Hannah Elliott on All Things Automotive

out about all things automotive. If you're at all interested in where do I start, Tesla, electric cars, collectible cars, supercars, driving schools, racing, just the future of automotive industry, well, you're gonna find this to be absolutely fascinating. Unfortunately, there's a lot of me and this. You'll just have to get past that because once we start talking about cars,

I can't shut the hell up. Um. But if you're at all interested in automobiles, you're gonna find this to be a lot of wonky fund So, with no further to do, my conversation with automotive journalist Hannah Elliott, This is Master's in Business with Barry rid Holts on Bloomberg Radio. This is an extra special edition of Masters in Business. I don't normally bring in guests who are also Bloomberg columnists, but today I've brought in one of my favorite people

to read, Hannah Elliott More. You would say, welcome to Bloomberg now, but you have your own desk and badge, and you're here half the time I'm here. I'm here just across the way. You split your time between the East Coast and West Coast kind of my boyfriend on the West Coast. And cars are better on the West Coast roads, yes, especially during the winter. So I do find myself out west a lot. And I'm originally from the West Coast, so it is okay, So let's talk.

We's start with your background. Um, I originally saw your bondline when you were at Forbes doing luxury. What's your background? How on earth did you find your way to car Well, it's a funny story. I have a journalism degree from Baylor University in Texas grade school. I went there to run on the track team, actually the eight hundred. In cross country, I ran the half and and and the two mile relay. Hardness is a brutal race. People don't understand.

It's um two minutes sprints or unless you're good and then it's a minute thirty sprint. It really proves your worth and your courage as an athlete, because you know, they always say, whoever is leading at the end of the first lap is not going to be that's right at the end of the second. All strategy. I mean, I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it. But get back to you. That was a hundred pounds ago. You're still Yeah,

you should see my dad. Ye oh yeah, he actually ran for Athletics West Nikes Elite marathon training team back in the seventies and eighties. Um. Yeah, he's six four and weighs about it. What I do, You're that much? I'm actually five ten and a half. But I don't believe that does No one does towering. I I have a doctor's note that says I'm five. You have to be well and heels. Of course, I'm probably. I will prove it to you. I'll take off my shoes later,

we can, we can back up against each other. I'll try that later. I'll get a photo. Believe it. Yeah, I know it's crazy, so bare by journalism school, but led you towards for so I moved to New York. I'm writing basically for the same wire service that I interned in in Baylor, writing about politics and religion. But it's kind of like it's good, but I'm looking for the next thing. I answer a Craigslist ad looking for

a assistant editor at Forbes. I know nothing about cars Gigslist. Yes, well this was fifteen years ago, and apparently people still use Craigslist. People will use now. I know a ton of people who sell cars on Craigslist. Like, so, we'll talk about cars later. I can't. I got an old s L I have to get rid of what color red with the tan. It's a hundred and nineteen miles and it's my third convertible. I don't need I want to talk about this. We will talk about this in

a few minutes. Okay. I have some funny car stories and I do too great so so so I answered and add on Craigslist. I don't know anything about anything. I'm such a baby. I don't know a thing. But I go in and I just think, all right, Forbes is a good brand. If I get my foot in the door, I'll figure something out once I get there. It's a great brand. So I go in and I the guy who hires me is a great person with who sees potential in people. And he basically said, look,

you know, I get hired. He hired me because I was cheap. I was just out of college, and really I had no bad habits as a journalist. And he figured, I can teach this person how to write about cars. I can mold her exactly just like any other beat. He was used to dealing with a lot of car guys who can write about specs and machine car background at all, zero and previous interest. No, no, I mean, my dad's not a car guy. My brother is not a car guy. What was your first car? Buke Skylark nine,

I mean olive, Olive with black interior bench seats. I was so embarrassed of that car. I mean I shared it with my sister. We bought it for two hundred dollars. We each paid a hundred. She loved it, and she she is cool like that. She saw that it was cool. But I was mortified of that car. And although so you're still too young, my generation cars represented freedom. Like you lived in the suburbs. Your parents would freak if

you went into the city. There was no internet, you were not connected to the rest of the world, the entire Bruce Springsteen over of I have to get out of this place. Cars represented freedom that is no longer like kids. Not only don't they need cars today? Oh wait, were gonna go great, let's uber there. It's a whole different headspace. Plus they're plugged into the entire universe. So that sensation of being a white suburban punk a prisoner in For me it was plainview Long Island, but that

was repeated by millions of people. Anyway, My my Chrysler three hundred that I paid a hundred dollars from my six s price with three hundred that I paid a hundred dollars from my uncle, and could chirp the tires at any speed. Um was a great first car until my mother borrowed it and totaled it. And that was that. So so they back to you, they could mold you, do you want to mention this person's name? Sure, Matthew

de Paula, He's he's great. Uh no, he as it turns out, actually the next year he was laid off because of course he cost a lot more money than I did. And this was going into the two thousand and eight when everything was just so basically nobody was else was writing about cars, and it's like, oh hey, Hannah, get over there, do that. So I did that, and I kind of, you know, for it took four or five years before I finally embraced it. I always was thinking, this is just so I can have a job and

I'll do something else that I actually care about. And then I started to like it. I don't know, it was very unexpected, unplanned. Um, I started to like it. And here I am fifteen years later when you first were doing reviews for Forbes. Was it the new Honda Accord or was it the was it the super cars? It was? It was everything when I first started. Of course, Matthew got the good quote unquote the good cars, the

exciting cars. He'd throw me yes you know, yes, yeah, yeah exactly, which was great because you have to do your time, you have to put put in the work, learn the basics. It's not glamorous, even though it looks it can look really glamorous, but a lot of it isn't. And that's good. That's as it should be. Um. I find it a very honorable trade. So yeah, of course I would be in the Hondas and toyotas and forwards, and sometimes I would ride along with Matthew while he did,

you know, review something more exciting. Um, and that slowly changed over time. Wow, that's really interesting. Let's talk a little bit about your process. First. I want to know how you pick a car to review. I want to know what the steps are, like, what sort of research do you do? Is it a blank canvas or do you do some background? Let's start first things first? How do you pick which car you want to review? This

is a conversation I have with my editor a lot. Uh, and we try to pick cars that are new on the market and exciting for consumers. And by that I mean we may not review an outie just because it's not as exciting as something else. So we tried to keep in mind newness, um, excitement, and also vehicles that are pivotal for an automaker at that time, vehicles that means something for that automaker either you know, it's a do or die. Yeah, the first ever electric from Porsche,

although not really the first, as we've found out. You know, there's there's some hybrids in their history, but um, yeah, so new, exciting and a car that means something pivotal for the automaker. Really the the criteria. Okay, so now it's some random car and I will come back to the Taycan later. I want to talk about that. But it's some car. How do you go about it? Do you approach it as a blank slate or do you do a lot of homework? And my fear is reading

all the research might bias you a little bit. So how do you go about that? I don't read any other and often I couldn't if I wanted to, because the cars that I get are not literally not even on sale yet, um, but they're so lots of the automotive press, there's lots of this car. Let's let's use

the Porsche as an example. There was the mission E, which we've heard about for years, well good couple of years, and then all the chatter that this was going into production, and then the early photos that looked very much, very similar. I mean, the production cars are never but this one is relatively did a very good job. And it doesn't hurt that the all the prototype cars and concept cars

were white, and then the debut car was white. I mean even that that's a simple thing, but that is calculated they're trying to It had a tighter belt line and broader hips and front wheel wells. So you don't read any of the stuff. So I I you use a good word chatter. Um, I don't want chatter in my head. I don't trust it. UM. It has to be something real inside me. I trust my own judgment. I don't want to read other people's take. UM, And

often I couldn't if I want to do. Because a lot of these cars are have not been driven and reviewed. They might have been covered like on data on debuts, but not actually driven. UM. I'm a big believer that cars should fulfill what automakers promise, and it's surprising how rarely that happens. Sometimes. UM, I think a car should fit it's what it's intended to do. The state statement of intent from the automaker. Should be fairly priced compared

to others in this segment. Now maybe that's expensive, but maybe that's a fair price compared to others in this segment. Um. It should be able to do what it's intended to do. How well does it achieve that goal? So I think by that criteria, you could have a great experience in a Mini Cooper that costs, you know, twenty or thirty thousand dollars and you could have a great experience in a Bentley Continental GT, one of my favorite cars from

last year. Car the costs over two dollars. Um. They both can be amazing cars for what they're intended to do, but they're very different things completely. How do you distinguish between what the engineers and automotive designers promise and what the marketing people promise, because there's often quite a lot of daylight between the Yeah, I don't like marketing at all. I mean, I think you have to do your best as a reviewer to cut straight through that. I don't

watch car as I I don't have a TV. I couldn't if I wanted to. I really try to keep all of that out. UM. I often will read the press release after I review the car, just to kind of check and make sure that I get my facts straight. The big thing for me is that I'm fair and accurate. UM. It doesn't bother me if people disagree with my take as a critic, that's fine. I love, of course, I

love having conversations. UM. I have sure automakers have said that's unfair, but I do try to be fair and accurate. So to your point about marketing, you know, I'll read through the marketing materials mostly as a fact check after I write the review, but before it's published. So now let's let's I'm assuming you or the editor or somebody reaches out to whoever Eston, Martin, Ferrari, whatever, they arrange the car. All that's administrative stuff. Now it's review day,

and let's use um. The Bentley just mentioned one of my favorite car is one of the most beautiful looking things. They did such a spectactual job on the interior. But hold that aside. You and if I remember that was southern California, right, So you fly out to California, you pick up the car at Bentley, tell us what that day is like? The great thing about uh, this job? And I admit this is a great perk. Often they deliver the cars to me so I don't even have

to be Do they have the handler with you all day? No? No, there there's a third party company that it's a press management press fleet managers. Basically, they manage the press fleets for a lot of automotive brands. So they'll and the guy with the car and then hand it over and

he leaves you alone. That here the keys, trying to mess it up, right, and and with that Bentley, I actually it worked out perfectly because I drove that from l A up to Carmel in advance of the Pebble Beach auto shows, right, and so I you know, I had it for multiple days. You really get a feel of what it's like to live in these vehicles. So you have that car. Is it out yet or is this is still it's by now it's out At that point versions was probably they were taking they're always taking orders,

but deliveries had not started. The reason I ask is, so you're going to Pebble Beach with a really hot car. I know it's but also Pebble Beach is the It's insane. Nothing nothing will be shocking there. Nothing, no car will be shocking there. I can just I mean, you kind of blend in even in Bentley. So so you get the keys to the car, Yeah, tell us take us through the process. I try to just live in the car as I would if I own the car. So take it to the store. You know, how does it

feel to get gas? How does it feel to link your bluetooth? How does it feel to go on a hill climb up you know, you know, up Angeli's Crest Highway highway to in California, and I did take that car um up those hills. You it's like an elevation of six thousand feet? Did you get to the top? They've got not supercharged? Just just love that out right. And this is a what Bentley is billing as a

grand tour, So they're so exactly they're they're saying. It has all of the capacities of a car you can live in day in and day out and take for on a long trip, you know, over a weekend or over a week and you're going to be equally comfortable in that. But it still has the performance of a sports car and a true sports car. So okay, all right, I'll take that and do that and live in it.

So do you work with any sort of checklist and say, well, I want to do this, and I like, what what do you what sort of paces do you put this throat? It's it's more of a mental checklist by now. I used to have a list when I was just starting out doing just because I wanted to make sure I didn't forget anything that I would need for the review. But now, of course, um, you look at efficiency, you look at acceleration, how is the breaking, how is the

steering um efficiency? Really does anyone who buy that car care about that? But other cars they might. For the Bentley No, but V eight versus a W twelve, I mean, they do make a W twelve version, and the power bump is incremental I really like. Not that I've spent much time in it, I know, but the super charge of the eight just seems to make so much more sense. I will tell you where the efficiency comes in. I drove that car from l A to Carmel on one

tank of gass, which is insane. And half the people I tell don't believe that that car has a giant it's a giant car. But and it also yes, and it cuts out two cylinders when you're cruising to help improve efficiency, and that I think we talk about the readers of Bloomberg. You know, these people are more concerned concerned with saving time rather than saving me. So when you talk about efficiency, if you put it in terms

of time saved difference, it does make a difference. And that's where the type of buyer that might buy that car actually does care about it, you know, the putting putting a bank of cylinders into retirement um temporarily, which I know even corvettes and other cars have done in the past. Is one thing that is mostly on the

highway not noticeable, completely imperceptible. And the other thing I've noticed so I always used to turn off the a lot of cars you'll pull up to a rest start and the whole car pet peeve of mine, so me too until one of the new truck I have, which is the new BMW X four. It's the first, and it's really more of a crossover than a truck. It looks like a giant car until you pull up next to a real truck, It's like it's tiny, although the X six seems to be immense. I love the X six,

and I know that's a polarizing car. And I tell you, if you only have one car and you need a truck, but you want something sporty, that's the way to go. And the old one you had that fastback that used up. The new one is more like an extended wagon. It's much more rational than the old one. And I think it's even better. And they made the interior very, very handsome,

but hold that aside. Yes, this is the first car I've ever been in where the start stop is I don't want to say imperceptible, but it's pretty good subtle. The whole thing doesn't shudder in that annoying is the button to turn this damn thing off? I'll tell you where that's really weird when you're in a manual car. There are some manuals that also had to stop start half the time. I think somehow I killed it. My

wife's too. My wife as an m convertible, so everything but the truck is a stick and the s l but um, there's two really interesting features with the start stop. If you put the clutch down and put it into gear or the start stop goes on, or if you hit the sport button, the start stop very unnerving. I mean it, I just right. It feels like an electric car. It's like, why is this so? But the the I don't say older Mercedes, but a five years old Mercedes

and anything of that era. The whole car just shutters and shakes, and it's it's just way too annoying to make up a mile per gallon. So so there's that. But but BMW seems to have figured that out in the same way that GM figured out how to retire to bank to It's not too two banks, it's just one or two cylinders. And they do it in a way that it's really not very noticeable, which is really really interesting. All right, So you drive the car around for a couple of days. Are you taking notes or

is it all meant? Or I take notes? I actually write emails to myself. I literally am typing emails. You know, even how does the seats feel? How do the seats feel after eight hours of driving? That's a big deal as visibility, you know, the three quarter pillar behind my shoulder? How does the bentley? It's terrible, it's bad, but but the good news is nobody's behind ye. I mean, how does the steering wheel feel? The most tactile? Simple things? How easy is the interface with the ent attainment? How

quick does it? How long does it take me to connect my bluetooth? I mean, how easy is the map and navigation system? All of those things add up to the value of total experience? Yes, right, and and now how significant is that relative to Hey, how does this thing drive? Was it feel like when I bury the great question? I think it's I really do because it reminds me of that old quote. You know, people don't remember how you treated them, they remember how you made

them feel some like. I think maybe I haven't thought about this, so this is coming out raw, but it could apply to cars that you know, um, the when you walk away, unless you're really a professional, a truly professional driver, you're gonna walk away with more of a general feeling about the car. Half of that feeling will be a direct result from how it actually drove, but the other half is going to be from other things. I mean, see comfort, I think is a big deal

that that goes overlooked a lot. Shoulder room, especially for men. I actually think exactly right. I know, let's let's keep up in the height. Um My brother six eight, so we should talk about that. But I think it's an advantage that I'm tall, because I do maybe I'm able to relate to more men. It's something to think about. Um, all of those things, um impact how you feel about a car, for sure, even the engine note I mean, let's performance cars sound matters. I could not possibly agree more.

And the funny thing is, and we'll talk more about my stupidity later, but both the so my X four is the m X four point out and the previous car was the mccon s. You went from Porsche to BMW. UM, that's an interesting Well, let's have a digression briefly. And so first I call this interface confusion and and you know what, we'll come back to this because there's a

longer story about this, UM. But the bottom line was my wife and I both like the mccan and she but I liked it and she it was a lot of quirky things that went wrong with it, and she basically says no facts. So and we had two other BMW's, so standardizing on I don't have to look where the buttons are and just driving because she screams, I have a terrible tendency to take my eyes off the road and mess around. And when you go from an s L to a Jeep to a M to a it's

just it takes too long to reorient yourself. The greatest little toy that this car has is the lane notification, and it doesn't make the horrible noise that not only does it vibrate, but I think it vibrates on which side. Do I love that? Really? Because I so I don't pay attention to the lines in the road. I'm looking. I'm looking for the current. No I'm looking for show me where the entry to the turn is and where

I'm gonna accelerate out. I don't And if lines happens across that, I'm looking for what's the best line through the turn? Which occasionally scares the hell out of oncoming drivers or my wife. And so when we got this UM, I always had it off in the mechanic because it just made this hot, horrible buzzing noise. But in this it's a very subtle vibe. Now you could set it in the controls soft, medium, hard. I want it hard.

And I'm not sure if this is UM me my wishful thinking, but it feels like when you drift on the right side, the right hand side five rates and on the left hand the left hand and let me tell you, it is really, really helpful. I don't know if other people like it or don't. The same thing with the cruise control. We rented a Nissan Maximum when we were in Florida the other day and it had the full UM right listen. It's not Tesla autopilot. But we're stuck on one of the highways and bumper a

bumper traffic And I just put that on. Now, if you stop for more than three seconds, it goes off, which is really dumb because all of a sudden it goes off and now you start lurging forward. Is terrible. But these little nannies, if you're aware of them and you him appropriately, it's only going to make driving safer and better. And I think this goes to a bigger point that there are two different there. It's a difference

between commuting and driving. And a lot of the times that Americans spend in cars is actually commuting, sitting in traffic, not engaged driving. And to your point, I would rather just be driven if it's a commute, And if you all the all the studies will show that the more time you spend in a car commuting, the lower your overall levels of happiness and life. I believe that. And it's just think about your in California, think about the people who are commuting in l a traffic. That's to live.

That's a lot of podcasts. Let's talk a little bit about the collectible market, which over the past couple of years has gone crazy. Yes, and tell us what you see in that space. It's been so interesting. We've seen the rise and then kind of the plateau of Portia, especial the Porsche turbos from the nineteen seventies and had exactly I mean ten years ago, less than ten years ago you could buy uh, nineteen seventies era turbo for now they're selling for over two thousand dollars. It's not

it's kind of insane. I think that plateau going at least um, you know, the Scottsdale auctions are coming up this month. I'll be going and I can't wait to see how those do. But that's been interesting. We've seen the rise of what they're calling like young timer cars, which are basically the cars from the eighties and nineties that anyone who grew up in the eighties and nineties might have had on a poster on their wall. Now

these cars are becoming collectible. It's the old thirty year cycle of It's it's the math the cars that the cars that the forty five to fifth year old who now have disposable income, yes, liked when they were in high school. Suddenly now my question is that a diminishing group. What happens years from now, when that generation has grown up not caring about Camaros or or corvettes or even Ferraris.

We're already saying it. I mean, well, the guy, the guys who want the muscle cars, you know, the Shelby's and the Corvettes, the older corvettes and um, you know the g T I mean g T fourties are kind of their own thing. But um, these are not. These are really low and really stable across the board completely. Um. I mean, I think to your point about um, young timer cars, we can we can see what muscle cars are doing now and probably project that the same thing

will happen. But that will happen in twenty years from now. I don't think. I don't see them stopping anytime soon. I mean, at what point does the like there has never really been a big decrease in art collectors that from generation to generation you have enough money eventually, I wanna roth co or O Jackson Pollock or whatever that that seems to be Ramone or whatever the previous hundred year thing was that is not showing any signs of waning.

But it seems like this has got some demographic issues coming. It will be very interesting I will say I think Ferraris will always be a blue chip by of course, you know, Jaguar E types will always be blue chip cars. The Aston Martin's from the sixties and seventies will always be held very dearly. These are the perennial, but they're so vehicles. So one thing that I'm watching which is very interesting is these Group B cars. Are you familiar

with the like the Lancia, Deltas and the Pugos. There were rally cars from the eighties that were raised for like two years and a very hairball rally. The automakers made only two hundred of them, so they're very rare. They have been adopted by these obsessive cult of fans who collect them, and they're paying six and seven figures for cars that are very but are very desirable. So let's let's apply that same framework. The sixties and seventies

Ford Brontos just off the chain. And the car that I'm going to import myself from Bogada, Columbia is seventies era Toyota f Jack. I really like those. I have three people always. I have this grotesque orange crush two doors with a stick, and people are always asking me so that was a salvage title. I paid less than twenty twenty grand all in a flood car as much and it was I bought it a year old with I want to say, fifteen thousand miles and I now

have forty miles. The only the only thing I had to do is replace a handbrake and that was probably my fault. So um, and the radio. The radio just got replaced, which is a pain in the neck because it's a crappy radio. And the factory it's like eight hundred bucks. I found it somewhere for about But um, the f J. If I'm going to have an old wheel drive thing that I use occasionally, I wanted to

be a little more fun. And I really like that those have gone not quite full blown crazy, but you can find renovated versions of those going fort and people dropped big V eights in those for no damn good room completely And look at land Rubber bringing back the Defender I used to And now what have you seen the new one? The new Defender. I haven't seen it in person, but I've seen pictures. Okay, it's interesting. It's

a very polarizing vehicle. But I think to your point, the automakers are seeing the obsession with these old historic models and they're bringing back for the Ford Broncos, the Ford, the new Bronco coming. I used to love the Defender ninety until I drove it and realized what a piece of right that That interior is just so junkie. But

but those things are pretty bulletproof. They're unstoppable, and the FJ has the same, the sort of troop benching in the back where you could put four people without a seatbelt a cross or six people in the back. I mean, I always thought to defend their nineties were really tough looking. And you know the British version, of course. I mean the British are the ones who started it all. Really, I mean the Safari anything, Safari over landing, I mean going out on the hunt. This is so British, totally

so so. The other thing that's interesting in the collectible world are these collector clubs where you could buy a piece of a car and they financially engineer shares. I'm skeptical of that. I'm curious as to yours too. I don't know how they make money. And I did the story. I did remember there's one called Rally road down here in Soho. Nice guys, young young guys. I mean, I think the the the oldest person in their on their team is under Fording. I mean, they're all young, relatively

young guys. I don't know how they're making money. The real estate alone to have their space on, you know, on Lafayette Street and so must be ungodly. I don't know how they're making money. Well, it doesn't work if you have ten cars and a hundred investors, but at a thousand cars and a million investors it scales up. But even then that's a lot of mintlemen between an investor in a car. I feel like they're banking on the idea that people don't It's not an ownership society anymore.

To your point about millennials not driving right, there's certainly a a feeling that people don't care about ownership. They care about access. As long as I have something when I need it, it doesn't matter if I actually exactly uber. So they're the guys are there are hoping. That also applies to collectible cars, which I don't know. I mean now they're doing it with role Xes too. I noticed Rally Road has some role x is listed what you

get to share a rolex. Come on the the other thing I noticed, I forgot the name of the company, but it's sort of like Airbnb for cars. You can rent cars from other individuals. Yeah, that's it. And you know, to me, before I buy a car, I want to go out and try and half the cars I'm interested and I can't rent anywhere. We should discuss bring a trailer. Are you ever on that? Because when when you say you want to go out and drive a car before you buy it, but would you buy something off bring

a trailer. So I am on bring a trailer all the time. And literally I was on the way here. I logged in to look at a sixteen six thousand mile Bentley GT that sends Friday. I was high bid and starting to get so to me at even so the new car comes out, the old cars dropping value a little bit, but two year, three year old whatever it's it's called three or four year old with less than ten thousand miles, I'm thinking that's a d a car.

I'm high bid at seventy since or whatever it was since Friday, and I'm starting to get nervous because the last thing I need is a sixth car, and uh, this morning I log on, I'm like, okay, someone else's. So I've been on a bunch of cars. I won one that didn't meet the reserve and I reached out to the cellar and he never got back to me. But in fact, that was an f J. I was

willing to fly to Oregon to pick it up. Um. But you would buy those cars not having driven them, um, Or this one from Columbia you're going to bring in. So the one from Columbia is a long, crazy story. A buddy who imports defenders from Spain. I was talking to him about the FJ. Yes it is, and I was talking to him about the f j's and I showed him a bunch and I said, listen, I really did this car. But I can't pull the trigger on a forty something thousand dollar seventiesier car that I know is.

I don't mind spending money, but it can't be instant appreciation. So he looked at a few of them and he said, you know, all these are from South America and that's where they're renovated. And I'm like, well, let's see if we can find one. He goes, I have a brother in law in Colombia. Well perfect, So we start looking at one fast forward to the end. His red convertible ships out this week, and that sort of sky blue I don't know if you know the color with the

white top roofs. Classic. That's the one I have I'm a fan of, with the black interior end. So if this comes in, he goes, let me be the he goes, I've supported dozens of cars. I'll be the test mule. Let me bring one in. And the prices like half of what you're gonna pay with shipping, So you have to be willing to do something like that. But we

sent somebody to the factory in Columbia. He took a video and sent it to it and he's and Columbia, Columbia isn't what it was, you know, it's no longer, uh, the days of cocaine cowboys in right, and and they have all these cars that need to be need to be retomed. So funny story about bring a trailer. You know, you sign up for a new website, I for years have been using my last name and some password, and I just forget about it. And I kind of sometimes

forget you're not that seventeen year old idiot. You were, however, many years ago. So if you click the star watch this car, or you subscribe to a car, or you've been on a car, there was just three different things. We have three different So sometimes I don't want to be notified every time one of these came up. Just let me know what's going on with the comments and bidding on this. And the best way to do that

is to put a bit on the car. So I bid a hundred thousand dollars on I want to say it was a Dino and I know, listen, these go for three. I know I'm not getting that car, but you want to be appraised of and I want to just keep me in the loop. Yes, in the office, we get emails from clients why is Hult's building a hundred thousand dollars on cars? And it's like, no, no, I'm not being a hundred thousand allars on a car.

I've been a hundred thousand dollars on a half million dollar car that there's no way in God, Queen Earth I'm gonna win. And if I do, fantastic free money, but that's not gonna happen. So I had to go change my name on. They were very nice. There's no way to do it automatically. I had to reach out to them and say, here's the situation. I wish Bring a Trailer had an app. I'm shocked they don't, you know. I spoke to the points guy who does all they're

coming out with an app. It's astonishing they haven't done that yet. But they've been growing so quickly and maybe I mean I've been trolling that site for I don't know, two years, it two years. How long has that been around? I think yes, So it's and I've kind of watched it. It's not just the place to go sell a car. It's a very spit right, and it's a really good community. People are really really thoughtful in their comments. It's sort

of like what blogs were like twenty years ago. So um, but you wrote about how how they are giving the auction houses and run for money because you could sell a half million dollar car there and and I a giant big on it completely and I know you mentioned it. A lot of the cars that don't sell when they don't meet reserve are then sold off of Bring a Trailer privately, and those transactions would have been happening in auctions,

you know, So it's completely changing the dynamic. The beauty of the Internet is middle men who get to charge a big fat fee. And this is true whether it's finance or art auctions or whatever it is. They're under pressure because the technology and the share of information makes at least pricing middlemen unless needed. I know. And let's not forget. Despite a champagne and chandeliers at a Gooding or a Southern Bees or Bonham's auction, these are used

cars being sold by used car salesman. And I don't mean that in a disparaging way. I just mean, let's be real about what this really is. No matter how much champagne or the beautiful trappings. When a two fifty Ferrari goes off and it's twelve million dollars and there's nine of them left with matching numbers, that's such a one off, unique entity and the audience for that are all right, which of the twenty seven people you can afford this center interested are going to step up? It's

not a real market, it's not a real car. It's it's something completely different, different thing, completely Yeah. So if you were going to buy a car to keep for the next fifty years. What car would that big? Well, I was just given a car for my birthday. That's a dangerous present. It's a dangerous present. But you know the crazy thing is, here's a fun fact. I haven't actually owned a car myself since I was in college,

which was fifteen is years ago. Um, this car I got in November five sixty s L Mercedes black on black, and I have admired them for a very long time, so to answer, and that car lives in l A. So the Mercedes that I have kind of been enamored for is the prior generation, the pug to root the late sixties, early seventies, depends on you know, a bunch of with the stick. You can still find them for nice condition. So one just want to bring a trailer

white on blue, white exterior, blue interior. But it was an automatic, which doesn't excite me. Um, and I went for about fifty and I've seen spectacular versions, black interior, white exterior for about a hundred. And that's a lot of wood, but it's just spectacular. So I got my s L was a birthday gift from my wife almost twenty years. We've got good partners here. I paid five thousand dollars for it. Um, it needed some work, so we did a top, half engine rebuild, replaced some exhaust,

did some transmission work. So maybe over twenty years. I'm into the car for I don't know fifteen I'll never And the interesting thing about the car is it came with the heart, so it's a convertible, but it comes with the hard top that has the electric sunroof, which wasn't I learned later wasn't an aftermark. I was gonna say that doesn't sound stock to me now, and um, and I actually have two hard tops. I don't know how that ended up getting accumulated, but once I got

all right, So let me back up. There's a lot of funny stories about this. We all have car buddies, we off people who spend time with and this is supposed to be about you and not me, but I know you're going to appreciate this story. So a good car buddy suddenly passes away and we had kicked the top a million cars. I have a hilarious story I told that his funeral. He was an appraiser, had his leg in a cast, and one day says to me, put on what are you doing tonight? Nothing? He goes,

don't wear anything metal. We gotta go to Brooklyn and look at a car, and long story short, I end up driving a Ferrari to Sway and he's like, I gotta test it. Step on the gas. So ninety miles an hour on a Tuesday night shaking felt a lot faster than whatever I was probably felt. But anyway, um, So when he suddenly and unexpectedly passed away, it was one of those It wasn't even a midlife crisis. It was life is short? What are you waiting for? And

so I go out online and I start. All I know is I want stick shift, horse power and convertible. And I start hunting things down, and long story short, I find in Indiana, just off of Lease a M six convertible. Right now, now we talk about, you know, Bentley as sort of a near sports car. So these are five hundred sixty horsepower, but some people dino them and their Corser two six, and it's just it's a giant monstrosity. And knew, I want to say, it's like

a hundred and thirty. It's up for you know, low sixties. A little haggling, um, I get a good price, I have someone come look at it, and I get a thirty page report and I call the guy up and I'm like, listen, I appreciate the report bottom line for me, dude, if you don't buy this car, I will, okay, So for the core for the price of like a nice Ford Explorer. I have this monstrosity in my garage. And now my wife who drives a stick. When we were dating, I told her to drive a stick. Um, I'm gonna

you have too much drink one night. You're gonna have to drive the U UM. And she now is a better either than I am. So she listen, I enjoy driving a car. But it's that if you know the um. This model's blue, not not the M three blue, but it's like a really rich, almost purple blue with the oyster interior. It's pure boy toy. She goes, you know, it's a little long, it's a little loud. It's it's she goes, I want something. She does. She I said, what do you like? She goes, I really like the

one series and a convertible. They're adorable. And I said, tell you what. They stopped making the One series and they really updated it for the two series. Let's find a two series. So long story short. I find a guy in Florida who's back and forth between Florida and the Pacific Northwest. He's got nine cars. He raises a bunch. He got the M two thirty five. Now it's the

M two forty. I um as a convertible in Florida when he moved there from the Northwest, And uh, I said, so, why do you want to sell this with six thousand miles? He goes, it's so damn hot here. I never get to take the top down. We're in the truck all the time, all right. So and this was done through Um, it wasn't through bring a trailer. I found it through one of the You know, if you look at all the used car sites, they pretty much all have the

same list thing. I know, it's interesting. And and when I put my sl on Facebook marketplace for a month, you know there are people who out and scrape your numbers and pretend to sell that is something else. So, uh, it wasn't auto trader, but it was something like that. It was one of those, uh, one of those sites, and it worked out great. Um. And the funny thing about Florida. Is they in the winter, all the big tractor trailers go down there full and they come back empty.

So bring it back to New York in a covered vehicle for like nine bucks, which is really uh. So that's the second car, which is which explains why the s L has to go. Um. The Porsche we had all sorts of weird problems with occasionally. The so first thing we got the car within a week the stitching on the steering wheel. It didn't come loose, but there was the whole thing. But there was this piece of like it looks like fishing wire that used to like it came out enough that you were it was always

hitting your hand. It was really annoying, and I called on the mind like can I just clip this or am I gonna damage it? No? No, let us do it. I bring it to them. They swapped the whole steering wheel. They don't even clip um. So that was the first problem. The second problem was the liftgate sometimes decided not to work like, which is a weird thing. Um. And then

the third thing, which was really a engineering error. That so, so the nice thing about the about the cars, you have the DVD, you have the satellite you have the Bluetooth through your phone, you have the plug in for the manual iPod, which no one even uses anymore because the Bluetooth on the phone. And then there were these

two slots for s d RAM cards. And so rather than bring the the phone or the iPod in, plug it into the computer and update it with whatever I've added, I would just throw twenty songs on the on this and plug them in, and some of them you can move to the hard drive on the car. And eventually we so I couldn't figure out why the NAV was crashing all the time. Events, So the first thing they did, they bring it in and they do in an update.

The second time they do it, they bring it in and they do a full wipe and rein software installed. The third time they bring it in and they pull it out and put a brand new one in, and it's still happening. And then they eventually figure out it wasn't the iPod, but it was the s d cards.

Whenever they designed that system seven years before, the s d RAM cards were tiny, and now for eight dollars, it's thirty two gigs, and it would just overwhelm the memory buffer and crash the whole system, which is a really weird little thing for a company that's now making a purely electric car. A great point. I'm surprised to hear that because the mccan is their best selling vehicle period.

I love the way it drove, um except for the fact that in three years and let's call it thirty two miles, I went through two sets of tires and a pair of brakes, set of brakes. But I threw that. I drove that car like it was a nine eleven. I tossed that car and it you know, that car never complains about anything. You take that on the highway and thrown into a turn at eighty seven miles an hour, and it's like, yeah, what else you get? It totally

was ready for anything. I know people who have done the Porsche class whereas Alabama, or the driving in Atlanta in the truck and um, they say, you just can't imagine what this truck and do And I'm like, but it's got such a high No it doesn't. It's it's so um. I'd like to take the be I've done the Skip barber Line Rock, I've done um, the one at Sea Bring. I would like to do the BMW course. I bet it's great. What what if those have you

played with UM from BMW or the driving courses? Yeah, any of them UM, well, driving courses I've I've had the chance to do a lot of laps with Ferrari, Bentley Laborghini. So you have a professional driver sitting next to you. It's basically private coaching, which is UM snow driving imports. In nine eleven's UM with Porsche with literally their their guy sitting next to you saying telling you when to turn wind to break you know, gas gas gas, UM.

So Porsche, BMW, Bentley Asid Martin has got some great driving classes to UM. The company's not doing very well, but well they they've I think they overestimated, they overestimated demand. They were laid on the dB X right. And I have to tell you the concept car of the dB X, I was ready to write a check, not that I could afford it. I love the concept car, the concept cars with the mechanic almost was right. It's essentially a car that's a little elevated, a little bigger kind of

a crossover. And now the dB X is kind of like a small suv. It's not that Hey, let's take a a dB five and pump it full of drugs and steroids and turn it into a small monstrosity. It's like, all right, it's listen, it's beautiful. Don't be wrong. The it just the exterior doesn't excite me. I'm the same. And I think if you took the badges off the Aston Martin Suv, the Jaguar f Pace, which is not a bad car, which is not a bad it's a great especially for the money, the Ford Mustang as UV,

which that's a whole other conversations. If you took the badges off, they would look pretty interchangeable, which is really too bad. But they're going towards the insatiable market midsize suv, which is every year. I keep thinking, all right, this is a year we're going to see at a people truck. Nope, what do you think about the Bentley truck. It's gotten better over the years. I mean, it's giants, it's it's giant um, it's it's it's giving an option for the

Bentley enthusiast to have the Bentley suv. Do they come with matching luggage and everything else. Yeah, it's smart of Bentley to do because it means that they're devoted. Customers don't have to go out of brand to get an suv. It just keeps them at home. And it is Yes, it's done great, especially in Europe and China. And it's it's so expensive though I know it's insane, it's over doesn't make any sense. I will, I will. I have never admitted this publicly. I love. I'm not a lambo guy.

That's what the DBS should have done. Those proportions, which is incredibly a punched up small sports car in an suv. They did the launch of that car on a track outside of Rome. It blew my mind. It was literally a tract day for SUVs, but it was. It was insane, even that yellow I hate yellow cars and it looks good. It's at least say you hate it, but at least it makes you feel something. It makes you feel like hate.

Anyone who says they hate that incredible. I would imagine it's the best driving suv period anything, of any suv I've driven ever, it's by far the best. And it looks good, it sounds good. It's so cool, and it's expensive, but it's not insane. It's not insane. It's not. It's it's less expensive than the Bentley, less expensive than the Rolls Royce. Obviously those are different vehicles, but they're still big SUVs for big, big brand. So you mentioned the sound.

The one thing I will say about the McCann as. I have had people come up to me and say, like, I parked in the train station and they may not see you where the car is, and just know when you when you turn it on. And the next morning someone said, what the hell are you driving? And I said, mccanna, that's a little smallest Porsch truck they make, and he said, it sounds like it's a giant. And the X four is the same way you started up, and it's just,

you know, everybody's head turns. I have a friend who bought a Plymouth hell Cat because he went to a Dodge dealer for something else and something started and he says the salesman they weren't there for a minivan, but it was something like that. He goes, what the hell's that. He goes, Oh, that's our our hell Cat. He goes go go bring that over here, and his wife is like, oh, dear lord, no, he had a Cayman he just sold it. She thinks. Now he's in his dotage, he's chilling out.

They bring it over. It's purple, they go stick shift, they go for a ride. He goes, I wasn't even out of the parking lot when the car was sold. It was done. Um And it's that sound. You first hear that sound, and which is kind of interesting. We talk about electric and I know the take can has makes a noise, does make a noise. It's like a worrying, humming sound. It's cool. It's optional, right, yeah, and it's it's fabricated, but you can also hear road noise, which

adds to the experience. I don't necessarily think younger generations are going going to care about a sound because they didn't grow up with but the up video games and even when you're driving an electric vehicle in a video game, there's some futuristic hum that comes. Yes. Yes, So anyone who says electric cars are silent, that's not accurate. There is a sound. It's just a different sound than you're used to. And I don't know, think about Formula a lot.

You know, it's like Formula one, but with electric cars and they're really you know, automakers are really getting behind it because it's kind of a testing ground. Sure technology is just like Formula one is, and a lot of old Formula one guys say I can never get into it. It's just not visceral enough for me. Um, which I get. But I also think anyone under the age of thirty isn't going to care about that as much because I

didn't grow up with it. So that people I know who've driven the take in turbo, I've said it's the most plant You're right, and it's the most astonishing acceleration they've ever had short of a three million dollars super right. It's just um. And the funny thing is we talked I'm talked about the M cars. I don't notice the supposed piped in sounds that the MS have and you can't defeat that. But it's so loud when you're out of the car and with the top down. Yeah, I

don't know who or why they do that. Maybe a M five is a different experience. I can't say I've ever noticed it over the noise over the engine, over the road, noise over the stereo. Um. But that talk about visceral sensation two point six to sixties something like that. Yeah, I mean that's motorcycle fest. That is I I like to um. The other day I did this when it was warm out, and my wife always rolls her eyes.

We pull up next to a Tesla and a woman is driving it, and I look at her and smile and just rev the and she smirks, and I know that she knows she's gonna blow my doors off. I don't know if she knows that. I know she's gonna blow. So the light turns green. I love war rowing my way through the gears. She's three carlings ahead of me by the time we get to the next light, and we pull up and I give her a thumbs up and heart windows come down. I'm in the convertible and

she goes, you don't look surprised. I go, I know that car can do. It's faster than a Lamborghini. It's there. My favorite videos on YouTube are the trucks. The Model X beating Ferraris in a drag strip. That's just hilarious. Now, what do you think of a cybertruck? Um, I don't think that's a real vehicle. I think that was a joke. That's like somebody's shop projects they've got you know, two plus orders. Well, but he gets free financing for future projects.

Is brilliant. Although the day we're recording this, UM, there's a short seller whose website is called reality check that just put like a sixty page research pizza out on Tesla. UM, let's talk about tests. Uh, you know what, We're gonna come back to Tesla. I still want to stick with collectibles, so for for collecting my whole life, I have been this close to buying cars and for whatever reason don't and then they run in away from it. So I'll give you the four that I really so close and

never did it. Had a buddy that was importing the eights from from Europe when the dollar was crazy strong two thousand and one bmw Z eight sixty dollars, didn't pull the trigger on it in early two thousand's what do they to to and change? Although they've kind of become garage queens people around. UM A hundred forty five thousand for an oh five for g T which what this this ten years ago? So the cars four years old with ten thousand miles on it, and that was

before they spiked. Now, why didn't you go for that? Um? So it's funny. Of the four cars, I'm gonna mention, three of them came along as we were about to buy a house, and so it was always horrible. My favorite of which, so the first guy I worked for in finance, I won't mention his name, killing me um, but he's a bazillionaire and one day I get a phone call from him and he says, I need some room in my garage. Do you want my five fifty? And I'm like, the blue Ferrari that you have. That's

a stick shift, isn't it. He's like, yeah, I gotta I just need some space. He's the very first world problems, right, And I said, what do you want for it? Because I don't know? When do you want me to pay you? Because I don't know. He goes figure out what it's worth forgot when you're gonna pay me? And come get this thing out of my garage. Okay. I come home from work and I said to my wife, Hey, we're taking Marty's Ferrari. He's gonna give it to us. She's like,

you're an idiot. We're buying a car. Go to your buying a house. Go to your room, Like that's the sort of conversation we have. All right, I guess we're not getting Ferrari. But he like when someone says, now, the funny thing, how long ago was that this was just before they went crazy. So it was about a hundred thousand retail at that point. Um, it was a stick, but it was that nice. I forgot what that blue purple color is called with the coach interior. It was

an aubergine. Yeah, it was spectacular. Um. And then they ran up to three hundred thousand, and now they're back down to a hundred. I don't know why that went kind of crazy. Um, probably smart that we didn't. Um. The other two cars, Ferrari Dino for sixty six, sixty seven something like that did have an engine in it. It ran, It needed work, but it ran. Um, they're three and uh, I call a Ferrari Dino when I know some people will knock me and call it a

Fiat Dino, but come on, let's be Ferrari. The zero badging and arguably the most beloved of the ferraris most beautif very endearing. You're not. Someone else just said that recently and I and I was like, maybe, I mean, maybe it's arguable for sure. I mean the idea of a six the proportions are the three O eight was a pig. Come on, and those are going to go up in value. Drivers, They're slow, they're just And then magnum p I is not the right panache that you want.

I don't think it might come around, all right, what do you think about the Daytona. I've always loved that. It's not I mean, it might could come around. Miami bias magnum pi. The Daytona was much prettier. I had a friend who had a four hundred um and that stick shift was a like bicycle cable. Like we were out on a rally with a bunch of one of the greatest sounds I've ever experienced in my life. I used to live on ninety les, which is Lex and seven, and I was a member of some car club and

they would do these outings. And one day someone said to me, you know, while and plan a route, what do you want us to do? Take us out east? So I plan a route out to the Hamptons, back to a place called wolveswarf in in um Bayville. And it was a whole day of driving, and uh, one of the guys said um, you want to come. I'm like, I live in the city, I don't have a car. We'll pick you up. So six am on a Sunday morning,

I go downstairs. There's a line of fourteen cars, um, mostly Ferraris, an M five and a Lambo, and I get into one of the cars and everybody has the whole route, and fourteen of these cars go screaming out the Midtown Tunnel on a Sunday morning, the greatest sound. Every like everybody had the windows now and it was it was just the noodles. So um. Anyway, the Dino was the third car, one of the earlier cars I missed,

and then perhaps the most odd car. I'm looking at a fifty nine one s L and for people who don't know that car right so exactly, which is why I didn't buy it. So the one s L is more or less the same body as the three, which is the convertible version of the infamous goal wing Mercedes Kids Sister, which is perhaps the most beautiful car. I

did the millimillion that car it was. I did two rallies in the Goaling Real Rally in Austria and then the Millimilia the next year, and incredible, and we thrashed that car day in and day out of fourteen hours a day, did not skip a beat, did not skip a beat, and we were hard on that thing. I mean, that is an emotional car. Incredible, absolutely, I've seen them

in the wild numerous times. Um. What's interesting is if you go out to the wineries on the North Fork of Long Island, not during the weekends, not in the peak season, but you go out midweek or or during like off season, and you'll see various auto clubs out there and like it's a car show in the parking lot. It's just it's just absolutely astounding. So I the s l which was really rough. Um, okay, we go for about ten times that today. They're not the three hundred, clearly,

which go for a million plus. But the shame that car so expensive the going because it is so Take any of these cars on the list, the g t Z eight, um, the Dino or or we'll leave them one s L out. People who own those, they don't really drive them because they keep appreciating too much. Isn't that the nature of the collectible market. That was once a car that gave people joy is now an object

to art that sits in a garage. I was looking at the auction catalogs going into Scottsdale, and they've got a turbo at nine eleven turbo that has thirty four miles on it, three four brand new, never drivened, basically, never droned. Yeah, and that's to me, that's sad. That's too bad. That's just a hunk of metal. Cars are They're meant to be driven, and if you don't drive them, they're gonna they're going to um disintegrate anyway. Really, what

do you think of the Singer? Very well done? Right, Well, that's a very diplomatic. Here's here's what I hear. Um, there are Singer guys who are bored of the Singer Porsche and they're searching for other ways to spend their

millions of dollars exactly. So. Um. The guy who builds that rally car car, T J. Russell, built cars for Singer for years, for nine years, and he has said, look, I see the clients that go to Singer, and I see where they are now, and those guys are a little bit bored and annoyed with showing up at their cars and their local cars and coffee and there are two other singers in the lot. You know. The whole

reason are they making that? I thought it was they've they've up production, which is um translate as no longer as valuable as you know, they make that ultralight dls UM singer to that goes for over a million. It's like a million eight which is interesting. Is it a skinny illuminium body? Is that what they do? Are you gonna put that on the track for a million dollars? Or which is that the whole four point? That car

will not be driven. I can't imagine that it will be driven, will sit in a garage somewhere, which is too bad. So singer really well done. I think the guys that we're buying singers the real first adopters of that beautiful, amazing thing. They did really well. They're already onto the next They're already looking for other ways to spend their money. What else in the collectible space catches

your eye? Um? Then the ferraris from the nineties, Yeah, like they have forty Yeah like there, I mean, yeah, I think they watch those. I would really watch those coming up. UM. And I also think, like the International Scouts UM harvesters. Back to our conversation about Broncos and throw those in my brother one Lebroncho. I'm like, yes, and um also land Rovers from the early nineties. Watch watch that space. I was just reading through all this haggardy data I'm telling, which, by the way, is a

great site. You reach for free access for a ton of stuff. So it's just numbers. It's completely straight, unfettered numbers. It's really good. I was just looking at all their projections. I think, Yeah, land Rovers from the early nineties, huh yeah, that's really intriguing. So before we talk about the future of the automotive industry, you kind of duck the question. Pick any car you want, what would you buy to put away from the next thirty to forty years. That's

a great question. And PS. Part of the reason I ended up with e M six was the fear stick shifts are going away if I don't buy one. Now, you know, you could get Jeeps and Porsches with them, but an increasingly smaller number of Porsches, um and BMWs but they're kinda and any Honda or Toyota in Japan, but they're going away here. So what would you get for yourself if within a reasonable budget. Well, but you know,

you can get any type. There's a lot of beautiful cars you could get for under a quarter million dollars or well under a hundred thousand budget. Of course that's a huge The other car I was um bitting on on bring a trailer that I was afraid I was gonna win. Um was a thirty seven Chord, which is the most spectacular, those Auburn cords with the metal pipes coming out of the side and the coffin nose, and some of them had the fish tail boat tail back. Um. And for like a week, I'm like, when I now

win this car? And then it ran up in price the last twenty minutes. Um. You know another car that I really like a gain. I don't think this is going to going to be a great investment, but but it's not like it right, I'm not talking about your grandkids inherenting, and I'm like, you're gonna drive this, and the last thing you do before you go into the home is yeah, do something with this. I just looked at one Car of the Year nineteen seventies six. I

think European Sports European Car of the year. You are we talking the like early nineties with the the S plus S four plus center and the long Well you can do that too. I mean it had kind of a long run. But I'm talking. I'm talking late seventies. But great, great car. Which one did you look at? So? I think they're fun. I want to say this. I want to say it's a seventy nine. I remember my brother was looking. My brother was looking at a house and the guy had bought a car from him and

he goes, oh, at my nine. I gotta guys, ninety I it's still driving a stick shift and he goes, right, I mean that's how I want to go out. And uh, he says, um, you want this car? I look them up. They're like four grands. That's the thing. You can get them for nothing. They don't cost a lot to make drivable and runnable. This is this is I don't know. I think they look really cool and spacey. They're very like seventies risky business, completely exactly good reference. And um,

they're so comfortable. I've done a lot of desert drives and some that are just like you can drive for all day long and it's just kind of amazing. You're in like basically a bubble visibilities. And the irony is when those cars first came out, the purest hated them. Yeah, total elaboration is completely, completely, you know, totally just disgusting.

And the car world is so snooty sometimes. I mean when you talk about that one nine Mercedes people people get so uptight or like a portion nine four teens. They always want to make sure that you've got the right you've got the right in. Well, there you go. I mean they are it's so snooty. I mean I just think by what you like and drive what makes you happen, right, I think that's really good advice. All right, So now let's talk about the future of the automobile

industry where First, what does this deal with influencers? Wrote about that not too long ago. Are influencers really driving car sales? What do we sell sixteen million cars last year? How much of that is impacted by influence? I have yet to see numbers pointing to car sales. I have seen a lot of never numbers being driven pointed to brand awareness. So um, because nobody knows what Ferrari or

Mercedes is, right, well, some people don't. You'd be surprised for McLaren you know, people may not know which what the new McLaren is the new If it's a G G T is in then also great car. I so, I tweeted this weekend, I went to pick up my family over for brunch. I go to my favorite little bagel store and I pull in. I pull in with the truck and I get out of the car and the truck next to me and I hear this noise.

I'm like, what is that? And the truck next to me backs up and there is a guy McLaren Um, not the GT. It's it's running. There's nobody in the car. It's idling, and it's just that idol is insane. And I'm like, this is the most North Shore of Long Island thing ever. Picking up bagels. Take the McLarens. Yes, because it's you have the front. You can throw a dozen bags. It's a horrible. But influencers. So back to influencers, I don't know. I've definitely seen them change the way

automakers interact with media and press. I can tell you stories of out um being seated at different tables and I would have been sat at during press dinners, and you know, I usually usually humbly, I say, I'm seated next to the CEO Automi Automotive dinners because I can talk to him, and it's part of your readers by their car, completely, not an Instagram influencer whose readers are fifteen year old boys in the surfing the web. And

I humbly say that. You know, Bloomberg is a great company. There, there are proper standards of journalism. This, this doesn't happen by accident. We have a very good brand and reputation and ethics policy, etcetera, etcetera. Um, there have been some press things where I've I'm not sat by the executive and instead there's an influencer sitting there, and and I didn't really think anything of it, but I noticed it.

And then um, a few weeks later, I was talking with another journalist of mine, someone from Motor Trend, and he's like, did you notice how all of the actual journalists were not sat next to the executives at that dinner? And I said, wow, that was I thought that was just me and I didn't want to be a diva, but yes, I did notice. It's very subtle, the shift, and it's it's only happened once or twice, but we

do notice it. The other thing I noticed is that influencers and are now being given first looks at cars really where um, normally it would have been a journalist. So I don't know who's an influencer and who's a journal a journalist. That's especially with the vloggers. But there are two people I follow, one of whom I honestly don't even remember his name. But the person whose videos I watched pretty regularly. Let's see if you could guess

who that is. Um, I don't know, oh really so yeah, So if there's a car I'm interested in and he's covered it, it's a pretty thorough Yeah. That's the closest thing to a strive without taking a test d completely And the insane thing are his videos get Like, I know, it's crazy, it's crazy, and you can't argue with the numbers. Like. These people definitely perform a much needed service. They're great

at what they do. They don't do cameras in a course, so they're doing Bentley's in In fact, he just did the new band. Yeah, I read your review and then I went and watched and some of the quirks he does the quirks and what have you and some of the funny little things that he picks up. I'm like, I would never have found that it's good. The only

but you have to commit the thirty minutes. Yes. The only difference that um I talked about in that story that I just am so aware of is the fact that journalists do not accept payment payments or free gifts from automakers. The minute you accept a payment, you're therefore employed by them, and that kind of implies that you're not free to say anything negative and that becomes marketing. And I noticed that Doug will occasionally be critical about stuff,

which I like, Yeah, that's good. I take that as a good sign. It's scary when you can't tell the difference between someone who's literally paid by the automaker and someone who is paid by a third party like Bloomberg. So is not Beholden? Who is Spree? Who is the other guy you mentioned me? Tim? His name's Tim. He is British UH influencer car guy um I've seen google him. He has he's very popular as a lot of following.

I've seen some British reviewers but kind of randomly finding them doing you know this is the old days of top gear, when it was fun. Um. People have now said, all right, let's just take a car out and show you what you can do. The other guy, I'm Joronah blanc on his name Chris Harris. Now, the other guy that I whose videos I occasionally watch, will go out and buy Salvage title Ferrari's, Lambo's Bentley's, and he's just a very articulate mechanic and he will put them back

together and either keep them or sell them. But it's it's if you really want to get into the nitty gritty of what goes into And I bought a couple of Salvage title cars when I was looking for the stick shift them six there were two for sale, the blue one in Indianapolis and then a Salvage Title Red and coach one in Florida. And that car is just so chock full of electronics and everything else. I didn't want to mess with the Salvage title. My jeep. It's

two hamsters on treadmill, it's right, that's right. Um. So the Salvage title was was more or less fine. And I just replaced all the electronics, all the electronic harnesses and the entire fuse box. So it's three different it's the the engine electronics, it's the fuse box, and then it's everything else, the lights, the brace whatever. So it really was not expensive to replace those pieces. And eventually

you had to replace the brake pads. We had some rust on them, and I'm pretty sure I broke the parking break sometimes. I just I'm pretty sure your hand, right, I mean that was that was my but but basically, um, watching someone by, uh, what was the last car he did? Um? Oh, he brought a Rolls Royce, not the Wraith, but the car before that that. I think he paid eighty tho

dollars for it, put about allars worth of work. And it's a two hundred and fifty used, two hundred and fifty thousand dollar car, and it's just spect I've I've seen. So I'm not a giant fan of the BMW I eight, but it's an interesting because of how it looks. I love how it looks. Needs a real engine, right, So if you're gonna make an electric hybrid and you know that should be an m car, do you give it credit for being really the first sports car hybrid? W

really did beat pretty much everybody. But that's like a time. You know, it's a three cylinder, some silly little engine in I know, and they didn't have to go crazy. Just give me that M three straight six from the late nineties and he's happy. Right, I'll sign on there. So right, that would be a fabulous car. And it is spectacular. Um, I gotta ask you, since we're talking about future cars, what do you think of the new Corvette? Looks awesome? Yeah, I haven't driven anything a little busy.

There's a lot of creases and curves in this and that I haven't driven it. I hope to drive it a month. Yeah, that's an interesting choice. A mean Lambeau and Ferrari say, I get it. I get it, and the uh looks cool. That's I'm waiting waiting to see. I hope to drive it. But I imagine that it's a Ferrari at half the price. Yeah, that's kind of I was actually I think it's eighty It was No. Nine and you're gonna want to just add a couple of things to it. I mean, you can take it

up to a buck and a quarter. It's not necessary, but you go, that's a lot of cars and that is an icon and if you look back, I mean, okay, you've got the nine eleven, the um Ford Mustang, and the Corvette. Those are like the longest running sports cars in all all time that have been running continuously since they started. Like so, you mentioned the Tesla pick up, which I don't think look anything like that. I think that's a joke. Um, But let's talk about the Model

three that is supposedly hurting BMW and Mercedes. I'm surprised to hear that their numbers. It's the best selling luxury car in America. I don't consider a model, but that's how a lot of people qualify. Yeah, okay, what do you think? Well, let's talk about Tesla. What are your thoughts on Elon Muskin? What Tesla has accomplished. I'm ground groundbreaking. And when I was at Forbes, I did a cover story on Elon and Spence. I read that Yeah six

months basically, Yes, that's how I found you really got covered. Yeah. It was a phenomenal thing, and I couldn't believe the amount of access I had. I mean I was playing video games with him. That was early days before his team got wise to media. I mean I literally met his kids and was playing video games in his basement for a day in bel Air, and he was great. You know, we went everywhere. We drove around in the little Tesla roadster that they had way back, exactly way

back when. Um So, I like Ellen as a person. I found him really likable and interesting and charismatic and funny. Um he's obviously brilliant. I don't think he's a con man. A lot of people there are a sub sect of traders and investors who would disagree with I know, I know, um you know I and the Solar City acquisition was a disaster. Yes, if we're talking only about Tesla, I think we have to give it full credit for changing the industry come completely. I have described Tesla as having

already won get the stock. The world has changed because of full stop. The Porsche Taykon would not exist if Tesla didn't exist. Period. There's no way that Porscha would have been forced quote unquote. I don't think to come out with an all electric sports sedan unless they were unless for the precedent that was set. So let's talk about the Tykan. As long as we're we're talking about Tesla.

UM actually back to Dunk Tomorrow had did a review of the car, and he talked about first of all, he lost his mind off the acceleration, but people said, hey, this turbo at five is an insane amount of money. But then he said, he goes, take the nicest Tesla you can find. There is a world of difference in the finished complete you get in this car. You know you're in a high end luxury car. It dry is great,

it feels great, everything works. He goes, the Tesla is a very nice car, yes, but it's not this caliber of quality. It's the difference between UM tech guys, first adopter, Silicon Valley guys, um driving a car that they like and a car that true car people who are adults who know what real luxury and German engineering for the past seventy plus years have created. It's it. There is a difference. That Porsche by far is much nicer inside

it just feels better. I love the idea of the auto updates over the air for the Tesla, the autopilot, what do they have five billion miles of auto pilot that's amazing. And then the concept that I at least as of today, it looks like Tesla's first to market with this that like your phone on a pad, that eventually there's a pad in your garage and you pull in and you're not even plugging the car and it just charges automatically. I remember when I was doing that

story with Forbes. Ellen came to New York and we were driving around in a prototype of the Model Less. It hadn't even been to debut, which is which is still handsome, and he was talking some crazy to talk about how a car is really just a computer and the car is going to be And at the time I was like, I don't even really okay, but now he it is happening what he said, which is that cars are appliances in a way that a computer is an appliance. UM automobiles have been the second largest consumer

of semiconductors for like fifteen or twenty years. I mean cars are rolling computers for a long time. The question is which comes first? You want him abible of the computer. He said, let's make the computer first and put it on wheels. Right, And the guy believes what he says. Now, other people may not believe him, but he is a true believer in what he says. So when he says he wants to colonize Mars. That is a genuine thing.

For that's that's not gonna work because because the reason Mars is a desolate wasteland is they're liquid iron core cooled and solidified, and without a magnetic field around the planet, the solar wind just blows everything away. That's a longer digression we can have. So until you figure out a way to protect the planet from the ongoing radiation from space and gamma wis and the solar winds, it's a waste of time. Yes, My point is that he believes it.

You know, whether or not we believe it, I don't know. I'm just spitballing here. Yes, yeah, completely um. And so when he talks about, you know, like electric cars for everyone at a relatively affordable level, he believes that he is here on this planet to do that. But he's done. If it hasn't happened yet, it's in the process of happening. And like everything from a BS to air eggs to crumple zones, it's going to start in the luxury cars

and work their way down. Speaking of electric luxury cars, what do you I know you like the pull Star? What would you love it? Very fantastic, great looking car, very good looking, very good looking, very well put together. It's a Volvo car with Chinese money. So that's a great combination made in Sweden. Um beautiful. And now let's not forget yeah I think alright, So for forty dollars, would you go with the Taken or do you stick with the pull Star. I do Pull Star just to

be different. That's not a knock against the Portie at all at all. Yes, a great car, that's not a knock at all. I would just choose the poll Star to be contrarian. But you know, let's not forget. The Pool Star is a hybrid, so it does it's not completely apples to apples. How long do you think we're gonna still have gasoline engines for? That's a great question. Years and years and yeah, at least at least I would say thirty years. All right, So let me rephrase

that question. How far off in the future will half the cars on the road be. That's that's a good question. If you listen to automaker executives, they say five years. Porsche has already said half of their uh, half of their v sorry, all of their vehicles are going to offer a plug in option. You can change the X. The reason I won't pull the trigger on the X six is they won't even give you a hybrid option. And that's a giant car that gets three miles a gallon. Although,

to be fair, the M six. The first time I saw an M six on the road was in um Quogue outside of this little brunch place. And I'll never forget. I asked the guy. I said, what is that? He goes, Oh, it's an M six, So how do you like it? And I swear this guy said this exact thing to my wife and ice. It's gotta be like fifteen years ago. He is, it goes very fast from gas station to gas station to your Bentley and um, it's absolutely true. And I love the program will settings and put it on.

I call it um. I can't say it on the air. The you have two different programs settings. If you put it on the most aggressive sport plus on everything, you could literally watch the gas line go down. So the other electric car have to ask have you seen the Ribvian in person? They look really interesting, don't they do. And the other one that's very interesting to me is the Bollinger truck too. I haven't seen so an all

electric truck. Electric trucks are very interesting because if you think about the fact that the best selling vehicle in the United States for the past thirty five years has been and everything is going electric, When are those two worlds going to collide? They already are that that is the world's class. Although we're seeing an endless run of electric supercars coming out at three million dollars. I know

I can't that the batist is beautiful. Leave it to them to make the most beautiful electric car ever made, and they're unashamed saying, we just want to make a beautiful car, right. I love Italian. Yes, we have been speaking with Hannah Elliott. She is the Bloomberg columnist for automotive and supercars. If you enjoy this conversation, be sure and come back for the podcast extras, where we keep

the tape rolling and continue discussing all things automotive. We love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. Check out my weekly column on Bloomberg at Bloomberg dot com slash Opinion. Follow me on Twitter at Ridolts. I'm Barry Ritults. You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. Welcome to the podcast, Hannah. Thank you so much for doing this.

I've been I've been looking forward to this for while because friends and family who aren't crazy hardcore car geeks can only listen to me. The sickness isn't it. It's a little bit of an obsession. It's like, if you don't get it, you don't get it. And if you do what sickness, you just get sucked. Right. My mom has said the first word I ever said was car. And then I've had people say to me, wait, you got a Giant V eight, I go twin turbover you

and they're like, aren't you concerned about the environment. I'm like, I'm very concerned about the environment, but I waited decades to be able to afford power. I will do carbon offsets elsewhere, but I am. And it's not like this is my daily driver. I put two thousand miles a year or maybe more, maybe four thousand. It's the weekend car, and that car means something. You know something This weekend it's going to be sixty five degrees and I will have this car out with my line in the sands

is fifty degrees, my wife's sixty. But top down, top scarf. Are you a scarf person? Um? I have a scarf with me, But what I will do is dress appropriately, like I'm not snoopy chasing the red bar. But um, for my birthday, I have these beautiful my wife got me these beautiful British racing gloves and I you know the problem with those is that all the cars have heeded steering wheels, so you don't you don't really need

them as much as you used to. But the heated seats the so the one thing this car doesn't have. The air scarf is with the class Mercedes, and it's just because that's where it makes a huge difference. I know, I've been in that car and I'm like, wow, I know it's really it's really kind of genius. Yeah, I kind of the thing that pops up over the top of the windscreen. I don't know if that really does much. And I'll tell you what makes a huge difference in

in the six and the two. So there's this interior screen that you put across the back scenes and it pops up because that little back window that comes up is like five inches tall, and that's good for ten degrees. You could take the car out in the fifties as opposed in the sixties, and there's no buffeting, there's no noise. It really astonishing little bit of and it's not aftermarket.

It comes. It comes with the car. So, speaking of um crazy cars and and how people respond to the sickness, you wrote a really interesting review of what I thought was one of the better movies last year, Ford versus ferrari Um. It was. You know, sometimes you go to a movie and you're disappointed that movie was exactly what I expected. Fun all about on them, this that, good tension,

this that. But you pointed out that the movie was filled with these meek little secretary women scarring about while all of them males, all of the white dudes, were doing their thing. And as I thought, you were dead right when I read it, and I remember saying to myself, she's gonna get some push about this. What was the what was the reaction to that? Um? It was surprising, I will I would say I was actually I wasn't deliberately trying to be controversial or to poke the bear

at all. I just thought, oh, this is this is what I observed, and so I will say and I well, I'll say two things. Number one, I actually wrote two pieces on Ford versus Ferrari. One was an interview that I did with the car wrangler who directed all of the style. I remembered all of the cars and the amazing replicas he created. No c g I that was all. It was all real. They used to cannon to shoot like Ferrari shells out on Willow Springs race course and

it was amazing. So I I love that and I had a great conversation with him, and that piece was awesome. And then the second piece I wrote, which was me UM, what I thought was just relaying what I observed through the movie UM, which was visible to anybody who watched right the whole The whole point of that second piece

was this is interesting. I watched the movie and you notice that the decision makers in the room are older men, UM, the women are peripheral, and there there are no real people of color involved at all, which was an accurate representation of the time. And and my point was, let's watch this movie and note how it used to be, and note that if we want to move together forward in the car industry in the future. We are all better if we have a variety of voices in the

room making decisions. The and and by the way, Carol show Shelby was a jerk, which is very well documented in lawsuits in I actually called the Los Angeles reporter who worked for the l A Times, who um uh covered him for years. I mean I this was very well documented over thirty years. UM. So that was kind of my points, like, this is a representation of what

the auto industry used to be. Let's move forward and and we will all be better and stronger, um to have different voices in the room, a mix of everybody. And Carol Shelby was kind of a jerk, which everyone knows to be true. UM. And the response was very strong, UM, very toxic. I got a lot of people who came up to me in person and said thank you for saying what I've thought for a really long time. I

really thank you. A lot of people did say thank you, but there was also, I would say fifty fifty a very very very strong backlash of people who um seemed to think that I was attacking men, or attacking Hollywood, or attacking um white people, UM, which was not my intent at all. It's sort of like gamer Gate, where the response to the people criticizing the video game industry has nothing to do with the basic premise of their response.

It's just about how dare you? Yeah? And it it made me sad um that people felt attacked and felt that they should respond in a toxic way, which only kind of proved what I was saying, that we are all better if we leave behind this the culture. That culture. It's amazing. Um, the people who are most likely to toss about the word snowflake are the biggest snowflakes there are.

And I'll just leave it at that. I want to get to um my favorite questions that I ask all of our guests in our final few minutes, because I've kept you here for three hours, it's been off. Um I am. I'm having a lot of fun with this. So I normally I used to ask people what their first car was, but you shared that, so I've moved towards I can't even ask you this because you don't have a TV. So let's talk about polip podcast I love. My My favorite podcast is Fresh Air Terry Gross. She's

a great interviewer. She is Terry Gross and Howard Stern are my favorite. Stern hasn't also become he has. He's grown into seriously the best celebrity it's And I come from someone who loved watching David Letterman and I took his style of interviewing is really brilliant, and I feel like Stern has in a way inherited that. It's been really interesting. There's a hangover of danger that he may go off the rails, so that which is the background. Yeah,

and I think that creates attention that wasn't there. He's gotten much better, yes, but that's still there and it makes it really interesting. He's empathetic and he's so intelligent, and um he never was empathetic, I know there. Um So, tell us about your early mentors who helped guide your career. Well, the first one I have to say is Matthew de Paula, who was the editor who hired me as a as

a young wayward reporter way back when at Forbes. He really saw potential um and someone who didn't have a lot on her resume yet. Um So he really was the one who has guided me through. And also I would say second is Joann Mueller, who at the time was was the Detroit bureau chief for Forbes, covering the auto industry. Um. She now works for Axios and she's their transportation writer. And she really was so kind and patient and took me under her wing. So those two

were phenomenal. Um So I'm not going to ask you that because I know we're a little tight on time. Um So let me just go to number five. All right, tell us about some of your favorite books. What are you reading these you're traveling back and forth between New York and l A. I love reading nonfiction. I love reading memoirs. Give us a few times. Richard's Life. It's really good and a giant. Yeah, and it's not a completely new book, but it's really good. I love music. Um.

I love freethinkers and creative people. And he's great and it really has his voice. Um. My boyfriend's British, so I like the British type of guy. Um So I love that. Um. I did read Catch and Kill Ronan Farrell's Pharaoh's book about the Harvey Weinste. I've held that at arm's length. I know it's gonna just really good. Is it tough to read? No? No, it's it's Uh, it's what I mean is like his behavior is egregious, and the Times coverage some of it is really like,

oh my god, this is discussed. It's hard to it's hard. But the thing is, the worst stuff has already been out in the news, so when you read the book. I actually put off reading the book cause I thought, well, I've already I'll read this in the press. I don't need to read the book. But the book adds some great context and background and adds a lot about his process, and I'm fascinated with that. I mean, he's a he's really a brilliant, almost prodigy type of of writer. More

the future. Yeah, so that was a great book. I also just finished reading Um Why Social Media Is Ruining Your Life by Katherine Omrod, who's a British journalist. She's a friend of mine. It's a great book about how social media affects um everything about your your perception, your awareness of the world, your interaction with reality. Social media is not reality, no, but a lot it still affects people as if it were reality. That's kind of the

crazy thing. It's it's although you know, people used to make the same arguments about new television news that it creates this really distorted viewpoint. Until people like Pinker and Roslyn came along, most people didn't realize how crime has been plumbering over forty years. You watch local news and it's all stabbings and shootings and what have you. Um, I have a So that's three books you gave me. I'm gonna give you one book which you might like.

Um have you read Super Pumped? The book about uber So? It reminds me a little bit about Bad Blood about Saras where you have this comm although there's not there's no fraud here, there's a lot of criminality and but it's really fascinating how this idea turned into a world changing thing despite that toxic bro mentality. Just it's it's really kind of intriguing and fascinating. Um, So tell us about a time you failed and what you learned from

the experience. That's a good question. I will take it back to high school when I was on my high school basketball team and you would think, yeah, um, you would think I'd be a good basketball player because of my high but I really um was coordination and I

did not. I I felt like I felt the thing that I realized about the basketball team, which I was on but sat on the bench, which I kind of hated the whole thing, but I let um my own inferiority and feelings of insecurity work in a downward spile role against me, and I really I still can remember the feelings of how that felt, knowing that like you weren't you weren't, didn't you didn't feel like you deserve to be there, and then how that kind of worked

against you and and with your own feelings of self worth, and that felt like that whole thing felt like a failure. And what I learned from that is, don't talk yourself into feeling like a failure. A lot of it was in my own head, um, and I never want to go back to feeling like that where I just felt so insecure. So so, when you're not taking other people's quarter million dollars supercars away for the weekend, what do

you do for fun? That's a good question. Um, this is a really weird answer, but uh, magnus, my boyfriend and I like playing music together and we've started a fake band called Neon Jesus. We're recording on our own phones. No. He he plays guitar and I have a tambourine and singing, and I and I write lyrics and we have all these singles that we've done. This is a nerdous thing. Ever, you cannot hear us anywhere, but the band is called Neon Jesus. And we already have like a whole list

of things that we record. We've recorded for ourselves. That's pretty hilarious. So what are you most optimistic about the auto industry today? And what are you most pessimistic about. I'm optimistic about people. I mean, I'm a big believer in as long as there is life, there is hope, and the human capacity for growth and creativity is unceasing. And as long as we have young, bright, motivated, creative people who are allowed to use their talents, that is

very um uh exciting for me. And I think that you know, cars aren't going anywhere. People say that they're going to slowly die out, but I don't think so, it's just changing. And we and our final question, what sort of advice would you give to a recent college grad if they were interested in a career of either automotive or journalism or automotive journalism. It's a great question. I'm asked that a lot um I would say For people who love cars, UH, go get a journalism degree.

A lot of people think because they know a lot about cars, they can be an auto writer, and it doesn't work that way. It works the other way. It's better to become a writer first and then hone your craft learning about it at subject so um. For people who want to be journalist period, I would say, don't believe it when people tell you should go to journalism school and get the masters. Start writing. Just start writing, because at the end of the day, all anybody wants

to see as your byline, where have you written? Show me something you've written. I did not get a master's in journalism. I got an undergrad and then started working, and that to me worked very well. Great advice. We have been speaking with Hannah Elliott. She is the automotive calumnist UH for Bloomberg. If you enjoy this conversation, look up an Inch or down an Inch on Apple iTunes and you can see any of the three previous such conversations.

We love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. I would be remiss if I did not thank the crack staff that helps put this together each week. Paris Wold is our producer. My audio engineer is Mark Siniscalchie. I'm Barry Ritolts. You've been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.