Tariffs Halt Imports! Ferrari Bringing Back the Manual and a NEW Mercedes AMG WAGON!

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• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:31Doug DeMuro?

  Hello and welcome to This Car Pod.

• 0:35Speaker 02

  I am Kenan.

• 0:36Speaker 03

  I'm Filippo.

• 0:36Doug DeMuro?

  And we start with the news and specifically tariffs, which is our leading story for the third, fourth

• 0:42Speaker 02

  Long teeth time.

• 0:42Doug DeMuro?

  Time in a row. Toyota Tacoma is coming over the border.

• 0:45Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 0:45Doug DeMuro?

  A lot of tariff conversations this week. Now, just before we went live today, or before we recorded this, they announced a 90-day pause on tariffs.

• 0:55Speaker 03

  On some tariffs.

• 0:56Doug DeMuro?

  However, that 90-day pause did not have any effect on the automobile industry tariffs, which are still going full speed ahead.

• 1:04Speaker 03

  Yep, and those are 25% tariffs on cars coming from anywhere. There are some exceptions for vehicles that are built within the USMCA zone, but honestly, those are still unclear.

• 1:13Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah.

• 1:14Speaker 03

  On exactly how those.

• 1:14Doug DeMuro?

  Now, I don't want to rehash a lot of the stuff we've talked about over the last couple of weeks, but the interesting stories this week has been how manufacturers have responded to these tariffs. And there have been some varied responses.

• 1:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, two real categories of responses. Response one is, we just aren't going to bring cars into the US for a while. So Audi has, which has about 60 days of inventory.

• 1:34Doug DeMuro?

  Which, by the way, is insane. Well, not from the manufacturer perspective, but like, I worked for an automaker that imported cars. That is insane.

• 1:44Speaker 03

  Well, let's start with Porsche. Porsche said last week, or at least there were reports last week, that they're not importing anything. And if it's on a ship right now, it's not coming.

• 1:52Doug DeMuro?

  I don't know that Porsche has made an official statement on this topic yet.

• 1:56Speaker 02

  But it was discussed in a boardroom situation, correct?

• 1:59Doug DeMuro?

  Yes, it was discussed, no, it was a dealer call. And it leaked out that they are going to not, so Porsche's, the leaked thing that Porsche is going to do is not import anymore. Cars to the United States, which was the first of these companies that this came out. And I thought at the time, this was a week ago, that it was an unbelievable response to this, considering that's kinda the whole business. But then.

• 2:23Speaker 03

  Audi and Jaguar Land Rover have also said they're not importing any cars. And it makes some sense, right? They, Porsche excluded, they have some real inventory on the ground already. So Audi has about 60 days of inventory in the US. Now, is that a dealer, like, is that appropriately distributed? Probably not. But nevertheless, they have a little bit of inventory. Dealers can keep selling cars. And clearly Audi is hoping if we don't import any cars right now, we won't owe any tariffs.

• 2:48Doug DeMuro?

  Right.

• 2:48Speaker 03

  And we hope that tariffs will go away the next 30.

• 2:50Doug DeMuro?

  The automakers who are not importing are taking a bet that the tariffs are gonna go away quickly. My, my assumption is that the fear for the automakers is if they do import some cars and then the tariffs do go away quickly, there will be a tranche of cars that was imported from April 5 through May 10, or whenever the tariffs go away, that were, have a 25% tariff on them. And then those cars will never be sellable.

• 3:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, or they'll have to eat the car.

• 3:14Doug DeMuro?

  Or they'll have to simply eat that car.

• 3:16Speaker 03

  And they think that they won't need to.

• 3:17Doug DeMuro?

  They will think, they'll think that by sitting, they might be able to just avoid that. And by using on the ground inventory, they might be able to avoid that. Now Jaguar Land Rover, that's probably easy to do. There's a lot of inventory, especially for Jaguar. Land Rover less so. Audi, the Q5 is built in Mexico. So this is their leading product, probably globally, certainly in the United States. That's a tough vehicle.

• 3:35Speaker 03

  They have all new lineup. The Q6 is a brand new vehicle, which should also be one of their big.

• 3:39Doug DeMuro?

  Is Q6 also built in Mexico?

• 3:41Speaker 03

  I believe it's built in Germany.

• 3:42Doug DeMuro?

  They got a lot of day supply on that, though.

• 3:45Speaker 03

  It just came out.

• 3:46Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah.

• 3:46Speaker 03

  How many can be a dealer?

• 3:47Doug DeMuro?

  There's already big discounts, not anymore, of course.

• 3:49Speaker 03

  The, the second, there's actually three categories. Second category is manufacturers that have said, yep, we're gonna be adding the tariff really clearly, we're gonna be marking it as a transportation fee, basically.

• 3:59Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah.

• 3:59Speaker 03

  And prices will go up. Ineos is the clearest example of this.

• 4:02Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah.

• 4:03Speaker 03

  Granada Ears are 5% more expensive for any vehicle.

• 4:05Doug DeMuro?

  And Ferrari.

• 4:06Speaker 03

  Ferrari, et cetera. And then there's a third category, which is manufacturers that are clearly trying to take advantage of this, to sell some more cars and get some market share, even if it costs them substantial profit. So Nissan has lowered the price. Of the Rogue and I believe the Sentra. Ford is offering employee pricing to everybody through May or into early June. Hyundai is also doing a similar program. They're clearly hoping that if we keep price, if we discount pricing.

• 4:34Doug DeMuro?

  Yep.

• 4:34Speaker 03

  People are going to flock to us right now. Will it cost us because some of our vehicles are built outside of the US? Sure. But we have a lot of vehicles built in the US and that we might be protected.

• 4:43Doug DeMuro?

  Are these brands doing this across their line, including on cars that are export or imported? So like Maki, which is built in Mexico, they're really.

• 4:50Speaker 03

  You know, they want to bring people in. They want to get the sales and they think here's our opportunity to get some market share up. And here's your opportunity probably to help our dealers a little bit. If we do a sale right now, then you get warranty claims, you get service going in through the service department. Even if we then contract later, we've maybe.

• 5:06Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah.

• 5:07Speaker 03

  Bills enough.

• 5:07Doug DeMuro?

  I have a suspicion that it also sends a sign to the president. Hey, we're committed to this, like, you know, et cetera. Like we, these are the, it's mostly the American companies doing this. You said Nissan also, but they have an enormous amount of manufacturing in the United States.

• 5:20Speaker 03

  They do. Hyundai certainly does too.

• 5:21Doug DeMuro?

  Hyundai does too, yeah.

• 5:22Speaker 03

  And I will say some others, Toyota is up here on the image. They have said that they're not, that they don't expect any increased pricing. Some other manufacturers, BMW on some lines of models have said that they're not going to increase pricing till at least June. They're all kind of trying to figure out like, either we don't bring any inventory in, we price protect or we discount. And that seems to be the.

• 5:43Doug DeMuro?

  Toyota, but Toyota has it, they've just said, we're not going to see any.

• 5:45Speaker 03

  They said they don't, that they're not expecting any immediate price increases.

• 5:48Doug DeMuro?

  I mean, Toyota is an unusual case because they committed a lot of production in Mexico for the Tacoma a few years ago, before the new one came out. It's, it's a, it's a high volume seller. It's a, it's a brand new product. It'll be interesting how long they can hold the line on no increased pricing.

• 6:05Speaker 03

  Yeah. I don't think it'll be long if the tariffs remain in place, but they're, I think they're all trying to play it a little bit day by day. Mercedes Benz is another example, has said that they're not going to roll out any price increases for at least a month. Or maybe two months when the news came out a couple of weeks ago. They're all trying to figure it out, but there are some that are passing along costs immediately.

• 6:22Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah.

• 6:22Speaker 03

  Volkswagen has also said they'll do that. And then no importing at all is. Gonna have repercussions later regardless of whether or not tariffs continue or not. If they don't, they'll just be out of inventory, which is actually fine if you're a Porsche dealer, maybe.

• 6:35Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah.

• 6:36Speaker 03

  If they do continue, well, then they'll need to bring it in and they gain nothing.

• 6:39Doug DeMuro?

  Um, I will say it's anxiety provoking if you work. I worked for Porsche, you know, that which is an importer, uh, not a manufacturer here in the U.S., but Porsche cars, North America, and I text my friends there, they're all terrified. These are Americans working for an American company in America. Um, it's, it's, if you're on the ground at a dealership, you're especially anxious.

• 6:57Speaker 03

  You gotta be terrified.

• 6:58Doug DeMuro?

  You know, are the cars gonna not come here? If they do come here, are they gonna be affordable by anybody?

• 7:06Doug DeMuro?

  The stock market responded tremendously well today to the news that some of the, that a large portion of the tariffs have been paused.

• 7:11Speaker 03

  They're super cool, yeah.

• 7:12Doug DeMuro?

  Uh, which seems like it was probably a pretty, a pretty good idea. Um, but the auto industry tariff still lingers and still will have like enormously damaging effects, including significant unintended consequences, I presume, unless the intent is also to hurt the American auto industry on the industry.

• 7:28Speaker 03

  There's no way around, I mean, uh, Stellantis, which has factories in the U.S. and a lot in Canada, a lot in Windsor, Ontario, uh, has done a bunch of layoffs at factories in both places because they ship parts back and forth. If they, they don't yet know how that will impact.

• 7:41Doug DeMuro?

  Right.

• 7:41Speaker 03

  There's large impacts there and obviously every manufacturer is certainly worried both about their specific vehicles, if prices go up because they will need to eventually.

• 7:49Doug DeMuro?

  Yep.

• 7:49Speaker 03

  Or about the economy as a whole and whether they will have buyers that are in market.

• 7:53Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah, yeah. Now, on the subject of tariffs, another interesting thing came up about these 25-year personal import vehicles.

• 7:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:00Doug DeMuro?

  Um, there's been a lot of talk about whether they're gonna be included or not.

• 8:03Speaker 03

  Cars that are not sold in the U.S. that are legal to import after 25 years, uh, after, under the current.

• 8:07Doug DeMuro?

  So if you import a car, you pay a 3% duty. That's what it has been.

• 8:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:11Doug DeMuro?

  And, and now the question is, is it gonna, is it gonna increase? Um, there was initially talk that, that 25-year imports were carved out of this. Now there's been, there was this fellow on Instagram who went to the customs, uh, office in Long Beach, one of the big ports, and they told him it is there not carved out. I have no idea.

• 8:29Speaker 02

  Well, it sounds like your dreams of importing a multiple might have to wait a little bit.

• 8:32Doug DeMuro?

  Well, he's okay paying 25% more on a multiple because it's $200. It's worth nothing.

• 8:37Speaker 02

  $200, that's a whole lot of money.

• 8:39Speaker 03

  And thankfully that, the cars at the insurance center are worthless.

• 8:44Speaker 03

  It becomes, there was a, the language as written had kind of a section saying for the cars that are coming in under the 25-year law. These sections don't apply, but clearly implementation is everything there. And guys, everything, so the port of Long Beach said no. We'll see if that's consistent. We'll see if they get it.

• 9:00Doug DeMuro?

  We'll see if it's consistent. No, that is a major port where an enormous number of these cars are shipped.

• 9:05Speaker 03

  Japanese cars are coming.

• 9:06Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah, absolutely. So tariff storming big. I am encouraged by dropping the reciprocal tariffs for 90 days. I think that's a big positive sign. It is a sign that the administration does bow to market demands, does bow to consumer sentiment, which has been almost entirely negative, including from significant supporters of the president and the Republican Party in general. They have been almost entirely pushed back on this. And I think that it's a good sign that we're seeing a pause. I think that the auto industry tariffs are still a horrible thing for the industry, for car enthusiasts, for employees. But I think that we're seeing a good sign that maybe we come out of the tariff situation in a better place. We'll see.

• 9:45Speaker 03

  We're filming this on Wednesday, and the market today has been up notably, including auto manufacturer stocks. Ford is up 9% today. Clearly, the market is saying exactly what you're saying here.

• 9:55Doug DeMuro?

  My read on this is that the market is thinking, even though Ford is up and they'll be negatively affected because the auto industry tariffs were removed, my thinking is that the market is looking at this and saying, okay, it's pretty clear that the president will be bowing to public demand. For the last week, and he went golfing, and it looked like he was just going to be like, nope, we're doing this. And the market was very scared by that. Now it has become clear to the market that, hey, maybe this guy is going to be willing to be reasoned with about this issue. And so we will go down that road.

• 10:23Speaker 03

  And maybe Audi, Porsche, JLR are correct.

• 10:26Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah, maybe they are. Okay, next up, moving on to our next news story. Ah, gated manual Ferrari. How could this be a news story? They haven't sold one since '09.

• 10:34Speaker 02

  Been 13 years since the last manual transmission Ferrari.

• 10:37Doug DeMuro?

  What was the last manual gated Ferrari?

• 10:38Speaker 02

  Ferrari California, first generation.

• 10:40Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah, which was, which was, yeah, that era, 10, 11, 12.

• 10:43Speaker 02

  And didn't sell many of them. But Ferrari's head of product development has announced that there's a potential to bring in the manual transmission back. But it's not going to be for the cars we might expect. I thought maybe they would do it for like the 296 and make an enthusiast-y sort of car. It's going to be something with the Icona series, which makes. That's their ultra high end, very rare, very collectible cars. And we have been saying that this is what they need to be doing. And it seems that they're starting to take that to heart, especially because Lewis Hamilton said that he wants to be involved with the project that will implement a manual transmission. Car back into line as successors of the F40 is.

• 11:20Doug DeMuro?

  This is a public company. The concept that they haven't already done this is embarrassing. If I were a shareholder, a member of the board, I would be so mad about this. That this you look at Porsche.

• 11:31Speaker 02

  About this news.

• 11:32Doug DeMuro?

  Happy that this possibly coming back, but you look at Porsche and you look at what they've basically been able to run with this manual transmission game. And run far and run with dollars, euros, as it were, flying out the back of their running wagon.

• 11:47Speaker 02

  Well said.

• 11:48Doug DeMuro?

  Well done, well done. You get my point though, like, like.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  I mean.

• 11:51Doug DeMuro?

  Crazy that Ferrari has taken them this long, given that the clear demand. And it's not just demand from idiots in the used car market, like a lot of the people who want BMW to change their grill. This is from people who are paying a million dollars for, you know, manual 599s. Like, these are people who could be buying cars today, new.

• 12:07Speaker 02

  Precisely. And so it's encouraging to see that it seems that Ferrari actually does kind of listen to their customers. It's taken them a while, admittedly, but again, the 911R proved that there was a case for this. And Porsche capitalized on it and has just been raking it in.

• 12:22Doug DeMuro?

  And that was seven, eight years ago.

• 12:24Speaker 02

  I know that was well, almost as long as the last trans manual transmission.

• 12:27Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah, those were 12, maybe those were like 10 plus years ago, weren't they?

• 12:30Speaker 02

  Well, the 99, yeah, yeah, it was a little later than that. But regardless, a long time ago, coming up on a decade. So I'm happy to see.

• 12:38Doug DeMuro?

  I know that you're sad that there's no 296, etc. However.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  This makes sense.

• 12:42Doug DeMuro?

  They're going to come out with an F40, like they're going to come out with an Icona manual. Like the SP3 was better than any Ferrari that's been made since the Enzo. We agree?

• 12:50Speaker 02

  Wow, absolutely agree.

• 12:52Doug DeMuro?

  I mean, since the F50, I don't know.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  I don't know anything about it. Since the Enzo.

• 12:57Doug DeMuro?

  Okay, so, so since the F50. If the S, but the SP3 basically was better than the LaFerrari. Like it used the LaFerrari motor without the hybrid BS. It looked better, it was cooler and it was lower production, right? And it was a convertible, which most of the LaFerraris weren't. And now imagine throwing a gated in it.

• 13:16Speaker 02

  And I'm, I pray, I hope, I know, I hope it gets made into a V12. I would love for them to do one of those.

• 13:22Doug DeMuro?

  You've got to assume, they're still doing it in the 12 cylinder, but you've got to assume they do it.

• 13:26Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  Man, oh, please, please, please, please let that happen. I mean, I'll never be able to afford one.

• 13:31Doug DeMuro?

  No one will.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  You know, no one will.

• 13:32Doug DeMuro?

  No one will. You think SP3s are expensive?

• 13:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:35Doug DeMuro?

  This is gonna go nuts.

• 13:36Speaker 02

  Totally. And, but what I hope is that that is the case and it further underscores to for, oh, maybe we should continue doing this.

• 13:42Doug DeMuro?

  I wouldn't be surprised because remember that's exactly what the 911R did for Porsche.

• 13:46Speaker 02

  Precisely, and I'm hoping.

• 13:47Doug DeMuro?

  There was a time when Porsche was getting ready to phase out the manual transmission completely. And then the 911R happened, they realized there was still demand, the 991.1 GT3 had all those tips, now they're kind of coming back. Now it's, it's a staple of the Porsche product lineup. Uh, and not just in the high end stuff, but like the manual ones sell for more on the used market. They have more desirability, et cetera.

• 14:09Speaker 02

  Totally. And maybe, just maybe, that means that they might bring it to some of the lower tier models.

• 14:15Doug DeMuro?

  Some of which are hybrids. Now I just reviewed a CRZ today.

• 14:18Speaker 03

  Which is a hybrid manual.

• 14:18Doug DeMuro?

  Hybrid manual. It's possible, folks.

• 14:21Speaker 02

  Has been doing it for a while. Just like the, actually just like the new V12 with the, uh, the oval, the oval.

• 14:27Speaker 03

  I just can't imagine it going to any other models because they've been so focused on performance and manual is not going to be.

• 14:33Doug DeMuro?

  But what Ferrari should be focused on is making money.

• 14:37Speaker 03

  How much money Ferrari makes?

• 14:39Doug DeMuro?

  They make a lot.

• 14:39Speaker 03

  Their profit is $137,000 per car.

• 14:43Doug DeMuro?

  They can afford some tariffs.

• 14:45Speaker 03

  Do you know what? Okay, there was a great list from Car Industry Analysis, the, it was like a great.

• 14:49Doug DeMuro?

  Oh God, he's gonna speak this new story.

• 14:51Speaker 03

  I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it. Okay, how many cars do you think other manufacturers need to sell to make as much profit as Ferrari makes in a single car?

• 14:59Doug DeMuro?

  Well, I understand, but they do sell that many cars. Like Hyundai probably makes more money than Ferrari.

• 15:06Speaker 03

  Ferrari as member service is the most profitable, second most profitable up there. Hyundai needs to sell 50s cars to make as much money as Ferrari does per car.

• 15:15Doug DeMuro?

  But economy is.

• 15:16Speaker 03

  They do sell that many cars, but.

• 15:19Doug DeMuro?

  Ferrari would make enough money. I know, I know, but again, they're a public company trying to maximize every last dollar. And they've been ruthless about this for as long as we've been sentient. I mean, there was a time they weren't ruthless about it, but now they're ruthless about it. Yeah. And like, why not throw a stick in there? No, no, agreed. I'm glad they're doing it. If you've been watching my videos for a long time, you'll remember I used to take my cars to CarMax to see what they'd offer me as a trade-in value. These videos were fun and popular as they would often give me a wildly inaccurate number for the cars. Submit your cool car to Cars and Bids in just a few minutes and you'll be connected with an auction manager from my team who will help your car go live on Cars and Bids where you'll get way more money for your car than trading it into a big box dealer. Look at how much these cars sold for on Cars and Bids compared to their trade-in value.

• 16:03Doug DeMuro?

  Here's a trade-in offer and this is the Cars and Bids result. Here's a trade-in value and the Cars and Bids result. And this was a trade-in value and this was the Cars and Bids result. Get started now and sell your car on carsandbids.com. Okay, move on to the next news story, which is the best news story of the whole week. Mercedes-Benz amidst all the tariffs has announced that they are bringing the AMG E53 wagon to the United States. This is a massive deal because the current Mercedes station wagon product lineup for the last, I don't know, 20 years, has been limited to an E350 or an E450 is what it's called now. So like a mid-tier six-cylinder. Yep. And the AMG, the top performing AMG. And it's actually, this is, this is almost designed directly for me.

• 16:44Doug DeMuro?

  I went to buy a Mercedes station wagon, I've had many, and it just, I just realized that the E63 wagon has lost me. It's gotten too harsh, too powerful and too expensive. I don't need any of that crap anymore. It's just simply too much. And there's a market for those cars. I imagine there will be. But as a guy who's owned two AMG wagons before, I am not that market anymore. It's just too much. This is gonna be right in the sweet spot of perfection. It's 577 horsepower. 502 with boost. With the boost mode, yeah. It's, well, which I'll never use. Yeah. It's not, it's not a low amount of power, to be clear. But if they're doing 577 in this, then the next E63 is gonna have 750 horsepower, underscoring my point.

• 17:29Doug DeMuro?

  And this is gonna have like a hundred and some thousand dollar price tag. It's gonna be a great pickup for me as a CPO car in about four years.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  That's exactly.

• 17:37Speaker 03

  It also straddles a line of cars that you want and cars that I want because it's a plug-in hybrid.

• 17:41Doug DeMuro?

  It's a plug-in hybrid.

• 17:42Speaker 03

  It will be the only plug-in hybrid E-Class wagon for now.

• 17:44Doug DeMuro?

  It's a plug-in hybrid, which actually I really want. I put an electric car charger at my house specifically hoping that there would be a plug-in Mercedes station wagon. And here we are. I'm so happy about this. Seriously. My wife will drive this thing around on electric only. I'm so pumped about this. I'm so glad they're doing this. I think a mid-tier model is what they should be doing. I will say, my All-Terran.

• 18:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:08Doug DeMuro?

  Is fast enough.

• 18:09Speaker 03

  Fast enough.

• 18:10Doug DeMuro?

  Like, I'll buy this to placate them because I'm glad they did it, but the All-Terran is really okay, guys.

• 18:16Speaker 00

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• 18:57Speaker 03

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• 19:08Speaker 02

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• 19:14Speaker 02

  Yep, you dragged race against an F-40.

• 19:16Doug DeMuro?

  Dragged it on an F-40. I lost, to be clear.

• 19:19Speaker 03

  You won one.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, and the owner was careful shifting the F-40.

• 19:22Speaker 03

  The first time you were not.

• 19:24Speaker 02

  You were not careful with the car.

• 19:25Speaker 03

  I'm excited by this. Presumably, there's no rear-facing third row though.

• 19:29Doug DeMuro?

  I don't know. There hasn't been a lot of details. I'm curious about that because the all-terrain still has the rear-facing third row. Yeah, but the hybrid is gonna be a six-cylinder based on the one that's in my car. So I assume that it's possible to get a rear-facing third row.

• 19:44Speaker 03

  All of them are like, uh, whatever they call them. My goodness.

• 19:48Doug DeMuro?

  Hurricane six-cylinder.

• 19:51Speaker 03

  No, all of them are mild hybrids, so they have like a larger standard. This is like a real.

• 19:55Doug DeMuro?

  I know, it's a real hybrid with a plug-in.

• 19:57Speaker 03

  We gotta put a battery somewhere.

• 19:57Doug DeMuro?

  They're not gonna take up my third row. I need my third row. We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens.

• 20:02Speaker 03

  There also hasn't been an AMG third row in a while.

• 20:04Doug DeMuro?

  There hasn't been since the 2009 model year. There hasn't been a third row in AMG. But this is a mild AMG, okay?

• 20:11Speaker 03

  Mild AMG, E53, not E63.

• 20:13Doug DeMuro?

  By the way, these are the first good wheels in the 214.

• 20:14Speaker 03

  These are okay wheels.

• 20:16Doug DeMuro?

  Okay, I'm really excited about this. This is not a big news story for most people, but to me, to a guy who wants power but wants a calm car, like this is, this is the combination of everything I've ever wanted in my life.

• 20:28Speaker 03

  And I want a wagon, I want a plug-in hybrid, and here we are.

• 20:30Doug DeMuro?

  It's a shame that Donald Trump took all of my money from me in the stock market. I can't afford this anymore. Will they bring me a C180D with cloth seats? That's what I can afford now.

• 20:40Speaker 03

  Mercedes, if you will, I'll buy one too.

• 20:43Doug DeMuro?

  You won't.

• 20:44Speaker 02

  Staying on the topic of Mercedes.

• 20:46Doug DeMuro?

  Oh, yeah, here we go.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  So if you can't quite afford the E53 wagon, there is a Mercedes for you. So of course the C63.

• 20:54Speaker 02

  But if performance is your thing.

• 20:55Speaker 03

  CLA.

• 20:56Speaker 02

  There's, I mentioned the C53 specifically, which I'll come back to in a second. Now, this is the C63, which we knew and loved, and the current one we don't love.

• 21:04Doug DeMuro?

  So.

• 21:04Speaker 02

  It's a four-cylinder. You said specifically how much it, and Mercedes-Benz agrees with you that it was the wrong call. They're rolling that back quickly and they're going to be putting in a plug-in hybrid six-cylinder engine from the E53.

• 21:17Doug DeMuro?

  Can I, can I make a quick point here? Can I make a quick point? The first three news stories, and by the way, we're not tailoring these. The first three news stories, except for the tariffs one.

• 21:26Doug DeMuro?

  Ferrari's gonna do a gated. I've been saying it.

• 21:28Speaker 02

  Praise the Lord.

• 21:29Doug DeMuro?

  I've been saying it for years. Mercedes should do a plug-in wagon. I've been saying it for years.

• 21:33Speaker 03

  You've been hoping for years.

• 21:34Doug DeMuro?

  And Mercedes is pulling the four-cylinder out of the C63. I've been saying it for years. Hey, folks.

• 21:39Speaker 02

  For a year.

• 21:41Doug DeMuro?

  But you get my point.

• 21:42Speaker 03

  Being correct about that is like.

• 21:43Speaker 02

  I mean.

• 21:44Doug DeMuro?

  Predict.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  The sky is blue.

• 21:46Doug DeMuro?

  I want you quickly to go to the next news story and I want you to introduce it.

• 21:49Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 21:50Doug DeMuro?

  We'll get back to this. Quickly go to the next news story. Tell us about this.

• 21:53Speaker 03

  There was a news report this week that Alpha has taken a consultant, a final consultant, to figure out what to do with Maserati.

• 21:59Doug DeMuro?

  You see where I'm going with this.

• 22:00Speaker 02

  Yep, I put two and two together.

• 22:02Speaker 03

  And one of the options is that they will maybe get rid of Maserati, they'll spin it off.

• 22:05Doug DeMuro?

  Alfa Romeo has, Stellantis has hired McKinsey and they're gonna pay him millions of dollars to figure out what to do with Alpha and Maserati. Two disastrous brands that are in a horrible situation.

• 22:14Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 22:15Doug DeMuro?

  I have predicted, in fact dictated to the auto industry, the last three news stories before they happen. Alpha, call me. I'll do it for a lot less.

• 22:25Speaker 03

  That's certainly true. McKinsey should be in fear of your consulting.

• 22:28Doug DeMuro?

  I'll do it for two things.

• 22:30Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 22:30Doug DeMuro?

  The new Icona manual.

• 22:32Speaker 02

  Oh, yup, done.

• 22:34Doug DeMuro?

  And an F40.

• 22:35Speaker 03

  We are probably at the right price point, yeah.

• 22:37Doug DeMuro?

  No way, I'm way under. McKinsey's gonna charge him 20 million dollars and it's still gonna fail. There is no question it's still gonna fail. Cause they don't understand. McKin, the car.

• 22:44Speaker 02

  McKinsey doesn't understand cars.

• 22:45Doug DeMuro?

  Consultants don't understand car industry. They've tried so long for so many years, but they all live in New York and they just graduated from college. And the only car they've ever had is their parents hand me down LR3. That's every consultant if they're lucky.

• 22:57Speaker 02

  This is how you end up with the advertising campaign that Jaguar used recently.

• 23:00Speaker 03

  That's exactly.

• 23:01Doug DeMuro?

  Go back to the previous news story.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 23:03Doug DeMuro?

  C63 they're gonna put in, what is it?

• 23:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's a twin turbo 3.0 liter, straight six, same one used in the E53. They haven't released the power figures, but you have to imagine gonna be the same as that car. Which means it'll be slightly less powerful than the current.

• 23:15Doug DeMuro?

  I, it can't be the same. There's no way they can go that far down, cause the new C63 has like 2 million horsepower.

• 23:21Speaker 02

  Well, they're saying that it was going to be less.

• 23:24Doug DeMuro?

  The new C63 has 670 horsepower. They can't go down to 570.

• 23:28Speaker 03

  But 603 with.

• 23:30Speaker 02

  They could. We'll see. I'm not exactly sure. They have been very cagey about how much power.

• 23:34Doug DeMuro?

  I will tell you, if you gave me the choice, I've driven that six cylinder, cause I drove the new E53 sedan, I've driven that six cylinder, I've driven this. I would take 70 less horsepower in that six cylinder all.

• 23:44Speaker 03

  What they're betting.

• 23:44Doug DeMuro?

  Day.

• 23:45Speaker 02

  I told.

• 23:45Doug DeMuro?

  Long.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  I totally agree with that. And a lot of publications have been saying this isn't the engine we want. We want a V8. Yeah, I get that, but like I'd rather have a straight six than a four. And it kind of moves it in line with like BMW currently have straight six power. Audi also using straight.

• 23:58Doug DeMuro?

  Also, this is a great, anybody saying that has never driven the straight six. I've been driving it daily for the last couple of years.

• 24:04Speaker 02

  It's a great.

• 24:04Doug DeMuro?

  Plus now there's the plugin with even more power. It's a fantastic powertrain. Fantastic. One of the great six cylinder powertrains that has ever existed in our society.

• 24:15Speaker 03

  Quite the set of six cylinder powertrains, that, the Sequoia.

• 24:18Doug DeMuro?

  Man, that's also a good six cylinder, but it ain't nothing on the Mercedes.

• 24:21Speaker 02

  Just need to get a 993 turbo, you'll be good to go. But like I think, but nonetheless, it is telling that that fast Mercedes is like, if we made a mistake, we'll put six in this back in the car.

• 24:31Speaker 03

  The worst part, like it had all the power in the world, but it was not a good powertrain.

• 24:35Doug DeMuro?

  And this is proven, especially if they go down in power. This is proven like horsepower is not the ultimate metric. The Charger EV Daytona proves that also. Horsepower is not the only thing we want.

• 24:45Speaker 03

  Proves a lot.

• 24:46Doug DeMuro?

  We want good. You want power and we want good and they don't have to be mutually exclusive.

• 24:51Speaker 02

  Often when we make orders for lunch, Doug just says, give me good. That's exactly, that's exactly what we're doing here. They're giving us good.

• 24:58Doug DeMuro?

  Good. All right, move on to the, we can go past the Alpha news story. What's, what's, okay.

• 25:02Speaker 02

  Ah, yes, Willow Springs. So we got some very good news. Willow Springs recently has been up for sale. The, the facility itself.

• 25:08Doug DeMuro?

  This is a racetrack.

• 25:09Speaker 02

  This is a racetrack in Southern California, very famous, has not changed much since the 1960s, which is why it was used in the Ford versus Ferrari movie. But it is recently sold to a private equity firm called Cross Harbor Partners. They joined up with Singer Automotive Design.

• 25:22Doug DeMuro?

  Oh, really?

• 25:23Speaker 02

  Want to make the Porsches, yes, to purchase Willow Springs. Now, this is, this is a really big deal.

• 25:27Doug DeMuro?

  They use it from today.

• 25:30Speaker 02

  This is again, it's enthusiast, it's enthusiast based and sports car based.

• 25:34Doug DeMuro?

  No, it's a good news story, but he's sitting here like he's shocked. We, what we talked about that we.

• 25:39Speaker 03

  We went through the slides on the van.

• 25:41Doug DeMuro?

  I also added this story to today's podcast. But I didn't read it.

• 25:46Speaker 02

  You're a great actor and the Academy Award goes to Filippo.

• 25:49Doug DeMuro?

  So importantly, I didn't read what's going on.

• 25:50Speaker 02

  So they're really focused on making a lot of changes at Willow Springs. Now, again, like I said, Willow Springs, not a lot in the way of safety. They're looking to change that. So they brought, they bring in. Alex Wears is going to be like doing a whole thing going over the safety, uh, like safety of the track and improving stuff there. But they're also going to be adding quite a few facilities. One is going to be for a technology help for manufacturers to come and test stuff. They'll also do a car storage place, potentially doing a museum. Like they have a lot of ideas.

• 26:17Doug DeMuro?

  I got an idea.

• 26:18Speaker 02

  We'll see if it comes to fruition, to be honest, but.

• 26:21Doug DeMuro?

  I got an idea.

• 26:22Speaker 02

  They want it to be more like Sonoma and other racetracks like that.

• 26:24Doug DeMuro?

  I got an idea.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 26:25Doug DeMuro?

  Since I'm, since I gave all the other news stories their ideas today. Here's my idea. You know how the Nürburgring is this giant racetrack where everybody tests all their stuff because it's so giant?

• 26:35Speaker 02

  It is giant.

• 26:36Speaker 03

  Make it bigger.

• 26:37Doug DeMuro?

  Here's what you do for Willow Springs. You know, there's three tracks. Make them all, put them all together. Oh, one massive track. Massive. So you got like a track, a track and a track. You connect those mofo's. You got track, you put it, this track goes to this track, streets of Willow, big Willow. Now there's, now there's.

• 26:53Speaker 02

  There's just Willows everywhere.

• 26:54Doug DeMuro?

  You've heard of Big Willow? Now there's going to be gigantic Willow.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  Titanic Willow.

• 26:59Doug DeMuro?

  Titanic Willow.

• 27:01Speaker 02

  Well.

• 27:01Doug DeMuro?

  It's going to go all the way to Santa Cruz.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  I think.

• 27:03Doug DeMuro?

  I don't know where Willow Springs is, to be honest with you. I, I went there once. I still don't know where it is.

• 27:07Speaker 02

  I think much like thermal, there will, they said they're going to still remain open to the public. So like thermal, I think there will be like a track that is like that, a track for members. And I suspect that's how they will split things up. But of course there are some concerns with this. One is that it's going to lose kind of the charm like you were saying that it has of it being like very sixties. But I think it's, I think on the flip side of that, it's going to bring a lot of amenities that people actually want to go and drive cars on a racetrack want. You, let's be honest, you had a spin recently. You want safety to be there, like as part of your track experience. You've recovered it very well and it's very admirable job. They're going to bring more of a modern experience to it. I think if they balance it carefully and retain some of the.

• 27:45Doug DeMuro?

  It can be really.

• 27:46Speaker 02

  It can still be very fun.

• 27:47Doug DeMuro?

  I think so too.

• 27:48Speaker 02

  And I think, and let's be honest, like Willow Springs has just been out there floundering for a little while. So like, I'm glad to see like. This specific racetrack being preserved and like the love of the Southern California car culture sticking around. And it also means that interesting racing can come to this. NASCAR could come to this. Could be a lot more interesting stuff that like race series that end up on this track.

• 28:06Speaker 03

  NASCAR doesn't only do old ones now. They got a lot of

• 28:08Speaker 02

  The reason I want to say this, Sonoma Raceway is going to be managing day-to-day operations and the company that manages them is involved with NASCAR. So I have a suspicion they'll connect the dots.

• 28:16Speaker 03

  Okay, I'm glad somebody bought it. It's a big deal.

• 28:18Doug DeMuro?

  I want to talk, this is, it is a good news story, or it could be bad. We'll see.

• 28:21Speaker 03

  No.

• 28:22Doug DeMuro?

  I want to talk about the final news story very quickly. I want you to say it, then we move on to it because we got a lot to cover.

• 28:26Speaker 03

  Say it, move on. Kia is going, is hoping to sell 90,000 electric pickups in North America a year. They said that today.

• 28:34Doug DeMuro?

  Move on. There is absolutely no chance that that occurs.

• 28:37Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 28:38Doug DeMuro?

  Eh, maybe they will. Okay. Now, no, actually, that's an interesting story also with the tariffs because they sell this truck here, which is called, you call it the Tasman.

• 28:45Speaker 03

  They don't call that, sell that here.

• 28:47Doug DeMuro?

  But it's called the Tasman. And no, it's here on the screen.

• 28:50Speaker 03

  They're in North America.

• 28:51Doug DeMuro?

  They don't have tariffs on the screen. The screen were set.

• 28:54Speaker 03

  Visual projections are fine. I'm going to be honest, where it's based on where that's probably built.

• 28:57Doug DeMuro?

  So, so, but they'll have, but can't be the Tasman. It'll have to be something else because

• 29:02Speaker 03

  I don't agree with the pronunciation.

• 29:04Doug DeMuro?

  You, you said it a minute ago.

• 29:05Speaker 03

  I don't agree with your pronunciation.

• 29:06Doug DeMuro?

  You think it's Tasman? You think it's not Tasman?

• 29:09Speaker 03

  No, I don't remember what I said.

• 29:09Doug DeMuro?

  Because Tasman is from Tasmania. Tasman, that's like what you say. That's the word. It's be like me saying a Cura and you being like, I don't agree. But that's what it is.

• 29:17Speaker 03

  All right, all right.

• 29:19Doug DeMuro?

  The point is, um, it's going to have to be a different truck or this truck but built in the US.

• 29:23Speaker 03

  It is a different truck. It's based on a chassis that they're also going to hope to build some like people mover type vans and other pickups on. That is like an electric thing. This is not the, the Tasman, Tasman. It's not an electric pickup.

• 29:35Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah.

• 29:35Speaker 03

  Uh, it's like on a different chassis. We just don't have designs.

• 29:38Doug DeMuro?

  Interesting. I mean, it could, this could be interesting. You know, I, I've been thinking about this a lot. The only EVs that are like really desirable and have retained value are the Rivians.

• 29:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:50Doug DeMuro?

  The truck SUV EV world is probably where it is. The scouts are gonna be hot.

• 29:54Speaker 03

  The scouts have been incredibly hot in preorder land.

• 29:56Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah, so it'll be interesting.

• 29:58Speaker 03

  Ninety thousand is.

• 29:59Doug DeMuro?

  Ninety thousand's a lot. That means they're going more for like Maverick type territory, which will be interesting. I mean, that's not an electric, but they do do a hybrid and like that's probably, I imagine that's the size area they're thinking about.

• 30:08Speaker 03

  Or like Nissan and Toyota have tried to do. They want to compete with.

• 30:12Doug DeMuro?

  They're not sure of full size.

• 30:13Speaker 03

  Uh, and Ford.

• 30:14Doug DeMuro?

  Kia, Kia will not be making a full-size electric truck. Are you out of your mind?

• 30:18Speaker 03

  They compete heavily in the second.

• 30:20Doug DeMuro?

  Ford can sell.

• 30:21Speaker 03

  Ford can sell plenty of F-150s.

• 30:23Doug DeMuro?

  Not Lightning.

• 30:23Speaker 03

  Not Lightning.

• 30:24Doug DeMuro?

  Well, if Ford can't sell them, then Kia ain't, Kia ain't gonna show up with their first truck and it's gonna be on electric full-size.

• 30:31Speaker 03

  You know, you would have said the same thing in 1998 when the Tundra came out.

• 30:34Doug DeMuro?

  No, I would have said the same thing in 2005 when the Titan came out. You know what? I'd be right.

• 30:38Speaker 03

  They had two very successful generations.

• 30:40Doug DeMuro?

  They had one mildly successful generation.

• 30:42Speaker 03

  I wouldn't have called that one successful either.

• 30:44Doug DeMuro?

  The second gen was only sold to Nissan employees in Nashville so they could tow their boats to the lake.

• 30:49Speaker 03

  I hate Mom and Dad fight.

• 30:50Doug DeMuro?

  Okay, next up is the Talk Cars segment where we talk about cars. We have been talking about cars, now we do it more.

• 30:56Speaker 03

  Ooh.

• 30:56Doug DeMuro?

  There's, there's a couple of important things to talk about with the Talk Cars and the most important is the Bentley Dominator. Now, for those of you who don't know, I'm obsessed with the Sultan of Brunei and his cars.

• 31:05Speaker 03

  Not necessarily with his decision.

• 31:07Doug DeMuro?

  It's actually his brother, Prince Jeffrey. And, and, and he commissioned all these cars in the 90s and one of the cars he commissioned was a Bentley SUV, which was called aptly in my, in my mind, the Dominator. And they had, they made about 11 of them. They all were sold to Brunei. And somebody sent us this one, uh, from a model car retailer in Italy. And here it is. And I didn't even know they made a model car of it, otherwise I would have bought it years ago. And, and Sean, our producer, he said, hey, let's put it on the set. And I said, no, I'm taking this home. This is the greatest gift that anybody has ever given me. The single greatest. Bentley Dominator, it's blue, blue. And you know what? Now that I'm looking at the model, it's quite ugly.

• 31:48Speaker 02

  It's penis. It's a really ugly car.

• 31:50Doug DeMuro?

  I've always said that if I could have any car in the world, it would, it would be one of the Sultan's Dominators. Stand by it. And now that I'm sitting here today, looking at this wonderful gift that someone has given me, I completely disavow what I've said before.

• 32:03Speaker 02

  I disagree. I think you should lean into it. I think you absolutely.

• 32:06Doug DeMuro?

  Why is the rear overhang so dramatically large? It's gonna impact your off-roading. You can't off-road with this at all. Anyway.

• 32:14Speaker 02

  Right, because that's exactly how you would use it, is to take your Dominator off-road.

• 32:18Doug DeMuro?

  I would take my, it's called the Dominator. You don't think I'm just gonna dominate pavement? I'm gonna dominate the dirt and him.

• 32:25Speaker 02

  But being a Bentley, I suspect mineral oil might be what dominates you.

• 32:28Doug DeMuro?

  That's true. You know, I didn't think about that. That's a mineral oil era car. Although, wasn't it based on the P38? Imagine adding the mineral oil to a P38.

• 32:37Speaker 02

  Doesn't anything couldn't make it any less reliable.

• 32:40Doug DeMuro?

  Wow.

• 32:40Speaker 02

  Luckily, there are only 13 of them, so.

• 32:43Doug DeMuro?

  Man, you put a, uh, thank you so much. You put an S54 in there and you really have your work cut out for you.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  It is fascinating to me that Bentley at all thought that when they did the Bentayga, that they needed to go back to this, to like, look at how they did it before.

• 32:55Doug DeMuro?

  That when they were, when they were coming out with the Bentayga, in order to conceptualize it, they had Brunei ship them the Dominators back, so they could take a look at it and see what they did last time.

• 33:04Speaker 02

  I have to give.

• 33:05Doug DeMuro?

  And there were pictures of the cars on airplane tarmacs, so apparently that did happen.

• 33:09Speaker 02

  So cool. And presumably, they came in to fix some leaks, too.

• 33:12Doug DeMuro?

  Probably they were like, listen, if you send these to us, we'll also make them work again.

• 33:16Speaker 02

  Credit where it's due. This model is actually very nice.

• 33:18Doug DeMuro?

  Which is especially hard to do because they didn't make the car. How do you make a model of something that we've seen seven photos of?

• 33:26Speaker 02

  Man, those designers took their time, but they invested it well, because it's beautiful and now it's here on our set.

• 33:31Doug DeMuro?

  Can we talk about one other SUV? Can you pull up the Land Cruiser? You're talking about the Land Cruiser? I think it's important. Okay, pull up the Land Cruiser. Folks, one of the greatest cars in Cars in Mid's history is live right now. He's just gonna scroll. It's a wild strategy. This is, I'm gonna tell you what this is, I'm gonna tell you why it's special. So, the 200 Series Toyota Land Cruiser, which is one of the better Land Cruisers, it was sold from 2008 to 21, because the best is the. One of the four? No, the best is the 300 Series LX700H. Which I want. It's one of the four, yeah. Over trail!

• 34:01Speaker 02

  Felipe's leaving Doug's hangar.

• 34:04Speaker 03

  I prefer Nori.

• 34:05Doug DeMuro?

  The point is, he's tired of hearing me talk about the LX700. Aren't we all? Yeah, we are, including my wife. So, this is a Land Cruiser, and the Land Cruiser, the 200 Series Land Cruiser, from 08 to 21. For the final two model years of the Land Cruiser, the 200, they made a Heritage Edition that was a special edition model. It was not the only one they made. There was a, you could get a regular, or you could get the Heritage. And in 20, the Heritage was only offered with two-row seating. But for 21, the final year, they offered it with an optional third row. And so, in the minds of a lot of the Land Cruiser community, a 21 Heritage, which was like the special model, final model year,

• 34:48Doug DeMuro?

  with the optional third row, which really added a lot to the capability. I don't know why they didn't do it with the third row in the other ones, because everybody wanted it, is like the dream Land Cruiser. And we have one live right now that is in magnetic gray, I think they called it? Yeah, magnetic gray. A three-row magnetic gray Heritage. There's maybe 100 of these, maybe 50 on the planet.

• 35:11Speaker 03

  They were expensive when new and hard to get.

• 35:12Doug DeMuro?

  This is a really, really, really, really, really, really, really

• 35:19Speaker 03

  Special car.

• 35:22Doug DeMuro?

  In the Land Cruiser world, this is really, really cool. And so, it's live on the site right now, and you should buy it. Or not, or you should leave it for me.

• 35:28Speaker 03

  I don't know. You're off.

• 35:31Doug DeMuro?

  I'm done with cars. I'm off cars. I just wanted to bring it to people's attention. No, I want an LX700. I think that 300's better. But there's a good chunk of the community, call it 99.6% of the community.

• 35:42Speaker 03

  Are you giving 0.4 to the 300? Wow.

• 35:44Doug DeMuro?

  Those 0.4 think that the 100 is better, and no one thinks that the 300 is better, except for me. Sadly, unfortunately, the 300's been tariffed out of existence. Anyway, this thing is live right now, and it's the coolest car ever to grace the website. It's up there. It's up there. Magnetic, Heritage, three-row. When these were new, I was like, I gotta buy one of these, because I know they're gonna hold their value.

• 36:05Speaker 03

  I remember this.

• 36:06Doug DeMuro?

  And I shouldn't. I didn't, because it still doesn't have self-driving.

• 36:10Speaker 03

  No, it does. It has self-driving as long as you don't go to zero.

• 36:13Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah, it has adaptive cruise, but it cuts off at 20 miles an hour.

• 36:17Speaker 03

  20?

• 36:17Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah, so you can't use it in traffic.

• 36:20Speaker 02

  Which is the whole.

• 36:21Doug DeMuro?

  The whole point.

• 36:23Speaker 03

  But when you're driving across Africa.

• 36:25Doug DeMuro?

  Right.

• 36:26Speaker 02

  Right. I'll tell you not.

• 36:27Doug DeMuro?

  And this one has done that.

• 36:29Speaker 03

  These are great photos, too. The Heritage wheels, the Heritage badge.

• 36:31Speaker 02

  Are really, really nice.

• 36:32Speaker 03

  Commons went deep on it immediately, by the way. Like, apparently the stitching looks a little bit different than it does in some other photos.

• 36:37Doug DeMuro?

  This is, everything about this car is perfect, except it was in a light fronting accident, and so the grille was replaced with the non Heritage grille. Now, two things about this. I went on eBay. The grills are available, and it's actually the grille and the fog lights around. They're available and they're cheap. You can get the whole set for like 800 bucks, um, which is relatively affordable considering the value of the car. Yeah, you can see it here. It's, it's very slightly different. It's, it's like a slightly different color, different bars. It's very minimal.

• 37:02Speaker 03

  I can see how the body shop would have ordered the wrong one.

• 37:04Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah, or, uh, some people might think it looks better, to be honest with you. There's some folks out there who might say, okay, anyway, uh, I want to talk also. Give me, give us your talk car segment, please.

• 37:16Speaker 03

  Okay, I was in Mexico City.

• 37:17Doug DeMuro?

  Oh, yeah.

• 37:18Speaker 03

  Uh, for just a little weekend trip.

• 37:19Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah.

• 37:20Speaker 03

  Shout out to the one person that's from Detroit that was visiting the same coffee shop and said hi, by the way.

• 37:24Speaker 02

  I, I did.

• 37:25Doug DeMuro?

  He got recognized in Mexico City.

• 37:28Speaker 03

  I love Mexico City cars.

• 37:30Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah.

• 37:30Speaker 03

  They're not exotic cars.

• 37:31Doug DeMuro?

  No.

• 37:31Speaker 03

  I saw like a Huracan and a McLaren.

• 37:35Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah.

• 37:35Speaker 03

  That once.

• 37:36Doug DeMuro?

  There is a lot of money in Mexico City, but there are no nice cars in Mexico City.

• 37:39Speaker 03

  Fascinating blend of, it's a very European feeling city.

• 37:43Doug DeMuro?

  It is.

• 37:43Speaker 03

  Fascinating blend of big American cars, lots of Suburbans, especially the nice areas.

• 37:47Doug DeMuro?

  Yep.

• 37:47Speaker 03

  Lots of every big SUV, lots of old, like 90s Chrysler products. And then there's European cars.

• 37:53Doug DeMuro?

  Yep, Peugeot.

• 37:54Speaker 03

  Peugeot, Citroen, whatever, Rubens. And then there's also Chinese cars now.

• 37:58Doug DeMuro?

  Yep.

• 37:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:58Speaker 03

  I, I had an Uber that was a BYD D1, which is like a purpose-built just for ride-sharing apps, Chinese, uh, little taxi cab thing. And I love the combination of this.

• 38:11Doug DeMuro?

  BYD D1. I, I had the same thought when I was in Mexico City. I was astonished by, uh, this unbelievable, probably nowhere else on the planet gives you that level of combination of American and European in one place. Deep American, Suburbans, pickup trucks.

• 38:26Speaker 03

  There are BYDs everywhere. There's Chinese brands that I've never heard of.

• 38:30Doug DeMuro?

  MG is all over the place.

• 38:32Speaker 03

  Passenger side, sliding rear door. Driver side.

• 38:35Doug DeMuro?

  You can see it here.

• 38:36Speaker 03

  Regular opening rear door.

• 38:37Doug DeMuro?

  There's the driver's side, regular door handle in the regular place. There's the passenger side slide.

• 38:41Speaker 03

  For safety when you get out.

• 38:42Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah.

• 38:43Speaker 03

  Wow. I just love that, like, mix of things in the market.

• 38:47Doug DeMuro?

  One thing I will say, the reason for the mix is because the market is not particularly powerful.

• 38:52Speaker 03

  No.

• 38:53Doug DeMuro?

  And so like the US market can make an enormous amount of regulations and automakers build cars for the US market. The Mexican market has to kind of take what's available.

• 39:01Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 39:01Doug DeMuro?

  However, the countries that have to take what's available often have the coolest car markets. I noticed the same thing when I was in New Zealand. It's the same thing in Malta. You end up with just weird crap.

• 39:11Speaker 03

  All the weird.

• 39:12Doug DeMuro?

  All the weird. Because it's like Chinese, yeah. Like, we don't want to regulate out anybody. We want to have as much choice as we can. Peugeot, yeah, bring it in.

• 39:19Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 39:20Doug DeMuro?

  But this, Mexico City is really where the Latin American market and the American market, like, converge.

• 39:25Speaker 03

  Because it's one of the richest cities in Latin America and...

• 39:28Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah.

• 39:29Speaker 03

  So you do get, like, the large American cars and a lot of, like, Mercedes GLSs.

• 39:33Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah.

• 39:33Speaker 03

  For some reason and like...

• 39:34Doug DeMuro?

  But low spec, you saw low wheels.

• 39:36Speaker 03

  I also saw a Maybach GLS.

• 39:37Doug DeMuro?

  The, um, if you're at the border, you don't see a lot of the Latin American spec cars. It's not the same. It's more American type stuff. There's a lot of American influence on the border cities. But you get far enough south...

• 39:48Speaker 03

  You get some, you get some interesting cars.

• 39:49Doug DeMuro?

  It is weird.

• 39:50Speaker 03

  Loved it. Love just walking around and looking at all the cars.

• 39:53Doug DeMuro?

  Feels European. Um, okay, we got to talk...

• 39:55Speaker 03

  I'll tell you, take one.

• 39:55Doug DeMuro?

  We got to talk market report. We got to do market report. Market report is brought to you by, uh, Sean, our producer.

• 40:01Speaker 03

  The market report is brought to you by Cars and Bids. Go check out carsandbids.com. If you have a cool car, sell it on Cars and Bids by clicking the Sell a Car badge at carsandbids.com.

• 40:09Doug DeMuro?

  Or by using the Cars and Bids app.

• 40:10Speaker 03

  Or by using the Cars and Bids app on iOS.

• 40:12Doug DeMuro?

  Sean, our producer. Um, Sean has a heinous G-Wagon. Okay.

• 40:16Speaker 03

  He does.

• 40:17Doug DeMuro?

  There's a lot of stuff I want to cover market report. However, the questions this week were the best we've ever had.

• 40:21Speaker 03

  Whoa.

• 40:22Doug DeMuro?

  We got to get to the questions. But market report, there's two things I want to talk about.

• 40:25Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 40:26Doug DeMuro?

  One is, I wanted to give a quick discussion of the car market in general and I'm curious what you guys think. We haven't talked about this before. Been surprised at our sales?

• 40:35Speaker 03

  They've been strong. There have been strong results on a lot of cars, which, when the market is down 3% day after day after day after day, it's surprising.

• 40:43Doug DeMuro?

  Stock market's down almost 20%. Now, after today, it's less. And maybe by the time this goes live, it'll be even better, but... In the last few days, it was down almost 20%.

• 40:51Speaker 03

  Look at that 992 GTS.

• 40:53Doug DeMuro?

  Well, one of the things I specifically wanted to talk about was yesterday, we had a lot of recent Euro cars bring all the money. Go back. That 992 GTS got all the money. That X3 M Competition got all the money. That Audi e-tron GT, which has been a tough sell, if we're being totally honest, got all the money.

• 41:10Speaker 03

  We sold a 992 Turbo today.

• 41:12Doug DeMuro?

  I think there was one more. This Volvo, this V60 Polestar got all the money.

• 41:15Speaker 03

  Okay, V60 Polestar's been getting all the money, period.

• 41:17Doug DeMuro?

  But this is, but this is the new body. And yeah, we sold the 992 Turbo for big money today.

• 41:21Speaker 03

  We sold it for 10 grand above sticker.

• 41:23Doug DeMuro?

  My assumption is.

• 41:25Speaker 03

  Two-year car, three-year car.

• 41:26Doug DeMuro?

  It's a two-year car with no miles, to be clear.

• 41:27Speaker 03

  I know, but still.

• 41:28Doug DeMuro?

  My assumption is that there are people who are seeing what's on the horizon. We just lived through COVID and are realizing, if I want to get into a car, I'm going to buy you.

• 41:39Speaker 03

  And they're not wrong. Porsche's not, if you ordered a 992 Turbo now, who knows when you'll get it?

• 41:45Doug DeMuro?

  You won't.

• 41:46Speaker 03

  It might be a year, it might be three. They might stop importing them. Who knows? They have stopped importing them. They might tell you no for now. Yeah, they will.

• 41:54Doug DeMuro?

  They probably take your order, but.

• 41:56Speaker 03

  But it might.

• 41:57Doug DeMuro?

  I don't know if it goes much further than that.

• 41:58Speaker 03

  I think this is what we expected would happen eventually, right? As new car prices go higher because of tariffs, as inventory decreases because of that, you get an increase in values in the used market. What I'm surprised by is that it's happened already. And it's happened when the market is as tumultuous as it is right now.

• 42:14Doug DeMuro?

  You know, there's a theory among people who are less informed that the stock market is entirely for rich people. But the truth is, significant losses in the stock market points to a non-healthy economy, which eventually will affect your job and your ability to purchase things. So I've been a little surprised at the health of, yeah, this car brought 113.5. It was a lot more than I was expecting, to be honest.

• 42:40Speaker 03

  It's a 2022 GT4.

• 42:43Doug DeMuro?

  I think we're already seeing either people are hedging against a supply reduction, or they already think it's here, or I'm not really sure. I've been surprised.

• 42:52Speaker 03

  It's a little surprising.

• 42:53Doug DeMuro?

  My assumption, everybody, everybody's come to me and been like cars and bids is going to do so well with the tariffs because 95% of the cars we sell are completely unaffected. That was a possibility, but I also assumed the economy would take such a hit that there would be no consumer confidence to buy any car, new or used.

• 43:09Speaker 02

  That was, that was exactly what I was.

• 43:10Doug DeMuro?

  So far.

• 43:11Speaker 03

  That may still happen.

• 43:12Speaker 02

  Seems like it's better than we maybe were expecting.

• 43:15Doug DeMuro?

  May, so far.

• 43:16Speaker 02

  So far, but I mean, like you were saying, let's see what does tomorrow bring.

• 43:19Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah.

• 43:20Speaker 02

  Don't really know. So I think, I think, yeah, some people, some people who still can't afford it are jumping in and going for it. And I don't think that's a bad move necessarily. We'll just, we'll see what.

• 43:29Doug DeMuro?

  No, it might not be, especially if they can afford it. Like if they're sitting here, their job is, their, their job is good, or they're retired, or they have a lot of cash on the sidelines. Honestly, a car might be a smarter place. I've been thinking a lot about how my cars are probably my most stable asset at the moment.

• 43:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:43Speaker 03

  Let's use that 992 Turbo S as an example. 230 grand right now. If a new one becomes 25% more expensive.

• 43:49Doug DeMuro?

  Right.

• 43:50Speaker 03

  Suddenly your resale, your value of that car stays flat or increases. And if inflation is higher, as it may well be with tariffs.

• 43:57Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah.

• 43:57Speaker 03

  Okay. Well, you just parked something in an asset that's not.

• 44:00Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah.

• 44:00Speaker 03

  That's not devalued.

• 44:01Doug DeMuro?

  Declining, which, which honestly, right now is a pretty okay place with bonds declining. That's a pretty okay place. Um, I'm not, by the way, I'm not trying to show for the company. I would prefer there to be no tariffs at all and, and, and have that affect the company negatively if, if, if it is the case.

• 44:13Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 44:14Doug DeMuro?

  I think that the tariffs are a horrible idea and incredibly stupid. However, it does seem to me like at least in the, from the early days of looking at this, some of these, especially some of these Euro cars are doing better than I was expecting.

• 44:25Speaker 03

  You, you expect when there's a very tumultuous stock market that people are cautious.

• 44:29Doug DeMuro?

  Cautious.

• 44:30Speaker 03

  Seems like people are actually taking a little bit different approach.

• 44:33Doug DeMuro?

  People who lived through COVID, that market recovered very quickly and led to extreme shortages. I see some parallels here.

• 44:39Speaker 03

  Oh, wait, didn't.

• 44:40Doug DeMuro?

  Oh, we didn't. And so it's hard to know which is which, but this feels more like COVID than oh eight because it was kind of created.

• 44:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:45Doug DeMuro?

  And thus could be uncreated relatively quickly.

• 44:48Speaker 03

  Today shows it.

• 44:48Doug DeMuro?

  Today proves that. And so maybe you want to get in while you can.

• 44:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:52Doug DeMuro?

  I don't know. I don't know exactly what's going on, but it's an interesting situation.

• 44:54Speaker 03

  32 grand for that at 65.

• 44:55Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah, our sale rate is, our sale rate has been high.

• 44:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:58Doug DeMuro?

  Our, the value on the cars has been strong. Um, maybe this doesn't last. Maybe what happens is the tariffs do significantly impact the economy and people do lose their jobs. Confidence goes off and then we can't sell anything. That's also possible.

• 45:10Speaker 03

  We're like two weeks in.

• 45:12Doug DeMuro?

  We're two weeks in. We don't know what's going to happen, but it, for the first two weeks, I am surprised how, how it's going.

• 45:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't disagree. Of course, you proclaim that you can read the future based on those pass cards that have come through. Do you want to make any proclamations about what's going to happen?

• 45:25Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah, I'll make a proclamation. No rational person can read the future when it comes to the Trump administration. Anything could happen at any moment, at any time. I can't predict what's going to happen in six minutes, let alone in six days. I went to shoot the CRZ intros. I went to shoot the CRZ intros. I look at my stock portfolio, it's up 9%. I'm like, what the hell happened? I mean, the zoo parking lot, what the hell happened?

• 45:50Speaker 00

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• 46:17Speaker 05

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the HouseMajorityPact.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 46:47Speaker 02

  That sums up 2025 in a nutshell.

• 46:52Doug DeMuro?

  All right, we gotta move on to questions. Now, remember, you too can ask a question. You go to carsandbids.com, you click on the community tab, and there'll be a post that says, "Ask us your questions!" And I will select the best questions. Not the most upvoted, but the best questions.

• 47:09Speaker 03

  There were 247 questions left.

• 47:11Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah, but dude, there are some good questions. That's why I wanted to make sure we have time for them. We got decent time this time. So we're gonna do questions legitimately. Okay, and the first question, people keep asking us to rank stuff. I've decided I'm only gonna do one per episode. But the best question, the best rank, there were a lot of suggestions. The best rank is, rank the E-classes. This is where the hate will flow.

• 47:31Speaker 02

  Why?

• 47:33Doug DeMuro?

  Because it has it on the other thing.

• 47:34Speaker 03

  Bring us the hate. There's a question that says, "Rank all the Prius models."

• 47:38Doug DeMuro?

  I'll do the Priuses later. I want to rank the E-classes.

• 47:41Speaker 03

  Where are we starting?

• 47:42Doug DeMuro?

  From the 124.

• 47:44Speaker 03

  We're starting the 124.

• 47:45Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 47:46Doug DeMuro?

  Now, I want to be clear here. I have owned, owned, not just driven his press cars like my little, like little auto industry compatriots. I have personally owned every generation of E-Class. So people are gonna be like, "You're wrong!" And I'm gonna be like, "No. No."

• 48:02Speaker 03

  Alright, so it's 124, 210, 211, 212.

• 48:05Doug DeMuro?

  I had a 500E. I had a 93, 124, 500E. By the way, that's the other thing. I didn't just have one of each E-Class. I've had the best of each E-Class. So let's do this.

• 48:14Speaker 03

  Alright. Wait, what? Oh, you had these? Six generations.

• 48:16Doug DeMuro?

  I'm gonna blow everybody's mind.

• 48:18Speaker 03

  General or like AMG?

• 48:19Doug DeMuro?

  No, no, general, including the AMGs. I'm gonna blow everybody's mind. I already have my ranking.

• 48:23Speaker 03

  Please.

• 48:24Doug DeMuro?

  It's gonna hurt car enthusiasts.

• 48:26Speaker 03

  Do you want to be a part of this or is it just Doug and I? I'll chime in.

• 48:29Doug DeMuro?

  Alright, alright. This is gonna hurt. Car enthusiasts are not gonna like this, but this is the truth and I have, I have, for years, I have owned, I've had an E-Class in my garage. Some of them I only had for six, eight months. I've had, some of them I had for many years. Best, 214. Yeah. Second best, 213.

• 48:49Doug DeMuro?

  Third best?

• 48:51Speaker 03

  210. Really? Over 211? Just for? Oh, 100%. Oh, yeah. So, so far.

• 48:57Doug DeMuro?

  If you want to hear me say 211, you better wait a little while.

• 49:00Speaker 03

  I love the 211. Um, I'm gonna, I put the 124 after the 210.

• 49:07Doug DeMuro?

  Over the 212?

• 49:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:09Doug DeMuro?

  People are gonna, people are gonna get mad.

• 49:11Speaker 03

  For the record, I, I own a 212.

• 49:13Doug DeMuro?

  People on Instagram, people on Instagram who love the older stuff and the cheap stuff are gonna get mad that we didn't put the 124 first. But I've owned a 124. I know about a biodegradable warning harness, wiring harness or two. I, the car is, was a good start.

• 49:27Speaker 03

  You, you, you agreed that it was?

• 49:30Doug DeMuro?

  214, 213, 210.

• 49:32Speaker 03

  214, 213, 210, 124, 212, 211.

• 49:36Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah. We're stunningly agreed.

• 49:39Speaker 03

  The best ones, the newest ones are simply the best ones, but there was a period of time that was like 03 to

• 49:47Doug DeMuro?

  Oh, well, it was 03 to 17. I mean, I mean, and those were

• 49:51Speaker 03

  And I love my 212, to be clear.

• 49:52Doug DeMuro?

  The 212, great. And honestly, the 03 E55, the 211 E55 would maybe be one of my top three if I was to rank individual models.

• 50:00Speaker 03

  Don't forget about the E63 wagon with the rear facing the 09.

• 50:04Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah, I had one of those. It wouldn't be near the top. So cool. The head bolt motor.

• 50:10Speaker 03

  The market agrees, by the way, that it's cool.

• 50:13Speaker 02

  But yeah, the, I see what you mean in totality about the 211, because in my opinion of like all the fast AMG, I still put the E55, the 211 E55.

• 50:22Doug DeMuro?

  The 211, if someone said to me, rank the AMGs, the 211 E55 would be really close to the top of this.

• 50:27Speaker 02

  I agree.

• 50:28Doug DeMuro?

  In fact, I actually think that the more recent AMGs are less desirable. It's just that the overall car has gotten to be such an unbelievably good complete package in the 213 and 214 generations. They're the best. And people who are going to comment have never driven one because they drive a lot, the people who comment on Instagram and write should of, they drive older stuff, but this, this is the real ranking.

• 50:52Speaker 03

  I want to be really clear. I, like I said, I own a 212. I own a 24 post facelift 212 wagon. I love it. I think it's an incredibly good car. I've driven it 50,000 miles in the last three years.

• 51:01Doug DeMuro?

  Especially the post facelift, especially the non AMG.

• 51:03Speaker 03

  It's great. It's a, but every E-Class is great.

• 51:07Doug DeMuro?

  Right. I agree with the ranking. The, the, the 213 was an unbelievable step up over the 212. I would, I would argue that probably the greatest step up of all of them was from the 12 to the 13.

• 51:18Speaker 03

  The tech was a massive jump.

• 51:19Doug DeMuro?

  Proven by the fact that the jump from the 13 to the 14 has been, it looks like a facelift, to be honest.

• 51:25Speaker 03

  Are you okay with 124 being the thing that breaks them? I, I think it's just so iconic as like a classic Mercedes.

• 51:32Speaker 02

  Well, and it's, it's so good. It's just, it's the classic bank vault, bill quality Mercedes is known for at the time. And it's a small, usable, handsome, brim of

• 51:40Doug DeMuro?

  Okay, here's the question then. Would you rather have a 212 E350 wagon or a 124 E320 wagon? 212. Kind of rather have the 124. Oh, for crying. Not as a daily driver, but I'm not an old car. Regardless, as long as we agree that it goes 214, 213, 210. I do. I'll take that. Okay. Next question. Here's a good one. From Rider17 to Kenan and Filippo. If you were given a choice between one of Doug's previous cars, which would you pick? Previous, gotta be. Previous. I've never sold a good car that I had.

• 52:19Speaker 02

  See, sold.

• 52:20Doug DeMuro?

  True. There's like a lot of truths to this. About the 360. Yeah, I sold the G-Wagon.

• 52:27Doug DeMuro?

  What do you got? You have a lot. Do your Porsche company cars count? No.

• 52:35Speaker 02

  I love, I mean.

• 52:36Doug DeMuro?

  05 Elise. It was sick.

• 52:38Speaker 02

  With no air conditioning, tough.

• 52:40Doug DeMuro?

  I fixed the AC eventually.

• 52:41Speaker 02

  Oh, I thought it just didn't have it.

• 52:43Doug DeMuro?

  No, no, it had it. It was broken.

• 52:44Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 52:45Doug DeMuro?

  And I went through the whole summer and for some reason in like November, I was like, I can't take it anymore. And I fixed it, then I sold it. I don't know. I was 25.

• 52:53Speaker 02

  That's something I would do.

• 52:54Doug DeMuro?

  I was an idiot. You've owned a lot of cars. If your CTSV wagon were the good one.

• 52:59Speaker 02

  Manual one.

• 53:00Doug DeMuro?

  Then that would have been a choice. It's a good, good daily. But it wasn't.

• 53:02Speaker 02

  The Viper GTS was a great one.

• 53:04Doug DeMuro?

  The Viper GTS was great. 97 Viper.

• 53:07Speaker 02

  I mean, I have a soft, I know it's not a good car, but I have a soft, I very much have a soft spot for the Defender. Like, I really love.

• 53:14Doug DeMuro?

  The NS90.

• 53:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, the.

• 53:15Doug DeMuro?

  The only good car I ever sold. I'm surprised you're not saying Vantage.

• 53:18Speaker 02

  The Vantage was a good car.

• 53:19Doug DeMuro?

  I'm not surprised. A stick 360. Yeah. Don't forget that. The answer for me is clear, by the way. There was a clear car that I loved. 210 E55. No. Nissan S-Cargo. S-Cargo. I would love that S-Cargo.

• 53:31Speaker 02

  You really did.

• 53:31Doug DeMuro?

  I legitimately love that S-Cargo. Well, you know, you. For like five grand. You can get one. Well. It's not. Six grand now. It's not like unavailable. Yeah, for $5,000. I'm not gonna pay money for the experience. Purchase one. No, but like if I were given one. What do you got? Stick 360?

• 53:50Speaker 02

  I kind of want to remove that one from the list because that's obviously what I would choose. But I think if, if not that one, I think. The Viper GTS, like that car was, and the GTS got so many upgrades and you got the double bubble, yours was the right, the blue with white stripes. It was like, it was-

• 54:06Doug DeMuro?

  And it forged internals, 96, 97.

• 54:07Speaker 02

  Right, yep, exactly. And so that was like, that's like the one, and those cars are, I mean, what did you sell yours for?

• 54:12Doug DeMuro?

  Bought it for 35, sold it for 34.

• 54:14Speaker 02

  Now they're like 100. So, I mean-

• 54:16Doug DeMuro?

  They're like 70.

• 54:17Speaker 02

  No, good GTS's are much higher.

• 54:19Doug DeMuro?

  Mine was not a good GTS. It was a driver. It was a very nice car. Like, it didn't have issues, but it was, it wasn't like a show car. I agree with you. Show cars are 100.

• 54:27Speaker 02

  100, yeah. So even so, like, I mean, you owned that car at the right time. I always thought they were cool. So if I couldn't have the 360, which is what I would de facto choose, it'd be the GTS.

• 54:35Doug DeMuro?

  I bought that car in North Carolina, Fuquay Varina.

• 54:39Speaker 03

  Very familiar.

• 54:40Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah, and I drove it back to Philly and it was so cool. And it had little seatbelt covers that said Viper on them.

• 54:48Speaker 03

  And every time we would go film a video, Doug would refuse to drive it because he hated driving it.

• 54:52Doug DeMuro?

  You know what's funny? I deeply regret now getting rid of that car. I wish I had spent more time with that car. I lived in Center City, Philly. It wasn't the car for Philly. If I had that car now, I would really appreciate it a lot more.

• 55:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:02Doug DeMuro?

  It was cool. It was really cool.

• 55:03Speaker 02

  They're really cool.

• 55:04Speaker 03

  There were a lot of cars pre mine knowing you, and therefore I don't think about those cars.

• 55:08Doug DeMuro?

  There were 21055.

• 55:09Speaker 03

  That would have been a good car. There were other good options, but that car goes, lives in my memory.

• 55:14Doug DeMuro?

  Uh, okay. Next question from Rose 76. What is your craziest car press launch story? I don't go to press launches often, uh, because I don't care.

• 55:26Doug DeMuro?

  Uh, and I really hate it. Honestly, I hate the whole thing. I, I really think that press launches are totally inappropriate, to be perfectly frank. They fly the journalists out there, first class to Hawaii and, and put them in the nicest hotel and give them the nicest meals and they say, please write an objective piece about our Subaru legacy. It's like laughably stupid, right? But, uh, I did, back in the day when I was starting out, you kind of have to go to them. You don't have any leverage and, and, and, and by the time that you're, when you're a young guy, the old guys don't want to go to them anymore. They got families. They don't want to be on the road going to the press launch for the facelifted Chevy Colorado short wheelbase. So-

• 56:00Speaker 03

  Can I go?

• 56:01Doug DeMuro?

  The very first press launch I ever went to was for the Lexus IS, which came out in 2012, 2011, something like that. It was the redesigned.

• 56:11Speaker 03

  No, the redesigned came out in 08.

• 56:13Doug DeMuro?

  Really? No, it was 06 that the, that the-

• 56:15Speaker 02

  It competed against, I mean, the, the ISF competed against-

• 56:18Doug DeMuro?

  It was the next gen, it wasn't the ISF gen. Oh, it wasn't the ISF gen. Uh, then 13. 13? So probably in, in spring of 12, uh, which makes sense. That was right when I was starting out.

• 56:29Speaker 03

  Away with the facelift.

• 56:30Doug DeMuro?

  Or summer of 12. I, I went to the, the, the first press launch I ever went to, which was the Lexus IS, and I don't remember where it was. Uh, and, uh, but it was in the west somewhere. Anyway, I went out there and the, the fellow who ran marketing for Lexus, he gets up on the stage and I'm nervous, like I'm young. Everyone in this industry is very collegiate, they all know each other. And I'm there for my first press launch ever. I don't know anybody, I'm just a little baby child. I'm like 24, I'm like just, I'm like sitting there with like the little notebook like, "Oh, I better take notes on this car, I don't know what to do." And the guy gets in up there, the marketing guy for Lexus gets up there and he, he says, the first thing he says to the room of journalists, uh, before the presentation, he says,

• 57:12Doug DeMuro?

  "The new Lexus IS is the car for people who wanna stop blending in and start blending out." And I thought to myself, "I've chosen the wrong industry." "I can't believe I quit my job, this is the worst thing I've ever done in my life." And, uh, anyway, we, we got better from there. Not that launch.

• 57:32Speaker 03

  Widely panned that car, by the way, for the styling.

• 57:35Doug DeMuro?

  You know where it was? It was in Austin, actually, cause, cause they took us to a racetrack, but not the Formula One track, some like little go-karty track.

• 57:42Speaker 03

  And a, and an, uh, IS350.

• 57:45Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah.

• 57:45Speaker 03

  How exciting.

• 57:45Doug DeMuro?

  F Sport.

• 57:47Speaker 02

  F Sport.

• 57:47Doug DeMuro?

  The big selling point of that car, do you remember what it was?

• 57:51Speaker 03

  The, was it the mouse?

• 57:52Doug DeMuro?

  No.

• 57:52Speaker 03

  It was that the, the running lights were underneath the headlights and like a little-

• 57:55Doug DeMuro?

  That was one of the big things that had helped you blend out.

• 57:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:58Doug DeMuro?

  But the big selling point was that the gauge cluster would move-

• 58:02Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 58:03Doug DeMuro?

  Like the LFA.

• 58:05Speaker 02

  I forgot about that.

• 58:06Doug DeMuro?

  That was like the coolest part of the, the 2012 IS.

• 58:09Speaker 03

  It's not a bad car, I guess, but, man.

• 58:10Doug DeMuro?

  No, it was fine.

• 58:11Speaker 03

  You'd never see those around.

• 58:12Doug DeMuro?

  Uh, okay, anyway, so I don't really have any other crazy press launch stories. I really, really, really, really don't go to them often. And when I do, I'm kind of annoying about it. I tell the automaker, "Look, I'm gonna be in and out, give me a car or don't. I don't, if you don't want me to, I'm just not gonna come." I just hate it. Um, okay, next question for Kenan, from British Car Driver. "Hey guys, this question is directed at Kenan. As a Ferrari purist, do you think the hate on the Roma is deserved?"

• 58:41Speaker 02

  Not necessarily. I think that it's like, the entry level Ferrari generally gets a lot of hate. California got a lot of hate. Was it a bad car? It wasn't the best Ferrari, but it didn't make it a bad car. I actually quite like the way the first gen drove. And the same thing kind of says, applies to the Roma. Like, when it came out, I like, I wasn't sure about the styling necessarily. Like, the integrated grille thing is kind of weird. But they do drive very well. I think they look very elegant. It's a very simple looking Ferrari. It's very pretty looking and honestly, it's something you can use every day.

• 59:13Doug DeMuro?

  And it's not a zillion dollars like all the other Ferrari. I mean, it's very expensive.

• 59:16Speaker 02

  It's very expensive and lord knows if you're gonna buy one for Ferrari and you want to be on the list, you gotta play the game and add a hundred thousand dollars in options. And that's where they make their money. But I think that it actually is a pretty good car. I don't love the screens instead of buttons. I hate that, but I hate that on all modern Ferraris. So actually, no, I don't think it deserves the hate that it gets.

• 59:33Doug DeMuro?

  I will also say, entry level cars from any enthusiast brand will always get hate. Like the Boxer, we know how good the Boxer Cayman R, but they still are viewed as not a real, et cetera, et cetera. Like, you could take this list down, base model Mustang, base model Challenger, the V6, the four cylinders, they're not, they're not real, you know?

• 59:52Speaker 02

  Totally. And so, so no, I, as a purist, I recognize that it's placed in the lineup. I think it's a very good car and, um, yeah, I don't have any issues.

• 1:00:01Doug DeMuro?

  I agree. I think it's great.

• 1:00:02Speaker 03

  Ken is gonna go out and buy a Roma.

• 1:00:04Doug DeMuro?

  It's not the dream car.

• 1:00:05Speaker 02

  I'm not saying that.

• 1:00:06Doug DeMuro?

  It's not the dream car, but it's, but it's, it's got a place in the lineup for a public company that wants to make money. And honestly, it drives well.

• 1:00:12Speaker 02

  Do the Roma Spider and Portofino need to exist at the same time?

• 1:00:14Doug DeMuro?

  Well, they don't anymore.

• 1:00:15Speaker 02

  They don't, but they did for a time and that was not the case. Then I felt differently about it.

• 1:00:20Doug DeMuro?

  Here's a question that's coming from a user with the username Buick. This is the best question we've ever been asked on Cars.

• 1:00:25Speaker 02

  My goodness, okay.

• 1:00:26Doug DeMuro?

  Don't read the question. Let me tell you it and surprise you because it's so good. The G-Wagon sells so well. Do you think there is a market for Jeep or Ford to sell a luxury version of their Wrangler and Bronco under the Chrysler and Lincoln brands respectively? You know, on its face, this question sounds like the stupid ramblings of someone who doesn't understand life. But when you think about it.

• 1:00:48Speaker 02

  That name is Buick.

• 1:00:49Doug DeMuro?

  What about a Lincoln Bronco?

• 1:00:51Speaker 02

  So here's the thing.

• 1:00:53Speaker 02

  I've, I, my answer is.

• 1:00:55Speaker 03

  Mixed on this because the answer is yes. I think they could sell a luxury version.

• 1:01:00Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:00Speaker 03

  I think that those are not the correct brands and they should keep it under the Jeep and Ford.

• 1:01:04Doug DeMuro?

  Well, Jeep Chrysler, that would be a mistake. There's no luxury brand there. I don't think that's a good idea generally. But what about a Lincoln Bronco?

• 1:01:12Speaker 03

  I think that Ford could go for a luxury version of the Bronco, the same way that the Ford F-150 has the Platinum or the King Ranch or whatnot trims. I think there's room for a luxury trim of every off-ruader.

• 1:01:23Doug DeMuro?

  Isn't that the Raptor?

• 1:01:24Speaker 03

  No, the Raptor is a high-performance version.

• 1:01:26Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah, but it's also loaded with stuff. It's got a heated steering wheel.

• 1:01:29Speaker 03

  The King Ranch or whatever, the Texas Edition, whatever the top exists. Existed. King Ranch, etc. There could be a King Ranch Bronco. Certainly. I don't think moving it to the Lincoln umbrella is the right call.

• 1:01:42Doug DeMuro?

  Maybe, but I think his point is it would do a lot for Lincoln as a brand if they had a G-Wagon competitor.

• 1:01:49Speaker 03

  You're gonna get somebody in there and they're also gonna look at the Corsair?

• 1:01:53Doug DeMuro?

  Well, why don't you sell the Lincoln G-Wagon to them? Mercedes-Benz sells a lot of G-Wagons.

• 1:01:57Speaker 03

  The styling would have to be so different and it doesn't align with Lincoln.

• 1:01:59Doug DeMuro?

  Why isn't the answer to that question yes? Mercedes-Benz sells a lot of G-Wagons and then they sell a lot of CLAs to people in Newport Beach who look at G-Wagons and they're like, I wish I could be that someday.

• 1:02:08Speaker 03

  That's fair. I just don't think Lincoln tried with the Mark LT, then again. Well, no, Lincoln tried even earlier than that. I mean, you think about the Blackwood.

• 1:02:17Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah, but you're talking about trucks and truck buyers, it has now been proven. Want to buy trucks from mainstream brands. Nobody wants a Lincoln truck in their garage. They want a Ford truck.

• 1:02:27Speaker 03

  I think the issue is like.

• 1:02:27Doug DeMuro?

  However, a Lincoln G-Wagon, based on the Bronco. This is not stupid. Is Jim Farley listening to this? Does he listen to this podcast? We get a lot of messages from people who work in the auto industry.

• 1:02:42Speaker 03

  I don't think it's that of my idea, but like the same way that I think every manufacturer would realize that they can do both luxury and still have a luxury brand. Cadillac versus GMC Denali. Both exist. I think that Lincoln is not quite capable of doing an off-ruader well, and I don't think that's what buyers are interested in.

• 1:02:59Doug DeMuro?

  To create brand image. You, this is how you do it.

• 1:03:03Speaker 03

  I don't think you can fake. I, I think honestly, I think that Lincoln should maybe just stop to exist.

• 1:03:08Doug DeMuro?

  No, that is so completely wrong.

• 1:03:10Speaker 03

  I love Lincoln's products, nobody else does.

• 1:03:12Doug DeMuro?

  You don't understand, Lexus exists, Mercedes exists, I don't understand.

• 1:03:15Speaker 03

  They sell cars.

• 1:03:16Doug DeMuro?

  Lincoln deserves more investment, and I have an idea for more investment. A Lincoln G-Wagon. This suggestion, which ironically comes from Buick.

• 1:03:25Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:03:25Doug DeMuro?

  This suggestion is one of the great suggestions in the history of the car business.

• 1:03:31Speaker 03

  Why hasn't Ford done a high country Bronco?

• 1:03:34Doug DeMuro?

  Uh, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I, I don't know.

• 1:03:36Speaker 03

  Why hasn't Chevrolet done a Blazer Denali?

• 1:03:39Doug DeMuro?

  Well, they don't do a Blazer.

• 1:03:41Speaker 03

  Chevrolet does a Blazer, that's a joke.

• 1:03:45Speaker 02

  I think, I don't know, when I think back on this, like, why is the G-Wagon so successful? You know, it was a military vehicle that was cool, so it had that, and then like, that was, in the 90s, that was kind of when Arnold Schwarzenegger was doing the Hummer thing, they made a civilian version for him, like, that was seen as cool, a kind of monster thing. And then it took off and Mercedes leaned into the luxury side of things with it. But to do that now, like, to bring out a totally new thing and then build around that, and it is, it's a pretty heavy lift.

• 1:04:09Doug DeMuro?

  But the success of the, of the G-Wagon is because of this heritage design that was steeped in capability. And that's what the Bronco is. It has a heritage design that is steeped in capability. BMW tried to steal the G-Wagon's thunder with the XM and doesn't get it. They, in Munich, they don't get it, right? But this, and remember, I predicted all the news stories this week. This is it. Like, this is a good, and, and I gotta give credit to Buick. This is a great, this, this is it. Like, this is the heritage design. BMW doesn't have that heritage, so they're not able to actually do that credibly. But Ford is.

• 1:04:44Speaker 03

  Lincoln doesn't have that either. There was never a Lincoln off-roader.

• 1:04:48Doug DeMuro?

  There never, there never was a.

• 1:04:49Speaker 02

  Lincoln has a Zephyr.

• 1:04:50Doug DeMuro?

  There never was a luxury Mercedes off-roader until they turned the G-Wagon into a luxury car.

• 1:04:55Speaker 03

  Existing product that had a very specific image that they made luxurious.

• 1:04:59Doug DeMuro?

  Sounds like what Lincoln's gonna do to the Bronco. An existing product with a specific image that they make luxurious.

• 1:05:04Speaker 03

  I just don't, I don't think you can force that. I don't think you can recreate that.

• 1:05:08Doug DeMuro?

  They didn't force it with the G-Wagon, it naturally evolved.

• 1:05:10Speaker 03

  A lot of examples like Porsche, I'm looking at a Cayenne. When it came out, the thought was we're gonna have an off-road. The first gen Cayenne was off-road capable and no modern one is.

• 1:05:19Doug DeMuro?

  Well, because they took the Cayenne in a different direction.

• 1:05:23Speaker 03

  But I don't think there was interest in the off-roading.

• 1:05:25Doug DeMuro?

  There's no interest in Graz. The G-Wagon, the G-Wagon has literally given life to the people of Graz. Like that town.

• 1:05:33Speaker 03

  The Austrians are thankful.

• 1:05:34Doug DeMuro?

  The Austrians, that town, every restaurant in Graz should be like thinking Mercedes Benz. Like, hey, we would have closed if it wasn't for the fact that this car has been here for 30 years.

• 1:05:46Speaker 03

  You can't fake it. You can't just say we're gonna recreate it.

• 1:05:49Doug DeMuro?

  The XM was fake. The Bronco is not fake. It is a real car with real heritage, a real design and real capability.

• 1:05:55Speaker 03

  Ford should build that lineup out more and have a luxury version of it.

• 1:05:59Doug DeMuro?

  No, dude, Lincoln G-Wagon. And you know what you call it? Cause they named their cars. You call it something like really big.

• 1:06:04Speaker 03

  How does the Navigator?

• 1:06:05Doug DeMuro?

  Like the Lincoln Rock.

• 1:06:08Speaker 02

  Oh, too aggressive because it has to be softer. But yeah, something.

• 1:06:11Speaker 03

  You're going to the Lincoln Navigator press launch?

• 1:06:12Doug DeMuro?

  I'm going to Navigator press launch on Friday.

• 1:06:14Speaker 03

  How many Navigators do they sell?

• 1:06:15Doug DeMuro?

  A lot. The Navigator was.

• 1:06:17Speaker 03

  That aren't too Uber blacks.

• 1:06:19Doug DeMuro?

  The Navigator was pretty popular, especially when it first came out. So was the Aviator. Those were high quality products. The problem is that Lincoln's product cycles are too long.

• 1:06:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:06:27Doug DeMuro?

  And that they don't, and the other problem is they don't have a G-Wagon competitor.

• 1:06:30Speaker 03

  Okay, I'm coming around to this legitimately, but I, and it could be Bronco based, but in my head of thinking about like a luxury Bronco, the same way that Lincoln, when they did the Aviator, took an Explorer, the original Aviator, took the Explorer, changed the taillights.

• 1:06:43Doug DeMuro?

  No, no.

• 1:06:44Speaker 03

  Changed nothing else.

• 1:06:44Doug DeMuro?

  They gotta do better than that.

• 1:06:46Speaker 03

  It needs to be like a full Lincoln version of that, not just a Bronco with leather.

• 1:06:51Doug DeMuro?

  It needs to be a seriously well-done car.

• 1:06:54Speaker 02

  Right. And considering the Bronco, you know, the roof leaks and all that stuff, like.

• 1:06:57Speaker 03

  No, that only happened early on.

• 1:06:59Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah, but I wonder if there's a market for, I wonder how, what it would take. Given that Audi can make a Sportback of anything, which is a completely new roof design, how hard would it be to just? Make a non opening roof on a Bronco.

• 1:07:10Speaker 03

  They don't have that problem anymore generally.

• 1:07:12Doug DeMuro?

  Like so make it what but I don't think that this vehicle if positioned by the Lincoln brand should even have an opening.

• 1:07:17Speaker 03

  No, of course not.

• 1:07:18Doug DeMuro?

  But the way I'm thinking of it is it's a giant glass roof and it's got a V eight and it feels like.

• 1:07:22Speaker 03

  Screens here, here, here, here. And also maybe the roof is a screen.

• 1:07:26Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah, the roof is a screen. See, you're getting on this now.

• 1:07:29Speaker 03

  Getting there. I'm getting there. I love Lincoln, by the way. I love the Lincoln SUVs. I pushed everybody I know to words one. Nobody has taken me up on it.

• 1:07:37Doug DeMuro?

  The Nautilus is a great car. It was almost a car of the year.

• 1:07:39Speaker 03

  The Aviator I thought is a great car. It looks great. I imagine you were correct. I'm sorry for saying that you were wrong.

• 1:07:46Doug DeMuro?

  Imagine if, okay, so you now agree.

• 1:07:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I think that it's both. I think that Ford should make a luxury Bronco and then Lincoln should figure out what their own product based on that is.

• 1:07:56Doug DeMuro?

  You know what you call it? You call it the granite, the Lincoln granite, the Lincoln basalt.

• 1:08:03Speaker 03

  Jim, you listen?

• 1:08:05Doug DeMuro?

  The Lincoln.

• 1:08:05Speaker 03

  I'm looking up.

• 1:08:06Doug DeMuro?

  Are you looking at Porsche cars? I'm looking up rocks that are like, that are like tough.

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• 1:09:07Doug DeMuro?

  That's what I think it should be named.

• 1:09:08Speaker 02

  Tough but luxurious, like tough but refined.

• 1:09:12Doug DeMuro?

  Blackwood. Maybe they should bring back the Blackwood name for this.

• 1:09:14Speaker 03

  Bring. It would actually work. Bring back.

• 1:09:17Doug DeMuro?

  This isn't stupid. Remember, don't forget, Mercedes makes $74 billion for every G-Wagon they sell.

• 1:09:23Speaker 03

  And for what's worth, the other example here was Jeep and Chrysler. That's not the right positioning there.

• 1:09:27Doug DeMuro?

  No.

• 1:09:27Speaker 03

  And also Jeep sells $100,000 SUV. Uh, well, sorry. Jeep tries to sell $100,000 SUV. And I think they could go up market with the Wrangler in their own lineup. The Grand Wrangler, if you will. The Grand.

• 1:09:40Doug DeMuro?

  They could maybe. Wranglers are already sold to really rich people. It's like shocking.

• 1:09:44Speaker 03

  So they, there's money to be made.

• 1:09:46Doug DeMuro?

  Uh, last question, because we're over time. Final question from Core2ran. Doug, if Chevy moves all of its production to the US because of these tariffs, should they make an actual competitive K5 Blazer to celebrate its heritage instead of basically four variations of the Equinox? Four variations of the Equinox? Excuse me. Two variations of the Equinox and then two variations of the Trax.

• 1:10:05Speaker 03

  And the Blazer.

• 1:10:05Doug DeMuro?

  Um, can you pull up something for me?

• 1:10:07Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:10:09Doug DeMuro?

  The answer to this question is of course yes, but it has nothing to do with the tariffs. This should have happened 10 years ago regardless. This is another example of bad product planning from General Motors.

• 1:10:20Speaker 03

  Yep, buddy.

• 1:10:21Doug DeMuro?

  Dude, yeah.

• 1:10:22Speaker 03

  Somebody already makes a version of the K5.

• 1:10:24Doug DeMuro?

  We don't need, click on this. We don't need.

• 1:10:26Speaker 03

  Or the one.

• 1:10:27Doug DeMuro?

  Oh, look at that.

• 1:10:28Speaker 03

  This, my friends, is based on a RAV4.

• 1:10:31Doug DeMuro?

  We don't need Chevy to do it.

• 1:10:32Speaker 03

  Mitsubishi. This is the only attractive feature of this car.

• 1:10:34Doug DeMuro?

  No, go back to the previous pictures. This is way too dark to be seen on the screen.

• 1:10:38Speaker 03

  Go to the one that has the both, the blue.

• 1:10:40Doug DeMuro?

  Get, no, click on, click on.

• 1:10:41Speaker 03

  That one, yeah, yeah, yeah. It has both angles.

• 1:10:43Doug DeMuro?

  What this is.

• 1:10:44Speaker 03

  It's an SRF from the back, a K5 Blazer from the front, and it's based on a RAV4.

• 1:10:48Doug DeMuro?

  RAV4. Um, the answer to this question, and by the way, this is only in Japan, another thing the Japanese get that we didn't. The R34 Skyline, the Evo 6, the GCA 8 Impreza, the 22B, the Mitsuo K buddy. Um, the answer to this question is of course, but it has nothing to do with the tariffs. I truly think that making the Blazer not a Bronco competitor is one of the most laughably bad automotive decisions that has been made in the last 25 years.

• 1:11:15Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 1:11:16Doug DeMuro?

  And it's proven by the fact that the Bronco has been a massive runaway success. The Blazer has been primarily confined to rental car fleets and also nobody, because in some cases, even the rental car companies are like, no, thanks though. And it's just, it's just the kind of stuff you get from GM, you know? GM does such a good job some of the time and such a bad job some of the time, and I don't understand why they don't just do better.

• 1:11:41Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:11:45Speaker 03

  And hopefully Mary Barra is listening.

• 1:11:47Doug DeMuro?

  You agree with me.

• 1:11:48Speaker 03

  A hundred percent.

• 1:11:48Doug DeMuro?

  It should have been a real K5 Blazer.

• 1:11:50Speaker 03

  Without a singular doubt.

• 1:11:51Doug DeMuro?

  If they did it, there should be a Cadillac version and it should be a G-Wagon.

• 1:11:55Speaker 03

  For what it's worth, they have the Tahoe, which is a good product. They could have just made a smaller Tahoe.

• 1:12:02Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah, I mean, to do it right.

• 1:12:03Speaker 03

  Which, by the way, is what the Blazer version was.

• 1:12:04Doug DeMuro?

  To do it right, you would want, well, there was no Tahoe originally. To do it right.

• 1:12:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:12:10Doug DeMuro?

  To do it right, you would want to do it like the Bronco where you do like a ground. You wouldn't want to just make a small Tahoe. You'd want to do removable doors.

• 1:12:16Speaker 03

  They could have, and it would have been better than the actual.

• 1:12:18Doug DeMuro?

  It wouldn't have sold, though. A two-door Tahoe wouldn't sell.

• 1:12:20Speaker 03

  No, but like style differently instead of two-door Blazer. It would have been better than the current Blazer.

• 1:12:24Doug DeMuro?

  I don't know about that.

• 1:12:25Speaker 03

  Would have been better than the current Blazer.

• 1:12:26Doug DeMuro?

  Doing a Bronco.

• 1:12:26Speaker 03

  Lowest bar anybody could possibly bar.

• 1:12:28Doug DeMuro?

  The current Blazer is the worst car on sale, except for the Maserati Gran Turismo.

• 1:12:33Speaker 03

  I'm debating this in my head for a second.

• 1:12:35Doug DeMuro?

  Come at me. You thinking Grand Regginiere? No.

• 1:12:39Speaker 03

  No, no, I'm not. It crossed my mind, but let's skip past it. No, you're right.

• 1:12:42Doug DeMuro?

  Worst car on sale, current Blazer. Is it even still on sale? And the Gran Turismo, which isn't.

• 1:12:46Speaker 03

  A V, good car. Blazer not E V, bad car.

• 1:12:49Doug DeMuro?

  Yeah, the Blazer E V is fine. The Blazer Regular is bad. I want to be clear about that because they're inexplicably, they're completely different cars.

• 1:12:55Speaker 03

  Just like the Equinox and Equinox E V. Yes, both exist. Both exist.

• 1:12:58Doug DeMuro?

  Uh, okay, that's our podcast. Do you have any parting thoughts, Kenan?

• 1:13:02Speaker 02

  Make a G, let's, American manufacturers, make a G-Wagon.

• 1:13:05Doug DeMuro?

  Make a G, everybody should.

• 1:13:06Speaker 02

  Everybody should. G-Wagon is for all.

• 1:13:08Speaker 03

  What is the Graz of America?

• 1:13:11Speaker 02

  Ooh, that's a great question.

• 1:13:12Doug DeMuro?

  Like a secondary country to America that can be used for manufacturing? Whatever country it is, it would be terrifying. I think it's not going to work.

• 1:13:21Speaker 03

  What a shame.

• 1:13:22Doug DeMuro?

  The answer is probably Indiana because there's no other options.

• 1:13:26Speaker 02

  The Graz of America.

• 1:13:27Doug DeMuro?

  There's no other options right now. Uh, anyway, watch Trump's gonna start tariffing Indiana.

• 1:13:32Speaker 03

  As an Ohioan, he'd be thrilled.

• 1:13:33Doug DeMuro?

  He'd be like, yeah.

• 1:13:35Speaker 02

  Indiana, a lot of tariffs are coming your way, Indiana.

• 1:13:40Doug DeMuro?

  That's true, actually, even though that... Anyway. Thank you for watching. We absolutely appreciate it. We love everyone and everything, especially Filippo. Except for the tariffs. Except for the tariffs, which we hate. Goodbye! Goodbye.