[SPEAKER_03]: Hey, Tommy, what's going on?
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, we got an interesting podcast slash video today because we've been traveling our, you know, what off?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's right.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we've done so many things in a short period of time, including the Japan Mobility Show, which is big news for a lot of people, because we've not only saw some new cars and future cars, but some really big news regarding brands, which is something that doesn't have very often.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I highly recommend it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fly from Tokyo right to Seema.
[SPEAKER_03]: That is, I never thought I could make Seema worse, but I did.
[SPEAKER_03]: You gotta be less grumpy about Seema.
[SPEAKER_03]: Why are you so grumpy about Seema?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because Seema is just so big, so huge.
[SPEAKER_03]: Literally, it could take you 20 minutes or half hour to go for one side to the other, but there was big news there.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we got a lot to discuss.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've got a lot of actually interesting stuff that has happened in the last two weeks.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we're gonna get to that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then at the end of me, while I was on the plane, I was contemplating.
[SPEAKER_03]: names of vehicles that don't mean anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, good.
[SPEAKER_02]: And got a couple of cars we're thinking about buying, and we should talk about that in this podcast as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, Zack told me yesterday that we have bought and sold the most cars in a year.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because you won't stop buying them.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I'm done buying.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you're not done buying.
[SPEAKER_02]: You keep buying them like left and right.
[SPEAKER_03]: I did not buy an IMEV yesterday.
[SPEAKER_02]: You almost bought an I'm the best today.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was that I don't need the car auction and I thought I'd make a great red headline We just bought the worst electric car ever made.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and I went up to 2000 and after that I was like I tapped out of it because look the thing had like 60 miles of range And it was new probably now 10 years later.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a 2014 how many miles of range you think it has like like 25 15 kilowatt-hour batter It's not worth 2000
[SPEAKER_02]: But we also tried to buy this past week, one of the rarest cars that's never been allowed to be sold.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what I'm talking about?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you want to tell me that story.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: So this was also in Japan.
[SPEAKER_03]: A two in the morning.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you called me to wake me up and then didn't buy the car at one thirty in the morning.
[SPEAKER_03]: I woke you up at two in the morning because let's let's take a huge step back.
[SPEAKER_03]: So about maybe four years ago, one of our viewers sent us an email with a real estate listing of all things in Atlanta.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a house for sale and it was a house for sale that was in a relatively bad part of Atlanta.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the house had been turned into kind of, and we know this because we actually talked to the realtor had been turned into a little bit of like a drug dead people were using it to like shoot up drugs And at one point it was in a good neighborhood and it belonged to I believe one of the, at least
[SPEAKER_03]: one of the presidents of one of the historically black colleges in Atlanta.
[SPEAKER_03]: Clark University.
[SPEAKER_03]: Clark, living in that house.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Anyway, the interesting thing about that listing was not the house.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was what was parked in the garage.
[SPEAKER_03]: What was parked in the garage?
[SPEAKER_02]: So someone sent us this because they thought they saw a GM EV-1 stashed away in the garage.
[SPEAKER_03]: And they did.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the EV-1 is a really great,
[SPEAKER_02]: We're small, quirky subset of automotive history.
[SPEAKER_02]: So back in the 1990s, General Motors was incredibly pioneering in their EV program.
[SPEAKER_02]: So long before Tesla came out with the roadster, long before Nissan came out with the Leaf.
[SPEAKER_02]: General Motors tried this pilot project to lease out a very futuristic, all electric streamlined coupe.
[SPEAKER_02]: Two people in Arizona, California, only a couple of states.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, this car story is best told by a documentary called Who Kill The Electric Car.
[SPEAKER_02]: Remember that?
[SPEAKER_02]: A really popular documentary.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was actually a sequel to it as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the EV1 was quite famous, not for its technological innovation, which it was pretty innovative, not because it could go through in a miles on a charge, it couldn't.
[SPEAKER_02]: But because the way GM handled the,
[SPEAKER_02]: the close-out of the EV1 program.
[SPEAKER_02]: So basically you had to select group of people that got these cars on lease, they were incredibly passionate about it, and then GM, for whatever reason, this is what the documentary is about, decided to cancel the program altogether, they took that all the cars, owners tried to track them down, they tried to chase and they were literally following transport trucks to wrecking yards where GM was squishing these EV1s.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't remember how many they made.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was somewhere around 1,000, maybe 2,000.
[SPEAKER_02]: 98% of them were turned into plastic hands.
[SPEAKER_02]: They were all squished, ruined dead.
[SPEAKER_03]: But what General Motors did?
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, that's second time I'm an interrupt call.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just texted you the link to this auction, which is going to be a very interesting part of the story.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if you could get that up on the computer at some point, I'd appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So people can actually see why I woke Tommy up at 2.30 in the morning.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, keep going.
[SPEAKER_02]: What GM did is they crash 99% of these cars, but there's a handful of them that they preserved and donated to universities for future study, right, because it was a groundbreaking cars.
[SPEAKER_02]: But there's a catch.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's never been a private sale.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they decommissioned these cars.
[SPEAKER_02]: They removed the battery packs.
[SPEAKER_02]: They chopped through a lot of the electronics and then made sure that they could essentially never go on the road again.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so if you were a university, you got two things.
[SPEAKER_03]: You got the car and then you got a box that had all the interns of the car basically.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, but those were also decommissioned.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the key.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, like it would be hard to recreate.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a great work of boards.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the batteries were gone.
[SPEAKER_02]: GM got rid of the batteries.
[SPEAKER_02]: Essentially, they don't want these companies are so risked
[SPEAKER_02]: when it comes to vehicles that shouldn't be on the road.
[SPEAKER_02]: So like prototypes, concepts, they all get crushed.
[SPEAKER_02]: These cars, they all got crushed except for a handful of fill that went to universities to never see the road again.
[SPEAKER_03]: So there's a listing and there's a picture of the garage which is all falling down and in the corner of the garage is this green EB1 with a box next to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so this was one of the cars that was donated to Clark University for research study and ultimately fell into disrepair that the university stashed it in the back of this Dean's garage or whatever, then the house kind of went into this repair ultimately you know like you said it kind of became a drug then got forgotten about and then a viewer was looking for house in Atlanta some of upon this house stumbled upon what he thought was an EV1 and he
[SPEAKER_02]: emailed it to us.
[SPEAKER_02]: We almost fell off our chairs because he was right.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was a blurry photo, and then the corner was this green, even one.
[SPEAKER_03]: Full of like covered in bird poop, the, you know, the garage is falling apart.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was just in a terrible state, but both the car and the box with the
[SPEAKER_03]: basically the components of the car were in the garage.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's when the massive hunt became started for me because first thing I did, of course, is pick up the phone and try to find the realtor.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then I have a friend who's in kind of the automotive journalism business, who also knows,
[SPEAKER_03]: I think either one team at Clark University or knows people like Clark so I called him up and we went on this massive hunt to try to find out what that car was and what was it doing there and could we acquire it?
[SPEAKER_03]: I was ready to buy that car.
[SPEAKER_03]: Unfortunately, by the time that we actually got a hold of anybody, the car had disappeared from it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And nobody knows where nobody knew where it went.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nobody was just gotten.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was told out of there.
[SPEAKER_02]: We didn't know where it went.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so, you know, I talked to the real time like, hey, you know, I don't want to buy the house, but I'm interested in the car, and then he's like, yeah, the car's gone.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, this is where things get interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: That kind of went cold there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Although I did talk to a couple of people who are really in no and the even one community, they did confirm this was the car that belonged to Clark University.
[SPEAKER_02]: Makes sense, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Anyway, that went cold and then that's when you called me now fast forward to last week I'm in Japan.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's two-three in the morning and there's a story that pops up on drive I'm jet lag.
[SPEAKER_03]: I can't sleep.
[SPEAKER_03]: I pick up on the story and lo and behold, there is this green EV-1 4-Sale in Using the options that we buy from you know, we use the peak auto auction, which is the donated car auction
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a Denver-based company, but basically they sell cars around the country for companies that are like tow trucks and records.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so if you were to tow a lot, tow on a band in the car, go to pick out a auction, they have a local auction, people can bid, and then you end up with, in often cases, a pretty bad car.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: But somehow, this car ended up at this lot, there was a court order, so if I recall the atopying that it actually did a really interesting story where they followed up and figured out what went on.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a little bit of like a legal situation going on.
[SPEAKER_03]: I figured that what happened was it got towed from the house.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then it sat in some tow yards somewhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the university didn't want to pay.
[SPEAKER_03]: to get it released without as well or the or the or the people who knew what it was were gone yes and eventually the told company got a court order to sell it uh and they were auctioned off and when i clicked this is like thirty six minutes before the end of the auction and when i clicked on the auction this is a car that we're talking about and it's the same car that i believe that was in the house yeah it's got to be it's got to be there's not a lot of these things in the wild uh... there was like i think that there was thirty six thousand dollars
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's what the bidding was up to.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what the bidding was up to.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was willing to go show the interior code, would you?
[SPEAKER_03]: You just went past it, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was willing to go to about $50,000, because I figured that this would be an incredible story.
[SPEAKER_03]: We could tell the story of the EV1.
[SPEAKER_03]: We could actually, you know, maybe...
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, go pick up the car, do a bunch of videos around it, and just, you know, have a piece of American electric car history.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's something that as an automotive journalist, I would be honored to tell.
[SPEAKER_03]: And back in the day, of course, GM did crush all these cars, but we do have contact with GM.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I thought that maybe if we buy the car and even actually call off GM,
[SPEAKER_03]: They've now might be proud of the heritage that they were one of the first companies to come out within a life-trick car that they actually might work with us instead of suing us because obviously a lot of the people who had these cars You know, didn't want to give them up and there was a lot of conflict between Jim and the owners and I thought maybe now Well, it's just water under the bridge that they may actually want to tell their stories
[SPEAKER_02]: This is interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: You say that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was just on another press trip, and I was talking to a gentleman who was really involved with this program when it was new, long, long time EV journalist.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he was saying that GM relationship with the EV one has gone back and forth a lot over the years.
[SPEAKER_02]: So in certain areas of GM,
[SPEAKER_02]: They want to honor the heritage to say, yes, we were really pioneering we did this and then other management like we never want to acknowledge exists.
[SPEAKER_02]: We never want to see this thing ever again.
[SPEAKER_02]: So depending on what era of GM you contact, you get very different.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, and you can also play it out legally in your head.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm assuming that when GM donated these cars to the different universities, that there was a clause in there saying that they probably can't sell.
[SPEAKER_03]: be sold.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, they're supposed to be crushed, I believe.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so technically GM still owns these cars.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's an argument to be made.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, I was just talking to the head of PR at another company about this to get his opinion.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's a thought was like, if if not if a media outlook got a hold of this, GM wouldn't want to create the bad blood of trying to suit
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what I figured.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have a good relationship with the PR team.
[SPEAKER_03]: They'd probably want to work with us.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I thought this would be a really interesting opportunity to tell the story of the first significant electric vehicle and put kind of like a period on the end of the story in a TFL way.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I was willing to go up to about $50,000 to buy this.
[SPEAKER_03]: And of course, I'm jet lagged.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's 2.30 in the morning.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's a lot of money.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're not that wealthy as a company.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we're betting a significant portion of our monthly revenue on making this video.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not going to be.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's not fair.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're not, honestly, how much you think we make in a month?
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, we're not, we're not Huvii, we're not, you know, the Strandman, we're not buying Bugatti's Lamborghinis or Veirons for that matter, and so that was a significant number, and you don't know if you can even get into a legal fight with GM, right, and then you gotta pay attorneys, it could quickly, you know, spiral into quite the...
[SPEAKER_03]: quite the mess so it ended up selling for a hundred and four thousand fifty thousand and i think a big problem was that it did end up on some of these big sites right at the end getting a call okay go go go get an occupying story uh... you got to get that sorted uh... so yeah so what ended up happening of course was that uh... uh... there were a lot of uh... enthusiast who love electric vehicles obviously there is a whole world around
[SPEAKER_03]: The electric vehicles and this being kind of the holy grail of electric vehicles.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, think about the fact that you often want the one of one if you're a collector while this is the holiest of holies when it comes to one of one electric vehicles.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think like Tommy said originally it's the only one that's actually been publicly for sale.
[SPEAKER_03]: The rumor is that there are people who own these things, and I think those rumors are right, they don't want to acknowledge that they own them, because they could get into a spat with GM.
[SPEAKER_03]: So they're out there, but this one was being publicly sold.
[SPEAKER_03]: There was also, I think, a 13% buyer's premium on this, so when it's sold for 100, and
[SPEAKER_03]: For you got to figure what another 15,000 on top of that.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it went for about a hundred and twenty thousand dollars And then if you want to you know kind of read who bought it That stories up on the utopian.
[SPEAKER_03]: They kind of track down.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, let me be Tommy Now he's back.
[SPEAKER_03]: You want to tell a story about who bought it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm getting a bad part of it
[SPEAKER_03]: because that story was on the utopian.
[SPEAKER_03]: They tracked down the guy who bought it and then he didn't want to use his name obviously.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think so he had he had planned to spend up to like he put a bit in of up to $156,000.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he would have been going to be in $156.
[SPEAKER_02]: Plus, I think 13% auction fees.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, 13% for another.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a $20,000.
[SPEAKER_02]: But here's what's crazy about this car is I accidentally and the Atopian did a much better job of the night it but I know the person who owned this car when it was new okay so I had a friend in high school and her dad was the original owner of this car back in the late 90s this is Vin 212 and he he knows Vin because he's really passionate about this car his story easy number right it's not a big long ass and
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no, his story is crazy, so he lived in Colorado, where we live, and he lives in Boulder, where we live.
[SPEAKER_02]: The problem is that GM never leased these cars to Colorado, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: It was supposed to be California, Arizona, but if I remember right, he had a sister or cousin that lived in Tempe.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he had her lease a car, and then he had it shipped up to Boulder so we could drive it around.
[SPEAKER_02]: There it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sawyer, that's the guy's name, Mr. Sawyer.
[SPEAKER_02]: OK. Now, when GM learned that this guy had taken it out of the intended area, they were really, really upset, they're like, this car shouldn't be in Colorado.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was not intended to be, but he's like, what are you going to do about it?
[SPEAKER_02]: The problem is he had a ton of issues with it, as you'd expect from an early generation electric car.
[SPEAKER_02]: These were basically,
[SPEAKER_02]: hand-built one-offs, all these EV ones.
[SPEAKER_02]: They were not intended to last a long time because they was a lease-only project, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So he kept having to have the car shift back and forth from Arizona.
[SPEAKER_02]: And after one of the failures of the high-voltage system, GM said, we're done.
[SPEAKER_02]: your car's done.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're not, we're not giving it back to you.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there was this big legal fight that ensued.
[SPEAKER_02]: He tried to get the police involved and at one point even the FBI involved.
[SPEAKER_02]: And ultimately, he didn't get the car back, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: GM1.
[SPEAKER_02]: But GM didn't destroy this car purpose.
[SPEAKER_03]: They donated it to Clark.
[SPEAKER_02]: The argument that the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the atopied and that Sawyer had was like, they probably didn't destroy it because
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a court case.
[SPEAKER_02]: They were going to be destroying evidence.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this car ended up at Clark University, and then it was the one that ended up in the barn.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now it's in this private person's hand.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you can actually see what it looks like now.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's at a shop.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a giant hole in the windshield.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you scroll up, you can see where the battery should have been.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's where the battery used to live in an EV1.
[SPEAKER_03]: But this is why I wanted to buy it.
[SPEAKER_03]: There were all these, like, sometimes a car finds you.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes you find a car and sometimes a car finds you and when I woke up at 230 and saw this story I knew all this background information.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm like this car has found me and so we should be buying it That was another reason for it, but it was just too expensive.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's it's it's kind of an rough shape It's a terrible shape and it's gonna be really hard to recommission but luckily People are really smart and I'm sure someone's going on before it doesn't I'm bringing it really
[SPEAKER_02]: I think never.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't think you think that this person's going to actually keep it.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's some really secretive EV collections I know of that have cars that they shouldn't have and they never get sold publicly.
[SPEAKER_02]: They get traded hands like within this community.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's like initially there were something like a hundred copies made of the U.S. Constitution.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: They were like like,
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't know that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Real copies.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean there is a constitution that was signed, but of course the following fathers had to let the other states know so they had copies of it made and those copies are extremely valuable.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so if you have one of those and you're like Bill Gates.
[SPEAKER_03]: then it's very secretive because obviously they're so unique and so unusual.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, you think this is the same thing with this one, where it's something that's so like contentious and so one of one that people aren't going to want to sell it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Publicly, and it'll trade hands privately and seriously.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I'm sure you're going to see this car make it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure it'll be a Pebble Beach, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: There, even though it's been decommissioned, people are smart enough to make it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't feel like the Pebble Beach crowd would appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not now, but in 25 years.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, maybe in 25 years.
[SPEAKER_02]: This car will end up at Pebble Beach.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure it'll end up at the Peterson.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's kind of like the first Mercedes.
[SPEAKER_03]: You draw over the first Mercedes, you're just copying it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I don't think the first Mercedes exists.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, it doesn't exist.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it's kind of like if you actually had the first Mercedes, the first car, one electric car's, and I'm going to say something hot take here, coal.
[SPEAKER_03]: Electric cars are going to take over over internal combustion.
[SPEAKER_03]: They are, it's just going to happen because they're just much more convenient and easier.
[SPEAKER_03]: your house is your gas station.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's just a ton of reasons.
[SPEAKER_03]: So at one point, this will be like the holy grail of electric cars.
[SPEAKER_03]: This will be the first one that was mass-produced and commercially sold.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I for sure, but I'm sure there were others that were mass-produced and commercially sold back in the 30s talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm not talking about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've no doubt, but it's also kind of like,
[SPEAKER_02]: This car is very, very, very, very similar to the turbine car, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And that it was leased out to people in very short quantities.
[SPEAKER_02]: The price of the turbine car, then the majority of them were crushed.
[SPEAKER_02]: A few worked on it to use it as a decommission.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's probably worth $9 or $10 million.
[SPEAKER_02]: The problem is fundamentally, the turbine car is just much cooler.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a car with a jet engine that that was designed by I think it was Gea the body on that or pin and free or someone so it was a beautiful design the evil one
[SPEAKER_02]: famously looks like a snake trapped under a rock, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Goes 70 miles on a charge.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was just kind of a little footnote in EV history.
[SPEAKER_02]: No doubt it's going to be really valuable, but I mean, I'm sure when I'm your age, I'm going to be kicking myself.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why didn't we spend $150,000?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because we don't have $150,000.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when it's worth $5 million, we're going to be like, dang, I wish we did.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, but yeah, it was a really interesting story.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wish it hadn't happened to 2 a.m. And I didn't sleep that night at all.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I knew that night.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that didn't matter.
[SPEAKER_03]: I wasn't listening to anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now neither of us slept that night.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: But, uh, well, that one got away Tommy.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then you could, you could think back to this podcast 20 years from now.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you're, I mean, you've got away, too.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we almost bought nine media yesterday, but that's a whole that's that's that's a whole different that was $2,000 Yeah, that's more TFL Money yeah, so should we get to the headline of this?
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I think this is our headline because it's such an interesting story and no, it's gonna click on this one.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, they will
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we almost here's the headline call for this for this podcast.
[SPEAKER_03]: We almost bought the world's most famous electric car cheese.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then we'll get like, no, we're going to click on that.
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll get a picture from the auction and we'll have like us doing goofy faces.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I bet you people will click on it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a good story.
[SPEAKER_03]: But we're kind of, we're kind of part of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: The other problem.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is a good story.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're kind of part of it now.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, it's going to click on Enoi.
[SPEAKER_03]: Why?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's got electric in it.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's fine.
[SPEAKER_03]: Somebody at some point we can do one electric story without.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, if you're one of the 60 people watching this podcast, I think thank you for taking people.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think there's a difference between electric cars and the EV1 people understand what it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: There have been two movies about it at this point.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, just one, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Who killed the EV1?
[SPEAKER_03]: But there's a follow-up movie on it, and so people, it's kind of in the zeitgeist.
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of these shuffie says this EV1 story is incredible.
[SPEAKER_02]: Chris says the second minute airport still is the EV1 chargers.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, oh, wow, look at that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so I'm telling you, that's crazy.
[SPEAKER_02]: So ED1's using inductive paddle to charge them, which is kind of
[SPEAKER_02]: The closest to describe is kind of more or less.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, like 50% went to heat.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's more like, like, charging a wireless charging.
[SPEAKER_03]: So ahead of its time.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this was a terrible system.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it was still a 50% efficient.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it was an effective panel.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like driving on a pad.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Anyway, you're right, Tommy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, these are so inefficient, by the way.
[SPEAKER_02]: You couldn't charge them on 120 volts, because they wouldn't charge.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you had to charge them on two.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it was 36 minutes left in the auction at 230 in the morning in Japan.
[SPEAKER_03]: I wasn't about to get alone.
[SPEAKER_03]: for an electric car.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly right.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think even at 150,000, it probably or I probably at some point, it will be, it might be worth more.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have a feeling, because I hope you know, so it's actually the guy that bought it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think he wouldn't have stopped at 150.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: That guy was buying that car.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think he would have penned quarter million dollars for a shell of electric car.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, we should have bought it when it was, you know, in the house.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know.
[SPEAKER_03]: Payed him like 20 bucks to tow it out of there.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know.
[SPEAKER_03]: Or just they would have paid you 50 bucks to get it out of there so they could sell the house that would have been that would have been the way to do it 100%.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, well, let's keep going so we were in Tokyo for the Tokyo Auto
[SPEAKER_03]: And you'd like that word.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's the worst word in the world because it takes what I love with a deer passion I love cars to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: They have always represented more than just a way to get around They have represented like, you know, freedom and sex and Speed and when you when you take that and just still a down to mobility It's like it's like it takes everything I love about cars and just makes it boring and bland So I I
[SPEAKER_03]: But to be fair, there is a lot of mobility stuff at that Tokyo Auto Show.
[SPEAKER_03]: Probably the most interesting one was this little stool that has like three legs that is meant for people who have a hard time getting around and you can sit in the stool and then the stool walks around.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll do that from pushing pistons did a pretty good video on it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it was an Instagram reel.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, let's talk about the century, so before we talk about the orange one, Cole, fast forward the video to the black one, no, sorry, rewind the video, I'm apologize.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, century is an interesting car, but now it's an interesting brand, so in Japan.
[SPEAKER_02]: In 1960, they came out with a luxury brand to rival Rolls Royce and Bentley.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is the 1964, this is the first model of your ferrocol, Toyota century, and you say to rival Rolls Royce and Bentley, but that's not really the case.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, it was a brand that lived in the Japanese culture as something that like executives of companies would drive right if you were successful and you were wealthy and you wanted a Japanese car to be driven in, I shouldn't say drive, then the century was your choice because it was built by Toyota but it was kind of like
[SPEAKER_03]: the Cadillac or badly.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's more like the Packard.
[SPEAKER_02]: So these are ultimate luxury luxury landscape.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the kind of like limiting.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the reason I don't say they compete with Bentley and Rolls Royce is because they were never.
[SPEAKER_02]: for the most part sold outside of the Japanese market.
[SPEAKER_03]: But let me just cut to the chase real quick so you understand why we're talking about this.
[SPEAKER_03]: This car, not that one, is coming to a Lexus dealership near you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, Toyota has not confirmed this.
[SPEAKER_03]: We don't have this officially, but we're,
[SPEAKER_03]: I think say a lot of wings and nudges happening, so I think we're saying it's coming over that the century brand is coming to a Lexus dealership near you.
[SPEAKER_03]: So think about this when you're watching this podcast slash video.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is a car that you could within the next year potentially go and get.
[SPEAKER_03]: So let's go to that white one before go back to the white one.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I heard it describe best.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's two people that buy centuries in Japan.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: So this is a modern century.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, this looks a lot like a Rolls Royce.
[SPEAKER_02]: Two people that buy centuries, the CEO's a company's in the Yakuza.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, those are the only two people that buy centuries.
[SPEAKER_02]: So gangsters and CEOs.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is not intended to be like a Bentley look at my money.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm all flashy.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is like very understated.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're Japanese.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is the new century.
[SPEAKER_02]: Interesting fact about the old one.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was the only factory mass produced V12, Japanese car of a sold.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's, do you like that logo?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think it's fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a Phoenix.
[SPEAKER_03]: It looks like a chicken.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not a chicken.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a Phoenix.
[SPEAKER_03]: It looks like a goat.
[SPEAKER_03]: Go back again.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the funniest comment in my video, okay?
[SPEAKER_03]: I said it looks like a flatchill in chicken because of those others.
[SPEAKER_03]: But somebody actually had a better comment in our video, you know what they said?
[SPEAKER_03]: What?
[SPEAKER_03]: It said it looks like a chicken.
[SPEAKER_03]: This being held up being robbed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, a little it's a Phoenix though.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's not watching this it's it's like a Phoenix with these feathers and it's feathers and it's hand slash wings up in the air like it's being, you know Rob so the interesting thing about century in the the way that we're likely to see it It's not gonna be like Alexis L. S competitor.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is gonna be well above this so you know how
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, Hyundai had the Genesis, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: They called it the Hyundai Genesis, then there was a Hyundai Equus, and Hyundai realized that people weren't going to buy a $100,000 sedan with the Hyundai logo, so then they separated it into its own brand called Genesis.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is likely what, well, we know actually, this is what Toyota is doing with Century, and they're breaking it off into its own brand.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, the thing about these centuries is they're not
[SPEAKER_02]: $80 or $90,000.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think this advanced starts at $140 in Japan and I think that the SUV starts at $200,000.
[SPEAKER_03]: It starts though, starts.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you can see the similarities to a Rolls Royce, they're obviously sedan.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then if you go fast, if you forward a little bit more to the black one call, so that they just started selling this, I think last year, the SUV is relatively new.
[SPEAKER_03]: It looks a little bit like a colonan, a lot like a colonan, but this is a matte exterior.
[SPEAKER_03]: They only, I think these are hand-built to some extent, and they only build like 30 a month.
[SPEAKER_03]: So they don't, it's very low volume, and you said what these are like 300k.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I think they started 200 is what they've done.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the key is they start when you start adding options and stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think Ealy 25300.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, this one was at the auto show, but we also saw when we were back in Japan, I think it was in February.
[SPEAKER_03]: And they had some really cool stuff on this car, like, for instance, the Windows or those luminescent windows that turn.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you can turn it there.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's opaque.
[SPEAKER_03]: It turns opaque.
[SPEAKER_03]: At a switch.
[SPEAKER_03]: And from this angle, it does look a lot like a colony.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of bed take here, but I think what, what Toyota Lexus brand is realizing is that there's, there's a ton of interest and maybe not a ton, but there's enough interest in ultra luxury, especially in the SUV space.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's a market they're just missing out on, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So the Lexus LX, that's the most expensive SUV that Lexus makes, which is 120.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, 120.
[SPEAKER_02]: But people are buying bentagas at 300.
[SPEAKER_02]: People are buying colonns at 400 plus.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's under the hood of this thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Is it a 12 cylinder?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, so this is the only kind of disappointing part.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is the old ones were V8 to 12 cylinders.
[SPEAKER_02]: All the new ones are the twin turbo V6.
[SPEAKER_02]: The one that's in the hybrid, and I think the, I think the SUV is a plug and hybrid.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Tundra power train.
[SPEAKER_02]: More like the LX power train, because it's a hybrid.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I guess the Tundra is also hybrid.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, so this is a concept.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is the century coupe.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, they came up with look at those crazy sliding doors.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you're listening to this, what makes it super unique is that the doors slide left and right, like a mini van, they don't open up or down or out like a car.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they're sliding doors.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, kind of like I mean, this is really an interesting concept because it's a three-seater tummy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so once again, centuries kind of been more about being driven around than driving.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's a coup profile, there's a driver's seat, which is kind of separated.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, there's like a divider and then the passenger seat extends all the way to the back of the car.
[SPEAKER_03]: When you say divider, it's more than that, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's basically a divider made up of like,
[SPEAKER_03]: I think they're a light, so the light's basically kind of high, you can see them there, the strands of fiber, maybe it might be illuminator fiber, hide the driver, and then the seat next to the driver goes all the way back and then swivels forward so you can get in and out of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So basically it's like a first class or maybe a private jet seat that's next to the driver that's weighing the back, and then there's another seat behind the driver, but the passenger has all the space that normally is reserved for two seats.
[SPEAKER_03]: and then of course it as is the way it has to have a yoke.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah but it like this is still a concept but the concept is interesting because it's a very very large and imposing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean the best way to describe this would be like a
[SPEAKER_02]: 1970s, El Dorado.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, just take a pause here and do a little bit of Roman right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I'm not done.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm lovingly finished describing it and then you can ran it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the concept of this is kind of like the return of the personal luxury coupe, the PLC.
[SPEAKER_02]: This was really big in the 50s and the 60s and the 70s.
[SPEAKER_02]: But essentially you have like a 25 foot long car with a huge hood and a very simple kind of profile on how it looks.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a beautiful design.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know exactly what your rant's going to be like.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's my rant?
[SPEAKER_02]: You're going to rant about how this is the same design as a Jaguar 00 and the Mercedes Long Hood thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that your rant?
[SPEAKER_03]: No, that's not my rant.
[SPEAKER_03]: That is kind of the thing that's happening right now.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're designers come up with one concept and a year later there's three versions of that concept.
[SPEAKER_03]: My rant is,
[SPEAKER_03]: that I'm sick and tired of designers taking really bad ideas that basically Tesla has pioneered and then either implementing them in their cars or he actually following up with worst ideas and this car has both of those.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I hate jokes.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think that they're very comfortable.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sure they're great in the plane.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think that they're actually very good in a car.
[SPEAKER_03]: Unless you're like an cyber truck, and then you have Steer by wire which likes this, which likes this does but still I like to rest my arm on top of the steering wheel Especially in long trips, and that is impossible with the yoke and then pull start Took this idea to the worst next level and they got rid of the rear window and this also doesn't have a rear window And I don't understand why you wouldn't want to have a rear window in a car
[SPEAKER_03]: that you're driving, that let you see out the back and see what's behind you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now you have to have a camera.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's like making things sleek and modern, not for the sake of functionality, but just for the sake of making them sleek and modern, even though it makes a driving experience worse.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, for once I do agree with your aunt.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I think you're pretty much spot on there.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's the front end to you got these kind of four-head light pods, which is kind of a century design queue now.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we don't know what the engine is with the power train's going to be, but what's crazy about this, and this is not the first I've seen of this.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what's unique about this coupe, is when you think coupe, you think load of the ground sports car?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's actually pretty tall.
[SPEAKER_02]: This has got like eight ten inches of ground clearance.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's frightening, I'm like 30s.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they're going, yeah, it's got a little bit of a dock look.
[SPEAKER_02]: But they're kind of clearly, they know that people are buying SUVs are not buying coops, but they like the look of a coops.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they built like a two-door coop SUV.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but this is something that the Japanese have been doing for quite a while.
[SPEAKER_03]: So their demographics are much older than ours.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so, like, with the crown, basically their coops that are raised, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: So, it's a boop, but it makes entry and exit much easier when you're older because you don't necessarily have to stoop down or squat down as much to get into it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, the Japanese have been doing this where they've been making tall coops because their population is aging and now they start bringing them into America because that's face to totus population is also, or totus buyers are also probably on the older side.
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, it's exciting.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I have some problems with this.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have some questions.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have some questions to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: First and foremost, I get to somebody who comments every time I say this word, they say I use it wrong.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I don't think I'm using it wrong.
[SPEAKER_03]: The word bespoke, where you build something that is unique to whoever the buyer is, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's personalized.
[SPEAKER_03]: The problem that I have with it is that in America, and if you're out of where of this, this is interesting,
[SPEAKER_03]: car dealers order car so that the customer for any car from the manufacturer isn't you or me tell me it's a dealer so the dealer goes and orders the cars that's why we've got such a boring color palette because they're very unadventurous when it comes to like what color palette they choose that's why everything's black silver white although right to their credit when you talk to dealers about that they say when they do order fun colors like greens and blues people don't buy them
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm sure on a lot forever.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm sure that's probably, but what happens is colors come and go in style, like right now orange is the hottest color.
[SPEAKER_03]: You see it in everything including the iPhone that I'm holding up here, and what they're doing is they're missing those trends by sticking to these really boring colors.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what,
[SPEAKER_03]: What that means is that the end customer is a dealer, and then what that means in terms of retail sales is that the dealer knows what cars are coming, and then they can put those cars on their website, and then they have control over their inventory to a larger and greater extent.
[SPEAKER_03]: There are incentives for dealers to buy certain cars and not by others.
[SPEAKER_03]: There are, especially like with Porsche, you have to sell so many boring cars to get 9-11 STs.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot of that going on.
[SPEAKER_03]: You good there, what's going on?
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm drizzled up my ass.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just take the watch off.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're a bit crazy over there.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know that I hate one text blow up.
[SPEAKER_03]: Don't you hate that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, yeah, but then I just silence them.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's why the sounds, it's cold.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why I don't like the watch.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I mean, I can tell.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a way to silence it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, hold on.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll do this.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just go mute.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, how do you, that's what I'm saying.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you do?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but I don't think it muted on the watch.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't watch.
[SPEAKER_03]: There you go
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it does be did on the watch.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for doing that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I hate that when it happens, when the text blow up, especially when I'm trying to do a podcast.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, so Toyota doesn't work that way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Toyota ever since Toyota came to America has had regions, so they're different regions in the country and the regions basically assign the vehicles to the dealers.
[SPEAKER_03]: So a dealer doesn't necessarily control the inventory that he's gotten so it's it's this is where it ties back to The century brand so a Toyota you can't really order your car you can't go to a Toyota dealership and you can't say to them.
[SPEAKER_03]: I want a pick
[SPEAKER_03]: a car or a truck, let's say you want a, or a Lexus, you want, let's say you want a gx, a crore, okay, let's say you want a crore, and you want it in dark, whatever color blue, and you want it with this interior, you can't do that because the dealer doesn't order the car from the factory, the dealer gets a design to them from the region.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the other thing that happens is that they don't necessarily have
[SPEAKER_03]: the ability to put whatever cars are either on their lot or coming on their websites.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if you go to a dealership and you click on the cars that are on their lots, a lot of those cars aren't there because they're either coming or they hope they're coming.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the only way that the Terti dealer can get you, I'm not sure if this is Lexus, but I assume it is too.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if I'm wrong about that, just correct me in the comments.
[SPEAKER_03]: But if you want to get a car bespoke at a Terti dealership, they have to trade for it with another dealer.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that is a...
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, that now you are using the word bespoke raw.
[SPEAKER_03]: I, okay, if you want to get, if you want to, you want a specific trim.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you gotta get it from the dealer.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, but the dealer has to then trade both.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, exactly.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's, that's problematic because then, you know, it's, it's a much more convoluted process than just actually going to the factory and saying, I want a car with this color with this interior with this trim, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And, and, and even Lexus, the only car I think right now, the can be under Lexus brand bespoke is there's a, um,
[SPEAKER_03]: There's I think it's called the inspiration that you can somehow customize I don't know what I know my friend James was telling me about this, but that's the only car in the Lexus line up that you can kind of sort of customize and when you think about Bentley and you think about Rolls Royce, these are cars that are ultimately customizable right when people spend three, four, five hundred thousand dollars or more they don't want what they want and what they want is you know a purple interior with a pink exterior, that's what they're going to get.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm not sure that the Toyota is set up to do that even under the Century brand.
[SPEAKER_03]: My other concern is that I think they are going to bring it into the Lexus dealership.
[SPEAKER_03]: And as much as Lexus does have some of the more high end dealerships.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's a very curated experience.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've also been in Lexus dealerships where you get the guy who's like, what can I do and I need to get you into this car, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And this is not the kind of sales
[SPEAKER_03]: process that somebody buying a $4,500,000 car one.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we don't know how much the century is going to cost you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would also pitch to you if you're buying a $400,000 car, you're never going to the dealership.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe, ever.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're probably not even buy the car to the dealership.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you send somebody with your preferences to go buy the car for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the difference, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And there is a cautionary note here, Volkswagen, Mercedes tried this like 10 years ago with the my-box brand.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was like 20 years ago.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, 20 years ago, so my-box originally,
[SPEAKER_03]: Mr. Mybach was one of the Mercedes owners, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: One of the guys who started Mercedes.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so it was a pre-war brand in Germany that was very famous, a high-end brand and what they decided to do was create this brand that set above Mercedes where you would basically go and order the Mybach, like you would order a private jet.
[SPEAKER_03]: So they were showrooms where you would go and you would pick the interior colors right there.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like the Celestic.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, like that, exactly.
[SPEAKER_03]: So they tried it and it didn't work.
[SPEAKER_03]: And now you can still get my box, but it's kind of a trim level.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like an AMG instead of being, like it's own separate bespoke brand.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's now like the highest trim level on Mercedes.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it didn't work from Mercedes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe it'll work for Toyota and Lexus.
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll see.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I don't think that works.
[SPEAKER_02]: First of all, the my box were just ugly.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was a big problem.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they were all sort of mean to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: You saw that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but look up a whole century.
[SPEAKER_02]: Look up on my box 57.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they were, they were their own, to your point.
[SPEAKER_02]: They were their own vehicles.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's just hideous.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, look at that thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: that's not a good looking car but it was uh... it was you know uh... i mean you could i mean they're really interesting they're yeah but i don't think people back and they even thought they're very good looking at the the concept was awesome look at the one that's green with their line through it the one below and that one look at that one yeah that's really bad
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I mean, I do.
[SPEAKER_03]: You can pick up a my box now for like 50 grand.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but that's so a lot of money.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, considering a band of the era is 20, yeah, but Bentley's have a much, much higher, I think brand recognition in my box.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, why are they cheaper then?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because of the name, at some point, luxury brands are all about recognition, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but then this should be more expensive.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, Bentley has a much more, much higher brand recognition.
[SPEAKER_03]: When you say Bentley, people know what it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think when you say my back, a lot of people still don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: So why is a my back 50, but a Bentley's $20,000?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because everybody knows what a Bentley is.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what I'm saying.
[SPEAKER_02]: It has a much higher brand recognition.
[SPEAKER_02]: Isn't that a good thing?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: But why is it cheaper?
[SPEAKER_02]: Why is it Bentley 20,000 $2,000 $5 and a my-box?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, if these are more expensive than my-box.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not a 2004.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're way cheaper.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not sure about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: A whole way cheaper.
[SPEAKER_02]: Try finding a bent a my-box for under 40.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're not going to do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: My-box holds their value pretty well compared to Bentley.
[SPEAKER_02]: These are even some of the world's voices of the era.
[SPEAKER_02]: I could also be supplying demand.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there's a lot fewer my box for sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, there's no doubt that the my box was not a success and I do think you're right.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that that's a real potential for century to fall into a similar trap, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: But there's a couple of things going for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you think fundamentally?
[SPEAKER_02]: The Toyota Lexus umbrella holds a lot of weight to people, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because you know, not only are you buying an exclusively crafted car, you're going to buy a car that's built to last.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's something that maybe doesn't prevent people from buying Bentley and Rolls-Royce, but it is a stigma around them that the British bands still build cars that are not very high, lot lasting into its reliability.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I would not bet against Twitter, so, you know, yeah, and it also comes down to, I don't think I don't know the full story because I was seven, but my Bach, I don't think they put the money into marketing it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just think it was confusing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just think people didn't know what it was.
[SPEAKER_03]: They tried to kind of turn like a brand that meant something Germany during a really bad time for Germany in the 30s into a luxury brand today, and I think it was just a wrong...
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, as a kind of, like I said, as a model class.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I wouldn't before you're born, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: The Japanese decided that they wanted to have luxury brands in America, and there were three that came in.
[SPEAKER_03]: There was Akira, there was Akira, which is part of Honda, Infinity, which is part Nissan, and of course Lexus, which is part of... And about millennia.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, Mazda.
[SPEAKER_03]: So four.
[SPEAKER_03]: But out of those four, really one succeeded.
[SPEAKER_03]: Seriously.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, that's a bold move.
[SPEAKER_03]: Lexus succeed.
[SPEAKER_03]: I look at a succeed individual.
[SPEAKER_03]: I like accurate.
[SPEAKER_02]: Really well.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then he did really well too.
[SPEAKER_03]: Today today.
[SPEAKER_03]: Today accurate is struggling.
[SPEAKER_03]: They have two cars itself.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: MDX and RDA.
[SPEAKER_03]: They do sell a lot of them now.
[SPEAKER_03]: They do, but they have to infinity has one, which is a QX.
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll talk about that in a second because there was a really cool QX I saw at Seema with get this.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I'll hint at it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It had a really cool power train.
[SPEAKER_03]: I won't tell you what it is because we'll show it to you in a second.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the only one that's rocking and rolling in terms of having a lot of cachet and a lot of, they don't have a lot of dealers, specifically, don't have a lot of dealers as Lexus I would say.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not trying to disacquire our infinity, they're just having a harder time than Lexus is.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think if anybody can do it, Toyota can do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: But once again, the same problem, you know, if you're a JDM fan, then you know what century is, but like 99% of Americans have no idea what century isn't, you know, that chicken being robbed is not going to help with that matter.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you want to talk about SEMA?
[SPEAKER_03]: Really quick?
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, let's talk about one more thing, because I think this is important that we saw in Japan, and we did a video on this, but maybe you guys didn't see it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Cole, can you go to the Lancruiser FJ?
[SPEAKER_03]: Notice I didn't say FJ?
[SPEAKER_03]: You don't want to do the crawler?
[SPEAKER_03]: It will do the crawler too, but I think we should talk about this very quickly.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we've kind of following the story, Toyota unveiled the Lancruiser FJ, which is this really kind of cartoonish, but really cool and in some ways affordable,
[SPEAKER_03]: serious off-roader and what I mean by serious.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not a softroader.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's body and frame.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's got actually the other one that we profiled has Storko, it has rock rails, it has, you know, blocking dips.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's got skin plates.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's got a softroader.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a real off-roader.
[SPEAKER_03]: The biggest bummer is it's built on the highlights platform.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we assume that it will be sold where the highlights is sold.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you know anything about the highlights, you know, it's not sold here in America, we get the Tacoma.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think this may be the next and in some ways for off-roaders, ultimate for bid and fruit.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's why I wanted to bring that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm so excited when I got there, because I think that there's a huge market for, let's face it, the current four-on-year ours is 57,000.
[SPEAKER_03]: It starts at over 40,000.
[SPEAKER_03]: We just drove the new Woodster, okay, Woodman.
[SPEAKER_03]: Woodland, whatever the heck they're calling it now, we'll get to that in a second as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: These stupid names wrap for, but that is not an off-roader.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so in Japan they have this, or we'll have this, they have the Suzuki Jimmy.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and we won't get this, and I think Toyota should bring this to America.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think they will, because I'm sure it probably doesn't really meet our crash standards,
[SPEAKER_03]: normally aspirated.
[SPEAKER_03]: What is the 2.7?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, for cylinder, but they should bring it any would sell like hotcakes.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what I'm saying.
[SPEAKER_03]: Toe to bring it, don't make this to freaking fruit, bring this instead of the van that you want to bring in as Alexis, bring this in.
[SPEAKER_03]: What's your take on this?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I didn't like it in the picture.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it looked pretty dumpy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: In person, it's a lot cooler.
[SPEAKER_02]: I do think that...
[SPEAKER_03]: Call the people around.
[SPEAKER_03]: Look how popular it was.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, any time you put
[SPEAKER_02]: I do appreciate that it does have some real off-road cred.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what got me excited seeing it in person.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that is an interesting platform for modification.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when we first saw it, we thought it was like a K-car.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's big.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not too much.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's really big.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's about the same.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's pretty much James did the same exact size as an FJ Cruiser.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's big.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's pretty large vehicle.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very narrow, which would be a problem.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think for the US market, like you do said very close to the person next to you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Looks good for off-roading.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sort of.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's good.
[SPEAKER_03]: A narrow vehicles are good.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, they didn't have more place.
[SPEAKER_02]: People say that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But if you were offered it like an early Jewag and they're pretty scary.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because they do feel a little tippy.
[SPEAKER_02]: But regardless.
[SPEAKER_02]: The cover points look.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the platform is cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like you said based on the highlights platform.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that there certainly is a market in the US.
[SPEAKER_02]: Any kind of toy to forward drive is going to have a market.
[SPEAKER_02]: Would the market be big enough to
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, warrant federalizing this, dealing with potential crash news.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, yeah, but that's the reality of the situation, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: When you already have Land Cruiser 250, which is selling, when you heard you have 400, which is selling.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then this kind of cannibalizes from that market a little bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think you're a cannibalized from that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think I think other thing people said is that that vehicle is very similar to the renegade.
[SPEAKER_03]: And this is nothing like the renegade.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the renegade started out as a fiat, and then they tried to make a fiat off-road where the, this, they started out as an off-road.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think people mean the design looks like a renegade.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think they meant like the whole thing is like the renegade.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I mean the, you're right.
[SPEAKER_02]: The platform is not at all like a renegade.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's got a real low range, it's got a real locker.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the design is very renegade.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very kind of bubbly.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's perfectly.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but you can't see that on the screen.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm just saying the problem with the renegade is first year was out.
[SPEAKER_03]: They sold 100,000 and they sold a lot of ready gates all on by the last year.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was down to 20,000.
[SPEAKER_03]: The problem with the renegade was they built on the F5100 platform, which was never meant to be an off-roader.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think people here in America seek authenticity.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that was never an authentic off-roader.
[SPEAKER_03]: We all went on for a while.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was fine.
[SPEAKER_03]: It had a lot of utility, actually.
[SPEAKER_03]: And most times it didn't come out.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was just how much stuff you could slap in the back of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it was not a good off-roader.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right.
[SPEAKER_03]: and before we get on with that.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you guys want to ask questions, comment, well, we do this.
[SPEAKER_02]: We live stream these every week on Patreon, patreon.com slash dfokr.
[SPEAKER_02]: Huge thank you to all of our patrons that make this podcast possible.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, training the live stream you just said the FJ was unveiled years ago in the EV lineup.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it possible this FJ version isn't coming here but once the EV version is made, it will be.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's an interesting point because we did see kind of like some renderings of a vehicle very similar to this.
[SPEAKER_02]: that that is that is a potential tray yeah you might you might be on something I think it would be tough to turn this into an EV based on the architectures on I don't think it's very accommodating to electrification this is the I am I am V. I think it's called architecture but I think that there is a potential we might see in electrification
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think so because I think that when we're we were in Tokyo in 2023, the most interesting thing thing they unveiled at that time was on electric truck.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you remember that?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: This week the news is that Toyota is actually going to be building that.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's been some like, uh, news dropped about the small electric, uh, Toyota pickup truck.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that is coming.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's real.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it will be an electric and I think that's what's going to take up a lot of the pickup.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a big up.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no, no.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but I think that's what's going to take up a lot of the air in the room and not this thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think this thing is going to go to anywhere else, anywhere where they basically were where you get the highlights, Australia, Malaysia, Southeast Asia, places like that, India.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're going to get this.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're not going to get it.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to get this electric truck, but that's another podcast.
[SPEAKER_03]: Cole, can you go to the Karola concept which blew our mind?
[SPEAKER_03]: because it's also, I'll talk about it and then I'll tell you the about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so this was kind of the biggest news of the show.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's this very futuristic looking Corolla concept.
[SPEAKER_02]: So Corolla, of course, best selling name plates ever.
[SPEAKER_02]: They've sold tens of millions of Corolla's, a vehicle that's known for its longevity.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's affordability, but not necessarily it's
[SPEAKER_02]: design prowess.
[SPEAKER_02]: However, this new one's crazy.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's got a lot of C8 Corvette in the front end with these very angular headlights for low.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very wide.
[SPEAKER_02]: Still clearly a concept, but not as concept as you might expect.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're the most kind of team part about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you kind of fast forward, we'll be showing the interior.
[SPEAKER_03]: The passenger seat and the driver seat are completely different.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, a little mismatched.
[SPEAKER_03]: An idea is that the passenger seat, you can look at the headrest on them.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're very different.
[SPEAKER_03]: The passenger seat is meant for comfort, whereas the driver seat is meant for
[SPEAKER_03]: driving.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's meant to hold you in place where as a passenger seat is meant to keep you comfortable.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's kind of an interesting concept.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was also in the century concept that we showed earlier where the seats were different.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think this will ever make any production.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank God, it's got a regular steering wheel.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the big news about this besides the fact that it was, you know, just low and sexy and just really very modern is the fact that it can come with any power
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the reason I think that this is closer to production, then you might expect is true concept cars don't have turn signal stocks, they don't have seat belts, a lot of them don't have mirrors, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: This has all of that, you know, you can see the Lexus in a crawl.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I think the design is brilliant and like you said, it's really great that maybe you can get an electric, maybe you can get it in gas, maybe you can get in hybrid.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I've no doubt that a production version of this is going to be toned down, but I think the overall shape of some of the design concepts may persist into reality.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, the, no, that's the problem.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, my dream was that
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, come, LA, they're going to unveil this thing and they're going to say, meet the new Corolla and I'm going to be wild and we're going to get this cool futuristic much more modern car that is more akin to Alexis than it is to a Toyota.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think the fact is I talked to some people at Toyota and the word I think is that this is going to be a Toyota for China.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not going to be a cruel, I should say a cruel for China, it's not going to be a cruel in the US, and we're going to soldier on with a much more pedestrian, maybe even mundane version of Coral as opposed to this badass cool, you know, because in America, apparently we don't like new technology because gosh darn it, it's bad.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think that's what it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think that's okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the Kerala brand is very different in China than it is here.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm telling you, I've gotten good authority.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is going to China.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I believe it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think it's fair that we don't get good stuff in China.
[SPEAKER_03]: We don't, we don't like modern technology.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, that's not the case at all.
[SPEAKER_03]: But if I say this a case, we don't like modern technology is electric tech and we just rolled everything back on tech, the rest of the world is going to go electric and we're going to be soldiering on with the engine that was discovered a hundred years ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: Modern technology doesn't mean it's only electric tech, you can bring modern technology to gasoline engines.
[SPEAKER_03]: That is not tech.
[SPEAKER_03]: I will make you a bad Tommy, that car will unveil in China as a pure EV and will never come here.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's fine, but I'm saying it's not fair to say that Americans don't like modern tech.
[SPEAKER_03]: Apparently we don't.
[SPEAKER_03]: Why do you look what's happening politically?
[SPEAKER_03]: Why do you associate like you you just said when we make the headline of this Vick of this video.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we can't face it around an electric car and electricity is the modern is the most interesting is a newest tech right now in the automotive world and you just told me at the beginning of the podcast that we can't
[SPEAKER_03]: because people don't want to listen.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there's a fundamental difference between liking modern tech and not liking electricity.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that can very much coexist.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can like the 53-inch screen in an escalade and like the over-the-Europe dates and I can like all of the modern materials and also like a supercharger V8.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think those two you can have modern tech and I don't think
[SPEAKER_03]: you can separate the two time.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know you like to be right and you're trying to put that hair, but I don't think you can separate the two.
[SPEAKER_03]: The fact that all this modern technology over the up to its big screens, all that was introduced by Tesla and an electric car, the two are synonymous.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think so.
[SPEAKER_02]: I disagree.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, they aren't.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, they're why can I get over the updates in the gas car?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because there's anonymous, because you just broke his car.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're over the updates.
[SPEAKER_03]: Don't do the same thing in the gas car.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's true.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, they don't.
[SPEAKER_03]: Can you increase horsepower in the gas car with the over the gas?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, absolutely, you can.
[SPEAKER_03]: You can't just not exist.
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely, you can't exist.
[SPEAKER_03]: That you can tell me one car where you can get over the update.
[SPEAKER_02]: It increased the horsepower.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's based Ford, which car?
[SPEAKER_02]: But like the Ranger, that's an update.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you get more power over their update.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but it could be.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no reason it couldn't be.
[SPEAKER_03]: he always has to be right.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, no, it's true.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can update a car.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I asked your simple question.
[SPEAKER_03]: Give me one over there, update where you, where you can update, where you can update the car and get more horsepower.
[SPEAKER_02]: I bet there's, I bet that exists.
[SPEAKER_03]: I bet you existed a lot of electric cars, but what about beyond just horsepower?
[SPEAKER_02]: all the stuff you can do.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I'm picking the most meaningful thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure, you could patch things, you could do different screens, you could make an Mustang, you could make the dashboard, like a 1965 Mustang, yes, you could do all that.
[SPEAKER_03]: But the significant things like increasing range or changing the important dynamics of the car, the way that it accelerates, how far it can go.
[SPEAKER_03]: You can't do any of that in an internal combustion engine
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's made of hardware, not software, or as a battery, you can change the parameters of how much electricity comes out when it comes out, all that.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's more you can do with an electric car, but you can absolutely change parameters in the gas card to give it more power.
[SPEAKER_02]: That over the other, doesn't exist.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not yet, but it will.
[SPEAKER_02]: With that, but because fundamentally software, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you agree?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, so.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't want to have it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's a way bigger.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've made my point.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's just, no, I think it's interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I'm not arguing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think fundamentally, if you can change the software in our range, I don't want to be bigger.
[SPEAKER_02]: Fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're right.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think so.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not trying to be right that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's be mature about this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just think it's an interesting conversation that doesn't get set a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, yeah, electric insonomous with technology, but I don't think it has to be.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think what power is the vehicle sort of irrelevant.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's what you do with what powers the vehicle that makes it interesting to see.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's move on to see him.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I went to see him up and I was there with Nissan so thank you Nissan for hosting me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I really appreciate it once again without you know these manufacturers helping us go to
[SPEAKER_03]: shows like this would be hard for us to do it because as YouTube revenue falls, it gets very expensive to go to these shows, so it's very nice that they bring an exchange, of course, we profile their cars, no money is exchanged, no one's giving us money to do these videos.
[SPEAKER_03]: In fact, I enjoy doing it, but my favorite video I did was this Godzilla QX80.
[SPEAKER_03]: What Nissan did was they worked with the California company?
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: and they retrofitted this QX80.
[SPEAKER_03]: And there's a little hint here, it's called the R spec.
[SPEAKER_03]: And look at those quad exhausts on it.
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you think they put under the hood time?
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, you got the GTR engine under the hood.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's got a massage GTR engine.
[SPEAKER_03]: So they put the massage GTR engine under the hood pumping out and get this a thousand horsepower.
[SPEAKER_03]: How cool is that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you fast forward, you can get to the engine pole.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that's a spoiler, shape, shift, and color.
[SPEAKER_02]: This engine would be much cooler in a sedan.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know why they put it in the QXA.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, actually, that's a really good question.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't want to put it in a sedan.
[SPEAKER_03]: Did you know that?
[SPEAKER_03]: You know why they put a QXA, D?
[SPEAKER_03]: Why?
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, because at Japan, they unveil the six-wheel van.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to talk about what's happening with luxury in Japan.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then that was Lexus and they're not even- But this is Nissan, so this is Japanese company, and so of course they're going to put this in a van because in Japan what we're finding out is that If you're going to be driven, you'd rather be driven in a van than in a sedan because a van has much more room, so the ultimate luxury in Japan in a lot of ways is a van.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's a van, so it makes sense for them to put this in a van, well, it's not a van, but it's a big...
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, they put it in this as if this is what people are buying, but it'd be much cooler in a sedan.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's cooler in this thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but I mean, I mean, a thousand horse power and they did a really good job.
[SPEAKER_03]: It looks like it's factory.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they did a Q50, I think it was a while back with a GTR engine.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was really cool because then you can kind of take the most of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: of that power train.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that this is an interesting idea, but you're still you're putting what is this?
[SPEAKER_02]: $5,600?
[SPEAKER_02]: $1,000.
[SPEAKER_02]: $1,000, so it's a beef stock.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a beef stock.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a $1,000 horsepower in QX80.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I just think like these high-performance SUVs, they just don't do much for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, why would you want to make a brick or fast when you can make something that's designed to go fast go fast?
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, it's just, look at that, look at those air intakes, it's just cool, it's just really cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that, I mean, what's cool about this is that the integration, the fact that this shop was able to make this happen, I think that is really, really cool.
[SPEAKER_03]: Also, they're trying to make it, you know, like a JDM, almost, you know, Liberty Walk, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure, yeah, that I see the body kit and it's got body kit.
[SPEAKER_02]: Scott, it's very pretty.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very pretty.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's not just a big engine.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's a very interesting car.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just, it's not for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, fair.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fair, it's just very, it's very JDM and it's very kind of Japanese approach.
[SPEAKER_03]: So in America, when we do a muscle car, right, the ultimate test of that and you can look at the Hellcat is on the drag strip.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: The Japanese don't think that way.
[SPEAKER_03]: They just want, I think, if they want to fast, they want the car to look extremely fast.
[SPEAKER_03]: Think of Liberty Walk, wide body, lots of fender flares.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's never understated.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's exact opposite of the luxury.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's always overstated.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they don't care as much.
[SPEAKER_02]: much about going fast.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think they can.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think they care about going to the drag strip.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think they still want to go fast, but I don't think drag race.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm guessing at this.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you know Japanese culture more than I do, please leave it in the comments.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, the way the car looks is more important than how it belongs to the drag strip.
[SPEAKER_02]: All those 2,000 horsepower cars are Japanese, like those 2JZ cars that you saw.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's all Japanese.
[SPEAKER_02]: But they're more likely to drift them than they are to drag them.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that Japanese love horse power just like we do.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now I'm not saying that I love horse power.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm just saying that their approach is more drift than drag.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you need a lot of wheel spin, right, to get drift.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: And to get a lot of wheel speed, you need a lot of horsepower.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, but you're not going to be drifting this thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: What's four wheel drive?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: It could, but I'd be badass if you did.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I just don't, I think it's interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: I appreciate that they did it, but like, where's the G-37 competitor?
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what would be really good.
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: Where's the G-35 replacement?
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what would be really cool if Infinity did.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to kind of walk on Andre's turf here, because we're going to talk about trucks for a little bit.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: So let's go over to the rouse front here.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's another one that I did.
[SPEAKER_03]: So as you know, rouse is best known for working with Ford and building high horse power.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's not it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a it's a separate video.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's no down scroll down, scroll down it's in there.
[SPEAKER_03]: There it is, yep, that's it, yep.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's interesting, because like I said, Rauch is more known for, you know, beefing up forwards with high horsepower Mustangs.
[SPEAKER_03]: What they've done here is they have massaged a frontier.
[SPEAKER_03]: But there's no additional horsepower.
[SPEAKER_03]: What they do is they give it old and shocks.
[SPEAKER_03]: They give it separate and unique wheels, a little bit more aggressive tire.
[SPEAKER_03]: and a little bit change of design and a rouse badge.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then it's factory because the frontier, this is the, I'm talking with the head of marketing, I think, or product for a rouse, I forgot his name.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sorry, but they've built it at the frontier factory.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's in Smyrna.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then rouse just set up a separate facility next to it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it comes off the line, it goes to rouse.
[SPEAKER_03]: They do the shocks, wheels, tires, the cosmetics, and then it goes back to Nissan, then it goes to the dealership.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think the obvious question here and the question is seeing a lot of 7,000.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, that's not the question.
[SPEAKER_02]: If Rao is known for supercharging, I don't know why I didn't.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know why.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know why.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's still working.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's on.
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe there's one coming.
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like I feel like, you know, the trying to compete with the.
[SPEAKER_03]: Raptor R in some ways, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: This is like, let's call it like the tremor version of a frontier if you were in, or the high country version of the Chevy.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like the Ranger Raptor, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, Ranger, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Or Raptor R, Ranger Raptor R, Ranger Raptor R, yeah, yeah, yeah, Ranger Raptor R, or except it's not quite that.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're like, Pro?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and not even that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for X. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: okay let's talk about something more interesting um okay what about the board already what about the Ford stuff so i actually think that Ford is something really cool and i hope they put this in the math production um the the the that guy is really interesting to me so the maverick is uh you know they look they launched a low bow which was kind of this it was but they called it a street truck but really it was just some suspension changes wheels and tires kind of like the rouse frontier exactly
[SPEAKER_02]: But finally Ford is something neat, this is going to be, sounds like it's going to be offered from Ford through their performance catalog.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's actually offered from Ford through their performance catalog.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so what they've done is they've taken not the hybrid.
[SPEAKER_03]: You can't do it to the hybrid.
[SPEAKER_03]: But the regular aspirated one, they basically breathed on it with a bigger turbo and an intercooler to raise the horsepower from 250 to 500.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, sorry, it's three hundred five hundred would be awesome.
[SPEAKER_03]: 250 to 300.
[SPEAKER_03]: So they've increased horsepower by 50.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and, you know, different wheels, different tires, they call it the Ford calls it the 300T.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think this is a really good idea.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's got bigger impeller in the turbo.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's largely similar turbo to the 2.3 liter Mustang, but of course it's a 2 liter.
[SPEAKER_02]: You talked about some of the cooling differences, but this is what this is what the shocks.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, this is what the Lobo needed, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: This is kind of what it should have been from the factory and it's going to be 50 state compliant.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be covered with, I think, a 36,000 mile warranty if you get it done through your four dealer, or a certified four job.
[SPEAKER_02]: True, yeah, yeah, or a certified shop.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think four dishes just offer this straight from the factory, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: This is what people want out of the Lobo.
[SPEAKER_02]: They want more power.
[SPEAKER_02]: They want it to be more differentiated than the standard turbo truck.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they've got an exhaust on it, too.
[SPEAKER_02]: with the little Ford emblems there so this is a really cool truck and I think that like you can't have a sport truck without increasing the power Ford finally increases power that's pretty cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah and there's no pricing on it yet.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah so maybe it'll be expensive and certainly like there are two things that have been really impressive like we talked about on the Ranger after on the the the the Broncos those great a lot of power.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was boiler.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah so this is neat I think they did a really good job with this and it's realistically something that might come in
[SPEAKER_03]: You can't get it on the all-wheel drive hybrid though, which is fine, which is the one that we have.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's fine.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is a turbo still toast for thousands.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they recommended I saw in the press release do it, including the 4K towing package when you go with this because it has better cooling.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this was awesome.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that this is realistically something that some a lot of people might do with their mavericks to tune them up a little bit and they can pass.
[SPEAKER_03]: What they do this with three vehicles.
[SPEAKER_03]: So in the background, you can see a Mustang.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh-huh.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's also interesting.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's a 800 horsepower manual.
[SPEAKER_02]: By, and the raptor was a 900 horsepower.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, the raptor in the raptor are what they're doing is they're changing the, um, I think they're going from an eaten to a wipple.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, treasure.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I think those
[SPEAKER_03]: he said the summer okay so that's gonna go from 700 to 900 yeah and no additional changes downstream which is interesting in the raptor because now you're going 200 horsepower more yeah raptor r sorry so you're taking your your swapping turbo chargers from like I said eat into super chargers super chargers from eat into wipple you're getting 200 more horsepower basically you don't have to do anything downstream which is unusual and it's still wanting to be forward so this was I think one
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and then the last thing I think we should talk about before we end is the Toyota.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is not teeth of a lot of food cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: The side by side.
[SPEAKER_02]: So of all the things for Toyota launch at SEMA, what they debuted was pretty crazy.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a side by side, badged by cyan.
[SPEAKER_02]: So do you remember the cyan brand from back then?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I remember.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they seemed to have brought that name back in this pretty crazy, turbo hybrid 300 horsepower side by side.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, I actually do think- Yeah, eat your hot-out maverick.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, this seems kind of like a crazy choice, but potentially, I could actually see Toyota doing this because of the huge success of the side-by-side industry can and pull-ers, but also Honda, which historically has been one of the, she's right with this hairline.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep, let's go to the Sion 01 Concept.
[SPEAKER_02]: So 300 horsepower, it's got the same shifter as it's a coma.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's got the same 40 drive knobs, it's a coma.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's got a lot of like the truck inspired interior choices.
[SPEAKER_02]: But what did insane idea?
[SPEAKER_02]: 35 inch tall tires, four door design.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now interestingly enough, at one of the auto shows recently, I saw, I think it was that...
[SPEAKER_02]: maybe japan mobility show two years ago they had a lexas side by side but that was really just a rebadied yamaha this seems like and i'd love to know is this like a polarism can i'm underneath and they didn't tell us but is this actually a can't am or yamaha's a cartoon it's uh... hybrid uh... it's a two i think it's two point four liter
[SPEAKER_03]: terrible hybrid.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the reason that all side by sides are 1000 cc's or less is because it allows them to get past emissions.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh really?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so that's why you don't see them over 1000 cc's.
[SPEAKER_03]: So this would have a mission.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it's a hybrid.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and who knows what the current EPA and the current legislation if that even comes into play?
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: But certainly make for an interesting ride.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll tell you that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But interesting, like, sci-on coming back is a side by side brand.
[SPEAKER_02]: It'll be pretty cool.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, or it may just be, you know, polishing off the brand name and putting it into something that's unusual and different.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think people, you know, really really cotton to this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: So,
[SPEAKER_02]: Would you actually be genuinely interested?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd love to hear your feedback in like a toy to side by side.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a really interesting idea though Well, Twitter doesn't have a power sports division, but maybe they should so I don't know where you sell it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I Honda does and Honda has of course for a long time So it becomes a question of how do you sell it?
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you sell it out?
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, Twitter dealers cherry went on
[SPEAKER_03]: I guess you could, I mean, it's a different world in a lot of ways, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: People who are buying cars and people who are buying side-by-side are looking for very different things.
[SPEAKER_03]: Meacing would be like 60, 70 grand, but what a beast.
[SPEAKER_02]: It looks really cool too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Except for the winch round.
[SPEAKER_03]: The winch positions are 60 grand.
[SPEAKER_02]: The winner's expedition.
[SPEAKER_02]: The winch mount's terrible.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of just a plot.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if you can.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm a man in Maverick now.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's got to be 40, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, guys.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, let's know what you think of.
[SPEAKER_02]: See, Mom, we've got a whole bunch of covers that you guys did over at TFL now.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we also have full lock runs over at TFL talks, if you want to kind of, an in-person walk around and check that out.
[SPEAKER_03]: Then we should especially thank our friends on Patreon.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_02]: Big thank you to everyone at Patreon.
[SPEAKER_03]: Any questions, sir?
[SPEAKER_03]: Any other comments that we missed before we, any, any answers?
[SPEAKER_03]: The questions that we might give to people?
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't have my glasses on so I can't read it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nope, we answered them already.
[SPEAKER_02]: Alright, talk about EV1 and also some other things.
[SPEAKER_02]: So thanks for joining us for another fun episode of Card Chat.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep, I will see you in the next one.
[SPEAKER_03]: Ciao.