"Time To Sell!" Doug Demuro's Shocking Prediction For Used Car Prices, Broke Buyers & 2026 Economy

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20:33He should buy an Audi R8 from 2009. That might be slightly different than a Camry price range. but like let's say around like 35, 40 ,000 bucks. I mean, the benefit of the Camry is you can go to any dealer, pick it up. You can go to any place to service it. You can get financed on it, which I think is a lot of the factor here, right? Like it's hard to get financing for some of these supercars. And those cars are cheap to own. Like the oil changes are cheap. These supercars ultimately can be expensive to own. And if things go bad, they can be punishing. If the motor fails in that car, that would be a 300 plus thousand dollar repair.

21:10it's not going to happen with a Camry. The motor won't fail. You get a warranty. You know, it takes a level of sophistication, I think, to go out and actually trade in the supercar world to know what you're doing to actually not lose money. You have to kind of know which cars to buy, how to look for them, what to look for in terms of mileage, in terms of, you know, how they've been maintained, that kind of thing. And I think that's kind of what stops that person from doing that. And like art, I know there are people out there who are making a ton of money on art. I don't know anything about art, so I stay out of it.

21:40But I know cars. And so I know that I can at least stay flat or make a little money on cars.

21:45Graham Stephan:Now, when it comes to buying some of the hyper cars, though, that we see in like the one to five million dollar range, a lot of people are doing these leases now. Yeah. How is this working? You guys talked to James about that. I'm curious. He leased that Koenigsegg. His payments were like 30 Gs a month. Crazy. But I'm understanding a lot of that goes towards principle. Yeah. With a big balloon payment at the end. Like that's still a crazy monthly, right? We all have that dream trip. we've been wishing we could go on. But too often, life, or usually price, gets in the way. That's why Priceline is here to help you turn your dream trip into reality.

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22:37Graham Stephan:But it's deductible. Yeah, in theory. For tax purposes, it seems like it would make a lot of sense. Didn't Stradman get in trouble for trying to write it off? No, not on that. In a lot of cases, it's deductible, and that is what people are doing. I think there are some real benefits to it. I think there's a huge sales tax benefit, too, because you don't pay sales tax up front. You pay kind of each month on the lease payment in most states. And so there are some benefits to doing it that way. You're just seeing this Miami crowd right now going by, like, Koenigseggs for, like,$3 million,$4 million.

23:09Graham Stephan:drive them around. It's, I just, there was a time to do that when rates were low. I just can't justify it mentally. Like I sit here and watch all these other people on YouTube doing this stuff. And I'm like, damn, I'm jealous. Like I could have some of the cars I've always wanted if I was just willing to go into crazy debt or do crazy stuff like that. But I'm just not. Speaking of that, I want to get your reaction to this. Oh boy. We got a funny one. What's going on folks? It's your boy Steve-O got me rolling. And Ashley got me rolling. Today we got our dog Gino approved. on this 22 c8 corvette gino how was your experience man yeah i already know where it comes from you know what i'm saying right here what's that man you know something about right here nowhere else y 'all know what's going on how much did you put down she like 12 hundred on a c8 y 'all let's jump gino id mail we don't ask for too much do we have Okay, so is there anything?

24:03Graham Stephan:Smooth, easy process in and out. Send a market for vehicle or you need your ID, mail, shoot it for being right now. Is this real? Yeah, real. Dude, Gino's killing it. And they have, clearly he's driving a Corvette. Gino's killing it. And they have regular cars too.

24:21Graham Stephan:Anyway, there he goes. He's driving off in his Corvette, 1200 down. Gino's rocking it. Does that worry you at all? Yeah, but not more than it did, not more than it always has. You know, there's always going to be fringe people financing fringe people, you know, that there will always kind of be a world and a market for crazy companies who are willing to finance crazy people at crazy numbers and crazy people who are willing to take those deals. But do you worry that longer financing terms are somewhat keeping the market from falling too much? Yeah, probably. There's probably an effect on that for sure.

24:59I wish that people would couple their longer financing term with owning the car for longer. You know, a seven-year loan is like not the craziest thing. If you're a kind of dude who wants to keep a car 14 years, but my parents do that. They're still driving around 20-year-old cars. But what ends up happening instead is that people finance a car for six, seven years and are underwater for the first 80 % of the loan and get tired of the car a year in and roll the negative equity into the next car to the point where, I mean, And when I worked in car sales, you'd see people come in with negative equity that was like unfathomable.

25:32You know, like they're driving around in a$10 ,000 car, but some of they have 30 in negative equity. And it's like, how are you ever going to make that work? I have a genius idea. Car note backed securities. Oh, yeah. That sounds like a winner. Yeah. And then we start throwing subprime, you know, car notes into these securities. There's got to be a fund who's doing it. There probably is. Yeah. And honestly, the good stuff is good. But, you know, like a lot of most people are paying off their car loans. But then there's a lot of people who aren't.

26:00Graham Stephan:How is someone able to roll that much negative equity into a car, though? Like a$10 ,000 car with a$30 ,000 payment attached to it? I mean, that may be a ridiculous example, but there are absolutely situations like that. Part of it is the car loses a lot more value right away. Part of it is, you know, they may be the car. Yeah, like the car had more equity initially and then they crashed it a couple of times. It's got a bad car fax. That stuff happens, though. It's out there. So you've got to just ride that out. You have to just keep driving the car. So what are your thoughts on a 96-month car loan?

26:29I mean, it depends on the loan and the rate. You give me 96 at zero, I'll take that. Sure. You're 96 at two, I'll take that. But that's not what's happening. Right. Right. Like, people are taking it at market rate, and they're using it to buy a full-size pickup truck. And that's not a great situation. I mean, there's no question. It's not a great situation. I think this goes into my total cost of ownership thing. Like, I only see cars as total cost of ownership. A trap that people get into is another trap that people get into is they only look at their monthly payment. Okay, it's$600 a month. I can afford that.

26:58Well, it's$600 a month until your baby child is 23 years old. But you're not thinking about that, right? You're not thinking about the incredible length of time that some of these things can have. And the drawbacks that come with putting$1 ,200 down on a car that is heavily depreciating like a CA, which is kind of in free call right now.

27:17Graham Stephan:So how do you determine how much car you could afford? Me? Yeah. What is your advice for people when they're thinking about this? Is it a percentage of income? Is it a... Yeah, you know, I don't get a lot of... Most of the people who come to me, my community, my friends, aren't really in a... They're not really thinking about affordable... Most of them are already financially savvy. Yeah. I don't get a lot of people who are saying, how much car can I afford? I have those conversations with people about houses sometimes. But how much car can I afford is not usually most... I don't know a lot of car enthusiasts, to be honest with you.

27:50And most of the dad down the street, he's not trying to stretch his budget. He just wants a three-row SUV that he can live with.

27:57Graham Stephan:What's your recommendation? If a viewer comes to you and says, hey, Doug, how much car could I afford? It depends a lot on a lot of things. How much are you willing to sacrifice? How much are you into cars? Honestly, I have way more car than I should for my net worth, but I'm really into cars. And I get a lot of benefit from it. I think those are real questions that should be answered. Are you willing to sacrifice other stuff for car? A lot of people would say, absolutely not. Okay, well, then not that much. Get a Honda Accord, like a Prius. Like, be rational. But if you can, like, if you can fit it into your income, I don't know.

28:27Like, it depends on so many factors that it's hard to say. But I would be comfortable telling certain people to stretch if I really felt that they were going to be disciplined and if I really felt they were going to get a lot from that car. And I think that goes against a lot of traditional financial advice. But I understand what it's like to be passionate about something and to, like, an enthusiast of something. And I think there is some like real value to not being 70 and saying, I wish I had bought, you know, life worked out great. But when I was young, it would have been cool to have a Corvette.

28:55Yeah. Like Gina.

28:57Graham Stephan:Now, in the last podcast we did, we were talking about how EV subsidies are really pushing a lot of those people to buy EVs. They got rid of that. Yeah. What's been the impact now that they got rid of the$8 ,000 tax credit? Yikes. I mean, EV sales absolutely plummeted at the end of last quarter. I think there's been a couple of interesting impacts. EV sales done, like done. Like, it's hard to justify buying the cars at the price points they're at without some huge subsidy. That's not as true of the high-end EVs, which were not really covered by the subsidy in the first place. And so, like, Rivian and stuff are still, seem to be doing about as well as they were.

29:28But your Teslas and your Mach-E's and your, you know, these cars, it then comes down to the responsibility of the manufacturer to discount the car to a market-correct price. And often that means they can't justify making it anymore. And so, very quickly, several EVs were canceled immediately, brought off the market. And so, that's like the market factor. Something else we talk about a lot on our podcast is I'm always very disappointed. I don't want to get political, but I'm disappointed at the removal of the EV subsidies. I like gas cars. I own six, seven gas cars. I don't have an EV. However, the rest of the world is clearly ramping up on EVs.

30:03And I worry that by removing these subsidies, even though right now it means we can all buy the V8s we wanted, I definitely worry that in the global economy, America is falling behind. And I want America to win, win, win. And to me, like letting China, who is heavily subsidizing their EVs, continue to make technological leaps while America kind of rests on its laurels with V8s and things. Right now, it seems cool. In 20 years, it's not going to seem cool.

30:27Graham Stephan:My understanding that with China, they're putting a lot of emphasis in battery technology that we're not quite doing here. And a lot of that emphasis is because the Chinese government is subsidizing car manufacturers to unbelievable degrees. And so the result of that is that there's huge incentives for these companies to develop cars, to develop technology, and to sell these cars. And China is going global. China's selling in Canada now. China's selling in Mexico now. They're already all over Europe. You can't walk around Mexico and not see 20, 30 Chinese cars everywhere you're walking around.

30:56There are Chinese cars everywhere now. and that could have been America if we had played our cards right. And that makes me anxious for sure. How good are Chinese EVs actually? They're pretty good. We've had a few in the office. I've reviewed maybe four and they don't suck. Like you think of Chinese stuff as kind of crappy, right? Like you think of it as lesser. Growing up, it's like, oh, this is made in China. It's going to break next week. That's not the case. The EVs were here. We had the Su7, which is like one of the big Tesla rivals in China. And we looked at what the price comparison is and the performance comparison and the features.

31:30And it's like, there's no reason you would buy a Tesla in China. So it's that much better than a Tesla. And part of the reason is because there are huge government subsidies on the price point. And so they're able to sell these cars. You can't compete with that. You literally cannot compete. But like, yeah, it's as good or better than a Tesla and a lot less money. Why would you not buy Tesla?

31:47Graham Stephan:Isn't that, though, because they also stole a lot of the IP from Tesla and they copied it and they They see a whole bunch of R &D and then they just come. Maybe, although electric cars at their core are not as complicated. And China has gone above and beyond what any other automakers have done. Like there are Toyota 4Runner style EVs in China. There are crazy EV supercars that can jump, you know? Yeah. Like they are on a completely different, whether that was true or not, like they are now pushing in a new frontier that I definitely wish that I was seeing Chrysler and General Motors getting into, because I worry that we're going to see another big auto industry decline in 30 years when eventually, finally, the floodgates open for China or America just tries to continue to compete on a global scale and we can't do it anymore.

32:34So what would it take to import a China EV car here? If the automaker did it, there's like 100 % tariff on Chinese cars, so they can't justify it right now. So there's essentially no Chinese cars for sale in the United States. The only thing that would realistically happen for that to change is the government would have to change. I mean, no one's got 100 % margin, you know? And even then, you're also coming up against some pretty significant political headwinds. There's a lot of Americans who don't want to buy a Chinese product. We talked about this on our pod a couple weeks ago. Like, ultimately, you can't...

33:04It's different than when Korea showed up with the Hyundais in the 80s. Like, Americans, I think, were probably neutral about Korea. Americans aren't neutral about China. So not only do you have this product that is 100 % tariffed, but then you also have to convince people that China is not the enemy. Yeah. And people in the States are pretty hard-coded to believe that China is the enemy. So that's a tough thing to fight against. But I'll tell you, you go to Mexico where cost is a much bigger factor in vehicle purchases, they're buying Chinese cars. You know? Like, they look at these things and they're looking at the numbers and the horsepower and the electric range and they're like, you know, I'm just going to buy it.

33:39It's cheaper. It's affordable. I'm going to do it. So I'm curious,

33:42Graham Stephan:speaking of range, why can't we get EVs past 500 miles? Yeah. I mean, there's probably battery limitations. This goes too technical for me. There's probably bad. But I will also say, one of the things I've discovered is, talking to the automakers at all the press launches, is that there's not actually demand for it. Like, you think there would be like... I would think there would be. I drive, every summer I drive these coast and back, and I'll do 1 ,200 miles in a day. I would love a 1 ,200-mile EV. But most people don't do that. And what they're finding is that, in order to get those extra, even above 350, in order to get those extra miles, there's a significant cost component.

34:19There's a significant weight component that you then have to engineer against, right? You have to make the car faster. And as a result of that, and then you're basically making a luxury car. You have to because it costs more batteries. It just, people don't really need it. There are some people who do, but I think the automakers would kind of consider them fringe people. and with EVs, you kind of have to go after the middle of the bell curve because the bell curve is already pretty small.

34:45Graham Stephan:Yeah. You know, like I think it'd be cool as hell if someone came out with, yeah, like a thousand mile EV, I would buy it, but how many other people would and how many people would spend what that would cost? Sure. And what do you think the impact is going to be now that silver prices are hitting like$115 an ounce on batteries? What an unusual business to be in, having to figure out pricing these vehicles where you're not only have to figure out suppliers and tariffs, but also metals. Yeah. Yeah, I'm curious what effect that'll have, for sure. You know, the automakers can never really be as dynamic with pricing as they wish they could be to account for things like that.

35:20But you have to assume that'll be another thing that increases prices.

35:23Graham Stephan:Yeah, imagine dynamic pricing that changes by the day, depending on what the metals are worth within the car. The automakers would kill for it, right? But people would be up, I mean, it'd be insane. Or like peak pricing at like, you know, 4th of July pricing is like a little more than like, you know, Black Friday sale demand goes up. It just like changes a little bit. Why can't they adjust prices that quickly? I presume that, well, for one thing, it's difficult for advertising. I mean, messaging and advertising, you got to tell the people this is what it costs, you know. People would also just generally be up in arms not knowing what the thing is worth.

35:58Graham Stephan:Like the stock market, like trying to figure out the best price to buy. Right. I think there's also regulatory components to it, too. I mean, the automaker has to print the window sticker by law and stick on the thing the actual price of the car. I mean, I guess they could update that daily. But, you know, then you get into kind of a menu prices thing. Like, you really have to then be adjusting all sorts of crap. But mostly, I think people just wouldn't put up with it. I think they would just go by the rival who they know what the price is. What do most people do you think get wrong about the car market?

36:25I think, at least from a consumer perspective, I really think that depreciation is one of the primary things people hear wrong about the car market. I think that people just think depreciation is going to be a thing that happens to them, and they don't take steps to minimize it like they should. What cars do you think are going to skyrocket in price? It's hard to say because so many cars have already, but I really think that, unfortunately, the same supercars that have already been increasing I think will only continue to increase, which I think primarily is analog cars. There's this amazing intersection.

36:58We were just talking. There's this amazing intersection of performance and modernity that happened between about 1995 and about 2008. And to me, that's like the sweet spot for cars. And I think that those cars are going to continue to go up. It was like before hybrids, before screens, before automatic transmissions, cars were still analog. And yet they don't, like 80s cars that have all that stuff are kind of slow and they're kind of finicky. There was a period where cars were both reliable and fast, but still kind of you could control it like the Ford GT, cars in that realm. I think those cars will continue to find a lot of interest.

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38:42Some of the Porsches I'm really astonished by. When I was a kid, 80s air-cooled Porsches were like$15 ,000 cars. And some of those cars, just a run-of-the-mill 911 that they made tens of thousands of. It's like$100 ,000 for some of these things now. And that doesn't compute with me mentally. Like, I don't understand. Like, I get why the turbos are, and I get why the GT3s are. Those are special. but like the an 85 911 like when i was a kid they were just cars and i hate to say it but like they're not that not just cars even now like there's a lot of them and they're not that fast and but i've been i've been really surprised at the interest in porsche porsche is an automaker that has gone hard after um volume in the last 20 years and you would think it would negatively impact them, but the opposite has happened.

39:36I'm not really sure how. I heard, though, that they said sales are declining. Yeah. Porsche's had some trouble because they went real hard on EVs. And now they're trying to figure out what the next step is there. But if you look at it, so over the last 18 months, it's been troublesome. But if you look at a 20-year chart, it's pretty crazy from Porsche's sales were here in 05 to here in 25. And yet there's only been more interest in people paying more money for them, right? Like it doesn't make sense. You see now Porsches everywhere. People at Macans are cheap, right? You can, anybody can get, Macans are like around.

40:07And, but that hasn't stopped people from paying$700 ,000 for certain versions of 911s, even though they wear the same badge. Imagine if Ferrari had a$48 ,000 SUV. Like it would, people would be like, that would destroy the brand. But for somehow Porsche has escaped that in this very weird way. You mentioned the speed that the Porsche drives and like the performance of that car and how you're surprised it's going for the price it is with that performance. performance i wonder won't we get to a point where just every car is going sub two zero to 60 like at a certain point you don't want a car that can go zero to 60 in half a second right no totally and like and where do you draw the line and then after you have performance dialed in every car is a thousand horsepower they have crazy torque what is the what's fun what makes the car special is it just the look that's the that's that's i think the big question that everybody's mad and that to me that's one of the reasons why i love my old lamborghini my countash which is slow um but it's a carbureted v12 and it sounds like nothing in the world and it looks like nothing in the world it has a it gives you an experience that you cannot get from a modern car so yeah your tesla they're not going to purposely make a modern car slow and which is why i think that's one of the things that will continue to drive interest and excitement in these older cars the in the to the porsche example specifically though like the car doesn't have to be fast but like those are slower than minivans.

41:29You know what I mean? Like I'm, I'm like, I'm not, I'm looking for at least a little performance. It sounds like you really have a gripe with this car. Have you, have you driven one? Yeah. And, and how was that? It's fine. It's just, it's just not a hundred grand. It's not a hundred grand. I will say though, in my mind, I have recently started to have to kind of come to terms with the fact that like, what is a hundred thousand dollars, what is$300 ,000 to me in my head is not really what it is anymore. Right? Like to me, a Ford GT for a long time is a 250 car. Well, that's not true. It's a 450 car.

41:58And so like that Porsche, maybe that's what$100 ,000 is now. And maybe I'm the one who's just slow to adjust. If you look at where prices are, the$100 ,000 that could have bought you a very special car 15 years ago, it can't buy you a special, that special of a car anymore. And so that could inflate the prices of older cars that still have this variability in terms of character and, you know, how they run. I think that would be the one thing that

42:19Graham Stephan:modern cars, like you say, they can't, they're not going to engineer that into modern cars anymore. I think they will, because I think over the next 10 to 20 years, we're going to see this retro comeback where they're going to have old styles like the old Thunderbird and like that cool 50s to 60s. That is purely visual. Yes, because I think every car is going to be at some point in the future the same, the same zero to 60, the same niceness, the same luxury. There's not going to be that much more new. And so if they just repeat what worked in the past and they put like, I saw that Tesla 300 SL and everyone was saying, I would drive that.

42:53Graham Stephan:That is so cool. I don't care. It looks awesome. I think they could just redo that. They just they take old cars and they make them new. That will happen. That's it. There's no doubt there will be some component of that. Back in the day, creating a Thunderbird. Yes. Involved spinning up a powertrain and a chassis. Well, that stuff doesn't exist anymore. There are no chassis. Every car is the same basic platform. Powertrains are, you know, they're like Legos. And so really it does come down a lot to style. But to your point, it isn't mechanical. Like if what you're looking for is the mechanical feel, and I think that's what I love so much about the Countach, they probably won't replicate that.

43:29They are doing some of it. Those Hyundais now have this fake shifting in electric cars. So it feels like you're shifting. You're not, you don't have a manual and a pedal, but you have paddles and the car like hesitates a little. Does it actually? Does it give you like a little boost to feel like that? that in, even though it's totally fake. And honestly, it feels amazing. It feels like you're driving a good hot hatch, like with a gas engine. And so maybe they'll do some of that stuff. I actually think what you're going to start seeing from EVs is because all the cars are going to drive basically the same, they're going to start getting weird with what they can offer.

44:00Like, you're going to see fish tanks in cars. You're going to see, like, automakers are going to have to do different things to delineate cars that were once separated by a powertrain or a feel or all the cars are going to feel the same. So how do you distinguish them? Weird stuff, like weird stuff. So it's all visual is what you're saying. Visual or like weird things you can do while you're driving. Is there going to be like the rear seats in the center and a fold down thing have like an air hockey? I'm dead serious. I truly think car companies have got to be thinking about stuff like that because I think that's going to be the future of, well, that car has a video game display or whatever.

44:39Yeah, yeah, right. Like, I really, truly think that kind of stuff's going to come.

44:42Graham Stephan:But do you think people are even going to be driving in the future? And so then— I took this Waymo, oh my gosh, and I took it from Santa Monica to West Hollywood for a podcast. Oh my gosh, it was great. And so then start thinking about what they could do to distinguish the cars. You could put it in a bowling alley. You could put it on a basketball court. Like, not really a court. But, like, you could— Football field. You get what I'm saying. Like, you could put it in a golf sim. Absolutely, right? And, you know, you can only stand up and do it while you're on the freeway or at stop. I don't know what I don't know how it would work.

45:13Right. You'd have to or you're strapped in some way. But like you if you're not even driving, the sky's the limit on the crazy stuff that you could put in cars. I see no reason why that doesn't happen in 25, 35, 45 years. So then what would be the point of buying a car at that point? Yeah. Maybe cars will just be stuff that you hail and it comes to your house or whatever. My general feeling is that people enjoy owning stuff, especially stuff that they need to rely on. But there will definitely be people, I think, in that world that probably won't much more than today. There are already people who get away with not owning cars in some of these places that, I mean, people do it in New York and Tokyo where public transportation is great.

45:48Take it one step more. What if private transportation was great, too? I think the concept of ownership will never not be desirable because we were actually just talking to someone about they wanted to buy a house or they didn't want to buy a house because it'd be cheaper to rent. Their wife wanted to buy a house and they were having this like argument back and forth. where there's Graham trying to rent a car from the local car rental company. It was like smooth talking to the guy to get us a deal. Thank you, Graham. But the guy was basically lamenting. Talking real estate. And he's like, yeah, but my wife loves the concept of like owning a home.

46:16And I tell her, no, it's not worth it. It's more worth the rent. It doesn't matter. People will be driven by their emotions. They're always going to want to own a home, even if it's objectively cheaper to rent. Same thing goes for cars. I think so too, probably. I think, you know, right now, car ownership is some probably crazy percentage in the United States. I could see it declining significant, but I think there will always be a big market for that. Do people stop you and ask for financial advice? Does that happen a lot? A lot. A lot of people are like, they won't ask for advice, but they'll just like, here's everything.

46:44Graham Stephan:They tell me their life story. I know their income, their net worth, their trajectory, what they're invested in, where they're investing. I love that. And the most common is, what do you think of the market right now? It's always that question. Or how's the housing market going? Predict the future for us. What do you think? What do you think's going on right now? What do you tell them and say, what do you think of the market right now? Are you just like, I don't know? I give them a broad answer. Well, you know, it could go up, but it could go down. Nothing surprises me. That's a broad answer. Nothing surprises me.

47:10Graham Stephan:I don't try to predict anything. It's just because I could be wrong and anything can happen in a moment. Right, right, right. Yeah. Now, I'm curious because Jack was looking at BMW i8s the other day. Cheap. What car could Jack buy and drive for free? Probably not those because I think those are still going down. Okay. But you could probably buy those and drive cheap. I mean, those are now like what? Low 40s. Yeah. like you look at the curve and there's not much curve left like that car's never going to be worth 12 so like there's some you know um but buy and drive for free i mean yeah like i was saying porsches for sure like i think like 2000s era porsches those kind of things are are definitely not going down i think a lot of kind of cars like that just sort of that analog that those if you can stomach doing that driving and kind of old school doesn't have car play has some miles on kind of car, you can get away with owning some of that stuff pretty cheap.

48:03I would be down to upgrade my fun car right now, which is the Mazda Miata. I've had it for years. It's just had nonstop issues. Surprisingly. Yeah. Usually they're pretty reliable cars, but mine has just been such a pain in the butt. And so I'd be open to upgrading. Graham was trying to convince me of an R8, of an old Gallardo. Yeah. And another one was the i8, because that one's pretty inexpensive. I look incredibly cool. They actually drive better than people say. um now at the home depot receive 12 months special financing and free basic installation on carpet projects with life proof life proof with pet proof technology home decorators collection and traffic master carpets bring a new look to your floors or give them a durable surface that stands up to life's tough messes get 12 months special financing on installed carpet projects right now at the home depot offer valid march 12th through march 29th 2026 exclusions and Additional charges may apply.

48:55For licenses, see homedepot.com slash license numbers. But it's definitely more of a look car. I'd be concerned about reliability. Yeah, I would be a little bit concerned about that too, although we get them submitted to us on Cars and Bids with like real miles. And that's like my proxy. If they come in with real miles, they probably are not that unreliable. But that doesn't mean they won't be in the next five years, you know? Like it's still technology that is kind of sketch. Gallardos are kind of, early Gallardos are thought to be unreliable. I don't share that thought. I know people who have had them and have had pretty good experiences.

49:27Interesting. I heard it was like the second gen. That's what people say. 2006 on is what I heard. That's what people say. Yeah. But the old 405 cars, in my opinion, were like best of breed. It was like the, that was like the car. Like when I was a kid, that came out when I was 16. Like that was those wheels, like the Casio Pia wheels that were on the original, like a yellow Gallardo. Like that was the car, you know? Like Lambo had an entry level car, was a huge deal. Like, but I have most people I know who have had Galliardos have not really had significant issues. And some people have driven a lot.

49:56And R8s, everyone I know with an R8 doesn't have problems and they enjoy it. However, that car is more sanitized for sure. Like when you're in an R8, then you're starting to get a little bit more towards rational cars. And the question is how rational do you want to go? But that's what makes it so great because you could daily it. You could. And just drive it. But you will never get the, like, you'll never get the same feel as, you know, if you had a Lambo, walking out to your Lambo, you know, Or even maybe an i8 because it's so cool looking. The R8 is totally, but there's this sort of spectrum of crazy but unusable and totally normal like a Prius.

50:27The R8 starts to get, you don't want to go too far on that spectrum if you want something that you actually enjoy. So on the flip side, what car should someone absolutely stay away from? It depends on what you're trying to stay away from. Like, is reliability your fear? Like, for me, it's like I just, I do not want anything that distracts me from my day to day. if I'm working on the business, if I have, you know, I have my taxes to keep in order, I have my house to keep in order, I have my business, I have my relationships. I don't want a car that's just going to be calling me out all the time or I have to go do this, go run that errand.

50:57Well, yeah. I mean, then you probably don't want a Lambo or an I8. That's a big thing for me. I have my old Lambo. I have this edict that I don't drive it when I have somewhere to be. Yeah. Which is when you have a car, that's not really just driving it. It's a full immersive experience. It's a whole thing and it might break down. um but yeah i mean that's what i think honestly that's one of the reasons that people love porsche so much is because they really do provide the experience and the enjoyment but they're really usable and i i have spent a lot of time with a lot of other cars trying to replicate that overall feeling of usability and enjoyment and there's not a lot of cars that really do that um but in terms of like staying you don't want to then go in your case you don't want to go too old you know 90s starts to get those cars are getting old stuff's breaking in those cars you don't really want to get older than that you don't want to you don't want to get unproven i mean the i8 plug-in stuff is yeah do you really want to be responsible for an out-of-warranty car that cost 130 grand when it was new and used kind of futuristic technology then i don't know um you know you want to avoid that kind of stuff for sure you want to get like well-maintained relatively lower mile examples of stuff that's just you know usable kind of cars basically i wouldn't go after you know we can go after a Viper.

52:11That car is like a lot. It's a lot to handle. It's a lot to deal with. They're actually pretty reliable but it's a lot. It's not a car you're trying to be focused in with your daily task. What car wins in the sub$30 ,000 category? Graham would say the S2000. S2000?

52:26Graham Stephan:Oh I love the S2000. I really love it too. A high mileage Lotus Elise. Yeah. Which are in that range. Although my you know I would still rather have an S2000. Really? The Elise is cool as hell but I had one and it's so fragile. You always feel like you're going to damage it. No, I never felt that way. People tell you not to grab the windshield when you're climbing in. Oh, because you might break it. I mean, think about that. But just don't do that. But like, think about that. That's the saying don't stand on the car. Nobody's ever said that about my Toyota Sequoia. Like, oh, don't grab onto part of it.

52:56You might break the car. No, don't touch that.

52:58Graham Stephan:You're going to crack the windshield. S2000 is a great one because they are dead reliable and they are dead flat in value. And they are so much fun to drive. um miatas are good honestlynd miatas are are really desirable cars what year is yours mine's 2000 so dmb and these are amazing cars and they're you can get the nicest one in the world for under 30 um the fact new they're like only 20 31 that's what i was thinking it's like i just get a new miata but i would probably rather have an s2000 than a new miata even though from a power perspective the s2000 is at the time it was like a rocket ship and now it's like you know not feeling that way anymore.

53:34But that's probably what I would... 30, I would probably get an S2000. I like a good Firebird. I like a good like 02 Firebird WS6. Really let the Nebraska out of me, you know? Those are big V8s. They look cool. You can get a lot of Mustang for 30 also. Like a lot of Mustang. V8 manual. Those are cool cars. They drive well too. Modern Mustangs drive really well. I don't know if... Yeah, I would probably rather have a Mustang than an S2000 depending on how new

54:02Graham Stephan:I could get it. Yeah. don't the mustangs have the stereotype though of always being at the car meets and getting an accident totally but s2000s have a stereotype right what's the stereotype you know no i don't know like the tuner culture you know like oh you're one of those tuner kids like you know like there's there's i feel like every car has something i will say for 30 if i'm trying to buy something fun i would definitely focus on american or japanese the euro cars you can get for 30 are going to break your heart. Like, they're awesome. They're awesome. Like, United 2M3s and even Porsches are getting into that range, you know, Boxers and Caymans.

54:38But they're all going to be more expensive to own and kind of deal with compared to the American and Japanese stuff. Now, if you got an ND, we go back to depreciation, right? Spend 30 grand on an ND. Early NDs are$14 ,000 cars. So instead of paying the money in repairs, you're going to probably lose a depreciation. So you got to find like the kind of mixed medium there.

54:56Graham Stephan:What do you think is the biggest head turner that you could buy for$25 ,000,$50 ,000? I'm about to do a video on this. $100 ,000,$250 ,000, and a million. Okay,$25 ,000. You can buy JDM fire trucks, Japanese market fire trucks, all day long. So it's a Toyota Land Cruiser. The back half is cut off and instead fire equipment. They're bright red. They have 6 ,000 miles because they were used in Japan, which is compact, to fight fires. So they would go down the road, fight a fire, come home two miles every day. You can buy one of those all day long for$25. If you want to turn heads, that's what you do.

55:3550 you know what turns heads at 50 there was a car called the T-Rex which looks like a motorcycle it's like a motorcycle car kind of situation that turns a lot of heads for 50 it looks like the Polaris Slingshot but it's like even crazier and it's a more focused driving experience that definitely would turn a lot of heads for 50 I think those are like in the 30s getting above that 75-100 like I really feel that one of the biggest head turners in that price range is a Lotus Esprit, which I think turn as many heads as a Countach for one-sixth of the money, and they are awesome to drive. Servicing is a different conversation, for sure.

56:18Those are difficult cars to own, but that car turns all the heads. It's got the same low, flat, wide feel as a Countach, the same wedge shape, very, very special cars. And I don't understand why they haven't taken off. Later ones used a V8. They actually have a lot of power. They're actually really fun to drive. And despite the fact that they had a V8 and they were bigger, they kind of drive like an Elise. Above that, like the million-dollar price point, if you want to turn the most... Let's do the 250.

56:47Graham Stephan:250. 250 range. So 150 to 300. 250. You can get McLarens at 250 and Huracons that still turn heads, although not, you know, it depends where you live. Like, you drive a Huracan around Miami, probably in Vegas. Nobody looks at those, you know? Everyone thinks they're a rental. Everybody thinks they're a rental. Yeah. And nobody really looks at them. Even a million's hard. Like, who's head are we trying to turn? Like, a million bucks, the Jaguar XJ220. Yes. If I saw one of those on the road, I would literally do anything to turn around and go get a... Like, I would kill someone to go and turn around and go get a picture and, like, talk to the dude.

57:22But a lot of people I don't think would notice it. Like, it's an older car. Yeah. If you're trying to turn, like, general heads, the Countach does an amazing job of it. And they're under a million. It is incredible to me how many people freak out when they see a Lamborghini Countach. There are cars like that one that have gone beyond the automotive enthusiasm and have reached cultural icon status, like a DeLorean, honestly. That's another car that probably should be mentioned. Oh, a DeLorean. People freak out when they see a DeLorean or a Countach or certain cars that Hummers, everybody knows what an original military Hummer.

57:55There are certain cars that just permeated the cultural zeitgeist beyond just the automotive one. And those cars always bring a lot of attention. I'm stunned how many people freak out about the Countach. People just really, really, really are so excited. What's the craziest reaction you've gotten in the Countach? I had a guy almost hit the car in front of him. I've never had someone actually do that, but he was like this close. He was in an NC Miata. But people just, they absolutely lose it. They get so excited. They're following you, taking pictures, you know, that kind of stuff. Have you had any like scary moments though?

58:25I don't love like some of the risks people are willing to take to get photos of some of the cars, for sure. People are sometimes a little bit excessive, and it's like, you know, crossing crazy traffic or whatever, trying to get the right angle shot, hanging out of cars, and that does scare me a little bit, yeah, for sure.

58:43Graham Stephan:Yeah, I had a really scary moment. You know those little, like, motorcycle gangs? Yeah. Where there's, like, 50 of them, and they do, like, a street takeover? The one time I was driving the Ford PT, guess what? I make a right onto this very wide four lane street going up from the strip. And immediately behind me, I see all of these kids and those weird like little motorcycle things. And they blow through the red light. And they're catching up to me. And I'm like, oh, shit. Oh, my God. The mirrors aren't in production anymore. And literally, they surrounded the Ford GT, surrounded it. And they were driving straight, but the kid was like back like this and not looking.

59:26Graham Stephan:Taking a video of the car and all the kids, I didn't tell you, all the kids were going nuts over this thing. And they're yelling at me like, rev it, rev it, rev it. Do this, do a burnout. Like this. And I'm just sitting there. Did you do it? No. You think I did? I was surrounded. There's like 40. They were all in front of me. And there's a red light. And I'm like slowing down to the red light. I'm wondering, are they going to slow down too? and they slowed down with me at the red light and they stopped at the red light to look at the car and they're taking videos and the light turned green and they went forward and they went ahead of me.

1:00:00Graham Stephan:But for a moment there, I was petrified that all it takes is one of them to just flip over. And then they're 10 feet in front of me, if that, and I hit one of them. That car scares me because so many parts are not available anymore. Yeah. As long as you keep it shiny side up and you keep it moving, it's all good. But like any accident, it's like you're in a you're like years into figuring out how to deal with that. And that scares me about that car. Yeah. I am surprised how much interest that car brings. In my world, among my cars, I'm very privileged to say that it's like my beater supercar. It's the one I drive to tennis.

1:00:33It's the one I pick up the dog from Doggy Daycare. And often I forget how special it is out in the real world. You never see them. You never see them anymore. I never see them anymore. And people don't let me forget. Like I'll be driving it just like this is my Bluetooth air conditioning. And that's another thing. It's a pretty drivable car. So it's not like some of these cars that you're making so many compromises to use it that you are being constantly reminded what you're driving. 4GT is pretty usable. And so I'll be sitting there driving it. The dog's next to me or whatever. I just picked up the mail.

1:01:01And people are freaking out. I'm like, what? I'm like, oh, yeah. I'm in the 4GT. I forgot.

1:01:07Graham Stephan:It's the perfect car, though. I mean, it's like the cultural icon of that time. It's American. It's got a V8. Built in America, too. Built in America. I got the V8, drivable, reliable, and it's Ford. Yep. And the parts, I mean, the parts that you can find are cheap. Very reasonable. I had to replace the little struts for the back thing. And it was like a hundred and something dollars for the part. And then plus like an hour of labor. The only drawback to that car that I think would make it like the perfect car, there's no storage at all. Be nice to have a little storage. Sure. Just a little. But I can't see how that wouldn't be worth a million dollars one day.

1:01:45Yeah. The only thing potentially keeping it back is production numbers. That car hangs in a weird place. Most of the other supercars that have gone up like it has, their production numbers are in the 1 ,000 to 2 ,000 unit range. And then you have cars like the Aventador, the Huracan, that were kind of built without regard to production number, that were just built as many as they could sell. There's actually not a lot of supercars in the 4 ,000 to 6 ,000 range. The BMW Z8 is another one that kind of has this weird in that production range. And the market has never really known how to treat that car.

1:02:15It's very cool. It's very special. However, there's a lot of them. The Ford GT seems to have beaten out. It's worth more than it should be given how many there are and how available they are. Just because I think it is so special. And the design is so special. And it is unbelievable that they were able to make the 60s car with all the modern regulations still look like that. But I agree with you. I think that car continues to be valuable. I sometimes think about selling mine because I have these other cars. But it's like, why? It's going up. It costs nothing to own. And I still love using it. Tavares was bothered that Graham never drives his Ford GT.

1:02:51What are your thoughts on that? I think you should do what you want. I love driving mine. But I get why you would not want to.

1:02:58Graham Stephan:I think you should drive it some. It's enjoyable. I do. I drive it, on average, 15 miles a month. Yeah. Which is what a lot of people do. just we got a good it's called the red rock loop take it on the loop pull it back and park it the truth is like i i'm no longer bothered by people's use cases with their vehicles in less except in very specific circumstances like there are enough two mile plastic still on them for gts that if you wanted to use it like it's not like you're ruining a cultural icon however there's value in that car and if you want to if you're you want to have something cool while also preserving value there there's a reason not to use it.

1:03:36And there will always be guys like me who have driven ours a crazy number. And so those are also available to buy if you want, you know, like I do what you want. I don't, I don't gatekeep that stuff anymore.

1:03:45Graham Stephan:What do you think about buying the new Ford GT? Cause it seems like if they come down to a certain price, it just makes sense to buy, right? No, I just, I like ours. Given the choice, I'd rather have ours. I like, first off the new Ford GT is really cool. It looks cool, and it drives well, but the driving experience is simply too compromised. The car is rough. It's hard to get in. It's hard to get out. It's hard to do anything in that car. You're sitting inches away from the person next to you. It's incredibly low. There's a lot of compromises, number one. Number two, the dealers are already trying to wash their hands clean of that car.

1:04:27That car was manufactured at this facility in Canada that is known for building complicated stuff. And that car is complicated stuff. And we're going to see a situation where there are not going to be able and willing participants in the servicing of that car as it goes on. But also, it's just too race car. Like, at least for me, I like my cars. This car and the Ford GT are very similar in this way. But I like my cars to be, like, fun. And that car is punishing. Like, maybe I'm too old.

1:04:56Graham Stephan:You're describing my Lotus Exige S240, though. Like everything you mentioned about it was what I loved about that. Well, then maybe you'd be in a Ford GT. Like there definitely are people who are into that aspect of it. Um, I just, it's, I like a car that is, that is, that is more usable. I like an NSX. I like a Ford GT, an 05. I like the career GT. I like stuff that is like big enough for a person and usable. I like an SLS. I like, you know, that kind of stuff. I also really am a big fan of buying supercars from manufacturers that make regular cars. I think that that means that they get tested better and, and, and they're, released in a better way and they're more reliable.

1:05:31So in that sense, it might work. But I'm anxious about how Ford GT ownership will go. Oh, 2017 to 21 Ford GT ownership will go over time. I definitely think the dealers, once those are out of warranty, the dealers are going to want nothing to do with

1:05:44Graham Stephan:that car. Now, really quick, we have all been frustrated with shaving. You have expensive refills, blades that dull fast, clogs easily, or cause irritation. For something we do regularly, it's surprisingly outdated. With that said, a quick thank you to Harry's for sponsoring this episode. Harry's Plus was built as a modern alternative to traditional razors focusing on better materials, stronger design, and more reasonable pricing. The razor uses a solid metal handle for added control, along with a pivoting head that moves naturally around your neck and jaw. The blades are German-engineered, honed at three different angles, and spaced to help them glide smoothly instead of clogging.

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1:07:00Graham Stephan:Again, that's harrys.com slash iced. The code and link are on the screen, as well as down below in the description, and make sure to tell them that we sent you. Enjoy. Now, when Jack and I first started the iced coffee hour, we had to figure out everything ourselves, from the best cameras to use, the best editing equipment, how to get guests. Every day was a brand new challenge. That's why if you're starting or growing your own business, you know how valuable today's sponsor is, and that would be Shopify. Shopify is basically your all-in-one business partner, and they power huge names like Gymshark and Mattel to everyday entrepreneurs just getting started.

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1:08:10Graham Stephan:Start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify, and start hearing... Sign up for your$1 a month trial at shopify.com slash ICH. Go to shopify.com slash ICH. Again, that's shopify.com slash ICH. Thanks again to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. I think we asked you this last time, but I'm curious to know your answer this time around, which is what car has the most smiles per gallon? Like literally per gallon or just like per dollar? Like per dollar, basically. Um, I mean, how is it not Miata S2000 kind of thing? Those cars, I often think to myself that if I didn't have, if I didn't have an ego and need to be driving around in like the car that wins cars and coffee.

1:08:51Like I could get a Cayman GT4, a Boxster Spider, an S2000, a Mustang GT, a Shelby GT350. Honestly, that's a really nice car. There's a lot of those cars, but they're never going to like turn heads. But all those cars provide like real fun for not crazy money. I would get any one of them, I think, those cars and probably a bunch more would be fun. A nice Hellcat would be cool too. Those are fast. They're fast.

1:09:17Graham Stephan:I'm curious, what car brands do you think just keep getting better and better and better and really focused on improving themselves? Most of them, I would say, do. However, some in a different way than others. You know, a lot of enthusiasts would be upset at BMW because although BMW has improved in a lot of ways over the last 30 years, they've kind of left behind what was once a core for them. But the cars are great. um Audi continues to do a great job improving I think Mercedes-Benz technology and comfort and refinement is probably better now than at any point in their history and there's not a lot of car companies I would point to right now as the very best time in their history and I actually think that Mercedes-Benz is in that place right now um I think there are a few brands that I think don't that are maybe that are not refining and improving quite as well often I find it actually to be a bit of a trade of the Japanese brands that don't really take kind of some of the risks that the other ones do I have a Toyota.

1:10:15I love it dearly. It's not a tech leader. Same with Honda. The Koreans are clearly at the very forefront, and they are clearly always refining and always really trying new stuff and weird stuff and seeing what sticks in kind of an admirable way. You look at basically every other brand and they have a very similar design language and the cars aren't that different. And Koreans are like, we'll do a weird boxy thing here and we'll do a circle thing here and we'll just see what people like and we'll do weird technology and maybe it'll stick and maybe it won't. And that's kind of been special. And the sales numbers speak for themselves.

1:10:48Those cars have been popular.

1:10:48Graham Stephan:Who's buying the brands right now like Lincoln, Cadillac, Chrysler, Buick, Jaguar, Saturn? Do they still do Saturn? No. Saturn? Saturn. No, but it's okay. It's only been 18 years since the last Saturn rolled off the floor. So you just missed it. I remember Saturn dealers. I wonder then, will they go up in value? No, they only made disposable trash. See, I like the Saturn Sky. Sky was good. Sky was good. That was the one that I remember. I was 15 or 16 when that car came out. I thought that was the coolest car. There was a turbo version of that with 260 rear wheel drive horsepower. Ultimately, Miata, That was a cool car.

1:11:25Who's buying those? I don't know. Those brands are tough. They're in a tough spot. Lincoln especially, because it's sad. They really wanted to invest in Lincoln, and they should have invested a little more. Lincoln actually makes some good cars, but they're not finding a lot of buyers. Chrysler in general is in a lot of trouble. Cadillac is trying to really revitalize. Yes. They got Formula One now. At the end of the day, Escalade will always be a big success, and they've always tried to build on that. And I think they're actually in an okay place right now. Cadillac leaned a little too far into electric, though.

1:11:53and I think that might hurt them. But there are people for those cars, but those brands just, for 50 years, they haven't quite been as strong as European and Japanese rivals.

1:12:02Graham Stephan:Cadillac, I thought, like, throughout the 70s and 80s was supposed to be, like, the Rolls Royce of American cars. Yeah, I mean, in the 30s and 40s, it literally was. I mean, Cadillac was the aspirational automotive brand in the world. And American brands in general, Duesenberg, like, Packard, those brands, America was the standard of the world in that era. And, you know, things kind of changed and Cadillac sort of lost that. I don't know, you know, the gas crisis and they rested on their laurels and this and that. You can point to a lot of stuff throughout that era, but ultimately the Germans showed up and really knew how to build a luxury car.

1:12:34And then the Japanese showed up and that was another blow. But Cadillac still has some competent products. No one makes a big SUV like Cadillac and that's still popular. And those are popular globally. I mean, you go anywhere in the world and people want Escalades, you know? That's like a thing. They don't even sell it in every market, but they find a way, you know?

1:12:51Graham Stephan:You see them in Japan. It doesn't matter where. What types of cars are people most drawn to right now? Is it the midsize? Are we seeing sedans becoming less popular? Yeah, I mean, SUVs are going to remain, I think. I think, I remember 15 or so years ago, Chrysler canceled all of its sedans. And we were like, we're done. SUVs are the future and it's going to be a permanent shift. And I thought that was really bold. And boy, has that turned out to be true. People don't want cars anymore. Car cars. The sedan is shriveling. Now, I will say the popular sedans, there's still a long life left. The Honda Accord, Toyota Camry and Prius and the popular cars still are going to go for a while.

1:13:29But the writing is on the wall with the future of, you know, the car. It will kind of more and more become a little bit more of a niche product, I suspect, as people just want to set up higher. And there are no compromises with SUVs anymore. You used to be compromised on ride quality and fuel efficiency and all this stuff. And you just aren't anymore. They drive like cars. Which car make has consistently disappointed you over the past few years? Few years, past few years. Like which car make just progressively gets worse? I wouldn't say progressively gets worse, but I have consistently found myself disappointed with Honda and with its inability to really go out and take some of the risks that its rivals are taking.

1:14:06Honda has like six core products that are the best in the segment. You know, the Odyssey, the Accord, the Civic, the CR-V, HR-V, like the cars that you buy. Like those, of course you buy those. But other than that, there's never been a concerted effort to try to, like, improve in other directions. And when they do it, they're so cautious. Even with Acura, they're so cautious. They're not actually going after what they could be doing and spending money to really try to conquest. They're just sort of, like, holing up at the six-car core and not really taking substantive leaps. You know, Toyota has made a ton of money in the last 10 years with off-road SUVs.

1:14:38Honda won't touch it. Pickup trucks has been a massive sales success for a lot of companies, including Toyota. Honda won't touch it, mostly. The luxury brands, Honda has never funded Acura or strategically given Acura what they need to really succeed. And you look at some missed opportunity there, and that's disappointing to me. It's weird. Even Acura is another one of those companies where I'm like, what is their target demo? Who buys Acuras? Why would you buy an Acura if you could just go buy like a Lexus? They only, at this point, Acura is down to basically two products, which are SUVs. There's a midsize of the RDX and a larger one called the MDX.

1:15:11And the people who buy them, honestly, what it is, is people who can't quite afford the Mercedes-Benz or BMW or Audi equivalent. But like Lexus. Yeah, Lexus is there too. And Lexus now has its most competitive SUV lineup of all time. So if I were Acura, I'd be especially anxious right now. Acuras tend to be maybe a little bit cheaper than Lexus is. And there are some people who are really sold on Honda reliability. But if that's your core, that's not a great, you know, you want to be growing. Yeah. That's not really a great core to have necessarily. There are just some car brands out there where I'm like, why do you even exist?

1:15:40I feel like you could have, for the average person, maybe five brands. And that's kind of like all you need. Like in and out. Like just the menu. It's just five items. Toyota, Honda, Ford. That's what Tesla's doing. Yeah, Tesla. You probably could. Like, I don't know what all these other Chrysler, Juic. Most people would eventually fit into one of those boxes. If they hadn't. Lincoln. It's just like, I don't. It's true. When there are so many better alternatives for more reliable companies, is there's just no i don't know who's buying those yeah there that is definitely true you most people would definitely fit into one of those boxes that they absolutely had to however um people like choice and automakers are good at style in some cases and marketing and ways that others aren't and you know mercedes does does audi do anything better than bmw or or mercedes-benz maybe maybe not however they have a demo like they have a demo and so like those the audi demo wants an Audi, right?

1:16:29Like, and you could draw that, you could make that to all 35 major car brands, right? You could make people, there are people who want Volvo. I have a lot of neighbors where I live who do not want to own a Mercedes-Benz, a BMW, the showy ones. They want a luxury car, but they want a Volvo because Volvo people are fanatical. They really are. I have never realized how crazy some Volvo is. They're great cars. When you talk to some of these people about their decision, you can see how they kind of arrived at their conclusions, you know? So what are the best cheaper alternatives that you've seen? Honestly, mainstream brands are making the best cars that they ever have.

1:17:04Like a Prius. The current Prius is an amazing car. The current Honda Civic Hybrid is an amazing car. They're going to be a little louder. They're not going to quite have the level of refinement and the stitching on the seats and all that. But like, you know, 25 years ago, I get in some of these cars we have in the office, you know, the 95 Toyota Camry. You get in some of these cars and they're so bare bones. And that's not true of regular cars anymore. Regular car now has heated seats, has heated rear seats, has cooled seats, has a heated steering wheel, has a 14-inch center screen with CarPlay.

1:17:35Like, I sometimes think about this. Like, I got a Subaru Outback press car at my house right now, and I'm thinking, why is anybody spending more than this? If you're not into cars and you're spending more than$46 ,000 for a car, why? Unless this is a thing that you're literally enthusiastic about, this gives you everything you could possibly need, you know? And that's true of a lot of different mainstream cars right now. What do you think of the Hyundai Genesis that looks kind of like the Bentley? Yeah. No, the Genesis brand has been taken off. Hyundai has seen that there's a lot of money in Lexus and Mercedes-Benz, and they want to go get that.

1:18:10Tough time to be launching a brand like that, but they seem to be doing a decent job of it. They now have a couple SUVs, which are pretty successful. Jury's still out on whether that brand will be successful. It really is going to depend on exactly how much investment they're willing to give it. But I think they're great. And one thing that Genesis is doing that other brands are not doing is they are specifically targeting luxury. So many brands have focused on sport and performance. So like so many cars, when you get in, the seats are pretty tight and they've got this sporty looking interior and bright red lighting.

1:18:43And Genesis has specifically said, we're going to go after the buyers who don't care about that but want like a really high quality. So it's nice aluminum and leather everywhere and everything. And there's something to that for sure. It is a nice car.

1:18:55Graham Stephan:And what about futuristic tech that you've seen? What are you most looking forward to? Fish tanks and cars. Bowling alleys? I'm telling you. There's a lot of great stuff. I mean, I think the continued advancement of self-driving is going to be the greatest thing that ever happened to like American commuters. I don't know how often you use your self-driving. I never use it. I use it. It is the greatest thing in my life. When I'm on those types of drives, like if you're in bumper to bumper, you don't commute, right? So you're probably not. But you can imagine like if you're commuting like to San Diego from Temecula or from, you know, outside Houston or what like there's, you know, you're sitting in bumper to bumper on the 405 or the DC Beltway, like you don't have to do anything.

1:19:41That's kind of nice. And that's the tech that I'm even as a car enthusiast, I'm most excited for. I think that daily driver cars should be appliances and can be appliances, and that's totally fine.

1:19:51Graham Stephan:What do you think of them turning all of these things then into subscriptions? It just seems like more and more and more companies are leaning towards, hey, if we get all these people on a subscription with us, we'll make a lot more money. Sure. But, I mean, you know that's the right business model. So if you can trick people, or trick is the wrong word. Convince. But if you can convince people to do it, and the automakers are really hoping they can convince people to do it, then they're going to do it. So the question is, how hard are people going to push back and that kind of thing? I mean, what do I think of it?

1:20:20I don't want to do it. But like, do I want to do anything? Do I want to have 19 different TV subscriptions so that every time my son wants to watch something, I got to actually Google how to watch it, you know, before I can actually watch it? That's insane. But like, that's the best way for those companies to monetize those things. And that may happen with cars if we let it, you know.

1:20:40Graham Stephan:I think they're going to have a subscription for everything. Like, you want a subscription for tires? Yeah. Just pay monthly. This low price will give you new tires every time you need it. Yeah, I never thought there'd be like a phone subscription, but that's exactly what it is the thing now. Or I've seen the remote start subscription. Yeah. For 20 bucks a month, you get to remote start your car, get access to the app. What does that even mean? If you want to preheat the car and stir up in advance. Can't you just have hardware that... Yeah, but you have to unlock it with the subscription. But there are some benefits to this remote because it's through their app that kind of controls like where the car is positioned and all that.

1:21:16So like, let's say, let's say I flew out at the airport and my wife's coming in the next day, you know, she doesn't have the key on her. I can start the car from my app. I'm in Hawaii. I can start the car for her and she drives it home and then gets the key. She doesn't have to carry it with her or whatever. Like you can imagine scenarios where you might want it. I didn't do it in my Sequoia. Once the free period ended, I gave up.

1:21:39Graham Stephan:I can see them also adding a subscription for different drivers in the car. Like if a driver wants to, you know, I put Jack on my Tesla key card, it's like that's 10 bucks a month. All of this stuff could happen. The question is, you know, will people let the automakers get away with it? When you want your spring break to feel like. And your kid's pool day to feel like. And your hotel bed to feel like. Oh, and room service to feel like. Because at Hilton, hospitality feels like. Your cabana's ready. Would you like fresh towels? It matters where you stay. Book now at Hilton.com. Hilton for this day.

1:22:23This episode is brought to you by Indeed. Stop waiting around for the perfect candidate. Instead, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs to find the right people with the right skills fast.

1:22:33Graham Stephan:It's a simple way to make sure your listing is the first candidate seat. According to Indeed data, Sponsored Jobs have four times more applicants than non-sponsored jobs. So go build your dream team today with Indeed. Get a$75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. So far, no. Automakers have tried, like, I think it was BMW who tried heated seats, and there was such a backlash that people... Oh, my gosh. I actually find it odd how big of a backlash there is because, to me, it's almost entirely a consumer... It's like a way of framing your thought, really.

1:23:09Like we have no problem paying 10 grand more for the bigger engine, but we have a problem paying 150 bucks a month more for the, for the frigging electric car for like the more power. And if you actually think about it, it's not that different, right? How, how many, you had the bigger engine, you paid 10 grand more for it. How long did you own the car? Divide that by the number of months. That's how much you paid per month, right? Like it makes some sense, but that's not how people think about it. And we made that, we tried to go down that road in our podcast as like a thought exercise and people were vicious.

1:23:39That's not how they think about it. You know what?

1:23:41Graham Stephan:I want to make a prediction. I think for electric cars, you're going to have to pay a subscription to unlock more range and more power. Yeah. There are already EVs that make you pay more for more power if you want it. Yeah. It's actually, you know, it's interesting because done right, the subscription model for features actually could benefit the consumer. Like what if you only want a car that has a heated driver's seat, right? But I want a car. I got a family. I want a car that has all the heated seats. So you don't have to pay as much as me. You pay the$2 a month for the heated driver's seat.

1:24:10I pay the$20 for the... You get the point. Like, you can actually see a way... But of course, the companies will not structure it in a way that will benefit the consumer. But you could see that happening. Like, do I need a radio in a car anymore? I only ever hook up my phone and use Bluetooth. I don't care about satellite radio. I don't care that it's even installed. The module's even there. I would happily pay the lower amount, you know. But with hardware, that's difficult to do.

1:24:31Graham Stephan:but with software you could see it potentially what's that one car that you could buy for really cheap where you like assemble the slate truck yeah yeah it's like a bare bones thing and you pay for every little thing extra like you want a radio that's going to be how expensive is the base model there's been a lot of talk we'll see is the answer like they said it would cost x but it's ev and that included the the subsidies which have gone away since they announced it so who knows. But also, like, who knows what these things actually cost by the time they reach the market, you know, five years from now.

1:25:03It's a cool idea. The thing that has generally stopped that has been manufacturing. Like, it is difficult to have, like, a menu. It's much easier to, okay, if they get the satellite radio, they also get the heated seats, and they also get the heated steering wheel, and then the manufacturing process, it makes manufacturing a lot easier, which in a way I think has probably made some of those features just generally cheaper. that's what's been hard for automakers to do it cars that had individually selectable options it was always more expensive than than like bundled packages what's one feature that every single car that's made in 2026 should have i don't know i don't think there's anything that's like that essential that isn't mandated by the government okay sure i like backup cameras but they you have to like i think most people you know you should still be able to kind of choose what you want and some people really do want bare bones ultra low-end stuff but like i'm gonna say some let me say i think it's perfect front-facing cameras front cameras are really nice um very not that many cars have them at all i do think a camera rearview mirror is the greatest feature i've ever had in any car and i think it should be in all cars um i i do think that this is going to get me in trouble with the car enthusiast but i do think that hybrid technology has proven itself and is already in most cars, but probably needs to make its way into basically every car at this point.

1:26:20Not necessarily plug-in, not full EV, but there are now ways to have mild hybrids that control certain components of the car or that fill in a little bit extra in terms of power when you're accelerating. And they're really beneficial in terms of fuel economy, and they don't seem to add that much more to the price. Other than that, yeah, front camera's nice, but the automaker can charge for that. you'll pay it, you know? You know what? That'll be a subscription to have access to the rear view camera, you know? There are a lot of cars that like come with the thing. And unless you pay the money, the thing is physically like behind a thing.

1:26:58And it's like laughable, but that's like how it's done sometimes. Yeah. How's cars and bits doing? Good. Strong. Best year ever last year. We're doing really well. We hired a new CEO about a year ago who's done a great job really optimizing the business for success. And we're running the most auctions we've ever run. We're selling the most cars we've ever sold. And things are good. How does the CEO run the business different from you? Oh, I didn't, I'm going to be clear. I didn't run the business, nor am I qualified to. Okay. I make YouTube videos as a profession. Like I shouldn't be running a business.

1:27:33But he's a CEO. Like it's interesting. Now that I'm in this world, like it's interesting to see kind of people who operate at a high business level operate. You know, like they know what to do. They have like an instinct. Like I have an instinct about cars and about driving. Like they have an instinct about like, here's what to do, you know, we should do this instead. Things I hadn't thought about how to optimize or strategize and make things in processes improve and streamline it easier, easier for our employees, easier for our users, et cetera. It's kind of interesting. What's been the most surprising?

1:28:03Um, I don't think any individual thing has necessarily been tremendously surprising other than the overall, like we thought we were running the business pretty well before. And then we hired a guy who knew what he was doing. And it was like, oh, that surprised me. Like, I didn't know that such a thing was out there. You know, it's interesting to work with like world class people. It really is. That shocks me. How many employees do you have? 35, something like that. And how many work on cars and bids? Well, cars and bids on my YouTube channel are now under the same umbrella. OK. They're the same thing.

1:28:34So all of us work on collaboratively and all of it.

1:28:37Graham Stephan:How is your income broken down then between Cars and Bids and YouTube and like everything else you have gone on? I'm a W2 man. I earn a salary. So I sold, you know, the majority of the business, combined the YouTube channel and Cars and Bids into one business. Well, sold them separately, but now it combined into one business. That was the, I sold the majority to this private equity firm, the churning group, and now I just am a salaried employee. How long do you have to work on the YouTube channel in that contract? Well, I mean, I get a good salary and I love the work. So, like, I'm going to keep doing it.

1:29:10What the hell else would I do? Look at me. This is the only job I've ever had. Is it a part of the contract that you have to? No, I mean, you know, there was sort of like an earn out period, basically, where I got, you know, if I worked for a certain number of years that I got, there was a carrot that I could grab if I wanted it. And I did that. But, like, I'm not stopping. Like, I truly don't know what else to do. You know what I mean? Like I'd. You would be doing it regardless. I would do it anyway.

1:29:35Graham Stephan:I saw the video you posted recently. Yeah. Would you retire? Right. If I wasn't doing this, I think I would do it. Right. Like if I wasn't doing it for cars and bids, I restart my own channel and just like do it on a smaller scale again. Is it more enjoyable to be a W2 than it is to be a business owner? I think it really depends on who you are. It depends on who you are, how much money you got and where in your career and your in your family life you are. For me, it has been better. it has been nice to take a step back it has been nice to hand the reins to someone who knows what he's doing um who is who has optimized the business in a way that i never could have that's been great um it's a little weird to like i'm a salary guy like that you know my whole life i've been it must be nice of knowing how much you're earning yeah that helps that the variability of youtube was punishing however i also remember months that were crazy and you'd celebrate i mean i remember some months where um it was really cool you know it was like i can't believe this Do you get less joy, though, when you see a video hit like three million views or like a one out of 10?

1:30:37Graham Stephan:Because it's you don't. It's like the same either way. Totally. Although I actually think my audience benefits from that because, you know, you guys and everybody else who's on YouTube in that world, like kind of games that you put the best videos up at the end of the quarter, end of the year, like make the most money. How can I optimize this? I got no problem shooting a video with a car that I'm interested in and that this sliver of my audience is interested in. even if I know it's not going to kill. And I love that. You know, that freedom is cool. But see, the most viewed video in your channel is that$150 ,000 pickup truck.

1:31:11Graham Stephan:I'll never forget that. Yeah, yeah, right. More than the Bugattis and the Ferraris. But on balance, those types of videos have done better. Like if you really look at, if you have a spreadsheet with all of it, the supercar, hypercar videos have always done, you know, X amount higher than. But I like the really, sometimes, I actually love doing supercar, hypercar videos too, because they're very creative, those cars. But I like doing the weird stuff too. And I can financially justify it because, yes, you see a video hit 3 million views, you don't get all that money, any of it. But you see a video hit, you know, half the views is normal, you don't get penalized.

1:31:45And that's kind of nice. What's your current involvement in the business? Like, what are the things that you're responsible for? Primarily just creating the content and trying to, you know, be a good funnel to get people to cars and bids. titles, thumbnails, like, what are you? Thumbnails? What thumbnails? Yeah, I have thumbnails. We have an editor named Nick who does most of our, who does our video editing and does a lot of that kind of stuff. We fight about titles, me and Sean, who's our head of content. But I definitely don't, I'm not involved in the weeds like I used to. People ask me, I still kind of know the view numbers more or less, but like people ask me, you know, specifics and the stuff I would have known cold five years ago.

1:32:25And do you enjoy that? Yeah. I mean, I had, so this all coincided with me having kids. And so I'm kind of famous in our world now for kind of saying no to everything. Like it upsets Sean. Sean, I've kind of, I issued an edict. There's, if you go, maybe I've told the story, but if you go up the 405, if you go up the freeway at the 405 and the 73, there's a giant Hyundai headquarters building. And I've told everybody that I won't go north of there for any reason. I used to go to LA every week to shoot. You know, there was this car, that car, this little carrot dangling. Like, if you go to Texas, you can get this video done.

1:33:00And it's been nice to spend the time with my family. And due to my amazing staff and crew, we've not really been penalized on views. We've brought cars to our office. I didn't have an office before. I would shoot in Mormon Church parking lots. That was my whole life. Now we have an office. The cars come to us. Obviously, that ratchets up the cost, but there's a larger business that can help defray those costs. and we haven't been penalized in views, even though I clearly am not, I'm releasing content at the same level. The content is just as good. The amount of content is just as frequent. I would agree with that as a viewer.

1:33:31Yeah. The amount is just as frequent. In fact, we're doing more content than before, but I definitely don't have to grind as much. And within my world where I have a family now, which is definitely my most important thing, that's big to me. What made it the right choice to take your foot off the gas? Was it the family coming in? Was it an age thing? Was it a finance thing where you're finally, I'm financially comfortable. I don't necessarily need to grind, you know, pedal to the metal. It was all those things. But I mean, I would sort of argue against the take your foot off the gas thing because I am making more content than I was before.

1:34:03It's just that I'm not doing the like hard little stuff, sitting in the car, going up to LA, editing the videos while I'm sitting on my couch. Like that stuff, the really hard stuff I've been able to. So like from a content perspective and making the content and honestly enjoying making the content. I'm still like the same dude I always was. I don't think I've taken my foot off the gas in that level. And I think our numbers reflect that. And honestly, I think our viewers feel that way too, clearly. Do you enjoy making the content more now than you did back in the day then? Since back in the day, you'd have to do this stuff.

1:34:32It depends on exactly what content it is. I will say there are times when I'm reviewing the new Nissan Sentra and I'm sitting here thinking, why am I doing this? But most of the time I either enjoy it just as much or more. do you wish then that you said no to those things a little earlier yeah but I couldn't have you know the grind you guys know the grind yeah I mean did you watch Whovie's video Whovie had a video come out it was so sad his dog got hit he was running in the street and his dog got hit no I didn't see that and he basically made the point that like between that and he had this mishap with his 300 SL where he hit this door he was like I've been doing a lot of stuff that my focus is lost because I'm just grinding so hard and my foot is on the gas so hard.

1:35:14And that resonated with me so much. Like when you're in this space, you can't not, you know, like I was just talking to a guy at the Lambo dealer who told me he had a kid and he took two weeks off. And like, you're in sales, you take two weeks off, that's two weeks you're not gonna make money. Like it's hard to do. And that's true of our profession as well, or not mine any longer, but now, like if you take time off, that's just money out of your pocket. Like, and you lament that. And then you have to think, Is it worth it? And it's that that stuff is is hard. But but to answer your question, like at that period, I couldn't have done that.

1:35:48I realized that it was a rare period where I was going to be able to earn at that level and be at that level of content and views and stuff. And I had my foot on the gas for that whole time. It had to go hard. And I don't think I could have slowed down any earlier.

1:36:01Graham Stephan:When is that the right time to take your foot off the gas then? or at least to say no to more things that you don't want to do. I think the right time is when all, at least for me, it was when all those things came together. I had gotten a big payout and it was financially independent. Like at that point, my family showed up and, and the, the, you know, at some point you are getting old. I mean, it doesn't look very physical what I do, but like it took a toll being in the hot sun every single day, filming videos, getting into the backs of stupid cars, being on the road, driving to this or flying to that every week.

1:36:38Like after a while, it becomes a lot. And so if you can if you can find yourself in a financial and in a familial situation where you can where you can maybe take a break from that level of grind, I think it's a nice thing to do.

1:36:50Graham Stephan:See, most people aren't in that situation where they have all these things happen at the same time. Pre-kids. They're in like a boil. Yeah. Or it just keeps growing, keeps growing. And it's, you know, eventually kind of reaches the tipping point. But that could be when you're like 70 or 60. I will say like one of the things I watch though with these people is that they complain about how difficult this is and how much the grind is. And yet I see them ratcheting up their personal expenses. You know, they want to get one more car. They want to get one more house, whatever. And it's like that's just another X number thousand that you got to hit every month.

1:37:21And I think another thing that has helped me stop and kind of slow down is that I got everything I want. Like, I truly don't really, I'm not sitting here thinking that I want any more cars or any more property. I'm, like, cool with what I have. And there's something nice about that, too, that, like, I know that my spend will probably never go higher than it is right now. And I think that if you're in sort of an accumulation phase in your world, that also makes it really hard to stop grinding and grinding harder and chasing every last little thing. And I think there's not a lot of people who get to a point where they say, I have what I want.

1:37:50I think most people, especially when they reach financial levels that are pretty significant financial levels, they see their peers who are flying private and their peers who have this car or that house. And they're like, I want that. I want that. And they got to keep rationing, got to keep rationing. And I'm unusual in that respect. Was getting to that point of satisfaction a product of acquiring wealth or was it just a change in the mentality? I think it was literally that I just like dreamed of having a few things and then I got them all and I don't have any more dreams. So it was actually getting the thing.

1:38:22Yeah. And getting the thing itself wasn't as satisfying as I thought it would be. Like, it was great. But I think the most satisfying thing was knowing that I don't have to grind anymore. That's a big deal for me. It's not for everybody. Some people love it. You know, I talk to some people who have sold their business for many times what mine is, and they're like working on their next thing. And I'm sitting here like, what the hell? But for some people, like, you can't stop. They can't turn off. And I'm not judging that. Like what I like right now in my world is hanging out with my kids, volunteering at their school and swimming with them in the pool and and building Legos.

1:38:56And we build a lot of Legos like that's what I like right now. But I know there are a lot of people out there, parents, dads, people who don't want that, who are like the next thing is like really actually what they what what is what they like, what is interesting to them. And I that's that's their thing.

1:39:12Graham Stephan:That's fine. Do you feel like you got less motivated, though, once you hit those metrics and got those things that now all of a sudden there's no more like push to? Yeah, for sure. There were definitely some things that were motivating at a high level. Yeah. But I'm still motivated for our business to do well. And I hired all my friends to work here. And so I'm motivated for them to have some of the success that I had. And also, most importantly, I am like just intrinsically motivated by this work. I truly love to do these stupid car reviews. And so like, there's not a part of me that is sitting there going like, I'm not doing this.

1:39:49I don't want to do this. This sucks. Like, I really like it. And so like, am I less motivated to chase the more numbers and all that? Yeah. But I still, I don't know. I still love it. I still love doing it. Like, it's crazy to me. That's the dream. To find a job where you just really, really, like, really can't stop, love it is like, that's very special to be in that situation for sure. where I come into work and basically no matter what car I'm reviewing, I pull it into the garage here and I think to myself, okay, let's do this. Like, I'm excited. What's your schedule like? You know, I shoot videos in this office most days of the week.

1:40:24But my son gets off school at 2.30, and so most of the time I'm basically there when he's around. And I play tennis every day. So it's a nice balance, you know? And where are you investing these days? pretty much exclusively index funds. Nice.

1:40:41Graham Stephan:That's just S &P? Yeah. I'm now heavier on bonds. We can get really into that. Your audience likes this stuff. There's now an ETF that's California Municipal Bonds, which is tax-free. For high earners in California, it's a big deal. And so I got a lot of money on that too. What's the yield on that? It's like three and a half tax-free, which is huge. That's really good. Yeah. If your income is at a level where, you do the math on the taxes, but I've done it and it works for me. It won't someday. I'll have to figure something else out if bond yields get up. But anyway, so I got a lot of money in that too.

1:41:15And that's it. I have, I'm a, you know, VTI or VT, one or the other, depending on which, and my California Muni one, and that's it. And then I got two houses and I got the cars, which I think are, they're never as good investments, I think, as the market is going to be, but I am a big fan of diversification for a lot of reasons. And what about spending? How much does your garage cost you per month? The garage, the cars, you know, they're not that crazy. I just paid my insurance bill. It was$18 ,000 for the year. That's for the non-daily drivers. For the daily drivers, like another$3 ,000. So$20 ,000.

1:41:51And then I have like a, what is my budget on car maintenance? It's like every year is like$35 ,000, I think. And$45 ,000, something like that. And if I go above that, we got a problem. Now, last year I went way above it, so we're hoping for the best here.

1:42:06Graham Stephan:That's not bad, though. It's really not bad. No, it's not. Tavarish, what are you saying? But he's got loans on some of these cars. He's financed some of these cars. Tavarish has? Yes. Yeah. And I don't. I got all my money post the rates going up, and so I just got a loan on that when I first got it. But the rate was so high, I just decided to pay it off, which is crazy. But I can't figure out a better allocation of capital. Now, if I had known what was going to happen in the stock market in the last three years, I would have done something differently. But you don't know. And it's not like I did poorly.

1:42:38So, yeah, it's not that significant. It's like so the cars cost maybe like 60 grand a year to own, 70, something like that. Even that's like higher than I want it to be. To be honest, I would really prefer it to come down. I bought this Porsche like three months ago kind of on a whim. And I vaguely regret it. But other than that, but that's part of like the being satisfied thing. I think one of the reasons the cars are not that expensive to own is because I have three, essentially, three really special sports cars. And that's all I want. I don't want to do anything else. And when you buy it and sell it in cars, that's where a lot of costs are incurred.

1:43:11There's a lot of transaction costs. And there's also a lot of when you buy a car, it's never represented in the shape that you hope it was. And you always have to put some money into it. At least I do. And then when you're using it a lot, this new car, you want to change this and that, whatever. But when you have three cars that you sort of settle into, you're not making modifications to them anymore. You already know the service history. You've done the important service work. And you just kind of, at that point, it's just maintenance. What do you think would make cars and bids even bigger? If we could more effectively communicate to people, especially sellers, that you get the most money selling on cars and bids versus Facebook Marketplace or whatever.

1:43:49Like, it is wild to me. And I know how wild it is because I've had a bunch of my friends do it. They'll find a car that is poorly represented on Facebook Marketplace. Dude just wants a quick sale. You know, it's thumbs over the license plate. and my friends will buy the car, you know, clean it up, put a good set of stock wheels on it instead of the 20-inch whatevers, you know, make it look nice, do a little service, two, three grand, fix whatever's leaking, list it on cars in bid six months later, and like, they'll make 50%. And it's like, seller, if you had just put three grand into this car, you could have had another 30 grand in upside or 20 grand in upside.

1:44:25And this is like a side business that a lot of my friends are doing now because they're close to the auction world and they, because of me, and we talk about it at our dinner or whatever. And they see how much like delta there is in what some people are stupid and just want a thing gone and how much it could go for. And I just wish we could more effectively communicate that. It takes longer. The process takes longer. You have to get the car photographed well. You have to clean the car. It is not like Facebook Marketplace where you walk out to your driver and you take two pictures in your underwear and then you put it up.

1:44:54But some people maybe don't care about the extra five grand or eight grand or 12 grand, but I bet most of them do and just aren't realizing that this is available.

1:45:02Graham Stephan:It seems like you should be offering some sort of service, like a real estate agent of cars. Yeah. Where you basically take it over. Someone knows how to professionally go and like prep the car. Like you would stage a house. There are businesses that do this. There are businesses that this is their entire thing is listing cars on our site, on Bring a Trailer, as their job is like prepping the car correctly, knowing that whatever rich dude who has the car just doesn't want it, doesn't want to have the time. And then they take a cut at the final price. Yeah. It's a great idea. There are some cars that I see on Facebook that are selling at just unbelievable prices.

1:45:33Graham Stephan:I saw a Cybertruck that sold at$62 ,000. It was pretty much new with a wrap on it. Yeah. Full tents. I mean, it was great. That's another benefit to having cash, right? Some of these people are in trouble, especially in Vegas. People are in trouble and need to get out of these things tomorrow. And I have a buddy who bought an Audi R8 this way. It was a commercial real estate guy right when the tariffs last year, when the tariffs were becoming really a thing. The market was tanky. He was like terrified. No one was answering his, you know, he was like, what's going to happen? He sold his R8 for nothing.

1:46:01My buddy had it for four months and made like 20 grand on it.

1:46:04Graham Stephan:Wow. Because he had cash when the guy was, you know, be greedy when others are fearful. Well, he did that. Now, from what you've seen, though, is there any advice that you have for a bidder on cars and bids to get a good deal, like a strategy? Is it good to like bid up initially? Is it good to wait until the last possible minute? No, wait till the end. People are insane. This is my strategy. Our corporate team would probably prefer me say that they should bid as much as they can as early as possible and lock in those revenue. But no, you should wait till the end. But not the very end. We constantly have people who are like, I hit the button right at zero seconds, but it didn't take my bid.

1:46:40It's like, dude, the bid clock resets to a minute with every bid at the end. Zero seconds or four seconds or 28 seconds, it's going to reset to a minute. You shouldn't wait till the last second, you idiot. Like, I want to scream that at people. um but that's the right thing to do is to wait to the last day like you don't want to run up the

1:46:59Graham Stephan:price of the car early you know um and then just how do you prevent sellers though from bidding on their own product and telling a buddy like this is an interesting topic everyone who works for cars and bids is going to hate me for my answer this question the auction houses the big ones don't you are absolutely allowed to bid on your own car or am i mean they might have rules that say you can't. You can't, yeah. Okay, but like all the big auction houses allow this to occur more or less in one way or another. Even if bidding on your own car is you have an agreement with the auction house beforehand and you are the plant in the back of the room.

1:47:39Now, in some cases, they still require you to pay a fee. So the auction house still makes money. Personally, I don't entirely see something wrong with that. If you're so stupid but that you want to bid your own car up to winning it and then pay the fee? Like, you're insane, but like you did that. Some people want to find out what their cars are worth, and that's a relatively cheap way to do it, right? We do not allow it. And so you can't completely prevent it. How would I, how would the auction company stop me from having you bid on my car? You have a different address, different credit card number.

1:48:12You're literally a different person than me. How could you stop that? But we do our best. If we see that it's flagrant, we ban the person. They're gone. If they're trying to use the same credit card, it's not even possible, et cetera. But, you know, there's definitely an argument in some of this world that it's like a thing that should be allowed. Our executives are really fastidious about trying to eliminate it from happening. But it's hard to completely stop. And I think everybody understands that it's impossible to completely put an end to. What's been the most surprising sale on cars and bids?

1:48:45Oh, there have been a ton. that I used to complain to our reserve team. Why'd you take this car? And then it would sell. And I just have stopped. I like, in fact, I actually did it this week. I complained about a car and then it sold for the exact number that the reserve team had it at. And I was like, damn, it's been like six months since I've done this and made a fool of myself. And I told myself I was not going to make a fool out of myself ever again. And here I am doing it again. I don't remember the exact ones, but there were some times I would send them a link to the team and sort of be like kind of condescending.

1:49:16Like, what are you thinking? This is, you guys know what? And then they say, it's like, oh God. It happens for sure. So that's one of the other things about auctions. People are, oh, it's only worth this. It'll only sell for this. You never know. You have two really interested people, especially if your car is unusual or special in some way. You never really know what's going to happen.

1:49:38Graham Stephan:To me, because I look at Teslas all the time, I think cars and bids is probably one of the best places to buy a Tesla. Oh yeah? Yeah. Oh, yeah. The Model Ys, there were a few of them there where I'm looking back thinking, I should have bid on that. That was such a great deal. I want that. Yeah. And as a result of that, I think we've had fewer Teslas. I think there was a time where it was like, there were like 20 Teslas a week on the site. It was crazy. And they've definitely slowed down. I think you should take more Teslas from the buyer perspective. I don't think we get as many submissions for Teslas as we once did.

1:50:13Graham Stephan:I remember when you had the Cybertrucks going up and I would sit there watching the auction. It was my entertainment to see what this Cybertruck was going to sell for. Like those are. Have you seen that like famous reel where the where the guy's like negotiating on the phone? It's like a car dealer and he's negotiating on the phone and he's like, all right, the Cybertruck will give you 60. And the guy's like 60. I got all the wheels. I got I got the special accessories. He's like, listen, he's like, all right. He's like, I'm not going to actually make an offer on your Cybertruck because you need some time to come to terms with the fact that your Cybertruck is not worth what you think.

1:50:42it's worth. Those fell quick. Some of the, yeah, some of the Teslas are definitely bargains. And I think they're especially bargains in sort of an open auction setting when you're kind of seeing a market set a price. And dealers are maybe, dealers, I think in some situations try to take advantage of maybe people who don't quite know as much about what the real price discovery on some of those cars, which is very public and open in the auction format.

1:51:06Graham Stephan:Yeah. Another topic I want to talk about that I'm really looking forward to is the Montana LLC. Yeah. Is that coming to an end? Hey, you see that California license plate? I saw that. That's real, folks. Technically, Doug, that's a very expensive license plate for you to have that on that car. Totally. People don't realize. They see the Dubai plates with like three. A California plate on this car is probably worth just as much when you really think about it. Um, yeah. No, a lot's been made about the whole whistling thing. And yeah, you got arrested again. I saw that you talked to Freddie about it.

1:51:41You know, the state law is real clear. And we went through this on our podcast. The state law is really clear. And everybody thinks it's about, well, the car is owned by someone who lives in Montana, owned by a business in Montana. The state laws are not written that way. Especially, we looked up Tennessee. I read Tennessee's state statute on our podcast on the air. The state statute in Tennessee is if you operate the vehicle in the state for 30 days, you have to register it in Tennessee. They don't care who owns it. They don't care where it's owned. It's not, that's not what the state statute is.

1:52:08And there's this misconception online that if it's owned somewhere else, but I operate it here, well, then the owner, that's not what the law is. The law is clear. If you operate the car for 30 days in the state, you have to register it in the state. And that's California's law as well. And in most states, most states laws are written that way.

1:52:23Graham Stephan:But how does that apply? Let's just say if I'm going on vacation for 32 days. Which I do. Every summer I drive across the country. I live on the East Coast. I have a house out there. And for 90 days I live out of state. So how does that work with a state like Tennessee? Officer discretion at that point. But that's the law. Like, ultimately, that's the law. It is insane. Right. In that exact circumstance, there's a lot of people who live in New York and Florida. And technically, those people should be re-registering their car every time they go back and forth for the winter. Technically. Right.

1:52:52It's silly. No one does it. But I think that most of those states are willing to make an obvious exception for a person like me who clearly lives in Massachusetts and in California, actually lives with a home, you know, has business activity, community in those places. It would be pandemonium if on Cape Cod and Nantucket and South Florida, they were pulling over everyone with out-of-state plates in the winter. It'd be insane because they know that like that's not what those laws are designed to stop. Those laws are actually specifically designed to stop precisely the Montana LLC situation where you're taking advantage of the fact that, you know, you can register the car somewhere else, but you're operating in these states.

1:53:34And I think that one of the things that people aren't realizing is how much license plate readers are factoring into this. It used to be 10 years ago, if you got pulled over for that, you'd say to the cop, prove it. I'm here 30 days, prove it. And they couldn't really. But they can now. And a lot of these states have been very liberal with their deployment of license plate readers. It's actually funny because California, hippie liberal California, as a result of its political situation, license plate readers are not common here. There are very few of them, and it's incredibly restricted use on how the police officers and local governments are able to use them, including they're not able to use them to enforce this law.

1:54:13But in states like Tennessee, which are very pro-police, that hasn't been the case. The police, the license plate readers had been way more commonly deployed. And there's a much broader array of ability to use them for the local law enforcement. And they can figure this out. And so where it used to be like, I'm not using the car. Now it's like, we got you on Interstate 23 on this day and on this day. And we got you on Johnson Street on this day. And it's like, it looks like you're using the car. So then it comes down to being arrested for this.

1:54:41Graham Stephan:That's wild. Versus going through due process, being convicted. I mean, that's that's that's like, you know, some sort of Wild West County prosecutor or county sheriff who wants to have some fun, you know, and go arrest a famous guy and get on TV. That's that's crazy. But do you think they're doing this? My theory was to simply just shut down the LLC. They want to scare people because if I'm there, dude, you don't want to get arrested. Right. Like if you're doing that's what I thought. Totally. So. So. But I felt that Cody going and making that video played into their hand. gave him way more exposure.

1:55:16Graham Stephan:They knew he'd do it, but he couldn't not do it, right? It's not just something you made. It's the privilege that you get to work with your hands. It's building something that serves a purpose, proof that you have the grit to keep going. At Timberland, we understand you take your craft seriously, and we do too, which is why our products are built to the highest quality. We put in the work so you can perfect yours with purpose in every detail and crafted with intention. Timberland, built on craft. Visit Timberland.com to shop. But what's interesting is if he's going to make a second video, my thought was that he made the first video, pissed off the same person, and they said, let's dig deep, watch through every single one of his videos.

1:55:59Graham Stephan:Oh, he bought a G-Wagon. Where did he register? Oh, it's not Tennessee. Bam. Most of these states have rules, have programs where you can turn somebody in. So like if, and honestly, if I'm paying my registration and I am, and I see someone with Montana plates, it annoys me, right? Like I know there are people who are like, oh, you, his car shouldn't pay sales tax. Well, that's the law. Your elected officials enacted that law. If you want to if you want to change that law, you elect different officials or campaign yourself. You don't just violate the law and then say, well, it shouldn't be a law.

1:56:30Right. Like, like, what if I murdered you guys? It shouldn't count. I think murder should be legal. It's stupid. It's an idiot argument. It's an it's an it's actually an idiot's argument. And so I think that as a result of that, all these states have kind of encouraged people to turn people in. And I guarantee you, Cody's video is upset enough people that they got probably reports. I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't someone in government who went after him. I wouldn't be surprised if they got reports from all over the world being like, check out this guy. He's cheating you. He's cheating you.

1:57:02And eventually they were like, yeah, he is cheating us. You know, what the hell? And then so they went and did it. And probably all the local state governments are aware of this thing and they're trying to put a stop to it. And Tennessee, his county or his state government tried to it was like, hey, here's a way we can do it pretty publicly. Someone like Forbes had an article about Montana LLCs recently that it annoys every state. And they interviewed someone, the DMV director from Iowa. They were like, we'd call Montana and say, does this person have an LLC? And we don't know. We won't tell you.

1:57:29Okay, well, is this LLC operating in Montana? Yes. That's like all that, like Montana wants to keep it going, but the other states are all trying to find ways to stop it. Utah is the one that has, so Utah's cracked down like crazy. They've also been arresting people and they have figured out a way, the smart thing to do, they tied it to your insurance. So none of these Montana people, they all have Montana insurance, but they also have local insurance because that would be stupid not to. Right. So Utah was like, well, if you have an out-of-state car, but local insurance, that's illegal. And I think that puts a stop to it.

1:58:03That's probably what the other states are going to do. That's a smart way to do it.

1:58:05Graham Stephan:Because no one would take the risk on the insurance aspect of it. Right. I know a buddy even in California got pulled over for having a Montana LLC on his Lamborghini. With a California driver's license. Yeah, you got a driver's license mismatch. But the police officer specifically called that out. and he was referred to some sort of department to pay the sales tax on the Lamborghini from being pulled over by like a random motorcycle cop. Yeah, and that's what they should have done with Cody. Like, it's insane to arrest somebody for it. So what's going to be the outcome of that? What do you think is going to...

1:58:40He's going to pay the back sales tax, which is not all that much, and it's going to go away. It's silly. It's silly. I mean, there's probably jail time is probably in the statute somewhere.

1:58:50Graham Stephan:Do you think they're going to try to get him for at least a week in jail, a night in jail, something just to say that, hey, we put him in jail. I think the mere possibility of being arrested is enough for a lot of these guys to not want to do it. If I'm doing it, I wouldn't want to do it now. I don't want to get arrested. Come back from the airport. You know, like I'm not going through customs. Imagine this, though, with the IRS. You miss like a 1099 that you just got lost in the shuffle and they come and arrest. I have had IRS notices come to my house for a lot more money that I missed that I was under.

1:59:20And sometimes that I was over and that some mistake and they were sending me a check for a lot more money than what Cody's owing right now to Tennessee. And yes, it is a letter in the mail. And you call your accountant. You say, OK, what happened here? We go back and look. Oh, yeah, we got to do this, whatever. And it's just handled as a literally as as like rote paperwork. Right. But there is one one big difference is in Cody's case, there is clearly intent, which is an element of crime. Right. Like ultimately, when I'm doing it with the IRS, there's not intent. And so there's going to there's always going to be paperwork mismatches.

1:59:49And Cody's case, that's not the situation. So they could make that argument.

1:59:54Graham Stephan:So in terms of other YouTuber finances, who do you think is the most irresponsible in 2026? It's Freddie. It's gotta be Freddie. More than Whovie. Oh, yeah. No, unquestionably. Whovie's not that bad. I joke about Whovie a lot because I'm closest with Whovie. And he does do some crazy stuff. But Freddie, you know, He's Florida. Freddy is Florida. Freddy encapsulates Florida in one person. And I love him for it. And that's why we all watch his videos. He is beloved for that reason, because he does crazy stuff. Like, as crazy as what he's doing with cars, that's his finances. His finances are the half-fire-destroyed Porsche 918 of finances.

2:00:42That's what it is. Do you think he should have bought that car? No, I think that car, I think he should have bought either of them. I think both of those cars are were beyond saving. But what about the views he's made from the chair? Right. And so I'd be curious to see what the what the numbers all are in terms of both revenue from that and whatever loans he's got on the cars, which I've heard are significant. And so, like, I'd be curious to see if it's teasing out. If I were Freddie, I would be putting up a lot more content a lot more frequently on the cars.

2:01:10Graham Stephan:We wouldn't want that because I love his videos. I think he should be posting every other week. Totally. Just a good cadence. Every week. Every Tuesday. Every Monday morning. Give me every week and clickbait me, Freddie. Clickbait me. I'll take it. I'll take it. That's how bad I want to see Freddie. But he doesn't. And I think he's leaving a lot of money on the table. Freddie is certainly not optimized. Yeah. You know what's so funny? We got him up on an email for people to reach out to help him. And it's Tavarishneedshelp12 at gmail.com. and we implored anyone who's watching who thinks you could help Freddie in his business and take some workload off his plate email with a submission of why you should be.

2:01:51Graham Stephan:Was Tavares needs help without the 12? Was that taken? I just figured it was like mid podcast and he was just lamenting of his work schedule. I'm like, dude, why don't we just find you right now? Some people that want to help you out with your channel. And like, okay, like assuming Tavares needs help is taken on Google. Right, you want to make sure that there's one that is. Like right now, it was mid filming. Have people reached out already? Yeah, so we created the Gmail immediately. You're forwarding it off to him. And we just gave him the email login. Oh, don't do that. The same thing is going to happen that happens for the rest of his life.

2:02:21We still have the account password and everything. You need to manage it, Jack. You need to go in there. No, no. You need to go in there and babysit Freddy. You got to call Freddy every week and be like, Freddy, did you reach out to this guy? Troy, he's in. Troy is in Orlando. He's got an impact driver. I think he would go a long way with just a little bit of help. Someone who's like, hey, where's our video this week? But if you're interested, you want to make it happen. Tavares Needs Help 12. The email account is still active, guys. And he's actively checking it. Like, literally, I see the emails coming in every day.

2:02:58Like, for some reason, notifications are on my phone.

2:02:59Graham Stephan:It's crazy how much exposure this email is going to be getting. I'm going to start saying it on our podcast. Tavares Needs Help 12 at gmail.com. Guys, please help him. We can set up. Please. Whovi needs help. Whovi doesn't need help. Does Doug need help? No. Do you want Doug needs help? No. 12. I'm good. Doug does not need help, guys. Okay. Doug doesn't need help. But I totally agree, Fred. I don't think Whovi does. I think Whovi's good. He's fine. I thought every tax season, he has to say, like, well, I'm selling off these three cars. But you've got to remember, he overcars. Like, he's got 60 cars at any given moment.

2:03:33So his assets are building. Yeah, and he's got to sell off cars for tech season, but he also needs to sell off cars because it's a Wednesday. You know what I mean? There is no time when Whovi is not buying and selling and horse trading. A buddy of mine was just at Barrett-Jackson, and Whovi's down there. And they hire Whovi. This is a great Whovi story. You've got to ask him about this next week. They hire Whovie at Barrett Jackson to come and do auction commentary. Like he has a microphone and does like commentary and they pay him for that. But while he's there, he's such a degenerate car enthusiast.

2:04:03He can't stop buying cars. So even though they're paying him like a money to go do it, he takes all the money they pay him and he spends it right back at the damn auction because he just can't not. And so they got to love this. They're getting like basically free auction commentary from Whovie because he's taken the money. And a free buyer, basically. If they weren't paying him to come down there, he probably wouldn't be buying the car. He wouldn't go there himself. But they get him there to do auction commentary. The real reason they have him there is probably because they know he's going to buy like six cars.

2:04:33Graham Stephan:Oh, my God. It's kind of like giving a gambler money at a casino. Like the casino is giving, hey, here's 20 grand. Give a degenerate gambler. Tell him, hey, man, you get to come to this casino and do a little video on the casino. Yeah. Yeah, but by the way, you'll also have a lot of free time during the real, the big nights of action, you know, whatever you want to do, you know. Yeah, I remember the first time he invited us to Bear Jackson, he bought a Fisker. Fisker Karma 2012, just randomly because it was there. He's just it was at a price. He's like, I got to buy it. Just try it out. It's not within him to stop.

2:05:07It's insane.

2:05:08Graham Stephan:And who do you think is the most financially responsible besides yourself? I don't really know that much about the finances of a lot of these guys. other than that most of them scare me. You know, YouTube in general is a business in which, like, to get into it, you kind of have to be nuts. And so, like, we're like the only logical, rational people on this platform. Like, does that ever hit you? Ed Bullion. You think Ed? Yeah. Yeah, he's probably the most financially responsible of all of them. But keep in mind, as you say that, you're talking about a man who owns a Bugatti Veyron. That's the most financially responsible.

2:05:44But he's up on the car. Yeah, he is. Yeah. But like, think about that. Like, that's the level we're talking about here. You know, the answer to this is Harry Metcalf. Do you know Harry? Harry's a British YouTuber. And he started Evo Magazine, which is a big British. And he's my absolute favorite car YouTuber. And he seems to be pretty, he's like an older guy. And he's like a rational person. And he's pretty funny. I love him more than any car YouTuber. I think, I'm sure he's got it all figured out. shme yeah for sure he buys a lot of fast depreciating hyper car type stuff but maybe there's money there to do it i don't really know how that all works my understanding my

2:06:25Graham Stephan:no my understanding with him his work ethic is crazy he posts so often yeah and he has a very lean team like my understanding when when we did a podcast with him he's filming himself yeah and then he's editing i believe himself he just goes to the hotel and just like churns out the video i I mean, it's nice to not have the people. And he's posting like daily, like every other day. He's been doing that for like 10 years. He definitely grinds, there's no question. However, he also buys some cars that I'm like, like he got an SF90 Ferrari, which is like no car in history is depreciated more than this car.

2:06:59Like that, there's a lot of editing videos in the hotel room at night to make up for the simple value loss in that individual car, you know? That sort of stuff scares me. I'm afraid for all of them. And I often sit here and I read their comments. I mentioned this in our pod, but I read their comments and the comments are like, you're a rich YouTuber. What are you complaining about? And I know because I've heard stories that this person is about one video away from bankruptcy, you know, like and everybody's like because they have all this stuff, people think they're really rich. But I know all of the stuff is financed to the hilt and they're like, they're like, you know, they're desperately chasing.

2:07:34And I'm just like terrified of basically all of all for all of them. the thing I think that most of them don't understand about YouTube is that it's it's not going to last forever and I beg them all to understand that and every time I meet with any of them I tell them to start a business from YouTube and like cars and bids and the reason that I feel that I'm the answer to the question that you asked Tavaraj and now me that who's the most responsible is like I did that and I think that like the the really smart ones do that and And you take that audience, which is linked to you in an algorithm that you do not control, and bring them over to a place where you can monetize it in a better way, in a way that is more controllable for you, etc.

2:08:14And they all should do it. Because someday they're not going to have, you know, I worry about Stradman. His views aren't as strong as they used to be, right? He's got a pizza place, but like, that's brick and mortar. Like, you know, it's tough to it. Yeah, it's a hard business. It's hard to scale. It's not really something that I think a private equity buyer comes in and says, yes, we want to buy your individual pizza location in suburban Phoenix. Like I I that kind of stuff. I really think they should all start like real businesses and take their audiences while they have them and do that.

2:08:43Graham Stephan:That's what I want to do with Jack for the iced coffee hour, have some sort of business that's scalable, preferably online, money related, something that saves people money. Yeah. But I think our strength is really in the video itself rather than running a business. And I know myself, I'd be way too nice of a guy to like manage people. Yeah, running a business is a lot harder than I expected. And I've been very lucky to have partners who did it a lot better than me. I don't think I could. So I'm sitting here giving this advice to these YouTubers, but it's a little bit holier than now because I did it, but it's also because I had a lot of help.

2:09:15I don't know that, like, you have to find the right person. You have to find the right partner, et cetera, to do it.

2:09:18Graham Stephan:You know what we should do? If you have a financial product or a business that you want to partner with us on, the email is grahamneedshealth12 at gmail.com. Submit your business that we could be preferably equity partners in. No, listen, I got two business ideas I'm going to give you right now, and I want you to take them. Okay. You can edit this out so the people don't have to see it. Sure. One of them is this. Okay. Everybody loves their like family and their dog and their kids and all this crap. You know how everybody has holiday inflatables? Customized holiday inflatables. Okay. So instead of Santa you buy on Amazon, you're, you're selling ones.

2:09:57They send you a picture of their family, their dog, their kids, whatever. You make an inflatable out of their dog. You, people who are obsessed with their golden retriever are like, I want to go. Okay. Here's your golden retriever as a Christmas inflatable. He's wearing a Santa hat and he's got Santa outfit on or whatever. That's for you to figure out. That's one business. I want you to take that. I want to make that into a billion dollar business. I'm giving that to you. Thank you so much. The other one, okay. The other one, you know how kids in their rooms, they have little play mats that are like a map.

2:10:25Like there's a church and there's a grocery store. Yeah. I used to have one. Yeah. We all did. Everyone has one there. It's like a big business, the play mat business. OK, you make it personalizable to your like the parents can pick like you want it to be like your neighborhood. Like, oh, like like, oh, your friend Johnny's house is on them. It's right over there. Oh, your school is on the map. It's right over there. And the map, the little map where they're driving their little cars isn't just generic. Kids have a idea of where they live in relation to one another. They would in this situation.

2:10:54Plus, your kid's down there playing and he's playing like within the neighborhood. Like, it's cute. Like, that's cute. I'm giving that to you. Thank you. I only want to go ahead and take those ideas and run with them.

2:11:04Graham Stephan:I'd be putting the real estate values on the map like Zillow has a good consumer lot. $7.95. Listen, these are good business ideas. The personalized inflatables is a good business idea. And once you get rich doing that, a secondary lifestyle business is the personalized play mats for the kids. Okay? So you're bullish on like the personalized space. People love this stuff. And people and their pets, like they'll pay anything for any pet thing. If you can get them personalized Christmas inflatables with their dog, have you ever met dog people? They go crazy. Yeah, they do. They go crazy. They'll do anything.

2:11:38Dog people have personalized dog bowls and the leash is personalized.

2:11:42Graham Stephan:I'd always like to see some sort of translator where if the dog barks, it just translates in English or whatever your native language is like what it says. That's harder though. Do you understand? Because the problem with that is that you have to speak the same language as the dog in order to make it. AI will figure it out though. AI will be able to predict based on the time of day, like the habits, like it takes it. You don't even need AI for my brilliant business idea. I want you to do this. I want you to take this and I only want a small portion of it, a couple million. And this is a billion dollar idea.

2:12:13Graham Stephan:Maybe if we could finance that at 0 % over, you know, 96 months, like the car loan. Exactly. It would be nice. Yeah. If anyone does manufacturing that's watching this video right now and they want to make inflatables, or please reach out. Grand Meets Help 12. Or any other idea. Grand Meets Help 12. And we could partner with you and maybe sell some inflatables. Inflatables. And I'll be checking the email. That's the next business. So last off, we have rapid fire questions for you. All right. And so first thing that comes to mind, quick question, quick answer. Best car ever made. That one, Couragey T.

2:12:47Boom. Best daily driver. Prius. If you were to bet on the failure of one car company, what would it be? nothing has come to mind yet so you can't say I'm not saying it fast what would it be what would it be Chrysler I guess but not really no one's gonna fail Lucid wait Lucid Lucid maybe not Lucid they got a lot of backers no one everybody's gonna be fine worst car ever made I reviewed your Vegas friend Dana White's Tuck Tuck you know what a Tuck Tuck is yeah a little tiny I drove Dana White had one and we auctioned it on the site for charity with him That was a horrible car. Horrible. Does that count as a car?

2:13:26Yeah. Okay. I crashed into a curb. I hope that that isn't information I shouldn't be sharing. Dana White's going to beat me up. What is the most Republican car? Probably Ram TRX. You've got to assume like 85%, 90 % of Ram TRX buyers are Republican. More than a Cybertruck? Liberals like electric cars, though. Like there's some portion of people buying that because they're like one on electric. Or a Hummer? Yeah. But Hummers are all electric now. Ram TRXs have a 700 horsepower supercharged V8. There is nobody who both voted for Kamala and is driving. It doesn't exist. Okay. What is the most liberal car ever made?

2:14:13Ever made? Probably like the Prius. The original Honda Insight. The original Honda Insight. Do you remember that? It had like the cover over the rear wheels and those were only sold to the levels. If you had unlimited money, what's your dream car? I would probably want a Ferrari F50. Would you quit YouTube for$20 million? Post tax? Yeah. I guess, but like, no, I would. Can I still make YouTube but not pay attention to the revenue? No. Oh, but then I would become irrelevant. No, I'm kidding. I'm already irrelevant. I don't know. Yeah, I guess. would you only ever drive a prius for 30 million dollars only like is the only yeah only car you

2:14:55Graham Stephan:can ever drive no no no really i i said that you would take 30 million no just drive part of the reason i got money was to buy cars i don't what am i gonna do with 30 million if i have to have a prius everywhere man maybe i'd take it what is doug de miro's best quirk and feature I'm really good with low levels of annoyance. Like, you know how your sock gets wet? I don't mind. That's not low level, though. It's a high level for you? Yeah. Yeah, that's the end of the world for me. I could put my socks in a pool and do the rest of the day, and you wouldn't even know about it. That is actually a superpower.

2:15:37It's kind of gross, though. And just generally, forget about the pool socks, but I can do a lot of stuff. All my buddies, they have to clean their cars. We have a buddy who's on the East Coast, and he got a Porsche and he's snow and he could go out and like do donuts but then I have to clean it. I don't give a... I would do the donuts. Like I don't mind the car's dirty. I wouldn't even really notice it. Like I'm really good at like just getting past that kind of BS that doesn't matter. Does it even occur to you or do you... Is it just like an intentional thing to like... It occurs to me but I just like...

2:16:05I'm good. It's one of the reasons why I think I'd be good in a haunted house. It's like the ghost is like... And I'd be like, look, dude, I... Either stab me or not. Yeah, like I'm busy. I got... I'm sorry. I can't do this right now. I don't have this. What is your worst quirk and feature? Hmm.

2:16:27That's a good one. I need a lot of personal time, self-time. I wish I didn't. I wish I was more energetic. If I had a genie and I had three wishes, one of them would be I would wish for more energy, which is crazy because it looks like I have a lot of energy, but I'm going to go home now and sleep. I wish for more energy. Yeah. What is the secret to a good life? I don't know. Find the stuff that you love and do that. And do the stuff that makes you happy. That's been my secret. Okay, so we have right here. Oh, wow. Computer for me. Thank God.

2:17:00Graham Stephan:You have a computer. Let me pull this out. I needed a computer. Jack's going to show you these inflatables he's been working on. Dude, the inflatable thing. Do the inflatable thing. I'm not going to do it. I'm busy. We have two quick tier lists for you to do. Okay. Okay? The first tier list is a car tier list. Okay. Oh, this is easy. Why do I hate? None of these cars. It probably makes sense just to start at the first one. You think so? The first one, yeah. But what if I start putting everything at S and then I realize I get too much at S? This is why you have to be strategic about it. All right.

2:17:32We're going to put Aston Martin in B. That's fine. Bugatti. I'll put Bugatti up at S. Love a good Bugatti. BYD. Come on. Enzo. Love an Enzo, but it's automatic. We don't like that. Ferrari in general. Doug loves Ferrari, even though he doesn't have one. Favorite brand. Ford GT, new Ford GT. Koenig-Sig. I'm not into Koenig-Sig. They break down all the time. Lamborghini. This one, I don't know. But most of them, I'll put it up here. No, you know what? Let's put Lamborghini. If it's just Lambo, then it's just a Lambo in general. It's not specific. Lucid. No, come on. We like Lucid, but we're not obsessed.

2:18:04McLaren P1. I'm embarrassed to say because I really only like cars with manual transmissions. I really love the McLaren P1. Mercedes-AMG one. it seems like it's overwrought. There's like a lot to it. I'm going to put it down there. Now, here. Nio. No, thanks. Pagani Waira, not a big Waira guy. Why not? The motor is wrong for the car and also every Waira has been spec'd by someone who has no taste. Have you seen Waira builds? Like, they're a little wild, but they're also, but that's the point of the car. I guess. Then great. Then that car can be with those people. You know how many Waira owners are like under indictment?

2:18:40Most. No, really? No, but you get the feeling. Porsche 918. Rimac De Vera. No, we don't like electric stuff. Rivian. We like Rivian. We'll put Rivian. Yeah, Rivian's there. SSC Tuatara. No, no. Schmie taught us what's going on with that. 300 SL. Yeah, yeah. We like that. 765LT Spider. Yeah, it's okay. He's going to kill me. Countach. Very best. 250 GTO. Yeah, it's cool. I appreciate it. I don't love the old stuff as much. Model T, come on. Rolls-Royce, it's fine, I guess. Tesla Roadster, yeah, it's fine. Tesla in general, what should I do? D or F, you tell me. D for sure. Oh, it went to F. Fine, I'll put it at D.

2:19:29I'm not a big Tesla dude. Prius, great for the people who need them. Taxi drivers, et cetera. Venom F5, drove it, liked it. It's pretty cool. And the Xiaomi Sioux 7, not as bad as you think. There's my list. Wow. I'm happy with this list. This is great. This ended up perfectly. Layout. I'm a positive dude. You could do a video like this, and I think it would blow up. It actually would. If you did a car tier list. Yeah. And so we have one other tier list for you to do, okay? We want you to do a car YouTuber tier list. Okay. I can do this. No problem. I'm not going to know most of these people, honestly.

2:20:03I don't. Okay. Oh, they're all A or S. I can't rank them. Okay, Whistlin is S, obviously. I'm going to start with Whistlin because he's the best. Whistlin is my North Star, my guiding light. We would love to have him on the podcast. We've asked him a million times. If you're watching this, please, we'll make it happen. We'll travel to you. We flew to San Diego for this. Guys, if anything, give it a like. He'll come to Tennessee. He'll also come to Montana. Wherever it is that you prefer. We'll bail you out. Literally anything you want. We'll come make it happen.

2:20:33Graham Stephan:Whatever you need. Okay, I'm going to embarrass myself because I don't know all these people. B is for Bill. Like them. Cletus, love Cletus. Not my stuff. Never watch him, but love what he's doing. DDE, not really my content. Donut, like donut into donut. We got James on there. He's not around them anymore. I do not know who this person is. Okay, no one, I haven't heard anyone mention Doug Vargo. You don't know who he is. Doug Vargo, he's going to be so, whoever he is, he's going to be so. But that's not a thing. So he started content like in the YouTube niche recently. He was doing stuff on YouTube beforehand, but he's doing this series called Flipping Cars Until I Can Afford My Dream Car.

2:21:05Oh, I have seen that. Have you seen the guys? Have you seen his videos? Yes, I have. They're great videos. And he's been blowing up. All right, I'll give him, I'll put him up here. B, I'll put him with donut. Ed, love Ed. Gotta put Ed up there. Crazy dude. Whovie, obviously God tier. Shmi, love Shmi. Shmi belongs up here. Steve, I'll put Steve down here. You know, Steve had a Countach and sold it. And I just, Steve to me is less car YouTuber, more rich guy. Strad man, love Strad, dearly. Supercar Blondie. I like Supercar Blondie the content has sort of made a little bit of a turn I'm gonna put I'm gonna put her at B Freddie I'm gonna give Freddie a B only because he doesn't make enough content TJ love TJ it's not really my my type of stuff like he works on stuff it's not like the kind of the stuff that I and Parker love Parker dearly this is also brilliant amazing I completely stand by this perfect you crushed it loved it Freddie should probably be higher but he's we need more Freddie Freddie you'll become an S when you post twice a week and we'll be Get the 918 done.

2:22:08Do you have any words for Hoovy? I just saw him. And so I've told him everything I need to tell him, but just that I love him dearly. You know, sell some cars on cars and bits. Tell him that. Hoovy, sell some cars on cars and bits. I got a Hoovy story for you. You want to hear a Hoovy story? I do. Okay. He's going to hate me for telling this story because it still makes him sad. Like six months ago, he's got this Cadillac concept car and I'm begging him to let me review it and selling on cars and bids. He's like, no, no, I'm just going to sell it to this dealer. He sells it to the dealer for like 10.

2:22:41I'm like, dude, I would have given you. It was like he had bought it for like 11. It was kind of ratty old thing. And I was like, I would have given you a 10 reserve just to have it. I would have killed to review it, whatever. He traded it to this dealer for something else. And the dealer put it on the other auction site and it sold for like 50. Oh, why did he, why didn't he give it to the dealer? He wanted some car they had and thought it was a pretty good trade. The problem is when you're Whovi, you're making 60 car trades a year. Some of them are going to be amazing and some of them are going to be terrible.

2:23:12And he really gets down with the terrible. Like it really affects him, the terrible ones. Yeah. But that happened. I was really upset because I wanted to drive that car so bad. That's a Whovi story for you. Jeez. Yeah. Well, Doug, thank you so much for coming on the Ice Coffee Hour podcast. It's always such a pleasure. Such an energetic and positive person. I always feel great after filming these episodes. When we film with you, it's like a breath of fresh air. Well, I appreciate that.

2:23:39Graham Stephan:Well, not only is it easy, it's fun, and just like time flies. It felt like 30 minutes, and we'll do it again next year. Yeah, for sure. And the viewers love it. The viewers love it. Thank you so much. See you next year. Boom. See you guys. And remember, GrahamNeedsHelp12 at gmail.com. And if you want to do the inflatables idea, if I see custom inflatables happening out there in the world, I want to cut. I know where you saw it. I'm coming for you. and don't forget to sell your cool enthusiast car at carsandbids.com and also thank you guys so very much we flew all the way down to san diego to make this happen and then we're renting a car driving to los angeles to film another episode over there and then flying back to vegas so and our editor mikey is hustling to get this out on sunday

2:24:27Graham Stephan:big thank you to Mike but thank you to everyone watching seriously thank you we wouldn't do it without you guys of course boom boom till next time

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