00:00
All right, dude, I got to kick it off with this.
00:01
So, Nick loves red, we've been through this,
00:03
it's a running joke for the last couple of weeks, all right?
00:06
Nick loves Ferrari, I was sent this to me
00:08
at least half a dozen times, so Ferrari,
00:10
for this from the drive, the new Ferrari 849 Testerosa
00:13
already has an army of haters.
00:15
You've seen it, right?
00:16
You already have some first impressions of it.
00:18
Please tell me what you think of this car.
00:22
I don't, I think the people hating on it
00:25
don't understand what Ferrari's trying to do.
00:28
They're trying to rectify the SF-90 mistake.
00:30
Okay, so this car is to rectify
00:34
basically a very hated vehicle, the SF-90.
00:38
And they're doing a better job.
00:41
This is a new sort of design language,
00:46
making this look different than anything else.
00:49
Here's what I'll say, I'm not a big fan of
00:55
using the name Testerosa now
00:57
for everybody that doesn't know the history of Testerosa,
00:59
there was one in the 50s, there was one in the 80s.
01:02
Everybody remembers the one from the 80s
01:04
because the side profile is this iconic,
01:11
once in a generation type of icon,
01:13
it doesn't even matter if the car was good,
01:15
just that side profile was so iconic, right?
01:18
With the side strikes and the gills, the fins,
01:21
whatever words you guys wanna use,
01:23
everybody says it a little differently.
01:26
I don't like when you just use and stamp names.
01:29
Lamborghini did this with Kuntashe recently,
01:32
Supra did this, or Toyota did this with Supra.
01:35
But I think people that have followed us know
01:38
that Ferrari's direction now is higher production.
01:44
That's kind of what doomed SF-90,
01:46
not only that it was kind of an incompetent car
01:49
from a driving perspective, from a lot of people's opinion.
01:52
The second thing is they produced too many of them,
01:55
so if they limit production on this
01:58
and they do all this kind of stuff,
01:59
I want everybody also to know,
02:00
Ferrari's never taken good corporate pictures,
02:03
so you're gonna have to see this car in person
02:06
to actually see what it looks like.
02:07
It all looks like some guy was in a Photoshop booth
02:10
like just saying, hey, what do we want this to look like?
02:13
You know what I mean?
02:13
It's like, I don't know why
02:14
they can't take a competent picture.
02:16
That's kind of just been their M.O.,
02:18
their entire existence.
02:20
But I'm not a fan of just slapping Testerosa on things,
02:24
but in Ferrari's defense,
02:29
they've never really brought design language
02:32
from the same car generations later.
02:35
So if you look at the one from the 50s,
02:36
the one from the 80s is different.
02:38
This one's different than the one in the 80s.
02:40
I'm not a fan of that by any brand.
02:44
If you're gonna stamp the name on it,
02:46
I think you gotta kind of call back to it.
02:48
I'm so glad you mentioned that
02:49
because we hear that all the time from any car.
02:51
Whether we're talking about Mocquan
02:52
and the Mustang on an American brand,
02:54
or you're talking about Testerosa,
02:55
Coontos, as I can mention,
02:56
has anyone done it at least remotely okay, in your opinion?
03:00
Well, yeah, I mean, look at Bronco.
03:01
Ah, yes, yes, yes, of course.
03:03
Yeah, Bronco has done well.
03:04
Ford Lightning was a disaster.
03:07
It's the same brand, right?
03:09
I mean, Bronco has done well.
03:10
I think the new Defender was done well
03:12
to modernize it from what it used to be.
03:13
Of course, it's not exactly what it used to be,
03:16
but it was a good design.
03:19
And so you understand it.
03:20
Yeah, brands do this well.
03:21
I mean, Supra was probably one
03:23
of the most egregious decisions
03:25
because they outsourced basically to BMW.
03:28
It's not because they brought the super name back.
03:29
It's because they stamped the super name
03:32
on something they didn't invest in.
03:33
I'm not a fan of using the Testerosa name,
03:38
but I think this car's gonna look a lot better
03:40
in person than people believe.
03:43
The price point's gonna matter.
03:44
The limited production's going to matter,
03:47
which under their current administration,
03:50
not big on limiting production.
03:52
For everybody thinking about F80,
03:54
they've already sold all allocations,
03:55
so we know that's gonna at least meet
03:57
the demand that they want.
03:59
And by the way, you can always get another one.
04:00
You got enough money, they'll build you one.
04:02
So you think they're out, they're not.
04:04
That's the history of Ferrari in every major brand.
04:07
I would say this, man, we're all not a fan
04:10
because there's no manual, there's no V12.
04:14
It's another 1,000 horsepower car
04:16
that means very little to the consumer of like,
04:19
okay, it's 1,000 horsepower.
04:21
I will say this, it doesn't excite me
04:25
from exactly what everybody wants,
04:29
but I understand what Ferrari's doing,
04:30
but let's also remember, because of Ferrari's
04:34
sort of last 10 to 15 years of building cars,
04:37
go look at Monterey Car Week.
04:39
Ferrari values are up massively
04:42
coming out of Monterey Car Week.
04:44
People buying F430s for big numbers,
04:46
they're buying 4 or 5 eighths for huge numbers.
04:48
The F50 went for a big number.
04:51
I mean, the values exploded in the Ferrari market
04:53
and the reason is they're not coming back.
04:57
They're not coming back.
04:58
Now, will they maybe do some one-off things in the future
05:02
with some gated manuals and some special additions?
05:05
I mean, maybe, but the old Ferrari's gone.
05:09
The old Porsche's gone.
05:10
It doesn't feel like this stuff's coming back.
05:13
I mean, there was a huge number at Monterey.
05:15
Somebody paid for a GT2 RS,
05:17
I think it was a 17 or 18.
05:19
They paid like close to $800,000 for this thing.
05:22
You know what I mean?
05:24
Like, and again, is it being seen as an asset class sure?
05:28
Is it being seen as a place to put your money sure?
05:31
But also the people with money seem to be going,
05:34
I don't like the direction of any of these brands
05:36
and they're just driving up the price of these.
05:38
What we're seeing now is 90s and 2000s cars,
05:42
especially from Ferrari just exploded,
05:45
almost double the price just at Monterey car week
05:47
of what most people thought
05:49
of a lot of different Ferraris of the past.
05:51
So I was looking for, you know,
05:52
I'm still looking for what I'm looking for,
05:53
which has, by the way, we can get into,
05:55
my brain has gone like completely one way
05:57
or the other depending on like,
05:58
what do you want to do for fun?
05:59
One to drive, but also like that we can include
06:02
into the show, into the YouTube, into the podcast
06:04
because it's kind of what we're trying to do, right?
06:06
You guys are really kind of vicarious to living
06:07
through people like us if we're being honest,
06:09
is what's happening and that's okay.
06:10
That's what it's supposed to be.
06:11
Yeah, it's what it's supposed to be, right?
06:12
But we're doing it at a more reasonable level.
06:13
But side note, now I'm not trying to put you on the spot,
06:15
but what do you think,
06:16
because the place I was looking at happened to have these,
06:18
it was a 91, 964 ST and then a 95, 993.
06:23
What do you think they were going for?
06:25
If you had to guess, just ballpark,
06:27
we're just shooting shit here.
06:30
We'll start with the 993.
06:32
993's gotta be four to six maybe.
06:34
It was three, it was starting at 300.
06:36
And then the ST and the 91 Porsche ST,
06:40
that one was just four to six.
06:45
I mean, those are four to six numbers.
06:46
I mean, good examples are four to six.
06:48
I mean, it's 993 especially is considered,
06:53
sort of the most desirable out of those era of Porsche.
06:59
Look, man, we get into this world
07:02
and we get into these discussions
07:03
and I feel like a lot of people
07:07
wanna bring all of this emotion
07:09
of what they think should happen, right?
07:12
I wish Ferrari wasn't doing this with Testerosa,
07:15
but I also can see a level of competency
07:18
of where they're trying to go
07:20
because they're going into higher production.
07:22
That's what really made SF90 kinda strange is
07:25
it wasn't a huge change in design language.
07:27
It wasn't something unique looking enough.
07:31
And so you kinda look at it and you go,
07:33
I mean, that's like two or three times
07:35
the price that it felt like it should be.
07:37
And then the driving experience
07:39
wasn't what everybody wanted.
07:40
They had done so much electronics on the inside
07:43
and it didn't resonate.
07:44
I mean, you can pick those up for like half price now.
07:47
And so you look at all of this and you go,
07:52
I don't love this, okay?
07:55
But I'm also, there's people hating on it
07:58
because they don't realize that there was a Testerosa
08:00
in the 50s and a Testerosa in the 80s
08:02
and they didn't really resemble one of it.
08:04
Ferrari doesn't do that resemblance thing, okay?
08:08
I wouldn't do that.
08:10
I wouldn't have stamped Testerosa on those.
08:12
That's not what I would have done.
08:14
That's what gets people up in arms
08:15
because most people know the side view of that 80s car.
08:20
That's where the anger's coming from.
08:22
I don't think it's coming from looking at it modern.
08:25
And again, guys, I'm not into the hybrid powertrain.
08:28
I'm not into that, okay?
08:30
I get that part of it,
08:32
but it's not going any other direction.
08:34
Like I said, I mean,
08:36
this is why companies like Aston Martin
08:39
who has had design nailed better part of your whole life.
08:42
I mean, Aston Martin's never screwed up design in my opinion,
08:45
not in my lifetime.
08:47
So if they start putting manual gated gear boxes
08:51
in their stuff, Aston Martin's going to go through the roof.
08:55
But Ferrari ain't going to do that.
08:56
They're a publicly traded company.
08:57
They're like, hey, how do we turn this out?
08:59
How do we get, you know,
09:01
they're just not going to do that.
09:02
How do we make the Elantra version of the Ferrari?
09:04
How do we get there eventually?
09:06
Like they're not going to do that.
09:08
As soon as they announced Pura Sangway,
09:10
it showed you what their future was.
09:13
Their future was sort of on the back of Lambo,
09:16
really kind of chasing Porsche in a way.
09:19
They had the Cayenne, the Macan, the Panamera,
09:22
all of these things that are selling mainstream.
09:24
Now is Ferrari ever going to sell mainstream guys?
09:27
No, they're never going to be down $100,000 for an SUV.
09:31
I mean, maybe we get there.
09:33
Although you saw that Cayenne,
09:36
that manual Cayenne on Cars and Bids that went for $125,000.
09:40
Oh, I didn't see what it went for.
09:44
But you look at this and you go,
09:46
you have to put it into perspective
09:47
of what the company's doing.
09:49
That doesn't mean any of us are going to agree with it.
09:52
Again, we have blown past the horsepower talk.
09:56
That's not even the biggest topic
09:58
of conversation with this Testerosa.
10:00
Everybody's like, hey, did you see the design?
10:02
Did you see the design?
10:03
When did you think?
10:05
All of our listeners, I would love to hear your comments
10:08
When did you think the secondary story
10:12
would be 1,000 horsepower on a Ferrari?
10:14
Because it's secondary to every conversation
10:17
that's being had about this car right now.
10:19
I would say let us know in the comments,
10:20
and I should wish it to that every 10 minutes.
10:22
Let us know in the comments,
10:23
especially on YouTube or anywhere that you see a video.
10:24
Let us know in the comments your thoughts
10:25
of what you think we're talking about,
10:26
but also everyone's going to say the same thing.
10:29
Price is going to be number one.
10:29
Whether you're talking about Ferrari
10:30
or you're talking about Lexus or it doesn't matter,
10:32
and we'll get to the Lexus story
10:33
because I know it's going to be,
10:34
we've already heard it already on social media
10:36
from the old Lexus video,
10:37
but it's going to be price, right?
10:39
Secondary is a power.
10:40
I was actually funny enough,
10:41
I had in my notes, I've watched a couple of videos
10:43
from some people over the last week
10:44
since last week's episode,
10:46
and the reoccurring theme from not too long ago
10:48
when I said, hey, people are kind of fixing
10:49
up their shit boxes as they're calling it themselves,
10:51
and then you have some of the semi-bigger creators
10:53
saying, look, we're not introducing new cars
10:56
into the channel because new cars are just,
10:57
one, they're too good,
10:58
and they're too expensive to really do anything with.
11:00
Like you pick up a car,
11:01
like you can do some little bits here and there,
11:03
but as enthusiasts, you tend to change things
11:05
just for the sake of changing it,
11:06
not because it necessarily made the car better.
11:09
And that's kind of where we are, guys.
11:10
Like it's kind of weird to say,
11:11
but we've done it, we've checked all the boxes.
11:14
It's all been done, it's all done.
11:15
Yeah, and I think of the hate on the Testerosa,
11:20
you're either going to love it or hate it.
11:21
You're going to love the designer, you're not.
11:23
And I think Ferrari and Mercedes and Ford,
11:27
I think everybody's just like, hey, you like it,
11:29
you like it, you don't, you don't, we're not,
11:31
we're going to do it our way.
11:33
I don't think Ferrari is as in tune or concerned
11:36
with their customer bases,
11:37
they maybe were 10, 15, 20 years ago.
11:40
You know, they're not, they're not really seemingly,
11:43
I mean SF90, they just go, didn't work,
11:45
we're just going to do something new.
11:46
It's going to sell.
11:46
Like this is going to be the replacement of SF90.
11:49
SF, by the way, if you want to pick up an SF90,
11:51
let this car launch.
11:53
SF90 is going to go on big sale.
11:55
I mean, it's already on sale.
11:56
It's already on sale.
11:56
SF90 is going to be worth nothing.
11:57
So what was, what were some of the numbers
11:59
that we saw, people that lost on the SF90,
12:01
like in that short period of time,
12:02
it was crazy numbers, right?
12:06
There's plenty of people that lost tons of money.
12:08
Do you think, and of course, anything's possible
12:10
or probable, but could people see that with this car too?
12:13
Is that fair to say?
12:15
This is all going to be production based.
12:17
That's why I kind of said it at the beginning.
12:18
SF90 part of the problem was it wasn't,
12:22
it didn't really set itself apart.
12:26
It was kind of an incompetent driving experience.
12:29
There were some electronic issues
12:32
and the way that the inside looked
12:33
and this kind of thing,
12:35
but also the production numbers were just far too high, right?
12:38
So because they're a publicly traded company,
12:40
they just thought, well, somebody will buy a thousand,
12:43
maybe they'll buy 5,000.
12:44
Somebody will buy two, maybe they'll buy a hundred.
12:47
You know what I mean?
12:47
Like that was kind of the mentality.
12:49
Now, did they learn their lesson?
12:52
I mean, I don't think any of us know,
12:54
but if they control production,
12:55
it won't have the fate of SF90,
12:59
but could they just go flood the market?
13:02
I mean, I think anything's possible
13:03
with a publicly traded company trying to make a pivot
13:07
and figure out how to sell to more people.
13:09
I think one of the things
13:10
that's going to be interesting to watch with Ferrari,
13:12
do they understand there's only a certain number of buyers?
13:15
Yeah, your clientele base.
13:16
Because here's the thing,
13:17
Ferrari was very aware of that in the past.
13:21
There's only a certain number of people
13:22
we can do business with.
13:23
What I wonder is now,
13:25
being publicly traded, wanting to make this pivot,
13:27
do they just think there's endless amounts of people?
13:29
And people probably think what I'm saying is crazy,
13:32
but I don't think it's crazy at all
13:34
because why would you have done this with SF90?
13:37
If you really thought there was a limited number of people
13:40
that could afford that car,
13:41
why would you have let the production numbers
13:43
get out of control?
13:44
And they had to do it for a reason.
13:45
They didn't just do it out of the blue.
13:47
They thought that that was a strategy.
13:49
I think they're probably gonna learn from that.
13:50
It tends to be we love to make fun of executives,
13:53
but when they look at numbers,
13:54
they tend to make a better decision production-wise.
13:57
But yeah, it's all gonna be production-based.
13:59
The price right now is roughly what, $600,000?
14:02
I think, I didn't have a front of me.
14:03
They're putting out in the world.
14:05
You're talking about $600,000?
14:07
I think they'll do well,
14:09
but again, this could also be the flashing warning sign
14:12
that the Ferrari buyer is not interested in the hybrid.
14:16
And if that pops its ugly head again,
14:19
then you're gonna see prices of 80s, 90s,
14:22
and early 2000 Ferrari prices
14:26
are gonna continue to skyrocket.
14:27
Now, all of that could be true.
14:28
Or what the play could be is have,
14:30
on the next NFL broadcast,
14:31
Mr. B strive up in one of those,
14:33
and he's gonna try to get the young buyers
14:35
to be interested in it.
14:37
they're gonna be buying this market up.
14:38
Yeah, flash those pearly whites,
14:40
get you to buy a Ferrari.
14:42
Bro, talk about something that's gonna make you feel
14:43
real bad about your pearly whites
14:45
if they're not giant chompers like that, guys.
14:48
Like my key light here.
14:49
I'm gonna tell you this,
14:49
that guy just does views, man.
14:51
Yeah, well, we don't know why.
14:53
Okay, we can get into the conspiratorial town
14:54
about why he might be getting all these views,
14:56
but that's for a different show.
14:57
Just so we're clear, it's been a rough week.
15:01
Yes, yes, absolutely.
15:02
Okay, so let's have some fun with some car talk.
15:05
Let's keep it light.
15:06
Let's do our thing.
15:07
Yeah, let's keep it light, keep it light.
15:09
Well, speaking of, actually,
15:11
I was looking up the price real quick, is it?
15:12
Yeah, it looks like gonna start around 590,
15:15
up to 640, is what I'm seeing.
15:18
Yeah, I mean, look, when it's $10,000.
15:20
Hey, you nailed it.
15:21
Let me say, you nailed it, okay.
15:22
Lloyd, let's give Nick Adam on the back.
15:24
He always nails a price, which is no matter if I shoot
15:27
something out of the dark,
15:28
I know he's gonna nail it within like 10 or 20 grand,
15:30
whether it's this car or a $20,000 car.
15:35
By the way, if you're new to the podcast,
15:36
welcome to the number one automotive related podcast,
15:39
We talk about car culture, news trends, obviously,
15:41
market predictions, but more importantly,
15:43
offer you a good hang every single Monday,
15:45
and we have not faltered or failed
15:46
or even wavered a little bit in the last nine months
15:49
going on whatever it is, nine or 10 months.
15:51
So we honestly, like Rob always says,
15:54
we deserve a lot of credit for all this hard work.
15:56
It's like, you know, doing roofing in the middle of summer
15:59
Hey, we got a South Texas story coming.
16:02
I mean, you're not gonna dodge this,
16:03
not a pretty picture down there.
16:04
Absolutely, which I can't wait to get into,
16:06
but since we're talking about a Ferrari,
16:07
I gotta mention this,
16:08
because I meant to ask you last week,
16:09
have you seen our good friend, Vin,
16:10
not really a friend, but we like his content?
16:12
Vintra on YouTube, we both love him.
16:15
He painted the Ferrari, the 360.
16:18
So you saw, okay, so you saw it.
16:19
I'm gonna just play real quick,
16:20
like the five seconds of him showing the color.
16:22
Everybody knows that it was that, like, what do you call it?
16:23
Like pewter, champagne, whatever color it was.
16:26
And he changed it, so here we're gonna watch it.
16:28
Dude, here's the color.
16:34
Oh yeah, you're a few episodes behind.
16:36
Well, this was the,
16:37
Did you see the new wheels?
16:39
Yes, he painted them as well.
16:40
This is the big reveal.
16:41
So for those that didn't happen to see this,
16:43
this is what it looked like before we put the lights on,
16:44
which are also color matched,
16:46
before we put the wheels on,
16:46
which are also color matched,
16:48
what did you think of the color?
16:50
I'll tell you what the funniest part of this is,
16:52
having been in the Ferrari world for a long time.
16:55
He kind of starts to reference,
16:56
I don't think Ferrari's gonna like what I've done here.
16:58
I think it does, yeah.
16:59
So if you don't know,
17:00
Ferrari corporate is very anti touching our cars.
17:04
So I think it's cool cause he made it his.
17:07
You know, we always say this,
17:09
I'm not a big fan of the blue on blue on blue.
17:12
He did the blue headlights.
17:14
I thought that was kind of just too much.
17:16
But I thought what he did on the interior was pretty cool.
17:18
You know, he did accent blue colors, not blue everywhere.
17:21
I'll tell you this, man,
17:24
I love what this guy's doing.
17:26
And I don't really care if I like his car or what he does.
17:31
He's doing what I think is the right way.
17:34
And I know that's very arbitrary of who's right
17:38
It looks like he's just loving his cars.
17:40
He's gonna do it his way.
17:44
showing, you know, all this kind of stuff.
17:46
But one of the things that I really like is that
17:50
he basically acknowledges,
17:53
I don't really care if everyone else likes it.
17:56
And that's kind of been our mantra of telling all of you guys
17:59
like buy the shit, do the shit you think is cool.
18:02
And, but I think these, these are heinous.
18:04
I'm, if I had been on, I'd be like,
18:06
hey, this is not a JDM car.
18:12
What are you talking about?
18:12
It's a drift car now.
18:14
I'm not, Vin's my guy, but yeah, yeah.
18:18
I didn't like this choice.
18:19
Yeah. I like the wheels themselves.
18:21
You see them on a lot of cars,
18:22
but the color match was just took me for,
18:25
took me for a real like left, left turn here,
18:27
left curve ball, but I think if they were white,
18:29
they would have looked pretty sweet.
18:30
Oh, really? You're a white guy.
18:32
I love what, dude, I love,
18:34
I've never been brave enough to buy one
18:35
or put it on a set on a car.
18:36
Have you, have you ever done a white?
18:38
No, that will not be on any of my cars.
18:40
No, you don't like white rally cars,
18:41
you know, white car or cars with white wheels?
18:45
But here's the thing, when they look good,
18:50
They've been done so poorly.
18:52
I think it's kind of,
18:54
Sort of like how black wheels are becoming.
18:55
Hate it, I hate them.
18:56
It's like, some of them are so poorly done
18:59
and now we've all seen so many poorer ones
19:01
that you're like, I don't know,
19:03
gunmetal gray might be the move,
19:04
let's just get out of the black
19:06
or those kind of things.
19:07
So I think it's the same thing for me.
19:09
I've seen white done,
19:11
probably 10% of the time done well,
19:13
90% of the time just horrific.
19:15
And if you're not gonna keep them clean,
19:17
then I can't, because to me,
19:20
you're getting them for that pop.
19:24
And if you never have that pop on your car,
19:26
then I'm going, okay.
19:28
You just like looking like a slob,
19:29
like what are you doing?
19:30
Just rolling around everywhere with the filthy wheels.
19:31
And by the way, the reason that Vin,
19:34
so everybody that's listening knows why I like him,
19:37
he's talking about the last 10%
19:39
of bringing the car together.
19:41
Doing things to a high level,
19:43
wires not hanging everywhere,
19:47
that's what speaks to me,
19:48
is that he's starting to tell people the truth
19:50
that 90% of the work is actually the last 10% of the job.
19:55
And that's what so many people aren't willing to do.
19:57
And I couldn't put any better
19:59
than what he's doing on his channel
20:01
to show people like,
20:03
I've been messing with this door panel for half the day.
20:06
And it sounds crazy to people,
20:08
but when he explains it,
20:09
it's exactly how I feel being around the car world
20:12
is that people don't realize it's those last touches.
20:16
And that's why the drift world never spoke to me
20:18
because you got a laptop on the seat,
20:20
you got wires hanging everywhere and I go,
20:23
hey man, I really respect the talent,
20:25
but the car kind of looks janky.
20:27
I don't get into that,
20:28
but I do respect that you guys can do it.
20:30
It's just, I don't like the jankiness of it.
20:32
Yeah, it all kind of,
20:33
if we're being honest,
20:33
a lot of it looks pretty shitty,
20:35
Like things can look shitty
20:36
and be cool at the same time.
20:37
Don't get me wrong.
20:39
I mean, that was one of my favorite parts
20:41
like going on the drift,
20:42
whatever missions you had to do.
20:44
But again, it's even like,
20:46
and I know you don't like a lot of extra stuff
20:47
in your cars that doesn't belong there,
20:48
but if we're in a car for a long time
20:50
or a short amount of time doesn't matter,
20:51
the drive has to be enjoyable.
20:52
So if you've got the right phone cables,
20:55
the right padding on your armrest,
20:58
one of those accessories where like,
20:59
do I really want to add something there,
21:00
but I want to protect the leather.
21:01
I got a weird question for you.
21:02
Did you see the new Audi Q5?
21:05
No, I have an Audi story,
21:06
Tell me what should I,
21:07
I'm going to pull it up.
21:09
So when you're like sitting around,
21:10
you can play this like racing video game
21:12
in the infotainment system.
21:13
It's not even a big deal,
21:14
but they don't even let you use the steering wheel.
21:17
You got to like use,
21:18
you got to touch the screen to like drive
21:20
in this like dirt track thing.
21:21
Oh my, so that you basically like an iPad game,
21:23
you just using your fingers?
21:25
I kind of said this to myself,
21:27
I go, they actually think this is brilliant.
21:31
So for all of you that wonder
21:32
what they're thinking in headquarters
21:34
of these car companies,
21:36
what they're thinking is,
21:37
you guys do want a very choppy shitty video game
21:42
that they have put into the infotainment.
21:45
you guys won't believe how great we've done.
21:51
it's like being at the nexus of the universe.
21:53
Like you're at 0, 0, 0, 0.
21:55
You know, and you don't know
21:56
what the streets even called.
21:57
It's like you're at the corner of first and first.
21:59
Yeah. And they just believe it's like.
22:02
This is what it is.
22:03
It's just a cra, it's so crazy to me.
22:04
I mean, by the way,
22:05
I still think it's funny.
22:07
So like I laugh about it,
22:09
but I go, this is kind of what they think
22:12
is some type of innovation
22:15
because what else are they going to do?
22:17
I mean, once you can hook up the car player, Android,
22:20
what else are they going to do?
22:21
So Audi partnered with Air console
22:24
to bring a variety of games to compatible Audi vehicles.
22:27
I mean, yeah, you're right.
22:28
It's not even worth necessarily bringing up,
22:30
but I hadn't heard that.
22:33
Hey, make better cars.
22:34
Audi used to make fantastic cars.
22:36
Well, the only thing is that their defense to you is
22:38
we sell more Q5s than just about anybody in our class.
22:43
And so we're not going to change this very much.
22:45
It's going to look pretty close to the way
22:46
it's looked the last decade.
22:48
Just keep buying them.
22:49
We'll keep selling them.
22:50
That's one of their cars.
22:51
I think they're just kind of,
22:52
they did a redesign and that's what people are going to say.
22:55
But to me, it's fairly similar.
22:57
Well, if you guys want to let us know your thoughts,
22:58
first of all, of course, leave a comment,
23:00
which I'm going to say every 10 minutes,
23:01
but secondarily clutchculturepodcast.com
23:04
is the show podcast.
23:06
Rather, yeah, the podcast show email.
23:07
Let us know your thoughts, comments, stories,
23:09
topics to talk about on the show.
23:11
We love getting to those.
23:12
So that was our two Ferrari stories.
23:14
Nick called me, we were just chatting randomly
23:16
and then he's like, hey, do you hear about this
23:18
auto group or lender going bankrupt?
23:20
And it was actually on my list of stories to pull up.
23:22
So a big auto lender went bankrupt
23:24
according to the Kelly Blue Book.
23:25
Here's what it means.
23:26
Have you ever seen, I mean,
23:28
have you ever seen a tricolor?
23:29
This is obviously not in your area, right?
23:31
You don't have tricolor dealerships.
23:32
No, but they're in Southern California.
23:33
I mean, big in Southern California, big in South Texas.
23:36
Let's be pretty sensitive about this.
23:39
Really serving the lower income immigrant community.
23:44
Seem to be what they were doing.
23:48
This is the part of the business guys
23:50
that I can't really express enough
23:53
when people try to figure out how dealers
23:55
and these auto groups work.
23:57
I mean, it's really 99% of them
23:59
are operating off of huge debt, right?
24:03
They're in business with Fifth Third Bank
24:05
and JP Morgan Chase.
24:06
Looks like Fifth Third has already said
24:08
they're gonna lose 175 million
24:10
because I think they had 200 million out there
24:13
that was some loan.
24:15
And I don't want to,
24:16
this all broke this week guys, so excuse me.
24:19
Basically they found fraud
24:21
on 200 million dollars that were lended,
24:23
which probably led to them finding another,
24:27
it looks like they have a billion dollars
24:30
in liabilities or something like that.
24:33
Yeah, I mean, between JP Morgan and Barclays,
24:35
they purchased 217 million bundle tricolor loans in June.
24:39
Okay, so guys, one of the things
24:41
that we can explain to you
24:42
on how automotive loans work.
24:46
And I know this because I was very close
24:48
at one point in time and to buying into a dealership, okay?
24:53
One of the things that you do to kind of
24:56
game the system and never use any of your own money
24:58
is called flooring, okay?
25:00
So what happens is you can go to an auction
25:02
or you can do whatever and you floor the cars.
25:05
In your terms, usually if you're not a high level auto group,
25:09
your terms are like 30 to 45 days
25:11
where you just pay a small piece of interest
25:14
on what's on your floor in your dealership.
25:17
Bigger auto groups can get 90 plus days of flooring
25:20
on a single car, all that's very variable.
25:23
So again, I do want you to understand
25:25
there's probably people that have better terms
25:26
than that, bigger groups.
25:28
Then what happens is,
25:29
let's say you have 60 day terms on your flooring.
25:33
You flip your whole inventory in that 60 days.
25:36
You then take all these automotive loans
25:38
that you've just handed out through your dealership
25:40
and somebody packages them to a bank.
25:43
You used to be very big in the regional bank sector.
25:46
That's how they acquired a lot of auto loans,
25:48
not only lending directly, but buying bundles of auto loans.
25:52
If for any of you that are real familiar
25:54
with what happened in 2008 with the crash,
25:56
bundling mortgages into these things and selling them off,
26:00
that's kind of how a dealership works
26:02
on a very simplistic level, right?
26:04
There's obviously buy here, pay here people
26:06
that operate in 100% cash.
26:08
They are by far the most profitable, okay?
26:12
If you wanted to open a dealership
26:14
and you had the money,
26:16
floating all the money on flooring,
26:18
then carrying the interest,
26:20
you can lend the range over at 26% interest
26:24
and you carry the loan and then you repo the car
26:26
and then you resell it.
26:28
That is where it's kind of like in real estate,
26:32
hey, owning trailer parks is really profitable,
26:35
but you got a lot of headaches.
26:37
Cash on cash return,
26:39
that's where you're getting the big time returns
26:41
if people don't know.
26:43
And then there's other parts of real estate,
26:44
but the automotive business is the exact same way.
26:48
The more risk you take on yourself,
26:50
the more profit you make.
26:52
So what a lot of companies do
26:54
is they don't wanna take any risk.
26:56
I'm gonna floor the cars, pay very little money for them.
26:59
Then I'm gonna take all the paper,
27:01
I'm gonna bundle it up
27:02
and I'm gonna sell it to somebody.
27:04
In this instance, the banks probably controlled the paper,
27:07
they were bundling it together,
27:08
they were trying to sell it off
27:10
or keep it inside their books
27:11
or whatever decision they made.
27:12
Now guys, I wanna say this.
27:13
This is the 12th of September
27:15
when we're recording this.
27:16
There could be a lot more information that comes out.
27:18
I just wanna give you the basics
27:19
of how this stuff works.
27:21
And it looks like to me,
27:23
they had massive fraudulent loans that got caught.
27:28
They also could have used a loan of 200 million
27:31
to buy personal property, things like that,
27:33
any of that kind of stuff that can come up.
27:35
My guess, what we're gonna find out
27:38
is they fraudulently wrote things into loans
27:42
that the customer didn't sign for.
27:45
And now the banks are so worried,
27:46
they're like, we're gonna let people off here,
27:50
we're gonna take the loss, we're good.
27:52
My guess is it's gonna be a combination
27:54
of those types of things.
27:55
Yeah, cause usually they would try to,
27:57
when you file a bank report,
27:58
so you wanna restructure things,
27:59
stay in business, kind of keep the thing going.
28:01
You'd be chapter 11 or 13 or whatever it is.
28:04
In this case, they're looking at liquidate,
28:06
be like, we'll see you later guys.
28:08
Hey, did you see their attorney came out and said,
28:10
hey, I filed the chapter seven and I'm quitting?
28:13
He's like, just so you know,
28:14
we filed the paperwork?
28:16
So there's gotta be real.
28:18
Just Homer fading into the bushes.
28:20
Yeah, yeah, there's gotta be real.
28:22
And this happens a lot more than people think.
28:26
And everybody believes that the consumer
28:28
was necessarily done dirty.
28:30
There could be some of that,
28:31
but they could have fraudulently done the documents
28:34
that ripped the bank off.
28:35
True, very good point.
28:36
So when everybody always thinks like,
28:38
well, the little guy got screwed,
28:39
it's like, no, I'm here to tell you,
28:41
there's probably a high likelihood
28:42
the reason they caught this
28:43
is they were defrauding the bank
28:45
more than they were defrauding the customer.
28:47
I'm sure they did a bunch of bad loans.
28:49
Yeah, and in most cases,
28:50
probably both of we're being honest.
28:51
But the only way the bank would get this aggressive
28:56
is if they found fraud on the bank side
28:59
or they were scared the federal government
29:01
was gonna come in and say,
29:02
hey, you've been lending money to these people.
29:05
And anytime you talk about lower income,
29:08
especially the immigrant community,
29:09
this is pretty rampant of a business like this.
29:13
So it is under scrutiny
29:14
when you get to the size this company was.
29:17
So it probably didn't take them
29:19
very long to get to the bottom of it.
29:20
And when a bank walks into your building
29:22
and says, you're out of here,
29:24
you can bet they found some pretty crazy stuff.
29:26
And so guys, it's called Tag or Tri-Colorado Group.
29:30
I think they do business in about five states, right?
29:33
I didn't see the specific states,
29:34
but yeah, under another name too,
29:35
which I can't remember off the top of my head.
29:36
But you mentioned the 08 thing.
29:39
I think it was a big short, right?
29:40
Was Steve Carell was a movie about the?
29:41
Yeah, it was a good movie.
29:42
Yes, it's a great movie.
29:43
If you guys haven't seen it,
29:44
highly recommend it.
29:45
I mean, it's super old at this point,
29:46
but it holds up really well.
29:49
Michael Burry is the guy's name.
29:52
So that movie's based off of Michael Lewis's book.
29:54
If you guys are into reading,
29:55
yeah, go check out Michael Lewis's book,
29:57
which that's based off of.
29:58
But yeah, dude, Michael Burry is,
30:01
then he went and took all of his money
30:02
and bought like a whole bunch of water rights and stuff.
30:04
Like this guy's like.
30:06
Oh, I didn't know that.
30:07
Yeah, yeah, no, he's-
30:08
Whether he's right or not.
30:09
I mean, I don't know, but he was right then.
30:12
Hey, we're not here to judge anybody.
30:13
We're just reporting what we're talking about.
30:14
We're just reporting the news.
30:15
Yeah, yeah, he killed it during the crisis.
30:18
That's for sure true.
30:20
All right, for those of you that just love Lexus Toyota
30:24
and the millions upon millions,
30:26
like the Rock would say, and millions,
30:28
I should probably just do that motion on camera.
30:33
Mark Kerr playing Mark Kerr.
30:34
Yeah, dude, what is it?
30:36
Is that the name of the movie?
30:37
Dude, it actually looks really good.
30:38
We both need to watch that
30:39
and then do like a pop culture episode
30:41
where we just talk about how good
30:42
is it performance was.
30:43
We'll have three people go,
30:44
man, this was awesome.
30:47
That's rude on so many parts.
30:48
I don't know if it's rude to the people
30:49
or us for not giving a good commentary on the movie.
30:51
But look, the Lexus IS sedan is still alive
30:54
and F sport kicking for 2026 reports motor trend.
30:57
Could have came up with a better title,
30:58
but look, the V8's gone.
31:00
It'll be the first year that we won't see a V8
31:02
in these IS models since, I think, 08.
31:04
That's funny enough, we're talking about 08.
31:05
That was the ISF year, I believe.
31:07
And yeah, man, you-
31:08
Yeah, I think you probably need to,
31:09
if you don't know for sure,
31:11
these IS people are pretty harsh
31:15
on Rob reporting a story on the internet.
31:18
Hey, again, we're talking about what,
31:19
again, the article then was what it said
31:21
and the article now is right here.
31:24
Yeah, I mean, for people that like this,
31:25
I mean, now the front end looks like a Camry or a Corolla.
31:27
It looks like they refreshed the front end.
31:29
It looks like an Elantra.
31:30
Looks exactly like an Elantra in.
31:32
That's a good call.
31:33
I'm not excited by this.
31:35
So guys, anybody that thinks I'm gonna die
31:37
or live on this hill,
31:39
it's more of the same.
31:42
It looks like they're gonna keep it alive
31:44
because they think they can sell some units.
31:46
Still not invested in, by the way.
31:49
Still not invested in.
31:50
This is a refresh, not a complete redesign.
31:53
So now we're going 13 years, I think.
31:57
Since the last real redesign of this platform,
32:01
it just not interesting.
32:02
I mean, I don't know what else to say.
32:04
Like, I hope the people that like it like it,
32:07
but I don't know why people are so interested
32:10
It's just not all that exciting to me.
32:12
Sorry, 2007, I was off by a year.
32:13
Everybody, 2007, not 2008,
32:16
was when the ISF was offered with the V8.
32:18
It's in the article.
32:19
You gotta make sure.
32:21
You don't wanna make sure a car
32:22
that's largely been irrelevant in the marketplace
32:25
gets you get one year wrong.
32:26
You know, almost a decade and a half,
32:28
nearly two decades, 311 horsepower.
32:31
I mean, the same V6 that's been in there forever.
32:33
I mean, I like these cars
32:35
because I like the simplicity of it
32:36
that they look good enough.
32:38
They look better than the most.
32:39
But they're not anything that's gonna make you sit in it
32:41
and go, ooh, and ah, it's just not one of those cars.
32:43
No, and it looks like they still have the track pad.
32:46
I was like, there was no mention of it.
32:48
And I was trying to zoom in on the picture.
32:49
There wasn't a great picture of the interior on here.
32:51
And it looked like it did,
32:52
but they would have specifically probably said
32:54
that they didn't have it.
32:55
I mean, here's the thing, man.
32:56
Cool, it's a sedan that stays alive.
32:59
It's a sedan they haven't
33:00
and still aren't heavily investing in.
33:03
This is very easy for them to build.
33:06
I mean, yeah, you called it.
33:08
That's a pretty similar front end.
33:10
I don't think if you're Lexus,
33:11
you want to be known as the thing
33:12
that looks like Hyundai Elantra.
33:14
Nope, sorry guys, it's the only one.
33:15
For all you experts out there, like, okay.
33:19
That won't be on my buy list for the next 100 years.
33:24
No, no, absolutely not.
33:25
I know two guys that have them
33:26
and if you're listening to this, I apologize,
33:28
but we all know it doesn't look the best.
33:30
Like, you know, is it affordable fun?
33:31
Probably, probably, but come on.
33:33
And look, it'll be dependable.
33:36
Oh, I was talking about the Elantra.
33:38
I was talking about the Elantra.
33:39
No, not the Lexus guy.
33:41
Don't switch it up on me.
33:42
My bad, my bad, you're right.
33:43
No, Elantras will be 50% off here
33:46
in like, you know, what, two years.
33:47
So you can save your, you can save all the headache.
33:50
Every rim will be curbed, you know.
33:54
Paint will be chipping off.
33:55
Interior will be coming apart.
33:56
It's so wild to think that, you know,
33:59
and that's just a Hyundai, for instance,
34:00
but a lot of these manufacturers,
34:01
and you've been talking about it forever,
34:03
can't get certain things right.
34:04
Like, for decades, we all know that like,
34:06
GM, AC vents were just gonna break.
34:08
They were just gonna break.
34:09
They were gonna stop working.
34:10
All these little things.
34:11
Hey, that's a deep cut.
34:13
If you've ever owned any GM car truck,
34:15
mostly the, you know, GM CC eras or the Silverados,
34:18
at least half of them, half of your vents,
34:21
the little thing just wasn't gonna work anymore, right?
34:24
You went ultra deep cut.
34:27
And you'll be like, there's gonna be 7,000 people
34:29
that have no idea what you're talking about.
34:30
And then there's gonna be like 10 that go,
34:33
No, I think it's the other way around.
34:34
Every 7,000 would be like,
34:35
I had the exact same issue in 10 to be like,
34:36
what are you talking about?
34:37
Yeah, I'd be like 10 Ford owners
34:38
and like 7,000 Chevy owners.
34:40
They all had the squeaky door,
34:41
especially the passenger door.
34:43
They would squeak, squeak, squeak everywhere.
34:44
I remember having to put my arm down
34:46
by the door panel in the seat to stop it from squeaking
34:49
because I could not get it to squeak
34:50
if I was in the passenger seat.
34:51
But it's just ingrained in my mind, bro.
34:53
It's just like, how am I now in my mid 30s
34:55
and we're still having similar issues
34:56
with some of these vehicles?
34:58
Well, a crazy thing I have with my LX
35:00
for people that have one will know.
35:02
When the sun hits one side of it,
35:06
like whatever side of the car,
35:08
it heats up the locking mechanism
35:10
where you can't use the automatic door lock.
35:12
You got to like use the key in the door.
35:13
That doesn't sound very Toyota Lexus like.
35:16
Well, but again, Toyota Lexus people
35:19
tell you nothing ever breaks.
35:20
You don't need to change your oil.
35:21
Your brakes never go out.
35:22
Your tires never need to be changed.
35:25
Nothing ever, I mean,
35:26
it's the most crazy crowd in the world.
35:28
So yeah, I've been dealing with that all summer.
35:29
And look, it's a fixable thing,
35:31
but it's expensive to fix, right?
35:33
You got to go in, you got to change some motors out.
35:36
So yeah, I mean, if it gets too hot on one side,
35:38
I just got to, you know,
35:40
I just got to go ahead and put the key in the door
35:41
and unlock the door and go about my day.
35:43
Have you found anything else?
35:44
Funny enough, since you brought it up.
35:45
Anything else that's kind of like quirky about
35:47
or odd about your LX?
35:51
So I have something that I know I can fix.
35:54
The telescopic steering wheel, mine goes down
35:57
but won't go in and out.
35:59
That motor and that's pretty well known in there.
36:03
For me, man, I don't want to jinx it.
36:06
It's just been a dream.
36:07
That's what I said last week.
36:08
For a daily driver, it's just,
36:11
this is why I see a lot of two and three car solution talk.
36:14
Yeah, a lot more recently.
36:16
A lot more recently.
36:19
Guys, if you want to drive fun cars,
36:22
take it from a guy that screwed this up in my life,
36:26
get you something reliable
36:29
and then it makes the other shit breaking,
36:31
you never really care that much.
36:33
You go, hey, this one vehicle I got's gonna always work.
36:36
Still make sure it's something cool.
36:38
Like this is a 100 series Land Cruiser.
36:42
But I got the dependability.
36:43
So if anything goes wrong in my household of cars,
36:46
I go, eh, this thing turns on.
36:48
Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean?
36:50
Once again, Toyota people.
36:53
Toyota doesn't do door locks
36:55
and 2003 LX is very well.
36:57
You know, that's not what they're doing well.
37:00
It's not their strong suit.
37:02
So your reliable car is obviously the LX.
37:04
And then you have your BMW
37:05
and you've got other vehicles.
37:07
Which one is probably the least reliable?
37:09
If you had to grab the keys and be like,
37:11
I don't know if this one's gonna,
37:12
you know, just if we're going extremes here.
37:14
Well, look, anytime you grab an M3 key,
37:16
you wonder if something's gonna pop up and bite you.
37:19
That's like owning a BMW, owning a sports car.
37:23
Many of you guys can relate.
37:25
But look, my Dodge truck,
37:28
which I still have around, it's a 2003.
37:31
We beat the, it's one of those ones
37:34
you're waiting for the dings and the, you know.
37:36
I thought you got rid of it.
37:38
I can't do it, man.
37:39
I really thought you got rid of it like six months ago.
37:42
So here's the thing.
37:42
It's the first thing I started my business with.
37:44
And every time I think about getting rid of it,
37:48
It's sitting right here.
37:49
I can actually see it.
37:50
Well, what do you say to yourself?
37:51
So you can see it all the time,
37:53
which makes it harder obviously to even get rid of it
37:54
if you just keep looking at it.
37:55
But what do you say to yourself
37:56
when you are about to actually sell it?
37:57
Is it that I started my business with it?
37:59
Or is it just like, why sell it?
38:00
Like are I gonna get $5 for it?
38:02
Like might as well keep it.
38:05
A lot of it is, I think if I,
38:10
if we're talking about our channel moving forward,
38:12
it could be something that you could really bring back
38:15
to life, not spending a ton of money,
38:18
but probably needs the breaks done at this point,
38:21
probably needs complete flush of everything
38:25
and some refresh and some money.
38:31
is kind of what the combination of what you said it's like,
38:34
is this even worth selling?
38:35
If I needed a truck,
38:36
something goes down in my business,
38:38
we can put this in play.
38:41
It works, but look,
38:42
you got some windows that won't go down now
38:45
and some actuators that need to be fixed.
38:47
And the middle console after 250,000 miles,
38:51
could be reupholstered and,
38:54
but it is nostalgia for me.
38:56
It's like, I don't need the money.
38:59
this truck doesn't serve any purpose by selling.
39:02
It doesn't serve any purpose by keeping.
39:04
So it's like, it just kind of sits here.
39:05
It just keeps you grounded, right?
39:06
You're just one of the bros still.
39:07
I got a, what is it?
39:09
So, the way that it doesn't know,
39:11
I got a big, mine's a 2003.
39:14
It's got the hemi in it.
39:15
And the middle of the front bumper
39:18
has been caved in for years now
39:20
because I got into a lawsuit situation
39:23
where one of my team members bumped somebody
39:25
going three miles an hour
39:26
and they tried to make it into a million dollar claim.
39:30
And it was, by the way,
39:30
all on camera from a traffic cam
39:33
and saw that the lady was negligent
39:35
but still had to fight through insurance and all that.
39:39
I have never even changed and fixed that bumper.
39:41
Because I'm just like,
39:42
it just kind of reminds you of one of those things
39:44
where you go, yeah, that was pretty shitty at the time.
39:46
Chapter of life, yeah.
39:47
Yeah, but I do feel like
39:51
it's got 250,000 plus miles on it.
39:54
The hemi has been really dependable, like a Dodge.
39:57
We got some tail light things we'd have to fix
39:59
because the electronics start to go crazy and whatever.
40:03
But I do think it's one of those ones
40:04
that's like, you know, you put a decent wheel package
40:06
on it, you fix up the suspension,
40:08
you fix the bumpers, get some aftermarket stuff.
40:11
For a few thousand bucks, you got a pretty nice truck.
40:16
So part of that for me is just like,
40:18
I don't, I'm sure at some point I'll wake up
40:22
and somebody'll say, hey, my son needs a truck.
40:24
And I'll be like, hey, I got one
40:25
and they come and pick it up.
40:26
And it's just, that's how it goes.
40:27
Yeah, when you're looking at these cars,
40:29
whether it's like something in old Dodge like that,
40:30
which is cool for its own reasons
40:32
that a bunch of people would appreciate
40:33
if you started slowly bringing it back to life
40:34
or you go into the more specialty-ish vehicles
40:36
like I was mentioning to Nick off of the podcast,
40:39
I will randomly start looking at lightnings
40:41
primarily more so now because I keep hearing you
40:42
in my head saying first gen Raptor.
40:44
And the first gen Raptor is kind of like what the SVT lighting
40:47
was from 99 to 04 or 99 to 03.
40:49
And I see more people on YouTube now
40:51
also talking about the first gen Raptors,
40:52
you know, rebuilding the suspension
40:53
and doing all these things to it.
40:54
And they are cool vehicles.
40:55
And no matter where you go, Z06, you know, like C6, Z06,
40:59
all these cars are now around 30 to 40, 30 to 45,
41:02
you know, 28 to like 35,
41:04
you can get all these really cool to us cars
41:07
and then drive it going back to the year thing
41:09
that we've been talking about, drive for a year,
41:10
get rid of it and then probably make most,
41:11
if not all your money back.
41:12
So kind of it leaves a lot of open possibilities there.
41:15
But then it makes you think like,
41:17
well, did I spend another 10 going back to what you've said
41:19
tons like $10,000 in these like sub $6,000 cars
41:23
Cause let me ask you,
41:24
would you rather have a lightning or a Raptor
41:26
or anything that's new-ish for just an additional $10,000?
41:29
Like you would usually probably opt for the older car,
41:32
Yeah, because out of out of what I'm interested in,
41:35
I think that's the crowd that we see pop up
41:37
in our comments all the time.
41:39
We just had a clip that you put together talking about,
41:42
you know, we're all going back to these things
41:45
we couldn't afford at the time.
41:47
And it was amazing to see people's lists.
41:49
You know, I would buy this and I'm looking at one of these
41:52
and you know, again, man,
41:54
once you kind of have the utility vehicle in your life
41:58
that kind of takes the kids to practice
42:00
or goes to work or whatever,
42:03
I think when you're talking about a lightning of the past
42:07
or buying a new F-150 Platinum for most people
42:11
what's the F-150 Platinum do for a second car?
42:14
Cause it doesn't do anything for you, right?
42:16
It's still a truck, it's still nice.
42:18
I'm not banging on it, but we're largely,
42:21
most of us are like, it's just not interesting.
42:25
auto manufacturers are in the business
42:27
of not being that interesting.
42:30
Like Ford doesn't have to be interesting
42:31
in the F-150 market.
42:33
They largely sell to every fleet out there,
42:36
every construction site, whatever.
42:38
They're just trying to build something
42:39
people are gonna buy a lot of, right?
42:41
So for guys like us and our listeners,
42:44
we can get angry about that and we do at times,
42:47
but just remember, they're not in the business
42:50
That's what makes like what's happening to Mustang
42:52
or what Toyota did with Supra,
42:54
or, you know, the IS with Lexus and you go,
42:58
okay, I mean, isn't this the place to be interesting?
43:01
I mean, I think that's the frustration point.
43:03
It's like Ford is going to bring back
43:05
the Ford Lightning brand, a part of the brand.
43:09
And then you're gonna do it uninteresting.
43:10
Okay, I mean, that doesn't add up to people like us.
43:13
It's like, and by the way, the sales numbers prove
43:16
That is not something to be uninteresting about.
43:18
Like it's gonna hurt your brand.
43:20
And I think we all need to be very upfront.
43:25
Like they're not in the business of interesting.
43:26
And when they need to get interesting,
43:28
largely they're going to mess up those decisions
43:31
more times than they're gonna get it right.
43:34
So is it gonna be okay with you that if I pick up,
43:36
cause I'm only looking for,
43:37
and this is why it's so funny too,
43:38
I only want one in red.
43:39
So that's my thing.
43:41
That's one of the cars I will accept in red.
43:43
You want to be Paul Walker to live in part?
43:45
Yes, a hundred percent.
43:46
And this is what I'm gonna do.
43:47
Instead of putting the racer's edge,
43:48
I'm gonna put clutch culture podcast on the side of the
43:51
Well, I can tell you this.
43:52
Don't turn those receipts in.
43:56
We have the tax guy clutch cultures be like,
43:58
hey, that's gonna be a good ride off for the show.
44:04
I think they look way better in red.
44:08
I mean, it's by far the best.
44:09
And by the way, it's probably just cause of the movie.
44:11
Like it's just nostalgic.
44:13
You're like, you know,
44:13
you're right, but you're right.
44:14
But Sonic blue is probably number two.
44:16
And that's the only two colors I'd get it in.
44:18
Yeah, Sonic blue is cool.
44:20
But yeah, like your whites and blacks.
44:21
And I think that was it.
44:22
Honestly, just like me, whatever.
44:24
But yeah, I just let you know,
44:25
if you see this on the, on our stories that,
44:27
Hey, I got a red lightning and it says the,
44:29
it says clutch culture podcast.
44:30
I don't know why he would have said the red, you know,
44:31
edge of red, just racer's edge.
44:33
I think it was just let you know what we're doing.
44:35
Giving you the heads up for the F 150 brother.
44:39
But yeah, keep that in the back of your mind.
44:41
When I send the bill into the tax guy, that's why
44:44
we got to have some write offs for the show.
44:46
Can you believe, Nick?
44:47
I didn't believe this,
44:48
but there's already a Land Cruiser update,
44:51
essentially for the 2026.
44:52
Like they're already that far into it
44:53
where they're doing some, some redesigning.
44:55
We talked about the,
44:56
What are the updates?
45:02
Everything besides a new engine is a bad update.
45:04
What's funny about this headline by Motor Trend,
45:07
hold up, there's a 2026 Toyota Land Cruiser
45:10
that's cheaper than before.
45:11
Now, if you read that, great click.
45:13
It's going to get you to click.
45:14
How much cheaper do you think
45:15
the Land Cruiser is going to be?
45:16
What are you expecting?
45:19
You would be mistaken, sir.
45:20
We're talking like $400.
45:22
And that's why they wrote this up as the headline.
45:25
I've read the whole thing and I couldn't believe it
45:27
because I got to the very end here,
45:28
where none of the other stuff matters.
45:31
I'm going to give you exactly the number.
45:33
I read the whole freaking thing, dude.
45:38
I was so pissed off when I read the whole thing.
45:42
This is one of those articles that piss you off.
45:44
And then you go, I wonder what Motor Trend got.
45:46
I mean, hopefully you guys got some money
45:48
to write this headline from Toyota.
45:51
Because if you did it on your own
45:52
or you had AI do it, you just kind of did it wrong.
45:56
You know what I mean?
45:57
But here's the whole point.
45:59
Okay, man, I still see these around.
46:01
By the way, I don't see as many as people would think.
46:03
I don't think you do either.
46:05
Most of you probably don't either.
46:07
Where I'm at right now with this is I've seen them modified.
46:13
I just saw an all black one.
46:14
Horrible modifications.
46:16
Obviously, one of the first modifications he did
46:18
was the little ladder on the back.
46:19
The whittle-waddle?
46:21
Yeah, we all knew what he was going to do.
46:23
It was kind of like lowered a little bit.
46:26
The tires were too wide.
46:27
I've seen a couple of them modified well.
46:30
You want to talk about a platform that's uninteresting.
46:33
I mean, this fits the bill to me of not a great engine,
46:38
not really all that cool unless you modify them correctly.
46:41
They don't look good out of the box in person.
46:44
The tires are too small from the factory.
46:48
Like, I can't think of a worse way
46:50
to take the Land Cruiser name and be so uninteresting.
46:53
So look, it's $58,650 price tag.
46:56
It's seeing a $750 hike over 2025.
46:59
But the good news is it's a slightly more plush Land Cruiser
47:03
with rectangular headlights.
47:04
They make the headlights a big deal, circle versus kind
47:06
of like Jeep folks do.
47:07
That starts $405 less than the 2025.
47:11
So, dude, we're getting into the 60s here.
47:13
These things are going to be topping out into the 70s,
47:17
And then you get to the interior as the next shot.
47:20
And it's just so just like, yeah, bland.
47:24
They feel cheap when you're inside of them.
47:27
Because of you, they love them.
47:28
We're always going to say the same thing, enjoy them.
47:31
It's just not, it's not, but again,
47:35
this is kind of what they want to be in.
47:37
They want to be boring.
47:38
Hopefully you buy a lot of them.
47:40
I think this is still one of those vehicles
47:42
that I don't see where it fits in.
47:45
Now you're in forerunner territory,
47:48
which has a huge following.
47:49
You really haven't separated it out.
47:51
You don't have any exciting things going on with the engine.
47:55
I mean, you built it.
47:56
I mean, there's no doubt about it.
47:57
You built it, but I don't really know what it does.
48:00
And I think we get into this whole thing
48:02
where what I've seen the last two years from Toyota,
48:06
I still don't know that their lineup
48:08
is that cohesive at this price point.
48:10
No, I mean, the difference in the Bronco,
48:13
which I've tested, they're not like awesome,
48:16
but in comparison to this for the price,
48:18
I would use the word awesome
48:20
because you're talking about 40 grand versus 60.
48:22
Like that's how big of the price gap
48:23
is between the Land Cruiser and the Broncos.
48:25
Even if it's a base Bronco, I understand,
48:26
you get more comparable trims.
48:27
You're gonna get up there in price with the Broncos well,
48:29
but dude, for 40 compared to 63,
48:32
like yeah, just pick a cool moderately.
48:34
I think you can get so many more competent vehicles.
48:37
I mean, from every,
48:38
I can name something from almost every brand
48:40
I'd rather spend this type of money on.
48:42
But even if we're talking just Bronco,
48:44
like you could pick a level of Bronco.
48:45
You'd rather buy some of the stuff
48:47
in Toyota's own lineup.
48:49
You're not that far from GX550.
48:51
Why not just buy it?
48:52
I mean, that's been my whole argument.
48:53
Yeah, they did go on to compare it to the Cherokee as well.
48:56
I'm not gonna do that.
48:57
I'm not gonna compare the Cherokee.
48:59
Let's compare it to a car that's lost all kind of ground
49:02
and has not been relevant in a decade.
49:05
Yeah, man, you're really doing something there.
49:08
With the heritage of Land Cruiser,
49:09
you've really, it beats the Cherokee.
49:12
The Cherokee Laredo, sir.
49:13
The Cherokee Laredo.
49:14
I'm pretty sure we could beat the Cherokee
49:16
to start building cars tomorrow.
49:18
Out of Legos, out of actual Legos.
49:21
It would still be better.
49:24
We've got a couple more here.
49:25
So Genesis, in general, you're a Genesis fan
49:27
what they do with their styling
49:28
and I know it's still Hyundai.
49:29
Styling, yes, the whole brand now.
49:32
So Genesis goes wild.
49:32
Hyundai's luxury brand targets the G-Wagen crowd.
49:35
Have you seen this new model?
49:37
No, please show me those.
49:39
It's probably gonna be a direct rip off
49:40
and it's gonna be underwhelming when you get in it.
49:45
That looks so, it's so interestingly shaped.
49:48
Couldn't wait to get your...
49:49
What the hell is this?
49:51
We can't, we don't have all the...
49:52
By the way, how is that the G-Wagen crowd?
49:58
Dude, this is like a Rivian.
50:01
It's like a really bad Rivian.
50:03
Look at Range Rover and Mercedes.
50:05
Genesis is coming for you.
50:07
Love these headlines.
50:10
God, motor trend must be just getting all kinds
50:12
of handouts from these brands.
50:15
Sorry, motor trend.
50:17
I mean, I just hope that's what's happening.
50:18
Yeah, make your money, you know?
50:19
Make your money and hopefully it's worth it.
50:21
But I do say, I like the wheels and tires a little bit
50:23
on this picture that we're seeing here.
50:24
Yeah, but I doubt that they're gonna give you those.
50:26
I think those were just for the Dune pictures there.
50:30
Oh my God, that thing is heinous.
50:33
You know, and we use...
50:33
Is it all electric?
50:35
Let's go back to it.
50:36
We use that word a lot.
50:38
Let me go back and find out.
50:38
But heinous is appropriate
50:40
for what we just showed you on YouTube.
50:42
If you're not watching, go look up the full episode.
50:45
I can't find anything that looks as unreal as this
50:48
for a soon to be supposed production car.
50:51
Well, and here's the thing,
50:52
like people that buy G-Wagons are not buying this.
50:57
Like this has been the whole Genesis experiment to me.
51:01
Do you know anybody in your friend group,
51:03
your colleague group that goes,
51:04
I wanna go get an S580.
51:06
Instead I'm gonna get this Genesis.
51:09
And to be honest, I might see them like once a quarter
51:12
at like a restaurant or something like that.
51:13
But I rarely see them.
51:16
I mean, go back to the equest.
51:17
You remember when they invest all that money in the equest?
51:19
But by the way, when I say invest money,
51:21
they invested money in making it look luxury,
51:23
not actually in the things that make luxury,
51:25
which I think has been my,
51:26
when people say lipstick on a pig,
51:29
that to me is Genesis.
51:31
It's like they really aren't upping the parts
51:34
that make you luxury,
51:35
except for we're gonna bring in some design people
51:38
from I believe Bentley.
51:40
We're gonna bring in some suspension guys
51:42
from the BMW M program.
51:44
We're gonna do everything,
51:45
but tear our engine program down
51:47
and rebuild it back properly.
51:51
This design, it's unique.
51:54
I mean, it's a unique design,
51:55
but it's not a G-Wagon design.
51:57
It's not even really a Range Rover design.
51:59
It's very kind of sleek
52:01
and got a low top to it by the look of the pictures.
52:05
So I don't really know what we're doing here.
52:09
I guess it's cool they're building stuff like this,
52:12
but do you and I and most of the people out there care?
52:14
So the X, absolutely not.
52:16
The X Grand Equator concept launched
52:18
in the 25th of New York International Auto Show.
52:22
Of course, you keep using Range Rover
52:24
and Mercedes as the people that they're targeting.
52:28
As I scroll down here,
52:30
we're looking at anything, let's see, powertrain-wise.
52:35
Could it be, including Genesis Fantastic Retro?
52:37
Even though the concept styling clearly indicates
52:39
an all-electric powertrain,
52:40
we know Genesis following the diversification strategy
52:44
of parent company Hyundai with plans to offer
52:47
a variety of internal combustion, hybrid and electric.
52:51
If you're gonna keep it internal combustion,
52:53
then this design makes even less sense.
52:55
You see the estimate price here?
52:59
For anybody that has the guts
53:04
to pay six figures for a Hyundai product,
53:10
I wanna interview you, to be honest.
53:12
I wanna interview you.
53:14
$100,000 by the way, everybody's estimated price here
53:17
on the article we're reading.
53:19
Expected on sale late 2027.
53:22
Well, here's another one.
53:24
We have a concept car.
53:26
If we get really good reception,
53:28
which they're probably not gonna get
53:29
good reception out of this,
53:31
we still can't build it for two years.
53:34
You know what I mean?
53:35
So here we are again.
53:36
I don't know why the auto business
53:37
hasn't caught up to the real world.
53:39
They gotta ramp up production and all that stuff,
53:42
I'd probably bring it out the year of.
53:44
Hey, we can pre-order these.
53:47
They'll be delivered in the next eight months.
53:50
I just think this is so far outdated.
53:53
I know the defenses of it.
53:54
I know we've had car companies reach out to us
53:57
and tell us their defense of it.
54:01
I just think you could do it better.
54:03
Launch a car in January as a concept.
54:05
Already have your tooling in progress.
54:08
Let's delay that year.
54:09
Have people take delivery.
54:11
You know, shrink the two-year gap here a little bit.
54:13
Let's stop with the dramatics here.
54:15
Tell me this doesn't look exactly like
54:16
the Canyon arrow from The Simpsons with the long wheel.
54:22
Uh, Rob was, I was like,
54:25
man, what's Rob doing over there?
54:26
I know, I was like, he's not really that engaged.
54:29
And he's over there looking up cartoon pictures.
54:31
Canyon arrow, yeah.
54:33
Everybody remembers the commercial.
54:35
The song, by the way, after you finish this episode,
54:38
everybody, go look up on YouTube the Candy Narrows song
54:40
because it was catchy as hell.
54:41
I'll tell you this, man, that is 100% a good call.
54:45
That might be your best call since we started.
54:47
Thank you, thank you, I'll take that, I'll take that.
54:49
Yeah, that was comedic genius.
54:52
Some might call you that.
54:53
Some might say, comedic genius.
54:58
All right, let's go with this one
55:00
before we exit and land the plane here.
55:02
Actually, we got two more.
55:04
So we mentioned Roush last week on the Nissan,
55:07
what is it, Frontier?
55:08
So they said, we don't want to leave you hanging forward.
55:11
All right, I know we're going to Nissan for a little bit.
55:12
We have a Roush RT6 F-150 for some serious off-road,
55:17
with some serious off-road hardware, back to,
55:19
again, what Nick has said.
55:20
Don't we already have the Raptor?
55:23
Tremor, Raptor, Raptor R, but now we have the RT6.
55:29
Just go full hog and just bring everybody.
55:33
We got a Fox F-150.
55:35
We got a this, I mean, like, okay.
55:37
We got a Nitro Circus F-150.
55:39
I mean, here's the thing, I can tell you right now,
55:41
dudes got tactical shorts on,
55:44
buying this at the dealership 100%.
55:47
Like, they're going to sell some of these,
55:48
but explain to me why I just wouldn't buy Raptor.
55:51
I don't know, but you're not going to shame me
55:52
at it taking my tactical shorts off.
55:53
That's what I'm telling you is right now.
55:55
I'm telling you right now.
55:55
I'm telling you right now.
55:57
I go to the baseball game.
55:58
I go to Sam's Club.
56:00
I got the Ninja Stars.
56:02
I got the whole thing, all right.
56:03
I don't care what you say about Glock.
56:06
I don't know what you're talking about.
56:08
We've just got banned from YouTube.
56:10
I will not take that slander.
56:12
I do like the wheels, though.
56:13
These wheels do look nice.
56:14
Yeah, they do look great.
56:16
I know you mentioned it earlier.
56:17
You love black wheels, don't you?
56:19
Look, when done right, they look well.
56:23
The problem is we've all now seen them done
56:25
so poorly so many times.
56:27
That's what turns you off, right?
56:28
So if a guy does them right and keeps them right,
56:31
they look fantastic.
56:33
That's what we talked about with the white wheel thing.
56:36
When they're done right, when they're kept right,
56:39
I think that's black wheels in a nutshell as well.
56:42
I like when they phrase it like this,
56:43
the 25 F-150 Ross Reformant RT6 starts at $23,995,
56:48
in addition to the price of the new 25 F-150.
56:51
What are we doing, guys?
56:52
So somebody's gonna be on the internet going,
56:53
oh, the new F-150 is $24,000.
56:56
Just waiting for that story to drop.
57:00
Do you have any cars that you might see at like,
57:03
like the concept that we showed earlier from Hyundai
57:04
or anything that might excite you?
57:06
I mean, obviously we talked about Tester Rosa,
57:07
but is anyone making a car that you're kind of
57:11
really interested in seeing what comes of it?
57:14
Well, I mean, M5 Touring was like a big moment for me
57:18
because I'm a wagon guy, you're a wagon person.
57:21
Then it basically being kind of like
57:24
a highly incompetent car.
57:25
That's what I hear, yeah.
57:27
Yeah, kind of, you know, did that in for me.
57:31
But yeah, anything in that wagon space,
57:33
that would be what would really get me fired up for sure.
57:37
You know, I was telling you,
57:38
I was looking at these lightnings and older cars.
57:40
Now that you've had your LX for a while,
57:42
you'll never get rid of,
57:43
I don't think you'll ever get rid of the BMW
57:45
I mean, it's just gonna stay there,
57:46
looking sweet. Yeah, probably.
57:47
Sweet and clean, driven once a quarter kind of thing.
57:51
It was one that I wanted to own,
57:53
so that's gonna be a hard one to let go.
57:56
So now we're at two cars
57:57
and I've been seeing more of the three car solutions.
57:58
You and I talked about two car solutions
58:00
probably seven months ago
58:01
and now I'm seeing a lot of videos
58:02
on the three car solutions.
58:03
So what would you consider possibly making a third car
58:06
that listeners might- AMG wagon.
58:08
Really, is that it?
58:12
Only two things, yeah.
58:17
Cause we get questions all the time of like,
58:19
Gen one Raptor would be in there.
58:21
I mean, that would be a real,
58:23
look, I've been really on,
58:25
I think Porsche for me would be,
58:27
would be something that would be in the very short list of,
58:31
you know, finding a 996 turbo at a good price
58:34
or, you know, something like that,
58:36
that's kind of underappreciated at times.
58:39
I would stick to probably,
58:43
AMG wagon, a Porsche, a 911 of some kind.
58:50
I'd really been digging those 7.3 excursions.
58:53
Boy, I have no use for that thing.
58:57
Like you want to talk about the ultimate dad vehicle.
59:00
You know, that would be pretty sick
59:02
if you found one with low mileage,
59:04
kind of unmolested, you could do what you want to it.
59:07
I'd have a pretty short list,
59:10
but it would also be like,
59:12
probably what happens to a lot of our listeners
59:14
is what happens to me.
59:15
Once I get on the hunt
59:17
and I start to see things in the price range,
59:19
like look, you remember we saw that V8 Vantage
59:23
You imagine having in your garage an Aston Martin
59:27
because it's just like, okay, it fits my price?
59:30
Yeah, at 40 grand, there's a lot of stuff you can pick up.
59:32
That might be the thing to pick up
59:33
if you're not worried about it breaking down
59:35
or having issues all the time, possibly.
59:37
And the reason to bring it up.
59:38
Those would be my short list.
59:40
A lot of people ask for the reason of, you know,
59:42
maybe if it's just even a little part of their brain,
59:44
like what might actually increase?
59:46
People are still looking for those things
59:47
that will increase in the sub 100,000,
59:51
because like how much more could a zero six
59:53
really bottom out, right?
59:54
How much more could a lightning really bottom out?
59:55
And some might say to zero eventually,
59:58
but realistically, like now within the next five to 10 years,
00:01
like what could you buy that might actually increase
00:02
a little bit, I can't think of anything
00:03
that'll actually uptick worth caring about
00:06
that won't be more than just a tax on the car.
00:09
Yeah, I don't really, I mean, you talk sub 100,000,
00:15
I think it's just the wrong way to look at it.
00:18
You know what I mean?
00:19
You're looking at it in a way
00:21
and we always talk about cheap mileage.
00:23
I do think there's a lot of cars that are fairly
00:26
where they're gonna be for a long time, right?
00:28
This was kind of the Acura NSX story for a long time.
00:32
They were what they were now,
00:33
obviously you see ones going for a couple hundred grand.
00:36
I mean, but they were somewhere between 35 and 75,
00:41
depending on spec and all that kind of stuff
00:44
for a very long time.
00:46
I think we also need to continue to remind people
00:51
we haven't had a real deep recession yet.
00:54
I think we're gonna know more after that happens
00:57
whenever that is, and then you're gonna really see
01:00
what this stuff means, sub 100,000,
01:03
and you're gonna see all of the top end stuff fall
01:07
pretty drastically that isn't in that special category
01:11
at 50, at 40, those kinds of things.
01:14
But I think right now it's really irresponsible to go,
01:21
this is never gonna lose money.
01:23
I think that's easier to do coming out of a recession
01:26
when you actually see what the real bottom is.
01:28
I don't think we have any idea
01:30
what some of these cars could bottom to,
01:32
but I'm like you, I mean, you get some of those
01:35
ZR ones and Z06s and they're at a reasonable price now.
01:39
I mean, in a recession,
01:40
could they lose another five to 10,000, maybe,
01:43
but if you kept it long enough,
01:44
it'd probably go back up when the economy recovered.
01:47
But I think I'm to the point now,
01:50
because I get this question probably daily.
01:53
I just go, guys, we're living in fantasy land still.
01:56
I mean, we've been living in fantasy land
01:58
for the better part of the last 15 years,
02:00
financially with really no steep economic downturn
02:05
of the asset prices.
02:07
You start to see home prices now
02:08
not only have leveled off, but they're going down.
02:10
There's more sellers than there's ever been.
02:13
They're sitting on houses longer.
02:14
We're starting to see some things happen.
02:17
And remember, and I hate to use this word
02:20
and bring up this word
02:21
because it ignites all kinds of political talk,
02:23
the tariff headache is about to start hitting, right?
02:27
Most people, when the tariffs were hitting
02:30
or being a threat of hitting,
02:33
a lot of people that brought stuff from overseas,
02:35
they just put a whole bunch of containers on the water
02:38
and got a whole bunch of inventory in here
02:39
before the tariffs hit.
02:41
Now everybody's had to kind of absorb tariffs
02:46
and the consumers just gonna start feeling that.
02:50
So I do think we, I think Barclays says
02:52
there's a 93% chance of recession now.
02:55
So coming out of that, I think we're gonna know a lot more.
02:59
And I think anything else is kind of irresponsible
03:01
because everybody knows there's a bubble, right?
03:05
Everybody in the car world, especially collector stuff,
03:08
they know there's a bubble.
03:09
They can lie on YouTube all they want.
03:12
They know it's a bubble.
03:13
You talk to them privately, they know it's a bubble.
03:15
So for everybody out there, if you got the money,
03:17
it's the car you want.
03:19
My advice is always gonna be buy it, enjoy it.
03:22
If you gotta hold on to it a little bit longer,
03:25
then hold on to it a little bit longer.
03:26
But if you buy what you enjoy,
03:28
you'll never really care about the appreciation of it.
03:31
And if you don't have the money
03:32
or not in the market for the car just yet,
03:34
you might be in the market
03:35
for a left lane is for violent sure,
03:36
which we haven't given a proper intro to
03:40
It's on the hyperclean store channel or rather a website.
03:43
We have a couple of them, a handful, small, large,
03:46
You're wearing it today.
03:47
It reminded me like, we gotta remember,
03:48
remind people the back of it looks super cool.
03:49
Left lane is for violent.
03:50
And you can guess what car that is.
03:51
We don't have to say exactly what it is,
03:53
but you can use it.
03:54
Here's what I'll say to everybody.
03:55
I'm actually wearing one of the rejects.
03:58
So, you know, as the owner of the company,
04:00
I got more rejects than I got the ones.
04:03
That's not right, Marty.
04:05
He's done the man the shirts that actually,
04:07
because that's a different red.
04:08
I recognize it was bright.
04:09
It was as bright as your little poster back there.
04:12
So, hey, everybody out there,
04:13
I took a hit for all of you, left some inventory.
04:16
Oh no, he took the other soft shirts,
04:18
didn't make the cut.
04:19
Oh no, gotta have a dozen of those laying around.
04:22
Yeah, I do have a lot of them.
04:23
All right, everybody.
04:24
Great episode, Nick.
04:25
We will see everybody next week.