The luxury segment sales are crashing, you might even say plummeting. This will be a weird thing to say, but itâs the middle. Bugatti and Ferrari are doing just fine selling seven-figure automobiles. Kiaâs sales numbers are on fire. But Bentley, and believe it or not, Porsche, and of course, Aston Martin, feeling that heat, you might say. Not good.
Bentley can do low volume, specialty models like the Supersports, but itâs not a brand that can sustain extremely low volume sales in a way that Ferrari or Bugatti can. The margins simply arenât there, and thatâs before we address the train wreck that is Aston Martinâs current reality, or even worse, Maseratiâs bleak situation. Thatâs all before even addressing Porscheâs catastrophic sales numbers marking the iconic automakerâs worst year since 2009. Dealers arenât helping the situation.
Bentleyâs sales issues look like a blip compared to Porscheâs situation, but both are owned by Volkswagen Group. While Cayenne and Macan SUVs saved Porsche once, itâs not clear if thatâs about to be repeated. The electric Cayenne and Macan are fantastic in their own ways, but Americaâs on the struggle bus with EV adoption at the moment. A gas-powered Macan and Cayenne replacement werenât even in the original plans. And weâve said this before, but it bears repeating, cars arenât designed and developed overnight, and this stuff costs billions of dollars.
On the latest episode of The Drivecast we go behind the scenes on the luxury car market crumbling from the top, why itâs happening, and what comes next.
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Full Transcript
Joel: Byron, would you say either of us even fit the demographic for the topic weâre talking about, whether it be a Porsche, an Aston Martin, a Maserati, a Ferrari?
Byron: Yeah, thatâs kind of a stretch. Iâm going to say weâre definitely not the core of the demo, right? I mean, I own a Blackwing, but not the expensive Blackwing. So, my aspirational car is probably still like a 718 of some kind.
Joel: See, and truth be told, this isnât like a well-known fact. I actually almost bought a 911 once, but it was an â80s 911 and I wanted like an SC. And this is back when those things were going to be, I donât know, probably would have cost me $20, $25 grand. This is, you know, which by the way, wasnât that longâI had more hair, but it wasnât that long ago. I mean, Iâm definitely not the demo for a current 911, and Iâm certainly not the demo for an Aston Martin or a Bentley. In fact, look, I love a Bentley, but I love a Bentley for the handcrafted wood, the fit and finish, the materials, the carpet, the way things actuate. Whenever Iâm in a Bentley press car, especially a convertible, thatâs like the worst situation, and I go to a stoplight, and youâre not in somewhere like LA, right? Like youâre in Portland, Oregon or whatever, and youâre at a stoplight, and some dude in an Explorer rolls up to you and starts gawking at the car and is like, âWow, whatâs the retail on one of those things?â Literally, I was asked that once. I just, my skin crawled. I donât like that kind of attention. I liked that no one in the world knew what my E34 M5 was except for enthusiasts. And so the appeal of a Bentley was dissipated immediately. I see people drive Bentaygas around here, and Iâm like, if I had Bentayga money, I wouldnât own a Bentayga, because I donât want people to know I have Bentayga money if I had it, and I donât want that attention. Itâs just not me.
Byron: No, 100%. And thatâs the thing, itâs like, I mean, my car is orange, so I canât say that I donât have a thing for cars that are eye-catching. But at the same time I kind of want the car to like be its own kind of thing. I donât want it to be about me, about what I can afford and what I canât. I bought the car because I like the car. The cost is not a factor for me with these kinds of things, except when it comes to me actually buying the thing. After that, thatâs not a consideration.
Joel: I also would argue, I would argue a Blackwing is similar to an E34 M5 in the way that like enthusiasts know what that is, but I mean, yes, you picked an orange car, so itâs a loud color. But I donât think people know if you pull up to a stoplight that a Blackwing is anything different than a regularâI was about to say CT4 and ATS and start like moving the names around, but likeâ
Byron: I mean, but yeah, I mean thatâs the thing. And, especially here, even in the Detroit bubble where people know what it is, itâs still a pretty small community. In fact, I was, I came back from a trip yesterday, landed at DTW, walked out to the parking garage and found parked next to me a blue CT4-V Blackwing, literally the first time thatâs happened to me since I bought the car.
Joel: So weâve established weâre not the demo. But we are here to report on a story, and you were the one who wrote this story. And it actually came, and this is a really, really important thing I want to highlight here as we get into the topic today, we report on tips, right? We make a call to action on almost the bottom of every story, and we try to tailor it to the story we were actually writing about. But the reality is here, folks, we report on tips. You can always send us an email at tips@thedrive.com. Obviously, Byron and my emails are on the website as well. But we report on tips, and thatâs actually how we got this topic. We got a tip on this. Byron, how do we get down this rabbit hole of reporting in the first place?
Byron: Right, so the tip was obviously the big tip, and it was a pretty good one because, as I mentioned in our article about this, if you want to get our attention, say something shocking that we donât already know. And this was one of those things where, you know, they came to us like, why havenât we seen any stories about the state of the luxury market? Which of course makes us ask ourselves, what is the state of the luxury market? What is the story here? So that sent me digging and asked around to a couple friends who Iâd already heard some rumblings about the situation at Porsche, which has been developing for a couple years, I think. But the tipster who reached out to us had some insights from a couple of other manufacturers, which helped to kind of bring the whole thing together a little bit. In speaking with him and especially with our Porsche tipsters, which weâve kind of like overused a little bit over the past year, it feels like, weâre hearing a lot about, like you said, that middle part of the luxury market being in trouble.
Joel: Weâre all well aware of Aston Martinâs situation or Porscheâs situation. Itâs well reported on The Drive and multiple automotive sites. But when you start a sentence of like, âcrash of the ultra-luxury market,â itâs a big statement that raises someoneâs eyebrows, right? And so thatâll stop someone cold, including us. But the tipster had some interesting information to say about this that led us down the rabbit hole, particularly about payments and vehicles. What did they tell us, Byron?
Byron: Yeah, so I mean, the big stories were, I mean obviously, the volumes are down, so weâre seeing some manufacturers whose dealerships arenât even selling cars in a given month, which is bad news. And the customers are coming in saying like, we already have this car that we just bought, weâre not seeing reasons to spend thousands of dollars more a month on a car thatâs barely any different from what we just spent too much money on a few years ago. Because basically what these guys are saying is that, you know, their people might be rich, they might be filthy rich to the point of money basically not being an object, but that doesnât mean theyâre stupid. So they donât want to come and spend money on nothing. They want to have something to show for it, and apparently thereâs a bit of a dearth of that in the segment right now.
Joel: I think that the point is is that Bentley is part of, and Bentley and Porsche, by the way, are part of the Volkswagen Group, right? And that entire group is in trouble. And so, Supersports that you just drove on Laguna Seca notwithstanding, which is a special car, but also a very low volume car, right? Itâs not like the Bentayga itself or the Continental, like a lot of the main lineup of Bentley is dramatically different in the last couple years, right? They came out with their new cars, and so people lease some, and then youâll have different wheels, and weâll have different paint colors or customization options or whatever. But, the idea that youâre adding, if you have a payment thatâs multiple thousands of dollars a month, the idea of adding another two grand to it, rich people arenât stupid, thatâs why theyâre rich. If you win the lottery and you donât do things right, youâre going to lose all the money in the end, right? Like youâre going to spend it all. And so, rich people donât throw away money as much as it might look like it on Instagram, otherwise they wouldnât be rich.
Now, just a couple numbers here thatâs interesting. Bentley was one of the ones that they sold 150 cars in one of the summer months, and thatâs not good, right? Ferrari was flat last year. Lamborghini actually didnât have a bad year last year. Profit margin was compressed a little, but deliveries were up about a percent, so they were doing okay. But Aston Martin, ooh, Aston Martinâs getting decimated, and Porsche is in serious trouble. Porsche is a standout here. Porsche, that crash, they just had the worst year last year, like holistically, because we only have half the yearâs numbers this year. It was the worst year in 16 years. Itâs the worst year since 2009, the financial crisis. Now, a lot of this is being blamed on China. They were down 26% alone in China. Thatâs tough, right? Thatâs tough. Bentley was down 4.8% overall last year. Again, we donât have all this yearâs numbers, so weâre working off here, but this year isnât shaping up any better. Aston Martin was down 10%, the revenue was down 21%. They sold 5,448 cars last year at Aston Martin. Like, thatâs tough, and thatâs not great. Bugatti doesnât really report numbers, but Bugatti prints money on everything they do.
Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz is also tough. Theyâre having like their worst period in years. They were down 9% last year. Weâve seen all the cost cutting theyâre having to do, the model trimming theyâre doing. They were down 19% in China. Audi, also part of that Volkswagen Group with Porsche and Bentley, they were down 2.9% last year. Now these are companies that, you know, Mercedes sold 1.8 million cars, Audi sold 1.62 million cars. Now weâre talking about much bigger numbers and volumes than we are with Bentley. But Iâm just trying to paint a picture here of thereâs multiple tiers to the luxury market, and using air quotes with luxury here, and a lot of people across the spectrum are feeling it, or theyâre not going up.
And also, Ferrari, which again, they really print money on everything they do, they suppress things, right? They will not sell above X number of cars. They could sell more cars than they do, but then it runs into different issues. If you make it so you canât meet demand on purpose, thereâs inherently demand, right? It means itâs almost fake, like youâre making it.
Byron: Artificial scarcity.
Joel: Scarcity, right. I do want to talk aboutâalso, we need to talk about depreciation. You buy a Bentley, you buy an Aston Martin, youâre paying retail or youâre leasing, the depreciation on these cars is devastating, like breathtaking.
Byron: Especially if like, I mean, youâre talking about vehicles that are often leased. And when you have these owners coming to the end of a lease period and then being offered essentially to sign on to do it again, but theyâre asking like, well, why is it going to cost me $1,800, $2,400 more a month to basically get into the same car I just got out of? And thatâs when it becomes a tough sell, and thatâs when theyâre going to look elsewhere. Or theyâre just going to drive whatever else they already had, because weâre talking about people who probably have access to other cars and probably other very nice cars.
And you know, we looked at like Porsche in particular, and it actually kind of illustrates it in kind of a weird way, because some of the stories weâve been hearing from them now for a couple of years from their dealers, I donât want to say theyâve been bullying customers, but theyâve been pushing customers to pick up vehicles that may not be selling. So in this case, it sounds like itâs been like Taycans and things like that, where the dealers really need to move them to get their numbers, and they canât without using the allure of an allocation for something like a 911 GT3 RS, which is in very high demand, as a way to get them to essentially buy both. So they say, âHey, you buy this Taycan, Iâll give you the allocation for the 911 GT3.â So it works out for the dealer because they get two sales, but the customers are getting to the point where theyâre like, âLook, Iâm buying cars I donât want just to buy the cars I do want.â And thatâs creating a mess in the secondary market where the unwanted cars then get dumped, and then you run into that depreciation problem where their own tactics are actually driving down the value of the cars that theyâre then trying to sell CPO off lease, and they canât.
Joel: Really the only automaker weâve seen, and by the way, thereâs no real firm, like itâs not like hard proof of this, but, the only automaker that is kind of like an unspoken thing that that definitely throughout time on and off has definitely happened is Ferrari. And I think that Ferrari really goes against a lot of rules here, right? Like Ferrari can do things other automakers simply canât pull off. And I think that when youâre an automaker thatâs selling a $290,000 911 GT3 RS or whatever, but youâre also selling an $80,000 Macan, itâs not the same as saying, âWell, if you want this seven-figure Ferrari, youâre going to need to buy three very high six-figure Ferraris.â Like this is a different level of rich person, right? These are different levels of rich. The guy that buys a 911 GT3 RS, yes, he might have a LaFerrari or the latest of these cars, but heâs probably not daily driving a Macan. Like thatâs the reality here, and he doesnât want to buy a Macan. And Ferrari can tell this guy, yeah, you got to buy three or two or whatever of these cars if you want to buy this.
Porsche is really trying to get into that, right, with their specialization customization department, 100%, because the margins there are real good. But 911s, dude, I remember when 911s were like $80 grand new. Now theyâre like $100 plus thousand. Like itâs very expensive to get into a base 911, and thatâsâwhich by the way, a base 911 is like a great car, letâs just be clear, like thereâs nothing to sniff at a base 911. But theyâre getting real expensive, and Corvettes are a real value, right? Like that LT6 is a cool engine. I know someoneâs going to turn their nose up and be like, âYou just compared a 911 to a Corvette.â But like, this is theâlike guys, âring numbers donât lie. These cars are full of performance. Are you about performance or are you about a badge?
Byron: Yeah.
Joel: So we will go there. We glossed over for a second, Maserati, just to really paint a picture. They sold 7,900 vehicles last year, and by the way, thatâs not a big number. That was down 30% from the year before of 2024. And we donât have full numbers or anything from Maserati yet, but I will tell you, like there are whispers that there wasâthereâs 86 US dealers right now, give or take, on Maserati. There are whispers that 60 of those 86 sold zero cars in the first 25 days of August, so when weâre recording this last month, right? And 13 of those dealers sold exactly one, and only four sold more than two. Now whether any of these numbers are likeâand none of this is confirmed yet, so if these numbers are even close to accurate or even close to realistic, that is, I mean, thatâs catastrophic. How could you be a dealer and not sell cars? Thatâs how you make money. I mean, sure, you make parts and service, but like itâs not like you got Maseratis rolling in here every day. Theyâre not a high-volume car to begin with.
Byron: Right. But this isnât something thatâs restricted to the luxury segment necessarily. Shoppers across the board are basically doing this, whether itâs, you know, at a Honda dealer or at a Maserati dealer. Theyâre coming in with the same complaints, and theyâre leaving either spending less or not spending money at all. So while volumes are doing okay at the mainstream automakers for the most part, the more they lean toward premium, the harder those segments are getting hit, and the less likely they are to be up. So a company like Honda or Hyundai, you know, which is separating their sales from their luxury brands, the volume stuff looks fine. But the high-end stuff is where the shift is happening. And of course, you know, thatâs talking about like mainstream buyers, which is not the luxury market, but itâs, you know, an echo of the exact same trend.
And it kind of brings us to this broader point of, you know, what is a luxury car these days? Because if you can go to say an Audi dealer and you can buy a mid-range like, you know, a $60,000, $65,000 car that does every fancy thing that their $165,000 hypothetical car does, what is the allure remaining in that $165,000 car these days? And especially with the stagnation weâre seeing in innovation. And a lot of that is due to COVID, itâs due to the electrification push being abandoned because automakers put billions and billions and billions of dollars into electrifying and then basically just had that yanked out from underneath them. So all that moneyâs gone. Itâs money that could have gone into improving the products that weâre looking at right now, the stuff thatâs actually on the road, it could have gone into replacing the products that are currently on the road. And it was going to, except they were going to be electric. So now, you know, weâre in this kind of state of industry-wide whiplash where everyoneâs trying to come back and say, âOkay, what can we do with what we have to try and get people to keep coming in the door?â And the answer for everybody isnât working. So itâs messy.
Joel: Okay, so that I really want to lean into what is a luxury car here for a second on this topic before we move on to pricing and everything else. Because within the lastâand I want to be careful here, I donât want to get anyone in trouble, so letâs just say within the last couple years, I was at a dinner with an automaker and I was with a bunch of their executives. And they asked me the question. They said, âWhatâs a luxury car, Joel? Name some luxury brands.â And I said, âWell, here in America, youâve got everything from,â and I started naming Audi and BMW and Mercedes. And then I said, âBut then also youâve got people that are going to consider Porsche, I know thatâs a sporty car, but itâs going to be in that luxury price bracket. But then you go all the way up to Bentley and Rolls-Royce.â
And they just looked at me and they said, âSo luxury includes Audi and Mercedes?â And I was like, âWell, of course it does. Like in America, for sure, right?â
And they said, âBut itâs also Bentley and Rolls-Royce?â Iâm like, âI mean, thatâs like ultra-luxury, right?â
And they were like, âBut Mercedes sells like C-Class, and Audi sells the A3 and the Q3, and are those luxury cars?â And Iâm like, âWell, theyâre tiny luxury cars.â
So then they said, âHave you been in one? Do they feel like luxury?â Iâm like, âI mean, depending on the timeline in history, some of those just felt like, you know, a shrunken down two sizes smaller, because we did the one sausage different length thing with Audi and Mercedes for a very long time.â I said, âYou know, it almost felt like they just took an S-Class and shrunk it.â Theyâre like, âReally?â Iâm like, âOkay, well maybe the plastics werenât wrapped in as nice.â
And theyâre like, âPeople use C-Classes as taxis in Europe.â And Iâm like, âWell, we donât live in Europe.â Theyâre like, âSo I donât understand why thatâs a luxury car.â Iâm like, âSo what? Only a Rolls-Royce and Bentley are luxury cars?â Theyâre like, âYes.â And Iâm like, âWhatâs an S-Class?â Theyâre like, âA premium car.â Iâm like, âOkay, hold on. An S-Class is not a premium car. That is a flagship luxury car. Like, I know about the W126, guys. That is not a premium vehicle.â
But it got me thinking about this whole Q3, A3, A4, 3 Series, are they luxury cars, right? So what is a luxury car? And I posed that question, I almost would challenge any listeners to say whatâs a luxury car. Feel free, drop us a line by the way, could be interesting. I just had a Kia Telluride, it had power sliding door handles that go in and out, letâs not get on that topic like whatever, whatever, but so does the S-Class. The S-Class door handles operate like the Tellurideâs door handles. And the Telluride I had had a poor manâs massaging seat, they call like Ergo Motion so that your body doesnât stiffen up while youâre driving to the lake, fine, sure, whatever, but let me just be real, it acts just like the same setup as a massaging seat in a Navigator, an Escalade, like itâs using the same concept of technology, so call it what you want for marketing, but itâs a massaging seat. And it had heated and cooled seats in the front row, in the second row, and it had heated seats in the third row.
What is luxury? Whatâs a luxury feature now? These have adaptive LED headlights that turn when I turn. What is a luxury car? You can get a Subaru with adaptive LED headlights that move with you. What is a luxury feature now? Is it the leather? Is it the lighting? Is it technology? By the way, Iâm not giving you the answer, like itâs an interesting question because now I understand looking at everything why these guys were telling me, well, is Audi really a luxury car? And I still would argue that like the new Q9 is a luxury car, and I would absolutely argue that an S-Class is a luxury car. In America, I do think the general consumer thinks that Audi, Mercedes badges, even Lexus, even a Lexus NX is considered a luxury car. But automaker executives arenât necessarily viewing it that way, and itâs kind of interesting to me.
Byron: Yeah, and I think itâs interesting, too, like weâre seeing a lot of the kind of, so to speak, mainstream luxury automakers, your Audi, BMW, Mercedes types, trying to get more into the upper tier space without infringing too much on like sister brands and things like that. But like, itâs the individual offerings that everyoneâs trying to do. Everyoneâs trying to be bespoke, everyoneâs trying to act coachbuilt, because itâs a way to give their buyers something that is, you know, unique. And the thing is, like, I feel like thatâs a generational thing. Like, you know, Iâm an older millennial, youâre a little older than I amâ
Joel: Iâm offended.
Byron: Iâm just saying. I didnât put numbers on it, right? But the idea of like individualization, personalization, always having something thatâs been catered to you is a very like millennial, I feel like, kind of like we were the generation that kind of kicked that off. Like itâs not good enough for us to just get what everybody else has. We canât use top sheets because weâre weird, you know? Like we always had to do something just so slightly different to make ourselves feel special. And I feel like a lot of automakers are trying to like capitalize on that now with the individualization programs, because weâre starting to get money and thatâs how theyâre trying to pivot and appeal to us. Thatâs why youâre seeing stuff like that at Cadillac with the Blackwings, at other automakers, like and weâve seen like the individual thing, I mean even down to like Volkswagen. Volkswagenâs done it for some of their special, like Golf R. But itâs something that lets them charge us more for the same product, essentially.
Joel: Yes. Itâs interesting you mention the Cadillac thing, because GMâs really finally leaning into Cadillac for the first time in my lifetime. It feels like theyâre starting to figure it out and do right by that brand. And the reason I say itâs interesting is the dichotomy, because a couple years ago, donât quote me on the numbers, Audi, we heard rumors and we saw reports that Audi was going to bring back the Horch brand, Iâm sure I just said that wrong with my accent of America, but we were going to bring back the Horch brand, and it was going to be like their Maybach division, right? So weâd probably have like a Horch A8, which by the way, they did do a Horch A8 for China only for like two years, just so you know, and it was like, you know, star-studded like luxury liner. And then we saw Q9 spy shots, and the one with the vertical slats, the pinstripe grille, we thought was the Horch edition. Turns out that was the mainstream edition, as theyâre redoing their grille, and then the eggcrate grille is the SQ9.
But I digress. When I interviewed their CEO, Döllner, at the backgrounder for the Q9, I asked him about the Horch division, and they flat out said, âNo, weâre not doing it.â They said, âWeâre not doing a Horch division, weâre not going down that route, weâre not going against Maybach and the sub-brands like Alpina.â And we didnât get into a why at the time, it was a group setting and all those things. But look, they donât have a lot of money right now. Theyâre in huge trouble.
Byron: And everything is old. All of their products are old. Like they already have a few things that arenât even new.
Joel: Because everything was supposed to be new and EV, and now it all got scrapped.
Byron: Exactly. Yep.
Joel: Right. So the point, so itâs interesting to watch Cadillac lean in, and Cadillac being a power position right now, because theyâre printing money on trucks and SUVs at GM.
Byron: Escalade, baby.
Joel: Escalade. Dude, a $160,000 Escalade is just a really nice Tahoe. Letâs be clear. Itâs a nice, nice Tahoe, but it is a Tahoe.
Byron: And it probably sells a lot of $60,000 Tahoes just by existing.
Joel: I had a $96,000 Suburban last year, by the way. $96,000 Suburban.
Byron: Thatâs absurd.
Joel: Yikes.
Anyway, point is, Iâm not evenâI mean, like, I donât know if the ROI for them to create a Horch division and try and go against Maybach even exists with the current cash situation they have. And then again, like I said, you got theâwe talked about this mainstream. Dude, the Hyundai Palisade Calligraphy I had that was $61,000 two and a half weeks ago, three weeks ago, before I had the Telluride, that is a nice car. That is a nice Hyundai. And thereâs a whole different story here that weâre not going to get into today that we talked about in the Slack that I want to talk about with generations and all that stuff, but I will tell you, like that is not a Hyundai we grew up with. That is a nice car. And you get into one of those, and you start to think like, and this is nothing againstâI mean, the new Q7 is very lovely. I sat in one, I havenât driven one, they havenât launched yet, itâs a lovely car. But you start toâyou start to think, is someone going to question, âShould I spend an extra $20 grand and get a Q7 over this hybrid, which doesnât have a hybrid, by the way, over a hybrid Calligraphy Palisade?â You might wonder. Iâm not saying that theyâre going to be cross-shopped, letâs be clear, thatâd be a little weird. But I bet you a Genesis GV80 hybrid thatâs coming will be. Would it cost less than a Q7? I donât know. I donât know. Itâs interesting times, which brings us to the last topic: pricing, completely out of control.
Byron: Oh yeah.
Joel: The average new car today, just in general, itâs $50 grand. $50,000. That is bonkers. And the average truck today is about $15, $16 grand more than that, so weâre in the mid-60s range, by the way. These are average transaction prices. I have been in an F-150 thatâs almost 100âalmost $100,000. I remember the first time I had an F-150 that was $69,000, and I thought to myself, âThis is almost a $70,000 truck, thatâs nuts.â Back then, that was unthinkable, unthinkable. And then at the debut of the AT4, I believe it was, weâre no longer on that current CEO for GMC, but at the time, that CEO debuted the truck, and I said, âWhatâs this thing going to cost?â And he said, âI donât know.â And I said, âWhatâs the price ceiling for a pickup truck?â And Iâll never forget the answer, stopped me cold. I was speechless. His answer without missing a beat was, âI donât know, I havenât found it yet. Iâll let you know when I find it.â
I was like, âOh, my goodness.â
Byron: Yep. Yep. There you go.
Joel: And I donât think theyâve found it yet. You canâyou can create a six-figure Super Duty, guys. You can bury a lot of money in a pickup truck.
Byron: Yes, you can.
Joel: Which, by the way, they donât have Cadillac and Lincoln badges. You can buy a Ford-badged pickup truck for six figures. Which bringsâbegs the question, is that a luxury car? I would argue, no, an F-150 is a luxury car.
Byron: And thatâs the thing. Itâs like, theyâre almostâI donât want to say like, averse to referring to them as luxury trucks, but they really like when you ask, like, âOh, is this the Rolls-Royce of half-ton?â They, you know, they shrug and theyâre like, âNo, no, we donât want to compare ourselves.â
Joel: No, no, no, but the hand-cut, hand-sewn leather, and the real wood and real metal that we hammered out with our little, little hammers.
Byron: The moneyâs still being spent, no matter what you call it.
Joel: I would actually argue that in certain time periods that we lived through, there are people that could afford very expensive cars that would rather shove their money into an F-150 or a Ram 1500 thatâs super nice inside, by the way. And youâd neverâand they look just like the guy thatâs got a seven-year loan on this thing, you just donât know he doesnât have a seven-year loan, and they buried all their money in it. Itâs the same argument with the handful of last-gen Land Cruisers that someone bought. âOh honey, the neighbors bought a new Highlander.â It was a $79, $80,000 Highlander, by the way, but you never knew you buried all this money in a Toyota. You can bury a lot of money in a Ford or a Chevy or a GMC or a Ram now, and no one knows whether you have a payment on it or not. Itâs a great way to make money disappear.
Byron: And a way to stay incognito, if thatâs what you want to do.
Joel: Everyone knows you spentâwhen you roll up in a Lambo, or a Maserati, or a Bentley, everybody knows you spent money.