“They’re LIARS!” Steve Hamilton Exposes Fake Influencers, Ferrari Fraud, & Getting Sued

Northwest Registered Agent: Level Up Your Business's Online Presence Today at https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/ich Gusto: Try Gusto for FREE for 3 months at https://gusto.com/ICED Upwork: Post your job free at http://upwork.com/COFFEE and connect with top talent to grow your business. Shopify: Stop waiting for permission to build something. Your next revenue stream starts free at https://shopify.com/ich Follow @TheHamiltonCollection Here! *𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗡𝗘𝗖𝗧 𝗪𝗜𝗧𝗛 𝗨𝗦* 𝗜𝗚: https://www.instagram.com/icedcoffeehour 𝗝𝗔𝗖𝗞: https://www.instagram.com/jlsselby 𝗚𝗥𝗔𝗛𝗔𝗠: https://www.instagram.com/gpstephan 𝗖𝗹𝗶𝗽𝘀 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheIcedCoffeeHourClips 𝗫.𝗰𝗼𝗺: https://x.com/TheICHpodcast 𝗧𝗶𝗸𝗧𝗼𝗸: https://www.tiktok.com/@theicedcoffeehour 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘆: https://open.spotify.com/show/5c2uoXBQkOjIiCOf60jJj7 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗹𝗲: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-iced-coffee-hour/id1515070058 For sponsorships or business inquiries reach out to: [email protected] Apply for The Index Membership: https://entertheindex.com/ For Podcast Inquiries, please DM @icedcoffeehour on Instagram! 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:07 - "Are you on dr*gs?" 00:06:29 - Making $500M In Business 00:08:05 - What the car collection costs every month 00:10:08 - Fake bids, dealer games, and "this is a bubble" 00:15:57 - Sponsor: Northwest Registered Agent 00:16:59 - The Downsides Of Owning $30M+ Cars 00:21:19 - The $700,000 Koenigsegg Regera mistake 00:25:11 - Why he has no Ferraris and sold the Bugatti Chiron 00:31:25 - Sponsor: Gusto 00:33:09 - Sponsor: Upwork 00:34:28 - Are Car Companies LYING About Numbers?! 00:38:55 - The most undervalued car in the world 00:45:30 - How much you need to make to afford a McLaren 00:51:55 - Zero-depreciation cars and extended warranties 00:56:45 - Clout cars vs. cars nobody else has 00:58:52 - Sponsor: Shopify 01:00:23 - How he gets CRAZY license plates 01:04:35 - The HOA fined him $25,000 01:17:13 - His biggest financial mistake: an Arby's 01:22:59 - What his portfolio actually looks like 01:27:33 - Tariffs, oil prices, and industry headwinds 01:34:08 - How close he is to selling the company 01:40:31 - Which car YouTuber is worst with money 01:43:08 - TEASER NEXT EPISODE *Some of the links and other products that appear on this video are from companies which Graham Stephan & Jack Selby will earn an affiliate commission or referral bonus. Graham Stephan & Jack Selby are part of an affiliate network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. The content in this video is accurate as of the posting date. Some of the offers mentioned may no longer be available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:26Speaker 01

  How about it? 16 million, $250,000.

• 0:32Speaker 02

  I think this is a giant bubble that's about to burst. The American auto market has gone high end, making more profits by selling fewer, pricier cars.

• 0:42Jack Selby?

  And what's caused these values to go up so much?

• 0:44Speaker 02

  Potential fake bids and bring a trailer and other stuff.

• 0:50Jack Selby?

  What's a car that you can't believe how expensive it's gotten?

• 0:52Speaker 02

  75% of all of the hypercars right now with a LaFerrari, they were around $2 million, I think, to start. And those are $7 or $8 million now. The Italians lie about production numbers.

• 1:01Jack Selby?

  Really?

• 1:01Speaker 02

  Ferrari was one, Pagani was one, and there are probably others. People would come in here and then I'd see them like sitting in my Lamborghini, talking about like, here's how I invest money in Forex.

• 1:09Jack Selby?

  No way.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  I invested in a.

• 1:13Jack Selby?

  Wow.

• 1:14Speaker 02

  It failed after like one year. So I'm still paying $11,000 a month for that lease.

• 1:19Jack Selby?

  How much have you explored selling the company recently?

• 1:21Speaker 02

  One of the things I have, I think, is could be the next billion dollar idea.

• 1:25Jack Selby?

  Are you serious?

• 1:27Speaker 02

  We're going to get really close in the next one to two years.

• 1:33Speaker 02

  This is Steve Hamilton and welcome back to the Iced Coffee Hour Podcast, y'all. I am excited to be here.

• 1:38Jack Selby?

  Steve, I've heard you've been up for three days straight. What's up with that?

• 1:42Speaker 02

  Uh, let's just say a lot of coffee and a lot of.

• 1:45Jack Selby?

  High on life, huh?

• 1:46Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, I mean, life, yes.

• 1:47Jack Selby?

  Okay, we need to know what was going on in that video. There were so many comments saying you look like you've been doing some.

• 1:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:54Jack Selby?

  Or drugs or something. People were genuinely concerned. They're like, whatever you're going through, I hope you're okay.

• 2:00Speaker 02

  And it's one of those where like, you're looking at the comments and you're like, this is helping feed the, the view machine. So like, you just don't hide. And, and we really don't hide comments either. But yeah, you're right. Like, I looked at myself in that video and I'm like, first of all, I've lost some weight. And like, I've been really focused on like portion control and eating better and getting my body fit. So it doesn't help that my face is 10 pounds thinner. Second of all, I was using a teleprompter. So that was like the really bad thing. And the teleprompter was set way too fast. Like, I talked fast and the teleprompter was going like 40 words a minute. So I'm like, I'm like, if I blinked once.

• 2:33Jack Selby?

  You would miss the sentence.

• 2:34Speaker 02

  I lost, I lost the word. I was out of track. I had to start over again. So, and then whatever else, I don't know. Maybe I just, maybe I was really energetic that day or something. But of course, like, I'm like literally the most Charlie Church like pure guy. Like, I don't, I don't even drink alcohol. I don't do drugs, but like, but a drug addict would probably say the same thing. Like, no, I don't do. So there's, there's no way to defend that other than to just acknowledge that, yeah, I did look up, but absolutely not the case.

• 2:59Jack Selby?

  It was hilarious, dude. We were talking with the Stride Man about it and like, I could not stop laughing like.

• 3:04Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 3:05Jack Selby?

  It looked, I mean, it looked very real, but you look healthy. Like, seeing you in person.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, thank you.

• 3:09Graham Stephan?

  In person, you're much calmer.

• 3:11Jack Selby?

  Yeah.

• 3:12Graham Stephan?

  And you blink in person.

• 3:14Speaker 02

  But it definitely was a high energy video. And the problem is we don't usually use a teleprompter. Like, it's, it's rare unless I'm doing an ad because I don't know if you guys use teleprompters for ads, but it's tough to remember a minute long script.

• 3:24Jack Selby?

  Yeah.

• 3:24Speaker 02

  And, uh, but that was a, a very like legalese video where we're suing the association who happens to be 20 feet down from me. And I had to like, I had to be very particular about the way that I worded things. So I definitely was using a teleprompter.

• 3:37Jack Selby?

  Is like the combination of being like a very like eccentric, like wealthy person.

• 3:41Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 3:41Jack Selby?

  I don't know. It was, it just got me.

• 3:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:43Jack Selby?

  We have to know though.

• 3:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:45Jack Selby?

  Are you on GLP-1s?

• 3:46Speaker 02

  Yes, actually I am. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So let me, let me tell you.

• 3:49Jack Selby?

  Okay.

• 3:50Speaker 02

  It's funny because I was like, I was like, is it going to get brought up? And you guys bring it up four minutes into the conversation.

• 3:55Graham Stephan?

  Quite intense, but yeah.

• 3:56Speaker 02

  So I did really well with like managing my diet. I was on this yo-yo diet for the course of my entire life, basically. I would get up to 225 pounds because I loved eating. Like, that was the goal. I'm like, all right, I'm light again. I'm going to get up to 225. I'm going to eat whatever I want. And then when I got up to 225, I'm going to diet again and get down to 190. And I did that for 15 years. I could diet. I have no problem with it. I would be super excited when I got to 190 because that meant I got to eat again. Problem was it would take me, uh, one month to diet and then I could feast for six months. And then it started being three months to diet. Then I could feast for three months. And it kind of inverted where it was taking me six months to diet. And then I'd get a month of feasting. So I'm like, how can I? I mean, I have the discipline to do this. So I actually spoke with my doctor and I'm like, this is what it is.

• 4:39Speaker 02

  Like, I love to eat and, and like, I eat a lot when I eat. And he's like, that's actually what GLP-1s are for. He's like, they're not necessarily a diet drug. They just control the binge eating portion of it. Like, they cut that binge out. And he's like, he's like, you're actually a good candidate. And I'm like, I, I thought he was going to talk me out of it. And I would just had to keep doing this yo-yo diet. So like, what the GLP-1 allows me to do is I go eat whatever the hell I want. I just eat less. I eat 40% of what I would eat and I eat whatever I want. You just, I know, I had like four cookies last night at dinner. But, but like that filled me like, maybe before it would have been 10.

• 5:12Jack Selby?

  See, that sounds something that I need. It sounds exactly.

• 5:16Graham Stephan?

  I feel like everyone needs that though.

• 5:18Jack Selby?

  I, I have the exact same thing where like, like if I really try, like I can diet. The problem is like on a random occasion.

• 5:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:24Jack Selby?

  I just binge like crazy. Like, if there are cookies in front of me, chips are like my, my biggest nightmare because I'll just keep going, going, going, going.

• 5:30Speaker 02

  And it was, it was becoming like, I was, I was basically dieting on, when I was home. So I probably have like a five or six to one home to vacation ratio. So I would come home and I would just have to diet and eat. And then I would go on vacation, eat whatever I want. And it would make home dreaded. It would make it horrible. I was just ketoing nonstop here and it was just horrible. And like, it's almost like it wasn't for me to lose weight. It was just so that I could eat whatever I want and maintain where I was at. So, yeah, I started taking it when I was at like 190. I'd, when you get used to it, it's a little tough at first. Like, there's some heartburn, there is some queasiness that where you just innately will eat less. So I dropped like another 10 pounds and that's why I look a little bit lighter than I did. But I've just kind of stayed there for a year. I've stayed at like 180 pounds.

• 6:11Jack Selby?

  Wow. And so what, what is it?

• 6:13Speaker 02

  Zepbound is the only one that's actually, uh, FDA approved at the time. And I think they approved like the pill now. So that's the only one that's, that one's been around for about 10 years. Who knows? Like, hopefully I don't die of some crazy cancer in 10 years because of this. But like 20% of the population is on a GLP-1, so.

• 6:29Jack Selby?

  20% of the population.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  That's what they said. If you Google it, like it's, it's because there's.

• 6:33Graham Stephan?

  I don't know, because I also heard 20% of women are on OnlyFans that are college aged. And it seems like 20% is just across, 20% of adults are doing something.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  When I talk to like the small populace of people that, that are around, like it's shocking how many people just don't admit to doing it. And there's so many like basement pharmacies that provide it really cheap, where there's probably a large percentage of the people of that 20% that are just getting it online and don't have a prescription.

• 6:59Graham Stephan?

  So for those unfamiliar with who you are, how do you describe what you do? Because we're in a warehouse right now. It's probably $30 million for the cars.

• 7:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I started, started something out of my mom's apartment. Basically like, it, it's all about identifying opportunities or, or differentiating somehow. Right? So in 2003, when I was 19, I basically realized that there was a, a bridge that needed to be created between wheel manufacturers and the internet. Like dropshipping was in its infancy and didn't really exist amongst a lot of different like categories of product. So I filled that gap in at the time. And I know dropshipping is stupid prevalent now and, and everyone tries to do it. But back then it wasn't. So I would go in and talk wheel manufacturers into selling to me this 19-year-old kid. And then I would go list them on the internet and then dropship them. And eventually really quickly, I started stocking them because I can get better deals. From there, it was like, I'm going to add tires into the mix.

• 7:50Speaker 02

  So we were the first people to ever mountain balance tires on eBay, offer full wheel and tire packages. And then I realized I needed to get off of eBay and create my own brand. So we went and created Mr. Wheel Deal. That was our first like e-commerce platform. From then it was just creating other brands that like segment other portions of the market. With partners, we launched custom offsets, which is like truck heavy, Fitment Industries, which is JDM Euro. Then we started selling suspension, performance. Then we started acquiring other companies, uh, like MA Performance in 2020, Vivid Racing in 2025. So fast forward to today, it's about a half a billion in sales each year. We've got around 500 employees and, and we pretty much sell everything, but we're still very much a wheel, entire company. Wheels are dominantly what we do.

• 8:31Jack Selby?

  And obviously you have a very strong passion for cars. Last time we spoke, you said that your cars were costing you about $135,000 per month. I'm curious, how has that changed?

• 8:40Speaker 02

  It depends on the month. Uh, I would say that 135 included like modifications that we would make. And those are pretty heavy. I think it's probably a little bit better than that. We've gotten rid of some of the lemons of the collection and, and I hired a mechanic actually here that works about 20 hours a week. He is an amazing human, actually. And he just fixes stuff rapidly and really amazingly. So he's cheaper, he gets my stuff done faster. I think, I think I'm probably at, I don't know, 20 to 50K a month at this point.

• 9:06Jack Selby?

  That's not bad.

• 9:07Speaker 02

  No, it's very, and, and a lot of them are newer cars now, so they're under warranty.

• 9:11Graham Stephan?

  What's the most difficult car to maintain?

• 9:13Speaker 02

  Let's look around.

• 9:15Speaker 02

  That is a great ques- I mean, it's, it's like the lump sum of everything is the classics. Anytime we take, we like to roll deep. You guys saw that last night, right? So we'll take six classics out and two to three of them will be broken. So it's like, and especially the Mopar stuff, like my Daytona and the Superbird are just notorious for oil leaks and breaking and being problems. Of the super and hypercars, like your Porsches, your Bugattis are ironclad. I would say that, God, we, we have a good assortment of vehicles. Like my Remac has been a little bit problematic. Like, it's still really good compared to what I had, but that, that one's probably, of what I have left, that one's probably a little bit more serviced than other cars, but it's still pretty reliable.

• 9:52Graham Stephan?

  In terms of the total value, I heard you recently say it's valued at about $30 million. How much has that gone up in the last year?

• 9:59Speaker 02

  It'd be hard to quantify, but like, it's very possible that. It's 35 to 40 million dollars. Like my Yescos, I paid 3.5 million dollars for. Those are going for six. Even my Superbird, that was a $600,000 car a year ago. Those, I've seen those roll for 900 to a million plus. If there was a time to sell, it's probably now, but like these, I have such a great spread of cars right now that it's just, I gotta roll with it. Like I don't buy them for investments. I buy these cars for happiness investments, not for financial investments. And that drives Tommy, who manages my collection, crazy.

• 10:28Jack Selby?

  Overall, have you net made money or lost money buying cars?

• 10:31Speaker 02

  Probably really close to break even if I had to guess.

• 10:34Jack Selby?

  And what's caused these values to go up so much?

• 10:37Speaker 02

  Who knows? Uh, they say that there are like some dealer to dealer things happening that seems suspicious, like potential fake bids and bring a trailer and other stuff. Who, I know that auto manufacturers like help at auction. If they see that the value of their car is going too low, they will suddenly throw in like a warranty last minute. And then if that doesn't work, they will have one of their minions go and bid. Like this is, this is, I don't want to even say unsubstantiated because like I, I feel like I've verified a lot of this before and I've seen it. I've seen it all happen in the real world, but like I'm talking to this guy that has a hundred plus million dollar collection and he's like, I'm reassessing my collection. Like I'm seeing how high these cars are going for, and that makes me wanna start selling and profiting. And I'm like, if he's thinking that, if I'm, if I'm struggling to be like, I, I wanna,

• 11:20Speaker 02

  I don't even know if I want to bring another hypercar into the collection. Like that, that feels like the, the very epitome and the very definition of a bubble. Like when does it pop? When do, when does everyone start selling and overload the market with inventory? And then, and then is there, is it ripe for buyers that are willing like me where they start seeing the price go down to? I don't know. It, it feels very suspicious what's happening right now.

• 11:44Jack Selby?

  What some people are saying is that the people buying these cars, spending a million dollars are not the type to need to sell it. And so if they overpay, they might just keep it and it's forever off the market. And the people selling are really the ones who bought it cheap years ago, not the people buying today.

• 11:59Speaker 02

  I hear that, but there's, there's still a very limited pool of buyers. Like there's, there's a lot of these hyper and supercars. Nothing like, you know, there's probably more Ford Mustangs in one model year than there are all hyper cars combined. But like, there's still not that big of a buyer pool with this. Like I just don't, I don't believe that because I've seen it through COVID. Like we've seen available buyers and, and I can't, it just doesn't make sense. Like it, something, something's off. I don't know how else to explain it, but I feel like if you're watching this now, watch it back in a year and let's see where the market's at. And something strong tells me that there's going to be a big correction.

• 12:37Jack Selby?

  So what's your plan moving forward? Are you going to be buying or selling any of your cars? You said you don't want to sell.

• 12:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:41Jack Selby?

  But what is, what's your plan?

• 12:43Speaker 02

  So the great thing is like, everything in our channel, like there's been a lot of luck. Like oftentimes I realize that I'm playing chess without even knowing I'm playing chess. Like I, I just do things and then I realize, well, I'm like really glad that I did that six months or a year ago. We've started shifting to buying new cars and ordering a lot more new cars over the last three years. And so the benefit of that is I'm getting these cars at sticker or MSRP. And the moment that I get them, they're worth two to $3 million worth, but more. But we've already established this relationship with manufacturers, so they're continuing to allow us to buy them in MSRP. And by and large, I keep the cars for at least two years. So like the Hennessy, you buy at sticker and that specific model I know would go over what I paid for it. Uh, McLaren corporate was kind enough to give me the 788HS

• 13:26Speaker 02

  that's coming out. And I heard that those are selling for double sticker. The problem is, again, they're all happiness investments. So like, I buy them because they look cool. They perform cool. And so I don't get to utilize that oftentimes.

• 13:38Jack Selby?

  Do you think that part of that abundance and like yes mentality that you've had as an approach to life has actually made you more money? Or like, how does that express itself in like real world terms? Because my experience of you and knowing your story also, I mean, last night we had, you know, Graham's group, the index. They came out here and you were like, oh yeah, everyone hop in a car. We're going to take a dozen of these, 15 of these all to go to a, a place and like just hop in the car. It doesn't matter. We're driving like $20 million probably worth of cars and you don't care.

• 14:08Speaker 02

  I was in a Model 3. Yeah.

• 14:10Jack Selby?

  You say yes to everything. Like the YouTube channel is like, yeah, let's do it. Like you want to collab? Yes, let's do it. It's just like a yes to everything.

• 14:16Graham Stephan?

  Yeah. Even for us, you gave Jack and I the Bugatti Chiron keys.

• 14:20Speaker 05

  All right, Jack has the Bugatti, the best, the best by so much. I, I, I didn't, I didn't want to say it was the best just because it's worth five times more, more than five times more than anything else that we've driven. But it truly is the best by miles.

• 14:39Graham Stephan?

  And you said, here you go. You could just take it out.

• 14:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:41Graham Stephan?

  Be safe.

• 14:42Speaker 02

  It's, it's the net positive. Like for everything, like I just, I don't want to say for you guys, maybe not change because your group are guys that are a little bit more wealthy. Like they, they could probably afford a super hypercar. Maybe not a hypercar, maybe some of them. I don't know. I don't know them all enough, but like.

• 14:57Jack Selby?

  Probably all of them.

• 14:58Speaker 02

  But I, but I just gave, perfect. I just gave all of them experience that they, they may not be able to have. They, they, maybe they're not the, the greatest example.

• 15:06Jack Selby?

  It was a lot of their first times ever driving.

• 15:09Speaker 02

  There we go. There we go. So, so we got to have, what 12, 15 people go experience a brand new super or hypercar for the first time. And the risk for me was maybe something gets broken, which will happen in the course of everyday driving. Really the big risk is an accident or spinning out or, but like the, the probability of that happening, I think is, is really low. And even though one of your friends was really speeding, you got a ticket, but, but that's okay.

• 15:31Jack Selby?

  Allegedly.

• 15:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, allegedly speeding. So it's, it's just like, it impacted these people so positively. And my risk, I think was relatively low for what everyone else got in return. So that's, that's kinda the mentality there, I guess.

• 15:45Jack Selby?

  Have you ever had an accident like that?

• 15:47Speaker 02

  Yes, we had someone pulled right out of my neighborhood when we were going to do a celebratory dinner for hitting a million subs on the channel and just pulled right into traffic and some lady T-boned him and wrecked my McLaren Senna. Insurance covered it, but they dropped me later. So that was a whole battle trying to find out how to find new insurance and getting that resolved. A bunch of little things have happened. Rarely it's negligence. Usually it's just like chance. And so as long as it's not negligent, it's totally fine. And I'll keep lending the cars out and letting people enjoy them.

• 16:17Jack Selby?

  So do you think what makes you different and uniquely successful is the yes mentality and just overall action? It seems like there's very little time between like deciding you're going to do something and actually doing it.

• 16:27Graham Stephan?

  Six years in, we finally got the domain IcedCoffeeHourPodcast.com. And the only reason it's still available is really just pure luck. Someone could have bought the domain for like 12 bucks and we'd be negotiating with a stranger to buy our own name.

• 16:41Jack Selby?

  That's exactly why we've partnered with Northwest Registered Agent. With their free domain and website offer, your business has a home online from day one. And they will cover the renewal when your domain expires. So you don't have to worry about losing it. I've personally lost a domain because I forgot to pay it again. It really sucked.

• 16:56Graham Stephan?

  Plus you don't have to fight through four AI bots anytime you have a question because Northwest has real humans ready to pick up the phone. And every plan comes with SSL security. So your site stays safe no matter what you pay and there is no second year rate hike.

• 17:10Jack Selby?

  So if you want to lock down your own domain before someone else does, click the Northwest Registered Agent link down below in the description to get started.

• 17:17Graham Stephan?

  Again, all you gotta do is click the Northwest Registered Agent link down below in the description to take advantage of their free domain and website offer.

• 17:24Jack Selby?

  So do you think what makes you different and uniquely successful is the yes mentality and just overall action? It seems like there's very little time between like deciding you're going to do something and actually doing it.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  Well, that's, that's what makes an entrepreneur, a great entrepreneur is, is the ability to make a snap decision. Like that, I've, that I've read a bunch. Is that snap decision always yes? Like yes, you can do it. And that may not be what makes a great entrepreneur, but I think that I'm just able to make that calculation like quick. Like I, that, that's kind of the way my heart is. Like I grew up with nothing. And I always tell the story about how my, we were at a car show and my wife wanted to sit in a Corvette and she was 15, I was 16 and the guy wouldn't let her sit in it. And I'm like, this is crazy. Like what is she going to do by sitting in your Corvette? So that kind of birthed the idea. Like if I'm, if I'm ever successful and able to have something like this in abundance, like I'm going to share it with people. So it's, it's more just like, it's less about, it is about the net positive decision, but it's more just like, what, what does it cost me? Why not, why not let someone sit in the car?

• 18:19Speaker 02

  Why not set someone, let someone drive in the car? Like it's, it's fun and exciting for them. I just, I just don't care, I guess. It's fine. Like if something gets hurt or damaged, what, what does it matter?

• 18:29Jack Selby?

  Yeah. But what's, what's odd to me is you've grown your wealth, I mean relatively slowly. You've been working on this business, like you said, since you were 19. And a lot of the times the people that acquire their wealth slowly are very protective of their wealth because they know how hard it is to, to grow a dollar.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. For the first 15 years, I was very, I lived very conservatively, like relative to other income that people have in their homes and their cars. I was very conservative. It wasn't until I bought my first Lamborghini Aventador in 2018. So I was 15 years in business and, and I realized how well it kind of,

• 19:03Speaker 02

  how much people loved it, like how much they enjoyed it. And I'm like, this is kinda cool. Like people love this Aventador. They're, they want to sit in it. And I'm like, go drive it, go experience it. Like if this is something you, you won't experience in your life, like you should. What is it? What harm is it to me if you go drive this thing for two miles? And so that kind of started the mission. Then I bought a McLaren 720S. Then I bought a Porsche GT3S and it allowed me to kind of amplify the mission. And then I kind of stepped away from work for a little bit and started the YouTube channel because I had time. And that really allowed me to like loudspeaker amplify the mission, buy more cars. And so like the whole mission behind the channel is to do just that. It's go to charitable shows, share the cars with the community. Every cent that this channel has made to date has been donated. We've donated almost a million dollars to charity at this point. Like that's, that's just the way that I'm wired. And I think it has helped.

• 19:49Speaker 02

  It's certainly helped along the way in business, but like, I'm not always just a yes man. Like I know people tend to take advantage of you when you do that, right? But like, and that has happened to me plenty in my life, but I also know when to pull back as well.

• 20:01Jack Selby?

  What are some of the downsides to owning so many cars like this?

• 20:04Speaker 02

  It drives me crazy that there's always three to five in service. Like I, I can't stand how often we have to maintain and fix them.

• 20:14Speaker 02

  People constantly ask to, to drive them, which again is part of our mission, but like every day, like I got, I got a kid from California saying, hey, could I borrow a car for prom? And like, he's serious. And I'm like, I can't ship you a Bugatti to California for you to go to prom. Like there's, there's weirdly unrealistic expectations. And in my heart, like I want to help these people, but like there's 20 of those a day, especially around dance season. So it, it kind of puts you on this podium for everyone to see you. And then I think more people kind of come to you as a source for, for money.

• 20:44Jack Selby?

  What's the most generous thing you've done with your cars?

• 20:46Speaker 02

  The first thing that came to mind is when that lady T-boned the McLaren Senna. She had a really lousy car. It was sub $5,000 car. And like, I knew that her insurance would probably give her, or our, my insurance would probably give her a $2,000 check for whatever the value was. So I just went and bought her a car. Um, I went and bought her like a brand new $40,000 Hyundai. That's my thing is, and, and I'm, I'm not going to go into like specifics, but my thing is kind of buying people cars. I've bought probably 20 plus cars for people in my family and my friend group. And that's, since that's what we do, like I love cars. I think that's the way that I like to show my love for those that, that.

• 21:23Speaker 00

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• 21:48Speaker 02

  Need it.

• 21:48Jack Selby?

  What's your favorite car to buy for somebody?

• 21:51Speaker 02

  The Lexus NX. I've bought several of those. Like, it's just like this perfect-sized SUV, and Lexus has such good UIX, such good driving experience. I don't have one now, but I've always loved Lexus, and I think that's such a great car. And they were, they used to be like, five years ago, they were like 37 grand. So it's like this SUV Lexus that was almost fully loaded just from factory for sub 40.

• 22:11Jack Selby?

  What's your least favorite car you've ever owned?

• 22:14Speaker 02

  There's a few, but I mean, definitely my Koenigsegg Regera. Christian and I, we had a meeting at Car Week. It was just me, Tommy, Christian and his son. And I think we went from 0% to like 10%, which we're certainly not where we were before. But I just, that car, if I could go back, and we made a really funny short form about it, and me doing like an Interstellar thing, like, if I could go back, I was warned by everybody not to buy that car. And I'm like, I'm like, how bad could this? How bad could a car be? Like, I've had everything at this point, but it was in the shop. Almost it's the entirety of my ownership.

• 22:43Jack Selby?

  So what were the cover-to-cover ownership costs, financials, and just general like experience owning a Koenigsegg?

• 22:49Speaker 02

  So Koenigsegg did help me along the way, but like, I don't care how much you help me if my car's bricked 22 out of 24 months. Like, I appreciate it, but it doesn't matter if you're paying for my car to be serviced for three months, and then I get it back for three days and it has to go back in the shop. Like, thanks, but no thanks. But I probably came out of pocket another 200 grand on top of that, and then I took a $500,000 loss selling it. So 700 grand.

• 23:11Jack Selby?

  The current owner of the Koenigsegg, what's their experience like?

• 23:14Speaker 02

  I saw it in California. I don't know who owns it, but I know that it sat in the dealer for a while. I think getting serviced and fixed, whatever. And I guess it did fine on a rally out there, and maybe they put a few hundred miles on it, which I was shocked because I didn't, I didn't even use that thing. I drove it gently because I'm like, I want to get 50 miles out of this so it doesn't break.

• 23:31Jack Selby?

  Why'd it keep breaking?

• 23:32Speaker 02

  I've talked about the Koenigsegg a lot, and I'm trying not to like crap on the guys. I had a good productive conversation with Christian, but I think the first, maybe 25% of them just were very prototype-like. Like, they released essentially a prototype to the public, and they had wiring demons, they had just all kinds of issues. And one little fray in like a wire can, can be impossible for them to detect. They can keep fixing things that they think cause it, but they're not the root cause. So it just keeps shorting out other things. And, and that was kind of the problem with mine was there were things like window motors that just kept breaking, and I don't know if that was because of some freight or issue, but like, there were also other constant things that just broke and broke and broke and broke. But I think at the core of the issue, I think, was like the wiring harness,

• 24:15Speaker 02

  the general wiring I'm told was very sloppy and bad early on. And, and that's like the, that's like the vertebrae, the nervous system of the car. So if that's bad, like, what can you expect from a vehicle?

• 24:28Jack Selby?

  Which car do you drive the least out of all of your cars?

• 24:31Speaker 02

  Uh, I always have to like look at them. I mean, the NSX there, I haven't driven it once, but.

• 24:36Jack Selby?

  You've never, you haven't driven it once?

• 24:37Speaker 02

  Not since the, we rebuilt it. I drove it when I bought it, but it was like not wide-bodied, twin-turboed, air ride. So I have, I have yet to drive it. Like, I just don't like JDM cars. They're not my thing.

• 24:47Jack Selby?

  How come you haven't driven it now, though? How long has it been like operational?

• 24:51Speaker 02

  Um, six months.

• 24:54Jack Selby?

  Not once?

• 24:54Graham Stephan?

  You're not curious?

• 24:55Speaker 02

  It's one of those cars where you buy it for the channel. This, like, I was talking with Matt Armstrong, and he said that, he said it perfectly, like, don't buy a car because you think it'll perform well. Like, just buy something that you enjoy, and, and it'll show, your passion will show through it, and it should perform well for you on the channel. Like, that was, that was a, a channel investment. And like, it's not our, it's not like what our demographic wants to see. And I thought it would be, and it was just a mistake, and I just don't want to drive it.

• 25:18Jack Selby?

  How much have you put into it?

• 25:19Speaker 02

  We had some help, but probably like 50 grand. It wasn't horrible.

• 25:22Jack Selby?

  What are you gonna do with it?

• 25:23Speaker 02

  It's been up for sale for like four months. That's a very unique car.

• 25:26Jack Selby?

  What are you listing it for?

• 25:27Speaker 02

  120 right now.

• 25:28Jack Selby?

  What's the lowest you would take?

• 25:30Speaker 02

  Maybe 110. It has a lot, I mean, it has, it's, it's worth every penny of that. Like, there's none of these that exist with a Liberty Walk slammed.

• 25:37Jack Selby?

  Does that add value? I feel like people right now just want stock cars.

• 25:41Speaker 02

  By and large, when you do stuff like that, I don't think it adds value. I think you typically spend 50 to 100, and you get 80% of that if you're lucky, right? So, not really, no. It probably hurt me.

• 25:52Jack Selby?

  I just can't believe you haven't driven it once. It's been here for six months.

• 25:55Speaker 02

  No desire, zero desire. And that's when I sell stuff. Like, when I'm looking at a car and I'm like, I haven't driven that for a month and I have no desire to drive it, then it's time for it to go.

• 26:03Jack Selby?

  That's also interesting. I just noticed you have no Ferraris in here.

• 26:06Speaker 02

  I have one.

• 26:06Jack Selby?

  You have the one FF.

• 26:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Actually, it's the GTC which replaced it, the GTC 4 Luso. Uh, I think Ferrari is like a different culture of, of people, and I don't mean that in a bad way. I just think that, like, a Ferrari owner is different from everything else. Like, they're very, like, distinguished people. This is not every Ferrari owner, but like, typically when I think of it, and when I, what I see out there is they're distinguished, they'll play that game with Ferrari and go buy 20 cars so they can get Ferrari's next Hyper Series, they will attend all the rallies. Um, and it's just like not very counter my personality. We used to have, I had a Bugatti Chiron SS that I sold. I'm selling my Ramac. Like, we're getting rid of boring cars, and it's crazy to say that like a Ramac, the quickest car in the world is boring, or the Bugatti, the highest top speed in the world.

• 26:52Speaker 02

  But they are, they're like, they're too refined, they're too comfortable, they're too quiet. Um, I like, I like loud cars, like the Hennessy Venom. It's just, it sounds like a 60s muscle car. It's loud, insane, fast, bold-colored, huge spoiler.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  It's so aggressive.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  Bro, this thing does not defrost. Woo, oh, it's, there's fire.

• 27:17Speaker 02

  Like, that's the future of the collection.

• 27:19Jack Selby?

  I mean, it wasn't even two years ago, last time we spoke, and I asked you if you could keep one single car, aside from daily drivers, which one would it be? And you're like, eh, probably the Bugatti Chiron SS. And now here we are, and you've sold the car.

• 27:32Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 27:32Jack Selby?

  Why did you sell the car?

• 27:33Speaker 02

  It was boring, but I also needed cash to build a big project that we're doing. So we're building a big car condo community in Florida, right in central Florida, near Windermere. And that's going to be where I live in the future for the majority of the year. And I'm looking around at trying to find somewhere for my cars to be stored, and there's nothing. I'm like, I'm trying to find this crappy 5,000-square-foot industrial building. I don't care how old it is, how dingy it is, and there's nothing. And I'm like, man, if I could just find land and, and build something like, I could probably make some pretty good money on this and solve a big problem within the community. And I think that's how a lot of my other business ideas and ventures came along, was just solving a problem for myself. And so we were lucky and blessed enough to find some land. One of the parcels wasn't even for sale.

• 28:16Speaker 02

  We just went and met with some very eccentric sellers, talked them into it, had a bunch of come-to-God meetings with the attorney when it almost fell apart last minute, ended up closing in Denmark because we got a clear to close. And I'm like, I'm not going to let this deal slip out of my hands. Like, I will go find some followers that will help me meet. They met me at the embassy, helped me sign and notarize documents, and we got it done. So I have the land, I have the whole project that I'm going to present to the city. They seemed very warm about the idea. I just need to get their thumbs up, and then we break ground and, and build this community.

• 28:43Jack Selby?

  So what exactly is the idea?

• 28:45Speaker 02

  Well, the first problem was that there just is no place to store cars down there, right? That's the biggest problem. The second problem is that the vast majority of car condos in the world are like, are ugly. Like, this community, I actually think is actually one of the top-tier ones, but it's, there's no real greenery. When you get behind that gate, there's no vegetation, no plants, it's all just asphalt. The buildings are tan, they look like, they look like storage units. They don't look like car condos. So, and then they don't have a great club element. Like, they built some goofy 5 o'clock tower that's like 1930s theme, that's very fancy and bougie, and, and nobody ever uses it. So I'm like, I want to build something that has nature trails, a boardwalk, a lot of vegetation that's beautiful. I want to build a clubhouse that's, that's private, welcoming though, and has a pool.

• 29:28Speaker 02

  And, uh, and then have a strong sense of community, and, and make the car condos, like, the exteriors look like, I, I took inspiration from Cota. It's the Circuit of the Americas in Austin. They have beautiful exterior in their car condos. And so taking a lot of inspiration from that, but trying to make it even better than that. So just elevating the experience. We're, we're kind of calling it a country club for cars, basically.

• 29:50Jack Selby?

  Do you have to apply to like buy one of the places? Like, do you have to match the demographic?

• 29:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you have to have enough income. Like, these will be probably around a million dollars a unit. And it's, uh, it's windermerereserve.com is where you can go sign up. And I have, this is the only, the second time I've really publicly talked about it other than our video, and I have 250, um, like emails of interest, and I have maybe 70 to 80 condos that we're going to do. So I'm really pumped about how much interest has come through.

• 30:17Jack Selby?

  I love the idea.

• 30:18Graham Stephan?

  But you know what? They're building them now in Vegas.

• 30:20Jack Selby?

  What?

• 30:21Graham Stephan?

  In Henderson, these car condos. And they're selling for anywhere from 600 grand on the low end to about one and a half on the high, betting on this fair footage. They're just like this. It's like open at the bottom with a little loft, and you could like speck it out. I think it's a huge opportunity, and people love them because you're not building a house with like multiple bathrooms, a full-blown kitchen, all these appliances, bedrooms. It's like, it's a warehouse with a loft. It's really easy to construct, and car people just are so excited for it.

• 30:49Speaker 02

  And the loft can have, like, we'll have kitchenettes in our loft. We'll actually put ovens, and, but it's not full-blown crazy kitchen. It's, it's the light version, right? And then a little seating area. And we're hoping to do third-story bedrooms so that people can stay overnight. And then the designer even suggested, like, above the third story to have a balcony or like a seating area up top, like a rooftop patio. And I'm like, that would be phenomenal. That's a pretty minimum cost option. So we're, we're trying to make these as big and amazing as possible. And, you know, that's, that's something that, when I move down there, that's a community I want to be a part of. That's, that's the goal. It's something that I'm excited to go to and, and enjoy with other people.

• 31:26Jack Selby?

  So what changed with the Chiron in the last year and a half and now?

• 31:30Speaker 02

  There's a point where like, you also just get all the content. Like, a, a lot of these cars are bought because A, I enjoy it, but B, we need to create a content machine out of them. And we kind of did everything that we could with that. Same with the Ramac. The Ramac just beats everything. So like, those two cars, it's just, there's not much more you can do. And then, and then I just stopped driving it because there's more fun, loud, raw cars in here to drive. So it just sat here, and then I realized, gee, it's been a month since I've driven the Bugatti. I should probably go drive it. Like, that's why I'm, I'm going to drive it. It's because it's sat for a month, not because I want to drive it. So. It's just the psyche of my brain. Like I, there, there are some things that like I'm a lifer with, like my wife, of course, my kids, like I will always be endeared, love, be with them.

• 32:13Speaker 02

  But then some things I can just lose interest in immediately and move on to the next thing.

• 32:17Graham Stephan?

  Is there a single car that you have been a lifelong like endear of it?

• 32:23Jack Selby?

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• 33:18Jack Selby?

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• 34:15Jack Selby?

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• 35:24Graham Stephan?

  Is there a single car that you have been a lifelong like endear of it?

• 35:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, my Chevelle. I've had that since my kids were tiny and it's been through four engines. I just, I love my 67 Chevelle. I think I'll, my McLaren 765 LT and my Hennessy Venom, I think those are cars that I will have forever because they're so special to me. I have such special relationships with, with either ownership or with local dealers and they're just such thrilling and exciting cars.

• 35:49Graham Stephan?

  What's a car that you can't believe how expensive it's gotten?

• 35:52Speaker 02

  75% of all of the hypercars right now, but I would say the 918 is five to six million for the Y-SAC. Like I sold mine for two a year and a half ago, the LaFerrari. That one's insane to me. So they alleged that they produce 900 of these cars, but realistically, if you go to certain websites, there's 1,100 to 1,200 production. Like I haven't verified this. I've only just went and see, well, I mean, I've visually verified it, but I can't go and physically verify the VINS on the cars. But like, in my opinion, the website tells a story that the Italians lie about production numbers on, really Ferrari was one, Pagani was one and, uh, and there are probably others, but those were two big ones. And they're producing 1,200 LaFerraris. They were like around $2 million, I think, to start. And those are,

• 36:35Speaker 02

  those are $7 or $8 million now for a LaFerrari. And it's just crazy to me when there's over a thousand of these. How, how is that even possible? Like it's a fun car, but it's just insane to me that they're going for that much money.

• 36:47Graham Stephan?

  What about the new Ferrari EV that just sold for $40 million?

• 36:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, that, that, I, my gut says that that was just a guy that had $40 million that he was going to donate anyway. And it helped him get some positive news and some, some clout. And he was going to do it, whatever that car was that was going through, he was going to bid $40 million. I, I hate the, the new EV though. Like I already didn't really like Ferrari and seeing that thing, that's, that's ugly. And I had the SF90 recently and it's, it's like the most soulless, that was probably top three for least favorite cars. Yeah. Like I hated it. It, too many gadgets and gizmos in it.

• 37:22Graham Stephan?

  Jeremy just bought? Jeremy just bought that. Like

• 37:25Speaker 02

  It's such a bad car.

• 37:26Graham Stephan?

  A day ago, he posted the video, we'll put it up here, him pulling the, uh,

• 37:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 37:30Graham Stephan?

  thing off the car, showing it. When you look at the numbers of like zero to 60, it's really fast. It's got a lot of, it looks cool.

• 37:40Speaker 02

  So is a Model S. You can go get a Model S Plaid used for $45,000 and it'll smoke that. Like if that's, if you want fast, like just go get a Tesla. If you want, like, I think the, the, uh, the dynamic of the, the hyper and supercar is turning very much analog now because they're getting beat. Like the Corvette just beat every car that exists and it's $250,000. Like in America, we just built this hybrid car that nothing can compete with. Like why even go for speed records at this point? Why, why be Bugatti? Why, what matters if you can get beat by a car a 10th or a 15th of your price? Now, now they're figuring out, okay, we have to be, we have to be different. How can we, how can we get that like ultra-rich segment? And it's becoming analog. Yeah.

• 38:23Speaker 02

  The Hennessy Blackbird just came out and it's 800 horsepower naturally aspirated motor, nothing digital in it. Gated six-speed transmission. That's, I think that's the wave of the future with cars.

• 38:34Graham Stephan?

  So don't you think that's one of the reasons why some of the older cars have spiked so much in value is purely because the new ones are kind of not good?

• 38:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, like the Aventador went crazy because the Revolto is hybrid.

• 38:44Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 38:44Speaker 02

  But the problem is what happens when they all start saying, okay, we're not going to do hybrid anymore. We're going to do GA. What happens to all those cars that spiked? Because manufacturers started shifting to hybrid, like Lamborghini is going to potentially revert back to, I, I was talking more about hypercar manufacturers when I said analog, but like the supercar manufacturers are going to follow. They have to differentiate themselves. Again, they're going to get beat by every other car out there too. So I think that they, they may revert back to naturally aspirated.

• 39:10Graham Stephan?

  Wouldn't they just do what Porsche is doing and just offer both? Like if you want the six-speed gated, it's going to be X amount more. Like you, you overpay now and they could upsell that.

• 39:19Speaker 02

  And even the Hennessy Blackbird does offer like an automatic, they offer a slightly less analog experience with their automatic transmission. But like John was, he's like, well, if you want to order that, he's like, well, we don't expect a lot of them. Like if you want to be that guy, you can order it. So I think even some of the new real analog ones are going to be, even the Pagani Utopia was like, I was shocked. That one was announced like three years ago, four years ago, and they offered the six-speed manual transmission in a hypercar at that time too. So maybe that was kind of the beginning of that happening and Pagani got on it super early.

• 39:47Graham Stephan?

  So what cars do you think are undervalued?

• 39:49Speaker 02

  Bugatti Veyron by far. They're still one five to one seven million dollars for the 06 to 08. And I don't see how that car is like, that car did break top speed record, held it for a long time. And it's a, I think it cost them $4 million to build each of those cars and they were selling them for two at the time. Um, they are a little bit to maintain, but there's enough of them out there where I think people have figured out how to, how to get it done. Bugatti offers it, uh, offers an extended warranty for I think 250 that'll cover it for four years. I'd have to check the numbers on that, but it's a criminally underrated car that they built. I mean, I told you they built 1,200 of those LaFerraris. They built, I think, 350 or 400 of the Veyrons and they're 1.5 million. It's shocking to me that they're that cheap.

• 40:27Graham Stephan?

  What should they be selling for in your opinion?

• 40:29Speaker 02

  If everything else is where they're at, the Veyrons, starting price should be $5 million. I think it's criminally underrated. And then you have the SVJs that are another criminally overrated car where those are a million and a half and they built 1,000 plus those. It's just, I don't understand the market.

• 40:43Graham Stephan?

  Let's say someone has one and a half million dollars to invest and they have a choice between the S and P 500 or it's the top-notch Bugatti.

• 40:54Graham Stephan?

  What would you recommend?

• 40:55Speaker 02

  It depends. Are they strictly looking for a financial investment or haven? Where they're going to park that Veyron, they're not going to drive it. They don't care about the enjoyment of it. Then then I might say actually Veyron is the move.

• 41:05Graham Stephan?

  Really?

• 41:06Speaker 02

  Like legit, go buy, if you have $15 million, go buy 10 Veyrons. Let them sit in your garage. I think you're going to come out far more ahead in three to five years with that. If you're going to drive it, then there's then there's mileage that's going to hurt value a little bit. You're going to have to maintain it.

• 41:22Speaker 02

  If you buy it to drive it, you're also maybe going to get bored of it.

• 41:26Graham Stephan?

  Sure.

• 41:26Speaker 02

  There's more thrilling cars for that much money. So strictly as an investment, yeah, that might be your best.

• 41:30Graham Stephan?

  How many miles? Like walk us through, in your opinion, what would be the best investment Bugatti?

• 41:35Speaker 02

  You have to get into like their convertible model or like their or their Veyron SS. Those have already kind of went up in value. They're, I think they're north of three. But just like with any other car, the most special variant seemed to be the one that increased the most. The 918 Y-Sock seemed to go a lot higher. If there's some goofy Enzo that's a yellow instead of, you know, the super common red, that one garners 50% more. So I would have to say some of their their later, later models, if you're willing to spend a little bit more. There's a beautiful Veyron, Supercar Ron had a beautiful spec and I forget which one is, I even drove his. But like that one was, in my opinion, the most beautiful spec and I think he paid around two. It's probably already worth three now. And in five years, that one might be worth eight.

• 42:13Graham Stephan?

  It seems like whatever Ed Bolian buys.

• 42:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:16Graham Stephan?

  Give it five years and he's always right.

• 42:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, nice. It's largely the case with me too. I just sell them before I, before like I had the LaFerrari, I had the 918. Like I've had a lot of cars that have really gone up in value and I sell them like right around what I paid for them. And maybe I make a little bit of money. But again, it's not, they're not financial investments for me.

• 42:36Graham Stephan?

  So what else besides the Bugatti that you think is underrated?

• 42:40Speaker 02

  Would have said the Senna a year ago, but that one went from $1 million to $3 million over the course of a year. Everything is overvalued right now, man. Like there's, there's five cars for every 95. That 95 are overvalued, five are probably undervalued. I, McLaren 720, 750. People always ask me if I have like 250K, what, what car should I get? And I'm like, if you want reliability and and a very fun driving experience, get a Porsche GT3RS. If you want relative reliability and you want the most fun possible experience, in my opinion, it's the McLaren 720 or the 750. Like they're highly tunable, extremely good UI driving experiences. They're just such fun cars.

• 43:18Graham Stephan?

  So do you think any EV supercars have any collectability right now?

• 43:22Speaker 02

  No, no. The Remac is the prime example. Like I can't sell that. Like in order to sell that, I'd have to be about half of what I paid. I paid like two, seven all in with taxes. The highest offer, and I've tried very hard, is like one, three on that car right now. Those are. And that's a car where I think when the market has gone broadly EV, like that is a car that might, that might be the, the F1 of the 90s that's worth 20 million. Like maybe that Remac is the five, $10 million car in the future because it broke all these records. Like it was the very first electric broadly built hypercar. But I, I'm not going to sit around for five or 10 years on that car to get that value out of it.

• 43:59Graham Stephan?

  I would argue that that is going to be the future collectible because you are selling it. And it seems like you get these cars early, but then you sell them early.

• 44:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:06Graham Stephan?

  As soon as you sell them, two, three years later, they spike.

• 44:10Speaker 02

  Yeah. And but I don't want to hold on to them for two more years and not drive them. I don't know. It's just, it just doesn't make sense. I got, they gotta be fun. I gotta drive them. I have to utilize them. And we put a lot of miles on these cars. Like, I mean, every, when I sell these cars, my average holding period for these cars is probably two years and the average mileage when I sell them is probably 10 to 12,000 miles, which is insane for a hypercar.

• 44:31Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 44:32Speaker 02

  Like 5,000 miles a year when you have 20 cars in your collection is insane.

• 44:37Graham Stephan?

  Which car manufacturer have you completely lost respect for?

• 44:40Speaker 02

  I think everyone thinks the answer is Koenigsegg, but I actually respect them because like if, if, let me just talk about that. Like the Yescot they delivered had some very big problems early on. We put a video how it like leaked brakes, the gyro was not working, but like they took really good care of it in that first month. They flew techs out multiple times. They did a lot of work on it and it's actually been surprisingly ironclad in the last three or four. There's some small issues with it now, but like I can still drive it. As long as I can drive a car, I'm super happy with it. Like the Regera would brick and it would shut off. Like you can't drive it. The Yescot has some small issues, but I can drive it. I can wait until the big service to get that stuff addressed. I'm happy as a camper with that stuff.

• 45:20Speaker 02

  But like, there is, there's one manufacturer that came to mind and I can't, I can't actually even publicly bash them because there was like a deal that we worked out, but which sounds crazy, but it's a small one and it's, it's irrelevant at this point.

• 45:33Graham Stephan?

  Or which manufacturers are you surprised that they even still exist?

• 45:35Speaker 02

  That would be Koenigsegg. Like it's, it's with all the problems that they had, they just have such great branding and a loyal following base that like their, their amazing marketing branding and innovative tech is really helping lead them. But usually if you, if you build a product that, that breaks a lot and is notoriously unreliable, like for consistently for a long period of time, that's the end. But, but they've, they've gotten better. They've built really cool cars and they've gotten better and they've turned it into more reliable company. So somehow they rode that, that long wave and, and like, I want them to succeed. I've always said like, build me a great car and I will be your biggest advocate. And, and my, my tone is already very different than it was nine months ago and I crashed out on them.

• 46:15Speaker 02

  And, uh, and so like, I want to be their advocate. I want this Yescot to continue to perform well because then I will, I will be a positive vocal advocate for them.

• 46:22Graham Stephan?

  If there was one car manufacturer that you could only ever drive for the rest of your life, what would it be?

• 46:27Speaker 02

  I love, I love my Hennessy. It's my favorite car in the collection. But McLaren is, they just build the, like the broad profile of all their cars is just, they're the most fun cars. They're the best cars in my opinion.

• 46:40Graham Stephan?

  How does someone?

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• 47:06Graham Stephan?

  Know they have enough money to be able to buy a McLaren. Like is there a net worth or an income?

• 47:12Speaker 02

  I mean, net worth is one thing, right? Like, because a lot of my money is tied up in my company, like, but, but like disposable, let's say, let's talk about like income annually. I mean, you can get that McLaren for probably, you're probably like 75 grand to $7,500 a month. And so you need to, I mean, if you're taking a five, six year loan on a 250K car, even if it's five grand a month, that's, that's a pretty steep payment. So you really need to be making at least two to 250 a month, but not have, not be crazy over leveraged with house and other stuff. Like probably the value of the car is, is what your annual income should be.

• 47:45Graham Stephan?

  You need to be making like $3 million a year.

• 47:47Speaker 02

  No, he meant to say a month. For a hyper, for a hypercar, maybe, yeah.

• 47:52Graham Stephan?

  No, he said 250,000 a year.

• 47:53Speaker 02

  Well, 250, 250, yeah.

• 47:55Graham Stephan?

  That's per year.

• 47:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. Maybe, maybe it's one to one is where you should be. A one to one ratio. If you're going to have a Bugatti Chiron at $3 million, you probably should make around the same of what that car is worth. You should. But the, that's a good bridge into the leasing thing. Like there's guys out there that are, that are like, I just learned a lot of this and it's crazy to me. And I think, I think this might be what's manipulating market values too, where they can just go list cars really, really, really high and set the market. Or a lot of them are even buying all of the inventory. So it's like, I'm going to go and buy all of the Bugatti Chirons that exist. I'm going to list them stupid high. So I'm the only one in the country selling them because inventory is scarce right now.

• 48:38Speaker 02

  And so I'm going to, I'm going to be the guy that has all four of these. I'm going to set the market at whatever it is. And I'm going to continue actually getting these people in on three to four month leases. So I'm going to charge them $60,000 a month for their car so they can go use it for their course program or whatever it is. There's stupid amount of this happening right now. And then they go and, they go and make it look like these cars are very affordable. They help go push their courses. And those course people get a lot of followers, a lot of influence from what happens. And then the car disappears like four months later.

• 49:11Graham Stephan?

  Have you had people that sell courses approach you to try to rent your cars?

• 49:14Speaker 02

  It's not anybody well known, but all the time people would come in here and then I'd see them like sitting in my Lamborghini, talking about like, here's how I invest money in Forex. And I'm like, nah.

• 49:24Graham Stephan?

  No way.

• 49:24Speaker 02

  That I hate, that I will not allow. So like, I will, I will kick them out of my, I'm like, don't use my, don't use my 20 year plus years of earnings to, to flex and fake what you're doing. There's nothing more that drives me crazy than people trying to use my collection for their own LARPing essentially, right? They're using my collection for their clout. I'm more than happy to share the cars with anybody that wants a fun experience, but there's plenty of people that come in here and do that. And I'm like, you gotta get out. And some of them try to get close with my, my team. And then you'll realize, like, I don't realize it right away. And then I'm like, why is this guy frequently asking you to go out in the event at or Henry? Like, why is, why is he hanging out with you a little bit more than usual? Like, why am I starting to see videos of him like flexing stuff on, on his page with my cars? And that's a problem.

• 50:06Graham Stephan?

  So in terms of the leasing, how exactly does that work in the backend?

• 50:11Speaker 02

  What I heard is they put a lot of money up front. Like they're, they're basically not putting an investment in the, in the car. They're getting nothing out of the car. It's, it's, I'm willing to go spend a half a million dollars over the course of three to six months because it's going to double my sub count and it's going to drive significantly more volume in people that sign up for the course. So it's, it's, I think some of these people are putting up 250 to $500,000 down. Then they're paying 60 grand. I heard it's some absurd amount of money. And then they get it for six months and they just get as much usage and content as they can out of it. So what that does is it allows these guys to keep listing the cars really high because they know that they're just going to lease the cars and perceptually to the public.

• 50:52Speaker 02

  Wow, Bugattis are $5 million or $4 million now. Wow, this, this guy that sells classes can afford one of these. And, and then they just keep like doing leases in the background and then you just turn the car in after six.

• 51:04Graham Stephan?

  So my understanding was that these leases were actually kind of sales structured as leases. So you'd be able to write off all the payment. But they're building equity in the car. And then because they technically do own the car.

• 51:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:16Graham Stephan?

  They are responsible for the diminished value at the time they go and give that to someone else. So if the car goes from 2 million to 1.8, they have to come out of pocket the 1.8 or they continue making payments.

• 51:26Speaker 02

  I wish I knew how these were structured. I've done leases like that myself. I don't have any, actually I do have a lease. I have a lease on my, my Yescot. I basically went and I, the other 1.5 million of it ebbs and flows of cash. I had to go take a lease out on that, but I, I pretty much own all of these in cash with the exception of that 1.5, I don't think I have any other lease on anything that's here right now. But I had a lot of money output for cars on order. I have five to $7 million that manufacturers have been sitting on for up to years and years and years. The Jemera, they've had my, I think 300K deposit for six years now. And so sometimes, yeah, I'll be like, okay, this, there's not infinite money. I need to go bridge the gap. And so I know those, those are structured that way. I don't know how these other guys

• 52:09Speaker 02

  are structuring it because it sounds very different to me. But yeah, these other ones are. Are structured intelligently where it's essentially a lease to own and because it says it's a lease, you're allowed to write it off.

• 52:19Graham Stephan?

  Right.

• 52:19Speaker 02

  For tax purposes, because it's harder to write off an actual financed car, I guess.

• 52:23Graham Stephan?

  Yes.

• 52:24Speaker 02

  The government scrutinizes that a lot more and people don't usually pass that sniff test.

• 52:27Graham Stephan?

  If you have a deposit to purchase a car for six years.

• 52:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:32Graham Stephan?

  That's $300,000. What do you think of the chances of you actually getting that car?

• 52:35Speaker 02

  Hi, hi, but like the roadster I've had on deposit for like, what, when did they do those deposits? 2018 or 19?

• 52:42Graham Stephan?

  Yes.

• 52:42Speaker 02

  I've had that one. I've had, they've had 50K of my money forever. I think they're going to deliver it, right? And, but I think the real question is, what if they don't? Do they pay you interest on your money? And they probably don't, right? Like that 50 should be 100 after eight or nine years. That should be 100K of my money. If they give me just my 50K back, that's a problem. But I think it's high probability. I've never had an auto manufacturer not deliver. The Yescow I waited five years for, but they got it to me.

• 53:09Speaker 02

  Most car manufacturers are actually probably a two to three year window. It's, it's not short.

• 53:13Graham Stephan?

  Which car manufacturer are you most bullish on? Like you think that they're going to continually stay on the cutting edge and put out better and better and better cars?

• 53:21Speaker 02

  I think, I think McLaren is like, I'm not trying to like, I'm not trying to put them on this pedestal, but like, they are releasing a lot of really cool cars. They have a big color palette that they offer. They're fun and exciting cars. They're quick. I put money down on my W1 a year and a half ago, I think. And it'll get it delivered in sub two years. My 780 H S that they just launched a month ago, I think I'm going to have that six, seven months after stupid six, seven. Six, seven months after I put the money down and my spec is insane. It's the most bold, crazy spec we've ever done, but I think it's the coolest spec I have ever done in my life. And like, I hate to say it, but, but I hate to like, sound like a broken record, but McLaren is doing it right, right now.

• 54:02Graham Stephan?

  What would you recommend for someone who wants as little depreciation as possible?

• 54:05Speaker 02

  Porsche G23RS. Every one since like oh seven has maintained whatever their MSRP is or above it. And they're highly reliable. That is the best car. If you want something that's reliable, that's going to hold its value and that's going to deliver a fun experience.

• 54:18Graham Stephan?

  Is there a certain year that's going to be better than others?

• 54:21Speaker 02

  I think the newest year, if you can get one, it's sticker. Of course that's it. Cause those are still going like a hundred plus above sticker. But I really like the, the 2019, the 9912. It's one I've had two of. I had the lizard green and I have a Miami blue Y-Sack now. And it's one that's just stuck to its value. Like it's just held, actually it's a little higher than it was, but they're still affordable. Like the, the newest model are like 350 to 400. The older model from 19 are like 250, but they drive near the same. Like they're 90% the same car. The newer one just has somewhere arrow and looks different. But like, if you blindfolded me and put me in either car, it'd be hard for me to differentiate the driving experience.

• 54:58Graham Stephan?

  Is it ever worth it to buy the extended warranty?

• 55:01Speaker 02

  In some cases, the LaFerrari, they offered me a two-year full drivetrain warranty for $30,000. This was on a $3 million car at the time. So 1%, I think that you would do it. You know, if, if you have a hundred thousand dollar car and they say for a thousand dollars, we'll give you peace, full peace of mind for two years. Of course you would do that. That, I was the most shocked by the, that shows how much they must believe in that car. Maybe that car has been very reliable and mine was too. So.

• 55:26Graham Stephan?

  Did you ever use the 30,000?

• 55:28Speaker 02

  I don't think I had to. I think I sold it before I could, before I could do it. But by and large, extended warranties, I think, I think it really depends on the price, but I feel like they're usually a little bit too overinflated. And, but like, if you're that supercar guy, that's, that's buying a car beyond your means. And if that thing breaks and it's going to sit in your garage for six months because you can't fix it, then yeah, you should probably find a way to work that into financing.

• 55:50Graham Stephan?

  What other cars do you believe are going to be going up in value a lot over the next 10 years?

• 55:54Speaker 02

  I mean, everything's already gone up. I think it's more about what's going down.

• 55:57Graham Stephan?

  Graham's just trying to figure out what car he should buy.

• 56:00Speaker 02

  He's really.

• 56:00Graham Stephan?

  What to buy? What do you think about Graham's current collection? If you were to rate it, one to 10, what would you rate it?

• 56:06Speaker 02

  I mean, it's phenomenal. I'd, I'd give it a, a seven. Like it's, it's great.

• 56:11Graham Stephan?

  What could take it to a nine?

• 56:14Speaker 02

  $30 million.

• 56:15Graham Stephan?

  Really? It would take 30 million to go from the seven to a nine?

• 56:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's the battle between like, well, how do you value your collection? Is it, is it, is it clout? Is it drivability or is it strictly just what's going to increase the most in value? And for me, it's like, candidly, it's, it's clout and drivability are the two most important things that you, you have to have for a YouTube channel.

• 56:35Graham Stephan?

  So you think his collection's a little boring, maybe?

• 56:38Speaker 02

  I think it's fun. You still have the Ford GT, right?

• 56:40Graham Stephan?

  I do.

• 56:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's, that's a phenomenal car.

• 56:42Graham Stephan?

  Ford GT, Tesla Roadster 2010, which may or may not be for sale. Still debating that.

• 56:48Speaker 02

  And those haven't really popped either. They're still going for 40 to 60, right?

• 56:52Graham Stephan?

  Depends on the, mine is one of 26 that was ever made in yellow. So it's the rarest color.

• 56:57Speaker 02

  Got it.

• 56:57Graham Stephan?

  Those overall have sold more.

• 57:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:00Graham Stephan?

  Just because of the color itself. So I'm guessing it's a little more than that.

• 57:04Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 57:05Graham Stephan?

  But yeah, I was, I was hoping that car would be a $200,000 car.

• 57:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:08Graham Stephan?

  And it has not reached that.

• 57:10Speaker 02

  It's got to get there. It has to get there. There's, there's so few of those built relative to the S, the X, especially the three and the Y. Like that's, that's a car with, that's a car I've been following on Bring a Trailer for a year now. I'm waiting for the right one to go through and buy one. It's funny that, maybe we should talk about it after.

• 57:21Graham Stephan?

  I would, I would a hundred percent. I just, I just spent 15 grand shipping this thing to Seattle. They did a new like, you know, internals of the, of the battery and shipped it back. So I just spent money on this.

• 57:35Speaker 02

  And you're like, I still want to sell it.

• 57:37Graham Stephan?

  It is pristine. It's, I never drive it. I was talking to a lot of these guys. I'm like, I never drive the cars because they work from home. If I do drive, it's usually for like a podcast.

• 57:46Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 57:46Graham Stephan?

  Or a podcast guest, or Jack and I are driving to LA and like, sometimes Jack will drive, a few times I'll drive. So it's not often. And then I sit there and I have to shuffle cars to like, get one out of the garage. Like that, like imagine you have to get that car out in the corner. You have to shuffle the whole thing.

• 58:01Speaker 02

  It's a pain in the butt.

• 58:02Graham Stephan?

  Get the one and like, eh, I may as well just not drive it.

• 58:03Speaker 02

  It's a total pain. It, it depends. Like clout is important. If you're, if you're on YouTube, there's a certain level of clout and recognition that you want to have, right? Like there's, there's always an element of, I want to, I want to be known. I want to be public. But you hope that you can spread a good message and connect people and deliver something awesome to people. Like if you can do both of those, which you guys do well, then, then it's a win-win. So like, you gotta bring like a Lamborghini to the collection. Like that's, that is the, that is the pinnacle clout car for someone that's. I did mention a McLaren and then a Porsche G23S if I had 250. But if you have 250K and clout is your most important thing, which I know you didn't say that was, but like, that's the car when you throw a Huracan in the mix. Or you can get a, an Aventador, maybe around, I don't know what the Aventadors have popped to, but.

• 58:46Graham Stephan?

  300.

• 58:47Speaker 02

  Oh, they're still, okay, good. Cause pre-COVID, they got sub 300. During COVID, they went up to 350, even up to 400. And then I think they corrected themselves. So it's really an Aventador or Huracan. That's, that's kind of the best clout.

• 59:00Graham Stephan?

  Yeah. I don't like, I don't like the clout cars.

• 59:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:02Graham Stephan?

  Cause as soon as a lot of people have them or like, oh, you have this car, I don't like it. Too many people have something. I just, I'm not into it. I like the cars that no one else has it. No one else on YouTube, really besides like a few car guys.

• 59:16Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 59:16Graham Stephan?

  Have the Ford GT. Almost no one has a Tesla Roadster. I think I'm the only one. And then almost no one has the Lotus Evora GTC. Like no one. So I like the, the oddballs.

• 59:26Speaker 02

  And, and like the TWR Supercat that I have in order is, is one of those. It's a Jaguar XJS that has a naturally aspirated V12 in it. You can get one of those cars, the XJS is for 15 to $20,000, which is, it's because they're so terribly unreliable. But then TWR takes them and widebodies them and makes them into this like supercharged beast machine. And, and for me, they're, they're still like 500,000 plus dollars, but it's such a cool and unique looking car. When you say that, for me, I think that's my car of the one that nobody has on social media that really is just going to be thrilling and fun. I get to spec myself. And then the BAC Mono that I bought that from Houston Crosshair right there in Vegas. And like, that's a car that's, you know, upper 100s for the non-type R. The type R is upper 200s. And that's a really fun and unique car. You just can't have a passenger in it.

• 1:00:11Graham Stephan?

  I noticed on a lot of these cars too, you have really incredible license plates. And I'm so curious how you're able to get these plates. I gotta say, everyone's had that one business idea that they've been just sitting on for way too long. And taking that first step is usually where the idea stops. But getting started is actually very straightforward when today's sponsor Shopify handles it for you.

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• 1:01:31Graham Stephan?

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• 1:01:40Graham Stephan?

  I noticed on a lot of these cars too, you have really incredible license plates. And I'm so curious how you're able to get these plates.

• 1:01:46Speaker 02

  I, I know that the lady's name at the Illinois Secretary of State is Caroline Shirley. I only know this because I always get a letter from her or a call on, what does this mean? What does THC BBC mean? And I'm like, oh, it's the Hamilton collection and, and BBC, it means big black Cadillac. I'm like, what else would it mean? And she's like, nope. And I had to turn it, that was one that slipped through and I had to turn it in. I think that we try to use like modern lingo where the, the one that I think a lot of people that make the decisions are like 30, 40 something people like myself. We did BBC on the Revolto BB. We must have some obsession with BBC. We told you about our mascot here.

• 1:02:23Graham Stephan?

  Yes.

• 1:02:23Speaker 02

  And it's BBSEE and that one slipped through, even though when you say it, it's BBC. So I think it's just being creative and sneaky. Huge wang on the McLaren Senna. They probably didn't even know what that meant, but like a wang means a weiner. And then everything is weiner related, isn't it?

• 1:02:40Graham Stephan?

  What's, what's the obsession with weeners?

• 1:02:42Speaker 02

  I don't know. I think it's because it's, everyone always assumes you have like a small weiner. So we're like, we're either saying, no, we have a big weiner, or we're saying, we're affirming, yes, it is. So we did small PP on my Rovani. We did small de on my Ferrari. That's my crew car. So I put the small de. I remember we were in our crew car. Isn't it funny that Ferrari GTC 4 Luso is our crew car? But that's what they drive around here. And like, I remember seeing these girls behind us, just like snickering and laughing. And I felt like so humbled because they're laughing because my license plate says we all have a small.

• 1:03:14Jack Selby?

  I can't believe that you're able to get away with that.

• 1:03:16Speaker 02

  Me neither. There's the wall of license plates over there. Like I'm, I'm looking at all of these cop lover. Yeah, that one, that one was, that one makes sense. The box one backwards, like they didn't catch that. I don't know if you saw that one, the third from the right on the top one.

• 1:03:29Graham Stephan?

  I didn't see that. It's a cracked?

• 1:03:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. Uh, cracked. That was for the, yeah, there's a small PP one. Small D is up there. Aura. Aura makes sense. That one's not that bad. There's been some interesting ones that are still on the vehicles.

• 1:03:42Graham Stephan?

  What's the one you wished you could have gotten that they denied?

• 1:03:45Speaker 02

  Oh, GTA I R L. I'm like, Grand Theft Auto in real life. I'm like, because everyone always says, bros live in like Grand Theft Auto garage in real life or Forza. So we're like, oh, that would be a great license plate, GTA I R L. And they denied it. Like, she asked me, she's like, what is GTA? And I had to find a website that didn't show that it meant Grand Theft Auto. I tried to, I had to go to a website that just showed the acronym. And I'm like, here, it's, it's a video game. Called GTA. And she must have done more diligence. And she's like, nope, not happening.

• 1:04:15Graham Stephan?

  I didn't think that would be like bad.

• 1:04:17Jack Selby?

  Yeah, of all of the ones. That's the one that gets rejected.

• 1:04:20Speaker 02

  I know. And that one would have been so cool to have in here, but.

• 1:04:23Graham Stephan?

  You're gonna have everyone now going to their state's website to try to get GTA I R L.

• 1:04:28Speaker 02

  They should, and hopefully they can get it. Hopefully their state passes because I think it's reasonable.

• 1:04:31Graham Stephan?

  If it's in Nevada, I think you should get it.

• 1:04:34Jack Selby?

  Why me? What about you?

• 1:04:35Graham Stephan?

  I mean, I could.

• 1:04:36Jack Selby?

  Six cars.

• 1:04:37Graham Stephan?

  I don't want to put that on like a Tesla Model 3.

• 1:04:40Speaker 02

  It'd be even funnier on Model 3.

• 1:04:41Jack Selby?

  What am I going to get on?

• 1:04:44Jack Selby?

  My $2,000, $3,000 Model.

• 1:04:46Graham Stephan?

  I'm gonna look for it. I'm gonna look for it. Okay. If it's available, I'll get it.

• 1:04:49Speaker 02

  It's funny you say Tesla because like my daily is a Cybertruck. And if I had to keep one car, it's, it's that out of all of the cars. I love, it's very drivable, right? And then my son has a Model 3, my other son, Jack, who's about to be driving, has a Model X, my wife has a Lucid Gravity. Like I have this whole collection of loud, wild cars and every one of us that drive in the house have an electric car.

• 1:05:06Jack Selby?

  Why is that?

• 1:05:07Speaker 02

  Because they're just so much more convenient. The tech is so good, especially in a tech, I mean, you have.

• 1:05:11Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, I love it. It's just so reliable.

• 1:05:14Speaker 02

  And the autopilot has gotten crazy good in the last year. If you have the new hardware from 22 on up. It's, I'm leaving my driveway clicking it on, going an hour into the city and stop and go traffic all the way to my destination. And it's parking me in a parking lot, like insane.

• 1:05:27Graham Stephan?

  It's also really nice for me not to have the maintenance on it.

• 1:05:30Speaker 02

  Even when you, there's so much less parts for them to have to fix. And even when you do, you just go drop it off and they get it done.

• 1:05:36Graham Stephan?

  No, they come to your house now.

• 1:05:37Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, sometimes. Yeah.

• 1:05:37Graham Stephan?

  It's incredible.

• 1:05:38Speaker 02

  We, we had some bigger jobs that they had to do, but you drop it off. You don't have to see a human, which is kind of, Tesla's very anti personal communication. It's like, cool. You want to buy a car? Order it online. Oh, you ready to pick it up? We're gonna have it parked in a spot for you. Click your screen for a video if you need to learn anything. That's, I'm like, very impersonal, but I guess if you're that good of a company, you don't need to be personal.

• 1:05:58Graham Stephan?

  So I saw recently, one of your videos, you're doing a flip.

• 1:06:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:01Graham Stephan?

  The guy flipped over one of the cars and the HOA was upset. And he made this whole response to the HOA. What happened? What's the current status of that?

• 1:06:08Speaker 02

  So Frankie Lapena, he's the guy on TikTok that has the big booty and does every stunt known to man. And he just came here and he practiced for, he actually imported snow from Michigan because there was no snow left here. Right outside of my window, he built the snow ramp. He was testing it safely for like five to six hours. Test runs, test runs, test runs. And then he finally took the Koenigsegg pulling the snowboard and, and he jumped it. Low speed, very, very like, like two out of 10 in terms of what he's done. Like he's a very talented stunt man. He said he's never injured himself in any stunt, which I find crazy because some of the stuff he does is, is a 10 out of 10, like insanity. And the HOA didn't like it. No, nobody came out to say anything during that six hour period.

• 1:06:52Speaker 02

  But somehow they caught wind of it, even though people come in and out of this community all the time. The HOA is feet away from my door. After they're like, we don't want him to post a video of it. And I'm like, I'll let him know, but he, he's his own channel. Like he spent a lot of time and resources doing that. He drove out of here from Michigan. He had, he had to spend the night prior, like shoveling snow into his truck. I'm like, I'll let him know, but I can't promise anything. And then I conveyed that to him, but I'm, but he still posted it, which I told him like, at the end of the day, like it's your decision. Like I can't tell you not to post it. And like, I still love Frankie. He's a good dude. And he's been an advocate for me as I battle with the HOA, but they really didn't like that. And so they, they're worried that it was going to increase their insurance costs or their insurance was going to drop them.

• 1:07:36Speaker 02

  And like, it's still been six months and no word from insurance, like nothing's happened. And they, so they fined me $25,000. And like, according to the stipulation of the HOA agreements, like they can't really find me above and beyond 250. And they're trying to pull some caveat in the language there that they're able to go claim this $25,000. And then, but it was all, it was all total BS. So I said, there's no way I'm going to pay that. Fine. Like, I'm just not going to pay it. I'll sue you guys. And I, I just didn't agree with it. And so they, they then reduced it to 5K, which I thought was cool, but then they're like, but if our insurance does drop us, you're responsible for all of our lost car show revenue for in perpetuity, like.

• 1:08:19Speaker 02

  And they said they make $185,000 a year from their car shows, which I think is crazy that they're profiting off of car shows because that's, it's very counter Hamilton.

• 1:08:26Graham Stephan?

  How do they profit from the car shows?

• 1:08:28Speaker 02

  Well, they charge a lot of money and they, they do bring a lot of people into here.

• 1:08:31Graham Stephan?

  Okay.

• 1:08:32Speaker 02

  That's, that's really the gist of it, right? So, so I'm like, I'm not gonna, what am I going to be on the hook for 10 years of lost car show revenue? Like, that's insane. You, you took it from $25,000 to one to 2 million potential dollars. And who's to say that you lost insurance because you're holding car shows? You have cars weaving in and out of hordes of children and people. You have golf carts that crashed into electrical junction boxes that were driven by kids. Like the amount of exposure, you have guys fixing cars in your parking lot. You got a guy sitting under a truck, fixing cars.

• 1:09:01Jack Selby?

  Wouldn't that be more threatening to their insurance?

• 1:09:03Speaker 02

  That's what I'm saying.

• 1:09:04Graham Stephan?

  Well, it depends who's filming it.

• 1:09:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:06Graham Stephan?

  You don't want the insurance coming.

• 1:09:07Speaker 02

  Great point about that. Don't let me forget about. So one of the stipulations was I also can't film, something nobody else has a stipulation to. So I'm like, that sounds kind of damaging to me because that's my business. Like we film here all the time. We intro videos, we're doing stuff. And they said you can't film, I think it was outside of the premises, but like, we drive our cars out of here. Like, that's, that is a primary traffic and cash driver to the business. And it's crazy. Like, why, why, why can't I film me driving in a car out of your community? What harm is that doing? Really, they just have a personal vendetta against me. That's what I genuinely think it is. I think these are tiny weiner guys that just don't like that we have a social media channel, that it's done really well because of our awesome followers.

• 1:09:50Speaker 02

  And they just have a chip on their shoulder about us. I don't know. I don't know what it is.

• 1:09:55Jack Selby?

  How many people are in this HOA?

• 1:09:56Speaker 02

  It's, I think the board has like eight people.

• 1:09:59Jack Selby?

  And so these guys all just agreed most likely that they just want to come after you, basically.

• 1:10:03Speaker 02

  I think there's like two or three that are really anti Hamilton collection and, and they're the guys with the tiniest weiners.

• 1:10:10Graham Stephan?

  Was the weiner tiny because of the jump or was it always tiny?

• 1:10:14Speaker 02

  I think it was always tiny. I'm pretty sure it was always really, really tiny.

• 1:10:16Graham Stephan?

  But that's what caused it to be exposed as tiny.

• 1:10:21Speaker 02

  I suppose, yeah. There, there's something they're trying to overcompensate for, but, but aren't we all trying to overcompensate for something? As I sit behind a $30 million collection.

• 1:10:29Jack Selby?

  You should be brothers in arms with them.

• 1:10:30Speaker 02

  I should, yeah. The tiny, the tiny weiner brethren.

• 1:10:33Jack Selby?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:34Graham Stephan?

  Do they know your weiner is just as tiny?

• 1:10:37Speaker 02

  I'll have to show them one day and we'll find out.

• 1:10:39Jack Selby?

  All of a sudden, all the fees dropped.

• 1:10:42Speaker 02

  They're like, let's go.

• 1:10:44Graham Stephan?

  We're fine. We had no idea you're one of us.

• 1:10:46Speaker 02

  The small weiner dab up. It's a special one that I'll have to, maybe I'll have to show you guys. You'll have to, we'll have to see first.

• 1:10:53Jack Selby?

  Are you, how are you going to solve this situation?

• 1:10:55Speaker 02

  Uh, I mean, they just got served with, well, not served. I just sent them the complaint. So it's like this, this phase of you send them the full legal complaint, but I haven't filed it yet. I let them review it for two weeks. They can, they can see how much work and effort we put into the complaint and they can make a decision. If they want me to go ahead and officially sue them, they just won't respond or they won't agree. Or they can reduce and either drop the fine or reduce it to something that's like of this earth. And that will close the matter. So I think they have days left to reply to me. And then I'll just sue them. I don't care. I've already spent $25,000 in legal fees. Sounds great. Like, I'm like a guy that will, if, if I feel like I've been wronged, I will spend, it sounds stupid and I don't mean it to sound arrogant, but like, I will spend $100,000 to, to remedy a $5,000

• 1:11:41Speaker 02

  issue if I think I've been extremely wronged just to prove a point to people. It's rare that I have to do it.

• 1:11:47Graham Stephan?

  But isn't your peace of mind and just going about your day worth more than like the?

• 1:11:51Jack Selby?

  This is his peace of mind.

• 1:11:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is, yeah.

• 1:11:54Graham Stephan?

  But I'm just saying, but like you're fortunate enough to have like so many great things going on where it's like, if it's a little inconvenience today, it's like, not the end of the world and life goes on. And sure, they might've gotten one up on you, but like in the big picture, yeah.

• 1:12:10Speaker 02

  I would agree. If, if I got a ticket in some city in California and I was doing this, but I have to deal with this community and these people every day. So like, I don't want to set a precedent by being the guy that, that just bowed down to them and paid the fine because what are they, what are they going to do? If something else small happens, like if I mistakenly chirped the wheels, taking a corner out of here, are they gonna find me $50,000? Because I skidded a little bit turning, like, I think it sets a dangerous precedent by succumbing to them. And I also think they genuinely, there's malice and they genuinely have it out for me. So it'd be different if the situation was different. If I, if I genuinely, if I crashed into a building and they wanted to find me and I had to pay for the damage, that's fine. But no, no harm was caused to any people, any property. It was cleaned up.

• 1:12:55Speaker 02

  Nobody came out here during the six hour period. We've done stunts like this in my unit, outside of the unit Frankie has filmed before. No verbal anything. So like we've, we've already set a precedent that we do stuff like this.

• 1:13:07Jack Selby?

  Also, I think to defend the people that may have access to less resources, because I'm kind of thinking I'm a member of an HOA where I live in Vegas. And let's just say the HOA started being really aggressive with fees or doing some things that I kind of disagree with. Maybe I didn't necessarily have the resources to fight it. But someone else in the community did. I feel like, okay, wow. Like now I feel a little bit more protected or insulated from some sort of like. Governor around me trying to like exercise control or like, you know, I would say too much power.

• 1:13:37Speaker 02

  Agreed. Yeah. So maybe we'll help other people within the community and maybe some people are advocating for us to win this because it means they'll be better protected in the future for sure.

• 1:13:46Graham Stephan?

  Would it ever get to a point where you'd have to move?

• 1:13:48Speaker 02

  I'm, I'm listing this unit up for sale anyway. Like I don't, I don't want to be, I don't want to be part of a community where I feel unwelcome. There's plenty of good people in here, but like, there's also a lot of backtalk that happens. Like I don't, I think by and large, we do very good for the community. Like it's kind of what we do is counter to what a lot of people in there do. Now, a lot of people do share their garages, they're kind, but like not everybody. We share them. We let people sit in the cars. Um, we let people use this unit for various events. We've even let the HOA use this for a Christmas party like two years ago. Like I didn't charge them anything. Like that's just what we do. And a lot of these people are condescending to people that are less fortunate and they talk about those people behind their backs and they refer

• 1:14:28Speaker 02

  to them as, it's just, it's, it's toxic. And, and I don't want to be part of a culture like that. I think as I'm building this in Florida, like my message is like unity, be open, like, people can do what they want with their cars and their units, but like at the end of the day, they should be willing to share, be open, be kind to people. And so I'm hoping that that's a fresh start, but I can very much see me pulling away from this community.

• 1:14:50Graham Stephan?

  At what point do you think your detachment from money started? Because it seems like you don't make a lot of decisions based solely off of like ROI, like you were saying, you'd spend a hundred thousand dollars in order to fight a $5,000 thing just based off of principle.

• 1:15:03Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:15:03Graham Stephan?

  Was it a financial thing? Was it a mentality thing?

• 1:15:06Speaker 02

  There's, there's multiple layers to that. I would say like, I always flew regular class up until like 2020 and I'm just like, why, what benefit does it give me sitting in the big seats? And then now I'll, now I'll kind of, it's probably two to one ratio of first class to, to regular class. And that's more relative to income. Like that, that's not going to hurt me going, spending this money on, I, I think about it and I'm like, God, this lawyer is kind of, he's kind of charged me like 25 grand up to this point, just to file a legal complaint feels expensive. So I am, I am scrutinizing that. And there is a point where if I'm 300 grand into this, I'm like, yeah, I kind of messed up. I shouldn't have done this. I don't think it's going to get there at all. I think we've done most of the work upfront, but, but like, there

• 1:15:48Speaker 02

  is a very different mindset that I have than I did five years ago where, where I'm like, I have 20, a list of 20 things to do on my house right now. Um, we've been in it for five years and I realize there's a lot of maintenance that I need to do. I've kind of shuttered and back in the day, it'd be a couple of things at a time and I'd get three quotes for everything. I'd be bargaining and I'm just going to like, I'm just going to one guy that I've used in the past. I'm not even really scrutinizing the guy. And I'm just at the point where I'm like, this guy's not making as much money as I am. He's, he wants $3,000 to epoxy the foundation of my house. Like, I'm not going to nickel and dime him for another $500. I just don't care. Like I'll just give him the $3,000. It'll make him, it'll make him a better person. It'll give him more income. And I just like, I'm not really scrutinizing a lot of things. There is some stuff I scrutinize where I'm

• 1:16:30Speaker 02

  very close and I know like shipping carriers, I have an abundance of shipping carriers that we have accessible to us. I know what it costs me to ship a car to California. If someone comes in at $4,000, I'm going to be like, that's too expensive. Like I can use 10 other carriers and, and get this for two grand. But the, the mindset has definitely changed over the last five years and I just don't care as much. I do care. I just don't care as much.

• 1:16:52Graham Stephan?

  Was it an intentional thing or was it more of a subconscious change that kind of just gradually started changing and then you observed it later? And, and like I said, was it like a number thing? Or how did you know you were there?

• 1:17:02Speaker 02

  I don't know. I think it was, I think it was gradual, but I remember my wife, we were at a restaurant and she's like, she's tipping, like I always tip 20% and I'm like, that's, I still think that that's a, that's slightly above it. I don't think everyone tips 20, but that, that's probably in, in the realm of the average, it's toward the high end of average. So it's still.

• 1:17:18Graham Stephan?

  I would say average is probably 15 to 18%.

• 1:17:20Speaker 02

  Okay. Got it. So, so yeah. So exactly. It's on the high end of, of the average. Right? And then there's 25, 30, and then she's writing like 40% tips. And I'm like, Caroline, like, it feels like, but then I'm like, well, this, this server is probably making 20 to $30 an hour all in if they're lucky and they're really doing the majority of the work. Like we should be compensating these people better. So, so like, that was kind of one of the triggers that changed the mindset. And so now the tip is 50 to a hundred percent, no matter where I go, unless the service, if the, the lowest I'll leave is 20 and the service has to be atrocious for me to leave 20. Uh, but everywhere else it's, it's 50% that I go. And if it's, if it's like a cheap place, like a Waffle House, I always leave them a hundred bucks. So if it's a $50 check, I love Waffle House. I love, the people

• 1:18:03Speaker 02

  there are just a different breed of people and I love, like, I'm like a blue collar person type of guy. Like I, I will, I'd rather hang out with a bunch of blue collar folk than, than white collar folk all day long. Um, I don't know why. I just feel like they're far more relatable to me. And so if my check's 50 bucks at Waffle House, they're getting a hundred bucks no matter what. And so that it's just, there's just been little things that I've made realizations along the way that it's, it's my way of kind of giving back the best that I can.

• 1:18:31Graham Stephan?

  What's been your biggest financial mistake that most people don't know about?

• 1:18:35Speaker 02

  I invested in a, an Arby's and I'm like, why the fudge did I invest in an Arby's? I don't even really care for Arby's. Like who says, I want to go to Arby's tonight? Nobody, nobody says.

• 1:18:49Graham Stephan?

  Of all of the fast food restaurants.

• 1:18:51Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:18:51Graham Stephan?

  Like Arby's?

• 1:18:52Speaker 02

  Why Arby's?

• 1:18:53Graham Stephan?

  They had those good, like, it was like a pulled beef, something or other, like a barbecue.

• 1:18:58Speaker 02

  When's the last time you ate it? I know.

• 1:18:59Graham Stephan?

  It's, it's been over 10 years.

• 1:19:00Speaker 02

  It's like 1990. I don't mind Arby's, but like, I need to make sure that I'm not necessarily passionate, but that like, I, I really like what it is that, that I'm doing. And I had two partners that basically had this deal all lined up and they just needed like a financial arm. They were going to operate and run it. And I'm like, cool. Like they pitched the world to me and they're like, you just gotta, and, and so the problem with that is that it's like a 12 year lease that I signed up for and the Arby's failed very quickly. Uh, and they, it failed after like one year. So I'm still paying $11,000 a month for that lease for the next like seven years.

• 1:19:34Graham Stephan?

  Are you serious?

• 1:19:35Jack Selby?

  Can you sublease it?

• 1:19:36Speaker 02

  I did, I did sublease it. Now I, I was paying that forever and I finally found a sublease about six months ago, but there's no even, and that's the other thing.

• 1:19:43Graham Stephan?

  But you're basically the guarantor.

• 1:19:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:45Graham Stephan?

  Of that lease. So if they leave, now you're responsible again for the payments.

• 1:19:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:19:50Graham Stephan?

  Until they find someone else.

• 1:19:51Speaker 02

  Unless I want to sue the sub, because they're, they're also tied to me. But like, I almost don't have the heart. I don't eat like, it's crazy to say this, but like, I hate my landlords because of that. Like I, I asked them for a buyout. I'm like, let me give you $200,000. It's almost two years of lease and they, they realized that I'm such a cash cow and that I can afford and ride this out for 10 years that there's like, there's nothing. They, they refused to offer a buyout, which is just such, so crappy of people to do that, in my opinion. I don't even think I could sue these guys that are leasing for me now if they decided to, I hope they're not watching because I'm sad, I'm creating a bad foundation here. But like, I just don't think, I don't think I could be like, I'm going to go after you. Uh, because I, there's a good chance I have more than them

• 1:20:34Speaker 02

  and it just doesn't seem fair to do that. I think I would just suck it back up.

• 1:20:38Jack Selby?

  I don't think so because like, just because you have more than them, does it like, they still probably have more than a lot of other people.

• 1:20:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:46Jack Selby?

  And so like, as long as you're past kind of that critical mass, like a lot of people will use their money to like exercise their power, you know, like in good ways and bad ways.

• 1:20:55Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:20:55Jack Selby?

  And so it's a decision for you, you know, use it to exercise good or?

• 1:20:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. I don't know. It's tough. It's tough with that. But that was probably it. Cause think about that over the long term, right? $10,000 a month times at the time, 10 more years of payments. And they escalate rent escalations too. So I'm, I'm a million dollars plus in the hole.

• 1:21:13Graham Stephan?

  What about the other people who did the Arby's with you? Are, are they shipping in?

• 1:21:17Speaker 02

  Bankruptcy, nothing. No, not at all.

• 1:21:19Jack Selby?

  How's your relationship with them?

• 1:21:20Speaker 02

  I don't hate them. Like I don't, I don't like them. I don't really talk to them unless I need tax info from four years ago that, uh, might've gotten misplaced or something, but like, I wish them the best. I would never open a business with them again. Um, but like, and, and that's another example. Like I, I could sue them and go after them, but like, I know that they have significantly less than I do. So like what, what, even though they were the driving force behind doing it, like what good, it's not going to, this 10 grand, it sounds like a lot of money, but at the end of the day, it's not impacting me that bad. So I'll just ride it out and I'll make their lives easier, even though they brought me into this mess.

• 1:21:57Graham Stephan?

  See, my mindset has always been, because I've gone into business with people and lost.

• 1:22:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:22:02Graham Stephan?

  And as much as I would want to blame, like, oh, it's because of them and they did this. And at the end of the day, like I was also the one who like decided to like, I made the decision to do that and that's on me. And I can't, you know, even though I think they might be more responsible. I was the one, the buck stops with me at the end of the day. And like, I just gotta live with that.

• 1:22:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I'll, I'll still be accountable. Like I, I could have said no. I could have said no. And, and part of it might've been me being a yes man. Uh, and that's why I got stuck in this mess. Like would the Arby's have changed my life at the time? Absolutely not.

• 1:22:33Graham Stephan?

  No.

• 1:22:33Speaker 02

  It just felt like another leg to stand on, when in fact it was a, a broken leg. It wasn't a good leg. Uh, but I'm, but I'm with you. Like I, I have accountability towards it as well. And that's probably driving some of the reason why I'm just footing it and dealing with it.

• 1:22:47Jack Selby?

  Why did the Arby's fail?

• 1:22:48Speaker 02

  Because it's Arby's.

• 1:22:50Graham Stephan?

  Did you not think this in the beginning? It's like, yo, it's an Arby's. Like did, no, did you have anyone you, you talked to?

• 1:22:58Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:22:58Graham Stephan?

  And they just said, dude, this is Arby's we're talking about.

• 1:23:01Speaker 02

  I know, I know, I know. I should've.

• 1:23:02Graham Stephan?

  Did you like Arby's?

• 1:23:04Speaker 02

  Like, I like their roast beef sandwiches, just their plain beef and their curly fries are delicious. But like, it's number like 57 on the list of fast food that I'm going to go to. So.

• 1:23:14Jack Selby?

  When's the last time you had Arby's?

• 1:23:16Speaker 02

  Five years ago.

• 1:23:18Speaker 02

  I never even, I never even went to my Arby's after it opened.

• 1:23:21Graham Stephan?

  You never went to it?

• 1:23:21Speaker 02

  Not after it opened. I went to, they were like doing their grand opening, but like after that I'd never visited it.

• 1:23:26Graham Stephan?

  Would you go to another Arby's or is it forever ruined?

• 1:23:29Speaker 02

  If I was super hungry and there was like no exit for the next 10 miles and this exit only had an Arby's and like a Subway and a Chipotle, because I hate Chipotle and Subway. If it was like those three, then I'd go to Arby's.

• 1:23:41Graham Stephan?

  Why do you hate Chipotle and Subway?

• 1:23:42Speaker 02

  They're disgusting. Subway is disgusting. Like it smells, I can't stand it.

• 1:23:46Graham Stephan?

  I love Subway.

• 1:23:47Speaker 02

  I get sick every time I go to Chipotle and it just, yet, yet I like.

• 1:23:50Graham Stephan?

  E. coli when you go to Chipotle?

• 1:23:52Speaker 02

  What's that?

• 1:23:52Graham Stephan?

  E. coli?

• 1:23:53Speaker 02

  No, I don't know. I hope not. I just feel like.

• 1:23:55Graham Stephan?

  Oh, that's the new, that's the new thing.

• 1:23:56Speaker 02

  Oh, oh lettuce and other stuff. Yes. Yes. I love Taco Bell, which makes no sense because Chipotle is better.

• 1:24:02Jack Selby?

  I actually think in terms of flavor, Taco Bell is much better than Chipotle and Subway. I think people go to Subway because they think it's healthy and people go to Chipotle because it is healthy.

• 1:24:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's fair. And Taco Bell will clean you out. So that's also.

• 1:24:14Jack Selby?

  Flushes the system.

• 1:24:15Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:24:15Graham Stephan?

  It's like a cleanse. It is good.

• 1:24:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:24:18Graham Stephan?

  So what does your portfolio look like today?

• 1:24:20Speaker 02

  You'd be surprised. It's, it's largely stock in my company and cars. Like I, I'm an idiot where I, I bought depreciating assets. I still have quite a bit of property that I own. I probably have, I mean, I sold, at one point I had like, I don't know, 75 doors, but now I, I think I own eight properties and so there's, there's still.

• 1:24:42Speaker 02

  I don't know. $40 million worth of property that I have, but I have mortgages on some of that, but I do have a lot of equity. I have my cars. I have significant value in my business and then I have very limited amounts in stocks and like probably a million dollars in stocks and the kid's stuff.

• 1:24:59Jack Selby?

  Why'd you sell your real estate?

• 1:25:01Speaker 02

  Like de-stressing. Part of that was the Arby's closed. I sold seven Pet Supply's plus stores that I had. I sold a lot of my properties. I look back and I don't know how I managed all of that stuff like mentally. I just don't want that much stress. We've created enough value in the, in the wheel businesses where I don't, I don't need all of those other legs to stand on, even if crap hits the fans now. And everything went away. Like I have enough to live comfortably on for the rest of my life. So I'm like, why am I still filling my life with all of these stressors? When I'm okay now. So I just sold it.

• 1:25:33Jack Selby?

  Did you end up making money in real estate when all of a sudden?

• 1:25:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh yeah. I made money on like, I've, I've been really good with real estate, like the opposite of cars where I broke even, I break even on cars. I've done very well with real estate.

• 1:25:42Jack Selby?

  What made you do so well in real estate?

• 1:25:43Speaker 02

  Just timing. Like I don't, I would do most of my purchases around a big market correction. So I did a lot of purchases from like oh nine to 12, where I'm buying $135,000 houses that I later sold for like 350. They're old dingy apartments in nice areas. So I essentially would wait till someone moved out. I'd make the unit real nice and then rent it for significantly higher. And apartment, apartment buildings get their valuation out of the percent of income that you make like. Sure. Some people might be like, okay, that apartment building is a million dollars. That doesn't make sense. It's too high. But like really, it's just, most people look for a six to eight percent cap rate. And if I can create significant more rent income, then it just increases the value of the building, even if the building is in the same shape that it was theoretically, right?

• 1:26:28Speaker 02

  So I would go, I had, I had a team of, I actually had three carpenters on staff that we would go in and fix up properties full time. Cause I, again, I had a bunch of properties at the time and then the, I would sell the buildings for like two X of what I paid and I would only put, you know, 10%.

• 1:26:42Jack Selby?

  If you could go back in time, do you think it would have been wiser to just focus all of your efforts on the wheel business?

• 1:26:47Speaker 02

  No, because that didn't take away and that stuff didn't really take away from it. I always, my business gets all of my attention first. And then everything else is secondary. So I will, I will work to the bone on the primary business and then I will fill in the gaps of time with the other stuff.

• 1:27:02Jack Selby?

  You don't think that you could deliver higher returns though, using that extra time to think of more ideas with the wheel business?

• 1:27:08Speaker 02

  We have such a big and great and competent team. I mean, a lot of guys are five to 10 to 12, like we have 500 people. I have a full C suite. I have, I'm one of five owners. Like we have a lot of really brilliant, great minds at our organization. So like I can, I can brainstorm and come up with ideas and we have a fabulous team that can execute them. And I'm not like putting myself on the same plane at all as Elon because he is, he is a brilliant guy, but like that's, that's kind of his, his method, right? Like he, he comes up with the idea. He, he is intimately involved with the team in the early stages and from whatever, everything that I've read and I've heard. Then it, then he empowers the team to go and do it. Like he's the idea guy. He'll be boots on the ground and in the trenches when he needs to be. But then he trusts his team to go and develop and create wacky new crazy ideas that change the system.

• 1:27:52Speaker 00

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• 1:28:47Speaker 02

  Idea. I'm, again, I'm not comparing myself to that, but like in a small.

• 1:28:51Jack Selby?

  But you're basically the same thing.

• 1:28:52Speaker 02

  A micro, yeah, I'm basically in a small microwave where I'm one trillionth of his net worth. That would only put me at a dollar. So maybe not, but in my, in my own microwave, I try to like emulate that, like I, I help be one of the idea guys. We have a lot of really phenomenal ideas rolling out on our websites. We just did a new UIX revamp that I think is brilliant. And my team took a lot of my advice and direction on a lot of the projects and they executed it very, very nicely.

• 1:29:19Jack Selby?

  How is your business doing now with tariffs?

• 1:29:22Graham Stephan?

  Hey, by the way, really quick, if you want extra content, just like this, as well as early access and a bonus post show posted every single week, feel free to join as a channel member to get immediate access to all of that, as well as early access to everything else that we post, along with priority responses to all of your comments. So if that sounds cool, feel free to join. Would love to have you on board. Thanks so much. We'll get back to the podcast now.

• 1:29:45Jack Selby?

  How is your business doing now with tariffs?

• 1:29:47Speaker 02

  There's so many headwinds in the automotive businesses. Like we, you know, we, we grew 35 to 50% for almost 20 straight years. There was a COVID correction when stimulus money ran out. And just a lot where we shrunk. It's crazy to go from 35 to 50. Actually the, in 20, I think we grew 70%. And then to, to go from that, and then you have 2022 where you're down like 4%. I'm like, it's so weird. It was, usually you'd think it'd be like, okay, you only grew 20% or 15, but you go down after that. Just very strange correction period. So that happened for a couple of years. And then the last few years, we've been up like mid single digits, which also is kind of hard to, to deal with. And I think that that's kind of like,

• 1:30:29Speaker 02

  I think that's been very large industry wide. I think they're a slightly less enthusiast than they were. So it's, you gotta fight harder to get some of that market share. Um, I think there's less disposable income. I think Walmart just reported their, they were still up 2%, but they just reported their worst quarter in quite some time. That just came out a few days ago, I think. It seems like there's something like that, that comes up every six months where we're like, cool. We're in the green. We're in the clear. We can expect some growth. Oh great. Tariffs just hit. That just raised prices 10 to 20 to 50%. Now we gotta deal with that. Oh great. We just bombed Iran. Oil prices are high. What is the first demographic that stops buying when oil prices hit? Truck owners. What is our biggest source of revenue? Truck owners.

• 1:31:09Speaker 02

  So it's like, it's like you keep getting like hit. I'm thankful that we're growing, given market constraints and conditions. And wheel and tires are like ants largely, wheels are like ancillary spends. They're, they're luxury spends. And so in, I don't think we have a down economy by, by any means, but it doesn't feel like, it doesn't feel the same that it did back in the day. Like people, I don't, I don't feel like people are as prone to customize their vehicles.

• 1:31:36Jack Selby?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:37Speaker 02

  Manufacturers are delivering much nicer wheels with, with vehicles. Like my Escalade V had 22 inch black chrome wheels on it. I'm like, I don't even want to change these. These look nice. And there's a lot of cars that look like that. So there's just constant headwinds and as a business owner, you have to learn how to adapt to that. Uh, attack different market segments. And I think we're, we've done a lot of that focus in the last year and that's going to start paying its dividends in the coming year.

• 1:32:00Jack Selby?

  Do you ever get knockoffs coming from China where they basically just see your design and just say, oh, we could, we could do the same thing. And then they offer it like half the price.

• 1:32:08Speaker 02

  That's like the wheel industry in a nutshell. Like that's, it's of our own proprietary brands. We have three Anthem, Arcanovia. Not really. There's not really people like just copy pasting them, but there's, it's so hard to differentiate a wheel when there are a million plus different SKUs. But there are plenty of brands that, that are what they call rep brands where they launch a whole new like line of five wheels and they're basically just replicas of other wheels from other manufacturers and they just sell them a lot cheaper and they do really well.

• 1:32:34Jack Selby?

  And so has your revenue basically probably stayed around the same then since the last time we spoke? I think you said it was at 350.

• 1:32:40Speaker 02

  We've acquired companies. So we're like, I think we're going to be north of 400 this year. And the crazy thing is like, you, you know about like multiple arbitrage where you, you buy companies and the more companies you buy, if you can integrate them well, you, you get a bigger multiplier, right? A multiplier on a hundred million dollar company at 8% profit is lower than a multiplier at a $500 million company at 8% profit, because people are attracted to bigger companies that are profitable. So we've done some of that with a few of the acquisitions and then that's helped us get north of, I don't count, when I say single, mid-single digit growth, I don't count that free bolt on growth. If you count the free bolt on growth, it's double digit, but to me that feels like cheating. Uh, when you're like, well, we grew 10%, but we bought, we bought, uh, some of that last year. Like that, that feels like cheating, but honestly, in the PE world,

• 1:33:24Speaker 02

  they don't like, they value that from all the conversations I've had, it's valued about 80% as strongly as organic natural growth. Like they actually see a lot of value in you acquiring and bolting it. Cause that's what PE firms do. They, they try to buy a plethora of companies, combine them in some cases, or, or encourage companies that they buy to buy other companies to create value. So, uh, it's definitely a strategy of ours to keep doing that.

• 1:33:46Jack Selby?

  What does your day to day look like? Like how much are you working and what are you working on?

• 1:33:50Speaker 02

  I put about 10 to 15 hours a week into my YouTube channel. And a lot of that's travel and other stuff. I, my day is very much spent like meeting with people. I do get in the trenches on supply chain. I enjoy talking to a lot of our suppliers, especially our big ones and negotiating with them and making sure that we have COGS reduction, but also grow them as a result, where it's a, a good symbiotic relationship. Um, I manage, I kind of manage those projects throughout the day where I check in on stuff. But it's, it's a lot of like email project management. Like my, my email inbox is, is my day to day. And the great thing about that is I can be flexible and kind of cut it up throughout the day to get it done. But it's, it's really like

• 1:34:31Speaker 02

  just getting tasks, tasks done on email, meeting with people in person and video meetings.

• 1:34:37Jack Selby?

  So you work a lot?

• 1:34:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. I probably still put 55 hours in a week, which it is not a lot. For me, that's not a lot, but that, for the average person, I think that's a lot. But for me, that it feels balanced because I can integrate a lot of family time into that and time with my wife.

• 1:34:49Jack Selby?

  Do you think that you need to be putting in 55 plus hours and, and go through very aggressive?

• 1:34:57Jack Selby?

  Work phases where you're putting in like, you know, 70, 80 hours a week in order to be this successful.

• 1:35:03Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Yeah. And I, and I actually do like, I say that, but actually right now I'm probably in that 70 hour phase because I'm, I'm meeting with a lot of new suppliers and that's a lot of work to meet with them, to follow up with them, to make sure we're doing the tactics that we said would grow them, um, to implement price changes like my team does in the background, but I'm like quarterbacking a lot of this. They like, it really helps when the owner of a 500% company is on the phone with these suppliers. Like it, it carries a lot of weight in, in their perception and, and what can get done to grow them. So when I do that, those are the 70 plus hour weeks, but they, they grow sales and they significantly reduce our cost of goods sold. So like absolutely, but there are other times where, um, you're solving like production problems or other issues like

• 1:35:47Speaker 02

  our warehouse almost fell apart in 2020. I think I was the only one that could rescue it. I hate to say it, but I had to go out there. I was working a hundred hour weeks. I worked Mother's Day, uh, all Mother's Day. I'm like, I'm sorry, Caroline. And she understood it because she is the greatest human alive, but I had to work that entire day. And like, if I hadn't done that, I don't think we exist right now. So there are times where you have to do it just because you're at a critical crossroads, uh, make or break. And then there are times where you see opportunity and you can sit back and kind of not work that much and not utilize all the opportunity, or you can be like, if I work 80 hours, I'm going to get significant growth out of this. And anytime there's that opportunity, I will take it.

• 1:36:24Jack Selby?

  How much have you explored selling the company recently?

• 1:36:26Speaker 02

  I would say like, we, we know what value we want and we don't think we're there, but we think we're close. And I feel like I, I legit have been saying that for two years because we, we're still getting that single digit growth. All I need to do, like, we have a great foundation. All I need to do is, I think that once we implement some of these huge projects that we've worked, we have a team of 30 different web developers, AI people, like, we're, we're unlike, I think, most wheel companies, like most wheel guys don't have 40 team, 40 people in market. Like, we are for all intents and purposes, a tech company and a marketing company that happened to sell automotive parts. And these guys have been hard at work on a lot of these big projects. And I think as these launch, we're going to get really close in the next one to two years.

• 1:37:04Jack Selby?

  So, but you can't say what these, what these projects are.

• 1:37:07Speaker 02

  I really can't, but the UIX is, was a huge, we hadn't updated our UIX in like eight years, which is insane. And it's just such a cleaner flow that like offers guaranteed fit man. It just, it's really a seamless flow to put, for you to put wheels and tires on your vehicle. You feel very confident about what you bought. You get a huge, easy to read assortment. We have AI filtering, which is really neat. I got inspired by cars.com where you can just type in 2005 Hummer H2, less than 30,000 miles, black. Just type all that in free form and then it just filters you right to that. And I'm like, this is,

• 1:37:35Jack Selby?

  I love that.

• 1:37:36Speaker 02

  This is crazy. It's so much, otherwise you do dropdowns, you'd have to do filtering beyond it. Like it'd be, it'd be two minutes to get to those results before, and now it's instant. So we implemented a lot of that, that filtering and that tactics in our wheel store. And it's just some great tools like that, that increase usability. And some of the stuff we have are going to vastly, one of the things I have, I think is could be the next billion dollar idea. And I, I can't talk about it now, but we're just, I'm really excited because during those shrinking years, it was about stability, fixing the foundation, turn off all growth projects. The two years after that, call it 24, 25, it was more like implement some growth projects, but nothing too crazy. Late 25, 26 has been about, okay, cool. 80% growth, 20% stability. Like we're stable, we're good. So this is the exciting time when everybody is working on

• 1:38:21Speaker 02

  growth projects and we've only, that's 12 to 18 months of that, where prior to that, it was all stability and conservatism, just to make sure that we were going to be good. So this is, this is the exciting time when we know that the fruits of our labor will, will be utilized soon.

• 1:38:35Jack Selby?

  And what would you do after you sell it?

• 1:38:37Speaker 02

  I think that I'll be locked up in an employment agreement. Like I'll always, I'll always meet up with investment makers and they've, I get invited to conventions all the time and I'll go to some of them. And I feel like the, the PE guys that talk to me make it very clear. I'll need to stick around with the organization for two to four years and I'm fine with that. Like I, I love doing what I'm doing. There's, there's genuinely not a day that I wake up where I dread it. Cause like, I think what we do is so fun. Um, it's, it's enthusiast automotive parts. Like it's wheels. People love wheels, exhaust systems. Like it's not, I'm not selling like screws, um, or like gaskets. Like it's fun stuff. I think no matter what, I'm still with the company, call it four to six years, totally fine with that. But I think I go to a beach house in Florida. I think I

• 1:39:17Speaker 02

  permanently moved to Florida and just do more things that I'm excited about. Like the last time I stepped away from the company a little bit, I got my pilot's license. I started my YouTube channel. Maybe it's focusing more on the YouTube channel. Like I know that there's a one-to-one correlation with YouTube sub-growth and consistent videos. Like maybe, maybe it's doing that. It's probably is doing that, uh, focusing more on YouTube, which sounds crazy because that's not going to drive much revenue, but yeah, just living life easier.

• 1:39:47Jack Selby?

  How much do you think your YouTube channel has affected your tire business?

• 1:39:51Speaker 02

  I think it's been a really positive thing. Like there's always risk where people see you're exposed, like your wealth is exposed and, and you might get a, an adverse reaction. But I think people see the mission of the channel. They know that like, I'm a good guy. I'm, I genuinely like, I don't want to like toot my own horn, but like, I, I think I present as a humble guy and I really try to be nice and kind to everybody. And, and I think people see it like, what you see on YouTube is, is who I am. Like I'm a goofy, quirky guy that likes to fart and I just like to communicate and level with people and share my stuff. Like that's just the way that I am. And I think people see the true me and that helps. It's also connected us with a bunch of influencers that we advertise on that we didn't, we could not even touch before. The Whistling Diesels of the world, the Cletus McFarlands, we already had a relationship with the C-Boys, but it strengthens

• 1:40:33Speaker 02

  that. Like there's a lot of the Amelia Hartford, like there's a lot of people that are willing to work with us because of, of this connection. And it's opened up a lot of doors for us. And then I can advertise whenever we don't have an ad partner on a video, like I'm going to, I try to integrate, hey, guys, buy from fitmanindustries.com. If you need some wheels and tires, that's where I got my wheels. I'll try to plug that whenever I can.

• 1:40:52Jack Selby?

  What are you still frugal about?

• 1:40:54Speaker 02

  Like I'm an experienced guy. So if it's, this is, it's kind of anything that's not travel, experience or car. Like I'm wearing your pants.

• 1:41:06Speaker 02

  I showed up here in shorts and it was crotch shut, crotch shut city. So like my shoes are just regular Nikes. My shirt is an Abercrombie shirt that was $40. Like my watch is a $60 watch. Like really it's, it's my clothing and the way that I present myself, I'm very frugal about. Like I don't, I don't need to look like, I, I hate people that just flex the way that they look, even though I'm driving in cars, it feels like contradictory, but I, I just want to walk around and look like I'm a normal guy, but also go enjoy time in hypercars. So it's probably my clothing and how I present myself.

• 1:41:40Jack Selby?

  At what point do you think you felt financially secure?

• 1:41:44Speaker 02

  I mean, when you grow up with nothing, like my first month of doing this, I made, I think $6,000 my first month. And that's what I'd made the, probably the prior year. Uh, so like it just felt, I felt really good about what, even though there were many points along the way where it's like, if I took this one path, we ceased to exist. And I, and I always took the right path, but like, I felt really good right away. However, when we started getting business valuations during the COVID timeframe, when all, everyone was 20X and one of the companies valued us at a billion dollars at that time, I feel pretty financially secure right now. Uh, when they're throwing out billion, and one of them even offered us like a 20% stake. So they offered us a $200 million,

• 1:42:26Speaker 02

  they get a 20% stake. However, the clawback, like they expected 35 to 50% growth. And we're like, in our minds, we're like, well, we're going to do that. Like we can do that, but they would have owned a hundred percent of my company at that $200 million because they would have clawed back every bit of it. Uh, we wouldn't have hit their growth targets over the next five years. So I'm glad we didn't do it. Yeah. Cause we would have short sold ourselves.

• 1:42:45Jack Selby?

  What car YouTuber is the worst with money?

• 1:42:50Speaker 02

  Steve Hamilton. Honestly, I don't think anybody's,

• 1:42:53Jack Selby?

  You can't name yourself.

• 1:42:53Speaker 02

  Okay. Uh, but it really is me. Um,

• 1:42:57Jack Selby?

  Why would you say you're bad with money? I think, I think you have a great collection that's gone up in value quite a bit. Like I would say you're actually pretty smart.

• 1:43:04Speaker 02

  I'm modifying these. We're putting way too many miles on them. We're like, we're doing stupid stuff. Like the channel hurts the values of the cars. If it's a Steve Hamilton car like that, that inherently drops it 5% at least.

• 1:43:16Jack Selby?

  But I think you're good with money. Like I think of all of the car YouTubers, who am I? Not necessarily who will have the most, because obviously you will have the most because of your business and all of that. But like, who's going to have a higher growth rate? I think you're going to probably have the highest like net worth growth rate.

• 1:43:28Speaker 02

  Maybe. I, I think that they're all, they all have to be. Most of them, this is their primary business, right? Like the Matt Armstrongs of the world. Houston does have a, like this, his channel is very secondary to what he does, but I think he's really good about his cars. He buys them cheap. He tries to buy stuff off. I'm like, no, bro. I'm not going to, I'm not going to buy that car from you for that much money. That's insane. I'm not going to sell this car to you for that little money. But he like finds the deals. Like Stradman does his best. I don't know that anyone's bad. I'm trying to think like Schme is really focused on his stuff. I mean, Stradman always talks about the Agira, his Koenigsegg, that was on the podcast that we did with him. That was one of it. So I love James and Stradman, but I know he's made some bad financial investments, much like we have. And so he's the one that comes to mind because most

• 1:44:09Speaker 02

  recently he's the one that, that stuck out the most in that Agira example. He couldn't sell it. He lost a lot of money. He thought it would be a good thing for his channel, but he gets as much views out of that Lamborghini. And that, that put him in a lot of, I think it was a $30,000 a month payment on that thing. And so maybe James.

• 1:44:26Jack Selby?

  Who's the best?

• 1:44:27Speaker 02

  I mean, probably, probably Houston Costa.

• 1:44:29Jack Selby?

  What makes him so good with money?

• 1:44:31Speaker 02

  Cause he's cheap. If we're talking about just on cars, right?

• 1:44:34Jack Selby?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. He's like,

• 1:44:36Jack Selby?

  No, no, I, I don't think we're talking just on cars. I think we're talking,

• 1:44:38Speaker 02

  I thought we were talking about like car, who is best investing in cars.

• 1:44:41Jack Selby?

  Who is, who is the most financial literacy in like, Yeah, but they're all to do with cars at the end of the day.

• 1:44:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. If we're talking about cars, yeah. But if we're talking about financial literacy, It'd have to be like a, if I can't include myself, it'd have to be like a super car Ron who's, he's got a decent sized channel, but he's not as known as Stram. Like, cause it'd have to be a business guy first, right? I know Shmee does his own thing with real estate, but he's very, I feel like he's very private about what he does beyond the scenes. But I know that his channel, like I know what YouTube pays and I know you can't afford his collection value with YouTube revenue alone. So like, he must be, it's really who has the best, like Manny Koishman. It's, it's hard, it's really who is, who is channel is secondary.

• 1:45:22Graham Stephan?

  Like I literally did a Google search, not that I believe this Google search at all. And I was just like, oh, how much money do you think custom offsets makes?

• 1:45:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:45:29Graham Stephan?

  And it was like, ah, probably like $15 million. And I was like,

• 1:45:32Speaker 02

  Top line?

• 1:45:33Graham Stephan?

  Uh, it just said 15 million.

• 1:45:34Speaker 02

  Oh, weird.

• 1:45:35Graham Stephan?

  And then I said, like, what do you think of the chances that this business makes $350 million in revenue? It said zero to 1%.

• 1:45:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:45:42Graham Stephan?

  Is what it said.

• 1:45:42Speaker 02

  Custom offsets is, is about, that's one of the many brands. And I think that one drives about $200 million of top line. So again, all of the channels combined do the north of 400. But custom offices is our biggest driver of traffic. But yeah, it sounds like even if you'd asked it 200 million, I probably would have told you one to 2%. It would have been wrong.

• 1:46:01Graham Stephan?

  But I don't know why that, like, why that shows up so incorrectly.

• 1:46:04Speaker 02

  Well, the more I talk, like, I'm talking about it now. So AI, I bet you if you check, could they, they read everything. They, they analyze every video. The more input that you give to the AI machine, the better that it does. And they're probably going to scrape this video and in two months, you'll probably look it up and it'll say,

• 1:46:18Graham Stephan?

  But even so, we spoke about this in the last podcast that we did. Yeah. Well, I mean, we threw around some numbers and stuff and, and for me, it was just absurd that it was, it was that incorrect. And then I, I just did a simple Google search. It's like a 300,000 square foot warehouse. I'm like, there's just no way that a business makes like five, $10 million.

• 1:46:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:46:35Graham Stephan?

  Has a 300,000 square.

• 1:46:36Speaker 02

  No chance. Yeah. They would be absorbed. All of that would be absorbed in just building costs, right?

• 1:46:40Graham Stephan?

  So. Until just recently, it was pulling from Reddit. Chat GPT actually just stopped doing that, which is crazy.

• 1:46:46Speaker 02

  Oh, did they? That was their like primary source?

• 1:46:48Graham Stephan?

  They were pulling a lot from Reddit.

• 1:46:50Speaker 02

  I, I read about that. I remember them touting that they're going to be doing that. And even Google, I think, does that as well, especially for reviews and other stuff.

• 1:46:58Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:59Speaker 02

  AI is getting stupid smart though.

• 1:47:01Graham Stephan?

  Is there anything that you wanted to discuss?

• 1:47:03Speaker 02

  I think for YouTube, we're at a crossroads right now. Like we are, I think it's worth talking about, like, YouTube changes every three to, three to six months and we have to constantly have come to God meetings and we do that. And we're always able to change the, the style of our content. If you use a very business mindset, you can do really well on YouTube. There's a lot of people that's channel kind of fizzles out and we've always rode those storms and done really well. And it feels like we're largely at a crossroads right now where we pivoted. Took huge inspiration from Matt Armstrong. He is the greatest storyteller on YouTube, probably the greatest automotive influencer right now. And so we started telling stories on our YouTube videos and it's done really, really well for us, but we feel like we've hit that

• 1:47:44Speaker 02

  ceiling of subscriber penetration where, where we need to either shift the content that we're doing to be more like, how do you, like Matt Armstrong's are a multi-part series. They, they bring people in, people, people hit the subscribe button because the journey is unfinished. We are giving people something that took a year to do, to build, spec, visit factory, do a car, all in one video. So we're not really giving them a reason to hit that subscribe button because we're giving them too much.

• 1:48:09Graham Stephan?

  Why does the subscriber count matter?

• 1:48:10Speaker 02

  This is just my own, my own personal thing is like, this is, my YouTube channel is secondary to me. It's, it's a hobby, but I have to win at it on both facets. I have to get good views and I have to have high sub count or I'll stop. And I've always said that to them, like I will, and, and I'm at a point where now where we, we've always turned around views. If views get in the, in the trenches, which they'll do for two months, we'll sit down, we'll revamp and we always get the, we'll have banger videos come out.

• 1:48:36Graham Stephan?

  If you want to grow your subscribers, the best thing that you have to do is unfortunately like play the game, but playing the game is sometimes not very fun at all. Like that means you have to make YouTube shorts that like, that like, and if you want to do more, then you subscribe and like, and you have to like,

• 1:48:48Speaker 00

  We're so close to 2 million subscribers.

• 1:48:50Graham Stephan?

  The entire purpose of the short is to get subscribers. Like people do that and they can get over a million subscribers from one effective short. But then again, that's just like, not very fun.

• 1:48:59Speaker 02

  But they've throttled even that. I think that shorts growth was tremendous for two years. And we still have high performing shorts and I don't think that they're the sub machine that they used to be. So like, that was a pivot a year ago. It's, or two years ago, it was, okay, YouTube, YouTube is really pushing shorts. They're really giving subs from that. So let's put a lot of focus on high quality, consistent that. But I, I think that they've really dethrottled that. And so now it's, now I think I know what I need to do, but the reason why I'm at a crossroads and, and Matt Armstrong stayed with us at Monterey for three days. And, and he is a great inspiration and it's like, I need to be, I've always been told I need to be consistent, but consistency, I didn't realize how important it was for sub count.

• 1:49:40Speaker 02

  I, I started looking up on AI, talking to him. It's like, the attention span is barely more than a week. Some people have beat this, like the Whistling Diesels of the world still get five to 10 million views a video. And sometimes you won't drop one for a, for a month, right? But there's still significant importance in being consistent weekly. The C-Boys are pinnacle example of it. Matt Armstrong pinnacle example where Cletus McFarland, great example where like they have this cult following and it's because they're so consistent and they stay true to their viewers. So I have to be more involved in the channel. I have to start posting every two, we do every three weeks, every two weeks and then every week. So I'm actually at a crossroads where it's, am I going to stop my channel? Are we going to go out where I feel like we're kind of at a peak on top? We've done really well over the course of four and a half years to get to 2.2 million subs, right?

• 1:50:22Speaker 02

  Like, I think that's great in the YouTube world, especially in something that's overcrowded with automotive influencers. So it, we're having a come to God meeting tomorrow. It's, it's how do we get to this? How do we get to this increased sub count?

• 1:50:34Graham Stephan?

  I'll tell you, sub count does not matter at all. I think you're, I think you're focused on the wrong metric. It's like all these other things matter and you're focused on the one thing that does not matter. It's not going to move the needle. That's, you're, you're putting all your attention on the wrong place.

• 1:50:48Speaker 02

  I agree. Viewership is more important, right?

• 1:50:49Graham Stephan?

  But also YouTube is now starting to test in certain phones, removing the sub count entirely. Where you just see the video, a thumbnail title. It doesn't matter how many subs you have. They're moving away from that. They're really just pushing the best content possible.

• 1:51:05Speaker 02

  Which, which makes sense. And I think we're delivering much better content.

• 1:51:08Graham Stephan?

  So the only way to do it, in my opinion, if you want to grow the channel, is making broader topics that appeal to more people. Doing more shorts and more collaborations.

• 1:51:18Speaker 02

  Clabs, I, I agree with, I agree with all of that. I think we continue nailing down storytelling. Clabs are huge. We went on Cletus's channel and got 30,000 subs over the course of a week. It was insane.

• 1:51:28Graham Stephan?

  So I think that also the, the one moment that really sticks out to me was you with David Dobrik.

• 1:51:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:51:33Graham Stephan?

  Scraping your car. I mean, that was probably the best thing to happen to the channel.

• 1:51:38Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:51:38Graham Stephan?

  Cause I remember everyone was sharing that and talking about it. So unfortunately, the more you like do that sort of stuff, like shocking content. But then it's a game of like, you just keep spiraling further and further down.

• 1:51:50Speaker 02

  And people force it. Like the, the more that I shoot though, the more that that stuff's going to pop up. The more that I'm out creating content, the more controversy, other stuff like that.

• 1:51:58Graham Stephan?

  I got, I got a great, this is a banger video for you. You put people behind the wheel of these car for the first time, but you screen them ahead of time to make sure they're going to have a good reaction. Some people are just terrible on camera, but like, imagine you get a 19 year old girl behind this car who's never driven stick before.

• 1:52:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:52:18Graham Stephan?

  And it's just, you get a reaction driving a $2 million car.

• 1:52:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:52:21Graham Stephan?

  Like stuff like that is so appealing to every, because everyone would be curious, like what's the reaction? Putting a grandma, like I'm talking, she's 80 years old, 80 years old in a Hennessy.

• 1:52:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, it sounds dangerous.

• 1:52:33Graham Stephan?

  And she sits in there and you turn it on and she, her eyes light up. She's like, this is crazy. Like that sort of stuff, like wholesome stuff that just people would genuinely want to tune in and as a short, that could easily get five to 10 million views. Easy.

• 1:52:47Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, for sure. A short, yeah, that, that's a shorts machine.

• 1:52:50Graham Stephan?

  But it's also long form of like, we're going to get a few people in these cars in the middle of like everything else that you're doing.

• 1:52:56Speaker 02

  Well, when Matt, Matt had told me like, it's less important about like, when he stopped focusing on cars that he thought would do good and just started focusing on cars that he wanted to get. It made me think like, and I don't know if this is the right idea, but like, I'm wondering if we, if we go find a family in need or someone that is like,

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• 1:54:11Speaker 02

  Stage four cancer and there's always a car that they wanted to have. It's a 69 Mustang Mach 1. It's something. And then we tell the story of us finding the people, finding the car, fixing up whatever needs to be done. And then the second portion of the video is us sharing it with them, letting them experience that.

• 1:54:26Graham Stephan?

  Unfortunately, that's not going to do well for the algorithm. Unless that's something that you genuinely just want to do anyway, and it's spreading the message. But I would not ever look at that as like, that's good for the channel. Because I don't think...

• 1:54:37Speaker 02

  People want to see hyper and supercars.

• 1:54:38Graham Stephan?

  What would do better is if you go on Facebook Marketplace and you say, we're going to find the cheapest car and see what happens.

• 1:54:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:54:45Graham Stephan?

  Like the cheapest S-Class Mercedes is down the street. It's $6,000. We have no idea what's, what's wrong. Let's just show up and see. And you bring cash and you try to like haggle the deal. And then you see how far it goes until it breaks. Like that would do well for views.

• 1:55:01Jack Selby?

  Or putting like, putting like a horrible engine in a hypercar. Or like vice versa, like getting like the cheapest car, like a $1,500 car and putting in like the craziest.

• 1:55:10Speaker 02

  We were going to work with Matt on swapping out the drivetrain on the Regera. He was warm to it and putting like an LS1 in my Koenigsegg, which would have made it a very drivable car. But I'm like, that would probably have been really good for him, really good for us. Cause he's always said the Koenigsegg is the end all be all. Like he's like, I want to get a Koenigsegg, but you can't find them wrecked. For whatever reason, you just can't get your... So that would have been a good one.

• 1:55:32Graham Stephan?

  Oh, another one. These do well is let's just say you have a real Lamborghini Diablo.

• 1:55:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:55:37Graham Stephan?

  You get a replica and you see just how good of a replica that one is compared to the real thing. And you could frame it like, dude, these cars have been going up in value too much. And now I don't want to put miles. So we're going to find a replica version of it and just piece that thing together. People are so fascinated by replicas.

• 1:55:52Jack Selby?

  That I've seen do well as well as like you, people calling Uber and you pick them up as an actual Uber driver in hypercars.

• 1:56:00Speaker 02

  We, we looked at that too.

• 1:56:01Graham Stephan?

  It's been overdone though.

• 1:56:03Jack Selby?

  I don't think it, I don't know.

• 1:56:04Graham Stephan?

  Yes, yeah. Vehicle virgins just did one with the Pagani and you did one with a Howie Mandel.

• 1:56:09Speaker 02

  Everything has to be extreme now on YouTube. That's the thing. Like everybody has done everything to the max, to the extreme. So it's so hard to do anything at this point. I'm just trying to find something that is relatable, like the, me going and buying a 69 Mustang Mach 1 is not relatable to our viewers because they want to see hyper and supercars, right? And I, and I agree with that. I'm trying to think like, what is a series that I can do weekly where everything we do now is like sub-channel stuff? Like taking a car delivery is, our, our content's very inconsistent. Like we're doing drag races and then we're taking car delivery. Like a lot of people don't find success in being very inconsistent in the type of content they're putting out. But we've been lucky to find success.

• 1:56:43Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, but yours is personality-based, I feel. Like I watch your channel more so for you than like the car.

• 1:56:49Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:56:49Graham Stephan?

  So I think you make it focused on you. Another concept would be putting a really loud exhaust and seeing how long it takes you until you get pulled over. And just you have a timer at the bottom. It's like, all right, we're 20 minutes out, 22 minutes it took us. Let's see if we could beat that record the next video.

• 1:57:04Speaker 02

  People would love that.

• 1:57:04Graham Stephan?

  Like stupid stuff.

• 1:57:06Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:57:07Graham Stephan?

  Like, oh, and by the way, for YouTube, unfortunately, the more mind-numbing it is, the less people have to think, the better it's going to do.

• 1:57:13Speaker 02

  Agreed. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. It's good, good advice. You guys should drop a comment below if, if there's any series or recurring thing you guys would love to see on the channel. Just let me know. I'll, I'll read each and every one of these comments.

• 1:57:24Graham Stephan?

  It could be specking Graham and Jack's new Rolls Royce Phantom.

• 1:57:27Speaker 02

  Let's go.

• 1:57:29Graham Stephan?

  Think of all the views you would get.

• 1:57:31Speaker 02

  I already did that and we did it on a man'sery. It did really well, actually.

• 1:57:34Graham Stephan?

  I saw one video of an old couple recently specking out this Rolls Royce or it was a Bentley or it was something. And they got it delivered and it was, it was because it was so out of touch though. But it got millions of views when the wife's like, oh, I don't know. I kind of like the purple over the, the blue and we want this headliner. She's talking about the, the wood inserts on the thing.

• 1:57:54Speaker 02

  It's like out of touch.

• 1:57:55Graham Stephan?

  Oh honey, it's only $70,000. That's really not that bad. And he's like, no, it's not that bad.

• 1:58:00Speaker 02

  Unrelatable and out of touch. Yeah.

• 1:58:02Graham Stephan?

  But it was great, but then they got it delivered and she talks about how much she loves her like Rolls Royce or something like that.

• 1:58:08Speaker 02

  She, she closed a good story arc.

• 1:58:09Graham Stephan?

  She did. So stuff like that.

• 1:58:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. We're, we just feel like we're at a crossroads and stuff. We're going to figure it out.

• 1:58:15Jack Selby?

  I'm sure that you will. The only thing that I would say is like, I would hesitate to see what someone else is doing and how they're finding success with like a specific thing. And like trying to do that, because I think that you're also in a very unique position of having access to the capital that you have access to, like the collection that you have. Like I do think it'd be great if you could come up with your own unique thing.

• 1:58:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I'm like, I could go buy a wrecked Bugatti and build it, but then, then everyone's going to say you're trying to be man arm showing. And I'm not going, I don't have the time to go fix that. So like, it's, it's not as even as genuine. Like he's good at what he does. He's a talented guy. He's relatable. And so, yeah, you're right. I agree a hundred percent on that. It has to be something new, just like a business idea. Like if it is something that someone's doing, do it way better. Otherwise find something new and unique that will engage viewers. So that's, that's the decision right there.

• 1:58:58Jack Selby?

  Could do something like a, like a pimp my ride for like a high schooler or something like that. Like they bring in their car, you know that they're like a car fanatic or like you do it for a subscriber and you like make it a really cool way.

• 1:59:07Graham Stephan?

  I like the pimp my ride concept.

• 1:59:08Speaker 02

  We would do, even the Mustang Mach idea I gave was for a subscriber. I just, I don't know if, if it doesn't test well with your initial viewers, then it doesn't, it typically won't perform well at all, right? Like your initial viewers are the loyal super hypercar. So I'm like pigeonholed in this. It needs to be super hypercar related, or it won't do well with my first subset of viewers. And then YouTube is very unlikely to expand it from there.

• 1:59:30Jack Selby?

  That's not necessarily true.

• 1:59:31Speaker 02

  You don't think so?

• 1:59:31Jack Selby?

  No, the algorithm will test it originally with your viewers, but a good video generally will do well.

• 1:59:37Speaker 02

  That's fair.

• 1:59:38Jack Selby?

  So, but yeah, it may just not perform with the, the type of people that you may want it to perform with.

• 1:59:42Speaker 02

  Sure. Which I'm okay with.

• 1:59:43Graham Stephan?

  So thank you so much for coming on the podcast. And for all the channel members out there, Steve is going to be giving us a full tour of his entire collection here, showing you the ins and outs. So for all of the channel members out there, that is now live. It's fun. You know what? In fact, we're going to put a little teaser right here.

• 2:00:02Speaker 02

  He's turned more heads than anything else in the collection. There's 10 in the world, maybe four of them in the USA. We also tuned this, it pops whenever you shift and go into the second gear. It's just pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, and shoots fire. I haven't even made my delivery public yet, so you guys are actually the first to really see that. And so these are the first cars to ever break the 200 mile an hour lap barrier at NASCAR. One of the neatest cars in the collection, the whole top pops up like a Jetson spaceship.

• 2:00:29Graham Stephan?

  For anyone who's not subscribed to you, by the way, we'll link to all of your info down below in the description. Go and, we got to get your subscriber count up. It doesn't matter, but for everyone watching, seriously, go and subscribe. It's really cool content. And you were so generous, by the way, with us last night with the index. Link down below in the description. But for allowing us to go and like drive these cars and experience it for a lot of these people, they've never driven a car like this, even close. Maybe one, Andy, Andy has, but besides Andy, it's such a cool experience. And for me too, to be able to like, even be in the passenger seat or to drive the GT3 RS was insane. So I really appreciate that.

• 2:01:07Speaker 02

  Appreciate you guys for coming out.

• 2:01:08Graham Stephan?

  Cool. Thanks again. Until next time.

• 2:01:10Speaker 01

  I think GTA is a magical moment for our culture.

• 2:01:15Graham Stephan?

  So what's your biggest trade coming up?

• 2:01:17Speaker 01

  Like, it's going to do phenomenal.

• 2:01:21Graham Stephan?

  What about?

• 2:01:22Speaker 01

  I'm not excited about, I don't own any right now, but I still think the main trade is on take two.

• 2:01:29Graham Stephan?

  What are your thoughts?

• 2:01:31Speaker 01

  I love to see falling here. I don't know when I'm going to make my big move to heavily lever back into it, but it's probably going to happen at some point in the next few months.

• 2:01:47Speaker 05

  Elon Musk, the world's richest person, has also become the world's first trillionaire. The system is rigged.

• 2:01:54Graham Stephan?

  At what point though, does the wealth gap get so big that all of a sudden something has to break?

• 2:01:59Speaker 05

  And every civilization that has rose has fallen because of a growing wealth gap.

• 2:02:05Speaker 06

  Over 40% of us are unfamiliar with Roth IRAs, money market accounts and high-yield savings.

• 2:02:11Speaker 05

  It is profitable to keep you financially stupid. Most Americans today would rather look rich than be rich.

• 2:02:17Graham Stephan?

  Do you have an investing belief that people would disagree with?

• 2:02:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, I have. Warren Buffett would hate that.

• 2:02:22Graham Stephan?

  So what do you think is the biggest risk for the economy that no one is going to see coming?

• 2:02:27Speaker 05

  Right now we have about $40 trillion of national debt. We are spending about $2 trillion a year that we don't have right now.

• 2:02:34Graham Stephan?

  Some people say that AI is going to boost productivity to the point where all of a sudden the national debt is not going to matter as much as it does today.

• 2:02:43Speaker 05

  I can't predict the future. All I can do is look at history. And while history doesn't exactly repeat itself, it does rhyme.

• 2:03:05Jack Selby?

  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 House Majority PAC.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.