# Singer Vehicle Design Founder; Matt loves the Chevy Blazer EV

An episode of [Bloomberg Hot Pursuit!](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1710787142), 23 May 2025, 56 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/4778f66f-5d19-456a-9820-b08f00dfd567/e661f14a-0994-42ef-8bfb-b2e6010f404e/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=42336c1a-f7c2-4898-885b-b08f00e0bb66

Singer Vehicle Design founder Rob Dickinson joins the podcast. Plus, Matt falls in love with the Chevy Blazer EV. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. I'm Matt Miller and
[0:09] Speaker 1: I'm Hannah Elliott, and this is Hot Pursuit.
[0:18] Speaker 2: We have a very exciting guest that we're going to
[0:20] Speaker 2: get straight two. But they've just put out a new product.
[0:23] Speaker 2: He has just put out a new product.
[0:25] Speaker 1: Our guest is Rob Dickinson of the nineties group Katherine
[0:28] Speaker 1: Wheel and more recently, the founder of Singer Vehicle Design.
[0:33] Speaker 1: He started the company in two thousand and nine, and
[0:35] Speaker 1: earlier this month, Singer just announced their latest gift to us,
[0:41] Speaker 1: the nine to eleven Carrera Coop, which is basically a
[0:45] Speaker 1: wide body variant of nine to eleven from the nineteen eighties.
[0:49] Speaker 2: It's a great I love this car. I mean I've
[0:52] Speaker 2: always loved the shape of it because one of my
[0:55] Speaker 2: friend's dad's nine six four, but with the whale tail
[0:59] Speaker 2: and the wider hips. But one of my favorite stories
[1:03] Speaker 2: recently about it is Barry Ritholtz actually bought one intending
[1:07] Speaker 2: on butchering it and turning it electric. Remember, oh, I remember,
[1:12] Speaker 2: and this one. He couldn't bring himself to do it
[1:14] Speaker 2: because it was such a rare find. He figured out
[1:18] Speaker 2: after he bought it that he just restored it to
[1:20] Speaker 2: its original glory.
[1:21] Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm so grateful he did.
[1:23] Speaker 2: He eventually went on to electrify another nine to eleven,
[1:28] Speaker 2: which you.
[1:28] Speaker 1: Can previous episode exactly.
[1:31] Speaker 2: But Rob is basically making his best version of this
[1:37] Speaker 2: car Let's listen in. Ever since we had you on
[1:39] Speaker 2: my TV show, I've just been obsessed with your record.
[1:42] Speaker 2: I've been listening to Chrome like over and over and
[1:44] Speaker 2: over again.
[1:46] Speaker 3: Oh gosh, that's very cool.
[1:48] Speaker 2: I thank you because I hadn't really listened to it
[1:50] Speaker 2: since I guess the nineties or early two thousands.
[1:52] Speaker 3: So it's not bad, no bad.
[1:55] Speaker 2: It's been a reawakening the whole genre. I absolutely love.
[1:59] Speaker 2: I don't know why people call it shoegazing rock. Why
[2:02] Speaker 2: is that?
[2:05] Speaker 3: Well, we tended to stare at our shoes and I
[2:07] Speaker 3: have guitar effects, pedals and not too much rock and
[2:11] Speaker 3: roll posturing at the front of the stage. But it
[2:13] Speaker 3: was quite insular, loud rock music, so they called it shoegazing.
[2:17] Speaker 3: It was quite the enemy coined the phrase I think
[2:20] Speaker 3: very cool.
[2:21] Speaker 1: Rob. Are you still in Poland or are you back?
[2:23] Speaker 1: I know, I think you were just there to working
[2:27] Speaker 1: on a new partnership.
[2:29] Speaker 3: Yes, I'm back. I'm back. I'm back. Yes, So I
[2:33] Speaker 3: got back last week. So A wow, good, quite a
[2:36] Speaker 3: good visit to Warsaw. Quite quite an eye opener.
[2:38] Speaker 1: I went to Warsaw, gosh, probably twenty years ago. What
[2:42] Speaker 1: was it like for you?
[2:43] Speaker 3: It was like Paris? It fell like Paris. It was
[2:46] Speaker 3: like it was like Paris. Certainly where we were staying.
[2:48] Speaker 3: We were staying in a reasonably posh hotel, could have
[2:51] Speaker 3: been any reasonably affluent European city. But it was great.
[2:55] Speaker 3: People are people, aren't they? Car Lovers are car lovers
[2:57] Speaker 3: all over the world. There was we did an event
[2:59] Speaker 3: at the at the Ferrari dealership and there's you know,
[3:02] Speaker 3: must have been one hundred car spotting kids outside with
[3:06] Speaker 3: their phones making their videos, and you realize you can
[3:10] Speaker 3: be anywhere in the world and it's all the same passion.
[3:13] Speaker 3: It's just fantastic that there's a whole bunch of youngsters
[3:16] Speaker 3: who were obsessed with these cars as much as I
[3:19] Speaker 3: was when I was their agents. I find it quite amazing.
[3:21] Speaker 1: Are they like up on everything you guys offer? And
[3:26] Speaker 1: are you taking orders already in paces as far flung
[3:29] Speaker 1: as Poland?
[3:29] Speaker 3: I think the car sold out. Actually, maybe we can't
[3:32] Speaker 3: say that officially, but yeah, I think a few people
[3:35] Speaker 3: in Poland managed to get a car. We're at the
[3:37] Speaker 3: point of where we had to limit allocations to our
[3:40] Speaker 3: partners around the world, so but yeah, it was really
[3:44] Speaker 3: well received, just remarkably normal, and I'm not sure. I'm
[3:49] Speaker 3: not sure really what I expected from Poland. Poland took
[3:52] Speaker 3: off economically after the Berlin Wall came down and the
[3:55] Speaker 3: father of the guy who represents Ferrari and Peghani and
[3:59] Speaker 3: kind of and everyone and Baghatti everyone else in Poland,
[4:03] Speaker 3: his dad entrepreneurially set up a Reno dealership in nineteen
[4:07] Speaker 3: ninety two. And from that small acorn they've turned into
[4:11] Speaker 3: this jumbo tron of a car selling family that helicopter
[4:16] Speaker 3: around the country and you know, make huge amounts of
[4:19] Speaker 3: money selling fancy cars, and it's and it's it's a
[4:22] Speaker 3: testament to the entrepreneurial spirit. It polls and known for anything.
[4:25] Speaker 3: They're known for sticking their shoulder in and working their
[4:28] Speaker 3: arses off, and there were certainly lots of evidence of that.
[4:32] Speaker 2: I mean, you have done something similar in even a
[4:36] Speaker 2: shorter time period, and I want to get to that,
[4:38] Speaker 2: but I think first let's frame the new car, the
[4:43] Speaker 2: Carrera Coop is the new release from you from Singer
[4:48] Speaker 2: and it's basically the M four ninety one, right, so
[4:51] Speaker 2: it's a turbo Loook ninety six y four but with
[4:54] Speaker 2: a naturally aspirated engine. Tell me about it.
[4:57] Speaker 3: It's our re entry into offering something with a normally
[5:01] Speaker 3: aspirated engine. But at the moment, our cars the Classic
[5:04] Speaker 3: Turbo and the DLS Turbo a turbocharge cars, and a
[5:07] Speaker 3: lot of our clients have been asking us whether there
[5:11] Speaker 3: can be another normally aspirated car, And of course we've
[5:13] Speaker 3: been planning this for a while and at the heart
[5:16] Speaker 3: of the career a coup is, like all our cars,
[5:20] Speaker 3: is the engine. And we've spent the last eighteen months
[5:24] Speaker 3: working on a very very special engine with Cosworth, the
[5:28] Speaker 3: mighty Cosworth in England, who are helping us develop it.
[5:31] Speaker 3: We wanted to come with something that was a real
[5:33] Speaker 3: definitive statement on what a classic air called Portion nine
[5:37] Speaker 3: eleven could be when it's normally aspirated at the real
[5:41] Speaker 3: top of its game. The idea was to offer a
[5:43] Speaker 3: car that was kind of like the spiritual successor to
[5:46] Speaker 3: our Classic, which was I guess you could say it's
[5:49] Speaker 3: the car that got us on the map. We're coming
[5:51] Speaker 3: to the end of building those cars, so we're not
[5:53] Speaker 3: taking any more orders to those cars, and we wanted
[5:55] Speaker 3: something that was the brother of that car, if you like,
[5:58] Speaker 3: something that encompassed all our learn from the last fifteen
[6:02] Speaker 3: years of working on these engines, whether they be turbocharged engines,
[6:06] Speaker 3: normally espirated engines, the incredible high normally espiated engine from
[6:10] Speaker 3: the DLS and how great can we make it? And
[6:13] Speaker 3: going to Cosworths to work on variable valve timing, water
[6:19] Speaker 3: cooled cylinder heads, four valve cylinder heads, optimizing the cooling,
[6:25] Speaker 3: an attempt to throw everything we knew and everything Cosworth
[6:28] Speaker 3: know at this ancient, really antique of an engine and
[6:34] Speaker 3: bringing it kicking and screaming into the twenty first century
[6:37] Speaker 3: in a way that not only gives us as much
[6:39] Speaker 3: power as we possibly can and talk, but also gets
[6:43] Speaker 3: us in a rather sophisticated way through the regulatory challenges
[6:47] Speaker 3: that we need to to sell the cast all over
[6:49] Speaker 3: the world. To build a high performing old Porschere engine
[6:52] Speaker 3: is not that hard, but to build a high performing
[6:54] Speaker 3: Porschere engine that gets through regulations is incredibly hard. We'retre
[7:00] Speaker 3: be proud of what was measure achieved, which is an
[7:02] Speaker 3: engine with four hundred and twenty horsepower, a lot of
[7:05] Speaker 3: TORQ across a wide range through the variable valve timing
[7:08] Speaker 3: which has never been put on an air cooled engine before,
[7:11] Speaker 3: controlling the heat of the engine. Obviously REVS gives us power,
[7:15] Speaker 3: but REVS gives us heat and dissipating the heat from
[7:18] Speaker 3: the engine is where's the challenge. Four valve heads with
[7:20] Speaker 3: water cooling help us with that and this ability that
[7:24] Speaker 3: we've had to separate the fan from running off the engine,
[7:28] Speaker 3: which it usually does in an air cooled engine. We're
[7:31] Speaker 3: running the fan on an electric motor which sits on
[7:34] Speaker 3: top of the engine and allows the fan to cool
[7:37] Speaker 3: the cylinders far more efficiently. So it's a complete holistic
[7:41] Speaker 3: rethink of how the air cooled nine to eleven engine
[7:46] Speaker 3: can work and how it can be optimized. So we're
[7:48] Speaker 3: very proud of that. That's the heart of the car.
[7:51] Speaker 3: We wanted to celebrate that idea than in the eighties
[7:54] Speaker 3: you could walk into a Porsche dealership and order your
[7:57] Speaker 3: new portion nine eleven with the pumped up skill of
[8:00] Speaker 3: bodywork of the turbo, but with Porsche's latest naturally aspirated engine,
[8:04] Speaker 3: not a turbocharge engine.
[8:05] Speaker 1: I'm curious just in general, when you're talking about all
[8:09] Speaker 1: of these really significant improvements like chassis strengthening, you know,
[8:13] Speaker 1: adjusting the valve timing, all of these things. Are those
[8:17] Speaker 1: part of like a vision coming from you or are
[8:21] Speaker 1: those coming in response to customer feedback? Hey can you
[8:24] Speaker 1: do this? Can you change this? We want more of this,
[8:26] Speaker 1: we want less of this? Or is it a mix
[8:29] Speaker 1: sort of of both.
[8:31] Speaker 3: No, it's a.
[8:33] Speaker 1: Wow, that's an easy answer, Singer.
[8:36] Speaker 3: Is not much of a democracy. I'm afraid with me
[8:38] Speaker 3: and my great friend and business partner Math, and it's
[8:42] Speaker 3: what we want. The companies built on me wanting very
[8:45] Speaker 3: very badly, a very if I could only have one car,
[8:48] Speaker 3: what would it be? It would be have to be
[8:50] Speaker 3: very special. The wholy thoughts of the company was built
[8:52] Speaker 3: on what I wanted myself. With this with the arrogance
[8:56] Speaker 3: that what I wanted is what everyone else would would I.
[8:59] Speaker 2: Respect that This is how the company came about. Your
[9:02] Speaker 2: desire to have if you could only have one car,
[9:04] Speaker 2: what would it be? And all the things you had
[9:06] Speaker 2: to do. But previously you were in this very successful
[9:11] Speaker 2: band Catherine Wheel And as I said, I've been listening
[9:14] Speaker 2: to to your hit record Chrome over and over again
[9:16] Speaker 2: ever since I had you on TV. How did you
[9:19] Speaker 2: go from like a rock star and I guess surrounded
[9:23] Speaker 2: by rock stars your cousin. Your cousin is Bruce Dickinson,
[9:27] Speaker 2: if I have it right, from Iron Maiden. So how
[9:29] Speaker 2: did you go from this like rock and roll world
[9:31] Speaker 2: to essentially building cars and starting such a successful business
[9:36] Speaker 2: doing doing that?
[9:38] Speaker 3: I studied car design at university. I mean, what which
[9:41] Speaker 3: order did things come? And I start in love with
[9:42] Speaker 3: cars at the age of five. I picked up a
[9:44] Speaker 3: guitar at the age of fourteen, I went to university
[9:47] Speaker 3: to design cars at twenty one. I got a job
[9:51] Speaker 3: at Lotus when I was about twenty three twenty two,
[9:54] Speaker 3: twenty three, and my band got a recording contract when
[9:58] Speaker 3: I was twenty five, so that was nineteen nineties. What
[10:00] Speaker 3: followed was fifteen years of absolute obsession with music, but
[10:05] Speaker 3: also my love of car was my release and my
[10:08] Speaker 3: happy place to go to while I was making music.
[10:11] Speaker 3: So I think my passion for cars increased, and circumstances
[10:15] Speaker 3: had me in Los Angeles in two thousand and three
[10:18] Speaker 3: making my first and only solo record, and I decided
[10:22] Speaker 3: to build my own perfect Portion nine eleven for myself,
[10:25] Speaker 3: and that car became the genesis of singer. And it
[10:29] Speaker 3: gave me the idea that what if I could create
[10:34] Speaker 3: the ultimate air called Portion nine eleven, would anyone else
[10:37] Speaker 3: be interested in having one of those? And that idea
[10:41] Speaker 3: just gripped me around the neck and I couldn't let
[10:43] Speaker 3: it go. And I was rather sick of music at
[10:44] Speaker 3: that point. To be honest with you, I was. I
[10:47] Speaker 3: felt I was too old to rock and roll. I
[10:49] Speaker 3: think I felt I genuinely made the best music I could,
[10:53] Speaker 3: and I wanted to obsess about something else. I've been
[10:55] Speaker 3: so blessed. I've had two things in my life that
[10:58] Speaker 3: I absolutely cannot ignore and I have had to pursue.
[11:02] Speaker 2: By the way, Rob was that a family love? Because
[11:05] Speaker 2: doesn't Bruce Dickinson also raise PORSCHEZ.
[11:09] Speaker 3: No, absolutely not, that's emphatic. He does a bunch of
[11:14] Speaker 3: other things that he's got an airship company, if you
[11:16] Speaker 3: can believe it. He's not really a car guy. I
[11:19] Speaker 3: got the car genes.
[11:19] Speaker 1: I think in the family you say, nobody writes a
[11:22] Speaker 1: book about how to do this, But at this point
[11:24] Speaker 1: if anybody has now done a blueprint that a lot
[11:28] Speaker 1: of people are trying to emulate it, certainly a singer.
[11:31] Speaker 1: I'm really curious, you know, to know what was the
[11:35] Speaker 1: hardest part of getting to success for you in terms
[11:40] Speaker 1: of to get you to the point of, oh, we're
[11:43] Speaker 1: gonna be okay, Oh we've made it. And also what
[11:47] Speaker 1: separates singer from all of the others that have tried
[11:52] Speaker 1: and not been able to really establish a foundation that
[11:56] Speaker 1: feels permanent rather than a we're here and then we're gone.
[12:01] Speaker 3: Were excellent questions. What's what's smart? People you are? I
[12:05] Speaker 3: started this business with a blissful disregard for business. I
[12:10] Speaker 3: started the business with my father in law, who's a
[12:13] Speaker 3: risk taking, wonderful man, who said he gave me some money,
[12:17] Speaker 3: so just just go and have a go build build
[12:19] Speaker 3: the car you want. And it was with that spirit,
[12:22] Speaker 3: that sense that I don't know where this is going,
[12:24] Speaker 3: but I'm going to build what the car I want
[12:27] Speaker 3: and something good is going to happen from it. That
[12:29] Speaker 3: was as far as our business plan got in two
[12:32] Speaker 3: thousand and eight. And I do think that the people
[12:34] Speaker 3: that have clearly been inspired by us and and and
[12:39] Speaker 3: some of those folks have created some wonderful stuff, some
[12:42] Speaker 3: of some of the some of the some of the
[12:44] Speaker 3: people who've copied us have been a bit shameless with it.
[12:46] Speaker 3: But I think what they have done is attacked it
[12:49] Speaker 3: like a business, and they've come at it going, well,
[12:53] Speaker 3: there's some blood in the water here. You know what
[12:55] Speaker 3: thing we're doing, we can do it. If we change
[12:57] Speaker 3: the this a little bit and this a little bit,
[12:59] Speaker 3: we'll be out and maybe you offer it a little
[13:01] Speaker 3: bit cheaper. I mean, that is not where Singer started from.
[13:04] Speaker 3: Singer started with a rather hypoalutant, artistic, passionate sense of
[13:10] Speaker 3: an understanding of our subject matter and and and a
[13:14] Speaker 3: deep sincere wish to celebrate Porsche itself. Singer was always
[13:19] Speaker 3: Porscha writ large and Singer rit smaller. I knew that
[13:22] Speaker 3: was going to be essential if we were going to
[13:25] Speaker 3: have any sense of being viewed differently to the tuna
[13:29] Speaker 3: crowd or the custom car crowd, it had to be
[13:32] Speaker 3: something that was there reasonably cerebral, the sense that we
[13:36] Speaker 3: did understand our subject matter and we were obsessed with it,
[13:39] Speaker 3: and we were going to we were going to present
[13:42] Speaker 3: this new, this second life for this old Porsche nine
[13:45] Speaker 3: elevenument in a way that was genuinely reverent and respectful
[13:49] Speaker 3: to Porsche. I don't see any of the people who
[13:51] Speaker 3: are copying us doing that as usual with custom car companies,
[13:55] Speaker 3: that everyone's beating their chests and saying, look how good
[13:57] Speaker 3: we are if we beat our chests at all. It
[14:00] Speaker 3: was like, look how wonderful this portion nine to eleven is.
[14:03] Speaker 3: And that's a very subtly but very different message.
[14:05] Speaker 2: An important nuance.
[14:07] Speaker 3: Something I read about Tom York being very upset about
[14:10] Speaker 3: all the bands that have copied Radiohead, of which there
[14:13] Speaker 3: have been many. His producer, a guy called Nigel god
[14:16] Speaker 3: which something like Tom likes to think that anyone strumming
[14:20] Speaker 3: a guitar morosely. He invented that. I see both points
[14:24] Speaker 3: of view. Everyone copies, everyone steals. I mean, I've done it.
[14:29] Speaker 3: It's just how you live with yourself afterwards, isn't it.
[14:32] Speaker 3: As I say, we didn't invent restoring and modifying old cars.
[14:35] Speaker 3: Who am I to judge when it comes to your
[14:39] Speaker 3: first question, I think enduring. We managed to endure, and
[14:45] Speaker 3: I can assure you that through twenty and eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen,
[14:51] Speaker 3: it was extremely hair raising that sense that sell the
[14:56] Speaker 3: tenth car, and I'm thinking, God, we sold ten cars.
[14:58] Speaker 3: That's incredible. Surely everyone on planet earthly on one of
[15:02] Speaker 3: our cars, has probably ordered one. And the fact that
[15:05] Speaker 3: we are hemorrhaging money, we probably should turn this off
[15:09] Speaker 3: and build the tenth car and go home and do
[15:11] Speaker 3: something else. And then we got to fifty, and then
[15:14] Speaker 3: we got to one hundred, and then I started to think,
[15:18] Speaker 3: hang on a minute, this may endure, and this may continue.
[15:23] Speaker 3: And I think there was that point, but there was
[15:25] Speaker 3: seven or eight years when it was like, you know,
[15:28] Speaker 3: extremely difficult. The cars are ferociously, ferociously complicated to create
[15:33] Speaker 3: to the standard that we aspire to. Incredibly expensive. Everything
[15:37] Speaker 3: is three times as expensive as we thought it was.
[15:40] Speaker 3: We built the very first car and sold it for
[15:43] Speaker 3: three hundred thousand dollars and spent one point one million
[15:47] Speaker 3: dollars building it. Wow. Is that is the lunacy.
[15:52] Speaker 1: That's a gut check.
[15:53] Speaker 3: That is the lunacy of which Singer started.
[15:56] Speaker 2: And what's the most important part. So I've been lucky
[16:00] Speaker 2: enough to see some of your work in person, and
[16:04] Speaker 2: I'm just drooling when I'm looking at the gauges and
[16:07] Speaker 2: the carbon and the design, and then I hear about
[16:10] Speaker 2: the Cosworth and the Red Bull, you know, or Tuthill
[16:14] Speaker 2: or whatever people you're working with. But what's the most
[16:17] Speaker 2: what are the most expensive parts of what you're doing?
[16:20] Speaker 2: Like how do you get to to three million dollar
[16:23] Speaker 2: price tags?
[16:24] Speaker 3: The engines at the helf of it. Just the sheer
[16:27] Speaker 3: amount of artisanal work that goes in to every corner
[16:30] Speaker 3: of the car is ridiculous. I mean, we stopped trying
[16:34] Speaker 3: to count how many hours go into the car. I
[16:36] Speaker 3: mean taking taking a chassis, a monocoque metal you know,
[16:41] Speaker 3: the metal underpinnings of a portion nine sixty sixty four
[16:45] Speaker 3: that that was engineered and tooled probably in nineteen eighty five,
[16:49] Speaker 3: and you can imagine the tolerance is that is that
[16:53] Speaker 3: is not a Swiss watch of the car, although it's
[16:56] Speaker 3: a fabulously built car. And then trying to you know,
[16:59] Speaker 3: disassemble it, strip it and then put attached carbon fiber
[17:04] Speaker 3: bodywork to it for lightness and strength and everything else
[17:10] Speaker 3: and have the door gaps be perfect and have everything
[17:15] Speaker 3: visually be perfect and all the surfaces to be perfect
[17:18] Speaker 3: is stoundingly difficult to do, and it takes both skill
[17:24] Speaker 3: and a lot of pile. So the body work alone,
[17:27] Speaker 3: I mean we were we sometimes spend up to eight
[17:30] Speaker 3: hundred hours making sure the body is ready to be painted,
[17:34] Speaker 3: and that's not painting regards, just preparing the gard for
[17:37] Speaker 3: it to be painted, so every gap is perfect, every
[17:40] Speaker 3: radius is perfect. Is this when it comes to how
[17:44] Speaker 3: we managed to endure my insistence that we couldn't let
[17:48] Speaker 3: the standards drop. It was both the perhaps the wisdom
[17:55] Speaker 3: in us enduring because it's given us a reputation for quality,
[17:59] Speaker 3: but also one of the things that were so so
[18:01] Speaker 3: hard to convince convince everyone else around me that we
[18:05] Speaker 3: still had to produce cars that were exquisite and magnificent
[18:08] Speaker 3: in their quality. And of course, when you're struggling, that's
[18:11] Speaker 3: the last thing you want to do. You want to
[18:12] Speaker 3: cut some corners, you want to save some money, you
[18:15] Speaker 3: want to do this, that and the other that most
[18:17] Speaker 3: car companies do, and you build down to a price.
[18:19] Speaker 3: We've never built down to a price the price of
[18:22] Speaker 3: our car. The margin that most car companies put on
[18:25] Speaker 3: top of their work our cars would be ten million
[18:28] Speaker 3: dollars if we did that. The margins on our cars
[18:30] Speaker 3: are tiny, and that's the difficult for some people to
[18:34] Speaker 3: believe sometimes.
[18:35] Speaker 1: But terrafs our terriffs.
[18:39] Speaker 3: Yeah, no, terriffs touch wood for us. I'm not something
[18:44] Speaker 3: that's that's really punishing us at the moment. The fact
[18:47] Speaker 3: that we have a factory in England and a facility
[18:51] Speaker 3: in England is helping that that our DLS cars and
[18:56] Speaker 3: a few of our turbos are built in England, which
[18:59] Speaker 3: obviously doesn't have the the the issues that what on
[19:03] Speaker 3: tariffs in America does. And the majority of our supply
[19:06] Speaker 3: chain is here within the US, so right now touched
[19:11] Speaker 3: with the tariffs, aren't aren't affecting us? Which is which
[19:13] Speaker 3: is which is great.
[19:14] Speaker 2: And your customers are the majority of our customers also
[19:17] Speaker 2: in the US.
[19:18] Speaker 3: Ah, yes, fifty about it's it's staying reason to be
[19:22] Speaker 3: consistent of our fifty percent of our clients are in
[19:25] Speaker 3: North America. But as as we were talking about our
[19:29] Speaker 3: global partners, we were we're having increasing success internationally and
[19:35] Speaker 3: that's something that we're obviously putting putting some effort into.
[19:38] Speaker 2: By the way, did you guys buy Willow Springs? Is
[19:42] Speaker 2: that like a proving ground now for center or what's
[19:44] Speaker 2: the idea with that alliance?
[19:48] Speaker 3: We didn't we didn't buy it. We aligned ourselves with
[19:51] Speaker 3: the people that did and and and I think we're
[19:55] Speaker 3: very much perhaps helped steer and focus what Willow Springs
[20:05] Speaker 3: could become. Willow Springs is a fantastic place that I've
[20:08] Speaker 3: spent years visiting, and there was in the it was
[20:12] Speaker 3: in the it was at risk of being turned into
[20:15] Speaker 3: into probably a building site. And we have had some
[20:20] Speaker 3: wonderful experiences at racetracks around the world, the Thermal Racetrack
[20:24] Speaker 3: here in California, lagoona Saka, of course, the Magarry Gower
[20:29] Speaker 3: Track in Japan, which if if your listeners haven't heard
[20:33] Speaker 3: about it, it's worth looking up on Google. It's an
[20:37] Speaker 3: amazing track that was built on a hillside just outside Tokyo,
[20:42] Speaker 3: which we've been to. And this idea formed to us
[20:44] Speaker 3: that we could partner with with with with some developers
[20:49] Speaker 3: to bring Willow Springs back from death. Improves improve what
[20:54] Speaker 3: is inherently a very very dangerous track at Willow Springs,
[20:57] Speaker 3: make it fantastic for everyone to use, but also have
[21:02] Speaker 3: an aspect of there being a singer club there and
[21:06] Speaker 3: for our clients and our non clients, and turn the
[21:10] Speaker 3: track into something that was not just for everyone, but
[21:13] Speaker 3: could also be used by OEMs for testing and everything else,
[21:17] Speaker 3: and making it something that's literally on our doorstep here
[21:20] Speaker 3: in Los Angeles. It's an hour and a half from
[21:23] Speaker 3: LA and it's our most important it's the only real
[21:27] Speaker 3: southern California track of note that, and it seemed like
[21:33] Speaker 3: a no brainer that we should attach ourselves to it.
[21:36] Speaker 1: Created in nineteen fifty three, Yeah, known as the fastest
[21:40] Speaker 1: road in the West, very historic, iconic track now owned
[21:45] Speaker 1: by Cross Harbor Capital Partners. I'm very curious. You know,
[21:49] Speaker 1: Singer has never done lap times really or any sort
[21:52] Speaker 1: of public benchmarking on track. Does this alignment now mean
[22:00] Speaker 1: you guys might release some more performance oriented data about
[22:06] Speaker 1: the cars.
[22:07] Speaker 3: Probably not, No, I mean it's it's it's it's I mean,
[22:12] Speaker 3: our father fast around the track, but that the idea
[22:15] Speaker 3: of beating our chest and saying they're faster than someone
[22:18] Speaker 3: else is never appealed to me, and I don't think
[22:20] Speaker 3: it really appeals to our clients. And yeah, I'm I'm
[22:27] Speaker 3: a little bit skeptical about the horsepower race and the
[22:32] Speaker 3: constant attempts to beat the Nerburg Green lap times and
[22:35] Speaker 3: all that kind of stuff. I mean, it's fun and
[22:38] Speaker 3: it's fascinating, but it's not really what our cars are about.
[22:41] Speaker 3: I mean, our cars are what you know. You know,
[22:45] Speaker 3: when in the old days, Rolls Royce never never, never
[22:48] Speaker 3: released published how how powerful their cars were.
[22:51] Speaker 4: They were, they were adamant sufficient that the power was sufficient.
[22:56] Speaker 3: I think, yes, I'd like I'd like to think that
[23:02] Speaker 3: our cars are just quietly sufficient and if you really
[23:04] Speaker 3: want to thrash it round the track, it will be
[23:06] Speaker 3: bloody fast. But we don't. We don't really want to,
[23:10] Speaker 3: you know, By.
[23:10] Speaker 2: The way, how do you get along with Porsche with
[23:15] Speaker 2: I mean do you talk to executives there? Do they
[23:17] Speaker 2: do they like what you're doing? Did they ever use
[23:19] Speaker 2: your ideas? Do they get mad about you know, your
[23:24] Speaker 2: your designs? Like what's what's that? Relationship?
[23:27] Speaker 3: Like? It's good? I think, I think, I think, yeah,
[23:32] Speaker 3: you'd have to ask Porsche that I think. But I
[23:35] Speaker 3: think we are proud of of of of what we
[23:41] Speaker 3: have helped shine a light on Porsche's heritage. I think
[23:46] Speaker 3: I think there are folks at Porsche that appreciate that.
[23:49] Speaker 3: I'm very good friends with. I was at the Porsche
[23:51] Speaker 3: Museum a few weeks ago with Andreas Poininger, who's the
[23:53] Speaker 3: head of the g T Mister g T three pors
[23:57] Speaker 3: has been a friend of ours for many years as big,
[23:59] Speaker 3: a big, big, a big fan of ours. And we
[24:02] Speaker 3: have a lot of folks at the highest level at
[24:04] Speaker 3: Porsche that that that that like what we do. I
[24:08] Speaker 3: think they're clearly a company that has to protect its
[24:12] Speaker 3: trademarks so that they their duty bound to to be
[24:18] Speaker 3: concerned about what people are doing with their brand, and
[24:20] Speaker 3: we respect that as well.
[24:22] Speaker 1: Does that mean we won't see any more lawsuits from
[24:25] Speaker 1: Porsche now that they dropped the last one?
[24:28] Speaker 3: I hope not again. You'd have to ask Porsche that,
[24:32] Speaker 3: But I think I think, I think we we we
[24:36] Speaker 3: sleep well at night knowing why we're here and what
[24:39] Speaker 3: we've what we've done for Porsche, which I think we
[24:43] Speaker 3: have done some stuff for Porsche and we hope that
[24:46] Speaker 3: they appreciate it. I think that's I think that's that's
[24:49] Speaker 3: probably the best way to put it. And and uh,
[24:53] Speaker 3: you know, Porsche, A lot of things change at Porsche
[24:56] Speaker 3: when when they when they launched their I p O,
[25:00] Speaker 3: they're lighty different companies than they have been in the past.
[25:03] Speaker 3: As a result of that, they have to they have
[25:05] Speaker 3: to police their brand with everybody, and they have to
[25:08] Speaker 3: be seen to be doing that, so that there's when
[25:11] Speaker 3: some of the things that may have been seen in
[25:14] Speaker 3: the press and stuff in the last the last year
[25:17] Speaker 3: or so need need to be taken through a certain
[25:20] Speaker 3: lens to a degree. And I'd like to I'd like
[25:24] Speaker 3: to think that everything's just fine and that there's a
[25:27] Speaker 3: there is some mutual respect between Singer and Porsche.
[25:31] Speaker 2: Dude, Can I ask about the the other things that
[25:34] Speaker 2: you're interested in? Because I was surprised the first time
[25:38] Speaker 2: I looked at your website, A little bit surprised the
[25:41] Speaker 2: first time I looked at your website and saw that
[25:42] Speaker 2: you also reimagine watches. Now, of course there's a lot
[25:46] Speaker 2: of overlap between car people and watch people. But what
[25:51] Speaker 2: got you into that and how deep are you willing
[25:54] Speaker 2: to get in it?
[25:58] Speaker 3: Well, it's it's it's it's a cliche, isn't it. A
[26:01] Speaker 3: car company is doing watches everyone it's it's it's portion
[26:06] Speaker 3: does well exactly. And I always thought it was a
[26:10] Speaker 3: bit silly, really, if if you go to a watch
[26:13] Speaker 3: company buy your watch, and the car company to buy
[26:16] Speaker 3: your car. But I got a phone call in twenty
[26:19] Speaker 3: seventeen from a guy called Marco Boracchino, who's the old
[26:23] Speaker 3: head of designer Panorai, and he said, Rob, I just
[26:26] Speaker 3: love what you're doing with the portion nine to eleven.
[26:28] Speaker 3: I've got this idea. Do you want to do a
[26:30] Speaker 3: watch with me? I said, well, I love watches like
[26:33] Speaker 3: most car guys do. But we can't be one of
[26:36] Speaker 3: those car companies that just does a horrible branded watch.
[26:39] Speaker 3: He said, no, no, no, no no. He said, I
[26:41] Speaker 3: have this movement. I have exclusive access to this incredible
[26:44] Speaker 3: movement where we can reimagine the chronograph to stop watch function,
[26:49] Speaker 3: you know, on a wristwatch to celebrate Jack Hoyer. Jack
[26:53] Speaker 3: Hoyer started the Hoyer Watch company in the in the
[26:57] Speaker 3: in the in the sixties and attached attached to Hoyer
[27:01] Speaker 3: brand to motor racing and motorsport in a very very
[27:04] Speaker 3: sexy way with the Carrera watches and the Monacos and
[27:08] Speaker 3: all those wonderful watches from the late sixties and early seventies.
[27:12] Speaker 3: He said, why don't we celebrate the finest purveyor of
[27:16] Speaker 3: the chronograph related car watches with our own watch? And
[27:21] Speaker 3: of course I might. At this point he had me
[27:24] Speaker 3: hooklide and thinker because this because this this movement was
[27:29] Speaker 3: so special that it had the stop watch. Usually on
[27:32] Speaker 3: a on a chronograph, you have that you have the
[27:34] Speaker 3: you know, you know, Rolex Daytowna looks like a normal watch,
[27:38] Speaker 3: but it has three little sub dials inside with the
[27:42] Speaker 3: track time, hours, minutes, and seconds. He said, no, no, no,
[27:46] Speaker 3: he said, we put the actual stopwatch function in the
[27:49] Speaker 3: middle of the watch and make it the star of
[27:51] Speaker 3: the watch. And instead of putting you know, the having
[27:56] Speaker 3: the stopwatch functions as a as a peripheral, it's in
[27:59] Speaker 3: the center of the watch and the time of day
[28:01] Speaker 3: is on the periphery. But that you know that what
[28:05] Speaker 3: what what is front and central with our watch will
[28:07] Speaker 3: be the stop watch function. So this incredible movement that
[28:11] Speaker 3: we had access to inspired this first watch of ours,
[28:14] Speaker 3: called the Track One, and after that it's Mark. Marco
[28:18] Speaker 3: has just been running with this idea of of of
[28:22] Speaker 3: of presenting classic high high watch making with through the
[28:28] Speaker 3: lens of his love of Jack Hoyer and our passion
[28:33] Speaker 3: for cars and and and we've started, you know, very
[28:38] Speaker 3: similarly how we started singing in the early days that
[28:40] Speaker 3: we were talking about we're just we're just putting our
[28:43] Speaker 3: head down. And Marco is creating some fabulous watches that
[28:46] Speaker 3: have been inspired from this first track. One watch and
[28:49] Speaker 3: we're we're on the adventure where it goes we don't know,
[28:52] Speaker 3: but we it's it's the aspirations are as high as
[28:56] Speaker 3: they could possibly be. We're using the finest suppliers in Geneva,
[29:01] Speaker 3: and the watch and the watches are really are magnificent
[29:04] Speaker 3: and and it's in Marco's hands really.
[29:07] Speaker 2: By the way, and it's and it's going quite well.
[29:11] Speaker 2: We're an audio only podcast, so you can't see unless
[29:16] Speaker 2: you google it. I recommend that you do because one
[29:19] Speaker 2: of the watches Hannah has, you know, the fuchs Felgen,
[29:23] Speaker 2: the famous Porsche wheel Sir. One of the watches has
[29:27] Speaker 2: that as the movement, which is very cool because as
[29:31] Speaker 2: it goes around, it covers up and then reveals the
[29:34] Speaker 2: Singer branding, which is I think pretty sweet.
[29:38] Speaker 4: So clever, kind of kind of grievy that right, Yeah,
[29:41] Speaker 4: it's it's, it's it's a it's a balance for lot
[29:47] Speaker 4: the Singer.
[29:47] Speaker 3: Reimagine, which is the name of the of the watch company.
[29:51] Speaker 3: Can it have its own aura outside of Singer as
[29:54] Speaker 3: the car company. This is something that we've had many
[29:56] Speaker 3: conversations about as as as we were to talking about earlier,
[30:01] Speaker 3: or what you have to do is endure and continue
[30:04] Speaker 3: to turn up every year, and you start to become
[30:06] Speaker 3: part of the zeitgeist and things start to things start
[30:10] Speaker 3: to be accepted. And that is that is the hard thing,
[30:13] Speaker 3: the hardest thing for any company to do is to
[30:17] Speaker 3: stick around and constantly be there the following year, because
[30:20] Speaker 3: that is a big partn No matter how good your
[30:22] Speaker 3: idea is, no matter how how how clever you are,
[30:26] Speaker 3: is that endure endurance and endurance can is often the
[30:30] Speaker 3: hardest thing to do. And I think I think time
[30:32] Speaker 3: will tell whether whether we're going to have a fabulous
[30:36] Speaker 3: watch company that's going to be around in one hundred
[30:39] Speaker 3: years time. That's the plan. Can rob with st in
[30:42] Speaker 3: the early days of it.
[30:44] Speaker 1: Can Singer maintain the same aura with a non nine
[30:47] Speaker 1: to eleven, for instance? Could we ever see like a
[30:51] Speaker 1: Singer nine twenty eight or something like that, or even
[30:56] Speaker 1: something water cool like a nine ninety six. Would that
[30:59] Speaker 1: be possible to maintain the same or that you're describing.
[31:04] Speaker 3: Very very good question. We as you as you can,
[31:06] Speaker 3: as you can imagine, I mean we we we are
[31:09] Speaker 3: we have a lot of options. We're very, very blessed
[31:13] Speaker 3: and lucky to have a number of options. Put there
[31:15] Speaker 3: are a number of genuinely iconic cars in Porsche's in
[31:19] Speaker 3: Porsche's past, the opportunity too to attack and and study
[31:28] Speaker 3: them or is on our agenda. Whether what will actually
[31:33] Speaker 3: come to pass, we don't know yet. We've we've got
[31:36] Speaker 3: a few years of more nine elevens ahead of us,
[31:39] Speaker 3: and then and then, you know, what what do we
[31:40] Speaker 3: do with it? What do we do with this company
[31:42] Speaker 3: that's that's that's managed to attract this wonderful family of
[31:47] Speaker 3: folks that buy our stuff, that's become synonymous, I guess
[31:51] Speaker 3: with Porsche and quality. I think we have a lot
[31:54] Speaker 3: of options in terms of what we do next. But
[31:56] Speaker 3: whether it's other Porsche models, whether it's you know, maybe
[32:00] Speaker 3: a car of our own, I don't know's we're we're
[32:05] Speaker 3: we're looking at We're looking at all sorts of opportunities.
[32:09] Speaker 2: Do you very excited by the way do you daily?
[32:13] Speaker 2: Do you daily a singer? Like? What what car do
[32:15] Speaker 2: you go to the office in? Every day?
[32:18] Speaker 3: I go to the office in a in a beaten
[32:20] Speaker 3: up nineteen ninety five, nine ninety three.
[32:24] Speaker 2: Nine ninety three.
[32:25] Speaker 3: That's my that's my daily drive.
[32:27] Speaker 2: You have all the nine sixty fours in America and
[32:29] Speaker 2: you're driving a nine nine three to work?
[32:33] Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I mean, I love that. I've had
[32:35] Speaker 3: a couple of nine six stores, but I've always loved
[32:39] Speaker 3: the nine ninety three rather rather especially because why well,
[32:44] Speaker 3: like I called, Tony Hatter, who's an English chat from Leeds,
[32:48] Speaker 3: designed it. And I've had the opportunity to meet and
[32:52] Speaker 3: become friends with Tony and and the nine ninety three
[32:57] Speaker 3: is many in many ways, there's a real work of
[32:59] Speaker 3: genius because Porsche were on their knees in the in
[33:05] Speaker 3: the late eighties and only nineteen nineties and had to
[33:07] Speaker 3: come up with yet another iteration of the air called
[33:10] Speaker 3: Porsche nine eleven. And the nine nine three was this
[33:13] Speaker 3: incredible restyling of the ninet eleven that made it feel
[33:18] Speaker 3: so fresh at the time, and it was a real
[33:21] Speaker 3: work of genius, and it's a bit of a masterpiece
[33:23] Speaker 3: of design. And for someone who loves their called Porsches
[33:27] Speaker 3: and wants to drive one daily, it's the most refined
[33:32] Speaker 3: and the most sophisticated air called Porsche nine eleven, the
[33:36] Speaker 3: Porsche ever made. So that's why I love it. I
[33:38] Speaker 3: love the look of the nine nine three, I love
[33:41] Speaker 3: how it drives, and I love the guy he designed it.
[33:43] Speaker 2: Sorry, Rob, When you're when you're driving your nine nine
[33:46] Speaker 2: three to work, if you're on a long commute, stuck
[33:50] Speaker 2: in traffic or whatever, what do you listen to? What
[33:53] Speaker 2: do you what music are you into?
[33:55] Speaker 3: Now? Well, I was about to say what. I'm stuck
[34:00] Speaker 3: on the four h five at Los Angeles in the
[34:02] Speaker 3: nine ninety three, raging gear every three seconds to edge
[34:07] Speaker 3: my way through traffic. I wish I was in my
[34:10] Speaker 3: wife's electric Mecan because you stick it on, you stick
[34:15] Speaker 3: it on cruise radar control, cruise control, and all you've
[34:18] Speaker 3: got to do is steer. But one of my listeners,
[34:21] Speaker 3: but that's that's what I'm wishing I was in, which
[34:24] Speaker 3: is a fantastic car. By the way, I listened to
[34:28] Speaker 3: eighty eight point five, a fabulous radio station here in
[34:31] Speaker 3: Los Angeles that that that plays a wonderfully eclectic bunch
[34:36] Speaker 3: of music. And I listen to the stuff I find
[34:41] Speaker 3: myself gravitating to the stuff I would have gravitated to
[34:44] Speaker 3: twenty five thirty years ago when I started my band,
[34:46] Speaker 3: which is generally you know, challenging edgy rock music. I
[34:52] Speaker 3: love a bank called of Fontane's DC. I love. I
[34:56] Speaker 3: love a bank called idols I love. I love a
[35:00] Speaker 3: lot of a lot of a lot of a lot
[35:03] Speaker 3: of the new singer songwriters. I just I just love
[35:06] Speaker 3: a great song. I'm a sucker for dare I say
[35:09] Speaker 3: an old fashioned proper song.
[35:11] Speaker 2: I love it.
[35:12] Speaker 3: I'm always a socker for some lamp guitars as well.
[35:15] Speaker 1: We can get behind that for sure.
[35:17] Speaker 2: Here's here's the part where I'm taking notes. Dude, It's
[35:20] Speaker 2: been so great to have you with us, and I
[35:22] Speaker 2: really appreciate your time. Okay, I wrote down those bands,
[35:32] Speaker 2: the Fontaneous DC.
[35:33] Speaker 1: I've heard of none of those bands. But I didn't
[35:36] Speaker 1: write down the bands, but I actually wrote down the
[35:38] Speaker 1: radio station eighty eight point five eight.
[35:40] Speaker 2: You know what in LA I wonder if that's because
[35:43] Speaker 2: he has He says a beat up nine to nine
[35:45] Speaker 2: to three, which respect first of all, for sure, and
[35:48] Speaker 2: then he has to shift when he's in traffic. But
[35:51] Speaker 2: I guess they don't have serious because it's.
[35:53] Speaker 1: No the court. I mean, yeah, we're on the analog dial. Yeah,
[35:58] Speaker 1: whatever it's called.
[35:59] Speaker 2: I'm a serious addict. So that's something I would have
[36:02] Speaker 2: a problem with in older cars.
[36:04] Speaker 1: Oh, Serious the satellite. I was like Serious XM, serious
[36:07] Speaker 1: addict of what? But yeah, Serious FM?
[36:10] Speaker 2: Yeah? No, I mean I listened like I listened to
[36:12] Speaker 2: hours of Serious XM.
[36:14] Speaker 1: Every day, stern guy.
[36:15] Speaker 3: No.
[36:16] Speaker 2: I listened to Bloomberg Radio a lot. So that's channel
[36:19] Speaker 2: one twenty one on Serious XM. I listened to the
[36:21] Speaker 2: Dead on Serious XM. They have a dedicated channel, channel
[36:24] Speaker 2: twenty three. Sometimes I listen to Fish on channel twenty nine. Now.
[36:29] Speaker 1: Doesn't the frequency of that audio bother you? Though?
[36:33] Speaker 2: No?
[36:34] Speaker 1: It always sounds so weird to me in general, like.
[36:37] Speaker 2: Not as good as FM. I mean, yes, you're right
[36:39] Speaker 2: it is.
[36:40] Speaker 1: I'm surprised it doesn't bother you because you're such an
[36:42] Speaker 1: audio guy.
[36:44] Speaker 2: I mean, I've had good experiences and bad experiences, and
[36:48] Speaker 2: usually they're somewhere in the middle. But I'm just happy
[36:53] Speaker 2: to listen to music and like NonStop. There's a channel
[36:56] Speaker 2: on Serious XM seven six seven, which you can't get
[37:01] Speaker 2: in all cars, Like a lot of cars are capped.
[37:04] Speaker 2: You can't go high any higher than three hundred on
[37:06] Speaker 2: sious or something. But if you can, if you're lucky
[37:09] Speaker 2: enough to get a car, that's fully equipped with all
[37:12] Speaker 2: the serious channels. You can get Rombone, which is like
[37:16] Speaker 2: a Cuban mambo station. Yes, it's NonStop Cuban mambo music.
[37:22] Speaker 2: Love and it's amazing.
[37:23] Speaker 1: What is it called rombone? Yes, the rombone? Okay, I
[37:27] Speaker 1: love it. Oh, I gotta look that up. That's very cool.
[37:30] Speaker 2: What have you been up to you? Obviously you bought
[37:32] Speaker 2: a new car we talked about, but you hadn't last
[37:35] Speaker 2: time we talked. Really gotten to shake it down yourself.
[37:38] Speaker 1: Yes, that's true. Well the shakedown has happened. Not everything
[37:42] Speaker 1: seems to be functioning, but we're still going to give
[37:44] Speaker 1: it sort of a workthrough. We're sending it to Charlie
[37:46] Speaker 1: who looks after the cars.
[37:48] Speaker 2: What's his name, agarol.
[37:50] Speaker 1: Agapoo Agapoo Charles Agapoo, a British fellow who really he's iconic.
[37:57] Speaker 1: He's in his eighties now, but he is. Anyone who
[38:00] Speaker 1: has a Rolls Royce in the LA area probably knows
[38:03] Speaker 1: him or knows of him. He is really lovely or Bentley.
[38:09] Speaker 2: Matt Farrow sent his s Bentley, Yeah.
[38:11] Speaker 1: To get very well respected, honest and good at what
[38:14] Speaker 1: he does. So we are going to just take it
[38:17] Speaker 1: take it through. But the funny thing is he we
[38:20] Speaker 1: called him last week and he was busy, so we
[38:22] Speaker 1: have we're on a waiting list, so you know, maybe
[38:24] Speaker 1: next week we'll get the current. But so, I mean,
[38:26] Speaker 1: so far, so good. There have been no issues, you know,
[38:29] Speaker 1: knock on wood, and honestly, the other ones that we
[38:33] Speaker 1: have have all broken down around the first drive. So
[38:36] Speaker 1: we're already ahead on this one.
[38:39] Speaker 2: That's good.
[38:40] Speaker 1: So I'm feeling Yeah, I'm feeling lucky. Haven't bought a
[38:42] Speaker 1: lottery ticket, but feel that's lucky.
[38:44] Speaker 2: That's very cool. I I didn't actually pick up my
[38:48] Speaker 2: motorcycle last weekend because my flight was delayed, delayed, delayed, delay, delayed,
[38:53] Speaker 2: and then canceled. Yeah, it was hellish.
[38:55] Speaker 1: I'm I'm so sorry. What a huge bummer.
[38:58] Speaker 2: Right, I mean, maybe destiny saved me from something that
[39:04] Speaker 2: would have been worse.
[39:06] Speaker 1: Could have been a sliding door scenario. Yeah, you did
[39:08] Speaker 1: not get on the plane, and your life is different now.
[39:11] Speaker 2: Yes, And I'm also more prepared now. I've got a
[39:15] Speaker 2: seat and a sissy bar and like all these things
[39:17] Speaker 2: that I need.
[39:18] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's good.
[39:19] Speaker 2: Before So you're going next week, I'm going on Saturday, Yes.
[39:22] Speaker 1: Okay, are you Are you flying?
[39:24] Speaker 2: No, I will never fly again to Washington, DC or
[39:27] Speaker 2: to Boston. I will take the train from now on.
[39:30] Speaker 1: And the train ride is.
[39:32] Speaker 2: It's like four or five hours. It's five hours to Fredericksburg, Virginia,
[39:35] Speaker 2: where I have to go. But the thing about trains
[39:36] Speaker 2: is they don't get canceled as much. Right, if it's
[39:38] Speaker 2: a light drizzle, then all American flights are grounded. But
[39:44] Speaker 2: if if it's if it's a thunderstorm, a train will
[39:47] Speaker 2: just barrel through that.
[39:48] Speaker 1: So you know, I'm I don't think I can fly
[39:51] Speaker 1: into Newark for the foreseeable future.
[39:53] Speaker 2: No, I don't think I ever want to.
[39:54] Speaker 1: Again, honestly, And it's just such it's not a great time.
[39:58] Speaker 1: I was going to ask you what carrier push you
[40:00] Speaker 1: back only to cancel your flight, and then I realized
[40:02] Speaker 1: it kind of doesn't matter. It could have been any anyone.
[40:06] Speaker 2: They're all equally horrible. I mean, since my childhood, American
[40:10] Speaker 2: air travel has just gotten worse and worse and worse,
[40:15] Speaker 2: and it's now one of the worst experiences you can probably.
[40:20] Speaker 2: I mean, I drove this weekend. I drove to Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
[40:24] Speaker 1: What did you drive?
[40:25] Speaker 2: Which is like a four hour drive and back. Remember
[40:28] Speaker 2: when we got that email and who was it about.
[40:33] Speaker 1: It was like Dan or don.
[40:34] Speaker 2: Yes it was donn of Olm. Yeah it was done.
[40:36] Speaker 2: So Donna emailed. He was like, dude, you should drive
[40:38] Speaker 2: an electric car on a longer trip. He said to Ohio.
[40:41] Speaker 2: I don't have to go to Ohio right now, but
[40:42] Speaker 2: I had to go to Carlisle, which, by the way,
[40:44] Speaker 2: such a cool town. Did not expect that. I went
[40:48] Speaker 2: for Dickinson College graduation, my nephew graduated, and I drove
[40:52] Speaker 2: a Chevy Blazer. Ev Now, once again I have practically
[41:00] Speaker 2: fallen in love with an electric car.
[41:03] Speaker 1: This is wild.
[41:04] Speaker 2: It's get it's getting crazy. But this one I didn't expect.
[41:08] Speaker 2: It's a total sleeper, right and if you look at it,
[41:11] Speaker 2: it's nothing to behold. It just looks like.
[41:14] Speaker 1: They made an electric Blazer.
[41:16] Speaker 2: It just looks like a big station wagon, which it is,
[41:20] Speaker 2: you know, I mean, right now, the exterior design is
[41:24] Speaker 2: just ooh eh, gross, I don't even get that. I
[41:28] Speaker 2: don't notice it. I walked by my driveway and I
[41:30] Speaker 2: just don't even notice it.
[41:31] Speaker 1: Is well, that's not good either, But this doesn't look
[41:34] Speaker 1: I'm imagining the Blazers from the eighties. Yeah no, it's
[41:37] Speaker 1: not what I'm so disappointed.
[41:39] Speaker 2: Yeah no, that's it is hugely disappointed. If you're thinking
[41:42] Speaker 2: about a regular Blazer and from the outside it's basically disappointing.
[41:47] Speaker 1: It's like, what, oh, no, this is terrible.
[41:50] Speaker 2: Yes, however, step inside this, you know, uh oh, what's
[41:58] Speaker 2: the word I'm looking for. It's it's a surprisingly luxurious
[42:03] Speaker 2: interior and mine, yes, mine is lined in red leather.
[42:10] Speaker 2: It's just really cool carbon fiber accents and like amazing,
[42:15] Speaker 2: like sort of like the Camaro design on the interior.
[42:18] Speaker 2: The entertainment system or the infotainment system General Motors has perfected.
[42:24] Speaker 2: And I've said this before, they don't you don't get
[42:26] Speaker 2: Apple CarPlay anymore because it's a whole Google based system.
[42:30] Speaker 2: But you don't need it. You don't notice that, you don't,
[42:33] Speaker 2: you don't miss it. It's perfect. And this thing is
[42:37] Speaker 2: for sixty thousand dollars. It's got so much leg room.
[42:42] Speaker 2: I put my seats all the way back and then
[42:45] Speaker 2: I put two gigantic rear facing car seats in the
[42:48] Speaker 2: back and I still have room to spare. It's got
[42:51] Speaker 2: six hundred and nineteen horse power it's only got.
[42:55] Speaker 1: Do you feel that, yes, does it actually really feel
[42:58] Speaker 1: like that?
[42:58] Speaker 2: It feels like when I was a kid, I went
[43:01] Speaker 2: to university in Germany and we always marveled at these
[43:07] Speaker 2: giant Mercedes Benz station wagons on the Autobahn that were
[43:12] Speaker 2: just flying by like two forty They're long, they're big,
[43:16] Speaker 2: they're heavy, and they're just autobond cruising machines just flying. Yeah,
[43:21] Speaker 2: we would say that's a sleeper, like cause you don't
[43:24] Speaker 2: the police are not going to pull you over, but
[43:26] Speaker 2: you're definitely speeding. And that is the case with this
[43:29] Speaker 2: vehicle as well. I mean it just hauls ass.
[43:32] Speaker 1: Now what's the range? And did you have to charge it?
[43:35] Speaker 2: How did that all work out? So so before I
[43:38] Speaker 2: went to Carlisle, I did have to charge it, and
[43:40] Speaker 2: it took like forty five minutes to an hour and
[43:43] Speaker 2: it costs fifty bucks. Again, so that is it's it's weird.
[43:47] Speaker 2: But when I put in the directions to Carlisle, without
[43:50] Speaker 2: even noticing, the navigation system automatically added a GM like
[43:57] Speaker 2: supercharger stop, which was great. And at the GM supercharger
[44:01] Speaker 2: I charged from twenty to eighty percent in like literally
[44:06] Speaker 2: twelve minutes.
[44:07] Speaker 1: Was the stop out of your way or what?
[44:09] Speaker 2: No, it was directly on the way. Now, I may
[44:11] Speaker 2: have gotten lucky in where I was driving, but then
[44:14] Speaker 2: I get to Carlisle and I've used most of the range.
[44:18] Speaker 2: At the hotel, they had a charge point, you know,
[44:22] Speaker 2: not a fast charger, but just a regular thing. I
[44:25] Speaker 2: logged on super easy with the app, went into the hotel, slept,
[44:29] Speaker 2: came back in the morning. It was done nine dollars
[44:32] Speaker 2: and filled it completely up and it just was easy.
[44:36] Speaker 2: So now I understand when people are like, look, if
[44:38] Speaker 2: you have a charger at your house and you can
[44:39] Speaker 2: put these charge point things at your house, then it's
[44:42] Speaker 2: no big deal totally.
[44:44] Speaker 1: I mean that's how it was in Vegas at the
[44:45] Speaker 1: wind We just we drove the car all day and
[44:47] Speaker 1: we gave it to the guys and they charged it overnight.
[44:50] Speaker 1: Yeah with you know, and it was fine. So had
[44:52] Speaker 1: a big deal.
[44:53] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[44:53] Speaker 1: So basically, so you love it, like you you were
[44:57] Speaker 1: using the L word.
[44:59] Speaker 2: Well on this I love it when i'm inside it
[45:02] Speaker 2: because I'm driving so fast in this thing. It's so powerful,
[45:06] Speaker 2: it's so luxurious, it's spacious, and I'm you know, six
[45:09] Speaker 2: foot three two hundred pounds, so I'm a big dude,
[45:13] Speaker 2: and I get rom Bone. It gets channel seven to
[45:17] Speaker 2: sixty seven on Serious XM, which is super important to me.
[45:20] Speaker 2: And it's just everything works intuitively and easily, and it's
[45:25] Speaker 2: just and for sixty three thousand dollars, so that could.
[45:29] Speaker 1: Be the appliance car that you keep along with your
[45:32] Speaker 1: fun car.
[45:33] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I wish it was better looking. And
[45:35] Speaker 2: by the way, this is a thing with GM because
[45:37] Speaker 2: they also make so the Cadillac CT five V Black
[45:44] Speaker 2: Wing is one of I think the greatest cars you
[45:47] Speaker 2: can buy today. I love that it has a super
[45:49] Speaker 2: charge six point two liters V eight, it has a
[45:52] Speaker 2: stick shift, you know, and it's a four seater and
[45:55] Speaker 2: like also luxurious and intuitive and interior amazing. Doesn't look
[46:01] Speaker 2: that great?
[46:03] Speaker 1: Uh No, I've never thought any GM car looks It's like.
[46:07] Speaker 2: They're hitting it out of that when it comes to performance,
[46:12] Speaker 2: they're hitting it out of the park. When it comes
[46:14] Speaker 2: to design, interior design, they're hitting it out of the park.
[46:18] Speaker 2: When it comes to the tech. Yeah, but the exterior
[46:21] Speaker 2: is just like yeah.
[46:24] Speaker 1: It really, It's true. And I don't know why. All
[46:28] Speaker 1: I know is I'm googling Chevy Blazer nineteen eighties and
[46:32] Speaker 1: thinking why can't we all have this? I know because
[46:36] Speaker 1: I got the minute I realized when you said you
[46:39] Speaker 1: fell in love with the electric Chevy Blazer. I thought
[46:42] Speaker 1: Chevy did the thing that Mercedes did with the g Wagon,
[46:45] Speaker 1: which is keep the icon the same, just swap out
[46:49] Speaker 1: whatever you're using to power it, and all good. And
[46:53] Speaker 1: that did not happen here.
[46:55] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[46:55] Speaker 1: No, I don't really shook.
[46:56] Speaker 2: I don't know who the designer is, but but yeah,
[47:00] Speaker 2: so that's my most reason. By the way, I want
[47:03] Speaker 2: to read an email from somebody that we got just
[47:06] Speaker 2: in its entirety because I'm not gonna name the guy.
[47:10] Speaker 2: He hasn't given me a permission to use.
[47:11] Speaker 1: His full name, but his initials are og Og. Okay,
[47:15] Speaker 1: I think it's cool.
[47:16] Speaker 2: Yes, dear mattin Hannah, I hope you're doing great. My
[47:19] Speaker 2: name is OG. I listen to your podcast every week
[47:22] Speaker 2: in Berlin in the mornings before heading to the office,
[47:24] Speaker 2: I go to the gym and listen to the different
[47:25] Speaker 2: Bloomberg podcasts, but yours in particular. It makes my Monday
[47:28] Speaker 2: routines much more bearable. Thank you for that, Thank you,
[47:32] Speaker 2: Thank him for sure dude, that's so nice to hear.
[47:35] Speaker 2: He says, I found something hilarious I had to share
[47:37] Speaker 2: with you. Matt mentioned the last episode that he bought
[47:39] Speaker 2: a Harley Davidson while his wife was abroad. I believe that,
[47:43] Speaker 2: by the way, may not have been a great decision.
[47:45] Speaker 2: My wife was pretty angry with me. I don't recommend
[47:49] Speaker 2: other husbands do that. But he goes on, now I
[47:54] Speaker 2: have some backup show my girlfriend. I'm not the only
[47:56] Speaker 2: one haha. While she was out of Germany for a
[47:59] Speaker 2: couple weeks in late April, I couldn't help it and
[48:02] Speaker 2: ended up buying a night'ster. He includes a picture. It
[48:04] Speaker 2: looks awesome. Her fault for leaving this petrol head alone.
[48:08] Speaker 2: I completely understand what you mean, Matt. Harley Davidson can't
[48:11] Speaker 2: be replaced, regardless of the market. As a business person myself,
[48:15] Speaker 2: it's all about branding and super nice email. I totally agree.
[48:20] Speaker 2: And there's something weird about the Harley Davidson brand, Like,
[48:24] Speaker 2: once you get into it, you're really kind of obsessed
[48:26] Speaker 2: with it. But I'm not like a one percenter motorcycle
[48:31] Speaker 2: gang guy.
[48:32] Speaker 1: You know, contain multitudes, you really do.
[48:34] Speaker 2: I'm not gonna go, you know, doing any Hell's Angels stuff.
[48:39] Speaker 1: You have many dimensions.
[48:40] Speaker 2: I don't revere the Hell's Angels or at least no,
[48:43] Speaker 2: you're not obsessed. I don't know. It's just something weird
[48:46] Speaker 2: about this brand that you really get into. But og
[48:49] Speaker 2: thank you for your email.
[48:51] Speaker 1: We really appreciate it.
[48:51] Speaker 2: By the way, our email address is hot Pursuit at
[48:54] Speaker 2: Bloomberg dot net. Please write to us.
[48:58] Speaker 1: Yeah, send us pictures. List all the all the cars and.
[49:00] Speaker 2: Bikes that you could definitely send pictures.
[49:02] Speaker 1: Send us, Send us ideas for people who you want
[49:05] Speaker 1: us to interview. You love all your thoughts.
[49:07] Speaker 2: What do you got going on next?
[49:08] Speaker 3: Him?
[49:09] Speaker 1: Guess what? I'm going to to Loom next week. I'm
[49:12] Speaker 1: going on a girls trip, which I never do. But sweet,
[49:16] Speaker 1: I know I'm excited. Let me just tell you. I
[49:19] Speaker 1: am excited.
[49:20] Speaker 2: Just the ladies into Loom. Yeah, going to get into
[49:23] Speaker 2: some tequila.
[49:25] Speaker 1: Well, who knows who I might get my chakras cleansed.
[49:28] Speaker 1: You know, I might go to a hut in the
[49:30] Speaker 1: jungle and see what happens.
[49:32] Speaker 2: You guys might have a little too much to drink
[49:35] Speaker 2: and all go get matching tattoo.
[49:36] Speaker 1: It's gonna be fun. I will report back. Should be great.
[49:40] Speaker 2: What about you, sweet, I am just about to go
[49:45] Speaker 2: pick up the M five, which you have already driven.
[49:48] Speaker 2: The BMW M five I mean solid, yeah, right, very
[49:52] Speaker 2: much looking forward to it.
[49:53] Speaker 1: Yeah cool.
[49:54] Speaker 2: I'm not sure if I'm gonna love it as much
[49:56] Speaker 2: as the M eight.
[49:57] Speaker 1: It's going to be interesting. It's a V eight, right, it.
[50:02] Speaker 2: Is like a hybrid V eight right.
[50:04] Speaker 1: It's oh so that'll be interesting for you to get
[50:08] Speaker 1: back into something with some form of combustion. Because these
[50:11] Speaker 1: last few weeks you've been on the EV train, I feel.
[50:14] Speaker 2: It's been pretty crazy. Even Rob Dickinson was just saying
[50:17] Speaker 2: how much he loved the Porchia macn ev.
[50:19] Speaker 1: I forgot to ask. I wanted to ask him if
[50:21] Speaker 1: singer would ever do an electric singer.
[50:24] Speaker 2: The thing is, though, there's still there's still no soul.
[50:27] Speaker 2: None of the evs I've driven have felt like they
[50:30] Speaker 2: have a soul all else. They're all appliances, luxurious.
[50:35] Speaker 1: And fact usable. Yeah yeah, yeah, but but it's it's
[50:39] Speaker 1: just different.
[50:40] Speaker 2: I haven't got one yet where I think like, this
[50:42] Speaker 2: is a vehicle I will keep in my possession until
[50:46] Speaker 2: my daughter, you know, turns thirty and then I give
[50:49] Speaker 2: it to her to keep for her son, her daughter.
[50:52] Speaker 1: Like, that's not that's a really good reference point. I
[50:54] Speaker 1: haven't thought about that. But no, I mean those are
[50:58] Speaker 1: those are more vehicles that you might lease for a
[51:00] Speaker 1: year or two and then, like.
[51:00] Speaker 2: Your rolls Royce, you could probably imagine hanging on to
[51:06] Speaker 2: it until you someday pass it on to Will.
[51:08] Speaker 1: I mean somebody asked, Actually it might have been our
[51:11] Speaker 1: buddy Steve Sario. He said, oh, are you going to
[51:14] Speaker 1: get rid of the other one? Since you just got
[51:16] Speaker 1: this new And I was like, what, you know, how
[51:19] Speaker 1: dare you suggest that I would get rid of you
[51:21] Speaker 1: know which? Again, this is we have a lot of
[51:23] Speaker 1: space here. These aren't expensive cars, et cetera, et cetera.
[51:26] Speaker 1: You've got three, the thought we've got a few? Would
[51:31] Speaker 1: you just I don't want to put a number. I
[51:32] Speaker 1: don't want to put a label on it.
[51:33] Speaker 2: Matt, would you? Would you not? Have you not considered
[51:35] Speaker 2: getting rid of like one? Because you just have?
[51:38] Speaker 1: I certainly have considered getting rid of other cars? Sure
[51:43] Speaker 1: if you want to buy one, well, I'm just we
[51:44] Speaker 1: can we can talk. I'm just thinking, Yeah, you're sitting
[51:47] Speaker 1: in a lot of metal. Yeah, I would like I
[51:48] Speaker 1: would like to sell some, and you've got to move
[51:50] Speaker 1: them around.
[51:51] Speaker 2: You got out the oil, you got to like do
[51:53] Speaker 2: all this thing.
[51:54] Speaker 1: Don't even have the hard part.
[51:55] Speaker 2: You know.
[51:56] Speaker 1: Fortunately for me, my husband does that heavy lifting. And
[51:59] Speaker 1: I have no shame about saying that. He really he
[52:02] Speaker 1: does the heavy lifting. I just get to, you know, dabble,
[52:06] Speaker 1: dabble in and out when I want to. Except for
[52:09] Speaker 1: there is I do have two that are own. Well,
[52:13] Speaker 1: I'm not gonna I'm not scratch that. I'm not going
[52:16] Speaker 1: to incriminate myself.
[52:19] Speaker 2: Wait where are you going with that? Two that are
[52:21] Speaker 2: what on the chopping blog.
[52:24] Speaker 1: I have there? Look, there are some that I would sell.
[52:27] Speaker 1: We can have that conversation, you know, offline if you want.
[52:30] Speaker 1: But there are some that I would not sell. And
[52:33] Speaker 1: and to your point, none of those are electric vehicles.
[52:37] Speaker 1: We'll keep it there for now.
[52:40] Speaker 2: All right, Well, let's leave it there until next week.
[52:44] Speaker 2: What do we have next week? We have anything? Do something?
[52:47] Speaker 2: Toto next week?
[52:48] Speaker 1: No, but Toto is coming up. Toto is in June.
[52:51] Speaker 1: I believe June sixteenth. We've got total coming out?
[52:54] Speaker 2: Wait is Monaco next week?
[52:58] Speaker 3: Is?
[52:58] Speaker 1: Yes? It's this week?
[52:59] Speaker 2: Is this?
[53:00] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's this weekend.
[53:02] Speaker 2: That's good for them, right, because great for them. They're
[53:04] Speaker 2: good at qualifying and nobody passes anybody there.
[53:07] Speaker 1: So yeah, and it's basically their home race because they
[53:10] Speaker 1: all live in Monaco. We should say. I just just
[53:13] Speaker 1: today published a piece on the market for F one
[53:18] Speaker 1: memorabilia which is going through the roof and for instance,
[53:23] Speaker 1: R M. Soetherby's just sold a Senna helmet for almost
[53:30] Speaker 1: a million dollars, and at the race in Monaco will
[53:34] Speaker 1: be selling Michael Schumacher's F two thousand and one Ferrari
[53:40] Speaker 1: car that he raced to win the Monaco Grand Prix
[53:45] Speaker 1: and the World Championship that year in the same season,
[53:47] Speaker 1: which was two thousand and one. So that's all happening
[53:51] Speaker 1: this weekend. And I do recommend, I'll say i'll boost
[53:55] Speaker 1: our own stories. Do read that story because it's crazy
[53:59] Speaker 1: the prices some of these things are getting, and even
[54:01] Speaker 1: silly things like you know visors, I mean advisors aren't silly,
[54:05] Speaker 1: but you know, lesser things. It's not just helmets and cars, I.
[54:08] Speaker 2: Mean helmet, A helmet for a million dollars is pretty silly.
[54:12] Speaker 2: I Revere and Senna, but I think a million dollars
[54:16] Speaker 2: for Now on the other hand, this car, the Shumi
[54:21] Speaker 2: Ferrari for two thousand and one.
[54:23] Speaker 1: Yes, oh my, that's what that is. The and they're
[54:26] Speaker 1: saying an estimated fifteen million euros or more easily. Yeah,
[54:32] Speaker 1: so you know Hamilton had a car sell in two
[54:36] Speaker 1: twenty twenty three for I think eighteen point eight or
[54:40] Speaker 1: so million. Then this CAP's that, because so I would
[54:43] Speaker 1: think this would beat that.
[54:44] Speaker 2: Yeah, right, for sure.
[54:45] Speaker 1: Soccer.
[54:46] Speaker 2: I mean it's also like this is like the iconic era.
[54:50] Speaker 2: This is right, this is when F one was really amazing.
[54:55] Speaker 1: Sound and never getting that back, super exciting. Yeah, so
[54:59] Speaker 1: that's that's gonna be a really big deal this weekend.
[55:02] Speaker 1: I mean, if you're gonna be anywhere this weekend, you should.
[55:04] Speaker 1: We should. We should be in Monaco.
[55:05] Speaker 2: What are we doing? Yeah, I don't know. They've done
[55:07] Speaker 2: for my life, I know. All right, Well, it was
[55:10] Speaker 2: great talking to you and Rob. Thank you so much,
[55:14] Speaker 2: and do shoot us an email hot pursuit at Bloomberg
[55:16] Speaker 2: dot net because we love you.
[55:19] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[55:19] Speaker 2: Well, we don't necessarily know if we love them, but.
[55:23] Speaker 1: Philosophically we do a lot of our fellow our fellow humans.
[55:27] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point, Yes, all right, have a
[55:31] Speaker 2: good one. I'm Matt Miller and I'm
[55:32] Speaker 1: Hannah Elliott, and this is Bloomberg.

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