Shelby American's Truck Business Is Booming

Welcome to The Guest, I'm Gary Gasteloo, this is the Gary and Alex Show, the official

podcast of American Cars and Racing.com, and we've got a lot to talk about today.

Mustangs, minivans, if you can believe that.

Some new electric American cars, and of course we're going to wrap up the first weekend

in Formula One for our favorite American brands, Ford and Cadillac, and of course with me to talk

about all this is my co-host, Alex Nunez. Hello Alex. Hello Gary, good to be here.

So we all know you are America's premier 2006 Mustang convertible influencer and we know

you love Mustang. Big Mustang news this week. We found out finally the price of the new Mustang

Dark Horse SC, the supercharged version of the Dark Horse, was an official, it was information

that leaked online which forced Ford's hands to release the pricing. The vehicles were revealed

back in Detroit in January, but here's what it's at. Base price, $103,000 with the track pack,

$140,000, and of course they're doing a special launch edition, $170,000. That's track pack

with carbon fiber parts and hand painted stripes. Just to recap the Dark Horse SC, essentially

the successor to the 2022 Shelby GT500, it's got the same 5.2 liter supercharged V8. A couple

upgrades as far as the performance is concerned, but it also has the 7-speed dual clutch transmission

and the Magna Ride shock absorbers. That one had a base price under $80,000, so this is a pretty

big jump in those couple of years. Do you think they're shooting too high with the Dark Horse SC?

Alex, or is this where we're at now for a performance vehicle? It's where we're at.

You know, if you're going to complain about what it costs, you're not the customer. Like,

honestly, that's really what it all boils down to. Not surprised at all at the price range.

That's what it's going to cost for something that has big power like this, that has an

audience that is going to jump at it and just pay the money. You know, it's the same thing.

It's like, same people complain, oh, the Corvette, the high end Corvettes are

well over $100,000 too. Yes, and there is an audience for it. So I find none of it surprising.

The reality is you can get into plenty of trouble in the Mustang. Any of the myriad

you know, builds that you can create that fall below Dark Horse SC. So not really surprised.

This is just where we are right now. High end vehicles are going to be expensive,

as we've discussed many times, you know, on the show in the past. Nothing is truly inexpensive

anymore in terms of new cars. So the higher you climb the ladder, the more it's going to be. So

I don't think Ford's going to have, I have no idea what the sales forecasts are, you know,

Ford, obviously, but I don't think they're going to have trouble finding the audience that they

know is there. You know, these decisions don't happen in a vacuum. One mystery that still remains

is how much power this has. The Shelby GT 500 had 760 horsepower. Of course, we have the Mustang

GTD, which uses an even more awesome version of this engine at 815 horsepower. That's very modified

from this one. You kind of think they probably don't want to give it more than 815 horsepower

just because of that GTD that they got itself for $327,000. But I don't know, is it going to be

800? Is it going to be 780? Where do you think it's going to fall? I don't think that they

broach 800 for the very reason that you said. I mean, that, once you get up there, now you're,

now you're playing in the pool of your, you know, your super high end vehicle. The reality is this,

it doesn't matter what the horsepower number is. It's going to be some insane number from,

as a practical matter, it's going to be 100 times quicker on the street than, you know,

it actually needs to be. It's going to be plenty of fun. I'm sure it's going to be great stoplight,

stoplight car. I'm sure it's going to be fun on the track. It's not going to be what the GTD is,

because the GTD is as close to a modern homologation special as you get. So there's a very different

approach to that. And I don't think even if they were to give it gobs of power, I don't think it's

going to out handle, you know, GTD on a road course, you know, if you want to, you know,

get into the weeds. But long story long, I don't think they're going to create that problem for

themselves where it has similar power to the GTD. That would just cut off the GTD at the ankles,

at least the sort of aura and narrative or rabbit. One thing I have to point about it,

that $170,000 version with the hand painted graphics on the GT 500, the Shelby GT 500,

it had hand painted stripes as an option. They were $10,000. The numbers sounded ridiculous

when you heard it, really 10 grand for stripes. But I have to tell you, when you saw those in

person, they looked so much better than decal stripes. Like I couldn't even, after seeing that,

I couldn't even consider buying a car with decal stripes. They ruined it for me.

People will pay for the things that they want to pay for. There is an audience for this car

at the price range that has been confirmed. Beginning, middle, and end.

Of course, if you prefer, you could still get a real deal Shelby from Shelby American,

which is also building more performance trucks these days. And it just announced the creation

of Shelby Performance to help grow that side of the business and joining us now to talk about all

that is the president of Shelby American, Gary Patterson. Good to see you, man. Good to see you,

Gary. So tell me about Shelby Performance and why you need this addition of the company

to build these trucks you're building these days. Well, we wanted to reunite the original team.

Back in 2015, 2014 time period, Jeff Birchell, who was one of the founders of the Tuscany along

with Mike Graber, I ran into Jeff. It was kind of set up for us by the BF Goodrich team and Joe

Entoronte and so forth. And so we were able to get together. We rode together in a buggy

down in Mexico and ran about 300 miles of the Baja, not the official, but the track anyway,

but not part of their actual race. But we had a great time and we started brainstorming with

things and, you know, they had a great team of people there and so we had them build the trucks.

So that changed a little bit 2017, but we really wanted to reunite the old team. We liked the way

they did business and took care of customers and customer service. They liked, you know,

the quality of workmanship and things like that. We wanted to, you know, rebirth the company with

some new components like the king shocks and the suspension and stuff like that. So we're

real excited about that. And taking the business to a new level and Carol Shelby's favorite thing

was always the next one. So we're on to the next one here. One of your new truck miles is the F

250 Super Baja diesel $160,000 to start. How many of these Shelby trucks are you selling these days

every year? Good thing is when we started the truck business with these guys back in 15, you know,

we were doing basically a one truck. It was a 150 raised truck and it was hugely popular.

But what we've also found is some of our customers like towing heavy loads or they'd

rather get in a truck that's not so high and they'd rather run around on the street mostly and so

they didn't need all the lifted part of it. And so there's different flavors of the ice cream,

right? I mean, I like ice cream, but I don't always like chocolate or vanilla or strawberry or

raspberry. I like them all, but maybe I'm in the mood for something different or my need is something

different. And so, you know, we did that and as a result of that, yeah, we're gonna climb into

what we're doing 1600 or so of those various things throughout the year. You know, the 250 part,

you know, that may only be 250 units. You know, with the 150s, there's more people that like that

truck, not as big, rides a little smoother and doesn't necessarily tow as much, but that's okay.

Most people don't need to tow, you know, 25,000 pounds. Like I said, there's different flavors

for different things and different applications. So we've got a truck for you, right? We've done

the short box single cabs and stuff in the past and one could speculate, right? We actually teased

that at the Barrett Jackson in January in Scottsdale. So you can bet that, you know, if you like to go

zero to 60 in a pickup truck in under three and a half seconds, oh yeah. You know, it's good news

for you that Ford is sticking with the Mustang. Chevy doesn't make the Camaro anymore. Dodge,

at least right now, isn't making V8 chargers. But that said, while you do all the Mustang still,

are you seeing the market shift more toward trucks these days? Is that really where it's heading?

Or are these two different businesses and the trucks are an expansion? What we've seen is kind

of a little bit of shifting around. I mean, at 1.2 or 3 years ago, trucks were like 75, 80% of our

business. We're actually, you know, expanding our Mustang line and trying new flavors of the ice cream

there as well. And so what we're seeing is people like the small niche run, very exclusive, you

know, vehicles that we build. And they're certainly not just stickers and scoops. When you look under

the hood and it's not just under the hood, but if you look under the chassis and we talked about

the trucks and suspension and things like that, there's a whole lot of meat and potatoes. It's

not just stickers and scoops. So it comes with a big price, but at the same time, it's also

big performance. Are the truck Shelby buyers also Shelby Mustang buyers or these two different

kind of customer? Well, we do have a lot of people that have both, which is really neat. And they

trust Shelby brand to bring, you know, maximum performance to either one of those product

lines and how many people do own trucks and cars, right? So Mustang's a performance vehicle.

I've been a Mustang guy since my dad bought one brand new and in the middle of 1964.

Wow. One of the originals. Yeah. Well, my first car was also, I bought it used with money I made

mowing lawns of 69 Mach 1 428 Cobra Jet. I still have that car, believe it or not, over 50 years

later. Wow. So that's pretty cool. And you know, it's neat to be a part of that. So I've been a

Mustang guy, but you know, I have a truck too, right? So you got to have trucks, you got to have

cars. A lot of our customers have both. You know, many of the people that we do business with also

own businesses. And, you know, so they have a need for a truck and, you know, they can write that

off too. So it's pretty cool. There are a lot of performance builders that work on Mustangs and

Ford pickups. Are you competing with them or are the customers brand loyal for Shelby? Or do you

have to convince them to not go by their souped up Mustang from somebody else? You know, the good

thing is performance speaks to itself. So people are come to expect, you know, from Shelby that

they're going to get kind of the pinnacle of that performance. So they do come to us because of the

brand. But at the end of the day, the brand is only as good as the content and the performance. So

you got to have all that to back it up. And there's clearly a market out there for, you know, those in

the business that do stickers and scoops. It does differentiate their product or their vehicle from

their neighbors. But we go far beyond that. With most of our public line, we've got a great deal

of content. And it's not for everybody. And not everybody's in the market to afford it. But

those were always, Shelby was always an aspirational brand. It was for me. It is for most people.

But, you know, when you really want to look at that, then you say, okay, I'm buying a Shelby,

what do I get for it? And you got to be able to tell that story. And it is more than stickers and

scoops. It's, you know, if I go out and take a picture in the shop right now, you'll see virtually

the whole front ends are apart off the Mustangs that we're building here. So fenders and hoods and

front faces and grills and radiators and all this kind of stuff is laying on the ground because we

have new parts that are going to go on these trucks are a little different flavor. But, you

know, you look at bumpers and lights and suspension and all that, all of a sudden that truck comes

clear apart too. So there's a lot that goes into these, but there's a lot of performance that goes

with it as well as, you know, some things that we're also proud of is all your touch points. So

when you sit in the vehicle and what do you see? What do you feel? You can tell this is a different

vehicle. So, and it's not just your recovered seats. We've designed those and everything,

but they also pass Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. So the airbags still deploy the way

they should and things like that. So this really becomes the whole package where, you know, when

we used to modify vehicles long time ago, you didn't have to worry about this computer talking to

this computer talking to this computer. You didn't have to worry about all the safety issues and

things like that. But we make sure that these vehicles are safety compliant and also environmentally

compliant with the emission standards and so forth. I've seen your development center there

in Las Vegas. Is that where the trucks are going to be engineered or is Shelby Performance's

location in Indiana going to have something like that too? Or is that really more of a

build center? No, it's actually, what we do there is it's a nice partnership with them.

So we lead on design, but they have a lot of input and design. We get back with the customers

and we've got a great market strategist group now, regional people that interact with the

dealers and we're trying to get and we're actually, we're actually down in Florida right now at

Shelby American and we're working with our market strategist down there and the dealers

and we're saying, okay, what are you seeing? What would you like? What do you like? What do you

don't? And we make sure that those kind of things are incorporated in new vehicle programs. So while

the trucks are all built right now in Bristol, Indiana, we do some design work with those in

conjunction with Bristol right here in Las Vegas, but the trucks will be built in Bristol, Indiana.

Shelby is very popular among traditional muscle car fans. You know, you've been around for half

a century. What are you doing to attract and reach younger performance vehicle buyers? Yeah, so we

go to shows and events. We're playing around with different things too, like, you know, fuel

fast and Mustang week and we're getting out there and we're putting butts in seats too. So when we

go to events, we put the people in the cars. So whether you're young or old, you're sitting in

a seat and you get to go for a ride. And that's pretty cool. But we also mix it up with the people

and we listen to them. What would you like? What do you want to see? And not everybody wants the

same thing, which is great. That's why other people may attract those. But we're getting a lot of

people that are younger that really have understood the Shelby brand. I think the movie Ford versus

Ferrari helped a lot with that. Did that give you a boost? It did. You know, I mean, it took the

people that were at the time, you know, under 45 that didn't understand. They understood there was a

Shelby, but they didn't understand the significance of it until they understood a little bit more of

the history. But it's not just about history. We're clearly at the forefront of, you know,

developing new vehicles, whether they are cars or trucks. And, you know, right now, today,

my counterpart, Vince Leviolet, is out as a racetrack right now. And we're validating performance

and testing performance on not only existing models, but new models. And we keep pushing the

envelope. So that way our cars continue to perform at the very top, top level. Good friend of mine

just saw Ford versus Ferrari for the first time. He's not really a car guy, but he texted me,

why didn't you tell him about this movie? This is great. I love the story. This is the coolest

thing ever Shelby. So I guess it really is something that connects with people still.

One of your new models that I love the looks of, haven't seen in person yet though,

is the Mustang GT350R. Pretty classic Shelby spec. I know you were talking about building a

version of that that would actually be able to compete in the Trans Am racing series. Is that

still coming together? Yeah, that's coming together nicely. So, you know, stay tuned for later this

year. We said, when we announced that it was going to be a development program for a while,

that is under development still, but we're getting close. And that's exciting. And, you know,

the other thing that we've done is we've got the partnership with Shelby Performance, but we've

also got with, you know, Attorney Key Motorsports. And we've also got TDM that builds our GT350s,

just real close to the Flat Rock plant. So we've got business in there and we partner

with people that we're very comfortable with and we make sure that they share the same passion for

quality and workmanship and so forth as we do here in Las Vegas. So that's really good. And the new,

the GT350R is what we did with the TKM last year. They're building the GT350TA this year. And that's

basically stands for Trans Am. We've been working with Aaron Caldwell there in Trans Am. And

really getting his input on what he'd like to see because we celebrated 60 years of working with

Trans Am this year. So long before there was a Firebird or a Trans Am Firebird, there was Shelby

competing in Trans Am. So some people are like, well, why is that? That's why we have a Trans Am.

And Trans Am, the organization itself is very much behind what we're doing today and very excited

about what we're doing. Which one of the classes is the car going to be built for? So we're playing

with two different ones. So stay tuned. Stay tuned for that. Well, we love Trans Am here at the gas.

Trans Am is going to be real cool. Yeah, we just had Adam Andretti on a couple of weeks ago. He's

one of our favorite guests, one of the guys who races in TA1. And well, he'll drive anything. We're

talking about his NASCAR truck series debut, but he is a stalwart on the Trans Am series. And as you

said, that really ties back to the origins of Shelby. I think a lot of people who don't know

about it might think of these muscle cars as being drag racers. But that's really not what Shelby

was ever really about. Yeah, we certainly had some purpose built drag cars, but not very often.

Most of the cars that we had, and really where the DNA started, was with Carroll Shelby. And he

was obviously a road racer and won the 24 Hours of Le Mans and many other things. And he was even

driver of the year, whatever, with the sports illustrated, I think in 1959 or 60. So pretty

neat stuff. We want the car to be able to do more than just one trick. There's times when you

purpose build a car for drag racing or road racing or whatever. But most of our products,

they kind of cross the line and you can do multiple things with them. So if you look at our trucks,

you know, they're capable off-road and on-road with most of the product line. So that's pretty cool too.

All right, Gary Patterson, President of Shelby American. I got to get out to Las Vegas and

come knocking on your door one of these days and try some of these new cars.

Well, Gary, you're always welcome here in Las Vegas. And that's really the headquarters. But if

you happen to be in Michigan, or if you want to take a trip to Indiana, we'd love to have you.

Sounds great. You have a great week. I will talk to you soon.

All right. Thanks, Gary. Alex, it is pretty impressive how enduring the Shelby brand has

been for 50, 60 years now. Well, yeah, I mean, that's what happens when it comes from this

origin story that, you know, has a very charismatic personality and all kinds of like sort of racing

authenticity. And that has real staying power. The cars have always been visually interesting,

cool, fast, whatever you want to call it. The fact that the Shelby American has expanded this into

trucks and found, as we all know, we live in the truck country, right? That there is obviously a

very happy and willing audience for that. And I feel like they've done a good job of maintaining

this sort of thread all the way through and expanding beyond, you know, that you can still

buy this sort of repro cobras, obviously from them and their range of Mustangs. But the,

you know, the trucks opens it up even wider. And we all know that there is almost unlimited

demand for, you know, among certain truck buyers to go ham on what they're willing to pay for,

you know, for a truck, whether they're, you know, buying a high end factory thing,

or they're doing something that's aftermarket like this, or they're, or if they're just spending

money in the aftermarket on their own, make it something their own. So it's a great story.

It's a cool brand. This is a cool truck. It's kind of all of the things, right? It's here's a Shelby,

here's a super duty, you know, Ford, and we're going to build, you know, 250 of these things.

And I'm sure they'll sell all 250. I see these around New York even cruising around. It's pretty

impressive. Just the kind of market they've been able to reach with this. But shifting gears now

from Mustangs to minivans. This is like the biggest week in minivan news, I think in years,

maybe even forever, three new minivans popping up this week. Not all new. The first one, of course,

is the redesigned Chrysler Pacifica. So last year, minivan sales in the US popped 20%,

just under 400,000, you know, back in 2000, they were selling 1.3 million a year.

Minivans are not back per se, as some people like to say. But they are still, yeah, they've got that

solid little niche. And the only four of them on sale, Kia Toyota Honda, and of course, Chrysler

Christ is the best seller, 110,000 last year. Current Pacifica has been on sale since 2017.

This is its second styling update, not really changing too much. Also, though they did get rid

of the plug-in hybrid version, along with all the Stellantis plug-in hybrids. But it's amazing that

this brand has been cruising along for a couple of years now with only the Pacifica and its lineup

at 110,000 a year. That outsells some entire other foreign brands in the US. Listen, it sells

because it's really good at what it does. And that's what all, this is all the family-oriented

minivan, what you're talking about, Pacifica or Odyssey or Sienna or, you know, even the Kia,

the Carnival. I don't think that there is a sort of product category that more closely

understands the target buyer than the product teams that are doing the minivan stuff. And

the Chrysler minivans are really good. You don't have to change a whole lot. So that's

where you're going to get this facelift. And it's going to continue to, you know, sell in exactly

those kinds of volumes that it has. And everyone's going to be very happy about it. I think I made

a joke with you. I don't remember if it was here or offline or what, but it's like, this is going

to be like the LX platform of family vehicles. You know, they will, Stellantis will have this

thing for as long as they can before they have to redesign it. I love the innovation in the

minivan segment. You know, things like the Stone Go Seats that fall on the floor, built-in vacuum

cleaners. Fantastic. They've got the fan cam. It's a camera that you could watch the back to,

Rosa, to keep an eye on things. I mean, and it's real bad. It's almost like what you see in the

pickup truck segment, but all family oriented features, but they really go to town and Chrysler

defends this with its life because it knows it started it, it started the segment, and

it will never give up being the king of this segment. That's a great comparison also,

like talking about the way that the companies that are building trucks, like they know that

audience, it's really, that is a great parallel to draw. Like if you have ever had to like move a

kid into college or something and you scored the minivan at the rental counter instead of like an

SUV, it's like a miracle happens. You know, when you realize that you could do in like two trips,

what would have taken five, you know, you know, otherwise. I think the update looks cool. I love

the vans. I don't think they're going anywhere. This is a winner, period. They're not going anywhere.

In fact, the Pacific is going to be getting some competition in the form of a sibling rivalry next

year. When Ram brings back the Promaster City commercial minivan, you know, Ford and GM got

out of this segment. So to Ram, they had the Promaster City a couple years ago, stopped selling

it in 2022. It's bringing it back for 2027, but this time around, it's a little bigger. It's going

to start under $40,000. It's going to be able to tow 2000 pounds, haul 2000 pounds. The cargo space

is big enough to fit a 4x8 sheet of plywood now with the door closed, two pallets, very

commercial oriented, although they will have a passenger van version. It would be interesting

to see if anybody buys the passenger van version of this instead of the Pacifica, or if this is

just a total expansion of the minivan segment for the Stolanus Marans. I feel like the passenger

van version of it will have a different target audience. It'll be like more for commercial,

you know, airport shuttles and things like that. Exactly. Exactly. I think that's what that's for.

And you'll find that, you know, audience there is going to ride like a van, like a van. It's not

going to be all trucky feeling. Just go where the audience is. And this makes total sense for

Ram. And it got the segment to itself at least for a couple of years. I got to think Ford's going

to get back into this at some point, but it also helps Ram fill that gap that it has in its lineup

since it doesn't currently have a midsize pickup, although there is a new decode in the works,

but that's still two or three years away. Right. Of course, on the complete other end of the minivan

segment, Mercedes Benz is going to be coming to the US next year with a new model called the VLE,

which is an all electric luxury minivan that it would prefer you call a grand limousine.

But let's be honest, it's got sliding doors and it's definitely a minivan, although it's actually

a little bigger than the Pacifica. We're expecting this to be about $80,000 to start 350 miles of

range. Alex, this sort of thing is popular in Asia and Europe, the luxury minivans. They definitely

have a lot more of that going on, not so much for families, more for like VIPs, hasn't really hit here

in the US. But when you see it in the flesh, they make so much more sense than SUV. You could put

the big reclining chairs in there, the giant TV. This one has a 31 inch drop down screen for the

second row. You can configure the seats so they face each other and like a lounge set up air

suspension. They're also thrown on this. So, you know, it's going to have a great ride. The interior

is as nice as the Mercedes S class, but I don't know. Still though, it's got the minivan stigma.

I wonder how many they're even expecting to sell in the US and if it'll be a hit.

I wonder if this is Mercedes seeing an opportunity with a vehicle that has already demonstrated

or a vehicle type that has already demonstrated its value in other markets as a de facto limo.

But what I see is Mercedes looks at all these aftermarket companies that take sprinters and

upfit them into effectively what this vehicle is supposed to be and they can just sell it direct

to the same customers. So, I wonder if that's what it is. The market for vans as luxury

transportation exists in any big city. Look at the sprinter at the sprinters that the high rollers

are getting out of. This is a market that exists. This is Mercedes offering a straight from the

factory option that is probably going to ride better than, you know, the sprinters. And it's

also sized better for, especially for, you know, urban use. Of course, the electric car market in

the US is in a lot of flux, but we just got details on probably the most important electric vehicle

that's launching this year, the new Rivian R2, their new compact SUV model that's going to be

going up against the Tesla Model Y, but with a more off-roady style that basically looks like a

shrunken version of the Rivian R1. First miles that go on sale this year, $58,000,

$656 horsepower because the electric launch cars need ridiculous amounts of horsepower.

330 miles of range. We're going to follow that up with 345 mile version at $48,000 and then late

next year $45,000 for a rear wheel drive with 275 miles of range. Now, comparing this to the Model

Y, you can get one of those now with rear wheel drive for 40 grand, 321 miles and 50 grand for

all wheel drive and 327 miles of range. Obviously not off-road oriented at all, but that is still

king of the electric cars and it's not even close. You know, the Rivian R2, it just seems like if it

launched last year or the year before or if the tax credits were still in effect, would be one of

the best selling cars in America. It just hits that off-roady adventure styling niche plus the

electric side of things. But I'm just wondering right now, especially coming at these price points,

if it's going to be the killer hit that it could have been or if the boats sailed and it's maybe

in a little bit of trouble now. I wonder if the ship has indeed sailed. If this was the launch

vehicle for Rivian instead of the R1, absolute bonanza, probably sort of Tesla style saturation,

you know, when it came out. It dog walks the Model Y in terms of styling and all that stuff. I mean,

I love the Rivians. They turn heads. I look twice every time I see one. The market is going to determine

not artificially the success or failure of the R2. I mean, it's obviously great looking. I mean,

the pricing is what it is. The later arriving ones with more range and a lower MSRP are playing in

a pool that is still very active in terms of the marketplace. That's a good place to be. So,

again, we're going to see right away what the market actually thinks of Rivian moving down

market. I mean, the styling is totally a success. I mean, it is a smaller R1. I mean, it's identical

styling. I read somewhere that R1 styling was actually derived from this, which really

stuff too. Yeah, I think that in a perfect world, this would have come before. There's other EVs

where I've heard anecdotally where you see something come out and then you see a second model come out

and like, oh, very similar. It's like, yeah, actually, because the secondary model is the

lead in terms of design that influenced the one that actually came first. And it's just a matter

of timing and stuff. EV market is very weird right now. It's how good is it. If it's really great,

it's going to be irrelevant that there aren't subsidies or whatever. You see that with other

brands. You see that with Tesla, you see with everybody. They seem positioned to compete

price-wise correctly. Like I said, I think they have a killer app in terms of design,

you know, something that people are going to be really enjoying looking at in their garage and

their drive and whatnot. So let's see what happens. I am well past trying to predict,

but the EV market, as you've seen, especially this week, is chaotic at best.

It's definitely going to be the bellwether. It's got the looks. It's got the buzz. It's got the

specifications. It's got the off-road styling. If this doesn't succeed to some level, I don't know.

They're going to sell $200,000 a year. They're going to sell $50,000 a year. If it doesn't succeed

at some level, I don't think there's hope for many other companies. Another one of those companies

that's going to be competing in this compact SUV space later this year is Lucid. They've got a

couple of new models, it turns out, coming along. They've got a mid-sized platform that everybody

is expecting to be one vehicle, but they're going to be launching three called the Cosmos,

the Earth, and another one they haven't announced the name yet. Each one of them is going to have

different body styling and they'll go from street performance to off-road adventure spec.

First one's going to go on sale later this year. Eventually, they're hoping to price them for less

than $50,000. They haven't announced the pricing for the launch model that's going on sale, but here's

the interesting thing about these. Lucid is based in the US, has a factory in Arizona, but it also

has a factory in Saudi Arabia where it currently builds knockdown kits of its models. It sends

the parts there, they assemble them there, and then they sell them in that market. But for this new

mid-sized model, it's going to first enter production in Saudi Arabia and get shipped

to the US, and then later they're going to add it to the Arizona plant. They'll also be selling it

in other markets around the world. That's going to be really interesting to see how the market reacts

to, I guess this is the first car imported from Saudi Arabia to the US, although it is with a

US brand. Of course, that gets a lot of investment from Saudi Arabia as well.

Listen, the reality is most people don't even know where the hell their car is built.

We are not representative of the average car buyer who is walking into

any showroom. The average person doesn't know, doesn't care if they like the car or if it's

priced right there, good to jump on. I guarantee you there were people that were driving Buick

Invisions ahead. No idea the thing was built entirely in China and imported here. Let's see

what the market does. These EVs have to overcome other stuff now and compete on the quality of the

product, which is as it should be, frankly. If they're good, they'll do well. Same thing with

the Rivian, same thing with everybody that drops a new EV into the market. But you could also be

like companies like Honda that take a look at things and are like, you know what, we are going

to take a bath here now and in the hopes that we can avoid a much bigger problem down the road.

Honda dropping three planned US-built electric vehicles that were supposed to start going on

sale this year. We're talking billions of dollars. They just rode off to kill this program and focus

on gas and hybrid vehicles. It's interesting that they made a point that it's interesting to see

Honda make this call while Toyota and Subaru continue to push forward with their new EV lineups.

Honda obviously read some tea leaves and said, this is bad idea. And my point of view is it's

not like Honda isn't going to find great use for the manufacturing capacity that would have been

dedicated to these vehicles and probably be able to sell vehicles that have a more ready and willing

customer. It certainly builds the Accord and the Integra at the same factory that they were setting

up the electric vehicle production at. So expect to see more of those on the road. And now I'm

going to be interested to see if Honda sticks out this Formula One thing because it's not starting

off too well for them with Aston Martin. They've been having a lot of technical issues. But just

as a quick recap to the Formula One season kickoff in Australia, we've got to talk about Ford

and Cadillac, how they did there as well. Interesting, both teams, Cadillac and the

flagship Red Bull team both had one DNF and one finish. In the case of Cadillac, the finish

was Sergio Perez who came in 16th, three laps down. I think he was the last car that was still

running at the end. While Max Verstappen in the Red Bull, Ford drove from 20th on the starting

grid to finish 6th. So Ford looking a little bit better there, plus the racing bulls using

the Ford motors finished 8th and 13th in the race. Going into China this weekend as we speak,

they just wrapped up qualifying for the sprint race and Cadillac came in dead last. One of the

cars didn't even put down a time and had a battery issue. The other one had a fuel system issue

and put down a pretty slow time. It's just interesting to see Cadillac struggling so much

still when you've got Haas using the same Ferrari-sourced engine finishing 7th and 11th

at Australia. Now I know that's a team that's been around for 10 years, but still it seems like this

is less about the Cadillac chassis and more about the power unit. And I kind of feel like

they have the engineering might to figure this out. I didn't expect them to be a front runner,

but to see them this far back even now is a little bit surprising to me.

I didn't really have high expectations for Cadillac at all coming in. Brand new team put together

fairly quickly considering all the drama that surrounded the brand's entry into Formula One.

They're not the only ones with problems in Formula One. There's a particularly visible and bad

because it's a high profile brand new OEM in Formula One. The S to Martin problems are a mess.

I would say we're about a month away from seeing what everybody actually has as they still sort

through figuring out how to best deploy this new Formula. And it sounds like this weekend they're

going to cancel the two Middle Eastern races as well. So there's another gap that's going to get

thrown into the schedule. And everyone's probably going to update the rules because these new power

units aren't working out that way. Everybody hates them. Everybody hates them. Fans don't like them.

I know that it was juicy to watch the opening laps of the race where it was like passing like

you were watching IndyCar. All of a sudden there's all this overtaking and passing,

but in the end it's not what I think anybody wants. So they've got problems to solve and figure

out. Fortunately, the Formula One season is endless and there is time for stuff to change.

Listen, if nothing else is going to be very interesting and there'll be all kinds of drama

and X and all the other social platforms are going to be full of people yelling and screaming

about stuff and be very entertaining. Are we going to still watch the races? Yeah, we're just

many question marks. It means that from the mid-pack back, there's a bunch of interesting

stuff that can still happen. Mercedes looks like it's got its act together and are the team to be,

you know, as a lot of people predicted. Ferrari looked, you know, fairly promising. Max is Max,

but you know, Hadjar looked good in qualifying. You know, that car caught fire. So I mean,

there's so much of the season still to come. We'll see what happens. One would hope to see

some growth. And I think that that's really all Cadillac can really hope for. Nobody expected

Cadillac to go in there and contend. Let's see if they are able to have both cars fit by, you know,

mid-season toward, you know, let's have both cars finishing the race, not laps down and take things

that, you know, step by step. The rest of the guys, you know, the established players apart from

Aston Martin seem like they're all going to be shuttling around in competition for the points

positions. Aston Martin is in pretty bad shape too. That one's kind of a big surprise for me.

We've got two certain races coming up, China and Japan, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia then will probably

get canceled as you mentioned. And then we're in Miami for the first of May. So hopefully the U.S.

teams will have their act together by then. Listen, thanks again to Gary Patterson for joining

us today. Good to talk to you, Alex. And folks, we'll talk to you next week on The Gas.

The Gas is a production of A-car, media and American cars and recent.com.

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