Why Is Lamborghini Suing this Chicago Dealership?

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Welcome to Switchcast Season 6, I'm your host Doug Tabott here with my co-host Tyler Sanders

and our producer Extra Ordinaire, Ethan Huffnagle.

Some say that revenge is a dish best served cold, I was going to say some say that our

podcast sucks.

They would be right occasionally, but not all the time.

It's usually my fault.

Yes.

Anyway, so we believe that the news is also a dish best served cold.

We've said this before.

We'll say it again.

We serve your news late with extra context and extra sauce, that's snark sauce.

Once again, update for our patrons.

We appreciate you, and if you'd like to support us, patreon.com slash switchcast, or Sean Connery

checking in again here, switchcast.live slash patreon.

You're stuck.

I came up with a joke during our intermission.

You did?

Let's hear it.

If you're not on Patreon, you would not be privy to our intermission, but we have

lots of fun.

I said, what happens when the Blues Brothers take a break?

What happens, Doug?

It's an intermission from God.

Okay, let's see.

We got a gift from a listener.

We did?

We did.

Another one, Ed Krakowak, who sent us a couple other things, our sign that's displayed

with one of the best quotes ever that's attributed to me, but isn't my quote, and lives on our

podcast table.

Let's see here.

Was it Wayne Gretzky, Doug Tabbot, or Doug Tabbot, Wayne Gretzky?

Which way would it be?

Wayne Gretzky, Michael Scott, Doug Tabbot.

There you go.

Oh, he really hasn't even opened it yet.

No, there's a lot of tape on here, so I'm expecting Tyler to vamp while we...

Oh, vamping.

...gift from a listener.

Look, I just appreciate that.

If you're sending us something, you're making sure...

Natural wood.

I was supposed to vamp.

He's let the man vamp.

Can't even let me vamp on his own show.

What do we got, Doug?

My show is like, oh, what?

It's a plate-to-sample sign made out of plates.

You're joking.

Oh, my God.

That is amazing.

Hey, join the Patreon if you want to see it.

Ethan, you dog.

That's amazing.

Oh, man.

Shoot.

I don't have a space for this immediately for the video, but we'll just put it in front

of the Ferrari for now.

That is so good.

What a treat.

No, it just...

It looks like late-to-sample.

That's so good.

No, late-to-sample was me this week.

That's fine.

I'll be better next time.

That is so good.

Oh, my gosh.

When you're tardy for a wine tasting, you're late-to-sample.

Oh, my goodness.

It's in the news this week.

The longest kick in NFL history, a 70-yard field goal has been made just recently.

Doug, this is a car podcast.

Yes.

What the heck does that have to do with cars?

Well, it was made the kickers on the Jacksonville Jaguars, and it's just Jaguar, the automotive

manufacturer isn't doing anything good, so I was like, well, this Jaguar, these

Jaguars are doing something cool.

I got you.

Yeah, because Jaguar's CEO recently resigned after 35 years at the company and just three

as CEO.

So talk about kind of like abandoning a sinking ship.

Yes.

Yeah.

Interesting direction that company is taking.

We're going to have to clear Doug's warm-up-lap comments.

We're getting off the rails over here.

Also, are you drinking cereal milk?

What is that?

It's kefir.

Yeah.

It's probiotic dairy things.

That sounds horrific for my old tummy, so I'm going to keep drinking whiskey, and you

can be healthy.

I will be happy.

Okay.

All right.

We've talked a lot about multi-platform relists, still the warm-up-lap.

We've talked a lot about multi-platform relists.

We've got code here, baseball signs, when it doesn't work.

This content is so good.

There's no way it's just the warm-up-lap.

That's how much we love you, audio listeners.

All right.

And or relists, on Bring a Trailer and whether or not they work.

We've got a few auction results to unpack here.

So the first one is a heavily modified Porsche 996 GT3 that bid to 64 grand July 17th on Bring

a Trailer.

Now, Tyler, take us through the quick rundown of all the things that were wrong with this

car and its presentation.

It's a pile of trash, ladies and gents.

It is red that's been wrapped red for some reason.

Somebody self-tappered screws onto the...

You got pause on that one again.

It's guards red.

And what is the vinyl wrap color?

Pretty sure it's guards red.

I don't know.

It's red.

Yes.

So.

Talk about trying to hide something.

It's not even a color change.

But then they used self-tapping screws to screw on a horrific front splitter.

The interior was entirely gutted at some point.

And then they put in a Boxster interior instead.

And what I mean by Boxster interior is the door cards.

I think the seats.

And well, there's no headliner.

There's like barely any carpet.

There's holes punched in the dash.

The headliner's in, but they didn't...

They just like stuck it in.

It's sagging.

It's awful.

All of the holes that were drilled into the dash for something, they took a roll cage

out of it.

This will never be a street car again.

Don't know why.

No air conditioning.

It's no like hood latch or release.

It's all just pins on the deck lid and the frunk.

They tried to quickly put it back to a street car instead of just selling it for what

it is, which is a race car.

It is a pile of crap if it's a street car.

Probably a great track toy.

The comments were crazy too, because a lot of previous owners chimed in and people were

asking questions about the welds that didn't look factory.

And somebody's like, yeah, I didn't know of any crash damage.

And then the next comment was, oh, it was wrecked three times when I own it on track.

So it's just...

The sellers are like, oh, this is a great piece of our collection.

Somebody's going to get a great car.

And I'm like, can you just acknowledge this for what it is?

They bragged that it was ceramic coated.

Yes.

The wrap.

On top of the wrap.

The wrap overhiding the paint was ceramic coated to make it look so good.

Anyway, yeah, go ahead.

It bid to $65 on bring a trailer.

No sale, no hit reserve.

So they put this bad boy on P car market.

Like a week later.

Yeah.

No, they did nothing to the car.

It was like the same photos slapped it up here.

And boy, howdy, Doug.

It went to $37 right.

Oh, but the after, you know, they did get offers after the auction up to $49.

So not a great re-list.

The weird thing.

I did see it.

It's no longer on the page now that they were asking $55 on deal tank.

Yes.

It went from $60 to $55, which is highly suspect that the bids on bring a trailer

to $64 were legitimate.

Something doesn't smell right here.

And I also...

I mean, besides the car.

They don't have proof of this, but the high bidder on bring a trailer edited their comment

after it was posted because they had a somewhat sassy response.

And then it got edited to a just, well, I'll get them next time.

But they essentially alluded to the fact that like, wow, I thought my offer was exceptionally

strong and like very shocked.

And so I posted this on Wrenlist and the GT3 cars for sale thread and everybody

was just eviscerating the car, which felt good.

Right.

So that didn't go so well.

But another relist did.

There is a 2006 Aston Martin DB9 Volante in Almond Green six speed manual.

And boy, the first two auctions did not go well in 2024 was listed twice on bring a trailer

bid to $50,000 and to $60,000, which is low ish for a DB9 six speed manual.

And it was relisted again this year, mostly the same photos really not much fundamentally

changed in the auction other than, oh, yes, while they added like 400 photos, so there's

600 photos, but only a hundred of them are good.

They're like taken from so far away that you're like, is that a car?

Trying to be artsy, but with an iPhone, man, Almond Green is so pretty.

Yes.

And it no reserve this time, which the auction houses always tell you to do because it'll

get better results, but boy is it a gamble.

And it paid off this time because it sold for $81,500, so 30 percent increase.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

Now, it has been what, like eight months since it was last listed.

So the different, you know, we're in a different market, I guess, but maybe that's huge.

How many six speed DB9s, like, and everybody remembers the car.

So yeah, I just, I guess in this case, it worked.

You can't say while they serviced it or put better photos up, they just did it again

and said it is selling.

So that got the bidders out.

Wouldn't always advise that tactic.

I've been burned pretty good on some no reserve auctions, but there's sometimes

something to be said for it.

And the last auction we wanted to take a look at is this odd one.

Everybody's doing stick shift conversions.

Well, somebody did the opposite.

And on bringing a trailer last month, there was a Viper SRT 10 Roadster automatic conversion.

Doug, when you first sent this to me, I admit, I was a little bit of an elitist.

I thought this was dumb, but after reflecting and being a mature adult, I dig that

somebody was able to do this for themselves who either couldn't or couldn't drive manual

for whatever reason or didn't want to learn and they could still enjoy Viper.

Yeah.

So heck, yeah, hopefully the next person will keep it as is because they also

want to drive a Viper but are unable to drive stick.

Indeed, because they only made them in stick.

So it sold fairly well, actually sold for 41,000 bucks, which is pretty darn

close to what a six speed manual one would go for.

So it didn't hurt the value really much at all.

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Well, once again, we're fully warmed up and that brings us to this

doozy of a headline from the Chicago Sun Times.

Chicago Lamborghini dealer made millions selling to unauthorized

customers, at least according to the manufacturer.

That is a spicy headline.

Indeed, indeed.

That's what?

OK, tell me more, Doug.

OK, well, Lamborghini sued the dealership Gold Coast Exotic Imports,

which is based out of Chicago area, claiming that at least 32

transactions in 2023 appeared to be sales to non-retail customers in

violation of a contract.

In one case, the dealer claimed to sell one car to a former pro athlete

when in fact it went to a convicted crook who wasn't a retail customer.

So being a crook means you're not a retail customer?

No.

OK, well, tell me more, tell me more.

OK, OK.

Apparently in this case, he was.

Interesting.

Some real corny lines in this article that we won't use because I didn't come up with them.

Yeah, how's it being on the other side?

Anyway, Automobily Lamborghini America is claiming that they were misled by

their dealer about some of the customers who bought cars from the dealer.

And once again, one of the customers was a convicted criminal who was

an unauthorized reseller, says the lawsuit.

So this maybe sounds like, well, I don't know, continue.

That right there annoys me a little bit because I technically am an unauthorized reseller.

Doug, I am not a Lamborghini dealer or Porsche dealer or Ferrari dealer or anything like that.

So if I buy a car from one of the franchise dealers and flip it for a profit

because I'm a flipper, I would be an unauthorized reseller.

But it's not illegal.

I am just not authorized by the manufacturer to sell their cars new.

No big deal.

So does this mean you're not a retail customer?

I could be if I paid sales tax on it.

Yeah.

That's the only difference between a retail customer and a wholesale

customer because intent to resell has nothing to do with it because every

Porsche VIP customer on the planet intends to resell all their GT cars that

they've done for the past 10 years since they instituted that program.

So intent is murky, but apparently in this case, allegedly Gold Coast

exotic imports was boosting their numbers by selling to people who were

then flipping the cars for profit, maybe exporting them, maybe selling

them into different regions.

And the manufacturers have very strict rules on in order to protect

their franchises and their territories about where dealers can sell.

They can't sell into other dealers' territories because they don't want

to get them into competing price wars.

They can't sell overseas because that messes up their global distribution.

They can't sell to people who are known for selling overseas.

Again, none of these things are illegal, but it just has to do with a

franchise agreement between the manufacturer and the dealer itself.

And this is why this is a civil lawsuit, but they're painting it as

if these resellers and convicted criminals are kind of one in the same.

Yeah.

Well, all of the wording makes it very confusing because it seems like

on a lot of these articles that Lamborghini is suing because they

sold cars to flippers.

Which isn't really what's going on.

Yes, it is what's going on.

They are suing because they sold them to flippers.

Well, so there was something in these that says that it's because

the dealership received four million in bonus money as a result of these sales.

Yes.

And that's the money that is causing the suit.

Correct.

Or because they falsely represented these sales to Lamborghini.

It's not the sale itself.

You're correct.

Because some manufacturers, some dealers can sell to brokers and resellers.

Like there's nothing legally prohibiting them from doing that.

Yes.

You can sell to whomever they want as long as it's within the law.

They're not, you know, it's not laundering money and, you know, you

follow the trail of where money comes from and cash payments and all that

other stuff.

But no, it's not illegal to sell to brokers, but the there are what you

said, unit bonuses that get charged back to dealers if they find out that

they've sold into regions that they're not allowed to sell to or sold to brokers.

But once again, this article, and I think Lamborghini is trying to paint

this dealer and flippers as being synonymous with bad people.

One paragraph here says the vehicles were actually sold to quote

brokers and quote resellers, including one who quote previously plated,

guilty in a criminal fraud case that involves selling luxury cars to drug

dealers and pimps as a means of laundering money.

Oh my gosh.

So like those kinds of things are, I mean, they're relevant, but it makes

it sound like every broker and reseller is a money launder.

And a lot of them aren't.

They're just non factory authorized car dealers operating totally legally.

But the manufacturer doesn't like it because they want to control their

market and they want to have a good relationship and offer proper services

to their retail clients.

And when dealers looking to make a quick buck do things like this, it in

the manufacturer's opinion hurts their brand.

Now there's also some other things alleged, Tyler, you mentioned about

like payments on the side.

Yeah, the biggest thing I noticed is it seems like there were some

incentives that Lamborghini was offering for sales.

And I think there were stipulations on those incentives

that the sales had to be of a certain type or and I think that's

where the whole retail customer thing comes in.

So the suit alleges that the dealership submitted and obtained

these, these bonus payments, even though they didn't, they

essentially lied when they were submitting the information to make

it seem like it was the customers that Lamborghini wanted.

Right.

But then I think there's another trick that dealers pull.

And I don't think I know that a lot of them do this.

I don't know that this was a case with Gold Coast, but I've heard

many stories of dealers doing this where they will do these

backdoor deals where the sales manager owner, somebody will get

cash payments or watches or whatever in exchange for doing deals

with these resellers, oftentimes when the dealers are required

to sell the vehicles at MSRP, they go, well, they're going for a

50 or 100 grand over.

So we want that profit, but we can't do it because the

manufacturer will get us in trouble, but we can't sell it

to broker because we'll get in trouble.

So they sell to a retail customer who then Rolex or

something shows up at the sales manager's office and then

they get consigned back or resold and it's just all these

shadow games.

So it would seem to be the case that maybe Gold Coast is double

dipping here, where they're selling to these brokers and

resellers thinking like, okay, we're getting payments on this

side and we're getting the manufacturer spiffs because we're

reporting these as retail sales.

So I will say this, there must be something going on because

if you go to Lamborghini Gold Coast and go to new inventory,

there's nothing, they're only dealing in used cars at the

moment.

Interesting.

So I think Lamborghini might not be sending them cars.

It's very possible, very possible.

I sure that is within their agreement and not do.

So I have an interesting story about Bentley Lamborghini

Gold Coast when I was much younger and just getting

into the business, I went in there, I was on a trip with

a bunch of people from church and we were just walking

around Chicago.

I was like, oh, I'm going to go in and look at cars.

So I got talking with one of the salesmen and he let me behind

the ropes and we're looking at rain drivers and stuff.

And we sat down on his desk and the Range Rover Sport had

just come out and I was flipping those for a profit.

And now Gold Coast prices were such that there's no way I

was going to buy it from them and flip it for profit.

They were marking them up at the time, but I was at

least trying.

I was negotiating and the guy said, well, if we can get this

deal done today, are you are you ready to pay?

I'm like, no, I'm on a trip, but I'll leave you a deposit and

wrap it up when I get back.

And he goes, well, what kind of deposit?

I said a thousand bucks.

He goes, thousand bucks?

What do you think you're buying an effing bicycle?

Whoa.

I was like, it's pretty much the deposit I leave anywhere

else on a Range Rover.

So I, okay.

Wow.

Yep.

So that was my experience with that, but I was an unauthorized

reseller.

I know they sniffed it out.

I did look at their Google reviews and it, I was surprised

that people would leave negative reviews if because they went

to look at the dealer or look at the cars at the dealership,

but they weren't intending to buy it.

Like there were tourists that were just like, I want to

see some cool cars and they're like, these people

were so rude to us.

And I'm like, this is not what the business is for.

Uh-huh.

I can't believe you leave.

But you can be upset about it.

You can be annoyed.

Sure.

But leaving a negative review when you went into a business

and did not participate in the purpose of the business is wild.

It's not a museum.

Yeah.

Wild.

Yeah.

That's why we don't have a showroom.

Yes.

We're nice to people that come, but there's a reason we

don't have a showroom.

We'd never get any work done.

Uh, man, that brings us to, I don't know if we solved

anything there, but we shed some light on what's going

on and, you know, whatever.

They're, they're probably going to reach a settlement.

Money will be exchanged and they'll, they'll all move on.

But that's, that's the inside look at, uh, what's going on there.

Shrew negotiator, which is people trying so, so hard to buy

or sell their wares and usually trying a little too hard.

And we like to make fun of them because we never do it ourselves.

Never ever guilty.

Ah, no, not at once.

997 C4 S for sale 2007, which is right in the range of IMS

and bore scoring possible issues, but of course it's a

non-serviceable bearing on the 07.

So it can be an issue, but it's not upgradable.

And it's a lower percentage of failure than the old one.

So a lot of people say it's not an issue.

That's not true.

Anyway, in his for sale listing, this is great quote IMS

bearing checked and it is not an issue for the 07.

I had this checked with a all caps licensed pro Porsche race

car driver who won championships nationwide.

Is it like a mechanic championship or are they talk

about driving the cars?

It says race car driver.

Well, I don't think they, they might know some stuff.

They could be very knowledgeable, but they were wrong.

The guy did go on to start his own Porsche shop.

It did say this, but I'm like that those are the wrong

qualifications to be touting when you're saying something

mechanical like great, the guy can drive around a track fast.

That doesn't mean he knows about IMS bearings.

Anyway, so I somewhat misleading there because he's trying to

say that it's not an issue.

It's not much of an issue, but it's still an issue.

But anyway, I don't want to hate on the listing too much.

I just thought that was hilarious, especially all caps,

but it is a great listing.

Otherwise the car is gorgeous.

Meteor gray with cocoa, sport seats, 19 inch optional wheels,

low miles, stick, you know, wide body, everything you want.

And the the guy who posted for sale is actually captain positive

because a lot of people were making in front of the price or whatever.

And at the end of his listing, you just said, please respect the post.

And people would say whatever they wanted.

And he's just like, thanks for the input thumbs up.

I mean, just captain positive.

I'm like, we need more of this guy.

And like, can you teach the Corvette guys to sell their cars?

That is I got to tell you, that's a pretty hot spec.

I do love some cocoa. You have converted me.

Yes, I wish cocoa was a nine and six thing.

Yeah. Speaking of cocoa, I'm selling my

cocoa seven nine eleven, which I did not have checked by a license

pro Porsche race car driver.

But somebody messaged me simply.

I am as a question mark to which I responded, yes, it has one.

Good job. They all do, actually.

But don't think too hard.

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Porsche, Porsche Corporate.

Oh, it is not looking good for them this year.

And we are referencing a couple of articles in this discussion

from SSO report, which is one of my favorite kind of diamond

in the rough journalistic websites.

They cover corporate goings on within

corporate goings on within supercar and luxury car manufacturers

and dive into the numbers and give us a real good look

business wise of what's going on and why.

And it's extremely helpful, but it's very sexy.

Corporate goings on. Love those spreadsheet style.

Oh, I do. Oh, we were making fun of Porsche Club of America

last month for highlighting the McCann EV

as their Porsche Parade 2026 poster vehicle.

And somebody alleged in the comments that, well,

this is because Porsche Corporate is a big sponsor of the Porsche Club of America

and they're trying to push their EVs

and do this through things like the Porsche Parade,

which are mostly, you know, diehard like Porsche Enthusiast,

kind of their core loyal customer base.

And I think part of our argument is that the diehard Porsche Enthusiast

is not always the person who's going to be excited

or really wanting to show off a new McCann EV.

Yes, but also this is not going to age well.

It really isn't aging well for Porsche

because their sales are down quite a lot.

Porsche had record year after record year

from essentially like 17, 18, 19, 20, even through COVID

when they were complaining about supply chain issues.

They kept delivering more cars than the previous year,

even though, oh, somehow we can't get cars.

So we got to raise prices and there's no cars on dealer lots.

Well, weird, because you delivered like 20,000 more than you did last year

and what happened more than pre-COVID.

So anyway, Porsche's sales peaked in 2023 at 330,000 cars delivered

in 2025, they are on track for 290,000.

So that's a pretty significant decline.

Yes.

And this article essentially says there's two

big blunders that Porsche has made internally

that is causing this failure or a few but two main ones.

One of them is leaning very heavily on China.

In 2021, according to this article,

China represented 32 percent of Porsche's vehicles sold.

It was their largest market in 2023.

It had dropped to 25 percent.

And in 2024, they were down to 18 percent

with sales of just 56,000 vehicles.

And that line is still trending downwards.

And this guy has a great quote.

He says, quote, the China trend of boom and then

bust is a risk Porsche executives should have been

well aware of and prepared for.

It's very much the same well documented trend.

Most multinational consumer product companies have gone

through in China over recent decades.

The Chinese market is anything but a level

transparent playing field.

As quickly as you are able to grow a business in China,

they have the ability to take it away.

Porsche's biggest mistake was getting addicted to the

revenue and building out structure to support a

business that was never going to last.

And he makes a really good point that Ferrari, who,

by the way, should be the model for all luxury car

manufacturers to follow, because with all these small

volume luxury car manufacturers, just absolutely

struggling Ferrari is raking in profit year after year

after year and their stocks are great.

And yeah, they know how to make money.

Ferrari has a self-imposed China limit of 10 percent

of sales because they get that game,

which I think is fascinating because that's nothing

I ever really thought of is the imposing how many

vehicles or how much of a product you would sell

to a certain market for stability reasons.

And you would think that I don't have a business degree.

I don't pay attention to international economics

and markets and supply and demand and whatnot.

But I would have expected a company like Porsche

with the resources that they have to be able to look

into a crystal ball and be like, maybe we should

take a bit of a slower approach and go for a long term

game rather than pumping in for this like exponential

growth that at some point was only going to stop.

Their next big blunder is, of course, EVs,

which we've been calling for a long time

with these manufacturers somewhat under pressure,

of course, from impending EU regulations

and or California mission regulations,

leaning so heavily into EV development and EV sales.

But unfortunately for them, the demand really is not there.

And we cover this with Ferrari recently,

where Ferrari just said, nope, we've essentially

pulled our customers.

There's no demand, so we're going to push stuff back.

Porsche didn't pull their customers, apparently.

And which is the same thing they did with the 991.1 GT3.

They're like, nope, PDK only.

Nobody wants that silly manual.

And guess what they had to bring back?

The manual. Back in 2022,

they went kind of all in on EVs.

They wanted to be up to 80 percent EVs totally in 2030.

80 percent of Porsche's brand.

Porsche who used to, I don't know if they've ever only made the 911,

but I'm sure there are some years you could find that that was it.

They made enthusiast cars.

And I think all of us cried a little bit when they made the Cayenne.

And they were like, yeah, no, it's kind of a cool sporty SUV.

And then like everyone was doing them.

And then they made the Panamera and we cried mostly because it was ugly.

But, you know, well, no, it's a sports sedan.

And then they just snuck in.

And all of a sudden it's like, wait a minute, it's

McCons and Cayans and Panameras and Taycans and now all these EVs.

And then Porsche said, we're not going to make the Boxster

Cayman line anymore, sorry, 718 in internal combustion done, canceled.

I was at a Porsche, a cars and coffee at a local Porsche dealer to us.

And I love one of my favorite things to do historically at this event

is walk around the building and see what inventory they have stashed

behind the to make way for the cars and coffee crowd.

I saw a gold nine, nine, seven turbo cab, which was pretty sweet

and an absolutely clapped G body Targa.

Everything else, a McCann, a Cayenne, a Taycan or a Panamera

behind that building like no nine, elevens, nothing.

It was just all of this stuff, which like they need to you need to have

a successful business in order to make the fun stuff.

Totally get it, but it's a little depressing.

But maybe the fun stuff is their successful business

and they're trying to grow too much into markets like China,

thinking that gravy train will never end.

And again, he pointed out the blunder of investing too heavily

in something without a guarantee that it's going to be sustainable long term.

Tech companies do this all the time.

Oh, yes. Let's hire a hundred thousand people.

We only grew 20 percent.

So we got to lay off half of them.

But you got to get that VC money, Doug. Yes.

So anyway, they bet heavily on EVs wanted to be 80 percent pure EVs by 2030.

Well, in 2024, just 12 percent of Porsche sales were in EVs

and the flagship EV that Taken dropped by 49 percent.

So it is definitely not Taken the World by storm.

It is more Taken Porsche's stocks down.

Yes. Nice.

And he he points out what we have is he says

Porsche's core customers are highly engaged and enthusiastic group.

So I think if they pull their customers, it's

a Porsche does some weird things.

Oh, but they did. I forgot about this.

They they reintroduced side note here.

This is Porsche trying to be like Ferrari

in terms of like making lots of money off of options.

They reintroduced their Pasha interior, which is the vintage

Yeah, I dig it. I like it.

So that will be available in the twenty twenty six nine eleven.

Do you want to know how much it costs?

Twenty thousand dollars.

Yeah, something like that. I'm getting there.

It's it's exorbitant, exorbitant is for some interior fabric.

Well, it's on.

Oh, you got to get the nine eleven spirit 70.

That's what it is. It's a limited edition ride,

which is two hundred forty two thousand dollars.

Oh, I thought you were saying it was going to be available on like production cars.

And it is. It is also available as an option.

That's what they're introducing it on.

But then you can also add it as an option.

And I'm guessing it's going to be five figures because heck,

you got to pay 15 grand just to get a non standard paint color.

So Porsche is trying to milk their enthusiasts

with stuff like crazy expensive Pasha interior,

when maybe they should be focused on just making cars that enthusiasts want.

So this made there is a time in history

that Porsche was really, really struggling before in the nineties.

And I know their way out of that was to do modify to adjust

in time manufacturing process that, you know, that was kind of the stowed

upon the boxers. The way out of it or not the Cayenne.

You know, they had a lot of.

But I was wondering what was the source of their problems in the nineties.

So I did a little bit of digging and research because I kind of knew like,

well, they just didn't have a ton of money.

So I found a good sub stack that said that summarized it pretty well,

that they had three main problems, a worldwide recession,

reduced sales in the luxury car market in the nineties.

They had a lot of strategic missteps, such as

introducing a lot of models that didn't really sell well,

even though they were meant for a broader market, such as the nine

twenty eight, they also invested a bunch of money in the technology

for that V8 engine that was never in anything else ever again.

And then they had a very expensive production system.

And it wasn't that good to begin with.

No. So what's interesting is these reasons now

that Porsche is struggling are not the same as they were in the nineties,

but there's a lot of analogs and the fix

at that point was to introduce a new leader

that dramatically changed how they did business and focused on

the like core customers for Porsche.

Yeah. So I hope I love Porsche.

I always have. I know it's just a business,

but I love the products they have created so far.

And I want them to continue.

And I hope that they can introduce someone or some some things,

some driving mission statement for their organization

that will turn the ship around and focus on what made them great

versus focusing on what will make them the most money.

Your leadership is an interesting point

because right now they have essentially a part time CEO

because he's the CEO of Porsche and Volkswagen at the same time,

which there's an old brilliant saying for my friend, Fred Palutza,

that says never half-ass two things, whole ass one thing.

So there's not a lot of whole assing going on at Porsche right now.

I tell you what. Yeah, right.

So and of course, there's some external challenges,

like you mentioned, just in the nineties.

I think it was it was Japan's market cratered

and that was driving the collector car market and that dried up overnight.

I mean, and the guys tanked in value.

The ratio, the dollar valuation to the

Deutsche Mark was also garbage, so it made the cars really expensive.

And the garbage for us Americans, it made the cars really expensive.

So nobody wanted to buy them. Yeah, which is that has changed somewhat,

except now we have tariffs and we have the reciprocal tariffs for the EU,

which are up to 15 percent.

They were 10 percent up until August 1st.

And I believe US is or was the number two

market for Porsche behind China.

And I think we're number one now that China's markets declined.

So tacking on 10 to 15 percent

cost on all the vehicles you're sending into the US

on top of the covid inflation

and at the same time, kind of this waning demand coming off of all that.

You have these three economic factors going on.

Prices are have already gone up a bunch.

Yes. And now we have the tariffs

and the demand is waning a little bit at the same time.

So Porsche has to overcome that.

So kind of like the early nineties,

they've got kind of a two fold external internal challenge here.

And they definitely need some good leadership

to draw them out of this.

So, you know, I we love our Porsche cars.

We've had a lot of them ourselves.

It's sometimes a love relationship, as it is with any great car.

But I want to see them come out of this, for sure.

I'd like them to continue making great cars for car enthusiasts.

But I don't know, maybe they'll just be Macani V company forever.

Self refrigerators with warranties.

No, I'm sad.

This brings us to the props and the flops of the week.

As always, the props and flops are brought to you by Switchcars.

And Switchcars is the enthusiast dealership where we buy, sell

and consign only cars that we like ourselves.

Check out our handpicked inventory at switchcars.com

and mention Switchcast for special pricing.

Find more information online at switchcars.com

and be sure to come visit our showroom into Winsburg, Ohio.

A dug, do we have a pick of the week?

We do. An update. I did double check it.

The Pasha interior is approximately $13,000 for an option.

Boy, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, spicy. Porsche is sticking it to their enthusiasts.

OK, I think you could buy a 928,

a whole 928 with Pasha interior for that price.

Yeah, but it won't run.

And it won't. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

OK, to pick of the week is 2009 Porsche Boxster S

six speed manual and the car that saved Porsche.

It's a post IMS car. It's the 987.2.

It's got factory sport seats, not with Pasha interior,

only 18,000 miles and is a nice, right and tight little car.

A lot of fun, something Ethan could goodbye.

Oh, joy.

Ethan, let's see our flop of the week.

A lot of videos floating around of these parking lot

curbs installed at a mall,

not where the parking goes,

but in front of the store where you drive,

instead of speed bumps, they put the parking curbs.

And apparently the installer said he knew when he was doing it like this.

This isn't what's supposed to go here,

but it was what was on the RO is what he was paid to do.

So he put him in. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

This is like, oh, God, like it's OK to just ask the question.

Should I actually be doing this?

Like everybody might be union.

So if he does it, he can get paid and then get paid double time to take him out

and then pay it again to put them back in.

I wonder how many people drove over these?

Oh, lots.

There are videos of people just like a one mile an hour.

Like who clunk?

That's in serious front axle lift over those things.

Absolutely not.

Oh, prop of the week.

Another one from a video.

Crazy quarter mile drag race.

This Opel GT built as a drag car gets hit on the drag strip.

The the impact causes him to roll twice,

bounce off the opposite side wall,

but then lands upright facing the finish line,

throttle down goes any completes a quarter mile run faster than probably

any car than any of us had in high school that we thought were fast.

I think it was 13.8 seconds.

Oh, man.

Quarter mile after getting hit, rolling twice, bouncing off the wall.

Oh, amazing. In it to win it.

Oh, pedal to the metal.

Thank you for joining us for Switchcast with Doug Tabott

and Tyler Sanders produced by Ethan Huffnagle.

Switchcast is an automotive entertainment and opinion show

and nothing we say should be taken very seriously.

We do not give tax, investment, legal, emotional or professional advice

and the only licenses we hold are driver's licenses.

The opinions expressed on this show are exclusively held by the people

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