THIS CAR POD! with Doug DeMuro & Friends! - Does Tesla Still Need Elon Musk? Will Tariffs Hit the Auto Industry? Doug Wants a Special Car!

Episode Date: March 7, 2025

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And welcome to this car pod. I'm Felipe. I'm Nick. Nick's filling in for Kennon. Kenan is at Amelia Island. And Nick is our insane friend who buys weird cars. You may remember him from buying weird cars. And let's start with the news.

Bring it up. Tariffs. Nick, take us through this one. Despite being an econ major, I'm not the right person. You were an econ major and you make the decisions you make? Yeah. Can we talk about your Bentley real quick? Sure.

Your Bentley is broken down twice this week. Yeah. I wish there were terrorists on that thing. I wouldn't have done it. It was flatbedded this morning. Yeah, maybe, I don't know. Earlier this week, it was leaking coolant. Yeah.

Today it was leaking hydraulic fluid. Well, technically it was leaking both the first time. It just the coolant leak was so enormous that it hit the other leak from being noticed as well. Okay, we'll get back to the bet in a little bit. Teriffs. Let's talk about tariffs. The situation is changing rapidly and may be changed by the time that this podcast was like. It changed from two hours ago to now, and surely will change again by Friday.

We're filming this on Wednesday. On Tuesday, the tariffs rolled out to Canada and Mexico. Absolutely insane. One of the craziest things I've ever seen. Today, it was announced that the automakers were exempted. But for automakers, building cars in Canada and Mexico, not for Chinese cars. Yeah, yeah. To be precise.

Those tariffs aren't changing. The China ones, they're not going anywhere. The automakers are exempted, which the market loved, because that was a big part of this whole thing. The auto industry has made massive investments in Canada and Mexico, not just for assembly, but in some cases just for parts, and then the car is still assembled here. But regardless, parts go over the border many times. It's like not even thought of. It's complicated.

And the automakers, tariffs are not, are not going to build a factory tomorrow. There's also examples like Honda announced yesterday that they were going to move next generation civic production to Indiana instead of Mexico. But it's not that simple because a lot of the componentry is almost certainly made in Canada or Mexico. And then you've got to wonder, well, what is the Trump administration trying to target with that sort of thing? Do they care about the assembly, the final assembly? like factory workers putting a car together, that would seem like something they would care about,

or do they care about the production of the components? Right. One, I don't know which is more important to them. I guess both. But which one is being tariff? Like if a car is being assembled in the United States with components compiled from completely elsewhere, is that count?

From a VIN perspective, it does. It's like a difference between the values question. But it was so hard to assess. So complicated. It would just get so complicated. There has not been particularly clear guidance. No. Of course.

The interesting thing I think is the other prominent figure in the Trump administration is Elon Musk, who happens to own a auto manufacturing company that primarily produces fecals in the U.S. For the U.S. market, yeah. It's interesting in that Trump and Elon must be talking about this and weighing in on how this is written and who's included or not. But you can't help but sort of wonder, is there a little bit of a weird thing going on with that dynamic? And those cars are like heavily built in the U.S., both the componentary, and the actual assembly. Although Elon does have factories in China.

Now they're not building cars for the U.S. but I'm sure if the opportunity presented itself, Elon would love to sell Chinese-made Tesla in the States probably be cheaper. It just gets so complicated so quickly. And also, the impact isn't as clear. I think there's a misconception that what you'll see is the vehicles that are built primarily in Canada or Mexico

would have higher sticker prices. But manufacturers can't really do that. You can't suddenly make the Equinox costs more than a Tahoe, right? Who knows? Maybe they would. You have to like amortize it across your lineup. But if you don't know the actual full cost of that, you don't know when it's going to be implemented.

How do you really adjust the prices? It's also more complicated than you think to raise prices in the middle of a... The whole situation is insane. Definitely a crazy decision that I read today a poll that 80% of Americans don't agree with these tariffs. From a capitalist economic perspective, I think it's a crazy situation. And I hope it comes to an end relatively soon for the auto industry and for many other industries. Yeah. I will say one last thing on it.

Other industries have... The auto industry has really long supply lines. And the supply chain is long. And a lot of dealers have vehicles on lots. And a lot of manufacturers, like Jaguar, has probably a year's worth of vehicles in the U.S. Which is good for them, right? Because none of those vehicles will probably tear off,

even if they were built somewhere where they should be. So, like, it's not immediate. There's other industries like... Sort of. Some cars are. The Tacoma has probably a short... And it's built in Mexico. Right. And like some industries, like technology industry,

like the laptops are shipped as they're built pretty much and so they're they've already announced okay i think uh toshiba maybe or acer one of the the companies that has already announced okay the prices are going to go up 10% on april first cars can't you can't do that you can't just say that must p goes up that day so it becomes a really interesting maybe i would be curious you say you can't do that but i don't know that automakers have ever like like flash faced this before no 100% could they they could they could raise prices immediately on certain and then are raised sales right The only reason that some manufacturers have any sales is because their pricing is competitive. The moment that becomes uncompetitive.

Well, and they made long-term bets based on agreements that were in place, you know, and negotiated by all these countries, including the agreement that's currently in place, it was negotiated by the Trump and Ms. Holding so insane. Let's move on to left political. I do. As a salesperson, I have to correct one thing. Please. Every car salesman in the world is calling every customer they at right now saying prices are going up.

10% April 1, plop your butt down here. and sign on the dotted line. All right. That's a great point. Speaking of car salesman, the next story is the best one of the week. Okay. The Aston Martin V8 Signet has gone on sale.

I have gotten calls, texts, emails, Facebook, post, YouTube, Instagram. Every person has contacted me about the V8 Signet. I'm probably the number one potential buyer. What is the V8 Signet? I mean, I know, but for those I don't.

I don't know if the dealer's aware that I'm the number of potential buyer, but I'm the number of potential buyer. Here's the situation. Ashton Martin Signet was a tiny city car that they made around 2010, ostensibly to comply with rules about line-up emissions and fuel economy.

The other brands like Ferrari never had to make a car like this because they were in some large corporate umbrella, but Aston Martin was not, and it still isn't. And so they had to, in theory, they had to make this car in order to comply, the regular signet. And they sold 10,000 of them primarily in London. Then, at the very end of the run,

some rich guy, never disclosed who, came to Aston Martin and said, if you build me a signet with the V8 from the V8 Vantage, I'll buy it. I'll pay the cost, I'll buy it, I'll do it. But you have to agree that you will never build another one. And Aston Martin, desperate for money perpetually since I've been alive, said, yeah. So they did it.

And the car is now for sale used, and this has been 10 years now, at a dealership in the UK. Now, I want the car. I'm going to be clear. Yeah. However, I already swore off buying cars. And I mean that even more than my desire for the signet. Okay. Wow.

But nonetheless, I'm curious. Part of the problem, the part of the reason I swore off buying cars is because it is so owner. It's become onerous to buy cars for me. There's just a lot that is required when I do it. The kind of cars I buy, there's just so much work and specialist labor and all this stuff. And this would be the most onerous of all because it's not technically legal to send to the U.S. You'd have to get it certified for the U.S. driving under the show or display rule, which you could. Because the show or display rule is specific to cars made fewer than 25 years ago, but

that are like special and can be shown or displayed. So anyway, it's for sale. We don't know how much. It says price on request, and this is where Nick comes in. I called them Saturday, got their voicemail. So I still don't know how much they won or even if it's available. I have to imagine they've been just flooded with, because they're not pricing, putting the price on the website.

The only way to call is to find out is a call. And so there's got to be a lot of people just for fun calling them. And they must be so annoyed. Anytime like a car dealership gets a car like this, they're like, we've had six. thousand calls and not one serious offer on it, and I'm sure that's the case here. It's like when someone goes missing and police get 100,000 tips, but only like three of them are meaningful. I think that's this. And to be honest, I'm meaningful. If the dealer would get in touch

with me and we have a conversation, I'd be interested in hearing what it costs. I would be a legitimate interested buyer, unlike 99.99% of people talking on the internet right now about this car. I will say, I was disappointed by one thing about it, that I didn't know, because they never, they never offered this car for sale. There's not a lot of pictures of it around. It's more race car than I expected. It has a roll cage. It has race seats, like real race seats with harnesses. It has like a battery kill switch, a fire extinguisher. I was hoping it was just like a Cigna. Yeah. Like it would be, it would be annoying to use. I can seat swap it for you. The cage might be a good idea, but yeah, here's my offer to you. Two things. One, I'll do all the legwork for you.

You'll do your display. If you pay for it, I'll do paperwork. I will facilitate this transaction and de-complicated for you. Yeah. But I'm curious, since hopefully the seller's listening here, what's your starting offer here? What do we think this is actually worth? Personally, I would pay a couple hundred grand. I think they're going to want a lot more than that,

but I could be talked into a lot more than that under the right circumstances. I've always wanted a special one-off car that's like a real one-off, not like somebody built it in his garage, but like an automaker built it in special circumstances, like the Brunei cars, like the Ford GT90. Yeah.

And this is like the peak dump. Like, it's the perkyest, stupidest. And I have no doubt we could get it in here. All right. So, 75 grand. That's U.S. dollars, not the trash European currency. Hollis. It's in the U.K.

Whatever that is. Pounds, euros, francs, who knows. Deutsche Marks. We got tariffs. You better sell it to him quick. Otherwise, it won't be able to come in. You have until April 1st. I'm legitimately interested in the car.

I would love to have a discussion with the seller, just to get a little bit more information about The car is almost no miles on it, no surprise. It is unfortunately right-hand drive also, which would make it a little bit complicated. I mean, it makes sense. Yeah, it makes sense. Since only a Brit would commission this vehicle,

nobody else in any other country who doesn't have any interest in this trash. It's so cool. It is so cool. The wide... Are there photos of the engine bay in the listing? I don't know. I only briefly proves the listing.

I know the car, you know. I want it. Make it happen. It'd be a good car for you. Figure out what it costs. The second offer that I want to give to you is if this falls through, I'm willing to import a multiple for you. Do all the work.

I really want one. It seems way more affordable than this, like 10th. I want to talk multiple in the next segment because there's something to discuss there. Nick has been floating interest in a multiple, which is interesting to do this. I'm frothing, all right. I got rid of a car this last week. It is time to fill that. And the car is replaced it.

It's broken down twice in the last week. He's a multiple. Okay. Let's finish up the news stories. Move on to the next news story here. Yes. God. If the signet is the second most interesting car,

for sale. This is the first. This is the ugliest thing in R-Sahm-L-A. So this is the elongation by Mansari of the cyber truck. Yeah. It is largely carbon fiber that they added to the 6,800-pound vehicle for styling purposes. So you could see there that sort of like extra window, the side fliers, all that. It does look like it was added at it. Like it doesn't look like they removed any of the test.

Well, how could you? Like glue. It's like double-sided tape. Double-sided tape. Yeah. Inside you can get a bedazzled Mansari logo on the door cards. There's a handful of other things, but purely cosmetic. There's no functional, oh, and it's 26-inch rims, and I will use rims intentionally to describe those.

So that is it. They describe on their website that this brings it up to the Mansari brand promised and vision. What is the cost of this vehicle? Do we know? It's not published. What do you think is more expensive? The V8 signet or the Mansari elongated? The V8 signet.

You think the V8sig, what do you think it costs a million bucks? No, a couple, a few hundred. If it was 300, I would have a real conversation. There's no chances more. This better be less than 300. But that's what Mansori does. A separate truck is worth 75 grand. But that's what Mansari does.

No, I bet it's at least $100,000 worth of carbon fiber parts. I bet it's like $300,000 over. Either way, it's the other thing we're seeing. Unbelievably, this is not the ugliest Mansari being gone. It's one of the nice. It's quite restrained by Mansari. They didn't do much. Mostly because the car is already so heinous.

It's kind of insane. I do not hate the light bar treatment at the top. Yeah, the light bar is cool. They should have done that. It kind of looks like ears or eyes. Isn't that a regulation thing you can't? It has to be done aftermarket. Probably, but this would be in the aftermarket.

Yeah, I mean... The ironic thing is, man, Sari primarily makes cars for Europe, but the cyber truck's not sold in Europe, and maybe they sell these things in the States, too. Maybe they're trying to expand to the Texas market. Maybe they're trying to bring Texans on board. I think even Texans would look at this and be like,

nope. Yeah. This is... It's tough. This is way too showy even for... Preston Hollow. The lease deals are getting down, like the inventory's getting up.

This is not... They're having trouble moving it. So, the main reason it's not selling is because it's a little too flashy. Yeah. It's because it's not carbon fiber. That actually removes some of the flashing. A lack of forged carbon fiber.

Hayness thing. On to the next story. Ooh, some sort of Suzuki chimney. Yeah, this is an interesting rendering. Mercedes has said this week that they are planning on building a smaller G-Wagon. Yep. There's very little other information. You ready?

There's clearly a market for this. Clark is the right response. Yeah. Can't believe they haven't already. The normal G-Wagon is large and costs $150,000. You could imagine a 70, 80, even a little bit north of that. Compete with the smaller one. New Defender.

Or the GX is incredibly popular. The defender is still popular-ish. People want off-rotary ones, off-rotary SUVs. Make a small-one. The Bronco Sport. The G-Wagon has got to a point where... Unrelated, but yeah. They're boxing.

It's a similar idea. Yeah, yeah, just the Bronco Sport for the person that got their first promo. They're VP now. They want people to know. It's kind of true. I mean, Yeah. That PR firm is really killing it.

It doesn't have the cred that the regular Bronco ever will, but like they sell to a lot of people they're trying to capitalize on the name just like this will. It does make sense. The only thing that's surprising is they haven't already done it. Yep. And I totally see it happening. Also, the regular G-Wagon has gotten so expensive

and so supply constrained that it's kind of difficult to buy. And Mercedes must be sitting there banging their heads against the wall. Like if we could just make more of these, we could sell more, make more money. Here's a way to make more of them. Probably won't be built in Gratz anymore. I can't imagine. Unless it takes over the production capacity for the Toyota Supra.

So there's no actual information here, just confirmation that it is something that they're planning on building. That's cool. We'll see more. I'm into it. It's probably a couple of years away, but you've got to assume this thing is. This would sell so well. It would sell so well. If they could price this like a defender or even a little bit more than that, who cares.

Yeah, but regardless, this would sell, sell. Is the EQB kind of, or no, what is it? It is the B, whatever, the GLSB, the GLB or the EQB. Yes, the EQB being the lesser person is. It's kind of boxy and small. It is. Mercedes has tried this before. It should be pointed out.

The GLB is one example. The GLK was the first. You know, Mercedes entered the compact luxury SUV segment with the GLK. It was like 2008. And they decided they looked at the segment and they thought the segment was primarily made of cars that were sort of smooth lined. And they knew they had this G-Wagon. So they come out with the G-LK, which was supposed to be a kind of boxy version of a small SUV.

The attempt was to appeal to people, It had no effect. It appealed to the same people as the X3 and all them. But you're not the most fun fact about the GLB. It's bad. Three rows. Oh, God, I know. Trust me, that ain't a fun fact if you're sitting in the third.

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Oh, God, Osirati. I feel prepared to take this one as well as a former Maserati owner. Yeah, as a former, and I'm good with keeping that as former. A former Maserati owner, Stalantis and or whoever reports these things. Sales were down 57% year over year. They sold more or less than half of the cars they sold the previous year.

And last year, the previous year wasn't good either. So things are not looking good here. They had new products. Well, they do have a new Grand Turismo in an MC20, but they've got rid of all the SUVs. The Grickali was still for sale in 24. I know, but that that was new. It's bad. That was new and 24.

They don't have the excuse that their lineup is aging like Jaguar where they're like, we just haven't tried anything for 10 years. They're trying. They have some new products, but keep in mind, this is so laughably overpriced. This has to be the most overpriced car, maybe in the entire history of the automotive industry. It's up there with the Uabian Puma.

That is a deep cut. Figure it out. This car is probably $150,000 more expensive than it should be. And Nick's over here saying that car costs over $150,000. Well, it's so true because I was just in Florida for two weeks, and you see Grand Tourismos everywhere. And it's because they, They couldn't get into a Ferrari, and they wanted that prestige for the cheap.

Now that the Roma and the Grand Tourismo are like same ballpark, who on earth would buy the Stalantis over the Ferrari? The Grand Tourismos is still cheaper, but not so much cheaper. And also, you know. If they're both over 200, then like, forget it. Well, the Romans are about three. This is cheaper, but you also know what's going to happen when you buy this, which is that tomorrow it will be worth $1,100 at a trade-in at a dealership in Florida. This is a valueless car. It is a bad, valueless car, which is how Maserati makes their vehicles, except the MC20, which is actually pretty good.

The real story, by the way, is that Ferrari outsold Maserati, which is unbelievable because Maserati is the volume brand that's supposed to like, it's like the Honda to their Accura. Imagine if Honda outsold Honda. It's just terrible, terrible, terrible situation for Maserati because they make bad cars. They bastardize their lineup. They bastardize their lineup by radically increasing volume, trying to go after these. SUVs, which didn't really sell, lease payments, lease deals, and this is what you get when that happened. I'm still stuck on the fact that they in 2024 released a new small SUV.

The small luxury SUV segment is the hottest segment, and they still have, like, how do you fail that much? It's overpriced, and people don't trust that brand. They know depreciation is crazy. As a result, lease deals can't be what they need to be. And nobody wants to buy these things. It's laughable. And the car's too expensive to begin with.

All the Maseratis are too expensive to begin with. They think they can trade on their brand name, but what they're forgetting is their brand name is destroyed because they destroyed. And their CEO said, we're not going to get rid of the brand no matter how about it gets realistic with it. But that is what every CEO says right before they get rid of the brand. No, the Maserati brand is too value to get rid of, too valuable, but they can't. They got to pivot. They got to change.

They need to take a leap year like Jaguar and just find themselves. They find themselves. Not a leap year. A gap year. A gap year. They need a ski instructor. Maybe a leap year. They need to go to Eldora and be a ski instructor.

By the way, EV. Some ketamine. This is an EV. That's true. But it's 700 some horsepower. It's still nobody's interested. I'd tell you, I've only seen maybe three of these new Grand Trismos. Cars dead in the water.

I saw a couple in Florida. Yeah. Yeah. They looked at a half their sales. It was one of those cars you see and you like pat yourself on the back like, wow, I know car so well I can tell them apart. And meanwhile, the original came out in 09. Yeah.

I know. It's insane. It's insane. You had a beautiful red one on the site recently or maybe it's still like. It's still on. and it's beautiful. And I would take that over the new one. Totally.

Because it's going to sell for 30. Pull this thing up. Yeah. I mean, no offense to the seller. It's a low mile car, though. It's a low mile car. It's so cool. It's gorgeous.

This is a really cool car. The difference is this one's going to sell for 30. The other one is 250. Yeah. They look the same and don't perform that differently either. Yikes of a brand. Yikes of brand. Okay.

Next news story. They did just drop a new merch line. And it's like targeted at Gen Z. Like, it is the most, it's like, it's like a t-shirt that's $75 and like has some like hipster thing that like no one would understand. The concept that they think people are going to buy merch, the brand is no value. I've been embarrassed to walk around. He wore it ironically because he bought a car, I bought a Maserati for $17,000.

The I heard of a polo I bought for $90 from North Sales in Maserati, it fell apart after three months, which is so indicative of the brand. Like just trash all around. They can't even make a polo. Do you think that Kenan's going to go to Maserati? Now the Ferrari is doing too much volume. Maserati, you know, smaller volume manufacturers? We should say, Ferrari's the big brand, but Maserati is for the real enthusiasm. Maybe that's what they should lean into.

Oh, here's a vehicle floating. You know about this? No. Okay. Tell them a little bit about the floating car, then tell them to the story. You tell them about the floating car. I'll tell them about the dash. China is all EVs.

And so in order for their EVs to sell, they have to have some sort of cool gimmick. And so there is a Chinese sport utility vehicle that floats. For 30 minutes. For 30 minutes. For 30 minutes. Fundamental, you drive into a lake, you only need 30 minutes. After about 20, you're like, you know, that song by Eminem and Daito where he drives into a lake, like, 30 minutes would have been enough.

The one would have all been fine. They were dropped off a bridge? He was upset with his girlfriend or Eminem. What does Dito have to do with it? She did the song, called him one day. Okay, okay, okay. I don't think Eminem was in that song, but anyway. It's all good.

I don't know how you're missing each other. The news story is. Chinese brands were 76% of global EV sales in 2024. That is wild. 76. Wow. Chinese brands or cars sold in China? Chinese brands.

Okay, so that's a globally. So keep in mind, they sell zero cars in the U.S., which is the second largest car market, maybe the largest car market in the world. They don't need the U.S. This is what I'm talking about. This is why the U.S. should continue to incentivize electric vehicles because China is shown up and China is here with,

we can't even get EVs out the door that are any good, except for Tesla. China's got EVs that float. They're selling 76% of EVs. Eventually the market will be 14%. to make a transition to EVs and guess who's going to be there already 10 years ahead of everybody else.

Already. It's terrifying. In Europe, depending on the country, between like 2% and 10% of EV sales are from Chinese brands, and that's in Europe. And that's in Europe, which is historically anxious about buying cars from outside. Nationalists, let's say, in their car preferences.

They won't buy Hondas in Europe. They've really infiltrated a lot of the developing market. In the Brazil market, Chinese EVs are a huge percentage of EV sales. Mexico and other parts of the world. world, it's notable. 76%. The only countries where...

Without the U.S. The only countries where Chinese EVs aren't selling are ones that have tariffed Chinese EVs out of existence. Yep. Europe doesn't have that luxury. No. Because they're a cheap ones there. If I'm a manufacturer in China, I would be thinking about buying

the name and branding of Jaguar or Maserati. You say it's important. Even at the 25% tariff, Maserati's already 25% tariffing themselves by charging more than that. Well, remember, China did this with Volvo, China did this with Lotus. China did this with... I mean, this is... This is a legitimate strategy.

But I feel like you could buy these brands cheap right now or Saturday. I don't disagree. It gets them into the West. Packer. They'd have to build the cars not in China. Yeah. Which honestly is one of their big competitive advantages. They're able to build the cars cheaply.

Every time we have a segment like this, people are like, they're using sweatshops. I don't know about that, but they're building them cheaper than they are in the state. So they would have to figure out a work around. Like a lot of people can't build them Canada right now either. Right. A lot of people won't care. Well, how they're made if it's ethical. Some people are that's true.

I agree. I mean, you know, people. People buy a Walmart because it's cheaper, not because it's like made more than it. Yeah, they're not really going upstream to look at how it's built. But 76% is a striking number. I'm telling you, this is where China dominates. And in 10 years when the U.S. market is forced to accept EVs as gas prices continue to rise, et cetera, et cetera, people are going to be like, oh, now I need an EV. And who's got the expertise in building them?

Unless we incentivize them in the U.S., China does. They build one that floats. Maki doesn't float. Probably. You've been in a marquee? It doesn't float. I was in a Maki taxi in Copenhagen. Ooh.

How pleasant. Yeah. All right. This is the Volvo ES90. X-Nity. ES90. It is their new EV sedan. Yeah, I want to say two things about it, and then we can move on.

Yeah. It is currently for sale in Europe, or you can order over to Europe. We don't know when it's coming to the U.S. It is also the replacement for the S-90, and it's EV. It is on an 800-volt architecture, so in theory it can charge like 140 miles in 10 minutes, which is really notable for places where that is feasible. for chargers without a feasible rather. Nowhere.

And it is otherwise... Not even the dealers. Yeah. Take the X90. Same like interior, same screen, et cetera. So Dan, you're done. They ask you a question about this car?

The reason I want to talk about this new story, I have a lot of heart, warm fuzzies for Volvo. I think a lot of consumers do. Honestly, I think Volvo is the one brand that manages to be a luxury brand without being like a only assholes drive-off brand. Totally. However, what is Polestar? If Volvo is going to make an...

Electric Little, which is the X40, 30, X30. If they're going to make an electric big, the X-90, and now they're doing a sedan, which looks along like the Polestar 2, I'm sure it's bigger. It is notably bigger than the Post-Star. Yeah, I'm sure it's bigger because it's replaced. And it doesn't really look like a Polestar 2 other than they're both sedans. If Nick saw one of these, he'd think it was a Polestar too. So what is Polestar?

Yeah. Like, why did they do this? The Volvo brand, I don't think they needed a new brand. The Polestar brand is confused. The naming makes no sense. The one was a disaster. Yep. Like, why not just go with Volvo?

I similarly don't quite understand. I thought it was supposed to be like an AMG to Mercedes. Like the more luxury it was. Like the Polestar engineered S60 V60 or Polestar. We're faster. But then they've switched it, although there are still Polestar engineered regular Volvos, which doesn't make any sense. But then they switched it. And Polestar is now.

They sent me a Polestar XC60 like three weeks ago. The V60 is gone, but the... Then they switched it and it became a pure electric brand. But they're also making. making electric volvos. Yeah. It doesn't make any sense. I think that they thought, okay, we aren't confident enough to put the Volvo name behind us.

Let's see what name we can put behind a Polestar 2. And they probably regret it. I will, can I say one of the thing about the, the, this sedan? You're familiar with the S90. Yeah, and the S90L. Yeah. Here's a fun fact. S90L sold in the U.S.

Made in China. One of two vehicles that I can think of. They pay the tariffs? They pay. I don't, the S90L is maybe not sold anymore, but it was totally a couple years ago. There's one other car. Polestar, the Buick Invision.

Well done. Polestar has allowed Volvo to do a couple of things. Create a whole new brand like with no preconceptions and sell direct. That's notable. So I think that's why they did it.

You're right. But like the Volvo brand, to the first point, the Volvo brand was pretty strong. Yeah. The second thing is probably the real reason they did it, but direct sales don't really help

if you're stealing, if you're stealing sales from your own products and if nobody's really buying them. I hate to say it, I like the Polestar 3, but have you seen one? Yeah, yesterday. I've seen one.

I saw yesterday. Yeah. I will say, I think there is true to just they want us to be able to do direct sales. They want to be able to experiment more quickly. That's kind of it. Eventually, I would not be shocked if they roll back in. By the way, Volvo in other markets also owns Lincoln Co, which is another manufacturer that does like weird leasing.

Link and Co, notable manufacturer of cars with one spoke of alloy wheels painted a different color than the rest. That's so true. Okay. I want to take a moment to tell you about her not. Other podcast you should absolutely check out, Drive with Jim Farley. Ford CEO Jim Farley talks to some of his favorite people about what they drive and what drives them to succeed. He has great guests on the show, like the British racing driver Vicki Butler Henderson and one of my favorite people, Jay Leno. I've checked out a few episodes of Drive with Jim Farley and I really love to hear his insights.

There was a time when we only got to hear from automotive CEOs and press quotes and carefully worded corporate statements, but Jim Farley's podcast is personal and it really shows. his passion for cars, which is really cool. And this is a podcast I'm certainly going to keep in my listening routine. Click the link in the description box to listen to Drive with Jim Farley today. I want to move on to the talk about. We got Nick here. Nick's got a lot of talk about.

Nick, start us off with the QP5 sale. Nick sold this QP5 on the site. You can pull it up. That is the Maserati Quadra Porte. It's sold. It actually has already been picked up. We did like the whole save pay thing, which despite knowing you all and talking about cars all the time. I had no idea how it worked. Really easy. But it's great. Yeah, it was unusual. So it got listed

and got bid up pretty quickly. I think it was at like 15 the first day or so. Then like the final day, like it was just like one bid, one over what it was at. But I'm thrilled that the guy that bought it is in New York. Actually, my air tag is tracking it. So it's in New York already. You left an air tag and somebody else? I shared it with him so he could track it too. I'm not kind of a seller. And I threw in a keychain. But yeah, it's, it's gone. So the fellow who bought it also bought this really nice E55. And he still has it. I think he's going to get rid of one and replace it with the other.

But yeah, he's an enthusiast of that era sedan, which I love it. It was easy. To my knowledge, the car sold, it was like title was gone. It was way too. I mean, I was like paid within 48 hours. Which unlike when you bought the car. Yeah. On Facebook marketplace.

You try to fail to pay. Weeks of getting titles signed and affidavited and whatnot. Cars and bids makes it happen easy. and fast. It certainly is better than Facebook marketplace for ease of transaction to say the least. But yeah, no, I mean, it was so fun. We just posted a video today with like the kind of best hits of all the inventors. Break down the cost. I know it's that you got the video out today, but break down the cost. You sold it. What did you buy it for? I bought it for 14. 14. I spent 10 on maintenance and repairs. 10 on maintenance repairs and you sold it for 17.750. And I rented it once on tariff for

250. So I basically, I met 18 and I sold it or I was into it 24. So I lost six grand on it. which was to be expected. I think when I knew I was over 20 and into it, that there was just no way it was going to. We were all, we as a collective friend group, me and the three of us, plus a couple other people who don't appear on screen, or sometimes they do,

we're all a little surprised that you went as far as you did on putting, making it as nice as you did. Pating the wheels. You did pull off clear in front of my house one day. Yeah, some of it was self-inflicted wounds. The alternator might have been my fault for pressure washing the engine bay. I mean, like, I could have done things a little bit. better.

Yeah. Or at least more cost-consciously, not better. It is one of the highest quarter-to-hills. Especially for the mileage. The mileage is what hurt it, but I just said I want spec. I don't care of miles. Yeah, all these higher ones that were much higher had really low miles. 10,000, 31, 18.

Jersey said 90. You said 90. But it was a really nice car that presented really well because you painted the wheels. You know, we later found out the wheels were black originally, but it looked so much better. It's like not even describable. This was just like the 2010, the 20, 15 was like the era of black wheels were actually cool. No offense if you have them, but it just...

Some cars look good in them, but this car looks so good like this. Blue and black don't work as well, in my opinion. It really doesn't work. So, yeah, I mean, it's gone. I'm sad. It is like, I enjoy, like, this is a trophy. I get these pictures printed out that Frank does. I think they come out like amazing.

And like, it's fun to see all the enthusiasm in the comments. And it's funny, a couple people were razzing me about the Montana license plate thing, which is like, it's annoying. but it's my fault. I should remove the plates for the photos or just register California. There's the other option. It did pass smog.

Like I did it the last day of the auction and it passed uneventfully. I will say, I don't, I'm not a mind. I don't do the Montana thing. I don't necessarily support the Montana thing. The one argument in your favor, the car didn't sell in California. So everybody complains about this.

I always tell people, people are always like, oh, should I renew the plates, should I pass smog? Yeah. I always tell people, wait, just wait till the auctions are. Because a lot of times, the car doesn't sell in California, you don't have to do that stuff. I should say, back fees stay with the car. So if you owe back registration, pay that.

Did you know that? I did. I thought it depended by state by state. But like, if you're a month or two overdue, I always tell people, whatever. But California, back fees stay with the car. Scarver comes back into California, you owe back fees. My Celine, whoever owns that now, you've got a couple of years of back fees. No, no, you.

Oh, but the guy I had it just sat in a driveway from a year. He may have had a P&O, though, which case is. He did not. This was disclosed when I bought it from him. Got it. And I said, oh, Montana doesn't care. And they don't. Regardless, you're going to title the next car in California.

And let's talk. Well, I'm trying to title it in the state of California. That is continued to punt it passing smog, which it will not run. Have you announced this yet? Do you have a video up yet? It's on your answer. No, we've got a video draft. It'll go up soon.

So sneak peek here for those that care. Somehow, there you go. Oh, yeah, there you go. Thanks. Okay. Here's Nick's Insta, and there's a picture of his... Oh, yeah, if you do that, there's a reel of multiples. But...

This is Nick and his three cars before the QP. went and when he had just bought the 2002 Bentley Arnage T, 645 foot pound of torque on a four-speed GM automatic transmission. It is a good trans. It's called black velvet, but in sunlight it looks purple. And then in darker light, it looks closer to a black. The interior is called redwood, but it's somewhere between like a red and a brown. So there's been a lot of debate in my household.

My kids say it's the color of poo and keep going on the brown motif. But I say it's a purple Bentley. And it is total hoopedie status. I got it. One door didn't open. Two windows don't go down. To be clear. Check engine light, ABS light, brake light.

A general exclamation point of which it doesn't tell you why. This was a car. This was a bring a trailer purchase with hundreds of failure to disclose. It's outrageous. Hundreds of non-disclosed issues that it had when it arrived. But you were expecting it because it's in our night. I was expecting it to be bad. However, like, if you're selling a car and a door doesn't open,

the buyer will figure that out pretty quickly. and it behooves you to explain that. You know, like, explain that. I even, I was able to fix it myself in like 20 minutes. The amount of things I could fix, like, the wheels were insanely dirty, and like, you just take, like, a little drill polisher. They look fine. They do now.

The dude could have spent an hour and had this car present a lot better, but, like, it was, there was plenty of brown M&Ms there to say this car has been neglected. Neglected. However, you're getting it back in better shape, except for the fact that you have had two fluid leaks, different fluids, in the last 36, 40, I think it's, oh, yeah, in the last 36 hours, and yeah, it's down to the chill. The coolant, they meant to top up the fluid and left the lid loose.

There's a brown em-and-em thing for you. Should I go to the shop that leaves the coolant lid loose? Well, maybe, but if there's also a hydraulic fluid leak when it comes home from the shop, then you don't see it, right? The one fluid covers up the other, and it kind of just swirls. My driveway is such a mess right now. And so I posted on Instagram, like, how do you get rid of hydraulic fluid? the first person's like, oh, Don dishop.

The next person goes below Twitch, and they're serious. They're like, just burn it with fire and it'll go away. I will say one thing, Nick, and I'm excited to see all of the, oh, this is... This was this morning. I thought about trying to drive it back to the mechanic, but I was worried it was going to run out of fluid before I got there, and that just wasn't worth it. I will say, Nick, and I was talking about this at Cars and Coffee. I have stopped buying cars, which is sad to me to make. I love the cars I have dearly.

I mean, I think they're the coolest cars in the world. Every time I drive them, I'm so happy. But generally I have stopped buying cars. However, Nick is buying them for us. I know it's so good. Like, I've always wanted an Arnage. Who hasn't? Right, who has an Arnage tea?

That's like the dream. And now Nick has done this. And I actually legitimately think that Nick has been able to prolong my own desire to buy cars by just cycling through. I was wanted a P-38. I wasn't really always looking for a QP, but it was nice to experience. I drove it to the doctor one day, the day that I got the bandage. Oh, yeah?

Yeah. So you were bleeding? my car? No, the bandage was on before. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I would have yeah, except for the other way there. I don't know how to. And I got to drive the Arnaz a couple times. It's great. I truly think that your crazy decisions have prolonged my own desire to buy cars. It's been wonderful. It's so wonderful to have you in our lives. It is. And thank you for letting out of drive it. For example, driving the QP5 made me realize I don't want to own. It's great. I will say like in all honesty, driving the Arnage was wonderful, but it's not that it made me

realize I don't want to own it, but it did make me realize, like, I'm happy to drive it five or six, like, I'm, I don't want to purchase it. I want to, I want to purchase it. I want to, I want to drive it and I want to experience it, but I don't necessarily, I want a friend with one. Yeah, and it's the best. It's the only thing better than having a yacht as a friend with a yacht. Yep. And you are a friend with a yacht. Land yacht in the next case. Can we talk multipla? Yes. I really want it. Speaking of me enabling you or you enabling me. Me and him have always been talking about buying a multiple. I bought an A class instead. I bought an A class instead because the multiple wasn't legal.

I messed up my A class. And the A class experience was so not good that I have no interest in doing this again. Felipe has always wanted a multiply for a lot of reasons. But because he's the cheapest person alive, he's not going to do it. So the two of us are sitting here. Should we? Most of what we talk about is how we want a multiply. And yet neither of us do it.

And then you come to me. And it's doable. These are not expensive. You come to me this week and you're like, I want a multiple. Yeah. Tell us. The amount of time we've spent debating on getting a multiply, the opportunity cost of that time could have paid for one 10 times. So what is the deal?

Are you? I don't even care about the car. I just think we should do it. Like, I just think it would be fine. Honestly, it'd probably be reliable to get me to and from Eli's when it breaks. Are you, tell us about, is this real? Are you really serious? I'm dead serious.

All right, I'm going to have you. I want to, the other, so the selfish motivation is the YouTube series I do with you all. The idea is I get a car. It's kind of beat up. I fix it up, and then I present it nicely and show you that you can find a rough car and sell it for a profit or at least more than you paid for it. However, I don't want to sell the Bentley right away. I want to hold on to it. I'm enjoying it too much.

So this is kind of my summer g-brokeling. I can buy it and dump it. And the time you've had it. Exactly. I've had it three months and I've only driven it like 10 times. So like enjoying it too much. I need to expand that ownership. If you buy a multiple, you can't sell the multiple.

Well, it needs to be in our life forever. If you buy the multiply and title it here, I bet you he buys it from you. Because the thing's stopping him. Well, it'll be no reserve and he can bet on it. you can bid on it. I will have done all the hard work. No one's sold a multipla in any of the auction sites in the U.S. that I'm aware of.

Oh, I've looked. And I want to get one that's a ridiculous spec, like purple with the like, the weird 90s fabric. Now they're becoming available. So I bought that A class two years ago and the multiple was just about to become legal. And the early ones, you didn't have a lot of choice because you were looking for a few months of production. Yeah. Now you've got about two years of production you can choose from.

Still very hard to find a nice multiply because they were just. driven hard. Because it doesn't exist. You would find one eventually. It's an oxymoron. The craziest interior, pull it up. Are you aware of this? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's why I went purple somewhere in this vehicle. The absolute craziest interior in it, in a car that wasn't intended to be crazy that I've ever seen in my time. It was just a practical interior. Anyway, this is an absolutely crazy car. You're serious by this. Yes, I'm dead serious. Right now, after this pot, I'm going to give you Rami's content info. Shout out to Rami at inbound Motorsports.

The greatest car importer in the history. Pull him up. He sold a ton of cars with us. and and Rami brought my A class over Yeah, pull up one of this. It was really cool. There's so many cool cards. Rami brings over weird stuff specifically. That Lagnum wagon, V-R-4 Wagon.

It was so cool. You just got to, I don't know anything about values or whatnot, so I just need you to say, like, that's a good deal. Rami is the most honest person in the world, even though he's in New Jersey. So he'll tell me if one of the doors doesn't open or windows. He'll get it fixed for it. Because basically, the way I did it with my A-class,

I was like, Rami, look, I want an A-class, but I don't want to, I just wanted to appear at Hyannis Airport on this day, perfect. And he was like, I'll do it. I don't need perfect. It did. Right, no, you don't. I'm good with the little flue.

He's got a guy on the ground in Europe who will find it for you. The hard part is finding it because there's not that many, I've looked. There's not that many low-ish-mile, decent condition multiplets because they were just cars almost only sold in Italy. The difference between the multiple in the A-class. The A-Class was sold in Germany where people preserve their cars. The multiples are sold in Italy where people do not preserve their cars. It's a little harder to find. They use their cars for their intended purpose,

and then they don't have any money. So before they keep using it past. It's all true. Watchers or listeners are... Got a line on a good multiply. You can also slide into my DMs. Follow me on Insta. I got a line on a good multiple.

Okay. I want to talk about two other things in the talk car segment before we move on the market port. Number one, yesterday, maybe it was the day before. I had a two-hour lunch with the fellow who owned my Carrera GT

from 2010 to 2020. Wow. And the way this came about was, I bought my career GT in Connecticut. It was in Greenwich. However, the second owner of the car, and actually the guy who owned it for the longest, was in San Diego, just by chance.

So I sent him a text because I saw it on this number on the service records, and I was like, hey, man, I have your career GT. I think this is your car. And he instantly replied and was like, yep, here's a picture of it. Let's get lunch. I want to see it again.

And so we did. And he had, there it is. And he had some great stories about his time with it, including that he could, could never get it into his house and had to leave it at a warehouse that he rented. Never once did he get the car into his driveway because it's so low.

I told him I put on an axle lifter flexing. Was he jealous? He said as a result it was a point A to point A car for him. Like he would drive to his warehouse, take the car around, then drive home. Like he couldn't really use it for anything. And he had fond memories with it, but he bought it for 300 and sold it for over 600. And so he felt like he did pretty well. Even though the values have gone up since then, he's not exactly unhappy with himself.

He currently owns 21 Porsches. Wow. Including a bunch of cool stuff. 997 Gt3Rs. 2, 997 Speedster, 718 Spider RS. His daily is a Cayenne Turbo GT and a beautiful 991 AeroKit car. Not that I'm a Porsche guy.

Sounds like it. But it was an interesting thing. Yeah, that's cool. This guy hasn't owned this car in six years-ish, five, six years, and he had it for a long part of its life. And it was kind of an interesting thing. thing to meet up with a person such as that.

That's very cool. Ron. I have a lot of questions about Ron, but... Go ahead. I don't know what they are. Did you go for a ride in it at all? No, maybe I should have taken him for a ride. I got the sense, though, that he kind of just bought and sold a bunch of stuff.

And, like, he missed the car, but, like, I got the sense he could buy one if he wanted. He sounds like it. And he did. Like, he had his experience, and he kept most of his cars. He has a property in the rural Northwest, and he kept most of his cars there. And he said the career GT was just too low and too nice to live. like bring down the dirt road that his house is on. I mean, 10 years is a good run with any vehicle, right?

Like, I got his experience with it. I don't think any of us held a car that long. He remembered it was amazing because he was like 80, but he remembered everything about the car, the serial number. He was even able to tell me the source of a dent that's on the inside of the driver's door jam that I've never been able to figure out.

And finally, he was responsible. I know what it is. How nice. The other thing I want to talk, my other talk car segment, I have a little story for everyone. Philippo is involved. And I don't have the pictures yet,

but Felipeo and me and others. brought all of my cars to one location for a photo shoot the other day. Quite a quite a day. Tell us your experience. I got to drive a Ford GT, not for the first time. Nice. And it was pleasant. I treat driving other people's cars for a purpose.

Yep. Like it's to bring that car to that photo shoot. So I'm not like having fun in the Ford GT, but it's a pleasant car, except for one thing. The blinkers, when the blinkers are on, there's like a little like electrical noise. Yep. That is so frustrating. Yeah. If you don't have the radio.

And I don't, because I'm not going to, you know. It is weird the sound that turn signals make. I take it to listen to a career Gtie and a Kuntash in front of me. If you were driving in San Diego on Sunday at 4 a car. Yeah. You would have seen in a Carrera G-Cab, a Carrera GT, a Kuntash on a 4-GT all following each other at the five. It was quite a, it was quite a scene. And then while we were at the location, an unrelated 4-GT drove by.

Yes. It was an unbelievable experience to have them all out and terrifying. Absolutely. Okay, I'll post the pictures next week if I have them. They're really cool. You know how Mercedes Goalings or Portia 959s will typically always be valuable and continue to go up in value? It's kind of similar to gold, which is why we've partnered with a company called Acre Gold. Financial experts and big banks agree the value of gold is climbing new heights in 2025 and beyond. So how do you get in?

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Secure your wealth and take control of your future. start today at getacregold.com. Okay, market report, let's do it quick because we've got to get to questions. I want to talk STI sale. Oh, wait, the market report is brought to you by Nick. Nick, he has cars and sells them sometimes. On cars and pets? Nick drove here today in a 2014 Ford Focus.

The market report is brought to you by the 2014 Ford Focus, which is on its third transmission. Yeah, I think Ford has spent more on warranty claims than I paid for the car in front. I could see why they got out of car. after that. We're just going to stick to trucks. They certainly stop making that transmission.

All right, pull up the STI. Yeah, but it is a peach. But it is a peach on its third trans. And he got here the first thing he said to was, I think the trans is slipping again. Definitely is slipping. We had a black STI go up, 05 Hawkeye self, bid to 53.

We put it together afterwards for around that. A little bit over that, 55, something like that. 16,800 miles, no mods. Very special car. Such a special car. I just want to point out for all those people out there who think that these are for vaping boy racers, the market is starting to decide

these are special cars. Now, I have never been of the opinion that these are going to take off. People are like, the Japanese cars will have their day, and they will, 55 grand. I don't think this ever going to be a million dollars, but this proves that, like,

there is real serious interest in, this was our highest sale of anything even resembling a Haukeye WRX. The other ones were all S-209s, which have always been big money. That was very cool to see. And as a big fan of that car, I was 16 when those came out.

It was the coolest thing on the road. I'm thrilled that they're like, that enthusiasts with money and taste and who want to preserve them are like getting in that, that world. Can I ask you a question? Do we think S-209 stay there? Yeah.

Like, you say there's 20-9 of them. They were very special. They were 70 grand. They're six years old already and they're still trading for those numbers. That's 209 stay there. Absolutely. They're very special car. Yeah.

Wow. Yeah, it looks like they're going down a little bit. Yeah. They're not going to go down to, 20. S-209s are very, very special cars. There's only 209. They're all individually numbered. Also, STI ended after that. Yep, yep.

But cool to see this. Very cool. Do a good number. That looks like a nice one. It was. It was, I mean, unmot. If this had been blue, I bet it would have gotten another $5 grand. It was probably an innocuous decision in 05 to be like, oh, blue or black.

Oh, they have a black one. I'll get that. Of course, the blue became the hero color and definitely would have been better for one you've wanted to preserve. But I love this car. I just can't say enough good things about how much how special I think these are, and I'm glad they're getting the recognition they deserve. Yep.

Aston Martin us. Ashton Martin. I've noticed over the last couple weeks that Aston Martin values are back up. Yep. This repeat. We have this manual AsthmaV-12 advantage. They'll end by the time this podcast goes live. But repeat values have been 53 grand.

This is admittedly a special color that sold yesterday with 32,000 miles. Repeats have been sub-50 for forever. I wanted to buy one for a while. Then I just, I don't think I want to spend that much. money on it. Right. Because they're back up. They're whole.

It makes no, like, here's one with the same miles two years ago. Yeah. The market was stronger. The market was stronger. That got less.

Like, the color helped this one. Although if you go back, the color helped a few of these. Yeah. So this is also the facelift one with the bigger grill versus the two smaller girls. Those do tend to bring a little bit more money. The later ones.

Yeah. The S. Go back to the Aston page that you had, the landing page. The, um, the other one that was, the DBS brought a lot of money considering the miles.

And frankly, I don't know the market. I have to admit, but go back to the top. I'm kind of surprised already that this V12 is at 80 because click on it, this car has 90,000 miles. This car's like been used as a car, which is totally fine, but oftentimes that really harms the value. I didn't expect it's a six-speed, it's a V-12. But the market is actually appreciating Aston's a little bit. It's interesting.

I'm glad they are, because especially seemingly V-12, Aston's, which makes some sense, there's not that many V-12 new cars. It makes sense that there's appreciation. And the manuals, which are incredibly rare, because who bought Amanda Alston seemed to be doing incredibly well. I think the secret is a little out that they're not that unreliable.

Yeah. I think people have started to realize, like this car's got 73,000 miles. We get them submitted all the time to us with 60, 70, 80,000 miles. Not V-12 V-Vanages and sticks, but Aston's in general. Like, they have a rep for being unreliable?

They're not really. You can actually buy this car and have a pretty exotic experience for like 40 grand in the case of a V8 Vantage. Their enthusiasts have kind of circled around them. Yeah. When I bought my V8 Vantage,

they were like plunging. And to be fair, V-A advantages. V-A advantages are still lower than they were during the peak COVID. Oh, V-V-V-Volante. Heck yeah. Remember those? I do. Wildcars.

V-A V-V-AV-Vangers are still all over the place. Yeah, they're a little all over the place. The early tips are cheap. But a nice later stick is more expensive than it was when I bought one like 10 years ago. Yep. I also wonder if they're benefiting from the fall of Maserati through Stalantis. The people that would have bought a Grand Tourism, Maybe the realm is a little out of reach.

You say, I have 100 to 200 spend on a nice cruiser. Aston is a really compelling choice if you can't get into a Ferrari or Lambo. When are you going to get a repeat? There was one on Facebook marketplace that had like all this dust on it. But he was asking like running and driving condition. And it was like one of those like, oh, it's a leak, but it would only take $500 to fetch. Like if it was $500, you would have done that. So stay away from that.

But when the opportunity presents itself, it's on my list. Are any other Astin's on your list? What about a DB7? would be 7? They're cool for the right price, maybe. I did say I was at, um, curated in Miami. 20 grand. And they had a vanquish that had been manual swap by the factory.

Oh, no, three. Yeah. Pull up one of those. We sold a few of those. And, oh, with the manual swap, it is so cool. And I've heard the manual swaps are just, it's like 50 grand or something like that. It's expensive. It's about the price of the car.

Yeah. To do it. So that's, that's tough. But I think you probably do get most of that value out of it. Like you spend 50 on the car, 50 on the swap. Probably sell it for 100-ish. I don't mean thinking you just about $50 on the car. They're cool.

They look so good. They are one of the... I have die-cast models of this car. I love, love, love the... Still think it's the best-looking Aston in my lifetime. Oh, interesting. Yeah. I said it.

I agree. Either that or the DBX 707 or the Cigna. I think all the Zagato ones are kind of like... Dude, the Zagato long... The Zagato hatchback, I like sometimes think... Should I go after one of those? Yeah, yeah. You should.

Yeah. Like, they were new 900, but they transitioned. acted at $600, and now they sell for $450, and it's like, hmm, but the problem is I don't want to live... Still $450. It's going to be a $220 car in about eight weeks. Right. No. They actually sell $2.20. I think, go pull one of those up. You know what I'm talking about, right? Yeah, yeah. What does it go hatch? It was a V-12. I mean, Daston V-12 Zagato, I mean, I guess Zagato is still around, but like, oh, were they like Mansari where everyone, like, didn't get it? Or are they always been cool? It depended on the car. Zagato had some ugly cars.

They had some terrible stuff. Yes. Like an elongation's time. This is not, though. This was beautiful. That was like a million dollar car. But it was. But Zagato went through this whole period. There were some heinous. Like just type in Zagato into. Well, it had to be like one dude, right?

So like, I don't know. I went through like my golf phase or then like preppy phase. Like you kind of go through stuff. There are some famously bad ones. Yep. Like remember the Alpha SZ and the RZ. Those are probably the most famously bad.

Yeah, that Gayardo one was not good. The RZ, by the way, is beautiful. So it's careful. You think it's beautiful, but generally agreed to be. Beautiful is the wrong term. Beautiful. It's striking.

I reviewed one. It drove great. Weird. I remember you called me while filming this and like, I don't know how to put the top on. Yeah, I called me. I was like the manuals in Italian. I was like the manuals at the time. I need to know how to put the roof on.

And you figured it out for it. That's excellent. Okay. We got to move on to questions. Questions, questions, questions. Two things. First off, before questions, I want to thank the viewer who sent us in this. We got some Carrera GT literature from a viewer.

I'm always interested in Carrera GT, Ford GT, Gt, and Kuntash, things because I have in my house a giant repository of this stuff. I have every piece of Career GT literature in existence and this is a brochure from back in the day

from a viewer named Norman he sent this in and it's the concept car and it kind of goes through some of the stuff and I appreciate that thank you you can send us Career GT literature too you sent it directly to Filippo's house yeah by the way

in that car and driver also review the rotes of the Mazzarati QP5 and there is on the back cover their 04 Z71 What a car. So good. And they're trying to advertise its capabilities.

Some of the ads in that are phenomenal. I leaf through yesterday and it's great. Oh, here's a Ford Free Star minivan comparison. Oh, Nick, Nick, your dream. Oh, Tyrax, yes. Wheels. And look at the cars. Those aren't wheels.

Those are wheels. Those are wheels. Yeah. GMC Envoy, Mazda 3, Mustang Mach 1, and a C-230 on what appear to be stock wheels. Oh, C-130. Well, it's for every enthusiast. How amazing. Okay, questions.

Now, remember, you can ask us questions. You go to Carsandbids.com. You click on the community tab, and then there's a post there that says, here are the questions, and you ask us questions. Now, this week, I used to answer the top-up voted questions,

but then I found that the same people were asking the questions, like immediately when we go live, and so I've decided to kind of skip around more. And this week, I'm going to skip around more on the questions to... By the way, I'm always going to answer the most controversial ones, to be clear.

Yeah, yeah. I love those. He enjoys that great. I like Scaron Felipe. But there were some other good questions buried further down. However, the first question was very good. From Alec Mets, 2011. I know you don't love discussing politics,

but how do you think Elon Musk will affect Tesla as a company moving forward? How would it affect values of Tesla's new and use? Their stock has fallen almost 30% since the salute. I don't want to talk about stock. I'm not going to be one of those Twitter losers. Curious, you guys. I mean, come on. Well, first of all, this stock thing, yes, it's down 24% year-to-date.

But if you look at the last six months, it's actually up like 20%. So all you're doing is saying, yes, from the peak of the peak, it's down a little bit. Over the long run, it's still an amazing hold. And again, I don't care about the stock other than to say like, it's down a little bit right now. But they are doing fun. I own a bunch of it. With regards to the stock, the people are free to speculate. The cars is an interesting question.

It is. I have to tell you, Elon, when he was perceived as a champion of the world, saving the world, making electric cars was sort of a hero of electric car buyers. He became more conservative and people kind of held their noses and just were whatever. Things have changed. And he has now gone pretty far in a direction that I suspect a lot of electric car shoppers are not. I am asked quite often for car advice by friends, family, neighbors, randoms. I am frequently being asked now about EVs that are not Tesla's, specifically.

What EV can I buy that isn't a. Tesla that is still good. I'm getting the question daily. And Tesla sales are notably down in the U.S. Way down. They're also way down in Europe by stunning margins. We saw yesterday they announced 0% on all Model 3s. Which is just refresh.

It's their newest model. Brand new refresh. And 0% is a pretty tough offer in a financing world where the Fed funds rate is like 6. Correct. I saw a news report today that there's a real risk. So Tesla makes a bunch of money by selling emissions waivers basically. They don't produce so many emissions. they sell credits to other manufacturers.

They may not sell enough cars to Zazir to do that. And so they have obligations around that to say, like telling Salinas, for example, we'll sell you as many credits. There's a little bit of a rest that they don't because sales are that far down. It's a bad situation. I do think that Elon Musk's behavior is playing a role.

I also have a feeling that Elon doesn't care that much. He's obviously incredibly wealthy. He's moved on first to Twitter and now to the government. When I think about it, when I hear from him, it seems like he's sort of forgotten about Tesla in a way. And he's this core of your perennial serial entrepreneur who's like trying to do this thing and that thing and that thing. And the most recent thing is working for the Trump administration.

And I'm not sure that he really is working on this that hard. The biggest question becomes, from a corporate governance standpoint, what happens? So do Tesla shareholders and their board, which is very friendly towards Mosque, change their opinion a little bit over time? But it's interesting. So I, and I past life did advertising for Solar City, which then became Tesla. And we were their agency.

We were spending a lot of money. Did you know this? Our biggest client at the time. And like I was like really in the trenches there, like speaking with like their CFO and all these people. When they folded it back into Tesla, we were let go. And they paused all their paid search ads, all their Facebook ads, literally all their advertising. And we had like a metrics to say this is profitable. for every dollar you put into the

every digital market. You're getting $5 back or whatever the numbers. It's always profitable, yeah. And we were told Elon does not believe in advertising. He feels the PR he can generate with a single tweet is far greater than the millions of dollars you could spend. And that was true. For years it was.

But there is a downside to that strategy, which is if you fall out of public opinion, that does no longer work. Both of these are two really, really, really good points. What is the board looking at this in a do we have to start taking an action here perspective? And is the guy at the helm, like, who has been so beneficial for this company for so many years, is he now a liability for the company?

And this, of course, is accompanied with maybe a slowdown in the market in general, so people aren't buying as many cars and a slowdown in the EV market in general, and interest rates going up. It's not a good situation. It is already a difficult environment in which you'll be selling cars. And they're going to start rolling back some of these EV incentives, which frankly benefit Tesla. Yep.

We'll see what happens. But I have a feeling the juggernaut that Tesla was, you can't imagine it continues like this given the situation. Unless something changed, something drastic. The Europers have financing is truly crazy because Model 3 is their only updated model. And the Model S has been identical since the last facelift in 2017. Yeah. The Model X since it came out in 2017.

The Model Y is about to be facelifted. That's their newest product. Ancient product. bread and butter product. If they're struggling to move that. Yep. Not a good situation. I mean, I get that question, too, of what should I get EV-wise if I don't want a Tesla?

What do you tell? And it's still. By Kai on GTSA. What's hard is on paper, the Tesla's still the most compelling and the best deal. So it's like, well, you should really at least go drive a Tesla to have a baseline for a comparison. Then if you don't like it, then go on leasehacker.com and buy the cheapest thing you can. I generally agree with you, except that now that other automakers can tap into the charging

network, which I think was a bizarre strategic decision by Tesla, that eliminated, to me, what was their primary advantage. They already don't have the best self-driving anymore. Now they don't have the charging network advantage. Plus, you have to do with crazy Elon. The other advantages are not significant. They have better range, but most people don't use the full 300 miles. I honestly don't feel that way. I recommend other EVs to people fairly frequently, and there are so many other options. My real response is, I drive a V12 Lamborghini, a V8, a V&A, a I am the wrong person to ask about EVs. We burn fuel up in air.

I tell us to text me that. I also, we're going to get so many Tesla comments. Yeah, but is anything we're saying not true? No, 100 times. I'm only interested, you know, I used to fight with the Tesla people on Twitter, but it became clear to me that they're all stockholders. And it's not interesting to me when someone has a stake. It becomes interesting to me if someone is objective,

and people online refuse to disclose their position. So that's kind of that. Oh, my God. Goodness, I can have all. Yeah, I reviewed the model. Oh yeah, me and you reviewed the monolex together. That's right. Great.

Okay, next question. Next question. From End underscore Kahn, Doug, how did you meet Hoovey? After finally meeting him, what's the quickest thing you noticed about him? How did I meet him? Hoovie and I worked together briefly on Jolopnik for Jolopnik. And at some point, I left Jolapnik to go start a blog for Autotrater called Oversere, auto trader.com.

And I hired Hovie to come and work for me, even though I had never met him before. And he wrote a column like once a week for us, which was great. And at some point, AutoTrader paid for him to come to Atlanta and we filmed some videos together. And I believe that was the first time I met him. And now I mean to have... Great videos. Great videos. And now it's just me and Hoovey talking, zero production.

And honestly, they're pretty good. Not only zero production. It was straight up bad production. Bad production. There was like a curtain. Yeah. It was like, Boston at a production. Yeah.

But like, there was a lot of information. Like, stuff was said in those videos, to be clear. There are still like six unreleased, by the way. They never will be released. They'll be released. long gone. But anyway, and then now every year we see Hoovey at tax time. Related follow-up questions, since you like to steer into the controversy. What is up with Jalapnik and the weird stuff they post about you? They have the 20 automotive YouTubers you don't know about, and there's a picture of you

when you were like seven years old as the hero image. It is bizarre. I don't, I'd be honest, I haven't read Jololajlokin years. They got beef for some reason, even though you were a prominent part of their history. I have absolutely no idea what goes on there. And unfortunately, and I haven't read I would like to go back there and read him again. I just, they're not, it's not what it was. I hear Gawker media is thriving, so you missed up. It's been a long, long, long road since the day's Gawker, which I remember

very fondly. The other question here was, what is the quirkiest thing about Hoovie? The quirkiest thing about Hoovie is that he is not a particularly boisterous person in real life. That's so true. He is surprisingly reserved to the point where in some of those videos, people like Doug is talking so much more than Hoovie. Well, Hoovey actually is a fairly quiet

dude, despite what it appears when he's on camera, because he's almost always on camera just by himself in his videos. And when he's, especially when he's off camera, like when we're having lunch with them, we'll often, eight of us or ten of us will have lunch. And he won't say much at all during the whole lunch. It's kind of interesting. But then he turns it on for the cameras.

He may be not those auto trade ones. Those were early, but. Whereas I am this insane always. That is so true. You're an insaneer. Doug took it down for the camera. No, you. Doug, when I go out to eat with you, like the first few times I had to be like this.

Like, I'm sorry for my wild friend here. Nick, you are a... Nick, the sum of the stuff you say, which I cannot repeat on camera. See, this is where you benefit. We can't say the stuff that you say about people we can't talk about. You know what? I think that's why I like Florida so much is I felt more liberated to be myself.

Like, there was nothing I could say that would offend someone. And they're like, oh, I heard something crazy earlier today. Nick makes jokes that in 1974 would have been thought of as unacceptable to make. Let's just say that. Okay. Next question. You can edit this if you want my... They shouldn't.

They were jokes about OPEC and the oil embargoes for the record. Letted gas, the transition to unleaded fuel. Okay. Let's see. Let's see. Let's see. Okay. Next question for, oh, this is going to be great.

This one's for you. From SF 00005, what are y'all's thoughts on Scotty Kilmer claiming that cars and bids is failing? Oh, is Scottie? I don't know. I'll be honest. I'm sure. So Scotty pots up all the time now that I'm Googling what leaks are what? his video of how to determine what the fluid is,

is like, it might as well be my homepage. I don't watch it. I don't watch any Scotty because it obviously is insane. And you know what? When I say Scottie's insane, he makes a video. Like, don't call me insane and I'm not insane. And I'm sorry, I actually think Scottie's hilarious. He's insane in a hilarious way.

Like you. Yeah. And then my father-in-law loves him. Huge fan. And he's always giving me like, hey, Nick, I got a hot tip for you. You don't actually have to change your oil if you just drain out a cord

and then put another court in every couple of months. Can I ask what? I don't think that's true. What's happening here? He makes it. He's like, I'm quitting YouTube. He makes it I'm quitting YouTube like every six months or so. I love Scotty in a way because I respect the hell out of what he does, which is he posts

multiple videos a day. Like I think it's a grind. We post three, four videos a week. It's a lot of work. He posts like multiple a day, I'm telling you. Like, he is legit out there. And the result of what. that, when you're trying to post multiple days, you run out of topics, right? And so he does

some Tesla just now so we can no longer stay in business. We didn't need to have that conversation about Tesla at all. Yeah, Scott, he's already got us cover. Here's a scam about Toyota. Like, he realized like he can lean into clickbait. He said buy to YouTube like seven times. A hundred times, just in this. Send it for all Americans. So the problem is that because of that, he's always, he's kind of always saying whatever he asked you to kind of get clicks. And in a result, I hate to say it because I think he's great, but he appeals to kind of the lowest common denominator. If you're a Scotty fan, you should consider that.

Like, you should be wondering, am I doing life right? But anyway, he says cars business is failing. He said everything that I've ever done is failing, and every other YouTuber and every car company. According to him, Toyota, Honda, and Tesla are failing just in the last two weeks. And Ford's. And Ford is failing also. So I think he's wrong.

We got some private equity cash. All right. Okay, next question. Oh, here's a question from Jack, do you think Volkswagen would have actually sold Faitans if they were sold as outies? Yeah, no, they did. It was called the AA. And they didn't sell that many of those either. And they didn't.

Next question from Mo Dolly. Doug, you allegedly have a habit of going speeds I don't want to say during your reviews. Have you ever gotten pulled over by the police during your reviews? No. I never have. I get this question a lot. Have I ever damaged a car, been pulled over by the police? Never either. When we were doing that photo shoot you showed earlier of My Mercy, Bentley, and Maserati, all on Montana plates.

We're at a stoplight and a motorcycle cop comes up right next to us. And I'm thinking, oh my God, we are the most conspicuous group of Montana plates. This officer has ever seen in his life and will ever see in his life. And you know what he said? He goes, which one of you is Nick? And then he goes, he's a fan of your channel and a fan of you. And thankfully, by association, I got the goodwill that you've endeared. You know, I've never even had to test that.

I'd be curious to. I have gotten pulled over driving my regular cars in regular settings and gotten tickets since I've been doing YouTube. Usually on that cross-country drive I do every summer, but although it's been years even since I've been pulled over there. So, but no, never during a review. I've never had any sort of, occasionally, police actually, occasionally will come up to me when I'm filming, like in a church parking lot. But usually they just want to say, hey, see the car, make sure nothing's wrong, you know. They never tell me to move or jerks. they're always nice and I'm always respectful of them.

Okay, final question from Julian Evans. Ooh. Having just seen the value progress beast, what is the ugliest supercar in your view? Did you see the value progress beast? That was the Diablo that we talked about last week. Yeah, yeah, horrible. Okay, ugliest supercar without any question, doubt, or discussion. Hmm.

Oh, wow, he goes back to Scotty. Lamborghini Venino. Really? No. No. There's a cyan for sale right now, by the way. Speaking of ugly Lambos. Oh, a Cian.

Cian. Okay, I was wondering. The Lamborghini Vino, wait, pull out. No, I think that's cool. What, Nick, you're crazy. Nick, are, are you joking? It's like, I don't think I would totally. It's like an inventor with the ugliest body kit that anybody has ever seen in their entire line.

I mean, that's what it is, but I think it's cool. Click on the- I would definitely rock that. Nick, are you? I can think of far away. It's just an eventor with bolt-ons that are ugly and that extend the length of the vehicle by 20 years. This is the. ugliest car I've ever seen in my life.

Ever. No. Oh, fine. Give me it then. I'm going to need a second. Ugliest supercar in your view. Hmm. I'm not part of this world.

Fine, give us an ugly car. I don't... Give us an ugly car while he thinks. I can't nothing. This is the ugliest car. You agree with me, right? It is certainly striking more than it is beautiful.

Keep scrolling down. When I remember when they first released it, some of the original wheel designs and stuff were so... Sorry, did the wheels? The design get better? I think a lot of these are raps or foe or renderings. God, that is the ugliest car.

Click on that. You're telling me that is an attractive car. That's not a good angle. That is, there's no good angle. That's a bad angle. Nick, you've got to tell me, what is the ugliest super? That is a great question. I'm sure it'll look at Al, maybe?

No, it's not bad looking. I know, we just haven't said Asperk Al in a while. We haven't. We haven't. We got off that. How do you think they're doing? Okay, I didn't think they sold a second unit yet? To be fair, it's not a beautiful automobile.

Okay, wait, I have one for you that I think might be it, because I just Googled the ugly supercar in one, one came up that I was reminded of. Look up the Mitsuoka Orochi. Oh, sure. Yeah. You know this car? No.

Not good. Earlier, I'm surprised you didn't go for the Puma, because you mentioned the more earlier. Okay, here's another one. Look up McLaren Sena. What did the Puma supercar called? Uabian Puma. You're not going to look up the Sena and humor me? No.

I was going to suggest it's not technically a super car. It's a super truck. the Spiker Pecking to Paris. Oh, yeah, Spiker Peking to Paris. That is one of the ugliest vehicles ever. That is pretty bad. Spiker Peking to Paris or pecking, it's going to peck all the way of Paris. I think this looks great.

Look at that thing. No. I'm so into this. This came from the era when the sports car companies were just trying to make bigger versions of their sports cars. I love this so much. They went in a Photoshop and they just elongated like Mansari. Like Man, sorry. I love it too, to be clear.

If whoever has this, I buy this instead of the 8, Cigna. Yeah, 75 grand. I want to leave you guys today with a part. Oh, wait, Bertoen Manteed. Bertone M-T-M-T-T-I-D-E. B-E-E-N-T-I-D-E. B-E-E-R-T-O-N-T-I-E. One that will piss you in Kenon.

Berto-M-M-T-E. But I stand on this, and I will regret this one day when Kenan get one. The 6-12 Skag, Hane. It's known to be Hain, that. It's kind of a drawback of it. I want to leave you guys with a parting thought today. Please do. Which is that if Felipeo were to get money,

he would buy a Volkswagen XL1 and a Polestar 1 He'd have, you know how we'd get like We'd get like a McLaren F1 And a F50 That's such a good point He would have an XL 1 I do want the XL 1

And a Polestar 1 No I don't want the Polestar 1 But I want the XL 1 Yeah but you'd have a daily And you'd be like you know You know Doug a Polestar 1's only $36,000 They're annoyingly expensive

No dude They're not Someone sent They're not My point is This is the person Who Felipe is Thank you for that parting thought

Do you have any final thoughts for us to end the pod? No, I don't. You think the Venino looks good? You think the Venino looks good? I don't think it looks bad. I would say on like a scale of one to ten. It's just an event to roll with the ugliest body kit ever designed. It looks like the value progress.

Okay, the CLK GTR is just a body kit on a CLK. We got to send this now. No, no, but it isn't. It's a wide body, you know? Yeah, same. It's a reventon. Reventon. The Reventon.

The Reventon. It is. It's not particularly attractive. No, it's gorgeous. This is much more beautiful. My name is, though. The same car. All right. Nick, it has been an absolute pleasure

having you here in the office. It has been? Thanks for coming all the way down here in your Ford Focus because all your other cars are broken. It's technically runs. Just leaky. Even the Ford Focus is broken.

Yes. No, I mean the penalty. Yeah, I understood. Goodbye, everybody. Thank you so much for watching. Our greatest episode. yet. Goodbye.