Maserati Is Doomed. Trump Selling His Tesla on Cars & Bids? $45K for an E46 M3?

Summary

Podcast Summary: THIS CAR POD! with Doug DeMuro & Friends!

Episode: Maserati Is Doomed. Trump Selling His Tesla on Cars & Bids? $45K for an E46 M3?
Release Date: June 13, 2025
Hosts: Kenan and Nick (Guest: Nick DeMuro)
Description: In this episode, Kenan and his friend Nick dive deep into the latest automotive news, analyze market trends, and engage in passionate discussions about beloved car brands and models.

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1. BMW 5 Series Dominates European Markets

Kenan opens the episode by highlighting BMW's impressive Q1 production numbers, where the 5 Series outperformed competitors by selling 20,402 units across Europe. This figure surpasses the combined sales of Mercedes-Benz E-Class, Audi A6 and S6, Volvo S80, and Lexus ES.

• Kenan [00:10]: "In Europe, they sold 20,402 units, which is substantially more than all of the other competitors sold together."

Nick expresses skepticism regarding the 5 Series' aesthetics, aligning with enthusiast opinions but acknowledging its market success.

• Nick [01:15]: "I agree with the enthusiasts. I hate it. It's awful."

Despite critical reception from purists, the market's strong performance suggests a robust demand for the model, particularly in regions where sedans remain popular.

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2. Maserati's Struggles and Potential Demise

The conversation shifts to Maserati, with both hosts expressing concern over the brand's declining sales. Nick emphasizes the dire situation, predicting Maserati's potential demise by the end of the year.

• Nick [02:59]: "The brand is pretty cool. Like, I have a soft spot in my heart for Maserati, but... I think the brand is going to die."

Kenan remarks on Maserati's recent lineup, noting that while the MC20 was a bold attempt, overall, the company's strategy has backfired with poor sales figures.

• Kenan [02:06]: "I think we've sold more Maseratis on cars and bids than they sold the company in general for the Ghibli. It's insane."

Their analysis concludes that without a significant turnaround, Maserati may soon be cut from Stellantis' portfolio.

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3. Ferrari's Upcoming Models and Trademark Moves

Kenan and Nick delve into Ferrari’s strategic moves, particularly the registration of new trademarks for forthcoming models, hinting at Ferrari's expansion despite delays in introducing an electric vehicle.

• Kenan [05:29]: "Now they have a lot of names to register though, as we know."

Nick expresses excitement over Ferrari potentially rekindling its motorsport heritage, especially with rumors surrounding a manual transmission successor to the F40.

• Nick [07:34]: "And it better be supercharged if you're going to go SC."

They discuss the balance Ferrari seeks between honoring its legacy and innovating for the future, with emphasis on maintaining brand prestige.

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4. Porsche's 963 RSP: A Nod to Racing Heritage

Porsche's release of the 963 RSP, a road-going version of the legendary 917, is dissected by the hosts. They appreciate its homage to Porsche's racing past while questioning its practicality.

• Kenan [07:34]: "They built this one for Roger Penske. Now, Roger Penske is 88 years old."

Nick draws parallels between Porsche's limited releases and other manufacturers' exclusive models, highlighting the uniqueness and collector appeal.

• Nick [09:19]: "It's wild that they're doing this. Can you believe that, like, that's on the road?"

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5. Aston Martin's Valkyrie LM and High-Performance Innovations

Aston Martin's ambitious project to produce 10 Valkyrie LM models, designed for Le Mans, becomes a focal point of discussion. The hosts commend the brand's commitment to extreme performance and exclusivity.

• Kenan [10:41]: "But this is a... I just love that manufacturers are doing crazy stuff like this."

Nick underscores the Valkyrie LM's appeal to ultra-wealthy enthusiasts seeking unparalleled performance and uniqueness.

• Nick [13:06]: "It's really cool. I think this is the future for Aston."

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6. Jaguar's Rebranding Challenges and Future Outlook

Nick provides a critical analysis of Jaguar's recent rebranding efforts, suggesting that the shift towards high-priced electric vehicles has backfired, resulting in negative publicity and diminishing brand appeal.

• Nick [15:23]: "They had this disastrous rebrand... All of it was negative publicity."

Kenan concurs, expressing doubt over Jaguar's ability to recover from its current struggles amidst a challenging EV market.

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7. Trump Selling His Tesla on Cars & Bids

The hosts touch upon the news of former President Trump's decision to sell his Tesla via the Cars & Bids platform. They humorously debate the logistics and potential success of such a unique sale.

• Kenan [18:47]: "Trump has said that he's going to sell his Tesla... He should sell it here."

Nick speculates on the desirability of Trump's Tesla, comparing it to niche market successes they've witnessed.

• Nick [19:58]: "But not all. So there are."

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8. Nick's Car Projects: Manual Conversion of a Lamborghini Murcielago

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to Nick’s personal project of converting his Lamborghini Murcielago from an automatic transmission to a manual one. He details the challenges, costs, and potential market value post-conversion.

• Nick [21:23]: "I've had the Mercy now two and a half years... It is done."

Kenan supports the endeavor, noting the enthusiasm among enthusiasts for manual transmissions, despite practical drawbacks.

• Kenan [23:05]: "I think your reasoning makes a lot of sense."

They discuss the meticulous process involved and the potential benefits of such customizations for driving experience and resale value.

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9. Notable Sales and Market Insights on Cars & Bids

Kenan and Nick highlight significant sales from the Cars & Bids platform, emphasizing the vibrant market for classic and modified vehicles. Noteworthy mentions include:

• Porsche 964: Kenan shares a success story of restoring and reselling a Porsche 964, contrasting his experience with another buyer who faced extensive repair costs.

• E46 M3: A modified E46 M3 sold for $45,000, illustrating strong demand for well-maintained and enhanced sports cars.

• Mercedes Black Series Models: The hosts engage in a lively debate ranking various Mercedes Black Series models, reflecting passionate opinions on the brand's high-performance variants.

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10. Audience Q&A: Enthusiast Discussions and Hypotheticals

The episode concludes with an engaging Q&A segment where Kenan and Nick tackle hypothetical scenarios and listener inquiries. Highlights include:

• Filippo's Million-Dollar Car Garage: Imagining the perfect car collection for Filippo based on his preferences and practicality.

• Single-Car Garage for Doug: Debating the ideal all-around vehicle for Doug, considering his need for versatility and off-road capability.

• CDs for a Road Trip Without Streaming: Sharing favorite albums and music preferences for long drives, revealing personal tastes and driving habits.

• Pre-Owned Vehicle Purchase Decision: Comparing the merits of buying a 5-year-old car with 40,000 miles versus a 1-year-old car with 90,000 miles, stressing the importance of maintenance history over mere mileage.

• Ranking Lamborghini and Mercedes Models: Ranking special editions and performance models based on design, performance, and exclusivity, showcasing differing tastes and priorities.

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Conclusion

Kenan and Nick wrap up the episode with reflections on the dynamic automotive landscape, underscoring the challenges faced by traditional brands in evolving markets and celebrating enthusiast-driven projects and sales successes. Their candid discussions, enriched with personal anecdotes and expert insights, provide listeners with a comprehensive overview of current trends and passionate opinions within the car community.

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Notable Quotes:

• Kenan [01:15]: "…the market disagrees. People are buying these cars."

• Nick [02:07]: "Maserati Ghibli: 51 units."

• Nick [07:34]: "And it better be supercharged if you're going to go SC."

• Kenan [10:05]: "They built it... never say never. There could be cars like the CLK GTR and the GT1 that come back."

• Nick [21:23]: "I've had the Mercy now two and a half years... It is done."

• Kenan [23:05]: "I think your reasoning makes a lot of sense."

• Nick [15:23]: "They had this disastrous rebrand... All of it was negative publicity."

• Kenan [05:15]: "They said they were going to produce a certain number of special cars, and they did."

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This comprehensive summary captures the essence of the episode, highlighting key discussions and insights while providing valuable information for both regular listeners and newcomers to the podcast.

Transcript

[Kenan]

Hello and welcome to another episode of this Car Pod. I am Kenan.

[Nick]

I'm Doug's crazy friend Nick.

[Kenan]

And Doug and Filippo are not here this week. They are both on vacation. So we have brought our crazy friend Nick, who has a Bentley and a Mercielago and all that crazy stuff, to do this episode with us. But we're going to follow the same format as usual and we're going to jump right in with the news, starting with BMW. Now, our favorite BMW recently released their production numbers for quarter one, and they say that the 5 Series outsold all of its competition. So that's the Mercedes Benz E class, the Audi A6 and S6, the Volvo S80, Lexus ES, all those cars in Europe they sold 20,402 units, which is substantially more than all of the other competitor sold together. Now this is kind of interesting news in that in the United States it's like the 5 series is pretty ubiquitous. They're around, but sedans aren't really that hot in demand. But in Europe they seem to be much more so. And what's interesting to me is that the 5 Series, like all new BMWs, was received as. Enthusiasts hated it. They're all upset about this car. It's so ugly. It's new. I hate it. Well, the market disagrees. People are buying these cars.

[Nick]

I agree with the enthusiasts. I hate it. It's awful. Take it away from the screen.

[Kenan]

Look, everybody says that. And then like they said that about the E60 that aged and everybody ended up liking that car. This car, it seems to be largely the same, but there's one car on this list that I noticed that they slated as the competition car and it's the Maserati G. Now, take a wild guess. From January till April, how many cars do you think Maserati sold or how many units of the Ghibli do you think they sold?

[Nick]

The Ghibli is in a tough spot. It wasn't liked when it came out. It's pretty stale by now. It's. So if this was 20,000. 20,000, let's be charitable and say they sold 10% as many. So they'd be what, 2,000 units.

[Kenan]

Now that's interesting. So the Lexus ES, they sold 1,387. The Audi S7, they sold 1,316. The Maserati Ghibli 51.

[Nick]

Ouch.

[Kenan]

51 units is all they could shift in that period of time. I think we may have sold more Maseratis on cars and vids than they sold the company in general for the Ghibli. It's insane.

[Nick]

I think they sold more Fisker Oceans year to date than they did Maserati. Ghibli's in Europe, but the whole thing, the segment's kind of dead, like a big sedan. It is more alive in Europe, but even 20,000 isn't that many. Right? Like we're, we're analyzing who did the best at underwater basket weaving. Like it's a absurd competition that no one really tracks. Who cares? So, like, I don't know, I, I still think it's ugly. I wish they had made different choices. I don't think this will translate to US success. I still think sedans are dead.

[Kenan]

Interesting. Well, I don't think the market totally disagrees with you on that, but it seems to me that BMW is really proud of having outsold everybody. And good for BMW.

[Nick]

They needed a win.

[Kenan]

They needed to win. All right, on to the next news story. Ah, yes, Maserati. Speaking of struggling brands, Nick, what do you have to tell us about Maserati?

[Nick]

You know, I miss my Quattroporte. The new owner texts me pictures all the time. And you go to like, the historic Maseratis. The brand is pretty cool. Like, I have a soft spot in my heart for Maserati, but as you just mentioned, 51 units in Europe, US ain't doing much better. I think the brand is going to die. And that's what the news is starting to rumor is Stellantis, who's in bad position globally across a lot of their brands are saying, how do we cut costs? What are the underperforming units? We have Maserati, this was the MC20, I believe was the car was sort of their best stab at a success here. And it's been received lukewarm. They're trading for about half of what they sold for new on the secondhand market. At this point. They've already kind of taken advantage of it. Like, I don't, I just don't see a path forward. I think that they are going to be cut maybe by the end of the year, but I, I, I would put them very high on my goal pool in terms of brands that aren't going to be around much longer.

[Kenan]

Wow, you don't think they're going to make it at all. It is a shame. They have such great DNA. And honestly, like, I like the MC20 a lot. I think it's a really cool car, admittedly for its msrp. It is a lot to stomach with a car that has mirrors from a. They're just reused from a 458. But it is, it is a, it is a wonderful car and it is cool. But they, they cashed in on the Maserati brand with the Ghibli and the Quattroporte of the recent generation. And you know, those cars are just.

[Nick]

The new Gran Turismo. Remember that came out.

[Kenan]

Yeah, it's hilarious.

[Nick]

Running joke in our friend group is can you tell the old from the new? Or oh my God, I can't believe that person paid 200 grand for an electric version of that car. Like, that's tough. It's like a sign that you have bad judgment. Maybe I should get one. If you own a new Maserati, I.

[Kenan]

See you with a heavily depreciated MC20 in your future.

[Nick]

Yeah, yeah. Probably not that far out either.

[Kenan]

Honestly, you just keep waiting. It'll get there. It'll get there. But speaking of exotic brands, we transition to another story and that is Ferrari. So recently Ferrari registered two new trademarks for two new models that seem to be upcoming. Now they said that they were going to introduce six new cars this year. They've already introduced a handful of car, a couple of cars. They've done the 296 Speciale and they said the EV was going to come, but now they've kind of pushed that to 2026.

[Nick]

So in theory, keep pushing.

[Kenan]

Some of us say keep pushing. Market doesn't disagree. But so it seems there'll be four new spots open and they've occupied those with allegedly two cars that are called the SC40, not the SC430. I know you only know cars 2011 maybe. Right, right. And this one, which makes less sense, the CZ26. Now I suspect that the latter one maybe will end up being some one off car because Ferrari does this occasionally.

[Nick]

For really special clients like the Eric Clapton car.

[Kenan]

Like the Eric Clapton car? Yeah, the F60America. So like car that are just very, very like for people and good clients. But the SC40 has a nice ring to it. Now there is also rumor that Lewis Hamilton is working with Ferrari to develop an F40 successor that will have a manual transmission. So you kind of start to wonder, it's like maybe are they like putting that in there? I don't know. But nonetheless, they have a lot of names to register though, as we know. Like the Testarossa was one that they had to. In the 50s they had a car called the Testaros, the 250 Testarosa pontoon fender car. Then in the 80s to keep the trademark alive they had to re register those old names because they were going to go out of, they were going to go out of use in Italian lawn. So they had to recirculate them and so they started doing that and we've seen that with the SP3 Daytona, the Super America cars like that. They also have other cool names in their inventory though like Europa Vignale and like logos like MM for Mille Emilia. They haven't brought any of that back but they've decided that SC40 and CZ26 which just rolls right off the tongue, that's what they want to call these cars potentially. So we'll see.

[Nick]

This is so your jam. And my eyes were just glazing, spitting out random letters. I think they should bring back the F150. I don't really care what they do. I hope that they're actual real cars and not just the one offs for the billionaires. They're mildly cool when they do that but you and I, we grew up reading Dupont Registry and oogling at hey, here's a 360, here's a 430. Like we knew their cars and now they're just like random letters and consonants and this one has a deviated stitching on the, the undercarriage or whatever it is like it's, it's getting a bit much. So I hope that they're real cars and not just like this random one off.

[Kenan]

I, I do too. We'll certainly see the trademarks are out there. We'll see if they actually develop into anything.

[Nick]

And it better be supercharged if you're going to go sc.

[Kenan]

Can you imagine? There's no, there's never been a supercharged Ferrari. They've only done turbos time now.

[Nick]

Better than electric.

[Kenan]

It'll be better than electric. But moving on to the next news story. Oh yeah, sticking with high performance. So Porsche recently released their 963 RSP. Now this was, they would tease this a little while ago that they did a road going version of the 917. They did one example of it and they kind of teased it like what if we did it again? And so they recently built this car. They built a. But it's a one off example. Now Doug was concerned as a owner of a Carrera GT in the lineage of the 959, Carrera GT 918. And this would become the new thing. Seems like that's not going to be the case. Porsche says that, you know, it's not a, it's a. It's a situation where they're saying, never say never. We could do this again. But they built this one for Roger Penske. Now, Roger Penske is 88 years old. This car sits a quarter centimeter off the ground.

[Nick]

It's good for him, man.

[Kenan]

So I don't think he's going to be using it. Timo Bernhardt was the one who drove this car around. They drove around Le Mans with the. The road registered 917, which is built for contrasty. And this car, which. Just see the two of those together. Can you imagine? And they, they did this to, like, you know, we're getting closer to Le Mans. So they wanted to get people excited and it felt like the right time to do it. But it is interesting. Like, the interior of it has like your, like, traditional deviated stitching, like Porsche nonsense that you and I can't stand.

[Nick]

Houndstooth.

[Kenan]

But it is cool. I mean, it has the, you know, twin turbocharged 4.6 liter V8, which is largely shared with the 918 and has like, and Xtrack gearbox and all that stuff. I mean, it is a racy car. It is the spiritual Successor to the 917. But just wild that they're doing this. Can you believe that, like, that's on the road?

[Nick]

I mean, if, if they saw Aston Martin putting out Valkyries, I have to imagine someone over product planning said, why can't we do that? We have more racing pedigree and more credibility in the space. And let us not forget, you know, we're. I love that we're doing enthusiast stories here, but my era, the 90s and early 2000s, we had the 996 GT1. Imagine if they were selling that to customers and there was more of those hanging out today like that. I would freak out over any other Porsche more than like, I can think of like a Carrera GT. Any of the new models, the 918 Spyder. Yawn. But give me a 996 GT one, I would lose it.

[Kenan]

Or CLK GTR. I mean, it's. And this kind of. Is that modern cool.

[Nick]

They're trying to do the new version.

[Kenan]

Yeah, yeah. Now, granted, it's not for homologation purposes. They're just doing this because they can.

[Nick]

Right.

[Kenan]

They also, they built it. This car was actually built in the United States, I think is fascinating. And they built it in a factory. They like partitioned part of it off and kept it secret from normal employees. They didn't know what they were doing. Wild stuff. But if they. It is interesting. They say, never say never. And there could be cars like the CLK GTR and the GT1 and stuff like that that come back. That would be pretty cool. But that's the modern.

[Nick]

If I were David Axelrod with Axe Capital, I would, I would, I'd want something like this.

[Kenan]

Nice.

[Nick]

Love this Flex.

[Kenan]

Nice. Love a good Billions reference.

[Nick]

That's a cute, you know, 992 point GT7. I got, I got the real car.

[Kenan]

Okay.

[Nick]

I don't know what they're, what numbers and letters they're on now, but.

[Kenan]

Oh, yes. But it's funny you mentioned the Valkyrie because that's actually our next news story. So Aston Martin has announced they're going to build 10 versions of the Valkyrie and they're going to do the lm. So Aston Martin is taking this car to Le Mans this year. Very exciting. It's going to have an NA V12 at Le Mans legit. But they're going to build 10 cars that they've allegedly. I think they're currently on sale. I don't think they've sold them to customers. They're track only models. But the thing that's interesting about this is this is very much like some other cars that they've done in that this isn't built for a race series. They can do whatever. It's track only, but they can do whatever they want, no restrictions. And so these cars might actually end up being faster than the cars that will race at Le Mans. But nonetheless, it is a. I just, I love that manufacturers are doing crazy stuff like this. And also, as if the normal Valkyrie wasn't insane enough, it's like, how rich do you have to be to like, you need this level of drug to like, scratch your automated itch?

[Nick]

Yeah, I was going to say that the feedback that I've heard on the Valkyrie is it's too soft and unfocused. So I'm glad they're listening to their customers here and making it more hardcore and extreme, but it is really cool. I know you strongly disagree with this, but we Both love the F40. I love the F40LM. I like the race car version of the already over the top one. So just from a pure, like the Halo to the halo car, this is a cool move by them. It's going to have a very limited market, but even think of the FXX versus the regular Enzo and cars like that.

[Kenan]

Well, it's interesting you mentioned that. So they, they were very specific to point out that customers can just take these cars These don't have to live at the factory. But of course if you want the factory come and prep your car and do the whole track day thing, they will send people out to do that. But, and to be clear, I don't like when people put F40LM stuff on their normal F40.

[Nick]

You like the pop ups?

[Kenan]

I. Yes, I like the pop ups. I like the normal wing. I like the. The normal. The wheels in particular, the standard F40 wheels.

[Nick]

But a good five spoke.

[Kenan]

Good five spoke.

[Nick]

No, but the LM has the cool five spokes.

[Kenan]

Yes, but it just doesn't look right to me. It's like. And the thing with the F. But I get it for the brake upgrades because the normal F40 brakes are not.

[Nick]

Some of us like some bolt ons, if you know what I mean.

[Kenan]

You mod things and I don't. That's one of our great differences. But nonetheless, pricing hasn't come out about these, but a standard Valkyrie is a 3.2 million dollar car. So you have to imagine these will be probably closer to five, who knows. But nonetheless, it's really cool.

[Nick]

I think this is the future for Aston, I think producing mid tier V8 Vantages and like sort of everyday cars with AMG engines people are going to get bored of. But if you just go more and more extreme, this gets people talking. It's desirable. And I'd rather see them sell a couple cars for 3 million each than like a bunch of cars that are worth $35,000 ten years later because they're right fancy Jaguars.

[Kenan]

And who knows if the, if the racing car is successful at Le Mans, you know, I mean that might be make these cars even more appealing. It's like that's what happened with the McLaren F1, you know, I mean it won. It won Le Mans.

[Nick]

To the Aston Martin people. If you're listening for the press launch, you need to have Alonso in the regular Valkyrie and stroll in the LM and see who's faster around the track.

[Kenan]

Well, I can take a wild guess at.

[Nick]

I don't know.

[Kenan]

I don't know.

[Nick]

He's got some downforce.

[Kenan]

Yeah, but stroll. Put it into a wall.

[C]

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[Kenan]

Nonetheless, speaking of English brands, we move on to Jaguar. Nick, you want to.

[Nick]

Oh, good day, mate. Oh no, it's not English. Yes, Jaguar, another favorite brand of mine. I love the XKR XK120, the E type. And nothing made sense. So they had this disastrous rebrand. They were going to go into $100,000 plus EVs. Obviously the EV market has cooled considerably, to put it mildly. The ultra luxury segment is kind of in a flux and everyone made fun of Jaguar. Now I work in advertising and as someone in an ad execs type position, I could see what they were going for. Right? There's been so many hot takes of oh, they just needed to get attention and change the conversation and what they were doing wasn't working. Yada, yada yada. I think they looked at a like GQ magazine and said, how does Louis Vuitton or Dior or Gucci? They have these like weird sort of sexually ambiguous models in like high fashion and that's, that's how they portray luxury. So I think they were trying to go with like a very ultra luxury mode. But, but this was a failure. All it really did was get people talking about how bad their ideas were, how bad the brand has fallen. It was all negative publicity and I think you'd be crazy right now to be building all EVs. There's no one doing that successfully. I can't believe Lucid is still around other than they have very deep pockets from their investors. You look at karma. I can't believe they're still around. Tesla's clearly not doing well for reasons both in and out of their control. But the EV segment is really tough. So I think Jag threw a Hail Mary pitch, it got intercepted and ran back, to use the sports analogy there all the way. I think they're done. I think they're probably going to private equity right now and trying to find investors and saying, look, we'll roll out a new ad campaign, we'll rebrand again. But I can't see coming back from this.

[Kenan]

Do you think Maserati is going to die? You think Jaguar is going to die?

[Nick]

Yeah.

[Kenan]

And you think that maybe some modern EV manufacturers are going.

[Nick]

All the modern EV brands short of Tesla and Tesla's not in a great spot either, but I think a lot of them are going to die. Rivian will be okay.

[Kenan]

So not all. So there are.

[Nick]

And like byd, anyone that's heavy in APAC and doing well in APAC will be fine.

[Kenan]

Yes. Any of the Chinese manufacturers. It seems like this is their just the beginning of how great they're going to do it seems. But I think more about that, like.

[Nick]

Chrysler's down to one model that's not looking good. Alfa Romeo to the point on the earlier podcast. The local dealership there is pushing used Mercedes harder than they are. The new alpha lineup. I think they'll come out of the us. I don't think they'll die entirely. I think Aston has a little longer Runway, but if they don't get some traction somewhere soon, I think they could be in a tough pickle. Jag is obviously dead on arrival. I think there's a few others I wrote down in my notes that don't look very good, but it's getting tricky out there.

[Kenan]

It is interesting and it is true. This ad campaign did get us all talking about Jaguar, but none of it was positive like you said. So I don't know, it would make me sad to lose Jag for the cars that we love from their past, but, I mean, when was the last time you got excited over a Jag? Realistically? I mean, it was the recession.

[Nick]

Those cars. Yeah. Were so long ago that everyone's forgotten and moved on.

[Kenan]

Yeah, that's true. So I don't know. We'll see. The future remains uncertain for Jaguar. Kel Suprise. Ah, yes. Moving on to talking of electric cars. Moving on to Trump's Tesla.

[Nick]

Yeah, he's submitting it to Cars and Bids. It'll be no reserve going live on Monday.

[Kenan]

Yeah, that's so Trump has said that he's going to sell his Tesla. The quote you wanted me to read around this, because I think it's great. Which I love such happily do. I mean, I may move the Tesla around a little bit. I have a lot of locations. I have so many locations, I don't know what to do with them all. Well, he should sell it here. That's. That's what he should do is sell it on cars.

[Nick]

And based on how well the Ex Trump Diablo did, I think he'd do really well as a business model to just drive it around a little bit and flip it. Kind of like I do with the Bentley and all of my cars. Right. Like, he could film some content. Like, I'd be all for this. But yeah, he doesn't. There's a little bit of a breakup. In case you're not paying attention to the news. I don't think the Trump. I'm sorry, the president, not the Trump. The president's allowed to drive his own car, is he?

[Kenan]

No. I mean, Biden did that thing where he drove his C2 Corvette, but it was on a closed airfield.

[Nick]

Yeah. Just in the driveway, wasn't it? Or did he go to an airfield.

[Kenan]

For the Seinfeld thing? I think they drove like. Or that was Obama. Obama.

[Nick]

I think liability reasons. They don't want him driving because what if he hurts himself or whatever.

[Kenan]

Well, exactly. But no, that they closed down an airfield and he did it with Jay Leno and drove like around this airfield and it was the first time he'd driven a car since before he.

[Nick]

Dude, that would be all of my executive orders. Let me just close down airfields and. And race and drive.

[Kenan]

Your mercy.

[Nick]

Yeah, that's right.

[Kenan]

But what, what I'd like to make the point is to. To the president, if he's listening, you know, Biden's ATSV sold with us. Are you going to let Biden beat you? Are you going to let him sell his car with us? And you're not going to do it? You have to bring it here. It's the best place to sell a car. The all places losers. But nonetheless, I think it's. This whole situation is crazy. The whole Elon Musk thing, and it's all insane. That quote this week was, yeah, wild.

[Nick]

The. The other famous quote was that there's screens everywhere. And that's exactly how I feel when I get into a modern car. My newest car is a 2014 and it's like when navigation was an option, people paid a lot extra for to have a screen. So I feel the Same way. Screens everywhere.

[Kenan]

Screens everywhere. That's extraordinary. But not a surprise. Somewhere, sometime soon, someone will buy his Tesla.

[Nick]

And you think, you think they'll make that quiet. I don't think he had a special VIN he should like ending in 4.5 or 4. 7.

[Kenan]

I do wonder if he had a special VIN that he should have. That's an interesting.

[Nick]

The least Elon could have done.

[Kenan]

The very least. But yeah, alas. All right, that concludes the new segment. We have to move on. We want to move on to the talking cars segment. Now, you have a lot to talk about when it comes to your car. So let's start right in. Let's start with the Mercy. What's going on with your Mercy?

[Nick]

All right. I've kept it a little under wraps, but this is a great opportunity to talk about it. So I've had the Mercy now two and a half years, a little more. An E gear car, I'd say I was. I've wanted to swap it since I've gotten it. That technology basically didn't exist or wasn't finalized until mid to late last year. And I've talked a few times on this podcast about doing it. I probably spent six months talking to everyone that does it, getting quotes, talking to them. I finally pulled the trigger. And so the car was shipped out about a month ago. It is. The swap is done.

[Kenan]

Done.

[Nick]

They've driven it a couple hundred miles, they've cubate it, and it's supposed to get shipped back this week. So I'm gonna soon be a Stick Mercy owner. I drove another converted car as well, and like, it's so sublime. But this actually all started, so I wanted to sell the Mercy and I was gonna sell it on cars and beds. The E gear values are still, like, pretty weak, and the manual values are still 2 to 3x. And you just look at it and think, this is so dumb. Why would someone pay that much more for a manual? Especially if you intend to drive it and not just. Just put it in a, you know, a collection somewhere. So the, the manual conversions are expensive. I got quoted anywhere from 40 grand to 100 grand to do it. And that's what everyone wants to ask. And I think the, the, the delta and the values between an E gear and a OE stick are more than 100 grand, easily double, triple that. However, if you look at the Ferrari market, a converted car never gets what an OE car gets or even near it. But it should get back what it costs to convert it. Or a multiplier either. A good Chunk of that, if not the whole thing.

[Kenan]

I think your reasoning makes a lot of sense. I also think the Lamborghini market in particular is less sensitive to modifications than the Ferrari one. Ferrari people, they do not like modifications at all.

[Nick]

Agreed.

[Kenan]

And also the Lamborghini seem to drive their cars more generally speaking. And so I think the stick conversion makes that a ton of sense in your car. And like you said, the spread is like the chasm is so large it's irrational.

[Nick]

It does not make sense to be paying over a million dollars for the same car that you could buy for 200k with the main difference being a click clack.

[Kenan]

Right. And granted, I prefer gated manual transmission. I love it. The eager. I have to say in your car was pretty fun to drive. Honestly, I don't think you lost that much of the experience. It's still insane. Every aspect's.

[Nick]

No, I mean I was an E gear. I a apologetic apologist. Apologist. Thank you. It is fun at high speeds when we do our canyon cruises. It is unbearable in first and unbearable in reverse if you're trying to parallel park somewhere. If you're using it as a normal car, it's really annoying in those capacities and it still is. Like, it's always more fun. So when I was thinking of selling it, I was looking at a Diablo. I love the Diablo. I was just like fascinated by it. And then I started to wonder how much of it is because I'm shifting my own gears. Like it's certainly that it felt more analog was like the. The primary attraction, but. Oh, look at that. I know. They're so cool. They're so cool. And I think you and I both like this car imprinted on us from an early age that like, it's wedge shaped. It's so neat.

[Kenan]

Bedazzled the movie with Brendan Fraser and Elizabeth Hurley. The dev, she's plays the devil and she drove a black Lamborghini Diablo. And I really want to think memory.

[Nick]

Serves me or gone in 60 seconds. They're boosting cars and Nick Cage has the famous line Angelina Jolie.

[Kenan]

Yep, exactly.

[Nick]

I won't repeat it in case I get censored again, but nonetheless. So I may end up still selling the car when I get it back. I want to drive it some and then have it be the first public sale of a converted car. That was originally my pitch, but after driving even just one converted car, I'm like, oh, this might actually be a keeper. So I'm pretty excited. I went with Machina Motorworks there in Austin. Basically they have been converting Ferraris for many, many years under a different brand name and then there was a whole split. But they got a lot of experience doing that with the Ferraris. And I think the other thing you mentioned was the Ferrari purists are a little weird on conversions, but some of the early Ferrari conversions they used, instead of using like a solid rod, they used cables. The cables were notorious for getting stretched and needing readjusted and not being great. I think with the Lambo, they're taking a lot of those learnings and developing it right. With 2025 technology.

[Kenan]

So is it a shift rod, then, in that case?

[Nick]

Yeah, it's all. It's all solid, as far as I understand.

[Kenan]

That's great.

[Nick]

And like they're. And it's an engine out. I mean, it's a. It's a pretty substantial service. But I think that they're. They're like. Even the. The factory cars at this point are out of calibration in terms of their E gear. So, like, you can actually make it shift better than an OE stick, or at least that's what everyone says. So I'll get the car back hopefully next week. I'm going to drive a ton on it and then produce some videos for cars and bids, going over the whole experience. And then maybe, just maybe, we'll be selling it, maybe we'll be keeping it. That sort of remains to be seen.

[Kenan]

I suspect you hold on to it for a little bit. I mean, you should drive it and get the experience of driving a manual Mercier.

[Nick]

Yeah, no, I definitely want to do that. I'm keeping it the whole summer, regardless. I was texting with Ed Bolian about his Diablo SV and he didn't want to trade because he's got two Diablo SVs and doesn't really need a. With another Murcielago. But I've been kind of like quietly shopping around just to see what's out there. There's a few cars I got my eyes on, but for now, a Mercy, a stick Mercy is going to be pretty killer.

[Kenan]

It's insane.

[Nick]

Yeah.

[Kenan]

It's such an insane car. I'm so excited for you to get it back and I'm. I'm glad you took the plunge. It. You did a lot of research, like, looking at a number of different conversions, and this one seemed to be the one you settled on. It's still terrifying for that.

[Nick]

Or are you just terrified? The guys at Machina have been great. Like, he texts me every day. We're going over things. I made them keep it an extra week and just drive it a ton. But there's still a lot of unknowns. Right. Like I think the total number of converted mercys is probably 20 across. Everyone who offers it maybe 30. So like no one's had a long term ownership experience yet, which makes you nervous. But it's the same trans, it's the same clutch.

[Kenan]

And this isn't exactly cutting edge technology.

[Nick]

Yeah, they're all taking the OE cars and basically reverse engineering it. The main hurdle, the reason why these didn't exist up until recently was just the TCU programming, which someone finally cracked the code on, pun intended. So I can't see why this would be problematic long term. But time to drive it and that's a nice thing. My car is miles. So like what's driving a couple thousand more miles?

[Kenan]

It's the one you want to do that to. Ultimately it's the right use case for this. So I'm very excited. I can't wait for it. I can't believe it's happened that fast. Like I thought this would. Doug and I both thought you were in. You're an idiot. This car won't be back before car week. And admittedly it ain't back now.

[Nick]

So they were basically done in two weeks. And then there was a delay where one of the guys got married or something like that. But like it goes quick once they get it up on the left and start. They had the engine in and out in the same week and had all those things done. And then the next week was waiting for the new Carbon center council to come in and a few odds and ends to put it back together. But they've done enough now that it's not.

[Kenan]

Not.

[Nick]

They're like, it's not hard, it's just time consuming.

[Kenan]

That's what I found with Ryan from E39. So when he started doing conversions on the E60, the first one took like two and a half months. Now he can do it in a week.

[Nick]

Yeah.

[Kenan]

I'm not saying if you take your car to him. The thing is you always run into other stuff. Did you run into any other things?

[Nick]

Motor mounts were toast, which I guess is fairly common. There was one other minor. Everyone's gonna have some while you're in there. So just a matter of how deep you want to go, right?

[Kenan]

Yeah, it's. It's a Lamborghini. At the end of the day, there's always something.

[Nick]

A 20 year old Lamborghini.

[Kenan]

This episode of this Car Pod is brought to you by Acre Gold. Now you all Know that I'm all about finding value, whether It's a pristine 964,911 or an immaculate E46 M3. But let's talk about a different kind of asset. Acre Gold. Inflation's hitting harder than a V12 at Redline. Gas, car parts, even car washes are through the roof. Acre Gold lets you invest in real 24 karat gold bars for just a few bucks a day. It's like buying a classic car that never rusts. No finance degree needed, just pure shiny gold delivered to you. Go to getacregold.com protect your money, keep it golden. That's getacregold.com but this isn't the only car you have. Not the only. I'm looking at the front of the very stately Arnouj. What's the latest with the arnazj? A video went live.

[Nick]

The video went live today when we were filming this. So Wednesday for you all in the future. The future.

[Kenan]

On the Cars and Bids channel.

[Nick]

On the Cars and Bids channel. Actually it's I think the sixth in the series. So if you haven't check it out. It's a lot of fun. It's not getting the views that some of the other videos do, but we have brought it back from the dead. I mean it showed up. It was an eighteen thousand dollar car that a door didn't open, a window didn't go up. It had every light illuminated in the dash possible, which is impressive. You had to turn the brights on and the cruise control on to get all the lights, but we could get all the lights. I mean just, just absolute basket case. I have spent ten grand on it. On an $18,000 car. It is so nice now. It gets like, literally someone like, as I was leaving my house gave me a thumbs up, like a, a random landscaper. Like it, it just, it like stops people in their tracks when they see this purple Bentley just like putzing around. And it drives great. I haven't, it hasn't broken down in a while. It's. It's a normal car.

[Kenan]

When you showed up with it for the first time here at the office and I got to see the car in person, I was, I just like. Doug was like, I don't think you've realized what you signed up for here. It smelled like coolant. It was, it was rough. The thing was beat. But in the end, it does seem like you've done better than we had any of us had anticipated. I thought you'd need an engine. I thought it would need all kinds of stuff. But it doesn't touch wood. Doesn't seem to have needed that. And. And you have turned it around. If this car hadn't ended up with you, I think it would just ended up for parts, to be totally honest with you. And even then it would have been a stretch.

[Nick]

It's like the old Land Rover. It needs to go to someone willing to get their hands dirty and also look for parts. Some parts are nla, no longer available, but there was a viewer sent a clip to Mr. Gadget Guy, I think his name was. He reviews electronics. He bought an Arnage at a Mecum auction in similar shape as mine. Needed a lot of stuff. Stuff. He didn't even look at it. He sent it immediately to the Bentley dealer in Broward or Palm Beach.

[Kenan]

Oh my God.

[Nick]

And said, spare no expense. Fix everything you can find. And they spent $73,000 on the initial round of repairs. He picks it up from the dealership and drives it home 100 miles and doesn't make it home. The transmission goes out. He sends it back. He's basically into this car over 100 grand and yikes. The list of stuff that he fixed and the list of stuff I fixed is almost identical both in terms of the failure points as well as just like the number and severity of issues. So just paying dealership prices and paying for the. Both the parts and the labor is the difference between spending 10 grand on the car and 100 grand on the car in terms of your refurb. He did a few things too. I wouldn't recommend, but even my wood trim, right? That was my most expensive fix. 3500 bucks. I got a quote for 12 grand to redo it, and that's where the dealer would have sent it. So like. And then you can imagine they probably also charge five hours of labor. Removing the trim and installing. It's like you're. You're suddenly getting to like 15 grand in wood trim. It just. It adds up really quickly if you aren't trying to be smart about the cost. And this guy, for better or worse, just told the dealership, make it new. I don't care, man. Bentley taxes, it's insane.

[Kenan]

Heavy, heavy.

[Nick]

But if you're an enthusiast, that wasn't that bad. I'm in it under 30, barely. And it's for 30. That's a pretty cool daily.

[Kenan]

It is now, admittedly, you could buy, probably buy a decent one for 30.

[Nick]

They all the dealers asked 30 to 40. All of the online results are not supporting those comps, but interesting. I I suspect anyone you buy is going to need stuff. No one's other than Mr. Gadget Guys, who I can't imagine he would let go of it now that he's 100 grand deep into this 30 grand car.

[Kenan]

But yep, he's gotta get. Well, I hope he enjoys driving it. He's got to get a lot of miles.

[Nick]

Yeah, he better. He better.

[Kenan]

Well, so I'm glad to hear the Bentley's coming to shape. I can't wait to borrow that thing I've dreamt of driving in an rs.

[Nick]

It's yours next week.

[Kenan]

Oh, I cannot wait to report back on that. Hopefully no issues. Again, touch wood.

[Nick]

Yeah.

[Kenan]

But touch very high polished.

[Nick]

Yeah. Veneer. Veneers. Yeah.

[Kenan]

But nonetheless, it's such a special car. It is so special. I'm glad you're going to hold on to that one for a little bit and enjoy that car, man. Yep. God, you're.

[Nick]

I was maybe going to sell it earlier to get a multipla. I put a deposit down on a multipla. My dude showed up. It was so rusted he could bend the frame. So we're back to the drawing board on the multipla. But until I get the next project car in, I'm keeping this one. So I'm. I'm on the lookout for an appropriate level of project car. Not too far gone, but not too nice. So it. So if you have a multiple, come or go anytime. Yeah, if you have a multiple hollow. But I think there's like two people in all of North America, so.

[Kenan]

Yeah, that's very.

[Nick]

Ideally, if you're in like Poland or Netherlands, that would be ideal.

[Kenan]

Very true. So I'm glad your cars are doing well. Seems that all was good on that and can't wait for the mercy to come home. I drove an interesting car last week, so we're doing a special film on a car that's coming out very soon. So I drove a BMW E9 CSL. Now, you know vaguely of this car, the Batmobile.

[Nick]

You drove an E9 at car week last year.

[Kenan]

I did.

[Nick]

And all of us were like, this is such a Canon car. It's handsome. It's a little slow. It's just perfect for you.

[Kenan]

It is. Now this one, I need one with the M stripe.

[Nick]

This is a special version of the E9.

[Kenan]

Correct. The E9 in general is a really wonderful car and it gave birth to the BMW big coupe. So the six series that came after the eight series. But the thing about the CSL was it gave birth to the M division. Because it was the first car that the motorsport division built as a dedicated, as a homologation.

[Nick]

So before the M1, before the M1.

[Kenan]

This was what the team worked on. It was actually Bob Lutz brought in a bunch of. It was at BMW of all places and brought in a bunch of engineers to start this brand. And I got to drive one that just finished a beautiful restoration. And I have to say I drove it last week on 8 June, which was Carson bids anniversary day. And so I got to drive down PCH with the sun going down and an E9 CSL. Five years after I was at Doug and Blake and I were sitting on Doug's patio starting this thing, freaking out over the number of submissions we had and all the work that we had to do. And it was like, it was so surreal to have it come like full circle like that. Of like I cannot believe we're going to have a car like that on the site. And now we do. I dreamt of having cars like that and I hope it continues to go that way and maybe next year It'll be an F40. I'm driving on the PCH. Who knows?

[Nick]

It should be.

[Kenan]

But nonetheless this car was amazing. The things I found that were striking about it was it drove, you know, it's a classic. It doesn't make a lot of horsepower either. The, the road going versions of this car I think only made 207 horsepower. It's not a lot, doesn't weigh that much. About £2,500 is what it weighs, which is heavy. Ish for the era, I guess, but not, not that heavy. All things considered, very usable. Super smooth. Gave you the vintage experience.

[Nick]

Yeah.

[Kenan]

And like just to drive Genesis of where it like all started. As someone who bleeds the BMW M colors, it's just, it was amazing.

[Nick]

It's so cool looking like again I just.

[Kenan]

So cool.

[Nick]

It's an, it's an icon just in terms of both its looks and it's just it's whole vibe, you know.

[Kenan]

That was the thing that blew me away because I drove this in like on Newport coast, like kind of around Crystal Cove and down into Laguna where you see crazy cars all the time.

[Nick]

Yeah.

[Kenan]

People lost their minds, right? Like the number of people that were taking pictures. I stopped to get gas in it. Everybody came up and took a picture of the car.

[Nick]

Right.

[Kenan]

And I guess to me it is a very crazy shape but like to other people who don't even know what it is, it was like a spaceship. And again in a place where there are really special cars all the time. It was like to drive what probably maybe was the most special car driven on that road. That day was a cool experience.

[Nick]

I feel like I'm getting more turned on by older cars as things go on. Same. I look at that like, I don't know what this. What the values of these are, right? But, like, if you've got a bunch of money and you're like, oh, I get a new McLaren and everyone thinks I'm some kind of a capitalist, can I say D bag? Sure, I'm a capitalist bad guy. Or I drive this car and I'm a connoisseur and champagne falls from the sky.

[Kenan]

You would be a. What is daddication? The thing that drives me every day as a dad is Dariana. We call them Dae Date for sure. Every day he's hungry for something, whether it's attention, affection, knowledge. And there's this huge responsibility in making sure that when he's no longer under my wing that he's a good person. I want him to be able to sit back one day and go, we worked together. We did a good job. That's dedication. Find out [e-mail] brought to you by the US Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. Indulgent weenie servants.

[Nick]

Exactly. Thank you. Thank you. It just. It's so tasteful and so special in a way. Money cannot buy that today. Unless you maybe bought the Valkyrie LM or that weird Porsche thing. Like, you need that level of crazy to match what a. What you could get here with like an E type or a 3.0 CSL. Like, it's just. It's so different and so special.

[Kenan]

It is. And I think that's one of the things that differentiates people who are rich versus people who are rich and interesting. Like, car enthusiasts are rich and interesting. Have something like this.

[Nick]

This.

[Kenan]

Whereas if you just get money and you're not that sophisticated when it comes to knowing about cars, you go and.

[Nick]

You buy every Ferrari in yellow, maybe.

[Kenan]

All right, that's a full claim. But nonetheless, like that. You hit the nail on the head. And I think it was. And it was clear based on how people reacted to it. And that's not the reason to own a car, is how others react to it. But admittedly, I felt that it was very cool. As someone who I feel is. I like to consider myself kind of a steward of the brand. It was cool to see normal people react like, wow, what is that thing?

[Nick]

You buy a car because of how it makes you feel. Right as you're driving it. And this car makes you feel special and like you're preserving history and just like so connected with the machine in a way that no new car really can. Totally. I'm so glad you got to drive it. It is such a peak Canon car. I hope you get to own one one day. Even if it's not the csl. Maybe it's just the. The regular but like it should totally be on your. Your bucket list here.

[Kenan]

Totally. Like you said, I drove my friend. I drove my friends last year at car wake and it like. And his was. I think it was a built 3.5.

[Nick]

17 mile drive or whatever. Like that was so cool.

[Kenan]

Yeah. Was it it? That was really cool. I'm very, very grateful to let him.

[Nick]

Letting me borrow that was insane. What a generous guy.

[Kenan]

Crazy nice guy. And it was wonderful. And this just reaffirmed. It's like still drives like a BMW. Still feels like a BMW. And that straight six sound is just wonderful. The experience matters and this car delivers it. The vintage experience is cool. Life is better in a classic as they say.

[Nick]

That's right.

[Kenan]

But yes.

[Nick]

So what my wife tells me every day.

[Kenan]

That's exactly right. Okay, so that's enough talking cars. We now have to move on to the market report which is brought to you today by Nick's Bentley keys. He even has a cars and bids.

[Nick]

Complete with electric tape to hold in the unlock button.

[Kenan]

As you do you want to hear?

[Nick]

Hold on. This thing beeps. Let's see if we can.

[Kenan]

Traditional Bentley form. It's not beeping exactly.

[Nick]

It should beep. It beeps really loud. When it beeps it's insane.

[Kenan]

That's. Yeah. I have no doubt. But we are going to talk about a couple of interesting cars that you wanted to note and we want to. I'm going to start with R8s. Now you had a V8, R8 coupe, six speed manual. Lovely car.

[Nick]

I had one.

[Kenan]

And what do you want to say about R8s?

[Nick]

The current owner is now selling it and using some of my photos that I sold it to him with which is totally fine.

[Kenan]

This was something that I took.

[Nick]

Everyone's pinging me be like hey dude.

[Kenan]

It'S your old car.

[Nick]

It's your old car. And like I think his ask is in the 60s. If you look at at the cars and Bids results. A V8, 6 speed R8 can be had in the 60s. You can spend up for a little bit lower mileage one or nicer one if you want the V10 you got to Spend up a little bit more. But in the 60s or less, for some of them, it is an insane value. Mid engine. It looks amazing, it feels amazing. Much like you described with that 3.0 CSL, people around you react to it in a way that's just strictly favorable. No one's like, oh, that guy's kind of a jerk. Or like, here to fire my dad? No, they think like, oh, it's Iron man or oh, that looks so cool. I remember when that came out. Like it's an almost 20 year old car now, but it's a V8 from an RS4. Mine has or has 86,000 miles on it. Like driven like a normal car, not like a 20,000 mile Ferrari. And it holds up really great.

[Kenan]

Yeah, I have to say, we had this red one.

[Nick]

That one was awesome.

[Kenan]

This sold. Yeah, it was a red six speed V8 coupe and it just sold for 66 grand. Doug did a video on it and all that stuff. I drove it around for a little while to do videos with it for the photo guide and exactly what you described. There was somebody who came up to me. This woman was driving a gladiator and pulled up next to me. I thought the car was really loud, had an aftermarket exhaust, crazy loud. She pulled up next to me and I thought I was like, oh, I was in this neighborhood which hates cars. And I thought she was gonna yell at me, but she was like, I had to turn down my music to listen to your engine. And I was like, I'm sorry, it's really loud. She said, what are you talking about? It's an R8. It's supposed to be loud. Like she was like into it, like really excited and everybody freaks out over it. But all of it was positive. I didn't have anybody who like cut me off. Like everybody lets you in in traffic. People are just like into the car. And to your point, this one had 47,000 miles on it. But it was, it was tight as a drum. Like it was, it was so good. Like I said, it's one of the few times when I've been like, I could get rid of the M5 and just drive one of these all day. But in the end I made the decision to keep the car, of course. But nonetheless, I agree with you and I think they are tremendously underride.

[Nick]

If you're an enthusiast looking for a car under 70 that checks all the boxes, the V8 R8 is hard to beat. Also, the Artronics, not the greatest transmission, but it's easily swappable. There's a guy, Third Pedal LLC in Alabama that just, he does it over a couple cold ones in a weekend and I don't think he actually drinks, but you know what I mean. It's so swappable that you can pick the spec you want. So like you can be like, like you guys had an amazing Samoa orange one recently. There's purple ones, there's that light blue color people really like. There's so many cool specs out there. Now that's an S Tronic I believe. But like Audi did some pretty cool stuff back in the day. So you can also just shop around for the right car, the right spec. They're out there. They were available enough that it's not like impossible to find one. So you can be a little choosy but like there's, there's a lot of options at a very reasonable budget.

[Kenan]

The art's great. And you hit on actually a really interesting point there. I think with conversions in tie back what you said to your Lamborghini, it's a little off topic, but I think these conversions open the opportunity to own spec. A lot of the F1 equipped cars and supplies to Ferraris too were, it was like it was an expensive option to have. And so if you did that, you tended to do more interesting things with them. Now the idea of being able to take that, remove the transmission that hasn't aged all that well, right? Aspects of the transmission that haven't aged that well. Go back to six speed manual. Pretty appealing. Now I will say like the, the. Do you cover your spread as much with an R8? No, because the manuals pretty close there I think.

[Nick]

But nonetheless they're cheaper to swap than like say a Murcielago. But yeah, the R8 GTS only came in automatic, but it's swappable.

[Kenan]

That's the one? Yeah, that's the one you swap.

[Nick]

That's the one I would want to do personally. But there were some that came in like purples or that third Pedal LLC company they've done, they'll take a pre facelift one, they'll facelift it, they will manual swap it. And he's done it on an orange one as well. And like a purple one, he's done some like pretty crazy specs. So yeah, you buy the car you want regardless of the transmission rather than saying oh I want the transmission. And having a narrow, narrower pool also means if you only got like less money to buy the car, you can buy the car now, drive it as an auto for a year, like Sean's doing with his360 and then swap it as funds become available.

[Kenan]

Right, let's put some pressure on our producer to swap his car to manual. No pressure, but no, that's, that's a great point. R8s are great value.

[Nick]

Buy it.

[Kenan]

Yeah. Buy, buy, buy, buy. There are only a few objects in your life that are absolutely essential to your well being just because of how much time you spend with them. For me, it really comes down to two. My E39 M5 and my mattress. Believe it or not, I'm equally in love with both. That's why I'm genuinely thrilled to have Brooklyn Bedding as a sponsor. They let me pick one of their mattresses to take out on a test drive and I went with the Aurora looks cooling mattress with the cloud pillow top. I'm genuinely astonished. It's a total game changer. Before this, I was tossing and turning, waking up hot, sore and honestly, still tired. Now I wake up refreshed after a night of cool, tranquil sleep. It's wild and I am def turning back. Now I'm a side sleeper, so I need something soft enough for my shoulder, but still firm enough to keep my back heavy. This thing nailed it. No more lower back pain, no overheating. Emily's sleeping better too, dreaming of track days in her E90 M3 CRT, which is really saying something. Brooklyn Bedding has been doing this for over 25 years. Top tier comfort and quality without the ridiculous luxury price tag. Every mattress is custom made by master craftsmen at their facility in Arizona and they ship for free anywhere in US. Plus you've got up to 120 nights to sleep on it. And if it's not for you, they will help you return it and swap it for something better. So if you don't hug your mattress every night like I do, it's time to Upgrade. Go to BrooklynBedding.com and use our promo code cars at checkout to get 30% off site wide. This offer is not available anywhere else. You have to use our promo code on the very last page of checkout to get this discount. That's BrooklynBedding.com and use our promo code CARS for sitewide Brooklyn betting.com with the promo code cars Next story. Yes. So we're moving on to there's another car and I agree with you on this one. That's live on cars and bids. It's really cool. C43 Wagy Wag. This car is so cool. Now, by the time this airs, this car will have ended it's currently sitting at 12 grand. I look this generation of C class in general. The C43 I think is an incredibly special car. You can kind of see it in the shot of Nick when you pan to it that there's one in the background there. Right, right there it is. And it is. I. I am astonished with how much, how solid that car feels like considering the E36 was its competition at the time. That car is just in a different league. And the wagon is so damn cool.

[Nick]

Yeah.

[Kenan]

And now they're. We've. We're seeing them more frequently and over here with us titles. Look at that. How cool is that car?

[Nick]

Total sleeper. I love the photos they took here with the dead grass.

[Kenan]

Yeah, yeah. Photography photos definitely matter. I agree.

[Nick]

I would take it but I mean you can get the point. You can look at. There's been like two that have sold as far as I've seen. So the market still hasn't been set yet. But it seems like they're pretty good value for the money.

[Kenan]

Yeah.

[Nick]

And way more special. Way, way cool. Like I again, this is a car I would freak out at cars and coffee but you could use it on a daily basis, no problem.

[Kenan]

Totally. I agree with that. I. I'm eager to see more of them come into the country. But also finding the them is not particularly easy in Europe. They aren't that common of a car to begin with. But I think this generation C class is generally underrated. The AMG ones are particularly desirable.

[Nick]

You could do a six speed R8 V8 and this for under 100 grand as your ideal two car solution and find me a more tasteful, interesting and enjoyable two car solution for that money.

[Kenan]

Pretty good.

[Nick]

Pretty, pretty good.

[Kenan]

Pretty, pretty, pretty good. One car I wanted to call out this week that I thought was kind of insane was this E46M3. Now you like the 46M, you've kind of said that you might consider dabbling in one. This one I found was interesting. So this was.

[Nick]

That's what she said.

[Kenan]

This is an 04. So a late production E46 M3 coupe.

[Nick]

Oh a modded one.

[Kenan]

50,000 miles and 6 speed manual imm but mods. And when I look at this car I'm like, I mean yeah, the mileage is low but you know it's like. I don't know about that. You go for based on the work it would take to unmodify it. But it went for 45 grand ran which is big money for like an E46 M3. When I looked at the most expensive ones we have sold with manual transmissions because they were offered as SMG2. This is the fifth most expensive E46 M3 we have ever sold.

[Nick]

Wow.

[Kenan]

All the other ones we've sold that were cheaper or more expensive than that did have lower mileage. This one in particular was Sticks on mine with 2,400 miles. The fourth most expensive was 25,000. So this had double the mileage budge but. And modifications. But it, I mean, it, it sold for serious money. And I think that it speaks to, like, the benefit of taking to an auction site. Like somebody wanted this car with the upgrades that it had because in addition to some of the aesthetic mods, it had real stuff. So, yeah, intake system, which is a must on that car. The Bison. The Bison Vanos upgrade, you know, it had stuff like that. So, like really desirable stuff that sold for real money. Like, I was just blown away by that result. And it was quite a bidding war at the end. It was two people who really, really wanted it and they just went back and forth and back and forth for a long time.

[Nick]

The bidding war is the greatest. Love watching them the best. Don't like being part of them.

[Kenan]

Nope. But congratulations to Hawksford on taking this one home. What a car.

[Nick]

I do like the color. I'm sure that helped a 50,000 mile Imola, or Imola, as you would see, say, red. E46 M3 is not easy to find, so.

[Kenan]

No, no, it is not. And so even with the mods, it's like, I think, yeah, quite a result.

[Nick]

I. I like the mods.

[Kenan]

I know you do. I know you do.

[Nick]

There's a few I would do differently.

[Kenan]

To each their own. Yeah, exactly. But nonetheless, I was, I was very proud to have like, such a strong result with a what is admittedly a car that's hard to find. The last result. I want to talk before we get over to the question section. We had a. An interesting 964 that sold on the site. So this, again, I can't keep up with the number of manufacturers that modified 964s. But this is an RWBY body 964 and it sold for $171,500. Real money for, for one of these cars. But I, I mean, look at it. It's just, it's just wild to me. I, again, would I do it to my 964? Maybe not. But these are really popular with people and people spend real money on them because it doesn't look like any else.

[Nick]

I liked RWB a lot. When it was sort of a. If you know, you know, like niche Japanese tuner scene kind of thing. They've now kind of become like a rich guy collector thing. And I don't get it. Like I would do a Singer or something where they're like doing everything to perfection versus a guy flies from Japan and does it over a weekend with a blowtorch and Sawzall and all that. It's. It's impressive people like them.

[Kenan]

It just, I guess it speaks. It's what.

[Nick]

It's an impressive result for you guys. And I get that people pay for RWBs, but to me what it says is like, I'm yucking that yum right there.

[Kenan]

I agree with you generally. But to me it says the market does think differently. Like they clearly value this so much.

[Nick]

This one's actually pretty tasteful for an RWB too. Some of them are a little tacky. This one, like, I like the color. The mods are not too. Like sometimes he does like these quadruple stacked wings and stuff that are just like Hot Wheels ridiculous.

[Kenan]

Like this one has a little.

[Nick]

Fairly clean.

[Kenan]

Yeah, no, I, I agree with that. I just thought it was, it was just, it's just eye opening to me because I have an ongoing list of all of the people who do this.

[Nick]

Yeah.

[Kenan]

Who. Who modify these cars this way. Did you want to hear? I'll run down the list. So single Singer. Singer being the most successful in that like their name has become a verb. You Singerize a car and that applies to a number of manufacturers. Gunther Works, rwb. Paul Stevens, Theon Design, Emory Motorsports. The Keen Project, who I really like because they build the little safari ones. Calamar Automotive. I'm putting roof on this list.

[Nick]

I was gonna say roof is the only one I care about.

[Kenan]

So a Keger or whatever retro and Evo Max so that, that it just keeps growing.

[Nick]

I think that's like a 10% of the tuners out there. It's every week.

[Kenan]

Yeah. But it's the same recipe. Take an air cooled 911, do make modifications to it. Charge a lot of money for it. Now granted a Singer, you know, they're charging a million.

[Nick]

Yeah.

[Kenan]

For. For their car. So at that number one, Singer's doing.

[Nick]

Some really impressive stuff as. As is Gunther Works. I think they're like a cut above the rest of them. But I agree each one will come out and be like, oh, we're planning only 20, so you better act fast. And it's like, bro, you're gonna sell three of these. Like you don't pretend it's scarcity here. Like there's not that many. RWB again has this cult following now that I think they've ascended to almost manufacturer like status.

[Kenan]

But yeah, we're certainly lauded that way anyway. But nonetheless, a very strong.

[Nick]

I would rather have your modded red E46 M3 if I had to choose between the two.

[Kenan]

Dang. Save yourself 110,000.

[Nick]

I would take the rest. The $110,000, light it on fire and take the E46 versus spending the money on that RW.

[Kenan]

That's a bit strong. I think what you'd do is buy a C43AMG wagon and an R8.

[Nick]

Yeah, I'd buy all three of the car we just mentioned over that one and light the rest of them on Empire like.

[Kenan]

Or, you know, spend it on Bentley maintenance, but teach that on that one. But now we're going to move to questions, questions, questions. If you want to ask us a question, click the link in the description below. Or you can go to the Go to the Cars and Bids community section where there will be a post where you can ask us a lot of questions. And we got asked a ton of great questions. I spent probably an hour and a half going through these the other night and they were. There's so many good ones. But we're going to jump right in with this hypothetical because Filippo's not here and I think this one would be fun. So the question from Ariel1194 is answer this hypothetical. Filippo wins a million dollars to spend on cars, but the catch is that only his friends can choose the cars that he can buy. What would we put in Filippo's garage? Now the question really is, how nice do you want to be to Filippo? Is it stuff that we want him to have or stuff that he would want to have?

[Nick]

Let me answer as Filippo first so you and I can choose.

[Kenan]

Okay.

[Nick]

You see, I would never spend that much money on a car. So I would just buy a $10,000 car and put the rest in an S&P 500 index fund.

[Kenan]

Exactly.

[Nick]

I can't do his voice well, but just extrapolate.

[Kenan]

No Filipo's. My impression of Filippo goes like, yeah, legitimately. That's what I would do.

[Nick]

He'd be deeply uncomfortable with spending anything more than a reasonable amount of money on a daily, which I would think is maybe it's like 40 versus him. But he wouldn't. He doesn't like expensive cars. Never spent this Would be painful to him to drive an expensive.

[Kenan]

He's never spent 40 on a car in his life. Yeah, that. That is true. So what would we get for Filippo for million dollars? I think one car I would get for him. The car I would get for him is a 550.

[Nick]

Because Filippo, although he'd never drive that.

[Kenan]

Although he says he's never drive it. It's the one Ferrari he and I both agree on that we both really love.

[Nick]

Yeah.

[Kenan]

Which for him is saying a ton. And it kind of makes sense. It's under the radar. You have to know what it. It is. They're actually relatively reliable. They're relatively good value compared to like a manual 575. So he's got the value thing. He's a.

[Nick]

He had a 550, he'd be like the character in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Cameron. Where like his dad had the Ferrari and he was too nervous to ever drive it. And then one day he snaps and he drives it, wrecks it. That would be Felipe with a 550. He'd have a really bad day. Go hoon it. And that would be at the end.

[Kenan]

It could get scratched, breathed on wrong. A pigeon could crap on it.

[Nick]

Who knows?

[Kenan]

Yeah.

[Nick]

Like I like that choice. Okay.

[Kenan]

It could be. It could be. So that's one car to choose from. What would be a car you'd pick for him?

[Nick]

So he's been talking forever about getting a 990, 911.

[Kenan]

A 911 something.

[Nick]

I'd get him a new one since we have a big budget to spend and that way he has a warranty and he doesn't have to worry about wear and tear. So I'd probably get him the hybrid since he's practical.

[Kenan]

Okay. Okay. All right. That's. That's a reason.

[Nick]

That'd be good getting around town kind of a car.

[Kenan]

That would be a good one. The problem with Filippo is that if we're getting cars that actually want. You could get. It would end up being 50 cars or 100 cars. Cuz you could get that for a million dollars. It's like. Yeah. I get him like a Fiat Panda 4x4.

[Nick]

Oh yeah.

[Kenan]

Cuz he really likes that.

[Nick]

The multipla multiple.

[Kenan]

Yeah. First gen, multiply.

[Nick]

I get him a new E wagon for the same reason warranty. And he loves his E wagon even though his is really rough. Yeah. Scented on every panel.

[Kenan]

Getting rougher every day.

[Nick]

Been a nom and back kind of of thing.

[Kenan]

Yep. I think I would make him keep the 500 a bars just because a little torture.

[Nick]

I'd get him a couple more.

[Kenan]

Get him a couple.

[Nick]

We could have like Cletus does. Only the race would be with only.

[Kenan]

His Fiat with Fiat 500A bars. And I think the. The rollover rate would be a lot higher. Top heavy. Those little cars.

[Nick]

I'd get him a Gucci one and I would get him I guess edition 1. Get one of those. It wasn't there. JLO edition as well or something. Am I making that up? Maybe she was in the Gucci ad is what it was.

[Kenan]

What else would you you get him? What would you get him? Anything crazy like you want him. I want him to have this experience. Well okay.

[Nick]

He loves the Corvettes. I would get him the new Z6 or whatever it is.

[Kenan]

I think I get him a C7ZR1. He actually. Because he talked about it like he likes the C7 a lot and actually this one pretty tasteful, kind of under the radar. I think he would actually like. And that's what we get him. He's starting to really get into track driving. He really got a taste for it. I think you get him a spec race car of some kind of like expect Miata for him would be like really good with the trailer and the truck to tow it. He goes to Arizona occasionally he can.

[Nick]

Blend in more fractional ownership of a Valkyrie L.M.

[Kenan]

All right.

[Nick]

He could have a quarter.

[Kenan]

So to answer this question there, I think it would be a mix of cars he likes and cars who want him to experience but he is too cheap to do so. I think that's probably how he would end up building that. But some good choices in there, I think.

[Nick]

Yeah.

[Kenan]

Okay. Moving on to another question. A3PO asks a question for. For myself and for you specifically. If Doug had to have one vehicle in his garage, only one car, what would we pick for Doug? And he explicitly says no Mercedes Benz wagons are allowed. As Doug still wants to go off road, it has to do everything. One car for Doug. What would you pick?

[Nick]

So he. I'll be Doug first. Well you see that's the reason I got the Sequoia is that I have.

[Kenan]

One car to do everything. It's the Sequoia.

[Nick]

It's a little too jailed Sequoia because. Because it has three rows off road capable. It has advanced driver support so that you can drive itself basically which if you take all those requirements for dog does narrow it down to a very small list of niche vehicles. I am taking a somewhat fantasy view of this here. A G650 Lotto LA. He loves his convertible G wagon. He needs three rows and off road capability. So it's lifting did. It's got a convertible and it's got three rows. It's a biturbo V12 and it would win cars and coffee no matter which cars and coffee you went to. So the only thing you lose is like the countach levels of like handling and visceral feedback. But otherwise it's ugly, it's quirky, it fits the whole family. It goes off roading and it's got a ton of power and it's special. I think that's the car and I'll.

[Kenan]

Let you have it's Mercedes. You know it's still a Mercedes Mercedes.

[Nick]

It's not a wagon though.

[Kenan]

It's not a waggy wag. But it is, it is a Mercedes convertible actually. And it is a convertible.

[Nick]

And it's the same convertible and rear window as his gcap.

[Kenan]

It is so it could have all of it. Noodle could ride in it comfortably. His kids could ride in it. It is a pretty comprehensively insane but good choice. If you had to get rid of everything. I really. I, I struggle. I, I would second that choice. A3PO suggested. He suggested a Ford Explorer st like one of the, the newer ones which actually is a pretty.

[Nick]

It's a dope choice. I love. Very good choice.

[Kenan]

I don't know. I think it would have to be an SUV of some kind. I think it would be if he could import a new new 300 Series Land Cruiser that would also probably give him what he wants.

[Nick]

Yeah. So you it be so boring for cars and coffee canyon cruises, all that.

[Kenan]

It would be but you know the.

[Nick]

This is, this is probably the 456 Venice. 456. It doesn't off road. I guess you have to rule that out. A Stado if you could convert it to a shooting brake maybe.

[Kenan]

Ooh, I didn't, I didn't thought of like a car st a coach built serato hard to fit the kids in.

[Nick]

Or if we made a Serrato Urus or RSQ8. That and a Tal design Columbus with like a LS swap maybe. I have no idea what drivetrain is in that car but it can be BMW V12. Oh that's right. That's right. An F1 engine, right?

[Kenan]

Yeah, right, exactly. Interesting. I, I think that the LA is probably a pretty good choice for Doug on that one. Moving on to the next question Turtle asks. Turtle from Entourage.

[Nick]

Yeah.

[Kenan]

Asks. Pretend streaming doesn't exist. Easy for you for most of your cars. What. What are the. What are the three. The five CDs you would have to bring for a long road trip. That's a tough one for you. I feel like some Nelly album has.

[Nick]

I'd say all my cars have had CD changers recently. So I've had to actually do this. And I. I picked the CD that matches the car. So the P38. I had the Nelly Country Grammar album. Because down, down in a Range Rover street sweeper baby yeah. I don't know how much of that song I can actually sing aloud, but you got your impression.

[Kenan]

You could sing the whole thing.

[Nick]

The Bentley came with a Marvin Gaye CD in it, no joke. Which is so perfect. I then broke the CD player to. So it's permanently installed. I prefer audiobooks and podcasts, so from there I don't. I listen to 90s punk rock. I think no Effects Pennywise. No use for name Lag Wagon. All these bands would get really tiresome on a long road trip if that's all you had to listen to. My family would murder me. So I would probably just say like a good audiobook.

[Kenan]

Very interesting. I think that's interesting. Okay.

[Nick]

Or this carpod.

[Kenan]

Nice.

[Nick]

Put that on the whole back catalog. Yeah.

[Kenan]

I think for me it would be. I want a rock album for sure. Like, I'm slightly more modern one. I'm from Ohio, so Black Key is my favorite band. So I think having Brothers is still an album that to me works every single time. Having that for a road trip is really great. Me being me. I like to have some jazz too. Probably like a John Coltrane greatest on there would be kind of nice. Especially for evening cruising at high speed. I think that's good. Maybe Brian Simpson is another jazz artist who I really like.

[Nick]

So.

[Kenan]

So you can see having that. Maybe then I would want some kind of. For road trips. I love listening to the Eagles. I just think it like. Especially in the Southwest, it just fits. Like, you know, I think it really works. And again, like, I really like classic rock, so I'd want one of. And I'm a big Doors fan, so one of. One of the Doors albums like on. I'm not exactly sure which one I would want, but one of the Doors albums would make me pretty happy happy otherwise. Like usually my phone when I have it, like when I'm sorting through it's. It's a. I listen to everything. Like I have. My phone has like from 90s rap to. I have like gospel on there too. Not because I'm like super Religious, but because it's like, it just looks really happy music. To jazz, to classical. I mean to heavy metal. Like I have everything on my phone.

[Nick]

I know.

[Kenan]

So it be. It's hard for me to like pick.

[Nick]

It's such a hard qu. I. I get into one song and I will listen to that song a hundred times and I. A month and then never again. Like I'm on like some 41 kick right now and there's like two songs and I listen to those two repeatedly. And then I will suddenly be like, I'm over the song and move to the next one. So that's, that's a hard. It's a hard question. Like longevity.

[Kenan]

I'm disciplined about that. You know who isn't? Doug. We launched this company. He played the same song on loop and we were all so busy. He played the same song. I calculated for eight hours and it was. Or six hours is 104 times Listen to the same song. So yeah, he's not careful about that. But I agree with you. All right, moving on to another question, Matlock J asks what is better when purchasing a pre owned vehicle, a 5 year old car with 40,000 miles or a 1 year old car with 90,000 miles? Assuming that the price is the same. What is your thought on that? I have some thoughts right away there.

[Nick]

It's such a broad hypothetical.

[Kenan]

It is.

[Nick]

Personally, I would be tempted without knowing anything else and there's a lot of unknowns here. I would go for lower miles over new one because I'd be worried about anyone that put 90,000 miles on a car in one year. Like that's just really hard on a car. That means it's driven a ton every day. I would have to worry about oil changes and maintenance and all of that. It's like, who in their right mind would drive that far and not be a total crazy person?

[Kenan]

See, I. You say that, I will raise you.

[Nick]

Yeah, that colon.

[Kenan]

This Rolls Royce cullen, that was one owner and in five years the guy did 114,000 miles.

[Nick]

Okay, but do that in one year now.

[Kenan]

But no.

[Nick]

Well, the 90 versus 14,000 is that much different.

[Kenan]

But think of it realistically. To do that, you're on a highway. Highway. A car is at 2000rpm cruising. That is the easiest thing you can kind of do to an engine as opposed to ringing it out every time you use it. Like Alex Roy's E39 M5 I think has 75,000 miles on it. They are the hardest 75,000 miles that I've ever put on any car. But so I think that he takes care of it. But, but like they were really hard aggressive miles. So I don't know in either case, to me you buy the owner if it is somebody who did 90,000 miles on it, did the oil change like every week when they got home from having to go check windmills or something.

[Nick]

Whatever they were doing.

[Kenan]

Yeah, you know, like that then I could see that. And if it's a five year old car, 40,000 miles, but the person has had the oil change twice. You know that's kind of where I, it really depends on the owner. All of these cars, cars built in same factories by the same people, it's the owners and the journeys those cars go on to live that are different from one another. So I think it really depends. But nonetheless this car.

[Nick]

Unbelievable. I want to shake that guy's hand. Kudos to them for driving it. I, I generally agree with you other than there's a lot of like gaskets and O rings and stuff in a car that over so many heat cycles go out and at 90,000 miles like you're kind of getting to the natural lifespan of a lot of parts. At 40,000 miles. I would expect to, to have less of those kind of things. It just, it's to your point. I would want to know a lot more history on each. But all things equal, I would go 5 year olds and 40,000 miles.

[Kenan]

Also spoken like somebody who's owned a lot of German cars.

[Nick]

You know, right around 9,000 you get a better value. Your depreciation curve on a five year old car is going to be like half off versus one year old and same money like you're looking at a used E wagon or a new like Corolla. Although this maybe not that bad.

[Kenan]

Although again this thing sticker was $438,000 and it sold for 170.

[Nick]

I know.

[Kenan]

So I don't know.

[Nick]

Good for them.

[Kenan]

I don't know. But you always, you always buy the owner. Okay, we're going to do another question. So this is a ranking question. Rank all of the lamp. This one is for you. Rank all of the Lamborghini special edition cars. So that's a pretty broad list I would say. I think you and I have disagreements on what we determine is a limited edition car car. Because I looked at what you wrote down. Some wild stuff.

[Nick]

Well yeah, the, the intent of the question was certainly because he gave the examples of the Veneno and the Centenario.

[Kenan]

Yeah.

[Nick]

So he's thinking of those like we built 20 or 50 of them or less. But like actual ground up different cars vs I special edition to me is like the Monterey edition, the Versace edition. Like there was a lot of quote unquote, like you could consider an SV a special edition. And Lamborghini and Ferrari for that matter are so good at milk and Porsche for milking their customers with. Towards the end of the run we're going to have all sorts of these insane. The LP654, the whatever. Like they just came out with all sorts of ones to push more inventory.

[Kenan]

Right? Yeah. So it's also, I would say it's the difference between a trim level like the sv I view as a trim more than like an additional. I view these as like they said they were going to produce a certain number of special cars and they did. So a great example is the Renton. Like I view that at the top.

[Nick]

Of my list too.

[Kenan]

And that is, I don't want to jump in right with number one, but I would say that is probably it. Yeah, it's actually, I take that back. I'd say the SE30 is probably.

[Nick]

I would call that a special or a trim, but okay.

[Kenan]

I don't know.

[Nick]

It's not a unique car.

[Kenan]

It's just blue Alcantara, completely different exhaust, the windows are different. Like, I mean like, yes, blue Alcantara.

[Nick]

I don't want to do an inappropriate gesture here, but I'm thinking it.

[Kenan]

I, I don't know. I think SA30 is probably.

[Nick]

It's not as. It's no more special than the Versace Edition Mercy in terms of its trim level.

[Kenan]

That is not true. The Versace edition had little stickers, it.

[Nick]

Had blah, blah, blah.

[Kenan]

For those of you who are unfamiliar.

[Nick]

Everyone knows the Versace Mercy. It's, it's got the little patterns.

[Kenan]

It came in white, it only white. Right. They're only on.

[Nick]

Well, the NC30 just known for coming in purple, but it wasn't.

[Kenan]

It was also offered in black and silver and a bunch of other cars. They did a lot of stuff to this to make it.

[Nick]

They, they did a lot of stuff to this car.

[Kenan]

They put a sticker on this car.

[Nick]

They put a sticker, they put an.

[Kenan]

Interior in it and it's a bad sticker. Look at that. It just says rrrj. That's all it says.

[Nick]

Look at it. You don't understand fashion like I do. Okay.

[Kenan]

Clearly it's pretty special. I, I don't know. I don't. I would not put that one as high on my list.

[Nick]

It's number two on mine.

[Kenan]

Number two on yours. I am going to put the SE30 as number one. The Renton is number two. But you went all the way back to the mirror, so you have the. The new. Okay, I think we can agree the new Countach should be pretty low on that list.

[Nick]

Disagree, disagree, disagree.

[Kenan]

The new Countach.

[Nick]

I'm the only person in the world that likes that car. It's not at the top of my list, but it's certainly not at the bottom. The Cesto Elemento and Veneno, I think are kind of. Hein. Those are at the bottom for me. I like the Aventador in general. The new Countach is just a rebodied Aventador. And so therefore all of the special Aventadors. The Aventador J is my favorite. The one with no windshield. Like, basically like a. A weird, ridiculous, crazy Aventador is my favorite Aventador. Then the Countach version, and then all the other versions. But yeah, that thing.

[Kenan]

How many did they build of this car?

[Nick]

A couple probably.

[Kenan]

A couple?

[Nick]

Probably about as many as any of those specialty Porsche builders you mentioned earlier.

[Kenan]

Okay, so is this a one off or is this a special edition? More than one. You said it had to be like production like 25 to 50.

[Nick]

Okay, okay. It's to me that that's the best Aventador followed by the Countach.

[Kenan]

Actually, this lineup here. That and the.

[Nick]

Oh yeah, Roadster.

[Kenan]

Yeah, that is quite something. Okay, okay.

[Nick]

But you also taxes must be insane.

[Kenan]

Yep.

[Nick]

How many taken advantage of. Yeah, there's the most wanted by the irs, whoever that is.

[Kenan]

All right, you had the Gardo concept S. They built one. One. And it was a concept.

[Nick]

You know what?

[Kenan]

It does not count prediction here.

[Nick]

Hot Take windshields. No longer in. In style. Windshield. Windshield less cars. If you want to make a special edition, take the windshield off, put a pillar down the middle for no reason at all. I'll buy it.

[Kenan]

But isn't that just some cynical bs?

[Nick]

I'm gonna call Mach and I and say before you ship my car back.

[Kenan]

Chop windshield, delete windshield, leave the beveled side.

[Nick]

Give me some of those pilot glasses with a little leather cap. That's all I need.

[Kenan]

I think I have a pair of the glasses you can borrow from car days. Okay, so I'm. My list. You have a number on here that I'm just going to say are not eligible. Including the Gardo concept. Insane. Literal.

[Nick]

I want it.

[Kenan]

I'm going to put SC30 at the top. Then I'm going to put the Renton after that, personally, I'm going to. I. I'm going to count your evented or j.

[Nick]

All right.

[Kenan]

That. Although that might be. They may have only built one of those, then I would put. I personally think the Sesto Elemento should go after that. That's a very serious, like, track focus stripped out. Not nothing to it car.

[Nick]

It's an impressive design and, well, it's an impressive car.

[Kenan]

Full stop in my view. Like, I think it's a really, really impressive car. So I would put it after that. And then I think at the bottom one, I. I don't know. Know, like, again, I think Diablo SV was a trim. I think Diablo GTR was also a trim.

[Nick]

I had the VS edition sv, which is what Ed Bullion to spot the Victoria Secret version of the Diablo. Watch Ed's content. I'm a big fanboy, but they. They took the SV and then they took the stickers and reversed the order. So it was VS for Victoria's Secret. That was pretty much the main difference. They chrome the wheels. They did a couple. And they made it white to match the Angels catalog. How cool of a SP. Like, how ridiculous. That's so Lamborghini in the 90s. It's so emblematic of what they were about.

[Kenan]

Yeah. Desperate for money. At the very bottom, though, I am absolutely putting the new Countach and the Venena. I think the new Countach at the very bottom. I like the car, but it is a very cynical. I think the other cars are way less cynical than that one is.

[Nick]

I think over time, people will grow to appreciate it. Right now we just view it as cynical.

[Kenan]

We'll see. We'll see.

[Nick]

It's no more cynical than any of the other hypercars we mentioned at the top of this segment. The Valkyrie lm. The. It's. That's a way to take money out of rich people's hands and, well, all of this stuff.

[Kenan]

You have all of these cars there for that. That is the. The Valkyrie race car is so ludicrously insane.

[Nick]

I would take.

[Kenan]

It's going to be a little more.

[Nick]

I would take the Countach over the Valkyrie.

[Kenan]

You take the new Countach over the Valkyrie?

[Nick]

Yep.

[Kenan]

Okay. Okay. All right.

[Nick]

Just so I could flex on Doug, be like, hey, that thing. That thing got carplay. Didn't think so.

[Kenan]

Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

[Nick]

You got lane assist on that? Nope.

[Kenan]

All right, we're gonna do one final ranking. Okay. One last one, and then we're gonna call it. So we're going to do Rank all the Mercedes black. Oh, so model car Nick asks rank all the Mercedes Black series models. So to be clear, all of those are. So there's the SLK Black series, the CLK63 Black series, the SL65 Black series series, the SLS AMG Black series, the C63 and then the AMG GT Black series. Those are all the ones that exist.

[Nick]

Yeah.

[Kenan]

So at the top, I think we agree or let's. Let's decide the worst one.

[Nick]

Again, they're all really starting out with saying if someone says black series, my brain immediately thinks of the CLK Black series. Right.

[Kenan]

That's what I think.

[Nick]

There's other Black series, but that to me is like the Black series. Or if someone just said Black series without specifying, I will automatically assume a CLK that is like. And it's not the most expensive, it's not the most powerful. So if you're saying rank it as best, it's not the best, but it is in my opinion, the, the most iconic, the most memorable. The. My favorite Black series is the clk.

[Kenan]

I, I would probably with the manual swap and it was the only. Well, actually, I don't know if I agree with that. But you like the little dinky. A little. You know, it's, it's just. I actually agree with Douglas. It's an. It, it was built to be an automatic and it's an AMG car. The whole point of an AMG car is got a big motor you put in point in the direction you put your foot down, the tail steps out and it's just crazy. With a manual, it's like. I, I don't. The car was just never offered with it. I'd really like to drive one and maybe it is that transformative because it's a pretty serious car underneath. Like it's got very adjustable suspension and all that stuff. But I don't know. You know, I, I agree the automatic that came in, it is awful.

[Nick]

But I found manual swapping to be really easy. Easy. Just ship your car out, send them some money and it comes back. All right. That's all there is to it.

[Kenan]

So couple of cold ones.

[Nick]

I, I would say it's too easy not to.

[Kenan]

Couple of cold ones. Yeah. So okay, we agree with that. I think then has to be the SL65 Black Series. The. Because that legitimately looks like a Batmobile in black with that crazy wing and the fact they took the convertible and made it a coupe.

[Nick]

Yeah, crazy. And super wide bodied.

[Kenan]

Super wide bodied.

[Nick]

It's. It's so over the top for Mercedes and Mercedes is so conservative traditionally that, like, it's just hard to believe they did that.

[Kenan]

Wow.

[Nick]

And that motor's in, isn't it? In like Paganis and.

[Kenan]

Yeah. I mean, it's still produced today. That BI Turbo V12 was one of the. One of the great engines. And it's odd because it doesn't really suit like a hardcore car because it builds power like a jet turbine.

[Nick]

There's a fake one that comes to our cars and coffee every once in a while.

[Kenan]

There's a real one, too.

[Nick]

Yeah. And it's so. It's weird to be like, Is this a $25,000 car with a body kit, or is this a. The most special car I'll see all month?

[Kenan]

Right. Can' Exactly. I definitely put that a second right below that. For me, I'd put the SLS Black series. I love, love, love driving those cars. They are so much fun and so hardcore and particularly in, like, in. Solar Beam is my personal favorite color on that car.

[Nick]

It just looks. It's a lot.

[Kenan]

It's a lot, but it looks so cool. And it's such. It's like Mercedes doesn't often make supercars, right? And this one they did, and they went full crazy with it. And I just really, really like it. And it's na. You know, it's a big, big engine.

[Nick]

You know what those trade for a.

[Kenan]

Lot, a lot of money. I can't remember the exact figure, but.

[Nick]

I feel like if I had that budget for a Mercedes, I'd be getting an SLR McLaren. But.

[Kenan]

Yeah, but this actually drives well. The. The SLR is not a particularly nice car to drive. The brakes are. The brakes will put you through the windshield. The transmission. Transmission is the same in the Black series, the SLK or a CLK Black series. It's not a particularly fun car to drive, but it is really cool looking. This drives a thousand times better. And I. I don't know. So I would put that next on my list. Then I think I would put probably the C63 black series again, last of that NA V8 engine. Wonderful car. We just sold that red one recently. And then after that, I think I would put the AMG GT and then the slk. Nothing against the slk. It was just. It was never sold here. It was kind of a weird car for them to start doing this with. So it's never been my favorite V8.

[Nick]

In that, though, right?

[Kenan]

It was, yeah.

[Nick]

Pretty impressive Miata size V8, but, yeah, it's crazy car. It's a bit of a sleeper.

[Kenan]

Yeah.

[Nick]

You would never know. You just think it's hit some chick car, but.

[Kenan]

Right. And the. And the AMG GT Black series is a pretty extreme car, but yeah, this just with its NA engine edges it for me. And so I think that's probably my order, I think.

[Nick]

I agree. I don't take any object. I maybe would do slightly. I would definitely do CLK SL65. SLK is last. So then the middle three there. I wish the C63 had just a little bit more like flare or panache. Like it. It. It's got some canards, it's got some little things to distinguish it visually, but it's just not like the SL65 where they made the thing like 3ft with wider. I wish the C63 had like that level of. Or the. The front fenders on that CLK are just like. Yeah, they're so good.

[Kenan]

It's. It's the best one. I will forever. I will forever think when I think. Black series.

[Nick]

Yeah. It is a darn shame none of these came in manual, but now that you can swap them. Swap the world, baby.

[Kenan]

Yeah. Such a cool car. Well, that's it, Nick. That is our episode. Best podcast we have ever done. And it was without the two Os.

[Nick]

That's right. We didn't have to talk about any evs, did we? Oh, we talked about the Model S selling, but otherwise no EV talk.

[Kenan]

No Nissan executives were mentioned or harmed in this particular.

[Nick]

I don't know if even Japan, any of the manufacturers were mentioned. No offense to the JDM boys.

[Kenan]

It was just all enthusiast cars. But.

[Nick]

That's right. We got maybe a little too exotic and a little too European here, but maybe.

[Kenan]

But nonetheless, we hope you enjoyed it. Thank you all so much for listening and we will talk to you in the next episode.

[Nick]

Goodbye.

[Kenan]

Goodbye.

[Nick]

Oh, we got that in harmony.

[Kenan]

What are you doing? Where are you. Where are you going? Oh, my God. Don't get. Don't touch the. I have the. Oh, my God. You're a disaster. Human being. God. Ridiculous person. Sam.