Slate Price Revealed, Koenigsegg Jesko Records, Honda Element Returns, and More! THIS CAR POD! EP117
THIS CAR POD! with Doug DeMuro & Friends!
Slate Price Revealed, Koenigsegg Jesko Records, Honda Element Returns, and More! THIS CAR POD! EP117THIS CAR POD! with Doug DeMuro & Friends! · Jun 26, 2026
“964” is a specific generation of the Porsche 911. People like it because it’s a classic 911 shape, but with updates that make it feel more modern than the earlier cars.
A wrap is a vinyl covering you put on the outside of a car to change its color or add designs. It’s like a removable skin, and it costs extra to have it installed.
The Ford Maverick is a small pickup truck. It’s meant to be easier to live with and cheaper than bigger trucks. The podcast mentions it because its starting price has gone up a bit.
Airbags are safety cushions that pop out during a crash. This segment says the base “Slate” version only includes two of them, which means fewer safety features than higher trims.
The infotainment screen is the car’s main display for things like music and navigation. It’s where you control many of the car’s features.
Concept
very simple truck
They’re talking about a truck that’s intentionally kept simple—less tech and fewer fancy features. That can make it easier to live with and maintain, but it won’t feel as “connected” or comfortable as a modern car.
Instead of being made from one big solid piece, the frame is built from sections that are welded together. Welded frames can be easier to build and sometimes easier to fix if damaged.
Car
Tata Nano
The Tata Nano was a super-cheap small car Tata Motors tried to sell in India. It was meant to be affordable for a lot of people, but it didn’t sell as hoped.
The podcast is talking generally about trucks and what kinds of people buy them. It’s not naming one specific truck model in this moment. The point is to discuss what buyers want and how choices can be simplified.
The Hyundai Santa Cruz is a crossover that also offers some pickup-style utility. The podcast mentions it because it feels interesting compared to more typical vehicles. It’s included in a list of cars the speaker is considering.
“Low-range electric” means the battery doesn’t last as long on a single charge. It’s better for shorter trips unless you’re willing to plan charging stops.
Car
Duramax heavy duty
Duramax is a diesel engine used in some heavy-duty GM trucks. They’re saying that diesel heavy-duty trucks attract a different type of customer than the other truck being discussed.
The Ford Ranger is a pickup truck that’s smaller than a full-size truck. It’s meant for people who want truck capability but not a huge vehicle. The podcast brings it up while talking about the small-truck options available.
The Ford Transit Custom is a van used for work or carrying cargo. The podcast mentions it while comparing different van models in the same general family. It’s included as an option in that discussion.
A convertible is a car where the roof can be opened so you can drive with the top down. The hosts are talking about how people want more open-air versions of cars, including SUVs.
The Jeep Wrangler is a popular off-road SUV that’s famous for being easy to drive with the top and doors off. They’re citing Wrangler sales to make the point that people will buy open-air versions of SUVs.
The Ford Bronco Sport is a compact SUV with a more rugged, boxy look. It’s designed to compete with other small SUVs in the same general size class. The podcast mentions it while talking about that segment and styling.
The Honda Element is a Honda model that was famous for being super practical and easy to live with. It had a very square, outdoorsy look and was designed so you could keep it clean and use it for messy stuff.
The Honda Passport is a bigger Honda SUV than the smaller models. The speaker is basically saying it’s not a bad vehicle, but the company may still disappoint people with what it delivers.
The Honda HR-V is a small SUV meant for everyday driving. The podcast talks about it possibly looking more boxy in a future version. It’s mentioned as part of a guess about design and planning.
The 4Runner is a Toyota SUV built for tougher driving and rougher roads. The podcast mentions it while clarifying that it’s not a full convertible. It’s part of an explanation about a vehicle concept connected to the 4Runner name.
Lucid Gravity is Lucid’s electric family vehicle (an SUV/minivan type). The big point here is that people think it costs a lot, but the host says the real transaction price is much lower, which changes how buyers see it.
Car
Porsche
Porsche is a car brand. The hosts are talking about how Porsche (and others) chose to start their EV lineup with sedans, before moving into other types of vehicles.
Car
Rivian
Rivian is an electric-vehicle company that makes SUVs and trucks. In this discussion, it’s used as an example of another EV option people might pick instead of the minivan-style vehicle.
Transaction price is the real final price you end up paying for the car after deals and discounts. It’s different from the price you might first hear in ads or on a website.
The G-Wagon is a very recognizable, boxy Mercedes-Benz SUV. The hosts mention it as an example of a style that customers actually want. They’re saying some companies avoid that look, and then sales can suffer.
The BMW XM is BMW’s big, performance-focused SUV. Here it’s mentioned as an example of a company going in a different styling direction instead of copying the classic boxy look. The point is about how design choices can affect sales.
A second shift is basically an extra work schedule at the factory. If they remove it, the factory makes fewer cars per day. The hosts connect that to the company not being sure how many cars they can sell.
They’re talking about Lucid’s factory in Arizona. Eliminating a production shift usually means the factory is making fewer cars. That can happen when the company thinks it has too many cars already built or isn’t sure demand will match production.
Guidance is the company’s prediction for the future—like how many cars it expects to sell. If they suspend it, they’re basically saying, “We’re not sure yet.” In this segment, it’s tied to uncertainty about sales volume and inventory.
Elevated inventory means the company has more cars sitting around than it expected. If too many cars are unsold, the company can’t be confident about future sales. That’s why they pause their yearly sales guidance in this discussion.
“Range” means how far an electric car can go before the battery runs out. The host is pointing out that this one can go about 500 miles on a full charge, which is a big number.
The Lucid Air is an electric sedan. The podcast says it’s an amazing car and that it impressed someone who was considering buying one. It comes up as a recommendation-style discussion.
Concept
used ones are cheap
They’re talking about how buying the car used can cost less than buying it new. The idea is that the price drops enough that used examples feel like a better deal.
The Toyota Tundra is a big pickup truck. In this story, it’s used as an example of a truck built in the U.S. that gets sold in Japan, where buyers may expect a slightly different level of finish.
The Nissan Murano is an SUV. The episode says that some Murano sold in Japan may have been built for overseas buyers, and that can show up as small cosmetic things like paint specks or slightly uneven body panel gaps.
Paint finish is how the car’s paint looks on the outside—smoothness and how clean it appears. The host is saying that cars made for different markets can end up with slightly different paint appearance.
Panel gaps are the lines of space between body panels. The episode says some cars built for overseas markets may have gaps that look slightly misaligned or uneven, mostly affecting appearance rather than driving function.
Sealant residue is a bit of leftover sealing material from where the car’s body panels are joined together. The episode says some overseas-spec cars may show small traces of it, even if it doesn’t affect how the car works.
A turbo V6 is an engine with six cylinders that uses a turbo to make more power. The hosts are saying that this specific engine type is linked to a serious failure problem that led to recalls.
A recall is when the company admits there’s a serious problem and asks owners to get the car repaired. In this case, they’re replacing engines on some affected vehicles.
In this context, “hybrids” refers to Tundra hybrid versions that use an electric motor alongside the gasoline engine. The hosts claim the hybrid powertrain isn’t affected by the same engine failure issue, implying the underlying hardware/software differs from the non-hybrid setup.
Term
Accent cycle
They’re saying the hybrid truck runs its engine differently than the non-hybrid. Even if some parts are similar, the way the engine is used can change enough to prevent the same problem.
Powertrain means the main parts that make the car move, like the engine and the hybrid/electric system. They’re saying the trucks are similar in layout, so it’s surprising that only one version has the problem.
A hybrid powertrain is the whole setup that lets a hybrid car use gas and electricity. The idea here is that if the gas engine has a problem, the electric side might still be able to get the car moving safely.
This is a U.S. government agency that deals with car safety. They can require car companies to issue recalls if they decide a problem could be dangerous.
A safety recall is when a car maker (or regulators) says a problem could be dangerous, and owners should get it fixed. Here, they’re debating whether the hybrid version counts as dangerous enough to require that kind of fix.
A “six cylinder” engine has six cylinders. The host is saying it can still be great, but if it fails, the car may need to rely on the hybrid system to keep going safely.
They mean the car’s hybrid setup, which uses both gas and electricity. The idea is that even if the main gas engine has trouble, the car can still move using the hybrid system to get to safety.
A powertrain is the car’s “go” system—how the engine’s power gets to the wheels. They’re talking about whether the recall fixes to that system actually help.
“2UZ” is Toyota’s name for a specific 4.7-liter V8 engine. The host is joking about replacing the hybrid system with this regular V8, because they believe it could be more dependable.
In drag racing, the quarter mile is a standard race distance. Cars race from a stop and try to cover about 402 meters as fast as possible, usually measured by time.
Topic
Koenigsegg Jesko Records
This part is about a new record in drag racing. They talk about how fast the car went over a quarter mile and mention there’s video footage.
Term
8.3 seconds
That “8.3 seconds” is how long the car took to run the quarter mile. Faster time generally means the car accelerates better.
189.76 mph is the measured speed at the end of the quarter-mile run. In drag racing, that’s a big performance number because it shows how fast the car gets by the finish.
The Koenigsegg Jesko is a very extreme supercar/hypercar made by Koenigsegg. Here, they’re talking about its published drag-strip times and how fast it can accelerate even without being electric or hybrid.
Rear-wheel drive means the back wheels get the power. That can make launches harder to grip, so it’s impressive when a rear-wheel-drive car still runs very fast times.
Zero to 60 time is how fast a car goes from standing still to 60 mph. Lower numbers mean quicker acceleration.
Term
launch problem
A launch problem means the car doesn’t get off the line as effectively as it should. That can happen if the tires can’t grip or if the power delivery isn’t ideal at the start.
Trap speed is the car’s speed at the end of the drag run. If one car’s trap speed is much higher, it usually means it accelerated harder and kept building speed longer.
Term
power for the same price
This phrase is pointing at a value metric: how much power (engine output) you get relative to the purchase price. Enthusiasts often compare cars this way to judge whether a hypercar’s performance is “worth it” financially.
Term
Z71
Z71 is a Chevrolet “off-road” package. It means the truck is equipped and tuned to do better on dirt, gravel, and rough trails than a regular version.
Friction is what makes motion harder when two surfaces rub against each other. The hosts are basically saying the Lego blocks create a lot of rubbing resistance, which can slow things down.
“Ghost mode” usually means a special driving setting that makes the car quieter or changes how it drives. Here, they’re saying the car has different electric modes, and “Ghost mode” is one of those settings.
Car
Morgan Midsummer Coupe
This is a Morgan coupe concept that’s being designed with help from Pininfarina. The big deal is that it’s supposed to use BMW’s inline-six engine and a ZF 8-speed automatic gearbox.
Term
B58
B58 is BMW’s name for a modern inline-six engine. It’s the engine they’re saying will power this Morgan coupe.
Pininfarina is a company that designs the bodies and styling of cars. Here they’re talking about how its ownership changed and how that might have influenced Ferrari’s decision to do more design work internally.
Mahindra is a big Indian company in the auto business. In this segment, they’re mentioned as the buyer of Pininfarina, which is part of the story about how design priorities changed.
Ferrari is an Italian supercar brand that has historically relied on outside design houses like Pininfarina for many models. The segment’s theory is that Ferrari later preferred bringing design in-house to keep the brand’s “Italian” design direction consistent.
“Midwinter” is the name they think the coupe version should have had, to match the “Midsummer” name for the convertible. It’s basically a joke about how the special editions were named.
These are systems that use a camera to check whether you’re actually paying attention. If it thinks you’re not, it can alert you and may reduce or stop some automated driving features.
They’re talking about putting a fake face (like a bobblehead) in front of the car’s camera. The goal is to trick the car into thinking a real driver is paying attention.
Tesla is the car brand mentioned as an example. The host is saying some Tesla cars use a camera to judge whether you’re paying attention, and people have found ways to trick that camera.
The Peugeot 208 is a small hatchback. In this case, it’s powered by a tiny 3-cylinder engine with a turbo, and the steering is part of what the host notices—small cars often feel more nimble and easier to steer than bigger ones.
Turbocharged means the engine uses a device that packs extra air into the engine so a small engine can feel stronger. “One liter” tells you it’s a very small engine size, and the turbo helps it not feel weak.
A three-cylinder engine has three “power chambers” inside it. It’s common in small cars because it can be efficient, but it can feel and sound different than a four-cylinder or bigger engine.
Power steering helps you turn the wheel with less effort. If it feels very heavy, it can make you think the assist isn’t working, even if the car is just set up differently.
The Chevrolet Captiva is a compact SUV. The podcast mentions it because the host says they weren’t given one as a rental car. It’s brought up as part of a story about rental choices.
Abruzzo is a region in central Italy with lots of mountains and twisty roads. They’re using it to explain how different cars feel when the driving is very tight and curvy.
The Miata is a small two-seat convertible roadster. It’s designed to be light and fun to drive, especially on curvy roads. The podcast mentions it because the speaker is considering it as a possible car to have.
The Lexus LFA is a rare, high-end supercar from Lexus. People love it because it has a special high-revving engine and a very distinctive “supercar” personality.
This is a Porsche 911 Turbo from the 964 era. “Turbo” means it uses a turbocharger for stronger acceleration, and this generation is a classic enthusiast favorite.
The Lotus Emira is a sports car made for driving enjoyment. The podcast mentions it while talking about sports-car choices. It’s included as one of the cars the speaker is thinking about.
LIVE
At the North Face, it's never just a hike.
Not if you're stuck on the same old trail.
It's your chance to unearth a new kind of trail.
Wide open and yours to define.
An opportunity to become part of something bigger and wilder.
What will you find out there?
The North Face.
Never stop exploring.
I see you.
Avatar Fire and Ash is now streaming on Disney Plus.
It's the film critics are calling the best Avatar yet.
Go, go, go, go!
A true epic and completely jaw-dropping.
This is the only purest thing in this world.
Return to Pandora on Disney Plus.
It will be an adventure for the whole family.
And watch the Oscar-winning phenomenon at home.
This is sick!
Avatar Fire and Ash now streaming on Disney Plus.
Rated PG-13.
Hello and welcome to this car pod.
I'm Kenan.
I'm Filippo.
This is a big one, folks.
No one is local.
Kenan, I guess, is.
I don't know.
But Filippo appears to be in some sort of Porsche enthusiast studio.
You know it.
It's a 2-VR now.
You got like an Eames chair, a 964, and one of those speaker things.
This person has a watch collection that would...
You know what?
Am I right, Kenan?
This person is wearing a Marantz t-shirt.
Like, they just love looking.
What kind of studio you're sitting in is currently...
is currently touching his man bun while discussing
deviated stitching options with his Porsche enthusiast friends.
There are a couple of Porsches in this garage.
Tasteful.
That's unfortunate.
All right.
We got a lot to cover today.
Let's start with our news stories.
Go ahead, Kenan.
What you got?
Oh, it's the first news story.
It's notable because pricing has been revealed for the Slate vehicles.
Do you want to guess what the starting price is?
It's like 25, right?
Yeah, 25 grand without destination.
We don't know the destination pricing yet.
What the pickup truck is, just as a quick reminder of specs,
these have like 200-ish miles range.
It's a pickup truck.
It's somewhere a little bit longer than a VW Golf in length.
It's a pretty small truck.
And as the base price, we will drive 200-ish miles of electric range,
EV-only, crank windows, no stereo, et cetera.
I'm just going to tell you right now this isn't going to sell.
So that's the issue, right?
They also have other body styles.
The entire thing is that it's very customizable.
So if you want a color, if you don't want it to be raw metal,
you need to get a wrap.
The wrap starts at $500 plus install.
You can also add in speaker grills and different dash panels.
Can I just put it after this?
The Maverick starts at 27.
It's gone up a little bit.
It's like 29 something in the destination.
No, no, no.
I'm looking.
A 26 Maverick starts at 27.145 without destination.
And that's apples to apples because we don't have destination on this Slate thing.
Maverick's 27.
Maverick has four doors.
It paint.
It's paint.
They paint the Maverick right there for you.
Yeah.
Has a stereo radio.
They do the painting right there for you.
Yeah.
And the nation has kind of turned on EVs in general.
And obviously, now people are going to watch this, the internet people.
No way.
This is so cheap truck, little truck.
This is what everybody wants.
Nah.
Also, you can add a square back SUV and a fastback SUV.
Those are the square back.
The square back is $5,000 additional.
So you're at 30 predestination.
The fastback is 32 predestination.
You're just not competitive.
Does that come with a 3C bench?
What other stuff does a base Slate not have?
It only has two airbags.
No, no, no.
Adding the SUV adds two airbags.
What other stuff does a base Slate not have?
It doesn't have a stereo.
It doesn't have a key fob, as far as I can tell.
It doesn't have a center armrest.
It doesn't have a door, like a padded armrest.
There's a lot of things that you can add and you can customize.
It doesn't have an infotainment screen.
There's a spot for your phone.
It's very, very, very bare bones.
And they, if you read their engineering interviews and the few folks have driven it and talked
to their teams, the Atopian included.
And if you read their reviews, their engineers are very proud of the fact that this is a very simple truck.
Like the frame is not like a single cast.
It's a bunch of welds together.
Every kind of component is really really simple.
Do you remember, do you remember how the Tata Nano was going to change India?
Of course.
For $7,000.
20 years ago, Tata came out with this little car called the Nano that it was like seven grand new.
And it was going to change India.
And what happened was no one bought it.
Now, I also remember some modular cars where you could customize them.
Ken and remember the Z1?
Oh, of course.
Yeah.
The idea was that if you could do it and you change every panel on the car yourself in essence and totally change the car in the car.
And guess what?
No one did that.
I think that was the only people I know that actually documented it.
Like, wheeled dealers did it.
And it's supposed to be fast.
Took them like a week.
Multiple days with like trained mechanics in a shop.
The smart car was the same way initially, believe it or not.
And oh, Flippo's gone.
You know, it's fine.
The smart car was the same way initially.
And that didn't work either.
No one really ever bothered to change the color.
And for the second generation, the color changing situation was gone.
Given that you're not the Slate Truck consumer, tell us what your thoughts are on simple vehicles.
Well, I do like a simple vehicle despite being someone who owns only complex vehicles.
But I do think that, like, I liked the idea of it when it came out and it made sense in that context.
But we all knew they just weren't going to hit their targets.
So what I think they need to do is release another Wes Anderson style Q&A session with the CEO.
Because that really, really got us where we needed to go with it last night.
She's out.
She's out.
She's out.
I don't know.
I mean, I just, why would you get this?
It just doesn't make sense economically.
I don't think there's a lot of demand for it in the U.S.
I mean, I guess if you order on Amazon Prime, it shows up the next day.
That's nice.
But I don't know.
Right.
You know what problem I have also is ultimately EVs are for rich people.
Like the infrastructure required and the lifestyle situation required to have an EV right now
makes them kind of a rich person car.
It's just sort of the reality.
You got to have a house.
You got to have a charger.
Like, yes, you can charge in public.
There are a lot of people who do it with Model 3s, but in general, it's easier if you have more money to have an EV,
which is why most EVs have been shooting for high-end segments.
And this truck is attended to appeal to people who are like at the kind of lower-end entry-level of the pickup segment.
But it's like 25 grand for the truck.
But then you also have to figure out your charge situation.
And you can't be driving more than 200 miles between charges, which is not a significant distance,
or 100 when it gets cold.
It's just, it'll be interesting.
And I know there's going to be a thousand people replying to this and being like, this is what the people want.
We'll see.
I have a suspicion.
We'll see.
Yeah.
I sort of feel the same way about it.
I'm excited to see it.
I'm very excited for you to review it.
But nonetheless, it just seems like a tough sell in a lot of regards.
Filippo, we kept going.
I'm glad you did.
Well, Filippo is there.
He's seen it.
He was at the launch event.
He got a tattoo.
Filippo, I know that you're hanging out with your Porsche enthusiasts right now,
discussing 997.2-wheel options.
Oh, the Carrera classics.
But can you tell us, you agree this slight thing is going to fail?
I think their hope is that there's like a cuteness, novelty, personalization.
That doesn't last.
I agree.
They maybe get a few reservations, a few sales, but it's not competitive.
I think they're going to have a great first model year when you have a lot of pent-up
demand interested in this little cool, interesting, new, exciting truck.
I think they're going to have one great first model year, like a lot of cars that
primarily sell based on their sort of wow, interesting factor.
And then like the Santa Cruz, honestly.
And then after that, you're going to be struck trying to find people who are going to be
hard to find.
I'm not even sure it'll be that successful first year.
The Fiat 500E that you reviewed, it's a new generation.
It's a low-range electric.
It's cute.
It has like the like, it makes weird noises and plays like, oh to joy or something.
Yeah, yeah.
Something like that.
That's cute.
That's funky.
It's not a practical fit in the market.
It's not competitive.
And that's going to be true for this late too.
No.
Right.
You would rather have a Maverick, Filippo?
Yeah, 100%.
And people have asked me, and I've heavily recommended a Maverick.
Would you rather have a used Duramax heavy duty?
I think that that's a different clientele.
You know, it's interesting that you say that because I actually think a big competitor
to this truck will actually be used pickup trucks.
Yeah, but not a used, not a Duramax.
But I do think that there are going to be a lot of people who are comparing this because
ultimately it's a price conscious clientele.
There are going to be a lot of people who are, and now there are a lot more midsize
and small trucks in the U.S. market between Ranger in Colorado and Canyon and Maverick
and Santa Cruz.
And there are going to be a lot of people who are comparing it to all of those trucks
as a used product.
And you tell me how this is better than a three year old frontier.
The only way that I think it could have some success is if they lean really heavily into
the commercial market.
If you're a florist and you can make this really tailored to your brand and it's cheap enough
maybe great.
But that's such a niche.
Every florist I know has a Maverick.
Or a Transit Connect.
Or they all have a Ford Transit Connect.
Alright, move on to our next news story.
We got a First New straight car vehicle fails.
Startup vehicle fails.
Speaking of start up vehicles that failed, did you see this, Malipo?
Of course.
The Honda Element is coming back in 2029.
Make it a convertible.
Make it a convertible.
It wasn't a convertible originally.
I know, but everybody wants convertibles now.
They want convertibles originally and look at us now.
How did Topp that came off?
Yeah, but now it just you...
And in the past you had like you and four of your closest friends like over a couple
of cold ones had to pull the thing off.
And now look at us.
The Element will be so much better if it's a convertible.
Please, please.
There was a lack of convertible SUVs on the market today.
You know why, Doug?
Because the market has spoken.
And then it's spoken again.
And then it has spoken again.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
And then it's spoken again.
Excuse me.
Do you know how many sales Wranglers they sold last year?
Are you crazy?
They sold a few.
160.
I don't think the Element is to be priced like that.
They sold 167,000 Jeep Wranglers last year.
People are learning that.
167.
Ford sold 146,000 full-size Broncos last year.
That's 320,000 sales of convertible SUVs last year.
Toyota sits here and they're like, oh, the four-under, the back window goes down.
That's cool, which we all love.
Regardless, the Honda Element is going to come back.
My understanding is that it's going to be like a relatively boxy vehicle, and it's
going to be Broncos sport size and a Broncos sport competitor.
So like a more utilitarian, cutesy, square, HRV, CRV.
It is interesting that you have an understanding.
Do you have an understanding about the roof situation?
Yeah, I know.
And by the way, we're not going to talk about the ability to hose it down because every
Honda Element fan knows that that is a recipe for disaster.
No, no, you just hose it down.
So some mold ends up in the car.
Who cares?
There was an original Honda debate in the Element forums about this.
If mold ends up in the car, Kenan, you know what you do?
You hose down the mold.
Just keep hosing.
It works.
There's no problem.
Why not?
More water pressure.
I'm actually very excited about this.
I love the original Honda Element.
I thought they were really cool cars back then.
So it makes sense to bring it back now.
I think it fits a lot of needs.
And maybe this one, you can actually hose it down.
Maybe they'll actually go the distance.
I think the Element never should have gone out of production.
And I understand sort of why it did.
But I think that if they had committed to it a little bit more, it actually probably could have been.
The boxy thing had kind of died.
There was that scion and all that.
But I think that like a little bit of an alteration and it could have been like an Outback Sport,
Impresa Outback Sport, is that called the Crosstrek competitor?
Like I really, I think it could have like,
Which they need.
Like that space.
Yeah, it would have.
It would have something like that.
I do have an important question, which is with all respect to our friends at Honda,
are you ready to be disappointed?
Oh, wow.
You think it's going to be bad?
No, the Passport's not a bad vehicle.
But you're going to have these ambitions.
What they won't commit.
Yeah, that's you're so right.
They won't commit to like make, they like, they like take an idea and then water down the idea to the point where it's really a disappointment.
It's going to be like a squared off HRV is my guess.
With some planning.
Yeah, you're probably right.
Yeah, you're right.
But I'm not a competitive.
The previous one, I do sunroofs.
If they do a convertible, Filippo will buy it.
Absolutely not.
If they do a convertible, I will have a conversation about buying it.
I'll tell you what, Honda, I'll make you this promise.
If you do a convertible element, it will be our lead news story on the pod the week you announce it.
You'll get, you'll reach a massive audience.
Yep.
This is my promise to you.
It is a massive audience though.
Was this was this car built in Ohio?
The element.
I don't know the answer to that.
I don't know the answer to it.
I feel like it was, but my favorite.
Yeah, I'm likely wrong with it.
Was it okay?
East liberties.
Yeah.
All right, there needs to be a convertible for our next news story.
Imagine you finally win your dream car at auction, a pristine gated manual supercar.
But to save money on transport, you hire a cut rate hauler with a rusty flatbed and frayed bungee cords.
You wouldn't trust a sketchy trailer with a rare exotic.
It's the same reason why Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury law firm.
It comes down to having the right resources.
Not all law firms are the same.
Hire the wrong one and you might be beat before you even start.
Morgan and Morgan has been fighting for the people for over 35 years and has recovered over $30 billion for their clients.
Hiring them is like showing up to attract a with a full factory racing team.
They have more than 1000 lawyers and 100 offices nationwide.
If you're ever injured by someone's negligence, you deserve to be paid.
Morgan and Morgan fights to get their clients the best results.
If you're ever injured, you can check out Morgan and Morgan.
Their fee is free unless they win.
You can go to forthepeople.com slash a demurrow for more information.
As a convertible driver, I wear sunglasses pretty much year round.
And for the longest time, I've accepted a certain amount of annoyance with them.
You start moving, a run, a bike, a spirited drive, and they slide down your nose.
You've adjusted them constantly or they just come off entirely or maybe they even fog up.
I figured that was just the trade-off.
Then I started wearing Warby Parker Sport.
And what I appreciate is they don't look like performance eyewear.
They're not that competing in the Olympics look.
They look like normal, well-designed sunglasses.
But the upgrades are where it counts.
A nose slip, nose pad so they stay put when you're sweating.
A wrap-around design that widens your field of vision.
And contrast-enhancing lenses that keep things sharp when you're moving.
They block 100% of UV, they're polarized, scratch resistant, and more.
I've worn mine hiking on long walks and they just stay where they're supposed to be.
And Warby does more than sport.
Prescription glasses, contacts, online eye exams, and over 300 stores if you'd still rather go in person.
It's all in one place.
Eyewear that's made to move with you.
Right now, buy one pair of glasses and get 20% off any additional pairs
at warbyparkard.com slash cars.
That's 20% off any additional pairs when you purchase one pair at warbyparkard.com slash cars.
Not a full convertible forerunner.
It is instead that Lucid is cutting an additional 18% of their US workforce.
Saving about $158 million to be analyzed.
They've also lost their chief operating officer, Mark Winterhoff.
Effectively, immediately, they're not replacing him.
How much are the 158 mils saved by Mark Winterhoff?
It's not zero.
They had about 9,000 employees as of last year.
They did 12% layoffs in February and an additional 18% now.
They really are trying to stop burning quite as much cash as they have been.
They weren't able to sell very many gravities to a supplier issue.
They weren't able to build very many.
That's why they couldn't sell them.
I'm going to tell you, it didn't help.
Layoffs are sad and I always feel sad when there are layoffs
because I know how that affects people and it's real.
Lucid's product strategy has been interesting to put it mildly.
We were just talking in our group text story the other day about how insane it is
in the day of SUVs that all these automakers decided that they would launch sedans as their first EV.
Porsche made the mistake, Lucid various others did too.
But then to follow up the sedan with a minivan.
I'm into it. I love the gravity.
The problem is you're a contrarian and most people when faced with a $125,000 minivan or a Rivian,
they're not choosing the minivan.
The secret is that it's not $125,000.
Yeah, that's right.
The transaction price is $41,770.
And by the way, that's why all the layoffs are happening.
A couple of other pieces of news from it so that they are still working on their midsize crossover
that should be revealed soon.
I think that one's for the urban moms or whatever they call it.
It better not look like the gravity.
Lucid, make it boxy.
They will absolutely not make it boxy.
The Kia tell your ride, should tell you everything you need to know.
The funny thing is I've been doing this make it boxy tangent for years
and some automakers have sort of come up with a high and mighty attitude about it.
Like we're not going to go down the G-Wagon road.
We're going to make the XM.
We're going to make the gravity.
Well, when you don't make it boxy, you are rewarded with bad sales.
So that's your choice, I guess.
If you want to do minivans and jelly beans at Anz, it's what you're doing.
Yep.
Also, by the way, very sad news for anybody expecting their gravity.
They eliminated their second shift of production at their Arizona facility.
No one is expecting a gravity.
You can go to any Lucid retailer at your local shopping mall
and order one and it'll be there tomorrow.
It's currently sitting in a field in a bad neighborhood in your town.
Yes.
About a month ago, they suspended all guidance for the year
because they weren't sure how many cars they'll sell
because they have elevated inventory.
So I got some guidance.
Make it boxy.
It's going to be pretty.
You know, the moment I saw that picture of that gravity, I was like,
oh my God, they're going to lay off 30% of their workforce, including Winterhoff.
It's all gone.
Yeah, it's tough.
They did have an UCO earlier this year, a Silvio Napoli,
and now they may make some turnaround changes or they may fail to.
Can I make a suggestion?
Gas-inchant.
Boxy FGV.
I'm a little frustrated by Lucid's failures here
because by all accounts, they have the most advanced, impressive motor technology.
Their motors are no longer lighter than every other EV manufacturer.
I think they have great packaging.
I think they have great interior design and some other components.
The cars are beautiful inside.
Building cars.
Yeah.
Unfortunately, they've made poor product-playing decisions
and have had a lot of reliability issues that make it tough to recommend.
Here's a theory I'm going to posit for you, Filippo.
The Lucid gravity is the Lincoln town car of our generation.
Isn't the Lucid air the Lincoln town car of our generation?
No, the Lucid air would be the M...
Yes, I'm sorry, the air.
The air is the town car.
The gravity is the MKT.
You're right.
I've never seen a young air driver.
Yeah, and also it just looks like that.
It's American-built.
It's like a big-loved man.
I love it, another one.
I kind of want one.
And it has 500 miles of range, which no other EV has still.
The other day, someone asked me if they should get a Lucid air.
And I said, look, they're amazing.
And the used ones are cheap.
And they're incredible.
But they're going to be...
It's going to probably cause some problems.
Some issues.
Yeah.
Okay, Toyota should make a convertible forerunner.
Next news story, please.
All right.
This is...
I keep going out of the stories, I apologize, but this is my very favorite story of the week.
Oh, boy.
Okay.
Truly.
Sean wasn't here to cull his dumb stories this week.
I know.
It's the best.
I have so much freedom.
I don't even know.
I can't even see the picture, but it looks like a manufacturing situation, which makes me nervous.
You will love this story, too.
All right.
So we've talked in the past about how both Toyota and Nissan are shipping cars that are
made in America to be sold now in Japan.
I saw the spurt.
The Tundra, the Highlander, the Murano, among others.
Part of this is driven by the agreement that the Japanese and the US government came to
related to tariffs, opened the door for more imports from the... more exports from the
US to Japan.
But automakers that are doing this are running into an issue, which is that the quality standards
that they build vehicles to for the US market are a little below the quality standards that
the Japanese market is used to.
This has a little more nuance to it, though.
It's like paint finishes are a little bit different.
Not because the quality is different because the workers are bad.
It's because the actual design and creation of the car has a different focus than the
Japan.
The notice on Muranos when they're sold in Japan say, this vehicle is manufactured, specifications
intended for overseas markets.
And vehicle... the SUV, the Murano, may have dust particles in the paint, traces of sealant
residue or misaligned or uneven paneling gaps.
But they don't affect the vehicle's functionality, which may be true.
Well, we all accept that.
We've all come to expect that from Nissan.
It's just that the Japanese haven't yet, but they will.
Tundra, or Tiyoda on the Tundra Highlander also say that they may notice thin paint,
color variations, polishing marks, and dent.
Have they told the Japanese that their Tundra engines could explode?
I think they've kept that one a secret.
I'm going to tell you a story, Filippo, that's going to rock your world.
And I want to cover this in greater detail when we get on to... when I get back.
But this is a real story.
The Tundra, the engines are exploding left and right.
It's a real problem with the Turbo V6, okay?
Exploding engines, exploding engines, both.
They're recalling them.
And they're putting in new motors on some of them.
But my understanding is those new motors also explode.
But the hybrids aren't affected.
And I finally discovered why the hybrids aren't affected.
Are you aware of why?
I'm going to...
No.
Accent cycle.
Same powertrain.
Same powertrain.
So how could it not be affected?
Accent's in cycle.
The answer is hybrids aren't affected by the recall because the recall is government mandated.
And when the gas motor blows, the cars could stop driving and become dangerous in a hazard.
However, when the gas motor blows in the hybrid, and it does, with the same frequency
as the gas powered cars, the hybrid powertrain is sufficient to drive you to a safe place.
This is what Toyota has convinced their regulator.
It's the National Highway Safety Administration.
It's enough to drive you to a safe place, and so the hybrid doesn't need a safety recall
because technically it isn't a safety issue.
You're joking.
I own one of these cars.
And I'm going to tell you something.
If my gas engine blows, the safety issue will be to Toyota and their employees.
From me.
Doug is not threatening by this.
That's a direct threat.
So let me be very clear.
No, not at all.
I'm not going to go to Plano.
I'm not going to do anything like that.
But I will tell caution people not to buy one of these vehicles, which I am now.
I thought that they had a lower incidence rate.
Is that not true?
Oh yeah, yeah.
They're lower.
That's unfortunate.
Yeah.
Suburbant.
Suburbant.
What I find unfortunate is a manufacturer not standing behind its product.
My car is $85,000.
The Hybrid Turn Turbo V6 are the most expensive ones in their lineup.
And these are customers that will never buy a Toyota.
I get so much crap for not buying a Tahoe already.
I don't have a V8.
I'm driving around in this six cylinder, and I sit here and I say, the six cylinder is
so great.
And it is.
It's an amazing powertrain.
Right up until it blows, and I have to use the hybrid engine to safely get to the right
spot to run.
Oh, what a discovery.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's bad.
That's rough.
It looks that way, and the engine could blow up.
That's a tough existence for you.
I waved to another TRD Pro Sequoia owner yesterday.
Oh, was it a salute, or was it an actual just where'd you pull the gun out of the gun?
Different kind of salute there, kind of.
I waved, but unfortunately he was busy doing Trump pro Trump chance while he was driving
in Seimei.
He was like, get America great again.
Right there on the road.
Anyway, he was doing that, then his engine blew, but fortunately he had the ability
with his hybrid powertrain to safely steer off the road.
My goodness.
Yeah.
Anyway, we're going to talk about this a lot more on many more podcasts, and my greatest
hope is that it happens to me when I'm in San Diego, in which case I will be relentless
in my fury toward Toyota.
Do you agree, Filippo?
Imagine if what happens to you not in San Diego.
I think it's more likely considering when the car is in San Diego, it doesn't move until
it goes back to the East Coast.
If that happens to me when I'm in the middle of the country, the wrath that I will create
for Toyota cannot even be explained with rational work.
I'm excited for Friday at 7.30 a.m. Pacific time, 30 minutes after this podcast goes live
for you to get the email from Toyota corporate saying.
I think that Toyota is probably embarrassed.
I'm going to reach out to their PR people for comment on this once again.
I want to cover this in greater detail than the eight minutes to vote on any.
I want to devote 30 minutes to it, but like the PR people know that this is indefensible.
So I am curious what they would say.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're getting a recall notice tomorrow.
Small portion of vehicles and blah, blah, blah.
Silly.
Doug is getting a one off.
It'll be a handwritten one just for him.
Yeah.
Well, fine.
Do that.
But let's the recall powertrains, are they working any better?
I'm not convinced.
You know what I want?
I want them to recall my Sequoia hybrid and put in the 2UZ 4.7 liter VA from the Tundra
and GX470.
God, that'd be such a slow vehicle.
Fine.
Fine.
We're not trying to go fast here, Felipe.
We're trying to be reliable.
Good point.
Good point.
All right.
Let's move on to the pinnacle reliability.
The Mazur I.
Wait, wait.
Before we move on, Toyota should make a convertible forerunner.
All right.
Next.
Sorry.
Two pieces of news on the Mazur I.
I'm keeping this under a minute.
All of their lineup has been refreshed with a new corporate face.
The Gran Turismo has a little bit more power than it did before.
Like before.
Like before.
There's going to be a new Gran Collin 27.
And the Slides of the CO said in meetings with Italian lawmakers this week that they
are an active conversation with two partners to work with Mazur I.
Take that as you will.
You could take that to mean even the Mazur I's PR team has denied this, that they're
looking at acquisition.
They could be looking at a platform sharing, et cetera.
But this is still Antex, which owns about half the brands in the world.
So I don't know what they'd be doing there.
So Mazur I will have some news soon.
Well, great.
Toyota should make a convertible forerunner.
Give us our next slide, please.
What's this?
Yes.
The cuttings saying yes, go.
Life a quarter mile at a time.
If I recall, you love your quarter mile thing.
So this I want to share some stats with you.
That's right.
So the yes, go recently set a very interesting record.
It was the first production car to break 186 miles an hour in the quarter mile.
That means that means it did a quarter, it does the quarter mile in 8.3 seconds.
Now, Doug, you've done a lot of quarter miles.
Let that number sink in for a moment about how fast that is.
No, I mean, I've never been in a car that doesn't quarter that fast.
I used to do a lot of quarter mile drag racing.
It's hard to imagine.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, the plaid, the plaid pride does that close to that.
And I've never done a full quarter and it's probably insane.
Right.
So to be specific, it surpassed 300 kilometers an hour.
So the actual speed was clocked at was 189.76 miles an hour.
Trev speeds 190 miles an hour in a quarter.
In the quarter.
Yeah, that's crazy.
But my favorite part about this story, like that's one thing and very admirable.
There's footage of this that they recorded.
And you know, Doug, you've been there on the line, setting the corner, you know, you're
focused, you're holding the steering wheel nice and tight, you know, pointing it straight.
This guy sets the quarter mile.
The drivers set the quarter mile holding a phone.
He did it one handed recording with a phone, which is mind blowing to me.
He was doing 190 miles an hour one handed.
Is this not an official Koenigsegg lap this quarter mile time?
This is what they have published.
Quarter mile at 8.5 four seconds and it was verified.
It's also incredibly impressive given that it's rear wheel drive.
It's not electric.
It's not hybrid even.
That's wild.
Yeah, it's an insane figure.
Was that true?
I don't know anything about this car.
Yeah, everything I said there is accurate as this is the thing.
So I said this podcast generally tends to be.
I will say that there's zero to 60 time, which is 2.35 seconds according to this.
It's not the fastest zero to 60, but it must just like the first.
I think the slower than that quarter mile.
There's a launch problem because it's not for a drive and it's not.
We will drive it not hybrid.
Yeah, but then it then it seems to catch up.
OK, what does the 01 X do in the quarter?
Nine something.
Nine's that's so slow.
No, 8.675 at 160.
What does this thing do again?
Kenan, so they were clay that they claim that it took 8.54 is what they were clocked out
for quarter.
It's interesting because the trap speed tells you why the Koenigsegg is so much faster.
The 01 X hits 160 at 8.675, but the Koenigsegg was going 190, which tells you just how
quickly it is accelerating still as it is accelerating.
It is getting so so so much faster.
So it's got this incredible high speed thing that just happens incredibly fast.
That's pretty well.
Yeah, that was the 01 X.
The most impressive supercar.
It's not that expensive for the performance it puts out.
It's faster.
Justin can be a friend of Hagerty did a drag race with the new Tamarario.
Call other cars.
The 01 X blows by all of those cars in the quarter mile and there was 60 and a half
percent power for the same price.
Less you consider one if there was a stratovert.
A 01 X strato.
That'd be weird.
You wouldn't consider one for Kenan.
I'll consider anything, but I'm not going to buy it.
So that's how I like it.
I really want an E-Ray slash Grand Sport X.
Would you get an E-Ray strato?
I does not change my I would actually.
Yeah, I would get an E-Ray strato.
Yeah, there we go.
There we go.
I think that they would call it E-Ray.
Oh my goodness.
What is the Chevrolet off road for 80 84?
That's G.
That's him.
Z71 high country.
E-Ray trail boss.
An E-Ray trail boss.
I would 100 percent consider.
Okay.
Okay.
We're having some this is also a convertible for runner.
I would do that too.
Yeah.
Toyota should make a convertible for runner on to our next news story.
Here's something I appreciate about mothers.
The official car care provider of cars and bits.
They're actually car people.
Family owned and operated since 1973.
Everything formulated right in Huntington Beach, California.
These are products built by enthusiasts for enthusiasts and it shows the one I'd point
to is their California gold ceramic line.
California coatings always felt like this intimidating leave it to the pros thing.
Mothers makes it simple.
Spray it, wipe it, done.
Professional grade results in your own driveway without the professional grade price tag.
And because mothers is available almost anywhere, you're not tracking down some boutique product
online.
You can go grab it today just in time for the holiday.
Whether you're prepping a car for auction or you just want it looking right in the driveway,
there's no shine like mothers.
Head to mothers.com to check out the full lineup and find what's right for your car.
Give it that mother's love.
More Koenigsegg news.
So recently at Goodwood Koenigsegg said another record, not as a year to 61, but they did
it with a Lego car.
So they had a version of the Seder Spear built completely out of Legos.
And it's that a new record going up Goodwood Hill for a Lego vehicle, which is 69 miles
an hour.
Nice.
Wait, wait, wait.
What?
They drove a Lego car.
What is the Seder Spear?
What the hell is that?
That's another Koenigsegg creation.
The whole point with this is Koenigsegg, pick it up with Lego because they're releasing
another Lego kit like in their supercar thing.
And to promote that, they wanted to do something special.
So they built a life-size model of this thing completely out of Lego, 327,000 pieces.
And it weighs 4,000.
It has an engine.
The engine's not out of Lego.
The engine, okay, not completely out of Lego, but mostly out of Lego.
But it nonetheless, like it did it.
It was obviously a publicity stunt, but I think it's really cool when they do stuff
like this.
They're driving a Lego car at Goodwood.
At Goodwood.
What do you mean all you need to do?
It's made out of little blocks that stick together really well.
They're well-engineered.
It's all friction.
They must be there.
I'm looking at the picture of the car.
What do you think bolting something down is?
You're just creating a lot of friction.
Here's my problem with this.
But a very different way.
Yeah, what you're insane.
I'm not fundamentally wrong.
No, you are fundamentally wrong.
Here's the problem.
I'm looking at a picture of the car.
There's brakes.
There's wheels.
There's tires.
I think they just took a Koenigsegg-like base plate to use Lego terminology and just
kind of created the body out of Lego.
Is the interior Lego?
Is the interior Lego?
I think it is.
My understanding is that it's Lego.
Also, there are a bunch of other electrically.
There's like other mechanical features.
Ghost mode works.
So there are other electric modes.
What?
By the way, I got a picture of the interior.
Oh my God, it's mostly Lego.
Can I?
I would like to say my favorite fact about this, which is it is heavier than the actual
car.
It weighs more than a thousand pounds.
It's very heavy.
What did it weigh, Kenner?
4000 pounds is what they claimed it weighed, which is a lot.
Almost exactly as much as a slate.
It's built the same way.
Modulally, exactly.
You know, it's interesting because one other interesting thing that I was thinking of this
week is that Toyota should make a convertible forerunner.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Next, we have any more to restore it?
We have one more.
Yes, we have one more.
So this is a Morgan.
So Pininfarina, a design house that we all love, largely has been making industrial products.
They make Coke dispensers, like this sort of thing.
Well, recently they paired up with Morgan to release this.
They're calling it the Midsummer Coupe.
It's going to be powered by the B58, the great BMW 6-cylinder, and it's going to use the
8-speed ZF transmission.
But I think it looks absolutely spectacular.
Yeah.
Of course, Morgan, you know, a brand not known for advancing their design much, just kind
of keeping their 1930s look.
I think this actually looks wonderful.
And I think it's kind of proof that Pininfarina can make a beautiful car.
Yeah, it's like a beautiful modernization of a Morgan, and it kind of looks like a Bugatti
at Alante.
There is a little bit of Alante.
This is something that I think you should consider, Flippo.
Well, unfortunately, Flippo won't be able to consider it, because they're only building
nine of them.
So it might be a bit tough.
He can conceptualize it.
We'll get him a model, maybe.
Can I have the Lego version?
We'll see.
Maybe not only 4,000 pounds as well.
Yeah.
But you have Lego version.
No, I said version.
I think he set it with a W, because he's trying to be like a Porsche guy.
He's trying to be like German.
He's sitting in that office, and it's rubbing off on him.
But they don't have Ws in German.
It's all Vs.
No, it's the V and W are switched.
Flippo.
Oh, that's right.
That's one of those.
Flippo, are you becoming a Porsche person by just being a Porsche?
Well, you know what?
But he didn't say Vintahauff.
That's what I was expecting him to say.
He held back, though.
I could tell he was thinking it.
But nonetheless, I think this is really cool.
Of course, we'll be very unlikely to ever see one, but it is proof.
I really would love to see Pininfarina go back and do more cars.
I know we had talked about, like, with the Luce.
Like, oh, Pininfarina been designing it.
And you specifically, Doug, said, they're not who they used to be.
I don't know.
I think if they still can exercise taste like this, it would be like similar cars.
I'm going to clarify that comment, because I would be very diplomatic, because I think
it was in a commissive video.
And we had a pod we could be a little bit more outgoing.
Pininfarina was purchased by the Indians, Mahindra.
And I think that Ferrari decided that they did not want their vehicles.
This is my theory slash I've heard from people that it's true.
Ferrari did not want their vehicles designed by, I mean, Pininfarina is Italian.
When it is no longer Italian, Ferrari was thinking, let's just bring design in-house,
because we are Italian.
And I think that's what happened.
Not that it's lost its luster.
Not that it's not the same, whatever.
I think it was more that there was a new owner and Ferrari didn't see that as a credible
situation for them.
Now this is a beautiful car.
Do you know there's a convertible, Kenan?
Yes.
Yes, I do know there's a convertible.
And I think they made 50 of those.
So they're doing more.
They made 50 convertibles.
Why are they only doing nine coupes?
I don't know.
Maybe that's all the tooling can handle.
They couldn't get enough trees to build the rest of the car.
I don't know.
You know what's a mistake?
You know what's a mistake?
The convertible is called the Midsummer.
The coupe should have been called the Midwinter.
Oh, the Midwinter, as Philippa would say.
As Philippa, yeah.
Well, Philippa wouldn't even pay attention to it because it's not a Porsche.
And he's sitting in this room.
No, but it has, that's true.
It has a German heart, but not a Porsche one.
That's true.
So it goes over here.
I met Andreas Pruninger once.
That's what he's telling us.
That's what he's called.
AP is what we call it.
AP, I call them APs.
He and me and I, I know them.
All right, we have one last news story.
How do we have one more?
My God.
Producer Sean added from a literal train.
He's on a train.
What is this?
There is currently a trend in China.
So there's a bunch of cars that have driver monitoring systems that are making sure that
there's somebody actually paying attention.
I don't want to do that.
They have figured out that if you attach a bobblehead of a face right in front of the
camera, and this is especially true in Tesla's, but not only Tesla's, you can trick the camera
into thinking that you are paying attention and you are driving and you don't actually
need to be driving or maybe even the driver's seat for it to operate.
And that's all we're going to say about that.
Period.
But then you also have to drive around with a bobblehead strapped to the roof of your
car.
I mean, it's a ridiculous looking thing.
Well, I think it just looks like the perspective makes it look like you're in the seat even
if you're not.
And for Tesla's full-time driving, it makes you think that you're awake.
I'm in the seat.
It's questionable.
Don't do that, people.
Just don't do that.
Okay.
That's great, Felipe.
I really appreciate that lovely good...
Good reporting.
...your information.
Well, for the talk cars segment and in this segment, the thing that we do is we talk about
cars.
I have nothing to say about cars except that Toyota should make a convertible forerunner.
But Felipe has just returned.
He was gone for, I think, a month.
I was gone for two weeks, but...
Yeah, but Felipe was a month.
If you go back and look at the podcast, it's been a month where you haven't been here.
It's been three full podcasts.
And I think it's been a month.
I think it's been a month very much.
Okay.
I got a lot of comments on my posts that apparently I ignored text messages.
You do.
You absolutely do.
I look like it's true.
You did not reply to a number of text messages I sent you.
If you text me directly, I'm with you.
Nick didn't listen.
I know you don't watch the pod, but Nick called you out for that.
And I think it's because he doesn't understand time zones.
Nick has never traveled before.
You gotta remember that.
He's never been anywhere.
That makes sense.
That explains it.
Yeah.
And so he didn't understand, I think...
I'm being sort of serious.
He didn't understand, I think, that there's a time zone issue.
He's like, I don't...
People won't reply to me.
I just sent a message at 7 PM.
He was like, what's going on?
Here's what happens.
We have a text thread.
I don't think this is a secret.
That is quite active.
But it's quite active late in the evening Pacific time, which is the middle of the night.
And honestly, if you miss it, you're done.
I'm like, I love you all.
But I also enjoy sleep.
I enjoy spending time with my family.
I enjoy not being on my phone in vacation.
I spend a lot of time on my phone on Slack and in emails and in text messages.
And it's nice to disconnect.
But it's great to be back and talking to you guys.
Now that you're reconnected.
So what did you write?
You rented some Pujo that didn't look all that good.
Yeah, I rented a Peugeot 208, a three cylinder, one liter turbocharged, small steering wheel,
really small steering wheel.
Also, the latest steering.
I've rented a 208 before.
It's a very common rental car in the subcompact class.
I had a 1.44 cylinder last time.
Let me ask you a question, Lebel.
The serious, I want to finish this.
The serious, so light when I got home and drove our Mercedes, I legitimately thought
for the first 20 minutes that like my power steering was broken because it was so heavy.
And the steering wheel of my Mercedes is so big.
Your Mercedes has unusually heavy steering, I will say.
The Peugeot just has such light steering that it's a surprise.
Do you, why didn't you rent something cool like a Chevy Captiva?
Thankfully, I was not given a Chevy Captiva.
I've previously been given an Opel Grand Tour, which is a larger Chevy Captiva, literally,
and I demanded that they switch it up.
I went on a lot of very tight roads, and so a small car is all that can do.
In Abruzzo, which is like an area east of Rome by a couple hours in the mountains, some
of the best roads I've ever been on, some of the tightest roads I've ever been on, the
208 felt large.
I was thinking about this a lot.
If I had a Miata, which I could have rented from a different company for four or five
bucks a price, the Miata would have been almost too big.
You know what, Fulmo is too powerful.
I find it a little weird.
You're rich, like very rich.
No, I'm not, though.
You could have rented a Miata.
It would have been so much more money.
I can't do that.
How much more would you want?
My rental car for two weeks was $507.
A Miata would have been $2,200.
That's not worth it.
That's not worth it.
Yeah, $2,200 for two weeks, like $100 a day.
My comparison point is $500.
I'm not spending an extra $1,700 of Miata.
Yeah, no.
I mean, that's who you are at your point.
That's what I am.
I'm not sure I would have spent an extra $700 of Miata.
Extra $7, yes.
Extra $7,000, sure.
On the saving money versus fund scale, you're always going to err on the side of saving
money.
Yeah, but I had a phenomenal vacation of love.
Yeah, was it great?
It was so nice.
I really disconnected from you all.
Thank you.
I'm glad that you did.
You needed to.
I did.
Did I eat anything cool?
Yeah, like nachos.
No, no nachos.
A lot of food.
Italy, the land of nachos.
Land of nachos.
People say it's kind of a nacho if you don't think about it too much.
Cheese, bread, cheese.
It's just sort of cooked in a slightly different way than nachos.
Different ingredients.
Not that different order.
Filippo, you ran into the mule mulea.
I did.
I was driving out with some family.
We were coming back from something and we ran across a bunch of children on the side
of the road.
We didn't run into them.
We saw a lot of children at each intersection on the side of the road.
I wondered out loud, what do we think is happening?
My wife very kind of looks it up and the mulea mulea is about to pass through like 10 minutes
later.
I rushed my family back to where we were staying.
They didn't want to be a part of this.
My wife and I went back out and hung out at a lakeside little bar cafe to watch a lot
of cool cars go by.
Can I ask you a question?
You must have been very flummoxed by all the cars.
I don't know anything about any of them.
But except for the Lexus LFA.
The Lexus LFA I knew about.
Some of the support vehicles, because a lot of the people running it have support vehicles.
We were outside the little cafe and the owners son and daughter very clearly were out there
on the street.
I was hanging out with my wife between cars going by because they're spread out by that
point.
They start off altogether but then some drive faster than others, some break down, some stop
for a cigarette and a espresso.
One alpha hits out on the alpha.
The kids were getting so excited about specific cars.
I was looking to them and I realized the only cars they cared about were anything new and
loosely exotic.
Any new 911?
Really excited.
They lived in an old car.
It made me realize how spoiled we are.
We see top tier super cars, hyper cars, sports cars, the rarest and coolest variants every
week in San Diego.
When you live out in Southern California, you see them.
When you're part of the car community in Southern California, you really see them.
These kids don't see a base on the level ever.
It's rural Italy.
It's occasionally a tourist drives through in a Ferrari California with German plates.
That's it.
That's the best you can hope for.
Dude, you were especially into it.
I would argue that you especially are spoiled sitting in that Porsche room with your, you
probably have a man bag.
991 GT3 RS and a 964 Turbo here.
Man.
So yeah, we're a little spoiled.
But it was a refreshing reminder of what they'll get excited.
What still excites kids, which just turns out that new sports cars still do.
Some of the old stuff, all the drivers were so sweet and were waving and honking as they
went by people.
Did you talk to the kids in Italian?
Of course.
Did you say, hi, my name is Filippo.
I would like to sit at this cafe.
No, because it turns out when you go to a cafe to order things, you just kind of go
up there.
You don't need the conversation and you order.
You don't need to say, my name is Filippo.
I want to order food from your cafe.
You just go and you chitchat and you order food from the cafe.
I'm glad that you had at least one automotive experience, Filippo.
And it appears you're having another within this, in this, this Porsche world that you're
in.
It was so good.
I love Italy.
Everybody should go to Italy.
And I now have a few additional regions that I had not been to since I was a kid to recommend.
Italy is the greatest country.
It is the greatest country.
Yeah.
But I mean, tell them that.
Uh-huh.
What did you say?
What did you say?
Yeah.
Yeah.
When did, where would you put Greenland on your list?
Mid to lowish.
Lowish.
No, it's a trick question.
It's not a country.
Okay.
Long story.
That's the territory of Denmark.
Now, in fact, they just use regular Denmark license plates, but, and this is the key,
they start with GR.
Oh, I thought you meant Greenland.
And that means Greenland.
Get in.
Get in.
Get in.
Get in.
Get in.
Get in.
Get in.
We got it.
We got it.
We got it.
I'll tell you some things.
That's, we got to move on from that.
Yeah.
So, couple of things.
So one is the, so I have a car live right now.
I'm very excited.
The first Ken and R car officially is live since I launched, which I'm very excited about.
You said it while I was gone.
And I'm so excited for you.
Yes, it did.
Thanks, Filippo.
I really appreciate that.
It's a little bit of a miracle.
You know what's going to happen to Filippo?
Yeah.
Ken and I are personally friends and do, yeah, we, we live like a block apart from what
the MCTC took.
I'll tell you this.
He stunned me on the podcast, but he told everybody.
That's because you can live on the other coast.
It's hard to communicate.
And then later in the podcast, he found me a Toyota Super.
I did.
Speaking of Toyota sports cars, the Amira.
Yeah.
So the, well, no, no, because this one is not, this one has the four cylinder.
There only been 14 cylinder offer in cars of men's before, but this has the AMG
and 139 turbo charge four cylinder, which I think is, I was reflecting upon this
the other day when I was looking at the stats.
I never thought that I would see the day when a four cylinder from a manufacturer would
make more power than my 39 and five's five liter VA.
But here we are.
And like, I personally love the Amira.
I think it's one really.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because you got like 395 394.
That's right.
It's got me by a little bit half the cylinder count more power.
Unbelievable.
Wow.
But nonetheless, like it's fit.
This one, I think Hethel yellow is the right color for this car.
It looks so good.
And this is a really nice example.
4,000 miles.
And it's got all the great stuff with it.
But it's so cool.
I worked with Frank Harrington from the photographer's garage on this one who took amazing pictures
of this car as he always does.
And yes, this is the very first one.
I'm really excited.
It's being offered with no reserve.
So go check it out when you can.
But wait, sorry.
Can I say that we talked about the, the, the, we know that the six cylinder manual is going
away and then they're replacing the six cylinder and the four cylinder with their French Chinese
built.
Yep.
Yeah.
The end.
There was a brief period where you can get an AMG four cylinder in the mirror.
Correct.
Yeah.
And I talked to the owner of this car, the first words out of his mouth where it's still
it's the AMG four cylinder.
They want to make sure I knew that, which I, I fully, fully did.
But nonetheless, really, really, yeah, great powertrain in a lot of really cool cars and
just, I just can't believe that kind of power can be made with four cylinder car, but it
can.
And the mirror is, you know, I think one of the coolest cars, Tim, but okay, now there
is something else I wanted to mention in addition to this.
So a friend of mine who has a Ferrari 575 sent this to me, but there's a guy, there's a YouTube
video that just came out recently of a guy who did a full US tour, went to all 48 continuous
states in a Ferrari 575.
He added it was, I think it's 14,000 miles to his car doing this drive, which is unbelievable.
As Ferrari's right now, it becomes super valuable cars.
Like they're just on fire and not in the normal way.
Their values are just skyrocketing.
It's so cool to see one go out and actually, you know, use this car and like go drive it
around.
He did a video talking about like his experiences.
I mean, I don't think he saw a bison like you did with your Aston Martin Doug, but nonetheless,
this guy like took it to, he took it like to small towns, like drove it around, had great
conversations and it was just like a reminder to me that even if your car is something really
special, like go out and use it and have experiences and share it with people.
That's when you drive the most pleasure out of it, which is especially rare in the Ferrari
community.
It's just like a lot of worries, you know, you're covered up and protected and stuff.
But I mean, this guy just went out and did it, which I think is so, so, so cool.
So, if you had a Ferrari 575 M Marinello, what state would you most want to be driving
it in?
Hmm, that's tough to say.
I mostly would just want to drive it here at home and use it as often as I possibly could.
Yeah, but this guy did a road trip.
Yeah, he did.
I think Colorado has a lot of lovely roads that are suited to it, wide open, wide open,
but then you have nice, beautiful mountain twisty roads.
A lot of great places to use it.
And just spectacular looking out that windshield, seeing that beautiful
long hood and then mountains in the, like, I mean, that would just be amazing.
That's some roads that I think in Arizona is really straight on to like, you know, exercise
the V12 a little bit.
But to that point, oh no, he did see a bison.
Look at that.
But to that point, like he, like I was, because I was curious about reliability, right?
You're going to drive it that far.
That's a lot of, that's, I mean, that's a major that it needs after before.
Yeah, I mean, you must have serviced it during this trip.
A little bit.
So he needed to, he blew through a set of tires, completely wore them out.
No surprise, Pirelli's.
And then he had a clogged AC line, then packing up on it.
But pretty minor stuff.
Like the car just like otherwise did it.
And he also serviced.
He must have done, I mean, 40,000 miles.
He must have done an oil change, you know, and stuff like that.
A 14,000.
But yeah, he made a beforehand, like I would imagine, and probably during, I think he did
do maybe an oil change.
Nonetheless, like the guy just went out and used the car.
And I just think that is like so, so cool.
And yes, I know, like obviously I'm sure I picked up a lot of rock chips and need some
cosmetic reconditioning now, but who cares?
Like, I mean, you're not going to, to go to your grave having, yeah,
he's going to have cool stories to show.
Yeah.
And he like lived.
And so I think it's just a cool reminder.
And I thought it was a really, really cool.
That's great.
So, Lippo, the next time you debate whether you want to get a Miata or a Pujo 2.08 with
a three cylinder, keep in mind that you too could live.
Although I understand you don't wish to.
Okay.
We got to move on from the talk car segment and move on to the incredibly important
market report.
There is a lot of reporting that we have to do about the market.
And the market report is brought to you by the convertible Toyota 4Runner, which
will be coming out, my guess is probably sometime in the next year in order for Toyota
to, to distract us from the fact that they're not recalling hybrid powertrains due to
a small technicality.
It existed.
Don't forget.
Yeah.
So where is it again?
Jesus.
Does Ken and others exist?
It kind of, were you wearing it?
It existed?
No, I wasn't.
Yeah.
The original 4Runner had a removable top.
The original.
It was really like a Tacoma with a removable top on the back and seats.
But yeah, exactly what it was.
I guess.
Market report.
We got to start with the 92.
This was the one of the greatest things that ever happened.
Ken and Pulp C92.
By the way, speaking of Ohio, this is where the 92 is going.
Excellent.
We sold this E92 M3.
It came in and the fellow who bought it, he had owned it from new.
And I don't think he was really paying that much attention to the market
because he was like, oh my God.
He wasn't like thinking he'd get big money.
And I was like, this is a one owner competition final model year, 17,000
Like this is the E92 to end all E92s sold for 97,500 United States dollars.
It's over 100 grand with the fee.
I did a video on it.
I had a lot of fun in that car.
It'd been a long time since I'd driven an E92 M3.
And I had a lot of fun in that car.
I forgot how special it is to have a V8 like that.
Yeah.
And it's it's it's just like this was your absolute right.
This is the car short of like a limerock with a manual and very low mileage.
Like this is it.
But yeah, I mean the the S 65, it's so funny because like they're so different
compared to like my car.
Everybody asked me if I why didn't you get an M3?
It's just revs.
That engine just goes and goes.
You know what?
You know what's interesting?
I've always looked at the torque figure and looked at the torque peak at numbers
and thought well, that engine, it just doesn't have torque.
And so you it's a V8, but it doesn't behave like a V8.
I didn't feel that way when I drove it this time for some reason.
I'm not sure exactly why, but it felt like it was a little torque
year low than I remembered.
Maybe because I remembered it being like an S2000 and it was just
better than my expectation.
But I just really loved that car and that powertrain.
It's a really nice situation.
I don't blame you.
It's actually a more true, I would say, power to like for BMWs.
Yes, it's a V8, but BMW engines are about revs like the engines are high
rev, natural aspirated, like the best ones.
Or I feel like that from this.
But yeah, I mean, it is.
I'm so glad this car got the appreciation.
I feel like it deserves.
It's like it's it's the one.
It's just have you ever considered can replacing your E39 and five for an
E90 M3 sedan?
Yeah, LCI.
I have on occasion considered that.
But I like torque.
My motor's got torque.
Your motor does have torque.
But they have that E90.
What a great car.
So good, great interior, great design.
So it'll flip over.
Never mind.
You're not going to consider one of these ever.
But in those wheels, the competition wheels, one of the best BMW wheels.
Yeah, Filipe is not ready for it, but like a real adult who's like wants to get
into a real sports car might be ready for it.
I do love the E90.
I think the E9, the sedan looks better than the coupe.
I think the coupe looks great, but I think the sedan looks really good.
I think the convertible as much as I prefer convertibles in every car looked
a little ungainly, which is unfortunate because they tried really hard to make
it look coupe like.
And I think convertibles are great.
And I think that convertible in particular is a bargain.
But it's a little weird looking, a little.
All regardless, I'm not surprised to see a nice, but not perfect in that it
has 17,000 miles.
That's not incredibly low by closer standards.
The thing that hit me about this, that's not surprising.
I agree with you.
The thing that hit me about this car is that we are seeing in the exotic market
a big rise in the pre hybrid, pre automatic phase.
All those cars are shooting to the moon.
It's not just those.
This car is proof of that.
Like E92 and three at a 100000 dollars is something we all could have
predicted, but now is the day that it's happening.
Another car that I thought was interesting that sold this week for much more
money than I was expecting was this Audi RS5 pull up that that RS5 there.
Kenan.
For a brief period, Audi made the RS5 with a big old V8 and the perfect one
listed on our site, which is a low mileage with the V8 in this this gorgeous
blue color, see, paying blue.
And it sold for 52000 dollars.
That's more than I was expecting.
And it's again, I think the market is just really coalescing around these V8
these experiences.
Yeah.
I'm a little surprised by this one because you can still replicate a V8 automatic
experience. And so it's a little surprising to want to much day strength.
Sure. Or an AMG GT, which is almost 50 grand for a car that should be higher
premium in some way.
Yeah, this is an NPA.
Yeah, it's an NPA.
The other thing to keep in mind is like this car had some mods on it, but a lot
of these cars have a lot of mods on them these days.
And also in the final.
I could look like colors.
Yeah, this is a good one.
I don't know.
I'm just I'm continue to be interested in this this whole world.
We called it years ago on this podcast and a lot of other videos that this sort
of mid two thousands to mid 2010 era where cars had any V8s and big N.A.
engines before the screens, before the hybrids, before too much complication is
going to be looked at as the sixties of our generation.
And boy, is that happening right before our eyes.
So I heard you heard it here.
Yeah. And I still I still think there's probably room to get in like by the
cars that you love, like at the end of the day, if you can do it by them
because they might not get a second chance.
Yeah. I mean, I definitely would not pay by a courage you today.
No, I mean, yeah, well, even my beloved 355 it's like the gold
five fifties like stuff, stuff like that has moved, but there are still bargains
out there, you know, this is a good example of that.
So I think like these cars are really just really special.
So you got to buy the good stuff while you can.
Toyota's still not making a convertible forerunner, folks.
This is the next best thing.
Can I ask instead of the courage you to would you buy
we have a Ferrari 330 P four recreation recreation.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, this thing is so wild.
Would you buy that instead?
No, but I would not buy the courage you to.
It's a Ferrari V twelve to gain if I see manual.
It looks I mean, the correct.
It's a little it's a little too unusable and excessive for me.
I I actually don't mind the really good Ferrari replicas.
I just wouldn't want that one's just a little too like crazy for me.
You know, I mean, it's bottom of the sea grass with the bubble.
Yeah, windshield and look over those those fenders.
It's amazing. But I got the Countach.
I wouldn't mind like a 250 short wheelbase replica.
I would be interested in that or a something like that.
Come on. Did you have 250 T.R.
Rep. I know that's kind of a little bit.
It's also pretty focused because there's no there's no roof on that thing and all that.
You know, like we live here when you need a roof.
You do. I live here.
OK, we got any more market reports to talk about?
I I'm I'm content to move on to question.
We got to move on to question because even though we didn't.
Let me tell you what happened, folks.
We put up a questions post this week and it was Ryan Lopez who did it.
And he didn't turn the questions on.
He didn't turn on comments.
In fact, he turned off comments and I discovered I came up with a thing
about Ryan Lopez that I think is going to be.
We got we got to use from now on.
His slogan is almost.
Ryan Lopez.
Almost.
It does.
Yeah, the marketing pitch, the Mad Men pitch, that is exactly what we did.
Yeah, I will defend it.
Mr. Ryan Lopez, because I think he did that while driving across the country
in a model T.
I mean, he's doing some crazy stuff.
That's got to mess with your brain in somewhere.
You know, I used to do these posts and I once
missed one by like an hour and I was apoplectically crossed with myself.
Yeah, but, Ken, and there were expectations for you.
But for Ryan Lopez, you remember Ryan Lopez.
Almost almost.
OK, so I want to move on to the questions.
Somebody put up a privateer post and the questions were actually amazing.
They were incredible questions.
So we got good stuff.
And the first question is the best question from Evie's and clutch pedals.
Below are the 10 bestselling passenger vehicles in the USA last year.
If you had to daily drive one for a year,
what would it be?
I'm going to read them to you.
So that's the question.
Think about it as I read you the car for a year.
OK, Camry, C.R.V.
Equinox F 150 model Y.
Ram, RAV four Sierra Silverado Tacoma.
For me, it's undoubtedly the Tacoma.
So I'm going to question my mind.
What about you guys?
I like sedans was probably not being the Camry for me.
You would be like the Camry.
The taco actually is the was the first
and my gut was that was the first thing I thought I would use.
But I've never had a truck like I would be.
I don't know.
Would you be a question for me?
In fact, I wish they made a convertible one.
I would.
What are you, Dakota sport?
I would have an F 150 over the top.
By the way, the convertible Dakota didn't have to get a sport.
You could get a standard regular convertible.
Nobody did.
You'd get an F 150 over a taco.
I think I would go for a Sierra V hybrid.
OK, or for 26, the RAV four GR hybrid.
Yeah, that's a very exciting car.
Kenan, what's your answer here?
You would do Camry.
No, I think would do the Camry.
Is that I love sedans and like the Camry is just what are we at Toyota podcast?
This is the same company that won't recall their hybrids.
I didn't say it to you.
You said it to you.
You what do you mean?
You just said the GR RAV four.
You just said it.
But I said the Sierra V hybrid.
He can't remember what he just got.
He's got. I like how the new RAV four looks.
This is the level of effort that Felipe was in.
Yeah, he's here in Porsche Land, but his mind is still in it.
Yeah, he's that's right.
That's all I got to answer a question about non-porsches.
OK, next.
And that's all I love.
Next question. This is a good one from tall guy, small car.
A question for Doug.
It's actually a question for all of us.
You recently claimed the Lotus is pre V8 is a cheap alternative to your
Countach that still gives a similar type of excitement and feel.
I think that's true.
You agree with that, Kenan, right?
I agree. I agree with that.
Yep, still here's the question.
What are some similar cheap alternatives to your other cars that offer a similar feel?
Your career GT or your Ford GT?
Actually, the Ford GT is that alternative for the career GT in a way.
Yeah, yeah.
I think another alternative for the Countach, another alternative for the
Countach as a guy, Arto, actually, I think a manual guy, Arto has a similar
amount, not the same, but some gravitas, some craziness, some wedge shape
for a lot less money.
I think that that's another possibility.
Career GT is so defined by the precision of the car and the immense
specialness of the powertrain that I honestly think it's difficult to replicate cheaper.
Like, yes, a Boxster Spider is also a mid-engine Porsche that has similar
looks and is quick, but it doesn't.
It's not even close to delivering what I think makes the career GT the career GT.
Whereas I think a spree actually gets pretty close to doing what the Countach does, if I'm honest.
And I don't really see a great career GT alternative.
The Ford GT sort of, but I'm astonished every time I drive them back to back.
You can tell why the Ford GT was so much cheaper.
Like, if I didn't love the Ford GT and if I drove the career GT a lot more,
I would defo sell that Ford GT.
Like, it's just not on the same level.
But I think it's hard to get on the same level.
Ari is not a bad Ford GT alternative for this question.
Yeah, it's just CR1 or C706.
Different, different, but like replacing.
Similar idea, like a super car from a regular manufacturer, still a special car.
Still very fast, very cool.
I think that's true.
Viper, fifth gen.
Yeah, a good fifth gen Viper.
Although a good fifth gen Viper is not that much cheaper than a Ford GT.
But for a Ford GT, it's still a fifth the price.
A regular fifth gen, but like an ACR is like a half.
That's too much for a Ford GT.
That's too much.
Ford GT is not that tracky.
Yeah, that's true.
Those are those are I think an R8 is probably the best for GT alternative.
It's it's to me, it's the same idea.
It's a mid engine.
It was supposed to be a halo car, pretty serviceable, pretty usable, pretty drivable.
A lot of fun.
I think that's like the answer to that.
Courage of tea.
I just don't know what something really that captures like the essence of how I feel
when I drive that car.
You got anything?
No, I've been trying to think because like even from the Porsche world,
like Boxer Spider was the first thing I thought of.
But, you know, I mean, now it's it's it's really hard.
911 ST, but it's not the same.
It's 4.0 kind of starts going down the road, but that's a million bucks.
I don't think it answers the question in the spirit of the question.
That's a pretty good.
It's less than half the cost.
The question is being asked.
I get it.
Yeah, I get it.
Yeah, you just wonder if they answer, though, for people who will never
experience box describing like that.
That it comparison falls apart when you get to the specialness of the car
GT engine and powertrain and like the feel of being in that car with that
shifter and wood and up there.
Nobody's going to get to experience that.
So if you don't know better, yeah, I guess.
Hell, if you don't know better, the CRV hybrid is actually the right.
No, we know that.
Toyota should make a convertible forerunner.
Right on to the next question from a RAV 2020.
Dear Doug, with another child on the way, do you think you'll use the Sequoia
year round now? Absolutely not.
It wouldn't be quite dead driving that car, even though I love it.
My wife and I have three road station wagons.
We're good.
We're good.
Filippo's got one.
If we need to borrow one.
Yeah, you got it.
I have a more spacious third row we've tested and decided.
What about the S 210?
That's a big but.
It's a big.
It is a long.
Yes, voluptuous.
Big but.
I love this next question.
The next question, dear Doug, with your growing family, a lot of growing family
questions, don't you think it's time to get really serious about acquiring the
Italian design Columbus?
You think toting kids around on a super is cool?
Who could be the two story van?
It's one of a split level van.
I would argue it's.
That's a.
He's from the Filippo group on Wisconsin.
He lived in a split level for God's sake.
Never lived in a little bit.
Yeah.
Yeah, but you had a walk out basement, I bet.
I bet you had one.
I think it's etiquette.
We did.
I'm in Connecticut.
Damn Filippo.
The answer is I tried to buy the Italian design Columbus years ago.
I sent it.
I got serious emails with them and they were like, we're not selling this.
It's part of our heritage.
And I'm thinking, isn't this part of your heritage that you maybe don't want to
have anymore?
Like it really.
Bad.
So Mercedes has.
We talked to them once ago about the VLS.
Yeah, they're like fancy van.
First drives are out.
People are vaguely into it.
There's a luxury version.
The Talthus and Columbus would be like the ultimate family van for sure.
Yeah, you should read.
You should reach out again.
I think what their suggestion was was they were said, hey, look, instead of
selling you the one we have, we can make you a we can create one together.
And I'm like, I'm not going to spend a million dollars creating a heinous van.
You already did that.
I now want to buy it for like 65000 dollars.
I think that's what we might be at a price mismatch.
I would spend 200
I just have to wait.
Design folks reach out.
I got to wait for the Talthus I need to get into dire financial straits,
which you have to assume is not far off.
Right. It's shocking.
They're not already there.
Yeah, I can't believe they want to pull on.
I soup it as their savior in two ways.
I give them cash and I free up space and they can downgrade to a smaller office
because that car takes up so much room.
But you say that it's a van.
I picture it more being like a win a bago is the size I'm picturing.
It's humongous.
Even if it has to be twelve in the middle.
OK, next question from Barrett, the controls seven.
And this is a great question.
Barrett, the controls seven.
Dear Doug, what's the best idea an automaker pumped loads of money into
only to abandon it later?
GM on star, right, Filippo?
On star is still a thing.
Oh, yeah, people using it.
I bet I bet they're using it like crazy.
I bet they're pushing the button when you it only every manufacturer.
Now, to be fair, they led the way.
And every manufacturer has like an emergency response system now, where
in theory, you can call it for like support, but it's really a you got into
an accident will call them.
But remember on star was supposed to be a savior.
And I remember I sold GM car.
And I remember people would come in and say that.
But the Toyota has navigation and we'd say, you don't need navigation.
We have on star.
Yeah, on there's not a bad one.
I really thought you're going to say quadristery when you said GM.
I don't think that much money went into quadristery.
I was here is now on every luxury car.
So they won once again, general orders paved the way and then the euro
trash was was well behind them.
Was the question just was it just one manufacturer?
Like what they didn't the car that comes to mind that never became a car.
It was Apple pursuing like doing a car themselves.
They pumped millions and millions of dollars in that and never
it never went anywhere.
And then Johnny went and gave us the luchae.
Maybe Apple didn't do it.
That that's the smarter decision than a brand putting a ton of money into a car
that then is it everyone knows it's going to be a flop.
But they sort of get to this point.
But yes, it's a lot of money and.
It went nowhere.
I think that the Fisker Ocean's California mode.
Wasn't that much money independently?
There's a lot of windows with.
I don't think that was the I don't think that was a big part of the fight.
That wasn't it.
It was the best.
It was all of their marketing.
I mean, there's been a lot of dumb marketing things that were really big
components of cars that nobody ended up caring about that much.
Envoy XUV stuff like that.
Yeah, but I think on Star is a really good answer.
It was like it was like the heart of their marketing for like 20 years that they had this.
Runflats also sort of come to mind.
Runflats in the 2000s and runflat tires that had a lot of tradeoffs,
but wouldn't go flat.
They still do, by the way, off that.
But for a while Toyota on the start to meet Honda on the Odyssey
also had runflats that everybody had issues with.
Like there was a lot of investment in how can we make these tires
be safer, not have punctures, not and nobody really bought it.
Like, like, I mean, people bought it, but nobody bought it like mentally.
Yeah, if they could have avoided buying it, they would have.
Yeah, every single Odyssey buyer would have avoided it.
And now every Odyssey is on rims from that era.
The ones that have their transmissions are on rims
so that people can avoid the runflat tires.
OK, that's a good question.
Next question from Bearer the Controls 7 again.
You're Doug, when you went to GM to review the Cadillac Voyage,
did you ask the people from GM what happened to the Cadillac 16 concept car from 2003?
I reviewed the Cadillac Voyage concept car there at GM.
They have all the concept cars.
It's just that not all of them run.
That was that was why I had to choose the voyage.
I would have chosen a bunch of other ones, but a lot of the other concept cars
just either never ran or only ran like with its remote control
and a small battery or something, or they just don't.
They're not operant.
And so I think that I could have done a lot of concept cars
if I was willing not to drive it.
But graciously, they actually let me drive this thing,
which was part of the fun of the review.
That's why I chose that.
That was one of the reasons why I chose the voyage.
Next question from D underscore for BES.
Your Doug, as you mentioned recently, you're never keeping you're not keeping any of your cars forever.
You've historically been the leading voice of no reserve
and sold all your cars, no reserve on cars and bids.
Will you sell the courage to know reserve when the time comes to depart with it?
Heck, yeah.
Yep.
But I have a suspicion that the world will be different
when it's time to sell the courage to you.
You know what I mean?
Well, cars and bids still be around.
Will Filippo?
Man, these are deep philosophical questions.
You never know.
Like if we're talking 20, 25 years, like by then,
maybe online car auctions have gone away
and all all cars are sold via chip and planted in your brain.
You know, oh, well, actually, that's Filippo's dream
because then he can just imagine that's what he does.
He imagines what the car is like, doesn't have to own it.
And he gets that
the philosophical and the sort of the experience out of the system.
That's interesting.
Yeah, I hopefully we don't have a need for cars.
Oh, hopefully we're going to have an hour and a half into the podcast.
I don't know.
It's a bit like 25 years.
We as a society will no longer need cars.
And in how many years?
25
Is that where you get rid of the courage you team?
Why? Yeah, probably something like I don't think it's going to be
like I don't think I'll keep it forever,
but I have a suspicion it's going to stick around for a while.
Don't you think?
I don't know, man.
Right now, your courage is worth what?
2000000 ish.
Something like I don't know what values are.
But like it becomes the 345
Can you still drive it?
You still decide to own it?
I don't know.
Yeah, that'll be hard.
I mean, it'll depend a lot on my financial situation.
As the poorest career,
GT owner at some point, I'll have to make a decision as to whether I'd rather
have the money liquid.
OK, final question,
final question from underscore Nick, dear Doug, now that you're back on cars,
would you take another run at the Gilmore Girls Jeep?
It's just down the road in Connecticut.
Folks, I've talked about this on this podcast.
One of my great heartbreaks in life is that the people who own the Jeep
from Gilmore Girls will not sell it to me.
I made them a nice offer.
I made them another nice offer.
I then went to their house with weaponry.
Oh, my God.
No, they never sold it to me.
Flippo, what do you think?
I was thinking about this the other day because I'm getting out of this G wagon
and I got to get a Jeep or something.
And that car is just sitting.
It's sitting probably 120 miles from me.
What do I do?
What was the last time you reached out to the fine people of Gilmore Girls?
All right.
It's last message to them was in April of 21.
Maybe it's worth the whole email.
It's been five years.
It's worth the whole situation's change.
COVID happened.
Yeah.
Well, COVID was happening then.
Still happen.
I do want the Jeep still.
Flippo, do you think I should pursue that?
Absolutely not under any circumstances should you.
But I suspect you should at least email.
I'm going to have 10 cars here in just a second.
And you haven't seen some number of them.
You forgot what it's like to have that many, I feel like you specifically said you
didn't want you wanted to pare down and get rid of cars and have a simple life.
For a long time, the people on the Internet complain about this.
Doug said he was off cars, not buying his cars.
Remember, I was off cars for three years and I did.
I was really committed to that.
And I did pair way, way, way, way down.
And we got down to six, I think at one point.
And now we're back up to 10.
What are you typing, Flippo?
You looking up the Gilmore Girls?
Can you know?
Can you remind us of the 10 cars?
Can you list them?
Can you keep track of all of them?
OK, you do it.
Are they all public?
I've been gone for a couple of weeks.
They're all public, except the 10th one I haven't bought yet and haven't
really committed to yet.
So without counting that in my mind, because I think I'll have them all at the same time.
You have a career G team.
You have a Ford G team.
You have the Kuntash.
You have the 9-11 Turbo.
You have the G Cabriolet still.
Yeah.
You have the Supra.
You have the 210.
So G, you have the 213.
You have the Sequoia.
Yeah.
And then.
And then a mystery car that I'm going to get.
GPD.
Pretty soon.
That's 10.
That's a problem.
She's.
It's a problem.
You got like six, dude.
So come on.
Four.
You got like at least six.
Four.
You know, Kenan keeps it simple.
I always have.
It's simple.
I always have.
Although now I have customer cars that are coming, which is a whole other thing.
Yeah.
Which is very exciting.
And he keeps it simple.
Simple.
I think that's a good note to end on.
That's the end of our podcast today.
Kenan, do you have any final parting thoughts for us?
Well, I'm just very happy that Flippo is back, although not back.
He's.
He's back and not here.
I was home.
I saw you in person.
Kenan.
We did have dinner the other night.
It was lovely.
And I'm.
Flippo's in some porous studio ready to wax poetic about the difference between
the 964 Speedster and the 9.
Just so people know, if anybody is here, I've been in New England.
We have a great event where you're Saturday tomorrow.
If you listen to this when it comes out at the large.
Was it right?
All the spots for cars are taken, but we have still space for spectators to come on by.
Hey, what kind of car come say hi to me and tell me that you.
What cars you got?
You got anything really good?
Honestly, yes, it's absolutely wild.
I don't have it in front of me, but it's a wild, wild, wild list of cars.
Do you have no joke?
It's a great facility and like great people there, but also like this.
You know what we show up doing?
We have a blue TVF, which is exciting, but we also have a project eight.
Oh, my God, is that the end of project seven and another project eight?
What color is the project date?
And is it cat or to lead?
I will tell you on Saturday.
I'm dead serious.
I want you to talk to that person.
That's not screwing with you.
I'm interested.
Also, do you have a Hyundai scoop?
I haven't looked.
I'll be honest.
This is the one time that I did not make the like breakout of.
OK, well, control for them the list for scoop.
It's S.C.O.U.P.E.
I'm looking. I'm looking.
It's not like an ice cream.
Now, by the way, British viewers are going to be watching and saying it's
Escoopay. No, no, that's what they market it as in Europe.
In the States, it was called the scoop spelled the same.
I swear to God.
Anyway, are there any?
I don't see any on this sheet.
Another bad event from Cars Anderson.
All right, I hope to see you at that event though.
Gilles Anderson, go see Filippo.
If you have the project eight and you're going for God's sake,
I want to buy it if it's bright blue and it has a cat on the side.
And then and then.
Got 11 cars.
If it's cat to lead low wing, like why not just get a regular XC, dude?
Right.
Goodbye.
Pleasure. Goodbye.
About this episode
Pricing for the Slate vehicles kicks things off, with the hosts comparing apples-to-apples numbers and then drilling into how stripped the base trim is. They debate whether EVs make sense without home charging and range limits, and they pivot through a Honda Element return rumor—boxy, convertible, and even a hose-down/mold debate. Later, the show swings to Lucid updates (cuts, guidance, transaction pricing) and Koenigsegg’s Lego-built Jesko record at Goodwood, plus plenty of other car talk and listener Q&A.
Have a question you want answered on the podcast next week? Ask HERE https://crsnbds.com/PODQUESTIONS
Welcome to THIS CAR POD! Doug DeMuro & Friends offers weekly expert insight and opinion on breaking automotive stories, the car market, and audience Q&A.
Thank you to our sponsors!
Morgan & Morgan - If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can start your claim in just a click without having to leave your couch at https://www.forthepeople.com/DeMuro
Warby Parker - Right now, buy one prescription pair and get 20% off any additional prescription pairs at https://www.warbyparker.com/cars
Mothers - Visit https://mothers.com/carsandbids to find out more and purchase Mothers® products!
Chapters:
00:00:00 THIS CAR POD!
00:00:58 Slate Prices Revealed!
00:09:20 The Return Of The Honda Element
00:15:48 Lucid Layoffs
00:20:22 US Vehicles Sold In Japan
00:26:43 New Maserati Lineup
00:27:45 Koenigsegg Jesko Record
00:32:37 Lego Koenigsegg
00:35:12 The New Morgan
00:38:35 Chinese Bobble Heads
00:39:44 Talk Cars
00:47:54 Kennan Is Selling A Lotus Emira
00:50:24 Ferrari 575 Roadtrip
00:53:21 Market Report
00:54:03 BMW E92 M3
00:57:29 Audi RS5
00:59:35 Ferrari 330 P4
01:00:46 Community Questions
01:01:48 Of The Best Selling Cars In The US Which Would You Drive?
01:03:35 What Are Cheap Alternatives To Doug's Supercars?
01:06:57 With Three Kids Will Doug Drive The Sequoia Year Round?
01:07:34 When Will Doug Buy The Italdesign Columbus?
01:09:28 What's The Best Abandoned OEM Idea?
01:12:23 What Happened To The Cadillac Sixteen Concept?
01:13:08 Will Doug Sell The Carrera GT No Reserve?
01:15:00 Will Doug Buy The Gilmore Girls Jeep?
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
