BLOWING PAST THE 100 GRAND BAR. – Rants

Editor’s Notice: Peter’s column talks about market pricing, full with an update from James “Jimmy” Fu and S.L. “Sonny” King as the Fu-King Motors boys deal with offer troubles like every person else. “On The Table” characteristics Mercedes-Benz legend Rudolph Uhlenaut’s wonderful 1955 300 SLR Coupe, which just lately modified arms for the maximum rate in automotive record. Peter talks about “America’s Cathedral of Speed” – the Indianapolis Motor Speedway – in Fumes. And seem for intensive coverage in each Fumes and The Line of the run-up to Sunday’s working of the Indianapolis 500. -WG

 

By Peter M. DeLorenzo

Detroit. Offered that all the things is properly and definitely out of types correct now (you indicate flat-out outrageous, right? -WG) or much better still, “Over Less than Sideways Down” as The Yardbirds once famously sang, how did we arrive at this place? Indeed, there is the chip “thing,” the lingering source chain “thing,” the shortage of anything “thing.” And then there is the burgeoning pricing “thing” as in, how did we arrive at this point in time in the motor vehicle business, where $60,000 is regarded a mid-priced motor vehicle, and $100,000+ is now the acknowledged price tag of admission for the upper end of the market place? 

Indeed, I get it, time marches on and all that, but was not it a lot less than a 10 years in the past when motor vehicles priced at $100,000 (and up) were being reserved for the Aston Martins, Bentleys, Ferraris, Lamborghinis and other exotica of the automobile planet? 

Now, the normal value of a loaded luxurious pickup truck from Chevy, Ford, GMC or Ram is approaching $75,000. If you get a loaded Tremendous Responsibility model of one particular of people pickup vehicles, you are easily pushing 6 figures, and a lot more. Or how about the $75,000 Ford Broncos and V8-driven 392 Jeep Wranglers?

The tale is even much more so for luxurious SUVs in this market place. Let’s facial area it, if a company doesn’t have a top quality SUV which is 100 Grand or previously mentioned, it just can’t be viewed as a serious player. The record of players in that arena involves Audi, BMW, Cadillac, Land Rover, Lincoln and Mercedes-Benz, and that is just for starters. 

But then once more, that 100 Grand plateau is promptly getting to be a stepping stone scenario, as really hard as that is to understand, since the record of players with SUVs approaching $200,000 and earlier mentioned is growing exponentially. Lamborghini, Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche are filling that place, with Aston Martin, Rolls-Royce and quickly-to-be Ferrari (ugh) blowing previous $200,000 and pushing $300,000+. As in, are you frickin’ kidding me?

Welcome to the new normal, evidently. Certainly, I have observed all of the stats – the expansion of personal prosperity and disposable profits, together with the drive of affluent customers to say “WTF?” and commit massive income on their own transportation possibilities to “cocoon” all through and after the pandemic (you know, that pandemic, which in no way appears to go absent). And I applaud individuals rediscovering the principle of hitting the street and embracing the thought of highway journeys they in no way took back again in the day, due to the fact hitting the street is normally a great detail. 

But 100 Grand turning out to be the new threshold for luxury automobile makers from below on out is nevertheless a minimal challenging to swallow. Wasn’t it just a few of decades in the past when prices in the $80,000 assortment were being eye-opening? Of course, it was. But then yet again turning again the clock is not going to occur either. It seems just a instant back when the thought of 100 Grand staying the selling price of entry for tremendous high quality luxurious was radically steep. Now? It’s experience like a quaint idea at this stage, due to the fact the market place has blown earlier that. 

Is it sustainable? Which is a diverse discussion fully. We are clearly teetering on the edge of a recessionary time period, brought on by the continued source chain chaos and lingering COVID nightmare. Not to mention the systemic pressures currently being fueled by the “Grand Transition” to BEVs. A big “We’ll See” as we like to say around listed here, but I really do not see charges rolling back whenever shortly, or at any time yet again for that issue.

I have been immersed in all of this due to the fact I am in deep talks with my friends Mr. James “Jimmy” Fu and Mr. S. L. “Sonny” King, as they consider to figure out pricing for their new item line. 

As longtime AE readers may remember from earlier columns, Jimmy and Sonny have operated in the shadows of the gigantic Chinese industrial equipment for decades. But for audience new to AE, I will gladly drop some gentle on these two flamboyant figures so they can have a far more total picture of who they are. 

Mr. Fu commenced production product cars and trucks in the late 70s, and it has now been confirmed that he controls every single toymaking worry in China as a result of a labyrinthian community of mother-and-pop factories and numerous other substantial conglomerates that he lords above. Mr. King became partners with Mr. Fu right after at first giving the elaborate wheels and very carefully detailed tires on Mr. Fu’s design cars and trucks. The two have been companions for a lengthy time in point, they are getting into their fifth decade alongside one another now.

I 1st obtained to know Mr. Fu and Mr. King soon after they approached me at the Los Angeles Auto Clearly show a long time in the past. Apparently, they had stumbled on Autoextremist.com after they 1st grew to become common with the World wide web, and they regaled me with the simple fact that they both discovered English by possessing my ‘Rants’ columns translated for them. 

When I initial achieved them, it turned into an uproarious experience as they blurted out some of my patented phrases that they had uncovered phonetically, like ‘notgonnahappen.com,’ ‘halle-frickin’-luja’ and ‘the Respond to to the Dilemma that Certainly No One particular is Inquiring.’ (How they acquired that final a single stays a secret to me.)

Mr. Fu and Mr. King have remained in shut make contact with with me ever since. As I have gotten to know Jimmy and Sonny, their frenetic rate and boundless vitality by no means stop to amaze me. The Zoom phone calls I get at 3:00 p.m. my time are normally booze-stuffed stream-of-consciousness rants by Jimmy with Sonny yelling things about his shoulder, accompanied by attractive model types dancing to disco new music in the history at their secretive Shanghai lair. And their appetites look to be even far more boundless. In actuality, Jimmy is however fond of aspiring female pop stars, whilst Sonny is a extremely generous sponsor of a feminine gymnastic academy. 

As you may well visualize, with their insatiable appetites for, effectively, every thing, their underground garage is in a frequent condition of flux. Let’s just say they go via about a 50 %-dozen vehicles per calendar year, each individual. Fast American muscle autos are overflowing in their fleet, which is an enthusiast’s cornucopia of biggest hits, such as a mélange of Challengers (each modified to supply 1100HP) an unique “narrow-hipped” 427 avenue Cobra a L88 Corvette two new Corvette C8s (one black, 1 white) and a few of custom made-built Willys Gasser replicas from the 60s run by race-organized Chevy 502 huge-blocks reserved for terrorizing the neighbors in the middle of the night time. I have seen that their fondness for Bourbon has progressed from Knob Creek by means of Basil Hayden’s to now Woodford Reserve, but that would seem to alter about each 3 months or so. 

One particular huge transform for Jimmy and Sonny is that they bought one particular of their twin Gulfstream G650s. Due to the fact they completely loved their jets, this is a huge deal. Jimmy stated that “We experienced to reduce again, small business is not so fantastic appropriate now. (They held Jimmy’s, which is Jet Black and bought Sonny’s, which was Chaparral White.)

The previous time I talked with Jimmy and Sonny, I was able to piece alongside one another some salient information of the Fu-King Motors long run merchandise portfolio (while it took a few, prolonged, Woodford Reserve-fueled Zoom phone calls to do so, with considerably yelling – generally the yelling – and the incessant disco pop enjoying LOUDLY in the history). Since then, I have been counseling Jimmy and Sunny about the pricing of their impending goods.

So, as ideal as I can inform, right here is the most recent timeline – every little thing has been pushed back again various many years (“Chip Hell,” as Jimmy and Sonny explained in unison) – and the projected pricing for what Fu-King Motors has coming:

2025 (pushed back from 2021): The very long-awaited debut of the Fu-King Gargantuan, the 6-wheeled, all-electric SUV is developed to embarrass “anything else in the sector,” according to Jimmy. Flaunting some outstanding quantities: 2000HP 10,000 lbs., electric phase ladders (“not measures, ladders,” Jimmy insists) and “a search that will humiliate all that other crap out there,” included Sonny. When I requested about the rate, Jimmy and Sonny answered in unison: “Enough to make developed males cry!” So, what, precisely, is “enough to make developed males cry?” Jimmy laughed heartily at my hand-wringing around the new $100,000 threshold and explained – with not a nanosecond’s hesitation – that the Gargantuan would have a base cost of $599,999. Gulp. (But, as Sonny pointed out, that is a $100,000 value minimize from where by they were being.)

2025 (pushed again from 2021): Another very anticipated debut – The Fu-King Motors KickBoxer – is the boys’ answer to the Jeep Wrangler and Ford Bronco with “unequaled” off-highway functionality. Boasting a carbon-fiber unibody and a kaleidoscope of various variations, together with a pickup and a single cryptically referred to as the “RumRunner Edition” (“it can conceal forty gallons of Bourbon!” Sonny chimed in), the KickBoxer will be driven by an all-aluminum, 2.-liter, gasoline-injected, Twin-Turbo, flat eight-cylinder motor that provides 700HP. When requested if this could maybe be construed as overkill, Sonny immediately replied: “We will introduce our rivals to the strategy of receiving their asses kicked!” So, how a lot will it cost to kick your neighbors’ asses in their important Wranglers and Broncos? Sonny, who was the driving force at the rear of this application, priced it at $199,000 saying, “There is so much technological know-how in this beast that fans will beg to get on the ready checklist. You want to make a splash at cars and coffee? We bought your splash right listed here!” (Making an attempt to counsel the boys about pricing self-control has proved to be a futile exercising.)

2026 (I’ll imagine this 1 when I see it): The all-electrical semi-truck that appears eerily like the Bison innovative very long-haul trucking thought that GM Styling made for the 1964 World’s Fair is “a definite go” for late in ’26, according to Jimmy. When I was demonstrated pictures of the concept, I assumed they had resurrected the designers who did the initial Bison, it appeared so close to the first (see under). But this truck will be a hydrogen gas cell-powered electric significant truck with a array of “700+ miles,” in accordance to Sonny. The title? “Convoy.” (It seems that Jimmy and Sonny are big admirers of the unique “Smokey and The Bandit” film and the full C.B. radio period in the U.S.) How a lot? $600,000, all-in.

(GM)

The Bison major truck notion from GM Styling was made for the 1964 World’s Fair in New York.

2030 (If it occurs at all): It’s very clear that the progress of the Fu-King Motors supercar has been fraught with challenges from the starting. That it has taken its toll on Jimmy and Sonny is apparent, as each time I mention it their typical exuberant tendencies flip decidedly glum. Initial envisioned as a significant-functionality, hydrogen gasoline cell-run electric powered hypercar, the device – code named “Bandini” – has been reimagined as a BEV aimed to eclipse Gordon Murray’s T.50. Stated to have 1+2 seating and a curb weight of 1900 lbs., Jimmy and Sunny are nevertheless mum – and decidedly glum – on any more details, which is unconventional for them, even though I know they are continually bickering about the details. Which indicates you can wager that even the 2030 time-body is a pipedream and not even close to going on. And they have not stopped bickering long enough to even communicate about the pricing however. Even though from what I have observed so far, it will charge $4 million, minimum.

When I requested about merchandise outside of 2030, the boys mimicked what I normally say, chiming in all over again in unison, “It’s a big we’ll see!” And, when questioned if they had any options to import their goods to the U.S., the solution was a resounding, “Never!” Asked why, they answered all over again in unison, “Too much bullshit, far too substantially aggravation. We’re having much too previous for this shit!” 

At that issue all I could say was, “I concur.”

And I am reminded of individuals immortal terms of The Wicked Witch of the West: 

“Oh, what a entire world! What a entire world!” 

What a earth, indeed.

And that is the Higher-Octane Fact for this week.