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“They’re LIARS!” Steve Hamilton Exposes Fake Influencers, Ferrari Fraud, & Getting Sued

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Steve Hamilton provides a candid look into his high-end automotive world, revealing that hypercar values have surged dramatically due to fake bids on platforms like Bring a Trailer and manufacturer interventions at auctions, creating a bubble he believes will eventually burst when market inventory becomes too heavy. While his personal car collection now costs between $20,000 and $50,000 monthly after selling some classics and hiring a mechanic, Hamilton emphasizes that he values these vehicles for the happiness they bring rather than as financial investments. He expresses skepticism regarding inflated production numbers for hypercars like the LaFerrari and Pagani Huayra, suggesting manufacturers may exaggerate figures to justify prices, and he criticizes modern Ferrari electric vehicles as soulless and overpriced compared to alternatives like the Tesla Model S Plaid or American performance cars such as the Corvette. Despite these market concerns, Hamilton maintains a strong emotional attachment to specific vehicles in his collection, including a 1967 Chevrolet Chevelle, McLaren 765LT, and Hennessey Venom, which he plans to keep forever due to their unique significance. Hamilton's business journey evolved from drop-shipping wheels at age 19 to owning multiple brands like Mr. Wheel Deal and Fitment Industries, generating roughly $30 million annually with 500 employees through a "yes mentality" and solving problems for himself, such as building a new car condo community in Florida after selling his Bugatti Chiron SS and Dodge Ramac to fund the project. He aims to address the lack of quality car storage by offering units with nature trails and rooftop patios priced around $1 million, though he admits to being "bad with money" due to driving cars that depreciate quickly, contrasting his spending habits with the frugality of others like Houston Costa. His financial mindset has shifted over the last five years to prioritize principles over strict return on investment, evidenced by spending $100,000 in legal fees for a relatively small issue and refusing to haggle with contractors, even though he cites investing in a failed Arby's franchise as his biggest mistake due to the resulting lease obligations. He also highlights the luxury car leasing industry where influencers allegedly use high-value cars for short-term content creation to inflate perceived value, often utilizing lease-to-own structures for tax benefits. Beyond business and cars, Hamilton shares personal struggles with yo-yo dieting and binge eating, which he managed through GLP-1 medications resulting in weight loss to around 180 lbs, while also detailing a contentious dispute with his homeowners association over filming stunts involving a Koenigsegg jump. The HOA initially demanded a $25,000 fine under ambiguous clauses regarding insurance liability and filming restrictions, which Hamilton rejected as unreasonable and plans to sue if they do not agree to reduce penalties, arguing that setting a precedent of paying small fines encourages further aggression from authorities and aims to protect community members with fewer resources. He also discusses his decision to donate all channel revenue to charity and buy cars for people who cannot afford them, citing the purchase of a Hyundai for a woman who totaled his McLaren Senna as an example of his commitment to helping others despite his own financial challenges. Looking toward the future, Hamilton acknowledges that his YouTube channel has hit a ceiling after four and a half years of growth to 2.2 million subscribers and feels the need to shift from delivering complete projects in single videos to creating unfinished journeys that encourage subscriptions, inspired by Matt Armstrong's storytelling style. He reflects on the tension between delivering high-quality content versus chasing viral trends like shocking stunts or controversy, which can lead to a downward spiral, and considers various series ideas such as finding cars for families in need, restoring wrecked vehicles, swapping drivetrains, and filming Uber drivers in hypercars, though he worries these concepts may alienate his core audience of supercar enthusiasts. He emphasizes the importance of finding a unique angle rather than copying successful formats since his channel is personality-driven, and while he plans to stay with his company for 4-6 years post-sale to work with investors before moving to Florida, he remains cautious about AI tools providing inaccurate revenue estimates based on outdated data as he navigates headwinds from tariffs and economic conditions in the wheel business.
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How about it? >> 16 million $250,000. >> I think this is a [music] giant bubble that's about to burst. The American auto market has gone high-end, making more profits [music] by selling fewer, pricier cars. And what's caused these values to go up [music] so much? >> Potential fake bids on Bring a Trailer and other stuff. >> What's a car that you can't believe how expensive [music] it's gotten? 75% of all of the hypercars right now, but a lot of Ferrari, they were around two million, I think, to start, and those are seven or eight million dollars now. The Italians lie about production numbers. [music] >> Really? >> Ferrari was one, Pagani was one, and there are probably others. People would come in here and then I'd see them like sitting in my Lamborghini talking about like, here's how I invest money in Forex. >> No way. >> I invested in a an >> Wow. >> It failed after like one year. [music] So, I'm still paying $11,000 a month for that lease. >> How much have you explored selling the company recently? One of the things I have I think is could be the next billion dollar idea. >> Are you [music] serious? >> We're going to get really close in the next one to two years. This is Steve Hamilton and welcome back to the Iced Coffee Hour podcast, y'all. I am excited to be here. Steve, I've heard you've been up for 3 days straight. What's up with that? >> Uh, let's just say a lot of coffee and a lot of >> high on life, huh? [laughter] >> Oh, yeah. I mean life. Yes. >> Okay. We need to know what was going on in that video. There were so many comments saying, "You look like you've been doing some >> Yeah. >> or drugs or something." >> People were genuinely concerned. They're like, "Whatever you're going through, I hope you're okay." >> And it's one of those where like you're looking at the comments and you're like, "This is helping feed the the view machine." So like, you just don't hide. And and we really don't hide comments either. But yeah, you're right. Like I looked at myself in that video. And I'm like, first of all, I've lost some weight. Like I've been really focused on like portion control and eating better and and getting my body fit. So, it doesn't help that my face is 10 lbs thinner. Second of all, I was using a teleprompter. So, that was like the really bad thing. And the teleprompter was set way too fast. Like, I talk fast and the teleprompter was going like 40 words a minute. So, I'm like I'm like if I blinked once, >> you would miss the >> I lost I lost the word. I was out of track. I had to start over again. So, and then whatever else. I don't know. Maybe I just maybe I was really energetic that day or something. But, of course, like I'm like literally the most Charlie Church like pure guy. Like I don't I don't even drink alcohol. I don't do drugs. But like but a drug addict would probably say the same thing like no I don't do. So there's there's no way to defend that other than to just acknowledge that yeah I did look up. But absolutely not the case. >> It was hilarious. Dude, we were talking with the Strive man about it and like I could not stop laughing like it looked I mean it looked very real. But you look healthy like seeing you in person in person. You're much calmer >> blink in person. But it definitely was a high energy video. And the problem is we don't usually use a teleprompter. Like it's it's rare unless I'm doing an ad because I don't know if you guys use teleprompterss for ads, but it's tough to remember a minute long script. And uh but that was a a very like legally video where we're suing the association who happens to be 20 ft down from me. And I had to like I had to be very particular about the way that I worded things. So I definitely was using a teleprompter. >> Is like the combination of being like a very like eccentric like wealthy person. I don't know. It was it just got me. We have to know though. >> Yeah. >> Are you on GLP1s? >> Yes, I am. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, let me let me tell you. >> Okay. >> It's funny cuz I was like I was like, is this going to get brought up? And you guys bring it up [laughter] 4 minutes into the conversation. >> Not quite intended, but >> So, I did really well with like managing my diet. I I was on this yo-yo diet for the course of my entire life. Basically, I would get up to 225 lbs because I loved eating. Like, that was the goal. I'm like, "All right, I'm light again. I'm going to get up to 225. I'm going to eat whatever I want. And then when I got up to 225, I'm going to diet again and get down to 190. And I did that for 15 years. I could diet. I have no problem with it. I would be super excited when I got to 190 because that meant I got to eat again. Problem was it would take me uh 1 month to diet and then I could feast for 6 months. And then it started being 3 months to diet, then I could feast for 3 months. And it kind of inverted where it was taking me 6 months to diet and then I'd get a month of feasting. So I'm like, how can I I mean, I have the discipline to do this. So I I actually spoke with my doctor and I'm like, this is what it is. was like, "I love to eat and and like I eat a lot when I eat." And he's like, "That's actually what GLP1s are for." He's like, "They're not necessarily a diet drug. They just control the binge eating portion of it. Like they cut that binge out." And he's like, he's like, "You're actually a good candidate." And I'm like, I I thought he was going to talk me out of it and I just had to keep doing this yo-yo diet. So, like what the GLP1 allows me to do is I go eat whatever the hell I want. I just eat less. I eat 40% of what I would eat and I eat whatever I want. Used to I know I had like four cookies last night at dinner. >> [laughter] >> But but like that filled me like maybe before it would have been 10. >> See that sounds something that I need. It sounds exactly >> I feel like everyone needs that though. >> I I have the exact same thing where like like if I really try like I can diet. The problem is like on a random occasion I just binge like crazy. Like if there are cookies in front of me, chips are like my my biggest nightmare because I'll just keep going going going. >> And it was it was becoming like I was I was basically dieting on when I was home. So I probably have like a 5 or 6:1 home to vacation ratio. So I would come home and and I would just have to diet and eat and then I would go on vacation and eat whatever I want. And it would make home dreaded. It would make it horrible. I was just ketoing non-stop here. And it was just horrible. And like it's almost like >> it wasn't for me to lose weight. It was just so that I could eat whatever I want and maintain where I was at. So yeah, I started taking it when I was at like 190. I when you get used to it, it's a little tough at first. Like there's some heartburn. There is some queasiness that where you just innately will eat less. So I dropped like another 10 lbs and that's why I look a little bit lighter than I did. Um but I've just kind of stayed there for a year. I've stayed at like 180 lbs. >> Wow. And so what what is it? >> Zbound. It was the only one that's actually uh uh FDA approved at the time and I think they approved like the pill now. So that's the only one that's that one's been around for about 10 years. Who knows? Like hopefully I don't die of some crazy cancer in 10 years because of this. But like 20% of the population is on a GLP1. So >> 20% of the population >> that's what they said if you Google it like it's it's because there's >> I don't know because I also heard 20% of women are on only fans that are collegeaged and it seems like 20% is across 20% of adults are doing something >> when I talk to like the small populace of people that that are around like it's shocking how many people just don't admit to doing it and there's so many like basementies that provide it really cheap where there's probably a large percentage of the people of that 20% that are just getting it online and don't So for those unfamiliar with who you are, how do you describe what you do? We're in a warehouse right now. It's probably $30 million for the cars. Yeah. So I started started something out of my mom's apartment. Basically like it it's all about identifying opportunities or or differentiating somehow, right? So in 2003 when I was 19, I basically realized that there was a a bridge that needed to be created between wheel manufacturers and the internet. like drop shipping was in its infancy and didn't really exist amongst a lot of different like categories of product. So, I filled that gap in at the time. And I know drop shipping is stupid prevalent now and and everyone tries to do it, but back then it wasn't. So, I would go in and talk wheel manufacturers into selling to me, this 19-year-old kid, and then I would go list them on the internet and then drop ship them. And eventually, really quickly, I started stocking them because I can get better deals. From there, it was like, I'm going to add tires into the mix. So, we were the first people to ever mountain balance tires on eBay, offer full wheel and tire packages. And then I realized I needed to get off of eBay and create my own brand. So, we went and created uh Mr. Wheel Deal. That was our first like e-commerce platform. From then it was just creating other brands that like segment other portions of the market. Um with partners, we launched Custom Offsets, which is like Truck Heavy, Fitment Industries, which is JDM Euro. Then we started selling suspension performance. Then we started acquiring other companies uh like MA Performance in 2020, Vivid Racing in 2025. So fast forward to today, it's about a half a billion in sales each year. Um we've got around 500 employees and and we pretty much sell everything, but we're still very much a wheel entire company. Wheels are are dominantly what we do. >> And obviously you have a very strong passion for cars. Last time we spoke, you said that your cars were costing you about $135,000 per month. I'm curious, how has that changed? >> It depends on the month. Uh, I would say that 135 included like modifications that we would make and those are pretty heavy. I think it's probably a little bit better than that. We've gotten rid of some of the lemons of the collection and and I hired a mechanic actually here that works about 20 hours a week. He is an amazing human actually and he just fixes stuff rapidly and really amazingly. So, he's cheaper. He gets my stuff done faster. I I think I'm probably at I don't know 20 to 50k a month at this point. That's not bad. No, it's very and and a lot of them are newer cars now, so they're under warranty. >> What's the most difficult car to maintain? >> Let's look around. [laughter] That is a great qu. I mean, it's it's like the lump sum of everything is the classics. Anytime we take we like to roll deep. You guys saw that last night, right? So, we'll take six classics out and two to three of them will be broken. Uh so, it's like and especially the Mopar stuff. Like my Daytona and the Superbird are just notorious for oil leaks and breaking and being problems. of the Supra and hypercars, like your Porsches, your Bugattis are ironclad. Um, I would say that God, we we have a good assortment of vehicles. Like my Ramac has been a little bit problematic. Like it's still really good compared to what I had, but that that one's probably of what I have left, that one's probably a little bit more serviced than other cars, but it's still pretty reliable. >> In terms of the total value, I heard you recently say it's valued at about $30 million. How much has that gone up in the last year? It'd be hard to quantify, but like it's very possible that it's $ 35 to $40 million. Like my Yesco I paid $3.5 million for those are going for six. Even my Superbird that was a $600,000 car a year ago, those I've seen those roll for 900 to a million plus. If there was a time to sell, it's probably now. But like these I have such a great spread of cars right now that it's just I got to roll with it. Like I don't buy them for investments. I buy these cars for for happiness investments, not for financial investments. And that drives Tommy who manages my collection crazy. Overall, have you net made money or lost money buying cars? >> Probably really close to break even if I had to guess. >> And what's caused these values to go up so much? >> Who knows? Uh they say that there are like some dealerto-deer things happening that seem suspicious like potential fake bids on bring a trailer and other stuff. Uh who I know that auto manufacturers like help at auction if they see that the value of their car is going too low. they will suddenly throw in like a warranty last minute and then if that doesn't work, they will have one of their minions go and bid. Like this is this is I don't want to even say unsubstantiated because like I I feel like I've verified a lot of this before and I've seen it I've seen it all happen in the real world, but like I'm talking to this guy that has a 100 plus million dollar collection and he's like I'm reassessing my collection. like I'm seeing how high these cars are going for and that makes me want to start selling and profiting. And I'm like if he's thinking that if I'm if I'm struggling to be like I I I want to I don't even know if I want to bring another hyper car into the collection. Like that that feels like the the very epitome and the very definition of a bubble. Like when does it pop? When do when does everyone start selling and and uh overload the market with inventory? And then and then is there is it ripe for buyers that are willing like me where they start seeing the price go down to I don't know it it feels very suspicious what's happening right now. >> What some people are saying is that the people buying these cars spending a million dollars are not the type to need to sell it. And so if they overpay they might just keep it and it's forever off the market. And the people selling are really the ones who bought it cheap years ago, not the people buying today. >> I hear that. But there's there's still a very limited pool of buyers. Like there's there's a lot of these hyper and supercars. Nothing like, you know, there's probably more Ford Mustangs in one model year than there are all hyper cars combined, but like there's still not that big of a buyer pool with this. Like I just don't I don't believe that because I've seen it through co like we've seen available buyers and >> and I I can't it just doesn't make sense. Like it something something's off. I don't know how else to explain it, but I feel like if you're watching this now, watch it back in a year and let's see where the market's at and something strong tells me that there's going to be a big correction. >> So, what's your plan moving forward? Are you going to be buying or selling any of your cars? You said you don't want to sell. Yeah. >> But what is what's your plan? >> So, the great thing is like everything in our channel, like there's been a lot of luck. Like often times I realize that I'm playing chess without even knowing I'm playing chess. like I I just do things and then I realize well I'm like really glad that I did that 6 months or a year ago. We've started shifting to buying new cars and ordering a lot more new cars over the last 3 years. And so the benefit of that is I'm getting these cars at Sticker MSRP and the moment that I get them they're worth $2 to $3 million worth but more. But we've already established this relationship with manufacturers. So they're continuing to allow us to buy them in MSRP. And by and large I keep the cars for at least 2 years. So, like the Hennessy, you buy it sticker and that specific model I know would go over what I paid for it. Uh, McLaren corporate was kind enough to give me the 788HS that's coming out and I heard that those are selling for double sticker. The problem is again they're all happiness investments. So, like I buy them because they look cool, they perform cool and so I don't get to utilize that often times. Do you think that part of that abundance and like yes mentality that you've had as an approach to life has actually made you more money or like how does that express itself in like real world terms? Because my experience of you and knowing your story also, I mean, last night we had, you know, Graham's group, the index. They came out here and you were like, "Oh yeah, everyone hop in a car. We're going to take a dozen of these, 15 of these all to go to a place and like just hop in the car. It doesn't matter." And we're driving like $20 million probably worth of cars and you don't care. You're just I was in a Model 3 say yes to everything. Like the YouTube channel was like, "Yeah, let's do it." Like you want to collab? Yes, let's do it. It's just like a yes to everything. >> Yeah. Even for us, you gave Jack and I the Bugatti Chiron keys. >> All right, Jack has the Bugatti. The best. The best by so much. I I I didn't I didn't want to say it was the best just because it's worth five times more. More than five times more than anything else that we've driven, but it truly is the best by miles. >> And you said, "Here you go. You could just take it out." >> Yeah. >> Be safe. >> It's It's the net positive like for everything. I just I don't want to say for you guys maybe not change because your group are guys that are a little bit more wealthy like they they could probably afford a super hyper car. Maybe not a hyper car. Maybe some of them. I don't know. I don't know them well enough but like >> probably all of them but but I just gave Perfect. I just gave all of them experience that they they may not be able to have. They they maybe they're not the the greatest. >> It was a lot of their first times ever driving super. >> Oh, there we go. There we So, so we got to have what 12, 15 people go experience a brand new super or hypercar for the first time. And the risk for me was maybe something gets broken which will happen in the course of everyday driving. Really the big risk is an accident or spinning out or but like the probability of that happening I think is is really low and even though one of your friends was really speeding you got a ticket but but >> allegedly >> yeah allegedly speeding. So, it's it's just like it impacted these people so positively and my risk I think was relatively low for what everyone else got in return. So, that's that's kind of the mentality there, I guess. >> Have you ever had an accident like that? >> Yes, we had someone pull right out of my neighborhood when we were going to do a celebratory dinner for hitting a million subs on the channel and just pulled right into traffic and some lady t-boned um him and wrecked my McLaren Senna. Insurance covered it, but they dropped me later. So, that was a whole battle trying to find out how to find new insurance and getting that resolved. Bunch of little things have happened. Um, rarely it's negligence. Usually, it's just like chance. And so, as long as it's not negligent, it's totally fine and I'll keep lending the cars out and letting people enjoy them. So, do you think what makes you different and uniquely successful is the yes mentality and just overall action? It seems like there's very little time between like deciding you're going to do something and actually doing it. 6 years in, we finally got the domain iced coffee hourpodcast.com and the only reason it's still available is really just pure luck. Someone could have bought the domain for like 12 bucks and we'd be negotiating with a stranger to buy your own name. That's exactly why we've partnered with Northwest Registered agent. With their free domain and website offer, your business has a home online from day one and they will cover the renewal when your domain expires, so you don't have to worry about losing it. I've personally lost a domain because I forgot to pay it again. It really sucked. Plus, you don't have to fight through four AI bots anytime you have a question because Northwest has real humans ready to pick up the phone. And every plan comes with SSL security so your site stays safe no matter what you pay. And there is no secondyear rate hike. So if you want to lock down your own domain before someone else does, click the Northwest registered agent link down below in the description to get started. >> Again, all you got to do is click the Northwest registered agent link down below in the description to take advantage of their free domain and website offer. So, do you think what makes you different and uniquely successful is the yes mentality and just overall action? It seems like there's very little time between like deciding you're going to do something and actually doing it. [laughter] >> Well, that's that's what makes an entrepreneur a great entrepreneur is is the ability to make a snap decision. Like that that I've read a bunch. Um is that snap decision always? Yes. Like yes, you can do it. That may not be what makes a great entrepreneur, but I think that I'm just able to make that calculation like quick. Like I that that's kind of the way my heart is. Like I grew up with nothing and I always tell the story about how my we were at a car show and my wife wanted to sit in a Corvette and she was 15, I was 16 and the guy wouldn't let her sit in it and I'm like this is crazy. Like what is she going to do by sitting in your Corvette? So that kind of birthed the idea like if I'm if I'm ever successful and able to have something like this in abundance like I'm going to share it with people. So it's it's more just like it's less about it is about the net positive decision but it's more just like what what does it cost me? Why not why not let someone sit in the car? Why not set someone let someone drive in the car? like it's it's fun and exciting for them. Um I just I just don't care. I guess it's fine. Like if something gets hurt or damaged, what what does it matter? >> Yeah. But what's what's odd to me is you've grown your wealth. I mean relatively slowly. You've been working on this business like you said since you were 19 and a lot of the times the people that acquire their wealth slowly are very protective of their wealth because they know how hard it is to to grow a dollar. >> Yeah. For the first 15 years, I was very I lived very conservatively like ju relative to other income that people have in their homes and their cars. I I was very conservative. It wasn't until I bought my first Lamborghini Aventador in 2018, so I was 15 years in business. And uh and I realized how well it kind of uh how much people loved it, like how much they enjoyed it. And I'm like, this is kind of cool. Like people love this Aventador. They're they want to sit in it. And I'm like, go drive it. Go experience it. like if this is something you you won't experience in your life, like you should. What is it? What harm is it to me if you go drive this thing for 2 miles? And so that kind of started the mission. Then I bought a McLaren 720S. Then I bought a Porsche GT3S and allowed me to kind of amplify the mission. And then I kind of stepped away from work for a little bit and started the YouTube channel because I had time. And that really allowed me to like loudspeaker amplify the mission, buy more cars. And so like the whole mission behind the channel is to do just that. It's go to charitable shows, share the cars with the community. Every cent that this channel has made to date has been donated. We've donated almost a million dollars to charity at this point. Like that's that's just the way that I'm wired. And I think it has helped. It's certainly helped along the way in business, but like I'm not always just a yes man. Like I know people tend to take advantage of you when you do that, right? But like and that has happened to me plenty in my life, but I also know when to pull back as well. >> What are some of the downsides to owning so many cars like this? It drives me crazy that there's always three to five in service. Like I I can't stand how often we have to maintain and fix them. Um people constantly ask to to drive them, which again is part of our mission, but like every day like I got I got a kid from California saying, "Hey, can I borrow a car for prom?" And like he's serious. And I'm like, "I can't ship you a Bugatti to California for you to go to prom." Like there's there's weirdly unrealistic expectations. and in my heart like I want to help these people, but like there's 20 of those a day, especially around dance season. So, it it kind of puts you on this podium for everyone to see you and then I think more people kind of come to you as a source for for money. >> What's the most generous thing you've done with your cars? >> The first thing that came to mind is when that lady t-boned the McLaren Senna, she had a really lousy car. It was sub $5,000 car and like I knew that her insurance would probably give her or my insurance would probably give her a $2,000 check for whatever the value was. So, I just went and bought her a car. Um, I went and bought her like a brand new $40,000 Hyundai. Wow. >> That's my thing is and and I'm not going to go into like specifics, but my thing is kind of buying people cars. I've bought probably 20 plus cars for people in my family and my friend group and um that's since that's what we do. Like, I love cars. I think that's the way that I like to show my love for those that that need it. >> What's your favorite car to buy for somebody? >> The Lexus NX. I've bought several of those. like it's just like this perfect size SUV and Lexus has such good UIX, such good driving experience. I don't have one now, but I've always loved Lexus and I think that's such a great car and they were they used to be like 5 years ago they were like 37 grand. So it's like this SUV Lexus that was almost fully loaded just from factory for sub40. >> What's your least favorite car you have ever owned? >> There's a few, but pro I mean definitely my Koig Zegreggera. Christian and I we had a meeting at Care. Uh it was just me, Tommy, Christian, and his son. And I think we went from 0% to like 10%. Which we're certainly not where we were before, but >> I just that car I if I could go back and we made a really funny short form about it and me doing like an interstellar thing. Like if I could go back I was warned by everybody not to buy that car and I'm like I'm like how bad could this how bad could a car be? Like I've I've had everything at this point but it was in the shop almost the entirety of my ownership. >> So what were the cover to cover ownership costs, financials and just general like experience owning a Koigseg? So Koex did help me along the way, but like I don't care how much you help me if my car is bricked 22 out of 24 months. Like I appreciate it, but it doesn't matter if you're paying for my car to be serviced for 3 months and then I get it back for 3 days and it has to go back in the shop. Like thanks, but no thanks. But I probably came out of pocket another 200 grand on top of that and then I took a $500,000 loss selling it. So 700 grand. >> The current owner of the Koig, what's their experience like? >> I saw it in California. I don't know who owns it, but I know that it sat in the dealer for a while, I think, getting serviced and fixed, whatever. And and I guess it did fine on a rally out there and maybe they put a few hundred miles on it, which I was shocked cuz I didn't I didn't even abuse that thing. I drove it gently cuz I'm like, I want to get 50 miles out of this so it doesn't break. >> Why keep breaking? >> I' I've talked about the Koig a lot and I'm trying not to like crap on the guys. is I had a good productive conversation with Christian, but I think the first maybe 25% of them just were very prototype like like they released essentially a prototype to the public and they had wiring demons. They had just all kinds of issues and uh one little fray in like a wire can can be impossible for them to detect. They can keep fixing things that they think cause it, but they're not the root cause. So, it just keeps shorting out other things. And and that was kind of the problem with mine was there were things like window motors that just kept breaking. And I don't know if that was because of some freight or issue, but like there were also other constant things that just broke and broke and broke and broke. But I think at the core of the issue I I think was like the wiring harness, the general wiring I I'm told was very sloppy and bad early on and and that's like the that's like the vertebrae, the nervous system of the car. So if that's bad, like what can you expect from a vehicle? Which car do you drive the least out of all of your cars? >> Uh, I always have to like look at them. I mean, the NSX there. I I I haven't driven it once, but >> You've never You haven't driven it once? >> Not since the We We rebuilt it. I drove it when I bought it, but it was like not widebodied, twin turboed, air ride, so I have I have yet to drive it. Like, I just don't like JDM cars. They're not my thing. >> How come you haven't driven it now, though? >> How long has it been like operational? >> Um, 6 months. [laughter] >> Not once. You're not curious. >> It It's one of those cars where you buy it for the channel. Like I was talking with Matt Armstrong and he said that he said it perfectly like don't buy a car because you think it'll perform well. Like just buy something that you enjoy and and it'll show your passion will show through it and it should perform well for you on the channel. Like that was that was a a channel investment and like it's not our it's not like what our demographic wants to see and I thought it would be and it was just a mistake and I just don't want to drive it. >> How much have you put into it? >> We had some help but probably like 50 grand. It wasn't horrible. >> What are you going to do with it? >> I it's been up for sale for like 4 months. That's a very unique car. What are you listing it for? >> 120 right now. >> What's the lowest you would take? >> Maybe 110. >> It has a lot. I mean, it has it's it's worth every penny of that. Like there's none of these that exist with a Liberty Walk slammed. Like, >> does that add value? I feel like people right now just want stock cars. >> By and large, when you do stuff like that, I don't think it adds value. I think you typically spend 50 to 100 and you get 80% of that if you're lucky, right? So, not really. No, >> it probably hurt me. >> I just can't believe you haven't driven it once. It's been here for 6 months. No desire. Zero desire. And that's when I sell stuff. Like when when I'm looking at a car and I'm like, I haven't driven that for a month and I have no desire to drive it. Then it's time for it to go. >> You know, it's also interesting. I just noticed you have no Ferraris in here. >> I have one. >> You have the one F. >> Yeah. Yeah. Actually, it's the GTC which replaced the GTC for Luso. >> Uh I think Ferrari is like a different culture of of people. And I don't mean that in a bad way. I just think that like a Ferrari owner is different from everything else. Like they're very like distinguished people. This is not every Ferrari owner, but like typically when I think of it and what I what I see out there is they're distinguished. They'll play that game with Ferrari and go buy 20 cars so they can get Ferrari's next hypers series. They will attend all the rallies. Um and it's just like not very counter my personality. We used to have I had a Bugatti Shiron SS that I sold. I'm selling my Ramac. Like we're getting rid of boring cars. And it's crazy to say that like a Ramac, the quickest car in the world is boring or the Bugatti the highest top speed in the world, but they are. They're like they're too refined, they're too comfortable, they're too quiet. Um I like I like loud cars like the Hennessy Venom. It's just it sounds like a ' 60s muscle car. It's loud, insane, fast, >> bold colored, >> huge spoiler. >> It's so aggressive, bro. This thing does not defrost. Woo! Oh, it's there's fire. >> Like that's the future of the collection. I mean, it wasn't even two years ago last time we spoke and I asked you if you could keep one single car aside from Daily Drivers, which one would it be? And you're like, "Uh, probably the Bugatti Chiron SS." [laughter] And now here we are and you've sold the car. Why did you sell the car? >> It was boring, but I also needed cash to build a big project that we're doing. So, we're building a big car condo community in Florida, right in Central Florida near Windermir. And that's going to be where I live in the future for the majority of the year. And I'm looking around at trying to find somewhere for my cars to be stored and there's nothing. I'm like, I'm trying to find this crappy 5,000t industrial building. I don't care how old it is, how dingy it is. And there's nothing. And I'm like, man, if I could just find land and and build something like I could probably make some pretty good money on this and solve a big problem within the community. And I think that's how a lot of my other business ideas and ventures came along was just solving a problem for myself. And so we were lucky and blessed enough to find some land. One of the parcels wasn't even for sale. We just went and met with some very eccentric sellers, talked him into it, had a bunch of come to God meetings with the attorney when it almost fell apart last minute. Ended up closing in Denmark cuz we got a clear to close and I'm like, I'm not going to let this deal slip out of my hands. Like, I will go find some followers that will help me meet, they met me at the embassy, uh, helped me sign and notorized documents and we got it done. So, I have the land. I have the whole project that I'm going to present to the city. They seemed very warm about the idea. I just need to get their thumbs up and then we break ground and and build this community. So, what exactly is the idea? >> Well, the first problem was that there just is no place to store cars down there, right? That's the biggest problem. The second problem is that the vast majority of car condos in the world are like are ugly. Like this community, I actually think is actually one of the top tier ones, but it's there's no real greenery. When you get behind that gate, there's no vegetation, no plants. It's all just asphalt. The buildings are tan. They look like they look like storage units. They don't look like car condos. So, and then they don't have a great club element. like they built some goofy 5:00 tower that's like 1930s theme that's very fancy and bougie and and nobody ever uses it. So I'm like I want to build something that has nature trails, a boardwalk, a lot of vegetation that's beautiful. I want to build a clubhouse that's that's private, welcoming though and has a pool and uh and then have a strong sense of community and and make the car condos like the exteriors look like I I took inspiration from Kota. Uh it's the Circuit of the Americas in Austin. They have beautiful exterior on their car condos and so taking a lot of inspiration from that but trying to make it even better than that. So just elevating the experience. We're we're kind of calling it a country club for cars basically. >> Do you have to apply to like buy one of the places? Like do you have to match the demographic? >> Yeah. I mean, you have to have enough income. Like, these will be probably around a million dollars a unit. And it's uh it's windmir reserve.com is where you can go sign up. And I have this is the only the second time I've really publicly talked about it other than our video. And I have 250 um like emails of interest and I have maybe 70 to 80 condos that we're going to do. So, I'm really pumped about how much interest has come. >> I love the idea. >> But you know what? They're building them now in Vegas. >> What? In Henderson. These car condos. and they're selling for anywhere from 600 grand on the low end to about one and a half on the high end depending on the square footage. They're just like this. It's like open at the bottom with a little loft and you can like speck it out. >> I think it's a huge opportunity and people love them because you're not building a house with like multiple bathrooms, a full-blown kitchen, all these appliances, bedrooms. It's like it's a warehouse with a loft. It's really easy to construct and car people >> just are so excited for it. >> And the loft can have like we'll have kitchenets in our loft. We'll actually put, but it's not full-blown crazy kitchen. It's it's the light version, right? And then a little seating area. And we're hoping to do third storys so that people can stay overnight. And then the designer even suggested like above the third story to have a a balcony or like a seating area up top, like a rooftop patio. And I'm like, that would be phenomenal. That's a pretty minimum cost option. So, we're we're trying to make these as big and amazing as possible. And you know, that's that's something that when I move down there, that's a community I want to be a part of. That's that's the goal. It's something that I'm excited to go to and and enjoy with other people. >> So, what changed with the Chiron in the last year and a half and now? >> There's a point where like you also just get all the content like a lot of these cars are bought because a I enjoy it, but b we need to create a content machine out of them. And we kind of did everything that we could with that. Same with the Ramac. The Ramac just beats everything. So, like those two cars, it's just there's not much more you can do. And then and then I just stopped driving it because there's more fun, loud, raw cars in here to drive. So, it just sat here and then I realized, gee, it's been a month since I've driven the Bugatti. I should probably go drive it. Like, that's why I'm I'm going to drive it. It's because it's sat for a month, not because I want to drive it. So, it's just the psyche of my brain. Like, I there there are some things that like I'm a lifer with. My wife, of course, my kids, like I will always be endeared, love be with them, but then some things I can just lose interest in immediately and move on to the next thing. >> Is there a single car that you have been a lifelong like endearer of it? Running the podcast is honestly an absolute blast between filming with guests, travel, YouTube strategy. It is all super fun. But there is one thing that I cannot stand and that is back-end paperwork. No joke, if I have to even touch anything related to payroll taxes or benefits, it just puts me in an awful mood. Which is exactly why we use today's sponsor, Gusto. For those unaware, Gusto is an online payroll and benefits software that's built for small businesses. 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So to get started, visit upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That is upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. Upwk.com. Once again, upwork.com or just click the link down below in the description. Is there a single car that you have been a lifelong like endearer of it? >> Yeah, my Chevel. Uh I've had that since my kids were tiny and it's been through four engines. Um I just I love my 67 Chevel. I think I'll my McLaren 765LT and my Hennessey Venom. I think those are cars that I will have forever because they're so special to me. I have such special relationships with with either ownership or with local dealers and they're just such thrilling and exciting cars. >> What's a car that you can't believe how expensive it's gotten? >> 75% of all of the hypercars right now, but I would say the 918 is 5 to6 million for the Weiss. Like I sold mine for two a year and a half ago. The Laaf Ferrari, that one's insane to me. So they alleged that they produce 900 of these cars, but realistically if you go to certain websites, there's 1,100 to,200 production. Like I haven't verified this. I've only just went and seen Well, I mean, I've visually verified it, but I can't go and physically verify the VINs on the cars, but like in my opinion, the website tells a story that the Italians lie about production numbers on really Ferrari was one, Pagani was one, and uh and there are probably others, but those were two big ones. And they're producing 1,200 LaFerraris. They were like around 2 million I think to start. And those are those are 7 or 8 million now for a La Ferrari. And it's just crazy to me when there's over a,000 of these. How how is that even possible? Like it's a fun car, but it's just insane to me that they're going for that much money. >> What about the new Ferrari EV that just sold for $4 million? Yeah, that that I my gut says that that was just a a guy that had $40 million that he was going to donate anyway and it helped him get some positive news and some some clout and he was going to do it. Whatever that car was that was going through, he was going to bid $40 million. I I hate the the new EV though. Like I already didn't really like Ferrari and seeing that thing that's that's ugly. And I had the SF90 recently and it's it's like the most soulless. That was probably top three for least favorite cars. Yeah. Like I hated it. it. Too many gadgets and gizmos in it. Is >> that what Jeremy just bought? >> Jeremy just bought that like a day ago. He posted the video. We'll put it up here. Him pulling the uh thing off the car, >> showing it. When you look at the numbers of like 0 to 60, it's really fast. It's got a lot of It looks cool. >> So is a Model S. [laughter] You can go get a a Model S Plaid used for $45,000 and it'll smoke that. Like if if that's if you want fast, like just go get a Tesla. If you want like I think the the d uh the dynamic of the the hyper and supercar is turning very much analog now because they're getting beat. Like the Corvette just beat every car that exists and it's $250,000. Like in America, we just built this hybrid car that nothing can compete with. Like why even go for speed records at this point? Why why be Bugatti? Why what matters if you can get beat by a car a tenth or a 15eenth of your price? Now, now they're figuring out, okay, we have to be we have to be different. How can we how can we get that like ultra rich segment and and it's becoming analog. Yeah. Hennessy Blackbird just came out and it's 800 horsepower naturally aspirated motor, nothing digital in it, gated six-speed transmission. That's I think that's the wave of the future with cars. >> So, don't you think that's one of the reasons why some of the older cars have spiked so much in value is purely because the new ones are kind of >> Yeah. Like the Aventador went crazy because the Revoltto is hybrid. But the problem is what happens when they all start saying, "Okay, we're not going to do hybrid anymore. We're going to do G." What happens to all those cars that spiked because manufacturers started shifting to hybrid? Like it Lamborghini is going to potentially revert back to I I was talking more about hypercar manufacturers when I said analog, but like the supercar manufacturers are going to follow. They have to differentiate themselves again. They're going to get beat by every other car out there, too. So, I think that they they may revert back to naturally aspirated. >> Wouldn't they just do what Porsche is doing and just offer both? like if you want the six-speed gated, it's going to be >> x amount more like you overpay now and they could upsell that. >> And even the Hennessy Blackbird does offer like an automatic they offer a slightly less analog experience with their automatic transmission, but like John was he's like, well, if you want to order that, he's like, well, we don't expect a lot of them. Like, if you want to be that guy, you can order it. So, I think even some of the new real analog ones are going to be even the Pagani Utopia was like a I was shocked that one was announced like 3 years ago, four years ago, and and they offered the six-speed manual transmission and hypercar that time, too. So maybe that was kind of the beginning of that happening and Pagani got on on it super early. >> So what cars do you think are undervalued? >> Bugatti Veyron by far. They're still 15 to $17 million for the 06 to08 and I don't see how that car is like that car did break a top speed record held it for a long time and it's a I think it cost them $4 million to build each of those cars and they were selling them for two at the time. Um they are a little bit to maintain but there's enough of them out there where I think people have figured out how to how to get it done. Bugatti offers it offers an extended warranty for I think 250 that'll cover it for 4 years. I'd have to check the numbers on that, but it's a criminally underrated car that they built. I mean, I told you they built,200 of those LaFerraris. They built I think 350 or 400 of the Veyrons and they're 1.5 million. It's shocking to me that they're that cheap. >> What should they be selling for in your >> If everything else is where they're at, the Veyrons starting price should be $5 million. I think it's criminally underrated. And then you have the SVJs that are another criminally overrated car where those are a million and a half and they built a thousand plus those. It's just I don't understand the market. >> Let's say someone has $1.5 million to invest and they have a choice between the S&P 500 or the topnotch Bugatti. >> Yeah. >> What would you recommend? >> It depends. Are they strictly looking for a financial investment or haven where they're going to park that Veyron? They're not going to drive it. They don't care about the enjoyment of it. Then then I might say actually Veyron is the move really >> like legit go buy if you have $15 million go buy 10 Vayuns let them sit in your garage. I think you're going to come out far more ahead in 3 to 5 years with that. If you're going to drive it then there's then there's mileage that's going to hurt value a little bit. You're going to have to maintain it. Um if you buy it to drive it you're also maybe going to get bored of it. There's more thrilling cars for that much money. So strictly as an investment. Yeah, that might be your best one. How many miles like walk us through in your opinion what would be the best investment Bugatti? >> You have to get into like their convertible model or like their or their Veyron SS. Those have already kind of went up in value. They're I think they're north of three. But just like with any other car, the most special variant seem to be the one that increased the most. The 918 YOX seem to go a lot higher. If there's some goofy Enzo that's a yellow instead of, you know, the super common red, that one garners 50% more. So, I I would have to say some of their their later later models if you're willing to spend a little bit more. Um there's a beautiful Veyron uh Supercar Ron had a beautiful spec and I forget which one is I even drove his um but like that one was in my opinion the most beautiful spec and I think he paid around two. It's probably already worth three now and in 5 years that one might be worth eight. >> It seems like whatever Ed Bolian buys, give it five years and he's always right. >> Yeah. Oh, nice. It it's it's largely the case with me too. I just sell them before I before like I had the LaFerrari, I had the 918. Like I've had a lot of cars that have really gone up in value and I sell them like right around what I paid for them and maybe I make a little bit of money, but again it's not they're not financial investments for me. >> So what else besides the Bugatti that you think is underrated? >> Would have said the Senna a year ago, but that one went from $1 million to $3 million over the course of a year. Everything is overvalued right now, man. Like there's there's five cars for every 95 that 95 are overvalued, five are probably undervalued. I McLaren 720, 750. People always ask me if I have like 250K, what what car uh should I get? And I'm like, if you want reliability and and a very fun driving experience, get a Porsche GT3S. If you want relative reliability and you want the most fun possible experience, in my opinion, it's the McLaren 720 or the 750. like they're highly tunable, extremely good UI driving experiences. They're just such fun cars. >> So, do you think any EV supercars have any collectibility right now? >> No. No. The Ramak is the prime example. Like, I can't sell that. Like, in order to sell that, I'd have to be about half of what I paid. I paid like 27 all in with taxes. The highest offer and I've tried very hard is like 13 on that car right now. Those are and and that's a car where I think when the market has gone broadly EV like that is a car that might that might be the the F1 of the '90s that's worth 20 million like maybe that Ramac is the 5 $10 million car in the future because it broke all these records like it was the very first electric broadly built hypercar but I I I'm not going to sit around for 5 or 10 years on that car to get that value out of it. I would argue that that is going to be the future collectible because you're selling it and it seems like you get these cars early but then you sell them early and as soon as you sell them two three years later they spike. >> Yeah. And but but I don't want to hold on to them for two more years and and not drive them. >> I don't know. It's just it just doesn't make sense. I got they got to be fun. I got to drive them. I have to utilize them. And we put a lot of miles on these cars. Like I mean every when I sell these cars, my average holding period for these cars is probably two years. And the average mileage when I sell them is probably 10 to 12,000 m, which is insane for a hyper car. Like 5,000 m a year when you have >> 20 cars in your collection is insane. >> Which car manufacturer have you completely lost respect for? >> I think everyone thinks the answer is Koigse, but I actually respect them because like if if Let me just talk about that. Like the Yesco they delivered had some very big problems early on. We put a video how it like leaked brakes. the the the gyro was not working, but like they took really good care of it in that first month. They flew tech out multiple times. They did a lot of work on it and it's actually been surprisingly ironclad in the last three or four. There's some small issues with it now, but like I can still drive it as long as I can drive a car. I'm super happy with it. Like the Reggera would brick and and it would shut off. Like you can't drive it. The Yesco has some small issues, but I can drive it. I can wait until the big service to get that stuff addressed. I'm happy as a camper with that stuff. Um, but like there is there's one manufacturer that came to mind and I can't I can't actually even public uh publicly bash them because there was like a deal that we worked out but which sounds crazy but it's a small one and it's it's irrelevant at this point. >> Or which manufacturers are you surprised that they even still exist? >> That would be Koigseg. Like it's it's with all the problems that they had, they just have such great branding and a loyal following base that like their their amazing marketing, branding, and innovative tech is really helping lead them. But usually if you if you build a product that that breaks a lot and is notoriously unreliable, like for consistently for a long period of time, that's the end. But but they've they've gotten better. They've built really cool cars and they've gotten better and they've turned it into more reliable companies. So somehow they rode that that long wave and and like I want them to succeed. I've always said like, "Build me a great car and I will be your biggest advocate." And and my my tone is already very different than it was 9 months ago and I crashed out on them. And uh and so like I I want to be their advocate. I want this Yesco to continue to perform well cuz then I will I will be a positive vocal advocate for them. >> If there was one car manufacturer that you could only ever drive for the rest of your life, what would it be? >> McLaren. I love I love my Hennessy. It's my favorite car in the collection, but McLaren is they just build the the like the broad profile of all their cars is just they're the most fun cars. They're the best cars in my opinion. >> How does someone know they have enough money to be able to buy a McLaren? Like is there a a net worth or an income? >> I mean, net worth is one thing, right? Like cuz a lot of my money is tied up in my company. Like, but but like disposable, let's say, let's talk about like income annually. I mean, you can get that McLaren for probably you're probably like 75 five grand to $7,500 a month. And so you need to I mean, if you're taking a five six year loan on a 250k car, even if it's 5 grand a month, that's that's a pretty steep payment. So you really need to be making at least 2 to 250 a month, but not have not be crazy over leverage with house and other stuff. Like probably the value of the car is is what your annual income. >> So you need to be making like $3 million a year. No, he he meant to say a month >> for hyper for a hypercar. Maybe. Yeah. >> Well, he just >> No, he said 250,000 a year. >> Well, 250 250. >> That's per year. >> 250? Yeah, maybe. Maybe it's 1:1 is where you should be. A 1:1 ratio. If you're going to have a a Bugatti Chiron at $3 million, you probably should make around the same of what that car is worth. You should, but that that's a good bridge into the leasing thing. Like, there's guys out there that are that are like, I just learned a lot of this and it's crazy to me. And I think I think this might be what's manipulating market values too where they can just go list cars really really really high and set the market or a lot of them are even buying all of the inventory. So it's like I'm going to go and buy all of the Bugatti Shirons that exist. I'm going to list them stupid high. So I'm the only one in the country selling them cuz inventory is scarce right now. Um and so I'm going to I'm going to be the guy that has all four of these. I'm going to set the market at whatever it is and I'm going to continue actually getting these people in on three to four month leases. So, I'm going to charge them $60,000 a month uh for their car so they can go use it for their course program or whatever it is. There's stupid amount of this happening right now. >> And then they go and they go and make it look like these cars are very affordable. They help go push their courses and those course people get a lot of followers, a lot of influence from what happens and then the car disappears like 4 months later. >> Have you had people that sell courses approach you to try to rent your cars? >> It's not anybody well-known, but all the time people would come in here and then I'd see them like sitting in my Lamborghini talking about like here's how I invest money in Forex and I'm like no way that I hate that I will not allow. So, like I will I will kick them out of my you I'm like don't use my don't use my 20 year plus years of earnings to to flex and fake what you're doing. There's nothing more that drives me crazy than people trying to use my collection for their own laring essentially, right? They're using my collection for their clout. Uh I'm more than happy to share the cars with anybody that wants a fun experience, but there's plenty of people that come in here and do that and I'm like, "You got to get out." And some of them try to get close with my my team and then you'll realize like I don't realize it right away and then I'm like why is this guy frequently asking you to go out in the Aventador Henry? Like why is why is he hanging out with you a little bit more than usual? Like why am I starting to see videos of him like flexing stuff on on his page with my cars and and that's a problem. >> So in terms of the leasing, how exactly does that work in the back end? >> What I heard is they put a lot of money up front. Like they're they're basically not putting an investment in the in the car. or they're getting nothing out of the car. It's it's I'm willing to go spend a half a million dollars over the course of 3 to 6 months because it's going to double my sub count and it's going to drive significantly more volume in people that sign up for the course. So, it's it's I think some of these people are putting up $250 to $500,000 down than they're paying 60 grand. I heard it's some absurd amount of money and then they get it for six months and they just get as much usage and content as they can out of it. So, what that does is it allows these guys to keep listing the cars really high because they know that they're just going to lease the cars and and perceptually to the public, wow, Bugattis are $5 million or $4 million now. Wow, this this guy that sells classes can afford one of these. Uh, and and then they just keep like doing leases in the background and then you just turn the car in after. >> So, my understanding was that these leases were actually kind of sales structured as leases. So you'd be able to write off all the payment, but they're building equity in the car. >> And then because they technically do own the car, >> they are responsible for the diminished value at the time they go and give that to someone else. So if the car goes from 2 million to 1.8, they have to come out of pocket the 1.8 or they continue making payments. >> I wish I knew how these were structured. I've done leases like that myself. I don't have any. Actually, I do have a lease. I have a lease on my uh my Yesco. I basically went and I the other $1.5 million I had es and flows of cash. I had to go take a lease out on that. But I I pretty much own all of these in cash with the exception of that 1.5. I don't think I have any other lease on anything that's here right now. But I had a lot of money output for cars on order. I have 5 to7 million that manufacturers have been sitting on for up to years and years and years. The JRA, they've had my I think 300k deposit for 6 years now. And so sometimes, yeah, I'll be like, okay, there's there's not infinite money. I need to go bridge the gap. And so I I know those those are structured that way. I don't know how these other guys are structuring it cuz it sounds very different to me. But yeah, these other ones uh are are structured intelligently where it's essentially a lease to own and and because it says it's a lease, you're allowed to write it off, right, >> for tax purposes because it's harder to write off an actual financed car. I guess >> yes, >> the government scrutinizes that a lot more and people don't usually pass that sniff test. >> If you have a deposit to purchase a car for six years, that's $300,000. What do you think of the chances of you actually getting that car? Hi. Hi. But like the Roadster I've had on deposit for like >> what when did they do those deposits? 2018 or 19. I've had that one. I've had they've had 50k of my money forever. I think they're going to deliver it, right? And but I think the real question is >> what if they don't? Do they pay you interest on your money? And they probably don't, right? Like that 50 should be 100 after 8 or 9 years. That should be 100k of my money. If they give me just my 50k back, that's a problem. But I think it's high probability. They have never had an auto manufacturer not deliver the Yesco I waited 5 years for but they got it to me. Um most car manufacturers are actually probably a 2 to threeear window. It's it's not short. >> Which car manufacturer are you most bullish on? Like you think that they're going to continually stay on the cutting edge and put out better and better and better cars. >> I think I think McLaren is like I I'm I'm not trying to like I'm not trying to put them on this pedestal, but like they are releasing a lot of really cool cars. is they have a big color palette that they offer. They're fun and exciting cars. They're quick. I put uh money down on my W1 a year and a half ago, I think, and and it'll get it delivered in sub 2 years. Uh my 78HS that they just launched a month ago. I think I'm going to have that six seven months after. Stupid 67. Um 6 7 months after I put the money down. And my spec is insane. It's the most bold crazy spec we've ever done. But I think it's the coolest spec I have ever done in my life. And like I hate to say it, but but that I hate to like sound like a broken record, but McLaren is doing it right right now. >> What would you recommend for someone who wants as little depreciation as possible? >> Porsche GT3S, everyone since like ' 07 has maintained whatever their MSRP is or above it, and they're highly reliable. That is the best car if you want something that's reliable, that's going to hold its value, and that's going to deliver a fun experience. >> Is there a certain year that's going to be better than others? >> Um, I think the newest year, if you can get one, it's sticker. Of course, that's it. cuz those are still going like a 100 plus above sticker. But I really like the the 2019 the 9112. Uh it's one I've had two of. I had the lizard green and I have a Miami blue weak now. And it's one that's just stuck to its value. Like it's just hell. Actually, it's a little higher than it was, but they're still affordable. Like the the newest model are like 350 to 400. The older model from 19 are like 250, but they drive near the same. Like they're 90% the same car. The newer one just has somewhere arrow and looks different. But like if you blindfolded me and put me in either car, it'd be hard for me to differentiate the driving experience. >> Is it ever worth it to buy the extended warranty? >> In some cases, the LaFerrari, they offered me a 2-year full drivetrain warranty for $30,000. This was on a $3 million car at the time. So 1%, I think that you would do, you know, if you have a $100,000 car and they say, "For $1,000, we'll give you piece full peace of mind for two years." Of course you would do that. That I was the most shocked by the That shows how much they must believe in that car. Uh may maybe that car has been very reliable and mine was too. So >> did you ever use the 30,000? >> I don't think I had to. I think I sold it before I could before I could do it. But by and large extended warranties I think I think it really depends on the price. But I feel like they're usually a little bit too over inflated and but like if you're that supercar guy that's that's buying a car beyond your means and and if that thing breaks and it's going to sit in your garage for 6 months because you can't fix it, then yeah, you should probably find a way to work that into financing. What other cars do you believe are going to be going up in value a lot over the next 10 years? >> I mean, everything's already gone up. I think it's more about what's going >> to figure out what car he should buy. He's really >> What a buy. What do you think about Graham's current collection? If you were to rate it >> one to 10, what would you rate it? >> I mean, it's phenomenal. I' I'd give it a a seven. >> Like, it's it's great. >> What could take it to a nine? >> Uh $30 million. >> Really? It would take 30 million to go from a seven to a nine. Yeah, it it's the battle between like how do you value your collection? Is it is it is it clout? Is it drivability? Or is it strictly just what's going to increase the most in value? And for me, it's like candidly, it's it's clout and drivability are the two most important things that you you have to have for a YouTube channel. Uh because >> So, you think his collection's a little boring? Maybe. >> I think it's fun. You still have the Ford GT, right? >> I do. >> Yeah. That's that's a phenomenal car. >> Ford GT Tesla Roadster 2010, which may or may not be for sale. still debating that. >> And those haven't really popped either. They're still going for 40 to 60, right? >> Uh, depends on the Mine is one of 26 that was ever made in yellow. So, it's the rarest color. >> Those overall have sold more >> just because of the color itself. So, I'm guessing it's a little more than that, but yeah, I was I was hoping that car would be a $200,000 car. >> Yeah. >> And it has not reached that. >> It's got to get there. It has to get there. There's there's so few of those built relative to the S, the X, especially the three and the Y. Like that's that's a car with that's a car I've been following on Bring a Trailer for a year now. I'm waiting for the right one to go through and buy one. It's funny that maybe we should talk about after. Uh >> I would I would 100%. I just I just spent 15 grand shipping this thing to Seattle. >> They did a new like, you know, internals of the the battery, shipped it back. So I just spent money on this thing. >> Ah. So you're like, I still want to sell it. >> It is pristine. It's I never drive it. I was talking to a lot of these guys. I'm like, I never drive the cars cuz they work from home. If I do drive, it's usually for like a podcast or a podcast guest or Jack and I are driving to LA and like sometimes Jack will drive a few times. I'll drive so it's not often and then I sit there and I have to shuffle cars to like get one out of the garage like that. Like imagine you have to get that car out in the corner. You have to shuffle the whole thing and like eh I may as well just not drive it. >> It's a total pain. It it depends like clout is important. If you're if you're on YouTube, there's a certain level of clout and recognition that you want to have, right? Like there's there's always an element of I want to I want to be known. I want to be public. But you hope that you can spread a good message and connect people and deliver something awesome to people. Like if you can do both of those, which you guys do well, then then it's a win-win. So like you got to bring like a Lamborghini to the collection. Like that's that is the that is the pinnacle clout car for someone that's I did mention a McLaren and then a Porsche GT3S if I had 250 but if you have 250K and clout is your most important thing which I know you didn't say that was but like that's the car when you throw a Huracan in the mix or you can get a an Aventador maybe around I don't know what the Aventadors have popped to but >> 300. >> Oh they're still okay good cuz pre-COVID they got sub 300 during CO they went up to 350 even up to 400 and then I think they corrected themselves. So, >> it's really an Aventador, a Huracan, that's that's kind of the best clout. >> I don't like I don't like the clout cars cuz as soon as a lot of people have them are like, "Oh, you have this car." I don't like it. Too many people have something. I just I'm not into it. I like the cars that no one else has it. No one else >> on YouTube really besides like a few car guys have the Ford GT. Almost no one has a Tesla Roadster. I think I'm the only one. And then almost no one has the Lotus Evora GTC. like no one. So, I like the the oddballs >> and and like the TWWR Super Cat that I have in order is one of those. A J it's a Jaguar XJS that has a naturally aspirated V12 in it. You can get one of those cars, the XJS's for 15 to $20,000, which is it's because they're so terribly unreliable. But then TWWR takes them and wide bodies them and makes them into this like supercharged beast machine. And and for me, they're they're still like $500,000 plus dollars, but it's such a cool and unique looking car. When you say that, for me, I think that's my car of the one that nobody has on social media that really is just going to be thrilling and fun. I get to spec myself. And then the BAC Mono that I bought that from Houston Cross right there in Vegas. Uh, and like that's a car that's, you know, upper 100s for the non-type bar. The Type R is upper 200s. And that's a really fun and unique car. You just can't have a passenger in it. >> I noticed on a lot of these cars, too, you have really incredible license plates. And I'm so curious how you're able to get these plates. Now, I got to say, everyone's had that one business idea that they've been just sitting on for way too long. And taking that first step is usually where the idea stops, but getting started is actually very straightforward when today's sponsor, Shopify, handles it for you. 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Shopify powers millions of businesses worldwide from household names like Mattel and Gym Shark to people launching their very first store. So, if you're ready to hear the of your first sale today, head over to shopify.com/ic to start your free trial today. That's shopify.com/ic. One more time, that is shopify.com/ic or click the link down below in the description to get started today. I noticed on a lot of these cars, too, you have really incredible license plates, and I'm so curious how you're able to get these plates. I >> I know that the lady's name at the Illinois Secretary of State is Caroline Shirley. I only know this because I always get a letter from her or a call on, "What does this mean? What does THC BBC mean?" And I'm like, "Oh, it's the Hamilton collection and in BBC it means big black Cadillac." I'm like, "What else would it mean?" And she's like, "Nope." And [laughter] I had to turn it. That was one that slipped through and I had to turn it in. I think that we try to use like modern lingo where the the one that I think a lot of the people that make the decisions are like 30 40 something people like myself. >> We did BBC on the Revoltto BB. We must have some obsession with BBC. We told you about our mascot here. Um and it's BB E and that one slipped through even though when you say it it's BBC. >> So I think it's just being creative and sneaky. Huge wang on the McLaren Senna. They probably didn't even know what that meant, but like a wang means a wiener. >> And then everything is wiener related, isn't it? Small. >> What's the obsession with wieners? [laughter] >> I don't know. I think it's cuz it's everyone always assumes you have like a small wiener. So, we're like we're either saying no, we have a big wiener or we're saying we're affirming yes, it is. So, we did small pee pee on my Resani. We did small D on my Ferrari. That's my crew car. So, I put the small I remember we were in our crew car. The Isn't it funny? the Ferrari GTC4 uh Luso is our crew car, but that's what they drive to run errands. And like I remember seeing these girls behind us just like snickering and laughing and I felt like so humbled because they're laughing cuz my license plate says we all have a small >> I can't believe that you're able to get away with that. >> Me neither. There's the wall of license plates over there. Like I'm I'm looking at all of these. Cop lover. Yeah, that one that one was that one makes sense. Um the box one backwards like they didn't catch that. I don't know if you saw that one. The third from the right on the top one. Oh, no. I didn't see that. Uh, was it cracked? >> Yeah. Uh, cracked. That was for the Yeah, there's a small pee one. Small D is up there. Aura >> the Aura makes sense. That one's not that bad. There's been some interesting ones that are still on the vehicles. >> What's the one you wished you could have gotten that they denied? >> Oh, GTA IRL. That I'm like Grand Theft Auto in real life. I'm like cuz everyone always says bros live in like Grand Theft Auto garage in real life or Forza. So, we're like, ah, that would be a great license plate. GTA IRL and they denied it. Like she asked me, she's like, "What is GTA?" And I had to find a website that didn't show that it meant Grand Theft Auto. I tried to I I had to go to a website that just showed the acronym and I'm like, "Here, it's it's a video game called GTA." And she must have done more diligence. And she's like, "Nope, not happening." [laughter] >> I didn't think that would be like bad. >> Yeah. Of all of the ones, that's the one that gets rejected. >> I know. And that one would have been so cool to have in here. But >> you're going to have everyone now going to their state's website to try to get GTA IRL. >> They should. And hopefully they can get it. Hopefully their state passes cuz I think it's reasonable. >> If it's in Nevada, I think you should get it. >> Why me? What about you? Six cars. >> I don't want to put that on like a Tesla Model 3. >> It'd be even funnier on Model 3. >> What about [laughter] >> my 2000? Like >> $3,000 Model. >> I'm going to look for it. I'm going to look for it. Okay. If it's available, I'll get It's funny you say Tesla cuz like my daily is a Cybert truck and if I had to keep one car it's it's that out of all of the cars. I love it's very drivable, right? And then my son has a Model 3. My other son Jack who's about to be driving has a Model X. My wife has a Lucid Gravity. Like I have this whole collection of loud wild cars and every one of us that drive in the house have an electric car. >> Why is that? >> Because they're just so much more convenient. The tech is so good. Especially in a tech I mean you have >> Yeah, I love it. It's just so reliable >> and the auto has gotten crazy good in the last year. If you have the new hardware from 22 on up, >> it's I'm leaving my driveway, clicking it on, going an hour into the city and stop and go traffic all the way to my destination and it's parking me in a parking lot like insane. >> It's also really nice for me not to have the maintenance on it. >> Even when you It's there's so much less parts for them to have to fix. And even when you do, you just go drop it off and they get it done. >> No, they come to your house now. >> Oh yeah, sometimes. Yeah, >> it's incredible. >> We we had some bigger jobs that they had to do, but you drop it off, you don't have to see a human, which is kind of weird. Tesla's very anti- personal communication. And it's like, "Cool. You want to buy a car? Order it online. Oh, you ready to pick it up? We're going to have it parked in a spot for you. Click your screen for a video if you need to learn anything." That's I'm like, "Very impersonal, but I guess if you're that good of a company, you don't need to be personal." >> So, I saw recently one of your videos, you're doing a flip. Yeah. >> The guy flipped over one of the cars and the HOA was upset and you made this whole response to the HOA. What happened? What's the current status of that? >> So, Frankie Laenna, he's the guy on TikTok that has the big booty and and does every stunt known to man. and he just came here and he practiced for he actually imported snow from Michigan because there was no snow left here right outside of my window. He built the snow ramp. He was testing it safely for like 5 to 6 hours. Test runs, test runs, test runs. And then he finally took the Koigg pulling the snowboard and and he jumped it low speed. Very very like like two out of 10 in terms of what he's done. Like he's a very talented stunt man. He says he's never injured himself in any stunt, which I find crazy cuz some of the stuff he does is is a 10 out of 10, like an insanity. And the HOA didn't like it. No, nobody came out to say anything during that 6-hour period. Uh but somehow they caught wind of it, even though people come in and out of this community all the time. The HOA is feet away from my door after they're like, "We don't want him to post a video of it." And I'm like, "I'll let him know, but he he's his own channel. Like, he spent a lot of time and resources doing that. He drove out of here from Michigan. He had to he had to spend the night prior like shoveling snow into his truck. I'm like, I'll let him know, but I can't promise anything. And then I conveyed that to him, but I'm but he still posted it, which I told him like at the end of the day like it's your decision. Like I can't tell you not to post it. And like I still love Frankie. He's a good dude and he's been an advocate for me as I battle with the HOA. But they really didn't like that. And so they they're worried that it was going to increase their insurance costs or their insurance was going to drop them. and like it's still been 6 months and no word from insurance like nothing's happened and they so they find me $25,000 and like according to the stipulation of the HOA agreements like they can't really find me above and beyond 250 and they're trying to pull some caveat in the language there that they're able to go claim this $25,000 and then but it was all it was all total BS. So I said there's no way I'm going to pay that fine like I'm just not going to pay it. I'll sue you guys. And I I just didn't agree with it. And so they they then reduced it to 5K, which I thought was cool. But then they're like, >> but if our insurance does drop us, you're responsible for all of our lost car show revenue for in perpetuity. Like >> and they said they make $185,000 a year from their car shows, >> which I think is crazy that they're profiting off of car shows cuz that's it's very counter Hamilton collection. >> How do they profit from the car shows? >> Well, they charge a lot of money and they they do bring a lot of people into here. Okay. >> Uh that's that's really the gist of it, right? So, so I'm like, I'm not going to what am I going to be on the hook for 10 years of lost car show revenue? Like, that's insane. You you took it from $25,000 to 1 to2 million potential dollars. And who's to say that you lost insurance because you're holding car shows. You have cars weaving in and out of hordes of children and people. You have golf carts that crashed into electrical junction boxes that were driven by kids. Like, the amount of exposure. You have guys fixing cars in your parking lot. You got a guy sitting under a truck uh fixing >> that be more threatening to their insurance. That's what I'm saying. >> Well, it depends who's filming it really. Yeah. You don't want the Great point about that. Don't let me forget about. So, one of the stipulations was I also can't film something. Nobody else has a stipulation to. So, I'm like that sounds kind of damaging to me because that's my business. Like, we film here all the time. We intro videos. We're doing stuff. And they said, "You can't film." I think it was outside of the premises, but like we drive our cars out of here. Like, that's that is a primary uh traffic and uh cash driver to the business. And it's crazy like why why why can't I film me driving in a car out of your community? What harm is that doing? Really? They just have a personal vendetta against me. That's what I genuinely think it is. I think these are tiny weenered guys that uh just don't like that we have a social media channel that it's done really well because of our awesome followers and uh they just have a chip on their shoulder about us. I don't know. I don't know what it is. >> How many people are in this HOA? It's I think the board has like eight people >> and so these guys all just agreed most likely that they just want to come after you basically. >> I think there's like two or three that are really anti-Hamilton collection and and they're the guys with the tiniest wieners. >> Was the wiener tiny because of the jump or was it always tiny? >> I think it was always tiny. I'm pretty sure it was always really really tiny. >> That's what caused the exposed as tiny, >> I suppose. Yeah, there there's [clears throat] something they're trying to overcompensate for. But but aren't we all trying to overcompensate for something as I sit behind a $30 million car collection? >> You should be brothers in [clears throat] arms with them. >> I should. Yeah. The tiny the tiny wiener brethren. >> Yeah. >> Do they know your wiener is just as tiny? [laughter] >> I'll have to show them one day and we'll find out. >> All of a sudden all the fees dropped. [laughter] >> Tomorrow they're like, "Listen, man. We're fine. We had no idea you're one of us." >> The small wiener dab up. It's a special one that I'll have to maybe I'll have to show you guys. You'll have to we'll have to see first. >> That's incredible. [laughter] So, are you how are you going to solve the situation? >> Uh, I mean, they just got served with well, not served. I just sent them the complaint. So, it's like this this phase of you send them the full legal complaint, but I haven't filed it yet. I let them review it for 2 weeks. They can they can see how much work and effort we put into the complaint, and they can make a decision if they want me to go ahead and officially sue them. Um, they just won't respond or they won't agree. uh or they can reduce and either drop the fine or reduce it to something that's like of this earth and that will close the matter. So, I think they have days left to reply to me and then I'll just sue them. I don't I've already spent $25,000 in legal fees. Sounds great. Like I'm like a guy that will >> if if I feel like I've been wronged. I will spend it sounds stupid and I don't mean it to sound arrogant, but like I will spend $100,000 to to remedy a $5,000 um issue if I think I've been extremely wronged just to prove a point to people. It's rare that I have to do it. >> But isn't your peace of mind and just going about your day worth more than like the the >> This is his peace of mind. >> This is Yeah. I'm just saying but like you're fortunate enough to have like so many great things going on where it's like if it's a little inconvenience today. It's like not the end of the world and life goes on and sure they might have gotten one up on you but like >> in the big picture, you know, >> I would agree if if I got a ticket in some city in California and I was doing this, but I have to deal with this community and these people every day. So, like >> I don't want to set a precedent by being the guy that that just bowed down to them and paid the fine because what are they what are they going to do if something else small happens? Like if I mistakenly chirp the wheels taking a corner out of here, are they going to find me $50,000? Uh because I skidded a little bit turning like I think it sets a dangerous precedent by succumbing to them. And I also think they genuinely there's malice and they genuinely have it out for me. So it'd be different if the situation was different. And if I if I genuinely if I crashed into a building and they wanted to find me and I had to pay for the damage, that's fine. But no, no harm was caused to any people, any property, it was cleaned up. Nobody came out here during the 6-hour period. We've done stunts like this in my unit outside of the unit. Frankie has filmed before. No verbal anything. So like we've we've already set a precedent that we do stuff like this. Also, I think to defend the people that may have access to less resources because I'm kind of thinking I'm a member of an HOA where I live in Vegas. Yeah. And let's just say the HOA started >> being really aggressive with fees or doing some things that I kind of disagree with. Maybe I didn't necessarily have the resources to fight it, but someone else in the community did. I feel like, okay, [clears throat] wow. Like now I feel a little bit more protected or insulated from some sort of like >> governor around me trying to like exercise control or like you know I would say too much power. >> Agreed. Yeah. So may maybe we'll help other people within the community and maybe some people are advocating for us to win this because it means they'll be better protected in the future. For sure. >> Would it ever get to a point where you'd have to move? >> I'm I'm listing this unit up for sale anyway. Like I don't I don't want to be I don't want to be part of a community where I feel unwelcomed. There's plenty of good people in here, but like there's also a lot of back talk that happens. Like I don't I think by and large we do very good for the community. Like it's kind of what we do is counter to what a lot of people in there do. Now a lot of people do share their garages. They're kind, but like not everybody. We share them. We let people sit in the cars. Um we let people use this unit for various events. We've even let the HOA use this for a Christmas party like 2 years ago. Like I didn't charge them anything. like that's just what we do. And a lot of these people are condescending to people that are less fortunate and they talk about those people behind their backs and they refer to them as it's just it's it's toxic and and I don't want to be part of a culture like that. I think as I'm building this in Florida, like my message is like unity, be open. Like people can do what they want with their cars and their units, but like at the end of the day, they should be willing to share, be open, be kind to people. And so I'm hoping that that's a fresh start. I can very much see me pulling away from this community. >> At what point do you think your detachment from money started? Because it seems like you don't make a lot of decisions based solely off of like ROI. Like you were saying, you'd spend $100,000 in order to fight a $5,000 thing just based off of principle. Was it a financial thing? Was it a mentality thing? >> There's there's multiple layers to that. >> I would say like I always flew regular class up until like 2020 and I'm just like why? what benefit does it give me sitting in the big seats? And then now I'll now I'll kind of it's probably 2 to1 ratio first class to to regular class and that's more in relative to income like that that's not going to hurt me going spending this money on I I think about it and I'm like god this lawyer is kind of he's kind of charged me like 25 grand up to this point just to file a legal complaint feels expensive. So I am I am scrutinizing that and there is a point where if I'm 300 grand into this I'm like yeah I kind of messed up. I shouldn't have done this. I don't think it's going to get there at all. I think we've done most of the work up front, but but like there is a very different mindset that I have than I did 5 years ago where where I'm like I have 20 a list of 20 things to do on my house right now. Um we've been in it for 5 years and I realized there's a lot of maintenance that I need to do. I've kind of shuttered and back in the day it'd be a couple things at a time and I'd get three quotes for everything. I'd be bargaining and I'm just going to like I'm just going to one guy that I've used in the past. I'm not even really scrutinizing the guy and I'm just at the point where I'm like, "This guy's not making as much money as I am. He's He wants $3,000 to epoxy the foundation of my house. Like, I'm not going to nickel and dime him for another $500. I just don't care. Like, I'll just give him the $3,000. It'll make him It'll make him a better person. It'll give him more income." And I just like I'm not really scrutinizing a lot of things. There is some stuff I scrutinize where I'm very close. And I know like shipping carriers, I have an abundance of shipping carriers that we have accessible to us. I know what it cost me to ship a car to California. If someone comes in at $4,000, I'm going to be like, that's too expensive. Like, I can use 10 other carriers and and get this for two grand, but the mindset has definitely changed over the last 5 years on I just don't care as much. I do care. I just don't care as much. >> Was it an intentional thing or was it more of a subconscious change that kind of just gradually started changing and then you observed it later? And and like I said, was it like a number thing or how did you know you were there? >> I don't know. Oh, I think it was I think it was gradual. But I remember my wife, we were at a restaurant and she's like she's tipping like I always tip 20%. And I'm like that's I still think that that's a that's slightly above. I don't think everyone tips 20, but that that's probably in in the realm of the average it's toward the high end of average. So it's still >> I would say average is probably 15 to 18%. >> Got it. So So yeah. So exactly it's on the high end of of the average, right? And then there's 25 30 and then she's writing like 40% tips and I'm like Caroline like it feels like but then I'm like well this this server is probably making 20 to $30 an hour all in if they're lucky and they're really doing the majority of the work. Like we should be compensating these people better. So So like that was kind of one of the triggers that changed the mindset. And so now the tip is 50 to 100% no matter where I go unless the service if the lowest I'll leave is 20 and the service has to be atrocious for me to leave 20. Uh, but everywhere else it's it's 50% that I go. And if it's if it's like a cheap place like a Waffle House, I always leave them 100 bucks. So if it's a $50 check, I love Waffle House. I love the people there are just a different breed of people. And I love like I'm like a blue collar person type of guy. Like I I will I'd rather hang out with a bunch of blue collar folk than than white collar folk all day long. Um I don't know why. I just feel like they're far more relatable to me. And so if my check's 50 bucks a waffle, they're getting 100 bucks no matter what. And so that it's just there's just been little things that I've made realizations along the way that it's it's my way of kind of giving back the best that I can. >> What's been your biggest financial mistake that most people don't know about? >> I invested in a an Arby's and I'm like why the fudge did I invest in an Arby's? I don't even really care for Arby's. Like who says I want to go to Arby's tonight? Nobody. Nobody says that. All of the fast food restaurants like Arby's. >> Why Arby's? >> They had those good like it was like a pulled beef something or other like a barbecue. >> Ate it. >> I know >> it's it's been over 10 years. >> Like 1990. I don't mind Arby's, but like I need to make sure that I'm not necessarily passionate, but that like I I really like what it is that that I'm doing. And I had two partners that basically had this deal all lined up and they just needed like a financial arm. They were going to operate and run it. And I'm like cool. like they pitched the world to me and they're like, "You just got to" And so the problem with that is that it's like a 12-year lease that I signed up for and the RB's failed very quickly. Uh and they it failed after like one year. So I'm still paying $11,000 a month for that lease for the next like seven years. And >> are you serious? >> Can you subleasase it? >> I I did sub lease it now. I I was paying that forever and I finally found a subleasy about 6 months ago, but there's no even and that's the other thing. >> But you're basically the guarantor of that lease. So if they leave now, you're responsible again for the payments. >> Yeah. Exactly. >> Until they find someone else. >> Unless I want to sue the sub cuz they're they're also tied to me. But like I almost don't have the heart. >> I don't like it's crazy to say this, but like I hate my landlords because of that. Like I I asked them for a buyout. I'm like, "Let me give you $200,000. That's almost two years of lease." And they they realize that I'm such a cash cow and that I can afford and ride this out for 10 years that there's like there's nothing. They they refused to offer a bio, which is just such so crappy of people to do that in my opinion. I don't even think I could sue these guys that are leasing from me now if they decided to I hope they're not watching cuz like I'm said I'm creating a bad foundation here, but like >> I just don't think I don't think I could be like I'm going to go after you. >> Uh because I there's a good chance I have more than them and it just doesn't seem fair to do that. I think I would just >> I think so because like just because you have more than them does like they still probably have more than a lot of other people. Yeah. And so like as long as you're past kind of that critical mass like a lot of people will use their money to like exercise their power, >> you know, like in good ways and bad ways. >> Sure. >> And so it's a decision for you, you know, use it to exercise good or >> Yeah. I don't know. It's tough. It's tough with that. But that was probably it cuz think about that over the long term, right? $10,000 a month times at the time 10 more years of payments and they escalate rent escalations too. So I'm I'm a million dollars plus in the whole >> What about the other people who did the Arby's with you? Are are they shipping in? >> Bankruptcy, nothing. No, not at all. >> How's your relationship with them? >> I don't hate them. Like I don't I don't like them. I don't really talk to them unless I need tax info from four years ago that uh might have gotten misplaced or something, but like I wish them the best. I would never open a business with them again. Um, but like and that's another example like I I could sue them and go after them, but like I know that they have significantly less than I do. So like what what even though they were the driving force behind doing it, like what good? It's not going to this 10 grand sounds like a lot of money, but at the end of the day, it's not impacting me that bad. So I'll just ride it out and I'll make their lives easier even though they brought me into this mess. >> See, my mindset has always been because I've gone into business with people and lost. Yeah. And as much as I would want to blame like oh it's because of them and they did this and at the end of the day like I was also the one who like decided to like I made the decision to do that and that's on me and I can't you know even though I think they might be more respon I was the one the buck stops with me at the end of the day and like I just got to live with that. >> Yeah. And I I'll still be accountable like I I could have said no. I could have said no and and part of it might have been me being a yes man. Uh and that's why I got stuck in this mess. Would the Arby's have changed my life at the time? Absolutely not. >> It just felt like another leg to stand on when in fact it was a a broken leg. It wasn't a good leg. But I'm but I'm with you. Like I I have accountability towards it as well. And that's probably driving some of the reason why I'm just footing it and dealing with it. >> Why did the Arby's fail? Because it's Arby's. [laughter] >> Did you not think this in the beginning? It's like, yo, it's an Arby's. Like did no one did you have anyone you you talked to and they just said, "Dude, this is Arby's we're talking about." >> I know. I know. I know. I should have I should >> Do you like Arby's? >> Like I like their roast beef sandwiches. Just their plain beef and their curly fries are delicious, but like it's number like 57 on the list of fast food that I'm going to go to. So, >> when's the last time you had Arby's? >> 5 years ago. [laughter] I never even [gasps] I never even went to my Arby's after You never went to it? >> Not after it opened. and I went to when they were like doing their grand opening, but like after that, I'd never visited it. >> Would you go to another Arby's or is it forever ruined? >> If I was super hungry and there was like no exit for the next 10 miles and this exit only had an Arby's and like a Subway and a Chipotle cuz I hate Chipotle and Subway. If it was like those three, then I'd go to Arby's. >> Why do you hate Chipotle and Subway? >> They're disgusting. Like it smells >> I can't stand Subway. I get sick every time I go to Chipotle and it just >> yet ecoli when you go to Chipotle. >> What's that? >> E. coli. >> I don't know. I hope not. I just really >> Oh, that's the new That's the new thing. >> Yes. Yes. I love Taco Bell, which makes no sense cuz Chipotle is better than >> I actually think in terms of flavor, Taco Bell is much better than Chipotle and Subway. I think people go to Subway because they think it's healthy and people go to Chipotle because it is healthy. >> Yeah, that's fair. And Taco Bell will clean you out. >> So, that's also flushes the system. >> Yes. >> It's like a cleanse. It is good. >> Yeah. >> So, what does your portfolio look like today? >> You'd be surprised. It's It's largely stock in my company and cars. Like I I'm an idiot where I I bought depreciating assets. I still have quite a bit of property that I own. I probably have I mean I sold at one point I had like I don't know 75 doors, but now I I think I own eight properties. And so there's there's still I don't know $40 million worth of property that I have. But I I have mortgages on some of that, but I do have a lot of equity. I have my cars. I have significant value in my business. And then I have very limited amounts in stocks and like probably a million dollars in stocks and the kids stuff. >> Why'd you sell your real estate? >> Stre like de-stressing. Part of that was the Arby's closed. I sold seven pet Supplies Plus stores that I had. I sold a lot of my properties. I look back and I don't know how I managed all of that stuff. Like mentally, I just don't want that much stress. We've created enough value in the in the wheel businesses where I don't I don't need all of those other legs to stand on. Even if crap hits the fans now and everything went away, like I have enough to live comfortably on for the rest of my life. So I'm like, why am I still filling my life with all of these stressors when I'm okay now? So it just sold it. >> Did you end up making money in real estate when all sudden? >> Yeah, I made money on like I've I've been really good with real estate. Like the opposite of cars, where I broke even I break even on cars. I've done very well with real estate. I bought do so well in real estate? >> Just timing. Like I don't I would uh do most of my purchases around a big market correction. So I I did a lot of purchases from like 09 to 12 where I'm buying $135,000 houses that I later sold for like 350. They're old, dingy apartments in nice areas. So I essentially would wait till someone moved out. I'd make the unit real nice and then rent it for significantly higher. And and apartment buildings get their valuation out of the percent of income that you make. Sure, some people might be like, "Okay, that apartment building million is a million dollars. That doesn't make sense. It's too high." But like really, it's just most people look for a 6 to8% cap rate. And if I can create significant more rent income, then it it just increases the value of the building, even if the building is in the same shape that it was theoretically, right? So, I would go I I had a team of I actually had three carpenters on staff that we would go in and fix up properties full-time. Uh because I again I had a bunch of properties at the time and then the I would sell the buildings for like 2x of what I paid and I would only put you know 10%. >> If you could go back in time, do you think it would have been wiser to just focus all of your efforts on the wheel business? >> No, cuz that didn't take away and um that stuff didn't really take away from it. I I always my business gets all of my attention first and then everything else is secondary. So I will I will work to the bone on the primary business and then I will fill in the gaps of time with the other stuff. You don't think that you could deliver higher returns though using that extra time to think of more ideas with the wheel business? >> We have such a big and great and competent team. I mean a lot of guys are five to 10 to like we have 500 people. I have a full seuite. I have I'm one of five owners. Like we have a lot of really brilliant great minds at our organization. So like I can I can brainstorm and come up with ideas and we have a fabulous team that can execute them. And I'm not like putting myself on the same plane at all as Elon because he is he is a brilliant guy. But like that's that's kind of his his method, right? Like he he comes up with the idea. He he is intimately involved with the team in the early stages and from what everything everything that I've read and I've heard then it then he empowers the team to go and do it. Like he's the idea guy. He'll be boots on the ground and in the trenches when he needs to be, but then he trusts his team to go and develop and create wacky new crazy ideas that change society. I'm again I'm not comparing myself to that, but like in a small you're basically the same thing. >> A micro Yeah. I'm basically in a small micro way where I'm one trillionth of his net worth. Um that would only put me at a dollar so maybe not. But uh in my in my own micro way I try to like emulate that like I I help be one of the idea guys. We have a lot of really phenomenal ideas rolling out um on our websites. We just did a new UIX revamp that I think is brilliant and my team took a lot of my advice and direction on a lot of the projects and they executed it very very nicely. >> How is your business doing now with tariffs? Hey, by the way, really quick. If you want extra content just like this, as well as early access and a bonus post show posted every single week, feel free to join as a channel member to get immediate access to all of that, as well as early access to everything else that we post along with priority responses to all of your comments. So, if that sounds cool, feel free to join. Would love to have you on board. Thanks so much. We'll get back to the podcast now. How is your business doing now with tariffs? >> There's so many headwinds in the automotive businesses. like we you know we we grew 35 to 50% for almost 20 straight years. There was a COVID correction when stimulus money ran out and just a lot where we shrunk for it's crazy to go from 35 to 50. Actually the in 20 I think we grew 70%. Uh and then to to go from that and then you have 2022 where you're down like 4%. I'm like it's so weird. It was >> usually you think it'd be like okay you only grew 20% or 15 but you go down after that just very strange correction period. So that happened for a couple years and then the last few years we've been up like mid single digits which also is kind of hard to to deal with and I think that that's kind of like I think that's been very large industrywide. I think there are slightly less enthusiasts than there were. So it's you got to fight harder to get some of that market share. Um I think there's less disposable income. I think Walmart just reported their they were still up 2% but they just reported their worst quarter in quite some time that just came out a few days ago. I think it seems like there's something like that that comes up every 6 months where we're like, "Cool. >> We're in the green. We're in the clear. We can expect some growth. Oh great, tariffs just hit that just raised prices 10 to 20 to 50%. Now we got to deal with that. Oh great, we just bombed Iran. Oil prices are high. What is the first demographic that stops buying when oil prices hit?" Truck owners. What is our biggest source of revenue? Truck owners. So it's like it's like you keep getting like hit. I I'm thankful that we're growing given market constraints and conditions >> and wheel and tires are like an largely wheels are like ancillary spends. They're >> they're luxury spends and so in I don't think we have a down economy by by any means, but it doesn't feel like >> it doesn't feel the same that it did back in the day. like people I don't I don't feel like people are as prone to customize their vehicles with manufacturers are delivering much nicer wheels with with vehicles like my Escalade V had 22-in black chrome wheels in it. I'm like I don't even want to change these. These look nice and there's a lot of cars that look like that. So there's just constant headwinds and as a business owner you have to learn how to adapt to that. Uh attack different market segments and I think we're we've done a lot of that focus in the last year and that's going to start paying us dividends in the coming year. Do you ever get knockoffs coming from China where they basically just see your design and just say, "Oh, we could we could do the same thing." And then they offer it like half the price. >> That's like the wheel industry in a nutshell. Like that's it's of our own proprietary brands. We have three Anthemovia. Not really. There's not really people like just copy pasting them, but there's it's so hard to differentiate a wheel when there are a million plus different SKs. M >> but there are plenty of brands that that are what they call rep brands where they launch a whole new like line of five wheels and they're basically just replicas of other wheels from other manufacturers and they just sell them a lot cheaper and they do really well. >> And so has your revenue basically probably stayed around the same then since the last time we spoke? I think you said it was at 350. >> We've acquired companies so we're like I think we're going to be north of 400 this year. And the crazy thing is like you know about like multiple arbitrage where you buy companies and the more companies you buy if you can integrate them well you get a bigger multiplier right a multiplier on $und00 million company at 8% profit is lower than a multiplier at a $500 million company at 8% profit because people are attracted to bigger companies that are profitable. So we've done some of that with a few of the acquisitions and and that's helped us get north of I don't count when I say single mids singledigit growth I don't count that free bolt-on growth. If you count the free bolt on growth, it's double digit. But to me, that feels like cheating. >> Um when you're like, well, we grew 10%. But we bought we bought uh some of that last year. Like that that feels like cheating. But honestly, in the PE world, they don't like they value that. From all the conversations I've had, it's valued about 80% as strongly as organic natural growth. Like they actually see a lot of value in you acquiring and bolting because that's what P firms do. they they try to buy a plethora of companies, combine them in some cases or or encourage companies that they buy to buy other companies to create value. So, it's definitely a strategy of ours to keep doing that. >> What does your day-to-day look like? Like, how much are you working and what are you working on? >> I put about 10 to 15 hours a week into my YouTube channel and a lot of that's travel and other stuff. I My day is very much spent like meeting with people. I do get in the trenches on supply chain. I enjoy talking to a lot of our suppliers, especially our big ones, and negotiating with them and making sure that we have COGS reduction, but also grow them as a result where it's a a good symbiotic relationship. Um, I man I kind of manage those projects throughout the day where I check in on stuff. Um, but it's it's a lot of like email project management. Like my my email inbox is is my day-to-day. And the great thing about that is I can be flexible and kind of cut it up throughout the day to get it done. But it's it's really like just getting tasks tasks done on email, meeting with people in person, and video meetings. >> So, you work a lot. >> Yeah, I probably still put 55 hours in a week, which it is not a for me that's not a lot, but that >> for the average person, I think that's a lot, but for me that it feels balanced because I can integrate a lot of family time into that and time with my wife. Do you think that you need to be putting in 55 plus hours and and go through very aggressive work phases where you're putting in like, you know, 70 80 hours a week in order to be this successful? >> Absolutely. Yeah. And I and I actually do like I say that but actually right now I'm probably in that 70 hour phase because I'm I'm meeting with a lot of new suppliers and that's a lot of work to meet with them to follow up with them to make sure we're doing the tactics that we said would grow them um to implement price changes like my team does in the background but I'm like quarterbacking a lot of this. They like it really helps when the owner of a 500 person company is on the phone with these suppliers. like it it carries a lot of weight in in their perception and and what can get done to grow them. So when I do that those are the 70 plus hour weeks but they they grow sales and they significantly reduce our cost of goods sold. So like absolutely but there are other times where um you're solving like production problems or other issues like our warehouse almost fell apart in 2020. I think I was the only one that could rescue it. I hate to say it but I had to go out there. I was working 100hour weeks. I worked Mother's Day all Mother's Day. I'm like, "I'm sorry, Caroline." And she understood it because she is the greatest human alive, but I had to work that entire day. And like, if I hadn't done that, I don't think we exist right now. So, there are times where you have to do it just because you're at a critical crossroads, uh, make or break, and then there are times where you see opportunity, and you can sit back and kind of not work that much and not utilize all the opportunity, or you can be like, if I work 80 hours, I'm going to get significant growth out of this. And anytime there's that opportunity, I will take it. How much have you explored selling the company recently? >> I would say like we we know what value we want and we don't think we're there, but we think we're close. And I feel like I I legit have been saying that for two years because we we're still getting that singledigit growth. All I need to do like we have a great foundation. All I need to do is I think that once we implement some of these huge projects that we've worked, we have a team of 30 different web developers, AI people. Like we're we're unlike I think most wheel companies. Like most wheel guys don't have 40 team 40 people in market. Okay, we are for all intents and purposes a tech company and a marketing company that happen to sell automotive parts and these guys have been hard at work on a lot of these big projects and I think as these launch we're going to get really close in the next one to two years. So I >> So but you can't say what these what these projects are. >> I really can't but the UIX is was a huge we hadn't updated our UIX in like 8 years which is insane. And it's just such a cleaner flow that like offers guaranteed fitment. It just it's really a seamless floaty to put for you to put wheels and tires on your vehicle. You feel very confident about what you bought. You get a huge easyto read assortment. We have AI filtering which is really neat. I got inspired by cars.com where you can just type in 2005 Hummer H2 less than 30,000 mi black. You just type all that in free form and then it just filters you right to that. And I'm like this is >> I love that. >> This is crazy. It's so much otherwise you do drop downs. You'd have to do filtering beyond it. Like it'd be it'd be 2 minutes to get to those results before and now it's instant. So, we implemented a lot of that that filtering and that tactics in our wheel store and it's just some great tools like that that increase usability and some of the stuff we have are going to vastly one of the things I have I think is could be the next billion dollar idea and I I can't talk about it now but we're just I'm really excited because during those shrinking years it was about stability fixing the foundation turn off all growth projects the two years after that call it 2425 it was more like implement some growth projects but nothing too crazy late 25 26 has been about okay cool 80% growth 20% stability like we're stable we're good. So this is the exciting time when everybody is working on growth projects and we've only that's 12 to 18 months of that where prior to that it was all stability and and conservativism just to make sure that we were going to be good. So this is this is the exciting time when we know that the fruits of our labor will will be utilized soon. >> And what would you do after you sell it? >> I think that I'll be locked up in an employment agreement. I'll always I'll always meet up with investment makers and they I get invited to conventions all the time and I'll go to some of them and I feel like the the PE guys that talk to me make it very clear I'll need to stick around with the organization for 2 to four years and I'm fine with that. Like >> I I love doing what I'm doing. There's there's genuinely not a day that I wake up where I dread it cuz like I think what we do is so fun. Um it's it's enthusiast automotive parts. Like it's wheels. People love wheels, exhaust systems. Like it's not I'm not selling like screws um or like gaskets. Like it's fun stuff. I think no matter what, I'm still with the company, call it 4 to 6 years. Totally fine with that. But I think I go get a beach house in Florida. I think I permanently moved to Florida and just do more things that I'm excited about. Like the last time I stepped away from the company a little bit, I got my pilot's license. I started my YouTube channel. Maybe it's focusing more on the YouTube channel. Like I know that there's a onetoone correlation with YouTube subgrowth uh and consistent videos. Like may maybe it's doing that. It probably is doing that. Uh, focusing more on YouTube, which sounds crazy cuz that's not going to drive much revenue, but yeah, just living life easier. >> How much do you think your YouTube channel has affected your tire business? >> I think it's been a really positive thing. Like there's always risk where people see you're expos like your wealth is exposed and and you might get an adverse reaction, but I think people see the mission of the channel. They know that like I'm a good guy. I'm I genuinely like I don't want to like toot my own horn, but like I I think I present as a humble guy and I really try to be nice and kind to everybody and and I think people see like what you see on YouTube is is who I am. Like I'm a goofy, quirky guy that likes to fart and I just like to communicate and level with people and share my stuff. Like that's just the way that I am. And I think people see the true me and that helps. It's also connected us with a bunch of influencers that we advertise on that we didn't we could not even touch before. the Whistland Diesels of the world, the Cletus McFarland's we already had a relationship with the Seab Boys, but it strengthens that. Like there's a lot of the Amelia Hartford, like there's a lot of people that are willing to work with us because of of this connection and it's opened up a lot of doors for us >> and then I can advertise whenever we don't have an ad partner on a video. Like I'm going to I try to integrate, hey guys, buy from fitmentindustries.com if you need some wheels and tire. That's where I got my wheels. I'll try to plug that whenever I can. >> What are you still frugal about? >> Like I'm an experienced guy. So if it's this is it's kind of anything that's not travel experience or car like I'm wearing your pants. [laughter] >> I showed up here in shorts and it was crotch shot crotch shot city. So like my shoes are just regular Nikes. My shirt is an Abberroi shirt that was $40. Like my watch is a $60 watch. Like really it's it's my clothing and the way that I present myself I'm very frugal about. Like I don't I don't need to look like I I I hate people that just flex the way that they look. Even though I'm driving in cars, it feels like contradictory, but I I just want to walk around and look like I'm a normal guy, but also go enjoy time in hypercars. So, it's probably my clothing and how I present myself. >> At what point do you think you felt financially secure? I mean, when you grow up with nothing, like my first month of doing this, I made I think $6,000 my first month, and that's what I had made the probably the prior year. Uh, so like it just felt I felt really good about what even though there were many points along the way where it's like if I took this one path, we ceased to exist. And I and I always took the right path, but like I felt really good right away. However, when we started getting business valuations during the COVID time frame when all everyone was 20x and one of the companies valued us at at a billion dollars at that time, I feel pretty financially secure [laughter] right now. Uh when they're throwing out billion and one of them even offered us like a 20% stake, so they offered us a $200 million, they get a 20% stake. However, the clawback like they expected 35 to 50% growth and we're like in our minds we're like well we're going to do that like we can do that but they would have owned 100% of my company at that $200 million cuz they would have clawed back every bit of it. Uh we wouldn't have hit their growth targets over the next 5 years. So I'm glad we didn't do it. Yeah. >> Cuz we would have short sold ourselves. >> What car YouTuber is the worst with money? [laughter] >> Steve Hamilton. Honestly, >> I don't think yourself. >> Okay. Um but it really is me. Um, >> why would you say you're bad with money? >> I think I think you have a great collection that's gone up in value quite a bit. Like I would say you're actually pretty smart. >> I'm modifying these. We're putting way too many miles on them. We're like we're doing stupid stuff. Like the channel hurts the values of the cars. It if it's a Steve Hamilton car like that that inherently drops at 5% at least. >> But I think you're good with money. Like I think of all the car YouTubers who am I not necessarily who will have the most because obviously you will have the most because of your business and all that, but like who's going to have a higher growth rate? I think you're gonna probably have the highest like net worth growth rate. >> Maybe I think that they're all they all have to be. Most of them this is their primary business, right? Like the Matt Armstrongs of the world. Houston does have a like this his channel is very secondary to what he does, but I think he's really good about his cars. He buys them cheap. He tries to buy stuff off. I'm like, "No, bro. I'm not going to I'm not going to buy that car from you for that much money. That's insane. I'm not going to sell this car to you for that little money." But he like finds the deals. Like Stradman does his best. I don't know that anyone's bad. I'm trying to think like Shmei is really focused on his stuff. I mean Stradman always talks about the rugg era his Koenigseg that was on the podcast that we did with him that was one of it. So I love James and Stradman but I know he's made some bad financial investments much like we have and so he's the one that comes to mind because most recently he's the one that that stuck out the most in that Aggera example. He couldn't sell it. He lost a lot of money. He thought it would be a good thing for his channel, but he gets as much views out of the Lamborghini. And that that put him in a lot of I think it was a $30,000 a month payment on that thing. And so maybe James. >> Who's the best? >> I mean, probably probably Houston Costa. >> What makes him so good with money? >> Cuz he's cheap. We're talking about just on cars, right? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. He's like >> No, I I don't think we're talking just on cars. I think we're talking >> I thought we were talking about like car who is best investing in cars. Who is who has the most financial literacy in like >> Yeah. But they're all to do with cars at the end of the day. >> Yeah. If we're talking about cars. Yeah. But if we're talking about financial literacy, it'd have to be like a if I can't include myself, it'd have to be like a Supercar Ron who's he's got a decent sized channel, but he's he's not as known as Straman. Like cuz it'd have to be a business guy first, right? I know Shmee does his own thing with real estate, but he's very I feel like he's very private about what he does behind the scenes. But I know that his channel like I know what YouTube pays and I know you can't afford his collection value with YouTube revenue alone. So like he must be it's really who has the like Manny Koshman. It's it's really who channel is secondary. >> Like I literally did a Google search. Not that I believe this Google search at all. And I was just like oh how much money do you think custom offsets makes? And it was like uh probably like $15 million. And I was like >> topline >> uh it just said 15 million. Oh, weird. >> And then I said like, "What do you think of the chances that this business makes $350 million in revenue?" It said 0 to 1%. >> Custom Offsets is is about that's one of the many brands and I think that one drives about $200 million of topline. So again, all of the channels combined do the north of 400, >> but custom office is our biggest driver of traffic. But yeah, it sounds like even if you had asked 200 million, I probably would have told you 1 to 2%. It would have been wrong. But I don't know why that like why that shows up so incorrectly. >> Well, the more I talk like I'm talking about it now. So AI I bet you if you check they they read everything. They they analyze every video. The more uh input that you give to the AI machine, the better that it does. And they're probably going to scrape this video and in two months you'll probably look it up and it'll say >> but even so we spoke about this in the last podcast that we did. Yeah. Well, I mean we threw around some numbers and stuff and and for me it was just absurd that it was it was that incorrect. And then I I just did a simple Google search. It's like a 300,000 foot warehouse. I'm like, there's just no way that a business makes like5$10 million has a 300,000. >> No chance. Yeah. It would be absorbed. All of that would be absorbed in just building costs, right? So, >> until just recently, it was pulling from Reddit. Chat GBT actually just stopped doing that, which is crazy. >> Oh, did they? That was their like primary source. >> They were pulling a lot from Reddit. >> I I read about that. I remember them touting that they're going to be doing that. And even Google, I think, does that as well, especially for reviews and other stuff. >> Yeah. AI is getting stupid smart though. >> Is there anything that you wanted to discuss? >> I think for YouTube we're at a crossroads right now. Like we are I think it's worth talking about like YouTube changes every 3 to 3 to 6 months and we have to constantly have come to guide meetings and we do that and we're always able to change the the style of our content. If you use a very business mindset, you can do really well on YouTube. There's a lot of people that channel kind of fizzles out and we've always rode those storms and done really well and it feels like we're largely at a crossroads right now where we pivoted. Um took huge inspiration from Matt Armstrong. He he is a the greatest storyteller on YouTube, probably the greatest automotive influencer right now. And so we started telling stories on our YouTube videos and it's done really really well for us. But we feel like we've hit that ceiling of subscriber penetration where where we need to either shift the content that we're doing to be more like how do you like Matt Armstrong's are multi-part series. They they bring people in people people hit the subscribe button because the journey is unfinished. We are giving people something that took a year to do to build spec visit factory do a car all in one video. So we're not really giving them a reason to hit that subscribe button because we're giving them too much. Why does the subscriber count matter? This is just my own my own personal thing is like this is my YouTube channel is secondary to me. It's it's a hobby, but I have to win at it on both facets. I have to get good views and I have to have high sub count or I'll stop. And I've always said that to them like I will and and I'm at a point right now where where we we've always turnaround views. If views get in the in the trenches, which they'll do for two months, we'll sit down, we'll revamp, and we always get the we'll have banger videos come out. If you want to grow your subscribers, the best thing that you have to do is unfortunately like play the game. But playing the game is sometimes not very fun at all. Like that means you have to make YouTube shorts that like that like and if you want to do more then subscribe and like and you have to like >> so close to the entire purpose of the short is to get subscribers. Like people do that and they can get over a million subscribers from one effective short but then again that's just like not very fun. >> But they've throttled even that. I think that shorts growth was tremendous for two years and we still have high performing shorts and I don't think that they're the sub machine that they used to be. So like that was a pivot a year ago. It's or or two years ago. It was okay. YouTube YouTube is really pushing shorts. They're really giving subs from that. So let's put a lot of focus on high quality consistent that. But I I think that they've really dethrottled that. And so now it's now I think I know what I need to do. But the reason why I'm at a crossroads is and Matt Armstrong stayed with us at Monterey for 3 days and and he is a great inspiration and it's like I need to be I've always been told I need to be consistent but consistency I didn't realize how important it was for sub count. I I started looking up an AI talking to him. It's like the attention span is barely more than a week. Some people have beat this like the whistle and diesels of the world still get 5 to 10 million views a video and sometimes you won't drop one for a for a month right but but there's still significant importance in being consistent weekly. The Sea Boys are pinnacle example of it. Matt Armstrong pinnacle example where Cletus McFarland great example where like they have this cult following and it's because they're so consistent and they stay true to their viewers. So I have to be more involved in the channel. I have to start posting every two we do every 3 weeks. Every two weeks and then every week. So I'm actually at a crossroads where it's am I going to stop my channel? Are we going to go out where I feel like we're kind of at a peak on top. We've done really well over the course of four and a half years to get to 2.2 million subs, right? I think that's great in the YouTube world, especially in something that's overcrowded with automotive influencers. So, it we're having a come to God meeting tomorrow. It's it's how do we get to this how do we get to this increased subcount? >> Yeah, I'll tell you sub count does not matter at all. I think you're I think you're focused on the wrong metric. It's like all these other things matter and you're focused on the one thing that does not matter. It's not going to move the needle. That's you're you're putting all your attention on the wrong place. >> I agree. Viewership is more important, right? But also, YouTube is now starting to test in certain phones removing the sub count entirely where you just see >> the video, a thumbnail, title. >> It doesn't matter how many subs you have. They're moving away from that. They're really just pushing the best content possible, >> which which makes sense. And I think we're delivering much better content. >> The only way to do it, in my opinion, if you want to grow the channel, is making broader topics that appeal to more people, >> doing more shorts, and more collaborations. >> Collabs. I I agree with I agree with all of that. I think we continue nailing down storytelling. Collabs are huge. We went on Cletus' channel and got 30,000 subs over the course of a week. It was insane. >> So, I think that also the the one moment that really sticks out to me was you with David Dori >> scraping your car. I mean, that was probably the best thing to happen to the channel cuz I remember everyone was sharing that and talking about it. So unfortunately, the more you like do that sort of stuff, like shocking content, but then it's a game of like you just keep spiraling further and further down >> and people force it. Like the more that I shoot though, the more that that stuff's going to pop up. The more that I'm out creating content, the more controversy, other stuff like that. >> I got I got a great This is a banger video for you. >> You put people behind the wheel of these car for the first time, but you screen them ahead of time to make sure they're going to have a good reaction. And some people are just terrible on camera, but like imagine you get >> a 19-year-old girl behind this car who's never driven stick before and it's just you get a reaction driving a $2 million car. Like stuff like that is so appealing to every because everyone would be curious like what's the reaction putting a grandma like I'm talking she's 80 years old. 80 years old in the Hennessy. >> Yeah, it sounds >> and she sits in there and you turn it on and she her eyes light up. What the is this is like that sort of stuff like wholesome stuff that just people would genuinely want to tune in and as a short that could easily get 5 to 10 million views easy. >> Oh yeah, for sure. A short. Yeah, that that's a shorts machine. >> But it's also long form of like we're going to get a few people in these cars in the middle of like everything else that you're doing. Well, when Matt Matt had told me like it's less important about the like when he stopped focusing on cars that he thought would do good and just started focusing on cars that he wanted to get, it made me think like and I don't know if this is the right idea, but like I'm wondering if we if we go find a family in need or someone that is like stage 4 cancer and there's always a car that they wanted to have. It's a 69 Mustang Mach 1. It's something. And then we tell the story of us finding the people, finding the car, uh, fixing up whatever needs to be done, and then the second portion of the video is us sharing it with them, letting them experience that. >> Unfortunately, that's not going to do well for the algorithm unless that's something that you genuinely just want to do anyway, and it's spreading the message. But I would not ever look at that as like that's good for the channel. I don't think >> people want to see hyper. >> What would do better is if you go on Facebook Marketplace and you say, "We're going to find the cheapest car and see what happens." Yeah. >> Slass Mercedes down the street. It's $6,000. We have no idea what's wrong. Let's just show up and see you like haggle a deal and then you see how far it goes until it breaks. Like that would do well for views >> or putting like putting like a horrible engine in a hypercar or like vice versa. Like getting like the cheapest car like a $1,500 car and putting like the craziest engine. >> We were going to work with Matt on swapping out the drivetrain on the riggera. who was warm to it and uh putting like an LS1 in my Koenigseg which would have made it a very drivable car but I'm like that would probably been really good for him, really good for us cuz he's always said the Koenig is the end all be all. Like he's like I want to get a Koigseg but you can't find them wrecked for whatever reason you just can't get your So that would have been a good one. Anyway, >> oh another one these do well is uh let's just say you have a real Lamborghini Diablo. Yeah, >> you get a replica and you see just how good of a replica that one is compared to the real thing and you could frame it like these cars been going up in value too much and now I don't want to put miles. So, we're going to find a replica version of it and just piece that thing together. People are so fascinated by replicas >> that I've seen do well as well as like you people call an Uber and you pick them up as an actual Uber driver in hypercars. >> We we looked at that too. >> It's been overdone though. I don't think it virgins just did one with a Pagani. Everything has to be extreme now on YouTube. That's the thing. Like everybody has done everything to the max to the extreme. So it's so hard >> to do anything at this point. I I'm just trying to find something that is relatable. Like the me going and buying a 69 Mustang Mach 1 is not relatable to our viewers cuz they want to see hyper and supercars, right? And I and I agree with that. I'm trying to think like what is a series that I can do weekly where everything we do now is like sub channel stuff. Like taking a car delivery is our our content is very inconsistent. Like we're doing drag races and then we're taking car delivery. Like a lot of people don't find success in being very inconsistent in the type of content they're putting out, but we've been lucky to find success. >> Yeah. But yours is personality based. I feel like I watch your channel more so for you than like the car. So I think you make it focused on you. Another concept would be putting a really loud exhaust and seeing how long it takes you until you get pulled over [laughter] >> and just you have a timer at the bottom. It's like, "All right, we're 20 minutes. 22 minutes it took us. Let's see if we could beat that record." People would love that stupid stuff. >> Yes, it is. >> Like, oh, and by the way, for YouTube, unfortunately, the more mind-numbing it is, the less people have to think, the better it's going to do. >> Agreed. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. It's good. Good advice. You guys should drop a comment below if if there's any series or recurring thing you guys would love to see on the channel. Just let me know. I'll read I'll read each and every one of these comments. >> It could be specking Graham and Jack's new Rolls-Royce Phantom. >> Let's go. >> Think of all the views we get. >> I already did that and we did it on a mansery. It did really well, actually. >> Yeah. I saw one video of an old couple recently specking out this Rolls-Royce or it was a Bentley or it was something and they got it delivered >> and it was it was because it was so out of touch though, but it got millions of views when the wife's like, "Oh, I don't know. I kind of like the purple over the the blue and we want this headliner." She's talking about the the wood inserts on the thing. Oh honey, it's only $70,000. That's really not that bad. And he's like, "No, that's not that >> unrelatable and out of touch." Yeah. >> But it was great. But then they got it delivered and she talks about how much she loves her like Rolls-Royce or something like that. >> She She closed a good story arc. >> She did. >> So stuff like that. >> Yeah. We just feel like we're at a crossroads and so we're going to figure it out. >> I'm sure that you will. The only thing that I would >> say is like I would hesitate to see what someone else is doing and how they're finding success with like a specific thing and like trying to do that cuz I think that you're also in a very unique position of having access to the capital that you have access to like the collection that you have. I do think it would be great if you could come up with your own unique thing. >> Yeah. And I'm like I could go buy a wrecked Bugatti and build it, but then then everyone's going to say you're trying to be Matt Armstrong and I'm not I don't have the time to go fix that. So like it's it's not as even as genuine. Like he's good at what he does. He's a talented guy. He's relatable. And so yeah, you're right. I agree 100% on that. It has to be something new. Just like a business idea. Like if it is something that someone's doing, do it way better. Otherwise, find something new and unique that will engage viewers. So that's that's the decision right there. could do something like a like a pimp my ride for like a high schooler or something like that. Like they bring in their car, you know that they're like a car fanatic or like you do it for a subscriber and you like make it a really cool >> like the pimp my ride concept. >> We would do even the Mustang Mach idea I gave was for a subscriber. I just >> I don't know if if it doesn't test well with your initial viewers then it doesn't it typically won't perform well at all. Right. Like your initial viewers are the loyal super hypercar. I'm like pigeonhold in this. It needs to be super hyperai related or it won't do well with my first subset of viewers and then YouTube is very unlikely to expand it. >> That's not necessarily true. No, the algorithm will test it originally with your viewers, but a good video generally will do well. >> That's fair. >> So, but yeah, it it may just not perform with the the types of people that you may want it to perform with, >> which I'm okay with. >> So, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. And for all the channel members out there, Steve is going to be giving us a full tour of his entire collection here, showing you the ins and outs. So for all of the channel members out there that is now live, it's fun. You know what? In fact, we're going to put a little teaser right here. >> These turned more heads than anything else in the collection. There's 10 in the world, maybe four of them in the USA. We also tune this. It pops whenever you shift [music] and go in the second gear. It just pop and shoots fire. I haven't even made my delivery public yet. So, you guys are [music] actually the first to really see that. And so, these are the first cars to ever break the 200 mph lap barrier at NASCAR. One of the neatest cars in the collection. [music] The whole top pops up like a Jetson spaceship. >> For anyone who's not subscribed to you, by the way, we'll link to all of your info down below in the description. Go and we got to get your subscriber count up. [laughter] It doesn't matter. But for everyone watching, seriously, go and subscribe. It's really cool content. And you were so generous, by the way, with us last night with the Index link down below in the description, >> but for allowing us to go and like drive these cars and experience it. For a lot of these people, >> um, they've never driven a car like this even close. >> Uh, maybe one Andy, Andy has, but besides Andy, >> it's such a cool experience. And, uh, for me, too, to be able to like even be in the passenger seat or to drive the GT3 RS was insane. So, I really appreciate that. >> Appreciate you guys for coming out. >> Cool. Thanks again. until next time. >> I think GTA is a magical moment for our culture. >> So, what's your biggest trade coming up >> like is going to do phenomenal. >> What about >> I'm not excited about I don't own any right now, but I still think the main trade is on take two. >> What are your thoughts on >> I love to see falling here. I don't know when I'm going to make my big move to heavily lever back into it, but it's probably going to happen at some point in the next few months. [music] >> Elon Musk, the world's richest [music] person, has also become the world's first trillionaire. >> The system is rigged. At what point though does the wealth gap get so big that all of a sudden something has to break? [music] And every civilization that has rose has fallen because of a growing wealth gap. >> Over 40% of us are unfamiliar with Roth IAS, money market [music] accounts, and high yield savings. >> It is profitable to keep you financially stupid. Most Americans today would rather look rich than be rich. >> Do you have an investing [music] belief that people would disagree with? >> Yeah. Have Warren Buffett would hate that. >> So, what do you think is the biggest risk for the economy [music] that no one is going to see coming? Right now, we have about $40 trillion of [music] national debt. We are spending about $2 trillion a year that we don't have right now. Some people say that [music] AI is going to boost productivity to the point where all of a sudden the national debt is not going to matter as much as it does today. >> I can't predict [music] the future. All I can do is look at history. And while history doesn't exactly repeat itself, it does rhyme. Heat. [music]