The Iced Coffee Hour - The Dark Truth of Exotic Cars: Steve Hamilton Exposes The Used Car Market, Ripoffs, and Scams

Episode Date: October 7, 2024

Oracle: Free test drive of OCI at https://oracle.com/iced Ramp: Now get $250 when you join Ramp at https://ramp.com/ich Shopify: Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at https://shopify.com/ich NEW: Join us at http://www.icedcoffeehour.club for premium content - Enjoy! Subscribe To Steve Hamilton of @TheHamiltonCollection Here! Add us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jlsselby https://www.instagram.com/gpstephan Official Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeBQ24VfikOriqSdKtomh0w For sponsorships or business inquiries reach out to: [e-mail] For Podcast Inquiries, please DM @icedcoffeehour on Instagram! Timestamps : 00:00:00 - Introduction 00:00:41 - Losing money on cars 00:01:48 - Supercar maintenance cost 00:03:00 - Shooting fire from cars 00:03:15 - Most expensive upgrade 00:04:08 - 2000hp vs 700hp experience 00:05:19 - Most expensive car bought 00:06:10 - Driving a Bugatti 00:07:45 - Bugatti allocation 00:10:16 - Sponsor - Oracle 00:11:21 - Test-driving Bugattis 00:13:00 - Luck vs skill 00:13:59 - First business 00:18:35 - Rags to riches 00:23:25 - Changed money perspective 00:25:56 - Sponsor - Ramp 00:27:15 - Did dad see your success? 00:32:28 - Tire business now 00:35:54 - Burnout 00:38:48 - YouTube channel impact 00:41:45 - Sponsor - Shopify 00:43:11 - Cars and networking 00:44:37 - Car you'd never own 00:45:37 - Buying a Ferrari 00:49:00 - Other business interests 00:56:04 - Affordable exotic cars 01:02:19 - Renting supercars 01:05:32 - Alex Choi's Porsche 01:08:14 - WhistlinDiesel Controversy 01:11:21 - Ferrari Owner Stereotypes 01:11:50 - Best car investment 01:15:08 - Car collection value 01:16:20 - Car market and economy 01:26:21 - Happy marriage secret 01:30:49 - Raising kids 01:33:02 - Biggest insecurity 01:34:34 - Banned from Croatia 01:36:33 - One-up a Bugatti *Some of the links and other products that appear on this video are from companies which Graham Stephan will earn an affiliate commission or referral bonus. Graham Stephan is part of an affiliate network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. The content in this video is accurate as of the posting date. Some of the offers mentioned may no longer be available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Okay, when I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids, and I want to give back to the community. Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my head of office has a forever setting. An IG Private Wealth advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IG Private Wealth.com.

What about the most expensive car you've bought? This is the Bugatti-Sheran SS here. How much was that? 4.2 with taxes and everything else, yeah. Wow. 4.2. Yes. I don't even think I'd test drove any of... You didn't even test drive it?

Nothing. You've spent $4 million without even trying to call. I get more joy out of other people experiencing these vehicles than my own self. I get joy out of the relationships that I foster from having this channel. I'm shocked at when these people take my cars for the first time, and they're a little more bold than I would be, but they nail it like Whistlin Diesel. Like, he's doing donuts in a tight parking lot and an all-wheel drive Bugatti with new tires. How often do you lose money on cars?

I probably took a $300,000 hit on my Bugatti Charon because of what we did on our YouTube channel. But we want to have fun. Like, we're very hard on our cars. These are driven in the winter. We race them. We break them constantly. As I say this, I'm decreasing the value of the cars further. Where is the business at now?

So now we're doing a little bit north of $350 million in revenue. So, like, I'm not incentivized to grow revenue on this channel all that much, but whatever I can do that is a big lever, I'm going to do it. How do you want up this car? I see, I don't know if I could share this, but... Steve, thank you so much for coming on the iced coffee. I really appreciate it. It is my pleasure. Thank you guys for having me again.

This is a crazy warehouse. I absolutely love it. This is Jack and I's dream to be able to have something like this one day for our podcast. Yeah, I would say this was probably way out of my dream. perspective when I was young, so I'm just very thankful to have what we have here. And the funny thing is we're actually missing a bunch of cars too, which is an unintentional humble brag, but I wish we had the full breadth of vehicles because there's some heavy hitters that are not here today. Yeah, I saw your breakdown where you went over how much it cost to maintain a fleet of super

cars. Yes. $135,000 a month. Yeah, it's absolutely insane. Now, that did include like some upgrades that we did to vehicles as well, but upgrades are paramount to functionality of the channel because we need to differentiate these vehicles. But more importantly, I just love having cars that shoot fire that are loud that are faster. How does that break down? Like how many of those are just like monthly car payments versus insurance versus repairs? So the vlog we did just on the maintenance was legit just repairs, maintenance upgrades. But as far as like car payments go, we did a vlog before where it covered like finance costs.

So I financed some of the vehicles, quite a few of the vehicles I own outright as the interest rate is getting a little kind of bonkers right now. I'm leaning a little bit heavier on higher cash down payments are fully paying in cash. But I think my total output for cars is about 120K a month in finance charges. And then it was that much more in upgrades mods. Insurance is about $65,000, $70,000 a year now on the entire fleet. So we're north of 260, 270 to maintain and own this fleet. You mentioned shooting fire. Can you make any car like a Corolla shoot fire?

Probably. Probably. It would be difficult. It's all about like tuning and timing and having the exhaust valve open up while there's still like a spark. So there's a cost of power. But yeah, I think you could. Yeah. What's the most expensive upgrade you've ever done on a car? We built this 2,000 horsepower Nissan GTR that was almost 250K in upgrades and mods. And we did it early on when we were still figuring the channel out. We did it so that we could have a car that a lot of people relate to in love. And then we realized, at after it was, it took a little longer than we expected to deliver. Um, we realized that first, I hated the car. Like, it wasn't a super hypercar. And it's, it's not fun to go in a car that has like a cheaper interior and just a cheaper feel. And it's not built like a super hypercar. Now, there's a lot of GTR fans and I don't want to like crap on the car that so many people love. Cause to a lot of people, that's a really fantastic car. But it's hard going into that when you're driving, you know, uh, McLaren 765 LTIA Bugatti Charon. And then we realize that like our demographic doesn't want to see Nissan GTRs. They want to see super and hypercar. So,

spent all this money, waited all this time, got the vehicle, and then just the vlogs didn't do well. How does it feel differently driving a 2,000 horsepower car compared to like a 700 horsepower car? That 2,000 horsepower car, I would say that particular one felt like unhinged wild. Like it just, it felt like a Nissan GTR that was made to 2,000 horsepower where you're like, the steering's not really the way that it would be for a Bugatti that is 2,000 horsepower. the brakes are not really where they should be. So it felt kind of wild and crazy, but from an acceleration standpoint, like just insane.

There is, and if you take the remack that is near 2,000 horsepower, it's the fastest, quickest car in the world. It is a night and day difference from 2,700, yes. Is there diminishing return, though, beyond like a certain point, like 1,500 horsepower? You really need more than that. Yeah, because you lose traction at that point. Like the remack has low center gravity with the battery near the floor.

it has all-wheel drive. So that one can get the traction, but a lot of cars are rear-wheel drive where you're losing traction above 1,500. So I think beyond 2000, which sounds insane, beyond two-thousins, where you're really losing that, even on an all-wheel-drive electric vehicle. Like, there's anything beyond that you're just spinning tires, I think. Okay. So we talked about the most expensive upgrade you've ever done to a car. What about the most expensive car you've bought? This is the Bugatti-Sheran SS here. We specped it almost three years ago. Tommy and I, Tommy's my collection manager, a really great guy. worked super hard together, spent more time on this than any other car. I think we put 40 to 60 hours

getting it perfect and then waited two and a half years and we finally got it just last June. How much was that? 4.2 with taxes and everything else. Yeah. Wow. 4.2. Yes. And I had the base Bugatti. So I had basically the cheapest model, which I paid upper twos for. And then this is like their highest tier model in the Charon. So I went from And I think there's the S, the S, the sport, the pure sport, and then the super sport in between it. Local news is in decline across Canada. And this is bad news for all of us.

With less local news, noise, rumors, and misinformation fill the void. And it gets harder to separate truth from fiction. That's why CBC News is putting more journalists in more places across Canada, reporting on the ground from where you live, telling the story. that matter to all of us because local news is big news choose news not noise cbc news yes what does it feel like to drive it begotty that one's like it's like a bentley with 1600 horsepower it's actually the most comfortable of all the hypercars it's really easy to drive it's timeless they don't put like a big screen in it it's a very subtle small display like below the spinometer and so it's just very timeless very

luxurious elegant smooth it's cold quiet, but it has 16 cylinders. So it's just like this low rumble. And my son, who is, I'm so happy that he's 15 and has his permit now because he's driven like half of the cars that I have. And it's so fun sitting next to this 15 year old child, getting his perspective on it. And that was the first car we had when we got his permit. It's so easy and great where I'm like, I want this to be the first car you've ever legally driven. How does insurance like that, though? Well, so I thought, this is what I heard and I'm not going to dig any deeper, but apparently when they are at the permit stage, you don't need to notify. They're not a licensed driver. You can, like, it's a permissive driver type

thing where I can put them in a vehicle. But once they are a licensed driver in the household, and somebody should verify out there and leave it in the comment because I'm genuinely curious. But I do believe this is the way that it is. Once there are licensed drivers, when you have to notify, and then my insurance probably goes absolutely haywire. My guess is he'll have to be excluded from the policy. Is he going to take his driver's exam in that car? I mean, that would make for a great vlog, wouldn't it? Stradman did that. I think that was one of his most viewed ever videos, was a 16-year-old of the Bugatti. I think I'll have my YESCO right around that time. So the Konexag Yesco, which they just delivered the first one in the U.S. like a week ago,

that would be much cooler to have them do it? So this car, did you buy it new or did you... Brand new? Brand new from Bugatti. Yep. And how did you get the allocation for that? Because I know that's very complicated. Yeah, that's a story in itself. So the long story short on this, and it was kind of wild, what they did with it was, I had a Sharon SS. I put 600,000 down on this vehicle. They said that it was a essentially a guaranteed weight spot. So I was like the second in line if anybody canceled their order. And, uh, and they said high probability that that happens. And then I think and Bugatti's under different ownership now and we're close with Mattay and he's a great guy, but this was like prior or transitional period for them. They definitely

didn't like, um, they definitely didn't like our channel on us doing snowboarding and donuts and stuff with my Bugatti that that did not align with their values at that time. So my gut says that there was some strong arming where they got us out of that spot. And so all of a sudden, I have 600 grand on for half a year, a year, and I have no Bugatti. So then we just started calling dealers and seeing if anybody canceled because it's different to be on a wait spot versus being like, oh yeah, we have a canceled customer. I have an actual allocation. And then we found one where they're like, no, this is an actual build spot like this guy canceled and you can have it. So that's how I got it, essentially.

It was, I don't want to say it was an FU to Bugatti because, again, really value the relationship with those guys now. And they built an exceptional car for me. But I'm just curious what it looked like over there at Bugatti once they found out that we had this allocation. And you paid like full retail for it. Yeah, everything. There's no markup on that. No, no. And fortunately, like when the relationship, it's really neat in this market.

If you have a good enough relationship with the manufacturer or like a dealer and I had bought my Konexagyosko through this dealer. and the Ramek as well through that dealer. I had a good enough relationship with them where they offered at that. And sometimes there's a little markup, but once you have built like a status with a brand like McLaren with Bugatti, with Konex-Zeg, you can buy all the stuff at MSRP, which doesn't sound great, right? Because traditionally people buying a car under six figures,

they're like, I want 5, 10% off of them. Maybe not that high. But it's really hard to get a special car like this at MSRP. If you don't have that relationship, you're paying hundreds of thousand dollars on top of that. The new McLaren P18 that were replaced the P1, they're only going to build 350 those, I think. And that's going to be a really hard car to get at that. And they offered it to me because of my relationship with my local McLaren dealer. I bought a 765, a couple 720s from them.

And they're just like, that's just part of the package of being an owner. But before we get into that, AI might just be the most important new computer technology ever. I mean, we use it on every single episode of the iced coffee hour. it's storming every industry and literally billions of dollars are being invested, so you better buckle up. The problem, however, is that AI needs a lot of speed and processing power. So how do you compete without your cost spiraling out of control? Well, that's why it's time to upgrade to the next generation of the cloud, Oracle Cloud infrastructure or our sponsor, OCI.

For those unaware, OCI is a single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. OCI also has four to eight times the bandwidth of other clouds, offers one consistent price, instead of variable regional pricing. And of course, nobody does it better than Oracle. So now you can train your AI models at twice the speed and less than half the cost of other clouds. So if you want to do more and spend less like Uber, 8x,

Mosaic, take a free test drive of OCI at oracle.com slash iced. It's completely free to try it out. Oracle.com slash iced. Highly recommend it one more time, Oracle.com slash iced. Thank you so much to Oracle for sponsoring this episode and back to the show. So when you buy a Bugatti like that, you don't go into the dealership, talk to the salesperson,

give them a price, they walk back, talk to the manager, come back. That's not the process. No, and I don't even think I test drove any of... You didn't even test drive it? Nothing, nothing. You spent $4 million without even trying the car. Nothing I've bought. I don't think I've ever test drove any of the specific vehicles that I've bought.

You just know they're special. You look at videos. You're like, it's a Koenig. It's a Bugatti. Of course it's going to be fun and exhilarating. Four million dollars? I know. I mean, I had the one before it that was like a hundred less horse part. They're basically the same car. They really, this one looks way cool. it's longer. It has a lot more like carbon and then the whole accents in the front fenders.

But it's really like if you blindfolded me and put me in both of them, I'd be like I have no, I have no idea which one I'm in. So hypothetically speaking, if you wanted to sell this car right now, would you be able to sell it for a profit? I do. Yeah, I think the SSs are still going way over market. Now, our channel kills us on vehicles. So we have to, we're very hard on our cars, possibly definitely top three for most hard on our vehicles, maybe top one for hypercar. We drive them very hard. We race them. We break them constantly.

As I say this, I'm decreasing the value of the cars further. But we want to have fun. Like these are driven in the winter. They don't just sit in a garage. And I'll sell them if I don't want them. So there is that factor working against me, but the rarity of them and the great spec, I think, works more in my favor than our channel is hurting them. So I probably could get four and a half to five for that vehicle. in current state. And that's the case for most stuff that I've got within the last few years. It gets a little more difficult when they're older.

How much for your life would you say as luck versus skill? As an entrepreneur, I think most of us hate the word luck, right? Because it's about timing and having the tenacity to take advantage of that timing or having a right idea to execute at that time. Right. I think that I look back at everything that's happened in my life. you're like that this particular thing happened at that point 15 years ago to set me up for this. So I think it's a series of steps that have happened where I've made a significant pivot in my life, a change. And it's just helped build me to where I'm fortunate enough to be right now. So I think it's I think it's just timing and making the right decision at the right time. So what percent would you say is luck and skill? In my life, like with luck, I think like if I just think of selling cars, like investments, executing, I think it's, it sounds, it sounds.

It sounds bragging. I don't mean it to be able to. I think it's 90% skill, 10% luck. That's what it feels like for me. What was your first business? My first business ever was when I was in a sixth, well, technically, when I was in elementary school, I was like selling snacks to neighborhood kids. Yes. Yeah, I would go buy them from all the years, or wherever, and then pay a buck for a box a little debbies, then go resell them for more. Pretty lucrative? Yeah, I mean, hey, when you turn a dollar into like two or three bucks back then, that's. Good ROI. A game on. Yeah, yeah. And especially when you count for inflation, that's like, that's like four or five dollars in today's money. So it was pretty decent.

But my first serious business was when I, so I started installing radios and vehicles. And as I mentioned, like every step has been a gradual kind of, well, I'll walk you through it. Started installing radios and cars, created a business card. It got me better understanding the mechanics works of cars, got me a little bit more business-minded, but it wasn't driving significant revenue by any means, right? It was an installer to a week. And then bought myself a Camaro with my own money. I went and financed it. It was a 94 Z28. And the car broke. So it was so bad where I definitely cannot afford it. I think it was a cracked head or a head gasket issue. And I didn't have the money to go fix that. So I parted it out on eBay.

So you take the combination of me building this eBay account where I had built 2030 feedback, built some positive trust with people, positive feedback, and that I had this business card and this other venture that I ran. Then I had my idea to go sell wheels and tires on eBay that kind of just came to me probably when I was looking for wheels for some vehicle of another and went and walked into this little manufacturer because part of it's because I'm cheap and I was trying to buy them at the best price. You know, you go to a firestone. And then you're like, well, these guys are marking it up. Why don't I go directly to the manufacturer? So found the manufacturer.

They were pretty local to me. And then I found out that, hey, these wheels are actually quite a bit cheaper than what the Firestone is selling them to me at. And in addition to that, there's people selling them on eBay for where I can go make money at this price. So I walked in there. I had my radio installation business card on me. I already had the eBay account set up.

And somehow, some way only this manufacturer would allow, but somehow some way they let this 19-year-old kid walk in and start a relationship with them where anyone else would have turn me away if I didn't have business tax paperwork and actual LLC established. And then I just started listing stuff on eBay and it started selling right away. And the best part about it is I didn't need cash to go buy the product. I can list what they stocked locally, sell it, use the person's money to go buy the product and then pocket the difference. And that's how we started on eBay. So it's near drop shipping, like going straight to the wholesaler and then selling it out of premium and sending it to people. Exactly. We would go pick it up because I didn't trust this manufacturer to like,

Like eBay was, it has always been just like Amazon where they're very particular about the whole buying experience. So I would actually go drive there. I bought this crappy old like 1989 GMC van. I drive there, pick up the product, bring it back, package it myself, ship it myself out of my location. So yeah, it was near drop ship, leveraging their inventory, but fulfilling it myself. And then pretty quickly you learn that they run sales or other stuff where there's incentive to stock. So I went and got, I think two months later, I went got a small office by our apartment building that I was operating. out of and started just operating my own business at age 19 out of this office and picking up wheels and strapping them and getting them shipped out. Then we transitioned into wheel and tires. I think I'm one of the first guys that did wheel and tire packages on eBay, built our own brand with one of my partners called Mr. Wheel. It was our first ecom website that got us out of marketplaces like eBay. And then we partnered with some other Sean and Ben who had built custom offsets, fitment industries. We launched our own brands that we manufactured in China,

Anthem, Arcon. So we realized we had all these businesses and kind of separate partnership, partnerships and deals that we had worked throughout the way. So in 2019, we kind of merged them all together where we just created one kind of parent company called Enthusious Enterprises. And all the owners kind of rolled up and owned all of the companies and had their share. So that's the way that it is today. We have a great partnership. Everybody works together well. And so now we're doing, I think we're doing a little bit north of $350 million in revenue. this year we should finish with and just shipping three to four thousand wheels and tires a day out of our facility what started as, you know, four or five sets a week.

And what I love is people see like a younger guy with a bunch of cars and they think that this guy, you know, he probably has like money from his parents or something like that. But you've mentioned before that you grew up completely broke. And you even said your dad was earning like $13 an hour supporting, you know, multiple children. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I don't know how they did that. Yeah, I don't know how they did that. He was a maintenance man and my mom cleaned homes part time, but she had to take care of the kids most of the time. And yeah, you're right. Like, it's hard to, it's hard to reconcile how someone got to where they are. And I think a lot of times it is familial wealth, I guess, where they, where they're able to achieve that. And I see a lot of that. I think I'm just attracted.

to people that are like getting down and dirty, like just use their hands for a living. Yeah, I just like, from a personality perspective, I just get along a lot better with those people and I just find that they're more my people. And I've spent 20 years on income making and the prior 20 years, poor, zero to 19 didn't have any money. And I just feel like I relate to the younger group of, the earlier group of people in my life a lot better. When did you realize as a kid that you or bro? You just know. Like, you know, you see what's around you. We didn't live in a bad city. We lived in like Carol Stream, Illinois. We bounced around a bunch. I went to five different elementary schools. And most of them were like, blue collar to a little bit better than that, like suburbs. They weren't horrible suburbs. But so there's always a mix of kids that have money. And back then, like if you had a, if you had a 2,500 square foot house, which is, which is a sizable house, right? But that was a mansion to me. Like I remember just looking at this neighborhood by me and they were all two. thousand and I'm like, gosh, like I can't imagine having something like this in my life. And you just know, like you show up to school without enough money for for field trips. You know, you're,

you're embarrassed to be dropped off. If you have a car, we didn't even have a car until I was almost 10. And then it's like, gosh, mom, can you drop me off like 50 feet behind the drop off line? You just know. It's hard to, it's hard to quantify it, but you know. In hindsight, are you glad you grew up that way? I love it. I wouldn't change a single thing about my childhood. like we had a ton of freedom and uh and i don't know if that was unique to my parents or if that's more you know how it is with with uh income related but like we can go anywhere or doing or the time it was probably more more of like the time since that was 80s 90s but um i love the freedoms that i had um i love the closeness of like my siblings we all still live within four or five minutes

of each other right now um and i think it does teach you a lot later in life to appreciate what you have that you have to grind and work really hard to get where you got. What did it teach you? I mean, it taught me to be like up until a few years ago. Like, I hassle and haggle everything still and almost to a fault sometimes. I had to like evaluate the way I was like paying my, I have a personal trainer that we have here at our gym. He trained like, I'm haggling this guy and I'm like, finally I'm like, gosh, you know,

I just got to pay this guy. like he's a good guy. He's a good guy. He's a good guy. He's talented. And this kind of was the way it was with a lot of things. Now, I tip well at restaurants I always have. But like you just get so used to to like having to fight and watch every dollar when you're growing when you grow up that way where I'm like, I shouldn't be paying this guy $50 a session. Like he charged this but I'm like, hey, if I buy 20 of them, can I get him? I shouldn't be doing that. I should be I should be paying him higher than that actually and find ways for him to make more money to keep. him loyal to us. Hopefully he doesn't watch this. Yeah, no. It's true. All of a sudden the price triples. I'm like, hey, if I bring in a few more people, but you still work your same hour, can we do it at, you know, 125? And of course, he's going to do that. And he works hard and he's

worth every penny of it. So I shifted my, I had to shift my mindset because you do, you learn to fight for every dollar and watch every dollar as well. And so I think that that's still a good thing, because I'm still cautious. I'm not just going to go divvy that out, but I'm still going to go negotiate, search really hard on cars, making sure that I'm getting a good deal. I'm going to, and I manage all of my, I mean, I have an accountant, but I manage all my finances. I deal with everything that gets fixed, repaired at my homes. I do way more. Like, everyone's like, who's your assistant? I'm like, I don't have it. I don't, I mean, Henry, Henry helps me with the Hamilton collection channel related things, but like, I do all my stuff. I always have. I spend

10 hours a week managing emails related to properties and everything. And like, I like being close to that stuff. And I don't know, I've gone on a tangent, but I guess what I'm getting at is it teaches you a lot growing up that way to to keep an eye on that stuff. But you have to be careful. When you achieve wealth and some success, it's important to take care of those. How else is your perspective on money changed? It was very, it's different. Like you maintain that same hunger. Like I never lost that hunger to to be successful and earning income more of it was to be successful and like break the rut that that are my parents put me in and god bless them they worked hard my dad's no longer

with us but like he he worked hard he had they both had their faults i think that i was always driven i'm still driven the wheel and tire companies i'm very involved in them today and we have a great uh c suite that runs the company's day today i'm more like high level i do some checks and balances and more high-level ideas. I've never really felt, like, it's been rare where I've sat and I've felt successful, where you're just sit and you're like, I'm going to just sit and embellish what I've done and what I've created. It's more like just driven by like success, like wanting to grow the company.

Like there's like there's a competitive aspect to it. And and but like I am at an interesting time in my life where at one point I had, I think, 35, 40 properties. And like, and I had a manager that did manage. the properties, but I was still involved to a point. I had seven pet supplies plus stores. I had an Arby's. I had other business investments. And like, I look at it now and I'm like, I don't know how I was able to manage that. Like, I don't have the mental tenacity that I, that I did three years ago. And part of it was because I made a decision that, that I just want to, I've built enough

equity in my primary business where I just don't need all of this other stuff. Like, it's not worth the stress and also real estate kind of peak valued about a year ago, a year and a half ago. So I've always timed stuff really well with real estate. I bought when it was really low. I don't do a lot of activity when the market is slightly increasing. It's more like, okay, there's been huge double-digit growth in real estate for two or three years. It's time to sell at this point. Like, it's going to level out. And so I sold a ton of my properties in the last year to two, to a year and a half, really, sold off all the pet supplies plus stores. The Darby's actually went out of business. That was partners that were operating it. And there's a long

story to that, but that's gone. And right now, it's really just wheel and tire companies and then this channel, the Hamilton collection that we run here. And, and I still feel like mentally, I still feel like I'm pretty full. But that's why I'm like, it's crazy to think back at what I managed before. And I don't, I don't know how I can, I don't know how I could go back and do something like that. Although before we go into that, if you run a business like us, you know, know that handling the back office finances could be a huge headache. You probably have countless cards, receipts, and payments to keep track of. And then as your team grows, you have even more cards payments and receipts to keep track of. All of it could be a huge nightmare. But it doesn't

have to be with the sponsor of today's episode, Ramp. Ramp is the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. With Ramp, you get full control and insight into company spend. You can issue cards to every employee with customized limits and restrictions, and you can automate expense reporting, so that means no more chasing receipts and endless expense reports because Ramp software collects and categorizes expenses in real time, letting you close your books eight times faster. Plus, Ramp helps save you money. Businesses that use Ramp save an average of 5% in their first year.

It's also incredibly easy to use. You could start issuing physical and virtual cards and making payments in under 15 minutes, no matter the size of your team. And now get $250 when you join Ramp. Just go to ramp.com slash ICH. Ramp.com slash ICH. Again, rAMP.com slash ICH with the link down below in the description. Cards issued by Sutton Bank member FDIC.

Terms and conditions apply. Thank you so much to Ramp for sponsoring this episode and back to the show. Pardon me if this is too personal, but you mentioned your dad passed away. Did he ever get to see everything that you've built? Not the cars, but, you know, he passed away in 2017. So he saw 14 years of me growing. And we definitely, he worked actually for the company in the last year. And so he knew what we had grown.

We were in a 100,000 square foot building. We had probably 200 employees at the time. So he got to see it. And it's weird. You're getting personal. And I have no problem with that. I think it's great. And like the first thing I think of those is like, and maybe this is why I'm so success

driven is and maybe it's part of their generation. but like what they didn't do was really issue praise. It felt like there was always a little bit of element of jealousy kind of and then expectations that came along with that. And so I think that's part of why you're like, well, if I haven't done enough or if I'm not getting praise, like how much harder do I need to work to get that praise? So I know deep down inside because I would hear from other people how they would brag and do other things.

But it's like if you have a kid that's doing well, no matter what it is, like you don't understand how how far it goes just saying, hey, like, you've done a great job. I'm really proud to you. And I didn't really get that. I'm not looking for like a sap story in any way. It's just, I don't know why my brain's just wired to think about that when I'm asked that question. It's like, well, I know they were proud, but they didn't really express it to me. They saw it, but I didn't, I don't remember really hearing how awesome it was from them. Would that have changed the way you run business or go about that? Who knows, right? Maybe I would have become content. Probably not. Probably not. But who knows? You never know.

Now, with your kids, how are you approaching this situation differently? It's totally different. So, like, there were no I love yous from my daddy. That is more a generational thing. Like, I have a lot of, there's a lot of people my age where, like, that just, that was a weird tab. We're like, my kids, I tell them 10 times a day how much I love them. Just totally different. Like, we're very close. All three of my kids. are very close. It's weird because they have a lot of things. They have access to a lot of things that other kids don't have. So it's, it's how can I fill them with love, teach them the value of a dollar, and still work ethic in them while they have all of this extra stuff. So that's the constant balance with the kids. Yeah. That's a tricky. It really is. Thing to figure out. And I read somewhere where the most important thing when they surveyed a bunch of kids and how they operated later in life, the most important thing that taught kids discipline or led to success in life was if they had a job.

And I'm like, maybe that was just like the Department of Labor or something. There are shortages in the lower end sector. And I'm like, you never know what you read. Like it literally could have been. It could have been sponsored by someone there. But I'm like, that one got me thinking where I'm like, I've always told you. my kids like if you do really well in school, as long as you have another hobby, whether it's football, my son does coding and he does workout. So if he's maintaining straight A's and has

something else, like, I think it would be unfair to ask him to work because he's already working really hard to do that stuff. But it has to be just beyond straight A's. There has to be something else. And now if there's ever a point where that stops, where it's, okay, I'm, I'm just doing school, I'm getting trade days, then you got to go to work. It's funny because my parents didn't let me work when I was growing up because they wanted me to focus on school. But I feel like for me, that ended up working out really well because then I never had money growing up. So all my friends would go out to eat and I would go and I would just watch the meat because I had no money to pay for food. And so it made me want to have money so bad. And all of this like built up until the point

where I got my first job when I was 18, you know, immediately getting a job. And then I started saving every dollar because I knew the value of a dollar. But maybe it's just how you take it, you know? Yeah, and we've always told our kids like what I've been fortunate enough to achieve in life. Like, this is not the norm. Don't expect that life is going to be easy for you. It wasn't easy for me. Like most of the youth today think that they're going to get rich quick in one to two years, but the vast majority of people are my age or older that have achieved even close to this level of wealth.

And they will say it is a long grind. It is a 10, 20 plus year grind. Don't expect to get rich overnight drop shipping or doing whatever the next. fad is. I was just having this conversation with Henry who answers a lot of our DMs for the Hamilton collection. And it's like, hey, like, he's thinking about whether or not to go to college. And I'm like, you're young. You live with your parents. Like, go to college, work, start a business, do all of it now. Because in five or seven years, you might have a wife. You may have children. Real responsibilities. Like, that is the time. That is the prime time. Even in high school, like, that is the prime time for you to

to use every bit of your time to make the second half of your life a lot easier through hard work and diligence young. What I found interesting from the first podcast that we did with you was you explained your business and you guys were valued at a billion dollars. And then the next year, everything came to a lull. I think that you explained it was because of the lack of like the capital injection from the government, the stimulus money, the loans and all of that stuff. People started buying tires a little bit less.

And it went down cut in half. $500 million. Yeah. Where is the business at now? We've had three flat years now, and we are outpacing the market by being flat because I think in distributors that we talk with high level people that are doing billion plus in revenue on the on the B to B end, the market is shrunk, I think. Part of that is because there's less disposable income. Shrinking middle class interest rates are going. The market for wheel for luxury items always shrinks when it's tough. And depending on who you talk to, some will say most business owners I talk to say it is definitely tougher now than it was during COVID years when people had money. But then you look at like unemployment statistics and other thing. And it looks like actually we're quite okay. But again, most business owners say it's a tough environmental climate, particularly for retail sales. And luxury items.

So I would say that at this point, we have to get growth. We've done a fantastic job maintaining bottom line and improving bottom line actually each year since we last spoke. I think it's been a year and a half or two years, but we've improved our bottom line, despite being flat pretty significantly. But you need to have that growth element as well. So we have a very big portion of the market. We have great bottom line, but I need to get top line growth. And we had to stop all growth projects for about a year and a half when we overhired.

COVID money ran out. Like it was all about stabilization for a year and a half. And when you stop growth projects, that's part of the reason why you're flat. even though we outpaced the market, that's part of the reason why you're not seeing great growth. So now in the last nine months, we've kickstarted a lot of growth projects. We're building two new tires, getting new wheel styles out there, launching other initiatives. We've significantly changed our websites, custom offsets and fitment industry, shameless plug. It'll be in the description, guys.

Significantly changed like order flow, trying to make it still very enthusiast-driven, but easier for everyone to use. And we're already seeing a little bit of the fruits of the labor, where September is actually the, the first month this year where we're up. We're actually up in units too, which is the funky thing. We're up. There's deflationary pressures that have pushed the cost of tires and wheels down a lot of discounting. So we're actually up in units.

But September is the first month where we're up in dollars. And so we're hoping that the fruits of our labor of all of the projects that we kickstarted again get us growing. So once we have that element, we're probably, we won't sell if it's south of 500 million. And I think we're very close to that now. If we got top line growth, it should be. Based upon discussions we've had with the investment banks, it sounds like that's probably on the low end if we had top line growth.

What's wrong with not growing and just having a great business that's consistent, that's profitable, and you just sit back, let it do its thing. That's the worst thing is complacency. They say if you're not growing, you're dying, right? Especially with, I do think market share is decreasing, but internet and e-com purchases are increasing every year. So we need the aftermarket automotive sector to get hot again. But I just don't think you can ever be complacent because then you're stopping growth projects and then you get behind. You just you get behind when you're complacent. There's no way to stay ahead of the game if you're not seeking growth. But you're pretty burnt out.

I mean, you mentioned that you were working 80 to 100 hour weeks. Yeah. I mean, you said decades or something like that. So I'm guessing now, like you said, you probably just want to get a high valuation sell and then. I would say I would. it's different. My, my level of commitment to my wheel entire companies has always been steadfast. Like, there, there actually is not burnout there. It is whatever I can do that is a big lever. I'm going to do it right now. And I'm going to do it. And it's fun because we have other owners again, but like it's fun having almost complete control, right? And so do the other guys. Like, it's great when you can go in and have things done

without really worrying about corporate bureaucracy. And I don't think there's a lot of that in our company anyway. and genuinely we have a phenomenal, phenomenal team and an amazing C-suite that where I can be like, this is a project that I want to execute it, be involved for a few weeks, and then pass it off into their trusted hands to go execute it. So right now I would say that I'm most passionate about supply chain and relationships with brands that we sell that I've had, some of them for 20 years. And so, you know, the biggest opportunity I saw was focusing on some brands. brands, getting them growing and trying to improve our margin with that brand if we can get them growth. So that's a big part of the reason why we've had EBITA growth, despite being flat,

was efforts in the supply chain. So you mentioned the revenue this year is expected to be $380 million. 350, $350 million. What would the profit then be on that? I see, I don't know if I could share this, but historically, like if you look back during COVID years, when we, when we, when people had endless amounts of money, we, we actually struggled. Like, it was like 6%. Now it's, it's 10, it's low, it's 10 to 10.5. So we've done really well. And you can do the math pretty easily. And you have 40% of that. So we can extrapolate, do a little bit more math. Yeah, exactly. So there's my, there's my annual income from the wheel entire companies. Uh, but my, the real value is, and I'm by no means cash for a lot of people, a lot of people have to

put all of their money back in the company and take a small portion out. Like, I can take a lot of that out of the company. The company doesn't, like negative working capital can be a bad thing, but we actually have that in a good way where all of the money that we get from customers, the vendor floats that we get at no interest points. Like, I don't, I don't even dip into the credit line. We have, we have access to $50 million worth of capital that we don't touch. We can operate this business cash free, which is crazy when you're doing that much volume a year. And then we don't have great leverage or we have the best leverage where we have 300,000 plus customers and then we deal with 100 plus brands. There's no buddy that has leverage

on either side of the equation. So like everything about this company is great. We just need freaking top line growth. I'm curious if your YouTube channel funnels growth. It does. So that's part of the, that's part of the business plan was like it wasn't the intention. But then we realize that that this is a like loudspeaker for advertising for our channel. The, the hidden element was getting connected with influencers. Like, our team couldn't do it before. And it's because you're, you're emailing from a business that clearly has an agenda. Some people want to earn money and do ads. But, but like with my collection, I mean, my wife and I pretty much donate most of, I mean, all of what we make from this channel. I have to keep it separate because I need this channel to be profitable to an aspect and

cover costs. So I have to be careful the way I pitched that. But, but, but, But we basically look at what the channel makes and my wife and I personally donate all of that income. So, like, I'm not, I'm not incentivized to grow revenue on this channel all that much. But I would say that because of that charitable aspect, and we share these cars with the, like, the amount of people that have driven these cars and access them would shock you. We're at a car show and we have the nicest cars at the show and we're the only guys opening up all of the doors on the cars, letting kids go in them, honk horn, start them up. And again, they're the nicest cars in the show. And so that's always been what it's been about and what this channel is about is serving the community and giving them access to cars that they couldn't have had access to otherwise. And because of that, and people know our message, it's easier for me to get my foot in the door with people.

It's, you know, Whistleon Diesel's been a really great guy that we have a good relationship with. And it's, hey, like, if you're ever in town, just come drive one of my super hypercars. Just let me know. And then that's a pretty good hook, right? And then you get him in. And then if they come in and they want to shoot content, all the better. And then if we happen to be going to Tennessee by where he lives or passing through, it's, hey, can we just stop by your compound? Okay, you're cool if we shoot a vlog. And sometimes we don't ask that if it doesn't make sense. But we foster these relationships.

But then I'm like, okay, this guy's like in the automotive sector. And he would be a great partner for fitment industries and custom offsets. And he's actually, it's funny because there was like a beef that happened with our company and him because some boo-boos at our company went and made a comment about mirrors on his truck and and Whistland Diesel doesn't he doesn't he doesn't like that stuff and I don't blame him. So he like went on a tirade against custom offices. So we actually had this weird contentious relationship with him. This was while you were friends with him. This was before. This was before. So I'm friends with him and then like there was this past contentious relationship. But but then it just opened up a conversation around like he wants to drive more income. He would

love to have brand deals. So now we're appearing in his videos in brand segments because of the Hamilton collection. And he was one of our biggest driver. of revenue when he pushes an ad for us. And I've fostered a bunch of those connections at this point. My team gave me a list of people that they couldn't get in contact with. And I think we, seven out of ten of them, we had dialogue with and were able to get some capacity of an ad done with this team that they just were not able to get connections with before. Although before we go into that, some people don't know that I have a coffee company. It's called Bankroll Coffee. And our goal is to bring you the highest quality coffee at the most

affordable price. Now, of course, as far as delivering on that promise goes, I have to do a to research on the best e-commerce platforms to use. And that is where our sponsor, Shopify, is there to help. Shopify is the home of the number one checkout on the planet with way less carts going abandoned and way more sales going. For example, Shopify is a service called ShopPay, which lets customers save their email address, credit card shipping, and billing information, which boost conversions up to 50%. And if you're into growing your business, your commerce platform better be ready to sell whatever your customer is scrolling or strolling, whether that be on the web, in a physical storefront, on their feed, or anything in between. All in all, no one is

selling better than Shopify. So if you want to upgrade your business and use the same checkout that bankroll coffee uses, sign up for their $1.com trial period today at Shopify.com slash ICH, all lowercase. Again, that is Shopify.com slash ICH to upgrade your selling today for just $1 at Shopify.com slash ICH. Trust me, it's worth it. Thank you so much Shopify for sponsoring this episode and back to the show. So huge benefit. It might even be, you know, there might be five plus percent of growth attributable,

which on $350 million revenue is a huge number, right? Maybe more than that. I have to say, from my own experience with cars, it is one of the best ways to meet people. When I was 19, I bought a Lotus Elise. I spent pretty much all of my commissions selling my first house. on a Lotus Elise, I went to all the car meets every single Sunday morning. I met some of my best friends through that. I got a few clients from that that more than paid for the cost of the car many times over. That's awesome. And it was just such a fun experience and I lost no money in the car. I sold the car for the same price. I paid for it. I bought a nicer one sold for the same price. I paid for it, the same thing. And I just met such incredible people. So the car community and owning cars like this could often be done very profitably. It's a different demographic. It's very, very loyal, very enthusiastic people.

And from what I hear is in the in the YouTube segment, it's one of the best paying in terms of brand deals and stuff like that. So I've heard. How often do you lose money on cars? So it's funny because I bought most of the stuff or a lot of the cars that I've sold. I bought in 19 and 20. And then COVID went bonkers. I think I'm a hat. even with, if you take out maintenance and you just talk about like modification stuff, I think

I'm ahead, but not by much. I've lost them, but I've made a lot of money on a lot of cars. I'm being a little bit more particular now about what I buy. And I am, it's more of a curated collection and I'm getting a lot more access to brand new cars. So I think going forward, it will be by and large, profitable even without the COVID bump in car valuations. Yeah. What is something you would never own? So I'm not a big fan of Ferrari. I hate to give more a generalized answer, but I've had a lot of Ferraris. I don't like what that company represents. They are very much into the, you need to buy all five new models that we, that we release for the next five years to even get some kind of social ranking with us. And like, that's very counter to like my,

what I'm all about. Like, I'm, I'm all about community, just being good to people that are loyal to you. And like, it's just crazy what you have to do or what I've heard that you have to do to become part of that club. And then a lot of these guys are just, they're just storing their cars and their garage is never driving them. Like, I have very little interest. I don't have a, I have to think through this, which just sounds ridiculous. But I don't, yeah, I don't have a Ferrari right now. I might get like an FF. It's a $130,000 four-seater car that has a front engine V12 just because it's so cheap and we can use it as a crew car. But other than that, I have no Ferraris on the horizon and I don't want to be part of that. How much, let's say you're starting from scratch.

Yep. How much money would you need to have to reasonably afford a new Ferrari and what steps would you have to go through to get there? If you want a base level Ferrari, that's easy. Like, you should be able to go and buy one off the floor or order it. It's like anything above that like 500K ranges where they get like crazy. Like with McLaren, I've bought three cars with them and I got access to that P18. With them, like I would have had to have a five year long relationship, probably some inside connections and have and have had literally bought probably 20 plus cars with them to get that. Honestly. And the problem is, that Ferrari's a much,

Ferrari and Lamborghini are much bigger names than a McLaren at this point. McLaren's getting right up there in terms of production volume, but there's still a little bit more niche. And I think it's because they've been around so long that they can do that. They can dictate who buys what

and no one's going to blink about it. So it's not even possible. I mean like you have to have like 50 million bucks. Oh, probably wait. I bet I bet the average, yeah, I bet the average net worth of someone that is able to get those cars

is probably north of $100 million. Yeah, Ed Bullion was telling us about the hoops you have to jump through to get certain allocations to these cars. And apparently what happens is that Ferrari will set a new standard, a new expectation. And everyone will do it. So many people do it.

And now there are too many people. So they set another bar that you have to jump through. So many people do it. And another one. And it gets to a point now where it's like if you want the latest and greatest, you have to have a history of purchases. You have to own at the same time

all the other model. in your collection and you have to go to like Ferrari events. And if they offer you something and you decline it, they see it as disrespectful. And they consider removing you from whatever list they have. Exactly. That's part of the you have to buy everything. So you're kind of forced to buy and upgraded versions of everything as well.

Yeah, to get cars you don't want just to get that one car that they might give you in the future. And here's the best part. So I heard you also may have to have a relationship with Ferrari financial and actually utilize those services. and then I had heard that you needed to have a Ferrari law Ferrari to get access to the new SP3. And that's a $4 million car in itself. So you've got to go buy an eight-year-old.

You have to have this eight-year-old used car in your stable. You probably have to go buy the warranty as well with it. But then you get this car that you're going to, on paper, it's worth a few million dollars more than you paid. So you're going to get a $4 million car that's worth $5 or six. The problem is if you sell that, they will never give you another car again. That's it. And a lot of times they'll do clauses where you can't sell it for a few years. So you're sitting on this car that's probably going to lose a little bit of that early value because you have to sit on it.

And it's just not worth it. Like look at the LaFrii. Those were like one, five to two when they first came out. And if you were willing to wait, you know, nine years, you could have made two, two and a half million. But you had to buy all those other cars, take a hit on all those. Like, how much did you really make after you bought all those depreciating vehicles that you had to get along? way and potentially finance them and spend money to go to functions. It's just, it's silly to me. It's a status thing. Like, that's why, that's why I think it's a hundred million net worth north

people that are doing this. And it's all about just saying that you have that vehicle so you can stand out from the rest of your 100 millionaire buddies. I'm curious just to wrap up the financial conversation as well. You don't only do the wheels and tires, but you also have commercial real estate. I think you have some residential real estate as well. Much less. Yeah. And then any other businesses that you might have going on. How does all of that look like? for you? It used to be whenever I would go do things, it was for another leg to stand on. Like I was saying, like I think I've built enough equity in this company where even if crap hit the fans with my wheel and tire, I could still, with how much equity I have built up in cars and real estate and even if crap hits the fans,

I think the company's still worth enough where I'm living comfortably for the rest of my life. And I say that humbly, but it's very balanced. Everything that I'm doing is very balanced. There are a lot of people that email me for investments and it will be, there's really only two things I want to do right now, and it's build a car community like this in the Orlando area, and then a restaurant. I would love, like, I love heavy themed restaurants, and that's why I like Disney World so much, I think. I'd love to build, like, a restaurant that is like 50s themed and not like the checkered tiles, more like what a steakhouse would look like in the 50s and just immerse people in that experience, make sure servers are wearing period correct items, serve food that's, you know,

And there's a group here in Chicago called Hogsalt, and they do that with all of their restaurants. They have Troulli Tavern, Oshavall is one of them. And like, I just love going to, the restaurants are delicious and they are so heavy packed with theme that they're just my favorite things. Speaking of that, guess where we just came from? Cracker Barrel. Oh, did you? I was there yesterday. Gosh, if you guys ever been to Cracker Barrel? I love Cracker Barrel. It was our first experience. We went through this whole shop. and it was like we just walked into like a different world entirely. And they're all the same. Like you could walk into one anywhere, the south, the north, and they all are the exact same.

And they were so friendly too. The lady was so nice. She recommended the pancakes. They were 10 out of 10. The entire experience. I mean, the food was very affordable as well. My whole meal was 15 bucks and it was delicious. And the black coffee, she kept filling it up all the way to the top for free.

And you get to pay it when you get out of the table, which I also love. I don't like sitting down and waiting for them. I love just going right up there and paying. And they want to get you out of there pretty quick in a kind way where they're dropping that receipt off. Once they've got the food and they've dropped up the food and they know you're comfortable, it's okay, there's a receipt,

go pay whenever you guys are done. And what you really got to eat there is the southern food because that's like what they're known for. You got to get the sweet tea. You got to get the chicken fried chicken with milk gravy, the dumplings, like their greens, their green beans. Basically you've got to eat 2,000 to 3,000 calories if you really want to fully experience.

And we were the youngest ones in there. Yeah, everyone was like that. grandchild. It was nice. And it was funny. Both Jack and I were like, you know what? We feel very safe here. Everyone was like 80 years old. And we're, we come in. And the guy behind us, because we're traveling with a suitcase, is like, oh, you're here to stay. I see. Like, yep, we're not going to leave. Yep. Crack. It was the best. Like I said, I had it yesterday. I love it. It's delicious. That's really neat. Any other investments that you make. Are you the stock market? So, yeah, I mean, I have some money. I mean, most of my money is in real estate and cars. Most of it is in cars, which sounds crazy because that's a depreciating asset. So again, it all ties back to the like, I'm comfortably. I'm set.

I want to do what's fun for me now and what I enjoy because I have enough money war-chested, where it's let me just go have fun. I want to buy some houses that I'm going to, a house, really. I mean, I have two homes in Florida. One of them's up for sale. But it's, I'm down there a lot. I want to live in a really cool house on the lake. So I went and did that.

it's more about how will this money drive happiness versus how will it increase my wealth in the future and cars are a big part of that right and it sounds weird but most of my happiness comes from watching people experience these vehicles i get more joy out of other people experiencing these vehicles than my own self and then i get i get joy out of the the relationships that i foster from having this channel meeting. Like I had Jake Paul texting me for insurance quotes. Every day there's some well-known influencer or celebrity that's texting me or Tommy. And it's just it's surreal.

It's crazy. And I love giving access where I'm like when I visited Cody. I know I already use the Cody example. Whistland Diesel. I'm like, hey, can I bring my kids? And he's, of course. We all get to sleep over in his house and visit his property. Like my kids and oftentimes their friends get to experience this stuff.

I'm going to the McLaren factory and I'm like, can I bring my son? And they're like, yeah, you can bring my son. And it's just so cool that they get to experience something that unfortunately they can never experience because they don't have a vehicle or a relationship with McLaren or they don't have enough, they don't have enough social credit to connect with these people. So that's what spending the money is all about is getting that jolly, happy feeling, which the rest of, they say never invest in your passion, right? And I think the 50s thing is my passion, and I'll probably hate it once it's up and running because the restaurant business I hear is the toughest business in the world.

But yeah, it's really, I have some money in stocks. I have some money for the kids' education. I have a quarter of the properties that I had right now. And I don't intend to really invest in anything other than what I just talked about. At what point did you feel financially insulated where you didn't have to worry about like if the market's going down or if the economy turns? I think it was when probably about when I got that billion dollar valuation, right? Like when we sat there and valuations in COVID were stupid in most PE firms. I think nine out of 10 PE firms and invested in a company at that time were like, I really effing messed up. And we see that in our industry where a company, a major company filing for bankruptcy that bought a whole bunch of these companies up at 10 plus X EBITA that were nowhere near worth

that. And that was had we achieved the bottom line, during then that would have been the peak time to sell and I might have got my billion dollar valuation for an 80 or 100% stake. But I think that was when we realized that there was value in this company. Even if you look at like car ID who's a company that I believe did file for bankruptcy and like even at liquidation value, their stock still I think at the lowest point they're at $20 to $30 million of value. And this was a company far less profitable than us. Like it would take us hard work to get to how much they were losing and hemorrhaging money. and they're still worth $30 million.

What do you think of the Hunigan bankruptcy? That was the one I was talking about, yeah. And I've known him as Wheelproes for 20 years, and that's what they went by, and then they changed their hoonigan. I still call them wheel pros. But yeah, that's the one where they bought up a whole bunch of companies,

and they were a huge amount of money in debt, and they couldn't even, they were using all of their revenue to just cover debt service. And that's, yeah, and that's what happens when you give people stupid crazy valuation. So the billion dollars was, even if we had the same growth,

trajectory. Like, if you place that now, no company values us at a billion dollars today. Now, for the average car enthusiast who wants to own an exotic car, what do you think is the best way for them to be able to do that and not lose money or keep a hobby alive? Depends on what kind of really nice car we're talking about, like, what value range. Under 150. Under 150? I mean, I would buy, there's ways to afford and work that out. Like, I'm buying an R8 or a Gallardo. To me, a guyardo is kind of a car that, that is the, oh, this guy wants to look like he has a supercar where the R8 is a true enthusiast

car, even though they're the same car, actually, like same chassis. A lot of stuff they share if you get the V10 Audi. So I'd go get a V10 Audi R8. I had a 2018 one that I sold for like 125, 130 that had a branded title, but I put a bunch of money into, so like an R8 already is fast. That's your 6, 700 horsepower car. People love that car. I would have that. I had a, somehow I landed a one of one off color maritime blue and like I'd have my condo was packed full of my P1 my law for and people would walk to my 120 30,000 R8. So that was a that's a car that people just love that they're attracted to and you can you don't have to do any modifications to it. It's already fast. It's already comfortable. It fits like I'm told that Audi did something where

where they just they let six foot four, six foot six people fit in those cars comfortably. and I don't know what with today's rates, I don't know what, you know, you put money down, I don't know what the finance, but that, that is a car where you can, it can become affordable for someone with no mods. I typically think that a lot of cars are cheaper than people imagine them to be. Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, a good used exotic car could in many ways be cheaper than a brand new Toyota Corolla. Yeah. When you, when you think of the depreciation over the following five years, like a lot of the, like the Porsches. Like, you just get a solid 9-11. that's, you know, from 2008. My gosh, that's going to hold its value. You could essentially drive it for free as long as, you know, the maintenance is. If that's more where you're going

where it's like, okay, we're not talking about because the R8 is really super car tier, right? If we're talking about the flex car, yeah, you're right. The Porsche from 99 to 2004, that was a, that was kind of an ugly style and those are very cheap. But when you get to 05,

where they all still kind of look like that, like, 05, they made a big change with headlight and like, nobody know. But like, unless you're a real enthusiast, they don't know it's an 05 or an 06. Like, they could assume it's an 18 or a 2020. And, yeah, that's a great car. That's definitely an affordable car. You know what?

There's a TikTok that I love watching this, dude, goes over the best cars to buy for cheap that makes you look rich. That's so fun. And I love it. He's like, you could get this, Aston Martin from 2005, and it's going to cost you $35,000, but you look like a millionaire driving this car. or the BMW M6. He's like, here's a car for 18 grand that was like $90,000 new

and it could be yours. And those are V10 super fun cars too. Yeah, or a lot of the old S-class Mercedes. There are like certain cars that you could buy that makes you look like

you just spent 200 grand but in reality you spent 25,000. I love these videos. To me that feels dangerous because I'm like the guys watching that are the guys that need

to probably be extra careful I think he's going after the wrong audience, but that's still really fun. That's fine. What's this guy's name? Do you remember? I don't. I don't. I'm scrolling TikTok and it's like five cars that under $30,000 that make you look rich.

I want to like, yeah, those are fantastic. I want to go find this guy. Yeah, I think the Dodge Viper was one of them. It's like you find a high mileage Dodge Viper, low 40s, and it makes you look like you're driving a super car. And that's a, that's a gen one. That was the first gen that they made. Obviously, it's generally right? but really fun.

It's like a go-kart, but it's like the most fun car, and that was the car on my wall. People that really lived during the 80s in their teenage years, it was the Kuntash, but I was a little younger than that, and like that was my car.

I'm in seventh grade reading a magazine about this car that has no door handles is a V-10 with no trash control. I'm like, God, this was the end-all be-all for me, and I finally got it. It had 495 miles on it, and I overpaid because of it. It's really hard to find one of these

with a clean body. People don't take care of these as well as they were on old. They crash them, right? I heard it was a tire issue where it was the technology and the crappiness of the tires. I threw a brand new set of tires because it had the original tires on it. This thing runs amazing. Like it sticks to the ground and I would have to work hard to crash this thing.

If someone wants to get like a supercar or some sort of exotic car, but they're very concerned about the maintenance. This is exactly how I feel honestly. I'm worried about like something going bad. I know even like normal like BMWs to replace something as simple as like a window that won't go down all the way. It could be like $1,000. Yeah. What car would you recommend for people that want the supercar, but, and they want to keep their maintenance cost up?

If we're talking like those that are just out of warranty, right, which might be your 19s, like, when I think a supercar entry level, I think around 200 grand. Now you can get 100 grand ones, but those are the ones where they're 10, 15 years old. But I think of the, the GT3S that I just mentioned, the 991-2, which was the one they built in 2019, Workhorse. Some people may not consider it a supercar, but I think most do, especially enthusiasts. It's got the big wing incredibly reliable. McLaren has actually surprised me. I think they've done some hard work in improving their reliability. Their MP412C was possibly the most unreliable supercar ever built, and that was one of the, the first mainstream car, I think that they did. But like my 765, I've

tuned. I've put down pipes on it. I have driven it hard. I've shot fire with it countless amount of times. And it goes and it runs exceptionally well. And that's my newest McLaren that I have. I think that they've done a good job turning it around and assuming that a 720 is probably the most fun car you can get for that. You get a 720S for those low 200s and they're going to be they're going to be five, six out of 10 reliable. But that's probably the car I'm buying. If I have 200 is that McLaren and I'll deal with the drama of it. I'm trying to think if there's anything else at the at the top end of that. But really it's really it's probably the Porsche.

Like that's what I've when people ask me I need something reliable. Like I can't afford to go fix it. a huge issue like it's that car. As far as renting out your cars, I was showing Jack this and we're actually really impressed by the rates that you offer, which is surprisingly affordable given the MSRP of the cars. Have you ever had a bad experience rent-air? How do you vet people if someone just goes on? So it's 30-minute rentals and you have a passenger with you that's from our team.

Okay. Because these cars are, there's a five-step process just to get some of these started sometimes. and so you kind of need someone to coach you along the way. It's more about an experience than going to a wedding and taking these. So that's why they're a little cheaper. It's a quick experience. But you can't rent some of these cars anywhere. I don't think you can go rent a Sharon SS anywhere in the world right now.

Part of that, so there's a few parts to it. One of those parts is to drive additional revenue. Everything we've looked up from a legal standpoint, like it's a perk that it drives revenue, but I think from what we've read, you have to have a rental aspect to be able to depreciate cars and do other stuff and take advantage of certain perks offered. So that's part of it there. But again, the revenue helps. Like it does drive a lot of revenue. We've had months where we've made nearly $20,000 in revenue from rentals.

Yeah. And it makes people really happy because they're reasonable. We still make, we still profit on them by and large, but people love that. We have people fly out here regularly to drive these because you can't rent these cars. Sure, a Revolto, maybe not now a Ravolto, but a G-Wagon, sure. A cyber truck, yes. You can get access to one of those and rent one of those. But most of this other stuff you can't, and people just really appreciate that about us.

And it helps push our message further about serving the community. Have you ever had any bad experiences renting out a car, someone who maybe pushes it a little too much? Has everyone been respectful? Henry deals with all that stuff. But I think he did. I think early on when we were learning how. to handle people. He had a guy go almost 200 miles an hour in the SENA. This was, yeah, this was the old center that ended up getting wrecked later. But I told him if that happens again, stop the right. I don't

care about the revenue at that point. Like, you need to let people know that this is not a time for you to go and race. You're not familiar with these cars. This is just a driving experience. If you want to do like a small pole safely, that's at Henry's discretion. But I check with him regularly on this. And he said people are being respectful with the cars. And again, I've made it abundantly clear. stop the ride, give them their money back, and I don't care. Safety is paramount in this. It's not meant to be a racing experience. If they want that, go to Richard Petty's racing experience and go race around an oval track. But that was really it. I will say that, I don't know why my brain thought of this, but people always ask me what my scariest experience was vlogging. And it was driving with Alex Choi. I don't know if you know Alex Choi. Like, bro was driving my Porsche and I thought I was going to die. Like, it's that moment where you're out of body and you're frozen and you can't react. He is an immensely talented driver.

The most talented driver I've been with, first of all, because the way that he was driving my car, I'm like, it was 30 miles an hour faster than I would ever drive around this. And I was just shocked at how well it stayed planted, how well he did. But I was so scared, far more than any other experience I've had. Did he mention anything before he started driving like, hey, just like, I don't think so. I'm going to take it a little crazy around these turns and you, and you're like, okay, okay. Or was it completely unmentioned and he just started going crazy? And it was, it was wet and it was all the hairpin turns that are like that and just going stupid 80 mile an hour around like hair. I'm like, it's, no, he didn't.

But I'm sure if I said, oh my God, stop, like he would have stopped. I put a lot of trust in him and he didn't. I didn't die that day. So he's just a really good... He must... It's always different from the passenger seat too, right? If I was a passenger in my own vehicle,

I would probably say pull over. Like, you got to stop driving like this. But he was far worse than the way that I would have ever driven that, and it was scary. And I love the guy, have respect for the guy, chat with him here and there, but that was the scariest moment.

Yeah, he tried some pretty crazy cars. And I don't think he's ever gotten an accident. I think he has a... Yeah, right. But I think he's a spotless record given the cars that he's like tuning and getting to the craziest levels. Yeah, I think he's just driving them like on a daily basis. He is legit a very talented driver. So is so is Whistling Diesel.

Like you, I'm shocked at when these people take my cars for the first time and they're a little more bold than I would be, but they nail it. Like he's doing donuts in a tight parking lot and an all-wheel drive Bugatti with new tires. First of all, I'm like, how are you even getting this thing to do donuts? Like I work hard to get. And then how are you not hitting curbs? and stuff. And some of these guys really, there's, I think with YouTubers in general, there's a reason why they're successful. There's a common denominator with every influencer I've met. And all of them are intelligent people that are business savvy, that are particular with their edits. And, and,

and you just, you know why they are, they are where they're driven. Like, you don't, I don't stumble onto people that, that stumbled into success where you're like, why does this guy, how did this guy get, like, you've met a lot more people than I have, but that, that's, you know, I'm That's been my synopsis by and large. And part of that, I think, is their, you know, their talent, especially if they're an automotive influencer also translates, like, you have an MLZ who is immensely talented in drifting cars. But some of these guys are, like, hidden talents like Cody. Like, I don't think people realize how well he can drive.

For Cody, though, I think it's his humor. Really does it for me. His vlog is so entertaining. He reminds me almost Danny Duncan-esque in the vlogs that he could do, but it's also his humor along the way that just makes it so entertaining. He throws some jokes, like every 45 seconds. He's very particular about his editing. They take a long time to do their stuff.

Like, I have nothing but respect. And I want to emulate his, like, process and his work ethic without copying what he's doing, of course, because he's, he's one of the best, if not the best out there. Now, what do you think about him destroying cars? I love it. Like, if he can make it profitable through brand deals and through, like, selling the cars off and little jars, then cool, man. You found an amazing niche. I hope that he's safe in what he does. I always worry about some people's safety.

Like, I want him to make sure he's, he cares, he's taking care of himself. But I think he does, like I think he really makes the best effort, as do all other influencers to stay safe. It's interesting reading the comments on his video on the Ferrari where so many people, on all of his videos, really, felt it was incredibly disrespectful of what he did to the Ferrari,

like hitting the mirror and scratching it and then, like, you know. I love it. I love that he did that to a Ferrari. and saws all that off. But like, yeah, but that's his, that's, that's, that's what he does. He loves doing it. And like his, like, we, we measure, and I might have said this in your last one, like, we measure the success of our, of our videos on how many percentage of subs that watch it. And by that, I mean, if I have a million subs and a million people watch this video, that's a really successful video. We do it, we now do a 25, 50%. If I get 25% of my subcount

and views, that's a, that's a good video. If I get 50 plus, percent, that's a great video. If I get 100 percent, that's an excellent video. He is averaging above, if you take the conglomerant of his last 20 videos, he's averaging above 100 percent, which almost nobody does. Even Mr. Beast doesn't do that, right? He's getting 50, 75 percent subcont penetration. Like, that's how you know when someone's figured it out. A lot of it's the quick cuts. It's the crazy stuff that he's doing. But he's, I mean, props to him. He does it, he does a great job. Yeah. What did you think on his cyber truck video? Do you think it was fair? because when I first watched it, I was like,

it seems like he was pushing the cyber truck a little bit more than the Ford, but at the same time, it was kind of unacceptable that the back would snap off in the way it did. That's kind of where I, Landa, you never know how much,

how much went on behind the scenes, but like, but I think that it probably, I think it was probably fair just to comparison between the two. I would assume he closed the, the doors the same amount of times, but like,

I assume that it was fair. It scared me about the cyber truck, the towing, like his video educated me that it's probably not a good idea to go and tow something. That was my takeaway from that video and that was really it. Like, it's attached to some plastic subframe or something or like, I don't feel comfortable towing something after that. That was, yeah. Otherwise, I think, I think it was probably fair. And then he did a follow-up to it where he's like, well, you didn't think I dropped the Ford So. And then he's like, that he dropped it a bunch and I think it was still far more durable. Yeah, I like to bend and then he

just dropped it and just... Yes. I don't have enough free time to watch a bunch of influencers as much as I want to and as much as I would love to. There's just not enough time to get caught up on it.

But he is one of the very, very few people where I will, at least half of his stuff I'll watch. And it's usually through my kids having it on the screen and I'll sit down and I'll engage and watch it because it's just fascinating. We're huge fans, Cody. If you're watching this,

come on the show. We'll travel to you. We'll make it easy. I'm curious. Are there any stereotypes for Ferrari owners that you find are true? I watched a TikTok that showed Lamborghini versus Ferrari where the Ferrari is like the bougie guy that that doesn't drive in. The Lamborghini is like the gungho guy that's like ripping doing donuts.

And like that feels like it's pretty spot on. Like Ferrari guys want to flex wealth status achievements. Lamborghini's guys just want to flex. They just want to go have fun and just flex period. What would you say is the best investment you've made in terms of cars? So right now the portion 918s, I paid about 1.6 for mine. And the YSAC model that I have are going for like 2-1 to 2-3. So a 50% return on a car that I put 10,000 miles on and a bone for two and a half years.

That one is the first one that comes in mind. Keep in mind, I only started this collection about three years ago. I had a couple super hypercars prior to that, but I only have three years of history on super and hypercars. And then all of the like lower dollar ones, I made a lot because I sold a lot of them. And like I changed my buying habit to when you have hypers, it's really hard to drive anything under 500 grand. And again, that sounds silly. But like if you have five hypercars, a 765 LT or Valtu, that's a $500,000 plus car.

And then you have multiple million. You're far less likely to go drive your Ford GT or your Cuntash or your GT3s because there's way cooler cars that you can go drive. So I sold a lot of the GT3S, the 488 GTB, my Ford GT. And I made like 100 grand on every single one of those cars. because I bought them all just before the COVID pop, and I sold them all in like 22. So that was great. That was a great time.

But I think the 918 is the one that's increased the most in value. We get hit, really. If you take away the YouTube tax, and I call it that because influencers that sell cars that have been abused on their channel, like there's a real expense there. It's 5 to 10% of your car's value. I probably took a $300,000 hit on my Bugatti Sharon

because of what we did on our YouTube channel. Which of the cars in here, the cars that you own would you want to keep if you had to get rid of every single other one aside from like daily drivers, like Model X and stuff like that. So like I talked to Stradman and he's like, you want to build long-term connections with your cars and your and your viewers. And I think he's right. Like people don't want to see you go through cars. But I want to go through cars. Like I'm not super loyal to these cars. I get very tired of things very quickly. And so in my head, there's like two of those cars. Like I think I hold onto the Sharon SS for a long time because there's a good story behind that.

and there was a lot of work and energy. My Chavell SS, I tried to sell it like two years ago and my kids wanted to kill me because they love that car. Like they were teeny tiny when I would drive them around and that. I've had that longer than any other car. That one stays here. I really thoroughly like my 765 LT. That one's super fun.

I've had it for, that's one of the few cars that survived like my purge that I did two years ago. I have totally, like I looked at my last collection, the tour of the collection that we did two years ago. and like 95, 80, 90% of those cars are gone. Like we have all new hypers, all new supercars. And I just, I don't think for our channel, like James Stradman does really well, like just lifestyle. Like people want to see him have journeys with cars.

We're with us. It's just taking deliveries, doing really fun, stupid stuff and then moving on to the next. And so it fits my, my personality and the way that I do it well. I think I got to look. The Viper I'll have forever. That's the one that I bought and I bought that to keep that. I don't think there's any other. car here that I'm loyal to. I said that about my 918, but like, then I saw that it went up 50% in

value. I'm like, how do I keep this car? Is it bringing me that much joy where it's worth 50% more than what I paid for? I don't know. I'd rather capitalize while that market is hot. That's probably, that's probably it. I think those three. The last tour that you did valued the entire collection at 30 million. Yeah. And that's about where it's at. We're probably closer to, with deposits that I have for all these cars, I have the Bugatti Turbillon. I have the Koenigzeg, Gemera, the Konezegeskos, the Bugani Utopia, oh, the McLaren P18. You have to put a lot of money down in these cars. Like, you have to put, for the Bugatti, I think I had $1.5 million down for two years, not earning interest, just sitting there.

And so you got to put down big bucks along the way. So if you include all the money I have invested in that crap, I'm probably near 30, and there's 23 to 25 sitting here, plus all the deposits that I have. and we've shifted into more hypercars and expensive hypercars now and less supercars. But like it's weird because the value really is about the same, but I have like 10 less cars. And it's because I sold 10 cars that equal one of these hypercars and value. And it's got me thinking. I'm like, how important is it to have those extra 10 cars?

And is it worth just going and buying a bunch of those other fun cars to improve experience, just have more color and variety for the channel? is it worth just making another two, three million dollar investment the same as one hypercar just to bring all of them back. And I struggle with that. What are you noticing that's happening in the car market right now? Because I've seen a lot of prices begin to come down significantly. There's very few that are still hanging on to good values. Like the 4GT is staying strong. Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. Personal. Yeah. Those those I bought mine at 295 in 2020 and I sold it for almost 400. And they're all going, I just asked today about it. And I'm like, if you ever get one on or four, let me know. I'm not going to buy it anyway, but I just want to know. And they're selling Chicago Motor Cars here locally who have helped transact a bunch of our cars and they're tremendous human beings over there. They said they're all going like 425, 450 plus, which is pretty crazy. I'm tempted to sell mine. Yeah. Very tempted. And this is one of those times where I'm like,

at that valuation, I don't think they, I don't think there's crazy growth in that price for a little bit, but you never know if that's a million dollar car in two years. A lot of people are saying that they're hoping for that million dollar. I think we did a where we're like, this is going to be a million dollar car in five years, like two years ago. And it's on that trajectory, right? Yeah, but by and large, everything, all of the COVID stuff has been wiped away. And it's, and it's even corrected itself where my Ferrari SF 90 that I bought and waited a year and a half for, when I ordered that thing, it was, they were all selling for 100 grand above MSRP. By the time I got it, they were like 20 grand below MSRP.

By the time I was able to sell it, I put it up for sale right away because I hated that car. That was my least favorite car that I've actually specific model that I've ever owned. It has no soul, too much electric, just hated it. And that one I ended up selling for 570 and I paid $7.20. So that's how big of a hit. And this was all over the course of like six months. So they overproduced that car, I think. But that's happening kind of with everything.

Like you can get eventadores for high twos again. And like I sold my 13,000 mile base eventador for 30,000. 360, 370 during COVID, and I paid like 280, 290 for it. So everything is kind of corrected. If interest rates were low, I'd be like, this is such a good time if you're building a channel to go by cars, but interest rates are high. So it's tough. 2020 and 21 were like peak times to go to go buy you and build your fleet. Where do you see the market going from here? I know of some cars that I know will be significantly higher. Like Bugatti-Veyron is a $1.1.1.2 million car for an 06.6. 07, that's crazy to me. Like that, that's got to be a $5 million car in five years, maybe more.

Like that, that car broke top speed records. It's already almost 20 years old. It shocks me how there are a lot to maintain and repair, but it shocks me how cheap those things are. The portion 19 I had been saying was undervalued in the McLaren P1, similar, actually less production numbers than the La Ferrari because I think a lot of car manufacturers inflate actual numbers than, particularly in the. the Italian market, they seem to inflate what they actually produce or say that they produce.

But like all those cars are about the same price. That's the Holy Trinity. And the 918 and the P1, the non-YSoc 918 is still in the mid-ones where the LaFerrari has hit four. Part of that could be because of Ferrari shenanigans with trying to get you to buy your way up to new allocations. It probably has a lot to do with it. But those, those I think are, the P1, I think is an undervalued car. Those actually took a big hit. They're in, I think they're in the mid ones again. Like that car will be worth a lot more money. The Ford GT is if you can get one at $390,400, that's a good car to buy.

But if we're generally speaking, I think that it's going to follow the same thing that it's done. Where if you go buy a just off the shelf, aventor, you're going to take a big hit. That car is not going to be worth anything. If you get a special variant like an SV, an SVJ and you want to hold on to it for 20 years, okay, yeah, maybe you're going to make some money at that point. you're really only going to make money if you can pick that unicorn because there are so few vehicles under a million dollars where they're going to be worth more. And it's usually rare color combos or variants of cars that you have to sit on and keep low mileage or if you can get that allocation at MSRP for a hypercar. Like it's it's hard to make money on cars.

I think the vast majority of them you're going to lose money on. Yeah. I saw recently the Hurricon STO on Bring a Trailer, brand new car. The guy probably just took delivery like 20 miles on. on it sold significantly below, or I think it didn't even hit his reserve, significantly below the MSRP of the car from the guy just taking delivery of this thing. Which is, which is crazy because that's what it used to be like. I mean, my recollection has always been pre-2020 that you would get a car and instantly lose 10, 15% of its value. With the exception of a few, I think you're

right. Yeah. By and large, it's time to start discounting off of MSRP. The EURIS is, is, is craters. Oh my gosh, yes. Those were, those were like, if you got a year or two old model, they were 300 and now they're all like 200. Those of the Bentley Bentega. You may as well just buy one of those things for 70 grand. You can get it. Yeah, you can get it one a couple years old. Yeah. 2018, 70 something thousand dollars. And it looks. That's one of the cars you buy that makes you look rich. Yeah. Which car when you take it out gets the most attention? The Dodge Daytona. That one, that one is shocking. So this is the one from the late 60s with a huge wing. Oh yes. And those are expensive. They're 300 grand. And it's people have them. There's

probably less of them than there are charons at this point. They built 500 of them. There might be 100 left that are, but nobody drives them that has them. And I love just cruising that thing. And mine's immaculate. The car looks amazing. Like it looks so cool, but so crazy. And they built it to basically be able to be able to participate in NASCAR. And they have to, back then, they had to build production cars if they wanted to race them in NASCAR. So it was built to be a NASCAR raceable vehicle. And it looks like it. And just such a cool history with that car. And it looks so crazy where it just super breaks next. Do you think the car market is a leading indicator for the economy?

Yeah, and if so, then then tough times may be ahead, right, with how much it's correct. I mean, people have these assets and if they own these cars. And even if they don't sell them, they might be worth 10, 20 percent less. So yeah, just generally speaking, I think so. It's going to be interesting to see what happens to the car market because so many people are underwater on their car loans. Yeah. And they bought these cars two years ago.

And lenders were giving valuations. these cars more than what they were overvalued on. Yeah. And now it's like for people that had that $700, I'm on the pickup truck, and it's worth 30 grand and they owe 60 on it. Mm-hmm. It'll be interesting how that plays out if people continue making the payments because they have no choice and they need a car. Yeah.

Or they just let it go and have it be repossessed. I think the biggest shock was the Tesla market with Elon's volatility on pricing and slashing and different tax credits and the amount that they've produced. and the general hate towards electric vehicles now. I don't know what happened. There was like a paradigm, like a big shift in the, in the viewership of electric cars.

There was a bunch of TikToks and short forms. Maybe it was paid for by big oil. It's like, you never know who's sponsoring this stuff. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but all of that stuff like hurts the value. You can get a model three with, you know, 90,000 miles for like 13 grand,

which is crazy. They're through. I'm seeing such great deals. It makes me want to buy another Tesla. Yeah. Just because I see the value in there. Like I've not had a single, issue with my model three in five years.

Yeah. And I just drive it. Yeah. And that's it. And it just works. Same. Yeah, I've had like five X's an S, a cyber truck on the cyber truck. I just got.

I love them. They're fantastic cars. How much of the Tesla hate or electric car hate is purely due to Elon Musk's political affiliations of act? Yes. Who knows? It's weird how his car you'd think would be a high liberal focus car because it's environmental, but like, he is so right-wing. It's weird to me. We had an old neighbor at our

Florida home was like, I refused to buy Tesla just because of Elon Musk's political. I'm like, that seems silly to me. Like, they're really safe cars. They're exceptional. They're five years ahead of their time. I don't know. I'm sure it's so just based upon that small, tiny example, like there's got to be people that think like that and that it hurts the brand. I heard someone tell me that they were talking to someone and that person said, oh, I drive a a Tesla, but I don't agree with what Elon Musk is doing. But, but, you know, but I like, I like, I like, to me, it's like, holy

crap, like, to associate the car that much with Elon Musk is just absurd to me, that you have to like make a statement that, like, you drive the car, but don't agree with us. Yes. And like his mission statement, I don't know what it is, but it's not to build cars. It's like to reduce reliance upon energy for like a cleaner future. That's not exactly what it is. I'm paraphrasing. You're like, I really think that everything he does is for the greater good of the world and people just hate on him.

And like, I had never really been an ex user until recently. And I'm like, it's actually crazy how right wing that app is in general. And it's not just because I'm clicking on Trump things. I'm actually surprised how much it leans that way. And I'm surprised at how much Elon actually posts political. He is so active. He's got to be so much. He started becoming more political on X, I would say, within the past like five months.

Okay. It's been a pretty, like, dramatic shift. I don't know. To me, I thought it's been like the last year or so. Got you. I think it was, it was like pretty gradual, like just getting his toes wet. And then in the past five months, he started to get a lot more. And I've always looked at myself pretty near the center.

But like, when I almost have to separate myself from that app, because when you look at it all day and you're fed 90% of what you're seeing is right-wing propaganda. I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm just saying that that's what it is. And it's like you need that balance of you need a 50-50 balance of what you're seeing to be left-way stuff too. Like you need the counter to that or you can create your own biases. And I think you just have to be careful. Tell us this. What's the secret to a successful marriage? I have always tried to be incredibly open and honest with my team, with my wife. I've tried to pitch that to everyone. My kids, I'm so thankful that they've that they've like adopted that mentality as well. That that's the most important aspect in a human being.

And like I can trust my wife wholeheartedly and she can trust me. Like if I'm saying it, it's it's the truth. And that's huge number one thing in a marriage. And just like more of it's like and we we did like just candidly. I think everyone should should do counseling. Look at it as coaching. And my wife and I went and did that in like 2009, 2020, I think. or 21. And like we, you learn some things that that are really important. And maybe I'll save you a

bunch of money, but a lot of it was like, it's all about like meeting in the middle, but most of it's about validation. And that's what I try to tell people that are that are going through this. Because they see that my wife and I've had a long relationship and it's always, what is the secret? And I'm like, just like understand that rarely are, is one person 100% right. And it's the truth. Like there's a reason that she or I reacted the way that I did. Like stop and pause before you have your knee-jerk negative reaction, think it through, and just validate her. Even if, unless you know for like, unless you know that she's wrong, like three plus three to seven, like, no, you're wrong.

Like, come on. It's not seven. But most cases, it's not that finite. And it's, okay, like, I understand. I understand why you reacted that way. Like, this is how I feel. Just validate. Just let her know you understand.

And that means the world to her. That means the world to me. It makes such a big difference instead of saying, no, like, you're wrong. Like that. No. That's not right. like no way it's just okay i i get where you're at maybe i overacted like i understand i understand your perspective that's a complicated thing because i know for myself i have unfortunately very very

low tolerance for what i would like determine as like delusion where i'd be like okay like you know you're clearly you know something's wrong here because it's not oh yeah yeah they're still like when do you where how do you learn where to draw the line between like validating delusion versus validating someone's feelings to be able to like strength in the relationship rather than further distances. So, yeah, nothing's perfect. And, like, for me, like, she has, she and every other woman have their time of the month. And, like, my wife's favorite thing to be, I'm like, I shouldn't say it.

Like, this is one of those things where I have to apologize. I'm like, it's coming up soon, isn't it? And she'll be like, no. And I'm like, all right, I probably shouldn't say it like that in my hat. I should be like, hey, like, I don't even know how to approach that subject, actually. But I need to know that it's coming and I will act differently. And I tell them, like, just let me know if it's a few days away. then I understand why you're acting a certain way that you're acting, why you're a little more crabby

short with me. Like, you're just acting like that? Like, why, why, why? Why? I joke with my wife, like, I'm sorry for existing sometimes. And I'm like, just tell me like, it's coming soon. I'm like, okay, cool. Like, you have a good reason. You have a good reason to act like this. Then, like, I get it. You have a hormonal imbalance that's happening, uh, bloating cramps. That's a good reason. But like, I need to hear that. I need to hear that. I need to know that. Even though I suspect it in 99%, like, I just need to hear you say that. And that's, that's almost a validation in itself. It is very taboo, unfortunately, to ask, is it the time of the month? But I think it shouldn't be. I think it should be something that's discussed. And you can ask respectfully, hey, by the way, is it the time of the month? I think the reason for that is because women are accused always of being emotional. And if you say, well, is it a hormonal imbalance? It seems dismissive. No, I think it's, I think you're, you're validating the way that they feel because it's something that they can't control. You know what I mean?

It's like, I understand you're afflicted by this thing. Yes. So let's, let me know. So I can properly navigate this. So we, I like, I'll make this better for us. Three dudes. They're like, yeah. What do you two guys think?

Do you guys agree two other guys over there? They're sitting out of the conversation. It's like 30 guys. I don't think it should be taboo. I think you should be able to ask that question when someone is acting upset. Look, okay. Fortunately, I do. I think your viewership is probably 95% guys.

Unfortunately, ours is like 90% guys as well. So I don't think I'll get flamed that bad in the comments. I could be totally wrong. And if you're a woman listening, it'll be nine to one. Just go ahead and respectfully flame me in the comments. It makes a big difference. If you're like, you know what, I'm having my period

to dare to or it's happening now. And like, okay, cool. Like, I understand that I won't poke and prod at you as much. How do you make sure your kids don't grow up spoiled? That's just, it's just tough reminding them that what we have is not normal. making sure that they are they are cleaning helping around the house they pull their fair share doing you know if they're not working doing that extra stuff outside of it to fill their time I want to do a better job having them do charitable stuff with their time and I think it's time

and we've had some some meetings with other people's time to get them involved in in helping on that aspect but we refuse to do private school with them like I I'm sure there's plenty of people that are in private school that are perfectly normal people, but my kids don't want to, they have this stigma about it that it's all like stuck up kids, which I don't think it is by any means. But I think it's a lot of it's just through, I don't know. I don't know. But we're, that's, it's a battle. Like, it's hard to answer that question. It's luck versus skill. Yeah, we're doing everything we can to just help them to understand that this isn't normal and you have to work for a living. And even a, even a six-figure income across a family

is hard to live on with pricing and inflation where it's at now. I have told them do what you love. Like, don't put money first. Do something. If I didn't love doing what I do, then I don't think I would do it, especially at this point. But I think it's more important to do if you want to be a teacher. If that's what you love and are passionate about, then be a teacher. Like, it's more rewarding to you to do that than I think than just having money. And that's my opinion. And that's what I want them to do. I'm not going to be angry if they're not doctors, lawyers making six figures as long as they're happy. What's been the effect for you of scaling back a bit on your business? I fill my time with other stuff. It's never, my time is always equally committed. When I had stepped away from my business for a little bit, I got my pilots license. I went and got my lien certification. I started this channel up.

Like, it's just, it's filling it with stuff that I want to do, like playing a little bit of golf. I get out and play nine holes a week. and like filling it filling my time but doing more stuff that I like and I think that it's it's rewarding being able to do that stuff spending more time with friends what would you say is your biggest insecurity money will always be an insecurity even though i met like even though i think that i could i could live comfortably if i had to sell off everything right now in its current state you always worry about the health of your business right you never know like they could invent a tire that michelin was working on something and i heard it failed or something or something someone was like, you never know. Like the, the refrigerator got rid of ice delivery people,

right? Like, you never know what can come and knock out an industry. Internet got rid of print. I don't think there's any big threat to what we're doing right now, but like electric vehicles are a threat to the performance industry. Performance parts industry gets significantly less valuation now than what we do. What we do is actually translates into the electric vehicle. They still need suspension. They still need wheels and tires. If not, they may even need more tires. And the vehicles look so bland and plain that maybe there's a greater amount of people that want to customize their electric vehicles. But you never know if something comes and just knocks out the valuation. So any business owner will always worry about that even if they're living comfortably.

And then like my kids, just the safety of my kids as my son learns how to drive. And I'm trying not to teach him bad habits. He's taking extra long to wait for people. And I'm like, that's good. I would rather you do that than make an aggressive. But then when I'm driving, I'm making all of these aggressive maneuvers. and the biggest likelihood of them getting hurt is on the road in a car. I think there's, so that will be my huge worry as they go on to that. I think I'll be worrying all the time about my kids and them being

driving and on their own. Last question for you. Why can't you go back to Croatia? Went there, specked out a car with Mate at the Remack factory. And let me rephrase, I didn't spec. I had to test drive it before I speced it. So I went and test drove it on Croatian highways, just regular public highways. And I went to 300 kilometers an hour or 200 miles an hour because it gets there in like 11 seconds. And it's just a highway. And I'm like, yeah, this is Croatia. Like, what are they going to do? I also filmed it. And then I put it up on YouTube after I got back home. Again, like, what could they do? I'm just speeding in some other country. And I didn't really think about it. And so video did pretty okay. And then I'm on the potty in the morning, TMI, but I'm on the

potty in the morning. I'm looking at my phone. I'm like, boy, there's a lot of like foreign language comments on this video far more than usual, some Slavic language. And then, and then I look at the views and I'm like, boy, this really took off like at a weird time, like our middle of the night. And then I went and golfed like three hours later. And I'm getting texts from Maté that, hey, can you send me your license and like other stuff? He's like, you made national news. Like you're on, you're on news channels for like going 200 miles an hour.

I'm like, oh my, he's like, you're creating like fires for us to put out right now. He said it nice, nice and respectfully. So, and then I'm like,

okay, like later on after it calmed down two days later, I'm like, can I like come back to Croatia when my car is done? And he's like, you just need to go to the police station. And I'm like, okay,

I'm not, I'm not going back to Croatia. Like, I don't want to end up in some. Wow. I don't know how they're, I'm sure it's, I'm sure it's a nice,

you know, I'm sure everything is great there, but I don't understand the culture there of the police and, yeah, I think I would have to contact an attorney, get that straightened out, and I still would be uneasy. Wow. So I don't think I can go there anymore.

All right. We'll see. How do you want up this car? Conexeges like Yesco. Despite it being around the same price, I think that that is the most hyped hypercar coming. The Yesco will be the end, I'll be all until the next thing comes up.

All right. Well, thank you so much. Is there anything else you want to mention before we, any shoutouts, anything? We've talked about it a bunch, but you guys can get the best deals on wheels and tires for your trucker, SUV, or Jeep, custom offsets.com, and then for your car, fitment industries.com, I think we have the best site and the best selection in the industry. And hundreds of thousands of customers can't be wrong. Please go give us a checkout.

Cool. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. But this is insane. It's pretty okay. Walking in here, I mean, it's gorgeous. Thank you. Love that.

The Hamilton Collection. the gym over there. It's taken so much self-control not to go and like browse the cars because I want to be set up here because I want to be respectful of your time. Oh no. But I've been looking at this the entire time

and just I've wanted to sit in one of these cars. Sit, drive, go Hoon one, go do some donuts, whatever you want to do, man. Me collection as Sue Collection. This is incredible. Okay, we're going to stay. I brought our suitcases, so we'll just camp out on the floor.

Sounds good. Thanks so much, man. You back. Thanks for having me. When a country's productivity cycle is broken, people feel it in their paychecks, their communities, their futures. What does this mean for individuals, communities, and businesses across the country? Join business leaders, policymakers, and influencers for CGs' national series on the Canadian Standard of Living, productivity and innovation.

Learn what's driving Canada's productivity decline and discover actionable solutions to reverse it.