May 17, 2024 • 42 mins
Hannah Elliott and Matt Miller welcome Aston Martin expert Steve Serio to the podcast to talk about his 20-plus years selling the prestigious British brand - and where he sees it going in the future. Plus, Hannah and Matt compare notes on the DB12 Volante, the DBX SUV, and the new $191,000 Vantage.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm Matt Miller and I'm Hannah Elliott, and this is
Hot Pursuit.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
All right.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
On this episode, we are focusing in on one.
Speaker 4 (00:15):
Brand, Laser Focus on Aston Martin, and this is really
a celebration. Now we're going to have some critiques, but
it's all out of love, right.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
It's a brand that we love and you probably love.
I think everyone loves Aston Martin. But there are important
issues from the technology, to the price, to the business
viability of an independent sports car maker in this day
and age that we're going to talk about with a
former dealer.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
My big question, and I've asked Aston Martin this is
I can't figure out why haven't they made profits. I mean,
they're not quite profitable yet, so I really want to
dig into.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Why that is. I want to say before we dive
into our interview with Steve Sirio, who was selling these
cars for like twenty four years. Yeah, I want to
hear what our listeners think about Aston Martin because I
assume that we all love it, but I don't really know.
And we have an email address. What is it.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
It's Hot Pursuit at Bloomberg dot net. Hot Pursuit at
Bloomberg dot net. And also I kind of want to
know about the James Bond thing, like, does anybody still
care that James Bond and Aston Martin worth thing or
is that really in the past?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Right?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
My question is, if you could have any Aston Martin,
and I'm sure most people would like to have one,
which one would you take? Right? Would it be the
dB five of Goldbingers? Would it be I like the
sort of Mustang shaped advantage from the eighties? Yeah, okay,
let's jump into our interview right now with former Boston
(01:43):
Aston Martin dealer Steve Sireo.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Once you were, you know, fully entrenched in Aston Martin, Steve,
what was it like working with the company, working with England,
working as a dealer, and how did what you see
effect where they are now? And I'm asking that with
the context of of course, Acid Martin had their IPO
(02:08):
in twenty eighteen. They haven't been profitable since we've seen
this is now their fourth CEO since twenty twenty, so
there's a lot of executive turnover. We know they have
cash problems, all of the things that you know you
can read about in Bloomberg Intelligence. Can you give us
some context about what you saw when you were working
with Acid Martin. Compared to where we are today.
Speaker 5 (02:31):
The pleasure of getting involved when I did was that
it was a very small company. It was bigger than
Mom and popa it wasn't much bigger. That's in terms
of management in the UK. You know, Ford had a
great hand in getting the dB seven built, getting you know,
the first Gen Vanquished done, the first Gen V eight,
(02:56):
dB steven Vantage and then dB nine and at that
time a fellow the name of Bob Dover was leading
the company.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Ian Callum was the designer.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
I called that sort of the glory days, and I
was lucky enough to be part of what was a
real fun two way street. I mean you could pick
up the phone get Dover on the line or somebody
working with him if there was any concern, if there
are production problems, if there were paint problems in the
car when they got delivered. I mean I remember having
a fellow the name of Bill Donnelly who was working
(03:28):
under Bob at the time, who I was very close
to end up, you know, doing a dealer visit with
me here in Boston, and we ended up getting a
couple of cars out of a container and they were
a mess. They were left outside before the they were
packed in a container and they were probably driven on
a muddy road and he was aghast. And and then
you know, at that time, you could you could make
(03:50):
the argument, you could.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Make the comment.
Speaker 5 (03:51):
I was like, listen, this is what we're dealing with
on on, you know, sort of on the ground here
in the States, and you could work through problems and
they were very receptive. Warrant t was great. I mean,
the whole thing was really buzzing. And you know, being
part of that Premiere you know group at Ford, they
(04:12):
had deep pockets. They could get into development of cars.
I mean when when the Vanquish was launched, I remember
the going to Detroit and seeing the prototype car and
bringing a couple of clients, and you know that was
like the Marin a five fifty Marinello beat her. I
mean that was the car, and you could argue which
was more fun to drive. I mean the Marinello is
(04:32):
no slouch and is highly regarded today, and I think
you know, the Vanquish was It's a flawed car with
the wrong gearbox, but it was it was a record breaker.
I mean for Aston Martin, so I I was there
when management had things tight and they were really listening
(04:54):
to all of the dealers on the ground all over
the world. And then you come into the era of
doctor Betts was a complete maniac, you know, and I
don't say that with any love. I mean, uh, everybody
was worthless and weak compared to him. And there's nothing
worse than an engineer running an automotive company because he
(05:15):
had no sense of sales, he had no sense of balance.
He was German, and I mean that in the worst way.
That he wasn't listening and he tried to grow the
company in a direction as an autonomous leader, and the
mythsteps were massive. I mean, he believed that the Repeat
(05:35):
was a was a great two plus two and it wasn't.
It was a hatchback because he didn't you know, he
would not listen to anybody about the back seats not
being big enough.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
I remember wedging myself into the back seats of the
Repeat when it came out.
Speaker 5 (05:50):
The signet, which was an absolute flop, which was that
you know, rebadge Toyota, which they were going to.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Just why did they do that? So all of the
other cars up till now and the Repeat. I also
loved the back seats were too small for I picked.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
Up the backseat is theoretical, yes.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
But that's the case with a lot of two plus
two's right. The DV twelve, for example, the dB twelve
today that we tested Hannah, the twenty twenty four car,
the back seats are useless except for you know.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
But dB doesn't have four doors doors.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
But the IQ or whatever it was called, the signet, Yeah,
why that said they make a little smart car.
Speaker 5 (06:28):
Why well, it was the European regulations for miles per
gallon across the border of your cars, I guess. I
remember standing with the designer who it was the first
time the car was launched to us, and a handful
of it went in the room and I forget who
it was at the time.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I think his name was Wilson.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
He was brought in from Harley Davidson in Europe to
help run sales. And he said, what do you think
of this? And I said, you shouldn't make it. And
he looked at me like, what are you talking about?
And he goes, wouldn't this be the perfect car for
the wife of somebody buying a brand new acid Martin?
I said, no, range over would be the perfect car
for a wife if she's not into driving. And he said,
(07:08):
well what about students? And I just shook my head
at him and I said, where are you going to
in Athens or Rome or where do you.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Need this smaller car? And he said, well it's green.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
I said, it's not green because it has leather seat
and everything he brought up, nobody had ever had a
round table.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Discussion with him.
Speaker 5 (07:26):
This was obviously coming down from Bets, and he was
just aping what Bets was saying. So you know, that
was a massive disaster, the one seventy seven. They never
let journalists drive the car because they never had the
car sorted out, which led to the puking of the
Vulcan on the public. I mean, the Vulcan is a
terrible car. Do didn't have an emergency break in it.
(07:46):
It was meant to be a track car only, So
you have all of these things that set up failure
going out of the Bets period A.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
It sounds like what you're saying is somewhere along the way,
Aston Martin as a company and as a brand lost
touch with what it was with its soul and and
lost touch with listening to what dealers are saying people
want and will want to buy. Is that what you're saying?
(08:17):
And then also going into the Andy Palmer era, how
did Andy? I mean, obviously he's he's so he's not German,
so he's we're back to the Brits. And now we've
got you know, of course Adrian hallmart coming in also
British walk us through this this part of the evolution,
you hit.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
The nail on the head where they just stopped listening
and they became dictatorial.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Is that the right word it was?
Speaker 5 (08:44):
It became the two way street became a one way
street that you kind of had the privilege to drive on,
and all of the dealers became worthless and week and
we weren't doing our job. And this is also the
company that stopped making manual transmission cars during that period really,
which is what kept the company different. You know, you could,
you could, you could get a portion of a manual transmission,
(09:07):
but you couldn't get anything else. And if you wanted
a grand touring car, they stopped doing that. So going
into the Andy Palmer days, now again you have a
what was Andy's expertise then? I think transmissions. He was
going to be the guy that was going to you know,
change the production and bring up quality control, and he
(09:29):
would tell you everything you wanted to hear about that
none of it really changed.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
I mean it kind of did.
Speaker 5 (09:36):
And you know, Palmer's greatest act for Aston Martin was
keeping the sales flat and then leaving with a thirty
million dollar goals an umbrella when he left, when they
came out with their IPO, which we all know is
at three percent of whatever that I think could two
percent of what the original price was. I went from
waiving an Aston Martin flag, you know, for many years
(09:58):
being in the top five dealers in the country. Then
they expanded the dealer group and that got to be
too big and they put some of the wrong people
in again because they wanted to grow, and they went
from hand to your point. Aston Martin kept getting voted
the coolest company, the coolest brand in the UK.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
In the mid odds.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
I believe it.
Speaker 5 (10:19):
And you know, and you come out with the Daniel
Craig movies and the DBS being the star of those movies,
and you couldn't have gotten more positive press, and the
DBS was such a great car.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
And then they just they just was like, well now
we're gonna now we're gonna deal with.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
A higher volume of car and we want to do
the same numbers. They kept gunning, and the edict was
always we want to be England's Ferrari. And you know
you're you're closer to being you know, Morgan than you
are a Ferrari with everything you've got going on, and
they had it.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
With the exception of design. I mean, we have to
give credit to Henrik Fisker and Iam Callen. I mean,
obviously the glory the real glory days were the dB
four and the dB five. But then those two guys
made some beautiful cars, and to their credit, they offered
a manual transmission and advantage at a time when no
(11:13):
one else and everyone else was stopping, so they did
some things right. I remember the vantage had really great
steering at a time like real hydraulicsys steering when everyone
else was going to electric. So for a while they
were making some good moves in the two thousands.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
Yeah, no, I mean it was through the point when
they started misstepping, and really the the repeat was kind
of the first misstep in terms of what it could
have been. It's funny you bring up Fisker because I
was reading in the papers about how this company has again,
you know, barely treading water. And Heinrich, insider sort of
(11:54):
baseball here, would take credit for designs that Ian did
before Heinrich got to the company.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
If you want to know that personality.
Speaker 5 (12:03):
He took credit for a mid engine car that Ian
designed that very few people know about within Aston Martin.
And he took that because nobody knew about it. He
said it was his idea. And I've never seen Ian
so upset when this got back to him. And he
also took credit for the Vank, which was Ian's baby.
I have the sketch still in my office of the
(12:24):
original sort of silhoueut of the car.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
But yeah, I mean Heinrich is Heinrich. And you know, I.
Speaker 5 (12:29):
Think with me being incredibly harsh, a lot of this
fallalls on Merrick Reichman. Now because within the dealer group,
we would say, you can't keep exaggerating the same line
and call that design. If I'm going to be a
credit critic of what the cars I used to sell,
(12:50):
they became cartoony versus elegant off of these original shapes.
I mean, the original V eight that was done, you know,
was an Elegan a little car. The dB nine you
look back at it is aged beautifully, and you get
into the dB eleven.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
I always just there was like driving a pool table.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
I want to get your take on this, Hannah, we
both give the dB twelve. My first impression and my
continued thought is it's gorgeous. I mean, it's absolutely beautiful.
In fact, car prettier than almost anything else. The dB
twelve has a V eight. I thought it was gonna
be a twelve. I feel like that's that's a little
(13:39):
bit of a disappointment, right, I mean, plus, it has
the same ZF eight speed transmission that my Dodge has. Now,
I love my Dodge, but it's not an aston Martin.
I was hoping for a DCT or a manual transmission,
but that's not available. What, Hannah, what did you think
about the dB twelve.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
I agree, I think gets one of the best looking
cars on the road. My quibble with it, I'm like,
we've talked about this before. I'm fine with the vaight.
I'm not bothered by it. It's got plenty of power.
It's almost seven hundred horse power. That's that's fine. I'm
not gonna quibble about that. You know, it's fast, but
(14:20):
it there's something about it that feels, like you say,
it's just really it feels big. It feels it's not lumbering,
it's lumbering. There's and the interior. There's something off with
the space because it feels like a wide, big, heavy
car to drive, and yet inside you're feeling a little
(14:42):
bit cramped, like you're in kind of a pod with
this huge, you know, center console separating your two little pods.
It just doesn't feel spacious and nimble in the way
that a nine to eleven does. And I'm sorry to
keep bringing it back to, you know, the other two
(15:04):
from Stuttgart, but at the end of the day, in
my opinion, things from Aston Martin need to be as
good or better than things from Portie and Mercedes in
order to be competitive, and right now it feels like
it's maybe the third option.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
And the powertrain I think is a Mercedes powertrain, right,
it's a twin turbo charge four liter V eight. Yeah,
I'm I'm happy with the power but I'd rather have
my Challenger six point four Leader. It only has four
hundred and eighty five horse power, but at least it's
I feel like it sounded better. It was more responsive somehow. Yeah,
and the leather in the Aston Martin I felt very
(15:41):
GM And the infotainment system is nothing like the Mercedes,
not as good, but I thought they sourced that technology.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Me too, I mean, confused about it, Cereal, Maybe you
can enlighten us. Aston Martin has so much going for it.
It's got a lot of money from very rich Saudi
Arabia in backers. It's got a glamorous Formula One team.
It's got a charismatic billionaire leader. It's got a heap
of brand awareness and fans and people who want it
(16:12):
to succeed, including myself. I mean, the whole reason why
we're talking about this today. And maybe it feels like
a bash fest, but it's because we love it. And
I literally cannot figure out why is it being held back.
I don't know, I can't figure it out.
Speaker 5 (16:27):
Before I answer that, it's interesting that you don't put
the Bentley Continental GT in the same breath as the
dB twelve because.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Certainly not, certainly not, it's on a higher level.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
Okay, So that's interesting because that was always a dealer level.
I mean, and you know, Hannah that I have one
for the reason of hitting in it. When you're sitting
in it, you feel like you're hitting in at just
a bucket of well, I mean, just engineering, proudness and
everything that tactile makes you go.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
This is why this costs a lot.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Of money, quite a bit more expensive.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Can we fair enough? But the Aten should It's not
as good, but Steve, it's not as good.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Also the Bentley I love too, despite the way it looks.
I love also, you know, the leather, the quality is high,
you know, the responsiveness is great. It doesn't look nearly
as beautiful as yet the as Martin is gorgeous.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
Well, the Aston Martin is more elegant. It's it's the
Bentley's brutish. It's it looks you know, it looks like
a cinder block coming down the road.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
I mean it, it is what it is.
Speaker 5 (17:37):
And the athen Is They've always built just gorgeous things,
which I think is what books a lot of people.
It's kind of always been the problem with the small
car company. I mean, you look back at their history.
They always made beautifully flawed cars. You know, for a
period of the the v Advantage from the eighties was
(17:57):
a brute gorgeous thing.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
It was from the sixties.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
So if you look at the history of the car company,
they were always playing the game of we're gonna build
a beautiful car. You don't buy them for the technology.
You buy them for the beauty and the brutishness and
the fact that it's handmade and you can and for
a long period of time, you could have got it
in any color combination with exterior color and leather trim.
(18:23):
I think they fall on there because there's still a
small car company thinking like a big car company, and
they don't have the leadership. I mean, the leadership of
the United States was comical after a while, and I
could name names, and you know, you probably would just
get everybody in trouble on the other end of the
pod here if I went down that road. But you
(18:45):
look at the people they put in charge, and it's like,
how did you pick these people? And it was kind
of endemic of what was going on in the UK.
There's always been misery at the top of the food chain.
I get out of it because when they put all
of their eggs in the DBX basket and they thought
they were going to sell I think when I left
(19:08):
in October of twenty twenty the DBX was about to
come out. I had no interest in selling it because
it was just not my cup of tea. It's not
why I got involved in the car world, and I
think it's been in terms of volume, I would say
a failure compared to Earth Bentega, the Ferrari.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Thank you, Chris, and they were constantly trying to play
catch up.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Well, and I'm glad. I'm glad you bring up the
DBX because and this is what makes a market. I
adore it.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
The seven O seven I loved.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
I love the DBX and I love the way it drives.
I love the way it sounds. The DBS impressed me
in a lot of ways that the dB twelve doesn't.
And I'm more of a soccer mom maybe than you, Steve,
So I like the room in it. I think it's
better look then almost all of its competitors. I just
(20:04):
think it.
Speaker 5 (20:05):
And you get the same engine in a G Wagon
for how much more money?
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Right, Well, they're all four Leader, they're all twin turbo
four Leader VH. Right, they're using the Mercedes. I had
that same engine in my g Wagon and I loved
it in that For some reason, I don't like it
in the dB twelve. But I think the DBX is
great and it's been a disappointment in terms of sales.
Maybe maybe it's the price problem. They just are priced.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
Too high problem yea, yeah, yeah, Well if you priced it,
if you priced it right at the G sixty three,
you'd probably sell three.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Times as many of them for another one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 5 (20:40):
How do you justify it with the old Mercedes peck
in the car if their business plan when Andy Palmer
was getting you know, his golden umbrella was to lean
heavily on the new facility and Wales and for the
longest time when Palmer first got involved, he wore up
and down. They were never going to build that car.
So here is in essence the problem with the company.
(21:04):
You tell your dealer network when you become the head
of the company, you're.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Never going to build an suv.
Speaker 5 (21:09):
You might build something called a crossover, but you're never
going to build an suv.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
What did they do?
Speaker 5 (21:14):
They built an suv and then they hinge the whole
company upon it. So if it fails, now you've got
a backpedal and go back towards get all your engineers
now refocused on Refreshing Vantage Refreshing dB eleven and where's
your halo car the Loure. Oh my god, I love that.
I love it, but it's not in what kind of volume?
(21:38):
For how much money?
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Well?
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Please please make more of them, Please make more v
Twells with a man transmission that looks like, you know,
a throwback to the original advantage. I love the Valor,
but for I want to get handles.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
You men, yes, And I will own up to it
because I've reviewed that last year and I actually said
in that review that you should drive it before you
drive the Lamborghini Urus, because I think it's interesting, and
I'm talking specifically about the seven oh seven model.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
I just think it's interesting and different. The problem with
that is that it's like fifty thousand dollars more than
the others in the competitive segment, which is what you
guys just said. But that's part of Asen Martin's current
strategy to raise profit margins, to try to bump it
up into something profitable. I mean, their whole strategy.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Is a big problem is ra if I could get
a Cayenne Turbo for so much less, then I'm gonna
Even if I like the Aston Martin looks better. The
Cayan Turbo was obviously gonna work better and last longer.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
Yeah, you know, I thought the seven oh seven actually
was exciting to drive. It just was interesting. It's something different.
You know, I love a g Wagon, but frankly, the
Portia SUVs are wonderful, but they are really ubiquitous. So
part of my attraction to seven oh seven is I
thought it looked very cool and it's something different. If
(22:59):
you have the cash just and you're not, you're not
going to be disappointed.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
I like it better than the Audi Urist for sure too.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
The Audi Arsts.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Yes, that's not a Lamborghini.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
I actually like the.
Speaker 5 (23:11):
Big anchor around the neck of modern Aston Martins is
what itsual value. So you're going to get the guy
that goes and buys the first dB X and he's
gonna use it for four years and then he's going
to come in be told it's worth nothing and he's
not going to buy a second one.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Good.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
That's another problem with overproduction and cars.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
I know the local dealers sitting on cars that have
probably had three birthdays.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
I did want to ask you about that because I
you know, when I was in Seville driving the vantage.
I was asking, you know, the Aston Martin folks there,
tell me about your production discipline, and they were very
above board with the fact that they were not disciplined.
They didn't handle production well. It sounded like and you can,
you can share your experience, but you know they would
(23:59):
they would just overproduce things and in an impredictable manner.
Are unpredictable and unpredictable manner, and which made it impossible
as a dealer to really run a business with a
high priced luxury object because the whole blure is not
(24:20):
being able to get one well.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
And that is the last That was the that was
the last hell in my cough. And I was, as
you can imagine, a pebble in the shoe of the
company for a long time because I would speak up
along with a handful of other dealers, and when they said,
we don't want you to carry three million dollars worth
of DBX is we want you to carry six And
I said, Okay, where do I go?
Speaker 2 (24:42):
How do I get out of this?
Speaker 5 (24:44):
Because you're never going to You're never going to put
that many cars and in the philosophy is a simple
one and it's the biggest mistake out of any manufacturer
they have a factory. Subsequently, the factory should be making something.
So if we're if we're opening our doors and and
we have employees that can build, well, we need them
(25:04):
to build. And it doesn't matter if the if the
consumer is not high on the uptake, We're gonna build them.
And you're the problem if you can't sell them. And
that's that goes back to the management mindset of the
dealers are all wrong, and you know you can stop
the company by looking at Valkyrie or Valhalla. Now, Valkyrie
(25:28):
was announced and Valhalla was announced while I was still there.
And if the Valkyries are getting delivered finally Valhalli's never
as far as I know, other than the one in
the James Bond movie in the background in the wind
tunnel thing that they had in the last movie, I
don't I wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Know anymore either. Maybe it's about to get launched.
Speaker 5 (25:52):
But those were the two things that were going to
be the massive Halo Enzo fighters, La Ferrari fighters. These
are the things that are gonna go after nine eighty team.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
And make a lot of money.
Speaker 5 (26:02):
By the way, Yeah, and there are lawsuits about who
put up the money to again inside Baseball Acid Martin
dem the money to build Valkyrie, so they had to
borrow the money from people. And okay, now when those
people don't get their return on their money, the lawsuits,
lawsuits start, you know, flying, because hey, they're not building
(26:23):
the car the way they said they were going to.
And now you've got customers that you know, when Valkyrie
was built, you would have to buy a tariff in
order to jump the line on the Valkyrie.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
And think about that for a second.
Speaker 5 (26:36):
So they're going to play the Ferrari thing of well
you want in eight twelve, you have to buy everything
else underneath it, and preferably from dealer's stock in multiples,
and you ask them, can't play that.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Let's talk about the cars for a minute, and I
want to do two things, Hannah. I want to get
you to tell us about the new Vantage, because again
I think it's beautiful. In fact, Barry Ridtholtz when it
first came out, messaged me and said, please put me
in touch with Aston. I want to put in my
order for this already, so I want to know what
you think about that. And then Steve, I want to
(27:16):
talk about Volor for a second because I didn't even
know about it until like last week, and it's been
around for a year, and to me, it's like perfect.
So Hannah Anna, first the vantage.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
Okay, the vantage. I drove it on the track and Spain,
and then I drove it on like one hundred mile
road course outside Sevilla. Beautiful car. We've covered that this
is the third generation starting price at one hundred and
ninety one thousand, which I actually thought was relatively fair
compared to the nine to eleven Turbo and the AMGGT.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
I want it an orange, by the way, the same
way the picture that you have in your story. It's awesome.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
You can have orange. I won't fight you for it.
I'll have the silver please. So beautiful car. And I
was so happy that they have swapped out those buttons
that you push to put it into drive and neutral reverse.
They put in an actual lever to shift gears as
it were.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
I like the button.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
That's an improvement. And you know it's certainly fast rear
wheel drive zero to sixty and three point four or so.
I mean, it's competitive. It Actually my takeaway on driving
that car was I am so used to driving cars
(28:37):
that now have rear axle steering and that really make
me feel like I'm a better driver than I am.
And sure, call it a crutch if you want, but
you know, I kind of love it because I feel
like I'm an incredible driver when I'm in those cars.
So then when I get into the Vantage and it
does not have that you know, bumper system so to speak,
(28:57):
it really feel it can get squarely and that's exciting
and it's also taxing. So when I was on the track,
you know, I'm doing laps and there is the A
pillars are a bit of a blind spot when you're
turning deep into a corner. I mean, I'm looking right
at an a pillar, which is not great when you
(29:18):
want to see where you're going. But you know, very
thrilling car to drive. But again, it honestly just feels
wide and it feels It's not as heavy as a
nine to eleven Turbo, but it's it feels heavier because
of what's underneath. Okay, Steve, go, Steve.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
And I Steve, do you have a take Steve, do
you have a take on because obviously it's brand new
or it's a twenty twenty three months our generation yep,
So do you have a take Steve because I think,
I mean, it looks beautiful, and I love hand I
love Hannah's review and even the things that maybe she
thinks are downsides. Yeah, I wanted to get squirrelly on me.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
You certainly not bad, just an observation.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
Yeah, No, I mean again, they always sold the cars
on the fact that they were more analog than they
were high tech, and I would put rear real steering
as high tech. I just giggle at the fact that
I don't know what the percentage is, but I would
bet it's less than ten of Aston Martin owners that
take their cars on the track. And I still, I
still marvel at the fact that they'll do a press
(30:21):
launch at the track. They should do it crossing the Alps,
and they should do it in real world driving situations
so the press can go.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Oh, this is what it's like to own one.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
The dB twelve launch was in Monaco, and that was
a beautiful drive, so you're exactly wait.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Wait, Hannah, can you get it with a manual transmission?
The new vantage?
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Oh, come on, come on, I don't let's kill the
company further, Biden. No, I don't think anyone's asking for that. Sadly,
I'm sorry, but I do not think I've been hearing
people are asking for it.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
I don't believe it. Look on bat which vantages bring
the most money. If it has a manual transmission, it's
instantly got a premium instantly. This is a real to me.
Speaker 5 (31:06):
Well, my, my, my market was always the anomaly because,
unlike the rest of the country, we would sell seventy
five percent UH coupe versus Valante, and we would sell
eighty or eighty five percent manual in set of automobile
now and if you compare those numbers to the dealers
in California, they're completely backwards. And when they stopped building
manual transmission cars and our sales, you know, fundamentally were
(31:30):
halved overnight. The marketing people were like, how come you're
selling fewer cars? Is because you took the manual transmission
box out of them.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
So maybe it's the northwest coast thing.
Speaker 5 (31:40):
It's an East coast all the way to Chicago to
go back to the Loore, Matt, it's the second gen Victor.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Did you see the Victor that was made the one
off car.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
I saw the Victory. I saw it in one of
Schmie's videos. You know the YouTube kid.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Yes, he's he's really video on this podcast.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
He's prolific. He went to somebody's he went to somebody
had a collection with like all of these continuation cars
and some weird like chopped top ast in And this,
what I think is absolutely beautiful of a lore which
has a five point two liter V twelve, It has
a manual transmission, it's got that eighties kind of Mustang
(32:23):
look of a I just thought it, why not make more?
But I think they only made one hundred and ten
because it was an anniversary car, right, well.
Speaker 5 (32:30):
And how much are they they're they're they were like
one of that, I think, yeah, I mean, and how
many of them can you sell?
Speaker 2 (32:38):
That?
Speaker 5 (32:38):
That's still you know, that was always a thing where
when the first V twelve, the Gatto came out, that
car was the six seven hundred thousand dollars right at
the worst time, when when you know, the economy was
taking a tank nine and instead of selling one hundred,
they sold sixty one. And that's that's the thing. It
(33:00):
was with the same problem with my shooting break that
I have. Why do they only sell fourteen of them
in North America out of the ninety nine cars. Well,
there were eight hundred and seventy five thousand dollars. And
that's always you're always chasing that. It's too much money
for for people that know cars. You can sell things
to small markets when the markets are hot, whether that's
(33:23):
the Chinese market or you know, the the Arab markets.
When those go quiet, where's the rest of the world
picking up the slack?
Speaker 2 (33:31):
So Steve, I love the Valore.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
My last question for you really is over everything. It's
if you are now, if you're now top dog at Aston,
how do you fix this?
Speaker 3 (33:43):
If Laurence Stroll hires you after hearing this podcast, right, right,
what do you do right?
Speaker 4 (33:49):
Because we do want to fix it. We do believe
in this company and this brand. We're big fans. How
do we fix something that we love?
Speaker 5 (33:57):
The unpopular answer if I were the omnipotent king of Aston,
Martin would be years ago become part of Mercedes Benz.
You have to be part of something else. You have
to be part of another car company or you're going
to be left in the dust.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Rolls Royce is part of.
Speaker 5 (34:15):
BMW, Bentley is part of Fulkswagen, Lamborghini's part of you know,
you know, the story, and Aston Martin is sitting there going, well.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
We're the last independent company, yes, and.
Speaker 5 (34:24):
You're suffering because of it, so swallow your pride. But
I don't think. I mean, over the years, there have
been many companies that have tried. I mean Deely tried
in China and they put up this whoop, Nope, we
don't want to do that. So you can keep taking
money from the Emirates. I mean they lived off Kuwaiti
money forever. Then that ran out, so they went to
(34:45):
the Saudis and now they're sticking money in and the
Saudi's essentially saving McLaren and Aston from if I got
that right, So how long can you keep doing that?
The world moves it too fast to pay to be
independent anymore.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
So I would try.
Speaker 5 (34:58):
To look for, you know, a sugar daddy manufacturer, and
if there isn't one, well how long can this redink
go on for? And I could go, Hannah, I think
I've said to you. Lawrence Stroll will look like a
genius on one hand, because his Formula one team will
be worth billions of dollars or billion dollars anyway, where
(35:22):
the car company's not going to be worth the dirt
that it's standing on because no one's going to care
after a while.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
But he'll still come out with his friends who put.
Speaker 5 (35:29):
Money in the company, looking like a genius because of
you know, for me one and that's a whole different thing.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
I'll tell you what I would. You know what I
wonder Steve is you may comment that they make their
money on or that their reputation is being more analog
than high tech. And that's what I loved about. The
first Advantage that I drove, maybe fifteen years ago, was
that it had a stick, the steering was on point,
and there were no turbos. It was rear wheel drive. Like,
(36:00):
what if they went all that direction? Because their infotainment
is no good anyway, and they're not gonna have the
money to do the rear wheel steering thing. They don't
need to use a ZF auto slush box? Like, what
if they went all analog, wouldn't that be a coupe?
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Well that was when the V eight first gen came out.
Speaker 5 (36:23):
The Vantage Rather, it was meant to be a ninety
nine thousand dollars car, and you just describe what they
wanted to build, and then doctor Betts kept creeping it up.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Thank god he didn't name the Volante the Reverso.
Speaker 5 (36:34):
Because that's was his first that was his first name
for the car dealer network went reverse though, Wait, that's
not gonna play with a car that goes forward.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Yeah, you just hit the nail right on the head.
Speaker 5 (36:47):
And it's a conversation I just had with Donald Osborne
when he rented a Lotus elease in England when he said,
this was what I want Portia to build, or I
want Lotus to build just this. I want a simple
car that's all analog. And I just said, Donald, you
know those days they're gone. But Matt, you hit the
net right on the head. If you could dumb it
(37:10):
down tech wise and put all the grunt in it
and build, for lack of a better analogy, a better
Mustang with great style and great you know, the quality
of the materials in the car, where everything is, you know,
making you go back to it and drive it and
drive it and drive it and drive it and go
after the drivers instead of the posers or whoever.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
I don't know. The boulevard years sure idea.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
So that was Steve Cirio. We're so grateful for his
insight and perspective as always. You know, it's always great
to be able to follow the sort of trajectory of
a brand.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
How many brands has he dealt with, by the way, I.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
Don't know, But there's Lotus, There's Spiker, Spiker, Remember Spiker.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Yes, my neighbor Eric really wants a Spiker.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
Still still yeah, I mean where would you even find one?
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Do you see them on vat? Do they classic cars? Maybe? Supercar? Blinding?
He will, yeah, oh yeah, yeah. In any case, he
has a wide range of experience, and I think he
may become one of our regular guests because he has
such incredible knowledge.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Yeah, and I actually kind of liked his idea about
how he would fix the company. It actually makes sense.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Selling it to a big conglomerate.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
Well, yeah, then you get protection and money.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
I like, brace yourself. I liked my idea. I thought
my idea was brilliant.
Speaker 4 (38:32):
Would in doubt go analog?
Speaker 3 (38:34):
You know why? I think I've been thinking about this
a lot lately because the Bronc, the New Ford Bronco,
which is a shape that I love, but a lot
of people want to put a V eight in it,
and apparently it's too difficult because of the computers and
the wiring and all the technology, and I want somebody
just to rip out the wire, harness and the screens
and just put an old motor in it with no abs,
(38:54):
no traction control, and just go totally analog on that thing.
Speaker 4 (38:57):
I'm sure there are some resto mods in California doing that.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
And no one's done it yet.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
I don't think any this is find that impossible.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
This is something I'd love to get our listeners to
chime in on. Has anybody Vight swapped a new Ford Bronco?
Surely I don't think so. Our email address is Hot
Pursuit at Bloomberg dot net. Message me if you think
anyone has swapped Vight swapped a new Bronco. I don't
think it's possible.
Speaker 4 (39:24):
We'll find out.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
What have you got going on next week? What are
you doing? Oh? You know what.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
I'm going to Italy next week a little bit of
a vacation. But I'm also going to Villadeste end of
next weekend.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
So I've heard you say Villadeste, and I've heard other
wealthy people say it, but I don't know what it is.
What is Villadeste.
Speaker 4 (39:40):
Villadeste is a car show on Lake Como. Picture it
like picture it like a very very small version of
Pebble Beach. It's a car Concore and it's on Lake Como.
BMW is going to be unveiling some concepts. It always
BMW kind of it's kind of their thing. They're gonna
(40:01):
They're gonna unveil an art car and a concept car there.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
So yeah, do you know if you talk to them
before you go, you should try and get uh, the
new BMW R nine T. So it's a motorcycle.
Speaker 4 (40:15):
Yeah, the motorcycle. But I have I've had.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
It, Yes, No, I have had two R nine t's.
It's one of my favorite motorcycles. But they have a
brand new version of it, which has a slightly different name.
It's kind of the same thing.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
But the reason I say that is that Villadeste or
Le Como is in Sewed two Roll and it's one
of my favorite places in the whole world to ride motorcycles.
All Right, Well, I'm uh, I don't think I'm doing
anything special. I've been diving deep into the Subaru world.
So I've been driving across trek.
Speaker 4 (40:49):
Im speechless, I'm speechless.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Well, you know what the reason is. So, first of
all because one of my buddies gave me a cross
track to drive for a while. I really like it.
It's kind of a dog one hundred and eighty two
horse power flat four, but I like the motor even
though it's zero sixty and like ten seconds. So then
I started looking at the what do you call it,
the BRZ, which has a more powerful version. I think
(41:14):
it's a turbo charge two point four Leader with two
hundred and twenty eight horsepower. So I'm gonna drive that
to see. I've never driven a BRZ. They've been around forever,
and I want to get my mom into an outback
because it's like a great mom wagon and they have
I think an even more powerful motor available in that.
So and I'm loving the thirty thousand dollars price tag
(41:37):
because I think everything is too expensive. And after I
saw the BYD Seagull that's the Chinese electric car that
goes for ten grand, I was thinking, why do we
have to pay so much for cars?
Speaker 4 (41:48):
It's not fair.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
Part of it is tariffs and protectionism, and that's obviously
going to increase, but man, I think we should be
able to pay. We should get cheaper cars, all right,
that's all we have for hot pursuits this week. We'll
see you back, same time, same place next week.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
I'm Matt Miller, and I'm Hannah Elliott, and this is
Bloomberg
I'm Matt Miller and I'm Hannah Elliott, and this is
Hot Pursuit.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
All right.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
On this episode, we are focusing in on one.
Speaker 4 (00:15):
Brand, Laser Focus on Aston Martin, and this is really
a celebration. Now we're going to have some critiques, but
it's all out of love, right.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
It's a brand that we love and you probably love.
I think everyone loves Aston Martin. But there are important
issues from the technology, to the price, to the business
viability of an independent sports car maker in this day
and age that we're going to talk about with a
former dealer.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
My big question, and I've asked Aston Martin this is
I can't figure out why haven't they made profits. I mean,
they're not quite profitable yet, so I really want to
dig into.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Why that is. I want to say before we dive
into our interview with Steve Sirio, who was selling these
cars for like twenty four years. Yeah, I want to
hear what our listeners think about Aston Martin because I
assume that we all love it, but I don't really know.
And we have an email address. What is it.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
It's Hot Pursuit at Bloomberg dot net. Hot Pursuit at
Bloomberg dot net. And also I kind of want to
know about the James Bond thing, like, does anybody still
care that James Bond and Aston Martin worth thing or
is that really in the past?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Right?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
My question is, if you could have any Aston Martin,
and I'm sure most people would like to have one,
which one would you take? Right? Would it be the
dB five of Goldbingers? Would it be I like the
sort of Mustang shaped advantage from the eighties? Yeah, okay,
let's jump into our interview right now with former Boston
(01:43):
Aston Martin dealer Steve Sireo.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Once you were, you know, fully entrenched in Aston Martin, Steve,
what was it like working with the company, working with England,
working as a dealer, and how did what you see
effect where they are now? And I'm asking that with
the context of of course, Acid Martin had their IPO
(02:08):
in twenty eighteen. They haven't been profitable since we've seen
this is now their fourth CEO since twenty twenty, so
there's a lot of executive turnover. We know they have
cash problems, all of the things that you know you
can read about in Bloomberg Intelligence. Can you give us
some context about what you saw when you were working
with Acid Martin. Compared to where we are today.
Speaker 5 (02:31):
The pleasure of getting involved when I did was that
it was a very small company. It was bigger than
Mom and popa it wasn't much bigger. That's in terms
of management in the UK. You know, Ford had a
great hand in getting the dB seven built, getting you know,
the first Gen Vanquished done, the first Gen V eight,
(02:56):
dB steven Vantage and then dB nine and at that
time a fellow the name of Bob Dover was leading
the company.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Ian Callum was the designer.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
I called that sort of the glory days, and I
was lucky enough to be part of what was a
real fun two way street. I mean you could pick
up the phone get Dover on the line or somebody
working with him if there was any concern, if there
are production problems, if there were paint problems in the
car when they got delivered. I mean I remember having
a fellow the name of Bill Donnelly who was working
(03:28):
under Bob at the time, who I was very close
to end up, you know, doing a dealer visit with
me here in Boston, and we ended up getting a
couple of cars out of a container and they were
a mess. They were left outside before the they were
packed in a container and they were probably driven on
a muddy road and he was aghast. And and then
you know, at that time, you could you could make
(03:50):
the argument, you could.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Make the comment.
Speaker 5 (03:51):
I was like, listen, this is what we're dealing with
on on, you know, sort of on the ground here
in the States, and you could work through problems and
they were very receptive. Warrant t was great. I mean,
the whole thing was really buzzing. And you know, being
part of that Premiere you know group at Ford, they
(04:12):
had deep pockets. They could get into development of cars.
I mean when when the Vanquish was launched, I remember
the going to Detroit and seeing the prototype car and
bringing a couple of clients, and you know that was
like the Marin a five fifty Marinello beat her. I
mean that was the car, and you could argue which
was more fun to drive. I mean the Marinello is
(04:32):
no slouch and is highly regarded today, and I think
you know, the Vanquish was It's a flawed car with
the wrong gearbox, but it was it was a record breaker.
I mean for Aston Martin, so I I was there
when management had things tight and they were really listening
(04:54):
to all of the dealers on the ground all over
the world. And then you come into the era of
doctor Betts was a complete maniac, you know, and I
don't say that with any love. I mean, uh, everybody
was worthless and weak compared to him. And there's nothing
worse than an engineer running an automotive company because he
(05:15):
had no sense of sales, he had no sense of balance.
He was German, and I mean that in the worst way.
That he wasn't listening and he tried to grow the
company in a direction as an autonomous leader, and the
mythsteps were massive. I mean, he believed that the Repeat
(05:35):
was a was a great two plus two and it wasn't.
It was a hatchback because he didn't you know, he
would not listen to anybody about the back seats not
being big enough.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
I remember wedging myself into the back seats of the
Repeat when it came out.
Speaker 5 (05:50):
The signet, which was an absolute flop, which was that
you know, rebadge Toyota, which they were going to.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Just why did they do that? So all of the
other cars up till now and the Repeat. I also
loved the back seats were too small for I picked.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
Up the backseat is theoretical, yes.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
But that's the case with a lot of two plus
two's right. The DV twelve, for example, the dB twelve
today that we tested Hannah, the twenty twenty four car,
the back seats are useless except for you know.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
But dB doesn't have four doors doors.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
But the IQ or whatever it was called, the signet, Yeah,
why that said they make a little smart car.
Speaker 5 (06:28):
Why well, it was the European regulations for miles per
gallon across the border of your cars, I guess. I
remember standing with the designer who it was the first
time the car was launched to us, and a handful
of it went in the room and I forget who
it was at the time.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I think his name was Wilson.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
He was brought in from Harley Davidson in Europe to
help run sales. And he said, what do you think
of this? And I said, you shouldn't make it. And
he looked at me like, what are you talking about?
And he goes, wouldn't this be the perfect car for
the wife of somebody buying a brand new acid Martin?
I said, no, range over would be the perfect car
for a wife if she's not into driving. And he said,
(07:08):
well what about students? And I just shook my head
at him and I said, where are you going to
in Athens or Rome or where do you.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Need this smaller car? And he said, well it's green.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
I said, it's not green because it has leather seat
and everything he brought up, nobody had ever had a
round table.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Discussion with him.
Speaker 5 (07:26):
This was obviously coming down from Bets, and he was
just aping what Bets was saying. So you know, that
was a massive disaster, the one seventy seven. They never
let journalists drive the car because they never had the
car sorted out, which led to the puking of the
Vulcan on the public. I mean, the Vulcan is a
terrible car. Do didn't have an emergency break in it.
(07:46):
It was meant to be a track car only, So
you have all of these things that set up failure
going out of the Bets period A.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
It sounds like what you're saying is somewhere along the way,
Aston Martin as a company and as a brand lost
touch with what it was with its soul and and
lost touch with listening to what dealers are saying people
want and will want to buy. Is that what you're saying?
(08:17):
And then also going into the Andy Palmer era, how
did Andy? I mean, obviously he's he's so he's not German,
so he's we're back to the Brits. And now we've
got you know, of course Adrian hallmart coming in also
British walk us through this this part of the evolution,
you hit.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
The nail on the head where they just stopped listening
and they became dictatorial.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Is that the right word it was?
Speaker 5 (08:44):
It became the two way street became a one way
street that you kind of had the privilege to drive on,
and all of the dealers became worthless and week and
we weren't doing our job. And this is also the
company that stopped making manual transmission cars during that period really,
which is what kept the company different. You know, you could,
you could, you could get a portion of a manual transmission,
(09:07):
but you couldn't get anything else. And if you wanted
a grand touring car, they stopped doing that. So going
into the Andy Palmer days, now again you have a
what was Andy's expertise then? I think transmissions. He was
going to be the guy that was going to you know,
change the production and bring up quality control, and he
(09:29):
would tell you everything you wanted to hear about that
none of it really changed.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
I mean it kind of did.
Speaker 5 (09:36):
And you know, Palmer's greatest act for Aston Martin was
keeping the sales flat and then leaving with a thirty
million dollar goals an umbrella when he left, when they
came out with their IPO, which we all know is
at three percent of whatever that I think could two
percent of what the original price was. I went from
waiving an Aston Martin flag, you know, for many years
(09:58):
being in the top five dealers in the country. Then
they expanded the dealer group and that got to be
too big and they put some of the wrong people
in again because they wanted to grow, and they went
from hand to your point. Aston Martin kept getting voted
the coolest company, the coolest brand in the UK.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
In the mid odds.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
I believe it.
Speaker 5 (10:19):
And you know, and you come out with the Daniel
Craig movies and the DBS being the star of those movies,
and you couldn't have gotten more positive press, and the
DBS was such a great car.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
And then they just they just was like, well now
we're gonna now we're gonna deal with.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
A higher volume of car and we want to do
the same numbers. They kept gunning, and the edict was
always we want to be England's Ferrari. And you know
you're you're closer to being you know, Morgan than you
are a Ferrari with everything you've got going on, and
they had it.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
With the exception of design. I mean, we have to
give credit to Henrik Fisker and Iam Callen. I mean,
obviously the glory the real glory days were the dB
four and the dB five. But then those two guys
made some beautiful cars, and to their credit, they offered
a manual transmission and advantage at a time when no
(11:13):
one else and everyone else was stopping, so they did
some things right. I remember the vantage had really great
steering at a time like real hydraulicsys steering when everyone
else was going to electric. So for a while they
were making some good moves in the two thousands.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
Yeah, no, I mean it was through the point when
they started misstepping, and really the the repeat was kind
of the first misstep in terms of what it could
have been. It's funny you bring up Fisker because I
was reading in the papers about how this company has again,
you know, barely treading water. And Heinrich, insider sort of
(11:54):
baseball here, would take credit for designs that Ian did
before Heinrich got to the company.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
If you want to know that personality.
Speaker 5 (12:03):
He took credit for a mid engine car that Ian
designed that very few people know about within Aston Martin.
And he took that because nobody knew about it. He
said it was his idea. And I've never seen Ian
so upset when this got back to him. And he
also took credit for the Vank, which was Ian's baby.
I have the sketch still in my office of the
(12:24):
original sort of silhoueut of the car.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
But yeah, I mean Heinrich is Heinrich. And you know, I.
Speaker 5 (12:29):
Think with me being incredibly harsh, a lot of this
fallalls on Merrick Reichman. Now because within the dealer group,
we would say, you can't keep exaggerating the same line
and call that design. If I'm going to be a
credit critic of what the cars I used to sell,
(12:50):
they became cartoony versus elegant off of these original shapes.
I mean, the original V eight that was done, you know,
was an Elegan a little car. The dB nine you
look back at it is aged beautifully, and you get
into the dB eleven.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
I always just there was like driving a pool table.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
I want to get your take on this, Hannah, we
both give the dB twelve. My first impression and my
continued thought is it's gorgeous. I mean, it's absolutely beautiful.
In fact, car prettier than almost anything else. The dB
twelve has a V eight. I thought it was gonna
be a twelve. I feel like that's that's a little
(13:39):
bit of a disappointment, right, I mean, plus, it has
the same ZF eight speed transmission that my Dodge has. Now,
I love my Dodge, but it's not an aston Martin.
I was hoping for a DCT or a manual transmission,
but that's not available. What, Hannah, what did you think
about the dB twelve.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
I agree, I think gets one of the best looking
cars on the road. My quibble with it, I'm like,
we've talked about this before. I'm fine with the vaight.
I'm not bothered by it. It's got plenty of power.
It's almost seven hundred horse power. That's that's fine. I'm
not gonna quibble about that. You know, it's fast, but
(14:20):
it there's something about it that feels, like you say,
it's just really it feels big. It feels it's not lumbering,
it's lumbering. There's and the interior. There's something off with
the space because it feels like a wide, big, heavy
car to drive, and yet inside you're feeling a little
(14:42):
bit cramped, like you're in kind of a pod with
this huge, you know, center console separating your two little pods.
It just doesn't feel spacious and nimble in the way
that a nine to eleven does. And I'm sorry to
keep bringing it back to, you know, the other two
(15:04):
from Stuttgart, but at the end of the day, in
my opinion, things from Aston Martin need to be as
good or better than things from Portie and Mercedes in
order to be competitive, and right now it feels like
it's maybe the third option.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
And the powertrain I think is a Mercedes powertrain, right,
it's a twin turbo charge four liter V eight. Yeah,
I'm I'm happy with the power but I'd rather have
my Challenger six point four Leader. It only has four
hundred and eighty five horse power, but at least it's
I feel like it sounded better. It was more responsive somehow. Yeah,
and the leather in the Aston Martin I felt very
(15:41):
GM And the infotainment system is nothing like the Mercedes,
not as good, but I thought they sourced that technology.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Me too, I mean, confused about it, Cereal, Maybe you
can enlighten us. Aston Martin has so much going for it.
It's got a lot of money from very rich Saudi
Arabia in backers. It's got a glamorous Formula One team.
It's got a charismatic billionaire leader. It's got a heap
of brand awareness and fans and people who want it
(16:12):
to succeed, including myself. I mean, the whole reason why
we're talking about this today. And maybe it feels like
a bash fest, but it's because we love it. And
I literally cannot figure out why is it being held back.
I don't know, I can't figure it out.
Speaker 5 (16:27):
Before I answer that, it's interesting that you don't put
the Bentley Continental GT in the same breath as the
dB twelve because.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Certainly not, certainly not, it's on a higher level.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
Okay, So that's interesting because that was always a dealer level.
I mean, and you know, Hannah that I have one
for the reason of hitting in it. When you're sitting
in it, you feel like you're hitting in at just
a bucket of well, I mean, just engineering, proudness and
everything that tactile makes you go.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
This is why this costs a lot.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Of money, quite a bit more expensive.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Can we fair enough? But the Aten should It's not
as good, but Steve, it's not as good.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Also the Bentley I love too, despite the way it looks.
I love also, you know, the leather, the quality is high,
you know, the responsiveness is great. It doesn't look nearly
as beautiful as yet the as Martin is gorgeous.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
Well, the Aston Martin is more elegant. It's it's the
Bentley's brutish. It's it looks you know, it looks like
a cinder block coming down the road.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
I mean it, it is what it is.
Speaker 5 (17:37):
And the athen Is They've always built just gorgeous things,
which I think is what books a lot of people.
It's kind of always been the problem with the small
car company. I mean, you look back at their history.
They always made beautifully flawed cars. You know, for a
period of the the v Advantage from the eighties was
(17:57):
a brute gorgeous thing.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
It was from the sixties.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
So if you look at the history of the car company,
they were always playing the game of we're gonna build
a beautiful car. You don't buy them for the technology.
You buy them for the beauty and the brutishness and
the fact that it's handmade and you can and for
a long period of time, you could have got it
in any color combination with exterior color and leather trim.
(18:23):
I think they fall on there because there's still a
small car company thinking like a big car company, and
they don't have the leadership. I mean, the leadership of
the United States was comical after a while, and I
could name names, and you know, you probably would just
get everybody in trouble on the other end of the
pod here if I went down that road. But you
(18:45):
look at the people they put in charge, and it's like,
how did you pick these people? And it was kind
of endemic of what was going on in the UK.
There's always been misery at the top of the food chain.
I get out of it because when they put all
of their eggs in the DBX basket and they thought
they were going to sell I think when I left
(19:08):
in October of twenty twenty the DBX was about to
come out. I had no interest in selling it because
it was just not my cup of tea. It's not
why I got involved in the car world, and I
think it's been in terms of volume, I would say
a failure compared to Earth Bentega, the Ferrari.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Thank you, Chris, and they were constantly trying to play
catch up.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Well, and I'm glad. I'm glad you bring up the
DBX because and this is what makes a market. I
adore it.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
The seven O seven I loved.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
I love the DBX and I love the way it drives.
I love the way it sounds. The DBS impressed me
in a lot of ways that the dB twelve doesn't.
And I'm more of a soccer mom maybe than you, Steve,
So I like the room in it. I think it's
better look then almost all of its competitors. I just
(20:04):
think it.
Speaker 5 (20:05):
And you get the same engine in a G Wagon
for how much more money?
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Right, Well, they're all four Leader, they're all twin turbo
four Leader VH. Right, they're using the Mercedes. I had
that same engine in my g Wagon and I loved
it in that For some reason, I don't like it
in the dB twelve. But I think the DBX is
great and it's been a disappointment in terms of sales.
Maybe maybe it's the price problem. They just are priced.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
Too high problem yea, yeah, yeah, Well if you priced it,
if you priced it right at the G sixty three,
you'd probably sell three.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Times as many of them for another one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 5 (20:40):
How do you justify it with the old Mercedes peck
in the car if their business plan when Andy Palmer
was getting you know, his golden umbrella was to lean
heavily on the new facility and Wales and for the
longest time when Palmer first got involved, he wore up
and down. They were never going to build that car.
So here is in essence the problem with the company.
(21:04):
You tell your dealer network when you become the head
of the company, you're.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Never going to build an suv.
Speaker 5 (21:09):
You might build something called a crossover, but you're never
going to build an suv.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
What did they do?
Speaker 5 (21:14):
They built an suv and then they hinge the whole
company upon it. So if it fails, now you've got
a backpedal and go back towards get all your engineers
now refocused on Refreshing Vantage Refreshing dB eleven and where's
your halo car the Loure. Oh my god, I love that.
I love it, but it's not in what kind of volume?
(21:38):
For how much money?
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Well?
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Please please make more of them, Please make more v
Twells with a man transmission that looks like, you know,
a throwback to the original advantage. I love the Valor,
but for I want to get handles.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
You men, yes, And I will own up to it
because I've reviewed that last year and I actually said
in that review that you should drive it before you
drive the Lamborghini Urus, because I think it's interesting, and
I'm talking specifically about the seven oh seven model.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
I just think it's interesting and different. The problem with
that is that it's like fifty thousand dollars more than
the others in the competitive segment, which is what you
guys just said. But that's part of Asen Martin's current
strategy to raise profit margins, to try to bump it
up into something profitable. I mean, their whole strategy.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Is a big problem is ra if I could get
a Cayenne Turbo for so much less, then I'm gonna
Even if I like the Aston Martin looks better. The
Cayan Turbo was obviously gonna work better and last longer.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
Yeah, you know, I thought the seven oh seven actually
was exciting to drive. It just was interesting. It's something different.
You know, I love a g Wagon, but frankly, the
Portia SUVs are wonderful, but they are really ubiquitous. So
part of my attraction to seven oh seven is I
thought it looked very cool and it's something different. If
(22:59):
you have the cash just and you're not, you're not
going to be disappointed.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
I like it better than the Audi Urist for sure too.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
The Audi Arsts.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Yes, that's not a Lamborghini.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
I actually like the.
Speaker 5 (23:11):
Big anchor around the neck of modern Aston Martins is
what itsual value. So you're going to get the guy
that goes and buys the first dB X and he's
gonna use it for four years and then he's going
to come in be told it's worth nothing and he's
not going to buy a second one.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Good.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
That's another problem with overproduction and cars.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
I know the local dealers sitting on cars that have
probably had three birthdays.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
I did want to ask you about that because I
you know, when I was in Seville driving the vantage.
I was asking, you know, the Aston Martin folks there,
tell me about your production discipline, and they were very
above board with the fact that they were not disciplined.
They didn't handle production well. It sounded like and you can,
you can share your experience, but you know they would
(23:59):
they would just overproduce things and in an impredictable manner.
Are unpredictable and unpredictable manner, and which made it impossible
as a dealer to really run a business with a
high priced luxury object because the whole blure is not
(24:20):
being able to get one well.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
And that is the last That was the that was
the last hell in my cough. And I was, as
you can imagine, a pebble in the shoe of the
company for a long time because I would speak up
along with a handful of other dealers, and when they said,
we don't want you to carry three million dollars worth
of DBX is we want you to carry six And
I said, Okay, where do I go?
Speaker 2 (24:42):
How do I get out of this?
Speaker 5 (24:44):
Because you're never going to You're never going to put
that many cars and in the philosophy is a simple
one and it's the biggest mistake out of any manufacturer
they have a factory. Subsequently, the factory should be making something.
So if we're if we're opening our doors and and
we have employees that can build, well, we need them
(25:04):
to build. And it doesn't matter if the if the
consumer is not high on the uptake, We're gonna build them.
And you're the problem if you can't sell them. And
that's that goes back to the management mindset of the
dealers are all wrong, and you know you can stop
the company by looking at Valkyrie or Valhalla. Now, Valkyrie
(25:28):
was announced and Valhalla was announced while I was still there.
And if the Valkyries are getting delivered finally Valhalli's never
as far as I know, other than the one in
the James Bond movie in the background in the wind
tunnel thing that they had in the last movie, I
don't I wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Know anymore either. Maybe it's about to get launched.
Speaker 5 (25:52):
But those were the two things that were going to
be the massive Halo Enzo fighters, La Ferrari fighters. These
are the things that are gonna go after nine eighty team.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
And make a lot of money.
Speaker 5 (26:02):
By the way, Yeah, and there are lawsuits about who
put up the money to again inside Baseball Acid Martin
dem the money to build Valkyrie, so they had to
borrow the money from people. And okay, now when those
people don't get their return on their money, the lawsuits,
lawsuits start, you know, flying, because hey, they're not building
(26:23):
the car the way they said they were going to.
And now you've got customers that you know, when Valkyrie
was built, you would have to buy a tariff in
order to jump the line on the Valkyrie.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
And think about that for a second.
Speaker 5 (26:36):
So they're going to play the Ferrari thing of well
you want in eight twelve, you have to buy everything
else underneath it, and preferably from dealer's stock in multiples,
and you ask them, can't play that.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Let's talk about the cars for a minute, and I
want to do two things, Hannah. I want to get
you to tell us about the new Vantage, because again
I think it's beautiful. In fact, Barry Ridtholtz when it
first came out, messaged me and said, please put me
in touch with Aston. I want to put in my
order for this already, so I want to know what
you think about that. And then Steve, I want to
(27:16):
talk about Volor for a second because I didn't even
know about it until like last week, and it's been
around for a year, and to me, it's like perfect.
So Hannah Anna, first the vantage.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
Okay, the vantage. I drove it on the track and Spain,
and then I drove it on like one hundred mile
road course outside Sevilla. Beautiful car. We've covered that this
is the third generation starting price at one hundred and
ninety one thousand, which I actually thought was relatively fair
compared to the nine to eleven Turbo and the AMGGT.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
I want it an orange, by the way, the same
way the picture that you have in your story. It's awesome.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
You can have orange. I won't fight you for it.
I'll have the silver please. So beautiful car. And I
was so happy that they have swapped out those buttons
that you push to put it into drive and neutral reverse.
They put in an actual lever to shift gears as
it were.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
I like the button.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
That's an improvement. And you know it's certainly fast rear
wheel drive zero to sixty and three point four or so.
I mean, it's competitive. It Actually my takeaway on driving
that car was I am so used to driving cars
(28:37):
that now have rear axle steering and that really make
me feel like I'm a better driver than I am.
And sure, call it a crutch if you want, but
you know, I kind of love it because I feel
like I'm an incredible driver when I'm in those cars.
So then when I get into the Vantage and it
does not have that you know, bumper system so to speak,
(28:57):
it really feel it can get squarely and that's exciting
and it's also taxing. So when I was on the track,
you know, I'm doing laps and there is the A
pillars are a bit of a blind spot when you're
turning deep into a corner. I mean, I'm looking right
at an a pillar, which is not great when you
(29:18):
want to see where you're going. But you know, very
thrilling car to drive. But again, it honestly just feels
wide and it feels It's not as heavy as a
nine to eleven Turbo, but it's it feels heavier because
of what's underneath. Okay, Steve, go, Steve.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
And I Steve, do you have a take Steve, do
you have a take on because obviously it's brand new
or it's a twenty twenty three months our generation yep,
So do you have a take Steve because I think,
I mean, it looks beautiful, and I love hand I
love Hannah's review and even the things that maybe she
thinks are downsides. Yeah, I wanted to get squirrelly on me.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
You certainly not bad, just an observation.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
Yeah, No, I mean again, they always sold the cars
on the fact that they were more analog than they
were high tech, and I would put rear real steering
as high tech. I just giggle at the fact that
I don't know what the percentage is, but I would
bet it's less than ten of Aston Martin owners that
take their cars on the track. And I still, I
still marvel at the fact that they'll do a press
(30:21):
launch at the track. They should do it crossing the Alps,
and they should do it in real world driving situations
so the press can go.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Oh, this is what it's like to own one.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
The dB twelve launch was in Monaco, and that was
a beautiful drive, so you're exactly wait.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Wait, Hannah, can you get it with a manual transmission?
The new vantage?
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Oh, come on, come on, I don't let's kill the
company further, Biden. No, I don't think anyone's asking for that. Sadly,
I'm sorry, but I do not think I've been hearing
people are asking for it.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
I don't believe it. Look on bat which vantages bring
the most money. If it has a manual transmission, it's
instantly got a premium instantly. This is a real to me.
Speaker 5 (31:06):
Well, my, my, my market was always the anomaly because,
unlike the rest of the country, we would sell seventy
five percent UH coupe versus Valante, and we would sell
eighty or eighty five percent manual in set of automobile
now and if you compare those numbers to the dealers
in California, they're completely backwards. And when they stopped building
manual transmission cars and our sales, you know, fundamentally were
(31:30):
halved overnight. The marketing people were like, how come you're
selling fewer cars? Is because you took the manual transmission
box out of them.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
So maybe it's the northwest coast thing.
Speaker 5 (31:40):
It's an East coast all the way to Chicago to
go back to the Loore, Matt, it's the second gen Victor.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Did you see the Victor that was made the one
off car.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
I saw the Victory. I saw it in one of
Schmie's videos. You know the YouTube kid.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Yes, he's he's really video on this podcast.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
He's prolific. He went to somebody's he went to somebody
had a collection with like all of these continuation cars
and some weird like chopped top ast in And this,
what I think is absolutely beautiful of a lore which
has a five point two liter V twelve, It has
a manual transmission, it's got that eighties kind of Mustang
(32:23):
look of a I just thought it, why not make more?
But I think they only made one hundred and ten
because it was an anniversary car, right, well.
Speaker 5 (32:30):
And how much are they they're they're they were like
one of that, I think, yeah, I mean, and how
many of them can you sell?
Speaker 2 (32:38):
That?
Speaker 5 (32:38):
That's still you know, that was always a thing where
when the first V twelve, the Gatto came out, that
car was the six seven hundred thousand dollars right at
the worst time, when when you know, the economy was
taking a tank nine and instead of selling one hundred,
they sold sixty one. And that's that's the thing. It
(33:00):
was with the same problem with my shooting break that
I have. Why do they only sell fourteen of them
in North America out of the ninety nine cars. Well,
there were eight hundred and seventy five thousand dollars. And
that's always you're always chasing that. It's too much money
for for people that know cars. You can sell things
to small markets when the markets are hot, whether that's
(33:23):
the Chinese market or you know, the the Arab markets.
When those go quiet, where's the rest of the world
picking up the slack?
Speaker 2 (33:31):
So Steve, I love the Valore.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
My last question for you really is over everything. It's
if you are now, if you're now top dog at Aston,
how do you fix this?
Speaker 3 (33:43):
If Laurence Stroll hires you after hearing this podcast, right, right,
what do you do right?
Speaker 4 (33:49):
Because we do want to fix it. We do believe
in this company and this brand. We're big fans. How
do we fix something that we love?
Speaker 5 (33:57):
The unpopular answer if I were the omnipotent king of Aston,
Martin would be years ago become part of Mercedes Benz.
You have to be part of something else. You have
to be part of another car company or you're going
to be left in the dust.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Rolls Royce is part of.
Speaker 5 (34:15):
BMW, Bentley is part of Fulkswagen, Lamborghini's part of you know,
you know, the story, and Aston Martin is sitting there going, well.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
We're the last independent company, yes, and.
Speaker 5 (34:24):
You're suffering because of it, so swallow your pride. But
I don't think. I mean, over the years, there have
been many companies that have tried. I mean Deely tried
in China and they put up this whoop, Nope, we
don't want to do that. So you can keep taking
money from the Emirates. I mean they lived off Kuwaiti
money forever. Then that ran out, so they went to
(34:45):
the Saudis and now they're sticking money in and the
Saudi's essentially saving McLaren and Aston from if I got
that right, So how long can you keep doing that?
The world moves it too fast to pay to be
independent anymore.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
So I would try.
Speaker 5 (34:58):
To look for, you know, a sugar daddy manufacturer, and
if there isn't one, well how long can this redink
go on for? And I could go, Hannah, I think
I've said to you. Lawrence Stroll will look like a
genius on one hand, because his Formula one team will
be worth billions of dollars or billion dollars anyway, where
(35:22):
the car company's not going to be worth the dirt
that it's standing on because no one's going to care
after a while.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
But he'll still come out with his friends who put.
Speaker 5 (35:29):
Money in the company, looking like a genius because of
you know, for me one and that's a whole different thing.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
I'll tell you what I would. You know what I
wonder Steve is you may comment that they make their
money on or that their reputation is being more analog
than high tech. And that's what I loved about. The
first Advantage that I drove, maybe fifteen years ago, was
that it had a stick, the steering was on point,
and there were no turbos. It was rear wheel drive. Like,
(36:00):
what if they went all that direction? Because their infotainment
is no good anyway, and they're not gonna have the
money to do the rear wheel steering thing. They don't
need to use a ZF auto slush box? Like, what
if they went all analog, wouldn't that be a coupe?
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Well that was when the V eight first gen came out.
Speaker 5 (36:23):
The Vantage Rather, it was meant to be a ninety
nine thousand dollars car, and you just describe what they
wanted to build, and then doctor Betts kept creeping it up.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Thank god he didn't name the Volante the Reverso.
Speaker 5 (36:34):
Because that's was his first that was his first name
for the car dealer network went reverse though, Wait, that's
not gonna play with a car that goes forward.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Yeah, you just hit the nail right on the head.
Speaker 5 (36:47):
And it's a conversation I just had with Donald Osborne
when he rented a Lotus elease in England when he said,
this was what I want Portia to build, or I
want Lotus to build just this. I want a simple
car that's all analog. And I just said, Donald, you
know those days they're gone. But Matt, you hit the
net right on the head. If you could dumb it
(37:10):
down tech wise and put all the grunt in it
and build, for lack of a better analogy, a better
Mustang with great style and great you know, the quality
of the materials in the car, where everything is, you know,
making you go back to it and drive it and
drive it and drive it and drive it and go
after the drivers instead of the posers or whoever.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
I don't know. The boulevard years sure idea.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
So that was Steve Cirio. We're so grateful for his
insight and perspective as always. You know, it's always great
to be able to follow the sort of trajectory of
a brand.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
How many brands has he dealt with, by the way, I.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
Don't know, But there's Lotus, There's Spiker, Spiker, Remember Spiker.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Yes, my neighbor Eric really wants a Spiker.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
Still still yeah, I mean where would you even find one?
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Do you see them on vat? Do they classic cars? Maybe? Supercar? Blinding?
He will, yeah, oh yeah, yeah. In any case, he
has a wide range of experience, and I think he
may become one of our regular guests because he has
such incredible knowledge.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Yeah, and I actually kind of liked his idea about
how he would fix the company. It actually makes sense.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Selling it to a big conglomerate.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
Well, yeah, then you get protection and money.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
I like, brace yourself. I liked my idea. I thought
my idea was brilliant.
Speaker 4 (38:32):
Would in doubt go analog?
Speaker 3 (38:34):
You know why? I think I've been thinking about this
a lot lately because the Bronc, the New Ford Bronco,
which is a shape that I love, but a lot
of people want to put a V eight in it,
and apparently it's too difficult because of the computers and
the wiring and all the technology, and I want somebody
just to rip out the wire, harness and the screens
and just put an old motor in it with no abs,
(38:54):
no traction control, and just go totally analog on that thing.
Speaker 4 (38:57):
I'm sure there are some resto mods in California doing that.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
And no one's done it yet.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
I don't think any this is find that impossible.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
This is something I'd love to get our listeners to
chime in on. Has anybody Vight swapped a new Ford Bronco?
Surely I don't think so. Our email address is Hot
Pursuit at Bloomberg dot net. Message me if you think
anyone has swapped Vight swapped a new Bronco. I don't
think it's possible.
Speaker 4 (39:24):
We'll find out.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
What have you got going on next week? What are
you doing? Oh? You know what.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
I'm going to Italy next week a little bit of
a vacation. But I'm also going to Villadeste end of
next weekend.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
So I've heard you say Villadeste, and I've heard other
wealthy people say it, but I don't know what it is.
What is Villadeste.
Speaker 4 (39:40):
Villadeste is a car show on Lake Como. Picture it
like picture it like a very very small version of
Pebble Beach. It's a car Concore and it's on Lake Como.
BMW is going to be unveiling some concepts. It always
BMW kind of it's kind of their thing. They're gonna
(40:01):
They're gonna unveil an art car and a concept car there.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
So yeah, do you know if you talk to them
before you go, you should try and get uh, the
new BMW R nine T. So it's a motorcycle.
Speaker 4 (40:15):
Yeah, the motorcycle. But I have I've had.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
It, Yes, No, I have had two R nine t's.
It's one of my favorite motorcycles. But they have a
brand new version of it, which has a slightly different name.
It's kind of the same thing.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
But the reason I say that is that Villadeste or
Le Como is in Sewed two Roll and it's one
of my favorite places in the whole world to ride motorcycles.
All Right, Well, I'm uh, I don't think I'm doing
anything special. I've been diving deep into the Subaru world.
So I've been driving across trek.
Speaker 4 (40:49):
Im speechless, I'm speechless.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Well, you know what the reason is. So, first of
all because one of my buddies gave me a cross
track to drive for a while. I really like it.
It's kind of a dog one hundred and eighty two
horse power flat four, but I like the motor even
though it's zero sixty and like ten seconds. So then
I started looking at the what do you call it,
the BRZ, which has a more powerful version. I think
(41:14):
it's a turbo charge two point four Leader with two
hundred and twenty eight horsepower. So I'm gonna drive that
to see. I've never driven a BRZ. They've been around forever,
and I want to get my mom into an outback
because it's like a great mom wagon and they have
I think an even more powerful motor available in that.
So and I'm loving the thirty thousand dollars price tag
(41:37):
because I think everything is too expensive. And after I
saw the BYD Seagull that's the Chinese electric car that
goes for ten grand, I was thinking, why do we
have to pay so much for cars?
Speaker 4 (41:48):
It's not fair.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
Part of it is tariffs and protectionism, and that's obviously
going to increase, but man, I think we should be
able to pay. We should get cheaper cars, all right,
that's all we have for hot pursuits this week. We'll
see you back, same time, same place next week.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
I'm Matt Miller, and I'm Hannah Elliott, and this is
Bloomberg
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