Insane prices and sensational launches at Monterey Car Week #327

(upbeat music) Welcome back to the Intercooler Podcast. Everybody, episode 327 of The Podcast Powered by Car Finance Specialist, JBR Capital, a full house again this week. Dan Prost, Andrew Frankel, and Jez Medinger here. It's been a big week, guys, for Supercar and Hypercar News. It's been Car Week, hasn't it, over in Monterey. There's been a lot of quite tasty, but extremely expensive, new stuff unveiled over the past few days. So we thought we'd trot through some of that, but also there's several other things that we want to get through this week as well. It's going to be a busy show. Andrew, you were in Monterey for Car Week last year, weren't you? You weren't there this year. - Yes. - And this year, quite brilliantly, I'm going to get to Monterey tomorrow. - Oh, yeah. - Which is, right? - Literally, a day after everybody else was left. - Okay, excellent timing. - But there's something else going on out there, which I can't talk about. I don't know if I can talk about it, so I won't just encase. - Okay, fine. - Do you know what? I really miss being there. I mean, I think the event has taken off this year. - Yeah. - And I just think that it's now going to be one of those places where, you know, someone, certainly one of us lot just needs to be out every year. I think it's just, it's just suddenly acquired such a huge significance. And if you look at the sort of major manufacturer launches that are now happening out there, and all the interesting stuff going on in the auction market, and look at the, just look at the people, you know, just go on your Instagram feed, and just look at all the people who are out there. It's just a place I think you need to be. So, yeah, next year, I think, one of us is going to find a way out there. - Yeah, it's not just the sort of niche vehicle manufacturers launching stuff at all, is it? You've got the likes of McLaren and Porsche and Ferrari heavy hitters unveiling that you very special, very limited run cars. - Yeah, and I do just wonder where that goes from there. - Yeah. - Because there's always been this thing about motor shows in America. I mean, Detroit always used to be the big one. And although it is still happening, it is a very, very small reduce shadow of its former stuff. And there's New York has a show and LA has a show, and occasionally you'll get a reasonably big unveil at one or another. But I think if you look at how successful the Goodwood Formula has been, and you've got Monterey over there, which is, you know, a lovely place to go. You've got the lawns of Pebble Beach, you've got Laguna Saker next door, literally next door. Pebble Beach to Laguna Saker is a five minute drive, I think. Not doing car week probably. So I think that there is a enormous opportunity, and I think what we are actually seeing, it'll be interesting to look back in 10 years' time and see how right this turns out to be. But I think we are looking at probably the new major home for unveiling cars in the most important car market in the world. That's what I think it's going to happen. I mean, I think it'll always be premium. But also, you know, remember that always, it always just happened at Geneva, didn't it? That's where all the car companies used to pile into, because it was on neutral territories, while everybody said, and, you know, it was the one show of the year that you couldn't not go to, because everybody there, all the, certainly put to us like a TI audience, all the, that's where all the important launches of the year would be. Well, like a Geneva is kind of still happening, but, you know, like Detroit, you know, it did not, a triputation suffered a lot, because of stuff that happened when it got canceled. I liked sort of three days before, you know, the place got shut down during COVID. It's never really recovered. And I think that Monterey, Pebble Beach Laguna Saker, is absolutely primed to take over that slot. And so I think at the moment what we're seeing is really expensive, limited edition. I mean, you know, Ferrari did a one-off car there and various other things. I think it's going to grow from there. I think it could be, I think it could become huge. It's funny, isn't it? So it's absolutely a mirror of what's happening in the UK with Goodwoods. So it's as though car shows now, they're sort of escaping the huge exhibition halls and they're becoming more experiential. And so they should, because you can think of more of the car show. The car show is basically a child of the 1920s. It's 100 years old. And there wasn't really a choice. You couldn't go to, you know, because there was no television, there was no internet, there was nothing. If you wanted to go and see the latest cars, the only way you'd do was to go into a big building. You know, cars are not designed to be in buildings, cars are designed to be on roads and tracks. And look at them there. But you know, I'd say this is not a new thought. I've been saying this for at least 20 years. It's completely outdated. The reason the Monterey came about has gone. And I think that increasingly, that's what's going to happen. And all power to them, because I think, you know, to see cars moving, you can hear them, you can see them pop over the road, you can see them racing at Laguna Saka. I mean, you know, what a way to spend a week. Yeah, it is just better, isn't it? Yeah. So I wonder if we should pick out a few highlights from the last few days. Do you want to get us started, Andrew, with the, the muckel? The muckel, yeah. The MCL6 GT. Yeah. So this is kind of like the first thing we have seen the new McLaren do, the McLaren under new ownership. And it's beautiful. It's absolutely gorgeous. I know the guy who leads the design team, who did it, guy called JP Gregory, he used to be, you know, those beautiful Bentley concepts, like the sort of, you know, the baccala. And also, he was the bloke who turned the absolute pigs ear of the original pentagre into the massively better looking revisement taking, given how limited he was with what he did. So, you know, he's a major talent and McLaren have now gotten. And his team have done that car. And it just looks fantastic, doesn't it? Do you think that it's going to signal a, 'cause it's a divergence from their design language, isn't it? And their design, identity, they've carried through for a very long time. Which is exactly what they needed. Yeah. It's exactly what they needed. Do you think it's going to continue, though? Do you think that's going to inspire where they go from here? Or do you think that this is just a one-off to ape the 1969, 1970 original? That's a really good question. I think that there is more than it just being a one-off. I think the phrase you're going to see in all the headlines going forward is, this is the way so many manufacturers are now starting to look back to the future, because I think that manufacturers are going to be increasingly relying on their heritage. Obviously that relies on its heritage from a visual point of view, but also the manual gearbox, how significant is that? You know, it's absolutely massive. They wouldn't have done, I don't think, for a moment, that they'd have done that and raised that level of expectation only to dash it again when the production version, which I think we are going to see next year or 28 of the latest, then doesn't have one. Because why would you raise expectations like that? It's more about what they do with their next version of their standard sort of sports series and super series, though. Do you think that design language of the six? I think they will, because I think the design language will change over two reasons. One is that it has to, because it's really old. And we all criticize McLaren, the one thing I think that we all criticize for, in McLaren 4, is, you know, every single car, McLaren Automotive, as ever made, has had a mid-mounted V formation, you know, six or eight cylinder engine, two couple of turbochargers, and they all look the same. I mean, I think they're actually really good looking cars, almost all of them, apart from the GT. But, you know, that design language, as they all do, has had its time. So they're going to want to change it for that. But also, McLaren's on a new ownership, and they're going to want to signal that as well. You know, they're not just going to want to, you know, say, oh, we all, yeah, well, we're all new, but, you know, meet this new boss, same as the old boss. But also, something like this, with the manual transmission, that's the key point, it sort of gives them permission to expand a bit further in the opposite direction, doesn't it? If they do need to be producing more than just two, in the occasional three-seat supercar or hypercar, they maintain credibility by producing something with the manual transmission. Absolutely right. Absolutely right. I think it's a real statement about the new ownership and the new direction, because this just would never have happened under the previous regime. You know, I know that people put these sorts of questions to McLaren, why not produce something with, not a mid-mounted V8, or why not produce something with a manual transmission? Or why not recreate the F1 yourself? Others are doing it, we'll come onto that. Why not recreate the F1 yourself? And there was just never, apparently, any appetite in doing anything that's strayed from the sort of, the playbook, now that's changed. And I really welcome it, I do. I think in the past, there have, you know, it's all very well to say, oh, why did you do this, why did you do that? But, you know, you're McLaren, you're a very small company. You've essentially only got what you haven't got one tub, but you know, for them to just go and do an all-new platform It's unimaginably expensive for them to you know, homologate a new engine or a new gearbox or to make a dramatically different car Is a massive undertaking But I think the company is pretty well financed now I still remain really interested and maybe we'll talk about this When we get around to the astamarting conversation if we're going to do that today. I still Remain interest to see how long McLaren will remain as an independent brand are you not owned by a major automotive OEM? But yeah, they certainly seem to have a spring back in their step and you know, it's been about that time Isn't it means they've been so quiet for so long? But they actually lent us a car last week, didn't they? Oh, yeah, well, we'll come on to that a little bit later Yeah, I know, but but it's interesting isn't it? I mean, it's been a while And so that's not me complaining. It's just illustrative of the fact that they that company has been so quiet for so long And you know, they appear to be sort of Emerging blinking into their new dawn and the first thing that they have shown us is I think looking at The receptionist has the best received new McLaren since the P1 Yeah Yeah, I think it's I think it's a big statement. Yeah So yes, do you want to tell us a bit about the the gold America? Absolutely, so If well, first of all for anyone listening to this immediately get yourself onto a device and just google GM a S1 You need to see it. You need to see what it is. You may also remember the S1 LM that was sort of revealed at last year's Monterey Which was a reimagining of the F1 GTR of the mid 1990s now the S1 that was revealed a few days ago is a reimagining of the F1 And as in the road going F1 not the race going version of the McLaren F1 and The degree of a ping of it goes all the way down to even the logo representation of S1 if you look at that And you remember what the F1 how the F1 was rendered in logo font you go, oh, okay So, you know, they are really not holding back here from the design elements and There's someone else as well You know how many they've said they get a build 64 Yeah, and you know why that is Well, there's 64 F what no, there are more than 64 F1s 64 F1 road cars right Those were racing cars. Yeah, so I mean it's They're not trying to be subtle about this are they? No, no, they're certainly not And it's a lot more than they promised a S1 LM's which of which they I don't know if they did make five But they certainly said they were going to make five of those so I think they realized on the back of the Huge reception that the S1 LM got they thought, huh, okay Well, imagine if we took the spoilers off and did a modern version of the F1 even more than the original T50 Was a reinterpretation of the F1 then perhaps we can sell quite a few of these and thus extend our ability to make money off all the work We did in making the original 100 which were extremely limited. They can't now make more T50s Because that'll upset everyone who bought one of the original 100 so they need to do something a little bit difference It was quite interesting. There was the choices that have been made from my perspective at least Around what they have done to update the S1 over and above what the T50 was now. I think I'm not the only person to say that I found The looks of the T50 a bit challenging It's it was kind of like an F1 but not as pretty and I think that fundamentally came down to the headlights in large parts The flanks and indeed it's bottom with the huge rear fan and if you look at the S1 all of those elements have been Reimagined and they're much more in keeping with the original F1 and you could make a strong arguments that the S1 is Indeed better looking perhaps than the original F1 they've taken a couple of elements and the original prototype F1 said a high amounted wing mirrors or sorry the show car I think it's the F1 and the Lofon lights as well a few of the 92 more like a Yeah, a few of the changes as well on the S1 so More sound deadening, so one of the major complaints of the T50 is that they were bloody loud and There is also no fan obviously and the engine is a bit bigger at 4.2 rather than 3.9 And I think what these changes are all telling you is that it's sort of based on the customer feedback on the T50 was We loved this car, but what if it was just a little bit less bloody loud. We don't need that silly fan We'd like it to look a bit nicer and could we have a bit more torque and on that last front on the torque Let me just throw some numbers out there So the Cosworth V12 there was in the original T50 3.9 liters 654 brake horsepower and 344 foot pounds of torque at 9,000 RPM Just just for context on that amount of torque and that RPM the Cooper long-term car I'm running Which is an SUV admittedly with a sporty engine that has 254 foot pounds at 2,250 RPM So we are talking here about the top notch hypercar that you've really got to rev the tits off it to actually access some of that torque With the S1 LM they board it out up to 4.3 liters 220 horsepower, but no more torque, but this new version of the S1 the road car this sort of the next generation of road going T50 A little bit more horsepower at 6.181, but noticeably, 369 foot pounds so that's 25 foot pounds more, but that's 7,000 RPM Not 9,000 RPM So I think that is a very deliberate choice to make the car Just that bit more usable on the road without having to as I say rev the tits off it and definitely yourself in the process I mean, I don't know what your reactions instinctively are to the S1 and whether you think it is a reaction to Perhaps some of the I don't want to say shortcomings of the T50, but shortcomings of the T50 Yeah, I mean I I guess my first reaction was also my clarifying going to think about it I mean, it's it's interesting isn't it that I mean I haven't seen anything from McLaren But that is that is such a Close What's the word I don't know copy? There's no question or so. Yeah, well, it's not it's not a copy because it is I'm sure that every panel is different and and everything else I also wonder what Peter Stevens who styled the F1 thinks of it because if we are Sitting here gay gosh, that's an amazing looking car You know 99% of the reason for that is that The original F1 was designed by Peter Stevens who famously is you know, he and Gordon Murray are not in each other's Christmas card lists So I wonder what he thinks about it How does trade just very quickly? How does trademarking work in the world of car design? Can you just copy someone else's work 30 years later? No, well in theory you absolutely cannot I mean, can you do you remember that Jaguar shut down a company? I think it's up in Scandinavia somewhere that was making replica C types So no you in theory you can't in reality, you know, they're all sorts of manufacturers that that do it And I'm sure that Gordon and his team would have been all the way through this to make sure that there weren't any IP infringements Because you'd never go to that effort and expense just to have the whole thing just shut down But it is it is interesting. I think it's an incredibly clever move. I really do You know, you wait whatever it is 30 something years until the F1 is gonna do we use the word advisedly You know one of the most iconic cars ever produced Which was so massively supply limiting me somebody once but I lost drove one which was just before lockdown I was told that there were four to five F1s in the world still being used actively today so when You have a car such an incredibly rare and special thing is that and so many very very wealthy people would like one Well, what you have here is the bloke who designed it Doing his doing it again and another 64 and you know I suspect it I'd be a mate. I don't know what each one's gonna cost but almost regardless of whatever the cost I'd be a mate so they're not already gone. Yeah, absolutely They're not already. I think he can charge 10 million business Yeah, it is it may be it is that much. Yes. I don't know, but it is excellent business because all of the Or a great deal of the engineering work and the componentry is done. It's T 50 isn't it? You've got that central seating position the carbon tub. I assume it's the same one I don't know for a fact the engine the similar drain. Yeah, it's ready to go, isn't it? And they'll sell it a massive ticket price. Yeah huge margins on them. It's fantastic business. I Think it's a really really smart move and it's cheap than buying an F1 and it will be better and faster to drive than because they're not classic and iconic. You can actually use them. I mean it's genius. I mean, actually use. But it still has the stamp of Gordon Murray on it. It is absolutely, it is an absolutely brilliant idea. I did see one comment on social media and I'll put this to you. I'm not saying I agree with it, but it's something to consider. The comment said, "How many times is this man going to recreate the F1?" Oh, how many times is it like before? Well, T50. T50 counts. There's the S1 LM. So, you know, as I've said, I think it's fantastic business and I'd have done it if I was in in that position. But is it time for something new? Well, I think of James Bond movies. I mean, they're all the same, right? But we've got 25 of them and if it's good, if the formula works, just keep rehashing it and people lap it up. Yeah. And also, you know, Gordon Murray is a man whose mind is, you know, so unbelievably fertile. And there's so many different directions. And he's done so many different things. Do you remember that ox thing? He did that massive sort of transporter thing. And then he'd done his little city car. And then there was the whole ice stream production process. I mean, these are all products of Gordon Murray's mind. But the fact is, you know, if you're running a business, you employ people, you want that business to be a success, you work out what your customers want and you provide it for them. And, you know, you say the T50 is another F1 or whoever was making that comment did. I mean, it's similar in that it has a V12 engine naturally aspirated manual gearbox and a center driving position. But I don't think that's like saying it's another F1. I mean, it might be inspired by the F1. I think the only time the Gordon Murray has ever re-done the F1 is with the S1 because that clearly is. That clearly is a modern interpretation of the F1. And I say, good luck to him. I really do say good luck to him. You know, what he's doing is providing his, his, his customers with product that they want. Not even all that. Yeah, fair enough. So, were there any other cars from last week that you guys wanted to talk about? We have to talk about, I'm afraid we have to talk about the Luce. Can I talk about the Luce? I'm really scared about this. Do you mind if we, do you mind if we save that for a minute because you did mention the Aston Martin? Can we just do just two seconds on the Aston? Yeah. I'm going to allow you to pronounce the name because I don't know if we've agreed on a pronunciation yet. I think we've agreed Vaelan, haven't we? Vaelan. Okay, not a Vaelan. No, I don't think so, even though it is vantage. But if it was, if Aston Martin was Volvo in Scandinavia, maybe you'd say Vaelan, but I think, I think it's too weird. You see that word it has to be Vaelan, doesn't it? V-A-L-E-N. Yeah. Okay, right. So, what is it? It's basically, it's the most powerful front engine car on sale. It's the most powerful front engine car Aston Martin has ever done. It's not much more powerful than a vanquish. Basically, it's a vanquish drivetrain turned up to about 10 in the quarter. So, it's, you know, I can't remember what is that. I think it's 840 horsepower or 838 horsepower, 850 PS, I think that's it. But it's a, it looks, I mean, I'd be to see it. I went up to Gaden a few weeks ago and had a good look, what, what round, and what was great about the walk round is it without side. So, I saw the car on natural light, regular on this podcast. We'll know how suspicious I am of any car that I see under studio lighting conditions. And it did look amazing. It looks, it looks so purposeful and like a real road racer. And Aston Martin is very clear. This is not a track car. This is meant to be their sort of ultimate on-road driving machine. Although, if I were to say, I was disappointed by anything, unlike the Valor and the Valiant, which were the two kind of front-end and specials that came before it, this one doesn't have an ultimate, a manual gearbox. And I think that, I think they've missed a trick there, particularly when you think what McLaren is signaling about manual gearboxes, what Ferrari is signaling about manual gearboxes. But other than that, 150 of them, I think they're 1.2 million each. I did ask Aston Martin if they're all sold and they said, watch this space. So, I think the way you interpret that is to say, no, because they were also, they would definitely have said so. But they do say that demand for the car and interest in the car is incredible. And actually, given the way that it looks and given what people seem to be prepared to spend huge amounts of money on these days, I can't say I'm surprised. It's very light. It's 150 kilos lighter than a vanquish. Is it? Well, they don't call it the vanquish in this context. They call it the Aston Martin V12 car product. That's a vanquish, isn't it? That's a bit of corporate speak, isn't it? It's a vanquish. Yeah, someone that just said, we can't possibly imply the vanquish is heavy. Yeah, exactly. All that this car is in some way related to the vanquish is clearly. Yeah. So, it's a full carbon body. There's lots of magnesium in it. Lot of the interiors 3D printed, all that sort of stuff. So they have done a, it's not just a styling study. They fiddled with the suspension. It's got more, I think it's got more camber on it. Different damper specifications. They basically be through the whole car. And so it will genuinely be sharp. But they're only going to be 150 of them. If they're not also now, I suspect they will be. So whether any of us actually gets to drive one, don't I? But so it's not exactly mainstream. And maybe we shouldn't spend too long gassing about it. But interesting to see that Aston Martin, despite that all their troubles are still out there in Punchy, which is good. Yeah. Okay. So one of the core elements of car week is always an auction. I assume there are several auctions going on. And so we get all these astronomical auction results come in. Jess, you've been doing a little bit of background on this for us, haven't you? I certainly have. So there are several auctions that go on at car week. And the auction landscape is one of the sort of the core components of car week. So let me run you through some of the outstanding results and how they may relate to you on the streets with your, I don't know, Porsche 911, 997 generation Carrera S or something. And what does it mean for you? All right. So starting at the bottom of the high end, Bonneum's had a sale, which produced a record for the Lamborghini Diablo. So 2000 Diablo GT went for $2.425 million, which is roughly 50% above the previous highest Diablo. So your GT, a GT is a very special Diablo, isn't it? Yeah. Very rare. Yeah. Yeah. True. So that may contribute to it. But I surely a GT has sold before its auction. So either way, this is 50% above anything what any other Diablo has done. Right. Now, if we jump up a little bit in terms of price, RM Cellabiz sold a bunch of special cars. A completely boned stock Ferrari F40 went for $8.36 million. This was the X-Milion. Oh my goodness. So F40s are now no longer $2 million quid. They're $8 million potentially. Was this one a significant car somehow or very low mileage? Yeah, Lee Iococca's old car, but otherwise, nothing unusual about it beyond that, beyond provenance, a laffarari. It's a good time to mention that I once could have bought an F40 for $150,000. By me. What year was that, Andrew? It would have been in the late '90s. It was available to me. Not that I had the money to buy it, but I did look at it. And I didn't buy it because I couldn't afford it. But my thinking was, well, they're really common because by then it was well known that Ferrari made about 13, 1400 of them compared to like 272 GTOs, 288 GTOs. And I just thought, well, you know, build five or six times more of them. They're never going to be worth huge money. Cracking. Can you imagine if I just bought that and I'll hang on to it? Anyway. You could have, you could have just turned it into a barn find and never had its service, never taken it out. And it would still be worth, you know, a few million quid now, brilliant. Millions. Yes. Sorry. Okay. Right. Moving, moving swiftly on. Moving swiftly on. A Laferari went for $8.7 million. 288 GTO, $11.5 million. Now, I haven't checked to see if there was anything special about that particular 288 GTO, but that does seem to be a big bump from what they would normally go for. Meacum managed to shift to 1996 F50 for $14.5 million, which is a model record. And an Enzo went for $12 million. Back at RM Sudobiz Daytona SP3. So that's the relatively recent one. Went for $17.8 million on a 10 to $12 million estimates. That's just nuts. It's over $10 million above the previous non-charity model record. So if you look at, so it's, so if we just go back to the SP3 just for a second, they're really nice cars. I was lucky enough to drive one in France when they came out. They're great looking cars, but they are just, I say just, they're Laferari's with the hybrid removed mechanically. And I think they made 600 of them. So there are quite a few knocking about. I've got a really big question for both of you when we get to the end of all these crazy prices. Good. So yeah, so far. Okay. I've got more. I don't know. Good to go. Got more. I'm still going. All right. So, Quebec Grand Sport number 003, that was $18.7 million against 11.13 estimates. I know that's an X race car, I think, so that has a bit of provenance on it. Nick Mason's pop art McLaren F1 GTR, chassis number 10R, went for $34.6 million. The most expensive British built car and most expensive McLaren ever, taking both records from a $25 million. That auction must be very careful when we say we actually add auction. Yeah. Or this is that auction. We don't know what things have changed. Yes, yes. Or privately. Exactly. And then we get to the car that topped the auction list, which was the Ferrari, Ferrari, Ferrari Luce, tailor-made chassis number 0, which went for $40 million at RM. And it was a charity lot, and the estimate was an excess of $1.1 million. So, this is the most expensive electric car ever, the most expensive charity car ever, and the sixth most expensive car of all time. Not the most expensive car auction this weekend, but I know you want to talk about it, Andrew. So, what would you like to say about the Luce? Well, I mean, on the surface, it's mad, isn't it? This is a car that went for 36 times as estimate. I've never known that happening in the auction before. However, and there have been, oh, my goodness, and I'm not going to get into it. But if you were over the weekend just sort of cruising around social media, just looking at all the conspiracy theories going on about what this sale actually represented. I mean, there are awful lot of dark alleys you could disappear down, and I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to go down even one of them, learn all of them. I think what it was. I think the most convincing, most consistent story that has now come out is that I can't remember his name, is that the car was built by an elderly, was bought by an elderly billionaire US philanthropist, and for him, the car was almost an irrelevance. He was just making a charitable donation of $40 million, and that's what was required to do that. So, if that's the case, so it has, it is meaningless in terms of what that physical product was worth. It was just a billionaire philanthropist making a donation, and absolutely fair play to him for doing that. So, having looked at it at the first and sort of squinted a bit and just gone, huh? Because there was also the Daytona Cobra, which went for, hang on, I read it. Oh, here we go. 42 million. 42.95. Yeah, 42.9. Yeah. Okay. Now, the Daytona Cobra, I know a bit about those, they're only made six. Yeah. This is, I mean, there are so many replicas, but this is one of the six. And in American automotive, motor racing iconography, it's right up there. Because we think about, oh, everything's a, well, you know, GT40, but they made hundreds of those. The Daytona Cobra was the car that essentially beat the Ferrari GTO in the mid 1960s. They only made six of them. I'm not even sure all six survived, and so that is an absolute icon. So it doesn't actually. So, really, that surprises me an awful lot less than some of those other prices you will have earlier. And so the lucha, I think there's actually a lot less to it than meets the eye. As I said, I think it was, I think it was, if it was making a charitable donation and chose that particular mechanism by which to do it. Yeah. Well, I think that's the right way to look at it. That shall be, sorry, then, I'll just finish on the Shelby. Cowell Shelby's own car, which may have contributed to the awesome results somewhat as well. Yeah. Thank you. So, Jez, I just wanted to invite you to share your summary thoughts on what we've seen over the last few days. Can I get to that once I've talked about the relevance to the man on the street of all of this madness? Yeah, of course. Yeah, so. Of a $42.9 million Daytona Cobra. Good luck. Yeah, exactly. So we are seeing the top end of the market exploding at the moment. But anybody who's tried to sell a classic or sports car recently that's worth less than half a million quid has probably found that nothing's moving anything like it was a few years ago, and values feel pretty soggy. We've got a very frothy top, top of the market and quite a soggy, middle and bottom. And we do have some dates on this as well. So Mekum of the various auctions that is the broadest-based sale of the week and the best proxy for the ordinary enthusiast market. In the opening session there, the first 12 lots which were all no reserve sold at a median hammer, 47% below the low estimates. For example, a condition three, 1951 XK120 Roadster made $44,000. That's 48% below the Hagerty Price Guide value. So what we're seeing here, I think, is a real disconnect between what are considered limited edition collector cars made by very special brands, particularly Ferrari, which have now become in their own way a particular asset class that might be considered comparable to high art or something. And that is a completely different market from what we're seeing, from anything else that was in normal series production or anything that might be on your drive that isn't worth a million quid. And the bigger question is… Go on, yeah. So do you think that there is a quite actually simple explanation behind all of this, which is that the super wealthy have discovered that those sorts of massively top end cars are no more or no less than a really sensible place to park larger amounts of money? Yep. That's got nothing to do with them wanting to drive them or enjoy them or even appreciate what they're coming on. They're just thinking to themselves, I have the sort of money and maybe there are taxation implications in doing anything else with it. So I mean, there are all sorts of nefarious allegations going on about the real purpose of those cars getting sold, which I'm absolutely not going to get into here. But let's just say it's completely legitimate, but are these things just being used as financial instruments rather than cars to be driven and enjoyed? 100%. So I think that, as I said, I think it's functioning like the art market where if you want to store some money, you buy a Picasso and you know that this era is worth X and that era is worth Y or a Monet or whatever, right? That's what… It's another place for the super wealthy whose income is not affected by macro conditions to store money in a tax-efficient way that gives them access to experience potentially as well. So that's the thing that maybe buying some of these cars gives you is that if you are even just a smidge of an enthusiast in there or maybe it's like jewelry as well, right? There's an opportunity here to display your wealth as well as storing it somewhere else. So do you get invited to certain events or concours that enable you to do certain things? So I think, yeah, it's a really interesting space. I mean, the bigger question is, is it functioning like a bubble at the moment? Are people buying this stuff from mad people? That's my question. Because… Well, the definition of a bubble is usually, are people buying something because they think the value is going to go up in the future as opposed to because it's intrinsically worth that amount now? And I think if you look at that definition, I think you have to say it's feeling a bit frothy and a bit bubbly right now. So let's see what happens in the next five or ten years. Maybe it keeps going up, but that would be more surprising to me than a correction perhaps. And we have seen this before, you know, I'm old enough to have been around in the early 1990s. There's people remember for cars like McLaren F1 and the Jaguar XG took 220 and the Bugatti B110 all essentially failing to find the customers that were readily apparent when their cars were first announced, but had all gone because of economic circumstances. And there were some transactions there where, you know, people lost, I mean, it's just simply enormous amounts of money, not necessarily those sorts of cars, but on the sort of classic cars that we've been talking about. And if you believe that fundamentally, what goes up must one day come down. I don't know. I mean, I'm the genius who didn't buy an NF40 for 150,000 quid. So, you know, what do I know about anything? But sooner or later, someone is going to get burnt to the tunes of tens of millions of pounds or dollars over something or other that they've bought. And I guess the question is, is how long is this wave? If the car market, that end of the car market is actually redefining itself as not, you know, and these things are no longer seen as cars. But as you say, as financial instruments, investments, then maybe there's something else completely different going on there. I don't know enough about the art market to know that if you have, I don't know, Pizarro or something, whether those prices of those sorts of things fluctuate as much as they're doing the car market. But then the car market, traditionally, when things are got very upy as they would appear to be in that part of the market at the moment, sooner or later, there comes a stage when that corrects itself. Don't know. The unknowable is the market itself has changed and these cars are looked on primarily no longer as being cars. Yeah. I think that's all right. For what it's worth on your F40 story, I could have bought a contact. [BLANK_AUDIO] 2002 for 30 grand. I mean, it would have bankrupted me immediately. I think it was probably a bit of a shitter, but if you go back 20 or 30 years with an all-manak, a sports all-manak of which cars have gone mad, you could turn yourself into Biff Tannen, couldn't you? I think you guys shouldn't get too hung up on an A and not an A joking, but the thing is, if you had bought one of those cars back then and it tripled in value, you'd sell and think yippie, it's done really, really well. You wouldn't have had on to it until now. No, you wouldn't have your coup d'ach, I wouldn't have my F40. No, no, no, it's a very good point, though. Oh, well, should we finish there on Monterey and Car Week then, because there's a couple of the things we want to discuss. Yeah. Andrew, what about the curious little VW that you were knocking about in a couple of weeks ago? Oh god, this is weird. I fall in love. I fall in love with something with it. 800cc, 2-cylinder diesel engine in it. Oh, wow. So I've been, in fact, it went yesterday. I was really excited if you get yesterday, because we were going to the Monday, Wednesday or Friday, and I'm so excited about it. I've actually asked for it back for something else we're going to be doing. I have been knocking at anybody who came to our completely brilliant event at Bista with a scene. The one of the two cars I managed to turn up in was a Volkswagen XL1. If anybody is thinking, what's that then? The XL1 was this. It was actually the result of a long project by Volkswagen, linked by the Mercurial Ferdinand Peac. Certainly, I would say the most consequential automotive industrial list of the late 20th century. Anyway, they made 200 of these road cars, which are basically an efficiency showcase just how efficient could a fully compliant road car be. The result, what they came up with was something which has got a carbon fibre tub. It's got this hybrid assisted 2-cylinder 800cc diesel engine, and I drove it around a lot. I drove it from Bista back to Wales. I used it as my daily for a bit, and during the time that I had it, it did 170 miles to the gallon. If you look at one, they look completely. They look like concept cars. I've never in my life, and I mean this, and I've been lucky. I've knocked about in some fairly weird looking stuff in the past. I've never known a car which attracted more attention than that. It's also true that I never stopped the car once in a public place without someone coming up to me and talking to me about it. Everybody was going, what is that? People who have absolutely no interest in cars whatsoever just come over and go, what is it? And they can't believe us a Volkswagen. If sitting inside, you sit so low and so inclined, you feel like you're a sort of fighter pilot. And because it weighs, despite it's got a diesel engine, it's got a hybrid attached to it. The whole thing is still anyway 750 kilos. And because it is unbelievably narrow, it's front tire, it's a 11580. It's front tire is narrower than the front tire on my 2-CV. There was a car on sale which had narrow tires than 2-CV tires. That's the narrower front tire than my motorbike. And motorbikes basically have bicycle tires on the front. Yeah, 120/70 on a motorbike. And yet, it just proves the point that if something is light, unless you massively, massively arse it up, it's going to be fun. I love bombing about it now. It's also so narrow that a normal sort of a road becomes almost as like a dual carriage because you've got so much width and you can really line up your corners. And it was, I just love the purity of it. Maybe we'll go and talk about this in a minute. But for as long as I've been doing this podcast, I've been banging on about my love for cars that know what they're for. I love cars with that focus. I love cars that just think, okay, forget everything else. I'm just going to look at this one thing and I'm going to do it better than anything else has ever done it before. And it does. It's still the most aerodynamic production road car that's ever been made. There's a lucid, which is pretty close in America. But the XL1 is now what, 10 or 11 years old. And it's really weird because you drive along a road and you take your foot off the gas and nothing happens. It doesn't slow down. It keeps going. It keeps going. It's absolutely bizarre. And I just loved everything, but it just felt special. It felt special at much more spectrum. I just say special. I'm sorry. It felt much more special than any number of thousand horsepower. This is all that I've driven. It felt every time I saw it, I wanted to get in it and drive it. I absolutely adore that. You can pick them up for 60 to 70 grand. I was talking to someone who is Volkswagen's person who looks after them and says that the problem with them is if people just don't use them. They have them tucked away and then they come back to them after three months and everything's flat and they can't get the thing going. Just getting at the 12-volt battery is, you know, you need a professional in those what they're doing. So they're not terribly practical things. Somebody told me a TI contributor. I'm trying to remember which one that a front tire is nine and a half thousand pounds. Because basically you've got to get the manufacturer to make it for you. Because surprise, surprise, no one else. It's a good requirement for a 1-1-5-80 section tire. But then again, as the bloke who came to collect it said, yeah, well, they may or may not cost that, but I've never known a car wear one out because they get so little used and they're so light and those tires are absolutely rock hard because it's all about rolling efficiency. So you will need to replace your tires, not because they've worn out, but because they've just grown old and need replacing. So, I don't know. You could pick them up for 65, 70 grand and I don't have that money to spend on anything, let alone a toy. But I was just, because one of those cars you kind of hope feeds yourself. I really, really hope the manufacturers have gotten I got it. And that they might just not come and collect it. It's not unprecedented. It has happened before. James May had a Jaguar and he gave it back when it was three years old because needed an MOT. So, you know, it wasn't impossible. I suspect the next L1 is not quite as easy you think to lose as an XJ, but it's been absolutely brilliant. I will write about it on the website and that fairly shortly. But yeah, I just wanted to exude a little bit about that. Go on, Jess, what have you got? I have a few comments on this. First of all, welcome to the experience of DeLorean ownership, where you cannot go anywhere without people wanting to talk to you about it, even if they're not car people, even if they don't know what it is. And that's what you just, it's spectacular because you can, and it brings joy. I think that's the thing where it lights up people's lives, is that people are so happy when they see it. Like with the XL1, even if they don't know what it is, it puts a smile on their face and reacts to that effect you have on people. It's a wonderful feeling. There is a negative to it. When you see people, when you've parked up and they come over and want to talk to you about it, it's completely, it is completely, and without exception brilliant. When you're driving down the M4, and there are people two inches off your back bumper, in your blind spot, and then overtaking you and putting on the brakes, because they're trying to get a 360 view for their, you know, for their smartphone, which they're probably using while they're driving the car, because they've got no one else in there with you. That's a complete pain. I've always hated that kind of attention, and I've never known a car. You know, you could drive, and I've done it down the M4 on a Lamborghini Revuelto, and not get half the attention that you got on an XL1. Yeah. On the on the drag coefficient front, I think the thing, which people always talk about the, you know, the effective drag, the, you know, the CD of a car, which is actually just the, the proportion of the cars overall frontal area that is presented as drag, so it's 0.195, I think, for the XL1. Yes, it is. But you need to multiply that by the frontal area to get the total drag and the total frontal, yeah, the total frontal area of the XL1 will be an absolute fraction of that of a blue chase, just because it's so narrow and so low. So actually, it's actual drag factor in terms of what it presents to the air is almost nothing, and that's along with those tires is why it feels like there's nothing slowing you down, easy lift off. I did have a quick go in it as well, so I know you did too, Dan. And what I loved about the car was that in many ways, it is objectively rubbish. The claturiness of the diesel, the two cylinder diesel engine is in complete contrast with the hybrid elements and the silent running and the whole efficiency thing. It's really slow. It doesn't like corners. It's really quite impractical. If you've got the charger, everything in the boot, there is no boots. But I absolutely loved it. As you say, Andrew, for that complete singular purpose and resolute focus on engineering, intention and purity, it's spectacular. And like you say, it feels so special because there is so much attention to detail on every single part of it. But even when you're driving it and it's being rubbish, it's rewarding in some way. And I think that's the sort of the contradiction that I think is inherent in any car that has character. And oh my god, does the XL1 have character? Exactly. So we need to start wrapping up here but we already had it at the time. We're getting that way. So talking about cars with purpose, we were in Wales last week, beautiful sunny day on a great road, with five cars with purpose, Jez, I know you teased the audience over on Reddit with this. Did anyone figure out what we were getting at? It took many guesses before anyone got to it and, funnily enough, the person who got to it got to it via Andrew's bio. They went deep into finding out what Andrew was into and somewhere on a bio, somewhere possibly on the intercooler's website, Andrew. You had written that you love cars that know what they are for and it was via that and they managed to connect these five cars and these five cars were a catering soup sport 360R. Have I got that one right, Dan? Is that what it was? No, I think it's just a 360R. I think it's catering. A 360R. Yeah. Yeah. As we discovered, it was the long wheelbase version. The other red, the white version. Yeah. Okay. So it's why they're not longer. Correct. Right. Okay. It might be longer. It felt-- I don't think it's a long wheelbase. I think the cockpit might be longer. I think there might be more leg room in it. There is more leg room in it, but I don't think the wheelbase is any longer. Okay. Sorry. We had to see it, Grande Panda. Full EV. We had a Scoda Super, which I think was running a diesel engine. We had a McLaren 750S, and we had a Rolls-Royce Phantom. So it couldn't have been a much broader representation of the automotive experience. And we had a chance, all three of us, to razz around some Welsh mountains for the day. And it was quite instructive, I think. I had some particular thoughts on the McLaren, but I don't know if I had the review to want to talk about your insights from the day. Well, let's look at a TD, because we're going to publish the story in a couple of days. On the website and app. And so if this sounds intriguing to anyone, you can go and read that story. It will go live on Wednesday. But as you say, the whole point was together together as broader selection of cars as we possibly could, that we thought had real clarity of purpose. The point being, those are our favourite cars, by and large, aren't they? Those are the ones that we really admire, is cars that just zero in on a one particular thing. As well as they possibly can and not try too hard with the other stuff. But just to give some sort of impression of how I came away from that day, I realised that cars that are so often that are very, very singular in their purpose actually turn out to be good at other stuff as well. For instance, the Grande Panda, clearly that is not designed to live on a mountain road. But I had a hoot skipping along in that little thing on that road. Well I think it's because it's a fundamentally good car and right car, that even if you take it out of its natural environment, it's still really good. And there were several examples of that from the other cars that the day. I was lucky enough to take the Phantom there and back. I mean, what a machine. That's extraordinary. What? It is unlike anything else out there. We had Jazz and I, we mucked about and it goes quite recently, and that was amazing actually, it's a much more usable car because the Phantom is the only car in the near twenty years I've been living here that I bottled out of getting taken down the drive. I had to park it outside my shed, which is at the top of the drive because there's a corner on the driver. And I was just too scared. I got the ghost down without thinking too hard about it, I had Lamborghini, I had all sorts down there. But the Phantom was so absolutely enormous. I just thought risk to reward, not worth it. But wafting over there, it is almost like the XL1. It is an experience unlike anything else that any amount of money can buy, and I loved it for that. Yeah. So look out for that story on Wednesday. Andrew, one last topic this week, I was hoping you were going to be wearing a slightly different TI brand of G-Lay today. OSE. Well, I could go and get it. OK, if I could be honest with you, I didn't know we were going to be talking about this. OK, so we can talk about this a little bit now, but I need to talk to our partner before then exactly when this is going to happen. But we have decided to do much. One bit of much. We thought about doing much for a long, long time. Never found the right sort of thing. We've had all sorts of samples come through for, you know, everything from mugs to t-shirts. And for one reason or another, they've just not met our standards. Because if we're ever going to do merch, whatever we do, merch with has to be as good as anything else that TI puts out. Because otherwise you guys are going to feel it down. So we have teamed up with our chums at Shuffle, and we have come up with a beautiful, what color would you call it, a charcoal gray, is it? Something like that. Something like that. Shuffle Gile, which has a small TI logo on it. And around the outside is written one of 100 because we are only doing 100 of them. The bad news for an awful lot of people listening to this podcast is in the first instance at least we're only going to offer them to people who subscribe to the website and app. So if you are, if you're one of those people, look out for an email, which will be arriving soon, which will tell you how you can get one. We're not going to charge any more for them than you would for a normal Shuffle Gile. So there's no sort of premium pricing, we're not trying to suddenly make a pack of money off the back of you. If you aren't a TI subscriber, maybe you've been thinking about it, maybe you've been on the website, had a look at what we do. Now is your chance, because if you go over there and you subscribe, now ish, then you too will get the email and you will have the opportunity to own one of these 100 Shuffle Giles, which we're very proud of. We've been back and forth with an awful lot. We've worked very hard with our friends at Shuffle who are completely brilliant about them. And yeah, we're just really happy to be, you know, people have said to us, "Oh, why did you do merch?" I mean, every time we go anywhere, people say, "Oh, why did you do merch?" And the reason is we just haven't found the right merch to do, but we have now, it's a Shuffle Gile, and if you subscribe, you will at least have a chance to buy one. Yeah, so if you are not yet subscribed and you're thinking about it, just head to the description of this podcast and you'll find the link to the subscribe page and the coupon code that you can use that will get you a nice discount. Do consider doing that, please. We would appreciate it enormously. Next week's podcast is a very special one. We sat down with the new hosts of the Grand Tour, all three of them, to quiz them on their car credentials and how you follow the Clarks and Hammond and May Show. So look out for that next week. It's a little later isn't it, Jess? I think that goes out firstly on Tuesday mornings, though. It will go out midnight and one minute on Tuesday the 25th. And I'd also like to point out it's an exclusive. No one else will have a podcast talking with them for some period of time. No, I don't know how long some time is, but if you're interested, we do have an exclusive. Yeah, so if you want to hear the new Grand Tour boys talking about, I mean, it's a wide range in conversation, isn't it, but it's everything from, you know, where they came from, why they did it, how they did it, what to expect, there are really good butterlads. We got on very well with them. We wish them all the best. And if you want to hear it, when you're next out walking your dog or driving the car, the only way you're going to be able to do it is to listen to this very podcast. Yeah. Look out for that next week. Follow the show. Please, everyone. If you're watching YouTube, please hit that subscribe button, or if you're just listening via a podcast app, please follow the show. It really helps us. In return, we'll be back with that episode next week. See you then.