September 26, 2025 • 46 mins
Matt and Hannah speak with Bloomberg's Gabrielle Coppola to discuss her reporting on how Stellantis became global auto’s cautionary tale even with a jewel like Jeep and a billionaire dynasty behind it. Plus, Matt drives the Rolls-Royce Ghost and Hannah does LA to Denver in a day.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm Hannah Elliott and.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
I'm Matt Miller, and this is Hot Pursuit. Coming up.
Speaker 4 (00:17):
On today's podcast, we hear about the demise and hopefully
the rebirth of Stilantis as a car maker. We talk
about some car shows that we've gone to are going to.
And Hannah, you have had a couple of trips, one
long and one I think fairly important.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Tell me about your drive to Denver.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
So Magnus and I drove to Denver from LA in
a day's We made it in about fourteen and a
half hours. It's like eleven hundred miles and yeah, I
have to say it was felt pretty good. And we
also drove back two days later, which was actually more difficult.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Feat Well, most importantly, you went there in a nine
to nine to one in your nine nine to one turbo.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Right, yes, nine one one.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Did you have willow in the back?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
And oh, that is the most important thing. We brought willow. Now,
we were going to Denver because it was my mom's
seventieth birthday and we had a little family reunion. Happy
birthday Mom, Happy birthday Mom. Of course we have to
bring Willow with us. She's our little fur baby, and
so we thought driving would be a great idea. And
also we are rather we don't have a lot of
(01:25):
like patients sometimes, so we kind of just were like,
let's just do it in a day. I don't want
to stay somewhere in Grand Junction overnight in some you know,
thirty dollars hotel. So it kind of became, let's just
drive it in a day. You can do it. It's
basically the fifteen to the seventy fifteen sort of changes
into the seventy after Las Vegas. But I have to
say it's such a cool drive, especially when you're heading east.
(01:50):
The clocks change. At one point we went through five
different states, went through a time time zone change, which
bought us an hour basically at night driving over the mountains.
It was great. On the way back, we actually hit
snow in the Rockies sort of near Veil, so we
(02:11):
had all weather, saw rain, saw rainbows, hit snow in
the Rockies on the way back, and it was great.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
I imagine it's a I mean, I think it's a
perfect trip car. I have done a lot of very
long trips in my nine nine to one career, s,
but I didn't have a German shepherd in the back,
and like that's important to mention that Willow is a
German shepherd's.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
She tucks herself right in. It's kind of like her
little cubby and like a lot of dogs, she actually
likes feeling like she's in a little cave. She's create trained,
she feels safe and comfortable, so she just tucks herself in.
We actually put a little lambskin rug over the back
seat so she would have, you know, a smell of home.
And we stopped four times now on the way out there.
(02:57):
We actually stopped at one point to add coolant because
we got a coolant warning, an engine warning about overheating.
And that is a little lesson where we had taken
the car to get prepped before this trip to have
an oil change, and just assumed that the folks who
changed the oil would have also topped off the other
(03:20):
fluids in the car. Well they didn't, so we actually
made an unexpected stop to add some cool into the car.
But that was fine. And yeah, Willow is so calm.
She's the best road dog. She loves it, thank goodness.
She likes riding in cars. Matt, you went to the
Turtle Invitational last week.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Right, I did, I did so.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
The Turtle Invitational is a car show that my buddy
Philip Richter puts on in Bedford and it's become bigger
and bigger every year. This year he teamed up with
sixteen hundred vloche which is the huge, I think, the
biggest bring a trailer seller. And it happens to also
be up there in New York City or sorry in
(04:02):
New York State. And he had some really not only
some amazing cars and there were a ton of them,
but some really cool people. Wayne Karni was there, who
does the Barnfind Show. He had Jonathan Whitmer there, his
CEO of the REVS Institute, Ken Gross was there, he's
not a motive historian. Alex von Moser was there. He
manages vc V s OC which is a very special
(04:27):
old cars which is a europe like that car dealer.
And so a lot of like industry greats, especially in
terms of collecting.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Right, because these guys are all big collectors.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
What was the theme of the show. Was there a
certain bent to.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
It there in terms of like judging, there were a
bunch of different categories because Phil loves Bruno Saco and
these that era of Mercedes Benzes. There were there were
ton of those. There were a bunch of Ferrari Dinos,
(05:04):
more than I've ever seen gathered in one place. There
were a bunch of Shelby cars. There were there was
a big collection of V twelve motor cars. But it
wasn't like, oh, and there were a bunch of fire
trucks if you're into that, but like old ones, old
vintage fire trucks. But it wasn't like everything had to
be perfect, you know, you didn't need like the exact
(05:27):
right end cap on your steering stabilizer, like like you
might at Pebble Beach. So it was cars I think
that have been driven and cars that people are still driving,
and cars that have a story more than have been
perfectly restored.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
And was this free to anyone who wanted to come, No, you.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
Had to buy tickets. And there there were a ton
of people. It's on Phillip's horse farm. So Philip is
also like an Olympic level show jumper and he has
a big horse farm in Bedford. His family's been in
the business for I should say he's a.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Wealth manager as well. At Hollowbrook.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
We've had Philip Rickterer on the show before, but it
was just one of those Friday night. There was a
panel discussion about collecting cars, and I just am so
happy and I feel like I'm in my element when
I'm surrounded by a bunch of people that just want
to talk about cars. And I get that feeling sometimes
in Detroit, and it was like that. I didn't want
(06:24):
to leave on Friday night after this dinner, delicious dinner
and panel discussion. He also collects and restores old BMW motorcycles,
so there were a bunch of guys with like cool
old beamers there at Old Airhouse and it was.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
A great time.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
I really they only happened every other year, So now
I'm looking forward to two years from now, but I
can't wait to go back to this to this car
show again.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
That's great. Did you bring the family? Is this a
family thing?
Speaker 4 (06:54):
I brought my daughters and my neighbor Eric brought his
kids as well, and we drove up there in a
brand new Rolls Royce Ghost, which was pretty amazing.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
You are moving up in the world, my friends.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
Yeah, Jerry Spawn was in here last week, the head
of Comms for Rolls Royce Motor Cars North America, and
he was kind enough to lend me this car for
the car show. Everybody there, of course wanted to see it.
It's you know, it's not a vintage car, obviously, it's
brand new, but it still has the big V twelve.
And it was mustique blues, this gorgeous shade of blue
(07:30):
that almost looks green and some sunlight. And it had
a fabric interior, not a leather interior, with kind of
like a.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Chain link pattern and some s's on it. I don't
know why.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
How was the fabric with kids?
Speaker 3 (07:46):
I thought it was fantastic.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
I didn't let them spill anything on it, but I
did put car seats in the back, and I felt
much less guilty about how I would have felt where leather.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Uh oh, you're saying the fabric was actually more resisted.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
I think.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
I mean it was like a bamboo based fabric. It
was like a ten thousand dollars option. The whole thing
was a four hundred and ninety five thousand dollars ghost.
So it's gotta be one of the most expensive cars
I've ever driven, you know, other than a Bugatti.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
And it was pretty great.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
I will say the new Rolls Royce Ghost is tuned
to be even waftier than the ones I remember from.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
You know, twenty eleven twenty twelve.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Those were like sportier and more I mean not not sporty,
but more of a driver's car.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
And this is more of a floater.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
And also it has like giant I don't know what
the diameter was, but like twenty four's, you know, in
terms of the wheels, so tiny sidewall, which then counteracts
like if I have a super wafty, floaty car, I
don't want to feel it when I hit a pothole, right,
And if you have no sidewall on giant rims, every
(09:00):
time you hit a pothole, it's terrifying feel it. So
I was thinking like, if I'd got weird spec this car,
I would put like twenty inches twenty inch wheels on
it and big sidewall because you want to soak up
the horrible roads of America, or.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Just something in the middle like twenty one or twenty two.
I mean twenty four seems insane.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Well I don't know what they were, but there it might.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Have been twenty twenty two or twenty three.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
You you picked up your rolls. Royce was a little
bit older, and you've had some issues.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
I do. I have had some issues, but I've got
one running. I've got the Silver Spur running, which is
I'm happy to report. It was a simple radiator thing.
This is not the car that crapped out on me
last week. This is a different car.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Oh, I see that you have various cars in and
out of shop.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Yes, it was leaking a mysterious fluid. So that has
been actually replaced and repaired. And I will admit, in
the interest of time, we took it to some random
guy in downtown.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Indy, an indie mechanic.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Yes, so we'll call him in Indy. This is literally
next to the tow yard where a long time ago
I had a Fiat Toad and was shaken down for
about five hundred bucks in cash. This is a place
I would not feel comfortable being alone. Anyway, we had
took the rules there, and three hundred and fifty dollars later,
it's fine. So I drove it to day to work fantas.
(10:25):
So that's that's a happy ending to that story.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
What car show do you have coming up? And what
will you take?
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Okay, so on Saturday, there's this very cool Italian car
show called Mashini Shima, and this is the third year
that it has happened. It is put on by my
good friend Dorian, who is the owner of DV Mechanics.
He is a very famous and accomplished Alpha Romeo mechanic
(10:52):
who manages basically all of Southern California's and some of
Northern California's Alpha Romeo Vintage Alfa Romeo lineup. He preps
cars for racing. I saw him in Monterey prepping cars
for some great races up there at Laguna. But anyway, Dorian,
(11:12):
Dorian and some of his friends are putting on this
Mashinishima car show which is all about Italian cars. They're
also Italian motorcycles. They will kind the best kind. They
will be serving Italian espressos and spritss and there will
be cocktails by one of my favorite bars, Bar Henry,
(11:33):
which is in Silver Lake, so or kind of Echo Park,
I guess, but it'll be fun. It's on Saturday, it's
downtown at the Rolling Greens. Tickets are a little bit expensive.
They're fifty three dollars, which is rather expensive for a
local car show, but I have. I have been before
and it is a really fun day. And I'm also
(11:53):
happy to say dogs are allowed, which is a very
big thing for me too. Children not allowed.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
What car?
Speaker 3 (11:59):
No, just kidding, what what car were you? Are you
gonna show any cars?
Speaker 5 (12:03):
No?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
No, no, you know, this show is actually about eight
hundred meters from the garage where we keep our cars,
so we will be walking. Although I do admit it
was a matter of some discussion last night where I
was saying we should drive something fun just so we
can show it and other people can see it, and
(12:24):
my significant other thought, why would we drive and fight
for parking when we can literally walk there?
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Fairpoint, fair point.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
So I might have won, I might have lost out
on that.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
Actually, So this is a great segue to our to
our our interview today because Alfa Romeo is such an
important brand to car lovers, and to be honest, a
lot of the guys at this that I was talking
to at the Turtle were Maserati lovers as well, and
our collectors. You know, I think Maserati has won the
(12:53):
Pebble Beach concord alegance more often than Ferrari. In fact,
I know that because I think Ferrari's all. We won
the Concord Elegance one time.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
But Mercedes has the most wins.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
I do know that Mercedes right is up there. I
feel like there's another brand that is tied with Mercedes.
In any case, Malaradi and Alfa Romeo are not the
biggest problems for Stilantis, and we're going to get to
the disaster that happened there and our hopes.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
For the future. Next this is b.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
We are very honored to have one of our best reporters,
Gabriella Coppola, with us out of Detroit. She covers obviously
the automotive industry for Bloomberg News, and she's writing about
one of my favorite subjects today, and that is mopar
or no car.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
I meaning you have to either have mopar or you
don't want it at all. Is that what you're saying.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Yeah, that's a saying that I actually picked up from Magnus.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
I don't I don't know.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
It's an old famous heart. Yeah, oh, I like that,
that's what they say.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
But I find myself tending to love of the Big Three,
like I tend towards Dodge.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
I guess it's because of their.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
Sort of brute strength, you know, the big naturally aspirated
motors and the kind of out there muscle car design.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
I just I'm into it.
Speaker 5 (14:28):
Everything that got killed. Yeah, let's come back.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah, I might be coming back. I mean, Gabby, your
story is called Houstilantis became Global Auto's cautionary tale, and
it starts with this vignette of a commercial, you know,
with a voice over by Harrison Ford talking about the
freedom of choosing a gas guzzler versus an ev kind
(14:52):
of what Matt is alluding to. Can you just talk
us through how this how you started formulating this story idea,
what you were seeing, and take us to your entry
point that commercial, how you yeah data and where you
went from there.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Well, you know, this story, as many BUSINESSWEK stories are,
had a long gestation period. So I would say the
seed of it started last fall, like the fall of
twenty twenty four, when it just became really apparent how
much Troublestlantis was in. They had, you know, had this
shocking profit shortfall and Jeep, which was always the golden goose,
(15:32):
you know, the thing that every CEO would always kind
of tend and care for and wanted to you know,
increase its riches. Was just had lost a ton of
market share and things were looking so bad that I
said to my editors, like, we should do a story
on how this guy, Carlos Tavaris destroyed the Jeep brand,
like literally one of the most valuable.
Speaker 5 (15:51):
Car brands in the world. Yes, an icon.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
And then before I could finish even write like a page,
they fired the CEO. So that was like, you know,
early December. Yes, so then we're like, okay, cool, cool, Well,
we'll just keep writing this story and then we'll you know,
we'll peg it to whoever the new CEO is.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
And really that firing validated your idea you were, It's
almost like you saw it coming.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Yeah, although I feel like I don't feel like I
was only I feel like any good auto reporter who's
paying attention to their beat could see that wasn't that was,
you know, But actually no, I think there was still
a surprise because the belief was that Tavarus would serve
out the end of his term, which would be it
would have been the end of next year, so it
was kind of like, let's just get him to kind
of change course or like kind of course correct or
(16:42):
modify things. Have been, then he can stay, but I
don't like, I don't want to get ahead of myself.
So anyway, we were waiting for the successor to Carlos Tavarus,
who just for the audience who doesn't know, Carlos Tavarus
is from Portugal, but he was kind of educated and
built his career in France working for Nissan. He was
a protegee of Carlos going and up until he became
(17:03):
the CEO of Stalantis. He was seen as kind of
a turnaround wiz. He turned Pougeot around the Opal brand
in Europe, so he had a lot of credibility coming
into this job. So once he left, we were like, okay,
we'll pegget to the new CEO and surely that'll happen
in January or February. And then it was March, and
(17:25):
then it was April and there was still no successor.
And John Elkan who is the scion of the Annielli family,
which was the kind of billionaire dynasty there like the
Kennedys of Italy.
Speaker 5 (17:36):
His great great grandfather.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Founded Fiat in eighteen ninety nine and Turin, he was
a contemporary of Henry Ford, went to visit Henry Ford,
you know, took inspiration from Henry Ford. So Elcan was
kind of left holding the bag and it just as
the time wore on, it just seemed like, gosh, does
nobody want this job? And so that kind of became
the story in addition to the Jeeps story. It was
(18:00):
like because the way I think about it is, if
you look at the global auto industry right now, it's
kind of like hunger games. You know, we're going through already,
electrification was kind of challenging the business model, you know,
having to totally switch technologies. Nobody can quite predict the
pace of adoption and varies by region.
Speaker 5 (18:19):
That's a really tough problem.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Then you take you know, automated driving, self driving, the
investment that that requires. Then you take all this sort
of new geopolitical tension, tariffs going up, and then you
look at the rise of the Chinese auto industry and
now they've become a fully formed, you know, competitive juggernaut
in the world that's trying to you know, export cars
(18:41):
around the world. Those are a lot of pressures for
any automaker, and.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
You have the competing national interest right because oh yeah,
el Con when he was I guess interim CEO had
to do this tour where he like promised the French
he wasn't in the cut production there, and obviously he's
not allowed to cut production in Italy, and then he
has to kiss up to Trump and say he's not
going to cut here, so they're left with a ton
(19:05):
of overcapacity.
Speaker 5 (19:07):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
That's exactly right, Matt, And like I feel like I
was just That's what really got me was like what
I became so intrigued with is like, oh my gosh,
running this company is not just running a car company.
It's like, like we say in the stories, like the
United Nations and Tavaris had like burned so many bridges
around the world that el Can just had to do
this massive diplomatic push clean up effort and try to
(19:28):
run the company when it was in a really rough
spot and try to find someone to take this thankless
job that nobody seemed to want. The company will say
they have a number of good candidates, and so that's
what they say about it. I'm sure at the right
price you could have a lot of candidates. But the
question is, like do you want to pay how much
you have to pay to get someone to do this?
Speaker 5 (19:45):
Job.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
So that was kind of how it evolved into what
it became, which was partially a story about the you know,
the fall of the G brand, and then also about
this company with all these self inflicted wounds, trying to
heal itself, and then while it's trying to get its
house in order, then Trump comes in and starts shaking
(20:08):
up the you know, economy with teriffs and all those
kind of things.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
By the way, it wasn't just I want to point out,
it wasn't just the Jeep brand that was ruined. For example,
Chrysler at one point and maybe still only has one product, right,
just the minivan and that's all they have. And also Dodge,
which had made such incredible headway with the with the
(20:33):
Challenger and the Charger, like they're such popular vehicles, out
selling Mustang and Camaro. For some reason unbeknownst to anyone,
Tim Kiniskus was like, this is the end. We're not
going to make the six point four liter Hemi anymore
in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Like why would you act that motor?
Speaker 4 (20:52):
It's like, I if the Jeep is an iconic car brand,
this is the most iconic motor in all of automotive
what other motor does anybody know by name?
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Maybe the coyote?
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Right, so the head right, he was killed and yeah,
with no real explanation. And then they wanted to replace
that with an EV, which is the exact wrong audience.
So they killed Dodge, they killed Chrysler, they were suffocating
Jeep and then ram Ram has had a similar problem.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Right, well, and that's just the US brands. And I
just want to say on the hemy, I don't think
it's a total mystery. I think that a lot of
this was driven by regulation and needing to comply with
tighter fuel economy rules. And you know when carmakers when
they roll out their models, they have to do this
very complex calculation of okay, it's you know, it's the
(21:44):
whole fleet, the corporate average fuel economy for your entire fleet.
It's not just that one model. So if you want
to sell hemmis, you got to sell some evs over here.
Speaker 5 (21:51):
You know.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
That's how it was pre Trump. But I think that
was also a decision by Tavarus. You know that he
you know, Chrysler, I'm going to call them Chrysler, yeah,
source Atlantis. You know, they have always been the laggard
in Detroit in terms of fuel economy, and they've paid
billions of dollars and fines or you know, bought credits
from Tesla, and you know, maybe some of the japan
other you know, car companies that were in compliance. So
(22:16):
I think Tavarus, who is like very focused on cutting
costs and the optimizing profit, was like, why are we
paying our competitors, Like why are we just spending all
this money subsidizing Tesla? Like We're not doing that anymore.
Let's make our own ebs, which on paper, it sounds
like a very rational and you know decision, But what
I don't think he appreciated was like, uh, that's what
(22:37):
consumers want in America, Like that's the American market. And
the thing that was so telling was that you didn't
see GM and Ford killing their performance engines during the
same period, even as they were investing electric vehicles and
you know, going all in, perhaps too much. So that
just goes to show you that some of this was, yes,
regulatory driven, but some of it was also you know,
(22:59):
just bad choices, bad decisions.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
And it does seem like John Elkin personally believed that
he wants to be I think he used the phrase,
or an analyst use the phrase pistons and pixels that
John Elkin does have this vision that he wants to
like move everything very far into the future. And tell
me if that's a wrong read of it, but it
(23:23):
does seem like he too, on a personal level, wanted
to just push everything really far forward technologically.
Speaker 5 (23:33):
Yeah, I think.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
I mean, to be clear, I've never met John Alcannon.
He declined to be interviewed for this article. Really, yes,
shockingly nobody wanted to talk to me. But they're in
an awkward They're in a rough stage right now. You know,
you want to talk when you have a good story
to tell, and they're still trying to work through all
these problems. But I do think it's true. And this
is based on reporting, you know, talking to people who
(23:55):
know him well, who've worked with him. I mean, people
will tell you he's a car guy.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
It's true.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
He's not somebody who loves car I mean, but I
mean I think what really moves him and excites him
is technology and innovation. And if you look at Ferrari,
you know which was spun out, you know that's also
you know his ex or his the kind of investment
fund that controls all of the Annielli family sort of
you know investments. You know, he's very passionate about that
(24:23):
because when you look at Ferrari, that brand is strong.
I mean obviously it's very sexy. Look, you know, supercar,
luxury brand. But there's a lot of innovation happening there,
and I think that's what excites him, whether it's in
a car or you know, mobility or medical diagnostics or whatever.
I do think he is excited by that. So I
think that, yes, Andy, but you can't argue with what
(24:46):
he's doing with his money. It's his job to be
the steward of the family fortune, which I have to
look at the story again, remember how many billions they're worth.
But I mean he's responsible for like one hundred or
so people like they you know, live off of that. Yes,
they yell. A family steak in Exor is worth about
ten billion euros. So his job is to make sure
(25:08):
that they live to fight another day, you know, to
keep growing and making smart investments. But I do think
he has a vision of kind of being a patient investor.
He's not just looking for a quick you know, pump
and dump or you know, you know quick ROI like
he does want to invest in like strategically important industries
and things that are going to benefit society. I think
(25:28):
that's all true, but he also has to, you know,
look at the hard facts, like the mass market auto
industry is under a lot of pressure right now. So
if you look at what he's been doing with his money, yes,
he has been you know, he's the still the steak
in Stilantis, you know, is getting smaller, and he's investing
more in other you know, tech. He's on the board
of Meta now, so clearly like he's very focused on tech.
(25:52):
But I think that you know, they said this. I
obviously was in a lot of touch with his PR
people during the reporting of all this, and you know,
they say, look, there's he's gonna stand behind it. He's
never not stood behind the company, so and they did.
I don't want to speculate on what he's going to do,
but they you know this, they got a lot of
problems to.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Solve, and they did actually find a replacement for Tavars,
someone internal, which is interesting. They found their unicorn, or
they're hoping it's their unicorn.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
I don't think what Dixie's a unicorn, but I think
he's a very smart combatant, very well liked person, and
by all accounts, he's you know, moving very quickly and decisively.
Speaker 5 (26:33):
I mean, it's just.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
That there's yes, sorry, Antonio Philos.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
Name, and I mean the guy has been with the
company for many years, like even a couple of decades, right,
and he and he learned at the hand of Sergio.
And I don't think we can leave out of the
story how important Sergio was to el CON's initial success
with Fiat Chrysler.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
And how I mean we.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
Talk about superstar car CEOs, right, there's le Ayahcoca, there's
Alan Molalley, there's Carlos Gone. You know, obviously fallen star,
but still he was like a rock star. And Tavares
also kind of a falling star. But Sergio was up
there in the pantheon of the great. Absolutely, so I
(27:21):
think I think he's he's such an amazing character and
he touched so many people that his connection to Filosa
has to give you some confidence, right.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Yes, absolutely, I mean I think a lot of what
they're doing is kind of trying to I mean the world,
it's amazing how much Sergio and just for people don't
know Sergio Marcioni. He worked in some of the companies
in the XRA portfolio, and Elkin kind of plucked him
out of obscurity and made him the CEO of Fiat.
In June two thousand and four, he became CEO of
(27:52):
Fiat and he basically engineered this amazing deal where he
kind of got when christ Or went bankrupt in two
thousand and nine, h Sergio got Obama to agree to
a deal to let Fiat and Chrysler merge, and he
kind of got an amazing deal. He kind of got
it for a song because he knew that Fiat needed
(28:13):
a footprint outside of Italy and outside of Europe, and
at the time, Chrysler was thinking, we really need small
cars because you know, gas prices were up, the industry
was in shambles. So he not only did he you know,
achieved that merger, but then he just revived the Jeep
brand He's set. He kind of really instilled this kind
of mentality of like understanding valuing the brands that sorry
(28:38):
Fiat Chrysler had. He spun out Ferrari, which made a
lot of money for Elkcan and you know, for investors,
but he kind of just did things through his brilliance
and sheer force of will and charisma and savvy and
deal making that you know, the average human probably would
not have been able to pull off.
Speaker 5 (28:56):
And you know there's some yes.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
The six h smoking six cell phone guys.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
Workaholic. Yeah he spoke.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Yeah, so yeah, So Filosa was a protege of him.
Filosa is one of his guys. Filosa is Italian, but
he spent most of his career in South America and
Argentina and Brazil. He started out as a plant rat
in Spain, I think, or somewhere in Europe, and then
he got sent to South America and kind of rose
up the chain managing Argentina and Brazil. He became head
(29:26):
of South America. So yeah, everything I've heard about him
is that he's just he really listens, which is I
think really different from Tavarus, because kind of Tavarus's achilles
Heel was that he had this great strategy, but then
when it didn't quite wasn't a one size fit all
strategy and it wasn't working in the US. He didn't
want to hear that. He's just anybody who wouldn't listened
(29:48):
to him, he would just fire them or get rid
of them. So I think Filosa is very different. He's
very much a listener and you know, taking counsel and
things like that. But I mean, I think they're working
as quickly as they can to kind of right the ship.
Is just that the market has to cooperate with them,
and it's hard. I mean, I just we're heading into
the close of the third quarter auto sales in the
(30:08):
US and once again I'm the data showing that Stilantis
is one of the worst performers. So it just shows
you this is not a quick fix.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
I'm Matt Miller along with Hannah Elliott. You're listening to
Hot Pursuit. We have more coming up after this. Can
I just say before I know that Hannah wants to
get to some of the iconic brands that they own
(30:36):
and beyond Ferrari, they really do like if you're a
lot of people think if you haven't dealt with Alfa Romeo,
then you're not a real car lover, right, And then Maserati.
All the big collectors have a love for Maserati. But
one of the things that they did wrong is they
got too greedy during the pandemic. They took so much
(30:57):
price they raised the prices so much and tried to
turn jeep into this one hundred thousand dollars it's not.
And so that was a big problem for them, right,
They just had so much inventory because they were charging
way too much for everything they were selling.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Yes, and I think, you know, they certainly weren't alone
in raising prices during the pandemic because there was such
a shortage of supply. I mean, the automakers they were
all loving it. They were all talking about, this is great,
like we're not going back to the way things were were.
Speaker 5 (31:28):
You know, this is wonderful. We're making so much money.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
But eventually the market changes, you know, eventually the production
gets back up again, plants open, and things start to normalize,
and then you don't have that pricing power anymore. And
then the other part of it is that, you know,
during the pandemic is when this kind of run of
inflation got triggered and you know, caused the Federal Reserve
to raise interest rates for the highest the highest level.
(31:53):
And I don't know, maybe fifteen year are well over
a decade, so I mean almost my entire adult life,
not give away my age, but we've had like really
low interest rates, and I think that has really served
the auto industry, the American auto industry well ever since
two thousand and nine.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
And I also that an aging lineup also works poorly
with the scenario that you're described.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
For sure, Yes, yes, for sure, So that's an important
point I should mention that too. But basically, yes, Jeep
was made for the for the times of you know,
boom boom times when Americans could splurge and splurge on
credit and get cheap credit to buy the car that
their heart desires. And I just don't think that's the
case anymore. There's a real affordability issue and more people
(32:39):
are leaving the new car market moving to the used
car market than looking for value. Every quarter this year
I look at what are the best selling cars. It's
like the Chevy Tracks or like Jep.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
They had ever heard of it?
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Yeah, the Jeep Compass. I mean, all you know, more
affordable is what people want right now, and that's just
not how Stillandis's lineup was positioned the same time. Yes,
another thing Tavirus did in his kind of drive to
cut costs was he would say the example I talked
about a lot in the story was the Jeep Cherokee.
You know, the big sellers for Jeep have always been
(33:12):
the Wrangler, you know, it's their halo vehicle, and the
Grand cher achainst their top seller. But then you had
the Cherokee, which was kind of middling. It was in
the middle. People felt like the it kind of was
like the weird the length, the wheelbase wasn't quite right,
it was a roominess wasn't quite right. So they made
it in Velvedere, Illinois.
Speaker 5 (33:30):
It was old, it needed to be updated.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
So Tavarius you know, stopped that and said, okay, we're
going to move to Mexico because again he was all
about lower lowering costs. So that was a huge political
you know, kerfuffle. The UAW was not happy about that.
But also instead of saying, okay, well we're going to
continue to make this here until the Mexican plant is
up and running, he just ended it. So then, and
(33:52):
that's right when the market was shifting to people really
want affordability. And then it was like, uh, oh, Jeep
just doesn't have a car there.
Speaker 5 (34:00):
You don't have that.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Either had the Compass, but then the Cherokee was the
next size up and they didn't have anything for like
over two years, so that I mean what you're seeing now,
they've lost so much volume. I was talking to a
dealer in California and he said, you know, we're starting
to feel it in our service and repair business because
there's not as many cars coming back that need to
be serviced because that we've just lost so much volume.
Speaker 5 (34:23):
So it's like, yeah, what.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Can you tell us about Maserati and Alpha Romeo. I mean,
in terms of what is going on with those two brands,
We've heard about Jeep of course, and Chrysler and Dodge
a bit, but Maserati and Alpha just seem to have
fallen off the cliff completely.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Yeah, I mean I think they. Tavares did bring in
one of his executives who had worked with before, a
guy named Larry Dominique, who tried to revive Alpha Romeo,
and he put a lot of effort into it. I
mean I remember seeing all that, you know, the marketing
stuff they were doing. They have the Tanale, the Hybrid,
(35:05):
I mean, they had some really good looking cars. I
don't know, I thought the cars that they were trying
to sell here were nice.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
I just they are also beloved, I mean, even like
the Julia is a great BMW three series competitor, and
the Stelvio had critical success. I mean, people journalists really
love to drive that vehicle. But I suspect that one
of the problems was if you're putting them up against
(35:33):
BMW's there would be a concern among US buyers about
the reliability of the Italian of the Italian cars.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Yeah, well that's you know, quality has been a They're
not the only ones, but yes, quality has been a
chronic concern from.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
For fix it again, Tony, right, fix it.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Again, Tony. They didn't get that nickname for nothing. Yeah,
I know, that's one of Phillis's big priorties now is
trying to fix that. But that's quite a bear. So yeah,
I just say, now, of course you've got tariffs. So
you've got fifteen percent tariffs on important cars from Europe.
So how do you talk about you're already struggling, and
then now what do you do? And then Maserati, I mean,
I feel like as long as I've been on this beat,
(36:13):
which is like nine years, Maserati was always struggling. They
were trying to make it profitable, trying to make it
lose money. I mean, make it make money. I was
just talking to someone yesterday and they said that they
just feel like what Maserati really needs to succeed is
kind of that same kind of innovation and spirit that
Ferrari has. But and also that there's it's a lot
of there's a lot of fried around the Italian brands
(36:35):
of people do things the Italian way, and this is
you know, it's sometimes you got to break some eggs,
I think, to like shake things up, and I feel
like it's hard to do that. At least that was
this person's perspective. Someoney who you know, worked on these brands,
so that's kind of like more of.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
A they need more cylinders and they need to win races,
I think, you know.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Yeah, racing again. Get back to their rooms.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
They're they're going to help, They're getting back into it
and they're they're doing their best, at least from the
from what I'm watching in in in sports, but it's
not going to cut it with the V six. You know,
they they have to have an eight to survive in
a ten or twelve to distinguish themselves.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Gabby is Lapo at all involved on a daily basis.
This is the uh irascible brother of Jows who's really
famous for making headlines in.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Tablet kidnapping himself.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Yeah, but also a military paratrooper, very nice and charming.
I've spoke with him multiple times.
Speaker 5 (37:42):
Yes, I think you know much more about him than
I do.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Character. I'm just curious if he's in you know, active
at all.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
And I did not hear that at all. I mean
I heard he's kind of living a quiet life with
his family in Europe. He's kind of settled down from
a lot of his.
Speaker 5 (38:00):
Younger days.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
He certainly inherited the charisma absolutely from the family John,
you know, like you say, is not charismatic, very reserved.
I mean he's been to your point about him really
caring about Ferrari. He's been at Ferrari events and that
sort of thing. And he's tough to pick out of
a crowd. I mean he's so conservative. Just the blue suit.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
About John Alcon right now.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Yes, yes, yeah, Lapo is the opposite.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
Because Lopo is incredibly colorful.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
And he's got all his grandfather suits.
Speaker 4 (38:30):
And and he didn't he do it for a while
he was doing like custom interiors for Ferraris and maybe
even paint jobs.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Watches. Wow, he does have a design design I think.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
The design and marketing flair. He has a real talent
for that that certainly. Yeah, he's a great personality, but
you know, not involved. I think he's laying low.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (38:54):
I think we I had him in the story and
we took it. We took it out. But tell us, yeah,
tell us the major player.
Speaker 4 (39:01):
Now, tell us about Tim Kiniskus, because I think it's
unfair for me to lay the blame of the death
of the hemy on his doorstep. Right, he probably got
orders from high up, and by all accounts, he is
a muscle car guy. And now they've brought him back, right.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Oh yeah, Well, I think he came back like a
couple of weeks after tavirus got pushed out, so it
didn't take I don't think it was a tough sell
to get him to come back. And I think, you know,
Tip Caniscus. I think he's from upstate New York. He
grew up kind of tinkering with cars in his garage
and then got to start in like working in dealerships
and worked his way up. And he's probably one of
the last, like Sergio Era, kind of just people who've
(39:40):
been there. He spent most of his career at Fiat Chrysler,
and he is I mean, his most famous feet is
he kind of revived the Dodge brand, you know, during
that Sergio era by creating the Brotherhood of Muscle by
you know, taking these platforms, these vehicles that were old
as Methuselah, but he would put these like big souped
up engines in them and uh, like I talk you know,
(40:01):
the Hellcat or the Red Eye or the Demon like
people just love it and they could charge a lot
of money for.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
It, and like grinding ear to ear right now, he.
Speaker 5 (40:09):
Loves that that's made for you.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
So he yes, he is kind I think, you know,
and you say, oh, this happened under his watch, but
I mean he left the company at twenty twenty four
kind of you know, I think silent protests maybe, but
he's back and he's been given He came back to
run the Ram truck brand and he's been you know,
shaking up the line up there. They just recently said
(40:32):
they're not even going to make a fully electric pickup
truck anymore. They're going to focus on this EREV called
the Ram Charger, which is I think throughout the end
of this year. So it's funny Stilanta sometimes like they
kind of relate to the EV wave, which in some
ways I guess was kind of a blessing because you know,
they still have had to invest a lot of money
on EV's that are not selling, and that's very painful.
(40:54):
But they're just canceling stuff. I mean, they recently said
they're not going to do the plug in hybrid Wrangler, Uh,
the four by E Wrangler anymore.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
So popular those four by they're.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
They're like the number one p have seller, but I guess,
you know, it's expensive, and they they're starting to put
these like hybrid engines, like the new Jeep Cherokee starting
with a hybrid. Uh, it's like an engine out of
Europe that's been adapted for the US, they say, but
it's just like a plain vanilla hybrid. There's no plug,
but you know, better fuel economy. So they did that
in the Cherokee. I think they're totally like, you know,
(41:30):
re thinking they're powertrain choices their you know, model lineup.
We're going to really hear a lot more in the
first quarter of next year. That's when the Fellows is
supposed to come out with his like strategy for the company.
But you know, it's just hard because there's not a
lot of clarity. I mean, tariffs negotiations are still going on.
But I think big picture of the whole auto industry
(41:51):
realizes like, man, we got to make more stuff in
the United States, and that is.
Speaker 4 (41:55):
And they've done away with cafe standards or at least
the fines, right, the regular around that is gone, so
they can bring back the HEMI. They have a great
inline six motor, the Hurricane five ten is one of
the variants. They changed the name of the RAM charger
to the RAM REV, so that's the E Rev.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Oh, but I think the RAM really, I think the
RAM Rev was see this was confused. I think it's
some of the confusion that they were trying to eliminate. So
the RAM Rev was the BEV truck, right, and now
they're saying just e Rev, but that one's called RAM Charger.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
No, I don't have to so it's just let me see.
So the b EV truck, you're right, has been canceled.
And I believe now I honestly you only know this
from being in like forums because I'm on all the
Dodge and RAM forums that they've changed the end of
the RAM charger. Now it'll be called the RAM fifteen
hundred rev or the RAM rev.
Speaker 5 (42:45):
Oh you are right. Oh my gosh, look at you.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
Use Revolution Electric whatever.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
I really did know what's going with cars. I just
talked to you guys. You know, I'm just a specifically Okay,
I was thinking it was the Okay, so the charger
name got retired and now it's the RAM fifteen hundred riv.
Speaker 5 (43:03):
Okay, okay, I staying corrected.
Speaker 4 (43:04):
I will say also that I really like the EV
uh Challenger, which is now called a charger.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
They'd really try and confuse you.
Speaker 5 (43:13):
With this stuff, but they really do.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
So let's just finish on this.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
I mean, you are looking to buy a new EV
and you kind of liked it too. What what what
what didn't sell it?
Speaker 3 (43:24):
Or what? What ruined the sale for you at the end?
For the for the Dodge.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Challenger, Oh, it's just really big and heavy. I don't
I'm not like a big, punky, clunky car. I like
like to be feelmore. I mean, I know it's got
a lot of power and everything, but and it did
start to grow on me, like they talk about. There
was all this talk about Oh, I mean you even
mentioned it earlier, like the how do you how does Dodge?
(43:49):
How do you keep the soul of the brand? If
you don't have a roaring you know, HEMI engine inside?
But whatever sound. They've come up with the kind of uh,
you knowsonic chamber, the fret soonic chain. It has this
kind of a perr that at first I was like, oh,
this is absurd, but then I started to it, like,
really grew on me. It gave the car personality.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
You can't turn it off if you if you don't
like it, yeah.
Speaker 5 (44:11):
You can turn it off. So what did it? I
mean at the end of the day.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
When I moved to Detroit, you know, six years ago,
and I had to pick out a car, I said,
oh my gosh, this is just you start to realize
undeniable truths about yourself, Like you just match a certain
profile and like that is what you want and I
just don't know that. I think it's a really fun car,
but I don't know if it's me.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
Well, Gabby, I so appreciate you joining us. You are
one of my very favorite reporters at Bloomberg, so I'm
glad we could get you on the show. And it's
a great I recommend that everybody read it. You can
find it on Bloomberg dot com, of course, or you
can find it if you have it, if you're lucky
enough to have a Bloomberg terminal, and you can just
bio Gabriella Coppola and you can find it there.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
Or you can find me on Gabrielle Copola reports on Instagram.
I have an Instagram, uh, you know, or I share
a lot of the interesting stories I'm doing. You could
follow me there as well. But I really appreciate you
guys and all the actual car knowledge and cred that
you both bring to our I think together we're a fearsome,
fearsome force.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Thank you so much. Our trio awesome.
Speaker 5 (45:15):
Our trio.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
That does it for this week's show. Remember to follow
and subscribe to Bloomberg cop Pursuit on Apple, Spotify and
anywhere else you listen. You can also send us your comments.
We do read them, and we do try to respond
as much as we're able. Email us at hot Pursuit
at Bloomberg dot net.
Speaker 4 (45:36):
And check out Hannah's columns and stories on Bloomberg dot
com and on the Bloomberg Business app. Go there for
car reviews, events, and stories that you won't find anywhere else.
Find it all at Bloomberg dot Com, Slash Pursuits, slash Autos.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
I'm Matt Miller and I'm Hannah Elliott. We'll be back
in your podcast speed again next week.
Speaker 5 (46:01):
Keep
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm Hannah Elliott and.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
I'm Matt Miller, and this is Hot Pursuit. Coming up.
Speaker 4 (00:17):
On today's podcast, we hear about the demise and hopefully
the rebirth of Stilantis as a car maker. We talk
about some car shows that we've gone to are going to.
And Hannah, you have had a couple of trips, one
long and one I think fairly important.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Tell me about your drive to Denver.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
So Magnus and I drove to Denver from LA in
a day's We made it in about fourteen and a
half hours. It's like eleven hundred miles and yeah, I
have to say it was felt pretty good. And we
also drove back two days later, which was actually more difficult.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Feat Well, most importantly, you went there in a nine
to nine to one in your nine nine to one turbo.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Right, yes, nine one one.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Did you have willow in the back?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
And oh, that is the most important thing. We brought willow. Now,
we were going to Denver because it was my mom's
seventieth birthday and we had a little family reunion. Happy
birthday Mom, Happy birthday Mom. Of course we have to
bring Willow with us. She's our little fur baby, and
so we thought driving would be a great idea. And
also we are rather we don't have a lot of
(01:25):
like patients sometimes, so we kind of just were like,
let's just do it in a day. I don't want
to stay somewhere in Grand Junction overnight in some you know,
thirty dollars hotel. So it kind of became, let's just
drive it in a day. You can do it. It's
basically the fifteen to the seventy fifteen sort of changes
into the seventy after Las Vegas. But I have to
say it's such a cool drive, especially when you're heading east.
(01:50):
The clocks change. At one point we went through five
different states, went through a time time zone change, which
bought us an hour basically at night driving over the mountains.
It was great. On the way back, we actually hit
snow in the Rockies sort of near Veil, so we
(02:11):
had all weather, saw rain, saw rainbows, hit snow in
the Rockies on the way back, and it was great.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
I imagine it's a I mean, I think it's a
perfect trip car. I have done a lot of very
long trips in my nine nine to one career, s,
but I didn't have a German shepherd in the back,
and like that's important to mention that Willow is a
German shepherd's.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
She tucks herself right in. It's kind of like her
little cubby and like a lot of dogs, she actually
likes feeling like she's in a little cave. She's create trained,
she feels safe and comfortable, so she just tucks herself in.
We actually put a little lambskin rug over the back
seat so she would have, you know, a smell of home.
And we stopped four times now on the way out there.
(02:57):
We actually stopped at one point to add coolant because
we got a coolant warning, an engine warning about overheating.
And that is a little lesson where we had taken
the car to get prepped before this trip to have
an oil change, and just assumed that the folks who
changed the oil would have also topped off the other
(03:20):
fluids in the car. Well they didn't, so we actually
made an unexpected stop to add some cool into the car.
But that was fine. And yeah, Willow is so calm.
She's the best road dog. She loves it, thank goodness.
She likes riding in cars. Matt, you went to the
Turtle Invitational last week.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Right, I did, I did so.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
The Turtle Invitational is a car show that my buddy
Philip Richter puts on in Bedford and it's become bigger
and bigger every year. This year he teamed up with
sixteen hundred vloche which is the huge, I think, the
biggest bring a trailer seller. And it happens to also
be up there in New York City or sorry in
(04:02):
New York State. And he had some really not only
some amazing cars and there were a ton of them,
but some really cool people. Wayne Karni was there, who
does the Barnfind Show. He had Jonathan Whitmer there, his
CEO of the REVS Institute, Ken Gross was there, he's
not a motive historian. Alex von Moser was there. He
manages vc V s OC which is a very special
(04:27):
old cars which is a europe like that car dealer.
And so a lot of like industry greats, especially in
terms of collecting.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Right, because these guys are all big collectors.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
What was the theme of the show. Was there a
certain bent to.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
It there in terms of like judging, there were a
bunch of different categories because Phil loves Bruno Saco and
these that era of Mercedes Benzes. There were there were
ton of those. There were a bunch of Ferrari Dinos,
(05:04):
more than I've ever seen gathered in one place. There
were a bunch of Shelby cars. There were there was
a big collection of V twelve motor cars. But it
wasn't like, oh, and there were a bunch of fire
trucks if you're into that, but like old ones, old
vintage fire trucks. But it wasn't like everything had to
be perfect, you know, you didn't need like the exact
(05:27):
right end cap on your steering stabilizer, like like you
might at Pebble Beach. So it was cars I think
that have been driven and cars that people are still driving,
and cars that have a story more than have been
perfectly restored.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
And was this free to anyone who wanted to come, No, you.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
Had to buy tickets. And there there were a ton
of people. It's on Phillip's horse farm. So Philip is
also like an Olympic level show jumper and he has
a big horse farm in Bedford. His family's been in
the business for I should say he's a.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Wealth manager as well. At Hollowbrook.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
We've had Philip Rickterer on the show before, but it
was just one of those Friday night. There was a
panel discussion about collecting cars, and I just am so
happy and I feel like I'm in my element when
I'm surrounded by a bunch of people that just want
to talk about cars. And I get that feeling sometimes
in Detroit, and it was like that. I didn't want
(06:24):
to leave on Friday night after this dinner, delicious dinner
and panel discussion. He also collects and restores old BMW motorcycles,
so there were a bunch of guys with like cool
old beamers there at Old Airhouse and it was.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
A great time.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
I really they only happened every other year, So now
I'm looking forward to two years from now, but I
can't wait to go back to this to this car
show again.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
That's great. Did you bring the family? Is this a
family thing?
Speaker 4 (06:54):
I brought my daughters and my neighbor Eric brought his
kids as well, and we drove up there in a
brand new Rolls Royce Ghost, which was pretty amazing.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
You are moving up in the world, my friends.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
Yeah, Jerry Spawn was in here last week, the head
of Comms for Rolls Royce Motor Cars North America, and
he was kind enough to lend me this car for
the car show. Everybody there, of course wanted to see it.
It's you know, it's not a vintage car, obviously, it's
brand new, but it still has the big V twelve.
And it was mustique blues, this gorgeous shade of blue
(07:30):
that almost looks green and some sunlight. And it had
a fabric interior, not a leather interior, with kind of
like a.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Chain link pattern and some s's on it. I don't
know why.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
How was the fabric with kids?
Speaker 3 (07:46):
I thought it was fantastic.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
I didn't let them spill anything on it, but I
did put car seats in the back, and I felt
much less guilty about how I would have felt where leather.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Uh oh, you're saying the fabric was actually more resisted.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
I think.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
I mean it was like a bamboo based fabric. It
was like a ten thousand dollars option. The whole thing
was a four hundred and ninety five thousand dollars ghost.
So it's gotta be one of the most expensive cars
I've ever driven, you know, other than a Bugatti.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
And it was pretty great.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
I will say the new Rolls Royce Ghost is tuned
to be even waftier than the ones I remember from.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
You know, twenty eleven twenty twelve.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Those were like sportier and more I mean not not sporty,
but more of a driver's car.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
And this is more of a floater.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
And also it has like giant I don't know what
the diameter was, but like twenty four's, you know, in
terms of the wheels, so tiny sidewall, which then counteracts
like if I have a super wafty, floaty car, I
don't want to feel it when I hit a pothole, right,
And if you have no sidewall on giant rims, every
(09:00):
time you hit a pothole, it's terrifying feel it. So
I was thinking like, if I'd got weird spec this car,
I would put like twenty inches twenty inch wheels on
it and big sidewall because you want to soak up
the horrible roads of America, or.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Just something in the middle like twenty one or twenty two.
I mean twenty four seems insane.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Well I don't know what they were, but there it might.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Have been twenty twenty two or twenty three.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
You you picked up your rolls. Royce was a little
bit older, and you've had some issues.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
I do. I have had some issues, but I've got
one running. I've got the Silver Spur running, which is
I'm happy to report. It was a simple radiator thing.
This is not the car that crapped out on me
last week. This is a different car.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Oh, I see that you have various cars in and
out of shop.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Yes, it was leaking a mysterious fluid. So that has
been actually replaced and repaired. And I will admit, in
the interest of time, we took it to some random
guy in downtown.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Indy, an indie mechanic.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Yes, so we'll call him in Indy. This is literally
next to the tow yard where a long time ago
I had a Fiat Toad and was shaken down for
about five hundred bucks in cash. This is a place
I would not feel comfortable being alone. Anyway, we had
took the rules there, and three hundred and fifty dollars later,
it's fine. So I drove it to day to work fantas.
(10:25):
So that's that's a happy ending to that story.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
What car show do you have coming up? And what
will you take?
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Okay, so on Saturday, there's this very cool Italian car
show called Mashini Shima, and this is the third year
that it has happened. It is put on by my
good friend Dorian, who is the owner of DV Mechanics.
He is a very famous and accomplished Alpha Romeo mechanic
(10:52):
who manages basically all of Southern California's and some of
Northern California's Alpha Romeo Vintage Alfa Romeo lineup. He preps
cars for racing. I saw him in Monterey prepping cars
for some great races up there at Laguna. But anyway, Dorian,
(11:12):
Dorian and some of his friends are putting on this
Mashinishima car show which is all about Italian cars. They're
also Italian motorcycles. They will kind the best kind. They
will be serving Italian espressos and spritss and there will
be cocktails by one of my favorite bars, Bar Henry,
(11:33):
which is in Silver Lake, so or kind of Echo Park,
I guess, but it'll be fun. It's on Saturday, it's
downtown at the Rolling Greens. Tickets are a little bit expensive.
They're fifty three dollars, which is rather expensive for a
local car show, but I have. I have been before
and it is a really fun day. And I'm also
(11:53):
happy to say dogs are allowed, which is a very
big thing for me too. Children not allowed.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
What car?
Speaker 3 (11:59):
No, just kidding, what what car were you? Are you
gonna show any cars?
Speaker 5 (12:03):
No?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
No, no, you know, this show is actually about eight
hundred meters from the garage where we keep our cars,
so we will be walking. Although I do admit it
was a matter of some discussion last night where I
was saying we should drive something fun just so we
can show it and other people can see it, and
(12:24):
my significant other thought, why would we drive and fight
for parking when we can literally walk there?
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Fairpoint, fair point.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
So I might have won, I might have lost out
on that.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
Actually, So this is a great segue to our to
our our interview today because Alfa Romeo is such an
important brand to car lovers, and to be honest, a
lot of the guys at this that I was talking
to at the Turtle were Maserati lovers as well, and
our collectors. You know, I think Maserati has won the
(12:53):
Pebble Beach concord alegance more often than Ferrari. In fact,
I know that because I think Ferrari's all. We won
the Concord Elegance one time.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
But Mercedes has the most wins.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
I do know that Mercedes right is up there. I
feel like there's another brand that is tied with Mercedes.
In any case, Malaradi and Alfa Romeo are not the
biggest problems for Stilantis, and we're going to get to
the disaster that happened there and our hopes.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
For the future. Next this is b.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
We are very honored to have one of our best reporters,
Gabriella Coppola, with us out of Detroit. She covers obviously
the automotive industry for Bloomberg News, and she's writing about
one of my favorite subjects today, and that is mopar
or no car.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
I meaning you have to either have mopar or you
don't want it at all. Is that what you're saying.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Yeah, that's a saying that I actually picked up from Magnus.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
I don't I don't know.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
It's an old famous heart. Yeah, oh, I like that,
that's what they say.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
But I find myself tending to love of the Big Three,
like I tend towards Dodge.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
I guess it's because of their.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
Sort of brute strength, you know, the big naturally aspirated
motors and the kind of out there muscle car design.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
I just I'm into it.
Speaker 5 (14:28):
Everything that got killed. Yeah, let's come back.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah, I might be coming back. I mean, Gabby, your
story is called Houstilantis became Global Auto's cautionary tale, and
it starts with this vignette of a commercial, you know,
with a voice over by Harrison Ford talking about the
freedom of choosing a gas guzzler versus an ev kind
(14:52):
of what Matt is alluding to. Can you just talk
us through how this how you started formulating this story idea,
what you were seeing, and take us to your entry
point that commercial, how you yeah data and where you
went from there.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Well, you know, this story, as many BUSINESSWEK stories are,
had a long gestation period. So I would say the
seed of it started last fall, like the fall of
twenty twenty four, when it just became really apparent how
much Troublestlantis was in. They had, you know, had this
shocking profit shortfall and Jeep, which was always the golden goose,
(15:32):
you know, the thing that every CEO would always kind
of tend and care for and wanted to you know,
increase its riches. Was just had lost a ton of
market share and things were looking so bad that I
said to my editors, like, we should do a story
on how this guy, Carlos Tavaris destroyed the Jeep brand,
like literally one of the most valuable.
Speaker 5 (15:51):
Car brands in the world. Yes, an icon.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
And then before I could finish even write like a page,
they fired the CEO. So that was like, you know,
early December. Yes, so then we're like, okay, cool, cool, Well,
we'll just keep writing this story and then we'll you know,
we'll peg it to whoever the new CEO is.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
And really that firing validated your idea you were, It's
almost like you saw it coming.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Yeah, although I feel like I don't feel like I
was only I feel like any good auto reporter who's
paying attention to their beat could see that wasn't that was,
you know, But actually no, I think there was still
a surprise because the belief was that Tavarus would serve
out the end of his term, which would be it
would have been the end of next year, so it
was kind of like, let's just get him to kind
of change course or like kind of course correct or
(16:42):
modify things. Have been, then he can stay, but I
don't like, I don't want to get ahead of myself.
So anyway, we were waiting for the successor to Carlos Tavarus,
who just for the audience who doesn't know, Carlos Tavarus
is from Portugal, but he was kind of educated and
built his career in France working for Nissan. He was
a protegee of Carlos going and up until he became
(17:03):
the CEO of Stalantis. He was seen as kind of
a turnaround wiz. He turned Pougeot around the Opal brand
in Europe, so he had a lot of credibility coming
into this job. So once he left, we were like, okay,
we'll pegget to the new CEO and surely that'll happen
in January or February. And then it was March, and
(17:25):
then it was April and there was still no successor.
And John Elkan who is the scion of the Annielli family,
which was the kind of billionaire dynasty there like the
Kennedys of Italy.
Speaker 5 (17:36):
His great great grandfather.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Founded Fiat in eighteen ninety nine and Turin, he was
a contemporary of Henry Ford, went to visit Henry Ford,
you know, took inspiration from Henry Ford. So Elcan was
kind of left holding the bag and it just as
the time wore on, it just seemed like, gosh, does
nobody want this job? And so that kind of became
the story in addition to the Jeeps story. It was
(18:00):
like because the way I think about it is, if
you look at the global auto industry right now, it's
kind of like hunger games. You know, we're going through already,
electrification was kind of challenging the business model, you know,
having to totally switch technologies. Nobody can quite predict the
pace of adoption and varies by region.
Speaker 5 (18:19):
That's a really tough problem.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Then you take you know, automated driving, self driving, the
investment that that requires. Then you take all this sort
of new geopolitical tension, tariffs going up, and then you
look at the rise of the Chinese auto industry and
now they've become a fully formed, you know, competitive juggernaut
in the world that's trying to you know, export cars
(18:41):
around the world. Those are a lot of pressures for
any automaker, and.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
You have the competing national interest right because oh yeah,
el Con when he was I guess interim CEO had
to do this tour where he like promised the French
he wasn't in the cut production there, and obviously he's
not allowed to cut production in Italy, and then he
has to kiss up to Trump and say he's not
going to cut here, so they're left with a ton
(19:05):
of overcapacity.
Speaker 5 (19:07):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
That's exactly right, Matt, And like I feel like I
was just That's what really got me was like what
I became so intrigued with is like, oh my gosh,
running this company is not just running a car company.
It's like, like we say in the stories, like the
United Nations and Tavaris had like burned so many bridges
around the world that el Can just had to do
this massive diplomatic push clean up effort and try to
(19:28):
run the company when it was in a really rough
spot and try to find someone to take this thankless
job that nobody seemed to want. The company will say
they have a number of good candidates, and so that's
what they say about it. I'm sure at the right
price you could have a lot of candidates. But the
question is, like do you want to pay how much
you have to pay to get someone to do this?
Speaker 5 (19:45):
Job.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
So that was kind of how it evolved into what
it became, which was partially a story about the you know,
the fall of the G brand, and then also about
this company with all these self inflicted wounds, trying to
heal itself, and then while it's trying to get its
house in order, then Trump comes in and starts shaking
(20:08):
up the you know, economy with teriffs and all those
kind of things.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
By the way, it wasn't just I want to point out,
it wasn't just the Jeep brand that was ruined. For example,
Chrysler at one point and maybe still only has one product, right,
just the minivan and that's all they have. And also Dodge,
which had made such incredible headway with the with the
(20:33):
Challenger and the Charger, like they're such popular vehicles, out
selling Mustang and Camaro. For some reason unbeknownst to anyone,
Tim Kiniskus was like, this is the end. We're not
going to make the six point four liter Hemi anymore
in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Like why would you act that motor?
Speaker 4 (20:52):
It's like, I if the Jeep is an iconic car brand,
this is the most iconic motor in all of automotive
what other motor does anybody know by name?
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Maybe the coyote?
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Right, so the head right, he was killed and yeah,
with no real explanation. And then they wanted to replace
that with an EV, which is the exact wrong audience.
So they killed Dodge, they killed Chrysler, they were suffocating
Jeep and then ram Ram has had a similar problem.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Right, well, and that's just the US brands. And I
just want to say on the hemy, I don't think
it's a total mystery. I think that a lot of
this was driven by regulation and needing to comply with
tighter fuel economy rules. And you know when carmakers when
they roll out their models, they have to do this
very complex calculation of okay, it's you know, it's the
(21:44):
whole fleet, the corporate average fuel economy for your entire fleet.
It's not just that one model. So if you want
to sell hemmis, you got to sell some evs over here.
Speaker 5 (21:51):
You know.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
That's how it was pre Trump. But I think that
was also a decision by Tavarus. You know that he
you know, Chrysler, I'm going to call them Chrysler, yeah,
source Atlantis. You know, they have always been the laggard
in Detroit in terms of fuel economy, and they've paid
billions of dollars and fines or you know, bought credits
from Tesla, and you know, maybe some of the japan
other you know, car companies that were in compliance. So
(22:16):
I think Tavarus, who is like very focused on cutting
costs and the optimizing profit, was like, why are we
paying our competitors, Like why are we just spending all
this money subsidizing Tesla? Like We're not doing that anymore.
Let's make our own ebs, which on paper, it sounds
like a very rational and you know decision, But what
I don't think he appreciated was like, uh, that's what
(22:37):
consumers want in America, Like that's the American market. And
the thing that was so telling was that you didn't
see GM and Ford killing their performance engines during the
same period, even as they were investing electric vehicles and
you know, going all in, perhaps too much. So that
just goes to show you that some of this was, yes,
regulatory driven, but some of it was also you know,
(22:59):
just bad choices, bad decisions.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
And it does seem like John Elkin personally believed that
he wants to be I think he used the phrase,
or an analyst use the phrase pistons and pixels that
John Elkin does have this vision that he wants to
like move everything very far into the future. And tell
me if that's a wrong read of it, but it
(23:23):
does seem like he too, on a personal level, wanted
to just push everything really far forward technologically.
Speaker 5 (23:33):
Yeah, I think.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
I mean, to be clear, I've never met John Alcannon.
He declined to be interviewed for this article. Really, yes,
shockingly nobody wanted to talk to me. But they're in
an awkward They're in a rough stage right now. You know,
you want to talk when you have a good story
to tell, and they're still trying to work through all
these problems. But I do think it's true. And this
is based on reporting, you know, talking to people who
(23:55):
know him well, who've worked with him. I mean, people
will tell you he's a car guy.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
It's true.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
He's not somebody who loves car I mean, but I
mean I think what really moves him and excites him
is technology and innovation. And if you look at Ferrari,
you know which was spun out, you know that's also
you know his ex or his the kind of investment
fund that controls all of the Annielli family sort of
you know investments. You know, he's very passionate about that
(24:23):
because when you look at Ferrari, that brand is strong.
I mean obviously it's very sexy. Look, you know, supercar,
luxury brand. But there's a lot of innovation happening there,
and I think that's what excites him, whether it's in
a car or you know, mobility or medical diagnostics or whatever.
I do think he is excited by that. So I
think that, yes, Andy, but you can't argue with what
(24:46):
he's doing with his money. It's his job to be
the steward of the family fortune, which I have to
look at the story again, remember how many billions they're worth.
But I mean he's responsible for like one hundred or
so people like they you know, live off of that. Yes,
they yell. A family steak in Exor is worth about
ten billion euros. So his job is to make sure
(25:08):
that they live to fight another day, you know, to
keep growing and making smart investments. But I do think
he has a vision of kind of being a patient investor.
He's not just looking for a quick you know, pump
and dump or you know, you know quick ROI like
he does want to invest in like strategically important industries
and things that are going to benefit society. I think
(25:28):
that's all true, but he also has to, you know,
look at the hard facts, like the mass market auto
industry is under a lot of pressure right now. So
if you look at what he's been doing with his money, yes,
he has been you know, he's the still the steak
in Stilantis, you know, is getting smaller, and he's investing
more in other you know, tech. He's on the board
of Meta now, so clearly like he's very focused on tech.
(25:52):
But I think that you know, they said this. I
obviously was in a lot of touch with his PR
people during the reporting of all this, and you know,
they say, look, there's he's gonna stand behind it. He's
never not stood behind the company, so and they did.
I don't want to speculate on what he's going to do,
but they you know this, they got a lot of
problems to.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Solve, and they did actually find a replacement for Tavars,
someone internal, which is interesting. They found their unicorn, or
they're hoping it's their unicorn.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
I don't think what Dixie's a unicorn, but I think
he's a very smart combatant, very well liked person, and
by all accounts, he's you know, moving very quickly and decisively.
Speaker 5 (26:33):
I mean, it's just.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
That there's yes, sorry, Antonio Philos.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
Name, and I mean the guy has been with the
company for many years, like even a couple of decades, right,
and he and he learned at the hand of Sergio.
And I don't think we can leave out of the
story how important Sergio was to el CON's initial success
with Fiat Chrysler.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
And how I mean we.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
Talk about superstar car CEOs, right, there's le Ayahcoca, there's
Alan Molalley, there's Carlos Gone. You know, obviously fallen star,
but still he was like a rock star. And Tavares
also kind of a falling star. But Sergio was up
there in the pantheon of the great. Absolutely, so I
(27:21):
think I think he's he's such an amazing character and
he touched so many people that his connection to Filosa
has to give you some confidence, right.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Yes, absolutely, I mean I think a lot of what
they're doing is kind of trying to I mean the world,
it's amazing how much Sergio and just for people don't
know Sergio Marcioni. He worked in some of the companies
in the XRA portfolio, and Elkin kind of plucked him
out of obscurity and made him the CEO of Fiat.
In June two thousand and four, he became CEO of
(27:52):
Fiat and he basically engineered this amazing deal where he
kind of got when christ Or went bankrupt in two
thousand and nine, h Sergio got Obama to agree to
a deal to let Fiat and Chrysler merge, and he
kind of got an amazing deal. He kind of got
it for a song because he knew that Fiat needed
(28:13):
a footprint outside of Italy and outside of Europe, and
at the time, Chrysler was thinking, we really need small
cars because you know, gas prices were up, the industry
was in shambles. So he not only did he you know,
achieved that merger, but then he just revived the Jeep
brand He's set. He kind of really instilled this kind
of mentality of like understanding valuing the brands that sorry
(28:38):
Fiat Chrysler had. He spun out Ferrari, which made a
lot of money for Elkcan and you know, for investors,
but he kind of just did things through his brilliance
and sheer force of will and charisma and savvy and
deal making that you know, the average human probably would
not have been able to pull off.
Speaker 5 (28:56):
And you know there's some yes.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
The six h smoking six cell phone guys.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
Workaholic. Yeah he spoke.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Yeah, so yeah, So Filosa was a protege of him.
Filosa is one of his guys. Filosa is Italian, but
he spent most of his career in South America and
Argentina and Brazil. He started out as a plant rat
in Spain, I think, or somewhere in Europe, and then
he got sent to South America and kind of rose
up the chain managing Argentina and Brazil. He became head
(29:26):
of South America. So yeah, everything I've heard about him
is that he's just he really listens, which is I
think really different from Tavarus, because kind of Tavarus's achilles
Heel was that he had this great strategy, but then
when it didn't quite wasn't a one size fit all
strategy and it wasn't working in the US. He didn't
want to hear that. He's just anybody who wouldn't listened
(29:48):
to him, he would just fire them or get rid
of them. So I think Filosa is very different. He's
very much a listener and you know, taking counsel and
things like that. But I mean, I think they're working
as quickly as they can to kind of right the ship.
Is just that the market has to cooperate with them,
and it's hard. I mean, I just we're heading into
the close of the third quarter auto sales in the
(30:08):
US and once again I'm the data showing that Stilantis
is one of the worst performers. So it just shows
you this is not a quick fix.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
I'm Matt Miller along with Hannah Elliott. You're listening to
Hot Pursuit. We have more coming up after this. Can
I just say before I know that Hannah wants to
get to some of the iconic brands that they own
(30:36):
and beyond Ferrari, they really do like if you're a
lot of people think if you haven't dealt with Alfa Romeo,
then you're not a real car lover, right, And then Maserati.
All the big collectors have a love for Maserati. But
one of the things that they did wrong is they
got too greedy during the pandemic. They took so much
(30:57):
price they raised the prices so much and tried to
turn jeep into this one hundred thousand dollars it's not.
And so that was a big problem for them, right,
They just had so much inventory because they were charging
way too much for everything they were selling.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Yes, and I think, you know, they certainly weren't alone
in raising prices during the pandemic because there was such
a shortage of supply. I mean, the automakers they were
all loving it. They were all talking about, this is great,
like we're not going back to the way things were were.
Speaker 5 (31:28):
You know, this is wonderful. We're making so much money.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
But eventually the market changes, you know, eventually the production
gets back up again, plants open, and things start to normalize,
and then you don't have that pricing power anymore. And
then the other part of it is that, you know,
during the pandemic is when this kind of run of
inflation got triggered and you know, caused the Federal Reserve
to raise interest rates for the highest the highest level.
(31:53):
And I don't know, maybe fifteen year are well over
a decade, so I mean almost my entire adult life,
not give away my age, but we've had like really
low interest rates, and I think that has really served
the auto industry, the American auto industry well ever since
two thousand and nine.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
And I also that an aging lineup also works poorly
with the scenario that you're described.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
For sure, Yes, yes, for sure, So that's an important
point I should mention that too. But basically, yes, Jeep
was made for the for the times of you know,
boom boom times when Americans could splurge and splurge on
credit and get cheap credit to buy the car that
their heart desires. And I just don't think that's the
case anymore. There's a real affordability issue and more people
(32:39):
are leaving the new car market moving to the used
car market than looking for value. Every quarter this year
I look at what are the best selling cars. It's
like the Chevy Tracks or like Jep.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
They had ever heard of it?
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Yeah, the Jeep Compass. I mean, all you know, more
affordable is what people want right now, and that's just
not how Stillandis's lineup was positioned the same time. Yes,
another thing Tavirus did in his kind of drive to
cut costs was he would say the example I talked
about a lot in the story was the Jeep Cherokee.
You know, the big sellers for Jeep have always been
(33:12):
the Wrangler, you know, it's their halo vehicle, and the
Grand cher achainst their top seller. But then you had
the Cherokee, which was kind of middling. It was in
the middle. People felt like the it kind of was
like the weird the length, the wheelbase wasn't quite right,
it was a roominess wasn't quite right. So they made
it in Velvedere, Illinois.
Speaker 5 (33:30):
It was old, it needed to be updated.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
So Tavarius you know, stopped that and said, okay, we're
going to move to Mexico because again he was all
about lower lowering costs. So that was a huge political
you know, kerfuffle. The UAW was not happy about that.
But also instead of saying, okay, well we're going to
continue to make this here until the Mexican plant is
up and running, he just ended it. So then, and
(33:52):
that's right when the market was shifting to people really
want affordability. And then it was like, uh, oh, Jeep
just doesn't have a car there.
Speaker 5 (34:00):
You don't have that.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Either had the Compass, but then the Cherokee was the
next size up and they didn't have anything for like
over two years, so that I mean what you're seeing now,
they've lost so much volume. I was talking to a
dealer in California and he said, you know, we're starting
to feel it in our service and repair business because
there's not as many cars coming back that need to
be serviced because that we've just lost so much volume.
Speaker 5 (34:23):
So it's like, yeah, what.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Can you tell us about Maserati and Alpha Romeo. I mean,
in terms of what is going on with those two brands,
We've heard about Jeep of course, and Chrysler and Dodge
a bit, but Maserati and Alpha just seem to have
fallen off the cliff completely.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Yeah, I mean I think they. Tavares did bring in
one of his executives who had worked with before, a
guy named Larry Dominique, who tried to revive Alpha Romeo,
and he put a lot of effort into it. I
mean I remember seeing all that, you know, the marketing
stuff they were doing. They have the Tanale, the Hybrid,
(35:05):
I mean, they had some really good looking cars. I
don't know, I thought the cars that they were trying
to sell here were nice.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
I just they are also beloved, I mean, even like
the Julia is a great BMW three series competitor, and
the Stelvio had critical success. I mean, people journalists really
love to drive that vehicle. But I suspect that one
of the problems was if you're putting them up against
(35:33):
BMW's there would be a concern among US buyers about
the reliability of the Italian of the Italian cars.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Yeah, well that's you know, quality has been a They're
not the only ones, but yes, quality has been a
chronic concern from.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
For fix it again, Tony, right, fix it.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Again, Tony. They didn't get that nickname for nothing. Yeah,
I know, that's one of Phillis's big priorties now is
trying to fix that. But that's quite a bear. So yeah,
I just say, now, of course you've got tariffs. So
you've got fifteen percent tariffs on important cars from Europe.
So how do you talk about you're already struggling, and
then now what do you do? And then Maserati, I mean,
I feel like as long as I've been on this beat,
(36:13):
which is like nine years, Maserati was always struggling. They
were trying to make it profitable, trying to make it
lose money. I mean, make it make money. I was
just talking to someone yesterday and they said that they
just feel like what Maserati really needs to succeed is
kind of that same kind of innovation and spirit that
Ferrari has. But and also that there's it's a lot
of there's a lot of fried around the Italian brands
(36:35):
of people do things the Italian way, and this is
you know, it's sometimes you got to break some eggs,
I think, to like shake things up, and I feel
like it's hard to do that. At least that was
this person's perspective. Someoney who you know, worked on these brands,
so that's kind of like more of.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
A they need more cylinders and they need to win races,
I think, you know.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Yeah, racing again. Get back to their rooms.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
They're they're going to help, They're getting back into it
and they're they're doing their best, at least from the
from what I'm watching in in in sports, but it's
not going to cut it with the V six. You know,
they they have to have an eight to survive in
a ten or twelve to distinguish themselves.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Gabby is Lapo at all involved on a daily basis.
This is the uh irascible brother of Jows who's really
famous for making headlines in.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Tablet kidnapping himself.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Yeah, but also a military paratrooper, very nice and charming.
I've spoke with him multiple times.
Speaker 5 (37:42):
Yes, I think you know much more about him than
I do.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Character. I'm just curious if he's in you know, active
at all.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
And I did not hear that at all. I mean
I heard he's kind of living a quiet life with
his family in Europe. He's kind of settled down from
a lot of his.
Speaker 5 (38:00):
Younger days.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
He certainly inherited the charisma absolutely from the family John,
you know, like you say, is not charismatic, very reserved.
I mean he's been to your point about him really
caring about Ferrari. He's been at Ferrari events and that
sort of thing. And he's tough to pick out of
a crowd. I mean he's so conservative. Just the blue suit.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
About John Alcon right now.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Yes, yes, yeah, Lapo is the opposite.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
Because Lopo is incredibly colorful.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
And he's got all his grandfather suits.
Speaker 4 (38:30):
And and he didn't he do it for a while
he was doing like custom interiors for Ferraris and maybe
even paint jobs.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Watches. Wow, he does have a design design I think.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
The design and marketing flair. He has a real talent
for that that certainly. Yeah, he's a great personality, but
you know, not involved. I think he's laying low.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (38:54):
I think we I had him in the story and
we took it. We took it out. But tell us, yeah,
tell us the major player.
Speaker 4 (39:01):
Now, tell us about Tim Kiniskus, because I think it's
unfair for me to lay the blame of the death
of the hemy on his doorstep. Right, he probably got
orders from high up, and by all accounts, he is
a muscle car guy. And now they've brought him back, right.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Oh yeah, Well, I think he came back like a
couple of weeks after tavirus got pushed out, so it
didn't take I don't think it was a tough sell
to get him to come back. And I think, you know,
Tip Caniscus. I think he's from upstate New York. He
grew up kind of tinkering with cars in his garage
and then got to start in like working in dealerships
and worked his way up. And he's probably one of
the last, like Sergio Era, kind of just people who've
(39:40):
been there. He spent most of his career at Fiat Chrysler,
and he is I mean, his most famous feet is
he kind of revived the Dodge brand, you know, during
that Sergio era by creating the Brotherhood of Muscle by
you know, taking these platforms, these vehicles that were old
as Methuselah, but he would put these like big souped
up engines in them and uh, like I talk you know,
(40:01):
the Hellcat or the Red Eye or the Demon like
people just love it and they could charge a lot
of money for.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
It, and like grinding ear to ear right now, he.
Speaker 5 (40:09):
Loves that that's made for you.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
So he yes, he is kind I think, you know,
and you say, oh, this happened under his watch, but
I mean he left the company at twenty twenty four
kind of you know, I think silent protests maybe, but
he's back and he's been given He came back to
run the Ram truck brand and he's been you know,
shaking up the line up there. They just recently said
(40:32):
they're not even going to make a fully electric pickup
truck anymore. They're going to focus on this EREV called
the Ram Charger, which is I think throughout the end
of this year. So it's funny Stilanta sometimes like they
kind of relate to the EV wave, which in some
ways I guess was kind of a blessing because you know,
they still have had to invest a lot of money
on EV's that are not selling, and that's very painful.
(40:54):
But they're just canceling stuff. I mean, they recently said
they're not going to do the plug in hybrid Wrangler, Uh,
the four by E Wrangler anymore.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
So popular those four by they're.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
They're like the number one p have seller, but I guess,
you know, it's expensive, and they they're starting to put
these like hybrid engines, like the new Jeep Cherokee starting
with a hybrid. Uh, it's like an engine out of
Europe that's been adapted for the US, they say, but
it's just like a plain vanilla hybrid. There's no plug,
but you know, better fuel economy. So they did that
in the Cherokee. I think they're totally like, you know,
(41:30):
re thinking they're powertrain choices their you know, model lineup.
We're going to really hear a lot more in the
first quarter of next year. That's when the Fellows is
supposed to come out with his like strategy for the company.
But you know, it's just hard because there's not a
lot of clarity. I mean, tariffs negotiations are still going on.
But I think big picture of the whole auto industry
(41:51):
realizes like, man, we got to make more stuff in
the United States, and that is.
Speaker 4 (41:55):
And they've done away with cafe standards or at least
the fines, right, the regular around that is gone, so
they can bring back the HEMI. They have a great
inline six motor, the Hurricane five ten is one of
the variants. They changed the name of the RAM charger
to the RAM REV, so that's the E Rev.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Oh, but I think the RAM really, I think the
RAM Rev was see this was confused. I think it's
some of the confusion that they were trying to eliminate. So
the RAM Rev was the BEV truck, right, and now
they're saying just e Rev, but that one's called RAM Charger.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
No, I don't have to so it's just let me see.
So the b EV truck, you're right, has been canceled.
And I believe now I honestly you only know this
from being in like forums because I'm on all the
Dodge and RAM forums that they've changed the end of
the RAM charger. Now it'll be called the RAM fifteen
hundred rev or the RAM rev.
Speaker 5 (42:45):
Oh you are right. Oh my gosh, look at you.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
Use Revolution Electric whatever.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
I really did know what's going with cars. I just
talked to you guys. You know, I'm just a specifically Okay,
I was thinking it was the Okay, so the charger
name got retired and now it's the RAM fifteen hundred riv.
Speaker 5 (43:03):
Okay, okay, I staying corrected.
Speaker 4 (43:04):
I will say also that I really like the EV
uh Challenger, which is now called a charger.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
They'd really try and confuse you.
Speaker 5 (43:13):
With this stuff, but they really do.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
So let's just finish on this.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
I mean, you are looking to buy a new EV
and you kind of liked it too. What what what
what didn't sell it?
Speaker 3 (43:24):
Or what? What ruined the sale for you at the end?
For the for the Dodge.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Challenger, Oh, it's just really big and heavy. I don't
I'm not like a big, punky, clunky car. I like
like to be feelmore. I mean, I know it's got
a lot of power and everything, but and it did
start to grow on me, like they talk about. There
was all this talk about Oh, I mean you even
mentioned it earlier, like the how do you how does Dodge?
(43:49):
How do you keep the soul of the brand? If
you don't have a roaring you know, HEMI engine inside?
But whatever sound. They've come up with the kind of uh,
you knowsonic chamber, the fret soonic chain. It has this
kind of a perr that at first I was like, oh,
this is absurd, but then I started to it, like,
really grew on me. It gave the car personality.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
You can't turn it off if you if you don't
like it, yeah.
Speaker 5 (44:11):
You can turn it off. So what did it? I
mean at the end of the day.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
When I moved to Detroit, you know, six years ago,
and I had to pick out a car, I said,
oh my gosh, this is just you start to realize
undeniable truths about yourself, Like you just match a certain
profile and like that is what you want and I
just don't know that. I think it's a really fun car,
but I don't know if it's me.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
Well, Gabby, I so appreciate you joining us. You are
one of my very favorite reporters at Bloomberg, so I'm
glad we could get you on the show. And it's
a great I recommend that everybody read it. You can
find it on Bloomberg dot com, of course, or you
can find it if you have it, if you're lucky
enough to have a Bloomberg terminal, and you can just
bio Gabriella Coppola and you can find it there.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
Or you can find me on Gabrielle Copola reports on Instagram.
I have an Instagram, uh, you know, or I share
a lot of the interesting stories I'm doing. You could
follow me there as well. But I really appreciate you
guys and all the actual car knowledge and cred that
you both bring to our I think together we're a fearsome,
fearsome force.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Thank you so much. Our trio awesome.
Speaker 5 (45:15):
Our trio.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
That does it for this week's show. Remember to follow
and subscribe to Bloomberg cop Pursuit on Apple, Spotify and
anywhere else you listen. You can also send us your comments.
We do read them, and we do try to respond
as much as we're able. Email us at hot Pursuit
at Bloomberg dot net.
Speaker 4 (45:36):
And check out Hannah's columns and stories on Bloomberg dot
com and on the Bloomberg Business app. Go there for
car reviews, events, and stories that you won't find anywhere else.
Find it all at Bloomberg dot Com, Slash Pursuits, slash Autos.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
I'm Matt Miller and I'm Hannah Elliott. We'll be back
in your podcast speed again next week.
Speaker 5 (46:01):
Keep
Hosts And Creators
Hannah Elliott
Matt Miller
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