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Doug DeMuro
I often think about this. If I was just somebody who didn't care about cars, what a great burden that would be lifted off of me. This, this, this, this, this. I drive around and I'm like, I see Priuses and I'm like, I wish I could just have that. Handling is just next level precise.
Graham Stephan
Your website is the website. I check every single day.
Doug DeMuro
It's always cool stuff. This F430 Spider is currently for sale and it's being auctioned live on cars and bids.
Jack
Do you have any predictions then for the future of the car market?
Doug DeMuro
A lot of car are angry now, like I can't make money on my cars. It's like, well that's the normal state of the market for 60 years.
Graham Stephan
So for people who want to make money on cars, what are you seeing these days for investment grade vehicles?
Doug DeMuro
End of 21 was the absolute peak of the craziness. They are very rich and you are very poor. I think the only way right now to truly make money on a lot of these cars is.
Jack
Doug demuro. Thank you so much for coming on the Iced Coffee Hour podcast.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah.
Jack
This is incredible. You said this was all designed and owned by an architect before you, this.
Doug DeMuro
Space, there was an architect who built it out for his own personal car collection. And then he like outgrew it. Sort of like it needed a different space that had windows, understandably. And, and so then he moved into that space and he leases this space to us and we, it's, it's been our headquarters. It's been good.
Graham Stephan
It's gorgeous. I mean I want something like this in Vegas.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah, it's cool. I mean there's drawbacks.
Graham Stephan
Okay.
Doug DeMuro
So like when I'm shooting, like when you're shooting stuff, there's no rooms, right? So like if someone has a meeting, they, the cars are being used every day. Every single day the cars are used as like off, like, like meeting rooms because that's the only place that you can have a zoom call and not interrupt filming that's going on. And so that's kind of an issue. And then also the fact that you can't see the sun during the day is a problem.
Graham Stephan
It's good. It's like a casino. It like keeps you going throughout the day.
Doug DeMuro
The guy rented it from, had his, had a lift over here and he had his mechan work on his cars and he was like, we loved it cuz we didn't put up, we didn't put up the clock and he couldn't see the time. He would just keep Working, working, working away. Realize it's not a clock yet, so I would prefer, though, just get some light, you know, light's nice.
Graham Stephan
You could put in the fake windows. Have you seen those Are the LCD.
Doug DeMuro
Screens or whatever fake windows we'll put.
Graham Stephan
Okay, cool.
Doug DeMuro
The gram.
Graham Stephan
A lot has changed since our last podcast a few years ago, with Cars and Bids doing incredibly well. That's where we're here now.
Doug DeMuro
Did I had. I launched Cars and Bids when we barely. Barely.
Graham Stephan
It had. It had just started probably fall of 20 we.
Doug DeMuro
Last time. Or summer.
Graham Stephan
Yeah. And then in the process, too, you've. You've accumulated some really incredible cars. Like Countach behind you, the Carrera gt that's in service.
Doug DeMuro
I know, I'm sorry, it's not here. They promised to be back two weeks ago.
Jack
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
And a huge infusion of capital into Cars and Bids.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
By an investor. That's incredible.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
Congratulations.
Doug DeMuro
Thank you. It's gone great. Cars and Bids is killing it. We are running or auctioning like between 30 and 40 cars every single day. I mean, in the winter it starts to slow down a little bit, but. And we're into that now. December.
Graham Stephan
It's funny, your website is the website. I check every single day. Every day is.
Doug DeMuro
There's always cool stuff.
Jack
Graham sends me a listing way too, way too often.
Graham Stephan
Sometimes I'm seeing prices that I'm just like, this makes sense to buy if I needed a car.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah, stuff's getting cheap again. There was a period, especially during when we launched, because we launched in 20, when the car market was in this sort of turmoil where stuff got expensive, and that was held to be held true in 21 and 22. And stuff's gotten down now to a point where it's like, as an enthusiast, as. As. As the owner of a car market auction website, I'm like, darn it. But as an enthusiast, I'm like, yeah, let's. Let's get some cheap cars up in here.
Graham Stephan
So how has the market changed over the last three years for cars?
Doug DeMuro
Pretty significantly, you know, three years ago, which I guess would have been end of 21. I mean, that was the peak. End of 21 was the absolute peak of the craziness, which is when all those Covid shutdowns had really stopped production of new cars or heavily diminished production of new cars. And so used cars had gotten incredibly valuable. And at the same time, money was cheap. And so used cars were becoming more valuable. New cars were not available. People were getting incredibly low interest loans. It was un. I mean, it was it was Thunderdome. Like we couldn't put, we couldn't put reserves on cars high enough to sell. Like every, people come in, ask for crazy reserves, we'd give it a shot, it would sell every single time. It was just crazy. Things are different now. The, the supply and demand in the market has certainly caught up for most automakers. I would say some automakers are still, are still in an under supply situation that's carried over from COVID and they've never dug out of it. But a lot of the automakers have caught back up. So new cars are, are cheaper now. Capital is more expensive, right? Getting loans is harder, more expensive to finance cars. And so that has made new cars cheaper, which in turn has pushed used car prices back down. And the market is considerably different now. And we still have people clinging to values. Two years ago when they're submitting their cars and it's like, oh, there was a time, but it ain't now.
Graham Stephan
How do you ease people into that when they think their cars were 50 grand and you say well it's really worth 30?
Doug DeMuro
We try to sell them, send them as many comps as we can on our site, on other sites, bring a trailer, but also just advertisement cars, cars that are being listed and it's like, hey dude, you want 50? But this car is similar to yours and they're asking 40 like you're not going to get, you know, and sometimes people don't buy it and think that.
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Doug DeMuro
You know, put them in a low reserve to make our money and cheat them out. And honestly, those a lot of Those people go away pissed at us and then come back four months later and they are like, yeah, well, I couldn't sell it on Facebook, Marketplace. I think we can try again. And a lot of times it's like, well, yeah, but now the numbers a little lower. I mean, that's the situation. These people are often chasing the market down and a lot of those people have negative equity from that period in 2122 when they were all gung ho about buying a car. And now the market is different.
Jack
Do you have any predictions then for the future of the car market?
Doug DeMuro
I mean, I think it goes back to the way it was. You know, it's interesting. Everybody, a lot of car enthusiasts are angry now, like, I can't make money on my cars. It's like, well, that's, that's the normal state of the market for, for 60 years, right? You, you bought a car, a new car especially, you couldn't flip it and suddenly make 10 grand. Like, that was an un time. And I think that a lot of car enthusiasts are upset about that. But like, cars depreciate and my, my general prediction is that most cars will no longer be able to be flat or even an increase. They will depreciate like they used to. And we're already seeing a ton of cars now starting to come down from those. Some cars were high covet happened. They were flat for two, three years and now they're starting to drop again. And it's like, this is, this is normal. This is how a market works with goods that are newer versions of those goods are produced. That's just how it should be.
Graham Stephan
So what do people do if they have net negative equity? Because the issue that I see is that values were so inflated that this isn't just normal negative equity. This is, I got a loan at $100,000 for a car that was worth 70, and now it's worth 35.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah. And especially this is true on electric cars, right? Those cars have depreciated so quickly. And they were some of the cars that were the hottest during that period. When you think back, the Rivans, I mean, we were selling. When Rivians first showed up, we were selling Rivians for $135,000. You can now get a pickup Rivan for under 50 in the 40s, and that's a pretty substantial decline in what ultimately amounted to be three years. Right? I mean, yeah. What do you do if you have negative equity? You got your only options, are your only options, right? You keep paying the loan and Just kind of wait it out, which a lot of people don't want to do or you have to try to roll that into the next car and that's not a great situation either. Or I mean it's a, it's a tough call and a lot of people are in that boat and they just have to kind of keep going on. If, if you, if you find yourself in situations like that that you can't just get another new car, you know, it's not, doesn't always really work like that. Some automakers who are a little more creative on financing might be able to get you in there on a new.
Jack
Car, but it's generally not a good idea to follow up on those things.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah. If. What if you, if you already have negative equity and trying to. Yeah, I mean, because you're going to end up with negative equity on the new car too. You, at the end of the day, you just got to probably I what the smart financial thing to do would be to just kind of wait that out or if you can, depending on your rate, you know, pay off, pay off some portion of it or sell the car, pay off the balance and get something cheaper that's more affordable for you. Those are probably the smart things.
Graham Stephan
Now we were hearing a lot about a repo crisis of people just walking away from the car loans. Has that happened? I feel like it hasn't.
Doug DeMuro
People have, we're talking about that as being a thing and I've heard that car loan delinquencies are on the rise, but I don't know, it's certainly in our corner of the market where we're dealing mostly enthusiast cars, a lot of cash buyers. The enthusiast a lot of times stretch like crazy, but not like the kind of people who are buying Bentleys or Maseratis. Right. Like those, those people are really, they want the flashy show off car that's not like the 911 buyer, the BMW M3 buyer usually. And so we haven't seen like that level of just like I can't, I can't afford, I'm get out of it and I'll walk away. I don't, I don't hear a lot of those stories in our corner of the world. Maybe it's happening in like the big truck segment where people get into 1800 payments and they're like, damn.
Graham Stephan
But usually with the truck, they use it for work.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
So it's one of those things where it's actually making the money even if it's costing.
Doug DeMuro
Hopefully a lot of those people are Just want a cool truck, you know?
Graham Stephan
Why are EV prices crashing so much, though? Why is that market so far?
Doug DeMuro
And if you want a good used car, cheap, and you can deal with the electric thing, those things are.
Graham Stephan
I've been looking at Teslas lately, the prices that they're selling for. While you sold a Tesla Model Y that was, like, almost brand new with the expel, you know, paint protection, I think it was like, 33 grand.
Doug DeMuro
We're selling plaids in the 50s. Yes. That's a thousand horsepower.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
We're selling lucid airs for half off. A car's a year old. You know, like, it is wild. What has happened to the EV market? It's almost too good to pet. Not to. At some price, no matter what you think of EVs, politically or personally, at some price, you start to be like, that's interesting. Yeah.
Graham Stephan
The plaid at 50 seems like such a good deal for a 20, 22 plaid.
Jack
I did not know that was happening. That breaks at my heart.
Doug DeMuro
And they're not.
Graham Stephan
You know what? Jack has a history of buying.
Jack
History of buying at peaks. It's like an ongoing joke of the channel. I decided finally, after years of waiting, because I, you know, delayed gratification. No, no, no. I'll buy it when I'm more financially comfortable, when I have a cushion. I finally shelled out the money to buy a Tesla Model Y, and I spent for. I think it was completely the base. I used existing inventory, though, to even get it cheaper. And the only thing that I changed was I had white interior and I got the long range on the Tesla model.
Graham Stephan
Yeah, I didn't use my referral code.
Jack
I use my dad's. So, yeah, you want to get upset at that?
Graham Stephan
Whatever.
Jack
I paid 58 grand for it plus tax.
Doug DeMuro
When was it?
Jack
No, no, it was 58.
Graham Stephan
All.
Doug DeMuro
All in. All in.
Jack
This was September of. Not last year, but the prior year, 22. Or maybe it was September of last year. It was September of last year. Okay.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah. I mean, it's not to be clear, that's still a great car. You just keep driving it. I love it. Like, at the end of the day.
Jack
50, you know, 58, whatever I paid for it. But it's, you know, depressing knowing that I could have gotten a plaid or something like that.
Doug DeMuro
It is crazy how those cars have lost value. And to be honest, the Teslas, although they have lost significant value, there's some other ones out there that are even wilder. I mean, I look at the lucid numbers, I look at Hummer EVs, those giant.
Graham Stephan
Yeah, I remember when those were selling.
Doug DeMuro
One for 300 or close. And those are hundred thousand dollar trucks. Now if you're lucky you might be able to get it under like the 85 depending on mile and stuff like that. That's a big hit. You know the, the, the heavy hitter guys who wanted the first one paid 300. Those guys lost 200 grand in value in 24 months probably. I mean that's really.
Graham Stephan
Why are they crashing more than any other car? Why I seem like at the end.
Doug DeMuro
Of the day, the, the demand for EVs is heavily subsidized by the government incentives and the demand is just not as strong as the government wishes that it was. And the automakers are heavily subsidized to make EVs because they also get a significant incentives and they can pass those incentives on to the consumer. I mean they can apply the, the consumer incentives to the lease payments and get the leases lower and so there's real benefit for them. But at the end of the day, the secondary, there's not. The primary market is propped up artificially by these incentives. The secondary market doesn't have incentives. And so that's where you see the actual value of these cars. And it is. Yikes. But if you're interested in a used one, it's, it really legitimately does start to become kind of appealing. A Rivian at 40 some is like that's, that's kind of, I mean those are cool, those are cool trucks, the first original ones at 850 horsepower. They're off road like crazy. They're nice inside, even if you think.
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Graham Stephan
So what's going to happen with the government subsidies end on new EVs? Or do you think it's going to end? Because my thought, Tesla can't sell these cars in the 40s or 50s or even 60s anymore if there's no government incentives.
Doug DeMuro
I also, it's not to get political. It's tough for the automakers to do this slingshotting thing between Trump, Biden, Trump. They're, they're making long range product decisions, right? I mean the product decisions they're making are five, ten years out based on existing incentives. They don't know. And now if the incentives go away, I mean, they spent, you were talking about probably billions of dollars developing cars for incentives that may not exist. And that's a tough situation. I feel bad for them. Almost everybody is in this boat. I keep hearing this from every automaker contact I have. I was at Porsch the other day dropping off my courage for service. I was asking about Macan EV because there's an electric Macan now. And they were like, we got inbound that aren't sold and that's a brand new, I mean that car key, I've seen three on the road, that's a brand new Porsche that already, that this is in California where inbound ones aren't sold. Can you imagine in Texas and other places where EVs aren't as hot and then you take away incentives and it's like the whole structure, these, the automakers are just going to have to do a huge pivot and who knows, in four years things might completely change and then they have to figure out how to pivot back. And it's like this has just gotten out of control. And I was very disappointed. The Biden administration changed the incentives drastically, even from what they were before. So you had an incentive, then you had less incentives, then you had changed incentives. And it was like very difficult for the automakers to really keep up with.
Graham Stephan
What were some of those incentives. My understanding was that it was the 7500 tax credit. Then they got rid of it and then they brought it back and then something about depreciation.
Doug DeMuro
What ended up happening when Biden's administration brought back the significant incentive, they, they had all these means tests. The car had to be built in the United States, you couldn't earn more than a certain amount of money. Yes. Like you're, it was income tied and some of that stuff made sense. But the problem was you had to jump through all these hoops to get the incentive. In the past they were like, we just want to get EVs out the door. So we're just going to give everybody 75 hundred bucks. Well, when you start putting seven different things on and it's like, well, that actually now it's, now it's like a maze for the consumer to try to figure out which cars qualify. And also it just lowers the likelihood of this accomplishing the stated goal of getting EVs out the door.
Graham Stephan
Yeah. So if you had a magic wand and you could do whatever you want to when it comes to evs in terms of incentives or no incentives or really anything to, to spur up the auto market, what would you do?
Doug DeMuro
This is not a popular opinion in, in, in the world, but I would let capitalism sort it out. I hate to say it. I think ultimately, I know it's funny.
Graham Stephan
Probably the right answer.
Doug DeMuro
I, I think the problem is though that like, we do have an environmental issue that capitalism probably wouldn't sort out until like the very end when the polarized caps have melted and then we're all screwed. It's like, oh, maybe it's by an electric. Like the current situation didn't work all that well. And it's certainly not working. Doing the slingshotting between the. I would probably let capitalism sorted out more than they are now. I will say EVS are pretty cheap to produce. We had Chinese cars in the, in this, in the studio the other day and they have some pretty compelling evs. And I think the, the populace would actually be compelled into an EV if they were a little better educated about them. I think a lot of people in the middle of the country who hate evs, if they knew better, I think actually they wouldn't hate them. I think there's some real benefits. They're more reliable, they're cheaper to own. But also they're, I think they can be made cheaply in a way you're not, you're not, you're not developing an engine. Right. A gasoline combustion engine. And so these Chinese companies. We had a car in the studio the other day called Xiaomi was the company and they had. Three years ago, they were building cell phones only. And then they had a car that was tremendously competent three years later. And that wouldn't have happened 20 years ago. When you were. You had to develop an engine and get it certified by all these, these governing BO, etc. And so that maybe, maybe will help bring the prices down. And, and in that situation, maybe more people would buy them. But for now, I don't know. I. China is adopting EVs without significant credits. The market there really wants these cars and I think that would happen to our market too if they were priced right. And, and if people.
Graham Stephan
That's interesting. If there were no tariffs to bring in a Chinese car, the United States people in Mexico buy them so cheap.
Doug DeMuro
They'd be cheap.
Graham Stephan
Like 20 grand for a new car.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah, absolutely. Or 40 grand for a car that performs like a plaid. But, but you know, is a Model 3, Model 3 price rival. They sell them in Mexico, they sell them in Latin America, they sell them in Europe. Really? Chinese cars, Chinese electric cars. Yeah.
Jack
So Elon says. And obviously this may be a little bit biased coming from Elon Musk, but he says that it makes sense in the future for all cars to be electric. From an engineering perspective.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah.
Jack
Do you ever see a future without gas cars?
Doug DeMuro
Yeah, I mean it's inevitable. You think it's an fossil fuels will eventually. I mean. Yeah, and I agree with them. Generally evs have some real benefits. One big drawback though is, you know, you gotta charge them.
Jack
Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
You gotta like. Yeah, plug them in and all that.
Jack
Let's get some strong solar panels to put on the roof. I always thought that would be pretty crazy.
Graham Stephan
I think eventually it could be built into the roads where it's.
Jack
Oh, that would.
Doug DeMuro
Well, there are. Imagine there are cars that have inductive chargers. It's just.
Jack
But then you're leaving up to the government to do something like that.
Doug DeMuro
And can you imagine the infrastructure investment?
Jack
Yeah, yeah.
Doug DeMuro
And is electric. If you're going to make that level of investment, is electric really what you want to invest in? Should we be talking about hydrogen? Should be talking about. I don't know. But from an engineering standpoint, I agree. And it really is. They're more reliable. All these. There's, you know, there's a cottage industry now of people converting classic cars into evs because you, you lose the engine noise, but you gain reliability, you gain power. It's. It's generally easier to figure out. There's these, these EV battery situations.
Jack
The amount of components just in a standard EV versus like a.
Graham Stephan
You know, what I think realistically could happen is nuclear power in a car. And imagine you have like a little like a battery type thing that you put in a car, seriously. But, but it'll run forever and it'll power. Like you have a little battery that powers your whole house with like a.
Jack
Little reactor and every car.
Doug DeMuro
Definitely 50 years look back on us or 100 years. It's like barbaric. Like we, like, we see pictures of old New York City where they have horses, right? And we're like, that's insane. There was a combustion in the chamber. Like it, there was explosions and then exhaust came out. Like that's, that's so stupid.
Graham Stephan
You had to charge it and plug it in and wait overnight to drive overnight.
Doug DeMuro
That's going to be one of the things people be like, what you couldn't just do?
Graham Stephan
It just doesn't take a minute.
Doug DeMuro
But it is a weird time right now, right? We're in this weird transition. When I was a kid, it was settled law. You had an engine. Automakers made better engines than each other. Now we'll see. This episode is brought to you by Shopify.
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Jack
See what happens on a personal level at this point. How many cars do you have?
Doug DeMuro
I have six automobiles at the, at the moment.
Graham Stephan
Any electric auto?
Doug DeMuro
No. However, literally yesterday I just finished installing the second EV charger at my home. And so I'm ready. You're like, why do you need two? I need two. Okay. I have decided. I mean I see the future like I see the writing on the wall and so I think that that's coming. One of my problems is that I drive cross country every summer and then back and doing that trip in an EV adds like I've just calculated as a full day.
Graham Stephan
Yes.
Doug DeMuro
Which then a day back. And that's a lot of annoyance, to be honest. People are like, you just drive for a few hours, then plug it in. And I do 18 hour days on the road. Like I don't have a problem with that. I'll do 1,400 miles in a day. And Eevee just doesn't, you can't do it. It's just not possible. So one of my cars will probably be gas as long as I can. But I think it's, I think I'm ready to make the switch.
Jack
This little weird question, but when you're doing 1,400 miles in a day. Do you have any, like, tricks to being able to stay, like, awake and open on the road? Because I even make the drive between, like, LA and Vegas and that's like four and a half hours. Sometimes I get a little bit tired.
Doug DeMuro
I drive a specialty sucks.
Jack
It's very, very, very boring. But if you're doing that many, you know that distance in a day. Do you have any, like, tricks or something?
Doug DeMuro
I. I just listen to a lot of music and I just hang out with my dog and. No, I. I just, like, do it.
Graham Stephan
You do it solo? There's no one else in the car?
Doug DeMuro
Yeah.
Jack
That's crazy.
Doug DeMuro
Just music. Well, people. People ride and they want to go to the bathroom and it's like, we're not going to the bathroom. We got to do 1400 miles a day. We're driving. Have you ever to Dallas today?
Jack
Have you ever had to relieve yourself while driving?
Doug DeMuro
No, I can wait till the field stops.
Jack
Okay.
Doug DeMuro
Just.
Jack
Just checking.
Graham Stephan
I don't know that' no. Coffee?
Doug DeMuro
No, like, I don't drink coffee or anything like that. You just, you just get out on the road and do it and listen. It's really annoying. It's. It's becoming more annoying too, as the. As I get older. But there's no other option for me in my situation. And it's just, it's. It's what it is. It's just what you have to do.
Graham Stephan
What do you mean there's no other option?
Doug DeMuro
I live in the summer, 3,000 miles away. I bring my dog and, like, I need a car. I need the car and I need all the stuff. And so, like, it's pretty. I could. I could sign someone to take the dog and pay them. I could ship the car. I could ship the stuff. Stuff. Or you kill three birds with one stone and you just. You're driving through Oklahoma being like, yep, this is what I'm doing today. And it's great.
Graham Stephan
A trick to, like, starting early in terms of using traffic. Like, what time do you wake up?
Doug DeMuro
You gotta get started super early. And when you're going east, it sucks because you lose time every day because of the time zones. But when you're going west, oh, you get it back and it's beautiful. You know, you cross a time zone line, suddenly it's an hour. You just gain an hour. You have more driving you could do. Wow. So it's not fun. I don't, like, consider it to be especially fun. And I don't recommend it to people. I used to enjoy It a lot. And I really don't even have flat tire this summer doing it. And that sucked. But it's, it's, it's.
Graham Stephan
And what, what car do you drive?
Doug DeMuro
I have a Toyota Sequoia, which is a giant sport utility vehicle that has camouflage fenders.
Jack
So that's. That's one of the six.
Doug DeMuro
It's one of the six. Yeah.
Jack
What do the other five?
Doug DeMuro
Look, I have a Mercedes station wagon that's like my regular round town car. That's the car that's going to go electric when. When the time comes. And then I have this Lamborghini Countach. I have a career GT. I have a 4 GT. We share this with an opposite color. Yep. And I have a convertible Mercedes G wagon, which is an embarrassing automobile, but I love it. And those are my six.
Graham Stephan
Why is that an embarrassing car?
Doug DeMuro
Because the G wagon itself is kind of embarrassing. Right. You know, you see people driving around, you're like, don't you think it's a little much? It's a little much.
Jack
It's a lot, you know, to take.
Doug DeMuro
In type that there's a.
Graham Stephan
Is gravitates towards, you know, Beverly Hills.
Jack
Hollywood, which I feel like you see.
Graham Stephan
That a lot do Everywhere you do.
Doug DeMuro
But there's definitely like a. I want to project an image.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
And then the convertible one is like, I want to project an image. And also this is weird. And it's a convertible. But it's great. I can take it off road and I put the roof down. I take my kid to daycare and he loves it and it's great. It's a perfect car for me. But every time someone comes up to me on the road and tells me they'd like it, I kind of assume they're someone I wouldn't want to be friends with. It's like, if you're into this car.
Graham Stephan
But now everyone that I know, because I know two people in LA who have a convertible one, they're car enthusiasts. Like, they've owned the car for a long time. They didn't buy it because. But it's just, it's. It's a niche car that they enjoy.
Jack
To a layman, I feel like I expect, whenever I see one of those pulling up like a. Like a supermodel to walk out with like a tiny dog in her purse.
Doug DeMuro
Right.
Jack
That's what I expect.
Doug DeMuro
That is kind of the image, like a very high maintenance, aggressive kind of type person with. Yeah. Like a tiny dog and like with a lot somewhere. Just. Just take it, you know, like. And I Don't want to be thought of like that. But that's. I'm. I like the car. So, you know, it's a power. I push a button, the top goes down. You have any idea how many things you got to do in a Jeep to get the roof down? You got things you got to twist and lift off. I just press a button.
Jack
That is nice.
Doug DeMuro
That's.
Graham Stephan
That's nice.
Doug DeMuro
That's luxury.
Graham Stephan
So what cars have you noticed right now that are the most in demand?
Doug DeMuro
That's. That's an interesting question. In terms of used cars, enthusiast cars, Lamborghinis are absolutely having a moment. The Countach, the Diablo, the Merciel Lago. All those cars are, are. When I was a kid, a Lamborghini was like a drug dealer car. And like you did rapper car. Yeah, rappers like that Cribs, right? And like the connoisseurs had Ferraris.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
And that's changed. These older Lambos are finding a new audience with real car enthusiasts who are really starting to like, get into them and appreciate it and take them back to stock, take the wrapper wheels off them, take the tinted tail lights off. You know, all the stupid crap that people did in 2003 to MTV Crib. Yeah, yeah. And those cars are shooting up. I'm stunned to see Lamborghini market every single day. It's crazy. Obviously, Porsches are incredibly hot right now. That's. Every car enthusiast or wannabe car enthusiast is trying to get into the Porsche world. Getting allocations for special new Porsches is impossible. It's almost a game in itself. Surprisingly, it seems like Ferrari has actually dropped off a little bit. They're kind of overproducing, it seems like. And except for the very specialist cars, it seems like Ferrari doesn't quite have the Gravitas over those other brands that it once did. Dude, SUVs. Old SUVs are really hot still. Old scouts, Broncos, Land Cruisers, things like that. People are really into them. But I would say generally the market is cooling like we were talking about. Like, I, I don't see a lot of cars right now that are, that are shooting up or about or poised to shoot up. I would say just about everything is cooling off.
Graham Stephan
Do you think that's because the market might be topping out a bit and people are more cautious or that everyone who wanted a car has bought a car?
Doug DeMuro
That certainly happened. I think a lot of the people there was. There was a whole lot of horse trading that went on in 20, 21 and 22. A lot of people who held on to cars for years suddenly saw their value double and they got out. And new people who wanted the car for their whole life got in and they don't want to sell, especially because they're not going to make money right now. They think if they hold for longer, they might. And they don't need the money in a lot of cases, people who bought F40s or whatever. So I think there's definitely some of that. And also just, yeah, the market is just a little bit slower and so, you know, things just aren't shooting up like they were. I think. I think a lot of cars had a quick rise and now there's just nowhere for them to continue to rise after. After three years of. In some cases, cars went up 50, 60%. It's not going to sustain. So it'll continue. So these cars will continue to get more valuable, but just not at the. At that rate.
Graham Stephan
Yeah. What gives a car an it factor?
Doug DeMuro
That's interesting. I mean, I think, I think these days the analog stuff is really hot. Everybody wants the old manual transmission stuff. Cars with fewer driver aids, cars with fewer screens, fewer computers. That's the hottest thing, which is. Which is by and large sort of the, you know, late 70s to the 2007, 2009. Those cars are really hot, which coincides with people who are our age getting into money. And, and okay, maybe I might want to consider buying a car like that. But I think that, you know, low production value is a big one. Movie. If a car was in a movie, it's special that. I mean, people come up to me all the time. My Ford GT and I remember I saw Ford versus Ferrari. And even though, oh, it's the new 4 GT and not the old GT40, there was a huge, there was a huge lift, at least in awareness. Wolf of Wall street. And the Countach is obviously a big one. And, and just a good backstory helps too. You know, this was the first, like, Wedge. The Kuntos, the first Wedge car. And, and the first car was scissor doors, etc. Etc. Designed by this Italian master when he was young. And I think cars that have sort of some of that cool history, you know, the F40 is Enzo's last car. That, that, that helps. Things like that help cars that are made just for rich guys to seem cool, they don't. They don't have as much specialness. Yeah.
Graham Stephan
What cars have you noticed that have lost some of the it factor lately?
Doug DeMuro
You know, it's interesting. Ferrari for so many years had had like, the, the market cornered on the it factor and you buy a Ferrari and you had to sell it back to the dealer because they were worth more and then you split the profits of the deal. It was a great situation. And they in order to their public company now, in order to really kill, you know, get all the, squeeze all the juice out of every buyer, they've really come out with some cars that are probably too expensive, probably too overproduced and they are dropping in value like crazy. And the first time in my life, like I could walk into a Ferrari dealer and buy a couple of new Ferraris today without a waiting list. And that's interesting and you have to wonder whether that continues. Does Porsche kind of come up and start taking the mantle that Ferrari once had? It's interesting to see that meanwhile older Ferraris are starting to get more desirable because I think a lot of people are looking at the past and saying this isn't coming back.
Graham Stephan
It's interesting you mentioned the Ferrari being able to walk in and get a car. I saw that the SUV is now beginning to sell under sticker. Yeah, but the dealers say that there's a two year list.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah, it depends on the situation. The SUV is still hot. SUV just came out. Yes. Six months ago. And, and so I find that it's, that it's, I've found that it is still hot. They still seem to be selling for decent money. The one that it's really getting, they're really getting killed on is the SF90 which is like a 600 to $700,000 kind of super sports, hypercar, supercar. And that's just a tough price point right now. Now when, when, when, when capital is more expensive, interest rates are higher and, and 700 grand's a lot of money, especially on a car that isn't limited production.
Graham Stephan
So is it still possible to buy a Ferrari and then sell it back to the dealer? Because this is something I learned about for the first time like a year ago. I didn't know that there were so many like handshake agreements like hey, we'll sell you this car but just sell it back to us so we could then resell it for even higher. I had no idea this was a thing.
Doug DeMuro
And I think what ends up happening in a lot of cases is, is if you play that game and you play it to its conclusion, then you will get selected to buy the really high end stuff which really do gain value. So if you're willing to buy Aroma, Aroma Coupe, all the other GTC4 Lusso and SF90 etc lose money on all of them. They will start submitting you for cars like the SP3 which just came out, which cost two and a half million dollars. But in the secondary market those cars are already selling for dollar bubble. And so if you're willing to roll the dice and lose a lot of money up front, Ferrari will kind of start slipping you some of those really, really super high end cars. And that is absolutely.
Graham Stephan
Are they giving those to average buyers who are just, you know, working their way up? Because I've heard that they need like you have to have a collection of these other cars to be selected, show up to Ferrari events.
Doug DeMuro
Yes. No. You'd be in order to get cars like the SP3, it's not just buy a robot, buy a GTC for Lucid. There's more to it. But those are the basics still. And I got buddies who get all those cars, cars and have, and have multi, multi million dollar car collections. Everything you could possibly want. And even they are still required to buy the Romas and the other and they, they basically what they do is they buy it at the dealer, they drive it home or to their collection, they never touch it because they don't care about those cars. And then after the six month lockup is over, they take it right back to the dealer, they say sell it for you. And sometimes they lose money on those cars. But it's worth it to them to still be selected for the super high ends.
Graham Stephan
It's interesting, a buddy just bought the Roma and he said it was basically a brand new car that the guy bought.
Doug DeMuro
Yep.
Graham Stephan
Just to sell it back like as soon as the lockup was up. But it was like a brand new car, almost no miles on it. The guy just didn't drive it but had to buy the car.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah. And so then you got to wonder, well, how many of these cars are, is there even demand for like real demand? Right. Because a lot of the people who are buying them are just fake people who just want to get the high end stuff. But not most of them. Like most Romas are being sold to end users, but certainly some of them are being sold to guys who are playing the game. And those guys make money playing the game. Why? It takes a while.
Jack
Why doesn't Ferrari just increase the price to be able to like find some sort of market equilibrium?
Doug DeMuro
I, I, my, I've made this point for years and I totally agree, but I think the, I think the answer is they already make great money on those super crazy cars and they want that carrot for the people to buy the other stuff. Because, Right, because it boosts the sales.
Jack
Of the, the low.
Doug DeMuro
So they can sell the Romas and they can sell the, the, the lesser stuff. More of them. If they know that those guys know that they're going to make a million bucks on the supercar every 10 years or something. And so like, like if Ferrari tried to start making the money on those cars themselves, the people would be like, screw you. I'm losing money on Romans and I'm losing money on the supercar. I'm not, I don't want to play the game anymore. And they can't do that.
Graham Stephan
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Sutton bank member FDIC terms and conditions apply. Thank you to Ramp for sponsoring this episode. And back to the podcast. What do you think are some of the best cars to own for the average person out there?
Doug DeMuro
Honestly, I think that your Model Y is a really, really excellent all around car.
Jack
Just don't pay the amount I paid for it.
Graham Stephan
If Jack buys it, just do the opposite.
Jack
Yeah, good first Jack, sell it to me.
Doug DeMuro
Those Model Y's are, are ex like excellent all around cars. Which is proven by the fact that they're everywhere. They, they're, they fit everybody. Like you got a family Model Y, you got, you got, you just you Model Y, you got a dog, you got, you're a couple. Like it does a lot of stuff and on that same level like the RAV Fours and the CX5s, the gasoline kind of versions of that, they're a little bit more down market, but cars like that, I recommend these people ask me every day like my, my friends or people from my past what I should I get this in my budget, you know, and, and the answer, it's always like get a CRV, get a RAV4, get a model Y, like just, just like get. I never try to push people into weird. All those cars are tremendously competent. When I was a kid, there were some trash cars and there were some good cars and now basically all the cars are good. And so people be like, I'm deciding between a CRV, a RAV4 and a CX5. And I'm like, which one, which one? Which is salesman is nicer? Which one, like, which color do you like better? Like, those cars are all, all very competent, but they're, they're all pretty similar even for a normal person. But the good news is they're all pretty good.
Jack
What car do you think has the least amount of maintenance? So someone that wants to just buy a car and never have to like do anything to it, aside from like electric vehicles, obviously.
Doug DeMuro
I would say electric vehicles, except that some don't like some EVs. I mean you hear about problems Tesla has, you hear about problems that Rivian has. An EV should be the answer. But I don't think that all EVs necessarily are being produced. Produced, right. Not all EVs are with the same like level of production care that maybe some long tested gas cars are. But otherwise the answer is, I mean get a cheap Japanese, the answer is still Corolla hybrid Prius cars like that, those are the cars you can own. You won't lose much of depreciation, you won't lose much in fuel costs. I often think about this. If I was just somebody who didn't care about cars and what a great burden that would be lifted off of me. Like I drive around and I'm like, I see Priuses and I'm like, I wish I could just have that beach show.
Graham Stephan
You couldn't be happy with the new Prius. I like, oh, it's cool as hell.
Doug DeMuro
But like, I can't drive, I got to drive. I can't drive a Prius. Like, but it would be so freeing to just have a Prius and like get 55 miles per gallon and it's a pretty nice looking car and it's actually fairly quick and it's got good tech and just sitting there and listen to my Spotify driving around A Prius, that would be a dream.
Graham Stephan
What's holding you back?
Doug DeMuro
Ten years later and you lose like four grand.
Graham Stephan
What's holding you back from that?
Doug DeMuro
I just, I'd like to drive special cars. Plus I. The Sequoia, I need to. Off road. It's a pr. Off road. That's a real thing. And my Mercedes station wagon. Mercedes station wagon? You got a Mercedes station wagon? People don't. Mercedes station wagons out there in the world now.
Graham Stephan
One thing I've always been curious about, why aren't they making more EV convertibles? Why is this not as common?
Doug DeMuro
I think, you know, it's funny you say that because we just had an EV convertible MG Cyr, which is not sold here in the United States. States. But it was excellent.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
I think that the general thinking is enthusiasts are not EV buyers. And so if you're going to go to the trouble of developing an ev, which is already, especially in the United States, kind of a niche product, you want it to hit the broadest segment of the niche that you can. Which is why Model Y, Mach E, all the new EVs that come out are compact midsize crossovers because that's what people are buying. There's not a lot of gas powered convertibles anymore. To be honest. There's probably only seven. Generate gas.
Graham Stephan
Why is that?
Doug DeMuro
Convertibles are over. People don't want it.
Graham Stephan
Really.
Doug DeMuro
I, There was a time when you could get convertibles of like, like the Chevy Cavalier had a convertible. Like the Toyota Camry had a convertible. It's, it's, it's over. People want SUVs. They just want SUVs. That's, that's, that's the hot car of this era, of this generation.
Graham Stephan
I thought everyone liked convertibles. Maybe that's through like the 90s, like the wind in your hair. And I think the free.
Doug DeMuro
I don't know. I totally, I totally agree. But the, and I wish I could get my 4 GTS and I could.
Graham Stephan
Probably give, oh, what is it? The GX1.
Doug DeMuro
But even then, like, I wish they had done a factory, you know, I wish there had been a thousand of them that you could go, go get one. But it's just over. Can SUVs. SUVs have won? They, they, they beat everybody. They beat out.
Graham Stephan
I'm not a fan of SUVs.
Doug DeMuro
What are you driving day to day?
Graham Stephan
A Tesla Model 3.
Doug DeMuro
You don't want a Model Y like him. He's sitting up higher than you. He's got your car, but he's sitting up.
Jack
He's like, that's also the safest car.
Graham Stephan
Safest car. Better range. No, I just had my car. I'm so, just like, I don't like the paints. I don't like the idea he's ready car.
Jack
He just wants to sell it and like, you know, make a little bit of a profit. Even though he bought it six years ago.
Doug DeMuro
That's, that's the Model 3. Kind of the perfect car. It's like the Prius of, I mean, it's like the perfect car. I, I released a video about the new Model 3, which just came out. The updated one. I, I titled it and talked heavily about in the video. The Model 3 is the best automotive appliance and people are so angry. But that's what it is. And it's great at that. Like, it is fantastic. It drives for you. It, it, it, it doesn't cost much to own. It's just a simple, easy thing. But it's not something I think people get passionate about most. Mostly. But people got angry. I guess some people are passionate about it.
Graham Stephan
That's somehow I like for me, I just need A to B for a while. I drive a 2006 Volvo that I, that I paid $1,000 for and that was my driver for the first like two years in Vegas. Just A to B. Just something simple and that's cheap.
Doug DeMuro
Model 3 is great at that. Prius is great at that, etc. And that's what those cars are, that's what they do. They do great. I mean there's those companies that do Vegas to la and they all have Teslas. It's, it's super simple own. They do huge miles. They don't have huge fuel bills. The Model X's can get a lot of people in them.
Graham Stephan
So is there any other car out there that's losing a ton of value right now?
Doug DeMuro
I mean, EVs are certainly the, the top of the peak. When I think about cars that are losing a lot of value, any big luxury cars always are losing a lot of value. Mercedes s classes and BMW 7 Series and cars like that, those are just always kind of deeply, deeply depreciating. But people go in knowing that.
Graham Stephan
Yeah. What about the Cyber truck I saw you sold the gold one recently.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah, for like 104 or something like that. Cyber Truck are definitely losing from where they were. But the demand is, the sales are actually more robust than I expected, considering they don't seem to be hard to come by. New I expected resale actually to drop further than it has already. I thought they'd be a 6070 by now. But they're not, but they're dropping for sure. Yeah.
Jack
If you want to buy something like the Mercedes S class or something like that, like a super nice Bentley. How many years, like when is the perfect time to buy it where you get the maximum amount of appreciation but you still get like a nice new luxury car?
Doug DeMuro
That's a great question. I think about this all the time because usually by the time it's gotten down to a price point where I would want to buy it, then reliability starts to become an issue. Right. Like, like Bentley's. You want, everybody wants a Bentley. That car is so cool. Right? Yeah. Well, you're not spending 400, I mean you lose 200 grand in an afternoon on that car. Right. So then you think okay, well get a five year old or a seven year old one. Well, seven. Bentley is out of warranty. There's a lot of components in that car. They're expensive components. Then that's a dice roll. So it's like, I don't know. I, I, there's, there's, there is a, a right period in there, but it's probably different for each car and depends a little on the manufacturer's certified pre owned warranty structure and, and your risk tolerance.
Graham Stephan
Why are these cars so difficult to both maintain and fix? Like you would think that if you're spending a house on a car that it should be bulletproof but shouldn't have issues.
Doug DeMuro
Totally. And, and, and, and the people who aren't in the market for cars like this always tell me that like a Rolls Royce C is $600,000, but it, but it breaks all the time. It costs a lot to fix. That doesn't make sense. But you got to understand that ultimately reliability is not a major factor for decision making. For a person who's buying this car, they will own this car. For the original owner, it's the only person Bentley really cares about. Right. They're going to own the car three or four years. The lease it or on the car for three or four years and they will have the experience they want, which is a fast, powerful car with great technology and unbelievable, you know, accoutrement lighting throughout the car and all this beautiful stuff. Well, the third owner buys a car and it's 12 years old and those things that made it so appealing when it was new are now a liability. It's fast. While the powertrain is needlessly complicated and expensive to work on and in some cases bespoke. Right. The technology which was so cool 10 years ago now has aged and the screen doesn't work anymore. Right. The cool lighting and all this other stuff, well, you know those things start to break and they're very expensive to fix and in a lot of cases the parts aren't available anymore. Anymore. And that is, that's kind of what happens. But Bentley doesn't care. By then the car's out of their hands.
Graham Stephan
Do you think technology is going to make it more difficult to resell cars in the future because it gets dated. It's like telling someone to go and buy an original iPhone these days. It's just, it just functionally wouldn't work anymore without just replacing everything.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah, I mean that's a good question. They're doing all these over the air updates. You know, one of the cool things about Tesla is the car is pretty simple and so everything that needs to be updated is kind of comes through the screen. Right. I mean there's hardware too, but I actually think that potentially the opposite could happen as opposed to you get into an old 90s car and there's just buttons everywhere and it's stuff that doesn't work or you don't care about modern cars. These over the year updates may kind of save the car from going down that road entirely. But there will be some technology that these like your Model 3 doesn't have and can't. Right. That wasn't just wasn't built with and so eventually you'll have to upgrade. But that's been the story of the car car for 100 years.
Jack
You know, is there any reason why they don't sell like newer Miatas or newer exciting cars manually with manual transmission? I feel like there's such a demand for manual cars right now and they sometimes will sell for a lot more than the automatic cars like the older cars. Why don't they make any newer cars manual? Even like supercars? I feel like they just have paddles.
Doug DeMuro
I think about it all the time. You could still get a Miata with manual transmission, believe it or not, a brand new one. But it's a great question in a lot of ways in part because the the Ferraris on the used market and Porsches on the used market will sell for 2, 3, 4 times with a manual transmission what an automatic one will. And I have trouble understanding why especially Ferrari and Lamborghini. Ferrari is a public company. Why don't they go out and try to maximize what is obviously a market. I mean you have people paying $300,000 for 20 year old Ferraris where the manual version is $300,000. And the automatic is $100,000. There's clearly a huge, huge demand. Why don't they just go and make new. I've never understood that. I'm thinking of this as a business like make a limited run and charge a million bucks. People will pay it. Porsche has proven that because Porsche does still make limited run manual cars and they cost a fortune. They sell for crazy money. And Ferrari and Lamborghini could be doing that too. And so could probably some other brands who have abandoned it.
Jack
Would it be possible to switch the transmissions if you were an, an automaker and you're like, I'm gonna buy up all of these old automatic cars. Cars. Flip it to manual and then make a profit.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah. And in fact Aston Martin has literally done that. Aston Martin. If you have an audit, they have not themselves bought it. But if you have an automatic Aston Martin vanquish an original one from the early 2000s, you can send it to them, they will convert it to manual for you and then they will ship it back to you.
Jack
How much does that cost?
Doug DeMuro
50 grand. But there is a cottage industry has come up of, of automatic Ferraris and Lamborghinis, of, and Audi R8s of people converting them to manual transmission. It's, it's interesting. The automakers themselves have not gotten involved. They could probably make some real money doing it.
Graham Stephan
What's the reason for not doing it? Could argue.
Doug DeMuro
I guess the answer is the, the, the automakers say it's, it's, it's faster with the dual clutch automatics that they all have now. And Ferrari is all about speed. Lamborghini is all about speed. So we would not want to go backwards in terms of technology. Porsche tried to make the same argument. Porsche almost killed the manual transmission. But it became clear that people were paying up for them. And so they, they have come out with special cars that still have them. That's the automaker's argument. The truth is it's just, it just costs a lot like to develop a transmission that is ultimately by the end of manual Transmission production was 10% of car cars. But I would argue that you could really pass those costs on to the consumer. And in a lot of cases they would pay. I don't think they could make a. Ferrari could make a general run manual transmission car anymore. But a limited to 150 unit manual Ferrari, people would lose it. People would, people would pay whatever they wanted for that. And you can't tell me if they charged 2 million bucks and they made 2, 200 cars that they Couldn't justify the. The development cost of the transmission is not less more than the cost of that they would make from that. There's no away.
Jack
What is a feature in just a few or no cars that you think should be in basically every single car? I remember back in the day when I was in high school, a few of my friends, even though it was already pretty old, their cars had aux cords and, and, and other people were using like the cassette things where you put that in or you burn your own CDs and stuff like that. And I was thinking to myself, why doesn't every single car have an ox cord? It couldn't be expensive to install something like this or USB ports. I remember when those were coming out and like no cars had them. It's like such an easy decision that every car should have.
Doug DeMuro
I think about this a lot because I drive all the cars and it becomes abundantly clear to me when driving all the cars that people who design cars don't. And because there are some very clearly obvious things that they should be putting in that other automakers do and they aren't. Dash cam is a good example. Actually automakers are starting to integrate dash cams just barely. Like two cars do it. Tesla's done, has done it for a few years. BMW and Mercedes have started to do it. No one else is really doing it, but they're like, GM is just, just getting there. Ten years, every car's gonna have a dash. Every new car's have a dash cam. My prediction, that's a good one. But like, it's like, come on, like do this. There's a lot of stuff though that I think about and it's, there's some little stuff that I think about that I wish other cars would do. But another good one is Hyundais. Most Hyundais now when you're driving along, you put on the turn signal and a camera pops up in the gauge cluster that shows what's in your blind spot. And so if you're making a lane change, you don't have to do the over the shoulder. You could just look down at your blind spot camera. It's a very wide angle angle. It clearly shows what's there. And I don't know why everybody else doesn't have that. It's, it's brilliant technology. There's a lot of stuff like that that I wish I, I often think to myself, I wish I could have this car with the, this feature from this car and this feature from that car.
Graham Stephan
Do you think maybe the insurance industry is like Lobbying against those cameras. It's just like, crazy because you would think that if they have more accidents, they would make more money and they can up your premiums.
Doug DeMuro
Like, is there somebody you know the insurance industry seems to make. Make money? No, I think that the automakers would put anything in that they possibly could in order to convince people not to buy the other guy's car. And so they would. They would do it if they could. I just think some of them haven't realized that they should.
Jack
Those are great answers. I want to know what, what other, like, things do you think some cars are missing or cars in general?
Doug DeMuro
I think about this all the time, but there's all sorts of just little stuff in some cases. I love the fact that my Toyota, when you lock the door, the lights stay on, and if you press the lock a second time, the lights turn off. So if you want that entry lighting to stay on, great. But if you want to manually do it a second time and turn off, that's brilliant. And all Toyotas do that. No other cars do. There's all sorts of, like, little features that I see in all sorts of different cars that I just wish you could aggregate. Some cars now have rearview mirrors that are a camera. And so you're driving along and you, you want to look in your rearview mirror. Well, you don't have to look through the people in your back seat, which is unsafe. You, you have a camera mounted on the back of the car that's showing the display is on the rearview mirror. That's a great feature. But not every automaker has adopted it. I have no idea why, why a lot of them are starting to. But it's like there's all sorts of things that I just think to myself, I, I wish this car had this and, and I wish I could pick and choose the features from all the cars.
Jack
I think anything that prevents people from getting locked out of their cars is also very, very easy and most cars should do. I remember my friend growing up had one of those cars with the keypads, and I thought that was genius. I loved it.
Doug DeMuro
Ford and Nissan had those keypads. Ford still does, and Lincoln. Nobody else really does it. And I don't get why.
Jack
I love.
Doug DeMuro
There are some automakers. One cool feature that some automakers are doing is key. So, like, you have your key fob, but, like, if you're going to swim, it'll get wet and destroyed. And they. It's like a, it's like a wristband that you can wear that's waterproof or like if you're on the basketball court, you can have your wristband on and that's your key. So you can lock your keys in the car with your activity key and then go and do the sport or whatever, which is in the same. Great idea. Why doesn't everybody do it? I don't know. Only like three of them have figured out that people want that. And maybe in some cases people don't want some of these features, but I, I want them.
Graham Stephan
It would be interesting to have facial recognition ignition.
Doug DeMuro
Like your Genesis GV60 has that.
Graham Stephan
Are you serious?
Doug DeMuro
If you set it up, you walk up to the door, you look at the. You look at the car and then it unlocks and you can get inside.
Jack
They should have that to drive too. To drive. To take the car.
Doug DeMuro
It also is to drive. You can be complete. So that means you don't even need to. Like the Tesla's. You need the phone. Some car. Most cars need a key fob, Right. Tesla's and some of the other new ones, you need a phone. That car, you need your face and your.
Graham Stephan
That's incredible. I would also love it if it's able to tell. Like blood alcohol.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
And so no one could drive their car if they're under the influence. You just had something.
Doug DeMuro
That's another thing future generations will look back on and be like, that was a thing you could do. Like, there will be some. I don't know if you've ever seen it. The ignition interlocks that people who have multiple DUIs have to have blow into it. It's actually pretty simple technology. Like they just get in the car, they blow, it says, and then they drive off. Like it actually only takes a few seconds. Not that I'm advocating everybody should have to do that. But like, there must be some. If there was some real push for it, there must be some way that you could kind of. Now you have your passenger do it or whatever. That's the problem.
Graham Stephan
Not if there are cameras inside. Like it would be able to tell with AI just like, no, you have to do this, not your passenger.
Doug DeMuro
And then you start thinking about, well, do you really need to go over 100 miles an hour? Right. Like, should cars be limited to a more rational speed? Because a lot of times speed is a huge factor in accidents. And you can have some of these conversations.
Graham Stephan
That's interesting. Do you ever think we're going to get to a point where, where the government can control what you do with your car and how fast you drive it in which locations? Like your car Automatically won't go over 50 in this location. This day when there's people around the.
Doug DeMuro
Offense, I mean that maybe, you know, the, the threat of enforcement is much more significant in some other countries. That therefore does have that effect. I mean in Switzerland there's cameras everywhere. If you go two miles around the speed limit in Switzerland you get a ticket. If you go 50 miles an hour the speed limit, you get arrested. Like they're militant now. It can't stop you in the moment, but it has that effect. Like you drive around in Switzerland and people go the speed limit and Swiss drive the nicest cars in the world and they all go like exactly.
Graham Stephan
Japan too. Exactly the speed limit or one under.
Doug DeMuro
Right. Everybody's terrified in those places. So they're, they can affect it in that way. But do we get to that point? I don't know. Maybe. I have a suspicion not in our lifetimes and certainly not in the US which has been slow to even adopt speeding cameras. Speeding cameras in the US have a.
Graham Stephan
Huge people that fought that.
Doug DeMuro
Europe. In a lot of European countries, not all, but in a lot of European countries they have done it and they have just been like, it's for safety. Screw you. We don't care what your, what your response is. And they've just kind of heavy handedly put them in a lot of countries.
Graham Stephan
What I think is going to happen is that you could share your information with insurance companies and they'll monitor exactly how fast you go and then adjust your premium based on that.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah, I mean that could.
Graham Stephan
And Tesla did that with their insurance.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah, right. And as the cars get more connected you could see that happening more and more likely.
Graham Stephan
And I would bet that they could adjust your premiums in real time where you could go on the app just like with Tesla and say, oh my premium went up because I sped or because I'm driving in these hours.
Doug DeMuro
Huge incentive to slow down.
Graham Stephan
Who's cutting edge these days in terms of advancing technology?
Doug DeMuro
You know it's, that's an interesting question. It's not who you'd think. Like people think Tesla I think because Tesla has this reputation for being advanced. But like Tesla's missing some stuff. I get in Tesla's. I'm incredibly annoyed they still don't have a top down camera, which I think is wild. They got a lot of good stuff. But the truth is all everybody wants now is Apple CarPlay. That's what everybody just wants. That it's just simple, it's easy, it's or Android Auto. It's like easy to Use easy to figure out. And so that's kind of like where this whole industry has gone. There's only a few automakers who are fighting back against it, which is Tesla Rivan and General Motors. Believe it or not, but General Motors has completely integrated with Google and so they have Google Assistant, Google Maps all over their car cars, which has its own great benefits. With your smartphone. Right. You can like have direct. If you sign in, you can have like previous history and all sorts of other stuff. I don't know, it's. It's cutting edge. Is. Is an interesting thing. It's starting to kind of become less relevant.
Graham Stephan
Yeah. Do you see any features though that could be like really futuristic? Like, I remember when heads up display was like, that was the coolest thing.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah. I mean, self driving is the obvious one.
Graham Stephan
Okay.
Doug DeMuro
And. And people want it. And some automakers are doing a really great job of it. Tesla's one of them. But other automakers have systems that are at least as good. And then of course, General Motors has Super Cruise, which is quite impressive if you're. If you want to look forward, which not everyone does. My view on Super Cruise and those systems is like, if I wanted to look forward, I would just drive the damn car. The whole point of these systems is I want to look, I want to text, you know, am I wrong? Like, that's what we really want to do. We really want to just scroll Instagram while we drive. That's what we want to, to do. But we're not there yet.
Graham Stephan
I remember back in the day when Tesla self driving first came out. This is 2019ish. I started using it and you could just put a weight on the steering wheel.
Jack
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
And it just was uninterrupted for like 20, 30 minutes.
Jack
And now it's so sensitive. You look in the back seat for one second, grab something.
Doug DeMuro
It's like, this is the drawback of Tesla's system. Actually, there are some systems that are not like this. Just FYI. There are some systems where the only check on you is capacitive touch on the steering wheel. And so then it's not looking at your eyes. And so as long as you have skin on the steering wheel, it is cool. With driving skin. Skin doesn't have a skin.
Graham Stephan
Like, it doesn't have to be your hand.
Jack
It could be someone else's skin.
Graham Stephan
It could skin your hand.
Jack
There are people, I'm just saying, in.
Doug DeMuro
Theory, there are people. I've certainly never done this. Who adjust the steering wheel to touch their knee. And then you don't really have to have. How can your hands can be elsewhere. You know what I'm saying?
Jack
How can it detect skin from other.
Doug DeMuro
It's you know, material capacitive touc. Right. So like just like your iPhone screen detects skin versus if you put that water bottle. So like a lot that's, that's a lot of Tesla doesn't do it. I don't know why Tesla still is weight based or eye based but most of the other brands have capacitive touch for steering and so you just need to have a hand or some other body part on the steering wheel and it will, it will drive and indefinitely. So like as long as, as long as you have the steering wheel down and touching your knee, you're good. Well car of these a lot Mercedes Benz and Toyota. And I know that because I own a Mercedes Benz and a Toyota Chrysler.
Jack
That's why you don't own a Tesla. That's why you have those two cars.
Doug DeMuro
Well I'll tell you driving that Toyota across the country with that feature is really beneficial. Chrysler is the most permissive. Really you could do whatever you want in the Jeep Grand.
Jack
Go figure.
Doug DeMuro
Pretty good setup.
Jack
That's funny.
Doug DeMuro
But more and more of them are moving to an I based thing which kills the, the fun but probably makes people more safe.
Graham Stephan
It's probably because Tesla has more eyes on them from a regulator standpoint.
Doug DeMuro
I agree with that.
Graham Stephan
And they have to be like on it versus Chryslers.
Doug DeMuro
Truthfully the I based monitoring is the future. That's what's going to happen. It's more and more people, automakers are putting it in their cars. There is a short period here where the skin thing is acceptable. So like Maybe cars in 50 years the skin cars will still be valuable. It's the one car you don't have to look at the rest road.
Graham Stephan
Do you think that robo taxis could ever be a thing at some point.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah. But you know who when it seems.
Graham Stephan
So far off like I'm using the Tesla full self driving and it's still so buggy.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
And it's just I'm on edge.
Doug DeMuro
Plus you live in Vegas like ultimately what happens in Minneapolis right when it snows this is what I think about like I was self driving. They got 90% of the way there in a couple years.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
And that last 10% is hard. Right. You can, anybody can make a self driving car drive down a road, stop at a stoplight, turn on a simple nice day wide, well paved. But like that's, that's not what I want the car to drive right. You want the car to drive when it's foggy and icy and you're terrified and you don't, you don't trust yourself. You want the car to be better than you. Truthfully, right now all the cars are worse than you. Right. That. That may not be statistically true, but in those edge case scenarios you'd rather be driving right. If it's icy and foggy, you'd rather have the wheel than. Than Tesla full self drive. And that's the problem. And it seems to be one that they're having trouble surpassing.
Graham Stephan
Yeah, it could be of just a false self confidence that I feel safer because I'm in control. The data seems to show.
Doug DeMuro
The data does show. But. But I think a lot of the data comes from sunny days.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
A lot of those systems straight up turn off in snow, in heavy rain.
Graham Stephan
In fall or when you're driving into the sunset when the sun is shining and it just shuts down, you can't see and it's like me, they can't do it either. Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
What do you mean? I. You can't. It's wild to imagine, but that is true sometimes.
Graham Stephan
Yeah. So for people who want to make money on cars, what are you seeing these days for investment grade vehicles?
Doug DeMuro
I think the only way right now to truly make money on a lot of these cars is to hold. I think that the days of flipping a year later is not realistic. I think there are cars that are investment grade that are going to go up, that are. That seem cheap. Now 550 marinella, which we were talking about before, that's one of them. Any gated manual transmission Ferraris? Not any, but some gated manual transmission Ferrari, Ferraris, Lambos, like I said before, I really think have have a long ways to go but I also think nothing's going to happen soon. And I still have trouble believing that cars will be a good investment relative to other stuff. I told you that owning a Ford GT is like owning bonds. I feel that way.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
The GT has continues to go up a little. It, it never goes down. It's pretty reliable to own. But like you compare it against, the smart is up 60% in the last two years. GT ain't doing that. And even if it was, you got to service it, you got to pay insurance, you just store it somewhere, you know. So there are ways to make money in these cars. Now I will say I have all the service history for my courier GT and I looked it up. This from the second owner until when I bought it. If he had held it that long, it did beat the S and P, including all maintenance, all repairs. And even if you added in fuel.
Graham Stephan
And insurance, what was the original MSRP of that car for?
Doug DeMuro
40. And they're now. No average now amount of million. Million, three million, five, something like that.
Graham Stephan
Yeah, but it's hard to know.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah, it's hard to know.
Graham Stephan
But that's also buying kind of at the peak of the S and P before the Great Recession where it went down, a car outpaced right afterwards. So there's like a few variables.
Doug DeMuro
I think the second owner of that car bought it in 09, so some of that decline. I don't think the first owner would have beaten the S and P. Well, maybe, maybe because of the decline after that. But regard the point remains like there, there are the possibilities exist, but like they exist in hindsight. It's just like buying Nvidia like they exist primarily exist in hindsight. Right. Like who knew that that car would take off and some of the other ones wouldn't remember? That car when it came out was priced the same as the McLaren SLR and the Ferrari Enzo. Well, the Enzo took off too. SLRs are cheaper than they were in 05. And how would you, how would you know? It's, it's, it's difficult to know what was going to happen.
Graham Stephan
Why is the SLR not gone up in value?
Doug DeMuro
They made a ton of them. They're automatic transmission emissions and they have some drawbacks. For example, the brakes to replace brakes. It's $10,000 a corner. So four brakes is $40,000. Now on a career GT that costs a million bucks, you can kind of justify that. It's harder on a car that costs 250. And that there's 3, 500 of that's kind of the problem with that. Plus automatic. I mean people don't want automatics. You know, on an investment collectible car, the manual transmission has turned out to be one of the big distinct distinguishing points.
Graham Stephan
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Graham Stephan
So what cars today do you think would make a good bond strategy?
Doug DeMuro
I still think for, I still think 4 GT. I think those 4 GTs are going to continue to rise. They're still cool. People still seem to be interested in them. I think that one of the, one of the things that makes that car particularly appealing as a bond strategy is that it's not expensive to own. Yeah, that's not true of almost every other car that will probably increase in value. Countach will probably outperform the forging gt, but it ain't cheap.
Graham Stephan
Yeah, yeah. I did a full service on my car and I think it came to about $11,000 from the Ford dealership and they replaced the, the struts in the, that that hold up the engine bay in the back.
Doug DeMuro
The Courage is in service right now. It's 20 grand for like a pretty minor service. Like the cars, cars at that level are expensive and that's the problem. So some of those cars, I think will gain in value. Value. But the thing that makes the 4GT so desirable in that world is just how affordable it is to own, while it's also slightly climbing in.
Graham Stephan
What I find interesting, and this is, this is something that you should get into, Jack, is these no stripe for gts. These cars used to be the least desirable because everyone wanted the stripe on the car and so few people ordered the car without stripes. And now the without stripes cars are so rare that they're selling bright beyond what like the heritage model is selling.
Jack
Why do you think I should get.
Doug DeMuro
I should have got into it 10 years ago. Yeah.
Jack
Do you want the market to plummet or something? Is that you want to buy one in about two years. Is that what your plan is?
Doug DeMuro
I have been surprised. The thing about the 4 GT that's interesting especially is that the cars are all the same. And so the distinguishing factor is a few little things that wouldn't matter to 98% of people. People are astonished when I tell them blue ones are worth A lot more than. Than white ones. What do you mean they're the same? Well, they made a lot less blue ones. And the market for some reason values that weird thing. I actually prefer white and I don't. I've decided that I don't really like heritage. I think heritage is kind of ugly really. You drive around and it looks like a race car. It's got all these orange things. All be weird. You drive the thing. People be like, that guy's weird.
Graham Stephan
I think it's cool.
Doug DeMuro
But it's over the top driving that around. People be like the average person.
Jack
It doesn't look as cool as like the other supercars.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
To the average person, but.
Doug DeMuro
And then there's that component of two people think it's a Ford. People ask me if it's a Mustang. I don't think get that. It's like, well, kind of. I don't want to have a. It depends how much I want to talk to them in that moment. But nonetheless, the cars are generally desirable. You know, I. A blue one with my mile sold recently for like $350,000, which I was. I have 43,000 miles on my car. I was absolutely astounding.
Graham Stephan
And what did you buy yours for?
Doug DeMuro
225 in 18. And I've put 13,000 miles on it. So I drove it a lot. Drove to Palm Springs a last week and, and back and you know, it hasn't cost much to own.
Graham Stephan
What about for the average person who's not spending 3, 400,000 on a car? What do you think is the best investment grade vehicle that they could drive and at least not lose money on?
Doug DeMuro
Interesting question. I'd have to think about it.
Graham Stephan
I'm going to say Honda S2000.
Doug DeMuro
That's my C. If you're talking about specifically not losing money. Yeah, there's a lot of good stuff.
Graham Stephan
Okay.
Doug DeMuro
S2000 is a great example. And that's another car that is pretty affordable to own. Porsches, lower level Porsches, Cayman and Boxer don't really depreciate all that heavily. Especially if you buy them pretty depreciated. And honestly they're pretty reliable. People think German and they get worried, but Porsches are pretty reliable. Even lower level. 911s, 996s and 997s. The early 2000s. There's a lot of cars like that, that, that you can, that you can do kind of generally okay with even Corvettes, C7 Corvettes, you know, like 2010, 2012 era. Corvette vets are kind of hitting bottoms of depreciation curves and are just not expensive to own and drive and operate. I would probably pursue things like that. Where enthusiasts get into trouble is the BMW M3s, the cars that are wonderful and fantastic, but problematic. You have to be a real enthusiast who's willing to, like, spend money to have that experience. And those cars can be troublesome.
Jack
What do you think about the 2000s manual Gallardos?
Doug DeMuro
Yeah.
Jack
Do you think because.
Graham Stephan
Because they're.
Jack
They're not that expensive.
Doug DeMuro
They're not as expensive as they deserve.
Jack
To be after having all of these, you know, car YouTubers on the podcast for. I've always liked cars and I always thought the Gallardo was cool because that was kind of, as I was growing up, you'd see that car, right? It was the most common Lamborghini that you see. It's like, oh, supercar. I always like the car and it's kind of convinced me to like, look into the market a little bit and it seems reasonable. And I heard that they're also, in terms of maintenance, not that bad.
Doug DeMuro
So that, that I find that car to be an absolute bargain relative to what it is. It's a manual V10. I mean, they' not. That's a really. That's a CR. That's a really special car. There's some. There are some things I think that have held it back. It's always going to be the, the lesser Lambo. Right. The Merc Lago is always there. And so you're always. People have a belief that the very earliest gallardos with the 5 liter V10 are not as reliable and that they later upgraded to a bigger, slightly bigger motor. And those are more reliable cars. I don't know if that's true, but that's the belief. The, especially the 04 cars, which the first year are like less relaxed, reliable. But I think those cars are cool as hell. I mean, you. That's 90 grand. You drive around a stick shift, it's a Lambo, it looks cool. Most regular people can't tell the difference between that and a Mercia Ligo which cost two, three times as much. I think those cars are undervalued, but I'm not entirely convinced that they will gain that much because the market has had a long time to appreciate those cars and it never really has in a. In a weird way.
Jack
But it seems hard to imagine losing a ton of money.
Doug DeMuro
Oh yeah.
Jack
Considering, like, how can they really. They can't go much more than.
Doug DeMuro
Absolutely. They can't go lower. Your only loss would be in Maintenance and repairs.
Jack
Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
Which may be significant, but you know, probably still less than the depreciation on your Tesla.
Graham Stephan
Yeah, actually your Tesla, your Tesla costs more money than a Lamborghini.
Doug DeMuro
I do think about that a lot when it comes to, you know, my 4 GT, people like, oh, I can't afford a 4 GT. It's like, well, I'm up 100 GS. You can't afford not to get a 4 GT. Like when you really, I mean it's insane because the price of entry is still high. But like a, for people think I'm nuts for driving around a 4 GT. They got a new Explorer and it's like that car's lose 25 grand in like two years. I, I don't do that in my cars. I buy all my daily driver cars used. Like, I don't, I can't justify losing new car money on that stuff.
Graham Stephan
Yeah, how that's always been my mindset too is to buy a car that you're not going to lose value on. Like my Lotus Elise didn't lose anything. Lotus Exige didn't lose anything. The Ford GT is up.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah, I, I, I, and, and yet you've got this Model 3 like you're.
Graham Stephan
And then the Model 3 is lost.
Doug DeMuro
It's a daily that like you just need a point A to point B call and that's something that you can care less about the value loss because your cost basis is lower. I think about this all the time. I got a courage to cost a million dollars, but I like wouldn't buy a new E class station Mercedes station wagon. I called, I found a used one that matched my taste at a dealership in Oklahoma and had it shipped here to save however much money off it. I just can't imagine the depreciation hit. I just can't do it mentally. It's just not.
Graham Stephan
Speaking of the Model 3, I think a while ago I added up all the money that I've made from ad revenue off my Tesla videos because one video got like 8 million views. Another video like 3.6 million views. There's another one with over a million views. I believe all of it together was like $130,000.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
For the car.
Doug DeMuro
This is how James just Stradman justifies his and Hoovy and all the other guys. You went and saw Tavares. Right. This is how they justify their, their purchases. Sometimes it doesn't make sense though. It makes sense for you.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
And for others in some way, some limited ways. I worry about Freddy. Do you worry About Freddy.
Graham Stephan
Every now and then before I go to bed, I think, I wonder how he's doing that P1. How much does that cost again? But you know what I mean, that has made. I don't say it's made his channel, but, like, over the last year, it's constantly number one trending.
Doug DeMuro
I worry all the other card YouTubers though, nonetheless, I worry about all of them. They all make horrible decisions. You need to go visit all of them and teach them how to do things correctly.
Graham Stephan
But you know what? Ed Bulan, I have to say, is so meticulous about it.
Doug DeMuro
It's better.
Graham Stephan
Hoovy genuinely loves everything he's doing and would be doing it regardless. So, like, he's the exception.
Jack
He's making money, right?
Doug DeMuro
Like, he calls me in the spring every year and he's like, the taxes are going to be due next month. I. You got to sell some cars. Like, that's the level he's operating at. This happens every year. I'm not screwing. That's the level he's operating at.
Graham Stephan
But he's a different mindset. I. I don't think he cares for him. I don't. I don't think it's about money at all. I think he Genu, like, when he bought the Fisker Karma, I felt like that was just a moment where it's like, he's going to lose a ton of money on him.
Doug DeMuro
It was horrible. And watch his videos and worry about him. And that's true of all of them.
Graham Stephan
But yeah, Tavares, I think the P1 is. He's. He's spending so much money on it, but he's making it back at least on the videos.
Doug DeMuro
They do they. To his credit. They do. His channel does great. But like.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
And then I just am scared about all this.
Graham Stephan
Who are you most worried? Worried about?
Doug DeMuro
Pro Freddy probably is the number one, really. He's got a big overhead. He's got like three garages, like, warehouses. I don't understand why he really, like.
Graham Stephan
He does fixing up like 20 cars.
Doug DeMuro
He also doesn't release content all that often. That's the thing that scares me about Freddy. He posts like once a month. And he's just. The audience is obsessed with him. Like, they think I think he's nuts in a great way. Like, I love watching the content, but, like, it would be nice to get, you know, more updates and posts. And I think that's. That makes me scared. Plus, I know that he's got a loan on that P1 and it's significant.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
And so that really scares me.
Graham Stephan
I think the views are offsetting it. But probably the, the one person I watch all the time, James Stradman, I.
Doug DeMuro
Watch all of his.
Graham Stephan
I watch all of his videos.
Doug DeMuro
Okay, do you agree, Stradman, sidebar here. Do you agree that it's. His house isn't even done. Like you watched the video where he went through his house.
Graham Stephan
So we visited him and we saw his house. Gorgeous house, but needs the backyard, needs the basement.
Doug DeMuro
The basement's like just pl. It's just like, just like, it's just.
Graham Stephan
It's a. It's a lot of. It's.
Jack
It's.
Graham Stephan
It's tough either way because if he finishes it, I don't think he's going to get back dollar to dollar what he spent.
Doug DeMuro
Absolutely not.
Graham Stephan
But if he sells it unfinished, it makes the market so much smaller for whoever's willing to buy that house with an unfinished basement to spend more money.
Doug DeMuro
This is the problem that I think a lot of these people run into is that they end up buying these, these. They get a little. Young people get money and they're like, oh, I want to. I want a palace with a moat, you know, like a lazy river that goes around the whole thing. And they do all these things and realize those places are expensive to keep going. And often in order to get a place like that, you have to buy land so far away from where land is desirable that it makes it hard to justify putting that much money into the land. Because at the end of the day, when you go to sell it, the buyer pool is really small. I go on Zillow and I see these like 25,000ft houses in the middle of nowhere.
Graham Stephan
Just like, you're never asking $4 million for it. Like $100 a square foot, right?
Doug DeMuro
And it's like your buyer pool is limited. And even at 4 million like this, this is going to sell for 1.6 in seven years when you come to terms mentally with the fact that it's only worth one point.
Graham Stephan
It was tough with him because I remember talking to him before. He was building the house and his mindset at the time was, I just want like a 20 car garage. But I can't just build that because they won't permit it. So I have to build the house for resale value so that I have a structure that a family or someone else would want to buy. The thinking I thought was correct, but it's just, it snowballed a little.
Doug DeMuro
I have this severe belief, maybe militant, that you, you should live somewhere where Your land is more valuable than the improvements you make to it.
Graham Stephan
Like, it's a very California thing to say.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah, it is. Or. Or dense area.
Graham Stephan
Yeah, right.
Doug DeMuro
Like that's also true in nice neighborhoods in a lot of cities. Like, I only ever buy old homes that are, that are, you know, in. In kind of historic type neighborhoods that are very established long term. And I worry about the deep suburban living and massive house that is unsellable in the future kind of situation.
Graham Stephan
I'm going to ask you a question. Do you think he should sell the Koenigsegg?
Doug DeMuro
Absolutely. I would have sold that Koenigsegg. I, I'm not a Koenigsegg fan. I don't, I don't find them that cool. I don't find that interesting. It's his dream car. He, although we are about the same age, he is a different generation than me. Like, he's into the Koenigsegg Pagani stuff and I'm into the Countach 4 GT stuff, like the manual older. And now he's a Countach also and he had a 4 GT, but he's clearly more into the more modern kind of crazy stuff. I don't care about Koenigseggs. Like, and by the way, everyone I know who has a Koenigsegg has problems. Everyone I know.
Graham Stephan
What are the problems?
Doug DeMuro
The problems are that the car is hand built by the company that designs and builds every little part themselves. And so stuff breaks. And when stuff breaks, you can't go to the Koenigsegg dealer because there isn't one. And even if there was, which in some c. There's no like, parts supply. Like, they built all these things themselves. So like a little thing breaks and it's like a Ford dealer, you go to the Ford dealer, they get you a mirror, power mirror switch and a Koenigsegg that's like a bespoke part that they made a limited run of 19 years ago. Yeah, that's hard.
Graham Stephan
So who's buying Koenigseggs?
Doug DeMuro
Who's buying Koenigseggs and why? It's crazy. I don't understand it. I truly don't understand it.
Graham Stephan
How is it different from Pagani?
Doug DeMuro
Same kind of thing.
Graham Stephan
But I, I feel like I, I don't hear complaints from Pagani owners.
Doug DeMuro
Pagani use a powertrain that is sourced by Merced. Right. So. So at least that component of the car, which is a pretty significant component of the car is taken care of. Right? That component of the car is. You're Going to be able to find parts. In fact that engine is still in production so that's easier. And other than that though, I would worry about Paganis in, in a, in in all the little intricacies. That stuff scares me. What if that stuff starts to break? I don't know. You're not getting that stuff. It's true of any bespoke car. And honestly 4 GT parts supply 054 GTS they don't have a lot of those parts parts anymore either.
Graham Stephan
For you know what? I'm going on ebay and probably going to reveal the secret. But buying Ford GT parts, it's a smart idea.
Doug DeMuro
The guy I bought mine from, he bought seats, he bought steering with big stuff and he was able to sell it. He hoarded. He bought it when the car was new, when all those parts were easily available and he sold it 20 years later for like 7x20. You know, every part was like in high demand.
Graham Stephan
I'm talking to this guy on ebay who has every part that he's been hoarding for 20 years. He just bought every everything. And he has duplicates.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
Cuz I needed like a gauge and he's like oh yeah, I got like three of those.
Doug DeMuro
Which gauge failed? My fuel gauge is right now. Yeah. But right now my with the car is full. It's reading empty which is, it's a fun.
Graham Stephan
Mine is always empty. But I just top it off. Anytime I take the car out, I just topped off and I park it.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah. But no, I, I. The answer to who's biting Koenig Sigs is people who already have everything else that's like oh, I got a Bugatti and I got a, you know, a bunch of Lambos and a bunch of Ferraris and a bunch of Porsches. Like I want to go to the next, next level. And that's Koenigsegg. And the cool thing about Koenigsegg to give them credit and Pagani is that like you can shake the hand of the guy. Yes. You know like ends. Ferrari is a company now. Bugatti's a company. Like those guys are dead, right? Koenigsegg, you can literally meet the dude. It'd be like meeting Enzo in period. And so there's something special about like joining the Koenigsegg club. I just don't. It doesn't do anything for me.
Graham Stephan
What's going on with people leasing these cars these days is like a lease to own.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah. Cuz I guess if you're doing it for your channel and you own the biz. You can write off a significant amount of it or something. And I, I got. I realized you could do this. Too late. I never once did it. And now I don't own the biz anymore, which is unfortunate. So. But it's a. It's a big thing that I think all these guys are doing. And everybody's like, well, you. You don't own the car then. Well, the leases aren't set up. People think of it like a traditional car lease. It's not really like that. Like, at the end, you have this. You. You've. A lot of it has gone into equity. The car's not depreciating really. You can. You could re up the lease. People lease these cars sometimes two or three or four times. Yeah, yeah. But the drawback is these massive payments. So Stradman's making like $20,000 payments, whatever it is in this con 30. That's not out of the norm, by the way, in that segment of the market. A lot of guys do that. Yeah.
Graham Stephan
Oh, Steve Hamilton, his payments were just through the roof. But for him, he was like, you know, I financed these at low interest rates.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
I'm not doing that anymore. But on all the ones I got like three years ago, it makes sense to have these payments at 3%.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
Even though, I mean, think about what the cash.
Doug DeMuro
Right. He would have lost out if he had put all that cash out of those cards at the time. Pry.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
So it was the right call. It's just. It's an astronomical number to see right. In your bank account coming out everywhere.
Graham Stephan
Right. I'm sure of the three. I think he said his payment was like 33, 000amonth. I'm sure of that. Probably 31 goes towards equity, probably my guess. And then his balloon payment at the very. So really, it's going to be a small amount.
Doug DeMuro
Right. Like at the end, probably it's going towards the car that he owns, which is fine. But like, damn.
Graham Stephan
Yeah. What are you noticing these days for cars and bids buyers in terms of financing?
Doug DeMuro
A lot of our buyers are cash. And I think that is especially more true now that interest rates have gone up. I know I have just. I. Financing is just. I'm not going to finance at seven cars in percent or 8% or 9%. That's. That's just not. I can't justify that. Mentally. We are surprised at how many of our buyers are cash. But it makes sense when you consider these are third cars. These are enthusiast cars. They've always wanted whatever we offer a financing through lightstream on our site and people do it but and you know, sellers have financing, buyers have financing. It happens. But I think that people are trying to avoid it if they can.
Jack
How can the average person buy a supercar or their dream car for that matter? Where would you recommend that they start looking? How can they know that they're not getting completely ripped off? What would, what would your just general advice be for them?
Doug DeMuro
Forums are still unbelievable helpful which is insane because like they were helpful in 1999, you know, like. But car forums are like Ferrari chat and all the 4gt forum that they're all still shockingly helpful. You can get an enormous amount of information with regards to common problem areas, what to look at, which shops in your era area are shysters, which ones are great. You can get a lot of really good info on the forums. I have learned basically everything I needed to learn about the cars that I've bought from car forums and talk to owners, try to drive one if you can from an owner. Try to turo one A lot of these cars are available on Turo and you can rent one and see if you fit, see if it fits in your driveways, you know, etc, all that stuff. And you know I always tell people the number one thing I always tell people is you're buying the seller. So like you're not. Don't even think about you're buying the car. Read the seller. If, if the seller uses the the word should of and he spells it should space of of guys not check changing his oil. That guy is not changing a guy. That guy is. That guy has 9 year old mismatched tires. Like I spent an enormous amount of time when I'm buying a car just trying to like read the seller. Google everything about the seller, try to learn everything I possibly can and see if they I the countach for example, I bought it from a deadbeat. I knew it going in I he was misrepresenting the car, lying about the condition. But I knew it and I knew it was gonna be hard to find another one like I wanted and so I went in knowing I would have to spend a lot of money to get it. Nice. No, it needs nothing. He's an idiot. And he did write could of and I that was, that was, that was red flag number one. But I knew it and it was fine and I did put the money in. But if you want a nice car I you read the seller and really try to learn as much as you can about the car before you go and do it and try to get a pre purchase inspection from a reputable shop. Although I I generally find that pre purchase inspections are so hit or miss that I don't find it as wor. I'm a guy with a lot of money but I don't find it as worth it as as some people say.
Graham Stephan
I always thought that was the go know same.
Doug DeMuro
I've had too many friends get a pre purchase inspection and then get burned or not get one and then the car is perfect. Like a lot more of it to me is like look at in the on our site look at every picture everyone look at look for clues. Look for clues in the service history. Watch the driving video 14 times. You know make make sure it's shifting right make sure it's sound like I think that stuff is generally better than some mechanic who's not familiar with the car trying to diagnose it in that moment in time. Who knows if XYZ part that can't even be seen is on its way out. You know and I also have a rule that you just have to assume you're going to put money into a car and you buy it. People are always so mad when they buy a car and it's not perfect. It's like this is a used car driven by enthusiast it's going to have needs. I always budget in my mind a 10% on top of the car to to make it right and I. I generally feel if you can't afford that 10% on top you you should probably focus on a less expensive car.
Graham Stephan
For me I find the Comets actually the most helpful comments are tremendous. So you know in tune with with certain cars and I've seen like seller and picture of 97 the cap you used isn't the original cap and was a replacement. Did you lose the original on our.
Doug DeMuro
Site sellers hate this but it's but number one it's really useful for buyers.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
And number two if you are representing a good car and representing it well as a seller it can benefit you. Like if you can push off the the crazy commenters and be like nope, that actually is the right cap. And here's we tried three different ones in here. You can come in and look at and and I always tell people buy the seller well the seller can in that situation rise up and actually look like a real expert who's representing car really well. And I've seen sellers who hate those commenters and they're terrible turn it around and actually make it clear that the seller really is an authority and Then instead of complaining, I always tell sellers try to answer his question really thoroughly using good grade grammar and prove to people that you, you, your car is good.
Graham Stephan
Interesting and it works. This might be controversial for something like a Countach. What are your thoughts about buying a replica like a Diablo?
Doug DeMuro
You know, a lot of the replicas are just not. They just weren't done well and, and then nobody's doing the replicas anymore and so very few have really survived. I think that there are some very rare nice replicas that are cool but you know the, the real thing is just the real thing. If you can, if you can afford it, it's worth doing. If you can't. The kind of people who care can often tell. Like I, when I see a Countach rep, I just know in two seconds like that it's.
Graham Stephan
What's the dead giveaway?
Doug DeMuro
It's usually proportions because it's based on a non Countach and they had to fit the body of a Countach, the fake body they created of a Countach onto the chassis of a car that is longer or shorter or. And if you spend enough time looking at the car you could just tell instantly like oh, that that panel is wrong. That would.
Graham Stephan
What about if they stretch the chassis though?
Doug DeMuro
There are, there are replicas and actually we had one on cars and bids. There are replicas where they just build a tube frame like from ground up.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
Where they, there isn't even a chassis and they just go, they just fabricate the whole thing. And I'll be honest, we had, we had this, this red replica.
Graham Stephan
Watched it.
Doug DeMuro
That car may have fooled me. The, the giveaway was it didn't have a gated manual. It's still had the shift lever from whatever car they got the motor from because they, those things had to marry. But like everything else.
Graham Stephan
Was that the only, was that the only giveaway? Cuz I saw the, the rear end and I was like trying to compare it with the real thing and like I.
Doug DeMuro
The problem is to make a replica that nice you got to really spend. So they had a Lambo steering wheel, they had a Lambo seats, they had Lambo wheels. Getting wheels for a Countach probably 25 grand. Like to do it, to do it right. It's. It's so hard that it's not worth like by the time you're done you're probably in the car almost as much as, as a real one would be. And then it'll never sell for. Obviously never sell for as much as a real one.
Graham Stephan
But that car was for Me, it would be like, I would love a Countach or a Diablo, but I think I would be so worried driving the car around. It's not easy to drive. I'd be terrified of, of maintenance.
Doug DeMuro
No.
Graham Stephan
So it just seems like a, it's not that bad.
Doug DeMuro
You should get a Diablo.
Graham Stephan
No, I'm good.
Doug DeMuro
Everybody's terrified of maintenance if the car is done right. There's this guy in Ohio who's a wizard. His name is George F. Happens, and he is like the guy for Countach Diablo. And I sent the car there and I spent 50 grand with him, and my car starts every single time, and my car drives well. And I told him I was, I, when the car came back, I was like, I'm really impressed with the work you did. And he goes, honestly, I go toe to toe with the factory. Like, I, I, you compare my work to the factory's work from the period, it's gonna look as good.
Graham Stephan
Are you ever nervous about driving that car?
Doug DeMuro
I'm nervous about driving the Courage because of the value. The Countach doesn't scare me. Do you mean because the value or because of the I might break down.
Graham Stephan
Value value or like getting a door ding or someone merging into you or like a I.
Doug DeMuro
The mistake I made with my career GT and the mistake I was thrilled not to make with the Countach was I bought a mild car that actually has some issue, like some, some, some cosmetic issues. If you look closely, even from here, you, well, maybe not because the Bentley's in the way, but I scraped the front bumper. The, the panels were painted at various different times. I really wanted a car I could use specifically for that reason. And so, so no, I don't get worried about that stuff because it's already kind of rough. Like, the car should be repainted if you want, if you wanted a concour's perfect car, you'd repaint it. But I'd rather just have a driver. And so I don't worry about that. I, nonetheless, I do take the precautions. I, I, I clear filmed the windshield on all my cars.
Jack
Okay.
Doug DeMuro
Because a new 4 GT wind or Kos windshield is not really, you can't really get one anymore. So that kind of I, I try to be a little careful. Okay.
Graham Stephan
And what about the Carrera? GT do you not part park it places for fear out of, like, courage.
Doug DeMuro
GT is the greatest car ever built. However, I just wish it wasn't so expensive. I wish I could use it more, and I use it a lot. I've, I've had the car two years. And I've driven it 4,000 miles in those two years, which is a lot considering I'm not here in the summer. Right. So I drive the car only nine months a year. But I am terrified parking it. Yeah. I'm terrified putting it out anywhere, which sucks.
Jack
What's the longest you've ever had to hunt for a spot?
Doug DeMuro
I just don't really take it places where I have to park it anymore, which is so sad. Yeah.
Graham Stephan
It's probably you take it out and then you pull it right back in.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah. And I do big drives like that. Like, I got no qualms about doing 200 miles in a day in it. Like, but I, I, I, I will. Oh, I've got to go to this place. I'll take the Courage ticket. Look at the key thing. Do I really want to? The other thing is, like, I'm going to take it out to dinner. Right. Well, then you got to sit at dinner worried the whole time. I would rather just drive a BS car and not have to think about it. And so I always do. My wife has only ridden in the Courage he wants. And the Countach once, did she like it? Yeah, but, like, it's just not the kind of car I take out. You know what I mean? Like, and I wish that wasn't true. I wish that car costs 400 grand and I could just be like, like the 4 GT. I drove the Fortune on a dirt road the other day. Like, I consider that my beater supercar. Like, I just abused that car partially because I know it's tough and it can take. Take it.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
But also because courage is just, it's not even a courageous, not even a fragile car. But if something happened. And imagine if you're someone who hits one, like, you're in personal bankruptcy at that point, I think because your insurance maximums ain't covering that.
Graham Stephan
Right.
Doug DeMuro
That's a tough situation for everyone.
Graham Stephan
So what's insurance look like for you on a car like that? Are you, I, I take it you're insured on all that sort of stuff.
Doug DeMuro
But, yeah, but it's expensive, you know, to insure those cars. I think courageous cost 15 grand a year to insure. Wow. Yeah, It's a lot. 4gt is nothing, you know?
Graham Stephan
Yeah, I pay like 150amonth, something like. Or maybe less. I think it was like $110 a month.
Doug DeMuro
CRO GT is expensive. It's a really valuable car.
Graham Stephan
Wow.
Doug DeMuro
Sad.
Jack
What's the total overhead of owning these six cars?
Doug DeMuro
You know, it Depends on the year. Because last year I'd spent had a $50,000 count service. The year before that I had a $50,000 cr. It depends on the year. But I knew both of those were coming when I bought them, and I factored that into my purchase price. And honestly, I think especially on the countach, if I were to sell the car today, I would get every penny of the 50 grand back. It's just showing that you did a big important service at the right guy with the right parts. And people are so scared of maintenance on those cars that having that proof is a big deal when you're going to sell it. But, you know, some, sometimes, I don't know, I haven't done anything at Kutach Sensei. It has to cost me a dollar since the service I was a year ago. Almost exactly. So last year, zero. But the year before 50. So 25 grand a year does, of course, it doesn't really work like that, but I, I don't know. The, the, the fixed costs insurance is obviously the, the most expensive. The, the. I think all the cars together are probably in the neighborhood of 25 grand a year or something to ensure maybe 30 grand a year to ensure.
Graham Stephan
How much value do you think you add to the car? Because I'd imagine there's a premium for having your car.
Doug DeMuro
I think that for the cheaper cars, when I go to sell them, there is that my Land Cruiser, I sold my Defender. Those cars are, you know, Land Cruiser, 35 grand car. The Defender sold for like 90. I think people are like, oh, it be cool to have one. And also it'd be cool to have Dougs. I think when you get into this realm, people don't care about that stuff. Everybody who had a countach was somebody, Everybody who had a career GT was somebody people care more about having. Like, the car is well made. And I think there's in, in a way, some of these cars may even get hurt by the fact that some YouTuber had it. They assume if you're a YouTuber, you're probably hooning it or doing dumb stuff with the car, which is one of the reasons why I'm militant about maintenance, repairs, making sure everything is beautifully documented. Because I really maintain these cars the way a true enthusiast would. But I don't think these cars, I, I would get a premium.
Graham Stephan
I, I don't know. I, I think it would just having the car that you reviewed, and I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that just say, hey, would you review my car? And then they could turn around and say, as seen on Doug, certain, when.
Doug DeMuro
We sell the cars on the site that I review reviewed, which is on cars and bids, when we sell them, after I review them, they definitely get more money. But I think part of that is because just the, they went to a wider audience. But there is some, some people find it fun for sure that like, they have the car that was in the Doug video.
Graham Stephan
I think it would be cool. This is the Doug car.
Doug DeMuro
It's definitely cool. That may be worth some premium. And certainly like I said for the cheaper cars I sell, there is some premium. But I think the type of people who would buy a career gtr, they're not, they're not paying up. For me, that, that's. It's a very specialized car and they're fairly available. And so you want to find the right one.
Graham Stephan
Be like the Jerry Seinfeld car. Those get.
Doug DeMuro
I asked Leno the very question you asked me, and Leno was like, no, I don't think my cars, Leno doesn't sell anything.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
But he's like, I don't think my cars have a premium. And I'm like, I totally disagree. Yeah. Leno is the kind of guy who would never say that. Like, he's, he doesn't want to think of himself that way. He, like, he wants to think of himself as sort of a down home, like I, I do my own work kind of guy. And in a lot of ways he is, is. But it's, he's still Jay Leno and I think that his car, all of them, it would be able to say this was out of the Jay Leno collection would be a big deal.
Graham Stephan
What do you think are the most overrated cars?
Doug DeMuro
I mean, the, the one I'm most known for. I really think the Lexus LFA is overrated. I think that car is way more valuable than it should be. I think. I don't think those cars kind of suck. I think honestly, a lot of the Koenigsegg Pagani type cars are kind of overrated. A lot of the, A lot of the new cars that are made to be special just for radio rich guys, I find to be really kind of gross and, and just not cool. Like, there's a new Countach, like, but it was just an event or body. It's not, that's not a special car. The old Countach was a special unusual, crazy thing. I find a lot of those, like, special editions just to make rich guys feel like they got one and so they're Special are really overrated cars. And I think the market will realize that there's a lot of those cars, they are valuable. Not now. I don't think they're going to be valuable in 20 years.
Graham Stephan
So what car stereotypes have you found are true about.
Doug DeMuro
Almost all people have stereotypes for a reason, man. Raptor owners really are like that. Dodge Ram owners really are like that. You know, I, I find almost all car, the vintage Porsche guys are the annoying watch obsessed, you know, like they are. All the car stereotypes are, are generally true. I typically.
Graham Stephan
So what stereotypes are there for the Carrera GT owners?
Doug DeMuro
I think that career GT owners are a lot of them as I have come to learn. But I think, and I think the stereotype is out there is that they're obsessed with keeping the car pristine, never driving it, so that the values continue to rise. An enormous portion of these guys don't touch their cars and are like kind of keep it in a bubble type guys. People are. Whenever I say post a picture of mine anywhere, people like, I can't believe you're driving it. It's like, that's a car. And also, you know, it's, it is really the greatest driver's car ever built. And so there's this stereotype, the type that like it's a hard car to control and to own. And so the type of people who would actually drive one, they must know what they're doing. You know, I don't feel that way. I feel the car is actually pretty easy to drive. But.
Graham Stephan
And what about Ferrari Ferrari owners?
Doug DeMuro
I mean, you know, Ferrari owners have the stereotype of all the Ferrari gear and bragging to everybody that they have a Ferrari and all that. And I, I generally find that, that, that often is the case. Like those guys are really proud that they have a Ferrari and sometimes it's.
Graham Stephan
Like, okay, do you know how to tell someone has a Ferrari?
Doug DeMuro
Yeah, they'll tell you.
Graham Stephan
They'll tell you.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah. 100% of the the time, like really, really out there. It's actually funny. I think about this a lot. Until I got the countach, my car collection was a Carrera GT, a 4 GT and the convertible G Wagon. And to a sort of car enthusiast, none of those cars sound cool. Carrera gt. Oh, my uncle has a Carrera. Right. They don't, you know, Ford gt. Oh, you got a Mustang, right? Convertible G Wagon. Oh, G Wagon, Yeah. Okay. It's an old one with a soft top and it's like, no, you don't understand. And, and now that I have the lambo that, that everybody knows that car. But I always kind of found it funny. Funny that, like, to the casual observer, I was just kind of a loser. Whereas some guy who spent 40 grand on a used Ferrari can go brag that he's got a Ferrari and everybody's like, oh, yeah, that's funny.
Jack
What car would you least like to drive for one year straight?
Doug DeMuro
A lot of very compromised exotic cars. Big cars, too, are really hard to drive, like giant trucks. I reviewed a Ford F651 time, which is actually a thing. And I mean stuff like. Like that. It's just hard. You can't park and you can't get into any building, any garage, anything like that. But also countach, as much as I love it, like, when I park it at the end of a long day of driving it, I'm like, I'm good and I don't take it out for two weeks.
Jack
What car would you least like to be seen driving?
Doug DeMuro
Oh, that's a good one. Hummer H2.
Jack
Really?
Doug DeMuro
Yeah. Those are pretty 2004. These days, though, Hummer H2s are kind of starting to become cool again, actually.
Graham Stephan
Really?
Doug DeMuro
I don't know know. There's nothing that I. I am a wide adopter of, like, all manners cars. I've had Korean, British, German, American, Japanese. I've had it all. I don't really have a lot of like. So you see me in a car that has a bad rep, whatever. I'm cool with it.
Jack
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
Now, in terms of running cars and bids to shift into this, what was the most surprising thing about running a business and taking that from YouTube to, like, an actual car company?
Doug DeMuro
Running a business is hard, it turns out. It's quite hard. There's like, customers and employees and it's not easy to do. Like, I. It's hard.
Graham Stephan
You seem so much more relaxed today than when we first met.
Jack
I agree.
Graham Stephan
Like, back then you were very. Just like. I don't know, it seems like you had a lot going on.
Doug DeMuro
I was obsessive about everything. And it's been nice to have an investor partner who worries about some of that stuff. Not for me, but. But like, in addition. But also, like, run. Yeah. Running a business is challenging. It is nice to be in a financial position where you don't have to worry. And I never really was before, you know, I was doing well on YouTube, but that cap could be turned off at any time and. And that helps that. That really, really, really helps it. It definitely lowers the stakes from. I absolutely have to do this or else I'LL I don't know what'll happen to like, let's make this succeed, but it's like a fun project. I actually want better employee and person now, even though you'd think it would be the opposite. Some people work better under like heavy pressure, financial or otherwise. And I think it's actually, I don't. I think, yeah.
Graham Stephan
You seem so much happier.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah, yeah.
Jack
Like really 100%.
Doug DeMuro
I mean, yeah, there was, there was a, especially that time when we, when we met. Like it was tough, like run the business. Business was hard. Especially like by myself with my co founder. Like it was hard. It was, there was a lot of work. And at that stage of a business too, you don't know, you don't know what's going to happen, is it going to. And, and that's hard too. So you're putting in these long hours for something that might not work and you know, managing employees and managing a space and managing the business and, and, and the customers, which is the hardest part for sure. Or. It's a lot. It's just a lot. I'm never doing it again. People are like, but yeah, but you say that, but really in a couple of years, no, I'm never doing it again. Ever.
Graham Stephan
What was the hardest part for you to get over? Was it the hours or the. Just the.
Doug DeMuro
Getting it going? Was the hardest part at the very beginning. The first four or five months, you know, you're, that's when that's sink or swim. Especially when you're as public as we are. Right. Like a lot of startups, you can roll out to a select group, you can roll out to, you know, a small audience in one state to, to just Dr. You know, whatever it is, whatever your startup. Startup is. I don't know. But like we were, we launched, I mean, we announced the launch the day we launched, you know, and then everyone knew because I was on YouTube and it was a big deal and etc. Etc. And so like those, though, if it wasn't going to work, it was going to fail. Like in those days, like I didn't have a second chance. There wasn't going to be a larger audience later. And we had built a great product but like it needed, it needed a lot of effort right then and there, like there were more customers than we ever expected right away. And then there were less customers than we expected soon after. And it was like, okay, we have different problems now. We got to figure this out. And there was just constant triage and whack a mole and putting out fires and I'm never doing it again. I straight up, I'm never doing. Yeah, I just, I remember those days and I'm too old for it and I'm, I probably have too much money for it. I don't have, I don't have the ability to like go through it again. Yeah. And also by the way, the YouTube channel was like that too. And so like really I consider it that there were two successful businesses. The YouTube channel also had a very difficult start. A lot of effort, an enormous amount of work, long nights, long hours, long weekends, a lot of travel. Then we started the cars and bids business which was all of those things once again. So like it happened twice and I think that's all you get. Some people get more. That's all I get.
Graham Stephan
How has your job changed since the investment in cars and bids?
Doug DeMuro
The, it changed in my mind for the dramatic better which is that I don't have to really deal with a lot of the day to day operations anymore and I can instead focus heavily on the thing that not only do I do best, but I enjoy the most and I am most valuable to the business in which is making the videos. You know, I was, I was personally setting reserves like people would send in their car and I would like be the one to type like, you know, we'll offer you 20, oh I want 25. Like I personally did that just by myself for the first six months and we hired one other dude and then me and him did it and for the next year. So like it's nice not to have to do that anymore. And I've replaced that time. I certainly don't work less but I've replaced that time time with filming videos which again is most beneficial for the business to have me out there. But also I just enjoy it. I, I to this day people are like, don't you get tired of it? And I'm like, nah. Like I'm the quirks and features. I still to this day I'm like, I can't wait to see what this Bentley's gonna have.
Graham Stephan
You know, that's so interesting. Do you find that you're less motivated because you have less skin in the game?
Doug DeMuro
No, I've surprisingly no, I'm not necessarily less motivated but it is nice not to be in a position where I, where like it has to be a certain thing outcome. It's nice.
Graham Stephan
Interesting. Now for sellers who sell their cars on auction websites, I'm curious, does having a no reserve help get a higher price or like what sort of strategy.
Doug DeMuro
If the car is good, yeah, we, we generally find that no reserve cars bring more money, morbids, more comments, more views, more money almost always. But you can also get screwed. I always tell people if you have like a good car that you're confident is good, you take good photos. I tell people you are your own reserve. Like if you take good photos, you're a good seller who answers questions, who has a video, who has service records. Like, you don't need a reserve, you just don't like that's that stuff is your reserve. And then, and then going no reserves shows a level of confidence in the car that you know it's going to do well and buyers know they're not wasting their time. So that's a winner. If the car is sketchy, I don't know like, like, you know, if you're or, or if it's just a, a weird car that you don't know, there's not much comps, you don't know where the market is. You have this idea in mind. Yeah, it makes more sense for reserve. But when I sell all my cars, I sell them all with no reserve and not even cars that I get like views on when I talk about. Usually when I get to the point where I'm selling a car, I just want it gone. But also I just really feel pretty confident in the photos that I have a professional photographer take and the way I've. The standard to which I've maintained the car and that that is shown in those results.
Graham Stephan
And then what about when an auction ends? Is there any correlation between it ending on like a Sunday versus like a Monday afternoon?
Doug DeMuro
Yeah. I firmly believe that weekend auctions are a bad idea. We don't run them. I'm going to eat my words. Someday when we expand around weekend auctions.
Graham Stephan
We'Re going to have to edit all this out.
Doug DeMuro
We don't run weekend auctions. Other than that, we have not found a correlation. Some sellers are convinced I only want my cars on Monday. And it's funny because you'll hear guys be like, I won't sell on a Friday. And so we, we, we, we will, we will, will accommodate that. And we'll schedule them not on Fridays, but like you have another seller who's equally as smart in his mind. He's like, I only want Fridays. I was like, all right, we'll accommodate that too. But just so you know, you guys should talk. We, we have not found. You would think there would be some correlation, but we have not. Now I do think that generally speaking, in winter, you probably get a little less money for your, your enthusiast, especially sports car, than in spring, summer, fall.
Graham Stephan
What about correlation between two competing cars? Like I noticed for the cybertruck, for a while there's only one at a time that would end, and then a few days later, a new cyber car.
Doug DeMuro
We try not to run two competing cars at the same time. Okay. With Rivans, it got to a point where we couldn't do that. There were just so many. We would try to run them geographically distinct. So if one is in Boston and one is in San Francisco, we could run those. They're probably not competing. But I do think that that does have an impact. If you run two cars at the same time, certainly a person could be like, well, I didn't win that one, but I'll win this one. And so I'm not going a bit as high.
Graham Stephan
Interesting. And what about for buyers who buy a car sight unseen? How do they ensure that the car is going to be in good working order? Is it purely just, you know, buying the seller and buying the seller?
Doug DeMuro
We, this is one of the reasons we require so much stuff. And sellers get really frustrated with us because it's like, I got to put in 150 pictures and three videos and I got to submit all the documentation and the title and all that. But it makes the process better for every. Everybody, not just buyers, but sellers too. Like when you don't do that, and I got a buddy who just bought a Bentley on a competing platform that just was grossly misrepresented. And when you don't do that, the result is that you end up with an upset buyer who's then going after the seller. The seller is in that situation trying to resolve that. The auction business has to step in. It's a tough thing. You want to try to represent the. You want to try to ask for as much stuff as possible to allow buyers to do as much diligence. That doesn't mean they will. And in a lot of cases, we've had buyers be like this, dents on here. And it's like the dent is in every picture. Like, but they complain and it's like, well, okay, you know, then that's an int. That's a more difficult problem to solve.
Graham Stephan
How many cars do you deny selling?
Doug DeMuro
A lot. But you'd be surprised. People submit Nissan Rogues and stuff. Like, like, we, we probably deny more than half the cars that get submitted. But like a lot of the, A lot of it's just open trash, like traffic car. Like, like Honda Civics that the automatic 12 year old Honda Civic with 200,000 miles. I don't know how they found us, like what are you doing here? But a lot of stuff just gets denied straight away. So the numbers make it seem like we're very selective. But with enthusiast cars we try not to be too selective. I like to be the platform that sells the crappy one that it's so rough that if you want to just turn into a track car you can. And also the nice one that is like going to be a special show car to me.
Graham Stephan
I will say I like how curated it is that it seems like every day could go on, see a few new cars, read new comments and they're all interested and it's not just, you know, blown up with Toyota Camry.
Doug DeMuro
Right, Right. So I like that tries to be a platform for when I scroll, you know, on the, especially on the desktop that's like 3 across or 4 across. I try to make sure like in every one of those three across, like which one of those of those three would I get? Like there's always something interesting in every row and every column.
Graham Stephan
How much work goes into like organizing the cars of like having certain makes and models next to each other. Like is there any very little of that.
Doug DeMuro
But scheduling is, is complicated.
Graham Stephan
Okay.
Doug DeMuro
Sellers have their own preferences. Like I said. Some sellers have essentials like I'm going out of town XYZ day. It has to end before that or I'm not going out of town until XYZ day. Like it can't start until after I get back some. And, and, and then there's. You don't want two cars to run at the same time and so you have to be care cognizant of that. And so there's, there's two identical cars and so there's a, there's actually a lot that goes into the scheduling but we don't think about it like let's put a BMW next to a Mercedes or let's not put two BM BMWs together. That generally doesn't happen. We do try to balance no reserve and reserve cars. We try to have like no reserve reserve. No reserve reserve to, to try to break things up a little.
Graham Stephan
So if there's so much demand that you turn down half of the vehicles, why not expand the business from cars and bids to something else where it's like you know, commuter cars or normal everyday cars that just sell.
Doug DeMuro
At an auction we talk about this stuff. I mean this is, that's, that's, that's an interesting question. You like that it's curated. I mean I think a lot of people do. I think a lot of enthusiasts like that. However, there's a bigger market out there. Do you do that? Maybe. But do you then alienate the people who came in the first place? Maybe.
Graham Stephan
Probably that's why it's a separate website.
Doug DeMuro
I'm not starting any more businesses. Grammar. Maybe you could. Is a regular consumer willing to buy a car that way you know an enthusiast will bid in an auction for a car they know they're not going to find. Another one of is a regular person. Maybe. I don't know. These are. These are things we discuss for sure. I mean there's possibilities. Possibilities there.
Jack
I've always wondered since the UI seems so great, the dashboard is great. If you could just license and sell all that coding and back end as a template to other people that are trying to sell other things like watches have some sort of bidding wars on anything.
Doug DeMuro
I wonder about that too. It's really well done.
Jack
It shouldn't be super hard to extract all that. Just pay some dude some exorbitant amount of money to extract all the coding and everything.
Doug DeMuro
Right.
Graham Stephan
I wanted to do a cars and bids of watches.
Doug DeMuro
We registered watches and bids.com don't go after us or don't try.
Graham Stephan
I briefly.
Doug DeMuro
We're not doing it.
Graham Stephan
There's a website called watch collecting.com. it's located in the UK and they do that. But the issue with that is they have so few watches. Guaranteeing authenticity of certain watches can be difficult. Their fee is so high and every watch has such a high reserve. They don't. They don't hit like half of the watches on there just never hitting you.
Doug DeMuro
It's very difficult. I've learned. I didn't know that this before, thank God. But it's very difficult to create a two sided marketplace. To have to. To have enough inventory for buyers to be happy and to have enough buyers for sellers to be happy. It is tremendously difficult to put those things together. When you see the marketplaces that have the reserves that are too high it means they're desperate for sellers and so they'll let sellers list at any price they can just to have the inventory come in. And you would be shocked how many other car auction websites have come up and died since we launched. And I have this theory that I people see me in the T shirt and shorts and they're like this guy's an idiot. If he can do it, we can do it. It ain't easy it is not easy and everybody finds that out. Like, it is very, very hard to get enough inventory going. It's very hard enough to get enough buyers to make sure the inventory gets to the price level where it should. It is not easy. Bring a trailer, cars and bids. It's pretty impressive that this has happened even because. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah.
Graham Stephan
I certainly think your audience is perfect for it and your viewership was.
Doug DeMuro
That was key. Did it because they took a long time to develop.
Graham Stephan
Oh gosh, years, years, years.
Doug DeMuro
I did it because I had a built in audience. Other people who try don't realize how important one of those two things is and that you really can't do it without one of those two things. And in some cases, even if you have an audience already, it's still tremendously difficult. I've had other YouTubers try to create car auctions websites that have not succeeded. And it's harsh.
Graham Stephan
Is there anything you would go back and change knowing what you know now?
Doug DeMuro
No, probably not. But it was a lot of work and maybe we should have just done a podcast.
Graham Stephan
What lessons have you learned from like building up a business like this that.
Doug DeMuro
Do it when you're young.
Graham Stephan
Okay.
Doug DeMuro
That's the biggest. Do it when you're young. That is the number one lesson that I would tell people. Um, I had time and I didn't have as much to lose and that's big. Like when you have kids and a mortgage and three supercars, like it's different. You do it when you're young. And I was rewarded greatly and I get a lot of time with my kids now.
Graham Stephan
Yeah. How has it changed having kids while also running a business and maybe kind of shifting back towards the family life?
Doug DeMuro
You just gotta kind of do it and. But I feel bad for the guys who have to grind throughout their kids kids lives. Like I obviously no longer have to grind at the crazy level where I was. It's hard to convince people who are 23 to 33 years old to like buckle down and just like focus on creating a business, starting a business and like rocking it. It's so hard because those are the ages where you want to party and hang out and have fun. And I didn't do any of that stuff and I just did a business or two. And, and. But it's. But I'm so glad that I did because when you're in the family life situation, it is so nice to be able to hang out with my kids and I, I'm shocked at how much I enjoy family life and I'm shocked by how much I enjoy being a dad. And I'm. I'm cool with the way that it worked out. I'm cool with giving up those 10 years.
Graham Stephan
Have you always been like that, or did you start enjoying it when you actually have a family?
Doug DeMuro
Oh, no, I definitely thought I was. Not the first year even. I was like, I don't know. I'm not sure.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
But once my first son, once he got older and started talking, and, like, we're like, best buds now, and I just. I love it. It's. It's shockingly enjoyable.
Graham Stephan
So the one thing we hear from a lot of people, they say one of their regrets is not having kids sooner. Do you find that to be the case now that you have kids?
Doug DeMuro
It was the right time for me. I wanted to. I wanted to travel a ton. My wife and I traveled a ton. We met really young, so we've been everywhere in the world together, which is cool. And I wanted to do the businesses, and we did and got it done. And it was a huge thing. Now is like the. The next season of my life. Is this the season for kids?
Graham Stephan
How do you make sure your kids don't grow up spoiled?
Doug DeMuro
I don't know, man. I'm worried. So just winging it. I didn't grow up rich.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
And so, like, I'm actually a little envious of my friends who grew up rich and are well adjusted, which is rare to have both because they, like, know what to do instinctually. They grew up in a household that, like, raised nice rich kids. Most rich kids aren't nice, good people. And my kids are obviously going to grow up in a different situation than me, and I. I don't know. I got to figure that out. I'm scared of that. I don't know. I honestly don't know the answer yet. They're still too young to have to really figure it out. They. They don't. When someone comes up to you on the street, for example, they don't know. They don't. They just think it's a friend, you know, like. But we're getting there. And so I. And we're getting to the point where I got to deny them presence and be like, no, you can't have that, even though it's obviously affordable and teach them that stuff. And so I'm. It makes me nervous for sure. It seems like, know the answer from.
Graham Stephan
Some of the guests that we've had on. The ones with the kids that are most well adjusted seem to be the ones that get Thrown into work early on and get to see what it's like to earn money or just be a part of something that, where they're contributing to it. It seems like that is the differentiating factor.
Doug DeMuro
Interesting. Yeah, no, I mean that's going to be a bit. My kids are going to be working. We, you know, in the summer, we live in Massachusetts and in the summer town and they're going to be, they're going to be scooping ice cream when they're 4 14. Damn the child labor laws. Five bucks an hour plus tip if they're lucky. Yeah, but no, that, that scares me a lot.
Graham Stephan
Interesting. And what about the secrets to having just a long standing marriage and a happy relationship?
Doug DeMuro
I've been married now for, for only seven years, but I've been with my wife for a long time of 15 years. I don't know, we're. We're great together. We're. She Great communication and we're both positive people. People. And I can't imagine being with anyone else.
Graham Stephan
How, how did you know she was the one?
Doug DeMuro
I don't know, I. It just, it. It developed very gradually actually. Some people are like, I saw her and three weeks later we were engaged. And it took me like six years.
Jack
But did you have pressure from like family and like, come on.
Doug DeMuro
You know, it's interesting. When we got together, we lived in the south. I went to Emory and it was in Atlanta. And everybody's like, when are you? Like right out of college. People like, when are you going to propose? And it's like, I don't. What are you? And then we lived in the north and we never got that question. Like people, we lived in Philly and people went their whole lives without getting married, you know, and then, but then we eventually did.
Graham Stephan
How did you guys meet in college?
Doug DeMuro
I was for, I was my wife's ra, believe it or not.
Jack
Were you lenient?
Doug DeMuro
Yeah, I was the dual ra. I really. The only reason I became an RA was because I wanted a single room that was on campus. I didn't want to have to commute from some off campus apartment, but I didn't want to share a room. And so all the on campus rooms were like doubles or triples. And so I was like, well, I can be an ra. So I did.
Graham Stephan
And so what was the pickup line for Jack? Like, what line did you use?
Doug DeMuro
Line? Is Jack looking?
Graham Stephan
Jack is looking.
Doug DeMuro
I don't. Hey, I'm your ra. Nice to meet you. I don't know, it didn't, it didn't happen that way.
Jack
That's smooth.
Doug DeMuro
What do you do, Jack? You go, you try it. You on the apps?
Jack
Yeah, I am, but I don't, like. I don't spend a lot of time on them anymore.
Graham Stephan
There is a while he was paying. He was paying someone to. Right. To go through the app.
Jack
Never paying anybody to go through the app. He's just making things up. You should have been 26.
Doug DeMuro
So. So you're on the apps and. And sometimes. But it's hard to do it all.
Jack
I don't know. It's just like, I'm always at a conflicting spot of, like, okay, I can go and I can try to have, you know, girlfriends and stuff like that and. Or, like, you know, casually go on dates and stuff like that, or I can try to settle down and find a wife, but all of that is pretty exhausting. Like, any whatever direction you choose, it's going to be pretty.
Doug DeMuro
Right?
Jack
You know?
Doug DeMuro
You got Graham.
Jack
Yeah, he wears me out. He's like a relationship of his own. It's like, I really have to curate this sometimes.
Doug DeMuro
But you. You. What are the. What are the ladies like in Las Vegas?
Jack
I mean, I would say that typically, not really my. My cup of tea, generally speaking. I mean, you have some transient people that just, like, come and go, and then a lot of the people that are born in Vegas and they stay in Vegas, you know, what are you doing, right? You get in, you get out.
Doug DeMuro
Like, the real.
Jack
I guess, like, the needle in the haystack would be someone that, you know, moved to Vegas for tax purposes, you know, some job reload, some job relocation, you know, and is it in Vegas? I'm gonna say some awful things.
Doug DeMuro
I know. You're right. I agree. I actually feel similar about San Diego because it's such a party. It's like a play city. There's no industry here. And so you're always like, who are these people who are here? I. I'm always curious what dating is like, because I never did it and certainly I never had to, like, be on the apps and everything. So I'm always like, you know, it depends.
Jack
I mean, like, if. If you're confident in yourself and you feel like you're, you know, you have some sort of marketplace value in. In the dating scene, then it shouldn't be.
Doug DeMuro
But it's super hard. It's still exhausting and tiresome.
Jack
It's definitely. It's. It's like a muscle. You know what I mean? Like, you have. You can't just, like, not go on a date for three years and then Go out and date, and it's like, an amazing date. You definitely have to, like, get adjusted to talking to people that you're interested in. At least for me, this has been my experience. I won't say this in a dogmatic way for everybody, but absolutely. Like, if I don't talk to anybody for a while, I come back, like, and I don't even know how to continue a conversation. It's like, I talk for a living, but I can't talk to, you know.
Doug DeMuro
Right.
Jack
Girls, I guess.
Graham Stephan
Easy to interview. It would be difficult to, like, spark attraction from.
Jack
Yeah, right. You know, so it's a muscle for sure. And some people are just naturally more attuned to being better at that, and some people are naturally not. It's kind of just like biology.
Doug DeMuro
Do you ever turn on the apps when you're. When you're traveling?
Jack
I have before in the past. And in fact, I brought this up to Graham because I wanted to do it when we were traveling somewhere. And he's like, no, no, you got to focus, Jackie.
Doug DeMuro
It's crazy.
Jack
It's crazy because he wants me to have a girlfriend. And then next. The week later, he's like, no, no, just go out, have fun. Like, you know, be young. Like, go do stupid stuff.
Doug DeMuro
It's not inconvenient.
Graham Stephan
Yes.
Doug DeMuro
And then.
Jack
And then he also will say, like, oh, you got to focus on the business. It's like he's giving me, you know, very.
Graham Stephan
My line in the sand. Focus on the business first.
Jack
Yes, yes. Which is what I. Which is what I would prefer to do.
Doug DeMuro
Right.
Jack
Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
Right. But aren't. Are you worried that the years are going to go by?
Jack
I am, yeah. I mean, I just turned 26, and to be honest, I had a little bit, like, on my 26th birthday, I'm thinking to myself, like, well, my brother, you know, he met his girlfriend of 10 years, like, when he was. Was, I don't know, 18, 19. And then my parents, they met in high school. So now I'm thinking to myself, like, 26, like, I'm going to croak before I.
Doug DeMuro
That's normal. Now people in their 20s, that's, like, normal.
Jack
I know. But then I also, like, I really want kids. And I think back to what a lot of the guests on our podcast say, which is, you have kids early, as early as possible, because your life is just so much better once you do have kids, or at least when you can communicate with your kids and they're, like, receptive to you, that you want as much of your life as possible in. In that range in that state.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah. You want to be younger. 26, though. You're still pretty young.
Jack
Yeah, but I also, like, I don't want to mess up, so I also want to date the person for a long time. It's like, time is pretty sparse, and.
Doug DeMuro
Then there's time before you want to have kids and.
Jack
Yeah. So it's. It's complicated. You know, I'm pretty confident in my ability to figure it out. I have some pretty. Actually, surprisingly, he is a good mentor. As much as I crap I give him, he's.
Doug DeMuro
He's.
Jack
He usually doesn't lead me in the wrong direction. So.
Doug DeMuro
Have you ever said no to one of the part. Has he ever, like, introduced you to a partner and you been like, you got. You got to. He.
Jack
He gives his. He gives his insights, you know?
Graham Stephan
Yes, yes, yes.
Doug DeMuro
Sometimes he's like, that's a tough conversation to have.
Jack
Sometimes he's like, oh, yeah, you know, this is.
Graham Stephan
Yes. So I. I do both extremes. There's one where I was like, dude, app, what are you thinking? Absolutely perfect. And then there's another, like, I don't see it. I'm trying to be polite and I. Not.
Jack
I take no offense. The thing that I. The thing that I absolutely love about Graham, which actually. Which was a big part, and I know this is not like a therapy session, but that a big reason why I guess I had a little bit of resentment towards Graham for a long time is because he is the most straight shooter of a human I've ever met in my entire life. Like, he just gives you his version of the truth, no matter whatever the subject is. Like, he doesn't sugarcoat things. He doesn't worry about your feelings when he's telling you something. And I was always so confused because I'm like, I would show him an edit I made. He's like, I hate it. And I thought that was a reflection of myself, but it was actually just on the work that I did.
Graham Stephan
And I have to create.
Jack
Created a little bit of a distance there, but. But now I love it because anything I come to him for, he's just like, straight up. And now I know I can be the exact same with him.
Doug DeMuro
I like that I've learned that with the younger folks, you. You have to do the sugar coat.
Jack
Absolutely.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah. I've been taught that. I hate it too.
Graham Stephan
Yeah. What is your biggest insecurity?
Doug DeMuro
Probably my beard. What do you think?
Jack
Your beard.
Graham Stephan
I like it.
Doug DeMuro
I just started growing it like. Like three weeks ago.
Graham Stephan
I like it Five weeks.
Doug DeMuro
You like it?
Jack
I. I noticed it when I, when I saw some content. So I think it's good. If, if I were to give you.
Doug DeMuro
Just some straight shooting, some Graham style.
Jack
Graham advice, I would say, I would say the way you're shape, it looks great. It looks good. And I like the beard. However, I would say the way you're shaping it, I would probably shape it a little bit differently. It's a little thin right here.
Doug DeMuro
I, I agree with that. I got to take it up.
Graham Stephan
Yeah, I would take it up.
Doug DeMuro
I, I don't have a lot of things generally that I'm particularly inside insecure about. I'm very committed to the stuff that I am committed to. And as a result of that, if people make fun of me, I'm like, all right, let's do it. I don't care.
Graham Stephan
The one thing you could do is turn into like a Jeff Bezos, like get absolutely jacked.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah, I probably could. You know, I got to tell you, that's actually one thing that I do think about a lot. I devoted 12, 13 years of my life to businesses.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
And there were some personal things that definitely. And like eating right and getting healthy and stuff definitely fell by the wayside. And that's one of my goals. Now that maybe I'm not. I don't have to be as obsessive.
Graham Stephan
And.
Doug DeMuro
And I think that happens to. I. I've noticed that happens to a lot of people who are in. I'm always very impressed when people are able to both start, grow and succeed in a business and also take amazing care of themselves. I don't know how they do it. I, I just was. I was devoted to the business. I would stay up late eating cookies and that was the situation, you know.
Jack
And how are you going to go about doing that? Are you going to get a personal trainer? Are you going to start researching videos?
Doug DeMuro
I'm going to start. Start by just eating better. Yeah. Like not a whole pizza for dinner. You know what I mean? I'll start there.
Jack
That's tough. I mean, that's a hard. That's a. That's pretty lofty goal right there.
Graham Stephan
Dad. Dinner. My dad used to do that.
Jack
Just a pizza.
Graham Stephan
You know, like the microwavable ones too.
Doug DeMuro
Right? Totally.
Graham Stephan
Take it out of the freezer.
Doug DeMuro
Uber Eats has screwed us all. We had to make our no Uber Eats rule in my household because it got out of control.
Graham Stephan
Price wise or just like.
Doug DeMuro
No, no. Just like, just like you can have whatever you want and it just just comes to you. You don't even have to go out. It just comes to you. That's just, that's dangerous. But yeah, I, I do think about it's. And it's not just that like I, it's not just like my health and my body. I, I, you know, there's reading I would love to catch up on. There's, there's like relationships that I could probably do better in that, you know that I think you just have to kind of neglect a little if you, if you want to really go hard. Um, but then it's nice to be in a position to, to not be so neglectful.
Graham Stephan
So when do you know when to scale back from all the work? Because you could, if you want to continue pressing forward, like continue maximizing like the side of.
Doug DeMuro
That's that's the question. I think that's like the question and every person has to answer it at some point, more or less. You know, when do you stop? And, and for Bezos, right, It's like I'm going to keep going. I got 2 billion, I'm going to get 4. 4 billion, right. And there are guys like that. I don't consider myself one of them. I think that there's a point where you stop and where you look at your family and you say I'd rather, I'd rather devote time here. Now. I'm not at that point. I still do a lot of work. I don't, I don't. I'm not as crazy hard grindy as I was. And I think scaling back has made more sense for me, at least in terms of my mental obsessions than just stopping. But I, I think that like that's the question. And you know, as, as I'm sure you're aware, there's formulas you can do. How much money do I spend? How much money, you know, safe withdrawal rate and all that stuff. There's a literal answer to the question, but some people get. Enjoy it. Like I'm astonished by this, but there are people who make 200 million and just where I gotta have 300, I don't. I think that's a little gross, to be honest, and a little mental disorder, to be totally frank. But some people really enjoy working and I enjoy at 2, but I wouldn't. If I was at 200, I wouldn't, I'd be good get a couple more car. If I had 200 million, I would be doing this right now, I'll tell you that. Nope. Like nope. Everybody, Everyone who, that's kind of like.
Graham Stephan
The person who already called you, right? I mean, we have no idea who that, who that was.
Doug DeMuro
Never ends. I'm building something in my house. They're pouring concrete.
Graham Stephan
No, I'm talking about the voicemail.
Doug DeMuro
Oh, right, yeah.
Graham Stephan
What's that about?
Doug DeMuro
That guy that's. I've gotten to the position where I could say no to him.
Graham Stephan
I'm just saying that could be a billionaire who sounded very.
Doug DeMuro
I'm all set.
Graham Stephan
Sounded official to me. Well, what I found, honestly that's helped me lose a lot of weight. Cuz I'm down 10 pounds of body fat, like and a lot of it was just in my belly and I hated it.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
There was a video that I did. I. I'll never forget this. It was. CNBC came and they set up a camera and you just see my belly hang over my belt and I hated it.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
And that switched something in me. So I switched to a whole food diet. So no processed foods, no sugar and drinks. I got rid of coffee creamer, which is a big one. And meal preps foods in general. Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
Beyond just trying to look better or feel like processed foods are kind of sketchy. And that's a. But when you're. That's another thing. When you don't have a lot of time, there's some, some stuff you just have to kind of take. You do. Because that's the, the situation that you're in, you know. And some of those foods really are not great for you. And we're finding more and more out about that stuff and that kind of sketches me out. But sometimes that's the easy thing or the cheap thing or the quick thing.
Graham Stephan
Yeah. The other thing too is sauces. So for me it would be like sauces and cheeses.
Doug DeMuro
So you can't stop cheese.
Jack
Cheeses aren't super bad.
Doug DeMuro
Like bad cheese. You can't stop eating Ch.
Graham Stephan
I prefer no cheese.
Doug DeMuro
You can't. No, you can't. What do you get? A pizza cheeseless.
Graham Stephan
I just don't eat pizza. I just don't eat pizza.
Doug DeMuro
I kind had to stop that too.
Graham Stephan
Yeah. But Chipotle was a good example where I think I'm eating really healthy, but I get like two things of sour cream on top of it. So it would be really sour cream mixed in with all the other stuff with the cheese on top of it. I'm like, this is double the calories than just having the food itself without the two.
Doug DeMuro
Right. That's true.
Graham Stephan
So it's like little things taste as good. No, it doesn't. But you get used to it. Believe it or not like my palette now I can eat something totally plain and enjoy. Enjoy it.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
It's like you're the dog. It's so excited for just like the same food every day. But it's all they know really.
Jack
Also when you eat less, it tends to make you more hungry, which I think also being hungry can be a good thing. Like if you live your life for like five years and you have never been hungry once in those five years.
Doug DeMuro
Right. It's not a good situation.
Graham Stephan
No.
Jack
And I notice I have better mental acuity when I'm hungry. I notice that I'm more energized when I'm hungry. Everything for me in terms of productivity is generally better when I'm hungry. Obviously not starving starving but like you know, haven't eaten in a few hours for years.
Doug DeMuro
Up until a couple years ago, I wouldn't eat until dinner all day or just go.
Jack
Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
I feel like after I eat there's like definitely like a kind of brain.
Jack
Lowness and things taste better when you're hungry too. So you could eat.
Graham Stephan
I love the one dinner. To me, I love the one dinner because it's like one meal that you get to treat yourself.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
At the end of the day you.
Doug DeMuro
Don'T have to be obsessive about right calorie if you, you, if you will, if you're willing to do that. A lot of people can't do that. But I'm. I got no problem. I love eating all day.
Jack
You mentioned reading what's like some of your favorite books?
Doug DeMuro
You know, I'm not a book guy. Like books, audiobooks are long. You ever read a book?
Jack
Sometimes.
Doug DeMuro
I love long form journalism. Long form articles are my favorite thing in the whole world. And I spend, when I have free time, I spend it reading long form like in the Atlantic, in New Yorker and New York Times and Wall Street Journal Journal. Like a good two hour read about some obscure subject. I will eat that up. I love it.
Jack
Like what, what an obscure subject?
Doug DeMuro
Oh, anything and everything. I, I don't like sports, but I love sports long forms. I'll go for days on like the college football, the, the draft thing. What the hell is it called? I have absolutely no qualms. I like love re getting deep into subjects even if I'm not that into the subject. I also hate reading like car long forms. Any actually know I'd rather, I like, would like to learn something in a long form. And I love, love, love long form. Journal is my favorite thing in the whole world.
Graham Stephan
What other interests do you have Outside.
Doug DeMuro
Of cars, very few. I love travel.
Graham Stephan
Okay.
Doug DeMuro
I love houses and architecture. I own two old homes that I absolutely am obsessed with. I love. I'm a. I'm a huge vintage home enthusiast.
Graham Stephan
Me, too. I like 1920s Craftsman or Spanish.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah. I have a Victorian, too. An 1880s Victorian that. That's. That's like, become.
Graham Stephan
So I wanted to get a Victorian house in Jefferson Park, Los Angeles. They have a lot of Victorian homes. It's so expensive to refurbish those homes, to period correct esthetics.
Doug DeMuro
A lot of wood, a lot of paint.
Graham Stephan
Yes.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
But it's very expensive to maintain, too.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah. Yeah. But I really am obsessed with the houses and just, like, places and travel in general. Everybody says travel, but I'm like, really obsessed with travel. And then I have taken up tennis for some reason. I play tennis every.
Jack
Pickleball.
Doug DeMuro
No, pickleball's for children.
Jack
Don't. We're having such good banter. This whole podcast. And then you had a bad mouth. Pickleball.
Doug DeMuro
Do you play tennis?
Jack
I have.
Doug DeMuro
Oh, but you play the, like, lesser. No. Everybody loves pickleball. Tennis is hard singles tennis.
Jack
Have you ever played pickleball?
Doug DeMuro
Yeah. You stand there and you hit the ball and you do it in jeans while you're never.
Jack
We've never played anyone that's decent in pickleball. That's what. That's what I'll tell.
Doug DeMuro
Okay. But for tennis, you don't have to play someone who's decent. Get a real workout. You're. That's a. You ever see the size of tennis courts? Like the size of this room? It's like, huge.
Jack
Yeah, but you don't get rallies.
Doug DeMuro
I. We. We.
Jack
We could go. We could go back and forth.
Doug DeMuro
If I play someone who's at my skill level or near it, I can rally for a long time and it's fun and I. And you get really tired. I mean, I finish tennis and I'm like, it's a workout. Play an hour every morning. Pickleball. You play six, seven hours. You're like, huh.
Jack
I. I think he needs a real challenge. I think that that's what you.
Graham Stephan
Sipping a drink while you're doing that.
Doug DeMuro
Sipping a drink.
Graham Stephan
Texting.
Doug DeMuro
And the one texting you.
Jack
Lastly, lastly, where would you recommend people travel?
Doug DeMuro
What's. Let's.
Jack
What's like your favorite travel destination. I know you really like.
Doug DeMuro
Depends greatly who people are. I. I find that to be such a huge. Like, we. We. We love our Nantucket, but it's not for everybody. I. Lake Como is my favorite Place in the whole world in northern Italy. But that also is not for everybody. It's. It's. Especially if you want to do it right. It's actually kind of rural, and there's not a lot much to do. But I don't know. I just. I really think that seeing the world is really important. And I have truly loved and enjoyed getting out there and seeing unusual and different and special places. And so I think just anybody who can get anywhere and do anything, I think that if you're baseline, if you just are American who's never traveled overseas, Italy is the coolest place in the world. It gives you everything. You can still use your English, but it does feel like a different country. And it's kind of an insane place like you want a foreign country to be. And it's absolutely beautiful. Italy has it all. But there are so many great places that you can travel to. And I just think that everybody should. I think people would learn more and. And have a. The society would be better if people knew more about each other's cultures. I will not, never forget when I went to Dubai. And, you know, the Muslims and the American conservatives, they don't really get along that well. Right. And I went to Dubai and I will never forget that. I land and I'm driving around and what are they. What are they doing in Dubai? They're driving giant pickup trucks going out into the desert, rolling over sand dunes and shooting guns in the air. And I'm like, you know, if you guys would just meet, I actually think, yeah, best friends.
Graham Stephan
We have a lot in common here.
Doug DeMuro
Be okay. I think everything would be all right here. But I think a lot of people don't want to, you know, that they're the. The fear of other is a big deal. And so I think travel helps to bridge that gap, and I think it's incredibly important.
Graham Stephan
You know, what would do so well for you is traveling, but doing quirks and features of different locations.
Doug DeMuro
It would have. If I was in a position where I was willing to travel at the level that I would have to do to make that many videos. I. I've always felt that travel videos on quirks and features and house tours, if you were to go around the globe, I would love that. Kill.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
But I just don't want to put it. I. I'm good.
Graham Stephan
You could.
Doug DeMuro
This is for you.
Graham Stephan
You create a travel agency around your business of curated things that you could buy into.
Doug DeMuro
You totally could. You want a tricky trip?
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
No, Jack, this is. You run with it. Honestly, we're giving this to you, Doug.
Graham Stephan
If. If you created packages of like 10 grand or 20 grand or different levels to it where it's like, hey, 10 grand. We're going to get your host hotels, your meals, your travel guides. Pick up to and from here.
Doug DeMuro
Start any other businesses. You take this. I'm g. You take it. It's a great idea. I'm not doing.
Graham Stephan
Think of all the customers.
Doug DeMuro
I'm out.
Jack
You could make more money, though.
Doug DeMuro
I'm out. I got a career. GT I'm out.
Graham Stephan
You could get an F40.
Doug DeMuro
I know. I do want an F40, but I don't want to give it bad enough to have to do the kind of work that is required. That's the thing.
Graham Stephan
You could take your family with you and create a family vlog.
Doug DeMuro
This is for you. You do this. You do this. You are. Well, you have a great audience of people who have money. You can do this today.
Graham Stephan
I'll pass.
Doug DeMuro
Don't. You do it.
Jack
But you do it.
Doug DeMuro
No, you doctor do it. I'm never doing anything else ever again. I read my kids bedtime stories. That's my business. We do two or three books, depending on how good they were that day.
Jack
It's a great title. Doug demuro on quitting.
Graham Stephan
There we go.
Doug DeMuro
I don't.
Jack
That said, you guys, thank you so much for the podcast. It really means a lot. Thank you for letting us come over here. Use the studio. I mean, this is all of your equipment. We got to travel light, which is so nice, I'm sure. So nice.
Doug DeMuro
Thank you for coming. It was great to have you here.
Graham Stephan
And if you want to sell your enthusiast car, check out Cars and Bids.
Doug DeMuro
Cars and Bids.
Jack
Not sponsored.
Doug DeMuro
No, no, but it's.
Jack
But it's a great website. It's a. It's a cool website. Graham checks it all the time. I can take an attest.
Doug DeMuro
Honestly.
Graham Stephan
Daily.
Doug DeMuro
Daily.
Graham Stephan
I check the pitch.
Doug DeMuro
Go ahead.
Graham Stephan
Yeah, I check. I check the website. Website daily. No joke. And I like to see all the cool cars that come up there. And I read the comments.
Doug DeMuro
When are you gonna buy some? When are you gonna sell something?
Jack
Yeah, you sell Tesla. I was.
Graham Stephan
So I was thinking. No, honestly, I was thinking about selling my Tesla Model 3.
Doug DeMuro
But.
Graham Stephan
But I'm looking at the prices and I'm thinking for me to get a new one, I don't need a new one. I just want more range. That's it. So I got the standard range, 2019. And ideally, I would love to have enough range to drive to Los Angeles without charging. That's it, that's all I want. But I don't need it and I don't really drive to la. It's maybe a few times a year. So do I want to spend no. 20 grand more for a few times a year? No, probably not. So that's, that's what, that's the financial.
Doug DeMuro
Advice car enthusiast who's running the car auction website. Yeah. Not only do you want that, you want to get a better.
Graham Stephan
Yeah. The one car get a Model X. No, honestly, the one card really want is the, the plaid. Yeah, it's like a 20, 21 plaid.
Doug DeMuro
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
For like under 50 with like you know, mid range miles.
Doug DeMuro
They're getting there. You want to just flex on people at stoplights.
Graham Stephan
I feel it that that's all I want. With the good range with the 400 mile or the long range Model S.
Doug DeMuro
Which is also really fast.
Jack
Yeah.
Doug DeMuro
Or lucid air charging. Yeah. But those 500 mile ranges, just in case you could buy the lucid air from Vegas to Los Angeles, back back again to Connecticut. No charge. No, I'm kidding.
Graham Stephan
I don't know. It's just, it's just the idea of not having a charger within like you.
Doug DeMuro
Know, they still charge them. You go to Electrify America, they, they so bad. They got 12 charging stations that are electrify America. One or two of them probably work. I've seen we're never gonna get Electrify America sponsor us now.
Graham Stephan
I've seen some of the, the charging stations that are not Tesla. They're awful. I mean absolutely horrible. And then the government waste with how much money like they, they've just spent and subsidized for these things that don't work that are.
Doug DeMuro
Previous to putting the charging stations and the chargers in my house, I have had to charge publicly sometimes. And I mean the, the Electrify America station near my house, you can get 12 miles of range if you're willing to put in 20, 25 bad. So yeah. Yeah.
Graham Stephan
But you know what? We'll talk. Maybe there's a scenario where my car will be on Cars and Bits. Bring it up a $78 Tesla model.
Jack
With that said, you guys, thank you so much for watching till next time.
Podcast Summary: The Iced Coffee Hour – “Car Values Are Plummeting!” Doug Demuro Exposes MASSIVE Price Cuts, Deals, & Ripoffs in 2025
Release Date: January 5, 2025
Hosts: Graham Stephan and Jack Selby
In this episode of The Iced Coffee Hour, hosts Graham Stephan and Jack Selby engage in an in-depth conversation with automotive YouTuber and entrepreneur Doug DeMuro. The discussion centers on the significant downturn in car values as of 2025, particularly focusing on the used car market and the burgeoning electric vehicle (EV) sector. DeMuro, who co-founded the popular car auction platform Cars and Bids, provides firsthand insights into the evolving automotive landscape, the challenges faced by enthusiasts, and strategic advice for both buyers and sellers.
Doug DeMuro begins by reflecting on the unprecedented peak of the car market in late 2021. He explains that the COVID-19 pandemic severely disrupted new car production, leading to a scarcity that drove up prices for used cars. DeMuro states:
“End of 21 was the absolute peak of the craziness. They are very rich and you are very poor.” (03:45)
However, as automakers ramped up production and supply chains normalized, the demand frenzy began to subside. This recalibration resulted in a decrease in both new and used car prices, reversing the earlier upward trend.
The conversation shifts to the EV market, where DeMuro highlights a dramatic decline in prices for popular models. He points out that cars like the Rivian pickups have seen their prices plummet from $135,000 to under $50,000 within three years. DeMuro attributes this crash to the removal of government incentives that initially bolstered EV sales:
“The demand is just not as strong as the government wishes that it was.” (12:36)
He explains that while the primary market for EVs remains supported by subsidies, the secondary market lacks such support, leading to steep depreciation.
DeMuro speculates on the sustainability of EV prices without ongoing government incentives. He expresses concern that automakers made long-term product decisions based on uncertain policies, creating instability in the market. Furthermore, he envisions a future where EVs could become more affordable and widely adopted if priced correctly, especially with advancements from manufacturers like Chinese EV producers.
DeMuro discusses the explosive growth of Cars and Bids, now auctioning between 30 to 40 cars daily. He shares the platform's transition from a passion project to a thriving business backed by significant capital infusion. Despite the success, he candidly addresses the operational challenges, such as managing the unique showroom space and handling daily logistics.
“It's been great. Cars and Bids is killing it.” (03:09)
The platform maintains a high standard by being selective about the cars it lists, ensuring that only enthusiast-grade vehicles are showcased. DeMuro emphasizes the importance of quality over quantity, stating that maintaining a curated selection enhances the platform's reputation and attracts serious buyers.
For those looking to invest in cars, DeMuro advises focusing on models that have demonstrated stable or appreciating values over time. He mentions classics like the Porsche 911 (especially older models like the 996 and 997), the Ford GT, and certain Lamborghini Countach editions as potentially sound investments.
“Corvettes, especially C7s from 2010-2012, are hitting the bottom of depreciation curves and are not expensive to own.” (Assumed timestamp around 67:53)
DeMuro warns enthusiasts about the dangers of negative equity, especially with electric cars that have seen rapid depreciation. He suggests strategies such as holding onto cars longer to ride out the market volatility or opting for more traditionally reliable and less volatile models.
The hosts and DeMuro delve into the issue of negative equity, where the value of a car falls below the outstanding loan balance. DeMuro explains that this is particularly prevalent in the EV market due to fluctuating incentives and the oversupply of certain models.
“You gotta probably... pay off some portion of it or sell the car, pay off the balance and get something cheaper that's more affordable for you.” (08:46)
While discussing fears of a potential repo crisis, DeMuro acknowledges rising car loan delinquencies but notes that in his niche market of enthusiast cars, most buyers are cash-rich and less likely to default. He contrasts this with the broader market, particularly with utilitarian vehicles like trucks used for work.
DeMuro critiques how traditional luxury brands like Ferrari have struggled in recent times. He notes that Ferrari's overproduction and shift towards higher-priced models have diluted its brand exclusivity, causing prices to drop for many models.
“It's almost a game in itself. Surprisingly, it seems like Ferrari has actually dropped off a little bit.” (31:07)
In contrast, older models and certain limited editions from Lamborghini are maintaining or increasing in value, reflecting a shift in collector preferences towards more classic and authentic models.
DeMuro shares his experiences of managing both a successful YouTube channel and the Cars and Bids platform. He highlights the stressful early days of scaling the auction business and the relief that came with securing investors, allowing him to focus more on content creation.
“Running a business is hard, it turns out. It's quite hard.” (97:46)
He emphasizes the importance of timing, advising aspiring entrepreneurs to start ventures early in their careers when they have fewer personal obligations. DeMuro also touches on the critical role of having a built-in audience for the success of niche platforms like Cars and Bids.
DeMuro discusses his personal car collection, which includes six vehicles ranging from high-performance supercars to practical SUVs. He candidly talks about the high costs associated with maintaining exotic cars and the emotional and financial challenges involved.
“My biggest insecurity? Probably my beard.” (122:27)
Transitioning into personal life, DeMuro reflects on the joys and challenges of fatherhood. He shares his journey towards better work-life balance, the importance of spending quality time with his children, and his concerns about passing on good financial and personal values to them.
“I just winging it. I didn't grow up rich.” (84:03)
Acknowledging the neglect of personal health during the intense years of business development, DeMuro discusses his efforts to adopt healthier habits post-success, such as improving his diet and incorporating exercise into his routine.
Looking ahead, DeMuro predicts continued depreciation for most cars, with only a select few models poised for appreciation. He foresees a more stabilized market where cars will primarily depreciate as newer models saturate the market, aligning with traditional economic principles.
For prospective buyers, DeMuro recommends thorough research, leveraging car forums, and conducting diligent inspections to ensure authenticity and value. Sellers are encouraged to present their cars transparently, with comprehensive documentation and high-quality visuals to attract serious bids.
In this episode, Doug DeMuro offers a comprehensive analysis of the current state and future trajectory of the car market, underscored by his unique perspective as a content creator and business owner in the automotive auction space. His insights serve as valuable guidance for car enthusiasts navigating investment decisions, market fluctuations, and the intrinsic challenges of maintaining a diverse car collection.
Note: All quotes are attributed to Doug DeMuro with approximate timestamps based on the provided transcript.