What Is Car Culture Today? Bye Bye Blackwing, Stellantis Investments, The TELO Truck & More

I got to lead off by saying, because I didn't say it last episode, if you want to email the show,

clutchculturepodcast at gmail.com is where you do it. Everybody, this is episode, I believe 49,

unless I've mixed up the numbering, Nick. I was doing last week's episode and I was going

through my numbers on my files and I was like, oh man, I messed up one of the file names.

But it was only all kinds of extra work. Yeah, no, for sure. But it was only on my file

side. It wasn't on the actual iTunes and YouTube or whatever. So it was all good.

But hey, we got our team check into that. You might get reprimanded. We'll let you know.

We'll get back to you. Don't call us. We'll call you. Okay. Well, I guess I'm having my team call

myself and be like, hey, you asshole, you messed up the numbering. All right, listen, we got a lot

to talk about today. A lot of news to talk about. But look, we've gotten a lot of emails on recent

car culture related events that have gone on and being like, hey, are you guys going to riff on

this? Or are you guys going to like talk about it, make fun of it, whatever? And genuinely,

I think it was just kind of like a non-interesting kind of thing to us. We're not TMZ. We're not

tabloids. We're also not into certain parts of what you would call car culture, at least the

internet calls car culture. And that's actually a good segue into what we're going to probably delve

into. But there was something that peaked both of our interest. And we also got some messages on.

And that was a very viral, we'll call it Larry Chen video. A lot of people know Larry Chen,

great photographer, great personality and the car culture for a lot of people. A lot of people

follow him like his work. He does great work, man. He's one of the most talented photographers

out there for sure. Absolutely. Big advocate for everything from racing and racetracks and

development and maintenance and the whole thing. And it was a pretty long video. I think it was

like six or seven minutes and I watched it all and you had it sent to you. I had it sent to me

a couple of times. And I think it just opens up a broader conversation about, and I wanted to ask

you because we hadn't really talked about it, like, what is car culture? Because the show is

called Clutch Culture. It's all about the car culture. But we're living in a time where the

internet, I think differs from what originally was car culture pre-internet.

I don't think very much on the internet is car culture. And I thought that from the beginning,

by the way. I was never into different brands that made it big on, and by the way, you and I

know some of those people. We've done projects with some of these people. We've, look guys,

my shop is two miles from SEMA. I used to work for manufacturers and all that kind of stuff.

And I pass on that work now. We're just too big as a company. But I get called every year,

the last 60 days, 90 days, my phone still blows up. I've always looked at internet culture

of cars differently than car culture. And the unfortunate thing is, is that I think a lot

of people are being led to believe things on the internet are not a television show.

And we got to remember where all this stuff was born. Go back to Motor Trend. I think it was

called Velocity TV at one point. What are all the names? Discovery. All these different names where

the Boyd Coddingtons and the Chip Fusses and all those people. Guys, it was a television show.

Because if you saw this stuff at SEMA, you go, oh.

It looked way cooler on TV.

That ain't so nice. It was a television show. And I wanted everybody to have success,

so I never really cared. I was like, oh, okay. I see what they did there.

As it changed just at SEMA and more YouTube stuff started getting into the show,

the work was even worse. And I was working with a major manufacturer who, by the way,

sponsored almost the whole show for pretty close to a decade. And I remember at two

o'clock in the morning, this guy saying to me, I was like, hey, man, we're getting a lot of,

we're doing a lot of different cars now. You guys are bringing a lot of different stuff. He goes,

yeah, man, the internet's where all the views are. And we've decided to sponsor these people and

they're doing stuff. For people that have never been there, there's an outside portion and everything

that's in the halls. It's a good branding thing. Then he kind of starts to walk away and he goes,

but make no mistake, this stuff is shitty. I'll never forget that as long as I live.

And this you're talking about a higher up at this place too.

Yeah. We're talking about a real executive because there was no craftsmanship to any of it.

It was just slapped together for something on the internet. And I don't think you and I

have any problem with that. But now, when people watch where internet culture in the car scene

has gotten to, but they don't want to look back at maybe the people they've been in business with

that was creating that content once upon a time. And they're not bridging the gap and they're like,

well, this has just gotten out of control. Yeah, but it was kind of out of control

when you were on those projects, you just were making money on those projects. So

you didn't think it was out of control. Or even out of bounds for that matter.

Yeah, or out of bounds. And so I think when you look at it now,

I hate the dad get off my lawn crowd. Totally. I just hate it. So guys, I'm not surprised by any

of it. Any of you guys that are surprised about what's going on in quote unquote car culture

in Gatlinburg or any of that kind of stuff, you didn't watch what's been going on on the internet

from huge brands for the better part of the last 10 to 20 years.

How do we turn, how do we, us and anybody else that wants to touch this with a 10 foot pole,

how do you approach it other than with honesty and some real like authenticity and not sound

like the dude get off my lawn? Look, man, it's guys, the stuff that's going on now, the takeovers,

the craziness, it's corny. But guess what, there was a lot of corny shit 10 years ago.

There, I mean, everybody just thinks it's different now because it's getting more out of control.

Yeah. So let's talk about this. The best way that I described it to you that I'll describe

it to our audiences, there were car shows in the 90s, you know, where guys power block TV or,

you know, whatever was the name back then, where guys were in the garage, taking a part of an engine

and then going through an entire build over a month of the TV show or two months of the TV show,

that then morphed into one episode. Chip Foos is going to overhaul a Camaro in one episode.

Used to take eight weeks on television. Cool. Things change.

Then that became guys going on the internet, racing around, trying to get speeding tickets and

everything just kept being a one up. Let me do something crazier on the internet. Guys,

you're 30 plus years down the road. Why are you surprised at where this all landed? Because it

was always one up culture. That's why it doesn't surprise me. But guys acting like they didn't

play a hand in it or their buddies didn't play a hand in it or their buddies weren't involved in it,

that just doesn't sit right with me. It's because it's like we're hearing these guys talk out now

they were part of some of these big brands and they tell you the exact formula that those brands

were using. You brought up a really like a total flashback power nation, which I guess it's power

block. Yeah, you said power block TV, right? That was one of those old, you know, and I've had

people from, I don't want to fucking, I'm not trying to point anybody out, but because of some

people I've worked with in the past, just because of the industry that's related, you know, those

shows need to have advertisers in order to make those things operate, right? So they'd reach out,

we'd have discussions with a, we'll call it an arm of an arm that puts those kind of productions

into place. And I'd be curious what those look like. This is only just maybe just pre COVID,

I think. And the rates at which you had to pay essentially to be on a show like that was

ridiculous, right? To use the only R word that's acceptable these days on the internet apparently.

And now all these years later with what's going on in the car market, I wonder how

stuff like that sustains itself because you have to make it, the turn, the timetables have

to be pretty quick on these things. It's a show like Nick said, and the way I summarized it for

Nick as we were talking about it over the last couple of days, just briefly on random phone

calls is like, you were describing to me, it sounded like it was, it used to be about quality.

And then now we're in the era where is the question isn't, is this quality, the question is,

is this clickable? And we all know that that's what it is. Yeah. So car culture to me has always

been about the craftsmen, right? Where for those that weren't there, you wouldn't see this happen

at a car show because the guy or gal had spent so much time and money on their build. Yeah.

They like babied it to get there because they're like, I just got all these new parts and I had to,

you know, maneuver them in and I spent so many hours and that used to be and really a big part

of car culture to me is I wanted to build this exceptional thing. Cheap parts, slapping them on,

putting them on with, you know, zip ties. I mean, you guys can pick out what part of car

culture that is. You know, crappy fenders, crappy front lips, things put on with double-sided tape.

Why would anybody value that stuff? It's cheap. It's easy to do. You can rip it off, get another

Chinese lip, you know, Taiwanese lip, put it on your car. Why would they value any of that?

But who brought that into the world? Because I can tell you who it was and it wasn't PowerBlock TV.

No.

They didn't bring that into the world. I'm not saying they did the highest quality work all the time,

but they didn't bring that into the car culture. Who did? Look at the brands. Look at the people

that made all these millions of dollars off that cheap shit build mentality because it wasn't

part of the car culture until certain companies built a following doing that. And I found something

interesting in the last few weeks. Somebody who was a part of one of these big brands,

who's now out in the zone, did an interview, and he goes,

look, I could get millions of subscribers overnight. The guy's like, kind of looks at him,

he goes, what do you mean? He goes, yeah, do a trash build, go out and trash the car,

and I'll have millions of views and millions of subscribers, but I'll be miserable.

And there's your formula, kids.

And there's your formula. And by the way, we've alluded to that before, that that's the formula.

Yeah.

The formula that doesn't really work in today's internet culture is high quality all the time.

Like there's guys that are slogging through that that have made a name for themselves,

but their slog has been a lot longer than just doing a trash build and going out on the street

and trashing the car. And by the way, for anybody that thinks that all of this trashing of the car

happened on some closed course and it was all rented out in it, that wasn't true either.

They were doing this shit in downtown LA.

How quickly we forget, right?

How quickly we forget those. It wasn't all dotted eyes and cross T's either.

But now people are acting crazy at a car event and we go, well, how do we get here?

Well, you guys, come on. Like it's just like I told you and you were there.

If anybody was there when Fast and the Furious, the first one dropped street racing became more

popular in every town after that thing dropped. You had more accidents than ever.

You had more cars getting damaged than ever. You had all kinds of things happen.

Doesn't mean Fast and the Furious shouldn't have been built,

shouldn't have been shot and put out as a movie. But can we draw the straight line?

Yeah. Every cop in the world could draw a straight line and go, man, we never saw that

much street racing. That movie dropped and the next two years of our life, all we did

was deal with street racing. I just don't know why people act like we can't draw the straight

line of what's happened here. That's where you draw the 10 second quarter mile line from there

to there. And this is coming from, admittedly, I mean, I got props back here. I got the Super,

I got the Legos, I got the box set DVD that was giving us a gift years ago.

I'm a huge fan of the franchise. I've said it forever. Next to, you know, maybe early

Marvel and Transformers is one of the best cinematic universes in the world. I'll stand

by that whoever wants to debate me on it. But it is what it is. Those are the facts.

And there's nothing wrong with it. Nick has said it, and we're all again,

not trying to sound like the old man on the lawn, but we do want to just say,

if you're hearing these videos, not just from, and I know we brought up Larry Chen, but

other people in this community, a lot of people, a lot of people, a lot of people. So

and you know what, had you and I not known each other for the amount of years we've known each

other and done, you know, the variety of things we've done together, I might have, if you were

just kind of watching it and in passing, and it wasn't so like heavily consumed in your life,

we'll listen to it and been like, you know what, might have a point here and then kind of brushed

it off and went about it. And when it came up in conversation, you'd be like, you know what,

he met the XYZ person, made a really good point. And then someone else would have to tell me like,

hold up, wait a minute, let's take a pause for a second, slow down your life and remember what

we've unpacked for the last decade and a half. You'd be like, you know what, absolutely right.

It's all connected, man. It's all connected. Everything on the internet is one up culture.

So if you think that YouTube car videos started in what, roughly 2005, 2006, 2007,

you now have 20 years of people one upping each other. And you guys are shocked

that people are acting crazy in Gatlingburg or anywhere else. By the way, this is not me endorsing

it. No, but I also didn't endorse those brands that were doing cheap shit builds either. So I

have that on my resume. Yeah, that's true. I wasn't into that stuff. I didn't think that was car

culture. I just thought it was somebody creating internet content, which by the way, I hope everybody

got paid. Cool, man. Do your thing. But it was never car culture. In matter of fact,

there's a lot of people I talked to after all these like, hey, we need to settle down videos.

Like you said, there's been a thousand of them made by a lot of pretty old people in this culture

that made a lot of money off the internet that now kind of want to wash away their sins,

where a lot of people were like, what are they talking about? I was there. I was in, I mean,

for those that don't know, I lived in Southern California while some of these brands were exploding.

It was corny then. You guys didn't know it because you were watching the fully edited version.

Right. You weren't seeing it happen in real time in front of your eyes, not on the internet.

Just like I always tell people that have never been to SEMA and they go, oh, I want to see that

guys build. I go, okay, I saw it. I don't think it is what you think it is. That's not to say

that that person didn't work hard on something. It's that I think you're seeing things through

the lens of social media or an edited video. It makes it look a lot different than the finished

product when you can sit there and go, oh, the door gaps are off. That's kind of strange.

Oh, the frame is kind of messed up. Oh, what do they do? Oh, the car won't turn on. They had to

roll it in here. Right? Like, that's the real of how this stuff works. And that doesn't take anything

away from anybody. But we have conflated what car culture is to what people are doing on the

internet. And the internet really was the extension of the car show on television.

Yeah. That's all it really was. It wasn't actually because Power Block wasn't car culture.

And ironically, it went down in quality once it got on TV. Because early on, you would have thought,

oh, it's reached this whole new level of where audiences are going to exponentially grow because

of the access to people's living rooms or phones at that point in the early 2000s. And it actually

got worse. It's pretty crazy. Oh, it's gotten, look, guys, I denounce all of it. I mean, it's stupid

to go do this. I don't want anybody to get it twisted. But I'm not the guy that's like, whoa,

we legalized gambling and now people have gambling problems. Isn't that crazy?

It's like, no, man, I mean, this is what happens. How dare you believe you're lying eyes, Nick?

It's like, come on, guys, like a lot of people made a lot of money. I don't think you should be out

on a tour now talking about where car culture is now, and not reference back to what's kind of

led to all of this. And by the way, it's all good. That's why I tell people this really,

it doesn't really interest me to talk about what kids were doing in Gatlingburg. And I said this

in DMs to people, I'm like, it's just not that interesting to me because what do you guys want

me to say? It's stupid? Yeah, it's stupid. I mean, it shouldn't happen. It's tearing apart good

events. But guess what? This was the natural evolution when it was nothing more than let's do

a crappy build and go out and trash the vehicle on the street. That culture isn't just happening,

didn't just happen today. It started 10, 15 years ago. And so this is the natural evolution of it.

Yeah, and a lot of people know our interest outside of the car world. I'm going to use this

as a time to say, shout out to those that send stuff that isn't car related. I appreciate you guys

if either through clutch culture, pod on all socials, or our personal, you know,

hyper clean Nick, hyper clean store, Rob GTV, if you send different DMs about different topics,

we appreciate it. I personally, dude, I've been so not on my phone. If it's not unless it's like

completely a project related, I think the most I've used my phone is just like email, you know,

like the screen time it tells you what you use the most just email. And not a lot of my socials

are so like Missouri adventures. I believe this what it is in a couple of other guys that like

send stuff car and not car related. Appreciate you guys. You guys are great. It helps a lot of the

podcast from week to week sometimes with stories. I know some of the stuff I won't bring up because

Nick doesn't like politics, but you and I you guys and I can have a conversation at the end. So I

appreciate it. What I was going to wrap that up by saying is let's also not pretend that some of

these kids need some parenting here. All right. A lot of people are just running wild these days,

which is unfortunate. But look, good. You do cheap builds that you don't respect even as the owner.

Yeah, you're going to do crazy stuff with the car. Because look, I liken it to this,

every single person listening to this has taken and checked off. I got insurance on this rental

car and you rallied to piss out of it for a week, you know, in Phoenix, Arizona or Austin,

Texas or wherever you traveled to. Why? Because you didn't care about it. And guess what? Just

because that person owns a car, if it's cheap, if the work wasn't high quality, they don't give a

them running it into a gas pump. While it looks stupid to all of us, why does it shock anybody?

It doesn't shock me. And as one of the great philosophers of our time, Jerry Seinfeld said,

I will take that insurance because I'm going to beat the hell out of this rental car.

And guys, I want everybody to realize I'm not dad get off my lawn because we didn't come on here

and criticize the kids acting crazy. No, no. I'm not surprised by it even a little bit.

Because at heart, we are those kids, we just tend to like be, we have different interests at this

point in our lives, I guess. And by the way, I did a lot of dumb shit when I was younger.

Yes, all those stories we can't even tell because the statute of limitations has not been up yet,

and we can't have Nick's name attached to those. Yeah, like, look, guys, I have an incident where

I was literally knocked out for 24 hours as like an adult, like, you know, and I got into a motorcycle

accident, completely my fault, all kinds of dumb shit. Like I'm telling you,

I have a hard time judging young people acting crazy, because I don't know what I would have

done if I knew I could possibly make money acting crazy on the internet. Oh, can you imagine?

And again, that doesn't excuse any of this. But I'm not the guy getting on saying we need to

change it when I was a part of the craziness. Yeah. Okay, that that to me doesn't sit right.

Like, let's all understand. You guys knew the formula because you guys are talking about it now.

Cheap builds, trash builds, go out on the street and trash the car, get millions of views.

Hey, peak internet while Nick was 18. Can you imagine?

Oh, my God, dude. Yeah, no, no, that's never would have happened.

I don't I don't judge young people for doing crazy shit because I think that's unfair.

We all did stuff that, hey, we're lucky that something bad didn't happen where I mean,

there's plenty of guys that love to have a drink. How many of you have had one too

many drinks got behind the wheel when you're younger or even now?

Don't don't sit here and I don't sit here and act like that doesn't happen.

The party started in the past or didn't in the past. I don't know what you're talking about son.

But what I want to say does interest me is everybody trying to wash their hands of

all the things there maybe even still involved them. Yeah, you know, guys wrecking exotic cars

all over the place in Los Angeles and you're part of the production team or whatever. You're

not saying anything because you're getting a paycheck. And then you're like, well, these kids

in Gatlinburg, it's like, dude, you guys are part of a show that's scripted to wreck an exotic car.

How do you think you're better than that? You're not. I mean,

you think you are, but you aren't you're part of all of this. And I don't have that on my resume

FYI. I always cared about the craftsmanship of the car. That's what I have said on this podcast is

like, dude, I went to a craftsman to restore a 2003 sound system. That's what I'm into. True. We

know that that isn't going to get millions of views guys. We know that because we know what

the formula is because all these people have admitted and we know what the formula is,

but I'm not going to do it because I think it's corny. But I also thought it was corny a decade

ago. I just thought it was corny behavior. It makes a bit of a bit of an anomaly. I guess we

would say he's even told me before like, Hey, you're selling like get out my lawn guy. And I was

like, you know what, you're right. I'm 10 years younger. What's going on here? I don't want a

hard segue, but you just said, you know, when you're younger, you've got you did your own things.

Don't you have a shoulder issue and you don't have to specify what why, but you do, right?

I have had now at this point, three shoulder surgeries. Yikes. And it's not, it's just from,

you know, growing up and other stuff. It wasn't like, no, I mean, when I got, I got in an accident,

again, being stupid, separated my shoulder, broke my collarbone, both at the same time, broke my jaw.

Yikes. And yeah, man, after that, you know, it just never been right. I've had a couple clean

outs. I had a full repair. You know, it is what it's got. Hey, I got those cool scars too.

Where they like fillet you up? Oh, yeah. No, thanks. I'm not, I don't like that life. I don't

like the needles and the blood and the whole thing. I will say a little, that's way beyond what I

thought it was, but a little hack for the dads out there for all of the dads and maybe the one

mom that listens to this show. What I learned is if you're having those shoulder issues, if you

grab like a lacrosse ball dude, put it on top of a foam roller and then put it like at a bed or

table that's like waist height and then you roll the sub scapula area right here. It, oh my god,

it changed my life. Nick, I had show like this one particular shoulder issue forever and reminding

of you because you always come, you know, you've complained about how you've had some shoulder

injuries. Dude, you just lay on that lacrosse ball and roll the sub scapula scapula area out.

Oh my god. Game changer. The big thing is if you got shoulder issues, just hang from a chin up bar

as long as you can every day. Multiple times a day as often as I can. It's the only thing you

can do, man. Feel the spine decompress and crack and then also like how long you can hold to like

strengthen all of that. Love it. Sorry. I'm not going over the fucking microphone because I'm getting

so hyped about this. Getting hype on sub scapula. Dude, the relief, the relief when you actually

find something that works is like, I want to tell everybody from the rooftop. It's nuts. Yeah.

All right. We've also, having said, if you're new to the show, this is the number one

car related podcast on the internet. So we appreciate you tuning in. We'll talk about car

culture, obviously news, current events. Most importantly, we offer you a good hang every

Monday. I do want to reference something else. We had some videos going out and I want to say,

were you surprised at how many people were able to relate to the Chevy vents and the things in

there? Yeah. And I love the other people that are like, I got an 02 Silverado. My vents work

perfect. I'm like, oh, okay. That's cool. Dude, but in that same thread, somebody was like,

I love these guys. These guys, you're my favorite. If all you got to worry about is a

vent in your truck, you got to solve hands. I'm like, dude, I grew up people like you.

Well, they say, relax. Not that crucial. Also, my left hand, bar bar fence, rip these two fingers.

That's why I can't play this guitar. That's just a prop back here because I can't really bend these

two fingers like I should be able to. Soft hands, bit of an understatement here. I'm just going to say.

My vents really bothered me, but I have calloused hands.

A thousand percent. Yep. Bar bar fences and, and, uh, dud was it, but dead lift bars. Is that the

most manly? Is that as manly as it gets? I mean, let's go. Yeah, I mean, you might as well.

I mean, you make your own rules. It's our podcast. Just make the rules.

Dude, did I see a check engine light come from one of your vehicles?

Boy, sad day when I mean, all the Toyota fanboys out there, you know, there's never a check engine

light on a Toyota product. So I don't know how I got it. So unlucky. Nothing ever breaks on a

Toyota. Yeah, I have some kind of evap code. Actually, I don't have it here on my desk,

but I did bring, I got a new gas cap because that's sort of the first way to kind of start to

troubleshoot it. Uh, my guess is that's probably not going to work, but yeah, I got an evap code,

you know, something in the, in the, in the fuel system, but it's, it's pretty normal. Again,

I don't know how so many people have, you know, taken their Toyotas to 700 million miles and

they've never had a check engine light, but yeah, I have one. That's a deep cut on this podcast.

A thousand percent. Those of you that haven't been around is, if you go on to our, some of our

beginning Toyota videos, people act like they didn't have to change their brakes and they put 700,000

miles on their Toyota. By the way, daily, we're still getting dozens, if not hundreds of comments

on those videos. It's nuts. It's absolutely. We're going on a year, guys, which thank you,

continue to please share and comment on those videos, but you know, it's most of them broken a

million plus, million and a half plus on TikTok, Instagram, whatever. And it's kind of like the

car culture conversation we led the show with, is it, I don't think the Toyota crowd gets some of

the nuances that we kind of mentioned about, like, you know, it doesn't stick. It doesn't resonate,

whatever it is, but I appreciate you guys. I glad we don't need new tires. I mean, I put

eight billion miles on my Toyota and I didn't even need new tires, brakes, nothing.

Equations seem to vary apparently these days from people to people because they just leave

things out of cost equations all the time. 100%. And by the way, it's why everybody who supposedly

hates the car dealer is using them as the boogeyman and not their bad decisions.

It's like, that's the whole thing is like, they didn't do the cost analysis. And like I've said

on this podcast before, that's all you really got to do. How much am I willing to pay for this car

as truck, this whatever, give an offer, they accept it, pay that amount for the truck,

leave the dealership. The next thing, the next thing I want to reference is how many pictures

of King Ranch Expeditions did you get over the last seven days? Boy, boy. And by the way,

looks worse in pictures. Well, depending on the color, you're right, because I sent Nick the

picture of the one that I saw heading to the baseball fields literally last night. And then

he was like, dude, this is hilarious. I've gotten like five in the last day alone. Yeah, I got five,

within about a four hour period yesterday. People just DM text, it's heinous. It's heinous.

I even told my wife, I said, I think, and I made the joke on last week, I think you bullied me

into thinking, because when I first saw it, I didn't think it looked that bad, but it was silver.

And this one was more of like the off white kind of eggshell white, which I don't really like

that color at all. Horrible. That one is really bad. It's horrible. And again, the thing that

amuses me when I see stuff in car like this, think of how many people were like, yep,

we nailed it inside the Ford building. It wasn't one guy or one gal. It was hundreds,

if not thousands of people that go, yep, that's what we want. And to me, it's also worse that

the type of vehicle they chose to like go that line of thinking and design with or options with,

because if it would have been like a flex from back in the day, I think it would have suited it,

because I think the roofs were different colors. That could have worked. It was a little bit

straighter lines. Exactly. Here's the whole point. The back end doesn't look great to begin with.

No, it's just too long. You didn't get the back end correct anyway. Yeah. Bringing focus to that

is what makes it horrific. Like, again, if you guys look at it and it's already too far down the

road and you go, oh man, this is, but you know, look, we got to get this thing into production.

The thing that you should have said is, let's not draw attention to the worst part

of design on the vehicle, because the rest of the vehicle looks fine. I thought maybe they thought

it would be a detractor, like let's take away from the least pleasant part. And meanwhile,

it's just focus. Yeah, it's like what Toyota did with Sequoia where Sequoia is like massive,

like it's a billboard on the back. It's like, no, that's not, that's not what you want to do.

That's not it. Sorry, did I come through? The audio? No? Talking to you?

No, what's going on, dude? What is going on? Sorry, sorry, sorry. Well, I was trying to segue

smoothly, which I typically do, I should say. We're trying to get Jamie from the Joe Rogan

podcast to produce this. Fuck, Jamie, you got Hyamut right here. How do we sound like we love you?

Jamie, you got Hyamut right here, the brown guy. Listen, I got this into me a couple of times.

I'm in a hard segue because I thought this was interesting and we'll either really love it,

by us, I mean you or hate it. Have you heard of the Tello truck?

Yes, show it to me. Yes. Okay, all right. What I was trying to do, sir, was not blow

your ear drums out because all these platforms have finally added volume levers to the reels

we're as big as before. Jamie wouldn't have made this mistake. Hyamut, Hyamut is going to talk to

your boss. All right, here we go. Trucks used to be made for work, like with this 2004 Ford Ranger

behind me, it's got a longer bed than most F-150s. Today's pickup trucks have been built to carry

bigger egos than payloads. Now, if you want a big bed and a practical truck, you have to go big.

But with the Tello truck, we're hoping to revive the small truck market and make many trucks more

practical than ever before. So the Ranger. I had a Ranger just like that, by the way.

I know, dude. 425,000 miles on it.

I can look at you, Rob, and know you had one of those. You don't have to tell us.

Wow. I'm really turning into Hyamut now. Yeah, we knew. We knew.

That's pretty cool, man. On the Tello truck, you just fold down the second. Which is that's cool

as well. Yes. Stolen, by the way, stolen from the Avalanche. Correct. A lot of things were stolen

from the Avalanche. So more towing. I'm going to fast forward a little bit here.

Level with 2,000 pounds. More towing. I used to hate having to be in the back seat

of one of those Rangers. Yes. The jokes right themselves. Oh, look at that.

Right. Cool. That's a tiny truck. Also has room for lockable storage. Lockable storage.

I like it. Let's put it here. So what is the story?

Because the one thing I haven't really looked into is what is their story?

Where are they building it? What are they doing? Who's funding it? Because again,

great idea. This is a great idea. Obviously, it's going to be EV.

Which again, kind of brings us back to this is what the skateboard platform was supposed to allow

is this really cheap, manufacturing, repeatable thing, which the consumer has largely not been

able to take advantage of that supposed advancement. But if these kind of companies pop up and they

can stay in business, then it kind of proves this theory that they've been trying to prove for 25

plus years. Yeah. So it is a California company, right? I think it's a small team. I think it's

just over a dozen. And I don't know the full story because honestly, the website doesn't

have a whole lot about us kind of thing. It's just a small California electric truck company

tired of the oversized impractical trucks. I did go to their page where we could build it. Do you

want to quickly just go through it? Can you please guess? Can you please guess? If you were to build

one of these little trucks, what do you think you would end up at price-wise? 26. I want you to

everybody, 26. Everybody got that number down. Then Nick just said, we're going to go through this.

It should be pretty quick because I don't think there's that many options to the pre-order,

which is $150 to reserve. So you want a single motor for 300 horsepower or a dual motor with

500 horsepower? Does that say? Listen, we're going to go through this. Oh my god. Listen,

here we go again. We're starting right here. Two-wheel drive, four-wheel drive. Which one do

you want? Well, you got to go two-wheel because I'm trying to get it to 26 grand and I'm already

15 grand off. Two-wheel drive. What do you want, the peasant one? You want the, okay, we'll go

two-wheel drive. I live in Southern California, Rob. That's where they're at. You want a truck

with two-wheel drive? You do you, brother. All right, do you want... I'm trying to make myself

right here. Do you want standard battery or a long range for another $4,000? Long range.

Long range, 350 miles versus 260 miles. Colored, you care. White, blue, green, pink.

Blue. Blue. No, okay, no charge. Do you want the four-spoke or do you want the six-spoke wheels?

Let me see the six-spoke. It's $5 spoke and it's $1,000 more. Yeah, I'll take those. Okay,

we'll take those. You want the tonneau cover for $1,200 or a solar cab roof or a solar tonneau...

What did you pronounce that? Tonneau cover? It's tonneau cover. Tonneau, that's right, that's right.

You want a camper shelf or another two grand? Do you want a solar camper? So you can put a

fucking solar panel on everything, $3,500. Any of those interest you? Tonneau cover might as well.

No solar or solar? No solar. Buddy, I'm already over my budget. You're killing me here.

All right, it looks like we've come to about 47.7 for 300 horsepower and 350 mile range.

It's not... I'm maxing it out. As you collect your thoughts, I'm going to max out my build,

which my build would be a Texas boy wants to dual all the time. Yeah, well, by the way,

so would a mine, but I was trying to meet $26,000. Well, that's crazy, Nick,

because that's never going to happen, sir. I'm going to also go with that.

So you might as well have gotten everything. Yeah, give me... Let me see. I don't want that one.

I want that one with the solar. I want that solar. I want this solar. I'm going to pay

$58,699 out the door. I mean, that's pre-tactile. Here's the thing, man. That's not...

I have to ask all you EV evangelicals out there. Look at the interior first. Wait,

don't go off on them yet. Hey, I actually like that interior. That's disgusting.

You're crazy. I want to take that 2004 interior from that ranger than this.

Well, buddy, that's not an option. Well, fair. I mean, in today's world, that level of simplicity,

that's pretty rare. At this point, let me just put my own iPad Pro in this bitch and we'll ride

that way. Buddy, I... Wait, I just don't know how you're getting to $40 plus thousand dollars and

go on, hey, we have a solution. 60, but I digress. Yeah, yours is 60. Yeah, this isn't going to work.

I mean, I root you guys on, but again, you guys... And again, everybody has to make money.

Everybody has to do their thing. I got you. I was hyped as hell when I first saw this,

when people sent it to me and then I got to this page and I'm like, hey,

we're back in Viper territory here, by the way, which I was looking at. Yeah, we're getting a Viper.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, matter of fact, we're getting an Aston and a Viper, if you fully spec the thing.

For one and a half of these, honestly. Actually, your two-wheel drive,

we can still get the Aston and the Viper instead. I just don't get it, man.

And by the way, if you are a representative of this company and this clip comes into your world,

I'd love to interview you. I'd love it. Because I'd love to just go...

Walk us through it. What are you solving? Game theory this out with us, please.

Because again, if I'm at $50,000, I'll just get a used Raptor.

Or yes. Or if you wanted to be efficient, I use... If you can still find used Mavericks at the time

or whatever. Yeah, use Mavericks, you'd be way under. You might be able to get two Mavericks.

The Roush... What do you call it? The Roush Frontier Pro 4x was like 48 grand. Yeah, 48. Yeah,

something like that. Yeah. I mean, you guys got all of you people that... I'm trying to get on your

team. I am too. I'm trying to be like, hey, good idea. You see what's going on. Great.

Price, $172,000. It's like, guys, where is the $25,000 vehicle? Because you guys have been spouting

easier to put out, easier to build, lower cost. That's not what happens when we get to the finish

of the build. You know, for the last couple of years, we would hear the phrase like,

I'm politically homeless, right from certain people. I feel like I'm automatically about to

be homeless here with the decisions. You have the crazy car culture world, and then you have the

EV world that's making no strides in the direction of affordability, fun, the whole thing. We're

just in this little world of clutch culture where we're hanging on to our current vehicles because

we think they're the best. That's why we bought them and held on to them. Then you have this.

This is like the coolest looking, most expensive gator that I would see on a golf course. Gator

is a great reference. Dude, but this is my dad's gator, literally. My dad's Polaris, but in white

instead of black, and it's way cooler to have the gator. I'm going to tell you right now.

Yeah, a lot more stuff can go on. Yeah, for sure. Right? Because I don't want to sound like

somebody that doesn't understand things cost money. Yeah, and I'm on your side. I want to fall

more into this because I'm still holding out for slate. That's one of the things that really did

excite me about that world. There's two other ones, and I didn't research them, so I didn't bring

them up. Maybe we'll bring them up next week, but there's people trying to make moves in the

space, but now we got to talk about, look, the government training wheels are falling off of

this world. What happens? Who survives? Well, not only that, you got this

rare earth minerals fight that's going on. You just had an announcement, I believe the Danish.

Yeah, Nexperia. Yeah, somebody that's in the semiconductor world has now been taken over

by the government, and you might have another chip shortage situation going on,

and I look at this whole thing and I go, guys, I want to be on your team because I think you

could solve something in a marketplace, not because I want to be on the EV team, but you guys

have been telling me that the cost is going to keep getting driven down, yet every time something

gets released, it's 20 grand higher than what anybody thinks it should be. That is a wide divide.

Even if this thing came in at 31, you'd be like, oh, okay, it's about five, six grand more than I

wanted to pay, but it's, okay, we're getting to the, this isn't even in the ballpark.

It's double the price, bro, for the one that most people are going to want, because you want the

cool stuff. Yeah, and we keep saying, if I can get a used Gen 1 Raptor, I'm going to pick that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. It's funny that you brought up, I had it on the list,

down the way down the list of stories, but yeah, so if you're not hearing about this anywhere

else, guys, the Dutch government took over the semiconductor transistor company, which makes

up, I think, 40 plus percent of that world. I think it's pronounced nexperia or nexperia,

and now they're in talk to China because China stopped exports essentially to different parts

of the world. It's a really crazy thing because now we're starting to hear that phrase again,

that phrase of shortages, right, semiconductors, chip, you know, all that kind of stuff. So

this really throws a lot of fuel to this crazy fire of the auto market.

Yeah, and look, it magically is happening about three or four months before

everyone's saying that the 2026 car market was going to be very weak. That's pretty convenient,

but, you know. And don't forget the numbers we're all seeing about the explosion in EVs,

but they hardly mentioned that it's because of the incentives drying up and that kind of,

I think it was a 30 percent year over year boost over this last year.

I mean, look, I think Chevy or GM just announced they're going to take like a $1.6 billion right

down because of EV weakness and what they see coming and all this kind of other stuff.

Look, you have the big news out of the DOJ going into the private equity company and

started First Brands. Is that what it's called? Yes. Which we talked about a couple weeks ago.

Yeah, which basically is what? Fram and all these different companies, a classic private

equity pump and dump situation that shouldn't have been allowed to happen in a just society,

in my opinion, because everybody sees what these companies are doing is they're taking all these

companies, putting a bunch of debt on the balance sheet, taking all the money themselves, and then

thinking they could bankrupt the company. And hopefully there is an end in sight to that,

I doubt it, but you would hope that that would kind of get some legislation to be like, come on,

guys, let's not do that. But I don't think people really want to have the conversation

consistently about like, there's so much that goes into these supply chains of automakers

that now like any little thing starts to throw like frantic behavior into the automotive market.

And that's a pretty new phenomenon that it wasn't always, you know, part of the ecosystem,

meaning like supply chains were a lot more calm, dependable, predictable. Now we have

all kinds of different stuff going on globally. And everybody's getting stuff from all over the

world. And it all seemed like it was a great idea. Look, you have the huge announcement out of

basically pulling out of Canada and saying, we're going to put 13 billion into the US.

I hope it pans out for them. But I don't know how that's going to make your lineup more interesting.

But, you know, you have a lot of moving parts right now in the automotive business.

Yeah. So 13 billion investment in the US operations, the largest in 100 years that this is

about Stellantis, which Nick just brought up, you know, coincidentally, simultaneously, I don't

know, Abu Dhabi. Okay. Yeah. So it was a weird part of the story. There was like a two-parter

here. So the VS Strategic Cooperation with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office and Ports Group,

part of the broader push to globalize its EV footprint and make it a Middle East regional hub.

I don't know what's going on with Stellantis because they're up and down with who's controlling

what, where the money's going. We talked about them a lot of the part of the year

because it made some really interesting things, the hand being coming back. But in this whole

thing, it was a very long ride up. But at the end of it, the one thing that did not get a lot of

actually any mention in this was the VA, the Hemi, the Hemi itself. It's coming back. It's

supposed to be coming back early next year if not roll out towards the end of this year.

But it was all about whatever their hurricane engines are and their three-liter, you know,

twin turbo and their two and a half liter or two liter twin turbo and their EV and now this

Middle East thing. But it's not what the promise was initially as this year rolled on about the VA

and other kind of like sports cars.

Yeah. I mean, look, it's all going to take time, but you do see, and I still have this question

quite often is, okay, if you bring it to the US, which we're going to cheer on because for those

that listen around the world, we're based in the US. So I'm going to cheer on making cars here in the

US. But if you still have a global supply chain, you're still at huge risk of not being able to

pull off whatever you're trying to pull off. And I think that's what people, so the question is,

are suppliers going to start investing into the US market and bringing things here? We also know,

from a chip perspective, I think there was a government, what was it called, the Chip Act,

where we said, hey, we're going to start building chips here. That has not gone well,

by the way, meaning like it's a very slow understanding from everybody in the manufacturing

world. One of the hardest things to manufacture are these chips, right? And so here we are,

we're going to try to bring this on American soil. That has not gone well. And I don't believe

it's because of the government. I believe it's because it's hard to get up and running. It's

hard to have the quality control. It's hard for those reasons. So when you look at this,

it's great that Stellantis or GM or Ford wants to do more in the US. But if you're still getting

stuff out of this Dutch supplier out of Denmark, and they have problems, you have problems. So

building in the US really didn't solve anything because you still don't have a supply chain in

the United States. Yeah. And this is going to be a decade. That is really the cause of all of this.

And it'll be a decades-long initiative to get... Oh, I mean, the 20 plus years. Yeah. So also to

say, we'll just piggyback off, or what we're talking about, a large chunk of that $13 billion

investment is to be sent to various Stellantis plants across the nation for research and development

and also reopen manufacturing plants and jobs. There was one in particular in Illinois. What was

it? There was a bunch, right? I mean, there's like two or three in Ohio, two and three. What

wasn't it? Belvedere, yeah, in Illinois. So they're making pushes to bring back jobs and do their

thing here. But announcement just kind of felt all over the place again. And the other thing is,

didn't they write when they announced this, didn't they cancel Wagoneer? Oh, did they? I didn't know

that. I don't know. I don't know. Don't take my word. I think they cancel Wagoneer. It's like,

we don't know why Wagoneer didn't work. I don't know, man, when you launched it, it was $109,000.

Yeah, the Wagoneer's dead. Yes, Jeep canceled, let's see, the standard Wagoneer in 2026, rolling

to the Grand Wagoneer, rolling it into the Grand Wagoneer line. Okay, so let's make it more expensive.

Gotcha. Oh my God. You didn't even... Oh God, I can't... Yeah, let's make it more expensive.

You didn't even finish your sentence. And I think that's what they're going to do. They're going to

say, hey, we're going to keep the Grand Wagoneer. We're going to get rid of the lower tier Wagoneer

that was a little more affordable. And we're going to just sell the Grand Wagoneer. I just don't see

how that $13 billion didn't go into market research. Okay, we're going to segue into another car that

has been canceled, which we might have to go after we hit stop on this podcast, go find one and just

put it in the garage. But the CT5V Blackwing is no more. No, I thought they were committed to it.

Committed to not the V8 Supercharged. Let's report it by the drive. Let me just pull it up here so

that as I make this clip, we can actually read the article. Well, don't put this clip on short

form because if it's wrong, people will just roast you. Pour one out for the Cadillac CT5V Blackwing,

the last V8 manual sports car sedan. So, 2026 is the last year? Yeah, so they go on to say that,

believe the CT4 will be gone altogether, the CT5 will remain, but it doesn't really go into specifics.

Or at least I don't remember going into specifics about what the power plant's going to be. Yeah.

I get that this probably is not a thing that buoys any type of financial success for Cadillac,

right? Because, I mean, Escalades probably sell this like 100 to one. Yeah, right.

But this was one of those things, and I'll say this, when you go to auctions or whatever and

there is a Cadillac booth at these events, the vehicle most people are around are the four

and the five Blackwings. Well, because I was there when, you know, look, if you go back to

January, they had the Escalade IQ, they had all kinds of stuff there. The two cars with

manual transmissions in that booth were where everybody was around. A couple people looking

at the Escalade, it takes you two minutes to look at it, you know what you're getting.

This is still an interest piece for this brand. But again, I guess we all have to say if the sales

aren't there, if the commitment from the consumer is not there, then you're going to bail on it.

This was, to me, one of those halo things for Cadillac, you know, just kind of having this,

kind of gave you a little bit of a, hey, we're still doing something cool.

Looks like that's gone. I mean, I can't understand that decision, to be honest.

So Cadillac has confirmed there will be another internal combustion CT5 for the American market

at some point in the future, but no such promise has been made for the CT4, the manual transmission

or the Blackwing performance variants. So let's make it more boring. More boring,

more basic, more of just everything else in today's world. And by the way, it'll be the same cost.

Probably more, if we're being honest. Probably more. Hey, we're going to take the Blackwing,

the manual out. We're going to charge you $129,000. It was $123,000 when it had everything you wanted.

But here you go. So as of today, 10.17, a day before my birthday,

which Nick loves celebrating people's birthdays, I will say. There we go.

What are you going to do? I'm as little as possible. Your favorite Mexican restaurant?

We already did that earlier this week. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. You just got to call.

Do you go Margarita? I don't. I'm trying to keep it light for the girlish figure.

So I go Madelo. I'm doing an ultra right now. Yeah. Yeah. We got ultras. We can do ultras.

Listen, what the hell is I about to say? Oh, as of today, 10.17, they're going for about 96 on

the use market with anywhere between 2,000 and 10,000 miles, which is about like 14 or 15 under

what they've been going for. Right. So I say that to say, let's keep an eye on this over the next

couple of weeks, months to come, and see if they're not back up over MSRP here pretty soon.

Yeah. It's a good call. That's a good put a little note down. Let's check in in a month.

Yeah. Probably less, honestly. This is going to spread and someone's going to pick them up and

just like everything else, those clips are going out of Monterey Car Week talking about Ferrari

here recently and everything ends up going that direction when we know that these things,

like you said, are not coming back or at least it doesn't seem like they're coming back. And if

you had to say today, do you change your perspective on that frequently or is it pretty set in these

things not coming back? No. I think it's so hard to reverse course as a car manufacturer.

We're seeing that. Look, all of us would say they should be able to build a Hemi the minute

they decide to build a Hemi. They built it for so long. Yeah. And you're going to be a year,

year and a half down the road from that announcement probably before you see them really hit the lot.

I just think it's hard, man. Again, look at the supply chain issues they have all the time with

all different parts of the supply chain. It takes a long time to put these supply chains in place

and make sure everybody's ramped up in your whole circle of supply chain vendors and different

things and suppliers. I think we all have to look at this and go. The reason I believe it's not

coming back is number one, you have to have a commitment inside the building to do it, which

you don't really have many people that are going to commit to it because they don't want to put

their neck on the line. But then you got to go and commit to years of building out the infrastructure.

So once it stops, you're basically starting from scratch to redo it again.

Well, something that we can expect in 2026 is going to be from the Stellantis group of the

world. And that's the 2026.charger. So I'm going to bring this up for you. 51 to 61K is what we're

looking at with a Novi8 in sight yet, even though it's supposed to be coming. This is going to be

powered by, what do they say? It's going to be the twin turbo inline six, 420 or 450 horsepower

feeding a standard all-wheel drive system. It's a step in the right direction considering

it seemed like they were going completely EV pretty quickly. I kind of look at that price tag

and say, I think the base will end up being somewhere at like 42 to 45 as these sit on the lot.

But what they did to this when they were selling so many will still be a head-scratching thing to

me. Isn't it kind of head-scratching? They did any of this? Yeah, considering how well the regular

boats had been selling for so long. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, totally. I want one of these.

The front end kind of looks all right when you're like looking at it like that. But it's

something like when you look at the 45 degree angle of it, it doesn't look right. Yeah, by the way,

I meant the previous ones. These are okay, but I mean the ones that are running around right now

creating havoc at Gatlinburg. Yeah, what do we call those fucking things? What are they called?

I'm losing the takeovers. Yeah, yeah. I think they're cool. There's a couple of mechanics

online that have them as like their daily drivers, which I think is hilarious. They just like put

put around town with their kids in these boats because they're just like comfy cruisers that

sound sick and whatever. Yeah, no. And I think I love to hear from everybody out there, you know,

in the comments or whatever. I still think it's head-scratching because they were doing so well.

Yeah. I mean, usually you make this overhaul because you have to. The market's kind of telling you.

But like rental fleets, just the amount that they were selling, the amount that you would see on the

road, it's really kind of crazy for a company that was struggling to go, hey, I know we're selling

a lot of these. Screw it. We're done. Okay, well, here's another one. I'm curious to see if you

think this is also a head-scratcher. All right. Rukkar and Driver, the hamsters will dance no

more. Kia kills the soul after 2025. Please tell me your thoughts on the hamsters and the Kia Soul.

I know what Kia's doing here. I guess I'll give you my opinion. Please tell me.

Is there trying to become a more elevated brand and they feel like this is an era they're not a

part of anymore? That's actually a really good take. Hyundai and Kia are kind of like thinking

they're somewhere different than where most of us think they are. And I think they're just

trying to get away from that. I think they're trying to take some of these lower end options.

Hear me out. Please do not turn your camera off and hit stop on your side. Does this not look

like a Range Rover from this angle? How dare you? Come on, Nick. Listen to me. Agree with me. I'm

spot on. Man, that Mexican food is still in your system from your birthday party. They put

something in those ultras. I mean, come on. I'll say this. Those hamster commercials were

some of the best. They were pretty cool back in the day, but look at this. I think that's

what's happening, right? I think you're totally spot on. I think they're just trying to go to

a different era and I go, guys, you sort of need to be the king of 20 grand. You guys need to be

the king of that. It's the same thing I'd say about Hyundai. Be the king of 20 to $29,000

and just be hyper efficient and build stuff that doesn't break all the time, but it doesn't have

to be Honda level quality or Toyota level quality. Maybe a step below that and keep a bunch of options

between 20 and 29 where the consumer is begging for somebody to figure that price market out.

Either ICE or EV or one stick to one. No, I mean ICE, obviously. EV would work great.

If you could find something that was consistently $22,000, 300 miles of range, people weren't

scared about battery life or whatever, but it just seems like Kia and Hyundai believe

because they had Telluride, because they had Palisade do so well, that now they're going to

take this next leap. I don't think they realize how crowded the airspace is in that next area.

That's a good point. I almost wondered, where could a company like Kia and Hyundai put themselves?

What type of vehicle are we talking like? I think Hyundai is going into the bigger truck

market. I didn't have it pulled up. I do think I heard that too. That doesn't seem like where

they could fit themselves into that cheap because now, I guess, going back to your original point,

elevated style, elevated pricing, elevated offerings. It all costs money. Every time you

try to elevate. If Kia sees what Hyundai is doing and has been doing, I'm guessing they're

saying to themselves, we're going to follow suit. Okay. Well, now you guys are just two more people

in the same price range of GM, Ford, Dodge, Chrysler, Honda, Toyota. Why would you want to go

into the lion's den when you could easily just make your own den? That's true. I was

pulling out the Kia's here. I mean, we never really talk about this brand one because I think

absolutely hates it. Also, they don't have a lot of offerings to really rant and hove about,

but this is the 26 Kia EV4. I mean, it doesn't look all that bad for a Kia. Okay. But again,

if it's $21,000, that's nicer than I thought you would be. Let's find the price real quick.

Let's play this game. $21,000 in no way in hell. This is probably going to be more like $35,000.

I know you're right. 100%, I know you're right. 37, boom, let's go. But again, that's not going

to work. Although a well-equipped model does cross $50,000. So think about this. They're

saying starts. This is the crazy thing. 37 start, you're going to cross $50,000 in the same what's

supposed to be commuter car, you know, every day person that wants to get A to B doesn't go to

our crowd, doesn't come to you and I, a 13 to $15,000 difference in trim models. How is that a

business model? How's that a business model? Like 30 to 40 for their top trim makes sense.

But 30 to 45 or 37 to 52, that's not, to me, that's not a business model that works. Not in that

price. I mean, again, 9-11s, that works, right? It just doesn't seem like a Kia that that works.

There's so many disgruntled people in which one of my favorite hobbies, I think yours as well,

is to read all the comments. Ours included. We mostly good, but sometimes we have some trolls

that leave some interesting things, but there's so many disgruntled people across different

segments of the car world that I don't think they're ever going to be happy unless like car

start being $15,000 again. We try to be realistic and say, I just don't see how anybody's going to

crest under 20, but should we be talking about the 20 to $30,000 car? Yeah, man, I think it

should be a big topic and it just isn't. I mean, these car brands either need to come out and say

it's not possible and start to educate people why it's not possible, but they've been barking for

better part of a decade that costs were going to go down, manufacturing was going to be more

automated. We were going to have better processes. We were going to be able to reduce the cost.

Boy, has that not happened. What a good episode this was. I got to end it on one thing. Somebody

sent this to me and they, I think maybe we'd mentioned you took the BMW out last week, right?

So they said, please make sure that Nick sees this. And if you would play it on the podcast,

it'll be really cool. Give me a second. When someone's trying to steal your car, but you want to BMW.

I forgot what movie I think that's for monsters, the movie, and it's got Alex Jones voice underneath

that said, you piece of shit. Dude. So I want to say something because somebody left a comment

and they left a comment on our LS430 video. Okay. And I realized a lot of people following us have

not bought a 20 year old car. Yes. Okay. It does not matter what manufacturer you buy a 20 year old

car from. You are going to find gremlins that you wouldn't deal with if you bought a new car.

It's logical to many of you. For some of you, we need to say this out loud. The minute I buy an

old car, me personally, I go, there's going to be gremlins. There's going to be something,

my sound system, perfect example. That's a large gremlin in the Mark Levinson world of

LS470s. LS430s, you might find an electrical problem. In E39, you might find 5,000 problems.

The point is, is that I don't ever want to tell people that you're going to buy these old cars

and they're just going to magically be no problems with them. Yeah. And I feel like we don't say that

ever because I thought it was just common knowledge. But I think some people are confused

when you go, the LS430 is really well built. Well, mine has two electrical problems.

Yeah. But do you know most 20 plus year old cars, like door handles are falling off?

Like parts of the interior are missing and falling off. Wires are hanging everywhere. Like

you got a pretty good one if it's like one electrical gremlin. I'm not saying it's the most

enjoyable thing to deal with, but we have to put it in perspective guys. Many of you are going

into the first time of buying a 20 year old car. There's going to be problems, plain and simple.

Was that in the, I think it was where they were saying it was the most overrated because I think

the caption was, yes, okay. I don't know if they said they had gremlins or something about that,

but they were, I guess, an owner of them and they're like, this car is extremely overhyped. I

have one. It's ox. And I'm like, all right, well, you're just one of the, most people are like,

absolutely. It's great car. People should buy one. And then one guy's going to be like, this is trash.

Yeah. And again, guys, there might be parts problems finding them. That's, that's the world

of having a 20 year old car. But I can tell you this, you're going to probably deal with less

problems of the solid 20 year old car than you are with some of the new ones. I mean, we see

all kinds of Yukon's, all kinds of Tahoe's, all kinds of Hyundai's, all kinds of Kia's,

all kinds of everything, Ford's on the back of trucks with a hundred miles on them. You know

what I mean? Like we got to put this in perspective and I don't want to mislead anybody. I am okay

with problems because I expect that they're coming. I hope that I instill in all of you

that are maybe doing this for the first time, there's going to be problems. Okay. Don't think

you're going to buy a 20 year old car and there's not going to be problems. There's going to be,

but when you get them sorted, they should, that car should last you for a very, very long time

if you want to have that experience. It is kind of the way to go if you want to get in. And we've

said it's a long intercar, like enthusiast type of cars is an older one that you can kind of

either tinker with and know somebody that can tinker with it for you because the price of cars,

and I didn't have the article pulled up, we'll talk about it next week, but more and more

articles are being written about how the median average cost of like everyday consumer cars has

crested $50,000, right? That sounds right. Dude, we just, we just saw the brand new Kia could

cross 50,000. The EV of it, I'll top of it. Yes. And we just saw, I mean, look, you just

designed a truck from a startup that's going to cross 50. You still, I'm still a little blown

away by that, by the way. Buddy, I'm not only blown away, it's double what I guess. I know.

I didn't do it until just before you hopped on. And I was like, there's no way he's gonna,

it's gonna be one of those like, we're running the show right now. There's no way that this is

the market, the direction it's going, it's impossible. Yeah, it's crazy. Well, hey,

ClutchCulture podcast at gmail.com. If you guys want to email the show, Nick has the LX video

on our ClutchCulture pod YouTube channel. If you guys want to see the top of the line,

Mark Slevenson refurbished guide, I would call it. Nick does the voiceover. By the way, any,

any updates on you living with that system? Has anything gone awry or is it as good as the day

that you, it's awesome, right? I can't believe it, man. It's been awesome. All right. Well,

if you haven't, leave us a comment also, we'll leave you with that. Leave us a comment on iTunes

and we'll read them next week on the podcast if they're funny and if they're good, if not,

kick rocks. All right. See you next week, everybody. See you next time.

What Is Car Culture Today? Bye Bye Blackwing, Stellantis Investments, The TELO Truck & More

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