World's Largest Grouping of Bugatti & Pagani Supercars, Mercedes S 580e Review, Scary Driving Stories

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I'm Hannah Elliott and I'm Matt Miller. This is Hot Pursuit.

Coming up on today's podcast, I have been driving around this week in the Mercedes S580e sedan.

We'll talk about that. And in honor of Halloween, we're going to swap out the new

pop some of our scariest stories behind the wheel.

But before we go there, Hannah, you were about to hit the road and head to Las Vegas.

What are you doing this weekend?

Yes, I am going to the fourth annual concor at the Win Las Vegas.

It's the Las Vegas Concor basically.

And it's going to be like a supercar bonanza.

There are going to be the world's largest gathering of Bugatti veterans.

There are going to be at least 40, if not more.

There are going to be over 40 Paganis all on site as well, which is about a third of

the amount of the Paganis in the entire continental U.S.

That's insane.

I know. There are going to be 250 Lamborghinis, period, just because.

That tracks.

Yeah, that tracks.

Vegas, baby. It's Vegas.

Exactly. I'm actually really excited and it's formulating a story that I'm working on

that I will be reporting when I'm there about in a sea of supercars, what makes them special?

I mean, when you have 40 Bugatti's and 40 Paganis, they all kind of blur together, right?

So why?

Why are people still so compelled to buy these things?

I'm looking forward to.

Also, there's going to be a broad arrow auction there.

There are going to be assorted drives and rallies and I might even go see the Eagles at this

sphere.

Oh, my goodness.

So there's a lot going on.

Yes.

I feel like, so first of all, I will say that I don't hate the Eagles like the dude.

I love the Eagles.

Is that Don Henley?

Yes, I love Don Henley and I love there's a fantastic two part documentary about the history

of the Eagles, which is amazing.

It's one of the best music documentaries I've ever seen.

But I just don't get how they work with the sphere.

I get like the dead at the sphere.

I get fish at the sphere.

I don't need to like be on acid and looking at crazy visuals for the Eagles.

Yeah.

You don't want to hear boys of summer.

I know that's a separate.

That's not the Eagles, but it is.

I still love that song.

I love that.

Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac.

I seriously love that song.

Yeah, I agree.

Although I will say my uncle Pete Lodwick in Dallas, Texas saw the Eagles there at the

sphere and loved it.

Absolutely loved it was raving about it and said that no matter what you'll like it and

he's seen every band ever.

So, you know, maybe I'll report back.

I get that.

So all right, that'll be sweet.

In terms of the cars, I always wonder about who goes to these things.

The Lambo's I get and actually I did one time I did a three day driving Lamborghini

driving school in Vegas and it was like perfect.

You know, big gold chains, self made men with a lot of hair, not on their heads, but everywhere

else.

And that kind of fits.

But if you have a Pagani, like if you bought a car for multiple million dollars, I figure

you're like a really important CEO or a hedge fund manager who wants to keep a low profile.

And then you're too busy to go to Las Vegas with your car and you also don't want to hang

out with a bunch of other people that have that car, right?

I think it may actually be two different personality types.

If you are the one who's buying Bugatti's and Pagani's, I think you actually do want

to be out and about talking with tons of people and showing off your car and whatever

you have.

It seems like the, when you get into that price stratosphere, the real commodity is

of course time.

And so when you are super rich and super wealthy, you figure out a way to create time for yourself.

And the type of person who loves these cars is also smart enough to create the time to

drive them and travel with them and enjoy them.

This is my working theory.

And you have a lot of experience with these people.

I mean, like if you go to the Mila Melia, you're probably the kind of person who can

at least afford.

Completely.

And I do think there are plenty of people who are wealthy and very successful who are

just what you described, very discreet, very reserved, very low key.

Those guys I typically find might buy some other type of expensive car, but not necessarily

a Bugatti or Pagani.

Again, this is my working theory, but I have to think for me, like I love Bugatti so much

and I'm eternally grateful that I got to drive the Chiron on a track in Germany.

And like talking to Matt Remak about his new engine, it's I probably want to drive that

more than anything else in the whole world.

But I feel like Pagani is a step above Bugatti in terms of a work of art that's unique to

the buyer, in terms of the customization, in terms of, you know, it's more about the

art than it is about the car.

Yes.

You feel me?

Yes.

I do feel you.

I do feel you, Matt.

And I think part of that too goes back to the person of Horatio Pagani, who has been the

person who's led and directed and owned the company since its inception.

Bugatti, let's not forget, is a very old company that is owned by a huge German corporation.

And I think that is evident in the way that the cars are presented and made, whereas Pagani,

it's Horatio and Christopher, his son, who are directing everything, I mean, they control

that company.

So it's a lot closer to the vision of one charismatic person versus Bugatti, who, let's

face it, is owned by Volkswagen Group.

Although it does seem like Remak has a lot of say in what they do.

Yeah.

And I think Matti is a very brilliant person.

We love talking with him.

We could talk with him for hours, and we basically have talked with him for hours.

So, yeah, he's probably, obviously influencing Bugatti, but still, you're right.

I think Pagani is, like, hand in hand with the vision of one very unique individual,

and that is evidenced in the cars for sure.

And there's going to be a new virus speedster shown also this weekend at the Concord, and

I will be talking with Christopher Pagani about that car.

That's fantastic.

I think they're, I mean, do we, do you agree that these are probably the two most special

cars one can buy new?

Certainly, they're the two most expensive cars that one can buy new, right?

Probably.

I mean, everybody defines special in a different way, but if you are talking about the combination

of price point, performance, limited availability, and the amount of time required to wait until

you can get one of these cars, yeah, they're very capital S special.

They're very capital S super.

Who else are you talking to at this Wynn Concord?

We will also be talking with the head of Bugatti, who is not Matti Ramec, Christophe

Piyoshan, and I will also be talking with McKeel Hagerty on Saturday cool about the market

of these cars.

McKeel, of course, is of Hagerty fame, Hagerty owns broad arrow auctions.

So I'll be talking with McKeel specifically about how these cars do on the auction market,

what the aftermarket values are, and where that market is going in the future.

So I'm really looking forward to that conversation.

I hope to come back with some very good insights for all of us.

Yeah, I'm excited.

We'll bring our listeners all that content on a future episode coming up the Mercedes S580

that Hannah's been driving around this week.

We'll get her take on the luxury sedan and our scariest stories for Halloween.

Hey, audio book lovers, this week on the podcast, I'm sitting down with musician,

producer and walking encyclopedia quest love.

We're talking about Mark Ronson's memoir, Night People, how to be a DJ in 90s New York

City.

All right, like we talked about before, Mark Ronson found sanctuary in the DJ booth.

What's a tool or piece of equipment in the studio or on stage that gives you the most

control?

So I have two microphones on stage.

We have the microphone that you hear as the audience, then we have a second microphone

in which we communicate with each other.

I feel like that second microphone kind of saved all of our friendships.

No, no band likes each other after 20 years or 25 years.

Like the Beatles broke up in seven and a half years and we're going on 35.

Listen to your say the audible and I heart audio book club on the I heart

radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Matt Miller with Hannah Elliott, and this is Hot Pursuit from Bloomberg Radio and Hannah,

you've been driving around in the Mercedes S580, which is that like a really Los Angeles

appropriate car?

Yes.

Yes, Matt, it is.

And I have to say, this should not be confused with the Mercedes Maibach S580.

Which has a V8.

This is actually the S580 e-formatic and that's way too long and confusing a name, but that

means it's a six.

What?

Yes.

I thought what I thought five.

I know, I know, I know.

It's a three liter inline six turbo plug-in hybrid.

Oh my goodness.

I know, I really, I know, I didn't want to tell you.

I can just, I just felt all of the air suck out of the room.

This is 510 combined horsepower.

It is all wheel drive, nine speed automatic.

But yes, the end, and this is Hang on, are you sure about this?

Yeah, I am sure.

I am looking at the cars when Ronnie, that was in the glove compartment of the vehicle

itself.

I couldn't be more sure.

I don't understand.

Why do car makers keep doing this?

You know, this is a lot like, you know, the DB12 from Aston Martin.

It's almost leading because it's- Oh gosh, we should talk about Aston.

Yeah, well, we had something else.

But the DB12 has a V8 and when you hear DB12, you think, oh, cool, that's a V12.

Words mean nothing.

When you hear turbo, you think a turbo charge.

BMW, you know, was talking with the owner of an X740 and I was like, you got an inline

six.

He's like, no, this has the V8.

It's a 40.

I'm like, no, that's not how it works anymore, bro.

No.

Words mean nothing.

I mean, previously an S500, 550, 580, they all had the V8.

I know.

Well, we're in new times now, my friend, and about that words mean nothing thing.

I take it back to when BMW started referring to some of its cars, sedans as sport coupes.

That to me was the time when words started meaning nothing, which was probably at this

point 20 years ago.

But when they started referring to sedans as quote unquote sport coupes, that was it.

That just ended it for me.

Anyway, that's my rant.

Back to the S580.

Where was I?

You were going to tell me probably it's still good, even though it doesn't have a V8.

So yes, this is what I was going to say.

There are very few cars where in the middle of my day when I'm driving and I'm sitting

in the driver's seat, all of a sudden, I just think, wow, I really like this car, like out

of nowhere, not doing anything in particular, just kind of comes to me that I'm having a

really nice time in the car at that moment in time.

And that did happen with this vehicle.

It is wonderful for a commuting sedan.

It's so comfortable as you would expect.

I actually loved the weird livery spec on it.

It was this weird silver metallic color on the outside in a paint job that costs $10,000

extra.

Wow.

And right.

And the silver almost had a drop of green in it.

And then inside was this green Napa leather diamond quilted stitched inside like this

racing green that looked like something Bentley would have.

And it had pillows in the back for your head and for your legs.

It kind of looked like a Bentley in the back, which was odd and also costs almost 12 grand

additional, but I weirdly really liked it.

And then the dashboard and the door doors had this black piano lacquer wood trim that

costs almost two grand extra.

So this is an expensive vehicle, but it's somehow all worked.

Now what I'm getting away from is telling you that it drives amazing.

And I would not say this car drives amazing.

This is not a sports car.

This is not even an AMG.

This is a inline six hybrid sedan.

So it wasn't exactly thrilling.

In fact, I thought it was rather soft, but that's not why you buy this car.

So I don't actually fault it for that.

You buy this car for comfort and for prestige and for an enjoyable drive when you're driving

around every day in LA.

And to that end, it really won, won me over.

Interesting.

So get this Google Gemini, which is the AI platform of Alphabet.

And by the way, not that car lovers care that much, but Gemini's usage has increased by

44% over the past three months we learned today.

So more and more people are using Gemini.

The momentum is faster than chat GPT.

But Gemini, I digress, says that this is a point of confusion in that Mercedes has an

S580 formatic, which still uses the four liter twin turbo V8 with a mild hybrid drive system.

The S580E formatic plug-in hybrid, which is the one that you have, has the three liter

inline six.

Obviously, I believed you.

I just wanted to see what the deal was.

Trust, but verify.

The only difference is the lower case E takes away two cylinders and one liter of displacement.

However, what I also find fascinating is, so the V8 has horsepower of 496 and torque of 516

does zero to 60 in 4.3 seconds.

The lower case E has a combined output of 503 horsepower.

I don't know how they're measuring that.

It could be a little more or less, but 553 pound-feet of torque.

It seems like it's stronger, the plug-in hybrid version is than the straight V8,

but it's slower, zero to 60, at least according to Gemini, at 4.8 seconds, which is weird.

Everything is befuddled these days.

Just because you have a certain amount of cylinders in the engine doesn't mean that

you're also getting more horsepower, like you just established.

Now, Gemini says a little, the Moroni for the car itself says 510 horsepower,

so somewhere over 500, it's still more than the V8.

And to your point, yes, you can't assume that because you're getting a bigger engine or more

cylinders, you're getting a faster, more powerful car that just doesn't hold anymore.

There are so many different variables, and so maybe this will help your case with

your wife at some point trying to get a car you actually want, because again, there's no hard

and fast rule anymore about what you can expect to get. I do think one of the problems that Mercedes

has is their names are so confusing, and all of the cars tend to blend together, so it really does

take a lot of time and attention to figure out which is which, which seems like a problem.

Yeah, that does seem like a marketing idea.

It's really confusing.

Right, and I should say that this car that I drove ended up being almost $176,000, so it's not

cheap. It's cheaper than other sedans we've driven. It's cheaper than the Maibach version

of the same thing, which has a V8. And probably more tasteful. Am I right about that?

Yes, yes, yes, which, and that, the Maibach version has the same, it's that four-liter V8

that gets just under 500 horsepower. So again, argument for this car, if you just care about

straight numbers, but that is that this hybrid has more power, but at the end of the day,

can you tell the difference between 496 and 510? No, you cannot. And you can't, frankly,

most people won't know the difference between 4.3 seconds and 4.8 seconds. You're not on the

highway. Nobody cares.

Doing zero to 60 times, even with a roll on. You're right. I agree. And the Mercedes,

I haven't been in this one, but they tend to, I think, excel, even beating all the competition

in terms of it being a nice place to sit. Yes. So honestly, so nice, just so easy to,

and seamless, to control everything from the dashboard. Everything flows very seamlessly.

The interface is good. The ambient lighting is good. It just is a very nice environment. The

doors close very softly. It just is a really nice environment. Sometimes that's what you want.

I will say, in regards to the numbers versus displacement or numbers versus cylinders,

I hate to harp on this. I always go back to it. The heartbreak I felt when Mark Fields unveiled

the second generation of the Ford F-150 Raptor with its 3.5-liter EcoBoost V6. And I was like,

but wait, I thought we had a 6.2-liter V8 in this. And he was like, yeah, but this one has

more horsepower and torque because it's a turbocharged. That doesn't always make things

better. I would have rather had, and I did rather have, the first gen with only 420 horsepower

in the big V8 than the second gen with 450 horsepower and the turbocharged V6. It's just,

I can't say it often enough. The driving feel is more important to me than the numbers on paper.

I get that and I hear that. And I'm hoping we can start a support group for people like you who

were similarly affected by this. I do think it's true. It goes, for me, it goes back to the saying

it's more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow. And at the end of the day,

like we were chatting about before offline, cars are emotional and it's just about whatever more

emotions get kicked up in you in any particular car. That's, I mean, you can argue with someone

with facts and figures all day. And at the end of the day, they're going to go with the car that

they like the feel of and that evokes some memory or emotion for them. And I believe you when you

say that you can feel a difference in a vehicle that has a V8. And maybe that's a placebo effect,

but it's still valid. Yes. Well, I'm highly susceptible to placebo effects. All right,

we're going to take a break. We come back. We're going to talk about our scariest stories

behind the wheel. And, you know, since we brought it up, speaking of terrifying stories,

we'll talk about Aston Martin also putting its future model plans under review as US tariffs hit.

This is Bloomberg.

Hey, audio book lovers. This week on the podcast, I'm sitting down with musician,

producer and walking encyclopedia Questlove. We're talking about Mark Ronson's memoir Night

People, How to Be a DJ in 90s New York City. All right, like we talked about before, Mark

Ronson found sanctuary in the DJ booth. What's a tool or piece of equipment in the studio or on

stage that gives you the most control? So I have two microphones on stage. We have the microphone

that you hear as the audience. Then we have a second microphone in which we communicate with

each other. I feel like that second microphone kind of saved all of our friendships. No band

likes each other after 20 years or 25 years. The Beatles broke up in seven and a half years,

and we're going on 35. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart audio book club on the iHeart

radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Matt Miller with Hannah Elliott and this

is Hot Pursuit from Bloomberg Radio. It's Halloween or maybe a little after depending

on when you downloaded this podcast. But Hannah, what are you dressing up as this year?

I'm dressing up as a roving reporter on assignment in Las Vegas. No costume?

No, I don't think so. I don't think so. But I don't know. I might go a little

western because I did also hear that ZZ Top is playing on Halloween night in Vegas and like an

off the strip sort of low end down in the dumps place, which might be actually kind of funny.

That's perfect. I hope there's a mechanical bull. There might be something like that and

I might wear the truck. Who knows, might bring it out for the concert. What is your

scariest story from behind the wheel? I actually don't know. I've never heard

you tell a story of any car accidents, for example. No, honestly, I will say

thanks. Thank God and knock on wood. I have not been involved in anything like that.

One time when I was in high school, I think I might have rear-ended someone because I was

following too close, but that taught me that lesson. No, thank God I haven't been involved

in anything serious. I would say my most terrifying moments in cars. I was going to say

major anxiety. I also have had two times when a press vehicle was towed.

Both times were terrifying. One was a Tesla and I literally got a phone call from Tesla before

the vehicle had even been deposited at the tow pound because they were monitoring the car and

they could tell that big brother is watching. Yeah, that was interesting. And then the other

time was this little Fiat 500E that was towed from being charged in a downtown LA parking.

It was towed from the charger because apparently they didn't allow outside cars to charge there.

Anyway, that was towed to the sketchiest, most shakedown type of tow pound with junkyard dogs

and junkies and tents and very, very sketchy people in very near Skid Row LA. And the guy just

wanted cash to give me back the car. It was sketch. So those I would say, and then it's not great

when your Rolls Royce just suddenly stops having power when you're on the 101, but I'm kind of

used to that. But the real scary stuff for you happens in EVs?

Actually, yes. I guess that's a moral of that story. Yes. What about you, Matt?

Well, you know what? I'll tell you something. I've never told this story publicly.

And I don't think I've ever told you, but it has to be about 10 years ago, maybe longer. I was up at

Monticello, which is the racetrack club here in New York. And they have an off-road course. And I

went to London, which it was and is a fantastic truck. But we were driving it around off-road,

on kind of an off-road race course, so higher speeds. And each one of us had a driving instructor

in the truck. And as I was going around a muddy bend, the driving instructor said,

you could give it more gas there. And I thought he meant, now you could give it more gas,

rather than you could have given it more gas. So I put the pedal all the way down,

and the back wheels just started spinning. As we came around the corner,

as soon as I got grip again, I was pointed the wrong direction. And I hit a tree so hard

that we needed to get another truck with chains to pull my truck off of the tree.

Matt. Actually, nothing happened in terms of injury.

Did the airbag deploy? We had turned off the airbags.

Oh, great. Perfect. Yeah, because we were off-road. So that was, I mean, it wasn't really scary in

terms of danger. Afterward, everybody was just slack jawed and couldn't believe what had happened.

But it was like, whoa, kind of crazy. That is scary.

It was scary in terms of I'd never wrecked a press car. And I was filming for a piece for

Bloomberg Television. Was that on camera? Was that on?

Yeah, everything was on camera. I was worried, what was my boss going to say?

So from that perspective, it was scary. Is Toyota going to hate me? From that

perspective, it was a little scary. But I think more, it's just more interesting because of the

misunderstanding that I had with the driving coach, he was like, you could give it more gas.

And he meant you could have given it more gas. But I was thinking like, now, okay, go.

And yeah. That's just, and it's not a good feeling at all. Was the driving coach American?

He was. Yeah, he was American. I was going to say, because if he was German, maybe there was a,

lost in translation moment or Japanese. Yeah, that would totally happen because a lot of those

guys are European or Japanese or whatever. But I, man, I feel for you, that is the worst feeling.

And you know what though? I've seen that type of thing happen so much on press drives. And maybe

that's a little known secret among the press pool of the folks who go on a lot of these press drives.

A lot of things happen. A lot of journalists wreck cars. I had actually seen a couple as well

previous to this experience in which the company got very angry at the journalists. So that's why

I thought it was, that's why I was scared. But to their credit, Toyota was incredibly

kind and, you know, more concerned for my safety. Yeah. So that was interesting. I can't believe

you've never been in any kind of, because you've driven fast cars. Yes. I imagine high speeds.

Yes. Yeah, I have. But also I am not reckless. And I also don't out judge my own driving ability.

I have never thought I'm a expert driver or a professional because I am not. I am a writer.

So I think it seems to me and I really, I say this really humbly because things happen for sure.

And you know, obviously I've spun a car on a track, but everybody does that. That's just

testing your edge. I think sometimes like the worst problems happen when you think you're a

better driver than you are. Yeah. And a lot of journalists do. Yeah. And I'm sure I'm accused

of being a slow driver or whatever, but I'm careful and I do not believe that I am a professional

driver. I feel the same way. I don't overestimate my ability. And yet I'll go on, especially

motorcycle launches. For some reason, motorcycle journalists try and drive as fast as they

possibly can. So I'm always the last in the bunch. Obviously I did have a bad motorcycle accident,

but it wasn't due to any fault of mine. Well, you probably know that I was driving a Ducati

Panigale at, you know, not super legal speeds and a Ford F-150 crossed over the double yellow

line and hit me head on, which I couldn't have avoided. And it hospitalized me for quite a while,

but that's terrifying. Yeah. But I had a pretty good time in the hospital. Everyone is so nice to

me. I'm glad. You and Diggy. They were all worried about me. All right. That's enough of that Halloween

stuff. Oh, wait. Aston Martin. Yes. For those who haven't read on the Bloomberg terminal, Aston

Martin this week said it's reviewing plans for upcoming models because it has to lower costs.

And the shares just got absolutely clobbered. The shares have performed so badly anyway,

but I guess U.S. tariffs have really hurt the iconic British car maker. So it's targeting a

reduction in capital spending, which is never good when your favorite manufacturer does that,

by almost half a billion dollars this year. That is really, it's heartbreaking for people who love

the brand. And obviously we know that Aston Martin has really been trying to do a big turn

around since Lawrence Stroll bought it in 2020. They brought in Bentley Boss, Adrian Hallmark,

who's very well liked and respected, especially for handling crisis crises.

But this isn't great for people who love Aston Martin cars. And it's not great for the company

because the worst thing is to have no new product. And to me, it's just exactly the wrong time,

because they have, I think, turned the corner. You know how much I love that Aston Martin

vanquish. I think it's the best Aston Martin that I've ever driven. And it's definitely the best

since the Vantage GT. For sure an improvement. Yeah. I mean, it seemed to me like they had

figured everything out. And that car, aside from being incredibly expensive, I think it is almost

perfect in every other way. So what a bummer. Yeah, it's sad. I wonder if this is going to be the first

of other companies. I mean, it's bad that they had to say it. You know, obviously tariffs are

affecting everybody and each automaker has to figure out what makes the most sense for them

as they try to navigate all of this. It's too bad Aston Martin had to say it. And I wonder if there

will be others who join. I just hope they're able to produce as many of those vanquish

valantes and also the hard tops as possible. And maybe one day I'll drive it again. That

does it for this week's show. Remember to follow and subscribe to Hot Pursuit on Apple Spotify

or anywhere else you listen. And it's really key to search Bloomberg Hot Pursuit. That's right.

Because if you just search Hot Pursuit on any of these podcast platforms,

you're going to get something about like Middle Eastern politics for some reason. It's not about

cars. So Bloomberg Hot Pursuit and you can email us at any time. Drop us a line at hotpersuit

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Bloomberg Business app. You can go there for car reviews, events and stories that you won't find

anywhere else. Find it all at bloomberg.com slash pursuits slash autos. I'm Hannah Elliott.

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

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World's Largest Grouping of Bugatti & Pagani Supercars, Mercedes S 580e Review, Scary Driving Stories

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