The Budget Tesla Fail, The Ferrari EV Tanks Its Stock, SLATE Shows Off Trucks In Production & More

Should we lead with the fact that you can go to our YouTube channel right now to see the first

non-podcast related video, which is the LX470, your LX470, getting the highest quality audio

upgrade I could possibly get? Well, the internet had some opinions on you could just buy mid-tier

speakers because they don't understand the electrical system in the LX, but it's been an

interesting week, right? I mean, this is our first showcasing to people sort of using our network,

using the people that we know, you know, bringing things back to life. But I think

it's very interesting to see public perception of how this stuff works. I mean, it's always

informative and the support has been great. And, you know, I hope it helps somebody that's out

there working on the platform. Yeah, so it's on the Clutch Culture Podcast YouTube channel. You

know what's funny when I was younger? I would always think, and this is before anybody knows

anything, you just kind of see things in the Crutchfield magazines or wherever, and you think

that the cooler the thing looks, the more like your value or how you're like standard it is.

And that's what I think people are thinking about when they make some of these comments where it's

like you used to see the old Pioneer Alpine speakers and they look like they were just like

intricately designed and made, but really it's not better than most of today's modern standards

and cars. Yeah, and the other thing is you don't know that all that stuff works with your system,

right? So I think a lot of it when it comes to audio my whole life, I mean, I know guys that

built show cars or show trucks that had intricate, you know, 10, 20, 30, 40, 100,000, you know,

dollars worth of work plus. And these guys were extremely knowledgeable and somebody would argue

them, right? Oh, you know, you could have bought this, but it's like, guys, these guys, this is

what these guys do. And I think one of the most interesting things, again, you and I kind of

talk a lot behind the scenes, I know a lot of professionals in the automotive market mechanics

after market shops, PPF shops, whatever, they talk about the know it all, you know, customer,

you know, which is like, it's it's running rampant right now because of what the internet is,

right? I mean, you and I have so many contacts in this business, it's like it's becoming incredibly

frustrating. And then I just point them to our YouTube channel, I go, hey, check this out,

hold my beer, hold my beer, right? Or honestly, any post if we're being honest about anything,

whether any post on any platform too, I would say if you had to rank them, like if you had to

just say which one has the more like reasonable takes on on the stuff, whether it's the cars,

the opinions that or in this case, the starting of a build, Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube,

who has the most like reasonable takes? Man, that's tough, because I don't know that there's,

I think they all stand out at certain times. They do, right. And again, we're not saying this,

I don't look at it negatively. No, right. I mean, this is just the nature of the beast. But

also, I want to caution everybody out there, if one of these men or women are in your circle,

as they know it all, they're the cancer in your car life. Yeah, you don't realize it because

they you think they know what they're talking about. But I've said this on this podcast endlessly.

We talk about the dealer, we talk about the manufacturer, we talk about all these boogie

man to blame. The biggest boogie man you should be blaming are non knowledgeable people in your

circle that are acting like experts that have led people to bad purchases, to bad aftermarket

purchases, to bad upgrades, the tuner market guys that are listening to this, that that runs so

rampant and that I mean, they blown up more cars than cash for clunkers. So, you know, at the end

of the day, you know, that cancer and that know it all culture is only growing bigger and bigger

because the internet allows it, right? I mean, it's it's anybody can say anything, you know,

user, you know, Dave 4573, trying to act like he under knows something. But remember, in real

life, he's giving advice to somebody. And that is harmful to that somebody. And yet you want to

blame the dealer, you want to blame the aftermarket shops, you want to blame the mechanics, I got

news for you, the biggest cancer is your circle. Yeah, I want to I want to say inside that I hope

that when that happens, because if it's in person, it's kind of hard to like, refute somebody face

to face if you don't really like, let's just say you don't know any better. So you're just going

off of what they say. So you're like, okay, you go about your day, go and maybe forget about it.

And then when it comes up later, you thought about what that guy said. But when you're online,

you can readily go and like try to like find the information if you don't have it in front of you.

And hopefully it also kind of, in a sense, desensitizes or like just creates thicker skin among

people online. Because if you if you take it offense to everybody that goes in on your opinion

on something, you don't understand the internet. You won't be on the internet. Exactly. You won't

be online. Yeah, I mean, we found that out, you know, December of last year. Yeah, you know,

I mean, you just you just won't create any more content. But I do warn everybody out there,

like these people in your circle that are playing like they know what they're talking about,

they do a lot of damage and they have my whole career. You know, they do the most damage of

anybody, go talk to a professional in that field, not your brother Billy Bob, not his friend,

not your pappy who you think knows what he's talking about, because most likely they don't,

you know what I mean? I mean, you even see it in your own family, you have people that work on

their own cars. There's no way they're more talented or more knowledgeable than your VW

mechanic, who works on VWs all day. And so you know where to draw the line, because you have all

these contacts. What I fear sometimes is people don't know where to draw that line and ends up

Yeah, and it's in every industry, right? Detailing cars, even just like,

I don't know, journal, again, we're not journalists, but on the journalistic side of

things, you're just reporting on stuff. I mean, that's another thing, it's just like who knows

more or in other avenues that aren't correlated, they'll work in, and you get people to comment

like, I'll take XYZ's opinion over somebody that just has a big audience. What's like, well, just,

I understand that just having a big audience doesn't give you more know how about something,

but it is going to expose you to more stuff typically, like people are listening to you,

because you hopefully know more about more and you've been exposed to it and whatever, whatever.

Yeah, but we've seen the opposite, right? I mean, I can show you some big audiences in

my neck of the woods, and I can tell you, I know those people pretty well, and their

lack of knowledge would astonish a lot of people, but they don't come across. I mean,

again, you have to remember that some of this stuff on the internet is nothing more than a

television show. Yeah. You know, you didn't think the Seinfeld show was like some, you know, reference

of everything in life, right? Like, they're going to tell you how to do stuff. It's just a television

show. And so you have your laughs and you move on. And I think largely most of the stuff in the

automotive world, it's not much different than Seinfeld. I mean, it's just a television show,

and you should enjoy it as that. But a lot of people take this shit like it's real life.

Like it's gospel. Although, if we're talking about shows, that might be the one show that can

literally pinpoint every life situation you've had in real life from that show.

But it wouldn't be how you handled it. I don't know, man. I'm kind of George to the D

with an occasional Kramer moment, if you know what I'm saying.

Yeah. So no, I mean, look, man, the LX project, it was a cool thing. I enjoy the hell out of it.

I hope everybody takes it for what it is, was just showing what it means to talk and deal with

people that know what they're doing. They're not trying to oversell you. They could have absolutely

sold me a 10 or $15,000 upgrade to that system. They could have very easily, the speaker manufacturer

we were working with before, they could have, you know, taken the whole system out,

made it a lot worse to deal with, but made it sound better. They even said, Hey, man,

let's do this the right way. They walked away from the project while also putting us in touch with

the right person. And so that's what you kind of hope for for everybody out there. There's a lot

more that goes on to getting to the final result in the video that you see, than just we didn't

talk to anybody. It's like, no, we talked to, I mean, probably 100 plus years worth of experience

if we add up the engineers at the speaker company, the installers at the speaker company,

then the audio company who's been in business over 40 years in Scottsdale, you added up,

we were well over 100 years of experience. So I think we did our homework.

Yeah, I think the people listening to like, you got shout out to everybody listening, all the guys

and the one gal that listen to the show. I mean, I'm sure you already know what you have is cool,

which is why you bought it, which is why you kind of tinker with it and do stuff with it.

Absolutely. And that's a big thing of the show. And, you know, Nick kind of coined this phrase a

couple of weeks back where it's like, you buy something, you make it cool. That's the Alex is

an example of that. Nick's M3. I got the GTI. I'm still looking for something else, but the car

market, which we'll get into is still a crazy hot mess right now that seems to also be kind of

spiraling out of control fast, but, but not quick enough and not, I don't know, not with enough

hindsight to make smarter decisions faster by some of these places like Jaguar Land Rover,

who can't like work for a month and a half because they got hacked for the 52nd time in two years.

You know, the supply market gets a little wonky. And then you had what? You had a big fire in the

aluminum plant. Yep. Yep. Yep. Magically. By the way, there has been more fires and more weird

things happen at automotive related plants in the last five years than in the history of the

automotive business combined. Yep. I just want to know, I'm not going to put a tinfoil hat on here.

By the way, Toyota had like two or three mystery fires during COVID. I mean, real mystery fires

for all you Toyota lovers out there. But yeah, I mean, I think, you know, the aluminum plant

up in New York, I mean, we just don't know what's going to come of that. I think, I think they said

it's inoperable, I mean, for the most part. Look for the winter, falling winter, we're either going,

I'm either going to, and you have to wear, I'm either going to send you a custom beanie that

says clutch conspiracies, or it's just going to be a tinfoil hat. It's actually four that says

clutch conspiracies, but we have to wear it every time that we say something like this,

because people are just going to be like, their antennas are going to go up because we're thinking

the same thing they're thinking. And instead of other people with these similar platforms or

their building similar platforms talking about it, they're talking about how the last Supra is the

best Supra. All right, I'm going to watch the video because I kind of like the Supra, but let's

be real, you're not talking about anything of substance and you haven't for years now. And

it's kind of making us crazy. The crazy thing is I saw this video, I thought it was pretty cool

where they went around and asked BMW people, what's your favorite BMW motor being used in other

platforms? Oh, I didn't see that. Listing stuff off like Rolls Royce Cullinan. And then the final

guy looked into the camera with a side eye and he goes, Toyota Supra. You know what I mean?

It's like for everybody that bashes BMW's engines, it's like, I don't think you guys know how many

people BMW is selling and developing engines for. And these guys just rift for like two,

three minutes, just one after another, like, ah, the Pantera, the this, I mean, dude, it was hilarious.

Oh, that's good. That's really funny. Kudos to them. Well, speaking of the LX and then move on

to other cars and other topics, you sent me a screenshot of and you might, I don't know if

you've kept up with the market since you bought yours outside of, you know, purchases or in regards

to purchases, it was please explain to the viewers like what's what these things are selling for

and the state of that market right now. So a 2003 Land Cruiser, which is exactly the year of my LX,

by the way, same engine, same platform, minor differences, minor interior differences. There's

an AHC system, adjustable height system on the Lexus. I think there are some Land Cruisers that

carried the AHC system. So guys don't get me wrong there. I'm not sure. I believe I'm right on that.

Just went on, I believe bring a trailer, just closed last night or the day before.

And it closed for what 41,000. So all in about 45,000 with fees and everything. Yeah.

That's not delivered. That's not shipped. That's not that. Go ahead and put another

1100 to 1500 on top of that. You're at 46,000. I got mine delivered for 21. So that means

that's a $25,000 premium on that platform since January of this year. Now, I have told everybody

looking in that market, you're paying an exorbitant amount of money. And by the way, that had 17,000

more miles than mine did upon delivery. You're paying usually in January or the end of last year,

you're paying somewhere around a $10,000 premium for it to say Toyota Land Cruiser and not Lexus.

So my car, my vehicle would have been somewhere around 28 to 31. For this to go for this price,

we've seen it in the 80 series. We've seen it in the 100 series. I think you're going to see 200

series. They're still fairly expensive. They're going to probably stabilize and maybe even go up from

here. When I tell you guys about these auction sites, and this is not the pick on them,

stop thinking you're getting a deal. Can you find a deal on those sites? Yes.

Do you have to search and search and search and search and search and search to get the deal?

Absolutely. It's no cars and bids and bring a trailer. It is not banging on them. They're running

a business and they're providing a service. But you guys keep telling yourselves that those are

the places to find a deal. Not all of you, but a lot of people. A $25,000 premium for a vehicle,

comparable car facts, maintenance records as mine, 17,000 miles more, not in any better shape,

$25,000? I mean, you're starting to get into, and by the way, maybe the money doesn't matter to that

buyer. So I'm not making a comment about that specific buyer. I'm making a comment about the

money that was spent. I'm never going to say shouldn't have bought it, shouldn't have done it.

I don't know if that person's worth $25 million. What's he care? It's the one he wanted. Maybe

it was a color he wanted. He was tired of messing around. But just looking in these places that

you guys can see is really probably the worst things you could do. I told everybody, I went to

a tiny little honey hole called eBay that nobody thinks is alive. And I go ahead and I call that

guy and you go, well, don't buy from a dealer. What do you think bring a trailer is? They're

actually the dealer of a dealer. You're buying from two different dealers usually in those

situations. And so again, I hope this person loves the vehicle, but we're seeing people pay

premiums on cars. And the only way to win in a car business is on the buy side and then taking

care of the car. That's where you win in the car business. So if you screw up the buy side and

you screw up the maintenance of your car, you're going to lose all the way around. And that's what

most people do, unfortunately. I think we had a good comment on the last week's episode on the

YouTube. What was it? I think the 80 series. Do you remember this? I think you might have,

were that marked? Yeah. I think you were looking, were you looking at 80s before,

80 series before? Yeah, I like the 80 series. I like the anniversary. There was things I was

looking at, but I tell, I really want people to understand this. People are really unsure of

Toyota's future. And if they're going to build these bulletproof platforms again. And remember,

that's what Toyota's bedrock is. These V8s that never broke, that they figured out,

they knew how to do. There's some V6 platforms that people love and the forerunner and so forth.

But the V8 bulletproof engine is all but gone. Yeah. And now people are saying, it's not coming

back. And that's the only thing. Look, somebody shared this with me. You know, to use like some

Toyota features on their cars are now like 15 bucks a month, eight bucks a month, 12 bucks a month.

The old Toyota is gone. It doesn't mean the new Toyota or the future of Toyota is bad. I'm not

saying that. I don't want anybody to hear that. But for those that knew the old Toyota, they're

starting to go, I better get one now. Very similar to the Porsche market three, four, five years ago.

And a lot of smart people said, time to get one. What it do is rocketed up the price. Toyota's

at all time highs. Okay. Asset prices are still up. You haven't had a massive dip in the market.

You haven't had a massive dip in housing prices. So everybody just realized nobody knows if this

is going to sustain itself. Yeah. It's sustaining itself now because of asset prices. Yeah. And

it's a good time to hold and kind of be steady, steady, eddy about it because an opportunity is

around the corner when something corrects, right? For those that kind of waited, we're a little

like you said, on the purchase where you make, you know, the best part of the deal. But yeah,

everything is super inflated. You know, I'm still looking at the Mustang Mach 1 world and other things

too. And what's great, what's funny, dude, tell me how you would interpret this. If you're looking at

a car and you're seeing them kind of fluctuate at a price that's like, okay, we're talking in US,

not just in your state. And then all of a sudden they're going up four, five, six grand, and then

they're correcting back about a few weeks later, a month later, back down. And then you have about

half and half. Half of the people have kept that $5,000, $6,000, $7,000 premium. And the other ones

are down here where it should be. Do you take the ones that are where they should be and take

them to the other ones and say, Hey, can you beat this? Like, are you going to adjust your price

back to the more color you want? It's worth the, it's worth the shot. I mean, I don't, I don't

think people realize how many shots I take when I'm trying to buy a car. Nick shoots a shot,

everybody. He shoots his shot. I mean, I just throw out emails, text messages, phone calls. I mean,

if it's something I really want, will you match this? Look at this comp over here. Can you get me

to that price? I mean, I don't have a problem doing that legwork. And I don't think everybody

enjoys that. Right. For sure. So they don't do the legwork. They get impatient. And then they want

to talk about the bad deal that they got and how somebody ripped them off. And it's like, well,

you didn't do any of the legwork, right? And that's okay. But then you got to accept what comes from

not doing the legwork. Yeah. And that's just what I've always lived by thought of. This is the

legwork. This is what you need to do with the legwork. If you're unwilling to do it, you got to

live with what you get. You took out the M3 over the last couple of days, didn't you? They put a

smile on your face. You put as soon as I said the word M3, like he's a smile. It's cheek to cheek,

ear to ear. I will say this, 44,000 miles on that. It drives great tons of power, tons of handling.

I go back and forth about selling it because I'd really like to get into like a 996 turbo or

something like that. All right. Okay. But here's the deal. It's hard to sell that car. Of any car

I've ever owned, I'd never really struggled to sell much. I always wanted to own an E90M3.

It's the one that spoke to me. It was sort of right when I could start thinking about buying

those, but didn't pull the trigger. And now I have one extremely low mileage.

Anybody makes an offer, I'd sell it. I sell time. I get the right offer, it's going to go.

But every time I drive it, I say the same thing to myself. I need to drive this more.

What would you sell first, the Dodge or the M3, given the right time, right price?

Well, let me let anybody unknown a secret. The right offer on anything I own. House,

cars, the shit's gone. Okay. Like, no mistake, it's gone.

Anything I own, right place, right price. Hey, my family's about the only thing.

I was going to make the joke. I'm like, we might be pushing it, but that's possible too.

Yeah. Like I'm just, if you, if you live in this business, you have to be smart enough to go,

Hey, it's a good offer. I can put this into something else. I can always go back and get

this car. And again, I think the E90 M3, I see people going bonkers over the E92,

and they're spending all this crazy money. They're not getting that much of a different

experience. Again, if that's the car they want, I want them to get that. Yeah.

And that's always our stance. But I think price wise, you can't beat an E90 M3 right now.

All right. Well, let's get into some interesting, but also less

enthusiast type of cars. And that is the good old EV world. All right.

There's a lot of moving and shaking inside of the Tesla world.

I thought for sure that what we're going to lead off today with is, did you see Ferrari

announced their electric car and the stock price fell 15%.

See, I'm glad you knew that because I didn't know what the repercussions of that was or what the

effect was. I mean, before, I mean, since we're talking about EVs now, let's get into a little

EV segment here. What are they, what are they doing? What's going on over there?

They kind of, you know, they said, this is what we're going to do. They don't really have a

production ready, you know, rendering of it. Although, you know, they have some stuff with

camo on it and people have shown the design and whatnot.

Look, it fell for a lot of different reasons. I'm not going to blame you the 15% on the electric

car. I think they had to like, you know, they did some projections out to 2030 and they kind

of lowered their projections of where they're going to be in the next five years. So I think

that was the main culprit. But I think when we all look at at Lamborghini, Ferrari, Aston,

McLaren, it doesn't matter. I think you look at what is really going to be the reaction to this

because they're already talking about they're going to put the Ferrari sounds in this. They're

going to they're going to amp up the noise. And I just go, I mean, is that is that what

you guys really want? I don't think the Ferrari buyer is going to be that thrilled about it.

I mean, look SF 90 and their hybrid system hasn't been well received. I'm just,

I'm just kind of out on this not because it's an EV. I just, I'm just out on it because it just

seems kind of incompetent and thrown together. We're going to jump in. So and I think that's

probably where some of the weakness and the stock price has come from. It just feels like

they're jumping into it. Yeah. So I guess we can go ahead and also talk about like the taxi.

If you credit that conversation is obviously happening more in some of these worlds,

starting with the Tesla, which is kind of why I brought it up to because you mentioned a while

back when we were talking about BYD and, you know, how they're able to price things and make things

and, you know, really backed by the state kind of stuff. Well, and the funny thing is nobody

talks about all of the Chinese car companies that have collapsed. Most you mean 30 years like the

35? Yeah. I mean, the people don't realize like they have a lot of these car companies. Most of

them are collapsed on the way to collapsing are being propped up to not collapse. But this is

the future of the market. We all need to stop lying to ourselves. EVs are not going away.

They're just not. I mean, they're not going to go away. Everybody around the world is behind

them from governments to everything like that. It's going to be here. I just think we all need

to understand that. And we just need to say that we're for choice, you know, keep ice, build EVs.

Let's just let's just agree that that's the future. Yeah. You know, I mean, I just don't

think we need to get that deep into it. I think your experience has let you have that level

of head to take on it. Me being 10 years younger, I want to just like rip the band aid off and be

like, no, they're going to be gone and we're never going to have to hear from again. Like they're

dumb. But realistically, of course, you're right. I just hope that there's a better understanding

of where they fit in the segment, where they fit in the world of cars. And who was it? It was

Kamisa. It was Kamisa and his co-hosts talking about on their podcast that if you're just a

commuter, you're a mobilizer, I think is what Kamisa said. Oh, it's almost like what we said.

I do. I know. I know. But hey, clutch culture is over here. Jason, I'm just going to say that was

a couple of weeks after my exact opinion. Hey, Jason, we love Kamisa. Okay, just a joke.

Absolutely. Chromogens are car margins. I believe in this show. I love Kamisa. His takes are always

great, man. And you know, that whole idea, we've talked about it for almost a year now. If you're,

I love the term, he used another word where it was supposed to be like mobilizer, but he was like,

if you're a auto mobilizer and it goes like, I mean, like just a mobilizer, like if you're just

going A to B, get the EV. It should make sense for you if you don't care about what you're driving,

the experience and all that stuff. If you look at a car like an appliance, which is a huge number

of people, then EVs are nothing. All of you ICE diehards, which we are, which I want, but I've

never been anti EV. I don't think it's worth the headache and all the effort people are putting

in to bitch about EVs. Yeah. And I think you don't have to buy one. No, you don't. But if they can

get it right, like Nick has said for a year now, the price, and let's just get into the Tesla stuff

here. So they were supposed to be making the cheaper version of their cars, which I think we're

going to be like model twos, like some stripped down model two budget friendly version of the Y

in the three. And instead what people got was a $5,000 discount, a reduction, but got, I mean,

literally every possible feature and creature comfort. Didn't Hyundai come down and say in

2026, they're lower in their price, $10,000 on EVs just to make up for the $7,500 credit.

Yep. That is literally going to be the next article I pull up because the way motor trend

phrase it is very motor trend-esque. So we'll get to that one next. But yes, you're absolutely right.

So people are calling it model trash. Like they're getting slammed on all of the, you know,

and I hate Reddit, honestly. It's just such a, that's a trash. Hey, Reddit is a cesspool.

Yeah. You want to talk about trash. It should be Reddit trash says model trash, but you know,

right. Anyway, on every platform, they're really hearing it because I mean, dude, and Nick might

not know all these little things, just I was reading up about it a lot, but like the glass

roof, they just put like an actual, like a headliner in there, but the glass is still there.

You just can't access it, right? The speakers in the floor are there, but they're not active.

Why did they just put the metal? Bro, I mean, some ridiculous stuff. Like the speakers,

I think in the floor are there, but they're not, you can't activate them. They're not,

they're just there in the floorboard. Well, you know, that happened with the Ford Bronco.

Have you seen where the techs go in and show people that they don't have a real subwoofer?

They just have a fake subwoofer in the back. No. Yeah. It was like a placeholder and they just

it's just so, I want to say this though, and I want, I want to make sure we're accurate about this.

Guys, if you want cheaper stuff, it is going to look, feel, and be cheaper. Period.

No, but there's all of you guys that are bitching about price. You got to give up something. Yeah.

So I say this about the real estate market. Look at the house size when you guys go, well, 1950,

this is what a house costs. Cool. If I built that house today, which I could do for probably cheaper,

oh yeah, because efficiency and whatever, you guys wouldn't buy it. You'd go, look at this house.

Why would I buy that? Well, you told me you wanted a cheaper house, but you also want the Viking

range and you want the subzero fridge and you want a 200 square, you know, 200 inch television that

comes with the house. You want the wine cellar in there? Yeah, it's like, okay guys, that stuff

costs money. I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm saying, I don't think Tesla cut deep enough

price wise, which is probably what everybody's mad about. Absolutely. Five grand and losing

everything is not going to save you that much on a monthly payment or a monthly lease payment or even

a cash deal. So I just don't think it's connected to the market, but for all you guys clamoring for

a $25,000 truck, I'm on your side, but you're going to get into a $25,000 truck.

All right, so I want to give you a rundown here. I'm just going to pull up the chart

instead of going through the whole article and just kind of let you put your eyes on this

and make, crack your jokes. And we'll start at the top here. So the Model 3 and Y,

the standard versus the rubble drive, the $5,000 difference, right? Everything from zero to 60,

from 6.8 to 5.4, those are the differences. Can you make that, can you make it a little bigger?

Yes, let me see if I can zoom in for you. Okay, thank you. There you go. Here you go, man.

If anything stands out to you as egregious or just like, wow, please let me know. I'm going to slowly

scroll. I love that they put the zero to 60, like people buying Model Y are like fired up.

It's literally the first thing. 12% slower charging to save $5,000.

I mean, cloth seats to me, that doesn't bother me, but I got news for everybody that should be

a much bigger savings than it is. No subwoofer, which I already talked about happened in some of

the Broncos. I mean, looking through this list here and I mean, glass roof covered is,

I mean, that's insanity because you still installed the glass. Yeah, it's there. I don't know why you

just didn't use a cheaper material like the metal stamping, but I see we're trying to do something

here, right? So we're trying to do something as the automotive business and I want to

applaud companies that are trying to make things cheaper. Five grand is not the savings you think

it is. Not today. Okay, not today. So the new five grand is $10,000, $12,000, $15,000, right? So

you told somebody, hey, I got five grand saved up 15 years ago as a young person. They'd be like,

man, you're doing pretty, if you tell somebody you got five grand now, they're like, well,

that's not going to go very far. Okay. So five grand doesn't go that far, right? Just doesn't go

that far. Like we all wish it did. You know, I'm not, if you're in a position where you don't have

five grand, I'm not trying to make light of any of that, but five grand isn't what five grand used

to be. We all understand that with inflation and whatnot. These car companies also do a poor job

of explaining to the consumer, guys, if you want deep cuts in price, this is what's going to have

to happen. And that's why I am so fired up about these CEOs talking to real people on podcasts

and not some nitwit that doesn't know what they're talking about on CNBC. Okay, I understand you're

talking to CNBC because you're worried about the shareholders. I understand that. But after you get

off that conversation, it doesn't mean anything. You need to go explain to your consumer in 2025

what all of this stuff they're asking for means. Then you can create a narrative,

and then you don't have the disaster of Tesla. And we already know Elon's whole thing about the media

and everything like this. He's been anti, they don't even have a media department at Tesla. He's

the media department. And it's hard to argue since they're selling millions of units of cars

that he's gotten it wrong. But he also did that in a previous decade that's going to be very different

than the last decade. And the next decade is going to be about just explain what the consumer needs

to know. And five grand is not that big of a savings to take away all this stuff.

Yeah. And so that one, where did we land on? We landed at those being somewhere roughly at

specs. So with none of the specs 39 spec'd out about 45 or so, right? And then Motor Trends article,

and I'll pull it up for you here, is more about the Tesla. But at the bottom, we'll get to the

conclusion where it tells you what you actually get with the Hyundai. But Tesla's new cheaper model Y

is already beat on price by one of our favorite EVs. Any chance to get to take a jab at an old

EO? They just love it. They love doing that. So anyway, I'm going to scroll to the bottom here

if you're watching on YouTube. And as far as the conclusion of what you get, the Hyundai's still

going to be around 41, but they call it the feature rich SEL, which is going to have just about

everything for an additional $970. I mean, if you get all the features from the Teslas and then

some for 41, it is literally still. And so here's the why this isn't a conclusion. The Ionic

platform is not the Model Y platform. No. It serves a whole different marketplace in my opinion.

The Model Y is at least a reasonable sized crossover with a little bit more of a family-friendly

feel than the Ionic 5. Yeah, the Ionic 5 is like a hatchback, like a fun hatchback.

There's nothing wrong with that. But again, I would ask this question. Where's the 10 grand

coming from on the Ionic 5? So is it going to sell for 41 and you get a $10,000 rebate

off the 41 or is 41 with the $10,000 rebate? As of this conclusion, it made it seem like you

can pick one up. So if your goal is a reasonably sized EV, it's hard to beat the 26 Ionic 5 SE

with it starts at less than 40. And then it goes up to 41.4.

Yeah, I don't see. I don't think that. And I know people love that car. Hopefully,

if you own one, you love it. Yeah. I see those around from time to time. I mean,

paying 40 for that seems egregious. Again, you could pick up my LX.

I was going to say, you could pick up your LX, which Nick would obviously do for Gladway over

that. It's just not. And we're talking about two different markets. I understand. I don't

want people to think we don't understand that. But the EV market's in a real, real

precarious place under this administration, especially in America, of how are you going to

compete? I saw some information come out from some journalists touting how big the numbers have

been on EV sales in the third quarter. Everybody was trying to get in before the $7,500 tax credit.

And also in some of those sales, I don't know if anybody ever saw this, some of the manufacturers

were actually selling the cars to dealers and allowing the dealer to take the $7,500 tax credit.

I was going to say. There's a lot of funny business that went on in the third quarter

that I think the EV evangelical crowd in the media doesn't want you to know

all of the funny business that's been going on. There was a bump. There wasn't a gigantic spike.

I saw a lot of those charts and numbers. And I mean, it wasn't anything that's like, oh my

no, but I mean, look, if you're a dogmatic EV person, any uptick is like trying to prove you

right. And so I got to say this a million times. I'm sorry for our frequent listeners. I'm in the

middle of the road. If you want an EV, it fits you great. And by the way, if Maki could have been

built when we bought our GX460, we would own a Maki right now. I wanted to give Maki a run.

I wanted to have an own. I want to own it. I agree. As we were talking, I was scrambling to find the

Ionic pricing and page. So here is where we are starting at the top 2025. I mean 7600 up to 9200,

but it starts in 2026 at 366 and goes up to 50,500. So you're telling me and I'm not obviously for

anybody that looked at Ionic fives. I didn't know this. They were going for 43 plus in 2025.

Oh yeah, especially if you were getting something like the in, you know, which is like,

Oh wow. Yeah. I just, hey man, if you love it, I hope you love it because I don't.

I hope you love it too. And again, let me be the less reasonable one here for a first second,

since Nick is a level headed professional here. $50,000 for that. Are you out of your freaking mind?

What are you talking about? I mean, you can get a lot of V12 Astens for like 30,000 right now.

Dude, there's that. I know your family can't fit in, but you just look at your wife and go,

Hey, what do you want me to do? It's a good deal. Random. Last night in my list, because I have

a master list on how to trader of like the specs I want just across all cars. I can't remember the

year, man, but it's a Maserati Quattroporte, I believe for like $12,000. Yeah. Really broken.

But it's literally got like 12,000 miles or something. It's ridiculously low. I'm like,

wait a minute. Do I need a hundred percent? You stop, you look at all the pictures,

you're in the car. It looks brand new. I know. That's how Maserati gets you. Then you get it and

you go, Oh, no. I was so excited when I saw this. I think this is gonna be really funny. That's

crazy. What fell off? The vents. Oh, the vents. Oh, okay. It's GM level. I got you. Yeah. Oh, yeah,

for sure. But it does look sweet. And you're like, man, why, why, where did this go wrong?

This could have been an amazing vehicle. I tell you where it just exactly where Jaguar and Aston

and everybody else has gone wrong. They just didn't concentrate enough on reliability. They

just never got to a place of confidence. They would always depreciate. Don't get me wrong.

All those luxury brands, they'll all depreciate, but you can stay relevant by being the one that's

a little bit more competent on the reliability. Look, before we move on, I'm gonna give Nick

again, just one more time, a big gander at the full Ionic here, the whole thing. I mean, that's

it is kind of Model Y-ish. I guess I could have been kind of wrong, but they look small as hell

in person. Dude, that looks exactly like a GTI. Yeah, it does. It looks like a 2017 with the U

shape lights too. Yeah. It's so weird to me that little random black line in the middle of the

bumper. Yeah, right here, beneath the camera. What are we doing here? Hey, we just need to put

this in here. Maybe you could have hid that a little bit better. Yeah, it looks like a mustache

we're not allowed to use these days. Hey, some guy said about the backup camera we had installed.

He's like, looks like a 1990s backup camera. It's like, but it's a 2003.

What do you think it was going to look like? You think I was going to bury it into the tailgate

and cut out a big thing and make it look like a modern, it's not modern? Or better yet, have

the freaking charger that has a camera on the front of it like this. Why does Chrysler do this?

Dodge Chrysler has this huge camera on the front of the car. You could have definitely

hid that behind a logo or something. Yeah, it's funny. Geez, people. And here somehow,

we're the reasonable ones on the internet, believe it or not. All of this joking around.

I mean, nobody comes close to clutch culture and what it delivers to the people every week.

Yeah, it's almost like we just have a good culture.

I dude, well said. Bravo. Very good. Settle. I mean, but nailed. I wear a big hat, Rob. I

wear a big hat. And you're going to wear a big clutch conspiracy beanie too this winter. You

watch and you know what I'm talking about. Hey, you got you got some apparel on the way.

You are an X. You like XL, right? I do too. Just for the comfort. Okay. Sometimes I know

it's kind of what fits me. But in the summer, Nick likes to, you know,

be ripped with a hoodie in the gym. So it's a large in the summer. It's called a cover up.

It is a cover up the pump cover up. Exactly. We know pump and iron days.

All right. Do you remember the Ford SVT Thunder? Man, you got to remind me. So it was never

actually made. I loved this and it came across my Instagram because somebody actually made this.

I'm going to show you what it looked like back in 1999, 2000. And essentially it was supposed to

be thunder and lightning. So they took an expedition and they put the lightning basically under it.

Hey, did you ever remember this is going to be a real deep cut? Has anybody ever seen

Christopher Titus's expedition? Remember that was orange and black and I had them,

they did all kinds of work to it. I believe I'm right on that. Yes, I know what you're talking

about. Faintly, but that's really definitely a deep cut because I don't think I've seen that in 15

years. Oh man, look at this thing, right? Super cool. Basically it's a lightning and

they never actually made it. This was like a prototype, but how incredible would have been

if they actually produced that along with the lightning in the early 2000s? What if it was in

the what? I'm going to ask this question because Jim Farley seems to not be in the office very much.

Have you seen the back of the new expedition? It's two tone.

Yeah, it's only two tone as well. What do you mean it's only two tone? You can only get it two

tone? I believe you can only get it in two tone. That's that can't be true. I'm telling you right

now, we're going to end the podcast right now. I saw one today. It was silver. The whole vehicle

silver and then there's this big black thing on the back that makes the tailgate two tone. I'm

like, where did that come from? How does that go into the design? Dude, I know this because I know

somebody that already, yes, the back of the 25 expedition features a two tone split gate tail

where the top okay, but is it only I think it's all the only spec you can get dude.

Well, here's the thing is it so did they fix the tailgate where it's a two piece tailgate?

There's a top and a bottom or is it all come up as one door?

No, no, no. Yeah, the black portion is what comes up. Yeah. And then the white stays down.

There's no way you're right about that. There's no way because here's the thing if they brought

back I'll I think all things because my LX is this way. I think they should bring back the tailgate

you could sit on. Okay, so I'm all in favor of that. If they did that, then this is going to

give them a little bit of a pass. It's still a stupidest thing I've ever seen design wise out

of the blue. But if it is a two piece tailgate, then I'm kind of I'm kind of going to give them

a little bit of a pass because that absolutely should be how all tailgates are built. You should

be able to you should be able to grab a beer in your garage. You're right. You're absolutely

should totally right. Let me correct this for the record. The two tone option is

specific to the King Ranch. So only the King Ranch can only get the which is the most expensive

one by our nicest one. It's going to look the worst. Yes, I knew it was only it had to be on

one of them. So but you can get single color options on the XLT and the limited. Otherwise,

the most expensive one has the two tone. Let's go. Rob knows his shit. You know, here's the thing.

It's I guess they just want to be like half ass Eddie Bauer from back in the day.

That's exactly what it reminds me of. You're right. Here's the thing. The two tone, though,

on the Eddie Bauer went on the rocker panels as it should. As it should like a classic American.

Yes, it's a true like the you remember the forest green and the brown. That's the only two tone

to get only two to get maybe the blue. But the green was the quintessential one. Okay.

Okay. This we're going to say all silver. We're going to get to the back two tone.

I was I was following one today and I go and you know, those like cartoon wipe your eyes.

Oh my God, this is what we're doing. I didn't see the King Ranch badge. I was just so dumb

founded that they did this. Yep. Yep. Dude, that is so funny. And I saw that because I know some

moms, of course, the moms that drive these and I had a conversation with somebody and they were

like, yeah, it can only come in this color because I thought, honestly, hear me out. And I know we

just talked about the black roof is not looking good when I saw it in person because I hadn't seen

it. And I was like, in person, I was like, I actually looked kind of cool. And it was clean.

It was brand new. It was like interesting. Okay. So hold on. Is the roof black and then it goes

back into the tailgate? I think so. But that I don't remember because it was just really tall.

Because I got to tell you something. I don't want to be unfair about this, but it looks so stupid

on the tailgate. I couldn't believe it was real. I couldn't concentrate on anything else.

This was literally on the exit ramp to get to my shop. I followed this guy all the way till my

final turn. I was dumbfounded the whole time. I think my phone rang twice. I didn't even pick it

up. Oh, I'm getting teared out of I can't see the screen because I'm laughing so hard. Okay,

let me see if this will give you the perspective you're looking at real quick and I want to pull

it up. It's in that same grayish color. I don't know if it's silver that you saw. So the top

is the color and then it goes into black. And the sides are black too along the glass. So I

didn't see it. It looks so stupid. It looks so stupid. I'm sorry. Look at the back end of that

thing. Yeah. Well, now it doesn't look as cool and now that I see it again, or you're just bullying

me. Now you're just bullying me to make me change my mind because I kind of like it. I think

somebody's going to be like, I just bought one and I love it. I hope you do because boy man,

that's a face only a mother could love right there. In the first Guardians of the Galaxy,

the bad guy has paint, his skin is this color and his face is this color. That is exactly what it

looks like. Wow. I will say this, the front end looks nice though. It does. I like this light

bar that goes all the way through the bottom too. Yeah, that's good. They just screwed up the back

half. Evidently the designers just stopped at the front. You know, they have this whole scheme

where the front end of all the 20, fours and up. By the way, that color isn't on the, that's just

black trim. That's the other thing. That's just black trim around the windows. So it's not even a

color. Oh yes, yes, yes, yes. It's just black trim. It's not on the door panel. Correct. I was

going to say this front, what do you feel about this front grille that it's blacked out? You like

it? The 24s and going forward, they have this whole black scheme where the headlight housing,

the grille, everything's black and I liked it a lot until I really started comparing it to the

23s before they did that. And then he just kind of like, all right, I actually like the classic

look better with like the colors, you know. Yeah, but I can understand that, but you can't say it

looks bad. No, no, no, it doesn't. I think that's a win in car design today. It's like, hey, I do

like the 2022 better, but the 2026 doesn't look that bad. That's kind of a win in today's world.

You're right. You're absolutely right. That might be one of the funniest portions of this podcast

because I just, I was, I'm telling you, people don't understand how my brain works. I do my best

to try to explain. I was dumbfounded for, it's about six minutes of my commute and I'm like,

who did this? All right, I'm going to give you three options here on cars. We've talked about

the stamps on the tailgate so you can't take out, Nick hates it. That's no. But hear me out,

black roof, black back like this expedition or the stamp, you can only have one. It has to be on the

car. Suicide. No, that's not how you play the game. I would take the black on the back or the

top. You're going to get three options. No, no, I'll take the black wherever you put it because

I'll just, I'll just color change it. I'll just fix it. I'll just fix it. I'll use colored PPF.

I'll fix it. You can't fix that stamp. That's the problem. There's no fixing it. Not enough filler

in the world to make that look good. No, no, you'd have to bondo the hell out of that thing.

All right, fair enough. I'd still take the stamp. I like the stamp. I like the stamp.

That's egregious. We've said this before. I like it. I think it's cool. I will put SRT F-150

anywhere you want it. I'd be following you and go, Hey, man, what kind of car are you driving?

I can't tell with that big stamp on the back. Well, let me just slow down so you can see what

I'm driving. I have a buddy who got a brand new Sequoia and we were doing something as a family

and I was following him and I kept sending him, Texas said, Hey, man, what kind of car did you

drive? I can't tell from the back. He did not get the joke until I got there. I said, Don't you see

all this writing? That's rude. Oh, dude, it was hilarious. It was only hilarious to me. So everybody

knows. He was like, Yeah, I guess I see what you're saying. But dude, I kept sending him, Texas,

like, Is that a Toyota? Dude, I got to get your opinion on this just because we're talking about

Ford and I've already brought up the Mach 1 earlier. What do you think about the color purple in general?

Done right. It's great. Done wrong. Yeah, that's done right. Yeah, right. That looks really good.

Very sweet. You don't see too many of these. They call it mischievous purple. It's like a

bluish purple. But yeah, that's really nice. I like it. Go ahead. When it's done right, man. It's

so good. Yeah, like Dodge has that one on the Viper that I thought looked really cool. Well,

they have the plum, which has been the hallmark of their brand for a long time. That's a great

color. Yeah. You were talking about a Mach 1. Yes. I'm going to come at this from a different angle.

I think we're off the Mach 1. Why? Okay. What are we at? You checked out the Viper market

lately. Funny enough, you said that I did, but I might have gone too far back old-wise and I

was like... Well, first of all, the first gen gets kind of expensive if you want to get the right one

because that's the body everybody wants, I mean, generally. I think I'd be in the Viper market.

I do. Don't think I didn't look. Don't think I didn't look. I mean, especially the bodies that

people don't like. What is it? The third gen or something like that? I think I'd be deep in the

Viper because I think you can get a pretty nice example for like 35. Yeah, you're absolutely right.

And I'm like, yeah, you might die in this thing. That's exactly why I stopped looking because there's

like no technology traction control kind of stuff in there. This is the opposite side where it's

like they put... This is the parts spin car of the Mustang parts spin cars for Ford and it has all

the stuff that makes you feel safe because I'm waiting for... I'm waiting to get one at some point

and just hear all of the comments like, oh, here we go. Another Mustang is going to spin out,

another this. So in my mind, I'm like, if I get the one that handles the best. Yeah, but if you

just go, I'm buying a car you expect me to put into a light pole, I just avoid all of it.

That's actually a really good way to think about it. Wow, you really... Yep, you bamboozled me.

I mean, look, man, I'd be in the Viper world. I just... Because here's the way I look at it.

It's not that Mustang doesn't have some special vehicles, right? GT350 or whatever you want to

get, GT500. You go back to those Vipers, you're not seeing them. I know, man, and I love me a Viper.

I mean, you're not seeing them. So when you drive, you're literally driving something. What's it got?

500 plus horsepower? Oh, yeah, yeah, easily. Okay, you're at what, 550? I think it is, yes.

And you're going, nobody ever sees them. Nobody. I mean, you don't even see that many at a Viper

show. You know, it's not like there's 200 that show up to a Viper only show. It's like, here's

the deal, dude, you are in rarefied air of somebody who buys a car that everybody knows is great.

And yeah, it's not the perfect car, but it's raw. And you're picking it up for less than a Mustang?

Like, I don't know, man. I don't think I could go over that. Now, if you were going to be putting

1,100 to 1,500 miles a month on this, because you wanted to also drive it as like...

Oh, yeah, yeah. That's, here's the, you have a GTI dog. Just...

But that's kind of the point for the show too, is to like to take this, because it's going to be a

stick, where it's going to be a manual car, to showcase it being driven across the state. Would

you trust an older Viper across the state? Hold on. Let me go ahead and put this out of your mind,

because a lot of times your trips are from Austin to Houston. Yeah.

A manual in Houston traffic, no matter what manual you buy, is not going to be a great experience.

Fair. Okay. Might as well get the one that's 50-50 to go into a light pole ride.

Do it for the gram. You're absolutely right. For the gram. We were just talking about this

phrase, do it for the gram. The listeners will never hear that conversation. But yes,

you're right. We probably should do it for the gram. Well, okay. There's a video that if you

haven't seen it, you'll probably see it now, because we're talking about it in our phones.

You're listening to us 24-7. There's an old Integra, like the one from the first Fast and

Furious at the stoplight. And there's an older, late 90s Corvette, or rather a Viper next to it.

And then the Integra was just like, bang, you know, just ring, ring. And then all of a sudden,

it turns green, Viper right into a pole. I mean, the pole goes right through the car.

The pole goes through the whole thing. Okay. So we have a saying behind the scenes that we're

going to bring public. Yeah. Do it for the culture, Rob. We need to see you at a stoplight losing

control. We just got to see it. I want you to come out fine, but get me wrong. I don't think

bad to happen. But I mean, it's a Viper. Do it for the culture. And then when the camera comes

up to me, I'm wearing a clutch conspiracy. He's fucking beanie on. Like, why'd you do it? I did

it for the culture. Yeah, yeah. The Graham dog. Can you send me that video? That is so funny. Well,

I got to go refresh that because I deleted that listing of the save. That's a big mistake.

Big mistake. All right. I'm going to go back and filter it through. Next week, I'll report.

If you see the SRT flag, which I have in my garage that I found, if you see it here next

week, everybody, I'm going to change my mind to a Viper instead of Mach 1. You're going to have

to tell your wife, look, listen, you know that safe Mustang I was about to buy? We're out. We're

going the other way. I'm getting one of the most reckless cars I can own. We're going the other way.

I like it. Nick, you convinced me. Okay. All it took was seeing a purple car. You're like,

you know what looks good in purple? Vipers only. We're going Viper only. Okay. We're going to

wrap the show up, land the plane on the complete opposite of a Viper. And that is another vehicle

that I'm actually excited about. And that is a Slate truck. We haven't talked about Slate in a

and I'm in this forum. It's actually the Slate forums. And they were showing pictures that

I'll just pull up here for people watching on YouTube of the Slate trucks being built.

And I want to get your perspective on maybe some of the refinement that I see in this

as they're being built or just kind of your opinion. It's been a couple of months.

Oh, it looks like they cleaned up the front end. Yeah, it does. Right.

Look at that. If it comes with this kind of rake, like this whole look is just,

I think it's the bees knees. Okay. So here's what we've kind of said from the beginning.

So people don't misconstrue what we said. We knew this was hinging on the $7,500 tax credit,

right, to really blow up. But we're seeing all these manufacturers, like we just said,

with Hyundai, like we're seeing with, you know, Tesla, they're finding ways to cut costs and

make things cheaper. The question is, can this stay sub 25,000? But now you have to have the

conversation about the consumer. Everybody wants something cheaper, give anything up.

So is Slate going to find that to be the problem? Is that essentially,

everybody wants something that costs $22,000? When they find out what comes with $22,000,

are they going to walk away from it?

I hope not because I think, and I don't know why exactly, maybe because we talked about it for

a hot minute when those stories kind of started breaking. But I just have such a good feeling

of what this could do for the market. And I think Tesla making this price changes moves

and in Hyundai and everyone's going to, which actually, you know what, I'm going to read you

this first line from that article that I didn't get to. And the way that they phrased this was

just so silly to me. But it was in the one about comparing the Tesla to for the $5,000 difference.

Who knew the loss of the federal EV tax credit could potentially spark a pricing war in the new

in new EVs? I'm like, are you serious? Yeah, what are you talking about? Of course.

Everybody. Yeah, you should have probably updated your chat GPT to the new one before you wrote

that article. Everybody knew that they were going to find a way to cheapen EVs because they don't

have a choice. Yeah, right. It's not it's not even about if the market can handle it. If they

can handle it internally, they knew what they had to do. So they were going to make the decision

pretty quick. And I mean, Hyundai jumped on it almost instantaneously. So again, getting back

to sleep, one of the things I would love to see is I'm really interested to see what the consumer

actually does. Because you and I and maybe some of our listeners, we understand what you're getting

for 20, 22, $24,000. Does the average buyer understand what they're going to have to give up?

Because I grew up in an era when people bought Ford Rangers, they'd buy them with rubber floors,

they'd buy them with a stick shift, they'd buy them with an AM FM radio and nothing else,

no bells, no whistles, and they would be happy with them. Yeah. The consumer now is trained to go

for these upper echelon trim models, no matter the cost. And you and I saw a report today,

or this week, I should say, I don't know if it was necessary today out of the Wall Street Journal,

which is delinquencies on car loans have never been higher. Yeah. And again, I always tell people,

if you weren't there in eight, nine and 10, it's kind of hard to believe delinquencies on cars could

be worse today for a financial collapse that took place. And we haven't even had the financial

collapse yet. So is the consumer going to be compelled to give up all of the bells and whistles?

Because look at what Tesla did, we're taking away your bells and whistles, the complaints ramp up

to a billion. It's easy to say if they would if they'd have taken away all the bells and whistles

on the Model Y and they'd have charged me 30 grand, I'd have been happy. I don't know that that's

always the case. I think people want stuff. And they don't understand like we talk about with

housing. I can build you a cheap house, because that's what houses were in the 50s, 60s, 70s.

They were very cheap construction. They may have been good workmanship, but they were very cheap

construction. You guys don't buy those houses now. Like you want the bells and whistles,

and then you want to complain about the price. So the question now becomes,

if Slate comes out and it's $22,000, and you maybe just get a radio that can connect to your phone,

and that's it, and rubber floors, and nothing else, is the consumer really going... I want to

believe that they're going to do that. But I don't think we're going to know until it hits the market.

I want to believe that, and this is what I was going to say earlier, that doing this the way

Tesla did it, five grand, we're taking away all these bells and whistles, and then seeing the

backlash, what if they, and this is what I want to believe, because they're still there. The

glass roof is still there. The speakers are there. So then they're like, all right, we're going to

reverse course a bit. We're going to include all the features, and we're also going to give you $5,000

off. Oh, there are saviors, Tesla, Elon, we love you. That'd be a good way to go about it,

because they can test the market, still have the stuff there, and people don't like it.

They're like, ooh, too big of a backlash. Let's just go ahead and give it to them for that price.

I mean, you could be completely right. I mean, that could be the whole plan here,

as we just wanted to test the waters. I think you're in a weird market to do that.

I think consumers are so distrusting of everything now, that doing that would be a risk. It doesn't

mean that's not what they're doing. You could be exactly right. I think it'd be, obviously,

pretty common sense that that may be what they're doing here. Because even at five grand, you're

not losing the full, I mean, it's not $7,500, the tax rate was, so it's actually kind of worked

out better for Tesla in a sense. Well, and the other thing I'll keep saying is,

the tech was supposed to cheapen over time. As we built out our infrastructure,

everything was going to continue to get cheaper. When we brought out plasma TVs,

they cost $15,000. By the time we got to the end of the life of plasmas, you could pick

them up for a couple grand. And now you can get a 85 inch when you're picking up your food at

Costco for 800 bucks. It's supposed to get better and better and better. And that's the whole argument

of going so technologically advanced is that as it gets better, the price comes down.

I just don't know that we've seen that as fast as everybody's wanted to see it.

No, man. I think the point of diminishing returns was a long time ago with a lot of this tech.

And I'll give you a perfect example. Appliance is in the house. I'm sure Nick has had his fair

share of appliance scenarios where he wants to just burn every appliance down and say,

we're just going to use fire outside in the backyard and we're going to use the outhouse.

Nothing inside. There's this channel that I got served up this video of old Whirlpool washing

machines. And I remember these machines. Did you see what I'm talking about? Oh, my guy. So

I remember those. I think my parents might actually still have those as extra machines

and they never broke. Like there was never anything wrong with them. So then you get somehow

convinced, coerced, whatever, to upgrade your machines and they're always breaking.

And again, planned obsolescence is what everybody's screaming into their speakers.

Right now, as we're talking. Cods right now. We all understand that.

But you also have brands like Speed Queen, right? That have kept their technology low.

And again, you're going to pay the price to buy their machines, but essentially buy ones,

cry ones. And the consumer goes away from that. The consumer always goes,

look at all these bells and whistles for cheaper than the Speed Queen. But the Speed Queen's just

going to work. And it's going to have the old school agitator, but people don't want to do that.

So that's what I'm wondering about the Slate Truck. And as these things, to really get into the 20s,

you ain't going to get much. Yeah. And you know, the fact that people buy higher end

trims of Camry and a lot less base Camry's than they used to, where do we think this is going to

go? And I guess I'm looking at it as like an interest piece. I'm just interested to see

how many men and women out there are really willing to give things up to get to the price

that they've been clamoring for for all this time. And I did a poll on one of the stories,

Nick was pretty active in the story of the day, which by the way, if you guys, you know,

if you don't follow us, I'm sure you do, but follow us on Instagram at ClutchCulturePod.

We live through the stories. So there's a lot of stuff that's going up on the stories from

just different parts of our day or things that we're working on. And in one or reals that you

might miss in your actual feed. And I put a poll on one of them, base or top spec, right?

Overwhelmingly top spec. 100%. It just is what it is, guys.

Yeah. And you guys can all talk about how stupid all these car manufacturers are,

but they know what you want. Yeah. And they're selling a lot of the bells and whistles,

just like everybody that's building a new home. I know some home builders,

they know what you want. You want the big waterfall island. You want all the top appliances.

You want all the top room size. You want a big backyard. Hey, if we conclude a pool,

it'll cost this much. And all of a sudden you've stretched another $300,000 over what you thought

and you go, man, houses are expensive. It's like, but you wouldn't buy the $200,000 house.

Doug, I'll tell you what, my sister has an island that when I first saw it, when they were getting

this homemade or upgraded or whatever, I was like, this is a dumb... I could fit three of me across

the island. That's how big it is. And then the more we go over and do what Holly's over,

they're like, I love this. I want one of these. This is the best. Because we're always hanging

around the island. Look, I had a custom built house that I never should have been in at the time,

but it was 2008, nine and 10, and I was buying a house. Let it roll, baby. Let it roll.

And I'll tell you this, we had a pool the size. I mean, it was a whole other house electric bill.

You know what I mean? It was like, we don't need this. There's just two of us. What do we need all

this for? I had four AC units on that house. You lived in the UFC performance. It's two

AC units. And you're talking about the $5,000 and a $6,000,000, but you're talking about

the $5,000,000. That's not what the buying habits are telling the car companies. That's not what our

poll, which, again, is not scientific. You guys don't want the base models. And there's the savings.

The savings is to not buy the BS bells and whistles. So when you look at Slate, the question I have

for everybody. You keep asking for Toyota. You want Maverick to be another $5,000, $7,000

cheaper. I'm all on your side on that. But to buy another $7,000 cheaper Maverick, are

you going to give up everything?

Hell no. Look, I didn't bring this up earlier. I like how we went from the SVT Thunder to

like all of the Viper Mach 1 stuff. So I want to bring this up just to show you, pull it

up real quick, because I thought this was really cool. Somebody sent it to me, which

is what prompted me to want to show you. And this is somebody made this 1997.

Guys, so here is a 1997 Ford Expedition.

Oh, I think I saw this guy.

I made it into a Thunder SVT clone.

Dude, look at this.

Yeah, you did.

Look at this. Look how cool this is.

It's got a Gen 3 Coyote, 10R80.

With the 10 speed.

Painted this thing.

Sonic blue.

Hell yeah. Best color.

And it's pretty much ready.

This is going to be my daily driver.

I love this dude.

Take your kids to school.

Tell me this isn't something I should see in the Middle East.

Habibi, I got this.

Hell yeah, Habibi.

When the sun hits this thing, it looks so good.

Dude, I love that so much.

Hey, Kudos to this dude. What's his name?

His, he's at Thunder underscore SVT.

Shout out dog.

Love that thing. I want a lightning and a thunder.

I want thunder lightning.

That's what I want.

Shake and bake.

Yeah, yeah, I got a little too excited to tell you guys.

Yeah, dude, that's, I love seeing,

but what makes that cool, done right.

Yeah.

That's what we'll always say.

Yeah.

That makes that cool.

Painted it.

Looks like he tucked the engine in there.

Nice and pretty.

Looks like it belongs there.

Wires aren't hanging everywhere.

No laptop on the front seat.

Lightning wheels.

Everything's like time, time appropriate.

It's exactly what it's supposed to be.

And that's why you look at it and you go,

damn, this is, but I think a lot of people don't realize

why they think those are awesome.

It's like, guys, it's all the little touches.

Yeah.

It's open in that hood and it looks like the engine belongs there.

The wheels are right.

The color is right.

It's all done.

The trim was all in order.

Yeah.

Okay.

Like it's, it's, it's the, it's the little things

that make those builds really special.

And also the look, there's something about all the

jagged edges and stuff that we get nowadays on some,

a lot of cars that like, oh, it looks cool.

And then you go back to more of the rounder, smoother stuff

of that time.

And you're like, man, that really did look clean and good, man.

Yeah.

And, and it's also nostalgic, right?

So we all got to say, we weren't really clamoring

about expeditions back then.

I don't know about you, bro.

I thought we saw through the cool.

Don't BS the crowd.

Don't lie to listeners.

I mean, I'm not saying you didn't like it.

I'm just saying you didn't think it was the peak of design.

No, no, you're right.

But it is now.

By the way, even the lightning didn't get,

the rounded lightning didn't get a lot of love.

I mean, those who liked it liked it, but.

And at that time, people were like, give me the 94,

or give me the box at, you know, a lightning.

And it's, yeah, it's just how it is.

Everything always looks better in hindsight

just because it's nostalgic.

Yep.

You know, I mean, do you remember sidesteps?

That was a real conversation between, oh, I don't like sidesteps.

Yep.

You know what I mean?

You either liked them or you didn't.

It's usually an age thing.

If you were like separated, you know, five, six years.

Somebody was five, six years older or younger.

Somebody would be square body.

Somebody would be, I like the sidesteps.

I mean, this has always been the name of the game.

Yeah.

You would get like the, the splash ranger with the sidestep

and be like, oh, it looks gross.

And then later, a couple years later,

the edge version would have come out of the,

and that looked with us, you know, straight body,

like that's way better.

And people always be fighting about that.

And now everyone wants both of them

because they both look cool right now in 2025.

Absolutely.

Dude, excellent episode.

God, is it possible that these get better and better

every week after 47 weeks of this?

I think we got to let the people vote on that.

You're absolutely right.

I think, I think we'll be ClutchCulturePod at gmail.com.

Doing a poll, when this drops, go to our Instagram.

It'll be up there for 24 hours.

Have the episodes.

Is it, is it clutch culture podcast?

It's clutch culture pod.

Are we still doing this?

I don't know, dude.

You have to let me know.

I think it's podcast I thought.

That's the emails at clutch culture pod all over socials.

Our email is clutchculturepodcast at gmail.com.

Send us an email.

We'll read some listening emails next week.

Please go watch the LX audio video

and leave us your comment.

You can like it.

And now I'm getting this notification about hype.

Like you can hype videos.

So give us some hype points or whatever the hell that is.

I got to read about that on YouTube's blog.

I don't know what that's all about,

but apparently pushes it up in the algorithm or whatever.

Drop a comment, like it,

and then just let us know that you watched it

and what you think of Nick's audio, good or bad.

You can read essays in the comments already

about how good and or bad the audio is.

You can get all the opinions.

And it seems like the Rob fans

are a little bit of a problematic comment.

Listen, I've been hearing that my entire life.

I've been hearing that my entire life.

When you get thrown around, not such positive.

Well, it's positive towards me,

but again, I just like to give off good vibes.

If you don't like, you know, if you like them cool,

if you don't, I'm sorry.

That's right.

But if without further ado,

we'll see you guys next week.

This was a great episode.

Nick, appreciate it.

See you guys.

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