Record-Breaking Auto Auctions with Power Broker Steve Serio

I'm Hannah Elliott. And I'm Matt Miller. This is Hot Pursuit.

Coming up on today's podcast, almost a billion dollars of auctions in one month. Some of

the world's most important car collectors, Rob Devils in Scottsdale, in Kissimmee. They're

going to be going to Paris bidding on and buying the most sought after cars in the world.

Multi-million dollar power broker Steve Ciro is here to talk about the white hot auction

market. Steve, you're here with us in New York City, took the train down from, did you

drive your Roma?

No, I didn't drive in the two feet of snow with the Roma. And I didn't even take the

G-Wagon, which would have been sensible. I took the old fashioned train and a subway

to get here, Matt.

I feel like you're Hannah's friend, but I'm glad that you're hanging out with me.

Well, I may see Hannah a little more, Matt, but I love hanging out with you. Come on.

I'm jealous. We should do this more regularly.

We should. We should. In fact, listeners have said that they love the episodes that you're

on.

Well, that's very kind.

So we're glad to get you. Hannah and I are both driving the Aston Martin DBX-S. And,

Hannah, you spent time, what, driving the new Vantage?

Yes. So yesterday I had kind of the most amazing drive up in the hills out past Malibu, out

past Point Magoo, if you know where that is on PCH, driving the Vantage S Coupe. This

is the 2026 model, 670 horsepower twin turbo V8 starting price of 196,000. And yeah, that

was fun. I can't talk about driving impressions yet, but I can talk in general about it.

Well, and we talk about this with Steve because you had an Aston Martin dealership for a while.

Tell us about your history with the brand, Steve.

Well, I started out in 87 without the manufacturer's OK, because there were very few dealers in

the United States. And my first love and my first passion for buying, selling, collecting,

restoring cars was Aston Martin. And I big borrowed and stole until I became a franchise

dealer in 96 when they brought the DB7 here. And I did it through 2020 and lived through what I

like to refer to as like that really golden sweet period when Aston Martin had just launched the V8,

they had DB9, Vanquish was coming out, and it was really, I got lucky. I mean, I can't time any of

this in life. And I really thought that was a perfect period to be selling Aston's because

people would pay list, they would wait for cars. It was a wonderful niche business. Love the brand,

don't love, I've said this before, never loved their management and never loved

the direction they went into in sort of the upper teens. But that's why I'm not doing it anymore.

Well, it's new management, it's different management now, right?

Yeah, it's different management again.

I actually have an interview with Lauren Stroll on Bloomberg Television next week.

But Hannah, you can't talk about your driving impressions of the new Vantage. I will say that

when Steve, when you were in the heart of your career in 2010, 2011, I got to drive the Vantage

GT a couple of times. And remember, they did the sort of a special edition with a sweet livery and

a bump in horsepower. And I have always thought ever since then that it was one of the best

drivers cars I've ever been in. The steering was so, I could feel every pebble on the street,

I could tell right before I would lose grip. It was before the introduction of electronic

steering that Porsche brought in the 911. And I always thought it was such a perfect car.

It was an analog thing. There were not a lot of driver aids in it. And Aston kind of went

right at the 911 for their competition on that car. And it was a fantastic ride. I mean,

original V8 Vantage, the newer version, not the 80s version, the newer car that you're speaking of,

was really a pleasure to have. I mean, it was everything you said it is, Matt. You knew when

you were going to break away. You knew what your limits were and what the car limits were very,

very easily. And God, when I think at one point I might have had 25 or 30 of those cars in stock

when we launched, Aston Martin really made a push to get into a higher volume and the cars didn't

sit around. I mean, we were making them in every color possible, really great. The derivatives,

the special models, we had the Nurburgring model, we had the Spitfire model, we had,

there was all kinds of different things. And it was a joy. It was a fun two seat car.

Steve, I'm curious in this era that you're describing,

what type of person was buying the Vantage and what were they cross shopping it against?

Well, they were cross shopping against 911 or they were cross shopping against Cayman.

That was generally the thing. You'd occasionally get an SL guy come in,

but not really. And there were so fewer choices 15 years ago buying cars. I mean, now

you've got so many things from Pick One, Acura, Audi, certainly Bentley. We never really competed

with Bentley or Rolls Royce. It was just a different animal. And Aston used to sit in its

weird own, it was on its own island because they really stuck with a manual transmission car for

a long time and that kept a lot of buyers in that brand. And eventually, it was phased out in 90%

of the cars. And I think I've said on this podcast before, more than half of my delivered cars were

manual transmission and about three quarters of them were the hard top. They weren't the

Volante, they were a coupe. And I was anomaly in the marketplace along with the dealer in Chicago.

We sold a lot of manual transmission coupes and it was just wonderful. But back to your question,

you kind of, people went shopping for an Aston Martin because they were like it was an event.

Yes. It was still a rare thing. It was still a special. Yeah. It was like going and buying a

very special watch. You know, once you knew what you wanted, you honed in on it. And there wasn't

really a lot of competition, which was fun. That was the fun. It goes back to the fun years of doing it.

I have to think it still is pretty special. I mean, there is, we both have driven the vanquish,

for example, Hannah and Steve, I don't know if you've been able to get behind the wheel,

but that still is a 12 cylinder. Okay, it doesn't have a stick, but it's I think more beautiful

than any Ferrari on the market now. The thing is, they have been dogged by quality issues.

They always have been dogged by quality issues, but let's face it, Italian car makers have as

well. And the prices are just out of this world. Like even compared to a Ferrari,

they're charging half million dollars for an Aston Martin. And Hannah always says,

like, wouldn't you rather buy a Ferrari? I think I would rather buy an Aston Martin because

the Ferraris are ugly and now they're V6s. But I still think it's crazy that I would pay more

for, you know, a vanquish than, I don't know, a 12-cylindry. Yeah, I mean, I, you've again,

preaching a little bit to the choir, because the last car that I held on to from Aston Martin,

and Hannah knows this, was the Zagato shooting break that only brought a handful up to North

America. And it was a absolute blast to drive. And that goes back to the 12-cylinder, you know,

normally aspirated that you talk about, Matt. I mean, it was, it was just a fantastic car. And

now it's so dated. And I think it, I think it was banging off of, because it was a 2020 model

year car. So it was about 600 horsepower, I think it was about 595 or something. And it was

ridiculously useless in many ways because it was a two-seat shooting break. And you couldn't

really put anything in the back. Yeah, I mean, it's a very silly car. But it was so much fun to

drive. So I get it. I get, I get what you're parking for. But you know, that was a, it wasn't

a manual either. So. Well, and to ask, I would say in general, these cars, if, whether you're

talking about Vanquish or Vantage, and even DBX, they answer the question of, what can I get?

That's a little bit different. That's going to stand out. And especially, we've talked about

this before. We are in very weird bubbles. I'm in Beverly Hills every day. You guys are in Boston

and New York City. And you do tend to see a lot of the same cars. Aston, you don't see as much.

And of course, they're gorgeous. And they do stand out. So, you know, it answers that question,

if I want to stand out, consider the Aston. Well, that's, I mean, management, one of the things,

one of the old directors used to say that, you know, the people that own Aston Martins,

where they're labels on the inside. And that was, that's really, really something that worked for

Boston, because Boston's not a Rolls Royce town. It's sort of a Bentley town. It's not really

a Lamborghini town. So, you know, the less flashy you are, unlike Beverly Hills of Miami,

to some degree, Greenwich, that, that's really why it was such a wonderful place to have that

dealership. Why, can I ask real quick, quick, you haven't mentioned BMW at all when you're talking

about competitors. Is BMW not a Boston consideration? He was going alphabetically, though. Remember,

because he said, how are you bently? And he was about to get to BMW. We're getting there, we're

getting there. No, we used to take a lot of BMW trades. Interesting. Eight series cars,

six series cars. And BMW, during those years, did not make, you know, 65 derivatives of

fundamentally the same thing. They, they never, I think BMW lost the plot sports car wise after

the Z8. And then they, they tried to come back with the I8. And I think we maybe took two or three

of those on trade. But there was something very, it's that Teutonic, Germanic, very cold. And if

it doesn't appeal to you, then, you know, voila, you're in something with, you know, yards of

leather and, and wool carpet and, you know, maybe sort of the occasional, you know, oak trim in the

car, whatever the wood was, some burled walnut something, walnut, not oak. But a different

buyer, different buyer completely. Interesting. I think you, you know, you find people going from

Mercedes to Audi to BMW. And then maybe Porsche, because Porsche doesn't fit in those three groups

either. So I think we ran up against Porsche and many, many times, you know, the Cayman was a more,

it was equally and more capable in, in, in some regard, and it was half the price. So somebody

said they were going to go drive a Cayman and they were reaching for a Vantage, then we would

just go, all right, well, it was lovely chatting with that guy. He might come back to probably know.

Well, the Vantage V8, I mean, they could get probably a couple of years old for the same

price as a new Cayman, right? And then you have the, it was initially 4.3 and then became a 4.7

liter V8. And it was still an amazing car. Wonderful. Aston, when they first came out with

the Vantage, the goal was to make it under a hundred grand. And they, they almost got there.

From memory, I think, kind of a basic car was sort of 118, 119 when they first came out. Then

they brought out that the special series where it was, you know, the car was just without, you

know, it was stripped down, if you will, you know, much like you'd think of a 911T today. And that

got under, you know, a hundred grand for a very short period. That's a smart buy. Yeah, that was,

that was wonderful. But, you know, then, then, then they couldn't stay there.

I mean, Porsche is still, I think it's a great case study because my neighbor, Hannah Eric,

you know, yes, neighbor Eric, he just got a Cayenne GTS. Oh, cool. And it is, I think, a

benchmark SUV, right? We both were driving the DBX. So I had spent a couple of weeks in his,

in his Cayenne admittedly in the passenger seat. But I can see the quality with which

that car has been executed. It's obviously incredibly capable. It's the same for, I think

it's a four liter twin turbo, which is the Aston is also a four liter twin turbo, although the

Cayenne GTS only has probably 550 horsepower, whereas the the DBX that we're driving has 717

horsepower. But the Cayenne, and that's not the Turbo S version, right? Which is obviously more

powerful. The Cayenne, though, is 130. And when you option it up 150. Whereas the DBX that we're

driving, it is more special. Obviously, you don't see them as much as you see Cayennes.

And the performance figures are. The performance figures are a level higher. But

if you're a suburban dad or mom, and you're looking at these two things and one of them,

like the Aston base price is 262. And the one I drove with options was 422.

422 thousand dollars for a grocery getter for mom. Like that's.

I love how it looks. And I really dislike how the Cayenne looks. So I can honestly say,

I don't think I even if I could afford anything in this realm, I would not buy a Cayenne.

Simply, it's a great driving SUV, but I just don't like how it looks at all.

I would much prefer the DBX. Yeah, my wife has a Cayenne S and

I don't like the architecture inside. And I don't like sitting in it. It's

there's something about it that's uncomfortable for me. I don't mind the outside. I think at this

point it's sort of pedestrian certainly compared to the DBX or anything else in that in that price

range. I mean, the DBX, I don't know what color yours was, Hannah, but the one I had was white.

Mine was podium green. That's great. And it was so good. And the interior had like this

yellow piping on it. It looked really, really good. You got the good. I liked it. Yeah. So I

got the one in which they put every single option, including 30 thousand dollars of exterior carbon

fiber, 22 thousand dollars of wheels. The stereo upgrade was 14 thousand dollars. I

found myself questioning what the base stereo sound. I had lime colored brake calipers. Well,

that's awesome. But mine was white. So I took a couple of guys out for burgers one Saturday night

and and they were like, I can't distinguish this from a Hyundai because it's this white jelly bean.

That's a problem. And I do tend to like white cars, but maybe not the best choice for an SUV

because at the end of the day, this is an SUV. I will say that it snowed like hell here in New

York, as you may have read. And I got through it without a problem in this DBX. Like I was stunned

that I was driving around and, you know, handling it just as easily as the dude next to me in a

Silverado Z71. Like it was so capable in the snow and we don't get this kind of, you know,

storm every year. But if you do, you're fine in a DBX on all seasons. They weren't even snow tires.

And it was great fun. You know, we took it out one day to when the snow first came down to do

donuts in the parking lots. And I had complete and utter control at no point did I feel like

it was, there was no clinch moment. There was no, no fear. You know, it was just,

it handled everything perfectly well. So I was really impressed with that.

And I imagine that was on some sort of performance tire. So there was no winter

tire on your car. No, but it was an all season tire, but it's on 23s, right? Magnesium wheels.

I just thought it was pretty, pretty impressive that this $422,000 vehicle had no problem dealing

with. We got 24 inches of snow. I'm so jealous. I'm so jealous of you guys. It looked magical.

I wish I could have tested mine in the same conditions. Let's take a break. We're talking

with Steve Sario more with him after this. Welcome back to Hot Pursuit. We are talking with Steve

Sario, the million dollar power broker and our friend of the show, Steve is Boston based,

former Aston Martin of New England owner, but now has really cut a swat through the industry,

brokering sales of extremely high end classic cars. And we do mean the highest of the high end.

Primarily Porsches, Aston's Ferrari, Steve, is that accurate?

Yeah, today it is. I have to be a little bit of a moving target or I'll go broke. So I have to be

malleable to the marketplace. That's true. He got Lake Bell, the 1979 Camaros in 28, right?

Yeah, that's true. Not everything we do is multimillion dollars. In that case, not even tens

of thousands of dollars. And that took some doing, I think. No good deed, Hannah. Yes, yes.

All that to say, you're the perfect guy to talk to because we all saw the news about this 38

and change million dollar Bianco Speciale, Ferrari GTO that sold, that Meekum sold

a couple of weeks ago, 1962, one of what is it, 36 GTOs? Series one 36. So can you talk to us about

this car? Why did it get that amount? And actually, we do kind of know that was probably well-bought

potentially. Can you just give us a lay of the land on what happened there?

Well, I think there's always a lot of chatter when a GTO comes up about what it's worth,

what it's worth, who's going to buy it. It's always close to the vest and everybody talks

in hush tones. And the fact of the matter with that car is it was for sale for the better half

of two years. Didn't find any buyers privately. And it started off in the mid 50s. And I think the

broad stroke here and something to go back to was where the money was really spent that day.

It was sold for what it was worth. It's in the lower third. If you could break GTOs into three

categories of 12, 12 and 12, you do have a pecking order of importance, condition,

desirability. It was a right-hand drive car, which doesn't suit a lot of markets. It was not

the original engine. It was white and most people associate red with that car. So you take like

a perfect storm of not just wasn't the best. And to criticize the GTO is absolutely ridiculous

because it is at the top of the food chain in the collector car world.

It is literally the Holy Grail, right? Am I wrong about that?

It's one of the Holy Grails. Mercedes has different Holy Grails. Porsche has different Holy

Grails. But in the... It's blue chip. Yeah, it's certainly blue chip along with the same era 250

TR. But I mean, if you want a GTO, people know. Like you're famous. Nick Mason from Pink Floyd

has a GTO. Ralph Lauren has a GTO. Lauren Stroll has a GTO. And I don't know who owns a Gullwing.

I'm probably all those guys too. But you know what I mean? Like it's... If you're a car collector,

that solidifies your status. Quite a club. Well, yeah. If you're a Ferrari collector,

I think Stroll sold his, by the way, not to be pundit. But just his is gone. And Nick Mason paid

$50,000 for his. He's had it so long. And people thought he was crazy when he bought it. Ralph's

car was an interesting story because that car was actually stolen at one point from Allen

Decadney. And when he bought it for $5,000, and the fellow who sold it to Ralph stole it from

Allen. But these are little sidebars. We could talk offline about that. Not a lot of people.

That is a very good story. Remind me about the... Let me buy you a drink later, Steve.

Why it sounded like a swarm of bumblebees. That's the thing you need to know about Allen's story.

But it... Yeah, it's the top of the food chain. And I think everybody was expecting these cars

to go up. But that market, that era of car has taken a hit. And everything from that period

has come down. Now, you know, did a handful of these cars, like three or four of them sell

with a number that started with the six? Sure they did. And they were really desirable examples.

I mean, Brandon Wang still owns his black car, which is wholly original. And there was a couple

New York based that had a car. They bought it when the car was essentially just a used car for

six or $7,000. And that car traded hands about two years ago with a number that started with

the six. And I won't say who bought it because I don't... Well, I suppose it is public information.

But there were these survivor cars with phenomenal histories that everything on them was original.

In many cases, the paint was original. And that brought the cars to a higher level than this

white car. And again, it was a little shelf worn from, you know, being... For two years being

trotted around. Yeah. I mean, it was at RetroMobile on a big stand, you know, Simon Kitts

then tried to sell the car. And Simon is connected in this world to high end buyers as anybody.

And nobody was biting at $55 million. And I know somebody that took a run at it in the 40s.

And that number would have been okay at the time, but that deal fell apart. And so, you know,

it ends up with Dana Meekam. And Dana is... He's very savvy and he knows how to get a halo car

for promotion for his huge 10 day auction. You know, I mean, that car brought a lot of eyes,

much like the 917 brought to him last year. Yes, exactly. So you have Dana, who's, you know...

Very smart guy. Always. He's genius. And $440 million later starts off the season.

You're talking about, you know, the health of the market. $440 million in Florida...

In one auction. In one auction. $200 million at Barrett Jackson,

shortly thereafter. Effectively, $100 million with RM last week, $100 million with RM this week.

You know, you're looking at $1 billion in January of cars changing hands.

But... That's insane. I think what rocked the world for chatter is the paradigm shift going on

between the era of cars like the GTO. So today, a Gooding sale in Paris, there was a failed sale

for a long wheelbase California Spider. There was a failed sale on a 250 short wheelbase.

They didn't sell. They didn't sell. They didn't meet reserve.

Neither of those cars sold. Again, the 250 had been on the market for some time.

But, you know, that's... They're coming down. They're not going up. RM did a good job yesterday

of selling a $16 million Ferrari Cal Spider short chassis car. But, you know, for a period, those

were... You couldn't even think about buying one of those if the number didn't start with a two.

That's the Ferris Bueller car. That is the Ferris Bueller car. So what's the shocking...

There's a shift. Yeah. The other shocking thing is where, in a very short period of time,

288 GTOs and especially ENZOs have gone. And there's some conjecture about market manipulation

with the ENZOs that I would look into that and I wouldn't be surprised.

How's that? Say more. Say more.

I mean, I've seen people do this years ago with 911 RSs. I've seen people do it with Db4 GTs.

I've seen people do it with AC Aces. And the simple thing is, for a couple of years, you buy up a

quantity of them. Say you buy between five and 10 and you're buying them for X. And then you bring

one to market and you set a world record with it. So if you were buying them at 30% of what

they're selling for now, isn't that kind of smart? And if you happen to be... It's an unregulated

business, so it's easy to manipulate. And you're not talking about stocks where there are millions

of shares, tens of millions of shares. You're talking about a handful of things that come on

the market. And I'm not saying this is true. I'm saying it's one of the theories that has been

floated by me, especially with the Enzos, that if you're sitting on a handful of these things and

then you help drive the price of one up publicly to the moon, well, all of the things you were

sitting on that you bought for a lot less are now worth the moon as well. It's just been common

practice in the 30 years. And this is not an illegal thing. No. It's a risk. It's a risk.

It may not work. But once that first Enzo sold for $18-odd million and it was a real sale to a

real billionaire, then Enzos weren't $5 million cars anymore. Most of them are now $8, $9, $10,

and $11. But the one that did crazy money was a special color. It had no miles. It was one of

the last ones made. It was part of that whole Bachman collection where I've talked to countless

people about how vulgar the color combinations were on the cars in that collection. And they were

just, they were specced by a blind homeless person, an housed person, who'd never specced a car before,

but didn't matter because they were all... Isn't that better than a red over beige?

Well, you live with yellow with green and yellow. The whole combination of cars were yellow.

By the way, you... First of all, I have a question as a person who doesn't know much about this

market. So you and Hannah are obviously our experts here, but I never understand why no

miles on a 40, 50, 60-year-old car is a good thing. Like, is that not... Doesn't everything

break down if you don't drive it? Of course it does. Yeah. The old line that a technician that

worked for me used to say, you're still aging when you're sleeping. You're not moving around,

but you're still aging. So these cars, when parked, age, and some of them age badly. Now,

there's a way to keep a low mileage car in perfectly good condition. I mean, you do have to

exercise it, or you don't exercise it at all and you drain everything out of it. You park it in a,

you know, sort of bubble that doesn't have any humidity and, you know, temperature controlled,

and you can control the condition of the car so it doesn't break down. That's not impossible.

So you're just keeping it then as something to look at, because I get that the panel gaps don't

change and the leather is unworn, but it's not a car that you're ever going to drive then. It's

like a painting. Yeah, you might as well collect butterflies. I mean, I used to say that all the

time. Collect coins, stamps. Dude, my only question is, so the GTO is a 250 GTO that one talks about,

but you just mentioned 288. Now, that's my kind of car. That's the one I like. Well, and it's,

what, 80s car compared to a 60s car? So tell us about that. That's one I would like to have.

That's the age shift. I mean, I think the first one I had years ago, I took in trade

from David McNeil from WeatherTech and he was, I think the car had 30,000 kilometers on it or

something and he was just getting into collecting. You realize I want one with lower mileage and he

bought one with, you know, something a lot less. He had a 250 GTO also. He does. And that car was

$700,000 and I'm going back a short period of time, like 10 or 11 years. That car, one traded

hands today with Gooding and Christie, Gooding Christie's, that's the new name because you should

say Gooding and Company, but David Gooding is now aligned with Christie's as a partner

and they sold one and it banged off of $11 million. Now, that, I sold one last spring for four and

thought we were doing okay. Wow. And four and five and six, that market was getting traction

and it was a slow burn up, but it jumped from, you know, it went from six to nine to ten to

eleven sort of overnight. So we're, you know, I hate to use that phrase again, but you know,

there is a shift, there is a paradigm shift going on and it's a combination of newer guys,

younger guys, collecting things that they want from their youth and they don't want the stuff

from the 50s and 60s and 70s anymore. To me, the 280 GTO is just like the best-looking Ferrari of

all time. I would even, I would be happy to take a 308 that has a 288 body kit on it, you know?

We made the settle for that, Matt. It's so muscular, it's so beautiful and I would want to

read, oh my goodness, it's a good-looking car. Yeah. And, you know, it's very funny. I have a

friend that Hannah knows, a fellow by the name of Andrew Hall who's in England and he's been trading

cars forever and he was, his focus was always on things like rare Bugatti's, ATC Alphas. I mean,

really significant cars. He sold the bellow that refused to find a new buyer today with Gooding.

He's been in it forever and when I first started dealing with Andrew, he used to refer to

288 GTO, F40, F50, Enzo, La Ferrari as the footballer's wives' cars in England and he'd say,

oh good, the footballer's wives are driving their husband's cars again because, you know,

who would want one of those things, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it was this disparaging comment

that you bought those cars if you had the money and you had no imagination and you were an athlete.

Well, who's laughing now? They were the Lamborghinis of Ferrari.

In bad colors. So everybody is chasing those Halo Ferrari cars that come out every 10 years

and really the market accelerated shifting hard in the last year. And I go back to about October

23, kind of starting in the fourth quarter of 23, that the market, you could just feel it shifting.

What's pushing that? What's driving that? Why are people putting their money here?

Well, it's not, it's the new collectors, but I think what started it then, you had,

remember that, well, we all remember COVID and we all remember the run up during COVID where

people thought, you know, mortality is being measured here. So let me go out and buy a car and

let me, let me put a spike in the car marketplace with the volume of cars sold and the amount of

money people were selling on, you know, you know, or buying cars, what they were selling for. So

all of a sudden you had that, you had that lull after the COVID run up that would slow things

down. And then you had simple fact that people, it just so came of age where people started to age

out and they had enough stuff that they bought over the last 20 years or their whole lifetime of

collecting and you could just feel the shift and it's, I'm going through a collection of 100 cars

now and it's trying to explain to somebody why they're not worth what they were worth. And I sort

of disparagingly said, you collected porridge. You collected porridge. You collected stuff that

was common as mud and I don't mean it was bad because there was a handful of Aston Martins,

a handful of Ferraris, a handful of Porsches, Rolls Royces and nothing was wrong with these cars

at all, but none of them were extremely special. They were rare in many cases and they, but they

were not, you know, you could have, instead of having 100 cars, you could have had a C type,

a D type and Aston Martin DB3S and Enzo, a 288 GTO, a Porsche 550. You could have owned countless

other things and spent your money more wisely that didn't get affected the way your run of the

mill cars, which were made in many cases in the hundreds. You know, once you have hundreds of

something and they're from the same era and the era shifts, it's no fault of anybody's that your

cars are worthless. It's just the market has simply changed. Wait, you think my Dodge Challenger won't

be worth money? It's 23. It's the last year. It's the last year that they made the Challenger with

a Hemi in it. It only made 50,000. I had that argument once with somebody who bought a Boxster

and went, this is going to be a very collectible car. The RS-60 version. Sure. Yeah, okay. If

you bought the prototype car that Grant Larson did, you would have had a really good car.

By the way, can I just point out, and Hannah, I want to get your take on this as well.

So everybody's going crazy about the Meekham auction and the white GTO that David Lee bought.

The fact that he's already a Ferrari collector, that everyone knows,

maybe blows my theory out of the water, but it happened at the same time as Gold went shooting

through $5,000 at Troy ounce. On my day job, I talked to wealthy investors all day long in my

program, and they are all telling me, without exception, look, I'm a little bit freaked out

about how high the equity market is and how tight spreads are, and I just want to diversify.

So they're looking to open bank accounts in different countries and buy different assets,

like Gold, because the dollar is falling to a four-year low and geopolitical craziness is

happening at the same time where American policy is totally unpredictable. They just want to get

into as many different kinds of assets as possible. And I imagine, okay, not David Lee,

because this is his thing, but I imagine other people are driving these prices higher because

you know, they're getting into and they're like, oh, you know what, I want a Porsche

918 and signal orange and I'm willing to pay $6 million for it, even though it's probably a

$3 million car. Well, that particular car, two billionaires fought over and there was a wallet

fight. So you picked a very interesting example of something because it was the only one and

they both love the color orange. Okay, so if that's the theory, that's always the run up

to something, you're going to see the hockey stick spike in the car world again,

because no matter how many times you've seen this and people never believe it,

we're in the middle or when you're in the middle of it, this cannot go on forever

with a run up like that because at some point the music stops. Hannah, what do you think? You

talk to wealthy collectors all the time. Is anybody saying like I want to diversify or?

No, I mean, no, but I would defer to Steve on that. He's talking to the truly high net worth guys.

I mean, it seems to me that people will always spend money on cars and maybe they don't spend

money on certain cars for a certain period of time, but if there's a car they really want and

they've got the money and there's always money out there. Well, in worldwide, worldwide, we're

still not talking about a lot of people, Matt, unlike people who are diversifying in assets in

your world. If there are a thousand people, if you think of it that way that can really run a

market up, it's not very many people. There's certainly a thousand billionaires slash people

worth half a billion dollars that all look around and go, what am I going to do with my money?

I'm just thinking maybe people who aren't normally, not the David Lees of this world,

are also getting into this market because maybe I'm wrong.

Well, that happened in the last run up. It's the old joke about when your dentist starts

giving you advice on stocks. It's kind of time to get out of it.

The shoe shine boy, dude. The shoe shine boy.

Yeah. Well, that's the same thing in the car world. When it happened, I saw it happen in the

80s. I saw it happen kind of in the early aughts, and then it happened in 14 with the market

peaked again. Weirdly, car markets are not unlike financial markets where there are

six, seven, and eight-year run-ups, and then things correct. Now, do I wish I'd bought

a room full of 918s and Carrera GTs three or four or five years ago? Absolutely,

but especially with the Carrera GT market in the Porsche world, I mean, those are now solidly

two million dollars. There's been an outlier at three million already. There are cars that will

sell for more, especially if they're low mileage, but that's a car that went up in value and down

in value, and up in value and down in value. And kind of the same thing happened with the

288 GT over the years. It went up and it went down. It went up and it went down. Now it's gone up

and it's gone through the roof, so let's see. I mean, the 918, the big worry when that came

off of warranty was that, oh, the battery pack is going to be $100,000 to change, and who the

hell is going to want to do that? So let's get off these cars, and a lot of them changed hands

for a million, a million, one, a million, two. And the tires were an issue too, right? You can

get tires for them? Well, there's that. Yeah. And then, well, in the Carrera GT, the suspension was

broken. In the rear, they were, you know, Porsche was doing that recall. That's what I'm thinking of.

Yeah. And it was like, you know, and I remember having talked to guys who were real market makers

who would buy multiple examples of one thing and take a hedge on them, and even they were going,

I don't know what the Carrera GT would, if Porsche is going to be able to fix it in time,

and why would I want to buy one now? Well, that was the time to buy it. That was the risk. Right.

And now, in with that particular car, not to get too far down this rabbit hole,

Porsche Classic, Bruce Canapa, a company called the Merritt Partners, and Graham Rahall in the

United States, the three big deals in the United States are these cars, and Porsche Classic are

now restoring these cars and making them anywhere you want. Yes. And a client of mine said to me,

can you get me a very high mileage example of one of those cars? I don't want to buy a great one.

I just want one that somebody used because I'm going to send it to Porsche to have them restore it.

Dude, let's, and I couldn't find a car. Let's put a pin in that because I do want to

talk more about that. But we need to take a break. Stay with us for more of Steve

Serio, Million Dollar Broker on Hot Pursuit. Welcome back to Hot Pursuit. Back now to our

conversation with multi-million dollar auto broker Steve Serio. And you mentioned something

fascinating that we actually haven't talked about, but I've been reading a lot about it on BAT and

on various forums, which is that Porsche now will take, say, like an original Cayenne and then

completely rework it, rebuild the engine, paint it purple, make the leather green, whatever you want

for, I imagine, a very hefty price. And what do they call that? And that's for a Cayenne.

Well, it's the Porsche Classic Senate. So I don't know, there must be a name for that particular

program. I was at the center in 2022 when they were, I think, doing the very first or second

Carrera GT and thought, and I thought to myself, huh, you're going to spend a million bucks making

this the way you wanted it because they only made a handful of colors when they were new and none of

them suit your palette. And we're going to make it the way you want it. Okay. Well, nothing else.

This speaks of the vast wealth within a very small minority of the people that, you know,

sort of do well for themselves and they can just have anything they want. So it's all right. Let's

buy this car and let me have it the way I want it. And maybe I wasn't even old enough or successful

enough to have bought it when it was new. But guess what? You know, I just sold my company for

this incredible amount of money and that's one of the things I want to do with it.

Yeah, I think that that is quite a point that I'm always reminded of, you know,

the average Bugatti buyer has two and a half owns two and a half on average Bugatti's,

you know, the person who's buying the GTO also owns a hundred other cars. The amount of wealth

that is in these rooms and in these circles is astounding. It's crazy concentration. And I get

a gig a lot of it every time I read the, you know, the newspaper, the journal on Friday when

you go to the home section and you look at the homes that are in the market in certain parts

of the country. And this just came on the market for $150 million or this is $50 million and it

was, you know, this person sold this for whatever. And you realize, yeah, that's kind of the same

audience we're talking about with these cars. Can we go back to, you said you were looking for

a high mileage career GT. By the way, I think it's called the factory recommission. That's what

they call the factory recommission. And you couldn't find one. Couldn't find one with higher

mileage because everybody was looking. And then the fellow who's who I'm looking for said, okay,

I'm just let's ratchet up the price of what I'll spend for one. And right when he said,

you know, I'll go to $2 million, effectively, it was for 45 days, nothing was available.

And now, you know, once one popped at 3 million, which is an outlier that that's sold last week,

that's a complete outlier. And that's not where the market is now. But it's going to make it that

much harder to find another one. So it's one of those things, you know, when you want something,

you can't find it. And then like with GTOs two years ago, which has also affected the price,

there were four on the marketplace. And for 15 years, you had to go to owners to say,

would you sell there? Would you sell me your GTO? No. Okay, keep going, keep going, keep going.

So that kept driving the market up. There was nothing available. And then once these people

who kind of paid, you know, relatively nothing for their cars went, well, all right, I'll take the

40 or 50 or 60 million dollars, a handful of them come on the market. And then everybody

kind of looks at each other and goes, well, wait a minute, I thought these were difficult to find.

So it's the psychology of car collecting, I'm sure is it mirrors some other, you know,

psycho wonder, but I don't know what that is. I think Hannah's point that it's about what's in

and what's out is a good one. Because I remember when you could get a Lamborghini Countach for like

40 or $50,000. And there were a ton of them in the market. And also the question was,

why the hell would you want one? They're like, very uncomfortable to be in, difficult to drive,

actually a dog. And but now that like, Farah got one, and Doug Demuro got one,

now everybody wants one. And those guys are like, it's my favorite car of all time.

And big piles of, I can't say it on your show, the worst driving cars. I know poorly put together

that you look like a complete spaz. As I say to people, if you want attention,

just light your hair on fire and run down the street. Or get an orange Aventador and it's a

way better car. Just just go right ahead. I've never been a fan of those cars. I've sold a handful

of them. I'm more suspect driving wise of the mirror. And the mirror is having another moment

where, you know, try to find one. And I've been doing this long enough where the first few I sold,

which weren't great cars were under $100,000. And then I remember selling one for a million dollars

and thought, this is nuts. Well, you know, four, five, five and a half for an SV now.

They never went racing with it. It was kind of a quasi successful thing when it was new.

The build quality is typical Lamborghini of the period. It's okay. You don't want to take

the dash out and look behind the dash and see how the whole thing screwed together. I mean,

it's not as bad as a Bizzarini, but it's terrible compared to, you know, countless other cars that

were made in period. But because it's such a work of art now, and it is one of those things like

a gullwing that is, it's not blue chip, it's platinum chip. You know, the only Aston that

has survived the Aston correction in the marketplace is the DB5, thanks to James Bond.

The only real 356 that has survived the correction is a Speedster. You have certain things that,

no matter what happens, everybody has to check a box to have one. But it's a great time to buy

it. Every other Aston, I mean, I was watching Maserati numbers today. There was what looked like

a wonderful Ghibli that wasn't $100,000 a coupe. There was a Ghibli Spider for under 400. There

was a Maserati 3500 Vignale Spider yesterday for under $400,000. You know, those are all million

dollar plus cars just the other day. I was going to ask, what are you looking at now? What should

people be looking at for a little bit of an opportunity? Sounds like a lot of Italians.

The opportunity is anything, you know, there's so many European things that have

corrected Hannah. I mean, it's all across Germany, Italy, Britain. If it's older,

if you've ever wanted a pre-war Bugatti, a proper original Bugatti, go help yourself. If you ever

wanted an Alpha from that period, it's all relative, you know, but it's all of those things

have fallen off. Big Bentley's have fallen off. The Bentley 4 and a half liter? I want one.

So now there's your opportunity. Maserati's W154 race car? No opportunity.

Is there any, I mean, do you, you don't see those ever regaining their, their value to what they

were, right? No, I don't. I mean, I say to people all the time, you know, you can try to catch that

falling knife, but if you got one of those things for sale, I would take, I would take the offer today.

Really? Those big old Bentley's, even the replicas cost over a million dollars.

None anymore. No? Wow. Well, I mean, the continuation cars, especially didn't help the

matter. Bentley built new old versions of that. That doesn't help. Jaguar built a lot of new old

things. I love those Eagle, what do they call those? Oh, those, the Eagle GT's a different animal.

That's a different, that's a kind of a, that's a singer of Jaguars. That's great. You look at

Aston Martin came out with their DB4 GT continuation car. It was a couple million dollars. One just

traded hands for 800. And what do you do with it? Because legally you can't put it on the road.

That's a problem. In the U.S. or anywhere?

A great many countries. It's a track car only. Can you go to Montana and like...

No. Well, you can cheat, you can get very clever. And if you have an original engine block, like you

used to do in California back in the day, and you tiled the car into the engine number, you might get

away with it. That might have known somebody that did that. Interesting. I was actually thinking about,

I kind of want like an Indie Roadster, you know, like a Watson or one of those front engine...

Open wheel cars. Yeah, sure. And I was thinking, if I put, if I go to Montana, open an LLC,

and then put headlights on it and blinkers, can I drive it in New York?

This doesn't fit any of the criteria for what you've been talking about for a classic car,

by the way. Your kid, there's no room for your kids. No, because you know, I love the Silver

Arrow, like the, I said, the W154, the Outlaw Union cars. I love these long cigar tubes that

just have wheels, like a belly tanker. Sure. I love those kinds of shapes, and the Indie Roadsters

were like that too. So, but the problem is, I just can't figure out how I would get any of them

registered. And you'd have a difficult time fitting. Yes. Yes. Which is the other...

That's why I chose the giant Indie Roadsters, because they're so huge, you know. And then

B8s, a lot of them. Yeah. No, there's the, Hannah, to answer your question. I mean,

if you've always wanted a Lancia or a, you know, it's speaking about, you know,

things that aren't going to bounce. I mean, you, I know Hannah knows, I don't know if Matt knows,

but I bought a 63 Mulliner Park Ward Bentley, because it was a third of the price of what

they were at when I first started looking. And is it ever going to be worth the $213,000 I paid

for it? I think so. But, you know, it could go down to 150 real quick. I mean, they made 16 of them

in left-hand drive, so I've got that going for me. But did you, Steve, did you buy that as an

investment, or did you buy it because you love that car? You buy, you should buy everything

because you love the car. Don't buy, if you get lucky and you do okay as an investment,

that's fine. But, you know, I say to folks a lot of times, if you want an investment, buy an

apartment building, buy something that has a track record of always being worth more. Cars are

fluid and personalities and the way people buy with their heart is fluid. The heart wants what

the heart wants. Yeah, and buy it because you'd love it. Don't buy it because, you know, you want

to do anything with it other than love the car for whatever reason. And sometimes, you know,

you buy things and you think you're going to love them. And I've certainly fallen under this,

where you buy something, you've always wanted it, you drive it and you go, that's terrible.

Like, you know, that's just, I've made the freshman error of buying things before driving them.

Yeah. And it's not the end of the world. No, it's not. You move on. You just dive in.

You just move on. I hear, well, I'm, I'm historically, I'm a coward.

You can do it. We're all ready for you. We're all, I mean, you can buy it and then.

Think of all the free time you'll have when you buy something and you won't study buying something.

I was talking with that architect, Stephen Harris, right?

Harris is a good friend. And I was like, man, I really want a Corvette C2.

This is at the time that Barry Ritholtz had gotten one. And he was like,

have you ever driven one? Because you won't want one once you drive it.

No, you won't want anything from that period once you drive it like that. I love old Corvettes,

and I bought it. I had a 67 fueli for a while, 65 fueli. Roadster 40,000 miles,

dark green tan leather, hard top, the whole thing. And somebody convinced me when I sold my

275 GTS Ferrari, where he said, this will give you 90% of the joy that the Ferrari will for a

fraction of the price. And he was so wrong. He was so wrong. It still drove like an old Corvette.

It didn't handle well. It didn't break well. Engine was great. Straight line, great. When

you walk up to it, you go, this is absolutely a gorgeous car. And then you drive it for an hour

and you want to kill yourself. Drive before you buy. I drove my 275 across the country.

So Hannah buys these cars like the C3 Corvettes or the old Rolls Royces.

Did you drive those? Did you test drive those first? Or did you just say, I love that shape and I

want it? I drove them before. Initially, the initial attraction of the first for the Rolls

Royces was I wanted something that was radically different than what my husband was into and known

for. I needed something that felt like my own. And so it was a specific decision to go elsewhere.

And of course, I was attracted by the mystique and the sense of occasion and the history and the

lineage of Rolls Royce. I mean, I can't even describe like that, that aura that it has. But

yes. But to your question very quickly, no, I drove before the purchase of that and drove

multiple Corvettes before the C3 and drove multiple Mercedes SLs before driving before

buying the SL that I had. And actually, that car wasn't great and we got rid of it. And that's how

we got into the Rolls. When I was a kid, I always wanted a BMW M6 because in the

late 80s, early 90s, that was hot. I love the shark nose. And when I finally made enough money to get

a car, I went and test drove one. And I was like, Oh my goodness, it's such a dog. Never meet your

heroes. Yeah. No, I had the original 1988 M5. And I that was a thing in the period. I remember

driving an M6 afterwards and went, Oh, these are nowhere near the same joy to drive. And the M5

was just, you know, absolutely thrilling on every level in 1988. And it led to that whole M series

of cars. And I had an M1 as well for a period. Really? That's a sweet, sweet ride. I love a car.

It was a really wonderful car. And I remember being influenced by Jeff Swart who used to

daily drive one. And Jeff was like a photography hero of mine. And I thought, I'm going to have

one of these. And I had it. And I immediately got rid of it like six months later. It was just

a nothing drive compared to the M5. And it came after the M5. It wasn't new. It was 10 years old.

But it was, and once I put it up on the lift and looked at it and went, this is about to fall apart.

But the M6 and the M1 are both beautiful to look at. Yes. Better looking than the M5.

Absolutely. You could easily argue, but just not good drivers. I would say in terms of the driving

thing, once you drive a certain model, then I could purchase a specific car in that same

model line without driving it. You know what I mean? Yes. Like if you drive 197 and then you see

another one across the country for a better price, you can pull the trigger without it.

Because you know what it is. And we've bought Silver Shadows off, bring a trailer,

because we know what we're going to get. Once you become familiar with a certain

mark in a certain era, then you can play a little bit faster and fast and loose with,

I mean, these are not collector level cars. But it's for you. But you're buying what you love,

which is the whole point. Exactly. And what you just said about sensitive occasion,

that's how I feel about the 63 Bentley. You could drive it every day that does sort of

pointless to do that in Boston, but it's an occasion car. And it gives you a reason to go

100 miles to go get a cup of coffee. I don't think it's pointless at all, dude.

No, I mean, just go. Just go and do it. And that's the reason for any of this. Unlike,

back to your, I'll circle back to your point about why do you buy something with no miles on it.

It's because you can and your neighbor can't have it, I suppose, as part of it. And you're

starting a collection of things. And the Canada, you had said once at Pebble Beach,

it'd be five or six years ago, you overheard a conversation about people talking about low

mileage things. And the winner of the bragging rights went, I think you told me this, the

fellow said, well, my car is, I'm going to beat all of you guys. Cause now my,

I think it was a Koenig, where the fellow said mine has never had oil or fuel in it.

And he said, I bought it and I took it. And, you know, effectively, I want a brand new thing.

I want, I want the lowest mileage one that's never been driven. Well, you win what you win.

I don't know. You don't win the experience of the joy of driving the car.

Jesus, why would you do that with a Koenig's egg? Like the point of a Koenig's egg is the drive.

It's not exactly a stunner, right? I mean, you think all the engineering and all of the track

time and all of the development that went into any of these cars that people are buying,

you know, that whole back, going back to the Meekum Bachman collection cars,

they sold for crazy dough because the family that had them made, they were very well connected

with Ferrari. They were special clients. They got the last of everything made of a model

in these absolutely absurd, comical, sprinkle colored cars and they didn't use them. They just

collected them and they made sure they got, they had luggage with them and they made sure the cars,

a lot of the cars came with extra seats. They had like a second set of seats made. And I imagine

it wasn't because they were going to wear out. There was because I didn't dig into this enough

to realize they're probably just different seats and they couldn't decide do we want the tan leather

or the tan and yellow leather in this car. So those cars, it's unrepeatable to get those results.

It's lightning in a bottle because they're all weird one off colors. They're all of the last of

the last and then none of them have any miles on them. So that's why everybody blew their

brains out wanting to buy them. Comes with a demon crate. Comes with a demon crate. Can I get?

Can I get? One question that I didn't get to, I wanted to ask you how tariffs are affecting

all of this. Crushing it for the United States because the problem with buying something at

Retromobile is that some of the fees are 12 to 15% after the hammer. And now you have,

in the best case scenario, if the car was made in England, a 10% tariff, if the car was made

somewhere in Europe, it could be 15 to 17 and a half percent. You mean to bring back to the US?

So now you've got a 30, if you think of it as a 30% add to hammer price and then you've got to get

the car here. So it's crazy. So how is that possible that we're seeing such a huge jump in and such

high and great results in these auctions and yet tariffs are taking a toll?

I asked that to three people on the train coming down here and all three of them said,

I have not talked to anybody from the United States who was buying cars.

Overseas. Overseas in Paris. Because the big numbers have been done in Scottsdale and in Kissimmee.

And well, the big numbers today with gooding and our curial two days ago. And I mean,

this $5 million spent on a gullwing and it was a very, very, very, very special,

unrepeatable outlier of a gullwing. There's a barn find had been stored since the 80s,

32,000 kilometers gray, rudge wheels, hot engine. So that's the holy grail of gullwings

that had to have been bought by somebody in Europe. Because if it wasn't, you had another million

dollars of duty and tariff and shipping. Let's be honest, if you're spending five,

10, 15 million dollars on a car, even if you're American, you must have a place in Europe, right?

Well, yeah. I mean, that is true. Like you've got at least an apartment in Paris or a place in

Barcelona. I tried to convince the guy looking for the Carrera GT that I may have found one with

80,000 kilometers on it. It's in Germany. And I said, by that one, you can't bring it here yet,

send it directly to Porsche. It'll take them two years to do the restoration when the car's 25

years old, bring it back. So that's kind of a... He didn't do it? No, he's thinking about it.

That's a great idea. You also have a different... That's a solution. Maybe if we have an election

in 2028, then you have maybe a different administration in place and you get free trade.

Maybe we'll get a free trader in the White House. God forbid.

Yeah, no. Oh, that's smart. It's not. No, Hannah, I don't know anybody over there buying anything

that's American. But I mean, I talked to somebody who was standing on Max Gerardo's stand and Max

had sold all of the new special Ferraris he brought, like a 288 and F40, and all that stuff

sold within 24 hours of putting it on his stand, all of the typical rare, beautiful stuff from

the 50s and 60s nobody's even looking at. So he's got all kinds of stuff and all the new stuff is

like, boom. So I may go to Japan for the first time ever to go look at a collection of... For

the auto salon? Oh. No, to go look at a collection. There's a 288, an F40, an F50, and an Enzo sitting

in a collection all with the original owner. And it's like, I've never been to Japan, but I'll

get on a plane and go do that. That's so cool. Yeah. Steve Sirio, great to have you here in the

studio with us. Thanks for joining. My pleasure. Anytime. Thank you. That does it for this week's

show. Remember to follow and subscribe to Hot Pursuit on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else

you listen. You can also send us your comments. Email us at hotpersuit at bloomberg.net.

And check out Hannah's columns and stories on bloomberg.com and the Bloomberg Business

app. Go there for car reviews, events, and stories that you won't find anywhere else.

Find it all at bloomberg.com slash pursuits slash autos. I'm Matt Miller. And I'm Hannah Elliott.

We'll be back in your podcast feed again next week.

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