The New 'Filthy' BMW M4 CS & The Duke of Richmond

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I'm Hannah Elliott.

And I'm Matt Miller, and this is Hot Pursuit.

Coming up on today's podcast, we hear from the Duke of Richmond, formerly the Earl of March,

about what has become probably the most important car show in the world.

I had the idea of the Festival Speed and started that in 93.

You know, much to our surprise, you know, we were told a couple of thousands.

People might turn up 25,000 people bowled up that first morning,

and the thing from then on, we had called for a million this year come.

It was a big thing.

Plus my experience driving a BMW M4 CS and Hannah's latest car review of a Maybach.

I can't wait to talk about all of that coming up on the show, but before we get to your BMW, Matt,

we have to talk about the astronomical cost of the average car.

It's actually apropos of your, I think, Mercedes Maybach review, right?

Very much so.

We're talking about prices, and the M4 isn't cheap, but what you drove is incredibly

expensive.

What I drove is very expensive.

It's about $225,000.

That's if you buy it outright.

This story that you actually brought to my attention, Matt, by Jay Thomas and Keith

Norton, some of our best reporters.

The story says that actually seven-year car loans are fast becoming the norm.

They're often the only way that buyers can afford new rides,

with average sale prices surging 28% in five years to approach $50,000.

So that's the average price for a car now.

What you and I drive, obviously, is often far more expensive to that.

In fact, we rarely drive anything that's $50,000.

But it's still a very high price for the average car.

That's for every normal person, right?

Even people who don't care about cars.

Completely.

And basically, compared to a five-year loan, that is the difference between

a $1,000 monthly payment and basically a $780 monthly payment.

So that's a lot per month.

Hey, you can cut your monthly payment 22% if you take the loan out to seven years.

But the other factor is then you end up paying a ton more money in interest.

So then your $50,000 car loan, which normally would be $65,000 total payment

all in, becomes like a $75,000 total car payment all in.

So we had written a story last year about how new cars have gotten so expensive that even

rich people, essentially, we interviewed a doctor in Miami, were buying used cars.

Because this guy was like, yo, I was going to get a new lease of the same Mercedes that I

leased last time.

But it was so expensive that now I'm looking at a used car instead.

Yeah, I mean, I think the point is like, people aren't stupid when you actually

add up the numbers and you realize how expensive it is now over the long term,

even if your monthly payment is lower.

It just feels dumb to be spending that much money, even if you can't afford it.

You know, you want to make a good decision.

And if you know the minute this car leaves the dealer's lot, it's going to drop

precipitously in value.

You might as well just get one that's like a year old.

It's actually a great argument for buying used cars to begin with,

even if you are a wealthy person who can afford that kind of depreciation.

I often think about, you know, what I would do if I'd bought a lot of Bitcoin 10 years ago,

or, you know, if I'd invested in Tesla's IPO, or if I had known about NVIDIA's

Astronomic Rise.

And I always think like, oh, it'd be cool to buy, you know, a Range Rover and a

supercharged Escalade V.

Just to see which one's better to live with.

Like if you had the money, why not, you know, own both of them?

And even when I'm sort of daydreaming about this, I still buy used.

Because even in my daydreams, I don't want the kind of depreciation you get hit with

if you buy a new Range Rover.

Completely, completely, completely agree.

I mean, I've talked about this before like ad nauseam.

I think if you really want to like start saving the world, stop buying new cars,

which is ironic considering the line of work we're in.

My question is how do you feel about leasing versus like taking a loan out to buy a car?

I mean, I've been thinking about this ever since I understood the concept of leasing,

right?

And I think, you know, financial news journalists and, you know, sort of

self-help gurus have been debating this also for the last 20 years.

But it really depends on who you are, on what you want to do,

on what you want out of the car.

And now with EVs, there's a whole new variable, right?

So I would probably lease an EV, whereas a lot of internal combustion engines I would buy.

Because I don't yet see an EV as a forever car, whereas like my Dodge Challenger,

I can keep forever.

I'm always going to love it even as I buy new cars.

But if I got like a Rivian, for example, I would want to upgrade that every few years

because they're never going to get better than a 6.4-liter Hemi, right?

But it is going to get better than whatever battery pack and electric motor you have now.

Completely.

The rate of advancement, I mean, it's like an iPhone.

Like I could lease my iPhone.

It really wouldn't matter.

It would be all the same to me in the end.

And that's kind of how I see the EVs especially, too.

By the way, let's get to the BMW I was driving.

Because this is, I think, a great example of the inline six that BMW makes.

They have pretty much perfected it.

And it's in the whole range of their performance cars, right?

From the M2 up to, well, certainly the M4 that I drove.

The power differences made by bigger turbochargers or like an electric assist.

And speaking of a forever car and kind of reaching the pinnacle of development on ICE,

when we come back, we're going to talk about the BMW that I drove

with its inimitable inline six, the M4 CS.

That's up next on Bloomberg Hot Pursuit after this.

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All right. So I drove this BMW M4 CS. It's kind of the top-of-the-line performance sports car

from BMW. I mean, I don't think that you're going to go to an M8, right? That's more of a GT car.

And personally, I kept thinking the whole time I would go with an M2,

but it's obviously a much smaller and more economical package.

This thing was absolutely filthy in every sense of the word except for dirty. It wasn't,

there was a speck of dust on it. It was a gorgeous green color and they have a number of

awesome green tones. It's one of my favorite colors for a car, so that's very cool.

But it had tons of exposed carbon fiber. It's a super complex, polarizing design. So everybody

who saw it on the street and everybody who passed me on the highway had something to say

about it. Oh, really? Now, did this have the two-tone hood like the black straw? Oh, it did.

And it has, of course, the huge beaver tooth grill, which we know is very polarizing.

I mean, I hated it when it first came out and now I love it.

You can't see it when you're behind the wheel anyway. So honestly,

it doesn't matter if the car drives great, maybe not.

Well, I mean, you can't unsee it after you have. But I think like much of BMW's design,

when you first see it, you don't like it at all. I think the majority of people don't like

it. It's kind of brutal. A new BMW. And then over time, you grow to love it or you get used to it,

whichever it is. Yeah. I was just going to say, are you saying this is like a perfect daily driver?

No, not at all. Not at all. In fact, so I have the car for a week, right? And the first

three or four days, I'm thinking, this car is, honestly, it's too fast. It's like scary

fast. Come now. I know. It's too fast. It's only got a 543 horsepower motor, but

the way it feels is a little bit dangerous. It's still the inline six, which is why I say it's

a forever car kind of engine, but they put bigger turbochargers on it and it's all-wheel-drive.

Now, all-wheel-drive, but isn't there a rear-wheel-drive mode?

Yes. That you can activate rear-wheel in that? Yeah. You can put it into rear-wheel-bios.

Which is even scarier. Yeah, because you have to turn off basically the traction control. Sure.

But even with the traction control on and in all-wheel-drive mode, it just feels,

it's so fast. It's so quick and it's like so brutal and loud as well. All right. Let's get

to the Maybach now, because so this is so cool. You drove, I think, the most luxurious version of

Mercedes SL cabriolet, the Sport Leist cabriolet. And I happened to, this was not planned, drive,

I think, the Sportius version. I drove the AMG version. So tell us first about your Maybach.

Starting with the price. Sure. This is the 2026 Mercedes Maybach SL680. It's a convertible. The

starting price is $224,900. And basically, this is a Maybach based on the SL, the new Mercedes SL.

It's the first two-seater that Maybach has ever done. And, you know, Mercedes says they did

it to try to appeal to younger owners. So this is a very expensive car. It's basically an AMG SL63,

but with a Maybach treatment on top of it. What does that Maybach treatment look like?

It looks like a lot of logos everywhere on the car. On the, they're like these embossed,

you know, basically they look like they're stamped on like a Louis Vuitton bag. Maybach

logos all over the hood, all over the soft top, all over the inside of the doors.

Plus the interior is bright white. The car is too, it currently comes standard in two,

only two colorways. You can get black and red or black and white. There are other optional colors

that have been added since the debut, but those are the standard colors right now.

It comes with some new monoblock wheels, 21 inch. So the changes to this particular car are not

performance related. They're aesthetics and cosmetics related, basically.

And we've been talking about like Beamer Bros. For instance, I will also say there's a very

large element of people who love how this car looked. Of course, when I saw it, I slightly

cringe because it's a lot of chrome. It's a lot of everything. Like you don't need

everything. You could just have one element and leave the body of the cars really beautiful,

I think. And you don't need everything. You don't need the wheels and the two tone and the stamping

and the chrome and all this stuff. You could just like have one. But that said, as I drove this

car from Los Angeles to Carmel and didn't receive any speeding tickets, thank you very much.

People loved it. And it might have been a little like how you were with the M4.

Everyone wanted to talk about it. Everyone wanted to see it. Probably the people who didn't like it

just kept their mouth shut because everybody who came up to me loved it and wanted to know all

about it. And I like that. I mean, I love the color of the vehicle. You drove the red one,

right? I love that red color. It's like a Claret almost. The monoblock wheels on the

car that you drove are too much. I mean, they're pretty ridiculous. I have to say,

actually, I weirdly like them. I would, I would weirdly get that car in like a midnight below.

And I would possibly keep the wheels just to be bratty. They make they're kind of cool. They make

another wheel, which I think looks far better. They do. The spoke, like multi spokes. But

and the the the the logos, I mean, the whole like Louis Vuitton, the giant polo player or

whatever, like I'm not down to clown with that. It's too much. It's too much, but

it's weird because there's a certain element that love it. And Mercedes knows this.

And I do believe they're selling. They are going to start deliveries later this year.

They're on sale now. I will say the white interior, like unequivocally, I don't know why

anybody would get that unless you unless you plan to park the car and never drive it.

You I couldn't keep it clean for a week. I put it. I literally put a towel in the footwell.

So my boots wouldn't get the white carpeting. Yeah. I mean, if you have that much money,

it's a $225,000 car. And yeah, if you have that kind of cash, I guess you can have it

cleaned regularly. But I don't think it's about the cash. It's about the time lost

while the car is being cleaned. You know, okay, like, but you have somebody that does

it for you. So unplanned, I drove the sportiest version of this SL super leished or sport leished,

whatever. Cabriolet from Mercedes. I drove the AMG SL 63 SE performance version,

which is the same price as the Maibach that you drove. Mine was 224,800. So still unaffordable

for most normal people, right? But it has an electric assist. It has, they say, permanently

excited synchronous electric motor that brings your total horsepower with the twin turbo V8 to

805 and your total torque to over 1000 foot pounds of torque, 1047 foot pounds of torque.

So that's more than mine because mine was about 577. Right. So you get the logos and mine gets the

power. But unlike the BMW M4 that I drove, and obviously no one's cross shopping, these two,

it wasn't terrifying. It felt so refined and it's so planted and the steering is so precise

without being like twitchy that I think it's the best driving convertible I've ever driven ever.

Does that go ahead of any sort of 911 convertibles? Well, I haven't driven many 911 convertibles,

right? I mean, I had a 991 and I've driven the 992s and I mean, they're pretty amazing. But this,

I like, I like better. Now, I haven't, I haven't driven a turbo, for example. But for our, yeah,

our purpose is here. You loved it because I loved it. So refined. And the other thing is like,

so a 911 is the instant, it's like, you know, what you would cross shop against this, I guess,

because same price at the moment, a turbo change, but they just seem more a dime a dozen

than these. You just don't see that many SLs. And also, like, it's so luxurious. I love the

leather inside. I love the wood trim and it's got these pinstripes that are actually like

raised metal. Yes. The screens are screens. It's like highly technological, but they're not too

much. It's not, and they work perfectly and they're so intuitive. Seamless. I was trying

to think on the way to work this morning, what my complaints would be other than the price,

right? I'm never going to, a 225, I mean, it might be, might as well be an Aston Martin or Ferrari,

honestly, when you get to that level. But other than that, my only complaint is that it's a little

cramped for somebody who's six foot three. And the legs are the headroom. The legs. Yeah,

because I thought the headroom was actually pretty good, but you mean like leg wise. Yeah,

I mean, I'm all leg and I had the car as I had the seat as far back as I could get it.

And I just feel like at this price point, you could add a couple inches in the cockpit, but maybe,

and I was going to ask you about this, maybe they want to remind the buyer of a 300 SL, like maybe

they're trying to keep that feeling. And the seals, the door sills are kind of high,

not obviously old school SL high, but I've, I've never, I've never driven a 300 SL, but I've

sat in one or a few. And I got kind of the same feeling. You have to climb into the cockpit and

you feel like an athlete when you're driving this. Yes, it feels like a sports car. So I just think

I can't say enough good about it. Actually, it's, it's amazing if I had the money. Yeah. Well,

I agree. I as someone who used to own an SL, I had a 560 when I first moved to Los Angeles.

I love the heritage of the SL line from the Goldwings and I've done rallies in the Goldwings before.

I've owned an SL from an 88. And now this, obviously this really isn't close at all to the

SLs of the past, but you're right in the way that the seat orientation is inside. And I felt that

same way in the Mybok. I was in the car. The car was like, I put on the car like a coat

over my shoulders and I felt very hugged and embraced by the car. Not that it was stifling

at all, but it just felt very comforting. And this is where it starts to sound woo-woo.

But it's true. There's something about the way the seat is positioned and you're in it.

It's, you're not, I hate feeling like you're on top of something and you're just like

driving a skateboard. I'm Matt Miller, along with Hannah Elliot. You're listening to Hot Pursuit.

We have more coming up after this.

Support for the show comes from Public. On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio

of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into

an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies

with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year

over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks,

builds a one-of-a-kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest

in a few clicks. Generated assets are completely customizable and based on your thesis, not

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your portfolio. That's public.com slash market.

So we're going to talk with Charles Richmond, who is the 11th Duke of Richmond. You might have

heard of Goodwood. He is the person who owns Goodwood, the man behind him. He actually succeeded

his father as chairman of the Goodwood estate in 1994 after a career as a photographer. So he is

truly born and bred, all things automotive in the best British proper sense. He's actually

even earned a CBE for his contributions in that area. And we are so happy to have him joining us.

Now I believe we shall address his Excellency as my Lord Duke.

I think Charles will be fine. It's really very cool to have you here because we talk about

this is a weekly podcast and we tend towards the finer things in life. So we talk about Goodwood

quite a bit on this program. And I was really thrilled when Hannah told me she'd managed

to secure an interview with you. So thank you so much for joining us.

Pleasure. I'd be delighted to be involved.

So Goodwood coming up next month, it's one of the premier events for if not the premier event for

car lovers around the world. Tell us and our listeners who aren't familiar with it exactly

how you got started because Goodwood is steeped in automotive history.

Yeah, we're obviously talking about Goodwood revival. So there are a number of things

that go on here. Festival speeds, another one. But the revival is very much part of the whole

story. And so my grandfather, Freddy, was a racing driver before the war in 1930s.

And he allowed the RAF to turn one of the farms here at Goodwood into

Battle of Britain airfield at the beginning of the war. And in order to do that, they built a

perimeter track around this around this airfield, which is so often what happened

with those sort of those satellite airfields around southern England. It was a very busy

airfield, very busy in the war, Douglas Bader, some great pilots flew from here.

And it was a very busy active airfield. And after the war, a young Australian pilot

who also became a very successful driver called Tony Gaze, he suggests my grandfather this perimeter

track they built around the airfield would make a great racetrack. All the young pilots have been

tearing around it when they were not flying their Spitfires. And so he looked at it. He got

John Cooper down. They had to go around it. They went the other way to start with. They

went the opposite way around. Anyway, they decided to make a great racetrack. And

in September 1948, they had their very first meeting. And that was the first

race meeting to open after the war. And it was always Easter Monday. It was the first big

race meeting of the year. It was very social. All the great teams were here. All the great

drivers were here. And I used to come as a small boy. And I was horrified in 1966,

when he decided, my grandfather decided for all sorts of personal reasons, he was going to

shut it down. And that was very, I was very disappointed. And so I kind of vowed one day

we'd try and get it going again. And when I came back to live at Goodwood, in the early 90s,

that was something that I looked at very early on. It was all collapsed, fallen down. It was used

for a bit of testing, but the buildings were all gone. And the airfield was still busy

in the middle of it. And we immediately started to sort of make

inquiries with the local authority, the local government about how we could get this going

again. And we met a wall of resistance. So that looked like it was going to be very, very challenging.

And eventually it looked pretty impossible.

I was just going to ask, you know, for people who haven't been

to the Festival of Speed or Revival, can you kind of explain the difference? Obviously Revival is

very period correct, both for the people who are attending and for the cars and for the races.

Festival of Speed at this point seems like a huge massive car show with new cars going up the

hill. Can you kind of say, you know, okay, if you're a certain person, go to Festival of

Speed. If you're another kind of person, go to Revival. Because they're very different.

Well, they're very, very different. So yeah, the Festival of Speed is four days.

It's a celebration of the motor car and all its forms. And it celebrates the past, present,

and the future. The future is really important too. The cars are driven in front of the house

on this piece of road. They go up this hill. It's 1.1 mile length. And the big difference is

they go one at a time. And some of them are, you know, some of them are demonstration only,

some of them are being extremely competitive. And you see an F1 car, a full chat on a bit,

on a piece of road that's only a few meters wide in front of the house. It's, you know,

it's a pretty, it can be a pretty, I mean, those first years, everyone was so shocked,

was literally a string line. You'd be sitting there, this is the piece of string across and

I was going, my God, this is, you know, as a McLaren went past you. So it became a thing.

And it, and it's, it really is a celebration and a sort of joy of mobility. And, and it's

turned into all of that. And the manufacturers got involved very quickly. They got super

enthusiastic about it. So we're very, you know, every major manufacturer in the world,

one way or another has been involved and most of them still are. And there are no motor shows in

the world now either really. So we're a kind of, we answer to the motor show and, and, and, and it's

dynamic. So then people can actually see the car moving. So we, you know, we had lots, I don't

know how many launches, we have 12 major launches this year or something, you know,

from cars from, you know, mass production cars to hyper cars to every sort of thing. And

you know, there's very little opportunity now for manufacturers, they can launch cars digitally,

which became quite fashionable for a while. But I think after the end, they felt like it's not

really the same as doing, they need to do it live, but also send those messages around the

world at the same time. So I think we offer an interesting platform for that. And it's

just a really big sharing experience. Everyone here is a massive, you know, car,

that massive enthusiast that total, you know, they're so into it.

I want to finally ask about the revival. Obviously, the, the, the cars are the main

attraction in the plane. Planes in the morning would be fantastic. And I imagine you

have some amazing motorcycles there as well. But for, for many people, you know, dressing

up to the period and bringing period gear must also be just as much fun. And we know where to

get all the cars. Hannah writes about that. That's her day job. But where does one

properly outfit himself for this event? I mean, is there a clothier near Goodwood or

someone in London that you would recommend? Well, that's a good, very good question,

actually. But the, I mean, one thing is when it, vintage is important and real vintage is

important, you know, the whole, the real ethos event is around revive and thrive.

So it's what we call it. So it's about, you know, by the best made to last second

hand's really a really good thing and things on and look after things. I mean, for instance,

it's just worth mentioning all the cars. It's the only motorsport event in the world

where all the cars are mandated on synthetic fuel. So they're all running synthetic fuel.

So the whole sustainability thing is an important part of the event and that's an important part

of what you wear. But we're not saying it has to be vintage. We're saying, you know, if it's

beautifully made, you know, properly tailored, and it's, and it's, it's going to last and

that's fine. You could just work, get a great hat, you know, you go to locks and

St James's and buy a great hat in London, you could get go to Portobello,

where all the second hand shops are and get some great second hand kit. But, you know,

you don't, people do it by degrees. And you can go online, obviously Etsy and all those

sites, they've got great vintage. So that world's been transformed. I mean, the fact you can buy

it all online now is, is, is fabulous. And I mean, there are still a few second hand

shops around, but probably Portobello is the best, especially for girls, for girls stuff,

you know, some very serious collectors. I mean, people were very tiny, then that's

another slight challenge. You know, they were much, they were much smaller.

But there's a whole mass of vintage shops at Revival itself. And we've got our, you know,

Dita Von Tees and Dandy Wellington and all these people here coming here to, you know,

talk about vintage and talk about the whole sort of lifestyle of vintage. And they just

live it. These people live the whole, live the whole thing completely. So it's a very important

part of the event. And people, we've got 80 hairdressers on site or something. Everyone,

you know, the whole hair and makeup thing. It's amazing. And people look actually,

so they arrive really early, they get their hair done. You know, they arrive in a lovely

old Aston Martin, they get their hair done there, everyone gets ready, have a fabulous

breakfast, bottle of champagne, they're ready to go. Matt, I think we need to make this

happen, Matt. Agreed. I'm there. I'm there. Like I said, I've been to Festival of Speed,

but Revival I actually hear is really the jewel. But organize if you're coming.

Matt said you were coming earlier. Are you? I hope so. I hope so. Well, now I'd like to change,

now let's change my plans and come as well. I mean, it sounds like the most

I have family and a delicious event. Yes. Yes. Thank you so much for joining us,

your grace. It was truly, truly a pleasure at Bloomberg.net. And check out Hannah's columns

and stories on Bloomberg.com and on the Bloomberg business app and the Bloomberg terminal.

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

Find it all at Bloomberg.com, slash pursuits, slash autos. I'm Matt Miller.

And I'm Hannah Elliott. We'll be back in your podcast feed again next week.

BMW M4

Land Rover Range Rover

Cadillac Escalade

Dodge Challenger

BMW M2

Porsche 911

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