't a CPO buying experience.

This isn't, this isn't just, you know,

hey, I throw oil at it when a light comes on.

This is, you drive it, you take notes,

things are different.

Every time you drive it, it does something different,

good and bad.

You make notes of the bad stuff

and then you determine how bad that bad is.

Is that bad enough to go see the mechanic now?

Or can I wait till I need, I have more bad stuff,

right?

And then you fix it and you repeat it.

Yep.

It was what Jerry said.

It's what Seinfeld says.

I mean, that's part of the ownership experience.

And if you can't really, if you don't,

if you don't enjoy getting to know people

like Paul and Dave, you know, if you don't enjoy

having an expanded friend group, not,

and maybe some cases involuntary, the tow guy,

then it's probably a bad idea

for you to pursue these things.

You have to, you know, but it is,

there is a certain, there is a bifurcation

that's happening and a big noticeable one.

Again, this TNSM for the Monterey conversation

amongst the guys that are migrating

towards these cars as I don't even know what this,

there's all these dumb words,

but like status symbol, flex, whatever, whatever,

to versus where it was 10 or 15 years ago

when it was dominated by, you know,

the traditional car enthusiast guys.

And those two would never meet.

There was no newer generation Instagram influencer types

at the, at Pebble in particular,

but certainly Monterey on a whole,

maybe not even 10 years ago.

But now I have to say it's definitely dominated.

And I don't think anyone could even say

that that wasn't true,

especially given some of the hijinks that were happening

amongst the younger generation, frankly, sorry.

No, no, let me, let me chime in.

I'm just going to chime in just on my experience

because I've had three clients,

very similar situations, Paul, over the last few months,

including one that just finished

with an absolutely gorgeous car

that we spent the better part of two years building.

And he has now had it in his possession for maybe 90 days.

Six, you know, not even probably after we finished it.

He came into my office today and he's like,

you know what, I think I want to sell this thing.

And I'm like, are you kidding me?

This car is absolutely gorgeous.

It's fantastic.

My take on it is, is these guys,

they, there's this aura of air cool

and they are coming from modern Porsches, you know,

all these clients, the same thing.

They all have modern Porsches,

but then they get told they should have an air cooled.

They get into that air cooled

and it's not the experience they thought.

It's not the luxury.

It's not the stability.

It's not the confidence that you would normally have

in driving a modern car.

They have their fun with it for a short period of time

and then it's, boom, then they want to be out

and move on to the next thing

and maybe it's buying another modern car.

But I've had three customers,

identical situation over the last

and the profile is probably that 45 to 55 year old guy

that does it.

Well, also there's a romanticism with buying old cars

and if your wife doesn't like it

and your kids don't want to rock and roll in it

because it doesn't have Wi-Fi built into it,

then you're sitting there looking at it as a, you know,

but I'll say this is kind of fascinating.

Porsche, can you guys think of another manufacturer

that has so dutifully paid homage to homage?

Am I saying it wrong?

I need more.

You got it right.

Okay, I got it right.

Sorry to their back catalog is Porsche.

Nobody has.

You can still get into a modern Porsche

and I don't know what percent of the experience

is similar to driving a vintage one,

but it's pretty damn, it's not that different,

especially if you're willing to spend the beans

and get a GT product.

But and that's it.

You know, again, that was something that I thought

a lot about.

I thought, well, what is it about the old cars

that I personally like because I've got a lot of them

and versus, you know, some of these newer ones

and it is the connection to the car.

And then I got to thinking,

what other modern cars are there

where you actually feel that level of connectiveness?

And it's the list is really freaking short.

It's the modern manual shift GT products

and, you know, some of the Porsche products.

Amiata, frankly, and beyond that,

I really couldn't figure out anything.

So if you have a connection to the older,

you know, the older feel of those older cars

for whatever reason,

and you go and jump in a newer car, a newer Porsche,

you can that there's a connection there

that you can actually feel.

But I don't I don't get that.

Like if you jump into an 80s BMW

and jump into a new BMW, they don't feel the same.

You know, same goes with all these products.

They're just completely different.

But that's the one thing I think.

Again, another observation we'll talk about

when we get to Monterey.

The Porsche is doing better than anybody else.

And I personally, what I was observing

is Porsche is about to go to a more than I ever

would have imagined.

Porsche is about to go to a different level

with all aspects of not just marketing,

but their clientele.

And maybe this I'll just I'll share this.

The my thing in car week

or my thing I did in cars

is I bought a 54 Triumph TR2 off bring a trailer.

And if you guys want to see it, unfortunately.

And so in my drug period,

I saw you guys discussing this.

I thought it was a ruse.

I had no idea you actually bought it.

Yeah. Well, I mean, you would think that

because it's not a 9-11.

And you're very well.

What was the trigger though, Tim?

Didn't wasn't it something

harkening back to your your problem or something like that?

Your problem. Yeah.

No, it's more than that.

So when I was growing up,

my dad always seemed to have

some cool little British sports car

and the triumphs are the ones that kept on,

you know, showing up in our lives.

And my dad didn't never really had enough money

to buy a really nice one.

He eventually bought a really nice TR3B.

So we always got to restoring them.

And so he and I restored, you know,

one or two of these, I think maybe three.

And you'd think that experience alone

to make me hate triumphs.

But finally, he ended up with a really nice TR3B.

And that was the one that Julie and I went

to all of our homecomings and proms then.

But going back even before that,

I had this picture of my dad

in the 19, my mom thinks it was late 50s or early 60s,

where he was fresh out of the army

and he was working for one of the aerospace companies

and actually was a designer back before they had CAD

that they, when they do 3D renderings,

they did them all by drawing them.

I don't know if you guys have ever seen anything like that,

but that's what he did.

So he got hired by,

I forget what aerospace industry it was.

And he was living in what company it was.

He was living in Indianapolis.

So he had to drive his BRG TR2 all the way out to California

to work for, I think it was Northwood Grumman or something.

And yeah, so I had this picture of him in this TR

wearing this green flight jacket from the army.

And you could barely tell it's BRG, but I know it was.

And with these palm trees,

this after he driven it all the way out west.

And I showed my mom,

my mom, to her, that's a very,

that's a card that he drove when they met

and the whole thing.

He taught her to drive on the car.

And so there was this really beautiful video

that the guy who was selling the car

on behalf of the seller put on BRG a trailer.

I thought it was beautiful.

So I started to show it to my mom

and she started to cry and all the things.

And I had to tell her three times,

mom, we just bought that car.

And she was, she wasn't listening.

She was watching the video.

She's 85, you know,

she was watching the video so intensely

remembering these experiences with my dad.

And he passed away, you know, 19 years ago.

Anyway, so she,

and then I said,

I had to finally say, mom,

we just bought that car.

And then she literally started to cheer.

So there you go.

But, and, and talking about going back

to what we were talking about,

the nostalgia part,

like that cars is in all measures

a wretched car compared to today's cars.

For sure.

It's so, it's, it's,

it makes a 356 seem like the luxury.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, 100%.

But where's the picture?

You said you were going to show us a picture, Tim.

I didn't load them, unfortunately,

because we did this kind of lap.

If you go to bring a trailer,

and you'd be doing it.

I'll see if I can pull it up.

Go to bring a trailer.

It's a great car.

I mean, the car looks nicely restored.

It will, and not only that,

forgive me, Paul,

not only that,

but he has this,

the owner of this car, Mike,

has, I think it was 27 different

first places and second places,

different concours.

So the car has been fully vetted

as being really, you know,

but yes, Paul, your point is,

that's the reason that some people buy cars

because they have this emotional,

I mean, how many, how many miles

will I put in that thing?

And the time we went,

it'll be measured in three digits,

not four for sure.

But still, yeah.

But the thing is,

you're going to have an experience.

You're going to relive an experience.

I think, I don't know if it's possible,

but maybe your mom will somehow

in some way get to it.

She will.

I might take her on a drive

in the fall leaves in North Carolina

and the whole thing.

Please put cameras in the car.

I will.

But Paul, listen.

And not even, not something to share,

but, you know, there'll come a point

where our parents are gone

and those videos of our parents having,

as they get older,

there's less things that supremely

make them happy.

That was one of them for my mom.

Yeah.

You know, honestly,

I don't want to talk about it anymore.

I'm getting emotional.

But I do have, I am.

But I have, and I know exactly where it is,

that same flight jacket my dad was wearing

and he had a blue triumph patch

that he had sewn on it

and I still have it.

So it's, it's, you know,

but it's not incredible though,

the whole thing, the whole arc, you know.

And that's, and that is why,

going back to it,

one of the several reasons

you should buy a car.

And when you think,

oh, it doesn't fit my lifestyle.

I'm tired of it.

Just keep it one more year

or one more month.

Like, like and do one more drive.

Like do one more before you think

you should sell it

because you're, you're not using enough,

whatever.

Do one more thing with your car

because I think that might extend

the runway a little bit longer.

And I, and I, I appreciate the,

the revolving door business,

but I kind of want my clients to,

to get,

I see them get these cars

and they never have that experience.

Whether it's taking your mom in the car or.

You got it.

That's it.

There it is.

Yeah.

Or they go on a rally

or they just do an afternoon drive

or they take their kid out for like,

like I just feel they're robbing themselves.

All they do is call me and complain that,

oh, the oil light came on

or the window isn't working quite right.

Or I can't find the owner's manual

and they just never freaking have an experience.

And I wish they would do that.

Yeah, I agree.

And it's, you know,

there's something about cars

that a good car

and not driving an LA.

Oh my God.

If I never drive an LA again,

holy crap.

How do you people put up with that crap?

Seriously.

It is freaking bonkers.

Such garbage.

It's so strategic how I do it.

Like this morning's Friday,

I would normally be going to Good Vibes Breakfast Club.

But, you know, I live two miles from my shop.

I would be leaving at 6am, no traffic,

have a mountain drive.

I leave there at 11

and I have an hour and a half of light traffic

and I get back

and it's like this such a narrow window I got to hit

just to make me not want to kill myself.

But yeah, you're right.

It sucks.

It's terrible.

And it's not just, I don't know what I did.

I'm not a complainer by nature,

but fortunately when we were in for car week,

we did a thanks for your tip, Paul,

rent a 992 Cabriolet

and this thing had almost 80,000 miles on it.

It was a 2020.

And I have to say that was a freaking,

despite the red on red on red on red on red combination,

that car was phenomenal.

It just was with 80,000 miles.

All the stuff worked.

The car was solid.

Had one little creak that was somewhere.

I didn't even care.

But I truly thought for 80,000 miles,

that car was, if it had been thoroughly detailed,

that car was felt like had less than 20 on it.

What a phenomenal car.

Yeah, despite the color.

Yes.

And so Dave has found it.

So if you're watching us on YouTube,

there's pictures of it.

But if you skip through it,

the car was a hot rod TR

if you can even think of that.

But in the 50s,

I think in the early 60s,

Triumph raced a series of cars in Le Mans

and won their class.

And that's what that car reminded me of.

So in any event,

that's what I did in cars this week,

besides trying to make it back from car week,

which ended up taking two days.

All right, so let's pivot.

Let's talk about car week.

And I know you guys were watching a lot of things

on YouTube and watching a lot of,

you know, different videos and listening to pods.

And I'll start out by saying this.

So we have gone,

Julie and I were trying to add it up how many times.

So let's just leave it at probably 12 or 15 times.

And we've always tried to have different experiences.

It's easy to get into the same pattern of things.

You're going to go to this event on this day,

this event on this day.

And this year,

we kind of did a Kramer style

where we were a little bit more casual.

We are trying to avoid a little bit more

of the pomp and circumstance type things.

But guess what?

The pomp and circumstance found us

because every,

there was a discernible,

I'll call it vibe shift

that was going on that I'd feel,

I felt building over the last few years,

but this year it was obvious.

And I'll give you the,

the, for example,

it's dominated by younger people for sure,

like never before,

which is great.

None of these are criticism complaints.

And the official uniform was a black hoodie crocs

and what looked like pajama bottoms,

walking around with some kind of influencer type camera,

whatnot.

That was what I should have worn

because then I would have fit in perfectly.

There were just mountains and mountains of people

driving around and really nice,

younger people.

Again, I thought it was great.

It's expansion of the car hobby

that were Instagram,

Instagram hashtags,

a lot of people doing a lot of just different videoing.

We had gone to a preview at several of the auctions

and there were more people there

that were doing influencer type things.

And there were people like Julie and I

were there just to preview cars.

So it was pretty incredible.

That's, again, I'm not criticizing.

I'm just saying that's what I noticed.

I'll say from the auction side of things,

we went to pretty much all the auctions

and RM was way down on merch.

They didn't have the second floor like they normally do.

They're the nature of the auction.

I'm not sure if that's because a lot of their former employees

didn't have the second floor.

Tim.

Yeah, you said the second floor was they didn't have

and then something about the employees

and then it cut off, Tim.

Yeah, okay. Sorry.

I see.

Give me a two seconds.

Hold on a second.

So that was what I was noticing

is that a lot of the auctions themselves,

broad arrow had a lot of good inventory,

but I was hearing different people say

that a lot of the broad arrow stuff wasn't selling.

Though I thought broad arrows or reserves

were probably really good.

Overall, the best auction in terms of merchandise,

in terms of experience, was Gooding.

And Gooding had just stellar,

did you guys see that old Vanagon that they had?

It was like a, that thing had mold on it.

I mean, I wasn't quite getting why that was there,

but it was a, you know,

it wasn't like a really nice Vanagon.

What the hell was it doing there?

But I have an old Vanagon too,

so I'm all for Vanagans being on a Gooding auction.

And, you know, it's so funny to think about

because it's so hard to get a car with Gooding for car week.

And here was some crusty old Vanagon

that was sitting there on display with a ton of miles too.

Anyway.

Is there anything special about it?

No, I'm telling you, it needed completely restored.

It had faded like three shades of paint.

There was mold in the pop-up thing.

The guy who was trying to wipe it down,

he and I just sort of laughed at each other.

It's like, what the hell are you dusting this thing for?

Kind of thing and anything.

You're disrupting the patina of the whole car.

Exactly, you're not going to paint off, son.

That's expensive.

Those are expensive rust bubbles that you're, you know,

the older stuff wasn't selling or wasn't selling.

It was selling for far less.

Again, if you, we went to the auctions

and I was watching some of these, you know,

older Ferraris and whatnot, Jaguars and things like that.

I had an interesting conversation with Cam Ingram about,

you know, 350, like I was thinking about,

you know, a 356 GS, a four cam.

And I'd watch this, I've watched those cars

for more than a dozen years.

And those went from what, a million dollars.

And now Cam was telling me,

you can get a really nice one for like 400 grand.

You know, so the market for the older stuff

has dropped like a rock is what I know.

I haven't heard anyone else saying it as directly as I am,

but those are my observations.

You know, a lot of that.

Did Cam, you made some comment in our chat here

about your conversation with Cam.

Did he feel like his business has really been hurt

by all that, that drop?

I mean, no, he was actually, I met,

met with him at Pebble Beach.

He was standing next.

He was displaying a gorgeous four cam speedster,

the last one made next to a friend of ours that was also,

you know, they're showing a D type.

They're both competing a D type

that was raced by Carol Shelby in period.

We'll have Jeremy on the podcast.

He's got an amazing story to tell.

But yeah, I got to talk with Cam

and I heard him telling other people

that he's just been crazy busy.

But I think it's a lot of different things.

It's like Paul's business.

Frankly, in your business, you get to the point

where you have so many clients

that they just come back to you

for more projects and updates and just the rest of it.

That's the, I think the part, that's where Cam is.

He's just so busy servicing some of his customers

that it's, you know, it's probably,

his business has grown.

His reputation is certainly stellar,

you know, especially for that old stuff.

Yeah, but I don't think he would have,

I don't think he would have necessarily told me if,

in any way he was, if there was any sort of,

you know, downward momentum in his business

from the resellability of some of those cars.

I don't think that would have been a conversation

we would have had.

But do you guys have an opinion on that?

I mean, Paul or Dave, do you guys?

I certainly see it.

Yeah.

I mean, I see it in the 356 market for sure.

I've got one on consignment right now

that's a very nice restoration.

And I think I felt we've priced it fairly

and we just haven't gotten any bites on it

in the least, you know.

And the guy I think is going to pull it back

from me now at this point

because he just wants the money.

And, you know, rightly so.

But I think the market is off definitely a little bit.

But let me, Paul, before you,

let me just share this one last thing or with this down

is that you could predict pretty much

if you were watching the markets what,

like everyone is saying 90s cars are going to be hot

because the millennials are going to want to buy the cars

they went in when they were kids.

And you could go back to generation X

with the 80s cars and on back and on back and on back.

If you were to try to predict what generation of cars

are going to be even bigger than big,

it's the 90s cars.

And that's what I was seeing a lot of there

that were the 90s cars.

And the drop off and the things that aren't in that,

I think that age rage of cars is obvious.

So it's a great time to be buying, for example,

a really nice 73 RS or something like that.

That was, I guess, in conclusion, what I was observing.

No, what you saw and what Dave's experienced,

I've experienced a little bit of that too.

356 is, if it's a hot rod, if it's,

obviously there's the Emory, which is its own thing,

but if it's a coupe with a Wilhoit motor,

it'll blow the socks off because that appeals to a millennial.

If it is a 61B coupe in ivory with a 20-year-old restoration,

it's a good driver, no one cares.

And that is a great car.

And that is a, granted, that car, if it's decent,

it's going to be $70,000, $80,000.

That should be the price and it shouldn't be less,

but there's just fewer buyers in the room,

where there would have been maybe 20 buyers,

now there's four buyers.

So probably a $60,000 car now.

The other thing is that the Ferrari stuff,

you guys know I pay attention.

I'm the only, you guys never care when I talk about Ferraris.

What?

Especially Paul.

The, exactly.

But the older, there were a lot of epic, you know, collections,

Ralph Lauren level collections of classic Ferraris

that are being liquidated.

And they were being liquidated slowly.

And now they're being liquidated quicker

because I think people are,

some of these sellers are worried about catching a falling knife

with regards to some of those values.

So that's the other thing I was able to eavesdrop on

and have direct conversations.

A lot of these 250 series Ferraris,

which were going for just enormous amounts of money.

And we should mention chandelier bidding too.

The amount of chandelier bidding I saw

was just like nothing I've ever seen before.

And you could pretty much tell

and what chandelier bidding is,

we talked about this in the podcast a long time ago,

is where the auctioneer is like,

we'll act like he's getting bids.

He'll say, you know, say the car is $50,000,

starting at $50,000, I have $50,000, I have $75,000,

I have $100,000.

There weren't real bids there.

He's just trying to bid it up to the seller's low number

until he gets a reasonably acceptable bid

and then he's going to accept it.

And obviously then they'll sell on the low end of the reserve,

unless it's a new reserve.

But there was a lot of that going on.

And a lot of people still don't know

chandelier bidding is legal, which is incredible.

Yeah, which on like, you know, that's like

shill bidding on an online auction.

Yeah, it's crazy.

You know, just a side note on that,

sitting in a hospital bed,

looking at everything through Instagram and podcasts,

one of the things I found interesting

is all the social media content was the glitzy stuff,

from the street burnouts to the crashes,

lease shit to the quail to gooding.

It was all the stuff that was just very glammy.

And the only feed, the only content I got on the track,

the Laguna Seca track, which to me was the,

has always been one of the highlights for me,

was my nerdiest of nerd car friends.

You know, Magnus was there and posting stuff,

and all my other car dorks that I do rallies with,

were at the track at least one day and posting content.

And car, you know, whatever, they had a beautiful,

you know, obviously vintage F1 cars running.

They had all of the Can-Am cars

from all kinds of series running,

that then drove over to the quail.

So I kind of saw the shift where no one outside of my friends

gave two squats about the track,

which is these beautiful special cars actually moving at speed.

And just quick note, my favorite YouTuber, social media,

whatever the content clip,

these guys get pulled over by a cop

because they're doing the influencer filming

from like a minivan.

Did you see that clip?

So the guy, the cop is, these two guys are sitting in the backseat,

and the cops, by the way,

if you were in a van or a vehicle, not properly secured by legal,

you had to have like whatever the vehicle legally came with

to secure you.

And if you didn't have like,

like rear-facing seat with seat belts,

like an old Mercedes wagon, you had some other harness.

No matter how legal that was,

you had to have a permit that you're allowed to use in that situation.

So he pulls over these guys.

I don't know what minivan they were in.

They never really showed.

It was some car minivan.

Cop was so anxious because he sees these two guys

squirming around the back with the tailgate open taking photos.

He's like, I nailed these guys.

And these guys figured out the newest car that was minivan-like

that had rear-facing seats with three-point belts,

and it blew the cop's mind.

The cop was like, dude, you got me.

You got me.

I'll find the clip and send it.

It was so funny.

It wasn't a Tesla.

It wasn't like Chrysler C.

What's got rear-facing seats now?

I don't even know.

But it was a modern car with rear-facing.

It was a rear-facing seat with three-point belts,

and they would move around in them, which you can do,

but they never hung out.

And apparently having the lift open

is so long as you have a red flag hanging on it,

showing this is the limit of the car is kind of legal.

But Paul, you're touching on this as the other thing

I'm trying to express without sounding like I'm complaining,

is the cops were so overbearing

and pulling everyone over for anything.

We are staying at Cremal by the Sea,

and we're staying at this little hotel

at the very top of Cremal by the Sea,

and we're watching the cops literally

will chase down anybody for anything,

and they're just camped out right at that little four-way,

and they're chasing people down their little e-bikes,

going left, right, and center,

and causing even more commotion of all these people

and the traffic just stopping for miles.

It was crazy.

The hotels, now I'm bitching,

the hotel that we normally stay at.

Wait, wait, when does complaining become bitching?

I'm learning from you.

When you talk about 993s, okay, so, okay,

so I'm complaining bitching.

All right, so this hotel we stay at,

which we will not stay at again,

you morons for doing this, we show up,

and it's not a very big hotel.

They have rented out almost all their parking spots

to one of these electric car companies,

and so they had these stupid green cones

that took up like 90% of the parking spots,

and you should have heard the guests

that were paying users' rates to stay there

because it was car week screaming at the people

when they go to check in and say,

you can't park here because all the parking is for VIPs.

That's what they were saying.

Oh my gosh.

So anyway, that's car week.

I mean, there is a part of me that truly, truly missed

car week and a lot of aspects of it

and really, really wanted to go,

and then when I hear that, the one thing,

and I wish I would have had more stuff to share with it,

the one thing, and I don't know if you guys picked,

I don't know if Tim, you saw it there.

Did you see anything with overcrest

and sports car vacation land?

Did that ring a bell at all while you were there?

I mean, they had probably just all blended

because there was so much going on constantly.

So, and I think this is the glimmering hope.

Overcrest guys, they have a podcast.

They do rallies.

I've done them with them before.

They're based out of Minnesota.

Great guys.

They're great.

Really, really cool guys.

And they're ethos.

They're younger than us by a generation.

Their ethos is everything we talk about,

which is take a drive, enjoy the car, sports car.

And so they kind of came into car week

and it feels like for the first time

they've reinvented car week.

They found some cool mysterious lot of property on a vineyard

and built this whole, the best way to describe it

is like Burning Man meets Laguna Arts Festival meets

some kind of car get together, like, you know, snap your finger.

They had art exhibits going on.

A guy hung his 911, famous artist Felix, hung his 911,

was painting it hanging upside down or vertical.

They had set up hail bales, Petrolicious,

the new version of Petrolicious had movies,

really cool movies they were showing.

People were camping there.

And it was this whole kind of cool vibe that was,

in my opinion, what this car,

it's like they took car week back to the days

when they raced in Pebble Beach.

But Paul, that's what it was like.

That's what it was like 10 or 12 years ago.

And now it's not.

Now it's red ropes.

Now it's charging.

Everyone's having to pay a ridiculous amount of money.

We have even talked about the quail yet.

And I put this picture up there

when you're ready to talk about the quail

because I have some interesting thoughts on that.

Well, I mean, and Matt Farah talked about this

on his podcast.

And Matt's, you know, he's a professional automotive journalist.

So he's, I think, a little bit more tethered to

trying to say things that are maybe going to be received

a little bit more warmly by the automotive industry

than say, for example, I am.

But at quail, well, I want to,

the automotive industry needs to be critical

because there's a shift that's happening.

And if they want to leave all of us

true bledded enthusiasts along the side of the road

and they want to catch the glitz and glam crowd

and they want to chase that money, go for it.

But I'm just saying they're going to open up the door

for old classic cars.

And that's going to be an industry

that is going to take off like never before.

Dave, you're going to have more upholstery jobs

and you know what to do with.

But at quail, okay, so what did you guys think

about the new, all the never ending launches

of hyper million dollar plus cars?

I don't even know how many there were like the new entry level

just to have anything you can take.

And I was joking.

Someone needs to come up with a hot rod,

resto mod, reimagine freaking you go.

You guys remember you goes?

Yeah, of course.

I mean, I promise you, if someone did that

and they did all this fancy ass craft

and they took to the quail

and they're going to make a limited run of 25,

I guarantee you they'd sell 25 for a million dollars.

This would be so much fun.

Imagine if full throttle talk came up

with this way to get into the quail

and it was all, it was all fake.

But we came off as so real.

We took a you go or a lot or something

that just an absolute or a Renault Fuego

and we're going to make and we can just do something.

You know, Dave, we're going to need you a little bit

to not spend too much time,

but just enough time to make it just look good.

Will velvet rope the thing like 30 feet out?

You can't even get near this thing.

One to protect ourselves,

one to add a little bit of elevation.

For they can't, so they can't smell it.

They can't smell it.

They can't smell the paint drying.

They can't really look inside.

We'll take some really cool seats.

Dave's done it.

We'll set it outside.

All the options you could do.

And we can come across as this new brand

that we're reinventing the Renault Fuego

that never got the love it deserved.

And you know, we'll call it new,

like, you know, Mui Fuego or something.

But they would buy it.

I promise you.

And it will say like 350,000 all in.

That's max.

You could do whatever you want.

No, son, you won't sell for 350 grand.

That's too cheap.

We'd be like 999,999.

No, no, you're missing it here.

It's got to be 1.35 million to start.

And you've got it.

You've got it weighed in line.

And we built, we're building 20.

We've already got spots for 25.

You're going to go on the wait list.

And maybe if somebody drops off,

that's how they were selling everything.

There's a part of me that I don't know

how I could do this,

but it would be kind of fun, wouldn't it?

Wouldn't that be fun?

Won't you do that?

That'd be awesome.

Just to debunk quail,

have all these influencers propelling this whole thing,

have responsible journalists going,

hey, I don't like it, but if shit sells.

They wouldn't, though.

They wouldn't.

They wouldn't say I don't like it.

You tell me, okay, we're really going to get,

okay, hopefully you guys aren't disliking

the direction I'm going here.

Because when I was talking to journalists,

and I'm not going to mention any names,

and I know quite a few of them now,

when I was talking to these professional journalists,

the shit talking they were doing

about the fucking cars, especially, you know,

all these fancy ones,

the things that they were saying about the market,

the cars, the whole nine yards,

and then what they would say when they're on camera

and they're writing our articles,

completely different things.

And I don't know why they're, I know why,

because if you are getting invited to Ferreri's VIP,

exactly, Paul Money,

when you're getting flown to Maranello,

and they're just doing the whole rollout thing,

and you love that experience,

and you're getting your butt kissed,

and you feel like a special blah, blah, blah, blah,

you're not going to say anything that's going to burn a bridge

that doesn't get you invited back again.

And that, so there's a little bit of a,

I don't know what you want to call it,

but from a Carnard perspective.

Ass kissing.

It's, well, it's, it's almost like they're being,

I don't want to say it because they'll be,

I'll be pissed at me,

but you guys can draw your own conclusions.

If you're being paid to have a,

you know, you're not,

it's not a direct, you know,

say this and we'll give you this type of deal,

but it's not that far away from it.

Well, but Ferrari, Ferrari noted has,

has very, very notably, you know,

blacklisted journalists who've said with their mind

and it took years for them.

They're all doing it now, Paul.

That, that's the, that's what I'm hearing.

And, and these guys weren't, they're not,

I don't know.

I, I, again, I don't want to sound like.

So just to change that,

so you went to the quail, right, Tim?

Yeah.

Okay.

Did you see this car?

The.

Yes.

Roof rodeo.

Just a cool car.

What did you think of the paint scheme?

What did you think of them bringing this car there?

Honestly, roof is the only hold out in my heart

for a true manufacturer.

And it's because they're the only ones that I have

any real lasting passion for at this point

of monks, the guys who build cars like this.

That's what I thought.

So here's the cool thing about that.

In June, when my dad and I did our trip to Germany,

that is that car.

Oh, wow.

It is kidding.

Wow.

They wrapped that up quick.

That was, that was middle of June.

So we go into the paint shop.

And by the way, Dave,

roof, big manufacturer.

This is the entirety of the paint shop.

If you, if you went to my left to, to this side,

there is a paint booth big enough for a car

and then to hang all the parts like the doors and stuff.

So you can picture like a one and a half car depth garage.

It's not 27 feet, something like that.

Yeah.

Not very big.

So similar to what I have.

So the head, I'm talking to the head painter

who's like Scottish, super nice guy.

And I said, you know, what is that?

He's like, that's going to be a Monterey in August.

And I'm like, you got to finish it, put it together,

get it on a plane.

Like I was sort of befuddled.

And so we're talking about, I go, what is it?

And he's like, it's the new roof rodeo.

I go, well, we've seen it already.

He goes, no, no, no, this is the first customer car.

And I said, tell me you're painting at roof green.

You know, roof has their own green.

Like to me, that should be it.

He's like, no, we're painting it black with white wheels,

white accents, white door thresholds.

You could tell he was visibly kind of bummed.

And he's like, this is a special car.

This is a, we've been pushing this rodeo for three years.

It's been at Quail twice.

Same car prototype, just painted two different colors.

They've been pushing it for so long.

And now the first car that's actually production done, tested,

going to a customer, in my opinion, and certainly the head painter,

the boring is color.

And I'm like, well, why did you do that?

Why not just tell him, no?

He's like, you know, the roof family, they're so sweet.

And they truly embody the customer as always, right?

Even though they're fricking roof, and they can just

imagine roof says, hey, the first customer car

is going to be roof green.

And if you want to have it, get in line.

And how many people would raise their hand?

But for whatever reason, and I don't know anymore

about the relationship with who the first owner is,

the first owner wanted this, no one at roof

wanted to paint it that color.

But because the customer's always right,

and he's the first one, he gets it black.

And tell me that's not the car they wanted sitting at the quail,

getting photographed for everything.

Black does not photograph where shit won't look good.

And the car is truly an amazing car.

It's really, it's hard to build a safari car

that is your own ethos, your own voice,

and not just another me too, like every other safari car.

So anyway.

Check the interior out on that car though.

Yeah, thank you.

That interior on that car is stellar.

Yeah, Mexican blanket vibe.

So cool.

Oh, that looks like the interior.

Those look like the inserts you put on that hippie car.

Yeah, the boho car that we do.

And I sold that car, by the way,

and that car is down in Florida now.

But that, I just think, is the coolest.

It really, it's inspired me.

That interior, I've got two black.

And I'm going to actually think I'm going to do one.

I'm going to do a Targa.

And I'm going to do kind of a safari Targa

with that sort of interior.

Some kind of American Indian blanket sort of inserts

and things like that.

I just think that looked just fantastic.

I mean, obviously not in the same league as Roof,

but that is a pretty stellar interior.

Whoever did that interior.

Did they do that in-house, Paul?

I don't even know.

They did all of it in-house.

And that's gorgeous.

I really think it's beautiful.

And this is just hearsay, not truth,

because I can't actually verify.

But when we were there at the factory,

the last few of their current edition they sell,

the normally aspirated or the turbo one,

the seat, I forget all the names,

there was like two or three in the final assembly.

There was a black old yellowbird in another shop next to it,

which is where they do their final upholstery.

And they've got four guys scrambling

to get the upholstery done.

And I asked the guy who's given us a tour,

what's the deal with that car?

He says, well, that was an old,

it's funny, they don't call yellow,

they won't refer to their yellowbirds as yellowbirds.

That was an old CTR.

Did you see the one that sold for $5 million

or $4.5 million at Gooding?

That car was awesome.

But that wasn't one of the original 19, was it?

That was a different thing.

That was a old...

No, you guys can look it up really quick,

but I'm pretty sure it was a yellowbird, just not yellow.

But what I was going to say is it was painted black.

It was originally Irish green.

It was in Japan.

Guy sent it to get restored to roof.

It got fully restored, beautiful.

While it's there, the guy in Japan sells it to someone else.

All he has to do is just pick it up.

It's paid for, done restored.

The new guy doesn't like the color scheme.

Decides to paint it black and do a whole different interior,

going back to what we said.

And I look at Alois Shroof and I'm like,

like, why would you do that?

And once again, it's his kindness.

It's the customer's always right.

And I kind of wonder,

because they were scrambling to get that car done.

They gave us full access to everything.

I looked in that room and I could see being in a shop

before what frantic, busy looks like.

There was no way I was going to go in that room.

They say, yeah, I can go in there.

I'm like, no way.

You could see four guys intense on what they were doing

because that car was needed to be done.

Eleventh hour, they were scrambling to finish the interior.

And I kind of wonder, was that the car that fell off the trailer?

Oh, I looked at those pictures.

I fortunately, I didn't take any pictures.

I don't think so, Paul, because that car is long.

Oh, yeah, it could be.

I know what you're saying now.

I'm following.

So let me share with you guys another interesting observation.

So Singer and a couple of these,

I think there's one or two other these high-end

resto brand mod companies are now owned.

A majority of them are owned by a single hedge fund.

Did you guys know that?

Investor hedge fund, whatever you want to call it.

Okay, some general partners.

I knew that was Singer,

which is how the whole Willow Springs thing is also happening.

And when you asked someone from Singer,

which I did, their PR gal,

and they'll say to you, they'll say,

well, we're still privately owned.

Well, I get it.

But you're still privately owned by an investor company.

And I'm not criticizing investor companies.

That's fine.

But here's where I was noticing.

If you want to talk about macro trends

in the car enthusiast world,

there's definitely a trend.

And Dave, this is going to serve you perfectly.

You should raise your prices after you return my car.

So this is a suggestion, not for me,

for your next brand customer.

You got it.

All right.

So at Quail, and if you look at Koenigsegg,

and if you look at Pagani,

and if you look at some of the stuff that Ferrari's selling,

the market for these bespoke, high-end, highly personalized cars

is probably not been seen.

Matt Farrow is making this on the smoke,

this point in the smoking tire, and it's really true.

You haven't seen anything like this since the 1920s, right?

But now you have all these people

that I don't know if they've just,

oh, I've had that.

I've had the other thing.

Now I want to this.

Or whether or not people are just migrating towards,

there was like a million to Ferrari 550.

And there was a guy last year

that had this a million dollar, of course, Ferrari 355.

And I'm looking at some of these cars,

and the work that you put into these is just spectacular.

But I'm thinking to myself,

what the hell's wrong with the 550?

I mean, 550 manual versus why would I want one of these versus that?

So there's a lot of people that are willing to spend money

to have these personalized experiences.

And these manufacturers are being really smart.

Singer, again, they're doing these little private events for them.

I know Roof does the same thing.

So you're not just buying this, again, this is a macro trend.

You're not just buying into a luxury product.

You're buying into a lifestyle and a group of friends.

At least this is how it's being sold to you.

And you can ship your car to this place, this place,

this place, and that's what's actually happening.

It's kind of a fascinating thing.

I mean, the Ferrari cliente program,

wasn't that kind of what it was?

The cliente program was basically for race cars,

but this is something completely different.

These guys are catering their user experience,

their buyer experience on lifestyle,

which is, again, a macro trend that we have seen,

maybe like PCA would be an example of that,

but now it's being done by the manufacturers,

which leads me to my next observation that I made,

and then I'm out of observations is Porsche

is definitely going to be selling more limited run.

I'll just say it as I think at marketing focused cars,

more stripes, more numbered things,

more different colored this, more this, that, and the other.

And that's where they're going to absolutely migrate towards.

So there's going to be an influx of all of these.

Oh, I understand you have it here.

Dave, this is for you, that you have one coming.

You might have a GT3RS, but do you have the GT3RS?

That's what you're going to start seeing.

Well, the Manti, the Manti edition.

Well, but even more than that,

because Ferrari is, I'm sorry,

well, Ferrari has led the way showing the outer reaches

in which customers are willing to suffer financially

in time and aggravation wise to get a really special car.

Porsche is going to copy them,

especially considering that Porsche is hard.

You know, if you, if you believe the headlines,

they're hard up for money right now.

So what do you guys think of that?

Well, here's, here's my contribution

to that lifestyle play here behind me.

I'm way ahead of the trend here, Tim,

because I am, I am opening.

This is what else I did in cars this week,

which is build what we are affectionately calling

Bargabar.

And that is the fabulous event space

that we have here on our property

that's underneath our new awning.

So we will be able to host clients and events

and all that sort of stuff.

Not probably quite as fancy as the Ferrari people,

but this is the, you know, it's the Sundeworks version.

So yes, I, I completely agree with that,

that it's all about the experience.

I've been kind of disappointed to be frank

about the way Porsche has handled my purchase.

I haven't heard a peep.

Cars supposed to be built, being built as we speak.

And I'm not gotten any little teasers, trinkets,

anything that suggests.

You'll get, I mean, Ferrari does that.

All Italian brands do that the best.

They, they're loved to give, they love to give gifts.

And they're really nice gifts too.

And Dave, do you feel,

I heard on one podcast that,

I think it might have been Matt Ferris,

the GT3RS is now the Porsche version

of the Lamborghini Huracan.

A hundred percent true statement.

And I told you guys, when we went to Moda Miami

in January or whatever it was,

into the RM auction, the guys that were get the,

you know, droves of GT3RS is being driven by guys who

will, who should have been driving Lamborghinis,

you know, the whole, when I'm saying a completely

different buyer.

That's the flagship.

No, it can't be the Lambrou car. No.

No, it is the, sorry.

Please, no, no, I'm not getting mine.

You're going to have to get your, you know,

all the things you're going to have to start.

Got to get my gold chains and my tight fitting t-shirt

and the whole nine yards.

But it, but the gym.

But what Matt said, what Matt said was my

observation too, the GT3RS, which is,

I don't even know what the hell those guys

are thinking, thinking that's a flash car,

but it's definitely the new, I'm going to use the word.

I'll say it in its original French.

Pauze car that is being attracted to this,

this sort of, you know, the throngs of influencer types

are really gravitating towards, which is bizarre to me

because that's about as, you know, that thing's crazy

looking, but anyway,

Not crazy.

It's not as crazy as some of the other stuff.

What about, do you see a lot of STs being driven around?

There were a lot of STs, but most of them were on display.

Okay.

Not, not driven street driven, like the GT3RS.

Probably one or two.

And, you know, which this aspect I loved about them,

nobody looked at them, you know, and the,

but the GT3RS guys were doing the McLaren thing

from a couple of years ago.

I don't know if you went when the McLaren guys

were the ones causing all the accidents and the, you know,

and now it was, and then it before it was the Lambo guys

and then the Lambo Ferrari guys or the lamb,

it was never Ferrari guys.

And now it's the Porsche guys.

The Porsche guys, you could hear them

because we're in Carmel by the sea

and you could hear these guys revving their, you know,

it was fast and furious at Neiman Marcus.

It's a two-guard style.

Well, you know, it's, hopefully next year,

I still want to go again because I have,

I went every year from 98 to 2019.

So over 20 years and then pandemic

and then I went again in 22 and 21 and 22,

did not go 23, 24 and obviously 25.

You know, 23 was a friend's wedding.

And yet last year I just, I just didn't have the,

I don't know, wasn't motivated this year,

not just because I'm in the hospital,

but I was motivated because I saw things

like the overcrest and some of the things

that my driving law awesome buddies were doing

and the Radwood guys.

And I've always come up with a way to do Monterey

on a budget in a sense that also I want to be

not around people, avoid the crowds.

It gets hard, but I think there's a way to do it.

So hopefully next year I can go and we can even have

a pre Monterey show of like, you know,

sort of like the fodder's guide, like, you know,

Monterey on $20 a day kind of thing.

That'd be awesome.

But yeah, well, there were more people there.

There were more events going on,

ones that were on what's up Monterey,

you know, the ones that everyone knows about

and more private events.

There were more VIP things,

more and more and more and more.

That's what it was everywhere you went.

Like I said, there was a discernible shift

away from even last year where it felt way more car nerdy.

And now there are more conversations about just,

I don't know what to say it other than fashion trend.

I mean, look at Ferrari's done with Lewis Hamilton.

And he's, you know, they, why did they hire him?

Why did they pay him $100 million a year?

Because he brings, he's arguably the most influential,

one of the most influential people,

especially in Europe, you know, in the world.

And they wanted to ride that wave.

A lot of that is what I felt at Monterey.

And I hopefully I'm not sounding negative

because we don't pull up the year.

I mean, funny thing with Ferrari, that's pretty smart

because Lewis Hamilton always has kind of a style edge.

And Ferrari makes what is it most of their money

from apparel and branding items than they do?

Well, I, I mean, they make the most.

You know, Tim saw some good Ferrari outfits there

in Monterey for sure.

I know, I was putting those on Instagram,

but I didn't want, I mean, I was worried

about offending somebody,

but some of them were just too funny.

No, please offend.

The number I reposted your thing with the guy

who obviously owned the car you were looking at.

Oh yeah.

The car, the comments were gold.

So many people enjoyed that one post.

And I was like, come on, Tim, this is what I need from you.

Oh, I had a lot like that.

But honestly, I haven't posted them, but I will post them.

Because I, the, the, I didn't, I'm not a negative person,

but just the, the, the sights and sounds

were just kind of foreign to me this year.

They're just strange.

Send them to me.

I'm a negative person.

I have no problem.

I'll send them to you.

I'll put them in a Dropbox and send you like,

I have hundreds.

Because until we haven't heard.

Well, but I'm sorry, I apologize.

I just want to, I figured this was going to be

your lead subject here.

This, this Corvette, this, this Corvette's CXR.

Okay.

Well, I'm going to do, I want to talk about that

just to piss Paul off.

But we were, Julie and I got to the point

where I love the Porsche events.

I love the, uh, historic.

I love the, the Pebble Beach was the best ever.

Pebble Beach, the event.

I thought Pebble Beach was so nice.

Um, even though they too are trying to cash in,

when you bought your ridiculously expensive ticket

in the past, they gave you a poster

and now the poster was 50 bucks.

So that was a little bit, I don't know what that's all about.

Um, but yeah, other than that, it's worth going to.

But what I'm trying to explain to you guys

is that when you go there, expect what I'm saying.

And there's, there's so much less of what we have come to expect

from the big, you know, Monterey car week

and so much more of this new thing.

So if you're not in alignment with the new thing,

you're going to feel like a fish out of water.

So, but what we ended up doing is going around

taking videos and pictures of all the things

that made us laugh, uh, that were, you know,

with a sarcastic bent.

So I'll share all those with you.

Yes.

Let's go back to and talk about the quail.

Um, okay.

You know what?

You team me up perfectly, Dave.

Uh, I was listening to your floor.

I was, thank you.

I was listening to Chris Harris's podcast this morning.

Uh, there you go.

I thought you were talking about Corvettes.

I just wanted to.

Okay.

Well, no, I, I was listening and they had,

and they had an interesting, I'm going to loop this.

You guys will like this.

So they were talking about whether the European car

industry was dead.

Is it a dead industry?

Because that, you know, essentially what's happened

with the EV mandates, even though some of those

are being rolled back, these manufacturers are now

suffering from tariff problems.

You know, Porsche's biggest market for, uh,

what, two or three years was China and now

sales there are off.

And so Chris was saying, is it possible that the

European car market is dead?

And, um, you know, I was thinking a lot about that.

And it is entirely possible, but here's leading to Dave's,

you know, observation about Corvette.

If you look at where, who the winners are going

to be because of the change in the, uh,

with tariffs and whatnot, it could very well be

that we're going to see a resurgence of domestic,

us domestic manufacturers, like we've never seen before,

because some of these other manufacturers are

frankly not able to be competitive.

And so Corvette is a perfect example.

The cars that they made that they're making now

with a new ZR one and zero one X had every right

to be on the show field at the quail.

And those cars were arguably, even though the people

with their noses up in the air were trying

to walk right past them, those cars stood tall,

especially the two, let's call them show cars

that they had, those cars were as cool as

anything that was coming from Pagani for $4 million.

And I was honestly, I felt some nationalistic pride

when I walked past and I looked at the products

that they're making and those guys are going

to produce something and they're going to be able

to sell them for less price than everybody else.

And let's discuss Paul, you first.

Okay.

I don't really want to talk about the Corvette.

And I just, I really don't know much about them.

And it's nothing to do with the product.

They've always made a good product that was,

like they've said, democratized sports car ownership.

I would say I'm more impressed with, I would say Mustang,

the GTD product because I think for me,

I just like visually the looks of it.

I like the ethos of it a bit better.

I don't know with Corvette.

On paper it does all the things, right?

I'm sure it drives great.

It's got the mag right.

It does everything.

I just hate the looks.

That's my only problem.

But be honest.

You're more biased by the legacy of the brand.

You're more biased by the brand.

No, that's undeniable.

I can't get the legacy of the brand out.

Plus I can't, don't forget my wife hates Corvette so passionately

that I hear her on the other shoulder.

You get one of those.

You know, it's it.

You can have your whole hip replace,

your pelvis replace,

but you're not coming home in a Corvette.

The car behind me, though, was just, just stunning.

I mean, I was blown away by that car when I saw the pictures.

I mean, I grabbed the bad picture of this car,

but I thought that car was a showstopper.

I really was like, wow, that's,

it'll never make production like that, of course.

The other one will, though.

Did you see the other one that didn't have the pop-up canopy?

Is it still the one?

I'm kind of looking at some of those pictures right now,

but I just thought that was just, it wasn't overdone.

Like the, this particular orange car that I've got,

the picture of where that whole clamshell lifts up

and you got in it.

It just didn't feel overdone to me

like some of the current Corvettes.

It didn't have as much crazy, you know,

arrows bolted onto the side and stuff.

And what was there just looked really purposeful.

But that was a gorgeous car.

I didn't have as much time looking at the silver one

with the red interior, but this one I was really blown away by.

So the younger generation, Paul,

and I know you won't care about this,

because they're, you know, not your,

you're an old fart, basically.

But the younger,

I'm putting up, this is, this is what was at the quail, right?

Yes.

The younger generation, when I was talking with them,

and I'll say younger being less than, say, 35,

they do not have any of the bias that we do about,

and I have it too, about Corvettes at all,

especially the C8.

Those guys were not,

they had none of the brand legacy of the hairy chested gold chain

wearing, you know, whatever, whatever.

That's not part of their rural.

No, no, that's,

you're talking about New Balance,

George Denham shorts.

That's exactly.

Yeah.

But, but going forward.

Weekends though.

But going forward, I, again, my observation is,

I think that Corvette is going to find a ready audience,

especially as these imported prestige brand sports car,

lifestyle things become really ridiculously expensive.

I think Corvette's going to have an explosive amount of growth,

especially if they make that silver car.

What about just being a devil's advocate?

Because those products are going to become so expensive

through tariffs, etc.

And no one's going to,

only a few are going to buy them.

Will it, will it thwart competition in terms of them making a,

they don't have to make a product that's that competitive,

because they've got a ready-made audience just due to price disparity?

That's a really interesting question.

And I really don't know.

I, I don't know.

I hope not.

But I'll, I'll go as far as to say this.

You guys know that Corvette's back,

or I'm sorry, Cadillac's back in formula one, right?

And this is basically in your backyard.

No, no, they're, they're out of a Speedway Indianapolis,

aren't they?

Is that where they're starting their team?

I'm pretty sure.

I have no idea.

And we know the formula, we know that formula one is

owned by basically American conglomerate.

So I'll suggest that what we're going to see

is we're going to see a resurgence of,

and I'm not an American car guy.

We're going to see a resurgence of specifically Cadillac and Corvette,

and it's going to ride on the coattails of what they're going to start doing,

not just in the sports car series racing,

but also in formula one.

That's what, that's what I'm picking up.

That's going to actually happen.

The Cadillac, they had a huge tent and everything at Pebble Beach.

Guys, have you heard about that new, what is that Blackwing,

CTS V five or whatever it is?

Julie and I poked over one of those cars.

There's no way that you could tell me anything from that.

I love that car.

That car, yes.

I love that car.

Paul, the paint on the thing, the panel fit on that thing,

all the just different touch points in the car,

everywhere you put your hands, everything was spectacular.

And then you get into the mechanics of it.

Yeah, no, you don't understand.

It's not that I don't like domestic cars.

I just don't like Corvettes.

And I'm looking, you know,

so I'm looking at this picture at the quail,

the one he's standing by, that is a really cool car.

Yeah, it won't be in production.

That what whatever end why wouldn't it be?

I just don't think it'll end up,

I think from production costs, DOT, NH, NH, TISA, NHTSA, all the different things involved.

I just don't think it could be that cool.

If it is awesome, you know, I'll Daniel Ricardo and drink for my shoe.

But I don't think that's the case.

Now, I can't really see a good picture of the car on the left.

Is that Z?

Is that which one is that ZR one?

That's a ZR one X, which then that is the quail edition that had Matt Silver paint

and a beautiful car again.

And those cars, I think were like a quarter million dollars.

And for what I was told, they were all sold.

The all the quail edition ones were sold at the event

and probably sold before the event.

And so there you go.

That's what that was.

Oh, by the way, I know you're going to say you don't care,

but I know you secretly do.

That car has 1250 horsepower and was a quarter million bucks.

And the build quality was again, for my observation,

and I am a finicky son of a bitch when it comes to this stuff,

was just as good as anything from Europe.

Understand.

But that being said, I just found the picture.

The picture I pulled up for you for our last conversation of it

was the first picture I removed from my catalog.

But I'll put it back up again.

And I'm sorry.

And this is why there's different cars from different people.

That does nothing for me.

That is so busy with so many flutes and flares and fins

and relief lines and hard edges.

If this had a Porsche badge on it, I still wouldn't like it.

I promise you.

Do you realize the irony of someone who drives a 1960s 911,

a green rally 911 that looks like it should be driven by Oscar

the Grouch, being overly critical of it?

Yes.

Exactly.

Do you realize the irony of you in particular being so overly

critical of a modern car design?

I never said I wasn't ironic.

I just like what I like.

And my green rally car, which by the way,

that was a decade ago, it looks fantastic.

It is so beat to hell now.

Plus I haven't washed it since 2019.

OK, maybe if you took and put a roof rack on that Corvette

and drove it 350,000 miles, maybe I'd like it.

You're right.

Maybe I would like the fact that it was beat to shit.

Dave, balance out this conversation.

Help me prove that Paul's completely wrong.

He's just becoming an old buddy, Daddy.

I couldn't agree more in terms of all the hard angles

and the different color bits and bobs and the stuff

that probably has purpose, but it fits much more

into the McLaren, Lambo.

Well, that's their buyer that you guys are making my point.

I get that.

But that's not me.

That's not Paul.

You know, I mean, I think we maybe, like ours,

a little more subtle, a little more rounded.

These hard edges and stuff just don't appeal.

It appeals to a certain type of US buyer for sure.

No, I think that that car is going to appeal

to a global buyer and you said it correctly,

in my opinion, the McLaren, the Lambo guy.

I mean, did you guys like the designs

of the new Lamborghinis?

If you do, you're probably only two people on planet Earth.

I'm going to get so much shit for saying that,

but it's true.

Everyone like everyone in person bashes those things

and when you read about it in magazines

or hear about it on YouTube, everyone thinks

they're the greatest thing ever.

Okay.

No.

Okay.

So that car is going to appeal to those buyers,

but a younger set and it's in the conversations

I was having where people were younger guys

who did not grow up on European aristocracy

type cars like all three of us did

are now looking at these vets and they're saying,

why not?

And that I think is pretty awesome.

Yeah, I don't disagree.

Hey, I'm all for American company making a great product

that does really well.

And hopefully we'll have, I mean, the sad thing is,

there's not a lot of American companies left standing.

They're going to build competitive products.

So you're going to have this and the Ford GTD.

I mean, like those are the only,

and then the Cadillac Blackwing,

which is kind of tied into the Corvette,

which I love.

I do love the Blackwing.

And if in five years, they're half the price they are now,

that would be something I would consider

as a daily driver that I don't need.

Have you priced one of those things

before those Blackwings?

I have either one of you, Dave.

Have you done that?

No, I've not.

I've looked at them just used.

Pop over and look and go to GM site.

A whole dood it up one with all the doodads is $130,000.

Yeah, yeah.

I was going to say $120,000.

You can get a manual transmission,

and I think those things have 700 horsepower.

Oh, yeah.

Starts at 97.6 is what it says here on the website.

But compared to the 97.6.

The M5, the competitive product, the M5,

which is a bunch of testing.

Great videos and tons of stuff on that.

The M5 is 20 grand more, I think, 25 grand more, whatever.

No, I think in my opinion,

the Blackwing is a great product.

I don't know.

I feel sad because I don't think

Cadillac is going to draw enough buyers

to keep that product alive for very long.

And it will do well like the CTS-V station manual wagon.

That car will have legs in the used market.

It'll be like sell at MSRP or within 20% of MSRP forever,

which makes me sad because I do like that car.

I think the Corvette will do what all the other Corvettes do.

And I always equate Corvettes to kind of fruit stripe chewing gum.

You've ever had the fruit stripe chewing gum or Wrigley's?

Like, of course.

Yeah, it's good for sugar.

It's just jolt of sugar and it's like, wow, this is great.

And then next, you know, it just becomes this thing you're chewing on.

Okay, so stop there.

Stop there.

So will you tell me in modern supercar, sports car, hyper blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

where the sensation is not the same?

And then you cannot say.

Oh, no, Lamborghini.

Lamborghini for sure.

Lamborghini.

Lamborghini McLaren.

McLaren for sure.

How many times can you get into those things?

Make yourself as a driver if you're like you're

going to barf until you've had the whole experience.

Have you guys driven like a Tesla model, a Plaid,

a Plaid version of a Tesla?

Have you ever driven one of those?

No, I've been in one.

And I've been in the fanciest Taycan at Pecla for a lap.

And yeah, it's a one-trick pony.

It's this crazy.

It's a puke inducer as a driver.

I mean, that was the funny thing.

When people were driving those ZR1s at Coda,

the drivers were getting out wanting to barf.

Yeah.

So going back to the Corvette, I'm glad it exists.

And they will sell them.

And they will do well.

And they will always have an audience.

Ironically, I think this car, like you said,

would do really well in Europe.

Because I think the Europeans will sell these things.

But I don't think it will.

I think it will get taxed to hell.

And it'll make it really hard to have this car in Europe.

OK, so if I mentioned the word tariffs,

then people are going to accuse me of being political.

But the reality of it was is that a lot of new tariff

agreements, especially with the EU,

outside of some of the Hanger Honor countries,

is going to make it so those cars are going to sell there.

And the reason that American cars

haven't been selling in Europe,

do your own homework on this before you send me any hate

comments, is because the EU companies or EU countries

have been tariffing the crap out of American products.

And that's the reason you don't see them there.

And I'll suggest to you that when,

because of this new tariff regime, you're going to see,

are you OK, Paul?

Yeah, I just thought someone was coming in,

which they're welcome to.

You're going to see American cars all over Europe.

And I don't see why that wouldn't happen, especially

because they'll be able to be sold for less money.

And there is amongst like when we were in Italy,

you saw chargers and things like that that were rolling around

that Italians loved.

Hey, Dave, what are you thinking?

Time for the catheter change.

No, she came in for drugs.

And so she brought in Tylenol.

And I'm like, you can come back for that.

I was checking to see which drugs were coming.

Paul wants to talk about a citrone.

What are the production numbers on the ZR1X?

Oh, I'm sure it's going to be as many as they can sell.

But that's part of the reason, right?

I mean, that's part of the reason that the car,

there's not an exclusivity to them that you do find

with the rest of these.

But how much?

But what I'm trying to understand, and Dave helped me

with this, OK, is that how much are these luxury

products anymore being sold off what you just said?

Exclusivity.

Oh, we're only going to make so many of these things.

Oh, it's numbered.

But the product itself is the same, if not inferior

to something that's mass produced.

And so that means that me as a buyer, I'm just sort of a dope

that's buying into this idea that something that somebody

else can't get is somehow more special.

That makes me dumb.

That's life in general.

I mean, that is exactly how we all roll.

This is an economic theory that's existed for centuries

called the law of scarcity.

And we are rats running through the mill, and we will do

the things that we are so predictably will do.

And if a car manufacturer decides that's what they want

to do to take advantage of it, I think with Corvette,

they can't.

Even if they wanted to, they can't.

The economies of scale is what makes that product

that would be maybe, you know.

They will, though.

They'll do it on their runs.

Like they did the Quail Edition.

That's what they're going to do.

And the Bowling Green Edition.

Well, I mean, all those things, I mean, they're going to do

the different tennis shoe versions, and they're going

to do the one where you get your jean shorts.

I mean, you know, all of it.

They're going to do all of it.

Oh, I would.

I would love to see them in an edition like the Gremlin

Dent Levi edition.

Do the Corvette.

Just just lean into it.

Okay.

So let me balance the format.

Let me pivot this to really get under people's skin.

How much are European cars overpriced?

How much are we just being sold based off brand

versus the actual quality of the product?

Right?

30% at least.

At least.

So we're just all being sold off the idea that by buying

this particular product, you're going to be part

of the special club and you're going to be seen

in this special way.

And, you know, I mean, there it is.

That's what really what branding has done.

And I think in a lot of ways is diminish

the quality of the products because the manufacturers

can lean into their marketing team.

Okay.

I'll really throw myself in the deep end.

I looked intensely at a Ferrari speciale versus a 296.

I have a 296 GTS.

I really love the car.

I had a spot for a speciale.

I decided not to take the spot.

I went to a pebble, a Cassidy Ferrari,

looked at the speciale, and I'm glad I passed on it.

Because I'm, frankly, I thought the design was funky looking

and I started realizing that that car is again

using the famous French word, it's a poser car.

It's not like the Porsche GT3 RS, where the part numbers

are the same from the street car to the car

that's sold for motorsports use.

Those cars, the parts are literally transferable.

Ferrari's not doing that.

They're making gussied up marketing versions

of their street cars and selling them

for extraordinary amounts of money.

And I just think it's kind of amazing.

That's basically all I have to say about that.

Yeah.

I don't think you're not wrong.

You're definitely not wrong.

And I have not been in the position

to order something like that.

If I was in the position to, I don't know.

I mean, it's never, it's never something

that's interesting to me.

I mean, the newest thing I drive is a 2004.

Like, and it's not because I don't like anything newer.

And I'm starting to warm up it.

I just, I find that the newer stuff to me is,

the way you'd use it where I would live has,

you could be a name your luxury thing.

And then moments you get to a place

where you can use it the way it's supposed to be.

It's way too frickin' fast and competent.

And I've been in those cars.

I've taken them to McLaren up to good vibes on Friday.

And the entire time, I wish I was in my old 911.

You know?

Well, let me, let me ask Dave about this.

Because Dave Lives is literally his, you know,

Sunderworks is old, gorgeous 911s.

And, you know, everywhere you look.

I mean, you have got to go to his shop, Paul.

You will be blown away.

I'm telling you.

I look forward to it.

It's extraordinary.

All right.

So he wants a GT through RS.

That's what he's getting.

All right.

So you help us understand that bridge,

which I personally understand and appreciate.

But I want you to explain that.

So you live and breathe old 911s,

and yet you want a new one.

Why?

Different experience, right?

I love the old ones.

I mean, that's my preference.

I mean, I've had newer Porsches, you know, 991s.

And, you know, to me, I'm a loyalist to this brand.

And the heritage of the car and the latest and greatest tech.

And, you know, the fact that that styling still carries through

and that it is still time.

Have you driven one?

I have not driven one yet.

I've driven a 992.1.

I've driven the 991.2 GT3 RS.

Fine car.

I mean, I wasn't driving it in anger.

I wasn't driving it hard.

I mean, I was really probably just kind of tooling around in it.

But I look forward to me.

It's like it's an expedition.

It's an experience.

It's a checkbox item for someone of a certain age

that happens to have the means to be able to pull the trigger.

And because it's a car that I don't feel like is going

to lose 30% of its value the minute I buy it,

it felt like a low risk opportunity.

If it's presented, you can't get it.

It's presented to me.

I wanted to have it.

You know, that's really what the boils down to.

I don't anticipate that I'm going to fall in love with this car

as anything even remotely resembling a daily driver

or something that I would cool around in all the time.

It's going to get driven to events

and cars and coffees and things like that.

But I'm not going to.

It's not going to be a high driving car.

It'll be all over your Instagram hand.

You'll have the friggin.

You'll be wearing the car.

I won't.

I guarantee I will not have the QR code on my side windows.

I can absolutely guarantee that.

Hey, Paul, I'll bet you $100.

He has that before he protects delivery.

The window is still on the car.

Yeah, yeah, he will.

I might have to do some reconnaissance.

Find someone that works.

So I'll have it printed off.

I'll send it to them.

And they'll just put it on there for him.

Hashtag.

And then he'll go, one of my, it was a joke.

They put it on there, but it'll stay.

It's going to only link though

to some compromising picture of you, Paul.

The minute that they hit it,

it's going to link to some compromising picture of you.

Not that this is going to sadden you guys,

but Mike, I, in a wheelchair, can't reach my charge cord.

And I've got like 14% left on computer battery.

So do it.

Let's wrap it up.

We got to be wrapping up here pretty soon.

Anyway, I would imagine, right?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, I enjoyed this conversation today.

Hopefully you guys are,

hopefully we don't get any too many arrows

thrown away for our over, over truthiness.

And I'm glad you guys rolled with it too,

and weren't trying to be politically correct

and trying not to, you know,

worry about ruffling feathers.

And I'll just say, in conclusion,

with regards to Monterey Car Week,

it's definitely something you have to do at least once.

And if it wasn't for the fact

that Julie and I started out with a,

you know, it's almost our anniversary month

and that's a big part of the reason that we go,

frankly, I probably wouldn't go again.

If it wasn't for that, we'd love to go to Big Sur

and it's just so gorgeous there,

especially before the tourists arrive.

Yeah.

But other than that,

it's definitely something you want to experience

at least once.

I'm really looking forward to my first

how do you pronounce it?

Lufke Kirt.

Okay.

Which I guess Julie looked it up

and means Erikauld in German.

Okay.

So that's correct.

But I bet you that's the vibe

that used to be in during Car Week

that now all those thousands,

oh, I didn't tell you guys.

Again,

eavesdropping on conversations

I probably shouldn't have been eavesdropping on.

That's what I do.

They had sold 4,000 tickets

to the one in your town, Dave,

Dave, 4,000.

Yeah.

Now, I don't know if it's attendees

or if it's attendees with cars,

but it's going to be extraordinary.

Kind of all the same, right?

I mean, you got to buy the ticket

before you get your car gets picked.

So basically you buy a ticket,

not an expensive ticket at all.

It's like 35, 45 bucks.

Yours is only 35, 40 bucks.

Yeah, that's all it was.

Oh, they complain because Universal Studio

was, I want to say, 150.

I bet.

But this is-

How many people were there?

10,000.

Sorry.

10,000.

Oh my God.

Seriously?

Now, see, that's where the port,

that's the difference between Porsche

and every other brand, right?

Frickin' there.

I mean, that is the only,

and they would have sold more,

but that was as much as they were allowed.

And we were,

I was with a friend who worked in that industry

and they had to close,

people understand,

they used maybe about a third of the back lot.

They had to basically close the entire back lot.

That's incredible.

So they could use Universal Studio's back lot

that people flew in from Omaha to go see

on that Saturday and the Friday

and the Thursday for the entire thing.

It would have been,

it had to have been millions of dollars

to secure that back.

So if I were,

if I were placing bets

based on my overall experience

at Monterey,

here's what I would bet.

I bet you Porsche as a brand

goes to a level that we can't even imagine

and just think about what these guys,

10,000 Porsche enthusiasts,

and I think all the other brands

because there's an oversaturation

with all these hypercar,

supercar, carbon fiber,

tinted color,

there's an oversaturation of that.

And I think that the Koenigsegg

and Pagani

and all these other small manufacturers,

there, there's too many of them.

Uh-oh.

Wow.

Get off the iPad grandma.

That's a great,

you froze up.

But no, the rant you're going on

was exactly what I expressed too.

And I think,

and I was trying to think about,

there's only one other brand

that has such a die-hard bleed,

do everything for you,

that people will literally tattoo

that brand on them

that exists.

And that's Harley-Davidson.

Yep.

Used to be Harley-Davidson.

I don't think it's that way anymore.

I think a lot of the Harley-Davidson people

were the baby boomers

and they're not,

it's not like it was.

Yeah, you're right.

But that's a good example.

I think Porsche has done something

that's truly spectacular,

appealing,

making their old cars

appeal to younger people.

And that is truly,

truly special.

And, you know,

that's my observation.

And I'm really looking forward

to seeing Dave and Charlotte in,

you know,

in October.

And hopefully our little blue car

is done by then.

I'm sure it will be.

Be ready for it, Tim.

Don't worry.

It's going to be great.

I'm not worried at all.

Hey,

you feel better.

Go ahead.

Take your Tylenol.

And we look forward to seeing you

on the road again.

Tylenol.

All right, guys.

Extra strength, Tylenol.

Extra strength.

Awesome.

Thank you guys.

Miss you.

See you later.

See you guys.

Bye.

you

Monterey Car Week—From Concours to Carbon Fiber Chaos

Porsche 911

Volkswagen Vanagon

Porsche 356

G-Class Mercedes Wagon

Ferrari 550

Ferrari 355

Lamborghini Huracan

Chevrolet Corvette

Ford Mustang

Ford Gtd

BMW M5

Cadillac Ctsv

Tesla Model

Porsche Taycan

911 Porsche Gt3

Ford Expedition

About this episode

Original notes