Latest / That Car Show / Planes, Trains and a 2026 Genesis GV70

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Planes, Trains and a 2026 Genesis GV70 · That Car Show

• 0:00
  This week it's Thanksgiving, and it's a That Car Show holiday
• 0:05
  greatest hits show. Since you're probably sitting
• 0:09
  middle seat on a Southwest flight as you listen to this,
• 0:12
  say hello to Tori. Or maybe halfway across Nebraska
• 0:16
  in a Genesis GV 70, maybe with a whiny dog and a cranky family in
• 0:20
  tow. We figure you could use three
• 0:22
  hours of enthusiast content. First up, our very first of that
• 0:27
  car show episode, Wee Wee, which if our analytics are to be
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  believed, you probably haven't heard.
• 0:33
  Jeff Bezos's Key Party, on the other hand, is another early
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  show that's proven to be a popular favorite.
• 0:39
  Just make sure you grab the keys with the Porsche Fog.
• 0:41
  And we end on my conversation with my pal Sasha Sulepenov,
• 0:46
  founder of Neelu 27A Hypercar, which is very much having a
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  moment. He's on Jay Leno's Garage this
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  week, but we had him first. It's that car show.
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  And have a fun and safe Thanksgiving holiday, everyone.
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  It's a Motel 8 or Motel. Six, it's Motel 6.
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  Motel 6, OK, Yeah, it's more of a six than an 8.
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  Yeah. On this week's episode, Lindsay
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  goes to France. Porsches are blowing up.
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  We make green cars great again. And Stalantis just keeps killing
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  it. Don't forget the Pate and always
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  be driving. It's that car show.
• 2:57
  It's that car show. Hello.
• 3:01
  Bonjour. Someone made a last minute trip
• 3:07
  to the continent. Someone.
• 3:10
  Did, yes. Go to Retromobile.
• 3:13
  There and back. Again, this is one of those
• 3:15
  things that just sort of existed in, you know, my my, my world of
• 3:19
  someday and and, you know, like car week and Amelia Island.
• 3:23
  And but but this is 1. I have yet to check off and yet
• 3:25
  you were just there. I was, yes, it came together
• 3:29
  exceptionally last minute and it is, I knew it was a big event,
• 3:34
  but really the extent of my knowledge was Instagram, you
• 3:39
  know, seeing friends post when they had been in years past and
• 3:42
  same thing I went, you know, kind of the FOMO was getting
• 3:45
  more and more every year when I would see it.
• 3:46
  Oh, that's right. I really want to go.
• 3:48
  So it is a showcase for the classic car sector is the way
• 3:52
  they talk about it, bringing together more than 2000 cars and
• 3:57
  motorbikes from a huge range. You know, there were modern,
• 4:02
  there was a 992GT3, we saw GT3RS and then Citron from World War
• 4:09
  Two. There was a huge display of
• 4:10
  those. And then kind of everything in
• 4:12
  between, motorbikes, bicycles, cars, you know, miniatures,
• 4:19
  collectors, items. There were some booths that had
• 4:23
  books like, you know, big displays of car books,
• 4:28
  memorabilia. I mean, it's the scale.
• 4:31
  Comparable. No, I mean, the scale was was
• 4:35
  stunning. I it's like you remember how big
• 4:38
  the LA Auto Show, which is several halls in the Convention
• 4:41
  Center. That's how retro mobile is.
• 4:45
  And they had three halls and it's just sort of there is so
• 4:51
  much, it's massive and there's something for everybody, huge
• 4:55
  variety and just there isn't, there isn't anything like it
• 5:00
  here, which is part of the reason they announced while I
• 5:03
  was there that they are bringing it to New York in November.
• 5:06
  Oh, really? OK, interesting.
• 5:07
  Interesting. So it was really fun to be there
• 5:10
  with that announcement because they're all really excited to
• 5:12
  bring it here. So I have so many questions.
• 5:15
  So it's an exhibition. There's an auction component,
• 5:19
  yes. There's a Concorde like a judge
• 5:21
  component, No. Like what?
• 5:23
  Like they did. Award everything to everyone,
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  yeah. It really was, I mean, that was,
• 5:29
  you know, even after just the first a few minutes there, I
• 5:32
  went, OK, it's, it's a combination of all the events
• 5:36
  that we have here that are standalone events because it
• 5:38
  reminded me, I was like, OK, there's, there's a little bit
• 5:41
  of, you know, there, there are elements of Car Week.
• 5:45
  It's a very different venue, but the classic car element is
• 5:48
  similar to car week and then a little bit of SEMA, a little bit
• 5:53
  of Porsche Lit Week because that's so focused on, you know,
• 5:57
  the books and collector items and the, you know, Matchbox cars
• 6:01
  and that kind of thing. So there's that element.
• 6:04
  And then in, you know, a couple of the different halls they had,
• 6:09
  they had the live auction that was going on on site, one of the
• 6:12
  auction houses in Europe, art, curial motor cars.
• 6:16
  They were the on site auction company.
• 6:17
  And then in that same hall, they also had space for enthusiast
• 6:23
  clubs. And of course, I ran across the
• 6:25
  American muscle car French chapter without even trying, I
• 6:31
  found them. Yes, they just threw me in.
• 6:34
  And then the club that was across the aisle from them, a
• 6:38
  lot of the members were sitting there.
• 6:39
  I mean, this was this was the charm of retro mobile is they're
• 6:43
  sitting there at a table having Pate just, you know, just
• 6:48
  enjoying themselves. I mean, it's, it's, it has
• 6:52
  elements of a lot of the different events here, but with
• 6:54
  an incredible European flyer, as you might expect.
• 6:56
  And, you know, there were one of the booths had there was a there
• 7:02
  were some musicians, live musicians.
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  And then they're, at one point there were people in, you know,
• 7:08
  retro, you know, turn of the century almost clothing on old
• 7:12
  bicycles riding through the shelf.
• 7:15
  Pickpockets everywhere. No kidding.
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  Sounds amazing. It was.
• 7:21
  It's all indoors. It's all part of one complex.
• 7:23
  It's not like you're going off site for anything, right?
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  It's no, it was just like if you've been to a Convention
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  Center and you move between the halls, it was like that was, you
• 7:32
  know, a standard experience. But yeah, I mean, it just was
• 7:36
  like, you have to see it to believe it in a lot of ways.
• 7:39
  The the outskirts of Paris or in the center of Paris?
• 7:42
  Where? Where is it held?
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  It's at the Paris Expo Convention Center, which is I
• 7:48
  was in, I was in a neighborhood in Paris and it was about 25
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  minutes by metro. So it's on the edge of the city,
• 7:54
  but very easy to get to. It was, I was there for such a
• 7:58
  short time that it was nice to stay in Paris because then for
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  dinners and the one day that I took to sort of soak up Paris,
• 8:04
  it was easy to see, you know, to get to the different places that
• 8:08
  I wanted to check off. But it was really easy to get to
• 8:11
  the event. So going into this like
• 8:15
  completely ignorant to the history of this thing, how long
• 8:18
  has this been going on? Is this like the future of the
• 8:20
  car show? You mentioned it's going to New
• 8:21
  York like we all know, like the, you know, the the decline of the
• 8:25
  New York auto show, right? I mean, is this going to take
• 8:28
  its place for people like us? Like what?
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  No, I mean, I think it's going to compliment it because it's so
• 8:33
  different. It's not, it's not a modern auto
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  show in that sense. So and I was able to meet the
• 8:41
  gentleman who is heading the New York event and I got to chat,
• 8:47
  chat with him for a bit. And it was his enthusiasm was,
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  you know, contagious. And they're just so excited.
• 8:54
  And he said part of the reason they're so excited is because we
• 8:56
  don't have anything exactly like that here, even with all the
• 8:59
  events we have. Yeah, Denver was not on their
• 9:02
  short list of city. It wasn't, but it was, it was, I
• 9:06
  mean, I, it was so nice to talk to him because obviously they're
• 9:09
  in the middle of the event. We all know how busy that is,
• 9:12
  especially if you are on the team putting on the event, you
• 9:15
  don't have a lot of breathing room.
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  But he took the time to chat with me and talked about why
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  they landed on New York. And that's because they wanted
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  something they want to draw from Europe and the US OK, makes
• 9:27
  sense. So they thought that was
• 9:28
  striking a balance. It's not too, it's not extremely
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  far from one or the other. And hopefully they can draw from
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  both. And, you know, they didn't want
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  to compete with like, obviously you're not going to do it in
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  August because you have car week, that kind of thing where
• 9:41
  they looked at when are the big events here that they don't want
• 9:44
  to compete with? They want to have their own
• 9:46
  space so that people would actually come and enjoy it.
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  Well, and I think New York is underrepresented.
• 9:51
  I guess what I was getting at, I mean, Denver was a joke, right?
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  But you know right? Would be like the first.
• 9:58
  Shoot your shot. Right.
• 10:01
  But I mean, New York does make sense, you know, And do you know
• 10:03
  how long this has been going on? Because I, I feel like I've
• 10:05
  heard of, I've heard of it for a while, but increasingly more in
• 10:09
  recent years. Like I've heard this is the
• 10:11
  place there's like a flea market component like if you need like
• 10:14
  a. Yes, switch.
• 10:15
  For your like oska, Oska, whatever you know, that's where
• 10:19
  you find. It esoteric part, yeah.
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  And that's I guess that like we're sort of illustrating the
• 10:25
  point without without planning it is how many different
• 10:28
  elements are represented. It makes for such a unique event
• 10:32
  and unlike anything we have here because there are there are
• 10:36
  parts brokers and there are classic car brokers.
• 10:39
  And then you have, you know, you have it's like every element of
• 10:43
  the car hobby in one giant event.
• 10:47
  Yeah. So.
• 10:48
  So it's been. This was the 49th year of the
• 10:51
  event in Paris. OK, OK.
• 10:53
  Wow. Yeah, it's.
• 10:56
  And who's it's? Who's behind it?
• 10:57
  Is it like it's? Just it's the, it's a group and
• 11:01
  I'm I'm going to pronounce it the anglicized way, obviously,
• 11:05
  but it's Comexposium. So my friend Ramall is the
• 11:10
  director of the event and I've gotten to know him at Car Week
• 11:15
  and I definitely didn't pronounce that correctly, but
• 11:18
  hopefully he'll forgive me. So then I'm so Ramall runs Retro
• 11:25
  Mobile Paris and then Joao runs. He will be running Retromobile
• 11:30
  New York. Amazing.
• 11:31
  Do you know where in New York it'll be?
• 11:33
  The Javits. Center.
• 11:35
  Oh, no. Interesting.
• 11:36
  OK, yeah. Pretty cool.
• 11:37
  Yeah, Huh. Yeah.
• 11:40
  So they. Teamsters yet?
• 11:44
  Don't know about that, Yeah. But you know, one of the things
• 11:48
  I had a chance to talk to Ramon quickly and he was saying the,
• 11:53
  you know, the prep had gone very smoothly.
• 11:55
  And I think attendance was up 24% maybe from the year before.
• 12:01
  Like he's he has run the event for the last three years and
• 12:05
  before that was part of the organization and, you know,
• 12:08
  learning the ropes. And just he was he was really
• 12:12
  excited because a lot of young people came this year too.
• 12:15
  And so it's nice to see that because the show can continue on
• 12:20
  and obviously it's drawing in the next generation of
• 12:22
  enthusiasts. And I know that's something that
• 12:24
  we all think about. And so it's good to see.
• 12:28
  Sounds amazing in in context a little bit.
• 12:30
  Obviously we have a a researcher for the show and the researcher
• 12:34
  tells me that there were over 100,000 visitors to the show
• 12:37
  this year. Did it feel like 100,000?
• 12:40
  It definitely did. And I was, I was doing a little
• 12:44
  support research to back up our very hard working researcher.
• 12:48
  And the figures that I saw said more than 146,000 people.
• 12:53
  And it's a. So it started on the 5th.
• 12:55
  They had a preview on the 4th for media in the evening and
• 13:00
  then it was the 5th through the 9th.
• 13:01
  So it's over the course of the entire event.
• 13:04
  Yeah. And.
• 13:06
  Is this a pricey ticket? Obviously you got to get.
• 13:10
  To can be if you buy, you know, if you buy the pass for the full
• 13:14
  event, but you can buy a one day pass and you know you can, you
• 13:19
  can do it in a way that makes sense for you.
• 13:21
  And I should correct myself. It was up 12% from 2024.
• 13:27
  That's fantastic. That's.
• 13:29
  Did you run into anyone, any friends?
• 13:31
  Yeah, I figured you would. Yeah.
• 13:33
  So so my friend Laura joined me to go.
• 13:37
  You know, her Instagram is that Porsche girl, so she was able to
• 13:40
  join me and go with me. And then we ran into Steve
• 13:44
  Serio, who's based in Boston. You know, he's the real bond
• 13:47
  group on Instagram. He's the broker that works with
• 13:50
  Cam Ingram and Peter Brotman. So we ran into Steve and Peter
• 13:54
  on the floor of the show like not long after we got there and
• 13:56
  had a chance to catch up with them.
• 13:58
  And that was super fun. And then once I really realized
• 14:03
  the scale of the show, it's remarkable that we ran into
• 14:06
  them. Yeah, yeah, it always happens
• 14:09
  there, right? Well, of course you know
• 14:10
  everyone too. Which it was so perfect one, we
• 14:12
  had been in touch ahead of time. Both of us are, you know, saying
• 14:16
  we want to get together because we knew we were all going to be
• 14:18
  there and then we just happened to see him right away.
• 14:20
  So it was perfect and got to chat with him.
• 14:22
  And Peter has that gorgeous lime green mirror that was all over
• 14:27
  Instagram, I think last year. And we had we ran into them
• 14:31
  right by there was another green mirror that was gorgeous, but it
• 14:35
  was more of a it was sort of like a teal British racing green
• 14:39
  hybrid. But they're even more remarkable
• 14:42
  was that the interior was full green like steering wheel seats,
• 14:48
  carpet every. So I don't want to change the
• 14:53
  subject too much, but I've become obsessed with green cars
• 14:55
  all of a sudden, like it's shopping for a Lexus, you know,
• 14:59
  gold package and stuff. But I just, I, I really have
• 15:01
  fallen in love with that like a Brewster green or something.
• 15:04
  And you know, I, so I was on the GT3 Configurator and I thought,
• 15:07
  how cool would that be to do like a green interior, like with
• 15:10
  a green like such a, like a, a nod to like the 70s or whatever.
• 15:14
  But it would be impossibly expensive, you know, but if
• 15:17
  you're going to was it was it there was an orange Aston Martin
• 15:20
  on auction there as well. Did you see that?
• 15:22
  That was like everything was at work that.
• 15:24
  One in person and so that's what.
• 15:26
  We're going to go go all out. That's what I was saying.
• 15:29
  You know, initially you kind of go that's a lot of orange and
• 15:32
  that one actually had colour matched the wheel.
• 15:35
  The centre of the wheels was orange.
• 15:36
  Too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 15:38
  But you know, it would be such a conversation piece at a minimum.
• 15:42
  You take that anywhere. It was striking.
• 15:44
  It was a conversation piece. And that one was all orange.
• 15:49
  And it's like, you know, you got to appreciate the commitment to
• 15:51
  the color because like you said, it was orange steering wheel,
• 15:54
  orange headliner, orange upholstery, orange carpet,
• 15:57
  orange wheel, you know, center of the wheel of blue color.
• 15:59
  Obviously the exterior color was orange.
• 16:02
  But what struck us too very unexpectedly was so we went to
• 16:06
  Bonhams first because the big auction houses do auctions in
• 16:10
  Paris the week of retro mobile because everybody's already
• 16:12
  there and the bottoms auction was happening the day I got in.
• 16:17
  So we went there and they had a Ferrari 400.
• 16:21
  That was, I mean, if you want a green car, Ryan, this is the
• 16:24
  green car for you. I.
• 16:26
  Have a thing for the 400. I really do OK, Very much of an
• 16:30
  era. It was and this one in
• 16:32
  particular was just so charming that I kept coming back to it
• 16:36
  because so they had the way bottoms was set up.
• 16:38
  It was at the Grand Palais in Paris.
• 16:40
  The auction was inside and they had a display outside with five
• 16:45
  not, not hero cars, but featured incredibly, you know, rare
• 16:51
  historic cars and then another display outside just below
• 16:55
  those. And then others were over in
• 16:56
  another like a storage area. And so you take a shuttle to
• 17:00
  that, and this Ferrari 400 was in the group that you had to
• 17:04
  take the shuttle to. But I kept going back to it
• 17:06
  because so green exterior, completely green interior again,
• 17:11
  you know, green steering wheel, green upholstery, green carpet,
• 17:14
  everything, green carpet in the trunk, and then green window
• 17:19
  tint, which I've never seen before in my life.
• 17:21
  That's that's that's. Like that's that taken it to
• 17:24
  another level right you. Know it's kind of like the watch
• 17:26
  world though, like the funky stuff in the long, you know,
• 17:29
  term is the stuff that that really keeps its value.
• 17:32
  And yeah, I wouldn't even known about that orange car.
• 17:34
  But uh, our buddy Maurice Merrick at horsepower heritage
• 17:37
  had Eric mine off. I think his name is Eric mine
• 17:39
  off from bottoms who talked about some of his favorites and
• 17:43
  that orange car was one. But I think there's something to
• 17:45
  that. I I was like those like those OG
• 17:48
  the AM GS, you know, the like the hammers and all that, where
• 17:50
  everything was like red right down to like right, the grill
• 17:53
  and the star. You know, I think that's.
• 17:54
  Like if we said red, if we said this color.
• 17:57
  You know. You can count on well and what
• 17:59
  was certain. Customer, yeah.
• 18:01
  What was so funny? Well, and I have to say, Richard
• 18:05
  Stafford was one of the auctioneers at Bottoms who
• 18:07
  worked that particular auction, you know, and they trade off.
• 18:10
  They have a few different but he happened to be at the gavel when
• 18:14
  the when the 400 came up that's. The any the clip you posted.
• 18:17
  Yeah, yes, he had. I mean, probably my favorite
• 18:20
  quip of the whole trip. Make green great again.
• 18:24
  So funny. That's a hat for me, yeah.
• 18:27
  It was, it was so funny. But so that was the first green
• 18:31
  car. Then we got to the event the
• 18:33
  next morning and there's this Mira that has almost the same
• 18:37
  interior, like the leather looked the same, you know, full
• 18:41
  green again. Yeah.
• 18:42
  Then when we finally made it over to the other halls, there's
• 18:46
  another, there's a vintage Porsche Turbo with a full green
• 18:49
  interior. So I think there was some
• 18:51
  stealth collector who's just been like, yeah, dripping, you
• 18:54
  know, drips and drabs. His collection is being released
• 18:57
  and or there was something going on in Europe in the 80s with the
• 19:01
  green interior where they're like, you know what, this is the
• 19:04
  business. So yeah, yeah.
• 19:06
  But they're definitely felt like there was an unintentional theme
• 19:09
  for sure. Well, that's where they.
• 19:11
  See that kind of stuff? Yeah.
• 19:13
  And then there was a Skoda Felicia, which of course I just
• 19:16
  could. I don't even know what that.
• 19:17
  Is Felicia? I gotta look that up.
• 19:20
  Like a model? They said when it rolled off the
• 19:21
  option. Block, but it was a really
• 19:24
  green. Yeah.
• 19:27
  Yeah, there was so Green was a theme through the through the
• 19:30
  trip, which was fun, but I'm. Looking this up.
• 19:34
  I'm looking at pictures of this 400.
• 19:36
  Yeah. What do you think it's?
• 19:39
  Definitely. Let's go to Felicia's like a
• 19:42
  little kind of box. Oh, yeah.
• 19:44
  But it was cute. It was like brilliant green
• 19:47
  because then, you know, it's like when it's like anything,
• 19:49
  when you see something, then we're like, there's green
• 19:51
  everywhere. But you know, these three
• 19:53
  examples with the green interiors really stood out.
• 19:56
  Like really special but. Again, we've talked with this
• 20:00
  before. That's not like a second or
• 20:01
  third car. That's your 16th or 17th or.
• 20:05
  Right 4. 101st or whatever. And it's same same with the
• 20:09
  orange car where you're like, you buy that just because you're
• 20:12
  like, it's so bad. It's good.
• 20:14
  And I want to have it when I feel like going to cars and
• 20:16
  coffee and just sort of causing a scene and looking absurd and
• 20:19
  just like making everybody smile.
• 20:23
  Yeah, this is so, yeah. What would you call it?
• 20:25
  Oh yeah, there's the green tent. I'm looking at the bottoms car
• 20:27
  now. The 400, you know, that's,
• 20:30
  that's pretty great. You gotta play some Palm Springs
• 20:34
  or something, right? That's the car right there.
• 20:37
  That's awesome. Were they all automatic or did
• 20:39
  they do a stick one? It was a manual.
• 20:42
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it didn't have a gated
• 20:44
  shifter. Yeah, it had that bag shifter,
• 20:47
  right, which just doesn't quite have the same, you know, cachet
• 20:50
  or whatever as. There's no clunk click, is
• 20:52
  there? But but I think the argument has
• 20:54
  been made that, you know, that maybe the automatic is where
• 20:57
  it's at. It's kind of like a 928, like a
• 20:59
  Porsche, right? Like where maybe the automatic
• 21:01
  suits it, you know, and in some strange way, right?
• 21:04
  It's it's a GT car, right? I mean it's.
• 21:07
  Right, because it's got, you know, it has a back seat.
• 21:09
  So, you know, that's, that's your vintage family Ferrari.
• 21:13
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you imagine though, like
• 21:15
  just we've talked about this again before, but like loading
• 21:17
  up like I guess in this case your family and heading to, you
• 21:20
  know, I don't know the, you know, the South of France or
• 21:23
  whatever. I mean it just what a.
• 21:25
  In your green on green on green on green on green Ferrari.
• 21:29
  Yeah, no speed cameras. Everyone in the cars got a
• 21:33
  cigarette, including the kids. It's just like that was living,
• 21:37
  right? Right.
• 21:39
  Yeah, I don't know, guys. I'm, I'm approaching 50 here.
• 21:41
  I got to start doing a little more living.
• 21:43
  Maybe it starts with a green 400I Ferrari, right?
• 21:47
  No more GT Silver Porsches for. So which color if you guys were
• 21:51
  going to pick a car and commit to it or pick a color and commit
• 21:56
  to it the way that these commendable collectors did?
• 22:00
  Yeah. Which color would you pick?
• 22:03
  You know what's the car? Because.
• 22:05
  You get to choose, doesn't matter.
• 22:07
  You get to choose. And I don't think that's as
• 22:09
  important. Yeah.
• 22:10
  It's like, what color would you want to be surrounded by?
• 22:14
  Like every element of the car? Like the name was a Greg Blue
• 22:18
  came up right before we start recording and he's obviously his
• 22:21
  name is Blue. It's Blue cars, right?
• 22:24
  He's kind of maritime. Blue is kind of his his thing.
• 22:27
  Yeah. So you're going to commit the
• 22:28
  choice. Yeah, It is.
• 22:30
  It is. And so.
• 22:31
  So no silvers, no blacks. No.
• 22:33
  No, it has to be a color. Like if we want to get really
• 22:36
  crazy, we could say primary or secondary, but.
• 22:38
  Yeah, yeah. If that makes it easier my idea.
• 22:41
  Is have the water because I was going to go for a silver
• 22:44
  Mercedes, like a classic silver Mercedes Arrows car well.
• 22:47
  That suits the the car, but what about like a tobacco brown?
• 22:51
  I just thought those look great on old Mercedes cars.
• 22:54
  And brown interior too. Brown interior like full.
• 22:57
  Brown. Yeah, yeah, so much Brown.
• 23:01
  It's a lot of brown. How hard?
• 23:03
  How hard is it going to be to keep it clean?
• 23:05
  That's where I start. Brown maybe the easiest thing to
• 23:08
  keep clean. Yeah, black.
• 23:11
  No, no, I was in a real mirror blau kick.
• 23:15
  So you know, it's that deep non metallic almost, you know, very
• 23:19
  dark, you know blue on Porsche and I think Jeff Zwart has sort
• 23:23
  of Co opted that as his his color, but that is a great
• 23:26
  color. Our buddy Tom Horan from the
• 23:28
  grand had a GT3 touring 9 and 1.2 that it's I fell in love
• 23:32
  with. If I had the money I would have
• 23:33
  bought from him. It was just so.
• 23:36
  Well, you know, it's OK if that's your color.
• 23:38
  I mean, you can, you can emulate the life that's working speed
• 23:41
  approach. Yeah, yeah.
• 23:43
  That's right, there are a lot of things I could emulate right
• 23:46
  from him, but Brewster Green is sort of from Easter passing
• 23:49
  Mirabel lately. The Porsche, could you?
• 23:53
  Could you commit to that if it's Brewster green for?
• 23:55
  Everything I think I could and I would do painted wheels, right,
• 23:59
  Like, you know, you can't often do.
• 24:02
  You'd have to do special wishes on a Porsche to go like a green
• 24:04
  interior. Especially a.
• 24:05
  GT car or something. But yeah, I think I could do
• 24:08
  Brewster green. I've always had a thing for for
• 24:10
  green cars. And you guys, I alluded to Lexus
• 24:12
  before, but you, you're children of the 80s and 90s, right?
• 24:15
  Yeah, well, they had that black jade colour that was black, and
• 24:18
  then in the sunlight it was the dark, dark, dark green.
• 24:20
  Yeah. And.
• 24:21
  BMW had that. Oxford Green.
• 24:25
  Was that what it? Well, it was a metallic one too.
• 24:28
  They had like a darker metallic. It wasn't called, wasn't as dark
• 24:31
  as black jade, but it was like a dark metallic green and like a
• 24:36
  ton of cars were that color. There, there were, but there are
• 24:40
  hardly any anymore. And I think it needs to come
• 24:42
  back. But I, I, I, I, and I'll tell
• 24:45
  you about this later, but I was invited with some of my pals to
• 24:48
  check out blue chip here in the Denver area.
• 24:52
  And they had some amazing cars. But one of my absolute favorite
• 24:54
  cars was they had this beautiful E39-M5 and what I think was
• 24:57
  Oxford green or something like that.
• 24:59
  And I, I think very few of those were made, you know, a lot of
• 25:01
  those cars were, were black, blue, whatever, you know.
• 25:04
  Yeah, that wasn't an M color as much.
• 25:06
  It was more the regular 5 Series.
• 25:09
  Such a good car. It's just something about those
• 25:13
  cars. Those are just the just peak BMW
• 25:15
  my mind but. Yeah, well, because then that
• 25:19
  was immediately followed by the Bangle era, which made everybody
• 25:21
  love the preceding ones so much more.
• 25:24
  Yeah, I. Stand and that was the era that
• 25:28
  BMW did those BMW films like the BMW advertising was on point.
• 25:32
  The design was on point the Drive the Driver series because
• 25:35
  it was Clive Owen was the driver do.
• 25:38
  You guys remember that? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 25:40
  And the caboose was on point, too.
• 25:41
  Those were those are, those are something those those guys.
• 25:45
  What about you? So I, I'm going to commit to
• 25:46
  Brewster Green or some, some, you know, I'll tweak it just a
• 25:49
  little bit to make it my own. Call it Barky Green, but what?
• 25:53
  What? There you go.
• 25:54
  Which? Okay, So what popped into my
• 25:57
  head was I don't know if you guys saw.
• 26:00
  So Beau Bachman has that pink Chroma flare GT3RS and they just
• 26:06
  posted a picture of when it was picked up and I hadn't seen the
• 26:08
  interior before. Yeah.
• 26:11
  And you know, it's this magenta sort of Unicorn, really unique
• 26:15
  exterior. And then in the interior he did
• 26:18
  purple leather with purple and teal Plaid inserts, which now
• 26:23
  that breaks my rule obviously, but.
• 26:25
  Let your freak flag fly. Right, like I mean, you can
• 26:28
  always count on bow for amazing colors and like very bright and
• 26:33
  cheerful. I mean, he has the the bow Berry
• 26:36
  Ford GT that's that metallic pink or metallic magenta.
• 26:40
  Just gorgeous. I mean, I think I would have to
• 26:44
  go with something pinkish but. Yeah, no, that's.
• 26:51
  I mean then it has to be pink interior too if I'm following my
• 26:57
  own criteria. So I could do, I would do a
• 27:02
  whatever car it was, I would probably go with the magenta
• 27:06
  chroma flare exterior or the bow Berry metallic magenta so that
• 27:11
  it was like a dark, like a Raspberry interior.
• 27:14
  That's that's. Color they know you're coming
• 27:17
  right you're rolling up that's yeah Dan did we get a commitment
• 27:21
  for we were back and forth on the.
• 27:23
  Silver, yeah. Then the yellows that are found
• 27:28
  like the yellow bird and in fact the logo from my company.
• 27:33
  I took a sample of the yellow bird and used that yellow for
• 27:37
  the company logo. So that's.
• 27:40
  Yeah, that's a great color. You know, Don, the fellow who
• 27:44
  owns Porsche Colorado Springs, he's a speed yellow man, and so
• 27:48
  he has everything in speed yellow.
• 27:49
  I'm more of a signal yellow guy myself, but I like, you know, I
• 27:53
  appreciate that and you know, he's made it his own and I I
• 27:56
  could see you and doing it rocking a yellow.
• 27:58
  The biggest challenge is though I'd probably get double the
• 28:00
  amount of speeding tickets that service you would get standing
• 28:03
  out like. I don't know.
• 28:04
  I mean, have you seen that GT color?
• 28:08
  It is pretty notable, but I love the yellow idea because it's so
• 28:12
  cheerful and I think it would lift your mood, you know, even
• 28:16
  if you were having a bad day and it would brighten everybody
• 28:18
  else's days around you. So that's, I think that's and I
• 28:21
  don't think you'd get tired of it the way you might some other
• 28:24
  colors I think it has. More staying power.
• 28:27
  Yellow though, guys is a very form specific color.
• 28:31
  And this came up our buddy Dan Mcinnis, who has a Python green
• 28:36
  spider, among other things, but he said he's not a fan of yellow
• 28:41
  cars. And I said, you know, it's it's
• 28:44
  it's kind of car dependent. I really like signal yellow
• 28:47
  because the car, the color just looks so different on different,
• 28:50
  especially that speedy yellow. I had a a friend rest in peace,
• 28:54
  not him, the car a beautiful 993C4S with the aero kit back in
• 28:59
  the day. And I I don't think I'd ever
• 29:01
  seen a, a cooler car up to that point, right?
• 29:05
  But like on a 991 or 992, I don't think speedy yellow looks
• 29:08
  nearly as good, right? There's just too much square
• 29:12
  not. Enough breaking at.
• 29:14
  Acreage, yeah, you know, you got to have that, that that I don't
• 29:18
  know, it's that's a color that on bigger cars just doesn't work
• 29:21
  nearly as well. Do you remember that Miata, the
• 29:23
  NA Miata, the sunburst or whatever you could get, it was
• 29:25
  very similar to the speedy yellow or signal yellow, right.
• 29:29
  And that's just, I said that was a cool looking thing, you know?
• 29:31
  I think maybe the difference is because every now and then I
• 29:34
  will see an F, you know, 250 or 350, quad cab, long bed raised
• 29:39
  up. There's a handful of those.
• 29:42
  And the official color from the factory was called screaming
• 29:45
  yellow, Screaming yellow. And it is, it's sort of
• 29:49
  remarkable in its grandiosity. And I think there's one in
• 29:53
  Seattle. There was one down here for a
• 29:55
  bit. And every now and then I see it.
• 29:57
  And so I wonder if it's either it either has to be quite small
• 30:00
  or enormous. Yeah.
• 30:02
  Yeah, because it. Different, like a school bus.
• 30:05
  Right. But every time I see one of
• 30:07
  those trucks, I smile like they're just because they're
• 30:10
  just so sort of big, and maybe because it's like a an adult
• 30:14
  Tonka truck, right? Dan, do they have school buses
• 30:18
  in the UK? We do, but they're not.
• 30:21
  They're just like coaches. They're not you're.
• 30:22
  Not dedicated. OK, that's an American thing.
• 30:25
  Yeah, because we had some friends from Germany visit us
• 30:27
  one time and, you know, there were certain things they wanted
• 30:30
  to do. They wanted to take home an
• 30:32
  American mailbox. So like your classic red, you
• 30:36
  know, like put on a post, you know, kind of rounded at the top
• 30:39
  and they had a really tough time finding a red one for every
• 30:41
  reason. And then they got.
• 30:42
  Is that the carry on? Like how do you?
• 30:45
  Yeah, I don't know what you do. And then they wanted to see a
• 30:48
  school bus. Like they got really excited to
• 30:50
  see an American school bus. Like that was a like a real like
• 30:52
  just sort of iconic American thing.
• 30:55
  It was, I mean I guess like a double Decker bus or whatever
• 30:58
  for. Us right It's like we all have
• 31:00
  it it shows you what your definition of another country is
• 31:03
  when you go and you're like OK these are the things I want to
• 31:05
  see because in my. Mind, this is what makes up.
• 31:07
  This country, it's. Each his own or her own, but.
• 31:10
  But I think there's something to that when you have a lot of
• 31:11
  metal, you know, you start thinking school bus with yellow.
• 31:14
  Yeah. And especially nonmetallic.
• 31:17
  Right. Well, and it's funny because
• 31:19
  this one is, you're right, like it's not school bus yellow, but
• 31:22
  it just works like I think just because it's so big, but.
• 31:27
  Yeah. Would you to bring this back to
• 31:28
  Retro Mobile? Would you go back?
• 31:32
  And I would. What would you do differently or
• 31:34
  what did you miss that you'd want to see next time?
• 31:36
  Or because I'm thinking this is a that that car show field trip,
• 31:42
  you know? 2026 I mean, at a minimum the
• 31:44
  New York show well. That that makes it a little
• 31:47
  easier. For sure, that's a lot more
• 31:49
  that's more accessible for us obviously, but they will be at
• 31:54
  car week. So I will introduce you.
• 31:56
  We can we can hang with the boys and learn more.
• 32:00
  I definitely would go back. It's because it's so diverse and
• 32:04
  it changes every year. Yeah.
• 32:06
  And, you know, I definitely didn't see everything even
• 32:10
  though I covered a good chunk of it.
• 32:12
  Yeah. And you know I mean and bring.
• 32:16
  The Pate. Right.
• 32:17
  Paris is always a good idea. So if it's if it's a question of
• 32:22
  do you go to Paris? Yes.
• 32:23
  You always go to Paris, Yeah. Right.
• 32:25
  On the answer is always. Paris thinking Yeah, yeah, you
• 32:29
  were saying sorry. It's.
• 32:30
  Yeah, I was just going to say that I, I think a couple of days
• 32:32
  before the show was the Fat Ice Race that's.
• 32:35
  Right. You could do.
• 32:37
  That then go. Combine.
• 32:40
  Yes, I, I was immediately kicking myself for not realizing
• 32:45
  that sooner, because that would be the ultimate itinerary is go
• 32:47
  to the Fat Ice Race and then make your way to Paris.
• 32:50
  And then you're there for the virtual mobile preview and then
• 32:56
  the RM auction. Because that was happening.
• 33:00
  I was in the air when that happened, so I didn't go to that
• 33:02
  one. But then you could definitely go
• 33:04
  to RM, you could go to bottoms and then you would still have a
• 33:08
  couple days of the event to go to, you know, and if you went to
• 33:11
  the preview, you'd get to see a lot of it with fewer, with a
• 33:14
  smaller crowd too. So.
• 33:16
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm also disappointed to speak
• 33:19
  in a fat ice race that apparently they're not doing it
• 33:22
  here in Colorado this year. Maybe it's.
• 33:24
  Going to be every other year thing.
• 33:25
  Or something, you know, let's, let's, let's not, let's not
• 33:28
  joke. That's not a race, that's a
• 33:29
  party. It's an excuse to get together,
• 33:32
  and I mean well. Tell me there's some racing
• 33:35
  going on. But you.
• 33:36
  Know and did you hear that at the one in Austria this year,
• 33:39
  one of the cars rolled in the ski.
• 33:41
  Race No. Yeah, no.
• 33:43
  One of the cars they're. Pulling a skier, yeah.
• 33:46
  And one of those cars rolled and they managed to.
• 33:48
  Everybody got it, rided and carried on its way.
• 33:50
  But Can you imagine being that skier?
• 33:54
  But you're you're booking this. Like you think about the the
• 33:58
  cars that they had there, luckily it was AB tool I think
• 34:01
  in the row, right? Yeah.
• 34:02
  So they were able to just flip it over and, you know, carry on.
• 34:06
  That's. Very good.
• 34:07
  Or imagine if it was a free in. Technology.
• 34:10
  Imagine if it was a Ferrari 400. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 34:14
  It already looks like a pancake. So it's, you know, it's shoot.
• 34:18
  Yeah, it was. Well, sounds like an awesome
• 34:22
  time. You know again.
• 34:24
  Squad. Goals, you know.
• 34:26
  Right. I know I was.
• 34:27
  You were both very missed. It would have been amazing to
• 34:29
  have you with me. One thing that I wanted to say
• 34:32
  about Bon there that I wanted to share about Bonham.
• 34:35
  So they had these five cars displayed up above outside at
• 34:39
  the Grand Palais and the history and the experiences of those
• 34:46
  cars combined was unbelievable. And one of them was a Ferrari
• 34:52
  166 Barketa, which is the car that I drove behind when I drove
• 34:57
  the Cobra in June for the car show.
• 35:00
  I was following a 166 Barketa. So I walked up to, you know,
• 35:03
  these five cars and I went, wait a minute, I've been on the road
• 35:06
  with one of these and a couple of them.
• 35:10
  So there was a Ferrari. What's interesting, and I want
• 35:13
  to find out more about this, because it had two years listed,
• 35:16
  it said 5554 to 55 Ferrari. It's a Tipo 555-F1 Racing single
• 35:24
  seater. OK.
• 35:26
  So I don't know why it would have a year range.
• 35:28
  I need to look into that more. They may have competed it in two
• 35:32
  seasons of Formula One. Rebodied it, maybe.
• 35:35
  That would make sense. Yeah, that's a good theory.
• 35:38
  But yeah, you know, and, and seeing, seeing that combination
• 35:42
  of cars in that setting and then those cars are still actively
• 35:46
  being driven. A lot of them had Bailey Amelia
• 35:49
  stickers. They had yeah, yeah, Monaco
• 35:52
  rally stickers, stickers from all over Europe.
• 35:55
  And I mean, one of them had 10 or 20 stickers on it.
• 35:57
  So they're being driven to this day.
• 35:59
  Well. This conversation I mentioned
• 36:01
  with Eric mine off bottoms and and our pal Maurice, yeah, they
• 36:05
  hit on something that I don't think has talked about enough,
• 36:07
  but it's something that has has we talk a lot about with the
• 36:11
  with the grand in the within the grand circles.
• 36:12
  But you know, a car's value with all now the the events, you
• 36:16
  know, so you've got the California melee, the, you know,
• 36:18
  Colorado grand melee, all these other things, you know, years in
• 36:23
  cut offs. Like you can have one model, but
• 36:26
  if it's a year 2 new, you can't run it right in one of these
• 36:29
  events. And that can affect the value by
• 36:31
  50% in some cases, right? It's it's really interesting.
• 36:34
  This has become such a thing now to run these cars, which is
• 36:37
  awesome, right? It's what the cars want, right?
• 36:40
  Yeah. It's very aligned with all of
• 36:41
  our philosophies. Yeah, really interesting how
• 36:44
  it's, it's, it's, it's affected values and and this Eric, you
• 36:47
  know, made a good point too. You know, if the car originally
• 36:49
  ran in, in the event, you know that even extra points, right?
• 36:53
  You know, he gave an example of 11 car where, you know, you get
• 36:57
  a 64 version or whatever and it's and it's a $30,000 car and
• 37:01
  you get a 59 version and it's an $80,000 car, whatever.
• 37:04
  So it's interesting. And I think that that
• 37:07
  experiential stuff, whether it's the fat ice race, whether it's,
• 37:09
  you know, the any of these rallies, these tours, it's kind
• 37:13
  of where it's at, right? And, and so I think, you know,
• 37:16
  any of these cars that are, are eligible or just it's for them,
• 37:19
  you know, that's where you should put your money.
• 37:20
  But that's right. Yeah.
• 37:23
  I do wonder if there'll be some, some, some rallies that'll be
• 37:25
  for newer cars, right? We've talked about this before.
• 37:28
  The Colorado grant, it's 1960 and older, right?
• 37:30
  And that is not a sliding skill. That will always be.
• 37:34
  But when the grant started, I think in 1989, a 1960 car that
• 37:38
  was less than 30 years old. And you think about, you know
• 37:41
  what, what a 30 year old car is now it's a car from the 90s.
• 37:45
  Like that's crazy, right? So I don't know, maybe we need
• 37:48
  to start our own Rally Berettas. Open to brides.
• 37:55
  Right GMC typhoons. If anyone has a GNX that they
• 37:59
  want to let me drive, I'd be open to that.
• 38:01
  Well, now we none of us can afford those because Kendrick
• 38:03
  Lamar, right, you know, and what is I the only one that was
• 38:06
  bothered by him walking on it or.
• 38:08
  Is that just did you see, did you see the clip of the detailer
• 38:12
  who had worked on it? Oh no.
• 38:13
  After the show. So it's a, it's an independent
• 38:17
  guy in LA and he said he was contacted a couple months before
• 38:21
  the Super Bowl and I didn't tell him whose car it was, didn't
• 38:24
  give him any details. They may have told him it was
• 38:26
  for the Super Bowl, but just like, hey, could you work on
• 38:28
  this car and prep it? So he said he worked on it for
• 38:31
  six hours. And as he was working on it, he
• 38:33
  kind of put together who it was and what was going on.
• 38:36
  And then he said, you know, so he worked on it for six hours,
• 38:39
  got it. Like, you know, Immaculate and
• 38:41
  beautiful. They shipped it off.
• 38:43
  And then he was watching the show going, oh, he's standing on
• 38:46
  the roof. Oh, he's standing on the hood.
• 38:47
  Oh, he's scratching. What?
• 38:49
  Was that beautiful E30M3 that Zuckerman had that ended up oh.
• 38:54
  That was it, Travis Scott. Yeah, that's what it was.
• 38:57
  It was like one of the best examples, the most original low
• 39:00
  mileage in person in the world. And like, I don't even like I
• 39:05
  struggle with like junk yards and things, right, because I
• 39:07
  kind of like this cars. I I I I attach an emotion, you
• 39:10
  know, to them or. Whatever.
• 39:12
  Yeah, just. You know, but at the same time,
• 39:14
  I'm glad to see these cars driven too, right in the rallies
• 39:17
  and such, but. Yeah, well, and of course I
• 39:20
  found a 289 Cobra. Did you?
• 39:23
  Turn to They had a line of cars below this, you know, magical
• 39:27
  display and there was a Cobra. And then they were loading a
• 39:30
  Porsche 930 into the transport. So that was kind of fun to see
• 39:33
  too. So yeah, I take a 289 / 427,
• 39:36
  says the man who's driven neither.
• 39:39
  You are correct, although I want to drive a 427 before I yeah,
• 39:44
  yeah, since I've only driven a 289, I can say that's absolutely
• 39:47
  the right answer. Anything else to put a bow on
• 39:52
  Retromobile? I'm not.
• 39:54
  Even it was just magical, so it was.
• 39:57
  So cool you got a chance. As well as I can do.
• 40:00
  It's like one day you weren't no, like we hadn't heard a
• 40:02
  thing, and the next day there you were on a plane.
• 40:04
  It was awesome. We were rooting.
• 40:05
  Yeah, it was. Sometimes everything just lines
• 40:08
  up at the very last second and you find yourself in Paris for 2
• 40:11
  1/4 days. That's well, I'm going to segue
• 40:14
  Paris to Paris to Dakar, haha. See what I did there?
• 40:19
  Dan, you mentioned I didn't know this, that the Dakar, the
• 40:23
  Porsche Dakar or Dakar ever. You want to say it?
• 40:25
  And I say it different ways, different days.
• 40:27
  Apparently, one of my driving highlights over the last couple
• 40:30
  of years, I fell in love with the thing.
• 40:33
  It's a car I would buy if I had the the budget in the garage.
• 40:37
  But you said they're going to do a new one.
• 40:39
  It's been confirmed and it's rumored.
• 40:41
  Rumored, OK. I.
• 40:44
  Know who we can ask? Yeah.
• 40:47
  But the DAC car is based on the GTS and we know that the GTS is
• 40:54
  now a hybrid. So the rumors that are literally
• 40:57
  in the last couple of days are that they'll do AI, guess it's a
• 41:01
  992.2 Dakar and incorporate that hybrid technology.
• 41:08
  I think they're still selling for way above sticker right,
• 41:11
  $100,000 or something right, So it makes all the sense.
• 41:15
  You know, glad I don't know one of the early ones, but maybe I
• 41:18
  would be right being NA. But hey, they'll sell everyone
• 41:22
  they can make right. I mean, it's, it's, it's an
• 41:25
  awesome, awesome concept, right? So do that get you, do you think
• 41:30
  that gets you a little bit more range like miles to the gallon
• 41:36
  and a little bit better performance?
• 41:37
  Because it's a really small hybrid engine, isn't it?
• 41:40
  Battery? Yeah, I think it's more of a
• 41:42
  performance thing, right. But I think you can go battery
• 41:45
  only for five miles or something, right.
• 41:47
  And at least you can on the current hybrids.
• 41:49
  And so there's that Did. You get that common range.
• 41:54
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 41:55
  Did it need more performance when you had?
• 41:57
  It I didn't think so. It definitely doesn't have like
• 41:59
  because I had driven the day I drove spent some time in that
• 42:02
  one. Thanks.
• 42:02
  Porsche Colorado Springs. I was in a A992 career S also
• 42:08
  PDK and it definitely eats a you know, what's the what's the
• 42:13
  difference in power? You know, it's I think the .1
• 42:17
  it's not a lot 40 horse. Did you feel it when you were in
• 42:20
  the cars? I felt like they felt similar,
• 42:25
  right? And I think because you've got
• 42:26
  the big tall tires and stuff, right?
• 42:28
  I mean, it probably saps a little bit rotational mass and
• 42:31
  all that, but I also feel like you're not at least I wasn't
• 42:33
  comfortable and pushing it the same way that I was the standard
• 42:36
  car, right. Just it's a very expensive car.
• 42:39
  Wasn't mine. It was raining out, right.
• 42:41
  You know, But yeah, I kind of have a sense of the standard car
• 42:44
  that the DAC car, you're just, you know, you're sitting up
• 42:46
  higher and all that. But no, I thought that was a
• 42:48
  very strong. It felt like the right amount of
• 42:49
  power. I guess that's the more
• 42:50
  important question, right? Felt like the right amount of
• 42:52
  power. And I don't know if I don't know
• 42:55
  if a hybrid would take away or not.
• 42:56
  I'm sure it wouldn't. I'm sure it wouldn't, right.
• 42:59
  It's such a seamless thing. But no, I don't think it lacked
• 43:01
  for power. Yeah.
• 43:04
  That's the remote right now, yeah.
• 43:06
  That's exciting. Watch this space.
• 43:09
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, the problem with Porsche's guys.
• 43:11
  So I'm going to go from the rant here.
• 43:13
  I. FO you'll lose an allocation.
• 43:15
  What is it? Rant is coming.
• 43:17
  Here's the thing, you can, you can get an allocation, but it's
• 43:21
  still going to cost you right? And, and, and as we, as we
• 43:24
  learned from John and Justin, but you know, they've just
• 43:27
  gotten so expensive. They've just gotten so expensive
• 43:30
  and you know it, it is. It's just, you know, I think
• 43:33
  it's another reason I probably have this GT4 forever because
• 43:35
  it's probably the last of the cheap GT cars, right?
• 43:37
  You know this thing is 6000 in options.
• 43:40
  You can't do 6000 in options on a Porsche anymore, right?
• 43:43
  I mean. No, that's like half of 1
• 43:45
  because. It's packages, right?
• 43:46
  It's packages now, right? And if you want the lightweight
• 43:49
  seats and if you're going to, if you want the special, it's just,
• 43:52
  and before you know it, you're, you're, you're adding 50% or
• 43:55
  more to the cost of the car. And I just, you know, it's and
• 43:58
  it's it doesn't change the driving experience.
• 44:01
  And here's the thing, if you can't spec one, if you don't get
• 44:03
  an allocation, you're buying something that's been specced
• 44:04
  for you and you're not buying too many, you know, base cars
• 44:08
  right off a lot, right. So that's that is my biggest
• 44:11
  thing I've just had had it's like everything eggs real
• 44:15
  sticker shock lately pricing out Porsches like at least in the
• 44:18
  Configurator. So I imagine a, you know, even a
• 44:21
  sticker on a on a new DAC car is going to be I don't know what
• 44:25
  two 5300, I don't know. I think it's 3 / 3 I think,
• 44:30
  yeah, OK. I don't know about sticker or
• 44:32
  like used prices right now. Yeah, yeah.
• 44:34
  Maybe both? But, and maybe they won't do a
• 44:36
  limited because at the moment they're a limited run, right?
• 44:39
  Yeah, or effectively limited. Right.
• 44:41
  That's I think they're all not allegedly, I think, yeah.
• 44:45
  But yeah. So maybe hopefully they, you
• 44:48
  know, imagine if they didn't do it as a limited car.
• 44:50
  Yeah. But would you, would one appeal
• 44:52
  over the other to either view? I mean would you rather have the
• 44:54
  NA or not that hybrid heater? No, I don't.
• 44:59
  I don't have any strong feelings about hybrids either way I think
• 45:03
  and it's just more what I'm familiar with.
• 45:05
  So I'd probably but I would want to drive both of them.
• 45:08
  Yeah, make. It I've got no liking of my
• 45:13
  neighbors or dislike, so that's the only application I.
• 45:16
  Of the hybrid of the Decker. Well going on battery like so
• 45:19
  you don't wake the neighbors up, but I don't care.
• 45:25
  What's that song? Wake up the neighbors anyway?
• 45:28
  Yeah. I think when you were in a, in a
• 45:30
  building where that matters or in a neighbor or that matters,
• 45:33
  you know, it's sort of there's an applied like, you know,
• 45:35
  right, you're not living out in the country.
• 45:37
  Right, letters from the HOA and stuff.
• 45:38
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, all right, for the record,
• 45:42
  I love the DACAR. I don't care if it's any or
• 45:45
  hybrid give me one tomorrow. I just.
• 45:46
  Can't you'll just take one? Well, so you're spending a lot
• 45:50
  of time on the Porsche Configurator.
• 45:51
  Any particular models that you're focused on?
• 45:55
  I mean, I would love a new GT3 Touring.
• 45:58
  I would, you know, it'd be one thing if you could go in and get
• 46:01
  one for sticker even that I can't afford.
• 46:03
  But like, you know, there's $100,000 markup, right?
• 46:05
  You know, if you're going to get one and, and, and you know, our
• 46:09
  friends John and Justin Porsche called Ralph Spring said, you
• 46:11
  know, you're getting a wing car, you're not even getting a
• 46:12
  Touring. So that's just that's out of my
• 46:14
  league. But it's fun to it is fun to
• 46:17
  configure. It is cool that now they have
• 46:20
  all the, you know, the paint, the sample colours and stuff,
• 46:22
  although highly inaccurate on screen.
• 46:24
  But I don't know what you're supposed to do about that.
• 46:26
  But man, you can spend so much money so quickly, you know, I
• 46:30
  mean, it's just it's it's it's wild.
• 46:32
  But that's, I guess, what I would get in the current lineup
• 46:34
  if it wasn't an St., right? Oh yeah, but.
• 46:38
  That's a good idea. I went into a dealer last week,
• 46:42
  so I've been thinking about downsizing the Corolla and just
• 46:45
  getting a box store really. Maybe so my previous experiences
• 46:51
  and I'll keep the dealer anonymous, but I will say it's
• 46:54
  part of the AutoNation group. And I went in and asked for the
• 47:00
  chap I'd always work with and Ron was the guy and Ron's always
• 47:03
  been great. Like when I thought that my
• 47:06
  Corolla wasn't going to appear, I was talking to Ron and Ron
• 47:10
  walked me over to the sister dealership, which is a Mercedes
• 47:13
  dealership, which is next door. And he took me through a couple
• 47:17
  of used cars they had. So the point here is that he
• 47:20
  invested time with me even though while I'd potentially
• 47:23
  bought a car and two, he was thinking about the long term
• 47:26
  relationship, which is obviously what the guys do down in Portia,
• 47:29
  Colorado Springs. And we talked about that.
• 47:31
  So anyway, let's I went in to ask for Ron.
• 47:34
  Ron no longer works at the dealership.
• 47:36
  So I got talking to another gentleman who will be anonymous
• 47:40
  and I said to him, I hear that you may have a SLK 55 AMG but
• 47:49
  I'm looking at something like a box store and stuff.
• 47:51
  So I guess the first point of the story is that he didn't
• 47:55
  listen to me. So what I mean by he didn't
• 47:58
  listen to me is I said well I used to have a 2009 Boxster Air
• 48:01
  so I loved it. Anyway, a 2009 car pulled into
• 48:06
  the car park and he started to explain to me why that 2009 was
• 48:12
  better than a base previous model and I went.
• 48:15
  Well, yeah, I used to own one, I know, but I agree.
• 48:19
  Also, don't you know who I am? Like, come on.
• 48:21
  You know, it's just a listen. It's an exercise in listening,
• 48:24
  right? So anyway I 2 days ago or maybe
• 48:28
  yesterday I saw that they had A1999911 for sale that had just
• 48:36
  come in with the body kit, had the Taco wing on the back.
• 48:40
  Nice, that's kind. Of rare, yeah.
• 48:42
  I got a perspective from Mr. Deisty and he spent a bit of
• 48:46
  time telling me what to look out for, what not to look out for.
• 48:49
  So then I texted the gentleman and maybe we called him Steven
• 48:53
  for this exercise and let me find the text because it was
• 48:58
  quite funny so. The Seattle AutoNation Mercedes
• 49:02
  dealership. And next door.
• 49:05
  Hi, what's the situation with the 1999 Nine 11 just come in,
• 49:09
  possibly at Mercedes next door. Do you know anything about this
• 49:12
  car? I don't.
• 49:13
  It looks like they took it in on trade.
• 49:15
  Gotcha. Would it be possible to get some
• 49:17
  pictures of this? For that one, you'll have to
• 49:20
  call Mercedes. So whereas Ron previously would
• 49:23
  have probably got me pictures right, he was not interested at
• 49:27
  all. In John.
• 49:29
  Or Justin, you want something down at the Jeep dealership,
• 49:31
  though, They'll go down and take a picture.
• 49:32
  For you, right, right. You know, but.
• 49:35
  Well, it's long term versus it. It's some people have vision and
• 49:40
  this chap apparently did not. Yeah, this is when you you find
• 49:44
  a good one, you got to stick with him, whether it's a dealer,
• 49:46
  whether it's a salesperson, a service writer, whatever
• 49:49
  mechanic it's. Friends, my dealership story of
• 49:52
  the week. Well, bring back.
• 49:55
  Ron. Yeah, Ron Worthy.
• 49:57
  Sucks, you know, it's just. Like where have you gone?
• 50:00
  Take my money, right? You know, Come on.
• 50:03
  God. Yeah.
• 50:04
  Well, at that Jeep, aforementioned Jeep dealer, you
• 50:08
  may run into something that I didn't know was a thing until
• 50:11
  you told us both tonight. Dan, Jeep has apparently crossed
• 50:16
  a line. You just don't cross with their
• 50:19
  customers. It's something that I.
• 50:22
  Oh yeah. Boggles my mind if it's true.
• 50:26
  What's? It's definitely true because
• 50:27
  there's evidence, but do you remember when BMW said I think
• 50:32
  we're going to do a subscription service for yes?
• 50:35
  Yes, yes, all the hardware's there now, right?
• 50:38
  But you weren't going to be able to.
• 50:40
  Activate like a monthly amount right?
• 50:41
  Yeah, you have to activate the feature.
• 50:44
  It appears like Jeep have said, hold my beer because hold on.
• 50:49
  My American, my. Budweiser because some Jeep
• 50:55
  owners, as they're driving along in their cars, are getting pop
• 50:59
  up ads on their screens. I mean, that's just why.
• 51:03
  So does it say that it's happening while the cars are
• 51:05
  moving? Yeah, and this is Jeep trying to
• 51:10
  upsell and Jeep have said it's a glitch, but come on.
• 51:14
  You don't get something on the screen that says purchase Peace
• 51:17
  of Mind Mopar Vehicle protection.
• 51:19
  Wait, so you have to hit a button in some cars that says I
• 51:22
  accept the liability of using this infotainment system but
• 51:27
  apparently an unsolicited pop up ad is OK?
• 51:30
  Well, and I'll let you do a Bluetooth tool, so it's
• 51:33
  obviously a planned motion. Yeah, yeah.
• 51:36
  Well yeah, because you have to. The ad has to be created like.
• 51:41
  Somebody wrote the ad and. Produced it.
• 51:43
  So Max Headroom popping up. Well, and that violates NITSA
• 51:48
  guidelines like this was a huge part of when I, my role at Zevo
• 51:52
  was creating the in app content. And that was a huge topic for
• 51:56
  discussion because one of the features of the platform that we
• 51:59
  were creating was that it would, it could suggest offers like as
• 52:05
  you move through your day to make your life easier.
• 52:08
  Like if it knows you've just finished work, picked up the
• 52:11
  kids at soccer and you're headed home for dinner and there's a
• 52:14
  pizza restaurant on the way that has a great deal, it could let
• 52:17
  you know that. Yeah.
• 52:18
  But the, the crux of it is like, OK, but we can't do that while
• 52:21
  they're driving because we can't distract them.
• 52:23
  Interesting. So what I'm wondering is
• 52:26
  because, you know, Nitsa guidelines too, that that
• 52:29
  governs how much text can be on the screen, how many steps a
• 52:32
  feature can take. Because it's every time you take
• 52:35
  your eyes off the screen, it's 2 seconds or it can be no more
• 52:39
  than two seconds of your eyes off the road.
• 52:41
  Yeah, which is still a really long time if you're at freeway
• 52:43
  speed. And so I wonder if the ads are
• 52:47
  supposed to be appearing when the vehicle is stopped.
• 52:49
  But maybe that's the glitch. But they shouldn't be appearing
• 52:52
  at all and I suppose. It's well they if it's.
• 52:54
  Line item written into. Like if it's at a stop light,
• 52:59
  yeah, they can show it to you if the vehicle, because like
• 53:02
  there's some features in my truck where I can't do, like I
• 53:05
  can't go through the pairing process if it's in motion,
• 53:08
  right, Right. But if I'm stop, you know, that
• 53:10
  kind of stuff because it's more involved.
• 53:11
  So there's a way to control when you have access to certain
• 53:15
  features or when things appear because they can tell when the
• 53:17
  vehicle's moving or not. So it'll be curious to see how
• 53:22
  this unfolds because I wonder whether it's true or not, if
• 53:25
  they're going to say, well, they should only have been showing
• 53:27
  when it was at a light or a stop sign or something because they
• 53:31
  had to make the ads. Yeah.
• 53:33
  And I'm like envisioning trying to like get the little X in the
• 53:35
  top right corner to get it to go away, right.
• 53:38
  It's just like, that is just wild.
• 53:40
  And it seems wildly dangerous and it seems widely unethical
• 53:44
  and just bad business. And, you know, you think they,
• 53:47
  you know, I know Jeep's a little slow sometimes, but you think
• 53:49
  they want to learn from BMW, right?
• 53:51
  You know, you know that. Is yeah, you can't, you can't
• 53:55
  be, you can't be serving things to people while they're moving
• 53:59
  because that's, that's the peak of.
• 54:01
  Distracting these days and. If you could, Tesla would have
• 54:06
  monopolized it already, right? Yeah, like the pole star that we
• 54:10
  have that it never shut up about because I really do like it for
• 54:13
  what it is. When you get in and it knows
• 54:15
  that it's 8:00 in the morning, it knows you're going to school,
• 54:17
  So on the NAV, it'll pop up. That's the first suggestion,
• 54:20
  right? OK, Yeah, that makes sense.
• 54:21
  That's additive, right? That.
• 54:22
  Is that a school thing or is that a pulse?
• 54:24
  No, it's, yeah, it's so there is Apple Car Play, but only if you
• 54:28
  connect your phone through a wired connection, which is
• 54:30
  interesting, really. Honest to God, we don't miss.
• 54:33
  We don't miss it because they have their own proprietary
• 54:35
  system and it's effectively the same, you know?
• 54:37
  Well, and if it's predictive and it's offering helpful stuff like
• 54:40
  would you like the traffic on the route that I know you drive
• 54:43
  on weekdays in the morning, that's super helpful.
• 54:46
  It is, I found, a cool little thing which probably the last
• 54:49
  person in the world who drives upholstery has figured out,
• 54:52
  because it's literally a button on the steering wheel.
• 54:53
  But do you remember Saab? And do you remember?
• 54:55
  I hope you do. Saab doesn't have.
• 55:00
  A Chow button. What is?
• 55:02
  What is kachao? That's.
• 55:04
  You know in Lightning McQueen in cars he has a kachao.
• 55:07
  Button no, but it has a effectively a dark mode button
• 55:11
  right? So do you remember an old sobs?
• 55:13
  You could do a dark mode so it would it would dim everything
• 55:16
  but like the speedometer? And it was not like a dial you
• 55:19
  would. I thought it was a button like
• 55:22
  it was, but but it may be different, different, different,
• 55:24
  different models or whatever. Yeah.
• 55:27
  And so this has a button. It's not quite dark mode, you
• 55:29
  know, because you still have the screen in the middle, but it
• 55:32
  basically simplifies the the screen in front of you, the
• 55:35
  dash, right, So that. It's like what it displays.
• 55:38
  Right. So it defaults to like having a
• 55:40
  second map, which you know, I guess is good, but you hit this
• 55:43
  button and then you basically just get the the the very basic
• 55:46
  instruments. It's really, I don't know, it's
• 55:48
  very like Scandinavian and nice and now.
• 55:51
  It's my preferred. Driving environment it's.
• 55:53
  I'm wondering, just on a different tangent, if we can
• 55:56
  reach out to Jeep and get them to put an advert for this show
• 56:00
  on the cast? Is that our?
• 56:01
  Is that our target A new? Podcast.
• 56:03
  Is that our? Target.
• 56:06
  Hey Daimler Chrysler people, have we got the show for you?
• 56:11
  Welcome to the most distracting podcast you'll hear today.
• 56:15
  I'm really going for that, that Hornet market personally, right?
• 56:20
  The Yeah, that's the demographic you think?
• 56:22
  That's the one I, yeah, I think the only thing I just want to, I
• 56:25
  just want to confirm that we're not liable if an ad for our
• 56:28
  podcast pops up and somebody has an incident while they're going
• 56:31
  to try and turn the podcast. Definitely AG problem.
• 56:34
  They see our head shots and they're distracted one way or
• 56:36
  the other. Look at this.
• 56:39
  Where these people? Just.
• 56:42
  Just when you think some of these American car companies
• 56:44
  can't fuck it up more, there they go.
• 56:45
  You know, it's just like that is just so you know.
• 56:49
  Wow, Yeah, wow, wow. And.
• 56:52
  That's. Tesla should have been the one.
• 56:55
  Right. Yeah, I suspect what they did is
• 56:58
  they built it into the systems but didn't want to release it.
• 57:02
  Yeah. And they've accidentally done
• 57:04
  something to release it. Yeah.
• 57:05
  So like, the functionality was always there in the background.
• 57:08
  Yeah, something's happened. And.
• 57:10
  Somebody checked the wrong box. Yeah, that's not down with at.
• 57:15
  All well, hopefully they get that sorted before there are any
• 57:18
  issues because that's crazy. But I'm very like, like reading,
• 57:23
  reading articles about like Jeep engines, like, you know, dying
• 57:28
  at 4 miles and like, I mean, I just feel like there's some real
• 57:31
  issues. And then they were what they
• 57:32
  were talking about on the latest spikes car radio.
• 57:34
  Wasn't that a Jeep plant or something where there was a
• 57:37
  problem with someone in a bathroom?
• 57:40
  I don't want to go into details, you know, but I just think there
• 57:43
  are larger issues there. Maybe they shouldn't focus on
• 57:45
  pop up ads and focus on the fundamentals for a minute.
• 57:48
  And I like Jeeps. I like the idea of a Wrangler,
• 57:52
  you know? I loved my Jeep.
• 57:54
  Yeah, yeah. It's such an adventure vehicle.
• 57:57
  Yeah, there's something about it, right?
• 57:59
  I drove one from Denver to LA and back and we stopped and did
• 58:02
  some some light off roading. I mean, it was a hell of a good
• 58:04
  time. I mean, it's just, you know, I
• 58:07
  no death wobble or anything. I really enjoyed the the the
• 58:10
  thing, but but but then there's that kind of stuff, right?
• 58:13
  There's unknowns or it's just I don't want to roll the dice, you
• 58:17
  know, so. No.
• 58:18
  Anyway, Dan, did you have a Wrangler?
• 58:21
  Yes, the Rubicon. Yeah, it was.
• 58:26
  You've owned a lot of I. Don't know about that, but yeah,
• 58:29
  this was 2018 to the new, newer shape.
• 58:33
  The only thing I did to it is I got them to put a bigger brake
• 58:35
  kit on it. So they do from the factory,
• 58:38
  they do a bigger brake kit in case you're going to do lifted
• 58:40
  wheels like the bigger wheels. Yeah.
• 58:43
  Bigger wheels on it but I just felt the brakes needed something
• 58:46
  so I just paid. I think it was $1000 at the
• 58:48
  time. Didn't a bigger brake kit on it,
• 58:51
  but they lots of adventures. It wasn't it handled like a
• 58:53
  boat, but that didn't matter. It took me across multiple
• 58:57
  states. And you slept in it a couple of
• 58:59
  times. Yeah, really.
• 59:02
  Well, we know how Dan loves sleeping in cars.
• 59:04
  Yes, it was more comfortable than the full day.
• 59:10
  One way or another, Dan will find a way to sleep in the car.
• 59:13
  Yeah, and sometimes when I'm, I'm lying awake, you know,
• 59:16
  ruining my life decisions or whatever, and I can't sleep.
• 59:19
  I think about sleeping in that. What was it?
• 59:21
  AGMC terrain? What was that?
• 59:24
  Traverse? Fort Edge.
• 59:25
  Oh, Fort Edge. That's what it was.
• 59:26
  They all blend together. And we got up early to go up the
• 59:31
  mountain and realized that we've got a good parking space, but
• 59:34
  there was nothing going on for a few hours, so we slept in the
• 59:37
  car. Yeah, but all three of you,
• 59:40
  yeah, I open up the boot and just light in the boat.
• 59:44
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's cool.
• 59:46
  Yeah. It was kind of that weird, sort
• 59:48
  of like, you know, if you're kidding, you go to the dentist
• 59:51
  and they give you what they call it butterfly gas or whatever.
• 59:53
  It's it's, you know, it's and it kind of knocks you out halfway.
• 59:56
  You know, it's, it's kind of like that, right?
• 1:00:00
  Kind of in a twilight. Twilight.
• 1:00:03
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Poppers, right?
• 1:00:05
  That's what. There were no.
• 1:00:07
  Poppers consumed during that trip.
• 1:00:10
  Unfortunately used one, but yeah, that's hey, that was a
• 1:00:14
  great time. I see that media credentials are
• 1:00:18
  coming up for Pikes Peaks. Yes, I've started getting.
• 1:00:20
  I don't know if you if you either one of you want to want
• 1:00:24
  to make a, you know, it's no retromobile, but we had a good
• 1:00:26
  time. We just go to.
• 1:00:29
  All we just go to all the events, right?
• 1:00:31
  There's no discrimination, yeah. They're all I think important
• 1:00:35
  house needs is we need a airline sponsor, we need a car rental
• 1:00:39
  sponsor. Spirit Airlines, where are you?
• 1:00:42
  That's, yeah. And then maybe a hotel sponsor.
• 1:00:44
  Yeah. And that way our life would be a
• 1:00:46
  million. Times a yearly, right?
• 1:00:49
  So if you're listening, Spirit or Delta or.
• 1:00:54
  British Airways Alaska Motel. 8 Is that someone?
• 1:00:58
  Who is that? Motel 8 Aim high, guys, come.
• 1:01:05
  On the microtel is always an option, right?
• 1:01:09
  Yeah. The Roadway Inn.
• 1:01:11
  If you yeah, if you want to help with nothing but fluorescent
• 1:01:14
  lighting, that's your move, right?
• 1:01:17
  Anyway, is that a show guys? Is that a show I?
• 1:01:21
  Think it is. Damn, you're an hour.
• 1:01:23
  Yeah. That's fun.
• 1:01:25
  We've reached that point. I think we've reached that point
• 1:01:27
  all right. We're.
• 1:01:28
  Going to France next year. Absolutely.
• 1:01:31
  Maybe Pikes Peak, maybe a Motel 8.
• 1:01:34
  It's a Motel 8 or Motel maybe 6. It's Motel 6.
• 1:01:37
  Motel 6, OK, Yeah, it's more of a six than an 8, yeah.
• 1:01:42
  All. Right, on that note.
• 1:01:47
  Always be driving. That's right, till next time.
• 1:02:01
  You'll get there one day, Ryan. I believe in you.
• 1:02:03
  This week, Lindsay doesn't miss a beat with dispatches from both
• 1:02:07
  Air, Water and the exclusive Slate truck launch.
• 1:02:11
  The end discovers that he's not really a Bronco Raptor guy,
• 1:02:14
  despite his hairy chest and tough guy demeanor.
• 1:02:17
  I get Bougie and Boulder with the fuel fed set and we debate
• 1:02:20
  the car we choose from Hell's own rental counter.
• 1:02:24
  It's that car show. The kids are all right, and we
• 1:02:27
  are coming for your forerunners, Eli.
• 1:02:30
  Right, well, welcome to this week's episode of that car show.
• 1:02:33
  The gang is all here, but I wanted to start off by
• 1:02:36
  introducing a phrase and a little bit of information.
• 1:02:40
  In the UK we have a phrase called parish notices.
• 1:02:42
  What does that mean? Well, that means it's a
• 1:02:44
  traditional British phrase that's often used to make a few
• 1:02:47
  announcements before things start.
• 1:02:49
  So in British tradition, I'm going to start with some parish
• 1:02:53
  notices. And the very first one, yeah,
• 1:02:56
  you guys will be using it in all the meetings that you go to.
• 1:02:58
  And it'll be like, what's this, become more British?
• 1:03:01
  It beats housekeeping. Yeah, it does.
• 1:03:03
  It does I. Love it.
• 1:03:04
  All right, let's hear it. So yeah, I want to hear why
• 1:03:08
  you've used it. So firstly, on a serious note,
• 1:03:13
  on the 28th of April, the legendary engine builder Ed Pink
• 1:03:18
  passed away and we just wanted to send our respects.
• 1:03:22
  I don't think any of us actually knew Ed himself, but we were
• 1:03:26
  familiar with his work. We were aware that he had a
• 1:03:30
  reputation and was known as the old master.
• 1:03:33
  I think anyone in life, if you get a reputation, you get some
• 1:03:36
  sort of some sort of recognition as being called the old master.
• 1:03:40
  You know that you've really kind of hit your craft and made it.
• 1:03:46
  We didn't know him, but we did know the impact of his work.
• 1:03:50
  He built engines for IndyCar for Porsche, some of the Kramer
• 1:03:56
  engines, Interscope engines and more recently he worked on the
• 1:04:01
  Singer, the the Singer DLS. Is that right?
• 1:04:04
  Let's get that phrase, the Emery cars, the Emery cars.
• 1:04:08
  So we send our respects to his family.
• 1:04:12
  He also passed away at the age of 94.
• 1:04:13
  So as we would say in England, a fantastic innings referring to
• 1:04:18
  cricket. So that was the first one, the
• 1:04:21
  second parish notice and I, I'm going to wear a dog collar next
• 1:04:24
  week. I think is that we had a lot of
• 1:04:28
  people on the social medias either give us feedback.
• 1:04:33
  They shared some of our posts and I just wanted everyone to
• 1:04:36
  know that that didn't go unnoticed.
• 1:04:37
  We're incredibly grateful of everyone who, you know, has
• 1:04:40
  shown, you know, real interest in this podcast really early on.
• 1:04:43
  So thank you. Please keep going, Please, you
• 1:04:45
  know, continue to subscribe and add comments, reviews, all that
• 1:04:49
  sort of stuff really helps us. But thank you for everyone so
• 1:04:51
  far this. Is where I say Amen.
• 1:04:53
  Yes, it is and I wanted to say specific thank you to my friend
• 1:04:56
  Wendy, who's her Instagram is Britt Porsche girl.
• 1:04:59
  She has been an immediate early supporter and just so genuine
• 1:05:04
  and I think friend of the show Tori Alonso as well, like
• 1:05:08
  they've, they've both been immediately on board and genuine
• 1:05:11
  and very helpful and we appreciate it.
• 1:05:14
  So you said Wendy, Yes. So Wendy's going to get the
• 1:05:17
  parish notices straight away without any information.
• 1:05:20
  Right, exactly. And Wendy lives in Sheffield.
• 1:05:24
  That's perfect. They make watches up there.
• 1:05:28
  We've heard, I mean, I think we know a guy, right?
• 1:05:30
  By proxy. So last week was a big week in
• 1:05:35
  the car world and in particular a new manufacturer came to the
• 1:05:39
  table and they brought potentially what is going to be
• 1:05:42
  one of the most revolutionary cars to market to awareness.
• 1:05:48
  And we were lucky enough that Lindsay was there on site, got
• 1:05:51
  an invite to the the press launch.
• 1:05:53
  So, Lindsay, tell us all about Slate Automotive.
• 1:05:57
  So Slate Automotive, they had their reveal on Thursday night.
• 1:06:01
  It was at the Long Beach Airport in one of the warehouses there.
• 1:06:05
  And it was very, you know, cloak and dagger.
• 1:06:08
  You had to respond with a password to RSVP you.
• 1:06:12
  Didn't even tell us for the record.
• 1:06:15
  I didn't tell anybody. I had my dear friend Derek
• 1:06:20
  Powell. Everybody knows Derek Powell.
• 1:06:22
  I feel like there needs to be a bell.
• 1:06:23
  Hey, Derek. When we say Derek Powell, so
• 1:06:26
  Derek and I knew that we were going.
• 1:06:29
  He was the only person that I even acknowledged that I was
• 1:06:31
  going to everybody else found out after.
• 1:06:34
  So anyway, thrilled to be there. Thrilled to be included.
• 1:06:38
  Our friend Kat Savile who was at the Peterson included me.
• 1:06:41
  She was a Tesla. Now she's at Slate and so they
• 1:06:45
  had their several of their executives, the head of design,
• 1:06:49
  Tisha Snyder, Jeremy Snyder, who's the CCO and Tisha, I don't
• 1:06:56
  know that that's her last name now that I think about it,
• 1:06:58
  because they're not related, so they may have the same last
• 1:07:01
  name. And I didn't pick up on it, so I
• 1:07:03
  apologize if that's not the right name, but she's the head
• 1:07:05
  of design. And it was really fun to see a
• 1:07:07
  woman speaking. And then their CEO is a woman,
• 1:07:10
  Chris Barman, and they all spoke about the company and the
• 1:07:14
  mission and that they want to bring an EV option to the under
• 1:07:21
  25,000 range of the market because there's a lot of people
• 1:07:24
  that would be interested. But so far, EVs have been
• 1:07:27
  inaccessible to them simply because of the cost.
• 1:07:30
  And so it's under 25,000 after government rebates.
• 1:07:34
  The trucks are all assembled in the US and they have 4 different
• 1:07:37
  variations. They have a single cab.
• 1:07:39
  It's like a short bed pickup truck, but then you can either
• 1:07:43
  configure it and have Slate assemble it the way that you
• 1:07:46
  want it, or you can buy the pickup truck itself and buy the
• 1:07:49
  parts and put it together yourself also, which is an
• 1:07:51
  interesting concept. Will that still be under
• 1:07:53
  warranty? So that was part of the
• 1:07:56
  discussion afterwards with several of my friends who are
• 1:08:00
  automotive journalists in LA was if you have people that are
• 1:08:03
  installing it themselves, how does that impact or does it
• 1:08:06
  impact, can you still claim they have a five star crash rating?
• 1:08:10
  Like if if you're not the one installing it, you know, where
• 1:08:13
  does it change to? Well, this was an aftermarket
• 1:08:16
  part. So that's one of the early stage
• 1:08:19
  kind of like, OK, there's definitely some questions that
• 1:08:23
  people have, but in general, I think everybody loves the idea
• 1:08:27
  of expanding the accessibility of EVs.
• 1:08:31
  And this one is particularly cool because it's so versatile.
• 1:08:35
  There's the single cab pickup truck, then you can add a shell
• 1:08:38
  on the back and a second row seat and it makes it kind of a
• 1:08:40
  new Bronco two row SUV, very similar.
• 1:08:44
  Yes, I said Bronco. What are we, 3 minutes?
• 1:08:47
  In and I've already got this week, yeah.
• 1:08:50
  So I'll be looking out. Then they have another one where
• 1:08:54
  you can add a second row seat and basically roll bars.
• 1:08:57
  So it makes it kind of Wrangler esque or you know, new Bronco
• 1:09:00
  where they make the over landing type.
• 1:09:04
  Oh, we have a new buzzer this week, I think.
• 1:09:07
  And then the last one reminded me of either the big Range Rover
• 1:09:12
  or Range Rover Sport because it has a cab on the back, but it's
• 1:09:14
  sloping. So it's another two row SUV, but
• 1:09:18
  the lines are a little more luxury SUV.
• 1:09:20
  So there's all different configurations you can add, you
• 1:09:24
  know, different levels of trim. You can buy a design A wrap, you
• 1:09:28
  can have Slate apply it, you can do it yourself.
• 1:09:31
  It's a modular sort of taken to these.
• 1:09:33
  Very modular, yeah. And so you can design it to fit
• 1:09:36
  your life and what you need. So one of the things that they
• 1:09:39
  talked about is that, you know, the way they describe it is that
• 1:09:42
  they're built in the US, assembled in the US.
• 1:09:46
  And not just the US, but Indiana.
• 1:09:48
  That's like the extra US, right? Extra America.
• 1:09:51
  Ultra Ultra America. Exactly.
• 1:09:54
  So. They say that they are
• 1:09:56
  manufactured here. One of the points of discussion
• 1:09:59
  afterwards among the people in attendance was some of the
• 1:10:02
  parts. The US has not had the
• 1:10:04
  capability to actually make those parts in 30 years.
• 1:10:07
  Yeah, but it's anything, right? Right, exactly.
• 1:10:10
  So it's a little bit semantics because they are being assembled
• 1:10:13
  here, which is super cool. And you know that like I love to
• 1:10:16
  see that because obviously hopefully it helps create jobs
• 1:10:19
  and yeah, all of that. I think that's I think that's
• 1:10:21
  only positive. So it's more like what's, I
• 1:10:24
  guess you can parse out what your definition of manufactured
• 1:10:27
  versus assembled. And then, yeah, I mean,
• 1:10:32
  definitely some early stage questions.
• 1:10:34
  But their team, I mean, listening to them was really
• 1:10:36
  inspiring. They all have like several of
• 1:10:40
  the executives and a lot of the team have EV experience,
• 1:10:43
  especially at Tesla. So they've been in the space for
• 1:10:45
  a long time. They've seen an organization
• 1:10:48
  like that grow, and I think they're applying everything
• 1:10:51
  they've learned, you know, what to do and what not to do.
• 1:10:54
  And they just really seemed excited to bring this to the
• 1:10:59
  market. And it was really, really well
• 1:11:02
  done. The excitement, you know,
• 1:11:05
  everybody was very palpable. Some people had seen spy shots.
• 1:11:09
  They had done a, they dropped one in Venice, CA the week
• 1:11:13
  before. And again, you know, I'm not
• 1:11:15
  telling anybody. So I'm like, wait a minute,
• 1:11:17
  let's go. So I sent it to Derek and I'm
• 1:11:18
  like, is this what I think it is?
• 1:11:21
  What's going on here? How big is this thing?
• 1:11:23
  Like what is this? It's not.
• 1:11:25
  Big like. It's.
• 1:11:26
  It's tiny. Because it I'm sort of under the
• 1:11:29
  impression that's the size of like one of the old school Ford
• 1:11:31
  Rangers or something, if not the new one, I think, but a small I.
• 1:11:36
  Think it's in between. It's a it's like a light truck
• 1:11:38
  size. Yeah, OK.
• 1:11:40
  Like a Is it Suzuki Jimney the new one?
• 1:11:43
  Not that small, right? It's not that small, but it's
• 1:11:47
  definitely it's it's yeah, it's light truck class.
• 1:11:52
  Like it's not a full size pickup truck.
• 1:11:54
  And I think that is going to be, I think that's going to help
• 1:11:57
  because it may have a broader audience.
• 1:11:59
  Not everybody wants to drive a full size pickup truck, you
• 1:12:01
  know, or doesn't need it necessarily.
• 1:12:03
  Diane, can you ask our off camera assistant when the last
• 1:12:07
  car available in the US was where you you could opt for roll
• 1:12:12
  windows, roll down windows versus electric windows?
• 1:12:15
  Because I believe that you can actually get rolled out in
• 1:12:18
  Windows, that's how functional. This oh on.
• 1:12:21
  The right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:22
  That I don't remember. Yeah, because like this is very
• 1:12:27
  much a form follows function vehicle probably more than just
• 1:12:31
  about anything else we've seen. I think we have a lot of
• 1:12:33
  vehicles that are designed to look that way, right?
• 1:12:36
  But this really is, I wouldn't say it's the prettiest thing in
• 1:12:40
  the world, but I kind of love it for that.
• 1:12:42
  Right it's sort of it's like it's so functional, it's cute
• 1:12:45
  and it's like and the size it's very adorable and it's like the
• 1:12:49
  little engine that could because it's like I'm here and I'm super
• 1:12:52
  capable. What's not to love?
• 1:12:55
  And they it was they had a great swag bag at the event and we.
• 1:13:00
  Got was in this swag bag. Well, we got.
• 1:13:02
  But those of us who weren't it. That was part of the mystique,
• 1:13:06
  they said in the RSVP forum. They said if we were to surprise
• 1:13:10
  you with something with like, your name or whatever, what
• 1:13:13
  would you put on it and what size are you?
• 1:13:17
  So we got jackets with whatever name or phrase or whatever you
• 1:13:20
  wanted embroidered on them. And then we got slate hats and
• 1:13:23
  then a really fun little activity book, which my junior
• 1:13:25
  car reviewer immediately took. And then, yeah.
• 1:13:31
  And just there were a lot of, you know, who's who of LA
• 1:13:35
  Automotive Media, Mark Vaughn, who does a radio show and he's
• 1:13:37
  running for Auto Week. And then Derek Powell, you know,
• 1:13:40
  obviously and John and Mira Childenko and Jeff Plucker of
• 1:13:44
  Universe and Sean Winograd from Carn Driver and I think Monder
• 1:13:49
  trend maybe and Cat. And then, yeah.
• 1:13:52
  Fantastic. It was great.
• 1:13:54
  So what did you learn, Dan? Yeah, well, I kind of feel like
• 1:13:56
  we should be paying our researchers and then we're not
• 1:13:58
  in the minute. So, so let's let's maybe all
• 1:14:01
  chip together and and tip them a little bit.
• 1:14:04
  You won't believe the last time. Let's just start with a year.
• 1:14:08
  So the last car you could buy with roll down windows.
• 1:14:11
  The car stopped selling in 2023. So up to 2023 you could still
• 1:14:15
  buy a car with roll down windows.
• 1:14:17
  It's a. Car versus a light truck.
• 1:14:19
  Well, I mean, it's a Wrangler Sport, so it's both, right?
• 1:14:22
  OK, OK. OK, that makes.
• 1:14:24
  Yeah, that makes. Sense, Yeah, OK, interesting.
• 1:14:27
  OK, so. You could buy a new car, 2023
• 1:14:30
  brand new. Yeah, pull down.
• 1:14:32
  Windows A Wrangler Sport An honorable mention to the
• 1:14:35
  Chevrolet Spark. The base LS trim had manual
• 1:14:40
  windows, but was discontinued in 2022.
• 1:14:42
  Have either of you driven a Chevy Spark?
• 1:14:44
  I have not have you? And those stuck around way too
• 1:14:47
  long. 2022 they were. Would you say I?
• 1:14:51
  Think I would rather walk well. No, I that's it.
• 1:14:54
  That's I think that is a a viable alternative fair.
• 1:14:58
  If you've ever they're tiny, if you've ever been in a Lotus
• 1:15:01
  Elise, if you're driving, your shoulder will be next to the
• 1:15:04
  shoulder of of your passenger. And that's the only other car
• 1:15:07
  that I've ever driven had that experience.
• 1:15:10
  Wasn't that? What they said about the Gordon
• 1:15:12
  Marie car though, that like they when Dario was driving it, like
• 1:15:17
  I know Johnny said, I thought he had to put his arm around Dario
• 1:15:19
  almost to sit in the passenger. Seat.
• 1:15:21
  Well, that's different, Lindsay. No, I'm like Gordon Marie Car.
• 1:15:26
  I'll do whatever. I'll sit in someone's lap.
• 1:15:29
  The Gordon Murray car, but a Chevy Spark.
• 1:15:32
  Right. Did you ever think you'd hear a
• 1:15:33
  Chevy Spark in the Gordon Murray?
• 1:15:34
  Car in the same sentence? Not at all.
• 1:15:37
  Not at all. So, yeah, it was great that you
• 1:15:39
  were there, Lindsay, and yeah, it's cool.
• 1:15:42
  It was cool to to be, you know, at the forefront of the action.
• 1:15:45
  Happy. To represent the team, right?
• 1:15:47
  I do have more questions though if I may.
• 1:15:49
  This is a rear wheel drive only vehicle, at least at first.
• 1:15:52
  Or can you opt in a front like an all-wheel drive module or?
• 1:15:57
  So they didn't go into that much detail at the launch, but I
• 1:16:02
  yeah, so I don't know about that specifically.
• 1:16:05
  Because I'm thinking, you know, rear wheel drive electric truck
• 1:16:07
  Donuts, right? What's not to?
• 1:16:11
  Love, Yeah. You know, and anything about it
• 1:16:15
  where you think they missed the mark, like was it I, I'm shocked
• 1:16:19
  that they kept it the secret that they did.
• 1:16:21
  Really for as long as they did, really remarkable because I know
• 1:16:24
  it's worth something. Certain people have known about
• 1:16:26
  it for years at this point. Yeah, so.
• 1:16:29
  Well, no, I just, I mean, yes, you're absolutely right.
• 1:16:33
  That's exactly correct. No, I think, I think as they
• 1:16:40
  start to roll out that may those types of things, you might go,
• 1:16:44
  oh, they could have done that differently.
• 1:16:45
  But at least for right now, because it is still, it's not a
• 1:16:50
  concept like they will be building them, but because it's
• 1:16:52
  not live yet, everything so far seems like they're like it's
• 1:16:59
  aligned with what they are trying to deliver.
• 1:17:02
  And hell of timing with the tariffs, Jeff Bezos.
• 1:17:06
  Yeah, it's. Probably a conversation there
• 1:17:09
  for future and said. The man can build a rocket and
• 1:17:11
  launch a car, huh? And that's political as we're
• 1:17:14
  going to get. It reminds me like if if IKEA
• 1:17:19
  made cars. Yeah, it's that idea.
• 1:17:21
  It was like you, you take only what you need and you can.
• 1:17:25
  Basically. Heavily configurable to whatever
• 1:17:28
  your purpose is. I mean, that part of it is
• 1:17:31
  incredible because there's so many people that have different
• 1:17:34
  needs and jobs and to find something that you can customize
• 1:17:38
  exactly for what you want, That's the only vehicle like
• 1:17:41
  that new right now without having to do a bunch of work.
• 1:17:45
  I think they're great. I'd love to have him as a third
• 1:17:46
  card, go to the hardware store and all that kind of stuff.
• 1:17:48
  You don't, you know, I don't want to throw a bag of mulch
• 1:17:50
  into the Porsche or the Pole Star, but, you know, Yeah, yeah.
• 1:17:53
  Well, and I just. Bring on the slate.
• 1:17:55
  We talked so much about, you know, re bodying when Logan was
• 1:17:58
  on and how much that happened. And I'm sure you could do a
• 1:18:03
  version of re bodying with the slate like so.
• 1:18:06
  This might be the new coach, Bill.
• 1:18:08
  Wouldn't even have to be a truck, right?
• 1:18:09
  No, like you could decide for whatever reason I don't need the
• 1:18:13
  pickup truck right now or maybe go back and forth.
• 1:18:16
  Yeah, and that would mean that Ryan would have to update his
• 1:18:19
  article about convertible electrics, maybe.
• 1:18:22
  The master of the of the Segway. There we go.
• 1:18:26
  I got it in there. So are we getting, is it $10
• 1:18:28
  per? I mentioned the fact that he's a
• 1:18:30
  published writer. Is that how this is going to
• 1:18:32
  work? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:18:33
  Make it if you if you speak it, it's so right.
• 1:18:36
  Here we go. I think that works.
• 1:18:37
  That works manifesting. Baby.
• 1:18:40
  Now in Denver, I think there was a launch, is that right, Ryan?
• 1:18:44
  You attended the launch of it was a kickoff.
• 1:18:49
  Was it fuel fed kickoff? Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 1:18:54
  Good link. I then go bad link right?
• 1:18:57
  I love Colorado. Not a whole lot of new car, you
• 1:19:00
  know, launches here though apparently I I know Slate Motors
• 1:19:04
  was like Denver, LA. Denver, LA.
• 1:19:07
  Hotly contested debate about. Yeah, you know how much I love
• 1:19:12
  fuel Fed and Fuel Feds is is is this group that I I've been a
• 1:19:15
  member of since I was the very beginning back in Chicago.
• 1:19:18
  Now they have a an arm down in Fort Lauderdale and then Mike
• 1:19:21
  Burroughs started up fuel fed Boulder out here a few years
• 1:19:25
  ago. And for for a group that's still
• 1:19:29
  kind of under the radar, it was a huge, huge turn out.
• 1:19:33
  We had a beautiful day. I think this was the first year
• 1:19:36
  that they did this with the blessing of the city, right?
• 1:19:40
  Lesson learned. If you want to do something,
• 1:19:42
  don't ask for permission, right? If you want to build that
• 1:19:45
  addition to your house, you start building and then you,
• 1:19:47
  well, now we're building it. You can't tell us to stop now.
• 1:19:49
  And that's kind of what they did, right?
• 1:19:52
  Obviously, this is a much more benign, sort of, you know,
• 1:19:54
  benefit beneficial sort of event.
• 1:19:56
  But but yeah, sure enough, they they, they had the official
• 1:20:00
  barricades and, and a couple streets open much more room.
• 1:20:04
  And the cars that show up are, are just incredible.
• 1:20:06
  Obviously there's some good, some good money in Boulder,
• 1:20:10
  right? But also the enthusiast scene
• 1:20:12
  is, is, is incredible. And, and, and just, it's always,
• 1:20:15
  it's always amazing what rolls up and just seeing, you know,
• 1:20:20
  all the, the friends and, and folks you haven't seen all
• 1:20:22
  winter. It was just great.
• 1:20:24
  It was great. I I only wished I'd had stickers
• 1:20:27
  to hand out for that car show. This didn't arrive till today.
• 1:20:31
  If you want one slide into our DMS, I guess, and we will send
• 1:20:37
  some off or just find us at the next fuel fed event or Crystal
• 1:20:41
  Cove or exotics right in in Seattle.
• 1:20:45
  So but to bring it back to fuel, just a great event if you're in
• 1:20:49
  Colorado. I mean, it's worth the drive.
• 1:20:51
  It's I think once a month now through fall on Pearl Street and
• 1:20:56
  in Boulder. And it was just I mean, just
• 1:20:59
  fantastic. There was a Testarossa next to a
• 1:21:02
  TR, right? A 512 TR.
• 1:21:03
  So I've never been able to sort of compare and contrast, you
• 1:21:07
  know, and especially in real. Life with your own?
• 1:21:10
  Yeah, in person. Yeah, yeah, it's and you
• 1:21:13
  realize, Oh yeah, there's some significant differences, right?
• 1:21:15
  Like the the engine cover in the back is painted black on the 512
• 1:21:19
  TR and it's also about half the height.
• 1:21:21
  Pick up on that stuff. Scene 1.
• 1:21:23
  You know in isolation, right? The lights are front at the
• 1:21:25
  front. The lights are different, aren't
• 1:21:27
  they? That's.
• 1:21:27
  The lights are different. Pop up to glass.
• 1:21:30
  Perspective. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:21:31
  And then there was what was that final 512 TR that had the twist
• 1:21:34
  wheels and everything. It was the really special one.
• 1:21:37
  I I don't know what that. Was it?
• 1:21:39
  Was the M that's what it was. That's what it was.
• 1:21:41
  So maybe next fuel fed there will be one of those and you can
• 1:21:44
  see them all, but just stuff you just don't see anywhere else.
• 1:21:47
  You know, got a buddy who brought his his Lotus elite,
• 1:21:50
  right? Just I don't know that's where
• 1:21:53
  you'll see an Ariel Adam or, you know, a random vintage Bugatti.
• 1:21:58
  You know, may or may not be a drifted for Logan, but you know,
• 1:22:03
  it's just. It's an elite group.
• 1:22:05
  You know, you know, it's one of the special events that hasn't
• 1:22:08
  been commercialized, right? You know, it's, it's, you know,
• 1:22:12
  it's still fun. You know, it's a mature group.
• 1:22:15
  No one's ripping out of the, you know, the lot.
• 1:22:17
  At the end of the day, it's just it's just a great group of like
• 1:22:21
  minded people. There are people, they're that
• 1:22:23
  car show people, right? If you follow SO.
• 1:22:26
  Speaking of kudos car show people, you've also bumped into
• 1:22:30
  a friend of Lindsay and mine, right?
• 1:22:33
  Yeah, well, a couple of them, but I think you're referring to
• 1:22:36
  Eric. Eric.
• 1:22:38
  Eric from Dream Drives for Kids had the shirt on and everything
• 1:22:42
  and he recognized me. I put two and two together with
• 1:22:45
  the shirt and he and his wife is Amity.
• 1:22:49
  Is Amity I think. Yeah, lovely people.
• 1:22:51
  Really, really cool people. Yeah.
• 1:22:53
  I love that. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:22:54
  It's such a small world sometimes.
• 1:22:56
  And it. Really is.
• 1:22:57
  They went on and on about you, Dan and, and, and how much
• 1:23:00
  you've helped them with their fundraising and all that.
• 1:23:03
  You're too modest. So I didn't even know the half
• 1:23:05
  of that. But Lindsay was there as well.
• 1:23:07
  I think Lindsay actually was one of the few that bid when I was.
• 1:23:09
  I kept my hand in my pocket. Well, the funny part was there
• 1:23:14
  were, yeah, there were a few things that really kind of hit
• 1:23:17
  home for me. And, you know, especially they
• 1:23:20
  had the one where you could just bid to put together the boxes
• 1:23:23
  that they give the kids that get to go do the tours.
• 1:23:26
  And I had my daughter with me at that event, and she started
• 1:23:29
  getting into it. She's like, Mama, I want you to
• 1:23:31
  have this auction item. We got a bit.
• 1:23:34
  Yeah, yeah, it. Was prompted some interesting
• 1:23:36
  discussions about fiscal responsibility versus charity
• 1:23:41
  versus, you know, what's the happy medium and also helping
• 1:23:44
  people. And auctions are dangerous.
• 1:23:46
  Well, no. Say it goes to a good cause.
• 1:23:48
  The one that really caught my attention was the photo shoot
• 1:23:50
  for your car and I bid on it and then I immediately got outbid,
• 1:23:54
  which is what you hope, right? Because.
• 1:23:55
  They're raising more money and but then my daughter said, no, I
• 1:23:59
  really want you to have it. And she kept trying to raise her
• 1:24:00
  hand. It's a little.
• 1:24:06
  Bit about the actual charity because.
• 1:24:08
  You'd be the best one to do that, I think.
• 1:24:10
  So I mean, Lindsay could obviously do it as well, but so
• 1:24:16
  Eric has been very fortunate enough to collect a large number
• 1:24:19
  of fantastic cars, but he made a decision to do something with
• 1:24:24
  them as opposed to just showing them off the cars and coffee or,
• 1:24:27
  you know, taking them for drives.
• 1:24:29
  So we got in touch with local hospitals in his area and, and
• 1:24:33
  basically said if there are children that are on a journey
• 1:24:36
  of sickness, so, you know, they're either fighting
• 1:24:39
  something terminal or long term, he wanted to put a smile on
• 1:24:44
  their faces. So he would turn up with one of
• 1:24:47
  his supercars and take the kid out for the day in the supercar.
• 1:24:51
  And the the auction item that we're referring to is that at
• 1:24:55
  the end of this experience, the child gets a replica of that car
• 1:25:00
  as something to kind of keep, keep them motivated, keep them
• 1:25:03
  thinking. And, you know, he's gone beyond
• 1:25:05
  that now. He's signed partnerships.
• 1:25:07
  We were helped. We helped sort of sort out the
• 1:25:09
  partnership in Redmond, Lindsay and I.
• 1:25:11
  But there's partnerships all over the US now, and it's only
• 1:25:14
  getting bigger. They went to some Porsche racing
• 1:25:17
  at Kota with Patrick Dempsey, and he's now supporting the
• 1:25:20
  charity. So yeah, Dream giant kids.
• 1:25:23
  And my friend, my friend Andrew Florin, who puts together the
• 1:25:26
  Ollie and Bob cars and coffee in Santa Monica, is connected with
• 1:25:30
  Children's Hospital in LA. So he and Eric are now
• 1:25:32
  connected. And we're building that.
• 1:25:34
  We they are building that one out.
• 1:25:36
  So that's going to be amazing. But it's, yeah, it reminded me,
• 1:25:40
  you know, listening to Eric and Amity talk about all the kids
• 1:25:43
  that they've met and, and we all, you know, you can imagine
• 1:25:45
  the impact that has not only on the child, but the whole family
• 1:25:49
  is impacted, especially if they're siblings too.
• 1:25:52
  It just changes everyone's lives.
• 1:25:54
  And it reminded me, the school that I've driven with up here,
• 1:25:59
  Performance Racing school, they used to take a team to Daytona
• 1:26:03
  and do the 24 hour circuit, Daytona Lamar.
• 1:26:07
  And so when my daughter was a year old, we went to the Daytona
• 1:26:11
  24. And I remember standing there
• 1:26:13
  because they raised money for children's for Seattle
• 1:26:16
  Children's Hospital and the cardiac care unit.
• 1:26:18
  And it hit me, you know, I'm incredibly lucky that my
• 1:26:21
  daughter's healthy. But people donate.
• 1:26:24
  I think you, you get involved if you've experienced something
• 1:26:27
  like that with your child or if you realize how lucky you are
• 1:26:30
  that your child is healthy, you donate to help the families that
• 1:26:32
  have are dealing with these situations.
• 1:26:36
  So it's, I love the work that they do.
• 1:26:37
  Yeah. Can you imagine, you know, if
• 1:26:40
  you're a kid and you're sick and, and that comes into your
• 1:26:43
  life? I mean, it would just, I think
• 1:26:44
  it would just, it would be healing, right?
• 1:26:47
  I mean, it would be, it would just, it would just change
• 1:26:49
  everything. You know, it's, it's just, and
• 1:26:51
  they're lovely people and just, they really are organization and
• 1:26:55
  and yeah, so need to finally meet them.
• 1:26:58
  Yeah. That's not fun.
• 1:27:01
  Small world when it comes to good car people, right?
• 1:27:03
  That's true. There was some other, I think
• 1:27:05
  chance meetings though, over the last week, if I'm not mistaken.
• 1:27:10
  I want to hear about air, Water, Lindsay, too.
• 1:27:12
  But but you ran into our pal Dan McInnes.
• 1:27:14
  I did. I was going to say there was a
• 1:27:16
  lot of like cross pollination, Pacific Northwest, California.
• 1:27:20
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everybody was in the wrong,
• 1:27:23
  yeah. Bermuda Triangle going yeah,
• 1:27:26
  don't we? It's.
• 1:27:27
  I know. Well, I mean, I've said it
• 1:27:28
  before, you know, Crystal Cove is my favorite spot in the whole
• 1:27:31
  world. I was very lucky to grow up
• 1:27:33
  there in my detective trailer on the beach and then.
• 1:27:37
  We need a theme song whenever that gets mentioned, right?
• 1:27:39
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:27:42
  And so, you know, I had the unique luck to be able to walk
• 1:27:47
  up the hill and cross PCH to one of the original cars and coffees
• 1:27:52
  in Southern California or one of the bigger ones that then went
• 1:27:56
  to the Ford headquarters. But Crystal.
• 1:27:59
  And so the shopping center is kind of that's what's left as
• 1:28:02
  far as places I can go there. And there's no formal cars and
• 1:28:06
  coffee there anymore. But it's an amazing car show any
• 1:28:10
  day of the week, anytime. I mean, I was there Friday
• 1:28:12
  afternoon and, you know, it's just unbelievable.
• 1:28:15
  There's a Super 90 like pulled in and there's a Porsche Super
• 1:28:19
  90 Speedster next to a like 65 convertible Mustang and then an
• 1:28:25
  Urus and all kinds of stuff. But yes, so I got a cup of
• 1:28:30
  coffee and I'm walking out and I hear my name and I think, what's
• 1:28:34
  this? And it's Dan McGinnis, of
• 1:28:36
  course. If he was with our our friend
• 1:28:38
  John Nasser as well, I think right it.
• 1:28:40
  Was a whole crew. There were two Johns and then
• 1:28:43
  David Reichman, who's. Wonderful, so much fun.
• 1:28:47
  He's got a gorgeous. It was his speedster.
• 1:28:49
  I didn't know that. OK.
• 1:28:50
  That I had seen in the parking lot.
• 1:28:51
  It was so funny because Dan said, you know, we connected.
• 1:28:55
  And then he said, yeah, and she's on the podcast with Ryan,
• 1:28:57
  and everybody perked up. Well, I know, Ryan, Wait a
• 1:29:01
  minute. Yeah, you're being kind.
• 1:29:03
  But it's funny because I was walking the dog here in the
• 1:29:06
  neighborhood. I guess it was probably a few
• 1:29:08
  days before that. And who did I see but John
• 1:29:11
  Nasser walking down the street? And John, you don't live
• 1:29:13
  anywhere near here? He said, Well, I just, I went, I
• 1:29:16
  went to to go up to this place up the street.
• 1:29:18
  It's an ice cream shop. And he's going to walk back to
• 1:29:19
  his house. It's like 2 miles.
• 1:29:23
  It's like these guys get around, you know?
• 1:29:25
  That's so funny. I get out more, but no, I love
• 1:29:27
  those guys. David's a neat guy too.
• 1:29:29
  And. Yeah, I ended up talking to him
• 1:29:31
  for a bit at Auto Kennel. OK in the morning after Air
• 1:29:35
  water. Excuse me, but it was so funny
• 1:29:38
  once I saw Dan. Then I realized because I'd been
• 1:29:41
  going South on PCH coming up to Newport Coast Road or yeah,
• 1:29:47
  Newport Coast Road, which is a really fun driving Rd.
• 1:29:49
  That's where I took the Gunther Works Speedster, one of the
• 1:29:52
  first places. It's big sweeping turns and just
• 1:29:55
  amazing. Wait, we're playing that now for
• 1:29:57
  the Gunther works? I just felt like playing it.
• 1:29:59
  Yeah, you got to hold it closer to the mic.
• 1:30:01
  We need the full impact. I have the the voice of the
• 1:30:04
  audience, you see. Right.
• 1:30:06
  Like, there we go, there we go. Like, we get it, you got to
• 1:30:09
  drive. The Gunther works.
• 1:30:10
  Yeah. So anyway, I had been driving
• 1:30:13
  South on PCH and I saw the screen Porsche turn from Newport
• 1:30:17
  Coast onto PCH, but it was far enough.
• 1:30:19
  Yeah. And then as soon as I saw Dan,
• 1:30:21
  I'm like, I saw Dan like an hour ago.
• 1:30:24
  I didn't know and that guy, this car, everyone takes a picture of
• 1:30:28
  his car. I know.
• 1:30:29
  So anytime he's anywhere, I turn on Instagram, I turn on
• 1:30:31
  Instagram, I open Instagram. I guess you could flip the.
• 1:30:34
  Switch to. Instagram, yeah, yeah.
• 1:30:36
  And his car is everywhere, right?
• 1:30:38
  You know, he always, he always makes the Instagram reels.
• 1:30:41
  He's got 100,000 now, hasn't he? 99 just turned over 90, but
• 1:30:47
  yeah. Super.
• 1:30:48
  He's been to like Denver and back since then.
• 1:30:51
  He came, yeah, He left. He went back Saturday.
• 1:30:54
  Yeah, I think he sent. Me, a picture from the road
• 1:30:56
  right and it was 9009. Wow.
• 1:30:59
  Or I'm sorry, 90,000 and nine. It's not quite.
• 1:31:02
  So funny boobs. Inside out or whatever, but
• 1:31:04
  it's, you know, it's. It's not quite a melon.
• 1:31:06
  It's pretty. Impressive.
• 1:31:07
  Well, and Dan and I mean, that's what's so insane is that I, you
• 1:31:11
  know, my official address is Seattle, Dan's is Colorado.
• 1:31:15
  And we run into each other at Crystal Cove regularly.
• 1:31:18
  Yeah, I don't know what you do with that, but I'm.
• 1:31:21
  Some people have it figured out I think, and I'm still working
• 1:31:25
  on it myself. So another event that was taking
• 1:31:28
  place in Southern California last weekend started with a damp
• 1:31:32
  outlook, didn't it? The air water started with more
• 1:31:35
  water. What was going on?
• 1:31:36
  Yeah, everybody was was calling it like, OK, when you know, it's
• 1:31:40
  just water, water. This time it was, it was cool in
• 1:31:44
  the morning and then it started spitting and it was like, all
• 1:31:48
  right, well, and then just real downpour.
• 1:31:51
  So it definitely, you know, drove people inside.
• 1:31:54
  The nice thing about the fairgrounds is that it's a mix
• 1:31:57
  of interior and exterior. So especially the, you know,
• 1:32:01
  broad arrows, the auction partner and they have a big
• 1:32:03
  auction room where they hold it. So you could get in there and
• 1:32:06
  and stay dry, be comfortable. And I actually got to go to the
• 1:32:11
  auction preview on Friday and just check everything out, which
• 1:32:14
  was nice because it's it's quieter, there's fewer people
• 1:32:16
  and you can really see the cars and like, I got to catch up with
• 1:32:20
  some of the Broad Arrow and Haggerty people.
• 1:32:23
  And yeah, I mean, it was a good mix this year.
• 1:32:26
  They had a real nine O 6, which was one of the cars that was
• 1:32:29
  featured in Ford versus Ferrari. And but my favorite, favorite
• 1:32:34
  was an 87 dark blue turbo with like a marine and beige leather
• 1:32:39
  interior. Wow, I could not get enough of
• 1:32:42
  this car and I thought yeah it was non metallic.
• 1:32:45
  So is this a 3.6 or something? Is this like a really special I?
• 1:32:50
  Think it was just a regular turbo.
• 1:32:52
  I mean, those are special, obviously.
• 1:32:54
  But 3.6 would have been later I guess 964 but.
• 1:32:57
  Yeah, it was. I mean, I just like it kept
• 1:33:00
  drawing me back to it. Like I'd go to walk away and I'd
• 1:33:02
  realize I had walked back to this car and then it was just
• 1:33:05
  stunning. But that that turned.
• 1:33:06
  Out about the car, the color, was it the?
• 1:33:09
  Color was what drew me in and then yeah, I mean it was the the
• 1:33:14
  dark blue and it was a non metallic blue.
• 1:33:17
  Interesting. There and then the next day at
• 1:33:18
  auto kennel there was a 996 dark blue turbo.
• 1:33:24
  So that was the energy of my weekend was flat, you know, non
• 1:33:27
  metallic Navy turbos, I guess. But yeah, just it's just such a
• 1:33:34
  beautiful body style. It was very like it was a color
• 1:33:38
  still, but it was understated and it just like it really spoke
• 1:33:42
  to me. I mean, it seemed like you could
• 1:33:45
  just sort of be under the radar. It's very car enthusiastic.
• 1:33:50
  You know, you could just drive it and you could kind of, you
• 1:33:53
  could get attention if you wanted to, but you could also
• 1:33:55
  just. If you know, you know.
• 1:33:57
  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it was.
• 1:33:59
  It was a good mix of that, Yeah. And then they had a yellow
• 1:34:02
  GT4RS, which was beautiful. They had a silver Carrera GT.
• 1:34:06
  You know, those are always stunning to see.
• 1:34:10
  Another favorite was, I don't know if you remember a few years
• 1:34:12
  ago, Porsche redid one of the Carrera GTS like took it down to
• 1:34:17
  the metal, took everything apart and redid it so that it was as
• 1:34:21
  if they had built it, you know, like 3 or 4 years ago.
• 1:34:24
  But it would be and they finished it in this color.
• 1:34:28
  That is it's a little, it's a, it's slightly less bright than
• 1:34:32
  like a Miami or Mexico blue. They called it Speedster blue
• 1:34:36
  and it was very like it was all over, you know, social media at
• 1:34:40
  the time. Broad Arrow auctioned it then,
• 1:34:43
  but it was actually there too. It's up for sale again.
• 1:34:46
  So I got to see it again. This is familiar.
• 1:34:48
  Now this is coming back to me. Yeah, yeah, it's it was a unique
• 1:34:51
  story. They had a 911 E, which is like
• 1:34:55
  that's kind of a cool story. They had a roof and then I don't
• 1:34:59
  know if you remember the story of that.
• 1:35:00
  I think it was a Speedster that Jerry Seinfeld had bought that
• 1:35:03
  turned out to have some, you know, it was the Franken car,
• 1:35:05
  the Oratio Green. So they had an O1 Oratio Green
• 1:35:09
  Carrera 4 with that's what was interesting this time is a lot
• 1:35:13
  of the cars in the auction had really unique interiors, so it
• 1:35:16
  was fun. There's a theme here, yeah,
• 1:35:20
  picked up on that at Retromobile and.
• 1:35:22
  Yeah, right. It was like a little more visual
• 1:35:25
  interest. You know, there was one really
• 1:35:26
  beautiful red 911 and it had the interior was a mix of this like
• 1:35:31
  red and black houndstooth and then tan leather, which was a
• 1:35:33
  really interesting combination, you know, drew in the red from
• 1:35:37
  outside. And this Erasium green one had
• 1:35:40
  this beautiful green and blue Plaid interior.
• 1:35:42
  So it was just a lot of interest when you got up to the cars too,
• 1:35:46
  then it drew you in even further.
• 1:35:49
  Didn't Porsche just announce that they're bringing Pasha back
• 1:35:51
  is like a standard option? It's an extra, it's not
• 1:35:55
  standard. It's an extra, but sure, right?
• 1:35:57
  But it's not available. Today I think it's like $8000 or
• 1:36:00
  something, isn't it? You know, worth it.
• 1:36:02
  By the way, when I saw Eric and Amity, she had a shirt on a
• 1:36:06
  blouse that was was Pasha. And it took me a second to
• 1:36:09
  realize like, Oh my God, that's I.
• 1:36:11
  Know what that is? Yeah, Sly, Sly, Yeah.
• 1:36:14
  You staring at her blouse for 5 minutes trying to work it out.
• 1:36:17
  Right, Right. I was going to say I was looking
• 1:36:20
  eye to eye for 5 minutes and then I happened to, you know.
• 1:36:23
  There we go, there we go. The Did the general consensus to
• 1:36:27
  the auction? Was it successful?
• 1:36:29
  Did most cars sell? I don't.
• 1:36:32
  I haven't seen. You buy.
• 1:36:33
  Actually, yeah. What did you buy?
• 1:36:35
  No, I mean, I was sorely tempted, but.
• 1:36:37
  Oh. But what I was going to say was
• 1:36:39
  it was fun to go to the preview on Friday and then get to walk
• 1:36:43
  around the grounds a little bit too, because they had a 935 that
• 1:36:45
  was in one of their, you know, their iconic kind of platform
• 1:36:48
  displays. And they also had the AO Racing,
• 1:36:52
  Rexy and Roxy dinosaur Porsches, which are those are my
• 1:36:55
  daughter's favorite. We let go.
• 1:36:56
  So I got to see those up close before the event.
• 1:36:59
  And yeah, I mean, it was fun. Well, you know, you know, got to
• 1:37:03
  see Trent Abbott, which is always a treat, Like he's
• 1:37:06
  hilarious. And then Paul Kramer was there.
• 1:37:08
  Matt Farah. So Saturday it was nice in the
• 1:37:11
  morning, I got there really early and then started to rain.
• 1:37:14
  But before it started raining, we got to see Matt Ferris, Sarah
• 1:37:17
  Trimble, and then Peter Brotman, who is a friend of mine that I
• 1:37:21
  saw at Retro Mobile. So that was really fun.
• 1:37:24
  And he was just about to go on the Calmile, so he's going to.
• 1:37:27
  Have from the Grand. So yeah, yeah, he's awesome.
• 1:37:30
  He's his. Mira is my daughter's favorite
• 1:37:32
  car, so it's a good car. Well, because, yeah, I mean,
• 1:37:35
  it's almost like the people are the best part, right?
• 1:37:37
  Like with anything, right? Right.
• 1:37:38
  It's it's the cars are just the kind.
• 1:37:40
  Of well, and with the rain, it's sort of illustrated that even
• 1:37:43
  more because like it dampened it a little bit in the sense of you
• 1:37:47
  couldn't just move freely. You had to be a little more
• 1:37:49
  strategic. But it also didn't really
• 1:37:52
  because you're running into people.
• 1:37:53
  You know, I saw Dan McGinnis again, we had talked about it.
• 1:37:56
  He was going to be there. But my two favorite cars that
• 1:38:00
  they are, I should say, 4, two favorite displays.
• 1:38:03
  They had two of the GT3 RR, the Ren Sport version that they
• 1:38:08
  debuted at the last Ren Sport at Laguna Seca.
• 1:38:11
  So they had two of those. One was full carbon and one was
• 1:38:14
  this really beautiful blue, you know, graphic livery gorgeous.
• 1:38:19
  And then on the other side of the wall they had a liquid
• 1:38:22
  cooled car. And then have you heard of the
• 1:38:24
  artist? It's Joshua Vitas and he does
• 1:38:26
  the black, it's a white background and then black like
• 1:38:30
  it makes, he makes the cars look like drawings.
• 1:38:33
  Like a cartoon car, Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:38:35
  And. We had one of his cars there,
• 1:38:37
  and I had seen, you know, pictures and articles, like
• 1:38:40
  Derek Powell wrote an article about them, and it's the videos
• 1:38:44
  I'd seen. You know, you see somebody get
• 1:38:46
  in and they start to drive it, and it's like an optical
• 1:38:48
  illusion. You're having to tell yourself
• 1:38:50
  it's a real car because of the effect and the impact it has.
• 1:38:53
  So they had one of those and it was really cool.
• 1:38:56
  Very cool. So cool.
• 1:38:57
  So air, water, is this, is this like, is this something that you
• 1:39:00
  feel like you need to go to every year?
• 1:39:02
  Is this like, you know, because you can only do so many things
• 1:39:05
  each year, right? Is this?
• 1:39:08
  I think it is because it's one of the few that's actually in
• 1:39:12
  Orange County and you know, I've known some of the people on the
• 1:39:16
  team over the years. And so that was I want to go and
• 1:39:19
  support my friends obviously. And you know, and the Broad
• 1:39:23
  Arrow and the Haggerty team, I know a lot of that team as well.
• 1:39:26
  So it's also, again, going back to the people, like it's a good
• 1:39:29
  way to see a bunch of people that are not normally in the
• 1:39:31
  same place all together and catch up, which is really nice.
• 1:39:37
  But yeah, I mean, it's really nice because a lot of the events
• 1:39:39
  do take place in LA, which is still accessible for me.
• 1:39:42
  But it's much more of a drive, like to be able to go 15 minutes
• 1:39:45
  down the road and be at this one, you know?
• 1:39:48
  And I went last year with my parents and my daughter and we
• 1:39:51
  had a great time. And I think that speaks to the
• 1:39:55
  event because my parents Focus is more Ford and Shelby.
• 1:39:58
  And they left and they said that was delightful.
• 1:40:01
  Like it was really fun. They put together good displays
• 1:40:03
  and and the people. And I like the new stuff too.
• 1:40:06
  Like, you know, I like the old stuff, but I also like the new
• 1:40:09
  stuff, Right. Yeah, it's, it's what I buy,
• 1:40:12
  right? Well, and they had what was cool
• 1:40:14
  this year, and I don't remember if they had this last year, but
• 1:40:18
  they had a Myers Manx display in the mix, which was really fun
• 1:40:23
  and they had right. Did you get There you go.
• 1:40:26
  Yes. Magazine here.
• 1:40:27
  Yeah, which is out of odds. Well, and that was a recreation
• 1:40:30
  of a magazine cover from the 80s.
• 1:40:32
  That really that photo? It was a Carmen Ghia IF.
• 1:40:37
  You can't. Yeah, if you're not watching the
• 1:40:38
  video, apparently very few of you do.
• 1:40:41
  About last week where there wasn't a video, but there is.
• 1:40:43
  It's the latest Avance magazine, and there's like a guy in a BMX
• 1:40:46
  bike, I don't know, about 12 feet up in the air, flying over
• 1:40:49
  a Myers Manx with a man and then Myers Manx who looks as amazed
• 1:40:55
  as he just afraid. But it's a great thing.
• 1:40:58
  Cool mix. Great photography, isn't it?
• 1:41:00
  Yeah, it really is. It really is.
• 1:41:01
  Yeah. So that one, you know Ryan, you
• 1:41:03
  got to go to Bassem's book launch with Myers Manx.
• 1:41:06
  And so it's again, I mean we always say the car world is so
• 1:41:09
  connected people wise and even all the vehicles are so
• 1:41:11
  connected. So they had they had their bus,
• 1:41:14
  which was also featured in Ford versus Ferrari in the
• 1:41:16
  background. And then they had three Manx.
• 1:41:19
  One had a radial engine, one had the four Cam Porsche engine, and
• 1:41:22
  then one had the VW. And yeah, I mean, it's so fun.
• 1:41:26
  I got to meet Mike from Manx and then Matt was there and he's
• 1:41:29
  getting his radial. And so then he came over and
• 1:41:32
  they were talking about it and yeah, we got to.
• 1:41:34
  See him? Yeah.
• 1:41:36
  And we got to see his spec and it's it's in process.
• 1:41:40
  So yeah, it was just really fun. You just realize how important
• 1:41:44
  sound is in a car, right? And I just can't imagine what
• 1:41:47
  what that sound right behind your head must be like, right?
• 1:41:50
  I mean, you're like a Red Baron or something.
• 1:41:52
  I don't know. It's.
• 1:41:53
  I know that engine in a vehicle that light, Yeah.
• 1:41:57
  I mean, it's got to be a hell of an experience.
• 1:41:59
  For sure, absolutely. Should I bring us back to
• 1:42:02
  reality for a little while? We have to.
• 1:42:04
  It's no fun. Yeah, it's kind of happy.
• 1:42:06
  I think it's, you know, we get all these great experiences, but
• 1:42:08
  also our audience, but they want advice, they want insights.
• 1:42:12
  They do. And they came here.
• 1:42:14
  Right. I mean, I guess.
• 1:42:16
  Our heads are in the clouds. Come.
• 1:42:18
  On a last chance saloon, that's that's the car show.
• 1:42:23
  So I had a dilemma this week. I was down in LA for business
• 1:42:27
  meetings and I got to the rental car lot and I want to know what
• 1:42:32
  you guys would do. I'll explain my process
• 1:42:34
  afterwards. But you get to the rental car
• 1:42:36
  lot. Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:42:38
  You get to the rental car lot and they say right here is your
• 1:42:41
  ROW and you can pick any car from the ROW and the ROW was
• 1:42:46
  right near the front, so it means it wasn't a great row.
• 1:42:51
  These are the sorts of cars. Immediately.
• 1:42:53
  No, I'm lucky when. It's funny how we all
• 1:42:55
  understood. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:42:57
  But it was like. You look to me and said, yeah,
• 1:42:59
  just yeah. And it was like, no walk at all,
• 1:43:00
  right? But the road consisted of a few
• 1:43:04
  cars. And I'll name them and tell me,
• 1:43:07
  like, which would you pick? What's what's the one that
• 1:43:09
  really, you know, you would go for and maybe even fight someone
• 1:43:12
  else with their luggage? Just try and get the president
• 1:43:14
  in circle. OK, this is a.
• 1:43:16
  Car cage match going on, I thought.
• 1:43:19
  My Rd. Maybe we can make the next UFC
• 1:43:22
  millions out of that, right? So the cars were, and I say
• 1:43:25
  cars, they're kind of more like mini SUVs.
• 1:43:28
  The Hyundai Kona, OK, the Chevrolet Equinox.
• 1:43:34
  Oh no. Yeah.
• 1:43:36
  Yeah, Ryan has a story about that.
• 1:43:38
  The Jeep. Compass, Yeah.
• 1:43:40
  Also no. The Kia Sportage.
• 1:43:44
  Yeah, that's that sounded better in this in this group sounds.
• 1:43:47
  Like cheese? Let's go from.
• 1:43:49
  Us the Ford Escape or the Nissan Rogue?
• 1:43:55
  Oh man, that is like a or. What was the last one?
• 1:43:59
  A rogue. A Nissan Rogue.
• 1:44:00
  It's like a rogues gallery, right?
• 1:44:02
  Yeah, this is. This is a.
• 1:44:03
  Project Rogues Gallery. It's like.
• 1:44:07
  I. Line up ever really.
• 1:44:09
  Like, careful here, right? Because two weeks before I went
• 1:44:12
  to Enterprise and I'd use points and I'd booked myself a Corvette
• 1:44:16
  and I ended up driving off the parking lot in a brand new 911.
• 1:44:19
  So Enterprise is great. Just this week I was on a
• 1:44:22
  budget, right? Well, yeah, sometimes you hit it
• 1:44:26
  and sometimes you don't. I, I will say I was just talking
• 1:44:29
  to someone who has a Kona and had had an EV before that and
• 1:44:35
  was raving about it, She said for what it is, it's very
• 1:44:38
  simple. It gets me around.
• 1:44:39
  It charges quickly, it's comfortable, you know it's it
• 1:44:43
  does a good job. I do the Kona in that group too.
• 1:44:47
  Yeah. Have you ever driven it?
• 1:44:48
  But I've driven every other one of those.
• 1:44:50
  It's by process of elimination. Kona it is.
• 1:44:55
  Yeah, are you? I know as well, Lindsay.
• 1:44:57
  I would, I would take the Kona. I did have a Jeep Compass.
• 1:45:01
  I mean, in 2015 as a rental car and I had a little bit of AI
• 1:45:07
  think I have a soft spot because I had a little bit of a final
• 1:45:10
  destination moment in that car where traffic suddenly came to a
• 1:45:14
  stop and I looked in the rearview mirror and there was a
• 1:45:16
  semi fishtailing towards me from behind.
• 1:45:19
  And I was able to get myself out of it.
• 1:45:22
  So the compass, you know, did its job.
• 1:45:25
  Yeah, OK. Yeah.
• 1:45:28
  So so would you go for the compass or would you go for?
• 1:45:31
  I think I would go for the Kona because I would want to try
• 1:45:33
  something new. Interesting.
• 1:45:34
  Do you want to break down while each one of those models is
• 1:45:36
  awful? Well.
• 1:45:38
  I don't think we've got enough time on the podcast, definitely,
• 1:45:42
  but let me explain my process. Yeah, what was your what?
• 1:45:44
  Did you? Yeah.
• 1:45:45
  So how did this how did this all shake out?
• 1:45:47
  Well, I landed in LA and it's sunny it is.
• 1:45:52
  As I'm walking along the line, the first thing I'm looking for
• 1:45:54
  is a sunroof. I actually don't care what
• 1:45:56
  badges on the front sunroof and none of them had a sunroof.
• 1:46:01
  OK, so I'm like so. Immediately fresh off the 9/11.
• 1:46:07
  Yeah, fresh off the 9/11, which was convertible.
• 1:46:09
  Yeah, yeah. Immediately I rolled out the
• 1:46:11
  Equinox. I don't know why, it just does
• 1:46:13
  not appeal to me. Maybe I'm a brand snob, I don't
• 1:46:16
  know. But like that was straight out
• 1:46:18
  the window. So then the Ford Escape.
• 1:46:21
  I've got friends of a big engine problems with their Ford Escape.
• 1:46:23
  So I was like, no, I. Take.
• 1:46:26
  I'd actually take the Equinox over the escape at this point.
• 1:46:29
  Yeah. I just haven't seen one of the
• 1:46:31
  current Gen. Like I drove one of the first
• 1:46:33
  generations for a bit and I used to joke that it was made of
• 1:46:37
  Legos and I love Legos. Yeah, those first generation
• 1:46:40
  ones were kind of cool, the boxy ones.
• 1:46:42
  But now they're just like they're they're.
• 1:46:44
  Like they were just. Super like dead like there.
• 1:46:46
  Wasn't a whole lot to it, you know, not no pickup you're.
• 1:46:49
  Talking escape. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:46:52
  Not much escape in the escape. I once took one of those first
• 1:46:55
  generations off roading and it ripped off the whole underbody
• 1:46:58
  and I returned it and no one was the wiser.
• 1:47:01
  So I don't know if I'd do that in the new escape, though that's
• 1:47:04
  a little too. Statue.
• 1:47:05
  Crossover. Than I mean you.
• 1:47:08
  That was like 2004, right? Maybe earlier, yeah.
• 1:47:12
  Was it? Back to the.
• 1:47:14
  Yeah. Was it an escape we took to
• 1:47:15
  Pike's Peak? No, that was an edge.
• 1:47:18
  That was an edge edge. That not a terrible car in this
• 1:47:22
  company. Yeah, that's.
• 1:47:23
  Yeah, the edges are good. Yeah, so the Equinox was out,
• 1:47:26
  the Escape was out, the Sportage was out.
• 1:47:30
  I'd had Rogues before and I thought, well, what's going to
• 1:47:34
  be the most comfortable to sleep in?
• 1:47:38
  And it's going to be. The country, but I went for the
• 1:47:45
  I went for the Jeep just because you know, it's, it's a known
• 1:47:48
  quantity, it's relatively comfortable, right, you know.
• 1:47:52
  Those aren't terrible. Yeah, it was a amount of space.
• 1:47:58
  Yeah, it did the job great. These are like, these are like
• 1:48:01
  threes, right? For cars, though, all of them,
• 1:48:04
  right? It was like.
• 1:48:05
  A row 3 like it's like. Better than slightly better than
• 1:48:08
  nothing. It wasn't plain strains and
• 1:48:10
  automobiles and you couldn't get a rental car.
• 1:48:11
  And he's like, I'll take a Datsun, I'll take a a Toyota,
• 1:48:14
  I'll take a a Ford, I'll take anything, right.
• 1:48:17
  I mean, that's these are those cars, right?
• 1:48:18
  Yeah. Just need to get somewhere.
• 1:48:21
  Yeah. In your case, a very important
• 1:48:22
  business meeting. A really important business
• 1:48:24
  meeting. But yeah, So there's no wrong
• 1:48:26
  answer, right? I mean, everything is getting
• 1:48:28
  you for A to B these days. Modern cars are good, but yeah.
• 1:48:32
  But it is, yeah. I mean, it's always interesting.
• 1:48:35
  Like sometimes you really hit it like with your 911 and sometimes
• 1:48:39
  you don't with the rental cars. I mean, I had one, yeah, a
• 1:48:42
  couple years ago in Monterey. I was chatting with the rental
• 1:48:45
  with the counter agent. Oh, I see.
• 1:48:47
  Are you the cutest rental travel agent in the world?
• 1:48:51
  I bet you get that all the time, but I got I ended up getting a
• 1:48:56
  brand new Forerunner with only nine.
• 1:48:57
  Wow, there we. Go nice.
• 1:48:58
  I have yet to get a Forerunner from a rental counter.
• 1:49:01
  Well, and then when I went back for Rentsport that year, the guy
• 1:49:04
  was still there and I thanked him.
• 1:49:06
  I said it was so, you know, it really made the week and he's
• 1:49:09
  like, well, I don't have that one, but I do have another one.
• 1:49:11
  Would you like it again? Yes, I was.
• 1:49:13
  Nice, this one's a TRD pro. Right, she'll she'll work her
• 1:49:20
  magic and chat right this is. Why we all need to travel
• 1:49:22
  together? Yeah, Eli at the Hertz counter
• 1:49:24
  in. Modern Eli.
• 1:49:25
  What's API? You know Eli probably listening
• 1:49:29
  so. Right, obviously.
• 1:49:31
  So I had to say hi. He's manager now, yeah.
• 1:49:33
  He's got she. Got fired after slipping these
• 1:49:37
  forerunners to all the pretty ladies.
• 1:49:39
  You know it's cussing the rental company.
• 1:49:41
  Right. Yeah, shoot.
• 1:49:44
  Man, that's a good time. Yeah, rental cars are.
• 1:49:47
  It's a weird lottery. Well, if you've flown into
• 1:49:48
  Monterey, like for car week, it's a tiny airport, right?
• 1:49:51
  Like, you know, it'd be that's it's it in, in notoriously bad
• 1:49:56
  rental cars because they're just like, yeah, beaten to crap.
• 1:49:59
  And you know, yeah, that's. Well, I think.
• 1:50:02
  Threes. It's a fleet.
• 1:50:04
  I think they step it up for car week because I.
• 1:50:06
  Was walking down not for me. They had there was a Maserati.
• 1:50:10
  There was. There was, yeah.
• 1:50:12
  And there were. I actually think that Eli was
• 1:50:16
  showing Lindsay a different part of the parking lot to where we
• 1:50:19
  went. Yeah, that was just somebody's
• 1:50:20
  car. No.
• 1:50:25
  You Yeah, I think we got the budget end of the car park,
• 1:50:27
  right, Right. Yeah.
• 1:50:29
  Car rentals. What can you do?
• 1:50:31
  It's I, I've got an English phrase when I go to my check in
• 1:50:35
  at the car rental and I just say, have you got anything fun?
• 1:50:39
  And usually they kind of go, OK, well, this person might be a car
• 1:50:42
  person. Let's see what we can find out
• 1:50:44
  for them. Well, aren't you pulling the I'm
• 1:50:46
  a car journalist thing like I I did.
• 1:50:49
  I I'm not as well published as you, Ryan, unfortunately. 55
• 1:50:55
  articles I'm up to, come on. Anyway, what point is it
• 1:50:58
  official? But I think you should.
• 1:50:59
  When you slide. Over one of those new stickers.
• 1:51:04
  Yeah, I but yeah, I work with Ryan Barky.
• 1:51:06
  That's yeah, yeah. You may have heard of a little
• 1:51:09
  show called That Car Show. I don't.
• 1:51:11
  Know if you know, I'm kind of a big deal.
• 1:51:13
  Yeah, also I'm British. That's kind of carish.
• 1:51:17
  Notes and all the rest. The yeah, the adventures in car
• 1:51:20
  rentals continue. Watch out for the the next
• 1:51:23
  installment. Sorry.
• 1:51:24
  Also, do you have anything fun as a British ISM?
• 1:51:28
  I don't know whether it is or not.
• 1:51:29
  But I think OK it. Kind of feels like the person at
• 1:51:33
  the car rental place is like, oh, maybe this person's a car
• 1:51:36
  person. Maybe like get more of a car.
• 1:51:37
  Like to surprise and delight or something.
• 1:51:39
  OK. But I'll let you know how that
• 1:51:42
  goes, yeah. Well, let's let's just throw
• 1:51:44
  down this as a challenge, right? The next time we travel, OK, fly
• 1:51:49
  to an airport or something to get a rental car.
• 1:51:51
  Who can come back with the best rental car without paying extra?
• 1:51:56
  Yes, without. That's the key.
• 1:51:58
  OK. So it's an ongoing challenge.
• 1:51:59
  Yeah. So it might not be, you know,
• 1:52:01
  I'm not going anywhere tomorrow, but you know, maybe next month
• 1:52:04
  or maybe. Next one of us?
• 1:52:06
  No. And we need to make sure that
• 1:52:10
  Eli is not included in this or else we're going to lose
• 1:52:13
  straight away, right? I can't use.
• 1:52:16
  I can't. I can't leverage my resources.
• 1:52:19
  Right. Well, Eli, I'll never forget
• 1:52:21
  that name. Now that's a good one, Right?
• 1:52:24
  Well, and he was so nice, you know, and yeah, just super
• 1:52:27
  helpful. And it really did because it was
• 1:52:29
  a brand new carpet practically. And you know, you hear things
• 1:52:33
  about four runners, especially the first Gen. like underpowered
• 1:52:36
  or whatever. This one was perfect all the way
• 1:52:39
  all the way all the way around. Eli, we'll see you in August,
• 1:52:42
  buddy. Yeah, I love.
• 1:52:45
  It that's the same, I test drove a car last week.
• 1:52:49
  Oh, what did you drive? So you know how sometimes you
• 1:52:53
  kind of look at a car and you're like, I wonder if it drives as
• 1:52:56
  it looks? Yeah.
• 1:52:58
  And I, I managed to get my keys, the keys, too.
• 1:53:01
  And I don't know. We should use a buzzer here
• 1:53:03
  because it's me saying it. Not you, Lindsay, but the Bronco
• 1:53:06
  Raptor. Oh.
• 1:53:08
  Wow. Or the Raptor Raptor.
• 1:53:11
  I mean, it's a divisive, divisive car.
• 1:53:13
  Divisive. OK, So what did you think, Dan?
• 1:53:17
  Yeah. So my expectations were
• 1:53:19
  incredibly high. Yeah.
• 1:53:21
  I told a couple of friends that I was gonna test it, and both of
• 1:53:25
  them said exactly the same thing.
• 1:53:28
  You won't like it. It's too big.
• 1:53:29
  Yeah, it's too big for you. You won't like it.
• 1:53:31
  It's too big. So were you test driving it with
• 1:53:33
  an eye to possibly purchasing one or was it just the
• 1:53:36
  opportunity to drive it? Yeah.
• 1:53:37
  It's just what Dan does for fun. Yeah, I mean, me too.
• 1:53:40
  That's why I'm clarifying. So I I was thinking about
• 1:53:45
  swapping in the Audi and the Corolla and getting one do it
• 1:53:49
  all car. Yeah.
• 1:53:50
  So it's something that has performance that you can take
• 1:53:52
  the top off and, you know, can store your tires all that sort
• 1:53:57
  of. I'm not sure that you get the
• 1:53:58
  tires from the Bronco in the Bronco because they're I think.
• 1:54:01
  They're not on the Raptor. Yeah, thirty siblings, tires.
• 1:54:05
  It's almost. Like Lambo, Rambo, Lambo size.
• 1:54:08
  Yeah, they're massive. So anyway, I went to the dealer
• 1:54:12
  and I'd specifically asked for a used Bronco Raptor to test
• 1:54:17
  drive. I get there and the dealer has
• 1:54:20
  the brand new car waiting for me.
• 1:54:22
  So clearly he's already thinking about the upsell.
• 1:54:26
  So I'm like, how many miles have you got on this thing?
• 1:54:29
  I'm really happy to drive the used one.
• 1:54:31
  And he's like, Oh no, it's here now.
• 1:54:33
  So so we get out to the car park and this thing was, yeah, you
• 1:54:38
  have to climb up into it. And I, Lindsay, you drove one of
• 1:54:41
  the. I did.
• 1:54:41
  I didn't know Seattle Auto Show when we were there.
• 1:54:44
  Yeah. Yeah, so you literally, you
• 1:54:47
  almost need to take some crampons with you to get into
• 1:54:49
  this thing because it's so high. So that was the first thing.
• 1:54:53
  I didn't realize how high they are.
• 1:54:56
  And you then get in it and you know, it's very familiar.
• 1:55:00
  Forward controls, you know, paddles, all that sort of stuff.
• 1:55:03
  You've got all sorts of extra buttons for auxiliary things
• 1:55:06
  like lights, etcetera. But you're pretty high up, you
• 1:55:09
  know, you kind of truck level high up there.
• 1:55:12
  So took it down the road. My expectations were that this
• 1:55:16
  thing was going to really, really RIP.
• 1:55:18
  And it didn't really RIP. I did not.
• 1:55:22
  No. I mean, you you think that
• 1:55:24
  because it's got the the Raptor brand associated with it.
• 1:55:27
  Yeah. And it was nippy, but it wasn't
• 1:55:29
  like, I was kind of like hoping for a kind of holy shit, this is
• 1:55:33
  quick, Right? Right.
• 1:55:33
  Like. Pull your hair back.
• 1:55:35
  Well, it's not 500 horsepower. It's like 470 or something,
• 1:55:38
  right? It's not.
• 1:55:38
  It's crazy. V6 isn't it.
• 1:55:41
  They didn't put AV8IN it because.
• 1:55:42
  It wouldn't fit right, but the V6 S are faster than the V
• 1:55:45
  eights if I'm not mistaken. Is it?
• 1:55:46
  The V6? Is it the EcoBoost?
• 1:55:49
  I'm not sure now you're testing me.
• 1:55:51
  I it's I remember it was AV 6. Don't.
• 1:55:53
  Even know what EcoBoost means. Honestly, I think it's just the
• 1:55:56
  turbo, right? Yeah.
• 1:55:57
  That's just that's the name that they came up with for the V6
• 1:56:00
  Turbo. Engine ecologically boosted.
• 1:56:03
  Yeah, that's what's in my truck. OK.
• 1:56:05
  Yeah. So I, I don't know what it was,
• 1:56:07
  but anyway, so this thing, it didn't RIP like I wanted it to
• 1:56:09
  RIP. It didn't.
• 1:56:12
  I can imagine it handles really well in the sand, You know, I
• 1:56:15
  can imagine that you just don't realize that you're going over
• 1:56:17
  sand, etcetera, when you're like.
• 1:56:19
  This. Handles not at all.
• 1:56:21
  Right. And how often do you find sand
• 1:56:23
  in the car park? Right, but.
• 1:56:25
  Going to the wrong car parks. Right.
• 1:56:28
  I hate to admit it to Jeff Lincoln and everyone else that
• 1:56:31
  told me, but it was just too big.
• 1:56:34
  Just but. Is that because it's the Raptor
• 1:56:36
  like extra wide or with the standard Bronco?
• 1:56:39
  Because you can't get the Raptor with the manual right, but you
• 1:56:41
  can the regular. Correct, but the width it's got
• 1:56:45
  extra width. Even with the standard is it's
• 1:56:48
  just OK because in my mind's eye they're closer to like a
• 1:56:51
  Wrangler, but I guess they're not.
• 1:56:52
  I've never driven 1. The Raptors are there's, they
• 1:56:55
  have a volume to them because of the the additional.
• 1:56:59
  Just like the. Fenders and the yeah,
• 1:57:02
  everything, everything is, it's like jet puffed a little bit.
• 1:57:08
  The last week it was constipated, this week is just.
• 1:57:11
  Like me. Love it, absolutely love it.
• 1:57:15
  Stay puffed Marshmallow. Bronto.
• 1:57:21
  If you're in Montana or if you're somewhere like where
• 1:57:24
  there is a lot of space, I can imagine it's a great car.
• 1:57:27
  Yeah. But yeah, it just wasn't for.
• 1:57:30
  Well, and if you're you know when you look at where you're
• 1:57:33
  going to be driving it, you don't want to have to pause at
• 1:57:36
  parking garages and. Right.
• 1:57:38
  Am I going to fit right? You know.
• 1:57:41
  Yeah, you want to be off mending fences in that thing.
• 1:57:44
  Right, right. Well, and that's, I know it's
• 1:57:46
  interesting Dan, cuz I know we talked about it at the time and
• 1:57:49
  I was also very excited to try it out and had high
• 1:57:53
  expectations. And that was probably one of the
• 1:57:57
  most interesting car test drive days for me because I drove the
• 1:58:01
  F-150 Lightning, the Raptor, the Explorer St., and then the Mach
• 1:58:08
  EGT. And if I had had to rank them
• 1:58:11
  ahead of time, probably the Bronco and the Lightning would
• 1:58:14
  have been tied in what I expected to be first, and then
• 1:58:18
  the Explorer, and then the Mach E And the Mach E was my favorite
• 1:58:21
  and the Bronco was my least favorite.
• 1:58:23
  And what's a Bronco? What's a Raptor go for?
• 1:58:25
  Is it about 7080? It's a bit weird at the minute.
• 1:58:28
  I don't think anyone want to answer that but.
• 1:58:29
  No, I don't know. Actually, so to counteract the
• 1:58:33
  tariffs, Ford are doing something called employee
• 1:58:35
  pricing. Yeah.
• 1:58:37
  So in essence, you're getting I think between 15 and 20% off.
• 1:58:41
  But also, yeah, these cars aren't selling.
• 1:58:44
  So yeah, so there are bigger deals to be had on these things.
• 1:58:50
  So I think you could pick a new one up for probably about 85 but
• 1:58:54
  but an MSRP would be about 100. Oh, OK.
• 1:58:57
  And, and there's a lot available at that price point as we know.
• 1:59:00
  And I think that's maybe the thing working against it the
• 1:59:02
  most. I mean, you're talking about, I
• 1:59:05
  don't know. Yeah, well, the G wagon now, I
• 1:59:09
  mean, you're getting close to right.
• 1:59:11
  What's AG Wagon starting? The Jeep has the what you call
• 1:59:13
  it the is it the 392? Yeah.
• 1:59:15
  Yeah. So that would be.
• 1:59:17
  Also like kind of panned though. Like people never really got
• 1:59:20
  crazy about those. But I think people like that
• 1:59:23
  because it is AV8, right, versus the the V6, you know, you could
• 1:59:28
  have something very quick from Porsche, yeah.
• 1:59:32
  I'm sorry, the G Wagon starts at $148,000.
• 1:59:36
  So nearly double OK. Yeah.
• 1:59:39
  Ryan's ability to stay with. The common people is.
• 1:59:42
  Twisting about slowly. #Unrelatable.
• 1:59:45
  Well, I've never priced the basic, you know the base G wag
• 1:59:48
  It's it's, you know, the G63 or nothing.
• 1:59:51
  Well, and I will say when I did the the women's off road day at
• 1:59:55
  Dirt Fish with Avance, there were several Raptors there and
• 2:00:00
  they were amazingly capable, like they chewed up the course.
• 2:00:03
  The people had so much fun driving them.
• 2:00:05
  It looked really cool. So I think it's one of those two
• 2:00:08
  where. They do look cool.
• 2:00:09
  They're they're really designed to be off road and that kind of
• 2:00:13
  thing. And so when you drive it on the
• 2:00:14
  street, it's a little neutered. You're not really fully
• 2:00:18
  experiencing what it's been designed to do.
• 2:00:19
  Yeah, but yeah, you know, but that's tricky because if you
• 2:00:23
  were buying, if you're gonna have one car, you're gonna be
• 2:00:25
  driving it in context that it wasn't necessarily driven for if
• 2:00:28
  it's a purpose designed vehicle like that.
• 2:00:31
  Yeah. And you want to be able to enjoy
• 2:00:32
  it, especially people like us. Right, right.
• 2:00:36
  I do not have an assistant. I have to type my questions in.
• 2:00:40
  I don't have a. You'll get there one day, Ryan.
• 2:00:42
  I believe in you. Yeah, I'm sorry.
• 2:00:46
  Now I'm punching in G550 prices and it's talking about Gulf
• 2:00:49
  Streams and that's a whole other.
• 2:00:51
  But according to this an AMG is only 40,000 more.
• 2:00:54
  So why why why limit yourself to the G550?
• 2:00:57
  Just just saying. I mean, while we're at it,
• 2:01:01
  that's pretty funny. Well, and one thing I mean,
• 2:01:04
  Speaking of like crazy cars, there was one last little
• 2:01:08
  footnote I wanted to say about all of my visits to Crystal
• 2:01:11
  Cove. I met a group of young kids.
• 2:01:14
  I mean, they're probably 18 ish but young as far as compared to
• 2:01:18
  me. But you know, there's a big
• 2:01:20
  discussion and we've all talked about this about like our, our
• 2:01:23
  cars are kids interested in cars these days and kids not getting
• 2:01:27
  their licenses and whatever. And these kids were so fun and
• 2:01:31
  so enthusiastic, just like TrueCar people.
• 2:01:35
  One of them was named Kendall, and she has a Supra that's
• 2:01:39
  wrapped half and half hot pink and matte black.
• 2:01:42
  And she ended up walking us around the car and showing us
• 2:01:44
  all the little Easter eggs. And they had put, you know,
• 2:01:47
  stickers under the wrap. And then they put the wrap on so
• 2:01:50
  it looks like it's embossed. Wow.
• 2:01:52
  And just super cool. And then one of her friends has
• 2:01:55
  a Mercedes convertible that's covered in purple Muppet hair.
• 2:01:58
  Oh boy. So very distinctive.
• 2:02:03
  Yeah, good on them. Good on.
• 2:02:04
  Them, I know they were just you know, and then yeah, it was it
• 2:02:08
  was very fun and very good to see like, okay, the next
• 2:02:13
  generation is alive and well and kids are still into cars and.
• 2:02:17
  Yeah, all of that, 100%, hundred, 10%.
• 2:02:20
  They are, yeah, yeah. Super fun.
• 2:02:21
  And then we saw him the next day and we're like, Oh my gosh.
• 2:02:24
  How do you wash that thing? Oh, that, that was the thing.
• 2:02:27
  So we saw it Saturday and they're like, it's a little
• 2:02:30
  dirty from the rain. It had gotten rained, so all the
• 2:02:33
  fur was kind of deflated. I mean, do you use like
• 2:02:36
  detergent then like laundry detergent?
• 2:02:38
  This is like a. Conditioner.
• 2:02:41
  Yeah, yeah, from getting, you know, dry and brittle, you know?
• 2:02:45
  Come on. But yeah, so car girl Kendall
• 2:02:47
  with AK. She was very right on.
• 2:02:48
  OK, cool. Yeah.
• 2:02:50
  Yeah, and they were about to swap out the.
• 2:02:51
  Fur kids are all right, aren't? They exactly.
• 2:02:53
  The kids are all right. Have we got a show title in
• 2:02:57
  that? Yeah.
• 2:02:58
  Maybe. I think I used that once for the
• 2:02:59
  roadshow the. Kids are all right and
• 2:03:02
  committee. Or something.
• 2:03:03
  Yeah. And Muppet Mercedes.
• 2:03:06
  Yeah, Muppet hair. I think we're at a show, aren't
• 2:03:10
  we folks? I think we are.
• 2:03:12
  What do you think, Ryan? We.
• 2:03:14
  Oh, we can keep talking on this. I.
• 2:03:19
  Think I'm all popped up on any beers.
• 2:03:21
  I mean, it's just getting getting going.
• 2:03:22
  We had. At least a half a case of non
• 2:03:24
  alcoholic beer left. What am I supposed to do?
• 2:03:25
  With it. Well, now he's going to knock
• 2:03:27
  three of those over at least, isn't he?
• 2:03:31
  So 2. Down one to go.
• 2:03:34
  For our listeners, let us know where else we should introduce
• 2:03:36
  the buzzer. I'm thinking Dan McGuinness.
• 2:03:40
  Yeah, and maybe Derek Powell, because they seem to come along
• 2:03:43
  this week. 'S episode Crystal Cove.
• 2:03:45
  Crystal Cove. I mean, we could end up with a
• 2:03:48
  show that's just buzzer, buzzer, buzzer.
• 2:03:50
  One for every time I spill a beer.
• 2:03:51
  That's yeah. Yeah.
• 2:03:52
  Well, it's like, you know, John and Justin had to do that AI
• 2:03:55
  show. We might, we're like, we may
• 2:03:56
  have to fall back on just a show that's an entirely the buzzer if
• 2:03:59
  we have an issue. Wild noises.
• 2:04:02
  We'll get there. So that's a show, I think.
• 2:04:05
  Who is gonna leave us with our famous catch phrase?
• 2:04:08
  Ryan, would you like to? Yeah, this is that car show
• 2:04:12
  always be driving, so that's time.
• 2:04:15
  Excellent. That's a nice time.
• 2:04:17
  Thanks everyone. We'll see everybody next week.
• 2:04:40
  We have reached peak car. We're not in a situation where
• 2:04:44
  we're looking for peak car. We have reached it.
• 2:04:47
  Today on that car show, Sasha Solipinov.
• 2:04:51
  Sasha, of course, is the automotive designer behind many
• 2:04:54
  of your favorite modern super cars and hyper cars, including
• 2:04:57
  the excellent Lamborghini Uricon, the innovative Koenigseg
• 2:05:00
  Jamira, and of course the epic Bugatti Shuron.
• 2:05:04
  We talked about what makes a car great, why the Germans are
• 2:05:06
  sometimes scared of their own shadow, why Freeman Thomas's
• 2:05:10
  original Audi TT was so good, and why the company's new
• 2:05:13
  Concept C is a return to form. Of course, we also go deep on
• 2:05:17
  Sasha's current project is Neelu 27 Hyper Car and why I think
• 2:05:21
  it's the most exciting hypercar in a long time.
• 2:05:24
  Here's a hint, it's got AV 12 that goes to 11 and a gated
• 2:05:27
  manual transmission. This is a good one and Sasha's
• 2:05:30
  story of growing up in the Soviet Republic to creating some
• 2:05:33
  of the most iconic enthusiasts cars of our day is a great one.
• 2:05:36
  It's also a reminder to get off your ass and do something with
• 2:05:39
  your life. Stay tuned, tell your friends
• 2:05:41
  and make sure you follow that car show on Spotify, Apple
• 2:05:44
  Podcasts and YouTube. That car show is brought to you
• 2:05:47
  by Sheffield Watches. Sheffield is the storied
• 2:05:50
  watchmaking brand that was revived a couple of years back
• 2:05:53
  by her good friend Jay Turkbus, and it's seen wild success in
• 2:05:55
  both the car and watch enthusiast communities.
• 2:05:58
  Sheffield offers a wide selection of watches, many
• 2:06:01
  inspired by the iconic designs of its 1960s dive models, most
• 2:06:05
  notably the one that Jay's parents gave him in 1970, which
• 2:06:07
  ignited his lifelong passion for watches.
• 2:06:10
  Sheffield watches are high quality, reasonably priced and a
• 2:06:13
  great value. Sheffield has truly become the
• 2:06:16
  car guy and car girls watch of choice.
• 2:06:19
  Order your Sheffield watch at sheffieldwatches.com give them a
• 2:06:24
  follow on the gram at Sheffield under score all sport under
• 2:06:27
  score watches and tell them that car show sent you.
• 2:06:31
  The first time I saw Sasha Selipanos Neelu 27 Hypercar I
• 2:06:36
  was blown away. I knew immediately that it was
• 2:06:38
  something special. It was familiar, but it was also
• 2:06:41
  unlike anything I'd seen before. It was kind of like every car
• 2:06:44
  crush I'd ever had all rolled up into one.
• 2:06:46
  But it wasn't derivative, it wasn't overwrought, and it
• 2:06:50
  wasn't an homage. It was a truly original, modern
• 2:06:54
  hypercar, one pure form and one that really connected with me
• 2:06:58
  emotionally. Which makes sense, because the
• 2:07:01
  car's creator, Sasha, has one hell of a resume.
• 2:07:04
  Born in Tbilisi, Georgia, Sasha moved to California at the age
• 2:07:06
  of 17 and after attending Arts Center College of Design, Sasha
• 2:07:10
  was hired by the Volkswagen Group where he was part of the
• 2:07:13
  Lamborghini Oricon team and designed the exterior of the
• 2:07:16
  incredible Bugatti Chiron. He later go on to Genesis before
• 2:07:19
  becoming head of design at Koenigsegg where he was
• 2:07:22
  responsible for both the Jamira and the CC 850.
• 2:07:26
  But back to the Nilu, because it's specs are truly impressive.
• 2:07:30
  A hot VV 12 engine that makes 1000 horsepower over 1000
• 2:07:34
  horsepower at 11,000 RPM, which is incredible.
• 2:07:37
  A top speed of 250 miles an hour, zero to 60 and under 3
• 2:07:41
  seconds of course. And oh, it's got a gated manual,
• 2:07:45
  it's a driver's car, but it's also, as Sasha puts it here to
• 2:07:48
  burn your village. So it's that car show.
• 2:07:52
  And today it's just me. Dan and Lindsay are off doing
• 2:07:55
  amazing things, but I'm doing something even better.
• 2:07:57
  I'm here with Sasha himself. So Sasha, you've been on Top
• 2:08:01
  Gear, the Smoking Tire, Motor Trend list goes on.
• 2:08:04
  It's great to have you join us here on that car show.
• 2:08:07
  Welcome. It's my pleasure, Ryan.
• 2:08:08
  Thank you very much for this incredibly kind intro.
• 2:08:11
  I'm blushing already. Well, hope I got hopefully I got
• 2:08:14
  all the the facts correct, but it's great to have you.
• 2:08:16
  I'm a big fan of your your work. And So what is the Sasha story?
• 2:08:20
  Where did this this this need to create this drive to create come
• 2:08:24
  from? Yeah, no, I just thought, I
• 2:08:27
  think most of most of the kids are kind of born with it.
• 2:08:30
  But the society, the the warm embrace of the parenting home
• 2:08:36
  and experiences in school kind of stifle the creativity and
• 2:08:41
  kill the dreams a little bit for most kids.
• 2:08:44
  But in my case, I was very fortunate.
• 2:08:45
  I had the environment and Speaking of my family right now
• 2:08:50
  that really nurtured that, that obsession of mine and made sure
• 2:08:53
  that a lot of compromises, sacrifices and and effort was
• 2:08:58
  invested into supporting me on that journey.
• 2:09:00
  So I I think I was just lucky like that.
• 2:09:03
  Yeah, you were one of those kids, I'm sure that had the
• 2:09:05
  posters, you know, on the wall and and all the rest.
• 2:09:07
  Yeah. What was on your wall as a kid?
• 2:09:09
  What were what? Were you doing like I think that
• 2:09:12
  part of my kind of part of my motivation right now and part of
• 2:09:16
  the intensity that I feel when it comes to sports cars really
• 2:09:19
  takes roots in how in a way depraved my childhood was.
• 2:09:24
  Because you know, growing up in in final death throes of Soviet
• 2:09:29
  Union in Georgia, either the best car you could see out in
• 2:09:34
  the streets was a lot of Neva, which is actually a really cool
• 2:09:37
  car. But but that was the best that
• 2:09:39
  you would never see import. You would never see you would
• 2:09:43
  never see a sports car. Those things only existed in
• 2:09:47
  rare kind of magazine clippings that I could find somewhere and
• 2:09:51
  that the fact that I never I was exposed to those cars, although
• 2:09:55
  I dreamed of them daily, but I never had the opportunity to
• 2:09:57
  actually hold on to them in any meaningful way.
• 2:10:00
  That kind of that hunger and that fascination is what really
• 2:10:06
  fueled me throughout my life. I'm still weak, weak in my knees
• 2:10:10
  when I see something exciting on the road and jump out of my car
• 2:10:13
  and run after that. Like a total adolescent moral.
• 2:10:16
  I love that you still do that. I'm glad I'm not the only one.
• 2:10:20
  They most recently, I most recently was was driving
• 2:10:22
  somewhere in Hollywood and there was an F40 parked facing the
• 2:10:25
  wrong way on the road. So I'm driving seeing all those
• 2:10:29
  back ends and all the sudden I see the front end of an F40I
• 2:10:32
  just like threw the car like into first, you know, like, I
• 2:10:36
  don't know, not even a parking spot, just fire hydrants.
• 2:10:39
  And then ran out and started taking pictures and spent half
• 2:10:42
  the afternoon just sitting there on the car looking at the car.
• 2:10:45
  It just you can't can't help it. It's it's, it's an obsession
• 2:10:48
  from from early days. And F40 was on the, on the on
• 2:10:52
  the. Bench Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:10:53
  It's one of the greats truly, isn't it?
• 2:10:56
  It's yeah. I still get a little weak in the
• 2:10:57
  knees whenever I see one too. You know, you got a car week and
• 2:11:00
  you see them everywhere and it's just surreal, right?
• 2:11:02
  It's just, it's just surreal. At that point in time, it gets
• 2:11:06
  like this, this experience of, of, you know, like if you have
• 2:11:09
  all these craft beers, by the time you're on your fifth one,
• 2:11:12
  you really can't tell. Like, if it's like the ride,
• 2:11:16
  that's the car we experience in a nutshell.
• 2:11:17
  It's all we're saturating for my senses.
• 2:11:19
  Yeah. Can't can't quite handle.
• 2:11:21
  Yeah, so, so Tbilisi, like a beautiful part of the world, but
• 2:11:25
  obviously it was a real culture shift, moving to a city like Los
• 2:11:28
  Angeles at 17. So you'd spent your formative
• 2:11:30
  years in this former Russian Republic, and now you're in Los
• 2:11:33
  Angeles. And I mean, your head must have
• 2:11:35
  just exploded, right? With everything you saw and
• 2:11:37
  experienced? Not quite, I would say, because
• 2:11:39
  first of all, from Tbilisi, my family moved to Moscow when I
• 2:11:42
  was nine years old. So I spent between my 9 year old
• 2:11:47
  and my 17 year old self was Moscow.
• 2:11:50
  And Moscow is a is a really bustling metropolis with more
• 2:11:53
  intensity, more, more New York than LA, if we had to draw a
• 2:11:57
  parallel there. So for me, coming to LA from
• 2:11:59
  Moscow, definitely exciting. Car culture is amazing, climate
• 2:12:03
  was wonderful. Plenty of experiences that were
• 2:12:06
  that were, you know, kind of impressive, but I was missing a
• 2:12:10
  little bit of the intensity of the big city in the New York
• 2:12:13
  kind of way. So that was a culture shock,
• 2:12:16
  obviously also because it was my first time having to speak
• 2:12:19
  English from from morning to evening, never have, never
• 2:12:21
  having the opportunity to, to switch back to the comfort of my
• 2:12:24
  native language. And, and yeah, I, I, I still
• 2:12:27
  remember it was, it was a massive culture shock, but not,
• 2:12:30
  not because of the size of the city.
• 2:12:31
  That Yeah, OK, interesting. Yeah, yeah.
• 2:12:34
  You know, and I bumped into I've bumped into a couple of times I
• 2:12:36
  think the first time last year at the LA Auto Show where your
• 2:12:39
  car was front and center. First time I saw the car in the
• 2:12:41
  flash and was just really, really floored by it.
• 2:12:44
  But I bumped into you again recently at Car Week at
• 2:12:47
  Haggerty, at the Haggerty House. I guess what they what they call
• 2:12:49
  it, and you gave this really insightful presentation into
• 2:12:52
  your design philosophy. And I guess what I really
• 2:12:55
  appreciated about it was your complete lack of pretense.
• 2:12:59
  Like in a in a week of lots of smoke and mirrors, sometimes
• 2:13:02
  literally, you know, you really cut to the chase and you almost
• 2:13:05
  made it sound like the secret to car design is actually very
• 2:13:07
  simple. I think it is, I don't know.
• 2:13:11
  I, I, I do believe that we overthink things too much
• 2:13:14
  sometimes. And the first impulse is, is
• 2:13:17
  more often right than we give it credit for.
• 2:13:20
  So yeah, it's, it's, it's overcomplicated.
• 2:13:22
  It's driven by too many cooks in the same kitchen quite often.
• 2:13:25
  There's, there's too many interests at play.
• 2:13:27
  The investments are so large, you know, nowadays to bring a
• 2:13:30
  mainstream production car to the road is, you know, maybe even
• 2:13:35
  the north of a billion dollars. So when, when the investment is
• 2:13:39
  that high for, for a road car program, you inevitably have a
• 2:13:43
  whole bunch of different stakeholders in the game.
• 2:13:45
  And, and very often the designer is kind of the, the receiving
• 2:13:50
  point of all the different conflicting feedbacks.
• 2:13:53
  So then it's, it's, it's up to you and it's on your shoulders
• 2:13:55
  to make sense of it somehow. And again, very often the
• 2:13:58
  designer is relatively narrow minded, so they only have they
• 2:14:02
  just want to focus on making something quote UN quote pretty
• 2:14:05
  and they don't fully embrace the complexity of the process.
• 2:14:08
  So it is both simpler and more difficult.
• 2:14:10
  I don't know how else to summarize it.
• 2:14:12
  It requires a certain amount of intelligence.
• 2:14:15
  And if you have that intelligence, then hopefully
• 2:14:18
  it's a good place to start. You broke it down into some,
• 2:14:22
  some components and one of them was seat shape and seat design,
• 2:14:25
  which I thought was really interesting, right?
• 2:14:28
  And I think as you said it, most car seats kind of look the same,
• 2:14:31
  right? And but the body's not built
• 2:14:33
  like that. Plus you need to sort of lower
• 2:14:35
  the roof of the car, the center of gravity and all that.
• 2:14:37
  Can you go into that a little bit about how important seat
• 2:14:39
  design is? Because the human, like our
• 2:14:41
  body, really becomes part of the of the unit, the functional
• 2:14:44
  unit, right Once you're in the car.
• 2:14:46
  Now it's a very interesting point.
• 2:14:47
  Obviously spent a long time thinking about it.
• 2:14:49
  And generally speaking, when you're working with established
• 2:14:52
  car companies and OEMs, you have ergonomic sections that are
• 2:14:55
  being given to you. So you can't actually be
• 2:14:57
  creative when it comes to changing some of the ergonomic
• 2:15:00
  requirements that the company has.
• 2:15:02
  Like VW has very strict curves that are already predefined for
• 2:15:08
  human harmful or comfort and for human safety.
• 2:15:10
  So if you deviate from those curves, you'll be approached by
• 2:15:13
  the engineering team and they'll tell you, yeah, your design
• 2:15:15
  isn't compliant. Please make sure you respect
• 2:15:18
  these tried and tested, decades old, matured through generations
• 2:15:22
  comfort sections. We won't accept any deviation.
• 2:15:25
  And I was actually at Comics Egg the first time I realized this
• 2:15:28
  stuff is up for grabs. Christian had some wonderful
• 2:15:30
  ideas when it came to human ergonomics.
• 2:15:32
  And I realized, wow, I mean, he's so creative when it comes
• 2:15:35
  to these topics that were taboo in my previous life.
• 2:15:38
  And I kind of took that on as, as a challenge for myself to
• 2:15:41
  also think outside these, you know, regulated boxes and, and,
• 2:15:45
  and, and, and be creative. Obviously safety is, you know,
• 2:15:49
  top concerns. So we will, I will never do
• 2:15:51
  anything that compromises that. But when it comes to some of
• 2:15:53
  those comfort sections, they are built along straight lines like
• 2:15:57
  the, the, the seat back for example, in most passenger cars
• 2:15:59
  is a straight line and and that's not what our spine looks
• 2:16:02
  like. So creating a shape that
• 2:16:04
  accommodates the spine more is both more comfortable and
• 2:16:07
  eventually lowers the head a tiny bit bit and you are
• 2:16:10
  packaging a bit tighter around the head and you're getting in
• 2:16:13
  my mind, a sports car anyway, should feel a little bit like a
• 2:16:16
  tightly fitted glove. You kind of want that tailor
• 2:16:18
  made feel in that interior and the areas that you come into
• 2:16:21
  contact with with your body. Let's say, you know, with your
• 2:16:23
  elbows, with your knees and with your hands.
• 2:16:25
  Obviously they should be designed as as literal offsets
• 2:16:29
  of your body parts so that you have that cocooning effect and
• 2:16:33
  the and the feeling of purpose built interior.
• 2:16:36
  Other parts that are more about, you know, making inputs into the
• 2:16:41
  vehicle, toggle switches, shifter, all those other things,
• 2:16:45
  they need to provide both the haptic and, and, and the touch
• 2:16:48
  feedback to you. So you really need that click
• 2:16:50
  back. You really need that cold touch
• 2:16:52
  to understand that you're not on the you're not, your hands
• 2:16:55
  aren't on the leather anymore. They are on something that
• 2:16:57
  controls mechanical function of the car.
• 2:16:59
  So I want that cold touch to come back to you at that point.
• 2:17:02
  There's a lot of thinking that goes into designing an interior
• 2:17:06
  very far away from just just drawing lines and coming up with
• 2:17:10
  cool themes. That's not it.
• 2:17:11
  You really have to think through the through the user, through
• 2:17:14
  the through the driver's perspective.
• 2:17:16
  What is the, what is the experience that they're about to
• 2:17:19
  have? Both from the external point of
• 2:17:22
  view, approaching the car, getting into the car, being in
• 2:17:24
  front of the wheel for the first time.
• 2:17:26
  Your first 8 seconds, As Etienne, who is my wonderful
• 2:17:29
  friend and interior designer, says 1st 8 seconds are the clear
• 2:17:32
  kind of yay or nay decision point for the potential buyer.
• 2:17:37
  But then how does this thing live with you throughout your
• 2:17:39
  life? Are you gonna be looking to sell
• 2:17:42
  it in six months because it is a pain and you're not comfortable
• 2:17:44
  with the experience? Or is every new opportunity to
• 2:17:47
  drive the car, you know, making you fall deeper in love with it?
• 2:17:51
  And it really is gratifying on all those level, both the first
• 2:17:53
  wow factor as well as, you know, the decision making point.
• 2:17:57
  But then the life with the product and, and, and, and
• 2:18:00
  learning something new. It's like every relationship,
• 2:18:02
  you really need to create those those experiences and, and layer
• 2:18:05
  them and sometimes even hide them so they come through, you
• 2:18:08
  know, later down the road. And yeah, seat back is part of
• 2:18:11
  it. So you can deviate it now, but
• 2:18:12
  yeah. Well, you mentioned the tactile
• 2:18:14
  and I don't think there's a screen in your car, is there?
• 2:18:17
  No, well, we have one screen, which is the rear view mirror,
• 2:18:19
  the central mirror just in the cabin here because the firewall
• 2:18:22
  is there's no transparency there and the engine Bay has this
• 2:18:26
  massive top facing exhaust, so you wouldn't see anything out
• 2:18:29
  the back anyway. So we do have one screen and
• 2:18:31
  it's the only screen that I'm personally comfortable with in a
• 2:18:34
  in a super sports car. The last thing you want to do is
• 2:18:37
  while you're driving have to kind of look away and then
• 2:18:39
  fiddle with something on the screen.
• 2:18:41
  So and that mirror is all you get.
• 2:18:43
  OK, interesting. Interesting.
• 2:18:45
  And you mentioned at the end Etienne Salome is his name and I
• 2:18:48
  think you worked with him on the Chiron.
• 2:18:49
  Yeah. Yeah, he was the interior head
• 2:18:51
  and I was the exterior head. So we were, we were sharing that
• 2:18:54
  responsibility and and later on he became one of my best
• 2:18:59
  friends, but also joined me on a bunch of other adventures,
• 2:19:01
  including a periodic work at Koenigsegg while I was heading
• 2:19:04
  up design. There at the end was one of the
• 2:19:06
  contributors. And then with Nilu, the interior
• 2:19:09
  was again us sort of working together and him driving.
• 2:19:12
  That's very much. But I also had a strong hand in
• 2:19:15
  it, obviously being my brand. Sure, sure.
• 2:19:19
  One of the things in the interior I think that I've seen
• 2:19:21
  is the wheel is pretty small, right?
• 2:19:22
  So the the dials right are offset right to the left and
• 2:19:25
  right and things like like that. I mean, everything is considered
• 2:19:27
  and, and just appreciate, appreciate that something else.
• 2:19:30
  I really appreciate his wheel design.
• 2:19:32
  And I know when I saw you at the Haggerty House, there was a
• 2:19:34
  question and answer session and there were only a handful of us
• 2:19:38
  journalist types. And so the pressure was kind of
• 2:19:40
  odd to ask a good question. And, and I asked about wheel
• 2:19:43
  design because on the NILU, it's a, it's a simple design.
• 2:19:46
  It obviously works very well. It's beautiful, but it's not
• 2:19:49
  overwrought, right? Again, it looks the way it does
• 2:19:52
  because I think you said it was how a wheel looks when you make
• 2:19:56
  it as strong and as light as possible, and that's the result
• 2:19:58
  you get. Is that right to kind of capture
• 2:20:01
  that or? In a nutshell, you definitely
• 2:20:02
  did. So wheels are incredibly
• 2:20:07
  important for vehicle performance.
• 2:20:10
  They're obviously unsprung weight.
• 2:20:11
  They also generate quite a lot of rotational energy.
• 2:20:16
  So they're in a way like a gyroscope.
• 2:20:18
  So a wheel that is spinning at the, I don't know, 200 or 300 or
• 2:20:22
  400 kilometers per hour is an incredible amount of energy
• 2:20:26
  stored in that rotation. So the more mass that wheel has,
• 2:20:30
  the more complicated it is for the suspension to do it's job,
• 2:20:33
  the more complicated it is to get good steering feel because
• 2:20:35
  obviously it doesn't want to change direction.
• 2:20:37
  It continues spinning in the in the plane of rotation doesn't
• 2:20:40
  want to be changed. So lightweight is crucial for
• 2:20:42
  wheels. That is really part of, you
• 2:20:44
  know, not only weight saving in terms of just, you know, numbers
• 2:20:48
  game, but also the outright driving experience benefits a
• 2:20:51
  lot from your wheels being wider.
• 2:20:53
  You can run algorithms these days that that that generate
• 2:20:58
  wheels with, you know, if you input the parameters of the
• 2:21:01
  material that you'll be using, if it's a composite or if it's a
• 2:21:03
  forged, or you know, the methods of production and you get shapes
• 2:21:05
  that are lightest for that input for that material, for that
• 2:21:09
  vehicle weight, for that driving kind of scenario.
• 2:21:12
  You get designs out of predictive software.
• 2:21:14
  So technically you should be just taking those, producing
• 2:21:16
  them and your job's done. But of course you still, you
• 2:21:19
  know, as a designer, you there is an aesthetic value to it.
• 2:21:21
  And I do believe that form following function, it delivers
• 2:21:23
  most of that value, but you, you still should do your homework a
• 2:21:25
  little bit, making things neat. And the classic fire spoke is
• 2:21:29
  one of the simplest and most efficient shapes when it comes
• 2:21:31
  to distributing the load paths and providing the right rigidity
• 2:21:34
  and strength and lightweight. So starting with a fire spoke
• 2:21:37
  made sense. And then I wanted to keep the
• 2:21:39
  the face of it as clean as possible so you don't actually
• 2:21:41
  see the complications. And this is also part of the way
• 2:21:43
  I like to tell stories. I don't like when things are all
• 2:21:47
  at once same and intensity just thrown at you, right?
• 2:21:51
  I want to create a step ladder where you appreciate the design
• 2:21:55
  thinking, oh, it's a simple 5 Spope wheel.
• 2:21:57
  You've always seen something like that before when you get
• 2:21:59
  close and you're like, but not quite.
• 2:22:01
  And then and then you look at it from from, you know, closer up
• 2:22:04
  and then you see that, oh, it's all cross drilled and there's so
• 2:22:06
  much weight saving going on and there's all these crazy angles
• 2:22:09
  that the the drilling is happening from the CNC
• 2:22:11
  machining. So they must have come up with
• 2:22:14
  intricate new ways of accessing those angles to.
• 2:22:17
  So the more you know and the closer you get, the more you
• 2:22:20
  appreciate what you see in front of you.
• 2:22:21
  While the 1st read remains instantaneous, as I call it, the
• 2:22:25
  Neanderthals punch to the gut. You need to deliver that bang
• 2:22:29
  and you can't deliver the bang with a lot of noise.
• 2:22:31
  The bang needs to be intentional.
• 2:22:34
  You're the first car designer I've spoken with that really
• 2:22:37
  almost talks about a car with a story arc writer or is having a
• 2:22:40
  story arc, which I appreciate and Speaking of wheels, it must
• 2:22:43
  kill you to see like Cadillacs with these Chrome 24 inch wheels
• 2:22:46
  just knowing like how much those things are hurting the
• 2:22:48
  performance of the car right it's.
• 2:22:50
  But I mean, like to to to every vehicle, there's different set
• 2:22:53
  of guiding principles. You know, for some for a vehicle
• 2:22:56
  that is primarily just a fashion symbol or something that is just
• 2:22:59
  a lifestyle choice, fine. But we're talking about super
• 2:23:02
  sports cars. So there's still that kind of,
• 2:23:04
  you know, you need to you need to deliver on the performance
• 2:23:07
  side as much as you do on the on the aesthetics.
• 2:23:09
  So I don't want to necessarily kill off the entire car culture
• 2:23:13
  that is, you know, not necessarily following function
• 2:23:17
  per SE. There's so much exciting stuff
• 2:23:18
  on the road and I, I really just appreciate stuff that make me
• 2:23:21
  stop, makes me stop and, and think a little bit, you know,
• 2:23:23
  and it could be both really pretty and, and, and quite ugly,
• 2:23:26
  but I love the, the kind of the wow factor that, that I kind of
• 2:23:29
  experienced when I see something that breaks the mold a little
• 2:23:31
  bit. Yeah, yeah.
• 2:23:32
  Well, Speaking of that, Genesis, I know you're with Genesis for a
• 2:23:35
  while and I think Genesis has some of the best wheels in the
• 2:23:37
  game. Maybe you know, not all
• 2:23:38
  performance wheels necessarily, but but really doing some
• 2:23:41
  different stuff with tackles and all this kind of thing.
• 2:23:43
  Did you have anything to do with that while you were there?
• 2:23:45
  Yeah, Yeah, we did. So maybe you remember Genesis
• 2:23:48
  Essentia the concept. Absolutely.
• 2:23:50
  So that had a pretty wild wheel and that car was done in my
• 2:23:53
  studio. I was responsible for that for
• 2:23:55
  that show car. Fantastic.
• 2:23:57
  And and the wheel I still remember because our boss at the
• 2:24:00
  time was constantly pushing us to come up with something even
• 2:24:02
  more expressive for the wheels. And I was like, guys, come on,
• 2:24:05
  we we gotta like this is it, you know, let's let's just make sure
• 2:24:08
  that we produce something that is wild.
• 2:24:10
  I still really wanted the first read because I'm a fan of first
• 2:24:13
  read. I think first read is very
• 2:24:14
  important. But the intricacy was taken to
• 2:24:16
  really the next level without essential wheels was nuts.
• 2:24:19
  Never done the more complicated wheel in my life.
• 2:24:22
  And then we did the mint as well, which was the follow up
• 2:24:24
  show cart to the essential and that also had a crazy wheel.
• 2:24:26
  And I still remember sitting in Alias and actually building up
• 2:24:28
  the wheel myself. That was one of the personal
• 2:24:31
  contributions. I was like, OK, I'll do the
• 2:24:33
  wheel. Yeah, that's awesome.
• 2:24:34
  A detailer's nightmare, but a great looking wheel, right.
• 2:24:37
  That's that's the best. 3 Three or four days of work where
• 2:24:40
  normally I spent like, I don't know, half an hour on the wheel,
• 2:24:42
  but this, this was a heavy one. Wow.
• 2:24:45
  And you mentioned too that you're not a clay model guy,
• 2:24:47
  right? You are a computer guy.
• 2:24:49
  I don't know, maybe that's just a generational thing or
• 2:24:51
  whatever, but but it does affect the output, doesn't it?
• 2:24:55
  I don't think so. I think that the, the key kind
• 2:24:59
  of guiding parameter that I have for my own output and for, for
• 2:25:01
  my teams is you shouldn't be able to tell how it was built.
• 2:25:04
  Like when someone sees it like an experienced guy comes up and
• 2:25:07
  says how did you guys do this? They should fully believe that
• 2:25:10
  it was done using their preferred method, you know,
• 2:25:13
  their dream approach. They should not be able to tell
• 2:25:16
  how it was done because I don't think that the final product
• 2:25:20
  should reflect are the tools that were used.
• 2:25:23
  The tools should be used to create a perfect product and you
• 2:25:25
  should find tools that do it for you.
• 2:25:27
  But the product should not necessarily headline with the
• 2:25:31
  approach that was taken that that that somehow devalues it in
• 2:25:34
  my opinion. Like for example, 9/11 rear
• 2:25:37
  Fender. The clay modeler will always
• 2:25:39
  tell you that's only possible in clay.
• 2:25:41
  I can build that in maybe 45 minutes.
• 2:25:43
  There is really no problem with that rear Fender.
• 2:25:45
  It's it's 2 patches and it's pretty easy to control that
• 2:25:47
  highlight. It is.
• 2:25:48
  It is a really beautifully mathematically controllable
• 2:25:51
  surface that unfortunately most alias modelers or most CAD
• 2:25:54
  modelers build it not the right way.
• 2:25:57
  And then it becomes a very tedious piece of work.
• 2:25:59
  And then the clay guys take advantage because they can do it
• 2:26:02
  with their hands and with their kind of magic.
• 2:26:04
  But if you understand the underlying math behind it, it's
• 2:26:06
  actually a very simple shape. Yeah, interesting.
• 2:26:09
  So what are some of your pet peeves when you see other cars,
• 2:26:12
  cars that you weren't involved with, right?
• 2:26:14
  Whether it's, you know, I don't know, BMW or Tesla or, you know,
• 2:26:17
  what are these? There's some funky stuff going
• 2:26:20
  on, right? So what are some of your pet
• 2:26:21
  peeves? How much of this is laziness?
• 2:26:23
  How much of this is just trying to do something different?
• 2:26:25
  So my, my main problem with the entire industry as a whole is
• 2:26:29
  this complete disconnect between what the object is supposed to
• 2:26:33
  do and what it looks like. So the kind of mental game I
• 2:26:36
  play with myself sometimes is close your eyes, come up to a
• 2:26:39
  car, put your hand on any part of that car, open your eyes and
• 2:26:42
  ask yourself what's this for? And chances are in the large
• 2:26:45
  percentage, there is no purpose. It is just there to create
• 2:26:49
  visual fascination, quote UN quote.
• 2:26:51
  But it doesn't fascinate me. I just look at it and think
• 2:26:53
  that's why Is this thing just stuck on the car?
• 2:26:55
  That has to do with fake exhaust lamps, fake air intakes, fake, I
• 2:27:00
  don't know, matte black moldings or shiny pieces or sometimes
• 2:27:05
  they're even placed on the car in a way that defies function.
• 2:27:08
  Where you think, well, yeah, I would appreciate a non scratch
• 2:27:11
  surface on the front bumper. But where you placed it in an
• 2:27:14
  undercut, where a body color panel is overshadowing it, it's
• 2:27:18
  obviously not going to prevent my bumper from getting
• 2:27:20
  scratched. So there is this kind of
• 2:27:22
  substitution of of meaning, you know what I mean?
• 2:27:25
  Where where instead of honesty design, it's anything but
• 2:27:29
  honesty design. It's it's a complete outright
• 2:27:31
  lie. So that's what I don't
• 2:27:33
  appreciate. But I'm not ready to pin that on
• 2:27:35
  the designer's shoulders and say, yeah, it's because those
• 2:27:37
  guys, they don't know how to do their job.
• 2:27:39
  No, it's because of how this industry works.
• 2:27:41
  Quick refresh cycles, constant need to bring something fresh to
• 2:27:44
  the market. 2 year old car is too old now.
• 2:27:46
  We need to refresh, but we can't invest money into it.
• 2:27:48
  So we can't actually just come up with a brand new design.
• 2:27:51
  Let's take it as it is and just stick something on top of it.
• 2:27:53
  Just make sure that we differentiate with low hanging
• 2:27:55
  food, quote UN quote. Just put something on there that
• 2:27:57
  doesn't cost us that much money. So you're being forced as a
• 2:28:00
  designer into the territory that none of us graduated with dreams
• 2:28:03
  of doing these kinds of Christmas tree ornamentations.
• 2:28:06
  We all graduate with dreams of, oh, I'll be like Georgetto
• 2:28:08
  Jujaro someday, or I'll be like Martial Gandini someday.
• 2:28:11
  But they work in a completely different climate right now with
• 2:28:14
  the pressure that the corporate world has upon the design
• 2:28:16
  department. Yeah, you're hard pressed, you
• 2:28:18
  know, to do your job and and and and stay dignified.
• 2:28:21
  Yeah, Yeah. And and what's your sort of take
• 2:28:23
  on, you know, Jaguar obviously got so much grief earlier this
• 2:28:26
  year with their, it wasn't just a car redesign, it was really a
• 2:28:29
  brand overhaul, right? And I think a lot of us
• 2:28:31
  struggled with that because you know, Jaguar is a legacy brand,
• 2:28:35
  right? You there's an expectation for
• 2:28:37
  Jaguar, for Jaguar, you know, here you are clean slate, right?
• 2:28:41
  How is that different designing for a legacy brand versus a
• 2:28:45
  brand new entity like Nilo or even one exact, you know
• 2:28:47
  relatively new? Well.
• 2:28:49
  Just a couple of words on a Jag. First of all, I would never
• 2:28:52
  speak negatively of someone who took chances and and showed
• 2:28:55
  bravery. So from that point of view, hats
• 2:28:57
  off. I think it's wonderful that they
• 2:28:58
  did. I think the brand has been in in
• 2:29:00
  a crisis mode for not one, not 2, but like, I don't know, 4
• 2:29:03
  decades at this point in time, they've really not had a chance
• 2:29:06
  to stand firm on their feet. And you know, the Ford platforms
• 2:29:10
  were horrendous and the over bloated, kind of fatty designs
• 2:29:14
  with tiny little wheels pulled all the way in these cars, They
• 2:29:18
  didn't look good. So it's not like the designers
• 2:29:20
  came in, took this beautiful, refined jewel of a brand and
• 2:29:24
  screwed it up. That's not what happened.
• 2:29:26
  The brand was struggling, so it needed reinvention.
• 2:29:28
  Now, do you think? Yeah.
• 2:29:31
  Do I think that I would have gone that particular route with
• 2:29:34
  Jaguar if I was once given a chance?
• 2:29:36
  Probably not. But I really appreciate that
• 2:29:38
  they did and that they stuck to it and that they came out
• 2:29:40
  strong. And there are many areas on that
• 2:29:42
  car that show incredible design, quality and sensitivity.
• 2:29:46
  And interior is beautiful. Some of the detailed treatment
• 2:29:48
  is beautiful. Overall proportions.
• 2:29:49
  Squeeze your eyes. Look at it.
• 2:29:50
  It's a beast, yeah. In my mind, Jags should be a bit
• 2:29:54
  more feline with a little bit more kind of flow and sculpture
• 2:29:58
  and a little bit more general beauty to them, right?
• 2:30:01
  Not just slap sided monstrous kind of brutalist designs.
• 2:30:04
  But again, hats off. They tried something different
• 2:30:07
  and they tried to rescue an otherwise failing project.
• 2:30:10
  So. Yeah, yeah.
• 2:30:13
  I think the Jaguar design language had been taken as far
• 2:30:15
  as it could go, right? I think Aston was in that same
• 2:30:17
  position, right, a few years ago and they had to do something
• 2:30:20
  different. I do think that you kind of
• 2:30:25
  start with a strong manifesto with like a declaration of
• 2:30:28
  intent and the message that is very clear and that message is
• 2:30:31
  verbal. But there's also usually a set
• 2:30:34
  of images that accompanied, you know, like you start off kind of
• 2:30:38
  programming the brand for a new era.
• 2:30:41
  And then as you iterate, as you go, first product is always the
• 2:30:44
  celebration of that new vision. And then you're pressed by, you
• 2:30:47
  know, the market demand and then the fans and the media, you
• 2:30:51
  know, how do you kind of continue that development?
• 2:30:53
  And the first few products are usually a good continuation of
• 2:30:56
  that original manifesto. And then somehow one way or
• 2:30:59
  another, maybe some people leave, some new people come in,
• 2:31:02
  it gets diluted. So there's always a kind of a
• 2:31:04
  strong intent at the beginning that somehow slowly glides down,
• 2:31:09
  down to a point where a new kick is necessary.
• 2:31:13
  And that's also why I think that perhaps rotating chief designers
• 2:31:17
  and rotating CEOs and it's not such a bad thing.
• 2:31:20
  I don't know, after 15 years in a brand if I would personally
• 2:31:23
  have any more new ground to break.
• 2:31:25
  You know, I already kind of digested the brand's meaning.
• 2:31:28
  I, I contributed my vision. I, I did a generation of cars, 2
• 2:31:32
  generations of cars, 3 generations of cars.
• 2:31:34
  And how much more can you do? I think it's time for fresh
• 2:31:36
  blood. Yeah, absolutely.
• 2:31:37
  So I guess super cars are one thing, hyper cars are one thing.
• 2:31:40
  It's probably even that much more challenging to your point
• 2:31:43
  to design like an everyday car, right?
• 2:31:45
  So are there any daily drivers out there that you think really
• 2:31:48
  get it right past cars, current cars?
• 2:31:52
  I'm not generally like a super big fan of current cars.
• 2:31:55
  Like if I think of something things that I like, they always
• 2:31:57
  are strangely from the past, you know.
• 2:32:00
  And like I remember, you know, one of the formative experiences
• 2:32:06
  of like a regular car seeing something new as a regular car
• 2:32:10
  was the original TT when that came out.
• 2:32:12
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 2:32:13
  And then the Golf Mark 4, which was the kind of same generation
• 2:32:17
  as that TT, was the first car with clear headlights with like,
• 2:32:20
  no, no, no, not foggy, you know. Yeah.
• 2:32:23
  And that was so clean and so pure.
• 2:32:25
  And the shot lines, the way they were laid out.
• 2:32:27
  And that was the time when I was already not super little.
• 2:32:31
  I was maybe in my early teens, but very formative to me as a
• 2:32:33
  designer of just how neat and how organized and how precise
• 2:32:37
  their, their shapes were. And I, I really kind of still to
• 2:32:40
  this day hold those cars at a very high level of, of, of
• 2:32:45
  respect. Today when I see stuff, I just
• 2:32:48
  want to clean it up. That's my only kind of
• 2:32:50
  condition. I'm like, look, this is almost
• 2:32:52
  perfect, but just remove all this design, remove all that
• 2:32:54
  stuff like I don't need it. I'm pretty like cynical in their
• 2:32:59
  respect. No, I'm not sure that's the
• 2:33:01
  right word when I get in the car in the morning and I'm not
• 2:33:03
  necessarily in the mood for visual bonanza.
• 2:33:08
  I just want stuff that doesn't piss me off.
• 2:33:09
  Like I I want stuff that I get in and it's, it's just, they're
• 2:33:12
  perfectly resolved. Like sorry for the example that
• 2:33:15
  is overused, but like the freaking iPhone, I don't need
• 2:33:18
  stuff that screams at me on Monday morning.
• 2:33:22
  You know, it says like, check me out.
• 2:33:23
  I got this feature, I got that feature and I got this like my
• 2:33:26
  shifter looks like a leaf and it's got this little Chrome
• 2:33:28
  trim. Like who cares?
• 2:33:29
  Give me something that I can actually grab and does it's job
• 2:33:32
  and looks pure and simple and and.
• 2:33:36
  That's what I like. It's funny you mentioned that
• 2:33:37
  Volkswagen because I remember the first time I saw one on the
• 2:33:40
  street. I remember where I was.
• 2:33:41
  I remember what the car, you know, looked like and like it
• 2:33:45
  was a Countach or something like the first time I saw a
• 2:33:47
  Lamborghini. It had that sort of impact on
• 2:33:49
  me. So I'm glad to hear that I'm in
• 2:33:52
  good company. And of course, the TT you
• 2:33:53
  mentioned is interesting because the new TT concept was just
• 2:33:57
  released today and it shades if I think it was the Audi Avis
• 2:34:01
  car, the concept car of my youth, I guess.
• 2:34:05
  So thoughts on that? Because it's getting a lot of
• 2:34:07
  press and people seem to really love it, especially the back
• 2:34:10
  end. I'm a big Audi fan, and as you
• 2:34:13
  know, I spent 12 years of my life in Volkswagen Group.
• 2:34:15
  A big chunk of that I was at Audi as well, working on some
• 2:34:17
  production programs there. So big fan of Audi.
• 2:34:20
  I struggled with the management there for many years because I
• 2:34:23
  thought that they didn't fully embrace Audi DNA.
• 2:34:27
  For me, Audi DNA is much more Germanic, much more Bauhaus,
• 2:34:30
  much more that kind of Teutonic, strict, fundamental, almost
• 2:34:35
  brutalist. There is something about Audi
• 2:34:38
  that is, you know, German to the core and there's no nonsense
• 2:34:41
  kind of way. And when they were over styling
• 2:34:43
  it and putting a lot of styling lines and putting undercuts and
• 2:34:46
  overcuts and Chrome bits and this and that, and again going
• 2:34:49
  in the Christmas tree direction with the cars, I personally felt
• 2:34:52
  disconnected. I felt like that Audi has such a
• 2:34:54
  wealth of DNA behind that. Come on guys, let's just do
• 2:34:58
  something more pure. And my proposals were always on
• 2:35:01
  that more pure direction and then eventually they weren't
• 2:35:03
  getting into production because they were seamless, just not
• 2:35:06
  right for the brand. In fact, I was being offended by
• 2:35:09
  being told you're not on brand. And I'm thinking, no, you are
• 2:35:12
  not on brand. None of you are on brand.
• 2:35:14
  You don't get the brand. I need to shake you guys.
• 2:35:17
  We're not doing rebadged BMWs or rebadged Mercedes here.
• 2:35:20
  This should be different. There is a quality of design
• 2:35:22
  that needs to be respected. And that obvious concept you
• 2:35:24
  mentioned was obviously a big inspiration.
• 2:35:26
  JMA's early 90s, wonderful car. There was also the Audi Sport
• 2:35:30
  Quattro Coupe concept back then, also with his round roof orange
• 2:35:33
  car, spider and coupe. They were, they were wonderful.
• 2:35:36
  Then the TT came. Then the Schleppenwolf was
• 2:35:38
  incredible as well with Rafael Pretecher as a designer.
• 2:35:42
  And there was a whole plethora of cars that for me set the
• 2:35:45
  standard for what Audi design should be.
• 2:35:47
  And then there were a lot of newer cars already underwater,
• 2:35:50
  the Silver and then Stefan Ziwaf and then Wolfgang Edgar and then
• 2:35:55
  Mark Leach, the incredibly competent designers.
• 2:35:58
  But some of that original design manifesto got watered down.
• 2:36:01
  And remember, I just said a minute ago how like you start
• 2:36:03
  high and then you kind of you need to restart.
• 2:36:05
  Well, maybe this is what's happening now.
• 2:36:07
  Maybe bringing Massimo on board. They are really kind of
• 2:36:11
  returning back to this more Bauhaus Germanic roots from that
• 2:36:14
  perspective. I love what they did and I'm
• 2:36:16
  really happy to see it. Yeah, that design language works
• 2:36:19
  so well in a way that it wouldn't, I think with Jaguar or
• 2:36:22
  something else. It just looks right.
• 2:36:24
  It just looks right. It's hard to put your finger on,
• 2:36:25
  but but that explanation of the history and all that, that just
• 2:36:29
  that explains it, I think. And was it Freeman Thomas who
• 2:36:32
  did the original TT? Freeman is awesome.
• 2:36:35
  Yeah, he did the original TT. He worked on the original New
• 2:36:40
  Beetle as well. Remember that round roof one?
• 2:36:43
  And to his day, he's an inspiration.
• 2:36:45
  Great designer. Was he a teacher of yours at Art
• 2:36:47
  Center? No, he didn't teach, but he's
• 2:36:49
  prominent, so he always stopped by and gave his opinion here and
• 2:36:52
  there. Sometimes I go out to see him
• 2:36:55
  and run whatever I'm doing by him.
• 2:36:56
  Just you got like a, some kind of he's a.
• 2:36:58
  Hell of a nice guy too, I've bumped into him a couple times
• 2:37:00
  at the Peterson Museum and other places and he's always got time
• 2:37:03
  to say hello and talk. With you, but I have to say he
• 2:37:05
  he on a philosophical level is very much the the core of in my
• 2:37:10
  mind of Audi DNA. Like you would go to him to
• 2:37:12
  Derek Jenkins as well, another very prominent designer.
• 2:37:15
  I respect a lot for this. DNA was an interesting thing.
• 2:37:18
  I need to mention this. The Germans themselves struggled
• 2:37:21
  to understand the quintessential part of Audi DNA.
• 2:37:24
  You had to be a foreigner to see it.
• 2:37:26
  And the fact that those guys were coming from the States and
• 2:37:29
  they grew up with a completely different understanding of what
• 2:37:31
  VW is and what Audis. And there was a whole hippie
• 2:37:33
  culture tied into it. There was a whole West Coast
• 2:37:35
  kind of fun culture attached to it.
• 2:37:37
  Germans see their past with heavy guilt.
• 2:37:40
  So when you tell them, let's take inspiration from the 30s,
• 2:37:43
  it's like, are you nuts? Like, why would we do that?
• 2:37:45
  Like, please, anything but. So it really takes a takes a, a
• 2:37:49
  person who is not part of the guilt train to reference some of
• 2:37:54
  those cars and celebrate them in a way they should be celebrated
• 2:37:57
  because I don't think the cars are guilty of the dictators, you
• 2:38:00
  know, actions. You're the first person that
• 2:38:03
  I've ever heard say that, Sasha, and I think that's really
• 2:38:05
  important and that that explains so much, right?
• 2:38:08
  I know Mercedes-Benz has this amazing repository of their
• 2:38:11
  history that they keep under lock and key, right?
• 2:38:14
  And obviously I understand some of it, but it's still your
• 2:38:16
  history, right? And and I like that point of
• 2:38:19
  being an outsider looking in to really understand it.
• 2:38:21
  That's it's fascinating, you know, so you mentioned
• 2:38:25
  Volkswagen, Audi, TT, some of these other cars.
• 2:38:28
  I'm very fascinated to find out what your daily driver is.
• 2:38:31
  Sasha, what do you drive? The guy that designs the new Lu
• 2:38:34
  27, what does he drive every day?
• 2:38:36
  Well, my favorite daily driver that I had to sell when we moved
• 2:38:40
  to the States for the second time was the R35 GTR.
• 2:38:45
  That was that was my kind of. Yeah.
• 2:38:48
  Perfect weapon. I loved it.
• 2:38:51
  I loved every moment of it. I would take kids to school and
• 2:38:54
  drive on the German Autobahn and Max the car out every single
• 2:38:56
  day. So it would literally go 195
• 2:38:59
  miles an hour on the way to school and then onto the off
• 2:39:02
  ramp completely restricted. So you break late, you kind of,
• 2:39:05
  you throw the car in and floor it on the exit, let it slide a
• 2:39:08
  little bit. The kids are partying it out,
• 2:39:10
  celebrating and perfectly legal and perfectly.
• 2:39:12
  Legal SO. That was an experience.
• 2:39:15
  I loved every moment of owning that car.
• 2:39:17
  Right now I drive a 2021 or 22 Land Rover Defender, which I
• 2:39:24
  really like. It's a very clean volume.
• 2:39:26
  Again, referencing, by the way, this is another car that the
• 2:39:28
  current Audi chief designed back in this Land Rover days.
• 2:39:31
  So there's some taste of his that I appreciate in that car as
• 2:39:35
  well. And solves my daily needs,
• 2:39:39
  doesn't upset me. I don't feel like I need to
• 2:39:41
  scream and yell at it. The reliability sucks but but
• 2:39:43
  the design is good, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's a great design.
• 2:39:46
  I I love what, what was it? The Heritage edition with the
• 2:39:48
  steel wheels and all that. I don't know which one you have,
• 2:39:51
  but I love those. They're great.
• 2:39:52
  And they drive really well, too. You don't always notice until
• 2:39:55
  you get out of something else before you realize how good
• 2:39:58
  those Land Rovers ride. And you mentioned the R35
• 2:40:00
  because I think it was just last week that they announced the
• 2:40:02
  last one was rolling off the assembly line.
• 2:40:05
  I had to stop and think about how long that thing has been
• 2:40:08
  out. I think that was released in Is
• 2:40:10
  it O5 or O8O8? O7 were those I think the first
• 2:40:14
  cars on the road, but the concept was a couple of years
• 2:40:16
  before that and then there was another concept another couple
• 2:40:19
  of years before that. So I would say the journey of
• 2:40:21
  that R35 project probably goes back to early 2000s.
• 2:40:25
  Really. Yeah.
• 2:40:26
  And I remember when it came out, this was the death of analog,
• 2:40:29
  right? This new digital car.
• 2:40:30
  And now we look back and think, all right, this thing's pretty
• 2:40:32
  damn analog. Pretty damn analogue.
• 2:40:35
  Exactly. Compared to today's cars, it's
• 2:40:37
  got a ton of character. I don't know, people talk about
• 2:40:39
  the fact that it's like driving a PlayStation cars, but it
• 2:40:42
  really isn't. The thing is tons of joy and can
• 2:40:45
  really kind of, I wouldn't say it punishes you outright because
• 2:40:48
  it does catch you if you're too stupid, but there is some like
• 2:40:51
  snap over steer moments I had where I was kind of what was
• 2:40:54
  that all about? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:40:56
  Well, it's nice. I think the proof is in the
• 2:40:57
  pudding and that the fact that those cars are holding their
• 2:40:59
  value really, really well, you know?
• 2:41:01
  I sold mine for more than I bought it for really, which is
• 2:41:03
  incredible because a 7 year old car I fractionally but it still
• 2:41:07
  didn't depreciate. Sure, like it's a Porsche GT car
• 2:41:09
  or something, you know? OK, so you're in Southern
• 2:41:11
  California, LA area I assume? Indeed, yeah.
• 2:41:14
  So where are your go to roads? I know when I'm in town I always
• 2:41:17
  try to do Angeles Crest and Little Big Tujunga.
• 2:41:19
  Whatever those roads are, they're pretty fantastic, like
• 2:41:22
  roller coasters. Where do you go?
• 2:41:23
  Where? What are your proving grounds in
• 2:41:24
  Socal? I don't have any proving grounds
• 2:41:26
  because I don't have a car that is worth the proving grounds.
• 2:41:28
  OK, so the Land Rover is about to tip over every time I'm on
• 2:41:34
  an, so I don't feel the need to take it anywhere more extreme
• 2:41:37
  than that. Yeah.
• 2:41:38
  For sure. But obviously some gorgeous
• 2:41:40
  roads I am not a fan of necessarily hooning around.
• 2:41:43
  Yeah, public roads. I, I, I am decent as a driver.
• 2:41:47
  I'm not great and I don't want to be a liability on that road
• 2:41:50
  and I don't want to drag anybody else into any kind of accidents
• 2:41:53
  with me. So track day and then some some
• 2:41:55
  days of preparing with a set of Corsa and getting a few laps in
• 2:41:59
  to understand all your breaking points and then go to the track
• 2:42:02
  semi educated and and do some fun, fun laps on the track.
• 2:42:05
  That's that's how I normally my kick.
• 2:42:08
  It's a great point when one of the reasons I moved to Denver,
• 2:42:10
  to Colorado here 10 or 11 years ago was for the roads.
• 2:42:13
  And I just turned 50 about a week ago.
• 2:42:15
  I know you're a few years younger than me, but it's
• 2:42:17
  becoming less and less important.
• 2:42:18
  I've I've got nothing to prove, you know, you know, it, It's
• 2:42:22
  just about going out and having a good time.
• 2:42:23
  If you know, if I was involved with something even indirectly
• 2:42:26
  that hurts someone or I couldn't live with myself.
• 2:42:28
  And so, you know, it's just, it's, it's funny how your
• 2:42:31
  priorities change anymore. It's more about the the drive
• 2:42:33
  and the scenery that it's, you know.
• 2:42:35
  But it is it also outright scary, especially in modern high
• 2:42:39
  performance cars, because to to tap into their actual
• 2:42:42
  performance envelope, you need to be so far above and beyond
• 2:42:45
  anything that is real legal in terms of speed limits.
• 2:42:48
  And then you're throwing this car in and, and you're hoping
• 2:42:51
  that it doesn't understeer a fraction more than it normally
• 2:42:53
  does and that you'll bite into that road.
• 2:42:55
  But if you don't, then it's a Cliff, you know, So or, or
• 2:42:58
  coming out of the corner, you're a bit sloppy with your throttle
• 2:43:01
  and then the back comes out and there is not, there's no room
• 2:43:04
  for error. And I don't understand people
• 2:43:05
  when I see them driving as recklessly as they do.
• 2:43:07
  Are they superhuman in their trust in their abilities?
• 2:43:10
  Or do they overestimate their abilities and then they are
• 2:43:13
  risking because I don't like it. I mean Pikes Peak on on on on
• 2:43:17
  YouTube. Yeah, is is more than enough for
• 2:43:20
  me to get my my, my palm sweaty and my back sweaty.
• 2:43:23
  So. Yeah, yeah, I'm with you.
• 2:43:25
  And you know that's everyone else too, right?
• 2:43:27
  It's the person coming the other direction or whatever is as you.
• 2:43:30
  Know, and then there's a, there's a, there's a motorcycle,
• 2:43:33
  you know, leaning into the other direction.
• 2:43:34
  So they're across the, the, the, the lane divide and you're on
• 2:43:37
  the limit of your grip. So what are you gonna do then?
• 2:43:39
  Yeah, exactly, Exactly. And you mentioned Pikes Peak.
• 2:43:41
  Have you ever been out here for Pikes Peak?
• 2:43:43
  No love to. OK, if you'd ever want to come
• 2:43:45
  out, please do let me let me know.
• 2:43:47
  It's there's nothing else like it.
• 2:43:48
  It's it's it's this world class event, but it's still very much
• 2:43:52
  sort of a, a locals only kind of thing.
• 2:43:55
  I mean, it's a generational thing.
• 2:43:57
  And then the diversity of cars is amazing.
• 2:44:00
  You'll see some 1950s pickup truck with, you know, 900
• 2:44:03
  horsepower next to some concept vehicle next to someone in a,
• 2:44:07
  you know, bone stock GT4 or a Corvette or something.
• 2:44:09
  It's just a fantastic event. And and just to see to the car
• 2:44:12
  slow down the higher it's right with atmospheric power loss,
• 2:44:16
  there's nothing. You, you definitely don't need
• 2:44:18
  to convince me. I'm gonna, I'm gonna make an
• 2:44:20
  effort to be there. Please let me know.
• 2:44:22
  Please let me know. I'll show you around.
• 2:44:23
  Thank you. And you know, I think something
• 2:44:25
  else too, kids, once you have kids, right, your priorities
• 2:44:28
  change. And I know that Nilu, I think is
• 2:44:30
  is named after your, your two kids.
• 2:44:32
  Is that right? Absolutely.
• 2:44:34
  Yes, yeah, Nika and Lucia and. Yeah, yeah.
• 2:44:38
  In the in the number 27 has special significance for you as
• 2:44:41
  as well. Would you share what that is?
• 2:44:44
  Yeah, so that was that magazine clipping that I was talking
• 2:44:46
  about a bit earlier that I got my hands on that kind of pivoted
• 2:44:49
  me, you know, made me fall in love with Cars for Life.
• 2:44:53
  And that was your Vilnius #27 Formula One Ferrari.
• 2:44:58
  And when I started watching F1, about a decade later when they
• 2:45:02
  started showing it on Russian television, I also saw a #27
• 2:45:06
  Ferrari. And I thought that probably was
• 2:45:07
  the same driver. But of course I did.
• 2:45:10
  I wasn't, was John Easy and was a Ferrari fan as a kid and
• 2:45:13
  always kind of throwing cars with #27 on them.
• 2:45:16
  So I figured it's kind of my lucky mascot.
• 2:45:18
  And now we're starting a company and calling it after our kids,
• 2:45:21
  my wife and I. And why don't we just put that
• 2:45:23
  #27 as our little mascot? You know, some companies have a
• 2:45:27
  Prancing Pony, other companies have a Raging Bull.
• 2:45:30
  And we just have that #27 that carries our emotional kind of
• 2:45:33
  message across. I love it, I love it.
• 2:45:36
  And I'm sure you see 27 everywhere now, right?
• 2:45:39
  All the time. Yeah, every time I pick up like
• 2:45:41
  a number from my table at a restaurant.
• 2:45:43
  Yeah, I know that for me it's 22, but it's the same kind of
• 2:45:46
  thing, you know? I know it's going to be a good
• 2:45:47
  day. Like if I get, you know, 22 on
• 2:45:49
  my cup of coffee or something, you know?
• 2:45:50
  That's funny how that works, you know.
• 2:45:53
  So I want to talk a little bit. My background is actually
• 2:45:55
  graphic design and I know you have a design consultancy as as
• 2:46:00
  well. And it's not just automotive
• 2:46:02
  design, it's hardline 27 I think is what it's called, right.
• 2:46:05
  And graphic design is part of which I think is so cool.
• 2:46:08
  Can you talk a little bit about the importance of I guess kind
• 2:46:11
  of the convergence of design disciplines when it comes to car
• 2:46:14
  design and what you do and I guess what, what you offer as a,
• 2:46:17
  as a firm as well? Yeah, so I, I, I do firmly
• 2:46:21
  believe in, in kind of a holistic approach to design.
• 2:46:23
  I really don't like it when things look like different cooks
• 2:46:26
  and different departments. Did you know different things on
• 2:46:30
  a car, you want everything again, sort of referencing back
• 2:46:35
  to the tech world. You want the OS to look
• 2:46:39
  harmonious with the external shell of of the phone, right.
• 2:46:42
  You don't want them to be designed by two different
• 2:46:44
  philosophies. And and that's why we have a
• 2:46:47
  very holistic approach. We have people on board who kind
• 2:46:51
  of own certain subjects, but there's also tons of cross
• 2:46:56
  pollination. So it isn't like, you know,
• 2:46:58
  they're working in silos. It's really teamwork.
• 2:47:00
  Everybody comes together, discusses the briefing,
• 2:47:03
  discusses the vision for the product, discusses the vision
• 2:47:05
  for the brand, understands how to approach it from an interior
• 2:47:08
  designer's perspective, an exterior designer's perspective.
• 2:47:11
  Brand design. We don't call it graphic design,
• 2:47:13
  we call it brand design because it's a lot of it is corporate
• 2:47:15
  identity for us, right? It's coming up with a refreshed
• 2:47:17
  set of corporate identity guidelines, be the logo and the
• 2:47:20
  logo type or colors or fonts and typography or bespoke typography
• 2:47:25
  as well. But it all has to fit into the
• 2:47:27
  kind of the, the, the metaphysical cathedral that the
• 2:47:32
  company and the brand represents, right?
• 2:47:34
  It all has to be part of the, part of the, the, the, the
• 2:47:38
  quorum of that, of that, of that faith, you know, like it really
• 2:47:40
  needs to communicate the vision. And I really appreciate that We
• 2:47:45
  are small, lean, agile. And around me, I have people who
• 2:47:47
  work in the same kind of way that I do, which is very hands
• 2:47:50
  on, not not delegating the work, but sitting down doing it
• 2:47:53
  ourselves. And Hardline said three years of
• 2:47:56
  very successful operation. We had in total recently counted
• 2:48:01
  close to 30 clients in the three years.
• 2:48:03
  So on average about 10 clients per year ranging from top of the
• 2:48:07
  line tech companies to OEMs that everybody has heard of, sports
• 2:48:11
  car OEMs and eventually a few very interesting startups that
• 2:48:15
  had some very novel ideas. They wanted us to help them kind
• 2:48:18
  of germinate and illustrate very rewarding work.
• 2:48:23
  Really appreciate it. That allows me to have my hand
• 2:48:25
  on the pulse of the industry a little bit because it's very
• 2:48:27
  easy to get sort of sucked into your own daily grind and to lose
• 2:48:31
  track of what is everybody else up to.
• 2:48:33
  What are things that are happening around me in this
• 2:48:35
  industry and, and having hardline.
• 2:48:36
  Obviously the work is NDA then obviously super secret and all,
• 2:48:39
  but I still am exposed to a lot of it and I can then kind of
• 2:48:43
  contribute to those brands in a meaningful way because I have a
• 2:48:48
  landscape in my mind. I understand the lay of the land
• 2:48:50
  a little bit. And then you can really tailor
• 2:48:52
  make your offering. We've done programs that range
• 2:48:55
  from outright production cars that are kind of all the way
• 2:48:57
  taken into a release of panels and and, and, and and finalizing
• 2:49:02
  the design. But we've also done plenty of
• 2:49:04
  work that is front loading work, which is known the concept
• 2:49:07
  stage, coming up with core pillars for the brand and
• 2:49:10
  illustrating them into, you know, the guiding principles of
• 2:49:13
  what they're what they're, you know, stories should look like
• 2:49:17
  all kinds of work, but very exciting.
• 2:49:20
  We're we're picky. We're we're kind of cheesy at
• 2:49:22
  this point in time. Just take on any, any, any
• 2:49:25
  project. For example, I had a, a dream to
• 2:49:27
  do muscle car work for a long time and kind of tap into the
• 2:49:30
  American Dino. And we, we have a client in
• 2:49:33
  Florida that allowed us to do that.
• 2:49:35
  And there's a couple of exciting projects coming out with them
• 2:49:37
  soon. So we're, we're picky, but I, I
• 2:49:40
  embrace a lot more. Like Nilu is quite, quite, you
• 2:49:45
  know, narrowly focused, sure. And hardline is the opposite.
• 2:49:49
  And then they kind of yin and Yang each other in that way.
• 2:49:51
  And in my mind, yeah, they create a more.
• 2:49:55
  It's a wholesome experience for me as a designer and as an
• 2:49:58
  entrepreneur. Yeah, it sounds like the perfect
• 2:50:00
  balance. It sounds like a dream job,
• 2:50:01
  right? I mean, it's, it's something
• 2:50:03
  I've learned as a graphic designers, you really can't
• 2:50:05
  isolate yourself any longer, right?
• 2:50:07
  It has to be that convergence. It has to be a holistic approach
• 2:50:10
  or just doesn't work. It's just not how how the world
• 2:50:12
  works anymore, right? Those days are those days are
• 2:50:15
  done. What exciting thing.
• 2:50:17
  I mean, it's just, you know, then you're not locked into the
• 2:50:19
  car thing all the time either, right?
• 2:50:22
  It's, it's, you've got something else going on.
• 2:50:23
  But back to the car, because I think you've got a production
• 2:50:28
  schedule now, right? I think 1st 15 cars are track
• 2:50:31
  only coming out next year 26. Well, we, we will make some
• 2:50:36
  announcements soon. But according to our engineering
• 2:50:41
  team, it might not be that 15 track cars are first, it might
• 2:50:45
  be that we are slotting them into the production run here and
• 2:50:48
  there. So we're, we're still working on
• 2:50:50
  the details of that. There is logistics, there is a
• 2:50:52
  supply chain, there is let's say the business side of things at
• 2:50:56
  play here as well. But yeah, we've, we are
• 2:50:59
  committed to 15 non strictly speaking, Herald legal units and
• 2:51:02
  54 OK, I'm allocated Rd. Rd. legal cars here.
• 2:51:06
  Cool, cool, cool. And I guess your potential
• 2:51:09
  customer, what makes a Neelu customer different say than
• 2:51:12
  someone who will just, you know, at least theoretically go into a
• 2:51:14
  Ferrari dealership and drop similar coin on a like a Daytona
• 2:51:17
  SP3, right? How is your perspective customer
• 2:51:20
  different? Well, I don't actually think
• 2:51:23
  that they are because most of our customers are are pretty big
• 2:51:28
  connoisseurs and collectors of that of that type of vehicle.
• 2:51:31
  So some of them for some of them it's the first, it's the first
• 2:51:35
  purchase. We actually have concluded the
• 2:51:38
  sale with one such customer recently or very recently for
• 2:51:43
  first time hypercar buyer that's very exciting for us.
• 2:51:46
  But most of them are seasoned hypercar collectors and they
• 2:51:49
  really have a pretty a well trained eye and expectation
• 2:51:54
  level and they kind of know the experience all too well.
• 2:51:57
  So I do think that there's a general shift happening at the
• 2:52:01
  moment where our message lands really well with our prospective
• 2:52:05
  customers. The message of back to the
• 2:52:07
  Roots, the message of decomplexing the vehicle, less
• 2:52:10
  reliance on the electronics, putting the driver back in the
• 2:52:13
  driver's seat. Like you earlier, Ryan started
• 2:52:16
  with listing out the specs of the needle.
• 2:52:19
  We don't headline with that stuff on purpose.
• 2:52:21
  I mean, for me, the headline is the driver is in the driver's
• 2:52:24
  seat and with you as a driver can get out of it.
• 2:52:26
  If it's a sub 3 second zero to 100 kilometer acceleration, I'll
• 2:52:30
  applaud you for doing that, But that just means that you found
• 2:52:33
  the perfect day, the perfect Rd. condition and you timed your
• 2:52:36
  shifts perfectly and you worked that clutch and you worked that
• 2:52:39
  throttle pedal and it's more of your accomplishment.
• 2:52:41
  I mean, obviously it's in the car.
• 2:52:42
  The car can pull it off, but it won't do much to help you
• 2:52:45
  either. So, so you know that that
• 2:52:48
  headline spec isn't something that we advertise on our front
• 2:52:52
  page because it's up to the driver.
• 2:52:53
  That's what we want to talk about and and in that sense it's
• 2:52:57
  finding a lot of traction and a great reception from the
• 2:52:59
  customer community because they are tired of the soulless car as
• 2:53:04
  an appliance car as a technic tech gadgets approach that has
• 2:53:10
  even trickled over to hypercar world from the Tesla's and the
• 2:53:15
  and the Lucids of this world. It has also trickled into the
• 2:53:18
  hypercar world now, and the customer doesn't want much of
• 2:53:21
  that in the future. Perfectly coinciding with my own
• 2:53:25
  dream and my own ambition. You know, I've always wanted to
• 2:53:27
  do just that and all of a sudden the market seems very right.
• 2:53:30
  For it, can we talk a little bit about car week?
• 2:53:32
  Because I think for someone like me or for the average person
• 2:53:35
  that that comes to car week, it's just kind of fun.
• 2:53:37
  It's, it's, you know, it's a show, but for Someone Like You,
• 2:53:39
  you're working, you're actually selling cars, right?
• 2:53:41
  Gordon Murray or, you know, a singer, they're, they're selling
• 2:53:45
  cars. So what's your, what's your take
• 2:53:47
  on car week from, from your perspective?
• 2:53:49
  I mean, you, you, you're selling cars, right?
• 2:53:52
  Of course we are. I mean, yeah, that's what we're
• 2:53:54
  here for. We're trying to build a
• 2:53:56
  successful company. We're early days still, but
• 2:53:58
  that's what we're doing. And the experience is you can't,
• 2:54:02
  you just can't miss our week. You cannot not go.
• 2:54:06
  You know, it's such a, it's such an incredible melting pot
• 2:54:09
  gathering of both the industry and the clientele and the media.
• 2:54:13
  So, you know, if you're not there, you're missing out on
• 2:54:16
  effectively the highlight of the year.
• 2:54:18
  It's intense, it's tiring. It's actually quite grueling
• 2:54:21
  with schedule there and you're kind of every day wondering how
• 2:54:25
  much can I bear this for? But it's a must.
• 2:54:29
  We really can't not go. So what are the highlights?
• 2:54:35
  Well, for, for me, first of all, my wife and I, we went to for
• 2:54:38
  the first time to Monterey for car week when we were students.
• 2:54:41
  And we just went in like, you know, rented a car, got a few of
• 2:54:45
  our friends together, went there without any tickets to anything
• 2:54:48
  and just kind of BS our way into most events and climbed under
• 2:54:52
  the fence for the others and cheated our way for the, you
• 2:54:55
  know, the rest. And that was our first
• 2:54:57
  experience in bumping into some legendary designers.
• 2:55:00
  They're saying, hi, I'm Sasha. And like, can I have your
• 2:55:02
  autograph basically? So now you go in there and it's
• 2:55:05
  a whole different experience. Last year we presented our car
• 2:55:07
  at the at the Awards Rant in Pebble Beach.
• 2:55:10
  And I'm just standing there pinching myself thinking, holy
• 2:55:13
  crap. You know, like I was here as a
• 2:55:15
  kid just just fighting for an autograph.
• 2:55:17
  I was here as a designer for all these amazing companies
• 2:55:20
  presenting their output or being part of the crew with the car.
• 2:55:24
  There some cases with Kennexag, for example, on the stage
• 2:55:27
  presenting as well. But here I am with my own
• 2:55:30
  creation, something that's lived in my mind for such a long time.
• 2:55:33
  And here we are where it's a small team, tiny team is just my
• 2:55:36
  wife, myself and a couple of other people.
• 2:55:38
  And we have to do everything from loading, unloading to
• 2:55:41
  repairing to putting up beach flags and looking for sandbags
• 2:55:44
  and repainting the scratched paint on the on the floor.
• 2:55:48
  But like all that stuff we have to do.
• 2:55:50
  But what a reward. Then you stand there at this
• 2:55:52
  awards ramp and you, I really wonder, did I just did I just
• 2:55:55
  present my car to the world here?
• 2:55:58
  Like that's just, you can't, you know I can't.
• 2:56:02
  I can't imagine what that must feel like.
• 2:56:04
  I just that you have that you've come full circle like that, that
• 2:56:07
  you are the guy now. You know signing autographs much
• 2:56:10
  must just be the coolest. But I try to not forget, well, I
• 2:56:13
  don't forget the humble beginnings.
• 2:56:16
  And I think that most of those people, you know, approaching
• 2:56:19
  now with with a comment or a request for an autograph or a
• 2:56:22
  picture, they're slated to do some great things in their life.
• 2:56:25
  So you have to kind of, yeah, you obviously have to treat
• 2:56:29
  everybody with respect and with dignity.
• 2:56:31
  But these people show their passion.
• 2:56:32
  They wear it on their sleeve. So they'll, they'll, they'll do
• 2:56:35
  great things, I have no doubt. Yeah, I love that.
• 2:56:38
  I absolutely love that. Can I ask what were some of the
• 2:56:41
  the automotive highlights for you A car week this year?
• 2:56:43
  Some of the work of others that you thought was pretty great?
• 2:56:46
  I think 1 car really stole the show and it was the S1 LM, the
• 2:56:51
  LM, My Plan F1 remake that Gordon Murray's team pulled off.
• 2:56:55
  I thought that looked fabulous and really pretty and I really
• 2:56:58
  enjoyed kind of. So I celebrated that result
• 2:57:01
  together with a couple of people I know from that project.
• 2:57:04
  So that's a very impressive car. It also shows to me that
• 2:57:08
  sometimes running after new, new, new isn't, isn't necessary.
• 2:57:12
  We're not in the, we have reached peak car.
• 2:57:16
  We're not in a situation where we're looking for peak car.
• 2:57:19
  We have reached it. So that the innovation for me at
• 2:57:21
  this point in time is kind of a lot of the times just watering
• 2:57:24
  down what the peak car should be as far as sports cars are
• 2:57:27
  concerned. And that they are kind of
• 2:57:29
  looking back at history and wondering, did we throw the baby
• 2:57:32
  out with the water? Like, no, we should really
• 2:57:34
  celebrate the good that there was in this beautiful McLaren.
• 2:57:37
  F1 is obviously a legendary car. So that they recreated it with
• 2:57:40
  such respect and with such quality, I find very attractive.
• 2:57:44
  I, I did similar what we did similar at Canixag with CC850
• 2:57:49
  and that was a dream project for me as well to kind of celebrate
• 2:57:52
  the brand's true design kind of beginnings.
• 2:57:56
  And then in this even more mature and refined way.
• 2:58:00
  People have an issue with retro. They always say how about that
• 2:58:02
  stretcher? But so what's wrong with that?
• 2:58:04
  If it was good, why throw it away?
• 2:58:06
  Is everything that is tomorrow better than everything that was
• 2:58:08
  yesterday? Is that like always the case?
• 2:58:11
  I'm not so sure about that. Yeah, yeah, I love the CC 8:50
• 2:58:15
  because of that, right? Because it pays, you know,
• 2:58:17
  tribute right to, you know, what came before it and it's done so
• 2:58:21
  well. So.
• 2:58:22
  And what about the GMA, the 33 and the 50?
• 2:58:25
  What are your, what are your thoughts of this?
• 2:58:26
  In a lot of ways, they're probably some of the closest
• 2:58:28
  analogs right to the Neilu 27. Like I absolutely love them as
• 2:58:33
  far as the concept is concerned, I think Gordon's concept is, is
• 2:58:36
  incredible and and he doesn't need my approval.
• 2:58:39
  We all know that he's a he's a legendary name and and knows for
• 2:58:42
  sure. And and the the engine
• 2:58:46
  drivetrain combination is wonderful.
• 2:58:47
  I love the kind of scaled down 12 cylinder lightweights, Revs
• 2:58:52
  low to Infinity. Wonderful packaging is great.
• 2:58:55
  Tight, tiny packages that that are accooning and just right for
• 2:59:00
  the driver. Great view angles on the
• 2:59:02
  exterior design side for both cars under baked.
• 2:59:05
  I think that the LM really sets a standard for Gordon Murray.
• 2:59:10
  I didn't quite like the the both exteriors.
• 2:59:12
  I felt they were a bit too tame. I'm not.
• 2:59:15
  I don't think that every car needs to scream that they it
• 2:59:17
  wants to burn your village. Not at all.
• 2:59:20
  But but they weren't executed to their fullest potential.
• 2:59:23
  There are areas which are a bit iffy like that.
• 2:59:25
  Rear end for me was a bit iffy on the T50, narrow tall, not
• 2:59:29
  doing itself any favours with the way the graphics were
• 2:59:31
  applied, emphasizing heights instead of width in some cases.
• 2:59:35
  But again, from everybody else out there, I think these are
• 2:59:38
  very compelling products. Analog, manual, perfect sound,
• 2:59:44
  wonderful packaging. And now with with the new
• 2:59:47
  iteration of cars, I think they've also unlocked the the
• 2:59:50
  finesse and the design side as well.
• 2:59:52
  Yeah, yeah, I think that's what's so great about your car.
• 2:59:55
  It's got a presence right that even those two wonderful cars
• 2:59:59
  don't have. And I I think for someone my
• 3:00:01
  age, it's just it presses the right buttons, right?
• 3:00:04
  It gets me excited, right. You know, you walk around at
• 3:00:07
  every angle is a is a good one. It's an event, right?
• 3:00:10
  Can't imagine what it's like to drive but just even.
• 3:00:12
  Looking at it as an event, it's a special as I look at the
• 3:00:15
  beginning, it's, it's, it's such a cool thing.
• 3:00:18
  And again, it must feel so amazing to know that that's
• 3:00:21
  yours, that that's your baby. But I know no small amount of
• 3:00:24
  hard work, you know, has gone behind all this.
• 3:00:27
  And so congratulations on something pretty wonderful.
• 3:00:30
  Thank you. Thank you very much.
• 3:00:32
  It's, it is a huge challenge. It's the challenge of our lives
• 3:00:36
  to, to, to succeed, but we are doing everything right and we're
• 3:00:41
  supported by a very passionate, you know, group of people around
• 3:00:46
  us. And that group is growing.
• 3:00:47
  And there will be some very important announcements coming
• 3:00:49
  up soon about the progress that we've made in the in the last
• 3:00:52
  year. So epic journey.
• 3:00:56
  Really loved every moment of it so far.
• 3:00:57
  And then we're still at the beginning.
• 3:00:59
  I mean, I'm 42 now, but it still feels like the mountain is there
• 3:01:04
  for me to climb. Even after all the years and all
• 3:01:06
  the other smaller mountains that that that's that's that were
• 3:01:10
  successfully navigated, there's still a big one you found.
• 3:01:13
  Where do we find you, your cars, your consultancy online, Sasha.
• 3:01:18
  Well, cars neilu27.com, consultancyhardline27.com both
• 3:01:24
  are pretty active on Instagram. Look up Hardline 27 official or
• 3:01:28
  neilu 27 official for our Instagram accounts.
• 3:01:31
  I also have a private Instagram accounts, Sasha Solipano
• 3:01:34
  sometimes active one and they they do they do all have very
• 3:01:37
  different narratives to tell. So you know, I'm speaking to you
• 3:01:40
  right now. I'm saying things also as a
• 3:01:44
  private person, not only as a as a representative of Neelu or
• 3:01:47
  hardline, but there's there's there's some split in the way
• 3:01:51
  the narratives are are handled there.
• 3:01:54
  Cool, excited. Excited to see new followers
• 3:01:57
  always. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
• 3:02:00
  And you're a great follower and all the pages are are are
• 3:02:02
  fantastic follows as well. One last question for you.
• 3:02:04
  You're a music fan, are you not? Yeah, big time.
• 3:02:06
  I've seen some concert T-shirts. So what are you listening to
• 3:02:11
  when you're designing? What are you putting on?
• 3:02:13
  So that was actually one of the very formative things in my life
• 3:02:17
  and in my career. From the early days, my mom used
• 3:02:20
  to challenge my brother and I. My brother is actually a
• 3:02:22
  composer of serious kind of musician, but as we were kids,
• 3:02:26
  she would always challenge us to close our eyes and imagine a
• 3:02:28
  visual narrative for any piece of music which she would play.
• 3:02:32
  And then she would stop the music and have us retell what we
• 3:02:34
  imagined. So for me, this connection
• 3:02:36
  between visual and overall is, is actually very strong.
• 3:02:39
  So I I do find the right sub genre of metal for each project.
• 3:02:47
  OK, I love it. You can get the right vibes
• 3:02:48
  from. But I mean, we can laugh about
• 3:02:50
  it because metal maybe to some people is very kind of
• 3:02:53
  homogeneous in a way, but it really isn't because there are
• 3:02:56
  things that are incredibly slow paced, landscapey and very
• 3:02:59
  abstract. And there are things that are
• 3:03:01
  fast-paced, brutal and, and there are things that are very
• 3:03:04
  mathematically driven with complex time signatures and
• 3:03:07
  polyrhythms and then weird kind of shifts.
• 3:03:09
  And then there are other things that are monumental and, and
• 3:03:12
  huge. So depending on the project, you
• 3:03:14
  really can find the right kind of soundscape that that, that
• 3:03:20
  that puts your mind, you know, in the in the mode that creates
• 3:03:24
  visual forms and language that coincides with the music that
• 3:03:29
  was originally picked out to guide you towards a result for
• 3:03:34
  that particular project. Yeah.
• 3:03:36
  I love that. I love that.
• 3:03:38
  Well, Sasha Solepanov, I thank you for joining us on that car
• 3:03:42
  show today. We cannot wait to see what's
• 3:03:45
  next. Thank you so much.
• 3:03:46
  I appreciate it, Ryan. It was a pleasure.
• 3:03:48
  Thank you very much and thank you to all the.
• 3:03:50
  Listeners.