# Collecting Cars and Dealing Art with Kenny Schachter

An episode of [Bloomberg Hot Pursuit!](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1710787142), 9 May 2025, 1 h 14 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/4778f66f-5d19-456a-9820-b08f00dfd567/e8311eb0-eae3-49c1-88fd-b2d800f66c75/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=42336c1a-f7c2-4898-885b-b08f00e0bb66

Artist, writer, lecturer and collector Kenny Schachter joins the podcast to talk about his life in art and cars. Plus, the electric Mercedes-Benz G Wagon stuns and converts Matt. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. I'm Matt Miller and
[0:15] Speaker 1: I'm Hannah Elliott, and this is Hot Pursuit.
[0:18] Speaker 2: All right, Today we have an interview with an incredibly
[0:22] Speaker 2: fascinating artist, car collector, professor.
[0:27] Speaker 1: Collector, writer, lecturer. Yeah, Kenny Schachter. You might know him
[0:32] Speaker 1: from his book The NFT Book of twenty twenty three.
[0:35] Speaker 1: He's also got a regular column on art Net and
[0:39] Speaker 1: he actually is has a show right now at Jupiter
[0:42] Speaker 1: Gallery in New York called Art in the Age of
[0:45] Speaker 1: Robotic Reproduction. So he's got a lot going on. And
[0:51] Speaker 1: he is also a car guy.
[0:52] Speaker 2: Yeah, and he has a lot of cars as well.
[0:55] Speaker 2: And you know, he has more than a dozen really
[0:59] Speaker 2: cool classic cars he's had.
[1:03] Speaker 1: He also mentioned his Honda, his nineteen ninety eight Integrat
[1:07] Speaker 1: that he's got, but also he's got he's owned major cars,
[1:10] Speaker 1: like very famously in nineteen seventy three. RSR also a
[1:14] Speaker 1: couple of concept cars by Zaha Hadid.
[1:17] Speaker 2: That's very cool. So he basically came up with his
[1:19] Speaker 2: own idea and had someone design a car right and
[1:23] Speaker 2: then even tried to put it into production.
[1:26] Speaker 1: That takes a lot of a lot of work. Yeah,
[1:31] Speaker 1: which I think he discovered.
[1:33] Speaker 2: And but he's the kind of guy that like does
[1:35] Speaker 2: a lot of work.
[1:35] Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I know, he's very prolific.
[1:38] Speaker 2: He's driven. So I'm so a great interview. I'm looking
[1:41] Speaker 2: forward to playing that.
[1:43] Speaker 1: Oh you had something very you texted me, Matt, you
[1:47] Speaker 1: texted me, or no, you sent like an early morning
[1:51] Speaker 1: email that was basically I think the subject was for
[1:55] Speaker 1: the first time in my life, Yes, do you want
[1:58] Speaker 1: to discuss this?
[1:59] Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's interesting. Well, for the first time in
[2:04] Speaker 2: my life. If you told me that I could buy
[2:07] Speaker 2: any brand new car and only have one car, right,
[2:12] Speaker 2: this is the classic question that people ask if you
[2:14] Speaker 2: could only have one car, what would it be? If
[2:16] Speaker 2: I were only allowed to choose from things that are
[2:19] Speaker 2: being produced and sold today, I would buy an electric vehicle?
[2:25] Speaker 2: What which is.
[2:26] Speaker 1: This was shocking, shocking to me because we might have
[2:29] Speaker 1: even been accused of of being hard on electric vehicles.
[2:33] Speaker 2: Well, I am very skeptical about electric vehicles, and I
[2:37] Speaker 2: think for good reason. And this is something we talk
[2:40] Speaker 2: about with Kenny, which I which was interesting. Yes, but yeah,
[2:44] Speaker 2: I also have I'm an older person, right, so I'm fifty.
[2:48] Speaker 2: I grew up with these gas powered cars. And I think,
[2:53] Speaker 2: you know, whatever generation you're born into, when you start
[2:56] Speaker 2: to realize that you're into interested in cars or you know,
[3:00] Speaker 2: art or anything like that, music, you tend to gravitate
[3:04] Speaker 2: towards that. So I gravitate towards you know, big gas
[3:09] Speaker 2: motors with a lot of power. I like naturally aspirated engines.
[3:14] Speaker 2: But I have also a specific use case. Right, If
[3:20] Speaker 2: I ask you, what's you know if you can only
[3:22] Speaker 2: have one car, your answer is going to be different
[3:25] Speaker 2: than mine.
[3:26] Speaker 1: And I'm also going to say, well what am I
[3:28] Speaker 1: going to be doing with it?
[3:29] Speaker 3: Right?
[3:29] Speaker 1: Because it's all about the right tool for the job.
[3:31] Speaker 1: Cars are tools, for sure about.
[3:34] Speaker 2: I think for each person. Also, there's going to be
[3:36] Speaker 2: a different tool that you need for if you could
[3:38] Speaker 2: only have one tool. Right, This is the yeah question.
[3:41] Speaker 1: Life is different. Do you live in Montana? Do you
[3:43] Speaker 1: live in Manhattan?
[3:44] Speaker 2: Right? You live in la You have Willow, you know,
[3:48] Speaker 2: You've got whatever you're doing exactly.
[3:51] Speaker 1: It's not just about which car I think is the prettiest, exactly.
[3:55] Speaker 2: So you know, I'm not going to choose if you
[3:57] Speaker 2: say you can only have one car. I love the Corvette,
[4:01] Speaker 2: but I'm not going to choose that because it only
[4:02] Speaker 2: has two seats and it's not really great for the passenger.
[4:05] Speaker 1: Either children and.
[4:09] Speaker 2: Yes, and so anyway, this Mercedes G five eighty, this
[4:15] Speaker 2: electric G Wagon, just absolutely blew my mind. And I
[4:19] Speaker 2: went into it incredibly skeptical because because I loved the
[4:24] Speaker 2: gas power G and I that was my one car,
[4:28] Speaker 2: you know, for a couple of years, and it ticked
[4:30] Speaker 2: every box. I needed it too when I lived in Berlin,
[4:34] Speaker 2: you know, when I was having my first kid, when
[4:36] Speaker 2: I had my dog. It was the perfect vehicle, and
[4:41] Speaker 2: I loved the engine. It was a you know, the
[4:43] Speaker 2: most recent G five hundred that I had was a
[4:47] Speaker 2: twenty twenty. It had the twin turbo four liter V
[4:50] Speaker 2: eight great burbally sound, you know, went quick. You don't
[4:55] Speaker 2: really need this huge top speed there, but I was
[4:58] Speaker 2: autobond driving, so it has to to go decently fast.
[5:03] Speaker 1: Let's not forget everybody. I mean, the G Wagon sorry
[5:07] Speaker 1: to cut you off, is so popular that for like
[5:10] Speaker 1: eighteen months back a couple of years ago, they just
[5:13] Speaker 1: stopped taking orders because they were so far behind the production.
[5:17] Speaker 3: Right.
[5:17] Speaker 1: Well, it took me couldn't meet the demand.
[5:19] Speaker 2: It took me almost two years to get mine after
[5:21] Speaker 2: I ordered it.
[5:21] Speaker 1: There you go.
[5:22] Speaker 2: Yeah, And of course I love the design because when
[5:26] Speaker 2: I was twelve years old, I saw one down the
[5:28] Speaker 2: street and I was just mesmerized by it. And of course,
[5:32] Speaker 2: you know, the g Wagon has unique characteristics. The door
[5:36] Speaker 2: closes in a different way than any other car. When
[5:39] Speaker 2: you lock or unlock it with the keyfob, it sounds
[5:43] Speaker 2: like you're racking shotgun shells into the barrel. So, you know,
[5:48] Speaker 2: there are things that I like about it that maybe
[5:50] Speaker 2: not everyone's gonna like about it. I like the very
[5:52] Speaker 2: upright driving position. I like the incredible accomplishment they've made
[5:59] Speaker 2: in terms of v right noise, vibration, and harshness. I
[6:02] Speaker 2: typically love these kind of yes truck slash cards they tack.
[6:07] Speaker 2: I like jeep wranglers. I like Ford Broncos, you know,
[6:10] Speaker 2: but the problem with those is they're so loud and
[6:15] Speaker 2: noisy and rattle cages. And this is like in it
[6:21] Speaker 2: feels like you're in a safe, like a bank.
[6:24] Speaker 1: Vault bank vault. Yeah, completely is. So the whole point is,
[6:27] Speaker 1: don't change this beautiful, perfect thing that we love, Like, yeah,
[6:31] Speaker 1: don't change a thing, And they really haven't since nineteen
[6:34] Speaker 1: seventy nine pretty.
[6:35] Speaker 2: Much pretty much. I mean, there was a twenty nineteen
[6:37] Speaker 2: they kind of I think, oh Man made some pretty
[6:40] Speaker 2: big change.
[6:40] Speaker 1: They modernize it. And I will always remember that debut
[6:43] Speaker 1: in Detroit and that old decrepit theater that they turned
[6:47] Speaker 1: into it like a pyrotechnic display with and they got
[6:51] Speaker 1: Arnold Schwarzenegger there all right for the debut. It was
[6:54] Speaker 1: I will always remember that was a big deal because
[6:57] Speaker 1: the change was a big deal.
[6:58] Speaker 2: Yeah, And a lot of people prefer the older generation.
[7:01] Speaker 2: I prefer the newer generation because it drives better. And look,
[7:05] Speaker 2: I'm not buying this to take off road, you know.
[7:08] Speaker 2: I'm using it to commute back and forth in urban situations,
[7:13] Speaker 2: in suburban situations, to go shopping to Yeah, I'll take it,
[7:17] Speaker 2: you know, shooting, I'll take it hunting, but it's not
[7:20] Speaker 2: that's not the main purpose for me. And also it's
[7:23] Speaker 2: an incredibly expensive vehicle, Like I don't frankly think I
[7:26] Speaker 2: could afford it now that I have kids and live
[7:29] Speaker 2: in the very expensive place, but I could at the time.
[7:32] Speaker 2: And I wasn't about to like get it damaged by
[7:36] Speaker 2: you know, taking it to Moab, although that would have
[7:39] Speaker 2: been an incredibly far drive from Berlin.
[7:41] Speaker 1: Yeah, all that to say.
[7:43] Speaker 2: All that to say, I think this electric version is
[7:47] Speaker 2: actually better than, for the first time, the gas version
[7:52] Speaker 2: of this car, and I haven't thought that about any
[7:54] Speaker 2: you know. I've driven electric versions, for example, of the
[7:56] Speaker 2: BMW five series, and while while impressive, I don't think
[8:02] Speaker 2: it was as good as the gas version. I can't
[8:06] Speaker 2: think of any car that I've liked the electric version
[8:10] Speaker 2: better than the gas and I don't typically love you know,
[8:13] Speaker 2: I'm not a huge span of Tesla's, for example, but
[8:15] Speaker 2: this thing is so quick with the EV it's almost
[8:21] Speaker 2: six hundred horse power. I think it's five hundred and
[8:23] Speaker 2: seventy nine horse power. It has eight hundred and fifty
[8:26] Speaker 2: nine pound feet of torque, one hundred and sixteen kilowade
[8:30] Speaker 2: hour battery or that's the usable capacity of the battery,
[8:34] Speaker 2: so it has decent range. I was getting like three
[8:36] Speaker 2: hundred miles on a charge.
[8:37] Speaker 1: That's standard industry standard.
[8:39] Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's just like for for this for some reason,
[8:46] Speaker 2: it works so much better for the g than it
[8:48] Speaker 2: does for other cars. For example, I didn't like the
[8:51] Speaker 2: Cadillac IQ the electric version better than the Cadillac with
[8:56] Speaker 2: the six point. Sorry, the escalade yet escalade yet I
[9:00] Speaker 2: think that my own personal opinion, the electric version is
[9:04] Speaker 2: too heavy and I would prefer to have the regular
[9:08] Speaker 2: GMV eight, especially if it were super charged. And and
[9:13] Speaker 2: I think compared to other cars like this, you know
[9:15] Speaker 2: SUVs for the it's the right car, it's the right
[9:18] Speaker 2: tool for me. Right now, I think this is better
[9:23] Speaker 2: than the range Rover. Now there's not an electric version
[9:27] Speaker 2: of the range Rover right there will be, but I've
[9:30] Speaker 2: driven the most recent range Rover, I've driven the most
[9:32] Speaker 2: recent Tahoe Yukon. To me, it's better than those and
[9:37] Speaker 2: better than the Aston Martin, and it's better than for
[9:42] Speaker 2: me the Lamborghini Urus. I tread lightly because I know
[9:45] Speaker 2: you love that.
[9:45] Speaker 1: Yeah, I do. Well, it's I'm really really happy to
[9:49] Speaker 1: hear you say that. I'm very very surprised. And I
[9:53] Speaker 1: think Mercedes was able to pull off the magic trick
[10:00] Speaker 1: of not changing as much as possible about the G
[10:05] Speaker 1: and yet still making it electric, because that's a very
[10:08] Speaker 1: fine line to walk. Imagine Corsia trying to electrify the
[10:12] Speaker 1: nine to eleven. I mean, you're dealing with something that's
[10:14] Speaker 1: very iconic. Has It's like if it's not broke, don't
[10:20] Speaker 1: fix it. And so anytime you approach something like that
[10:23] Speaker 1: with an electric powertrain and everything that means. I think
[10:29] Speaker 1: they did a great job by trying to leave as
[10:32] Speaker 1: much as possible unchanged in the G Wagon, and I
[10:36] Speaker 1: feel like that's a big reason why it worked.
[10:38] Speaker 2: I also think it's a great use case. You know,
[10:41] Speaker 2: for the nine to eleven, maybe you don't want the
[10:45] Speaker 2: electric drive train because it's a sports car, But for
[10:49] Speaker 2: for example, the G Wagon, I've always thought the G
[10:53] Speaker 2: sixty three was kind of stupid, like what, yeah, because
[10:57] Speaker 2: what it's a just look, it's a big head brick, right,
[11:01] Speaker 2: it's the least aerodynamic thing. It's not so fast, it
[11:03] Speaker 2: doesn't handle, it doesn't handle like fast.
[11:07] Speaker 1: It's powerful and you can just crush everything. I just
[11:11] Speaker 1: felt supposed to be a sports.
[11:12] Speaker 2: The regular twin turbo V eight was sufficient.
[11:15] Speaker 1: That is That's the first time I've ever heard you
[11:17] Speaker 1: say something that wasn't the most powerful was enough. You're
[11:21] Speaker 1: that is so not you don't want I never.
[11:23] Speaker 2: But I just think for for this, for this, for
[11:26] Speaker 2: this house, it's a moving house, right, what.
[11:28] Speaker 1: You're saying moderation is just fine for you it's.
[11:30] Speaker 2: Just it just felt like that was overkill. And you know,
[11:35] Speaker 2: I can't remember the price differential, but it's like adding
[11:38] Speaker 2: at the time I bought mine an extra forty thousand
[11:40] Speaker 2: dollars on an already fairly unaffordable vehicle, it just seemed silly.
[11:45] Speaker 2: And so but for me, the electric powertrain is that
[11:50] Speaker 2: is perfect for this big moving brick.
[11:52] Speaker 1: Yes, and I will I will take the opportunity to
[11:54] Speaker 1: to brag a little bit and say that I was
[11:57] Speaker 1: the first American journalist to drive this vehicle in twenty
[12:01] Speaker 1: twenty three. And the reason why I bring that up
[12:04] Speaker 1: is because I drove it in Austria off road on
[12:07] Speaker 1: extremely steep dirt and rock and shale and gravel, and
[12:14] Speaker 1: it was incredible. And I'm talking like inclines of forty
[12:20] Speaker 1: percent incline and it was great. I mean, the only
[12:24] Speaker 1: thing that I can think about it being an issue
[12:27] Speaker 1: is where you're going to plug in your g wagon
[12:30] Speaker 1: out in the middle of nowhere.
[12:31] Speaker 2: Okay, okay, out in the middle of nowhere. That's a
[12:32] Speaker 2: good point, true.
[12:34] Speaker 1: That's the one thing. But I remember in Austria talking
[12:37] Speaker 1: about how and this is very European, but you know,
[12:40] Speaker 1: of course, Mercedes is like, there's a use case here
[12:42] Speaker 1: for people who do use the g wagon's off road,
[12:46] Speaker 1: either for hunting or for photography, or for simply not
[12:51] Speaker 1: wanting to disturb animals. And this sounds so funny, but
[12:57] Speaker 1: I literally remember driving past rabbits in the forest in
[13:01] Speaker 1: Austria and they they it didn't disturb them, and that
[13:05] Speaker 1: was really cool. And I obviously it's a very obscure
[13:09] Speaker 1: use case for it, but there is a legitimate use
[13:12] Speaker 1: case for that too, So that was very cool to see,
[13:15] Speaker 1: right in sense.
[13:16] Speaker 2: I also thought about, you know, my experience with charging
[13:19] Speaker 2: hasn't been good, but I haven't been charging at home,
[13:24] Speaker 2: and so for example, with the Escalade, I had to
[13:27] Speaker 2: go find a place. It took over an hour to charge.
[13:31] Speaker 2: It costs one hundred and eleven bucks for that. I
[13:33] Speaker 2: think it was fifty five minutes. Actually it's a little
[13:36] Speaker 2: less than an hour, And you know, that kind of
[13:41] Speaker 2: left a bad taste in my mouth. But of course,
[13:43] Speaker 2: if you buy one of these vehicles, and as EV
[13:45] Speaker 2: owners can attest to, you're gonna install a level two
[13:49] Speaker 2: charger in your garage. And the truth is, I'm not
[13:52] Speaker 2: often driving more than three hundred miles not even often
[13:55] Speaker 2: driving more than one hundred, one hundred and fifty miles
[13:58] Speaker 2: in a day, even if I go hunting, you know,
[14:01] Speaker 2: which for me is an hour away up in Millbrook.
[14:07] Speaker 2: I just don't need enough range to have to charge
[14:10] Speaker 2: and then you get home, plug it in your garage,
[14:13] Speaker 2: when you wake up in the morning, it's fully charged again.
[14:16] Speaker 1: Completely. So there's something Yeah, sorry.
[14:18] Speaker 2: Go ahead, No, I'm just you know, of course you
[14:21] Speaker 2: take longer trips, and for most people you don't only
[14:24] Speaker 2: have or for people listening to this podcast, unlikely that
[14:27] Speaker 2: they only have one car. But even if you did
[14:30] Speaker 2: only have this car to take a long trip, I
[14:32] Speaker 2: don't think it's that bad. If I drive to Ohio,
[14:36] Speaker 2: which is where you know I typically drive because I'm
[14:37] Speaker 2: from the great state of Ohio, the most fantastic place
[14:40] Speaker 2: in America. You know, I would have to charge probably
[14:43] Speaker 2: twice like Max, and it wouldn't be the worst. Yeah,
[14:47] Speaker 2: So I don't think that that's really a terrible argument
[14:51] Speaker 2: against it. I will say that this so we had
[14:53] Speaker 2: an email from someone who asked me to compare it
[14:55] Speaker 2: to other cars, which is why I said, I like
[14:56] Speaker 2: it better than all of those other Tahoe Yukon escalid
[14:59] Speaker 2: range over Lamberge, asked Martin. I will say that I
[15:02] Speaker 2: haven't driven every car, right, I haven't driven, for example,
[15:05] Speaker 2: a Portie Kayen since twenty nineteen.
[15:08] Speaker 1: Neither to be honest.
[15:10] Speaker 2: Yeah, well didn't you You guys just drove one.
[15:12] Speaker 1: To Colorado that was That was a Macon.
[15:15] Speaker 2: Oh all right, Well, I remember in twenty nineteen being
[15:18] Speaker 2: blown away by the new generation Cayenne, and I imagine
[15:22] Speaker 2: it is still an amazing vehicle.
[15:25] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not. I don't think they've changed it still,
[15:27] Speaker 1: but I don't.
[15:27] Speaker 2: Think it's as unique in America x LA as a
[15:33] Speaker 2: G Wagon, right, because even in New York it's pretty
[15:37] Speaker 2: unique the g Wagon eight, Yeah, you think, And it's
[15:40] Speaker 2: a different feel than the Cayenne that I remember. Although
[15:44] Speaker 2: the Kayan is an amazing vehicle, I will also say
[15:46] Speaker 2: that I loved the I did drive the OUDI SQ
[15:48] Speaker 2: eight and I loved it, really liked it a lot.
[15:51] Speaker 1: What did you like about that?
[15:53] Speaker 2: For me? The SQ eight? You know where the where
[15:55] Speaker 2: the G Wagon is like an upright box, you know
[15:59] Speaker 2: that put too high and you know, makes you feel
[16:03] Speaker 2: like you're doing something adventurous, even if you're commuting or
[16:06] Speaker 2: going to shop. Right, the Audi SQ eight was more sleek.
[16:12] Speaker 2: It was more of a sports car feel in an suv.
[16:17] Speaker 2: I liked the center stack, I loved the engine obviously.
[16:21] Speaker 2: I love the design of the Q eight in general.
[16:24] Speaker 2: I think Audi knocked it out of the park with
[16:26] Speaker 2: that when they first put it out ten years ago,
[16:28] Speaker 2: and it still looks perfect. But yeah, I think if
[16:33] Speaker 2: I had to choose any car, it would be this.
[16:36] Speaker 2: And again that has to do with my use case,
[16:38] Speaker 2: it has to do with my history. But I think
[16:41] Speaker 2: the main headline is the the EV powertrain works for
[16:45] Speaker 2: me better in this than the gas powertrain did.
[16:48] Speaker 1: Wow, that's amazing. And I think the price on this
[16:51] Speaker 1: was what one?
[16:53] Speaker 2: No, it's way more. No, Yeah, the G five to eighty,
[16:56] Speaker 2: I think it's one sixty seven.
[16:58] Speaker 1: Well, it's not way more, Okay, it's mid I.
[17:03] Speaker 2: Think for most people unaffordable. Right, it is very expensive.
[17:09] Speaker 2: It's forty grand more than it was when I bought
[17:11] Speaker 2: it in twenty twenty. The gas version, Yeah, and I'm
[17:17] Speaker 2: going up. It's just like it's beyond my reach. I'll
[17:22] Speaker 2: say that as anything more than a test vehicle.
[17:24] Speaker 1: But honestly, I totally agree with you for those who
[17:28] Speaker 1: can afford it. It's such, it's great. It's really, really
[17:31] Speaker 1: really good. I really I liked it then I like
[17:34] Speaker 1: it now, As.
[17:35] Speaker 2: Faris Bueller says, if you have the means, I highly
[17:38] Speaker 2: recommend kicking one.
[17:39] Speaker 1: Up great and I should say too. Look, this show
[17:44] Speaker 1: is not meant to be a car review show. We
[17:46] Speaker 1: have lots of car reviews online on Bloomberg dot com
[17:50] Speaker 1: written by wah and I really encourage you to read
[17:54] Speaker 1: the actual review of these vehicles. This is banter. This
[17:57] Speaker 1: is our colloquial conversation of it. So please dive into.
[18:02] Speaker 2: Yes, go read Handed's reviews. She reviewed this when she
[18:05] Speaker 2: was the first American journalist to drive it in the
[18:08] Speaker 2: Shekel proving grounds.
[18:10] Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not I'm not a bragger, but I
[18:12] Speaker 1: am going to lay down that street cred because I
[18:14] Speaker 1: was really excited to drive it, because I, like you,
[18:17] Speaker 1: was very skeptical and I went in thinking this is
[18:21] Speaker 1: just gonna be like holding my nose, thinking that there's
[18:24] Speaker 1: no way this can be good.
[18:25] Speaker 2: By the way, I was skeptical of your review for
[18:27] Speaker 2: the last two years. Right, you came back and you
[18:30] Speaker 2: were like, it's amazing, It's perfect. Yes, And I she.
[18:33] Speaker 1: Has no idea what she's talking about.
[18:34] Speaker 2: Well, I was like, yeah, you were in Austria in
[18:37] Speaker 2: the mountains with the CEO of Mercedes.
[18:39] Speaker 1: So yeah, that Oh my gosh, Matt, that just made
[18:43] Speaker 1: my day And that makes me so happy. That makes
[18:47] Speaker 1: me because I look, I'm not going to force my
[18:49] Speaker 1: opinions down to any on anybody. It's it's it take
[18:54] Speaker 1: it or leave it.
[18:55] Speaker 3: You know.
[18:56] Speaker 1: But it's really nice to hear that. You can see
[18:59] Speaker 1: what I was saying.
[19:00] Speaker 2: Okay, I just want to so a little correction. The
[19:02] Speaker 2: base price is one sixty one five Okay, all right, okay,
[19:06] Speaker 2: you know that's bass. So as soon as you start
[19:09] Speaker 2: to add, the one I have and I'll post it
[19:12] Speaker 2: on Instagram is the signature Midnight Blue that has seven
[19:16] Speaker 2: thousand dollars already.
[19:18] Speaker 1: Oh I bet that was so good.
[19:19] Speaker 2: Look it's beautiful, it's perfect. It's like as understated as
[19:23] Speaker 2: a g Wagon can be, you know, because it's not
[19:26] Speaker 2: a shiny material.
[19:27] Speaker 1: No. I certainly have people in my life who will
[19:32] Speaker 1: go unnamed, but multiple people who really like make fun
[19:36] Speaker 1: of my appreciation for the g Wagon and also as
[19:40] Speaker 1: evidence that somehow it's not a valid vehicle. They point
[19:44] Speaker 1: to some people who.
[19:45] Speaker 2: Drive it, the Kardashians.
[19:47] Speaker 1: Well, and by the way, I'm not naming names. I
[19:50] Speaker 1: mean I'm a big Kardashian fan. For the record, I
[19:54] Speaker 1: find them fascinating and a cultural study. But that's a
[19:56] Speaker 1: different discussion. But you can't blame a car on who
[19:59] Speaker 1: drives if the car is great. The car is great,
[20:01] Speaker 1: I know.
[20:02] Speaker 2: But and we should do an episode on, you know,
[20:04] Speaker 2: the people who stereotypically drive cars, because in Berlin also
[20:08] Speaker 2: it was seen immediately as like a drug dealer's car,
[20:12] Speaker 2: a mafia car.
[20:14] Speaker 1: And I wanted to do something about that with Maserati's
[20:17] Speaker 1: in the UK, because there's a certain contingent who drives
[20:20] Speaker 1: a Masarati and I would love to do that story,
[20:24] Speaker 1: but I don't know if I can get away with it.
[20:26] Speaker 1: You know, it's it's a minefield, true, It's just a minefield.
[20:30] Speaker 2: It's an hr issue probably and maybe a classist thing
[20:35] Speaker 2: as well. Terrible in any way. In any case, let's
[20:38] Speaker 2: get to by the way, speaking of the UK, because
[20:41] Speaker 2: he spent a lot of time there speaking of banter,
[20:43] Speaker 2: because he did a lot of that with us.
[20:45] Speaker 1: Oh that's fascinating, guest.
[20:47] Speaker 2: Let's get to Kenny shafter Kenny.
[20:49] Speaker 1: It's so nice to have you here. Thanks for coming
[20:51] Speaker 1: coming down a bit. Although I think you kind of
[20:53] Speaker 1: live in midtown.
[20:54] Speaker 3: Right, I live four blocks await you both welcome to
[20:57] Speaker 3: come and visit. I live, thank you, literally four blocks
[21:00] Speaker 3: away from here.
[21:00] Speaker 2: That's excellent.
[21:01] Speaker 3: I didn't even have an excuse to drive, that's for sure.
[21:05] Speaker 2: Four blocks. I will tell you something. When I lived
[21:07] Speaker 2: in Berlin, I lived on Dora Teestrasa, which my house
[21:12] Speaker 2: was I think less than four blocks away from our office,
[21:15] Speaker 2: and yet I would ride my motorcycle to the office
[21:17] Speaker 2: almost every day just because I need to hear the
[21:21] Speaker 2: sound and you know.
[21:22] Speaker 1: The ritual. Yeah, it's your thing.
[21:24] Speaker 3: I figured you were a hardcore motorcycle person. It is
[21:28] Speaker 3: true from seeing some of your reportage in the past.
[21:31] Speaker 2: It is true. But I love cars. Also, what about you?
[21:36] Speaker 2: What are your big interests? Where does it center?
[21:39] Speaker 3: Well, there's note. I have a multitude of different things
[21:43] Speaker 3: that I'm I'm obsessed with, ranging from I mean, I
[21:48] Speaker 3: don't mean to kiss up to you guys, but Bloomberg
[21:50] Speaker 3: is among.
[21:51] Speaker 1: Let's discuss this, okay, So what do you mean when
[21:54] Speaker 1: you say that.
[21:54] Speaker 2: You watch TV?
[21:56] Speaker 1: This is a rarity this is a rarity, okay.
[21:58] Speaker 3: So first I could just say I'm an artist, I'm
[22:01] Speaker 3: a professor, teacher sounds less pretentious, and an investigative journalist
[22:07] Speaker 3: for the art world about the machinations of the art market.
[22:11] Speaker 3: And we will get into cars in a second, but
[22:15] Speaker 3: cars will my gateway drug to art. But as a
[22:18] Speaker 3: journalist and ask someone who's contemporary art is a reflection
[22:23] Speaker 3: of the social, political, economic and technological times we live in.
[22:29] Speaker 3: And for me reading the news newspapers, I'm fanatical about newspapers.
[22:35] Speaker 3: I lived in the UK for fifteen years and there's
[22:38] Speaker 3: ten daily newspapers and they have magazine supplements, all of
[22:42] Speaker 3: them on both Saturday and Sunday. But black to I mean,
[22:46] Speaker 3: I get the chills coming in here and walking through
[22:48] Speaker 3: this building. And as far as I'm concerned, I'll start
[22:50] Speaker 3: with the beginning. The first thing you see when you
[22:54] Speaker 3: go through the revolving door is art. So the combination
[22:59] Speaker 3: of all loved my passion sort of converge right here.
[23:02] Speaker 3: All that's missing was a car or six in the
[23:07] Speaker 3: art saturated lobby. And someone said, you guys, Someone said,
[23:12] Speaker 3: you guys have great snacks, but it's more like meals.
[23:15] Speaker 3: But seriously, if you had like a couple of great
[23:17] Speaker 3: classic cars interspersed throughout the art, that could be a
[23:21] Speaker 3: pre When I was being ushered into this room, the
[23:25] Speaker 3: woman said, who was kind enough to come and fetch me?
[23:30] Speaker 3: I was looking at this sculpture and she said, Oh,
[23:32] Speaker 3: I don't know what that is. I've been thinking about
[23:34] Speaker 3: this for so long. Is it to deaden the sound?
[23:37] Speaker 3: And I'm like, I told you that it's a sculpture.
[23:40] Speaker 3: And then she said, you're sure it's not serving some
[23:43] Speaker 3: purpose for acoustics, and I'm like, no, no, no, you're
[23:46] Speaker 3: not listening. It's art. Art doesn't have a purpose. But
[23:49] Speaker 3: for me, back to Bloomberg, I love the news because
[23:52] Speaker 3: for me, I get inspired by the news for my
[23:55] Speaker 3: writing and my teaching and my art making. So I'm
[23:59] Speaker 3: actually writing about Bloomberg in my latest article, which is
[24:02] Speaker 3: on artnet. And if you want to watch the news today,
[24:08] Speaker 3: the only objective context within which to see anything that's
[24:13] Speaker 3: going on in the world is on Bloomberg. Every I
[24:17] Speaker 3: remember twenty five years ago, I'm significantly older than the
[24:20] Speaker 3: both of you, when you were able to watch the
[24:23] Speaker 3: news and remarkably see the news, not someone's opinion about
[24:28] Speaker 3: current events, and you go to CNN, BBC, MSNBC, Fox,
[24:35] Speaker 3: they all have positions that are established before they even
[24:39] Speaker 3: start reporting, and that to me is not the news.
[24:42] Speaker 3: That's an agenda. And if anything, we live in a
[24:48] Speaker 3: I mean, I don't even believe there's communism anymore. Pretty
[24:51] Speaker 3: much everyone is capitalist and if anything is going to
[24:54] Speaker 3: affect the world, you'll see the first hiccup in the
[24:58] Speaker 3: markets and the only And so by watching Bloomberg, you
[25:02] Speaker 3: get to take the temperature of what's happening, not just
[25:06] Speaker 3: in the markets, but in the world. So for me,
[25:09] Speaker 3: literally again, I'm I'm not looking. I'm not submitting my
[25:13] Speaker 3: resume for a job, although I would certainly at least
[25:16] Speaker 3: take an internship for a week or two. But sometimes
[25:19] Speaker 3: I even sleep with Bloomberg gone.
[25:21] Speaker 2: Well right here, you know, So you could ask by
[25:25] Speaker 2: the way, I agree, and I think about this a
[25:27] Speaker 2: lot in that I don't know if we don't have
[25:29] Speaker 2: an opinion in terms of you know, the anchors, the reporters,
[25:32] Speaker 2: the broadcasters, but money doesn't have an opinion, right, Financial
[25:36] Speaker 2: markets don't have a political view. So through that lens,
[25:43] Speaker 2: you can really see an unbiased take on what's happening.
[25:47] Speaker 2: I want to center in on the art thing though,
[25:49] Speaker 2: because I have never paid enough attention to the art
[25:52] Speaker 2: that we have here. So for people who haven't been
[25:55] Speaker 2: to seven thirty one Lexington Avenue, when you come in,
[25:58] Speaker 2: there's a row of wooden sculptures that to me look
[26:01] Speaker 2: like cocoons. I don't know what they are. And then
[26:04] Speaker 2: when you come up, before you get on our circular escalator,
[26:09] Speaker 2: which is the only I have heard curved escalator in
[26:11] Speaker 2: the Western hemisphere, you see this massive sculpture of what
[26:16] Speaker 2: I believe is a thundercloud.
[26:18] Speaker 1: It's like hammered from the sixties.
[26:19] Speaker 2: It looks like so cool. And then you've got these
[26:23] Speaker 2: lights that I always tell people that's Mike's DNA, but
[26:26] Speaker 2: I don't know what it really is. So what do
[26:28] Speaker 2: you think about the artwork that we have?
[26:29] Speaker 3: I mean, look, when you see a car, most people
[26:33] Speaker 3: who like classic cars respond to cars they first took
[26:37] Speaker 3: note of when they were a kid twelve thirteen, fourteen,
[26:42] Speaker 3: and it moves you. You have an emotional response. So
[26:48] Speaker 3: you just mentioned something about these wooden sculptures. I don't
[26:51] Speaker 3: I didn't have a chance to glance. I asked the
[26:54] Speaker 3: I actually asked the reception person who made them, and
[26:58] Speaker 3: he mentioned there was a label. I did know the
[27:01] Speaker 3: artist who's from Africa, Ellen Suey, who did this giant
[27:06] Speaker 3: bottle cap tapestry from found objects on the streets of
[27:10] Speaker 3: I believe, Nigeria. And your first impression about what this
[27:16] Speaker 3: cloud sculpture was was amazing because that's quite accurate in
[27:20] Speaker 3: terms of the intent of the artist. But the beauty
[27:23] Speaker 3: of art is that it's your sense of what you
[27:26] Speaker 3: respond to, how you respond to it, you bring something.
[27:30] Speaker 3: I mean, I think the great thing about art is
[27:33] Speaker 3: the ambiguity and the viewer finishes the equation. Art can't
[27:39] Speaker 3: exist in a vacuum, so it's self expression, but it's
[27:42] Speaker 3: a means of communication, like through my art and my
[27:46] Speaker 3: love of cars. I'm sitting here talking to both of
[27:48] Speaker 3: you and it's extraordinary for me because, like I said,
[27:53] Speaker 3: I'm a fan of Hannah. I've watched your reporting for
[27:56] Speaker 3: quite a long time, both of you, and I'm really
[28:00] Speaker 3: appreciative and love it. So, yeah, it's a convergence of
[28:03] Speaker 3: all the things I like. So for me, art was
[28:06] Speaker 3: a way to Yeah, it gives me solace and it
[28:11] Speaker 3: gives me. It imbused my life with meaning. It gives
[28:14] Speaker 3: me purpose. I love to communicate and I love to
[28:17] Speaker 3: help people and facilitate opportunities for other artists.
[28:20] Speaker 1: Kenny, I'm very surprised you said that cars were my
[28:23] Speaker 1: gateway drug to art. I would have thought it was
[28:26] Speaker 1: the other way around. Actually, well about that a therapy session. Yeah,
[28:32] Speaker 1: that is really backwards from what I would have guessed.
[28:35] Speaker 3: Well, I don't want to get too deep into.
[28:38] Speaker 1: The home, weet, we could go there.
[28:40] Speaker 3: Do you have a couch you can lay down? So
[28:43] Speaker 3: I grew up only seventeen miles from where I'm sitting.
[28:46] Speaker 1: To island, right, Yes, but it.
[28:48] Speaker 3: Could have been seventeen light years away because I was
[28:51] Speaker 3: in the suburbs and it was kind of generic. There
[28:55] Speaker 3: was no I didn't know what an art gallery was
[28:58] Speaker 3: until I was well into my twenty and my mother
[29:01] Speaker 3: passed away when I was young, and my father wasn't
[29:03] Speaker 3: terribly supportive, to be kind, and I sort of was
[29:09] Speaker 3: a recluse, And I created this universe for myself to
[29:14] Speaker 3: entertain myself. And it was through magazines from like National Geographic.
[29:19] Speaker 3: That was a gift to me, like it often is
[29:21] Speaker 3: for young kids to rode in track and car magazines
[29:24] Speaker 3: and first and foremost, I was never athletic. I mean,
[29:29] Speaker 3: the reason I never shut up now is I stuttered,
[29:31] Speaker 3: so I had a speech impediment for a good long time.
[29:35] Speaker 3: And cars, it's the industrial design of cars. I'm terrible
[29:40] Speaker 3: at sports. I don't watch F one or any other football, soccer, baseball,
[29:48] Speaker 3: but I love the design of cars, and for me
[29:51] Speaker 3: in this my sweet spot because of my age, I
[29:53] Speaker 3: guess and when I grew up. Cars from I mean
[29:56] Speaker 3: the seventies are the great unsung decade because I think
[29:59] Speaker 3: there's one full designs from then. But I love cars
[30:02] Speaker 3: from the seventies and eighties up to the nineties, when
[30:06] Speaker 3: there was more kind of consideration, less homogination of the
[30:12] Speaker 3: design and the way things were. And yeah, I have
[30:17] Speaker 3: a very non hierarchical approach to art cars esthetics, and
[30:21] Speaker 3: I think anything done with passion, like the design of
[30:25] Speaker 3: a great car from that period or any period. There's
[30:28] Speaker 3: still great cars being made, just significantly less of them.
[30:32] Speaker 3: But I think I don't differentiate from something that's done
[30:36] Speaker 3: well extraordinarily with this kind of deep seated passion, And
[30:42] Speaker 3: on that basis alone, I don't differentiate between a Picasso,
[30:45] Speaker 3: a chair or a spoon or a car. I used
[30:47] Speaker 3: to live with three cars in my office, including one
[30:50] Speaker 3: under my desk, which, oh god, I've had. I've had
[30:56] Speaker 3: too many to mension. But I love Lancia Lancia. Can
[31:01] Speaker 3: I have a long Island accent? Lancha, You'll have to
[31:03] Speaker 3: part in my accent. I love I have a nineteen
[31:07] Speaker 3: seventy Lancia Fovia fanelone I have. I mean, I have
[31:12] Speaker 3: a garage. The reason I rented and then later was
[31:15] Speaker 3: able to buy the place I live in was that
[31:18] Speaker 3: it had a garage. I mean it was decrepit, it
[31:21] Speaker 3: had mold, but it had a garage. Most significantly, lots
[31:25] Speaker 3: of wall space and light, all the significant things that
[31:29] Speaker 3: moved me so, which is.
[31:31] Speaker 2: By the way, no small feet in New York. I mean,
[31:33] Speaker 2: finding a place with a garage around here is difficult,
[31:36] Speaker 2: even if you live in the suburbs. It's just there
[31:38] Speaker 2: isn't a lot of space.
[31:39] Speaker 3: No, what scares me a little bit to get all
[31:41] Speaker 3: over the place. But I have three kids, and when
[31:46] Speaker 3: I think about the relationship of kids both to art
[31:50] Speaker 3: and to cars, is a little worrisome to me because
[31:54] Speaker 3: I find that kids are looking for other experiences today
[32:00] Speaker 3: when it comes to cars. They just get get a
[32:03] Speaker 3: car service. I don't want to drop the names of
[32:06] Speaker 3: any of those horrific companies by that.
[32:08] Speaker 1: Seven what's that dial? Seven? Yeah, that's my favorite.
[32:12] Speaker 3: Seven seven seven seven seven. But anyway, So for me,
[32:16] Speaker 3: when I was a kid, especially in the suburbs of
[32:18] Speaker 3: Long Island, isolated, alienated, a car was this symbol of
[32:24] Speaker 3: getting away, primarily from my family, from home, independence, hitting
[32:30] Speaker 3: the road and exploring. And it had this and through culture,
[32:33] Speaker 3: through film, through books, it had this incredible kind of
[32:37] Speaker 3: aura to the notion of jumping and getting your license.
[32:40] Speaker 3: I used to I lied to my parents for a
[32:43] Speaker 3: year that I had a permit permitted you to drive alone,
[32:47] Speaker 3: rolling the station wagon out of the driveway, to go
[32:49] Speaker 3: to nightclubs when I was sixteen, all of that stuff.
[32:52] Speaker 2: It just do you really think that kids? I heard
[32:55] Speaker 2: today Constellation Brands had earnings and earns report they're a
[32:59] Speaker 2: liquor and out callmaker, and they said that gen Z
[33:03] Speaker 2: isn't as interested in alcohol, and I thought, that isn't
[33:05] Speaker 2: really true.
[33:06] Speaker 1: For sure, that's true, And I'll tell you a stat
[33:08] Speaker 1: there was more alcohol sold in one day at Stage
[33:11] Speaker 1: Coach than there was in the entire Coachella two weekends,
[33:16] Speaker 1: and we know the age difference of the people going
[33:18] Speaker 1: to stage coach Also, I can tell you my DJ
[33:21] Speaker 1: friends are complaining that they're not making the bar their
[33:24] Speaker 1: bar tab sales at the club because no one's drinking, and.
[33:27] Speaker 2: Well, they're gonna need alcohol sooner or later, right, I said,
[33:31] Speaker 2: I have three children.
[33:33] Speaker 3: Maybe my kids are an anomaly, I can say, but
[33:37] Speaker 3: they seem to have quite a nice relationship with booths.
[33:40] Speaker 2: So I wonder if one day they'll like be interested
[33:43] Speaker 2: in cars as well, because they must want some sort
[33:45] Speaker 2: of freedom. Okay, they're city kids, right.
[33:48] Speaker 3: Well we I mean we lived in London, and London
[33:50] Speaker 3: is one of the most extraordinary core cultures. It's amazing.
[33:54] Speaker 3: Like in art, there are certain cultures that have a
[33:57] Speaker 3: kind of uh a deep seated appreciation and and relationship
[34:05] Speaker 3: to art, like Switzerland, Germany, America is humongous, China has
[34:12] Speaker 3: been emerging, Korea is fantastic. And at the same time,
[34:17] Speaker 3: like if you buy a classic car in certain jurisdictions,
[34:20] Speaker 3: like say Italy, it's more usual than not that you're
[34:25] Speaker 3: gonna get zero history. For me, a car like a
[34:28] Speaker 3: piece of art, the provenance, the depth of the documentation
[34:33] Speaker 3: that that is associated with this vehicle tells the story.
[34:36] Speaker 3: It's telling you a narrative story that for me, I
[34:42] Speaker 3: treasure those documents.
[34:44] Speaker 1: Do you approach collecting cars the same way that you
[34:46] Speaker 1: approach collecting art? Is that the same comparison or wildly different?
[34:50] Speaker 2: Does it matter who owned a painting or a sculpture
[34:52] Speaker 2: or are you kidding?
[34:53] Speaker 3: That's that's that's the value of the owner. Like when
[34:58] Speaker 3: you're an emerging artist, I'm old, but I make art
[35:01] Speaker 3: and I haven't because I've done so many disparate things,
[35:04] Speaker 3: from selling art to curating art. I never, like I said,
[35:08] Speaker 3: I never took an R class in my life until
[35:10] Speaker 3: I was teaching one. I'm completely self taught, and I've
[35:13] Speaker 3: written books on it for MIT, and I've taught at
[35:16] Speaker 3: Harvard and Yale and Columbia and teach now at the
[35:18] Speaker 3: University of Zurich. But when you're nuts abouts it's an obsession.
[35:24] Speaker 3: It's almost like a disease. So, I mean, I had
[35:27] Speaker 3: a bad experience with the classic car where I don't
[35:30] Speaker 3: really know if I can handle the dealing with that
[35:33] Speaker 3: issue right now.
[35:34] Speaker 1: You don't want to bring it up in nineteen seventy three,
[35:38] Speaker 1: must too. No, we don't, we don't have to.
[35:40] Speaker 3: It took me five years to get over this, this
[35:43] Speaker 3: this situation. But I always say with the collector having
[35:48] Speaker 3: no money is no impediment to buying something. And you
[35:53] Speaker 3: could tell a hardcore, serious collector of something when they'll
[35:57] Speaker 3: find a way. So right now I'm looking at nineteen
[36:00] Speaker 3: ninety three Porsche nine sixty what is it? A nine
[36:05] Speaker 3: to sixty eight club sport which I like kind of
[36:08] Speaker 3: raw hom alligation cars that were made for some racing,
[36:13] Speaker 3: mostly rallies or some racing series. And by statute you
[36:17] Speaker 3: have to ham aligate five hundred cars into regular production,
[36:21] Speaker 3: often at a loss for the manufacturer to qualify for
[36:24] Speaker 3: certain race series. And I like cars at a different
[36:27] Speaker 3: unique and have a kind of rawness to them that
[36:31] Speaker 3: are unusual and really you get a visceral. I mean,
[36:33] Speaker 3: there are certain cars where you can you can feel
[36:35] Speaker 3: a cigarette butt on the street in your butt when
[36:38] Speaker 3: you're driving it. Princess and the pee, yeah exactly, which
[36:42] Speaker 3: I love. I want that pee to be in my tuckest.
[36:45] Speaker 3: But like for me, collecting is collecting and again like
[36:49] Speaker 3: I once you get like I was looking at car
[36:52] Speaker 3: sites like bring a trailer in the lobby waiting to
[36:55] Speaker 3: be picked up. And the first websites I look at
[36:59] Speaker 3: every morning. I have Bloomberg on the on the computer
[37:02] Speaker 3: running the live broadcast, watching you and I give you
[37:04] Speaker 3: a bunch. And then I'm looking at art net, where
[37:08] Speaker 3: I write it's like there's a Classic driver which they
[37:11] Speaker 3: just did a piece on this Japanese market. Uh, Integra
[37:16] Speaker 3: type R that I have and uh. And then I
[37:19] Speaker 3: look at piston Heads, which is which is a great
[37:21] Speaker 3: British site, this sports car market, and there's octane. They're
[37:26] Speaker 3: just for me. I don't differ again, It's this kind
[37:29] Speaker 3: of very democratic, non exclusionary way of approaching everything. I
[37:35] Speaker 3: treat everyone with respect and dignity. Forthright. My articles are
[37:40] Speaker 3: a bit provocative, get me into quite a bit of
[37:42] Speaker 3: trouble because I have an opinion and I try to
[37:45] Speaker 3: tell the truth as much as I can, and people
[37:48] Speaker 3: can't really tolerate that.
[37:51] Speaker 2: Speaking of oh wow, that's so financial celebrities looks.
[37:56] Speaker 3: See, this is how I judge a good piece of
[37:59] Speaker 3: art or a good experience. The hair stands up on
[38:01] Speaker 3: my arm like a child and up my back. I mean,
[38:04] Speaker 3: it's you.
[38:06] Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about that, you know, writing
[38:09] Speaker 1: writing about the art world, and you know, writing things
[38:13] Speaker 1: that make people uncomfortable. And I know I've I of
[38:18] Speaker 1: course have read your column and read interviews with you,
[38:23] Speaker 1: and I think one time you describe the art world
[38:25] Speaker 1: as a mafia and as rather mean spirited at times,
[38:29] Speaker 1: and I was curious how you find the car world
[38:33] Speaker 1: and as you move through the car world, speaking truth,
[38:39] Speaker 1: how is your experience comparing to moving through the art world.
[38:45] Speaker 3: That's amazing question. I've written for Ferrari magazine and for
[38:49] Speaker 3: Classic Porsche magazine in the past, and I find, Yeah,
[38:54] Speaker 3: I never said I'm not a mean person, and I'm
[38:58] Speaker 3: deeply committed about my field, and I don't want to
[39:02] Speaker 3: I don't want to cause any anguish to anyone. But look,
[39:06] Speaker 3: the art world is let's say, it went from being
[39:08] Speaker 3: the high of a year with sixty eight billion now
[39:11] Speaker 3: it's around. It's had a bit of a it's kind
[39:13] Speaker 3: of like the Japanese economy. It's been in a bit
[39:16] Speaker 3: of a systematic downturn. And the car market, I mean
[39:20] Speaker 3: for the car market for new vehicles is like two
[39:24] Speaker 3: and a half trillion dollars, but for classic cars it's
[39:27] Speaker 3: about half The art market about thirty billion. So again
[39:31] Speaker 3: back to economics, which again I never studied, but I'm
[39:35] Speaker 3: a great fan and student of. There is a zero
[39:38] Speaker 3: sum mentality when the like a technology company makes the
[39:43] Speaker 3: amount of money that the art market or the car
[39:46] Speaker 3: market makes in a year at lunchtime, and because the
[39:51] Speaker 3: opportunities a much slimmer and more fought after, tooth and nail,
[39:58] Speaker 3: one person's gain is that the calculable, measurable loss of
[40:05] Speaker 3: somebody else who's wants the same thing. So everyone, if
[40:10] Speaker 3: you ask anyone on the street three questions like what
[40:13] Speaker 3: do you think is the most dishonest rife with corruption field?
[40:19] Speaker 3: Art and cars would probably be among the top two
[40:22] Speaker 3: anregulated but I don't even think you know, there's a
[40:27] Speaker 3: great financial writer for the Ft, which Bloomberg and the
[40:29] Speaker 3: Ft are my two favorite vehicles.
[40:32] Speaker 2: I also love the ft.
[40:34] Speaker 1: Will allow it, We will allow it.
[40:35] Speaker 3: Their arts coverage is fabulous, It's extraordinary on the weekend,
[40:39] Speaker 3: it's amazing. And yeah, so I think, wait, what was
[40:44] Speaker 3: the question?
[40:45] Speaker 1: The question was, you know if the art world, Oh yeah, sorry, yeah,
[40:49] Speaker 1: how does art world compare to the things world? As
[40:51] Speaker 1: you sort of infiltrate and say things that make people
[40:54] Speaker 1: uncomfortable and maybe expose some of the things that are
[40:58] Speaker 1: not that are held in the shadows.
[41:01] Speaker 3: Well, like I had back, I think that the only
[41:04] Speaker 3: thing worse than art and cars combined would be crypto.
[41:08] Speaker 3: That's really the last bastion of a state of nature
[41:12] Speaker 3: where anything goes. It's it's veiled in anonymity and there's
[41:17] Speaker 3: a lot of room. But like it's back to cars.
[41:19] Speaker 3: Like for any financial transaction, there was a great study
[41:23] Speaker 3: by Georgina Adam who writes for the used to write
[41:26] Speaker 3: for the Ft, still does a bit. And there's one
[41:29] Speaker 3: hundred and sixty five laws that are applied to any
[41:32] Speaker 3: commercial transaction like buying a painting or buying a car.
[41:35] Speaker 3: There has uniform commercial codes and various statutes that are
[41:39] Speaker 3: applicable in terms of comers and doing a transaction. You
[41:44] Speaker 3: have can't be fraud, they can't be misrepresentation, and all
[41:49] Speaker 3: of these basic tenets of commercial laws. So it's a misconception.
[41:53] Speaker 3: It's a misconception that cars and motorcycles are for boys
[41:57] Speaker 3: and technology is for guys more than women. I mean,
[42:01] Speaker 3: I have always made an effort, got concerted effort, for
[42:05] Speaker 3: decades to work with people. I'm a human being, and
[42:08] Speaker 3: I want to have a cross section of people in
[42:12] Speaker 3: the projects that I foster. I bought bought in soul
[42:16] Speaker 3: cars from women and people from all stripes and all
[42:19] Speaker 3: and all places. So I just think that, look, the
[42:24] Speaker 3: problem AI is not going to destroy civilization. People. The
[42:30] Speaker 3: car industry is not any more dishonest or the art
[42:33] Speaker 3: business than any other field. The problem is people. People
[42:37] Speaker 3: are going to screwing things up. There are certain leaders
[42:40] Speaker 3: in the world right now, there are certain wars like
[42:42] Speaker 3: in the Middle East and in Ukraine and now Indian Pakistan.
[42:48] Speaker 3: It's super alarming situations.
[42:50] Speaker 2: Hope that doesn't kick off.
[42:52] Speaker 3: I mean, it seems that we're in the first round
[42:55] Speaker 3: defensive posture.
[42:57] Speaker 1: Now.
[42:57] Speaker 2: I'm hoping it doesn't.
[42:58] Speaker 3: No, I pray it doesn't, because we can't four two
[43:00] Speaker 3: nuclear arm countries facing conflagration. But I just think people
[43:05] Speaker 3: need to have more respect for each other, a little
[43:08] Speaker 3: more kindness and generosity of spirit. And there's a Bell's
[43:12] Speaker 3: curve of morality, and I think it's just innate to people,
[43:18] Speaker 3: to human beings, to be dishonest when there's money on
[43:21] Speaker 3: the people.
[43:25] Speaker 2: So all right, I want to talk about it's interesting
[43:28] Speaker 2: to me. Then I think of your three main interests
[43:31] Speaker 2: as financial news and economics, art and automotive, But the
[43:36] Speaker 2: latter two in a sense are the same, right. I mean,
[43:41] Speaker 2: if I look at a GTO, that's to me a
[43:45] Speaker 2: work of art worth just as much, if not more
[43:48] Speaker 2: than you know the irises. But the difference is you
[43:53] Speaker 2: can drive the gto right, and so it's not just
[43:57] Speaker 2: about looking at it from all different angles. Operating it
[44:01] Speaker 2: is a thing that you can't do with most artworks. Right,
[44:05] Speaker 2: So how do you feel about actually driving these cars?
[44:08] Speaker 3: Okay? I have a response surprising enough? How do you
[44:13] Speaker 3: store one hundred and fifty cars very expensively? It is?
[44:17] Speaker 2: Yes?
[44:17] Speaker 3: How do you store one hundred and fifty paintings in
[44:20] Speaker 3: a freeport? In a warehouse? They call them freeports? Course,
[44:23] Speaker 3: they're like autonomous city states.
[44:25] Speaker 2: Oh I saw Tenant?
[44:26] Speaker 3: America has one, Switzerland as many, Singapore has some.
[44:30] Speaker 2: Did you see Christopher Nolan's Tenant?
[44:32] Speaker 1: No?
[44:33] Speaker 2: Oh okay, Well they have freeports there. That's where kind
[44:36] Speaker 2: of some of the action happens in that movie.
[44:37] Speaker 3: A lot a lot of I would say, the owner
[44:40] Speaker 3: of this network has a freeport with a locust. When
[44:43] Speaker 3: you collect RD you can't there's no threshold to being finished.
[44:46] Speaker 3: You're never finished. Although Ralph Lauren was asked, what's the
[44:49] Speaker 3: next car you're going to add to his illustrious car collection,
[44:53] Speaker 3: and he said, I have them all, But that strikes me.
[44:56] Speaker 2: People don't. But what you can, I guess you don't
[44:59] Speaker 2: think cars at the free right.
[45:00] Speaker 3: Oh, they'll keep anything out of freeport.
[45:02] Speaker 2: You just have to have space, a.
[45:04] Speaker 3: Lot of space and a lot of money. So I
[45:06] Speaker 3: think in the art world they always bandy this term
[45:08] Speaker 3: around late capitalism, and I was like, I don't know
[45:12] Speaker 3: what that means. And then I was thinking, one day
[45:14] Speaker 3: people buy cars they don't drive. Aren't they keeping storage
[45:18] Speaker 3: wine they don't drink, jewelry they don't wear, and houses
[45:21] Speaker 3: they don't live in, And to me that smacks of
[45:24] Speaker 3: late what late capitalism would be.
[45:27] Speaker 2: But surely you must do the same. I mean, you
[45:31] Speaker 2: just can't drive so many cars. And there's some vehicles
[45:36] Speaker 2: that you must want to look at and smell and see,
[45:40] Speaker 2: but maybe you can't experience driving it that much. Maybe
[45:44] Speaker 2: like a kuntash, you know, it's just not as much
[45:46] Speaker 2: fun to drive as it is to look.
[45:47] Speaker 3: Keep going backwards in that car, you have to hang
[45:50] Speaker 3: out of the car. Yeah, it's going reverse is the challenge,
[45:54] Speaker 3: but yeah, it's one hundred percent true. You only have
[45:56] Speaker 3: one butt to stick on a car seat, and you
[45:59] Speaker 3: only have so much waalth space and one set of
[46:01] Speaker 3: eyes to look at your art. And I agree. I mean,
[46:07] Speaker 3: I want to move to Switzerland, where I'm where I'm
[46:09] Speaker 3: teaching and spend I love to spend time there. And
[46:15] Speaker 3: I was in the Engadine, which is this region of
[46:17] Speaker 3: the mountains, so I was there for two months. I'm
[46:21] Speaker 3: dying to find a way. And why do I want
[46:24] Speaker 3: to live there? Because I'm such a New York City
[46:26] Speaker 3: is coursing through my circulatory system. I love the energy,
[46:30] Speaker 3: the aggression, all of it, and the congestion of extraordinary
[46:36] Speaker 3: people and art and culture and everything.
[46:40] Speaker 2: I like to drive, and especially in the.
[46:44] Speaker 3: On the only exercise that I could tolerate. I'd never
[46:48] Speaker 3: been to a gym, thank god. I don't like jog
[46:52] Speaker 3: because I can't run because forget it, too much wear
[46:57] Speaker 3: and tear. And swimming, so I could find places to
[47:01] Speaker 3: swim in various like public pools that are all over
[47:05] Speaker 3: in every little town. And I love to drive, so
[47:09] Speaker 3: I literally want why do I want to move there.
[47:11] Speaker 3: Besides the fact, in this Engadine region there's thirty plus
[47:15] Speaker 3: galleries in the fifteen kilometer range and five museums all
[47:19] Speaker 3: within fifteen kilometers of Ponchasina, the town that I just
[47:23] Speaker 3: spent time in. But that's pretty much where I want
[47:25] Speaker 3: to gear up to spend the rest of my life
[47:27] Speaker 3: and then come back here and dip in.
[47:29] Speaker 2: You can teach art at the Litsam Alpinam, which is
[47:34] Speaker 2: a boarding school in Suats. It's about twenty kilometers outside
[47:39] Speaker 2: of Saint Laura.
[47:40] Speaker 3: Very well.
[47:40] Speaker 2: Yeah, and great roads to drive on, art sculptures all
[47:45] Speaker 2: over the place.
[47:45] Speaker 3: Amazing. Yeah, do you know anyone there?
[47:48] Speaker 2: I know a lot of people there.
[47:49] Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm Dawn. Maybe I wanted to know.
[47:51] Speaker 1: How do you know people there? You want to give
[47:53] Speaker 1: us some insight?
[47:53] Speaker 2: Well, a lot of people in my family went to Suats.
[47:56] Speaker 3: It's amazing.
[47:57] Speaker 2: And one of my best friends I grew up, Rhdi Grigory,
[48:01] Speaker 2: his family is from sue Us.
[48:02] Speaker 1: Yeah, so I did not know his family is.
[48:05] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[48:05] Speaker 2: So I go there a lot and.
[48:08] Speaker 3: They have great they have great car car show. They
[48:10] Speaker 3: have this amazing thing in sam Maurritz on the lake
[48:13] Speaker 3: Frozen Lake and they drive some of the most extraordinary.
[48:17] Speaker 3: I saw them craning in in old two seventy five
[48:20] Speaker 3: Ferrari into a hotel in Samritz and they have like
[48:23] Speaker 3: driving on ice. But it's back to the schools I met.
[48:28] Speaker 3: I befriended this Iraqi architect who's one of the most
[48:31] Speaker 3: profound human beings I've ever met in my life. Saha Hadid.
[48:35] Speaker 3: One of the things that really moved me was that
[48:38] Speaker 3: she did a factory in Leipzig for BMW. What she
[48:42] Speaker 3: did was so extraordinary and I don't think it's ever
[48:45] Speaker 3: been equalled. The conveyor belt goes through the executive offices
[48:50] Speaker 3: and the cafeteria of the factory. So I like to
[48:55] Speaker 3: sort of like you know, in this building in Bloomberg,
[48:58] Speaker 3: everything is c three.
[49:00] Speaker 1: Transparency is important when you're dealing with financial markets one
[49:04] Speaker 1: hundreds of paramount.
[49:06] Speaker 3: So I did I bring transparency to the art market,
[49:09] Speaker 3: and people freak out because one of the things that
[49:12] Speaker 3: draws people to crypto and to art is the secrecy
[49:15] Speaker 3: and the veil of like opaqueness.
[49:17] Speaker 1: Didn't Zaha make some concept cars for you, Kenny, so
[49:20] Speaker 1: I tell us about those.
[49:22] Speaker 3: You don't have to wind me up much to spew on. Sorry,
[49:25] Speaker 3: I want to hear more about you too. It's way
[49:28] Speaker 3: more interesting than.
[49:30] Speaker 1: We get to ask you all the I've got I've
[49:32] Speaker 1: got along list.
[49:33] Speaker 3: So I was in awe of this this woman, and
[49:36] Speaker 3: I'm not an architecture fan, but again, I love industrial design.
[49:39] Speaker 3: She designed this factory, She did the swimming stadium for
[49:42] Speaker 3: the Olympics in the UK, and I became super close
[49:48] Speaker 3: with her just because I was in awe of her
[49:51] Speaker 3: mental prowess. People would run across the street to say
[49:54] Speaker 3: how she inspired them to follow various pursuits in their
[49:58] Speaker 3: life that they felt uncomfortable with. So I started working
[50:02] Speaker 3: with her firm. I was interested in maybe doing a
[50:05] Speaker 3: small building project with her, but I could barely function
[50:08] Speaker 3: in my own business. I'm the worst business person. She
[50:11] Speaker 3: passed away. Women didn't have to work twice as hard
[50:14] Speaker 3: in that field. She worked five times as hard. She
[50:16] Speaker 3: worked herself to death. But I had asked her only
[50:19] Speaker 3: partner who's taken over the business, to design a car
[50:22] Speaker 3: for me because I'm so fanatical. I never told her
[50:25] Speaker 3: because I was scared of her. She has this notorious personality.
[50:29] Speaker 3: So I got her firm to design a prototype vehicle,
[50:33] Speaker 3: which was three wheels and it would drive upright in
[50:36] Speaker 3: the city and on acceleration it would recline for better aerodynamics.
[50:40] Speaker 3: And it was hydrogen based and we made a one
[50:43] Speaker 3: to one scale model. And as they say in the UK,
[50:46] Speaker 3: I blagged my way into getting a free berth like
[50:50] Speaker 3: in a car show in Excel in London, and the
[50:55] Speaker 3: architecture practice made me a whole booth and a stand.
[50:57] Speaker 3: It was so cool. So I ended up getting reviewed
[51:00] Speaker 3: an Orto car by Richard Bremner, who's a brilliant writer
[51:03] Speaker 3: Great Magazine. And then I got a teaching gig at
[51:06] Speaker 3: the Royal Academy of Art in the Vehicle design department,
[51:09] Speaker 3: among the best. So I gave one lecture and it
[51:12] Speaker 3: was wonderful. The kids really loved it and I was
[51:15] Speaker 3: so engaged. It was so exciting. Then I did a
[51:18] Speaker 3: joint lecture with Frank Stevenson who was designing for Ferrari
[51:22] Speaker 3: and Maserati, and then I tried to produce the car.
[51:28] Speaker 1: To sell.
[51:29] Speaker 3: Yeah, but they say the fate. I know Gauntlet is
[51:32] Speaker 3: the surname. I know the son Richard Gauntlett, but his
[51:34] Speaker 3: dad famously Victor Gauntlet. He was owned Aston Martin and
[51:38] Speaker 3: he said, you want to make a small fortune in car,
[51:40] Speaker 3: start out with the big one. And I spent two
[51:42] Speaker 3: years researching. I went to puk in Austria, various kit
[51:46] Speaker 3: car manufacturers to make a chassis, and I just thought,
[51:51] Speaker 3: I can't even like, I can't even do my own job.
[51:54] Speaker 3: How am I going to do that anyway? So like
[51:57] Speaker 3: then Zaha cornered me in the parking lot and started
[51:59] Speaker 3: screaming at me, how could you engage my partner without
[52:03] Speaker 3: telling me? And then we became the best of friends.
[52:06] Speaker 3: But I also the second time we did a four
[52:08] Speaker 3: wheel version, because I was trying to produce it. And
[52:11] Speaker 3: then I went to the back to the Royal College
[52:13] Speaker 3: and they were ripping me apart. They were like, this
[52:16] Speaker 3: looks like every prototype we've ever seen. There's nothing but
[52:19] Speaker 3: it stands up. Yeah, and it could possibly be sold,
[52:22] Speaker 3: and they just and then the fire alarm went off
[52:25] Speaker 3: and I was like, thank God, goodbye, see you later.
[52:28] Speaker 3: I just ran by the belt.
[52:30] Speaker 2: I would be remiss if I didn't mention the transparent factory,
[52:34] Speaker 2: because we're talking about industrial design and the transparency of Bloomberg.
[52:40] Speaker 2: Folkswagen has this transparent factory in Dress and the Glazerona
[52:44] Speaker 2: Manufactur and that's where they made the Phantom, uh, the
[52:49] Speaker 2: Phaeton sorry, and that's where they made some Bentley flying
[52:52] Speaker 2: continental flying spur. But it's a completely see through factory
[52:56] Speaker 2: so that the Germans do these things and their cultures.
[53:00] Speaker 2: You're right, design not just for use, but also for
[53:07] Speaker 2: esthetics or for I don't know the feeling, and I
[53:12] Speaker 2: guess we just I would say, you don't do that
[53:14] Speaker 2: as much except I'm sitting in a building with this
[53:16] Speaker 2: incredible courtyard.
[53:17] Speaker 3: And because the entrepreneur that runs this business is a
[53:22] Speaker 3: paradigm shifter, he creates his own I love people that
[53:26] Speaker 3: are self wrought that I don't believe in luck. I
[53:29] Speaker 3: think you create your own destiny. And someone like Michael Bloomberg. Again,
[53:32] Speaker 3: I'm not kissing up to you guys, although I'm going
[53:34] Speaker 3: to hand you my resume when I leave. But like
[53:37] Speaker 3: it's he's someone who like he couldn't find what he
[53:40] Speaker 3: wanted when he started in terms of having I mean,
[53:42] Speaker 3: he became like a noun, like a Bloomberg device, a screen.
[53:47] Speaker 3: It's become like I often say, like if you want
[53:49] Speaker 3: to know, if you want to trade Andy Warhol, you
[53:51] Speaker 3: have to put your nose against the Bloomberg screen for Warhol,
[53:54] Speaker 3: and that's all you have to do every single day,
[53:57] Speaker 3: twenty four hours. So I love and just the way
[53:59] Speaker 3: he He's on the board of many museums and institutions,
[54:03] Speaker 3: and he converges his interest and he does so in
[54:05] Speaker 3: a way where I wish he was president. And I mean,
[54:08] Speaker 3: they talk about American exceptionalism. I think that's kind of
[54:12] Speaker 3: really depressing because and also like America is great, America
[54:16] Speaker 3: is the best. That's absurd. Go to Italy. I went
[54:20] Speaker 3: to Ghana to do a piece for GQ. Go to
[54:22] Speaker 3: any country and they're all extraordinary. Now everyone's poo pooing
[54:26] Speaker 3: like globalism. That's the whole beauty of being in art
[54:30] Speaker 3: and cars is because you get to intermingle with people
[54:34] Speaker 3: from all walks of life, in all different cultures and
[54:36] Speaker 3: to learn from them. So yeah, I love all of
[54:39] Speaker 3: that stuff and I love to co mingle. My life
[54:42] Speaker 3: is so short. I always say to my students, don't
[54:44] Speaker 3: listen to me, don't listen to your family, certainly not
[54:47] Speaker 3: your teachers. But you have to make look at the
[54:50] Speaker 3: two of you a living like a perfect kind of
[54:52] Speaker 3: example of following your interest in the extreme and making
[54:56] Speaker 3: it your life, your vocation.
[54:57] Speaker 2: This is my best self when I'm with Hannah, though,
[55:00] Speaker 2: you know I feel the same.
[55:02] Speaker 3: And I.
[55:05] Speaker 1: Just had this conversation with somebody yesterday where they were
[55:08] Speaker 1: saying their life wasn't they expect what they expected? And
[55:11] Speaker 1: I said, my life is exactly what I expected. Actually,
[55:16] Speaker 1: like looking back, there was every moment, even at low moments,
[55:20] Speaker 1: underneath it all, I was still really happy and really like, yeah,
[55:24] Speaker 1: this is it. This is it. Every single day. I mean,
[55:28] Speaker 1: everything in my life has built up to where I
[55:31] Speaker 1: am now, which is what I always wanted to be doing.
[55:33] Speaker 1: It's I mean, yes, I totally agree with you, Kenny.
[55:37] Speaker 1: I think if you don't like your life, change it.
[55:40] Speaker 1: And I know that's such a trite thing to say.
[55:42] Speaker 2: But I want to get I want to get back
[55:44] Speaker 2: to cars here And wait.
[55:45] Speaker 1: A second, I think I was getting on my soapbox.
[55:48] Speaker 2: I'm so happy, I'm happy for you, but I want
[55:52] Speaker 2: to I saw some interesting stats today and when you
[55:55] Speaker 2: mentioned nationality and cars, I think it's so interesting. When
[55:59] Speaker 2: I first started visiting plants in Detroit, and you both
[56:02] Speaker 2: may know this, but not everyone does. There's some parking
[56:04] Speaker 2: lots where they don't allow foreign cars to park. So
[56:07] Speaker 2: even if you work at you know, this Ford plant,
[56:10] Speaker 2: you're not allowed to park a Honda there. You have
[56:12] Speaker 2: to park somewhere else. And today I saw something really surprising.
[56:19] Speaker 2: No car maker imports more cars from overseas than General Motors.
[56:25] Speaker 2: They import more cars to the US selling the US
[56:28] Speaker 2: than Toyota or Nissan or Honda. And another interesting stat.
[56:32] Speaker 3: I would sell my shares, then.
[56:35] Speaker 2: They're gonna have a lot of problems. No car maker
[56:38] Speaker 2: exports more cars from the US to other countries than BMW.
[56:43] Speaker 2: They export more cars from here is probably than Ford,
[56:46] Speaker 2: than GM than Stilantis. And that just makes me think
[56:51] Speaker 2: about the fact that is it really an American car?
[56:54] Speaker 2: Like I bought a Chevy truck and I bought a
[56:57] Speaker 2: Dodge Challenger. The truck was made in Mexico. Thenger it
[57:00] Speaker 2: was made in Canada. And yet people walk to my
[57:02] Speaker 2: house and they say, oh, you have two American cars? Right?
[57:05] Speaker 2: But that simple I digress. What do you find any
[57:09] Speaker 2: American cars interesting or good? Because you say you started
[57:13] Speaker 2: getting into like seventies, eighties, nineties, So is there stuff
[57:15] Speaker 2: that you love from America as opposed to from Italy
[57:18] Speaker 2: or from Germany or from Tokyo.
[57:19] Speaker 3: You know, by the way, the CEO of Ford had
[57:24] Speaker 3: a bid car, a BYD Chinese car. Yes, you get
[57:28] Speaker 3: like three hundred grand worth of car for thirty thousand dollars.
[57:31] Speaker 2: We've had him on this podcast gym.
[57:32] Speaker 3: Way, Oh my god, that's so cool.
[57:35] Speaker 2: He was really obsessed with the Oh my god, I
[57:37] Speaker 2: paled to that guy with the with the kind of
[57:39] Speaker 2: hybrid what do you call the kind of hybrid car
[57:41] Speaker 2: where the engine just charges the battery.
[57:44] Speaker 3: He invented like a five minute that increases the range
[57:47] Speaker 3: of an electric motor. He's a battery maven.
[57:50] Speaker 2: So but what what do you like in terms of
[57:52] Speaker 2: like nationalities you like? You mentioned the Launchia right, but
[57:55] Speaker 2: do you like any American cars?
[57:57] Speaker 3: Yeah? I just number one. I think like a Vettes.
[58:01] Speaker 1: Yes, really cool, thank you, criminally underrated.
[58:06] Speaker 3: Yes, and I mean you look at them today and
[58:08] Speaker 3: I always my first impression is what ferrari is that
[58:11] Speaker 3: they look insane. So you get a lot of bang
[58:14] Speaker 3: for your bucks, you.
[58:14] Speaker 2: Know, beautiful. And by the way, they just changed the
[58:17] Speaker 2: interior and got rid of that waterfall of control buttons
[58:21] Speaker 2: that goes down the center stack. No, I'm not I
[58:25] Speaker 2: love those buttons.
[58:26] Speaker 1: I think they heard the people. The people spoke, but
[58:29] Speaker 1: then you go and get an older car.
[58:30] Speaker 3: And by the way, like, I know you love motorcycles.
[58:32] Speaker 3: I would have a motorcycle in my living room if
[58:34] Speaker 3: I was into it.
[58:35] Speaker 1: Well, that brings up a question I have that I
[58:37] Speaker 1: went on.
[58:38] Speaker 2: Yeah, I wanted to hear of you, like any American
[58:40] Speaker 2: Corvette is the only one vet.
[58:42] Speaker 1: But here's a question that's philosophical in nature. Yeah, I know.
[58:48] Speaker 1: Is it is it equally valuable to enjoy a car
[58:53] Speaker 1: that you don't drive or a motorcycle that you don't drive? Like,
[58:56] Speaker 1: is that so in your mind? As a quote unquote guy,
[59:01] Speaker 1: is that of equal standing?
[59:04] Speaker 3: I have to say, I'm always contradicting myself every sentence,
[59:06] Speaker 3: so I remember every It was the biggest adventure when
[59:11] Speaker 3: we were living in London and I was taking my
[59:12] Speaker 3: kids to school every day, was is the car going
[59:16] Speaker 3: to break down? From a nineteen thirty nine lands Here
[59:19] Speaker 3: Prila to a Series one XJ six with the manual transmission.
[59:24] Speaker 3: I had a Delta into Graale that broke down on
[59:26] Speaker 3: the bridge, and like the British have this crazy do
[59:28] Speaker 3: it yourself meant pull yourself up by the bootstraps mentality
[59:32] Speaker 3: where the kids don't wear winter jackets. And I went
[59:35] Speaker 3: out to push the car with all the kids in it,
[59:37] Speaker 3: and some bicycle dude got off his bike and pushed
[59:40] Speaker 3: me across the bridge single handedly and told me to
[59:42] Speaker 3: get back in the car.
[59:44] Speaker 1: Nice.
[59:44] Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean, I think I think some are
[59:49] Speaker 2: I think, I.
[59:50] Speaker 1: Asked because in the car world there's certainly more credibility
[59:55] Speaker 1: given to you know, if you drive the car.
[59:57] Speaker 3: If you don't drive it, it's gonna it's going to
[1:00:00] Speaker 3: fall to pieces.
[1:00:01] Speaker 1: But as an artist, can't you appreciate.
[1:00:03] Speaker 3: I was driving my kid to school in an old
[1:00:05] Speaker 3: seventies Porsche and I said, doesn't it look great inside?
[1:00:10] Speaker 3: And he goes, yeah, it's such a minimalist dash And no,
[1:00:13] Speaker 3: I said no. In my office garage, where there's no
[1:00:17] Speaker 3: crazy drive, no bikers spitting on me, no stone chips,
[1:00:22] Speaker 3: no crazy people. I mean, it's amazing that you don't
[1:00:24] Speaker 3: get retested to drive a car and you could be eighty.
[1:00:26] Speaker 3: I had some guy who was well into his eighties
[1:00:29] Speaker 3: who slammed into the back of a rear motored nine
[1:00:33] Speaker 3: to eleven, and that's no joy.
[1:00:34] Speaker 2: I think you have to have driven to use it.
[1:00:37] Speaker 2: I think it's okay. So for example, you have to
[1:00:40] Speaker 2: use it. I'm putting now at Dukati in my living
[1:00:43] Speaker 2: room and perfect. I spent a couple of decades riding it.
[1:00:47] Speaker 2: I'm getting to I don't like to fold myself up
[1:00:50] Speaker 2: that much anymore, and so I loved driving it, but
[1:00:54] Speaker 2: now it's a little uncomfortable and I just want to
[1:00:56] Speaker 2: look at it.
[1:00:56] Speaker 3: But you put out time, and it's if you like again,
[1:00:59] Speaker 3: if you buy a painting and you shove it in
[1:01:01] Speaker 3: and you never take it out of the crate. I mean,
[1:01:03] Speaker 3: I'm such a car addict. That's I've done stuff like that.
[1:01:07] Speaker 3: But that's criminal. And what I like about cars and bikes,
[1:01:11] Speaker 3: if you don't drive them, you have to pay. There's
[1:01:14] Speaker 3: a price to be paid because unless you lube it
[1:01:16] Speaker 3: up and drain the fluids out, the rubber is going
[1:01:19] Speaker 3: to run. So the disuse of these vehicles causes discernible
[1:01:23] Speaker 3: damage to their.
[1:01:25] Speaker 2: True Well, we have that discussion here a lot because
[1:01:27] Speaker 2: Hannah and Magnus buy high mile cars and I I
[1:01:31] Speaker 2: have a bad habit of looking for low mile vehicles.
[1:01:35] Speaker 2: But now I've been thinking, wait, do I really want
[1:01:37] Speaker 2: to buy you know something that's ten years old and
[1:01:39] Speaker 2: only has six hundred miles on it, Like, that's not
[1:01:42] Speaker 2: going to work as well as something that has sixty
[1:01:44] Speaker 2: thousand miles on it, because at least I know that
[1:01:46] Speaker 2: they were using it.
[1:01:47] Speaker 1: And taking low mile stuff. I'm always like, oh, I
[1:01:49] Speaker 1: guess it wasn't that great to drive.
[1:01:51] Speaker 3: I like, I don't want six hundred miles, but I'll
[1:01:53] Speaker 3: take twenty to thirty five. I like low mileage cars
[1:01:56] Speaker 3: with the full history but have been used.
[1:01:59] Speaker 1: There's a sweet spot in there as long.
[1:02:00] Speaker 3: As there's regularly service with the spark plugs change and
[1:02:04] Speaker 3: the oils change. But I have this Honda Integra type bar.
[1:02:07] Speaker 3: I think there's forty thousand miles. That's ninety eight. It's
[1:02:12] Speaker 3: one of the rawest what I had back surgery because
[1:02:15] Speaker 3: I was lifting sculpture and I blew my disc into
[1:02:17] Speaker 3: my spinal cord and I was nearly paralyzed and I
[1:02:21] Speaker 3: was rushed into emergency surgery. And when I got out
[1:02:24] Speaker 3: of surgery, my foot moved, but my legs still didn't move.
[1:02:28] Speaker 3: And from the hospital bed, I bought the Integra, thinking
[1:02:31] Speaker 3: I could always lift my leg and stick it in
[1:02:33] Speaker 3: the car and press the gas.
[1:02:35] Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, it's terrifying when you're in that situation.
[1:02:38] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[1:02:38] Speaker 2: I almost lost a leg in a motorcycle accident. And
[1:02:41] Speaker 2: the first thing I started to do when I came
[1:02:43] Speaker 2: to four days later, it was, oh my god, googling
[1:02:47] Speaker 2: how I could ride a motorcycle with only one leg. Oh,
[1:02:50] Speaker 2: you know, because when.
[1:02:51] Speaker 3: You win, I think I really liked the boat of
[1:02:54] Speaker 3: you more than before.
[1:02:55] Speaker 1: Wow, I didn't.
[1:02:56] Speaker 3: Know that, Oh my god.
[1:02:57] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:02:57] Speaker 2: Luckily my mom my mother came and convinced them not
[1:03:00] Speaker 2: to amputate, and now my legs work fine, and I.
[1:03:03] Speaker 3: Could walk fine and drive the cars. And wow, that's crazy,
[1:03:07] Speaker 3: that's insane.
[1:03:08] Speaker 2: So what about so you you like these more eclectic vehicles,
[1:03:15] Speaker 2: the LAUNCHA, the Integra, right, I guess the RSR. Anyone
[1:03:19] Speaker 2: would want that. But what are your favorites? Is there
[1:03:23] Speaker 2: is there any that you think like? That is an
[1:03:26] Speaker 2: iconic masterpiece and I have to have it.
[1:03:31] Speaker 3: Many but a two point a poorest two point seven
[1:03:34] Speaker 3: RS Lightweight, which was only made for one year. And
[1:03:38] Speaker 3: it's funny because there was I like, I called the
[1:03:42] Speaker 3: seats in a car the furniture. So I bought a
[1:03:44] Speaker 3: Renault Turbo one based on the based on the seat.
[1:03:47] Speaker 3: It had the craziest car seat I think I've ever seen,
[1:03:50] Speaker 3: or certainly among the most. I even made furniture out
[1:03:53] Speaker 3: of out of out of one of them. Literally I
[1:03:55] Speaker 3: put a base on it and put it into my house,
[1:03:58] Speaker 3: and the heart you think, I'm totally out of my
[1:04:01] Speaker 3: gourd crazy. But the hardware to move the seat, which
[1:04:05] Speaker 3: is like a little pringle, It's like a little potato
[1:04:07] Speaker 3: chip in the rus that just the two point seven
[1:04:10] Speaker 3: RS is the everyday supercar race car that your grandma
[1:04:15] Speaker 3: could drive it. You could do the grocery, you could see.
[1:04:18] Speaker 3: You don't have to lie down to drive it, like
[1:04:20] Speaker 3: your motorcycle, except you're going the other way and it's
[1:04:24] Speaker 3: a and you could turn it on unlike most ferraris
[1:04:27] Speaker 3: after nine months and it'll fire right up. So I
[1:04:30] Speaker 3: think the hardware is like this long elongated screw and
[1:04:34] Speaker 3: in the middle of the screw is this round nut
[1:04:37] Speaker 3: that's sort of flat on both sides, and I never
[1:04:39] Speaker 3: quite figured out how it even works, but it was
[1:04:42] Speaker 3: just a piece of sculpture. It was wild. So I
[1:04:45] Speaker 3: love that. And yeah, that's probably my favorite of all
[1:04:48] Speaker 3: cars because it just ticks all the boxes. It's fast,
[1:04:51] Speaker 3: it's raw. No one knows if it's twenty grand or
[1:04:54] Speaker 3: significantly more. So, it's not pretentious and no one wants
[1:04:58] Speaker 3: to key you just for being you, I think. And
[1:05:01] Speaker 3: then yeah, like, I mean it could. It looks like
[1:05:08] Speaker 3: every other Porsche from.
[1:05:09] Speaker 1: The error totally, totally. It looks like we get you, dude,
[1:05:13] Speaker 1: we get yeah. Very and also it looks quiet luxury.
[1:05:16] Speaker 3: You could make a replica, which I hate, and I
[1:05:19] Speaker 3: hate people that like pre date post date, after dating.
[1:05:22] Speaker 2: Really you don't like backdating or I.
[1:05:24] Speaker 3: Don't like singer, I mean you can't.
[1:05:26] Speaker 1: This is the truth.
[1:05:28] Speaker 3: I don't care. I don't care if you modify something,
[1:05:31] Speaker 3: but don't put your fie name on it because you
[1:05:33] Speaker 3: didn't make it. It's a Porsche, don't put Gimbala on it.
[1:05:36] Speaker 3: Or I mean, roof is probably the greatest. They are
[1:05:38] Speaker 3: roof poor, so for six million dollars, I think it's
[1:05:41] Speaker 3: a super cool car. They are like the one exception,
[1:05:44] Speaker 3: there's always an exception, but otherwise, like if something is great,
[1:05:48] Speaker 3: it was when. I mean, the Germans can't even engineer
[1:05:50] Speaker 3: things terribly well anymore. Unfortunately, there's a lot of issues
[1:05:54] Speaker 3: infrastructurally in that country.
[1:05:56] Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm although I guess the car I'm
[1:05:59] Speaker 2: driving right now is all and what is that technique?
[1:06:01] Speaker 2: It's the Mercedes G Wagon, the G five eighty and
[1:06:05] Speaker 2: it's I will say listeners will have heard this already.
[1:06:08] Speaker 2: It is the first time that I have ever wanted
[1:06:12] Speaker 2: an electric version of a car more than a gas
[1:06:14] Speaker 2: version of a car. And I didn't think I was
[1:06:17] Speaker 2: going to because I had inn Well, no, it's made
[1:06:20] Speaker 2: by Magna steyr In.
[1:06:22] Speaker 3: They were originally Pook or something.
[1:06:24] Speaker 2: I think Hannah knows the relationship there, but they were.
[1:06:29] Speaker 2: So I just think this is a perfect.
[1:06:33] Speaker 3: Vehicle, every dynamic.
[1:06:35] Speaker 2: Of the cars on sale today, of the cars that
[1:06:37] Speaker 2: are made now, this is the one if I could
[1:06:41] Speaker 2: only have one, that I would buy. And it's shocking
[1:06:43] Speaker 2: to me because it's amazing.
[1:06:45] Speaker 1: That is the motorcycles. How do you feel about this?
[1:06:48] Speaker 1: How do you feel about it?
[1:06:49] Speaker 3: Okay, so I'll say something that will make me no friends,
[1:06:52] Speaker 3: I hate electric cars.
[1:06:54] Speaker 1: I don't.
[1:06:55] Speaker 3: I've never driven one, and I would like to feel
[1:06:58] Speaker 3: instant acceleration. I don't. Once the key turns, I lose interest.
[1:07:02] Speaker 3: So the guy that helps me with all my cars,
[1:07:04] Speaker 3: he's brilliant, and he still works with me in various
[1:07:07] Speaker 3: other capacities now that I'm not living in the UK.
[1:07:10] Speaker 3: And he was so frustrated that I didn't know what
[1:07:12] Speaker 3: a carburetor was, torque and all of these different things
[1:07:16] Speaker 3: that he bought me a model kit to build my
[1:07:19] Speaker 3: own transparent engine. It remains in the box and I
[1:07:22] Speaker 3: love it unused, but when it comes to okay, so
[1:07:26] Speaker 3: I love a classic Mini. For me is the greatest
[1:07:29] Speaker 3: epitome of all design. It appealed to wealthy people and
[1:07:34] Speaker 3: not wealthy people, and it was affordable and coveted by all,
[1:07:39] Speaker 3: and it was the first piece of truly like democratic
[1:07:42] Speaker 3: industrial design. And to drive it is as much joy
[1:07:45] Speaker 3: and pleasure, especially if it's supercharged, and as any car
[1:07:50] Speaker 3: worth one hundred times more. But electric cars, the lead batteries,
[1:07:56] Speaker 3: the plastics, the shelf life of these bats. If you
[1:08:01] Speaker 3: scrap all the teslas in the world, even before he
[1:08:04] Speaker 3: wielded a chainsaw and became I mean, I guarantee you
[1:08:07] Speaker 3: that whole doage thing will cost the US government more
[1:08:10] Speaker 3: than anything. But I won't get there. But like if
[1:08:13] Speaker 3: you get a small engined car and preserve older cars,
[1:08:19] Speaker 3: you will add significantly to the to the longevity of
[1:08:22] Speaker 3: this planet.
[1:08:24] Speaker 1: No argument for us and this, yeah, I mean, I
[1:08:27] Speaker 1: say it all the time. If you want to save
[1:08:28] Speaker 1: the planet, stop buying new things, start using what's already great.
[1:08:32] Speaker 1: I stopped consumer My.
[1:08:34] Speaker 3: Pants are from the nineties, vintage polyester.
[1:08:38] Speaker 2: We agree with you on those things always we agree
[1:08:41] Speaker 2: with you on those things. But we also are in
[1:08:43] Speaker 2: this business. We're test driving new products all the time.
[1:08:46] Speaker 2: So that's why that's why I say, of new products
[1:08:51] Speaker 2: that are currently produced, if I could only buy one,
[1:08:54] Speaker 2: this would be it, because I think it's really the
[1:08:56] Speaker 2: Swiss Army Knife of all vehicles out there.
[1:08:59] Speaker 3: You can't buy a Iron or a Ferrari in a manual,
[1:09:02] Speaker 3: like they say.
[1:09:03] Speaker 2: It's crazy. I don't know why Ben yet, I don't
[1:09:05] Speaker 2: know why Vinya does that, or why his predecessors have
[1:09:09] Speaker 2: done that. Why would Ferrari not want to.
[1:09:11] Speaker 3: Make I tried to do it and there was an uproar.
[1:09:13] Speaker 3: But if I make sense, I have such a short
[1:09:15] Speaker 3: attention span, it does. People don't. They don't, kids stay,
[1:09:18] Speaker 3: they don't know.
[1:09:19] Speaker 1: They say they they say they want a manual. But
[1:09:21] Speaker 1: the take every automaker says, the take rate is less
[1:09:24] Speaker 1: than one percent, but.
[1:09:24] Speaker 2: Not just manual. Why so, I've said this a million times,
[1:09:27] Speaker 2: But if I were the CEO of Ferrari Benedetovina, I
[1:09:30] Speaker 2: would say, We're going to make one vehicle. We make
[1:09:33] Speaker 2: so many different models. We're gonna make one model that
[1:09:36] Speaker 2: has no screens in it, that has all analog gauges,
[1:09:40] Speaker 2: that has a stick shift, that has a handbreak, that
[1:09:43] Speaker 2: has mechanical steering or hydraulic assists, not a computer, no
[1:09:48] Speaker 2: throttle by not by wire but actually by a wire.
[1:09:52] Speaker 2: You know, so, I don't even know they did away
[1:09:54] Speaker 2: with handbreaks.
[1:09:55] Speaker 1: You can buy that. It just happened to be made
[1:09:56] Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty.
[1:09:57] Speaker 2: I know they could make one and they could charge
[1:10:00] Speaker 2: five million dollars for it and it would fly off
[1:10:02] Speaker 2: the shop.
[1:10:02] Speaker 3: I had a Geneta, I had a Caterum. I had
[1:10:06] Speaker 3: my attention sp What.
[1:10:07] Speaker 2: Do you think of the cater I'm only interested in that.
[1:10:09] Speaker 3: That's the That's basically, that's the the There's only a
[1:10:13] Speaker 3: hair that separates a caterm from a motorcycle, if you
[1:10:17] Speaker 3: want to. I went to the nurburg Ring. By the way,
[1:10:19] Speaker 3: I'm the worst driver. I forgot to mention that my
[1:10:21] Speaker 3: attention span is like a fly unless I'm crazily engaged.
[1:10:25] Speaker 3: So the reason I can only drive manuals is because
[1:10:27] Speaker 3: otherwise my mind will wander and I'll just drive into
[1:10:30] Speaker 3: a wall. It makes me pay attention. I even lost
[1:10:33] Speaker 3: track of where I was on the nurburg Ring because
[1:10:35] Speaker 3: there's seventy six turns. But I had a friend who
[1:10:38] Speaker 3: had a D Type in all these fancy pansy cars,
[1:10:41] Speaker 3: and I had a Caterum and an old beat up
[1:10:43] Speaker 3: Dino that I traded for Mitsubishi. But anyway, Yeah, so
[1:10:49] Speaker 3: they say the best security device anti theft device for
[1:10:53] Speaker 3: a car is a manual transmission. And if you you
[1:10:56] Speaker 3: just nailed it, if they made a manual Ferrari, it
[1:10:59] Speaker 3: would become the most collected car of its time. But
[1:11:03] Speaker 3: you're right. You're both right, because Hannah, you're right. They've
[1:11:05] Speaker 3: done studies and even in Europe, even in England, people
[1:11:12] Speaker 3: are not buying manual cars. It goes back to where
[1:11:14] Speaker 3: we started. Kids just don't have the same visceral relationship
[1:11:19] Speaker 3: to the automobile. I mean, I guess motorcycles. I don't
[1:11:22] Speaker 3: know about the scope.
[1:11:23] Speaker 2: Of the motor The motorcycle sales have been disastrous. It's
[1:11:26] Speaker 2: not good, very cool, So an incredible conversation. We're gonna
[1:11:32] Speaker 2: have to have him back.
[1:11:33] Speaker 1: He needs to be a regular. He's basically our neighbor,
[1:11:36] Speaker 1: and he is.
[1:11:37] Speaker 2: And it's easy to jump from topic to topic with him.
[1:11:40] Speaker 1: There's a lot to digest there. There's a lot to digest.
[1:11:43] Speaker 1: And I also think we need to talk about his
[1:11:45] Speaker 1: actual house. I saw that it was featured in the
[1:11:47] Speaker 1: New York Times and like an architectural art.
[1:11:49] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, New York magazine, right, yeah, exactly.
[1:11:52] Speaker 4: Yes, I actually went to his house yesterday, did so
[1:11:56] Speaker 4: after the interview. Yes, we were both leaving Bloomberg and
[1:11:59] Speaker 4: I was like, dude, you said you've never driven an
[1:12:01] Speaker 4: electric vehicle, and I have this g wagon here, like,
[1:12:05] Speaker 4: do you want to drive it back to your house?
[1:12:08] Speaker 2: And he did it.
[1:12:08] Speaker 1: Yeah, that was so that was his first ever EV experience.
[1:12:12] Speaker 2: I guess.
[1:12:12] Speaker 1: So we need to have him back on and hear
[1:12:14] Speaker 1: what he thought.
[1:12:15] Speaker 2: Yeah, he didn't really tell me what he thought because
[1:12:17] Speaker 2: he was just so excited about having been on. And
[1:12:20] Speaker 2: also it's only three blocks away from I love.
[1:12:23] Speaker 1: I mean, it's very nice having a Bloomberg fan on.
[1:12:25] Speaker 1: I didn't actually realize he was really such a fan
[1:12:28] Speaker 1: of Bloomberg, the man and the business.
[1:12:30] Speaker 2: Yeah, it was crazy. I was kind of glad Mike
[1:12:32] Speaker 2: wasn't here.
[1:12:32] Speaker 1: Because he oh, that would have been overwhelming.
[1:12:34] Speaker 2: And Mike Bloomberg sits right outside this podcast studio and
[1:12:38] Speaker 2: he would have been like stalkersh if he'd seen him.
[1:12:41] Speaker 2: But uh, yeah, so very cool. What have you got
[1:12:44] Speaker 2: coming up this this weekend?
[1:12:45] Speaker 1: Is you know what? I'm actually working on the book
[1:12:48] Speaker 1: a bit. I don't think we've really talked about it,
[1:12:50] Speaker 1: but I'm working on a coffee table book with my husband, Magnus,
[1:12:53] Speaker 1: So we're we're well underway to working on that. So
[1:12:58] Speaker 1: I'm doing that.
[1:12:59] Speaker 2: And this is a book of his car collection.
[1:13:01] Speaker 1: Yes, Magnus is top twenty Porsche builds of his own
[1:13:06] Speaker 1: personal over the years. Nice, and it's going to feature
[1:13:10] Speaker 1: amazing photographs by a lot of really notable photographers. Each
[1:13:15] Speaker 1: chapter is about a different car with dozens of photos.
[1:13:19] Speaker 1: It's going to be three to four hundred pages. It's
[1:13:21] Speaker 1: going to be a really substantial, really beautiful and in
[1:13:25] Speaker 1: depth book about Porsche's So I'm really excited about that.
[1:13:29] Speaker 1: It's going to be a lot of work, but we're
[1:13:30] Speaker 1: really excited about it.
[1:13:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, I look forward to reading it.
[1:13:35] Speaker 1: Thank you. I look forward to having you read it.
[1:13:38] Speaker 2: And then I'll see you back here, same time, same place,
[1:13:40] Speaker 2: next week.
[1:13:40] Speaker 1: Shoot us an email, yes, hot pursuit at Bloomberg dot net,
[1:13:46] Speaker 1: And we really do appreciate every email, whether you're telling
[1:13:50] Speaker 1: us about the cars your own, or telling us about
[1:13:52] Speaker 1: what we got wrong or what you want us to
[1:13:54] Speaker 1: talk about in the future. We do read and appreciate
[1:13:57] Speaker 1: every email.
[1:13:58] Speaker 2: Have a great week on Matt Miller.
[1:14:00] Speaker 1: I'm Hannah Elliott and this is Bloomberg m

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